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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/35956-0.txt b/35956-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d52e331 --- /dev/null +++ b/35956-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4663 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Northern Countryside, by Rosalind Richards + +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: A Northern Countryside + +Author: Rosalind Richards + +Release Date: April 25, 2011 [EBook #35956] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD.] + + + + + A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + By + ROSALIND RICHARDS + Illustrated from photographs + by + BERTRAND H. WENTWORTH + + NEW YORK + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + 1916 + + + + + Copyright, 1916 + BY + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + Published April, 1916 + THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS + RAHWAY, N. J. + + + + + To + J. R., L. E. W., and L. T. S., + without whose help this small record + could not have been written. + + + + +PREFACE + +No one person can fitly describe a neighborhood, no matter how long +known, how well loved. Yet records of what is lovely and of good report +in a district should be treasured and preserved, however imperfectly. + +My father’s name, not mine, should rightly be signed to these pages, for +it is his intimate knowledge of our countryside, loved and explored with +a boy’s ardor and a naturalist’s insight since childhood, which they +strive to set down. + +I have taken care to write almost wholly of two or more generations ago, +and of persons who, with few exceptions, have now passed out of this +life; and I have in all cases altered names, and shifted families from +one part of the county to another, to avoid possible annoyance to +surviving connections. It has even seemed best in some cases—though I +have done so with reluctance—to change the names of villages, of hills +and streams, as well. + +Beyond this, I have striven only to record faithfully the anecdotes and +memories that have come down to me. But no record, however faithful, can +be in any way adequate. The rays will be refracted by the medium of the +writer’s personality; and the best that can be done will be but a small +mirrored fragment, before the daily repeated miracle of the living +reality. + + + + +CONTENTS + + - PREFACE + - CHAPTER I—A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + - CHAPTER II—THE RIVER + - CHAPTER III—THE BANKS OF THE RIVER + - CHAPTER IV—THE CAPTAINS + - CHAPTER V—BY THE ACUSHTICOOK + - CHAPTER VI—SPRING + - CHAPTER VII—THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + - CHAPTER VIII—RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR’S MILLS + - CHAPTER IX—MARY GUILFOYLE + - CHAPTER X—TRESUMPSCOTT POND + - CHAPTER XI—IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS + - CHAPTER XII—HARVEST + - CHAPTER XIII—WATSON’S HILL + - CHAPTER XIV—EARLY WINTER. + - CHAPTER XV—ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON + - CHAPTER XVI—OUR TOWN + +Thanks are due Mr. Bertrand H. Wentworth of Gardiner, Maine, for his +very kind permission to illustrate this book with reproductions of his +photographs. + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE + INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER’S COURSE + THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH + THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE + PLOUGHING MARY’S FIELD + ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND + THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES + THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN STACKS + THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES + LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS + ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY + THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT + + + + +A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + + +CHAPTER I—A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + + +Our county lies in a northern State, in the midst of one of those +districts known geographically as “regions of innumerable lakes.” It is +in good part wooded—hilly, irregular country, not mountainous, but often +bold and marked in outline. Save for its lakes, strangers might pass +through it without especial notice; but its broken hills have a peculiar +intimacy and lovableness, and to us it is so beautiful that new wonder +falls on us year after year as we dwell in it. + +There is a marked trend of the land. I suppose the first landmark a bird +would distinguish in its flight would be our long, round-shouldered +ridges, running north and south. Driving across country, either eastward +or westward, you go up and up in leisurely rises, with plenty of fairly +level resting places between, up long calm shoulder after shoulder, to +the Height of Land. And there you take breath of wonder, for lo, before +you and below you, behold a whole new countryside framed by new hills. + +Sometimes the lower country thus revealed is in its turn broken into +lesser hills, or moulded into noble rounding valleys. Sometimes there +are stretches of intervale or old lake bottom, of real flat-land, a rare +beauty with us, on which the eyes rest with delight. More often than not +there is shining water, lake or pond or stream. Sometimes this lower +valley country extends for miles before the next range rises, so that +your glance travels restfully out over the wide spaces. Sometimes it is +little, like a cup. + +As you get up towards the Height of Land you come to what makes the +returning New Englander draw breath quickly, the pleasure is so +poignant: upland pastures dotted with juniper and boulders, and broken +by clumps of balsam fir and spruce. Most fragrant, most beloved places. +Dicksonia fern grows thick about the boulders. The pasturage is thin +June-grass, the color of beach sand, as it ripens, and in August this is +transformed to a queen’s garden by the blossoming of blue asters and the +little _nemoralis_ golden-rod, which grew unnoticed all the earlier +summer. Often whole stretches of the slope are carpeted with mayflowers +and checkerberries, and as you climb higher, and meet the wind from the +other side of the ridge, your foot crunches on gray reindeer-moss. + +Last week, before climbing a small bare-peaked mountain, I turned aside +to explore a path which led through a field of scattered balsam firs, +with lady-fern growing thick about their feet. A little further on, the +firs were assembled in groups and clumps, and then group was joined to +group. The valley grew deeper and darker, and still the same small path +led on, till I found myself in the tallest and most solemn wood of firs +that I have ever seen. They were sixty feet high, needle-pointed, black, +and they filled the long hollow between the hills, like a dark river. + +The woods alternate with fields to clothe the hills and intervales and +valleys, and make a constant and lovely variety over the landscape. +Sometimes they seem a shore instead of a river. They jut out into the +meadowland, in capes and promontories, and stand in little islands, +clustered round an outcropping ledge or a boulder too big to be removed. +You are confronted everywhere with this meeting of the natural and +indented shore of the woods, close, feathery, impenetrable, with the +bays and inlets of field and pasture and meadow. The jutting portions +are apt to be made more sharp and marked by the most striking part of +our growth, the evergreens. There they grow, white pine and red pine, +black spruce, hemlock, and balsam fir, in lovely sisterhood. Their +needles shine in the sun. They taper perfectly, finished at every point, +clean, dry, and resinous; and the fragrance distilled from them by our +crystal air is as surely the very breath of New England as that of the +Spice Islands is the breath of the East. + +Our soil is often spoken of as barren, but this is only where it has +been neglected. Hay and apples give us abundant crops; indeed our apples +have made a name at home and abroad. Potatoes also give us a very fine +yield, and a great part of the State is rich in lumber. When it is left +to itself, the land reverts to wave after wave of luxuriant pine forest. +Forty miles east of us they are cutting out masts again where the +_Constitution’s_ masts were cut. + +[Illustration: THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE] + +The apple orchards are scattered over the slopes. In the more upland +places, sheep are kept, and the sheep-pastures are often hillside +orchards of tall sugar maples. We have neat fields of oats and barley, +more or less scattered, and once in a while a buckwheat patch, while +every farm has a good cornfield, beans, pumpkins, and potatoes, besides +“the woman’s” little patch of “garden truck.” A good many bees are kept, +in colonies of gray hives under the apple trees. + +The people who live on the farms are, I suppose, much like farm people +everywhere. “Folks are folks”; yet, after being much with them, certain +qualities impress themselves upon one’s notice as characteristic; they +have a dry sense of humor, and quaint and whimsical ways of expressing +it, and with this, a refinement of thought and speech that is almost +fastidious; a fine reticence about the physical aspects of life such as +is only found, I believe, in a strong race, a people drawing their vigor +from deep and untainted springs. I often wonder whether there is another +place in the world where women are sheltered from any possible +coarseness of expression with such considerate delicacy as they find +among the rough men on a New England farm. + +The life is so hard, the hours so necessarily long, in our harsh +climate, that small-natured persons too often become little more than +machines. They get through their work, and they save every penny they +can; and that is all. The Granges, however, are increasing a pleasant +and wholesome social element which is beyond price, and all winter you +meet sleighs full of rosy-cheeked families, driving to the Hall for +Grange Meeting, or Sunday Meeting, or for the weekly dance. + +Many of the farm people are large-minded enough to do their work well, +and still keep above and on top of it; and some of these stand up in a +sort of splendor. Their fibres have been seasoned in a life that calls +for all a man’s powers. Their grave kind faces show that, living all +their lives in one place, they have taken the longest of all journeys, +and traveled deep into the un-map-able country of Life. I do not know +how to write fittingly of some of these older farm people; wise enough +to be simple, and deep-rooted as the trees that grow round them; so +strong and attuned to their work that the burdens of others grow light +in their presence, and life takes on its right and happier proportions +when one is with them. + +If the first impression of our country is its uniformity, the second and +amazing one is its surprises, its secret places. The long ridges +accentuate themselves suddenly into sharp slopes and steep cup-shaped +valleys, covered with sweet-fern and juniper. The wooded hills are often +full of hidden cliffs (rich gardens in themselves, they are so deep in +ferns and moss), and quick brooks run through them, so that you are +never long without the talk of one to keep you company. There are rocky +glens, where you meet cold, sweet air, the ceaseless comforting of a +waterfall, and moss on moss, to velvet depths of green. + +The ridges rise and slope and rise again with general likeness, but two +of them open amazingly to disclose the wide blue surface of our great +River. We are rich in rivers, and never have to journey far to reach +one, but I never can get quite used to the surprise of coming among the +hills on this broad strong full-running stream, with gulls circling over +it. + +One thing sets us apart from other regions: our wonderful lakes. They +lie all around us, so that from every hill-top you see their shining and +gleaming. It is as if the worn mirror of the glacier had been splintered +into a thousand shining fragments, and the common saying is that our +State is more than half water. They are so many that we call them +_ponds_, not lakes, whether they are two miles long, or ten, or +twenty.[1] I have counted over nine hundred on the State map, and then +given up counting. No one person could ever know them all; there still +would be new “Lost Ponds” and “New Found Lakes.” + +The greater part of them lie in the unbroken woods, but countless +numbers are in open farming country. They run from great sunlit sheets +with many islands to the most perfect tiny hidden forest jewels, places +utterly lonely and apart, mirroring only the depths of the green woods. + +Each “pond,” large or little, is a world in itself. You can almost +believe that the moon looks down on each with different radiance, that +the south wind has a special fragrance as it blows across each; and each +one has some peculiar, intimate beauty; deep bays, lovely and secluded +channels between wooded islands, or small curved beaches which shine +between dark headlands, lit up now and then by a camp fire. + +Hill after hill, round-shouldered ridge after ridge; low nearer the salt +water, increasing very gradually in height till they form the wild +amphitheatre of blue peaks in the northern part of the State; partly +farming country, and greater part wooded; this is our countryside, and +across it and in and out of the forests its countless lovely lakes shine +and its great rivers thread their tranquil way to the sea. + +----- +[1] The legal distinction in our State is not between ponds and lakes, +but between ponds and “Great Ponds.” All land-locked waters over ten +acres in area are Great Ponds; in which the public have rights of +fishing, ice-cutting, etc. + + + + +CHAPTER II—THE RIVER + + +Our river is one of the pair of kingly streams which traverse almost our +entire State from north to south. The first twenty-five miles of its +course, after leaving the great lake which it drains, is a tearing rapid +between rocky walls: then follows perhaps a hundred miles of alternating +falls and “dead water,” the falls being now fast taken up as water +powers. It has eleven hundred feet to fall to reach the sea, and it does +most of this in its first thirty miles. + +The river’s course through part of our county is marked by a noticeable +geological formation. For a space of fifteen miles, the greater and +lesser tributary streams have broken their way down through the western +ridge of the river valley in a succession of small chasms that are so +many true mountain defiles in little. They have the sharp descents and +extreme variety of slopes and counter-slopes, though with walls never +more than a hundred and fifty feet high. + +There are forty or fifty of these ravines, some nourishing strong +brooks, some a mere trickle, or a stream of green marsh and ferns where +water once ran. Acushticook, which threads the largest, is really a +river, and Rollingdam, Bombahook, and Worromontogus are all powerful +streams. Rollingdam follows a very private course, hidden in deep mossy +woods for several miles. The ravine presently deepens and becomes more +marked, descending in abrupt slopes, then narrows to a gorge, the rocky +sides of which are covered with moss and ferns, nourished by spray. The +brook runs through it in two or three short cascades, and falls sheer +and white to a pool, twelve feet below. + +Below our Town, the river sweeps on, steadily wider and nobler in +expanse, till it reaches the place where five other rivers pour their +streams into its waters, and it broadens into the sheet of Merrymeeting +Bay, three miles from shore to shore. + +Below the bay the channel narrows almost to a gorge. The sides are steep +and rocky, crowned with black growth of fir and spruce, and through this +space the swollen waters pour in great force. There are strong tide +races, in which the river steamers reel and tremble, and below this +there begins a perfect labyrinth of channels, some mere backwaters, some +leading through intricate passages among a hundred fairy islands. There +are cliffs, moss and fern-grown, and countless dark headlands. The +islands are heavily wooded with characteristic evergreen growth, dense, +fragrant, of a rich color, and they are ringed with cream-white granite +above the sea-weed, where the blue water circles them.—And so down, till +the first break of blue sea shows between the spruces. + +We never feel cut off, or too far inland, having our river. The actual +sea fog reaches us on a south wind, salt to the lips. Gulls come up all +the way from the sea, and save for the winter months, there is hardly a +day when you do not see four or five of them wheeling and circling; +while twice or thrice in a lifetime a gale brings us Mother Carey’s +chickens, scudding low, or else worn out and resting after the storm. + +The river sleeps all winter under its white covering, but great cracks +go ringing and resounding up stream as the tide makes or ebbs, leaping +half a mile to a note, to tell of the life that is pulsing beneath; and +before the snow comes, you can watch, through the black ice, the drift +stuff move quietly beneath your feet with the tide as you skate. I have +read fine print through two feet of ice, from a bit of newspaper carried +along below by the current. One winter a dovekie lived for three weeks +by a small open space made by the eddy near some ledges; then a hard +freeze came, and the poor thing broke its neck, diving at the round +black space of ice which looked scarcely different from the same space +of open water. + +The river lies frozen for at least four months. The ice weakens with the +March thaws and rains. Then comes a night in April when the forces which +move the mountains are at work, and in the morning, lo, the chains are +broken. The great stream runs swift and brown and the ice cakes crowd +and jostle each other as they spin past. + +The river traffic goes steadily on through our three open seasons, and +with it a little of the longer perspective of all sea-faring life comes +to us, and off-sets the day-in-day-out of the town’s shop and factory +routine. + +Our southern lumber is brought us by handsome three and four-masted +schooners, which take northern lumber and ice on the return voyage. The +other day two schooners, on their maiden voyage, white and trim as +yachts, were at the lumber wharf, the _Break of Day_ and the _Herald of +the Morning_. + +Our coal comes in the usual long ugly barges. One or two small excursion +steamers connect us with the nearer coast towns, forty miles distant, +and every day all summer, the one large passenger steamer which connects +us with the big coast cities, comes to or from our town. She takes her +tranquil way between the river hills, not without majesty, while the +water draws back from the shores as she passes and the high banks +reverberate to the peaceful thunder of her paddles. Like other river +towns, we have now a fleet of motor boats, in use for pleasure and small +fishing. + +Traffic on the river shrank immensely with the forming of the Ice Trust, +which holds our ice-fields now only as a reserve. We see three or four +tall schooners at a time now, where we used to count the riding lights +of a dozen at anchor in the channel. + +The greater part of our fleet of tugs is scattered. The _Resolute_ and +_Adelia_,—dear me, even their names are like old friends—the _Clara +Clarita_, the _City of Lynn_, the _Knickerbocker_, and the trim smart +twin tugs, _Charlie Lawrence_ and _Stella_, have gone to other waters. +The _Ice-King_ plies now in the coast-wise trade. Our lessened river +work is done by the _Seguin_, a large and handsome boat, the _Ariel_, a +T-wharf tug from Boston, and the _Sarah J. Green_, an ugly boat with a +smokestack too tall for her. + +The Government boat comes up in late April, while the river is still +very rapid, brown and swirling after the spring freshet, and sets the +channel buoys. We always thrill a little at her unwonted, sea-sounding +whistle. She comes again in November, takes up the buoys, and carries +them to some strange buoy paddock in one of the winter harbors, where +hundreds and hundreds of them are stacked and repainted. The names of +the revenue cutters in this service are prettily chosen, the _Lilac_, +_Geranium_, etc. + +Before the days of tugs, schooners and larger vessels sailed up and down +the thirty-odd navigable miles of our river under their own canvas, and +the traffic to and from Atlantic ports was carried on by packets: brigs, +schooners, and topsail schooners. One of the captains has told me that, +seventy-five years ago, on his first voyage, it took his brig seven days +to beat to the mouth of the river, a passage now made in six hours. It +must have been extremely difficult piloting. The channel is narrow in +many places, though the river itself is so wide. There are sand-bars, +mud-flats, and ledges. + +In my Father’s childhood a curious, indeed a unique type of vessel, +known as a Waterville Sloop, plied between what was then (before the +building of the dams), the head of navigation, twenty-six miles above +us, and Boston, taking lumber and hay. They carried one square-rigged +mast, and sailed with lee-boards, like the Dutch galliots, and were in +fact a survival of the square-rigged sloops of old time, immortal in the +memories of the glorious Sloops of War, and in Turner’s pictures. + +Once in a while you still see “pinkies,” which were once so common: +small schooner-rigged vessels with a “pink” (probably originally a +_pinked_) stern, _i.e._, a stern rising to a point, with a crotch to +rest the boom in. + +Scows are rarer than they used to be, but they still carry on their +humble, casual lumber and hay business, sailing up with the flood-tide, +and tying up for the ebb. They are sloop-rigged, quite smart-looking +under sail, and sail with lee-boards, like the Waterville Sloops. + +The Lobster Smack, a tiny two-masted schooner, not more than thirty feet +long, comes once a week in the season, and we buy our lobsters on the +wharf and carry them home all sprawling, and are delighted when we get a +little sea-weed with them. + +The laborers of the river are the dredges, pile-drivers, and their kind. +They must see to the journeyman’s work that keeps the river’s traffic +unhampered. They drive piers and jetties and dredge out sand-bars. They +go and come, unnoticed by smarter vessels, laden heavily with broken +stone, sand, or gravel. They are dingy powerful boats, fitted with a +derrick and hoist or other machinery. They carry big rope buffers at bow +and sides, and in spite of this their bulwarks are splintered and +scarred where they have been jammed against wharves and knocked about. +There is no fresh paint or bright brass about them, they are grimy +citizens, but are all strong and seaworthy. Sometimes the Captain is +also owner; sometimes one man owns a whole little fleet, of two dredges, +say, and a small tug, named perhaps after wife and daughters, as in one +case I know, the _Nellie_, _Sophia_, and _Doris_. This is the family +venture, followed with as much anxious pride in “our Vessels” as if the +fleet were Cunarders. + +One day what should come up the river but a white schooner, tapering and +tall, and glistening with new masts and cordage, bearing a fairy cargo +of shells and corals. The rare shells, some of them costly museum +pieces, were to be sold to collectors, if any were to be found along our +northern harbors, while others, as beautiful as flowers or sunset +clouds, the children might have for a few pennies. + +The Captain was a young Spaniard, very dark, and as handsome, grave, and +simple in bearing, as a Spanish Captain should be. His men seemed to +adore him, and to obey the turn of his eyelashes. They all gave us a +charming welcome, especially to the children. It was a leisurely and +pleasant little venture. I do not know whether it brought in profit, but +all the town flocked to the schooner, day after day, for the week that +she stayed with us. + +The rafts come down the river when they please. They look about as easy +to manœuvre as an ice-house, but the flannel-shirted lumbermen who +operate them, two to a raft, seem unconcerned, and scull away at their +long “sweeps,” in the apparently hopeless task of keeping their clumsy +craft off the shallows. With the breaking up of the ice, stray logs, +escaped from the holding booms, come down stream. The moment the +ice-cakes are out of the river, even before, you begin to notice shabby +old row-boats tied up and waiting at the mouth of every stream and +“guzzle”; and as soon as a log whirls down amongst the confusion of ice, +you will see boats put out, perhaps with a couple of boys, or else some +old humped-up fellow, in a coat green with age, rowing cross-handed, +nosing out like an old pickerel watching for minnows. The logs that are +missed drift about till they are water-logged, when they sink little by +little, and at last become what are known as “tide-waiters,” or +“tide-rollers,” _i.e._ snags drifting above, or resting partly on, the +bottom, a menace to vessels. + +There are holding booms at different turns of the river, with odd shabby +little house-boats for the rafts-men moored beside them; and what are +these called but _gundalows_, an old, old “Down-east” corruption of +_gondola_; whether in derision, or in ignorance, is not now known. +Sometimes they are fitted up with some coziness, perhaps with white +curtains and a little fresh paint, and I have even seen geraniums at +their windows. + +Another brand-new schooner, the _William D’Arcy_, tied up at our lumber +wharf this last spring, and lay there for nearly a week. We all went on +board her. She lay at the sheltered side of the wharf, out of the cold +wind, and the sun poured down on her. The smell of salt and cordage was +so strong that you could almost feel the lift of her bows to the swell, +but there she lay, as quiet as if she had never lifted to a wave at all. +The men were at work at various jobs; no one was in a hurry; it plainly +made no difference whether they were two days at the wharf or ten. + +The bulwarks and outside fittings, anchors, hawsers, and hawse-holes, +seemed wonderfully large to our landsman eyes, and the inside fittings, +lockers, etc., as wonderfully small and compact. The enormous masts were +of new yellow Oregon pine. + +The Captain welcomed us hospitably, and took us down into his cabin, +which was fitted with shelves, lockers, and cupboards, neat and compact, +all brand-new and shining with varnish. There was a shelf of books, the +table had a red cover and reading lamp, and the wife’s work-basket stood +on it, with some mending. She had gone “upstreet” for her marketing. + +“Oh,” said one of us, “it looks so homelike and cozy!” + +The Captain looked round it complacently, but with remembering eyes that +spoke of many things. He had been cruising all winter. + +“It looks so to you,” he said, “but often it ain’t.” + + + + +CHAPTER III—THE BANKS OF THE RIVER + + +The river-bank boys pick up, as easily as they breathe, knowledge as +miscellaneous as the drift piled on the shores. They know all the shoals +and principal eddies, without the aid of buoys. They know the ways and +seasons of the different fish. They learn to recognize the owner’s marks +on the logs, and they know the times and ways of all the humbler as well +as the larger river craft, the scows and smacks, and the “gundalows” +which spend mysterious month after month hauled up among the sedges at +the mouths of the streams. Their own row-boats are heavy, square at both +ends, and clumsy to row, but as I have said, they are out in them in the +spring before the floating ice is out of the river, rescuing logs and +fragments of lumber from between the ice-cakes. + +There is a good deal to the business of picking up logs. The price for +returning “strays” to the right owners is ten cents a log (the rate +increasing as you go down stream), and a good many can be towed at once +by a small boat. The price per log rises to twenty-five cents, near the +sea. In times of high freshet, the up-river booms often break, and then +there is a tremendous to-do at the mouth of the river: men, women, and +children, all who can handle or half-handle a dory, are at work at +log-rescuing. Incoming ships have found the surface of the ocean brown +with logs at these times, and have a great work to get through them. + +Logs that have lost their marks are called “scalawags,” and these are +sold for the benefit of the log-driving company. Hollow-hearted _pine_ +logs are known by the curious term “concussy,” or “conquassy.” To show +the immense change in the prices of lumber, the best pine lumber, which +in 1870 was worth ten dollars a thousand feet, is now one hundred +dollars a thousand. + +Now and then a boy takes to the river so strongly that he makes his life +work out of its teachings. The captains and engineers of most of our +river and harbor steamers, and of bigger craft, too, began life as +riverbank boys. Some of them take to fishing in earnest, some become +lumbermen, or go into the Coast-Survey service, or the Rivers and +Harbors; and the winter work on the ice leads to an interesting life for +a good many others. Once in a while one of these boys goes far from +home. We have had word of one and another, serving as pilot or engineer +in Japanese, Brazilian, and East Indian waters. + +The three Tucker brothers, Joel, Reuel, and Amos, three finely-built +men, all worked up to be registered pilots. Joel, the eldest, was pilot +of an ocean-going steamer all his life. He grew very stout, and had a +fine nautical presence, in blue cloth and brass buttons. Reuel was lazy. +He never went higher than small raft-towing tugs, and he often gave up +his work and loafed about, fishing. He was the man who swam five miles +down river, and stopped then because he was bored, not because he was +tired. Amos, the finest of them, a gallant looking fellow, with very +bright blue eyes, was a pilot for a good many years, and then a foreman +in the ice business. He was a man of such shining kindness that he was +always up to the handle in work in the heart of his town, as selectman, +honorary and volunteer overseer of the poor, and helper-out in general. +In a case of all-night nursing, in a poor family, where a man’s strength +was needed, Amos was on hand, rubbing his eyes, but watchful and ready. +Once, when a neighbor’s wife had to be taken to the Insane Hospital, +Amos undertook the sad task, and his gentleness made it just bearable. +Parents looked to him for help in the care of a bad or unruly boy. + +Then there were the Tracys, who ran—and still run—a queer little ferry +at Jonestown, “according to seasons.” When the ice begins to break up +they row the passengers across, somehow, in a heavy flat-boat, between +the ice cakes. Their regular boat, in which they embark wagons and even +a motor, is a large scow pulled across by a chain, with a sail to help +when the wind serves. The Tracys’ ferry is, I think, unique for one +regulation; man and wife go as one fare. + +Some of the river bank people are mere squatters. _The_ squatter, as we +called him, _par excellence_, pulled the logs and bits for his dwelling +actually out of the river, as a muskrat collects bits of drift for his +house. He was a Frenchman, and such a house as he built! Part tar-paper, +part bark, part clay bank, the rest logs, barrel-staves, and a few +railroad sleepers. But there he lived, on a tiny level plot under the +railroad bank, so near the river that each spring freshet threatened +entire destruction. He made or acquired a boat that matched his house, +and presently he brought not only his wife and children, but two +brothers and an old mother to live with him. The women contrived some +tiny garden patches on the slopes of the river bank, and with the rich +silt of the stream these throve wonderfully. The men fished, and +“odd-jobbed” about. + +Then came the Great Freshet. Dear me! shall we ever forget it? We woke +one March night to hear every bell in town ringing, while a long ominous +whistle repeated the terrifying signal of the freshet alarm. + +There was a confusion of sounds from the river, wild crashings and +grindings and thunders, as the ice broke up in its full strength, with a +noise almost like cannon. + +The water rose and rose. By daybreak it was up to the shop-counters in +the street, and people paddled in and out of the shops in canoes, +rescuing their goods. The ice-cakes were piled ten feet high on our +unfortunate railroad. Then a great holding-boom broke, a mile up river. +A twenty-foot wall of logs swept round the bend, and the watchers on the +roofs and raised platforms saw it splinter and carry out the Town Bridge +as if it had been kindlings. + +Sheds and boat-houses and wharfing were whirled past all day in the +tumble of ice cakes. Like other people in danger, the Squatter carried +out his gipsy household goods, and moved up town with his family; all +but the old French mother. She would not be moved, but sat in the middle +of the road on a backless chair, watching her dwelling. She could have +done nothing to save it, but nothing could tear her away. The rain +poured all that day and the next. Some one lent her a big broken +umbrella, and there she sat. I could think of nothing but a forlorn old +eaves swallow, watching the place where her mud dwelling was being torn +off. + +By some miracle of the eddy, however, the house stayed intact; but soon +after they all moved away, to safer, and, I believe, more comfortable +quarters. + +The Lamont family lived a mile north of the Town. They had a ramshackle +house and barn, in a bit of open meadow by the mouth of one of the +brooks. You might say of the Lamonts that they were so steeped in river +mud that every bone of them was lazy and easy and slack. There were the +father and mother, and seven children. They were as unkempt and ragged +as could be, but they always seemed cheerful and smiling, and the +younger children were fat as little dumplings. The three eldest were +shambling young men; they and the father seemed perfectly content with a +little fishing and odd-jobbing, and now and then one of them took a turn +as deck-hand or stevedore, or—as a last resort—as farm-hand. The girls +and the mother dug and sold dandelion greens, dock, and thoroughwort and +other old-fashioned simples. + +None of them had ever gone to school a day beyond the time required by +law, and they kept the truant officer busy at that; then all of a sudden +the youngest and fattest Lamont, whose incongruous name was Hernaldo, +appeared at the High School. He was an imperturbable child, and quite +dull, but he worked with a cheerful slow patience. He only held on for a +year, but no one had imagined he could keep on for so long, and he did +not do badly. + +The elders died before the younger children were quite grown, and the +family scattered; one night, after it had been empty a year or two, the +ramshackle house burned, leaving the barn standing. + +One morning about ten years afterwards a radiant being appeared at the +High School, a fat young man in frock coat and tall hat, who came +forward and shook hands effusively. It was Hernaldo Lamont! He was now +_chef_, it appeared, at one of the great California hotels through the +winters, and in Vancouver in summer, at a very large salary. A pretty +girl, charmingly dressed, whom he introduced as his wife, waited +modestly at the door. + +His clothes were quite wonderful. He was shining with soap and with +fashion, and so full of warmth and of pleasure. He brought out colored +photographs of his two fat little children, told of his staff and his +patrons, beamed upon everyone, and showed his pretty wife all about our +plain High School, admiring and reverent. I think that if it had been +Oxford he could not have been prouder, and indeed Oxford could never be +to the average student a place of higher achievement than High School to +a Lamont! + +He was so simple and kindly that I believe he would have taken his wife +to the Lamont shanty as happily. The Lamont barn is still standing, +grown up with tall nettles and dandelions. A farmer uses it for his +extra hay, mowed in the low rich patches of river meadow. Tramps sleep +in the hay, and quantities of barn-swallows flash in and out of the +empty windows. + +Long ago our River was one of the great salmon streams of the country. +In my great grandfather’s time agreements between apprentices and +servants, and their employers, held the stipulation that the employees +should not have to eat salmon _above five times in the week_; and the +fish were used for fertilizing the fields. There are none now at all, +and the sturgeon fishing, which in my father’s boyhood used to make +summer nights on the River a time of torchlit adventure, is over too, +though still late on a summer afternoon you may see now and then a +silver flash, and hear a crash, as the huge creature jumps; and only +last week two sturgeon of over eight hundred pounds weight each were +brought in right near the Town Bridge. They were caught by two +hard-working lads, and brought them a little fortune, for they were sold +in New York for over $250. + +Not even the flight of the birds from the south, unbelievable in wonder +as this is, is more miraculous than the run of the fish, from the vast +spaces of ocean up all our fresh-water streams for hundreds of miles. +Their bright thousands find their way unerringly, up into the heart of +the country. No one knows whence they come, and save for an occasional +straggler, no one has ever taken salmon or shad or ale-wife in deep +water. We know their passage up-stream, but no one knows when they take +their way down again. + +The smelts run up, when winter is still at its height. They are caught +through holes in the ice. The men build huts of boards or of boughs, +each round his own smelt hole. They build a fire on the ice, or have a +kerosene lantern or lamp, and fish thus all day in fair comfort. They +catch smelts by thousands, so that our town’s people, who can eat them +not two hours out of the water, are spoiled for the smelts which are +called fresh in cities. Tom-cod come up a little ahead of the smelts. + +Soon after the ice goes out, while the water is still very rapid and +turgid, the alewives run up, and they are as good eating as smelts, +though too full of bones. They are smoked slightly, but not salted. +About this time, too, the smaller boys begin catching yellow-perch at +the mouths of the brooks. These, and tom-cod, are not thought worth +putting on the market, but they are crisp little fish, and a string of +them, thirteen for twelve cents, makes a good supper.[2] + +Suckers also come with the opening of the brooks. The discovery has been +made lately, that these fish, which New Englanders despise (quite +wrongly, for if well cooked they are firm and good), are prized by the +Jewish population of some of the bigger cities, and bring a good price. +A ton and a half of suckers were shipped from our river this season. + +Our royal fish are the shad, which arrive in the middle of May, when the +woods are all blossoming. The May river is full of their great silvery +squadrons. They are caught at night, in drift nets, by hundreds. Most of +them are shipped away, but our Town must and does eat as many as +possible. One family, who know what they like, practically abjure all +other solid food for the shad season! + +Of all our fish, eels are the most mysterious; for they go _down_ river +to the ocean (out of the fresh water streams and lakes) to spawn, +instead of coming up. No one knows what mysterious depths they +penetrate, but it is said that baby eels are found in one and two +thousand fathoms of water. By midsummer they are about six inches long, +and are running home up the brooks. They wriggle up waterfalls and scale +the sheer faces of dams. They stay three or four years in their inland +home, growing to full size, and in September, the fat grown-up eels run +down the streams again, to spawn in the sea. This is the time when they +are caught at dams and in mill streams, and shipped to the big cities in +quantities. Our biggest paper mill, not long ago, was shut down entirely +because of the eels, which got in through the flumes by hundreds, and +stopped the water wheels. + +The taking of the Acushticook eels is now a regular industry, and this +came about rather sadly. Stephen Mitchell, the millwright of the +Acushticook paper mill, was a fine man, with a turn for inventing. His +ideas were sound and a good many of his mechanical devices turned out +excellently. He became interested in explosives, and worked for a long +time at a new method for capping torpedoes. He had been warned time and +again, and such an intelligent man must have realized perfectly the +danger of work with explosive materials, but one day an accident +happened. There was an explosion which took not only both hands, but his +eyes. + +I think everyone in the town felt sickened by the accident, and by the +prospect of helpless invalidism ahead of a fine active man. But Stephen, +as soon as his wounds healed, began looking for something to do. + +The Acushticook eels had always been fished for in a desultory fashion, +and Stephen cast about for a way to make the fishing amount to more. The +mill owners did all in their power to help him. They gladly gave him the +sole right of the use of the stream, and helped him in building his dam. +He had also a grant from the Legislature. He hired good workers, and for +many years he and his wife, who was a master hand, lived happily and +successfully on their fishery. Sometimes two tons of eels were shipped +in the course of the autumn. + +Stephen always was cheerful. He could see enough difference between +light and darkness to find his way about town, and he was so quick to +recognize voices that you forgot his blindness. He kept among people a +great deal, and was an animated talker at town gatherings. He was an +opinionated man, but a fine and upright one. After his death his widow +kept on with the fishery, and she still runs it with profit. + +----- +[2] Both tom-cod and perch are now shipped to the cities in quantities. + + + + +CHAPTER IV.—THE CAPTAINS + + +You would never think now that tall Indiamen were once built here in our +town, but they were, and sailed hence round the world away, and we too +boasted our wharves, with the once-familiar notice: + +“All ships required to cock-a-bill their yards before lying at this +dock.” + +The last ship built in the town was the _Valley Forge_, launched about +1860; the last built at Bowman’s Point, two miles above, was the _Two +Brothers_. The _Valley Forge_ for ten whole years was never out of +Eastern waters, plying between China and Sumatra, and the seaports of +the Inland Sea. + +Mr. Peter Simons, one of our early magnates, and “ship’s husband,” of +many vessels (kind, merry, handsome Mr. Peter, he never was husband to +anyone but his ships), took a treasure voyage to the Spanish Main once, +and brought home a moderate sized treasure, some of the doubloons of +which are preserved in his family to this day. + +Ship-building was the chief industry of the place. There were four +principal ship-yards. The skippers as well as the lumber came from close +at hand. It seems a wonderful thing, in these stay-at-home times, that +keen young lads from the farms could have been, at twenty-one, in +command of full-rigged ships, fearlessly making their way, in prosperous +trade, to places that might as well be in Mars, for all most of us know +of them to-day: but Java and the Spice Islands, Shanghai, Tasmania, and +the Moluccas were household words in those days, and you still hear a +sentence now and then which shows the one-time familiarity of ways which +have passed from our knowledge. + +The portraits at the house of Captain George Annable, the last of our +clipper-ship captains, were painted in Antwerp. So were those (very +queer ones), at Captain Charles Aiken’s, and at Captain Andrews’. It +appears now in talk with Captain Annable that _of course_ they were +painted at Antwerp, for that was where the American skippers as a rule +wintered. Living there was better and cheaper for them and their +families than at any other foreign port. It became the custom to winter +at Antwerp, and there grew to be an American society there. + +Captain Annable has crossed the Atlantic sixty-three times, sailing +clipper mail-ships. + +The Captains are nearly all gone now. Little trace of the ship-yards +remains, and even the wharves from which the Indiamen sailed have +rotted, and been replaced by the lumber and coal wharves of to-day; but +all through the countryside you come on touches of the shipping days, +and of the East, as startling as a sudden fragrance of sandalwood in +some old cabinet. At one house I know there is a collection of +butterflies and moths of the Far East, with two cream-colored Atlas +moths eight inches from tip to tip. At another there is a set of +rice-paper paintings of the orders of the Japanese nobility and gentry, +with full insignia of state robes, which ought to be in a museum; and +the parlor of a third neighbor, the gracious widow of a sea-captain, +has, besides carved teak furniture and Chinese embroideries, a set of +carved ivory chessmen fit for a palace. The king and queen stand over +eight inches high. The castles are true elephant-and-castles, and the +pawns are tiny mounted and turbaned warriors, brandishing scimitars. The +figures stand on carved open-work balls-within-balls, four +deep—“Laborious Orient ivory, sphere in sphere”—as delicate as +frost-work. This set was bought in Shanghai, when the foreign compound +still had its guard of soldiers, and the Chinese thronged the doorways +to stare at the “white devils.” + +The great gold-figured lacquer cabinet, the pride of one of our +statelier houses, was brought from China a hundred years ago, by a young +Captain Jameson, who was coming home for his wedding. He sailed again +with his bride immediately after the marriage, and their ship never was +heard of. The cabinet was sold, and then sold again, till it finally +reached the setting which fits it so well. + +You find lacquered Indian teapoys, Eastern porcelains, shells and corals +from all round the world far out in scattered farmhouses; and farm-hands +are still summoned to meals by a blast on a conch-shell, a queer note, +not unlike the belling of an elk. + +Beside the actual china and embroideries and carvings, something of the +character bred in the seafaring days has spread, like nourishing silt, +through our countryside. The Captains were grave, quiet men. They had +power of command, and keenness in emergency. Contact with many people of +many nations quickened their perceptions and gave them charming manners; +but more than this, there was something large-minded and tranquil about +them. All their lives they had to deal with an element stronger than +themselves. The next day’s work could never be planned or calculated on, +and something of the detached quality which comes from dealing with the +sea, a long and simple perspective towards human affairs, became part of +them. + +An expression of married life, so beautiful that I can never forget it, +came from the lips of the widow of one of our sea-captains, a little old +lady, now over eighty, who lives alone in a tiny brick cottage (where +she has accomplished the almost unique feat of making English ivy +flourish in our sub-arctic climate). She wears a wonderful cap, and +fills her house with quilts and cushions of silk patch-work which would +make a kaleidoscope blink. I had an errand to her about a poorer +neighbor, one Thanksgiving time. Her house is an outlying one, and I +remember how the farm lights, scattered all about our river hills, shone +in the soft autumn evening. + +Her bright warm kitchen was coziness itself, with a shiny stove, full to +the brim with red coals, and a big lamp. She sat with her cat on her +knee, sewing on an orange and green cushion, made in queer little puffs, +and she jumped up, dropping thimble, and spectacles, in her warm-hearted +welcome. After my errand, we fell into talk, about “Cap’n,” and their +long voyaging together. That was when the Captains as a matter of course +took their wives, and often their children, with them, keeping a cow on +board for the family’s use, and sometimes chickens and pigs. Many babies +who grew to be sturdy citizens were born on the high seas in those days. + +She told about long peaceful days, slipping through the Trades, and +about gales, but mostly about china and pottery, for this was their +hobby, almost their passion. They took inconvenient journeys of great +length to see new potteries, and hoped at last to see all the sea-board +china factories, in East and West. She showed me her treasures, pretty +bits of Sevres, majolica, Doulton, and Wedgewood, all standing together, +and among them an alabaster model of the leaning tower of Pisa (Pysa, +she called it). At last, with a lowered voice, she spoke of the worst +danger they had ever been through, a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal. The +ship lay dismasted, and the waves broke over her helplessness. She was +lifted up and dashed down like a log, and every soul on board expected +only to perish. + +“Cap’n come downstairs to our cabin: + +“Oh, Mary,” he says, “if only you was to home! I could die easy if only +you was to home!” + +“I be to home!” I says. “If I had the wings of a dove, I wouldn’t be +anywheres but where I be!” + +This ranks with the epitaph at Nantucket: + +“Think what a wife should be, and she was that!” + +Another seafaring friend was, as so often happens, the last person whom +you would ever connect with adventures, a little lady so tiny, so +dainty, that a trip across the lawn with garden gloves and hat, to tie +up her roses, might have been her longest excursion; but instead she has +sailed round and round the world with her courtly sea-captain father, +has lifted her quiet gray eyes to see coral islands and spice islands, +and the strange mountain ranges of the East Indies. + +“She wore white mostly when we were in the Trades or the Tropics,” her +father has told me, “and she sat on deck all day, with her white +fancy-work. She always seemed to like whatever was happening.” + +One day, in a fog with a heavy sea running, the ship ran on a reef. The +life-saving crew got the men off with great difficulty, but the Captain +refused to leave his post, and little Miss Jessie refused too. + +“No, thank you,” she said, in her soft voice, “No, thanks very much, I +think I will stay with the Captain.” + +“And you couldn’t move her,” he said, “any more than the rock of +Gibraltar.” + +With the night the storm lessened, and almost by a miracle the ship was +got off safely next morning. + +I must tell of one more seafaring couple, who lived down the river in a +low white cottage where “Captain,” retired from service, could watch +vessels passing, even without his handsome brass-bound binoculars, a +much-prized tribute for life-saving. + +The wife was long paralyzed, and the Captain, with the simple-minded +nephew they had adopted, tended her as he might have tended an adored +child. He bought her silk waists, fine aprons, little frills of one sort +or another, fastened them on her with clumsy, loving fingers, and then +would sit back, laughing with pride, while the paralyzed woman, with her +wrecked face, managed to make uncouth sounds of pleasure. + +“Don’t she look handsome? Don’t she look nice as anybody?” he would ask +of the neighbors, and show the new wig he had bought her, as the poor +hair was thin. His simple pride thought it as beautiful as any young +girl’s curls, and indeed it was very youthful. One’s heart was wrung, +yet uplifted, too, for here was love which had passed through the +absolute wrecking of life, and was untouched. + +The Captain was a tall hearty man, but it was he who died first, after +all, and all in a minute. The paralyzed creature thus bereaved, moaned, +day after day; her eyes seemed to be asking for something, there in the +room, and no one could find the right thing, till someone thought of the +Captain’s binoculars, which he always had by him. From that moment she +became tranquil, and even grew happy again, if only she had the bright +brass thing where her poor hand could touch it. If it was moved, she +moaned for it to be set back. It was her precious token, from his hand +to hers. With it beside her she could wait and be good, poor dear soul, +until, in about two years, her release came, and she went to join +“Captain.” + +One word more about Mr. Peter Simons, of whom the town keeps pleasant +memories. He lived handsomely, in a handsome house overlooking the +river, and his housekeeper, Deborah Twycross, was as much of a magnate +in her own way as himself. Mr. Peter was very high with her; but he +stood in awe of her, too. Still, he never would let her engage his +second servant, a privilege which she coveted. + +In his young days a “hired girl” received $2.00 a week wages, if she +could milk, $1.50 if she could not. By the time Mr. Peter was +established in stately bachelor housekeeping no girl was any longer +expected to milk, and few knew how. But when engaging a servant, if he +did not like the applicant’s looks, Mr. Peter would say, + +“Can you milk?” + +Of course, she could not, and there the matter would end. He never asked +a girl whose looks he liked, if she could milk! + +He was a man of endless secret benevolence, and posed all the time as a +hard-fisted person and a miser. He was at the most devious pains to +conceal his constant kindnesses. The noble minister who at that time +carried our Town on his young shoulders, received sums of money, in +every time of need, for library, schools, or cases of poverty and +suffering, directed in a variety of elaborately disguised handwritings. +He was able in time to trace them all to Mr. Peter. Many a struggling +young man was set on his feet and established in life by this secret +benefactor; and after Mr. Peter’s death, his coal dealer told how for +years he had had orders to deliver loads of coal to this and that family +in distress, after dark, and as noiselessly as possible, under an +agreement of secrecy, enforced by such threats that he never dared +disobey. + +The Town has changed since Mr. Peter’s day. Boys no longer brave the +terrors of a visit to a White Witch to have their warts charmed, or a +toothache healed. (“Mother Hatch,” who plied her arts some thirty years +ago, was the last of these. Her appliances for fortune-telling were the +correct ones of cards, an ink-well, and a glass to gaze in; but a small +trembling sufferer in knickerbockers—a hero to the still more trembling +group of friends and eggers-on outside—did not benefit by these higher +mysteries. The enchantress, beside her traffic in the black arts, took +in washing; she would withdraw her hands from the suds, and lay a +reeking finger on the offending tooth, the patient gasping and shutting +his terror-stricken eyes while she recited a sufficient incantation.) + +Even the memory of the Whipping-post, which still stood in Mr. Peter’s +childhood, has long since vanished. The town bell is no longer rung at +seven in the morning and at noon, and a steam fire-whistle has replaced +the tocsin of alarm that formerly was rung from all the church steeples; +but the curfew still rings every night, at nine in the evening (the bell +which rings it was made by Paul Revere); and, among the customary +Scriptural-sounding offices of fence-viewers, field-drivers, measurers +of wood and bark, etc., the town still has a town crier. A very few +years ago it still had a pound-keeper and hog-reeve, but by now the +outlines of the pound itself have disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER V—BY THE ACUSHTICOOK + + +A smaller river, the Acushticook, tumbles and foams down through the +midst of our town, and brings us the wonderfully soft pure water of a +chain of over twenty lakes and ponds. It flung the hills apart to join +the larger stream which it meets at right angles at the Town Bridge, and +the last mile of its course is through a beautiful small gorge, in a +succession of falls, now compacted into the eight dams which turn our +mills. + +Above the falls, though it breaks into occasional rapids, its course is +quieter, and as you travel towards the setting sun, your canoe follows a +peaceful stream, running for the most part through woods. + +The country along the Acushticook is broken and hilly, woods or open +pastures full of boulders and junipers. The farms depend on their stock +and apple orchards for their prosperity. You see big chicken yards, and +the more enterprising farmers send their eggs and broilers to city +markets. Pigs do well among the apple trees, and most of the farms have +ducks and geese as well as chickens. A well-trodden road follows the +crest of the ridge, parallel to the river. + +The Baxters, good, silent people, live well out on this road, and +handsome Ambrose Baxter has a thriving milk route. Sefami Baxter, his +uncle, worked in the paper mill his whole life, and now his son, young +Sefami, has built up a good market garden business on the Acushticook +road. He started it years ago with a tiny greenhouse, which he built on +to his farm kitchen. He raised tomatoes and other seedlings, and early +lettuce. It was an innovation in our part of the world, and neighbors +shook their heads; but one bit of greenhouse was added to another, and +now Sefami has three long stacks of them and is a prosperous man. He has +a whole field of rhubarb and a large orchard, where he keeps twenty +hives of bees. He had no capital beyond the savings of a plain working +family, and he had to find his market for himself. + +The Drews, now old people, live beyond Ambrose Baxter, and life has been +a more poignant thing for them than for most of the farm neighbors. +Their boy, Lawrence, was born for learning. He _foamed_ to it, as a +stream rushes down hill, and he had the vision and faithfulness which +lead to high and lonely places. The parents were industrious and frugal, +and Lawrence was the channel through which everything they had, mind and +ambitions as well as savings, poured itself out. As a boy, he was all +ardor and eagerness. Now he is a tall careworn man of fifty, unmarried, +with hair and beard streaked with gray. He is a man of importance in +many ways beside that of his own department in a great Western +university. He is a good son, and comes home to the comfortable white +farmhouse for every day in the year that it is possible, but his +parents, of necessity, have had to grow old without him, and their look, +in speaking of him, is one of acceptance, as well as of a high pride. + +Acushticook has changed her course from time to time through the +centuries, and about five miles from town a stretch of flat land which +must once have been either intervale along the river’s course or one of +its many small lakes, lies pocketed among the hills. This stretch, which +is very fertile, belongs, or belonged, to the Dunnacks, and they were +surely a family which will be remembered. They never pretended to be +anything more than plain farming people, but they were marked by a +personal dignity and refinement, even fastidiousness, by their +intelligence, and alas, by their many sorrows. Old Warren Dunnack was a +farmer of substance. His son, the Warren Dunnack of our time, was nearly +all his life in charge of the “Homestead” (one of the few country places +in our neighborhood), during the long absence abroad of its owners. He +married a beautiful woman, Sarah Brant. She was a magnificent creature, +in a hard, almost animal sort of way, but was a shallow person, with a +vain nature, coveting show, fine food and clothes, and she broke +Warren’s heart. He took her back again and again after her many flights, +for he had an unconquerable chivalry and gentleness for all women, and +he let her have everything that he could earn. + +[Illustration: INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER’S COURSE] + +Lucretia was the beauty of the family, a slip of a girl with eyes like +black diamonds. She married a showy business man, who turned out badly. +She came home, a handsome and embittered older woman, and made life +uncomfortable for herself and everyone else on the farm. Afterwards she +became companion to a widow of some means, a fantastic person, and they +lived together (unharmoniously) all their days. + +Delia, who was so pretty, though not striking like Lucretia, married +silly Ephraim Simmons; but her affection for her brother Warren was the +abiding thing of her life. When Warren’s wife left him, and Delia was +offered the position of housekeeper at the Homestead, she took it, and +there she and Warren kept house for fifteen years. Two good-natured +slack daughters (they were all Simmons; not a trace of their mother’s +fire in them) helped Ephraim with his farm, and he certainly needed the +money that their mother earned. He was a poor enough farmer; but his +foolish face used to look wistful when he drove the six miles, every +other Saturday, to see Delia. + +Delia, for her part, never seemed anything but clear as to her duty. She +drove over now and then to see Ephraim, and sent her money to him and +the girls, or put it in the bank for them, but her heart clave to her +brother. She kept the long delightfully rambling house, and he kept the +farm, lawns, and gardens, punctiliously in order for the owners who +never came; and the honeysuckles blossomed in the corner of the great +dark hedges, the lilies opened, and the grapes ripened and dropped on +the sunny terraces of the garden as the unmarked years went by. I think +that Delia’s life was one of untroubled serenity. Warren was a grave +man, and his trouble with his wife underlay all his days, but with Delia +he found a rare companionship and understanding. Their sitting-room in +the ell of the big house was a gathering place for the farm neighbors. +There was a deep fireplace, a table with a big lamp, a sofa, high-backed +arm-chairs with worsted-work cushions and tidies, and windows filled +with blossoming plants. + +Warren died after a lingering illness, which he met with his usual grave +cheerfulness, and Delia went back to Ephraim on the Acushticook road. +Whatever she thought of the difference between the Homestead and the +bare little farm, between Warren and Ephraim, she met the change with +the charming, half-whimsical philosophy that was hers through life. She +had pretty ways, and an unconquerable sense of fun. She lived to be +nearly eighty. She was a fine, fine woman; delicately organized, but of +such vigorous fibre that she struck her roots deep into life, and gave +out good to everyone who came near her. She was a magnet, drawing people +by her warmth and sweetness. + +It was to poor, good, hard-working John Dunnack that actual tragedy +came. He was a plain dull man, of a far humbler stripe than his +brothers. Misfortune came to his only child, a young adopted daughter. +He lost his place at the mill not long after, from age. He was eighty +years old. It was too much. His mind failed, and he took his own life. + +A cheerful family, the Greenleafs, live next beyond the Dunnacks. They +keep bees on a large scale, and “Greenleaf Honey,” in pretty-shaped +glass jars, with a green beech leaf on the label, has had its +established market for two generations. They also grew cherries for +market, nearly as large as damsons. + +Harvey Greenleaf had luck, and has what our people know as “gumption,” +and “git-up-and-git,” and Mrs. Greenleaf, a fair, ample person, is a +born woman of business. Once a neighbor, a farm hand, who had been +discharged for slackness, planted buckwheat in a small clearing next the +Greenleafs’, out of spite. (Buckwheat honey is unmarketable, because of +its marked peculiar flavor, and its dark color.) Harvey was away at the +County Grange Meeting—he was Master of his Grange that year—at the time +it flowered. Two little girls, out picking wild raspberries, brought +word of the trouble. + +“Mis’ Greenleaf! Mis’ Greenleaf! There’s buckwheat in blow at Jasper +Derry’s clearing, an’ it’s full of your bees!” + +Mrs. Greenleaf harnessed up the old white mare herself, and drove over +to the offender’s house. No one knows how she dealt with him, but the +buckwheat was cut before night. Harvey chuckles, and says she swung the +scythe herself. Not much harm was done, and only a little of the yield +turned out to have been injured by the buckwheat. + +There are no rules about the planting of buckwheat near bee-hives. It is +a matter of good feeling and neighborliness, and buckwheat is seldom +grown where a neighbor keeps bees for profit; but it is impossible to +guard against the trouble entirely and I have known a whole season’s +yield to be discolored with honey brought from buckwheat, nine miles +from the hives. + +One early morning this June, as we were at breakfast on the piazza, a +boy came round the corner of the house, and asked if we wanted “a quart +of wild strawberries, a pint of cream, and a dozen of Mother’s fresh +rolls, for forty cents!” We certainly did; and in the driveway we saw +“Mother” waiting in the wagon, an alert-looking woman with a friendly +face. She told us that she was Harvey Greenleaf’s daughter-in-law, and +the boy her eldest son. + +“I think there’s lots of small extra business that folks can do on the +farms, if they’re spry, that sets things ahead a lot,” she said, _à +propos_ of the strawberries. + +The rolls were as light as feather, and the cream very thick. We +arranged for the same bargain twice a week while the berry season +lasted! + +In the autumn the same couple came again, this time with vegetables and +fruit, nicely arranged, and with small cakes of fresh cream cheese done +up in waxed paper in neat packages, each package stamped with S. +Greenleaf, Eagle Cliff Farm. This is a new venture in our part of the +country. + +A mile of beautiful pasture, on a big scale, as smooth as an English +down, slopes down from the back of the Greenleafs’ farm, rises in a +noble ridge, and slopes again to where the Acushticook sparkles and +dances over some thirty yards of rapids. The turf is close cropped and +there are boulders and groups of half-sized firs and spruces scattered +over the slope. There is a little wood in the upper corner, cool and +shadowy, with a brooklet set deep in mosses, trickling through the +midst. The pasture road leads through the firs and hemlocks, growing +closer and more feathery, then through this wood, where Lady’s Slippers +grow. + + + + +CHAPTER VI—SPRING + + +April 3. Last night the river “went out.” We were so used, all winter, +to its sleeping whiteness, that it seemed as unlikely to change as the +outlines of the hills; then came a tumultuous week, and now it is a +brown, strong, full-running stream, with swirls and whirlpools of +hastening current all over its wide surface. These are indescribable +days. The air is sweet with wet bark and melting snow and +newly-uncovered earth. The lesser streams are rushing and roaring +through the woods. There are little clear dark foam-topped pools under +all the spouts, and bright drops falling from rocks and roofs, where +there were icicles so lately; and the roads endure miniature floods, +from the torrents of snow-water that gush down their gutters and spread +the mud in fan-shapes over them. Wherever you stand, you cannot get away +from the rushing and trickling and rilling. The whole frozen strength of +winter is breaking up in a wealth of life-giving waters. + +There is a neglected-looking time for the fields just after the snow +goes. The snow-patches recede and leave the soaked grass covered with +odds and ends of loose sticks and roots and with untidy wefts of cobweb. +The dead leaves lie limp and dank, and are of lovely but sad colors, +soft browns and umbers, ash-grays and ash-purples; but in the midst of +this waste the ponds are all awake—dimpling, soft water, tender and +alive—and their bright blue is a new wonder after our winter world of +white and brown and gray. + +Robins came yesterday. Their crisp voices woke us with a start, after +the winter’s silence. They were busy all over the lawn, and nearly a +week ago we heard the first blue-birds and meadow-larks. + +The fir boughs that were banked about the houses last fall, for warmth, +must be burnt, and bonfires are being lighted all about the fields and +gardens. They blaze up into a crackling roar of burning brush, and the +smoke comes pouring and creaming out in thick white torrents. The clean, +hilarious smell spreads everywhere, the touch of it clings to our hair +and clothing. This is a wonderful, Indian time for children, when all +sorts of strange inherited knowledge stirs in them. Look at their eyes, +as they play and plan round their fires! + +[Illustration: THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH] + +Cumulus clouds came back, as always, with late winter. Through the +autumn, and early winter, clear days are practically cloudless; and +cloud-masses, cirrus, not cumulus, herald and follow storms; but with +February, the clear-weather summer clouds return. They begin to be trim +again, and marshaled, and take up the ordered leisurely sailing of their +pretty squadrons. + +April 10. + +There is already a general warming and yellowing of twigs. The elm tops +are growing feathery and show a warm brown, and a crimson-coral mist +begins to flush over the low-lying woods, where the swamp maples are in +flower. Pussy-willows are as thick on their twigs as drops after a rain, +and as silvery. You would say at first that nothing had changed yet in +the main forest. The brown aisles and misty dark hollows seem the same, +but no; fringed about the openings and coverts along their borders the +birch and alder catkins are in flower. They are powdery and +gold-colored, and overhead they dangle like the tails of little fairy +sheep against the sky. + +The wild geese woke us in the dark, just before dawn, this morning. Last +year there was a violent snow-storm, a perfect smothering whirl of +flakes, the night they flew over, and the great birds were beaten down +among the house-tops, creakling and honkling in dismay and confusion, +but holding on their way. + +Now at dusk comes the first silvery evening whistling of the frogs, the +peepers. If a cloud passes over the sun, even as early as three in the +afternoon, they start up as if at a signal, all together, and as the sun +shines out again fall instantly silent. + +May 3. + +All this time the green has been spreading and spreading through the +pastures till now it clothes them, and the dandelions are scattered over +them like a king’s largesse. Dew falls all winter, but it is in star and +fern shapes of frost; now every morning and evening the thick grass is +pearled again with a million nourishing drops. + +Now rainbow colors begin to show over the hillsides. It is as if a +thousand and a thousand tiny butterflies, pink and cream color and +living green and crimson, had alighted in the woods. Light comes through +them, and they give back light, from the shining, fine down that covers +them. The little leaves are almost like clear jewels against the sun, +beaded all over the twigs. They only make a slightly dotted veil as yet, +they do not hide or screen. You can see as far into the wood-openings as +in winter. The brown stems and branches are as delicate and distinct as +those of a bed of maiden-hair fern. + +The roadside willows are puffs of gold-green smoke, the sapling birches +and quaking aspens like green mounting flames up the hillsides, and the +catkins of the canoe birches shine like the mist of gold sparks from a +rocket. + +The different trees develop by different stages, and each stands out in +turn against its fellows, as if illuminated, before it loses itself in +the growing sea of green. You see its full leafy shape, the mass of each +round top, as at no other time of year; yet the individual habit of +branching is still manifest, as in winter: the long springing sprays of +the swamp maples, the more compact strong branches of the oaks, the +maze-like firm twigs of the hop-hornbeams, lying in whorls and layers. +The branchlets of the beeches are like thorns. The elms are soft brown +spirits of trees throughout the woods; their entire fern-like outline is +silhouetted, and the swamp maples stand like delicate living shapes of +bronze. + +Innocents are out in patches in the pastures, looking as if white powder +had been spilt. Purple and white hepaticas are clustered in crannies of +the rocks, and after a rain mayflowers stand up thick, thick in the +fields, in masses of pink and white fragrance. Blood-root covers whole +banks with snow-white, and dog-tooth violets, littlest of lilies, nod +their yellow-and-brown prettiness over the slopes carpeted with their +strange mottled leaves. + +Shad-bush is out now in fairy white, tasseled over knolls and hillsides +and overhanging wooded banks along the streams. Its opening leaves are +reddish, delicately serrate, and finely downy. The pure white flowers +are loosely starred all over it. They are long-petaled and lightly hung, +and the tree is slender and very pliable, the whole thing suggesting a +delicate raggedness, as if young Spring went lightly on bare feet with +fluttering clothes. + +This is the most fairy-scented time of the whole year. “The wood-bine +spices are wafted abroad,” indeed. The willows perfume the lanes with +their intoxicating sweetness; and there is a cool pure dawn-like +fragrance everywhere, from the countless millions of opening leaves, +steeped every night with dew. + +Last week we saw the first swallows. There they skimmed and flew, as if +they had never gone to other skies at all. Their flight is so +effortless, they seem to pour and stream down unseen cataracts of air. +To-day chimney-swallows came, and we watched their endless rippling and +circling. They sailed and wheeled, in little companies or singly, now +twittering and now silent, and from now on all summer the sky will never +be empty of their beautiful activities. + +May 26. + +At last the woods are like a garden of delicate flowers, clothing the +hills as far as eye can see with colors of sunrise. The red-oaks are +gold color, with strong brown stems; ash and lindens are golden green; +maples soft copper and bronze, or deep flesh-color. + +The flower-like delicacy of leafing out is wonderfully prolonged. The +willows come first, then elms, in brown flower, then quaking-asps and +birches, and then maples. Later, lindens and ash-trees catch the light, +and the ash leaves (which grow far apart, and in bunches, with the +flower-buds) are indeed like just-alighted butterflies. The small leaves +are so bright that even in the rain they shine as if a shaft of sunlight +from some unseen break in the clouds were lighting the woods. + +Now long shining leaf buds show among the elm flowers and on the +beeches. The later poplars are cream-white and as downy as velvet. A +wood of maples and poplars is almost a pink-and-white wood; shell-pink, +and palest, most silvery-and-creamy gray. + +The tall gold-colored red-oaks make masses of strong color; and later, +when we think the shimmering of the fairy rainbow is fading, the white +oaks come out in a mist of pale carnation—pink and gray and cream. + +In June, after all the hardwoods have merged into uniform light green, +firs and spruces become jeweled at every point with tips of light, the +new growth for the year. Red pines and white pines are set all over with +candelabra of lighter green, until high on the tops of the seeding white +pines little clusters of finger-slender pale green cones begin to show. + +By this time the forest-flowers have faded through the woods. The +brighter colors of the field-flowers are gay along the roadsides and +over meadows and pastures, and with them Summer has come. + + + + +CHAPTER VII—THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + + +The cross-road under the great leafy ridge of Eastman Hill has pretty +farms along it, and half-way across there is a country burying ground, +where wild plums blossom, and the grave-stones are half hidden all +summer in a green thicket. + +One name in the graveyard we all hold in special honor, that of Serena +Eastman. I never knew her myself, and it is only from her granddaughter +and from the neighbors that I learned of her beautiful life. + +She was a mother in Israel; one of + + “All-Saints—the unknown good that rest + In God’s still memory folded deep.” + +She brought up eleven children to upright manhood and womanhood, and +beside this a whole neighborhood was nourished from the wells of her +deep nature. She lived and died before the days of trained nurses, and +in addition to her own cares she was the principal nurse of her +countryside. Those were the days when nursing was not and could not be +paid for, but was a priceless gift from neighbor to neighbor. She stood +ready to be up all night, and night after night, to ease pain by her +ministering, or to help to bring a new life into the world; her faith +lifted the spirits of the dying, and of those about to be bereaved, as +if on strong pinions. + +Small-pox was still a terrible scourge in those times, and she was the +only woman in the district who would nurse it. Her granddaughter has +told me how she kept a change of clothes in an out-house, and how she +bathed and dressed there (the only precautions against infection known +to the times), whether in winter or summer, before rejoining her family. +She always drove to and from such cases at night, to run as little +danger as possible of coming in contact with people. Her husband took +the same risks that she did. He drove back and forth, and lent his +strength in lifting and carrying patients. + +They had a large farm, which meant cooking for hired men in the busy +seasons, and beside Serena’s eleven children there were older relations +to do for, her husband’s father and mother, and one or two unmarried +sisters. She was active in Dorcas society and in meeting. Her +granddaughter feels that only the completeness of her religious life +could have carried her through the fatigues which she underwent. She +lived in that conscious obedience to duty which eliminates friction, and +her view of duty was one taken through wide-opened windows. She walked +with God daily. + +The house of this dear woman burned, not long after she and her husband +died, and only the blossoming lilacs mark its empty cellar-hole, but the +next farm, which belonged to Mr. Eastman’s brother, and is now his +nephew’s, is a fine one. You drive on to a wide green, as smoothly kept +as a lawn, where three huge trees, a willow and two elms, overhang the +house. There are big comfortable barns and outhouses, a corn-crib and +well-sweep, and the house is square and ample, with two big chimneys. + +Next to the Eastmans’, beyond their orchard, comes a neat small farm, +with a long wide stone wall, where grapes are trained, owned once by two +queer old sisters, the Misses Pushard, or as we have it, the Miss +Pushhards. (A Huguenot name, pronounced _Pushaw_ by the older +generation.) They went to Lyceum in their young days, and, a rare thing +then so far in the country, they had a piano. This gave them “a great +shape.” Poor ladies, with their piano! Years later they were in +straitened circumstances, and anxious to sell it, but to their +indignation nobody wanted it, or not at the price they thought fitting; +so, one night, they _chopped it up_, and hid the pieces. Thus they were +not left with the instrument on their hands; and they had not accepted +an unworthy price for their treasure. All this was learned years +afterwards from some old papers. The fragments of the piano were found +in the cistern. + +The last farm on the road is owned by Sam Marston and his dear wife, +Susan; who, though you never would think it (except for a little +remaining crispness of speech), was born in England, in Essex, and came +as a young English housemaid—dear me, how long ago now!—to the +Homestead, eight miles away, by the River. Sam Marston worked there in +the stables, and lost his heart promptly, and after four or five years +of characteristic Yankee courting, leisurely, but humorously determined, +Susan made up her mind, and said “yes,” and came out to the farm, with +her fresh print gowns, her trimness and stanchness, and her abiding +religion. + +Susan keeps also her fixed ideas of the “quality.” She is now a power in +her whole neighborhood. She and Sam, alas, have no children, a great +sorrow, but the young people growing up near her show the reflection of +her uprightness and that of her Sam. But after all these years she is +still an exotic. The Sunday-school which she has gathered about her is +strictly Church of England. The children learn their catechism, and “to +do their duty in life in that station into which it shall please God to +call them”; and they are instructed perfectly clearly as to their +betters! + +The other day we drove out to her farm. We were going to climb Eastman +Hill, after Lady’s Slippers, and then were to have supper with Susan. + +The sky was very deep blue, with flocks of little white clouds sailing. +The woods were still all different shades of light and bright green, and +the apple trees were in full blossom. The barn swallows were skimming +and pouring low about the green fields in their effortless flight. I +think I never drove through so smiling a country. + +The house is a long low brick one, with dormer windows, in the midst of +an old orchard. There is a fence and a hedge, and a brick path leads to +the door. There are lilac bushes at the corner of the house, and +cinnamon roses and yellow lilies on each side of the doorway. + +Susan came out, laughing, and nearly crying, with pleasure, to welcome +us. She “jumped” us down with her kind hands, and took all our wraps. We +went as far as the house, asking questions and chattering, and then +Susan showed us our way, an opening in the screen of the woods reached +by a path through the orchard, and stood shading her eyes with her hand +to look after us. + +We followed a bit of mossy old corduroy road, through moist rich woods, +and then began to climb among a wood of beeches. Soon the rock began to +crop out in small cliffs, and we found different treasures, the little +pale pink _corydalis_, a black-and-white creeper’s nest in a ferny cleft +between two rocks, quantities of twin-flower, and then, rising a +beech-covered knoll, we came on our first Lady’s Slippers. The glade +ahead was thronged with them. They spread their broad light-green leaves +like wings, and their beautiful heads bent proudly. They grew sometimes +singly, sometimes in clumps of fifteen or twenty blossoms, and were +scattered over the whole glade as if a flight of rose-colored +butterflies had just alighted. + +We came on this same sight seven different times; this lovely company +scattered over the slope among the rocks, where the ridge broke out into +low gray pinnacles among the beeches. + +When at last we could make up our minds to climb down, following the +white thread of a waterfall, into the deeper woods, we found Painted +Trilliums, bright white and painted with crimson, with +Jack-in-the-pulpits, both grown to a great size in the rich mould, +amongst a green mist of uncurling ferns. + +The brook which we followed came out at last in an open pasture above +the farm. It was as refreshing as a bath in running water to come out +into the cool, sweet evening air, for the heavy woods were warm, and +there had been quantities of black flies and mosquitoes, which our hands +were too full to fight. Beside all our baskets, our handkerchiefs and +hats were full of flowers. One of our number carried a young cherry +tree, with roots and sod, over his shoulder, and mosses in his pockets, +and the girls had Lady’s Slippers and fern roots in their caught-up +skirts. + +The turf was powdered white as snow with Innocents, and there were +violets. The pasture slopes down through dark needle-pointed clumps of +balsam fir, and scattered hawthorn and cherry trees, which were in +flower. A hermit thrush sang from one of the firs as we came down. The +heavenly, pure carillon rang out again and again, as dusk fell deeper, +the singer altering the pitch with each repetition of the song, ringing +one lovely change after another. + +Such a supper was set out on the porch! Fresh rolls and butter, cream +cheese and chicken, jugs of milk and cream, fresh hot gingerbread, and +bowls of wild strawberries. The porch runs out into the orchard, and the +white petals of the apple-blossoms drifted down as we sat laughing and +talking. Susan placed her chair near us, but nothing would induce her to +eat with us, and she jumped up every minute and fluttered into the +house, to press more good things on us. Presently, Sam came in from +milking, and was a fellow-Yankee and a brother at once. + +We could hardly bear to go home, and almost took Sam’s offer (which so +scandalized Susan) of a night in the hay in the new barn. It would be so +pretty to lie watching the swallows darting in and out after sunrise. + +We went all through Susan’s trim farmhouse, and saw her dairy, with its +airy and spotless arrangements. The milk, thick and yellow with cream, +was in curious blue glass pans, which Susan said came long ago from the +Homestead. We saw all the chickens, the calves, and the black pigs. The +Jerseys blew long breaths at us from their mangers, and the horses put +out their soft noses for sugar. The ducks were quacking and waddling all +over the yard, and the pigeons fluttered about. + +The late veeries and robins were singing, and the warm fragrance of the +apple-blossoms was all about us, as we gathered our treasures together +and drove home in the dusk. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII—RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR’S MILLS + + +The two adjoining districts of Ridgefield and Weir’s Mills lie about ten +miles to the east of us, in level and fertile farm country, between two +ridges of hills. Ridgefield is an old Roman Catholic settlement. +Twenty-five years ago it still had a prosperous convent, and children +educated in the convent school have gone out all over the country; but +the centre of the farming population shifted, and at last the convent +was closed. The cheerful-faced, black-gowned sisters are all gone. The +bell has been silent for years now, and its tower stands up with blank +windows, nothing more than a strange landmark in the open farming +landscape. + +The Ridgefield Irish were a noted community. They all came from one +county, and were marked to a surprising degree by their personal beauty. +There were Esmonds and Desmonds, Considines, Burkes, and McCanns, and +two names now gone (except for one old representative) Guilfoyles and +Guilshannons. Four lovely Esmond girls of one family are now growing up, +bearing four saints’ names—Agatha, Ursula, Patricia, Cecily. + +Honoria Considine walks down our street, beautiful creature that she is, +with a port and carriage that a princess might envy. She has brought up +an orphaned nephew and niece to capability and prosperity, supporting +them entirely by her sewing. The Considines have possessions which show +that they came to this country as something more than farmers. They have +a little old silver, two finely inlaid card-tables in the farm +“best-room,” and two larger mahogany tables. They are great +prohibitionists, and would be shocked, good souls, to know that what +they call the “old refrigerator” is a beautifully carved wine-cooler! + +Lawrence McCann and Joe Fitzgerald were two as handsome creatures as +ever were seen, with great dark blue eyes, delicate brows, dark curls, +and mantling Irish color. + +Lawrence died of consumption at twenty-four, as did his cousin, +delightful Con Guilshannon, but Joe did well and married. The other day +I saw him out walking with three little rosy children, all with penciled +eyebrows and very dark blue eyes. + +There lives an old lady in a great western city (I don’t give its name) +who ought to wear a crown instead of a bonnet. The town trembles before +her masterful benevolence. Her magnificent house dominates the “best +community,” and her six middle-aged married children, established +near-by in houses of equal magnificence, do not dare call their souls +their own. + +A neighbor of mine was in her city last year, and was taken to see her. +The old lady seemed to know an amazing amount, not only about our +far-away eastern State, but about our actual county. She finally showed +such an absorbing interest in particular households that my friend said: + +“But how can you know? How _can_ you have heard about so-and-so?” + +“Child,” said the old chieftainess, her fine eyes twinkling and filling, +“My name is no guide to you now, except that it’s Irish, but I was born +and brought up in your county. I was an Esmond from Ridgefield, and had +my schooling at the convent, not six miles from your door.” + +After Ridgefield, with its deserted convent, you come presently to where +the rolling country is suddenly flung amazingly apart in the chasm-like +valley of the Winding River. Weir’s Mills, the village at the head of +navigation, is a pleasant peaceful little place, a very old settlement, +with a noted old church. + +A neighbor of ours, a man now of eighty, has told me that in his +childhood at Weir’s Mills, the school had neither paper nor blackboard +nor slates for the children to write on. The teacher smoothed the ashes +of the hearthstone out flat with a shingle, and the children did their +figuring on that. Farmers going into town chalked the figures of their +sales on their beaver hats, and the assessor chalked the taxes up on the +doors. + +The school-teachers were taken to board in turn, two weeks at a time, by +different families; and a friend, now an elderly woman, has told me that +when teaching, as a young girl, she had as a rule to share her bed with +three or four children of the family. In several places the hens slept +in the room too. The schools of course were ungraded. After her teaching +hours she helped in the housework, but she liked it, and made warm +friends. She found the life vigorous and hardy—“It was life that was +every bit of it alive,” she has told me. + +It is sometimes said that marriage and divorce are taken lightly in the +country districts, and certainly the Jingroes and their like, of whom +more later, make their gipsy marriages, which bind only at will; but +even among some of our outlying communities of far higher standing than +the forest settlements, it is true that a curious, primitive view of +wedlock often obtains. Marriages in the country are deep as the rock, +enduring as the hills, _once the real mate is found_. The fine, +toil-worn faces of man and wife, in Golden-Wedding and Four-generations +groups in local newspapers, show a thing before which one puts off the +shoes from off one’s feet. But, when husband and wife find only misery +in their marriage, find themselves fundamentally at variance, they +quietly “get a bill,” (_i. e._ of divorce,) and each is considered free +to marry again. The adjustment, according to their lights, is made +decently and in order; and all cases come quickly before the final court +of public opinion, which in these clear-eyed country districts metes out +an inexorable judgment to lightness, to cowardice or selfishness. + +It is difficult not to mis-state, about so subtle a matter; but the +attitude of these neighborhoods is not a lax one. It is rather as if, in +places so small, where the margin of everything is so narrow, the +tremendous exigencies of life enforce a tolerance which is no conscious +action of men’s minds, but a thing larger than themselves, before which +they must bow. Life is so simple and vital, so cleared by necessity of a +million extraneous complexities, that people are able, as one of the +Saints says, to judge the action by the person, not the person by the +action. + +Long ago there was plenty of shipping direct from Weir’s Mills to +Boston, and even to-day scows, and a few small schooners, come up +between the hills for hay and wood, up all the windings of the Winding +River, slipping through the draws at the peaceful, pretty hamlets of +Upper, Middle, and Lower Bridge. + +The country about Weir’s Mills shows in indefinable ways that you are +approaching the sea. You get the taste of salt, with a south wind, more +often than with us. The roads show sandy, and you see an occasional +clump of sweet bay in the pastures. The pines grow more and more +dwarfed, and so maritime in look that you expect to see blue water and +the masts of ships ten miles before you come to them. We came on another +indication one day, in asking our way of a young girl at a farm door. + +“The second turn to the _west_,” she told us. In our part of the county +we do not often think of the points of the compass. “The second turn on +your left,” it would have been. + +This is one of our older districts, and a certain amount of +old-fashioned speech remains. Many persons still speak of _ninepence_ +(twelve and a half cents) and a _shilling_ (sixteen and two-thirds +cents). A High School pupil (one of the many boys who walk three or four +miles in to our Town, in all weathers, to get their schooling) brought +in some Mountain Ash berries to the botanical class. _Round-Tree +berries_, he called them, and the master was puzzled, until he realized +that this meant _Rowan Tree_, and that the name had come down straight +from the boy’s English forefathers, who picked the rowan berries by +their home streams. + +[Illustration: THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE] + +All through our county, and in our Town itself, among the homelier +neighbors, many of the old strong preterites, which have become obsolete +elsewhere, are still in use. “I _wed_ the garden,” for “I _weeded_,” “I +_bet_ the carpet”; _riz_ for _raised_, _hove_ for _heaved_; and among +our old established families of substance you may still hear _shew_ for +_showed_ and _clim_ for _climbed_. + +“I _clim_ a little ways up into the rigging,” one of our magnates said +to me this very week, speaking of an adventure of his seafaring youth. + +After the Revolution certain of the unfortunate Hessians drifted to the +southern part of our county, and being stranded, poor souls, they made +the best of it, settled and married. They named our town of Dresden. The +Theobalds come from this Hessian stock, the Vannahs, who started as +Werners, the Dockendorffs, and we have a precious although extremely +local seashore name, _Winkiepaw_, which began life as Wenckebach. But +the adaptation of surnames is in process all around us. Uriah Briery’s +people used to be _Brieryhurst_; and Samuel Powers has told me that his +grandfather wrote his name in “a queer Frenchy sort of way, he spelled +it _de la Poer_”(!) The Goslines, of whom we have a good sized family, +were _du Gueslins_, not long since, and Alec Duffy, who sounds entirely +Irish, was born _Alexis D’Urfeé_. + +A queer old person lived on the Weir’s Mills road when we were children. +He had prospered in farming and trade, and was quite a rich man for +those parts. He wanted to be richer still, and all his last years he was +ridden by two chimerical dreams; one, that a piece of his land was to be +bought for a monster hotel, at a fabulous price, and the other that +Captain Kidd’s treasure was buried in a small island he owned in the +river. He dug and he dug for it. He had absolute faith in the +superstition that a fork of green wood—perhaps of witch-hazel only, but +I am not sure about this—held firmly in both hands, will point straight +to buried water or buried treasure. He has led us all over his island, +holding the forked stick. + +“There! See him! See him turn!” he would cry out excitedly. “Wild oxen +won’t hold him!” The stick certainly turned in his hands, and in ours, +when he placed it right for us. I suppose the wood is so elastic and +springy that, holding it in a certain way you unconsciously turn it +yourself; but it gave a queer feeling. + +This whole district is fragrant with the memory of a saint, Mary Scott. +She was a cripple her whole life. Her shoulders and the upper part of +her body were those of a powerful woman, but her feet and legs were +those of a child, and were withered and useless. She lived all alone +when I knew her, in a tiny neat house. She spent her days in a child’s +cart, which she could move about by the wheels with her hands, and she +was most active and busy. + +No one could go through a life of such affliction without untellable +suffering; but Mary’s sweet faith never seemed to know that she had a +self at all, still less a crippled self. She had quick skillful hands, +and her absorbing pleasure all through the year was her work for her +Christmas tree. She saved, and her neighbors saved for her, every bit of +tinfoil and silver or gold paper that could be found, and fashioned out +of it bright stars and spangles for trimming. She knitted and knitted, +mittens and stockings and comforters, and when the time came near she +made candy, and corn-balls, and strung popcorn into garlands. The +neighbors all helped her, and good Jacob Damren, at Tresumpscott, always +cut her a tree from his woods and set it up for her; and then on +Christmas Eve the door of her cottage stood open, and the light streamed +out from the bright lighted tree, and the children of the whole district +came thronging in with their parents. + +The tributary streams from this eastern side of our river come in very +quietly. Worromontogus, the largest, is dammed just as it emerges from +its hills, to turn the Wilsons’ saw-mill, which was once owned and run +by Mary Scott’s father. The mill and mill-pond are in an open, sunny +pocket of the woods. The winding lane which leads in to them is bordered +with elms and willows, and the road is soft underfoot with bark and +sawdust. Feathery elms stand all about the stream’s basin, and after you +have followed the road in you reach the weather-stained mill, the logs, +the new-cut lumber, as fragrant as can be, and the great heap of +bright-colored sawdust. Worromontogus drains the pond of the same name, +five miles long, some distance back in the country. + + + + +CHAPTER IX—MARY GUILFOYLE + + +The sun had come out bright after a rain, and every leaf was shining, +the June day when we drove over to Ridgefield to fetch Mary Guilfoyle. +We started early in the morning, but it was already like noon in that +midsummer season. Daisies were powdering the fields, as white as snow, +and yellow and orange hawkweeds were growing in among them, so that +whole fields showed yellow, orange, and white. The orange hawkweed is +very fragrant, and its sweetness mixed with the spicy bitterness of the +daisies. Then, on a knoll as the road rose above the river, we found +patches of bright blue lupins in the yellow and orange and white, making +such a blaze of color as I have never seen before in our northern +fields. + +There were streaks of crimson sorrel in the fields where there were no +daisies, among the ripening June-grass and red-top; all the grasses, and +the fields of grain, were beginning to turn a little tawny, and quick +waves chased each other across them with the light summer wind. + +Mary lives in a scrap of a new house, in a thick wood of young firs and +spruces. The last mile of our road led through these sweet-smelling +trees, which were set all over with light green jewels of new growth. +Grass grew in the ruts, and the moist earth of the wood road was +thronged with yellow butterflies; and tiny “blues,” like bits of the sky +come to life, fluttered among the ferns. Breath after breath of +sweetness came from the warm woods in the sunshine. + +Mary was waiting for us at the door, with her knitting in her hand, and +her cat at her skirts. Her small rough fields across the road were +ploughed and planted, and she was ready to come to us. She is a strongly +built old woman with bright blue eyes and yellowish gray hair, sturdy as +a weather-beaten piece of white-oak timber. Many is the time that she +has left our house of an afternoon (in our impossible spring going, too, +with the frost coming out of the ground and the mud a foot deep); walked +out to her farm, six full miles, seen to some detail of farm-work that +worried her, and walked back, arriving before seven the next morning, to +cook our breakfast. + +She works on her farm all summer, planting and hoeing her corn and beans +and potatoes. She has help from the men of the neighborhood when she can +get it, but I believe she follows the plough herself when she is put to +it. In winter she comes into town, and works for households in +difficulties. If the cook deserts us, or we have a sudden influx of +guests or everyone has grippe, we send for Mary Guilfoyle and she sees +us through. She comes into a house like a blast of clear air. Nothing +ruffles her, and her mere presence seems to return its right proportions +and gayety to life. She knows how to work as few people do nowadays, and +she is so sound-hearted and unafraid that there is something royal and +powerful about her. + +Mary’s mother was French, and it is from her she gets her gestures. Her +hands move finely, with a dignity and control a duchess might envy, and +they say more than mere words could. And then, her funny expressions! +She is a Roman Catholic, but so far from being a church-goer that I was +surprised, last Easter morning, at seeing her ready for church; and my +surprise was rebuked with, + +[Illustration: PLOUGHING MARY’S FIELD] + +“Child, the heretic and the hangman go to church on this morning!” + +Her speech is unlike anybody else’s. Every sentence is vivid, but they +lose their quaint flavor in telling. She is delighted (she is a fine +cook), but excited, too, at getting a “company meal,” and loses her +appetite. + +“The cook cannot eat, not if she were at the gates of heaven, at these +times,” she puts it. + +She was telling one day of an unfortunate young farm neighbor— + +“He knelt on a nail, and took lock-jaw. They hoisted him to Portland, +but it warn’t of no use. He died in four days. He was a beautiful young +man. Warn’t it terrible?” + +Somehow I never fail to see the poor youth caught up in a sheet and +swung through the air the whole journey. + +Mary was born and brought up in the Catholic community at Ridgefield; +but she has spent little time there. Fifty-five years ago, when she was +sixteen, she learned fine sewing and clear-starching at the Great House +of our neighborhood, and then nothing would do but she must seek her +fortune in Boston, where she already had two sisters in service. She +made the voyage in a sailing vessel, a small brig laden with hay. She +found out the name of a first-rate dressmaker, in Temple Place; next she +bought a piece of fine gray cashmere, and cut and made herself a jacket +and dress. Then she presented herself. + +“How do I know you are a seamstress at all?” the dressmaker asked. + +“I cut and made every stitch I have on me.” + +“You may go right upstairs, at seven dollars a week, with the others.” + +A sweep of the hand illustrated the triumph; seven dollars was fine pay +in those days. + +One of her sisters was cook for many years for Oliver Wendell Holmes. + +(“A little man, the face wrinkled”—and Mary’s eloquent hands made me see +the Doctor again in person.) He took care of her money for her; and Mary +has often told me how one day, after many years, he said, + +“Now, Anna, you are a rich woman; you need never work again, and can do +what you like.” + +She bought a nice little house in one of the suburbs. + +“But a year was all she could stand of it. She couldn’t make out to +live, away from the Holmeses, and back she goes to them.” + +Mary married at twenty, and lived quietly in Chelsea for five and twenty +years. Then her husband died, and instead of going home to the farm, or +staying on where she was, to take boarders, this born adventurer was off +to see the world. + +“I hadn’t seen, not one thing, cooped up there in Chelsea. I wanted to +find out about new things, and new places, whilst I was strong.” + +She took a part of her savings, sewed up in the front of her gown, to +fall back on, but her capable hands were the real funds on which she +depended. She traveled to Denver, and there went out to service, and +afterwards worked in a restaurant. She found light work in plenty, and +in between jobs took her heart’s fill of sight-seeing. She saw Pike’s +Peak and the Grand Canyon. By the end of the winter she had earned +enough to take her to San Francisco. Here she had a sister- and +brother-in-law who ran a good restaurant, and Mary joined forces with +them. A year brim-full of life followed, but after this her two own +sisters, her only surviving near relations, fell ill, and she came home +to nurse them. It was then that she bought her farm, near her old home +in Ridgefield, planning that the three should spend their old age +together. Both sisters, though, died; but my indomitable Mary keeps the +farm almost as well as a man could, and her strong nature, tremendously +intent on the present moment, never feels loneliness. + +As I said, she is not much of a church-goer, but she is devout in her +own way, and plans to go back to San Francisco, to the convent where a +cousin of hers is now Abbess, and there + +“Get ready to die; and a good thing to do, too, first-rate!” + +I never knew anyone so indifferent about dress as Mary; she is quite +pretty in her way, and must always have been so, but she puts on +whatever is nearest at hand, and will hamper her least. It is a fact +that I saw her out in the rain the other day, taking in clothes from the +line, with a length of brown oil-cloth tied about her stout person, by +way of an apron, with marline, and an empty shredded-wheat box, split up +on one side, on her head for a hat. + +The lower meadows were still yellow with the gold of buttercups as we +drove home, and where the swales ran lower and richer we saw tall Canada +Lilies, Loose-strife, and purple and white fringed orchids, in among the +Meadow-rue, and light green ferns and ripening grasses. There was +Blue-eyed Grass, too, and Iris. It was all rich and fragrant, and +butterflies were hovering about the lilies; and as if this were not +enough, a breath of woodsy sweetness, much like the fragrance of Lady’s +Slippers, met us from a mixed meadow and cranberry bog, and there were +flocks of rose-pink Arethusas all delicately poised among the grasses. + +Meadow-larks were rising all about, singing their piercingly sweet +notes. The children were picking wild strawberries, and the blackberries +flung out long springing sprays down the perfected June roadways. Their +blossoms are very like small single sweet-briar roses. + +[Illustration: ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND] + + + + +CHAPTER X—TRESUMPSCOTT POND + + +Tresumpscott Pond lies three miles eastward from our river, set deep +between the folds of wooded and rocky hills, and the woods frame it +close. + +You climb the rise of a long slow-mounting hill which at its southern +extremity breaks sharply down in granite ledges, mostly pine-covered, +and there right below you lies this little lonely, perfectly guarded +lake. There is only one opening in the woods, a farm which slopes down +to the shore in two wide fields, with a low rambling farmhouse. There is +no other roof in sight. + +The pond is about a mile long and half as wide. It has the attributes of +a big lake, in little; deep bays up which loons nest, and wooded +headlands, ending in smooth abrupt rocks which enclose small curved +beaches of white sand, as firm and fine as sea sand. The western bay +ends in a river of swamp, and all along the north side the wood screens +a broken wall of fern-grown cliffs, with quantities of columbines among +their crannies. The long slope above the woods is a sheep pasture, +partly under pines and partly open, with ledge and cinquefoil-covered +boulders cropping out in the close turf, and tall mulleins standing all +about like candlesticks. + +The whole locality is rich in treasures, and here on the north side of +the pond is a stretch of mossy glades and openings in the underwood +which are covered with the fairy elegance of maiden-hair fern, the +delicate black stems standing out against the rocks and moss. They grow +under cool rich woods, with pink Lady’s Slippers scattered in clumps +among them. + +The farm at Tresumpscott is an ample one, and Jacob Damren, who farms +it, comes of fine stock, and is a big, hearty figure of a man. The Pond +was his father’s before him. His wife is a plain little woman, always +clean and trim in fresh cotton print. They say her habitual sadness is +because she has never liked the Pond. She was town-bred, and finds it +utterly lonely, while to Jacob it holds everything that earth can give. + +The land is very fertile and they prospered till well past middle life, +when Jacob met with an accident that was hard to bear. A neglected cut +on his thumb became infected, and soon there was swelling and pain in +the whole hand. No one did the right thing, no one knew what to do +beyond the old-fashioned farm treatments, and after a week of fever the +arm had to go. They said it was only his wife’s despairing weeping which +brought him at last to consent to amputation. At first he begged to be +allowed to die sooner than face life again thus maimed. + +He met the blow, once it fell, in a steady manly way, and now has come +well out from under its shadow. A month ago I saw him out with his horse +and drag, getting out stumps, and he was managing this troublesome +business successfully. He smiled a patient, slow smile, as we came up. + +“This comes kind of awkward for a one-armed man!” he called out, but +spoke cheerily, and seemed delighted at the way he was achieving his +stumping. + +They have had other troubles. A son who lived at home and shared the +farm, married a shallow, heartless girl, who left him, and so broke his +heart and his whole hold on life that he could not bear the place +without her, and has led a wandering, broken sort of existence since. +Their other boy, though, is a good son indeed. He is part owner in a +small cooperage and he drives over from week to week, puts in solid help +on the farm, and brings his wife and babies to make cheerful Sundays for +the old people. + +Jacob and his wife love animals. The last time I was over there the +cosset lamb came into the kitchen to ask for milk. Mrs. Damren was +caressing two new red calves as if they were kittens, while Flora, +Jacob’s foxhound, and her two velvet-skinned, soft-eyed puppies played +round them. + +We drive over to the pond from time to time for swamp treasures of +different kinds. Jacob has a tumble-down, lichen-covered boathouse where +water-pewees and white-bellied swallows nest, in which he keeps a few of +the worst boats in the world (with ash oars shaped like flattened poles +and heavy as lead), and lets them out to people who come for pickerel or +water-lilies. The whole western end of the pond is a laughing expanse of +water-lilies and yellow Beaver Lilies, with the bright yellow +butterfly-shaped blossoms of bladderwort in among them. Beyond these you +come to a mixture of floating islands, tussocks, intricate channels of +black water, and stretches of shaking cotton grass, which in June and +July hide a host of slim-stemmed rose-colored swamp orchids, _Arethusa_, +_calopogon_, and _pogonia_. You pole and shove your boat between the +floating islands, submerging orchids and cotton-grasses alike in the +black peat water, and beyond them reach the parti-colored velvet of the +peat bog itself. + +Balsam fir grows here, sweet rush and sweet gale, and quantities of +Labrador Tea, with shining dark leaves (of which Thoreau made tea when +camping on Chesuncook) and masses of delicate-stamened white flowers, +which give out a warm resinous sweetness. All around there is the +general bog fragrance of sphagnum and water-lilies, and the woodsy +perfume of the rose-colored orchids. + +Farther in shore, among the balsam firs, the growth dwindles to a +general velvety richness of gem-like green and crimson mosses, +blueberries, and cranberries and huckleberries, the large handsome +maroon-crimson flowers of the Pitcher-Plant, and the little +bright-yellow-flowered Sundew, getting its nourishment from the insects +caught in its sticky crimson filaments. + +The pond is alive all summer with butterflies and birds. We spent a day +there in June, and tried to follow a pair of Carolina rails, which ran +and hid among the cotton-grasses, and ran again, and suddenly vanished +as completely as if they had melted in air. We put up a bittern, but did +not find her nest. Scores of red-wing black-birds had nested in the +clustered bushes of the floating islands. We laid our oars down on the +shaking cotton grass as a sort of bridge and worked our way from island +to island, while a perfect cloud of birds chuckled and wheeled round us, +uttering their guttural warning cries and their fresh “Hock-a-lees!” We +looked into three red-wings’ nests, and one king-bird’s, all with eggs. +The red-wing’s eggs were pale blue, scratched and blotched with black as +if by a child playing with ink and pen, while the king-bird’s were a +beautiful cream-color, marked in a circle round the large end with rich +brown blotches. + +As we went on to gather Pitcher-Plants and Sundew, we saw an eagle +fishing over the lonely little lake; saw, too, a thing I have never seen +before or since, for he caught a fish so big it pulled him under. He +vanished out of sight completely, came up with a great flap, and, making +heavy work of it, and flying so low he almost touched the water, he made +off and gained the woods with his prize. + +Besides our orchids and pitcher-plants (we washed the pitchers clear of +insects, and drank from them), we had come for stickle-backs, which are +found in the clear shallows by one of the small beaches. We had a net, +and glass jars. They are such quick darting creatures that it is hard to +get them. They are the liveliest of all pets for an aquarium, and +prosper very fairly in captivity. + +Early in the morning, when we first reached the pond, the bobolinks were +rising and singing all over the lower water meadows, and the mists were +turning to silver in the early sunlight. When we came up from the bog in +the late afternoon the bobolinks were silent, but a mother sand-peep +wheeled and cried about the field, afraid that we would find her +chickens. + +We cooled our hands and faces in the clear water and washed off the +black peat mold, and went up to the farm. Mrs. Damren had fresh +gingerbread for us, and creamy milk, and we sat round a table with a +cheerful red cloth. The room was very homelike, with a good deal of dark +wood, and bright pots and pans. A shot-gun and a rifle hung over the +mantel, the guns poor Jacob will never use again. His hunting dog sat +close to his chair. + +The wife’s sorrowful eyes turned always to her husband, but seemed at +the same time to try to guard his empty sleeve from our glances. He, +with a larger patience, was unconscious of it. + +They told us a good thing; that two lads, sons of a minister in a +neighboring town, have built a little camp in Jacob’s woods. They come +over often to spend the night, and sometimes stay a week, and are great +company. They come to Jacob for milk, butter, and eggs, and often spend +the evening. The week before they had shot two coons, and they are busy +mounting them, under his directions. + +Jacob’s face has a great peace in it, that of a man who has given +everything in him to the place he lives in, and held nothing back. His +beautiful, lonely little holding of wood and field and lake is better, +for the work he has put into it, than when his father left it to him. He +has cleared more fields, enriched the land, and drained the lower +meadows. His son will have it after him. I have seldom seen a place +which seemed more entirely home. + +Jacob had cut the hay in his upper meadow early (he has to take his +son’s or a neighbor’s help when he can get it), and it was already piled +in sweet-smelling haycocks as we drove by, but the water meadows, where +the purple fringed orchids and loosestrife grow in among the grasses, +were still uncut. It was dusk, and the fireflies were out. Thousands of +them flashed their soft radiance low over the perfumed meadow, and the +fragrance of sweet rush and of the open water came to us from the lake. + + + + +CHAPTER XI—IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS + + +The population of a district can never be classified. Once again, “folks +are folks,” and the smallest hamlet shows infinite variety. Yet here and +there the individual quality of a neighborhood seems as marked as that +of the different belts and communities of trees which clothe the land +about it. + +Watson’s Hill, Ridgefield, and Weir’s Mills are fine up-standing +neighborhoods, with good houses, big barns, fresh paint, and bright milk +cans catching the sun; but in near-by folds of the hills, where the +ridges slope up into higher country, there are poor and scattered farms +and farmhouses which are no more than shanties. A neighborhood six miles +from a big town may be more rustic than another twice as far. It is +partly the soil, partly inheritance, and surely it is a third part +influence. The land of our Silvester’s Mills Quakers is not specially +good, but the impulse imparted by three or four industrious good +families is the foundation of its marked prosperity. + +A Swede and an Italian have lately taken up two farms which were +considered quite run out, one in North Ridgefield, six miles from us, +and the other at the top of a long hill on the Tresumpscott Road. + +The Swede asked William Pender, a thin, vague, grumbling man, of whom he +hired the land, + +“How long time to clear these fields of stones?” + +“Ninety-nine years!” said William solemnly. But the Swede, a fair, +strong-built man named Jansen, went to work, with his wife and his three +children. They put on leather aprons, and worked early and late, in +every spare minute that could be taken from planting and cultivating. +(William looked on, from his brother’s farm, whither he had retreated, +in a mixture of incredulity, disapprobation and envy.) _They worked in +the rain_; and now, after three years, the farm is clear of stones, and +Jansen owns it clear. He has a thousand hens, and sells his eggs and +broilers at fancy prices in New York; and Mrs. Jansen’s lawn and +flower-beds are as gay as those of a neat farm in Holland. + +The Italian farmer is a larger pattern of man. He came here as a young +fellow with no better start than a push-cart, but he came of good +intelligent Tuscan people, and has not only endless industry, but wits +to see, and enterprise to take, all sorts of chances. He did not take +any chances, though, when he married Alice Farrell, the daughter of one +of our best farmers, a strong pretty girl, as industrious as her +husband, and even more intelligent, with a free sort of outlook, and +something kindling about her. Her husband is now the big man of his +neighborhood. The district goes by his name, and he has represented it +in the Legislature. He owns a fine herd of registered Guernseys, and his +apples bring fancy prices. + +A friend of mine, a farmer, once asked one of the great Connecticut +nurserymen to what he attributed the success of the Italians in nursery +work and truck farming. The older man’s eyes twinkled. + +“I’ll tell you,” he said. “They’re willing to work in the rain!” + +Our farm conditions are improving, almost while you watch them. The +Agricultural Department of the State University is doing yeoman service. +People are beginning to realize what science is bringing to agriculture, +and the young men are fired by it. They are especially beginning to +realize what ignorance it was to leave so many farms deserted, and to +condemn so much of the land as hopeless and used up. The friend who +asked the question about the Italians said of our own farmers: + +“They stick to their grandfathers’ ways, and not to their grandfathers’ +enterprise and ambition for improvement.” But this statement is fast +coming to be untrue. + +Interspersed, however, among the prosperous districts there are curious, +backward hamlets, where the woods seem to encroach. Their hills shut +them about too closely. Some set of the tide of human affairs, some +change of transportation or of market, cuts off the wholesome currents +of life from them, and they stagnate like cut-off water and become +degenerate. + +There is a sad combination of receding prosperity and a run-out +population in a town a long day’s drive from us. Poor place, it has +become bankrupt. Its timber was cut off, and the cooperages, on which +its tiny livelihood depended, moved away. Its farms straggle up the +flanks of a round-topped mountain. Apple-raising might perhaps have +saved it, but either such of its people as had the enterprise for this +moved away, or it possessed none such. The people I saw there looked as +different as possible from our hearty sun-and-air neighbors. Unkempt +faces thronged the dirty windows of farms that were mere shacks. They +looked at once ambitionless and sinister. “Merricktown folks,” people of +the neighboring districts say, when tools disappear or robes are stolen +from the sleighs at a Grange supper. + +No Indians are left in our part of the world; but here and there a +family shows marked traces of Indian blood, as old Sile Taylor, beyond +Watson’s Hill, a frowsy and hospitable patriarch, whose little black +eyes twinkle with a kind of foxy kindliness. Though none dwell here, +Indians come two or three times a year from the State Reservation, with +snow-shoes, moccasins, and sweet-grass baskets to sell. They make a +yearly pilgrimage to the seashore for the sweet-grass, which grows in +the salt meadows at the mouths of a few rivers. They cut and dry it, and +carry home many hundred pounds for the winter’s weaving. The Gabriel +brothers, Joe and Bill, are regular visitors among us, enormous dark +men, with that Indian habit of silence which implies not so much +taciturnity, as a certain tranquil quality. Tranquillity and kindness +seem to flow from the big brothers. They seem untroubled by any need of +speech. + +Then beyond Rattlesnake Hill there are the “Jingroes.” They are credited +with being pure-blooded gipsies, and they certainly look it. I do not +know whether they started with a definite Mr. and Mrs. Jingroe or not. +The name is applied to the whole tribe. They live “over back,” in +clearings in a wide belt of forest. They are perfectly indolent, but +cheerful, and content with the most primitive farming. + +Once in a while, when things go hard with them, they all set to work, +and weave very good baskets, which they bring in town to sell. You are +met at every street corner by handsome, dark-eyed Mrs. Jingroes, in +kerchief and bright earrings, importuning every passer-by to buy a +basket. + +About once a year a gipsy caravan drives through our town, and stops in +the street on its way. The slim, handsome barefooted children and their +dark square-built mothers are all about. The women bustle from shop to +shop, making small purchases, and pick up a little money by telling +fortunes. + +Once, when the gipsies camped in a rough pasture near town, one of the +children died, and a touching deputation came, to ask permission (which +was of course given) to bury it in the town cemetery. + +Another time, as a caravan drove through the town, I noticed a girl +lying at the back of one of the flimsy, covered wagons, so ill she +seemed to be unconscious. She was a lovely creature, dark and pale, and +her slim body swayed and shook with the shaking of the wheels. I wanted +to call out to the drivers to stop, but the crazy caravan rattled away +at a half-canter, and paid no attention. + +Tresumpscott Pond lies in the midst of our most heavily forested +district. There is no village or hamlet near it, but a handful of little +farms, on tiny clearings or no clearings at all, are scattered through +the woods. + +The dwellers in these forest farms are not people of substance, like the +farmers of the open country near them, but they are intelligent folk, +and are rich in the treasure of a varied and interesting life. The men +of the family are sure to have hunting coats and gaiters,—leather or +canvas; good guns, which they keep well oiled and bright; and most of +them keep a good fox hound or two, whose jubilant music may be heard as +they range through the winter woods with their masters, or on +independent hunting excursions. The boys begin by seven years old to +have trapping enterprises of their own up the little quick forest +brooks, and what looks to the ordinary person like the merest mossy +runnel, hardly a brook at all, may be well known as a drinking-place of +coons, or a haunt where sharp eyes may see a mink. They are sent out to +gather thoroughwort, dill, dock, and other simples, and mosses and roots +for the farm dyeing. (_Cruttles_, or _crottles_, the farm name for the +dark moss growing on ash-trees, makes a fine yellow dye.) They know +where to lie hidden at half past three in the morning on the chance of +seeing a deer, and under which stretch of lily-pads is the best chance +for a pickerel. And not only the boys: I know a girl on a farm, whose +grown-up brother has such confidence in her marksmanship, that he will +shake an apple-tree, while she nicks the falling apples with her rifle. +They make use of a far greater number of wild plants than are known to +the farmers of the more open country, as “greens,” cooking and eating +young milk-weed stalks, shepherd’s purse, and the uncurling fronds of +the _Osmundas_ and other great ferns, which they call “fiddle-heads.” + +They grow up sinewy and alert, under this eager life, and the best of +them attain, beside their farm knowledge, to the undefinable huntsman’s +knowledge, which sets its mark on a man. Their bearing is confident and +fearless, and with it they have a certain forest quality on which it is +hard to lay a finger. It is noticeable that the greater part of the +families who cleave to this forest way of life are apt to be of dark +complexion. It is a great pity that most of them can get so little +schooling, but they have all been educated, since they were little, in a +training which certainly develops and intensifies some of man’s best +powers. + +[Illustration: THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES] + +The deep tranquil woods cover the rise and fall of the ridges for a good +stretch of miles, and a good deal of hunting and trapping is to be had +in them. Last month we came on fresh raccoon tracks, like prints of +little hands, in the leaf mould of the wood road, and coons are often +shot here. One day, as we were walking, there was a great growling and +barking from our dogs, and we found that they had treed a porcupine. + +In my Grandfather’s time, sheep had to be driven at night to the tops of +the hills, because of the bears in the Tresumpscott woods; and only two +years ago there was an outcry among the farmers because sheep were being +killed. Everybody watched his neighbor’s dog, but Oliver Newcomb, who +lives on a little farm in the heart of the forest tract, coming home at +dusk up the wood road, heard a growling and snarling, and came on a +great Bay Lynx, the only one seen in this part of the country for many +years. Oliver is a man who is almost never seen without his gun, and he +shot the marauder, and got twenty-five dollars for the skin, a real +windfall for a young man on a small forest farm, with wife to keep and +five children. The skin was mounted, and set up in the library of the +Soldiers’ Home. + +The Bay Lynx is a much longer, more panther-like creature than our +common Canada Lynx (the _Loup Cervier_ or Bob-cat), and is of a general +bay color, not unlike that of the Mountain Lion of the West. I have +wondered if this might not be the panther or “painter” which was the +terror of our Northern woods to early settlers. + +“Big Game” has increased greatly in our State of late years, partly from +the enforcement of strict game laws, partly because the wolves have +nearly all been killed off. Deer are so common as to be a menace to +crops in some places, and there are at least three thriving beaver +colonies in our part of the State. + +In 1868 my father, driving on a fishing trip through a town sixty-five +miles north of us, was shown a pair of blanched moose antlers, set up +over the sign-post at the cross-roads. + +“Look at that well,” the stage driver said. “That’s a sight you’ll never +see again, not in this State!” + +To-day, as every hunter knows, moose are plentiful, all through the +two-thirds of the State that lies under forest; and not only there, for +this very autumn three have been seen in the Tresumpscott woods, while +both last year and this, a black bear has spent several weeks in our +neighborhood. + +Muskrat are found in Tresumpscott Pond and its small tributary streams, +hares and partridges and foxes all through its woods. Black duck, and +sometimes wood duck, breed about the Pond, and Carolina rails; and where +the brooks that feed the Pond spread out into broad estuaries of alder +covert, you may see the marked flight of snipe or woodcock. + +It was in these woods that Jerome Mitchell, our local authority on game +and fur (a very fair naturalist, also), grew up. He is a slender, +well-knit fellow, whose mother had great ambitions for him. He walked +into town, five miles and back, every day, to get one year in the High +School, after his country schooling. He could not afford any more, but +when he was seventeen, having picked up a knowledge of taxidermy and +simple mechanics, he moved into town. He worked early and late with +dogged patience, taking every smallest job that offered, till at last he +realized his ambition, and opened a small, but good sportsmen’s and +general repair shop. Gradually he picked up the fur trade of the +neighborhood. He is anxiously fair, and boys from the farms soon began +to bring in skunk, squirrel, and muskrat skins, and every little while a +fox or a coon. + +Last year Jerome ran into hard luck. A stranger, a good-looking man, +brought in an extra fine looking lot of muskrat skins. There were $600 +worth, and this was a low figure for them. It was a serious venture, +still Jerome took them; they turned out, however, to be stolen goods, +and he had to pay the rightful owner, as the stranger was nowhere to be +found. Poor Jerome! he was near tears when he told my father about it. +Then, when he just had his store new painted and set in order for the +summer’s trade, someone dropped a lighted match among the shavings, and +the whole stock and fixtures were in a blaze. + +This loss turned out to be not so serious. Jerome worked nearly all +night for a week, and made better fittings than he had had before. The +wholesale dealers were generous, and the shop re-opened with the best +outfit of goods that it has had at all. + +Now a good windfall has come to him. A rural mail-carrier brought word +of a silver fox which had been trapped on a farm fifteen miles out in +the country. Jerome only waited to telegraph to a big fur dealer for +whom he works, who has lately established a fox farm, and started off at +once. He found even better than he had hoped. The fox was a perfect +young male, coal black, and hardly scratched by the trap. + +In the recent craze over fox-raising, as much as ten thousand dollars +has been paid, in our State, for a first-rate black fox. Of course +Jerome would only get a commission, but this was the first big chance +that had come to him and he was beside himself with anxiety lest it +miscarry. It was a sharp February night, but he slept in the barn beside +his prize, and the next morning drove home, dreading every drift and +thank-you-ma’am, for fear they might upset, and the slight crate that +held the fox might break. + +That night he slept on the floor of his shop, wrapping himself in the +sleigh robes. The fox ate the meat given him with a good appetite, and +curled up contentedly enough to sleep; but as the first grayness began +to show before dawn, he stood up, bristling a little, and barked, a +far-away, lonely sound, Jerome said. The next day he was forwarded to +the dealer in safety. + +My father has shot and hunted all about this region, going on snow-shoes +after foxes and hares in winter, with one of the forest +farmers—generally one of the Huntingtons—as guide or companion; coming +into the warm dark farm kitchen for a warm-up before the long ride or +drive home. The Huntingtons always had good dogs. Bugle, a fox-hound +famous through the countryside, belonged to them. + +John Huntington is the man whom neither bee nor wasp will sting. He is +sent for all about to take away troublesome hornets’ nests, which he +simply tears down and pulls to pieces with his bare hands. Some hornets +built a huge nest over the door of the stable at the Homestead not long +ago, just where the men come and go for milking. One of the farm men +wanted to take a torch and smoke it out, but Thomas Burnham, the farmer +in charge, sent all the way over to Tresumpscott for John Huntington. He +came, a silent, dark, shambling man; looked at the nest, nodded, asked +for a ladder, climbed up, and unconcernedly pulled the whole thing down, +while the furious hornets swarmed over his uncovered face and hands. He +reached a finger down his neck, first on one side, then the other, and +took out handfuls of them, and scraped them off where they had crawled +up his sleeves. He tore the nest up, threw it on the ground, and stamped +on it, and with few words went back to his farm. + +I have never heard any adequate explanation of this phenomenon. Some +people say that persons having this power have a distinctive odor about +them, which wasps and bees dislike, and others ascribe it only to an +entire fearlessness and unconcern. + +Sam Huntington, John’s younger brother, is a handsome, strong, +slender-built fellow, taller than John and even darker. It was Sam who +showed my father, one day out snipe shooting, what a _bee line_ really +means, and how to take one, and find the bee-tree. You catch two wild +bees, and attach a bit of cotton wool, big enough to mark the bee’s +flight, to each; let the first bee go, getting the line of his flight +well, then walk on two or three hundred yards, and let the second go, +taking note equally carefully. Where the two lines intersect is the +bee-tree and the hidden treasure of wild honey. + +Sitting in Jacob Damren’s clover field one day, my father showed me how +to find bumble-bee honey. We sat still, and watched the fat bee go his +buzzing way from head to head of red clover. At last he had honey +enough, and off he started on a swifter, straighter flight, but he was +heavy with honey, and we could easily follow. He did not go far, but +swung on a long slant to his hole in the ground. We dug where he entered +(he emerged, part way through the process, very angry and buzzing) and +about six inches down we found the honey cells. There was a lump or +cluster of them, perhaps half as big as your hand. They were longer than +the cells of honey bees; not hexagonal like these, but roughly +cylindrical, dark brown, and full of very good, clear, dark brown honey. + +Tresumpscott Pond is a great haunt of whippoorwills. As dusk begins to +fringe the coverts of the wood, they begin their strange, almost ghostly +chorus, like the swift whistling of a rod through the air, powerful and +regular, “whip,” and “whip,” and “whip” again, answering each other all +night. I noticed the time of their first notes, one night in early July. +The voices of the veeries fell away, and then stopped, at quarter past +eight, and at quarter of nine the first whippoorwill struck up, and was +instantly answered. (I have known them to begin sharp at eight o’clock, +or even earlier.) + +It is extremely hard to see the birds themselves, for they lie hid all +day in the deep woods, sleeping. Like owls, they seem unable to see well +if roused by daylight. At night they gather close about the farms, one +perhaps on the roof of the barn, and one or two on a fence (sitting +always _lengthwise_ to their perch, never across), and sometimes you can +see their shape silhouetted against the sky. Last May, a whippoorwill +was bewildered in a sudden gale, and did not get back to the woods, but +spent the day sound asleep in broad sunlight on the railing of a +balcony, right in the midst of our town. I stood within four feet of +him. He is a strange-shaped bird, with whiskers like a cat’s, and a flat +head; about the size of a small hawk, and mottled, like his cousin the +night-hawk, with gray and white markings like those of rocks and +lichens, or of some of the larger moths. + + + + +CHAPTER XII—HARVEST + + +In late September an errand took us out to Sam Marston’s again. We +wanted a quantity of early farm things, sweet cider, Porter apples, and +honey. + +The woods were in a flame of fiery color as we drove out through the +intricacies of the river hills. They glowed like beds of tulips, with +only the dark evergreens to set them off, and turned our whole country +into a huge flower garden. + +The crops had all been very good this season. Hay and grain were both +heavy, and the apple trees had to be propped, the branches were so +loaded with fruit. Our own grapes bore heavily. + +The early apples were just gathering when we reached the farm, amongst +all sorts of pleasant orchard sounds, the rumble of apples poured from +bushel baskets into barrels, the squeak of the cider mill, and the men +talking at work. The large new orchard of Bellefleurs is hand-picked, in +the modern method; each apple is wrapped in paper, and the fruit has its +special first-rate market; but Sam is not going to take his father’s old +miscellaneous orchard in hand until next year, and here he and his men +were picking and piling in the old wholesale fashion. The sweet-smelling +pyramids stood waist-high under the trees. + +Sam scrambled down his ladder, and shouted to Susan, who came out from +her baking with her hands white with flour. The last time we came, we +had seen only the house and dairy; now we must see the farm, and we +strolled together through the sunny orchard and then were taken to the +apple cellar, where the filled barrels stood in close ranks already. The +cellar was fragrant with them. Susan’s own special apples, Snows, +Strawberries, and Porters, were at one side. + +“Has to have ’em!” Sam said. “Every farm book tells you how mixed apples +can’t pay, and hinder the farm, but come Grange suppers and church +suppers, and young folks happening in, and Fair times, if Susan couldn’t +have her mixed fruit, she’d think we might full as well be at the +Town-Farm.” + +The root cellar, smelling earthy, was next the apple cellar, and here +Sam had a few beets and carrots, in neat bins, but the greater part of +the roots were still undug. + +The cider-mill was at the edge of the orchard, with piles of windfall +apples beside it; Sam turned a fresh jug-full for us to drink, and then +filled our cans. + +After this we had to see all Susan’s pets. There were two handsome +collies; and a yellow house cat, and a great black barn cat, on stiff +terms with each other, came and rubbed against us with arched backs. +There were the ducks and geese, and tumbler pigeons, fluttering down in +great haste when Susan scattered corn. The newest pet was a raccoon. He +was in the tool-room of the barn, nibbling corn. He steadied the ear as +he ate, with little hands as careful as a child’s. He looked sly and +mischievous, and sidled away as we came in, looking up at us with bright +eyes. He wore a little collar, and dragged a short length of chain, so +that the pigeons could hear him coming; but he was not confined in any +way, and seemed entirely happy and at home about the barn. + +“Pretty fellow, then,” said Susan, scratching his handsome fur. “But +he’s a scamp, he is. Only to think, what happened to my pies, last +baking! I’d made a quantity, both mince and pumpkin, and if this rascal +doesn’t slip into the pantry, eat all he can hold, and mark the rest of +the pies all over with his little hands, and throw them on the floor!” + +She asked if we had ever seen a raccoon with a piece of meat. We had +not, and she fetched a bit from the ice chest and gave it to her pet. He +took it in his little hands, went to his water dish, and _washed_ the +meat thoroughly, sousing it up and down till it was almost a pulp, +before he swallowed it. Susan said that raccoons, wild or tame, will +always do this, with all animal food; mouse or mole or grasshopper, they +will not touch it till they have washed it well, and will go hungry +rather than eat unwashed food. Sam, who knows the woods like the back of +his hand, confirmed this. + +“Souse it in a brook, they will, till they have it soggy. They won’t eat +it till then.” + +While we were looking, a morose-looking old man drove into the yard. He +checked his horse, and sat gazing straight before him with a wooden +expression. + +“Hullo, Uncle!” said Sam. “Come for apples?” + +The old man shook his head, but said nothing. + +“Cider?” said Sam. + +He shook his head also at this, and at every other suggestion, and never +opened his lips. After a while Sam, who seemed to know his ways, nodded +cheerfully, said, “Well, tell us when you get ready to!” and turned +towards the house. + +The old man waited till he had gone twenty feet, and then said +grudgingly: + +“I come to see that there cow. You finish with your company! I’ll wait.” + +“That’s old Ammi Peaslee,” Susan whispered. “He always acts odd. Oh, no, +no relation; everyone on the road calls him Uncle: ‘Uncle Batch’ when +he’s not round.” + +“He didn’t mean to be a batch” (bachelor), she went on reflectively; and +then with some shamefacedness, she told us how Mr. Peaselee had once +been engaged to be married to Miss Charity Jordan (who lived alone in +the big brick Jordan house at the corner) for twenty-five long years. +One day the lady’s roof needed shingling, and she called on her suitor +to shingle it. (“She never could bear to spend money, nor he either, and +it’s a fact that neither one of them had much to spend!”) + +He did it, and did a good job; but afterwards, thinking it but right and +fair, he brought a set of shirts for his sweetheart to make. + +“She made them, _and she sent him in a bill_; and he paid it, and never +spoke to her again from that day to this, and that is fifteen years ago. + +“Now hear me gossip! I am fairly ashamed!” Susan cried out. + +The barn was sweet with hay. Part of the season’s pumpkins were piled in +the grain room, and lit up the dusk with their dark gold. Some of them +still lay in golden piles in the barn-yard. The ears of corn, yellow and +red, lay in separate heaps. + +“I miss Mother!” Susan said (she spoke of Sam’s mother, who had passed +on the year before). “She saw to all the pretty things about the farm. +She used to hang the corn in patterns on the ceiling-hooks, red and +yellow. She’d place the onions in amongst the corn, in ropes or bunches, +and contrive all kinds of pretty notions.” + +Susan sighed, and called the two collies to her, and patted and fondled +their heads. As I said before, she and Sam have no children. + +Sam went to get our honey, saying that he should be stung to death, and +never mourned for, for nobody missed a left-handed fellar; and Susan +took us into the house, and brought out doughnuts, a pumpkin pie, and +cream so thick that it could hardly be skimmed. + +When Sam came back with the honey there was a to-do, for Susan’s Jersey +calf, outside in the orchard, had tangled itself in its rope, and fallen +and sprained its shoulder. The little creature was trembling all over. +Susan rubbed in fresh goose-oil, while Sam asked if she “didn’t want he +should get him up a nice pair of crutches.” + +For our cranberries, we were to go on a mile further, to a farm on the +slope of the next hill, the Pennys’. + +“The old woman’s deaf, but you can make her hear by shouting. Most +likely she’ll be the only one of the folks at home. They’re odd folks,” +Susan called, shading her eyes to look after us, after Sam had succeeded +in packing our purchases in the wagon, laughing and talking about the +way Noah filled the ark, and Susan had given my little sister a wistful +kiss. + +The Pennys’ was an out-of-the-way place. The farm was on the northern +slope of a hill, the house a tiny unpainted one, weathered almost to +black. The corn was standing among the golden pumpkins in stacks that +looked like huddled witches. A wild grapevine grew over the shed, but +the grapes were already shriveled. + +Old Mrs. Penny was shriveled too, and witch-like, and she was smoking a +pipe. It was hard to make her understand what we wanted, but at last she +came out, with a checked shawl held over her head, and pointed out a +path which led through a thicket and across the flank of the hills, to +the cranberry bog in the hollow. + +[Illustration: THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN +STACKS THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES] + +Mrs. Penny, Jr., was squatted down among the swamp mosses, picking +cranberries into sacks. She was a fat Indian-looking woman, and two dark +little girls, pretty, and also like Indians, with black hair neatly +parted, were at work with her. They were delighted to sell their +berries. + +The swamp glowed like a Turkey carpet. The cranberry vines and +huckleberry bushes were pure crimson, the black alder berries scarlet, +and the ferns burnt-orange. Just beyond us, in the velvet of the swamp, +was a pond, across which the wind ruffled; living blue, with tawny +rushes around it. + +As we came back, a hunter, in a leather jacket, with his gun on his +shoulder and partridges hanging out of his pockets, stepped out of the +woods on the path just ahead of us. This was old Mrs. Penny’s son Jason. +The open season had not begun yet, but the farm looked a hard place for +a living, and we saw no need of telling, in town, that the Penny family +had partridge for supper. + +We had a long quiet drive home. It had been so extraordinarily warm, all +through early September, that we saw a fine second crop of hay being got +in, in a low-lying meadow bordered by thick woods, part of which must +have been an old lake-bottom. The grass was heavy, and a good many fresh +haycocks were made and standing already, as if in July. The solitary +mower rested on his scythe to watch us, and then went on, though the +dusk was fast deepening. + +We stopped when we came to Height of Land, to look out over the painted +woods. They flamed round us to the horizon. + +Later the moon rose, in the half-blue, half-dusk, and presently shone on +a white mist-lake, over the low land through which we were then passing. +The mist was rising, and wreathing the colored woods with white. Next +came two more hills, and then another mist-lake in the moonlight. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII—WATSON’S HILL + + +By October of this year the fires of September had sunk to a rich +smouldering glow. The rolling woods, as far as the eye could see, were +masses of dusky gold and wine-color. There was actual smoke, too, pale +blue in the hollows, from many forest fires. + +Nearly all of October was Indian Summer. Every day there was a soft +golden haze, just veiling the yellow of the woods, and the days were +warm and still, like midsummer, but with a kind of mellow peacefulness. + +We spent a whole day out on Watson’s Hill, watching the distant smoke of +forest fires, and listening to the different Autumn sounds, the ring of +axes from the wooded part of the hill, an occasional shot, the tapping +of woodpeckers, and the friendly chirruping of chickadees and juncos. +The bare hill-top was steeped in sunshine. The checkerberries and +beechnuts were just ripe, and very good. We built our fire on a +flat-topped, lichened rock, and found water to drink in a little tarn +among the russet and tawny ferns and cotton-grasses, fed by a spring +which stirred and dimpled the surface. + +Driving home, at dusk, we passed field after field of Indian Warriors, +corn-stacks, all looking the same way, with golden pumpkins among them; +and suddenly, over the eastern ridge, the great round yellow Hunter’s +Moon rose. + +It was strange, later, to see the oaks and sugar maples, towers of +_gold_, instead of towers of green, in the moonlight. + +A few days later we had a three days’ storm of rain and heavy wind, and +then the golden harvest lay on the ground. It was heaped and piled along +the roadsides in winrows, through which the children scuffed and +frolicked. + +(The leaves in the town streets are burned, which is a waste, but if we +were so thrifty as to keep them we should lose the autumn bonfires. I +counted fourteen about the different streets, one evening, each with a +glow lighting up the dusk, and giving out an indescribable +sweet-and-acrid smell as the smoke poured out in cream-white swirls, +almost thick enough to be felt. The men in charge of them looked black +against the blaze, and a flock of children were scampering about each +fire.) The day after the rain the leaves lay all through the woods like +a yellow carpet, and threw up actual light. In some places they had +fallen in lines and patterns, and, wet with rain and autumn dew, they +gave out fragrance which was as sweet as wine. + +Late in October there was sudden illness at a friend’s house. Every +nurse in town was busy already, and we drove out to see if we could get +Marcia Watson, at Watson’s Hill. Marcia is not a graduate nurse, but she +knows what a sick woman wants, and what a sick household, paralyzed by +the illness of its head, must have, and can set the whole stricken +machinery in order again. She is a tiny creature, as merry as a +squirrel, with quick, tranquil ways. + +The Watson’s Hill district is six miles east of us. The Hill is a +beech-wooded ridge, rocky through its whole length, and curving almost +enough to suggest an amphitheatre. A good farming region lies spread out +below it, and there is a village nucleus, a store, the Grange Hall, and +a meeting-house. The hall was burnt, two years ago, and the whole +neighborhood set to work to rebuild it. They had fifteen-cent +entertainments and peanut parties, and sales of aprons and cooked food. +The men did the building, giving their time, and the women cooked for +the men, and this fall the last shingle of the substantial new building +was laid. + +The only mill for many miles is the corn-cannery. Corn-husking always +brings farm neighbors together; sweet corn, for canning, is husked in +August, fodder corn in late October. Families come to husk for each +other, and the wide barn floors where they sit are piled high with +husks; but in the districts near a cannery, as here, the whole community +gathers. In good weather the work is all done out of doors, and the +laughing and chatting groups, men, women, and children, sit up to their +waists in husks. The stoves and kitchens of neighbors are all +pre-empted, and the women bake and fry, and come bustling out to the +workers with milk, bread and cheese, pies and doughnuts. + +Here, at Watson’s Hill, as at nearly every farm village in our part of +the world, the neighbors meet for the weekly dance, which is as much a +matter of course as church on Sundays. It would be hard to describe +adequately the friendliness and complete sociableness of these +neighborhood gatherings. Old and middle-aged and young are called by +their first names, and everybody dances; not round dances, but the +beautiful old country dances, which, transplanted over seas and carried +down a century, still show their quality, and keep something of the +courtly nature of the great houses in France and England where they had +their stately beginnings: a quality that gives a certain true social +training. Everyone in the hall is truly in company. Hands must be given +and glances met, all round the dance, and awkwardness and shyness are +quickly danced out of existence. + +We have the Lancers, the Tempest, the Lady of the Lake, and various +quadrilles. They cannot now perhaps be called exactly stately. + +“Balance to partners!” calls out old Abel Tarbox, master of ceremonies +of the Grange Hall, as he fiddles. + +“Balance to partner! Swing the same! All sashy!” And then comes the +splendid romp of, + +“Eight hands round!” and “Eight hands down the middle!” + +Besides the old court dances, there are Pop Goes the Weasel, Money Musk, +Hull’s Victory, and others, pretty, intricate frolics, which in their +day were the _dernier cri_ of fashion, danced by gilded youth in great +cities, velvet coat and ruffles, flowered silk petticoat, and spangled +fan. + +The Chorus Jig is very difficult. It has “contra-corners,” and other +mysteries impossible to uninitiated feet. + +When money is to be raised for some neighborhood purpose partners for +the evening are chosen in what I should think might be a trying, though +a most practical fashion. On one Saturday evening the ladies, on the +next the gentlemen, are put up for auction as partners, the price paid +being in peanuts. A popular partner will sometimes bring as much as a +hundred and twenty-five peanuts; and why little Alfred Stoddard, who +never did anything in his life but get a musical degree at some tiny +college (there are even those who say that he bought the degree), who +reads catalogues and nurses his dignity while his wife works the farm, +should regularly fetch this fancy price, I never could see. + +“Oh, well!” says Sam Marston, “Alfred has them handsome, mournful dark +eyes. The ladies can’t resist ’em.” + +The three Watson farms lie to the east of the hill, right under its +rocky ledges, and are sheltered by it; indeed the whole of the beautiful +rounded valley which they occupy is rimmed entirely by low abrupt hills. +It must be an old lake bottom, for the last remnant of the lake, a pond +a hundred yards or so long, still sparkles bright blue in the midst of +it. + +Forty years ago Tristam Watson, with his wife and four children, three +boys, and Marcia, the youngest, went north two hundred miles, to the +Aroostook, when that region still lay under heavy forest. He built his +cabin among the first-growth pines, and cleared and planted among the +trees, burning and uprooting the stumps gradually, as he could. It was +pioneer life, with no roads and almost no neighbors. Bear and moose were +common, and deer more than common, and there were wolves in a hard +winter; but he was a hardy, vigorous man with hardy children, and he did +well. + +He had no idea of cutting himself and his family off from their home +ties. Nothing of the sort. The railroad ran only a short part of the +way, and they could not afford that part, but every year they hitched up +and _drove_ home, the whole distance. It took them about five days. They +had a little home-made tent, and they built their fire and set up their +gipsy housekeeping each night beside the road. If it rained, “why then +it rained,” Marcia says. The year was marked by this flight; it was +their great adventure, and apparently a perfect frolic, at least for the +children. They stayed two or three weeks, saw all the “folks,” and went +back to their strenuous forest life. + +Tristam died at about sixty, and the family came home, and took up the +three beautiful farms left to the sons by their grandparents. The two +elder sons married, the third stayed with his mother and sister. + +Not long after they came back, Marcia fell ill. There was a badly +aggravated strain, and she had measles and bronchitis, and after that, +as we say in the country, she “commenced ailing.” She changed in a year +from a blooming girl to the little thin, white-faced woman she is now +(though her black eyes never stopped twinkling). + +A long illness on an isolated farm is a bad thing for more than bodily +health. The Rural Free Delivery and Rural Telephone, and the lengthening +trolley lines, are bringing the most wholesome stir imaginable after the +old colorless days; but in old times the outlying farms too often held +pitiful brooding figures of women, sunk in depression. Marcia’s terror +was lest she should fall under this shadow. She had seen only too many +such cases, and the fear was beginning to realize itself, she often has +told me; but from its very danger her mind, fundamentally sane and +vigorous, plucked out its salvation. First absorbed in her own ailments, +she began to question her doctor about the cure of other diseases. Soon +she asked him for books on medicine. She read and studied, and then one +day she asked him to take her to see a suffering neighbor. To humor her, +he did, and almost at once, ill as she still was, she began to help +nursing patients on the neighboring farms. Once her mind took hold of +work, it cleared itself as the sky clears of clouds when the wind blows. +It was like a slender but vigorous-fibred little tree reaching out and +finding life-giving soil for itself. I do not believe she has an ounce +of extra strength, even now, and she is by no means always free from +pain, but she can do her work, and for five years she has been the most +sought-after nurse in half the county. + +She has an imp’s fun (and had, even when she was most ill) and can make +a groaning patient laugh, as she lays on hot compresses. As we drove +home that day in October, she told me how she had been outwitting her +brother. (He is a handsome blond-bearded fellow, with what is rare on +the farms, a carriage as erect as a soldier’s. He is far slower-natured +than Marcia.) + +“He’s been real tardy, this year, in getting the hams smoked, and he put +off building a smoke-house. He was all for hauling his lumber. Nothing +would do but that lumber must be hauled first, whether the pigs were +smoked, or whether they flew; and there were Mother and I in want of our +bacon.” + +He started out with the lumber. The moment his back was turned Marcia +pounced on his brand-new chicken coop (“he fusses like a woman buying a +bonnet, over his chicken coops”), which was just finished and right, and +smoked the meat for herself. + +“That man was fairly annoyed!” she told me demurely. + +Last spring the brother and sister shingled the barn roof together. +Leonard, the brother, was deliberate and painstaking, and Marcia in +triumph nailed his coat-tails to the roof, according to the time-honored +privilege of the shingle-nailer, if the shingle-layer lets himself get +caught up with. + +It was from Marcia and her brother that I first heard the expression +“var,” for balsam fir. This is our general country term; but I do not +know whether this is a survival of some older form, or a corruption. +Here in the Watson Hill neighborhood I have also heard the old-fashioned +word “suent,” meaning convenient, suitable, so familiar in dialect +stories of Somersetshire and Devon. + +It was well past the fall of the year before we drove Marcia home again, +and a wild autumn storm of wind and heavy rain had carried away all but +the last of the hanging leaves. The shores of the ponds and rivers +showed clear ashes-and-slate colors, and clear dark grays, but the +fields were the pale russet which lasts all winter under the snow. Beech +leaves were still hanging, a beautiful tender fawn color, and, of +course, oak leaves, and the gray birches were like puffs of pale yellow +smoke in among the purple and ashen woods. Crab-apples still hung, +withered red, on the trees, and the hips of the wild roses and haws of +the hawthorns, and the black alder berries, made little blurs of scarlet +in the swamps. Here and there the road dipped through small copses, bare +of leaves, where there were masses of clematis, carrying its tufts of +soft gray fluff, entwined among the bushes, and milkweed pods, just +letting out their shining silver-white silk. Witch-hazel was in flower +all through the woods. + +The evergreens showed up everywhere, in delicate vigorous beauty, and we +counted unguessed masses of pine among the hills. I think we always +expect a little sadness with the fall of the leaves, but instead there +is a sense of elation, with the greater spread of light and the wider +views opening everywhere. The wood roads showed more plainly than in +summer, and paths stood out green across the fields. The tender +unveiling of autumn had revealed the hidden topography of the forest, +and countless small ravines and slopes were suddenly made plain. There +were smaller, friendly revelations, too, for we came here and there, on +large and small nests, and saw where the vireos and warblers had had +their tiny housekeeping. + +Late ploughing was over, and hauling had begun. We passed a good many +loads of potatoes and apples, on their way to the railroad, and then a +load of wood, and one of balsam fir boughs, for banking the houses. The +wood was drawn by a pair of handsome black and cream-white oxen, and the +boughs by a pair of “old natives,” plain red brown. The potatoes and +fruit must all be hauled before the cold is too great. + +For the last three miles before the land opens out into the Watson +farms, the hills are covered with low woods, above which rises the +pointed head of Rattlesnake Hill, the only high land in sight. The woods +were like purplish fur over the hillsides, and nearer showed countless +perfect rounded gray rods and wands, like fine strokes of a brush. There +was a great shining of wet rocks and mossy places. It was one of those +still late-autumn mornings, perfectly clear after the rain, when the air +is as fragrant and full of life as in spring. + +Longfellow Pond lies in a hollow of the woods, three miles from +anywhere, a beautiful little wild wooded place, three-quarters of a mile +long, where wild duck come. Alas! when we came near, a portable saw-mill +was at work close to the shore! A high pile of warm-colored sawdust rose +already in the beautiful green of the pine wood. They had just felled +three big pines, and the new-cut butts showed white among the masses of +lopped branches. + +[Illustration: LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS] + +The stretch of wooded country about the pond lies in a belt or fold +between two prosperous farming districts, and has its own population, a +gipsy-looking set, living in the woods in little shacks, half-farmhouse, +half-shanty, with a few straggling chickens. The men of this place were +working for the operator of the saw-mill. It was dinner-time when we +came by, and half a dozen lithe dark young men were sitting about on the +log ends, eating their dinner, which some little dusky children had +brought them in pails and odd dishes. + +We walked down between the stacks of fragrant new-cut lumber to the edge +of the pond, which lay between its wooded shores, as blue as the sky, +sparkling in the sunshine. We could make out three duck at the farther +end of it. It is a pity to have the fine growth of pine cut, but it +grows fast again with us. Nobody cares for the lesser hard wood growths +in such an over-forested State as ours, and once the saw-mill is gone, +the pond will probably stay its wild lonely self, perhaps for ages. + +The last day that Marcia was with us she wanted to see the river, and we +went down and found the flood tide making strongly, two or three gulls +sailing peacefully about, and a late coal barge being towed down against +the tide. We had three days of still deep frost after this, and the next +day when I went down to a hill overlooking one of the most beautiful +reaches of the river, there it lay, a transparent gray mirror, not to +move again until April. All the colors of the banks were pearl and +ashen. Though it lay so still, it whispered and talked to itself +incessantly. There were little ringing gurgles, like the sound of a +glass water-hammer; now tinklings, now the fall of a tiny crystal +avalanche; with occasional deeper soft boomings and resoundings, and all +the time a whispered swish-swish along the banks, the sound of the soft +breaking and fall of the shell ice as the tide ebbed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV—EARLY WINTER. + + +Like the inside of a pearl; like the inside of a star-sapphire; like a +rainbow at twilight. We are in a white world, and save for the rich +warmth of the pines and hemlocks there is no color stronger than the +delicate penciling of the woods; but the whiteness is softened all day +by a frost-haze which the sunlight turns into silver. The horizon is +veiled with smoke-color and tender opal. It is as if the world retired +for a little to a space of softened sunrise colors, never hard or sharp; +lovely and unearthly as the clouds. We are so well to the north that in +winter we enter the sub-arctic borderland, the shadowy-twilight regions +of the two ends of the earth. + +It is a very still time of year, there is a wonderful uplifting quiet. +The sun burns low in the south, a mass of soft white fire, not blinding +as in summer; its light plainly that of a great low-hanging star. + +This is the dark season; but to make up for the shortness of the days we +are given such glories of sunrise and sunset, and such a glittering +brilliancy of stars, as come at no other time. All summer these belong +to farmers, shepherds, and sailors; but now even slug-abeds can be out +before first light, and watch the great stars fade, and dawn grow, and +then come back to that cozy and exciting feast, breakfast by candle and +fire light. + +You step out into the frosty dark, with Venus pulsing and burning like a +great lamp, and the snow luminous around you. The stars are like +diamonds, and the sky black, and lo! there is the Dipper, straight +overhead. It is night, yet not night, because of the whiteness of the +snow, and because the air is already alive with the coming morning. The +snow crunches sharply underfoot. The dry air tickles and tingles and +makes you cough. The street lamps are still bright, and here and there +the lighted windows of other early risers show a cheerful yellow in the +snow. It is a friendly time of day. Neighbors call good-morning to each +other in the dark, and sleigh-bells jingle past. Then you come home to +the firelight and the gay-lighted breakfast table, with dawn stealing up +fast, like lamplight spreading from the bright crack under a door. + +As the first shafts of sunlight strike across, they light up a million +frost-crystals. The air is alive with them, on all sides, delicate star +and wheel shapes, flashing like diamonds. This beautiful phenomenon +lasts only about half an hour. The fairy crystals, light as the air, +floating about you, vanish, but the snow continues to flash softly, from +countless tiny stars and facets, all day. + +Frost mists hover all day about our valley, the breath of the sleeping +river. They are drawn through our streets all day in veils and wisps of +softness. Smoke and steam clouds hold their shape long in the winter +temperatures. At night the smoke from the chimneys curls up in pale blue +columns in the rarefied air, against the dark but clear blue of the +winter night sky. By day the steam puffs from the locomotives rise +pinky-buff, or almost gold-color, and keep their shape for a few moments +as firm as thunderheads. + +This year, mid-winter for the sun is the moon’s midsummer. The full moon +rises and sets so far to the north that she completes full +three-quarters of the circle. At night she rides at the zenith, high and +small, and the snow fields seem illimitable and remote under her lonely +light. The expanse of snow so increases both sun and moon light that she +seems to rise while it is still broad day; and still to be shining with +full silver, in her unwonted northern station, after broad day again, at +dawn. + +We share some of the phenomena of light of the polar regions. Moon +rainbows are sometimes seen at night; and as this is the season of most +frequent mock suns—_par-helia_—so also mock +moons—_par-selenes_—half-nebulous, massed effects of softly bright +radiance, appear on the hovering frost mists; and sharply outlined lunar +halos herald snowstorms. + +Indeed the greatly increased extent of snow-expanse magnifies all +effects of light extraordinarily. + +At sunset, softened colors, “peach-blossom and dove-color,” like the +bands of a wide and diffused rainbow, appear in the _east_; this is the +sunset light, caught by the snowfields, and reflected on the eastern +clouds and mists. Not only this; the “old moon in the new moon’s arms,” +instead of being a blank mass, as in summer, is darkly luminous, so +greatly has the earth-shine on the moon been magnified. + +A winter night is never really dark. Thanks to the rarefied air, the +stars burn and blaze as at no other season; Sirius appearing to sparkle +with an even bluer light than in summer. You can tell time by a small +watch, easily, by starlight, with no other aid but the diffused glimmer +of the snow fields. + +The other morning an errand took my brother and me out early over the +long hill that makes the Height of Land to the west. There must have +been an amazing fall of frost-dew the night before, for we saw a sight +which I shall never forget; not only the twigs and the branches, but the +actual trunks of the trees, the stone-walls, and the roadside +shrubberies and seed-vessels, frosted with crystals like fern-fronds, +two inches or more long. There is a wood of pines at the crest of the +hill, and here not a green needle showed, not one bit of bark; the trees +rose pure white against the pure blue sky, over the white skyline of the +hill. Looking out over the country, all the woods were silver; +silver-white where the light took them, silver-gray in shadow. Light +flashed round us everywhere, so that it was almost dazzling, yet it was +softened light; stars, not diamonds. + +Once the snow comes, the neighborhood settles to a certain happy quiet. +It is as if winter laid a strong arm about us, encircling and soothing. +The dry air sparkles like wine. Dusk falls early; the wood fires on the +hearths burn bright, and the evenings beside them are never too long. It +is a neighborly time, and the long peaceful hours of work bring a sense +of achievement. + +Out on the farms, the year’s supply of wood is being cut. This, with +hauling the hay, and ice-cutting, makes the chief winter work; and the +men who are out chopping all day in the woods become hardy indeed. + +[Illustration: ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY] + +Ice-cutting on the river begins in January. The wide hollow of the river +valley is so white that the men and horses moving up and down stand out +in warm color; the strange snow silence makes an almost palpable +background to the cheerful and sharp sounds of work, the ring of metal, +the squeak of leather, the men’s shouts and talk, and the steady roar +which goes up from the ice ploughs and cutters. There are small portable +forges here and there for mending tools, at the fires of which the men +heat their coffee. The ice-cakes are clear blue, and they are lifted out +and started up the run in leisurely procession. Directly the first +cutting is made you have the startling sight of a field of bright blue +living water in the midst of the whiteness; while along the shore, the +rising tide often overflows the shore ice, in pools and rivulets, the +color of yellow-green jade. + +The work is done with heavy steel tools. First the ice must be marked, +then planed to a smooth surface, then grooved more deeply, and for the +last few inches sawed by hand with long ice-saws. It is pleasant work on +sunny days, and the men, who have mostly come in from the farms, like +its sociableness; but often the wind sweeps down the valley bitterly +cold, and then it is very severe, especially the work of keeping the +canals open at night. The ice generally runs to about two feet thick. + +The ice-business in our valley has fallen off since the formation of the +Ice Trust and the increased use of artificial ice. A great part of our +ice fields are only held in reserve now, in case the more southern ice +fails, but it still makes a winter harvest for us. The river towns must +always have their own ice, and the farmers who cut it get good pay for +their work and that of their horses. They speak of the work entirely in +farm terms. They “cultivate” the ice, and “harvest” the “crop.” + +Last week we made an expedition across country to where the beautiful +little chain of the Assimasqua ponds and streams lies between the ranges +of Maple Hill on the west, and Wrenn’s Mountain on the east; and there, +on Upper Assimasqua, was the same phenomenon of frost-crystals which we +saw on Dunnack Hill, only here it was on the ice. We thought at first +the pond was covered with snow, but as we walked out on it, we saw it +was frost, in such ice-flowers as I have never seen before. They were +like clusters of crystal fern-fronds, each frond an inch and a half to +two inches long. At first these flowers were scattered in clusters about +six inches apart over the black ice, but farther on they ran together +into a solid field of silver, a miniature forest of flashing fern or +palm fronds, so delicate and light it seemed as if they must bend with +the breeze. They outlined each crack in the ice with close garlands. We +could hardly bear to crush them as we walked through them. + +The four Assimasqua Ponds lie low between hills that are heavily wooded, +mostly with beech and hemlock. The shores are high and irregular and jut +out in narrow points, and these and the islands have small cliffs, of +gnarled and twisted strata, which the hemlocks overhang, in masses of +feathery green. + +There was something appealing and endearing in the beauty of this little +forest chain of lakes and streams, lying still and white between its +wooded shores. We crossed its wide surface on foot, and followed up the +course of the stream which whirled and tumbled so, only a month ago. +Every tiny reach and channel was ours to explore. It was as quiet as a +child lying asleep. + +We built a fire on the south shore of a headland, where a curve of the +gnarled cliffs enclosed a tiny beach, cooked bacon, and heated coffee. +Twenty yards from the shore there was a round hole, some eight inches +across, of black dimpling water. It had not been cut, but was natural, +being, I suppose, over a warm spring. The ice was so strong around it +that we could drink from it. + +It was so warm in the sun that we sat about bareheaded and barehanded, +yet not a frost-needle melted. The sunlight glinted on the hemlock +needles, all the way up the hillsides, and a balsamy sweetness seemed to +be all about us, mixed with the pungent smoke of our wood fire. + +The chickadees were busy all round us, making little bright chirrupy +sounds. We could hear blue-jays calling, deeper in the woods, and the +occasional “crake, crake, crake,” of a blue nuthatch. The dry winter +woods cracked and the pond rang and gurgled with pretty hollow noises. +The hemlocks had fruited heavily, and were hung all over with little +bright brown cones, like Christmas trees. They seem to give out fragrant +sunny health all winter, a dry thrifty vigor. + +We did not see a soul on all the Upper Ponds, and only fox tracks ran in +and out of the marsh-grasses of the stream, but on Lower Assimasqua +there were men cutting wood. They were cutting out beech and white and +yellow birch for firewood, and leaving the hemlock, which grew very +thick here. The cut wood stood about the slope in neatly piled +bright-colored stacks, with colored chips among the fallen branches, and +the axe blows rang sharp and musical in the winter silence. The men, who +were good-looking fellows, wore woolen or corduroy, with high moccasins, +and their sheepskin and mackinaw coats were thrown aside on the snow. +There were five or six of them, mostly young men, and one handsome older +man, with hawk features and a bright color, silver hair and beard, and +bright warm brown eyes. They had bread, doughnuts, and pie for their +dinner, and a jug of cider. + +The Lower is the largest of the four ponds. It is, perhaps, three miles +long by a mile wide, but it seemed almost limitless, under the snow, and +we felt like pygmy creatures, walking in the midst, with the unbroken +level stretching away around us. + +The sky was deepening into indescribable colors, peacock blue, peacock +gray, and in the middle of the expanse, over the woods, we saw the great +full moon, just rising clear out of the violet and opal tenebrae, the +fringes of the sky. She was as pale as a bubble, or as the palest pink +summer cloud, but gathered color fast, then poured her floods of silver. +The whiteness of the pond glimmered more and more strangely as dusk +increased. + +We came home, stiff and happy, to a great wood fire, piled in a wide and +deep fireplace, and to a room of firelight and evergreen-scented +shadows. + +That night a light rain fell, then turned to a busy snow-storm, which +fell for hours on the wet surfaces in thick soft-falling flakes, so that +by the next morning the world was a fairy forest of white. The trees +bent down under their feathery load. Wonderful low intricately crossed +branches were everywhere. Each littlest grove and clump of shrubbery +became a dense thicket of white. This fairy forest was close, close +round us, so that each street seemed magical and unfamiliar, a place +that we had never seen before. It was a perfectly hushed world. Our +footsteps made no sound, and even the masses from the overladen branches +came down silently. Everything but whiteness was obliterated; then at +night the moon came out clear again, and lighted up this fairy world, +and the white spirits of trees stood up against the gray-black sky. + +Ten days after this there followed a great ice-storm, when for two days +rain fell incessantly, and, as it fell, covered the twigs and branches +with crystal. It cleared on the third morning, and instead of white, we +were in a world of diamond. The dazzling brilliancy was almost more than +the eye could bear. Every blade of grass and seed-vessel was changed to +a crystal jewel, and the breeze set them tinkling. The sky was fairy +blue. The woods and all the fields flashed round us as we walked almost +spell-bound through their strange beauty. The wonder was that the whole +star-like world did not clash and ring as if with silver harp music. + +As the sun rose higher, the country was veiled with frost haze, but +through it, and beyond, we saw the shining of the crust on all the +distant hills. + + + + +CHAPTER XV—ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON + + +Assimasqua Mountain rises abruptly to the west of the four ponds, a +noble hill or range, five miles in length. + +The west shore of the Assimasqua lakes sweeps abruptly up to the high +crest of the ridge, which is very irregular. It is partly wooded, partly +half-grown-up pasture, partly ledge, and along the high grassy summit +small chasms open and lead away into deep woods of hemlock. The steep +east side is covered for most of its length with an amazing growth of +juniper, hundreds and hundreds of close-massed bushes of great size and +thickness. The ridge holds a number of little dark mountain tarns, and +half a dozen good brooks tumble down its sides in small cascades. The +folds of its forest skirts broaden out to the west into the bottom lands +at its feet. To the east, the valleys of the brooks deepen and sharpen +into ravines through the woods, as they draw near the lakes. + +The shores all about the four lakes, as I said, are heavily wooded, and +there are but one or two farms, and these only small clearings. A +singular person lived in one of them, who worked for years over a great +invention, a boat which was to utilize the wind by means of a windmill, +which in turn worked a small paddle-wheel. No one now knows whether he +had never heard of such a thing as a sail, or merely thought sails +dangerous. He was absorbed in his project; and he did get his boat to +go, in time, and at least a few times she trundled a clumsy course +around the lake. + +Near the south end of the Mountain is the old Hale place. Mr. Hale was a +gentle-looking man, very neat, with a quiet voice and ways. He kept his +wide fields finely cultivated, and had a large orchard, and twelve +Jersey cows. The lane through which they filed home at night is enclosed +between the two mightiest stump fences I have ever seen, fully ten feet +high, and a perfect wilderness to climb over. They look like the +brandished arms of witches, or like enormous antlers, against the sky, +and are thickly fringed all along their base with delicate Dicksonia +fern. Stump fences are fast becoming rare with us, and these must be the +over-turned stumps of first-growth pine. + +After Mr. and Mrs. Hale died, the farm passed to a sister, Mrs. Wrenn, +and when her husband, too, died—he had been a slack man, with no hold on +anything—she made the fatal mistake, too common among old people on the +farms, of making over the property to a kinsman (in this case, a married +step-niece and her husband) on condition of support. I never knew Mrs. +Wrenn, but a young farmer’s wife, a friend of mine, was anxious about +her troubles, and through her there came to our notice an incident which +seemed to light up the whole gray region of the farm. + +The neighbors began to hear rumors of neglect and abuse. Mrs. Wrenn was +never seen, and those who knew the skinflint ways of her entertainers +suspected trouble and presently confided their fears to the young doctor +of the neighborhood. He came at once, and found the poor soul in a fatal +illness, left alone in unspeakable dirt and squalor in a sort of +out-house, with unwashed bed-clothes, no one to feed or tend her, and +food which she could not touch put roughly beside her once a day. There +were signs too of actual rough handling. + +“Don’t try to make me live!” the old lady whispered, with command and +entreaty. “Don’t ye dare to keep me living,” and he assured her solemnly +that he would not, except in reason, and would only make her more +comfortable. He rated the bad woman in charge till he had her well +frightened, and then, though it was not only dark already, but raining +fast (and though he was poor himself, with his way to make and no +financial backing) he drove five miles to town and brought back and +installed a nurse at his own expense. + +“The tears were running down his cheeks,” the nurse herself told me, +“when he assured that poor old creature that either he or I would be +with her day and night, that we would never leave her, and she would be +safe with us. He paid my charges, and all supplies and food, out of his +own pocket. He saw her every day, and when her release came, he was +close beside her, and had her hand in his. He couldn’t have been more +tender to his own mother. And he gave that bad woman a part of what she +deserved.” + +I should like to say something more of this young physician. He started +as a farm boy, with no capital beyond insight and purpose, and skilled +hands, and was led to his career, or rather could not keep himself from +his career, because of the fire of pity and tenderness that possessed +him. He has come to honor and recognition now, but at the time of which +I write, and for years, he was known only to a thirty-mile circle of +farm people, a good part of them too poor to pay for any services. He +gave himself to them, without knowing that he was giving anything. He +was a born citizen, too, served as overseer of the poor, and as +selectman, and people consulted him about their quarrels and troubles. + +I spoke of the incident about Mrs. Wrenn, which the nurse had told me a +year or more after it happened, to the doctor’s wife, some weeks since. +He had never told her of it. Her eyes filled with tears. + +“That is just like him,” she said. + +The Ridge slopes down to the west, to the rich plains through which the +Marston communities are scattered—Marston Centre, North and West +Marston, Marston Plains. The “Four Marstons” are a notable district, for +Marston Academy had the luck to be founded, nearly a hundred years ago, +by persons of liberal education, and the dwellers in the comfortable +four-square brick houses of the neighborhood have more than kept up its +intellectual traditions; though the town has no railroad communication, +and only one mill, the shovel factory, since the old saw-mill which cut +the first-growth pines on the slopes of Assimasqua has been given up. + +The Marston saw-mill is chiefly remembered because of Hiram Andros, who +worked there as sawyer for forty-five years, and had the name of the +best judge of timber in the State. The _sawyer’s_ is a notable position. +He himself does no actual work, but stands near the saw, and in the +brief moment when each log is run on to the carriage, holds up the +requisite number of fingers to show whether it is to be a three, a four, +or five-inch timber, or cut into boards or planks; which cut will make +the best use of the log, with the least waste. The sawyer gets high pay, +six to ten dollars a day, and earns it, for on his single judgment, +delivered in that fraction of a minute, the mill’s prosperity hangs. + +What is it that gives a town so distinct a color and fibre? Marston +people have kept, generation after generation, a fine flavor and +distinction. They are in touch with the world, in the best sense, and +men of science and leaders of thought in university life, as well as +business magnates, have gone out from Marston, yet still feel they +belong there. + +Eliphalet Marston, who built and owned the shovel factory, made it his +study to produce the best shovel that could be made, the best wearing, +the soundest. In later life his son tried to induce him to go about +through the country, and look up his customers, to increase trade. The +son was very emphatic; it was what everyone did, the only way to keep +up-to-date and advertise the business, and Eliphalet must not become +moss-grown. He shook his head, but after much hammering started off, +though not really persuaded. He went to a big wholesale dealer in +Chicago, but did not mention his name, merely said he was there to talk +shovels. + +“Don’t mention shovels to me,” said the dealer. “There’s just one shovel +that’s worth having, just one that’s honest, and that’s the one that I’m +handling. There it is,” he said, producing it. “Look at it; that’s the +only _shovel_ that’s made in this country; made by a man named Marston, +at Marston Plains, State of ——” + +Eliphalet chuckled, and went home. + +The Barnards were Marston people, a brilliant but strange family; and +next door to the Barnards lived a remarkable woman, Miss Persis Wayland. +She was a tall handsome person, of a large frame. She lived to a great +age, passing all her later life alone, save for one attendant, in her +father’s large house, with its gardens and hedges around it. She was +well-to-do, and dressed with old-fashioned stateliness in heavy black +silk. + +She was a woman of fine understanding, and a trained scholar. She read +four languages easily, and at forty took up the study of Hebrew, that +she might have her Bible free from the perversions of translation. She +was about thirty when the religious temperament which was later to +dominate her first manifested itself. She has told me herself of her +experience. + +She had been conscious for years of a vague dissatisfaction, and of +life’s seeming empty and purposeless. She threw herself, first into +study, then into works of charity, in her effort to find peace. She rose +early, and worked till she was utterly worn out and exhausted, at her +Sunday School class, at missionary work, and till late hours at her +Spanish and Latin, all to no purpose. + +Then one day she found herself at a meeting at which a Methodist +evangelist (she herself was a strict Episcopalian) was to speak. She +went in without thought, from a chance impulse as she passed the door. +After the speaking, those who felt moved to do so were asked to come +forward and kneel; and as she knelt, she felt the breath of the Spirit +upon her forehead. + +“It was as plain as the touch of your hand and mine,” she said, as she +laid her handsome old hand on my fingers; and from that moment, all her +life, the light never left her, she felt “held round by an unspeakable +peace and sunshine.” + +She always held to her own church, but became more and more of a +Spiritualist, till she saw her rooms constantly thronged with the faces +of her childhood, father and mother, and the brothers and sisters and +playmates who had passed on. + +She gradually withdrew from active life, and for the last ten years, I +think, never stepped outside her door. She had a fine presence always, +rapt and stately. She was distantly glad to see friends who called upon +her, but never showed much human warmth. She lived till her +ninety-eighth year. + +[Illustration: THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT] + +In the farming country near Marston began the ministry of Clarissa Gray, +the beloved evangelist. An unusual experience in illness led this grave, +charming girl to thought apart upon the things of God, and as she grew +up, persons vexed in spirit began to turn to her for comfort. Her +personality was so tranquil and at rest that she seemed to diffuse a +sense of musing peace about her; yet she was not dreamy; her nature was +rather so limpidly clear that she was never pre-occupied, and she had +clear practical good-sense. Hard-drinking, violent men would yield to +her direct and fearless influence. Presently she was asked more and more +widely to lead in meeting, and to her unquestioning nature this came as +a clear call. Her voice, fervent and pure, led in prayer, her crystal +judgement solved problems, till without her ever knowing it the +community lay in the hollow of her small hands. + +I was last at Marston on a day of deep winter. We were to make a visit +in the town, and then explore the fields and woods of the west slopes of +Assimasqua. + +A marked change comes to us by the middle of January. We emerge from the +softened twilight world of earlier winter into a brilliancy of white, +with bright blue shadows. The deep snow is changed by the action of the +wind and its own weight, to a wonderful smooth firmness. It takes on +carved and graven shapes, and might be a sublimated building material, a +fairy alabaster or marble, fit to built the palaces in the clouds. After +each storm the snow-plough piles it, often above one’s head, on both +sides of the roads and sidewalks; we walk between high walls built of +blocks and masses of blue-shadowed white. + +The brightness is almost too great, through the middle of the day; it is +dazzling; but about sunset a curious opaque look falls on the landscape; +a flattening, till they are like the hues of old pastels, of all the +delicate colors. The country has an appearance of almost infinite space, +under the snow, and the wind carves out pure sharp wave-like curves of +drift about the fields and hills. + +The still air, dry and fiery, is like champagne. It almost _burns_, it +is so cold and pure. A great feeling of lightness comes to moccasined +feet, in walking in this rarefied air through powdery snow; but fingers +and toes quickly become numb without even feeling the cold. + +Starting early out of Marston Plains village, we passed a tall rounded +hill which had a grove of maples near its top, the countless fine lines +of their stems like the strings of some harp-like instrument. The light +breeze, hardly more than a stirring, made music through them. The +sunrise was hidden behind this hill, but the delicate bare trees were +lighted up as with a gold mist. + +As we entered the forest on the skirts of Assimasqua, the wind rose +outside. A fresh fall of snow the day before had weighted every branch +of the evergreens with piled-up whiteness, which now came down in bright +showers, the snow crystals glinting around us where stray sunbeams stole +down among the trees: but in the shelter of the great pines and hemlocks +not a breath of wind reached us, and the woods were held fast in the +snow hush, against which any chance sound rings out sharply. + +The bark of the different trees was like a set of fine etchings, the +yellow birches shining as if burnished; the patches of handsome dark +mosses on the ash-trees, and the fine-grained bark of lindens, ashes, +and hop-hornbeams stood out brightly. + +As we followed a wood road we heard chirruping and tweeting, and saw a +flock of pine siskins among the pine-tops, and later we heard the +vigorous tapping of a great pileated woodpecker. + +All the northern woodpeckers winter with us; as do bluejays, and +chickadees, (the “friendly birds” of the Indians); juncos and +nuthatches; and partridges, which burrow under the snow for roots and +berries, and are sometimes caught, poor things, by the foxes, when the +crust freezes over them. Crows stay with us through a very mild winter, +but more often are off to the sea, thirty miles distant, to grow fat on +periwinkles; and very rarely indeed a winter wren or a song-sparrow +remains with us. The beautiful cream-white snow-buntings, cross-bills, +fat handsome pine-grosbeaks, golden-crowned kinglets, brown-creepers, +and those pirates, the butcher birds, come for short winter visits. +Evening grosbeaks, and Bohemian wax-wings, we see more rarely. By the +end of February, when the cold may be deepest, the great owls are +already building, deep in the woods. + +Ever so many small sharp valleys and ravines were revealed among the +woods, some winding deep into the darkness of the pines and hemlocks. +Their perfect curves were made more perfect by the unbroken snow, and +they were flecked all over with the feathery blue shadows of their +trees. At the bottom of one we heard a musical tinkling, and found a +brook partly open. We scrambled down to it, and knelt there, watching +it, till we were half frozen. The ice was frosted deep with delicate +lace-work, and looking up underneath we saw a perfect wonderland of +organ-pipes and colonnades of crystal, through which the water tinkled +melodiously. + +We came out high on the north side of Assimasqua, in the sugaring grove +that spreads up the steep slope to the crest. The tall maples were very +beautiful in their winter bareness, and the slope about their feet was +massed with a close feathery growth of young balsam firs and hemlocks, +with openings between. The snow lay even with the eaves of the small +bark sugaring-shanty. The sight of a roof made the silence seem almost +palpable, but in March the hillside will have plenty of sound and stir, +for fires will be lighted and the big kettles swung, while the men come +and go on sledges. Sugaring goes on all through the countryside, and +even in the town boys are out with “spiles,” drilling the maple +“shade-trees,” as soon as the sap begins running. The bright drops fall +slowly, one by one, into the pail hung to the end of the spile, and the +sap is like the clearest spring water, with a refreshing woodsy +sweetness. + +The high rough crest of Assimasqua dominates a wide stretch of country. +The long sweep of the fields, and the lakes, lying asleep, showed +perfect, featureless white, as we stood looking down; but all about, and +in among them, the low broken hills, the knolls and ridges, bore scarfs +or mantles of smoke-colored bare woods, mixed with evergreens. + +All day the sky had been of an aquamarine color, of the liquid and +luminous clearness which comes only in mid-winter, and deep afternoon +shadows were falling as we came down the hillside. We were on +snow-shoes, and had brought a toboggan, as the last part of our way lay +down hill. The country was open below the sugaring grove, and the +unbroken snow masked all the contours and mouldings of the fields, so +that we found ourselves suddenly dropping into totally unrealized +hollows and skimming up unrealized hillocks. + +When we reached the small dome-like hill where we were to take the +cross-country trolley, the blue-green sky had changed to a pure +primrose, and in this, as the marvelous dusk of the snow fields deepened +about us, the thin golden sickle of the new moon, and then Venus, came +out slowly till they blazed above the horizon; the primrose hue changed +to a low band of burning orange beneath the fast-striding darkness, then +to a blue-green color, a robin’s egg blue, which showed liquid-clear +behind the pines; but long before we reached home the colors had +deepened into the peacock blue darkness of the winter night. + +Just before the distant whistle of the trolley broke the stillness, we +had a tiny adventure; we strayed over the brow of the hill, and came on +two baby foxes playing in the soft snow like kittens. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI—OUR TOWN + + +I + +The farms become smaller, and string along nearer and nearer each other, +the hills slope more and more sharply, till suddenly, there below them +lies our Town, held round in their embrace, its factory chimneys sending +up blossoms of steam, its host of scattered lights at night a company of +low-dropped stars. There is no visible boundary; but with the first +electric light pole there is a change, and something deeper-rooted than +its convenience and compactness, its theatres and trolleys, makes the +town’s life as different as possible from that of the farm districts. +Yet an affectionate relationship maintains itself between the two. Farm +neighbors bring in a little area of unhurried friendliness which clings +around their Concord wagons or pungs; hurrying townsfolk, stopping to +greet them, relax their tension and an exchange of jokes and chaff +begins. Leisurely, ample farm women settle down in our Rest Room for +friendly talk and laughter, and hot coffee or tea. + +Our dearest Town! We have perhaps some of the faults of all northern +places. We, at least we women, are sad _Marthas_, careful and troubled, +including house-cleaning with seed-time and harvest among the things +ordained not to fail, no matter at what cost of peace of mind and +health. We hug each our own fireside; but this is because, for eight +months of the year, the great cold gives us a habit of tension. We enjoy +too little the elixir of our still winter days, and hurry, hurry as we +go, to pop back to our warm hearths as fast as ever we can. + +Now and again through the year, the big cities call us with a Siren’s +voice. + +“My wife and I put in ten days at the Waldorf-Astoria each year, and we +count it good business,” says one of our tradesmen, and he speaks for +many. The clustered brilliancy at the entrances of the great theatres, +the shop windows, the sense of being _carried_ by the great current of +life, sets our feet and our pulses dancing; but I think it is not quite +so much the stir and gaiety which we sometimes thirst for as the +protecting insulation of the crowd, to draw breath in a little and let +the mind relax. The wall that guards one’s citadel of inner privacy +needs, in a small town, to be built of strong stuff; it is subjected to +hard wear. Indeed we share some of the privations of royalty, in that we +lead our whole lives in the public eye. We see each other walk past +every day, greet each other daily in shops and at street corners, and +meet each other’s good frocks and company manners at every church supper +and afternoon tea. It takes a nature with Heaven’s gift of +unconsciousness to withstand this wear and tear; yet there are plenty of +these among us, people of such quality and fibre that they keep a fine +aloofness and privacy of life, like sanctuary gardens within guardian +hedges. + +But if our closeness to each other has these slight drawbacks, it has +advantages that are unspeakably precious. Our neighbors’ joys and +troubles are of instant importance to us, each and all. In the city one +can look on while one’s neighbor dies or goes bankrupt. Too often, one +cannot help even where one would; here we _must_ help, whether we will +or no! We cannot get away from duties that are so imperative. Our +neighbor’s necessities are unescapable, and a certain soldierly quality +comes to us in that we cannot _choose_. + +An instinct, whether Puritan or Quaker, runs straight through us, which +at social gatherings draws men and women to the two sides of a room, as +a magnet draws needles. Perhaps it is merely the shyness inherent in +towns of small compass; in all the annals of small places, in Cranford, +in John Galt’s villages, the ladies bridle and simper, the gentlemen +“begin for to bash and to blush,” in each other’s society. Whatever it +is, it narrows and pinches communities, and does sometimes more +far-reaching harm than the mere stiffening-up of parties and gatherings; +it narrows the women’s habit of thought, so that children are deprived +of some of the wider outlook of citizenship; and the woman’s ministry of +cheering and soothing, which pours itself out without stint to all +_women_ in old age or sorrow or sickness, is too often withheld from the +men, who may be as lonely and troubled, and may be left forlorn and +uncheered. However, this foolish thing vanishes before rich and warm +natures, like snow in a March sun. + +I sometimes wish that our latch-strings hung a little more on the +outside. It is easier for us to give a party, with great effort, and our +ancestral china, than to have a friend drop in to share family supper; +yet there is something that makes for strength in this fine privacy of +each family’s circle, and no doubt, as our social occasions are +necessarily few, a certain formality is the more a real need. It “keeps +up.” + +One grave trouble runs through our community, and leaves a black trail. +Drink poisons the lives of too many of our working-men. + +The drain to the cities, which robs all small places of part of their +life’s blood, touches us nearly; the young wings must be tried, the +young feet take the road. The restless sand is in the shoes, and one out +of perhaps every twenty pairs sold in our street is to take a boy or +girl out to make a new home, far from father and mother. + +But this, although it robs us, is also our pride and strength. Many of +the boys and girls who have gone out from among us have become +torch-bearers, and their light shines back to us; and if the town’s +veins are drained, it is, by the very means which drain it, made part of +the arterial system of the whole country, and throbs with its heart +beats. The enormous variety of post-marks on our incoming mail tells its +absorbing story. + +There is no sameness, even in a small town. Here, as everywhere, the +Creator lays here and there His finger of difference; as if He said, +“Conformity is the law—and non-conformity.” Why should one clear-eyed +boy among us have been born with the voice and vision, and the +sorrow-and-reward-full consecration, of high poetry, rather than his +brothers? Why should another, of different bringing-up, among a din of +voices crying down the town’s possibilities, have had the wit and +enterprise, yes, and the vision, too, to build up, here, a vigorous +manufactory, whose wares, well planned and well made, now have their +market many States away? + +I think of a third boy, the child of a well-read, but not a studious +household, who at ten was laying hands on everything that he could find +to study in the branch of science to which his life was later to be +dedicated. He had the same surroundings as the rest of us, we went to +school and played at Indians together; and now, for years, in a distant +city, his life has led him daily upon voyages of thought, beyond the ken +of those who played with him. + +Another boy, our dear naturalist, also lives far away. His able, merry +brothers were the most practical creatures; so was he, too, but in +another way. He turned, a little grave-eyed child, to out-of-doors, as a +duck takes to water, caring for birds and beasts with a pure passion, as +absorbed in watching their ways as were the other boys in games and +food. It was nothing to him to miss a meal, or two, if a turtle’s eggs +might be hatching. He had very little to help him, for his father, a +very fine man, a master builder, failed in health early; but he helped +himself. He found countless little out-of-the-way jobs; he mounted trout +or partridges for older friends, caught bait, exchanged specimens +through magazines, etc., to keep himself out of doors, and to buy books +and collecting materials. By the time he was twelve he had a little +taxidermy business; and with the growth of technical skill, the finer +part, the naturalist’s seeing eye for infinite difference—the shading of +the moth’s wing, the marking of the wren’s egg—grew faster yet; and with +it the patient reverent absorption in the whole. + +People come to him now for accurate and delicate knowledge. His word +gives the authority which for so long he sought; and, at least once, he +has been sent by his Government to bring back a report of birds and +fishes, and to plant his country’s flag on a lone coral island. + +The other night we went to a play given by some of the school children. +Their orchestra played with spirit; and from the first we grew absorbed +in watching a little boy who played the bass drum. The bass drum! He +played the snare-drum, the triangle, the cymbals, a set of musical +rattles, and I do not know how many extraordinary things attached to +hand or feet, as well. Our northern music is choked in the sand of +over-business, prisoned by northern stiffness, but shy, stiff, awkward +though it may be, the divine thing is there, as groundwater is present +where there is land; and nothing can keep our children from buying +(generally with their own earnings) instruments of one sort or another, +and picking up lessons. + +I know this little boy. His father is a laborer, a slack man, down at +heels, but kind and indulgent. The boy is a chubby little soul, and he +accompanied the showy rag-time as Bach’s son might have played his +father’s masses, with a serious, reverent absorption, his little +unconscious face lighting up at any prettier change in the rag-time. +They live in a tiny cottage, and are well-fed, but very untidy. As the +humming bird finds honey, this child had somehow picked up odd pennies +to buy, and found time to master, his extraordinary collection of +instruments, and he sat playing as if in Heaven. Surely we had seen yet +another manifestation of the Power, which, together with the bright +fields of golden-rod and daisies, plants also the hidden lily in the +woods. + + +II + +Of the town’s politics, the less said the better, but in every matter +outside of their withering realm, I wonder how many other communities +there are in which public spirit is as much a matter of course as +drawing breath, where heart and soul are poured into the town’s needs so +royally. Our churches, our Library, our Rest Room, Board of Trade, and +Merchants’ Association have been earned by the hardest of hard work, +shoulder to shoulder. Most of our women do their own household work, all +of our men work long hours; but when there is question of a public work +to be done, people will pledge, gravely and with their eyes open, an +amount of work that would fairly stagger persons whose easier lives have +trained their fibres less hardily. I wonder what would be the +equivalent, in dollars and cents, of the gift to one of the town’s +undertakings, by a stalwart house-wife (who does all the work for a +family of five) of _every afternoon for three weeks_, and this in +December, when our Town loses its head in a perfect riot of Christmas +present-giving. + +What is it in politics, what can it be, which so poisons human +initiative at its well-springs? Here is public work which, we are told, +we must accept (must we?) as a corrupting and corrupt thing; it deadens +and poisons; and almost interlocking with it is work for the same town’s +good, done by the same people, which invigorates as if with new breath +and kindles a living fire among us. + +The peculiar problem of our town, the bitter, fighting quality of our +politics, is a mystery to ourselves. One condition which presses equally +hard on the whole State: the constant friction, and consequent moral +undermining, of a law constantly evaded: may be in part responsible. But +no doubt our intense, flint-and-steel individualism is the chief factor; +yet this individualism is also the sap, the very life-blood, of the +tree! + +(Surely things will be better when the ethics of citizenship is taught +to children as unequivocally as the duty of telling the truth.) + +With this citizen’s work, goes on a private kindness so beautiful that +one finds one’s self without words, uplifted and humbled before it; it +is as if, below the obstructions of our busy lives, there ran a river of +friendship, so strong, so single-purposed, that when the rock above it +is struck by need or adversity, its pure current wells forth and carries +everything before it. + +How many times have this or that old person’s last days been made +peaceful and tranquil, instead of torn with anxiety, by the hidden +action of “a few friends”: (ah, the fine and sweet reticence!); and +these not persons of means, but of slender purses; young men, among +others, with the new cares of marriage and children already heavy upon +them. + +Doctor’s bills “seen to”; a summer at the seashore, for a drooping young +mother, “arranged for”; the new home cozily furnished, and books and +clothing found, for a burnt-out household; a telephone installed, a year +at college provided for; a girl, not at fault, but in trouble, taken in +and made one of the family; these instances and their like crowd the +town’s unwritten annals. + +I must not seem to rate our dear Town too highly, or to claim that these +examples are anything out of the common, that they shine brighter than +the countless other unseen stars of the Milky Way of Kindness. I only +stand abashed before a bed-rock quality of friendship, which never wears +out nor tires; which gives and gives again, gravely, yet not counting +the cost, and does not withhold that last sharing of hearth and privacy, +before which so many dwellers in more sophisticated places cannot but +waver. + +Have I given too many examples? How can I withhold them! + +I think of the machine-tender and his wife, who, in a year of ill-health +and doctor’s bills for themselves and their two children, took in the +young wife of a fellow-worker who had lost his position; tended her when +her baby came, cared for mother and child for eight months, till a new +job was found. + +Of two households, who took in and made happy, the one a broken-down +artist who had fallen on evil times in a great city, the other a +sour-tempered old working woman, left without kin. The first household +have growing-up children, an automobile, horses, all the complexities of +well-to-do life in these days, but the tie of old friendship was the one +thing considered. The householders in the second case were not even near +friends, merely fellow church members, a kind man and wife, left without +children, who could not enjoy their warm house while old Hannah was +friendless. They tended her as they might have tended their own sister. + +Of the young teacher, alone in the world, who, when calamity came to two +married friends (a burnt house and office, and desperate illness) took +_all_ the savings that were to have gone for three years’ special +training, went to them, a three-days’ railroad journey, brought them +home, and bore all the household expenses of the young couple, and of +their baby’s coming, until new work was found. + +The cooking and housework for four persons, (together with a heavy +amount of neighborhood work,) would seem enough for even a very capable +and kind pair of hands. Well, one friend, in addition to this, for two +years cooked and carried in _all_ the meals for a neighbor (a good many +doors away), a crippled girl, a prey, heretofore, to torturing +dyspepsia. There was no chance of saving the girl’s life, she had a +fatal complaint, but thanks to this simple ministry, her last two years +were free from pain, and she was as happy a creature as could well be. + +These and like cases crowd to one’s mind, till the memories of the town +ring like a chime of bells. + +I remember how troubled we were about one neighbor, a gentle, sweet +lady, left the last of a large and affectionate family circle; how we +dreaded the loneliness for her. We need not have been troubled. There +was a place for her at every hearth in the neighborhood, and when the +long last illness set in, kind, pitiful hands of neighbors were close +about, soothing and tending her. One younger friend, like a daughter, +never left her, day after day. Her own people were all gone before her, +her harvest was gathered, there could be no more anguish of parting; and +her last years seemed, as one might say, carried forward on a sunny +river of friendship. + + +III + +People from sunnier climates speak sometimes of our lack of community +cheer and of festivals; but a temperature of twenty below zero—or even +twenty above—does not conduce to dancing on the green; and it may be +that the spirit’s light-footedness, like that of the outward person, is +hampered by many wrappings. Yet once in a while even we northern people +do “break out”; as on Fourth of July, when, in the early morning, the +“Antiques and Horribles,” masked and painted, ride, grinning, through +the streets. + +After a football victory, our High School boys, like boys everywhere, +break out in unorganized revel. They caper about in night-shirts put on +over their clothes, or in their mother’s and sisters’ skirts, and with +the girls as well, they dance down the street in a snake-dance. They +light a bonfire in the square, and sing, cheer, and frolic around it. +Though they do not know it, it is pure carnival. + +The long white months of winter see us all very busy and settled. This +is the time of year when solid reading is done, and sheets are hemmed, +when our Literary Societies write and read their papers, when we get up +plays and tableaux, and the best work is done in the schools. Nobody +minds the long evenings, the lamplight beside the open fires is so +infinitely cozy; and on moonlight nights, all winter, the long +double-runners slip past outside, with joyful laughter and clatter, as +the boys and girls—and their elders—take one hill after another in the +Mile Coast. + +With the breaking-up of the ice, all our settled order breaks up, too, +in the tremendous effort of Spring Cleaning. It is as chaotic within the +house as without. The furniture is huddled in the middle of the room, +swathed in sheets. The master of the house mourns and seeks, like a bird +robbed of its nest. We live in aprons and sweeping caps, and in mock +despair. The painter will not come; the step-ladder is broken; the +spare-room matting is too worn to be put down again; but every dimmest +corner of the attic, every picture and molding, every fragment of +put-away china, is shining and polished before the weary wives will take +rest. + +With the first warm-scented May nights, the children’s bedtime becomes +an indefinite hour. They are all out after dusk, like flights of +chimney-swallows. They run and race down the streets, they don’t know +why, and frolic like moths about the electric-light poles. + +Memorial Day, with its grave celebration, renews our citizenship. The +children are in the fields almost at sunrise, gathering scarlet +columbines in the hill crannies, yellow dog-tooth violets, buttercups in +the tall wet grass, stripping their mothers’ gardens of their brilliant +blaze of tulips, bending down the heavy, dewy heads of white and purple +lilacs. The matrons meet early at Grand Army Hall, and tie up and trim +bouquets and baskets busily till noon. The talk is sober, but cheerful, +and there is a realization of harvest-home and achievement, rather than +sadness. The little sacred procession marches past, to the sound of +music that is more elating than mournful. Later, after the marching, the +tired men find hot coffee and sandwiches ready for them. + +With summer, inconsequence and irresponsibility steal happily over the +town. Even in the shops and factories the work is not the same, for +employers and employees have become easy-going, and the business streets +look contentedly drowsy. Bricks and paving stones cannot keep out the +wafts of summer fragrance, and with them an ease and gayety, a _joie de +vivre_, diffuse themselves, which are astonishing after our winter +soberness. Our night-lunch carts, popcorn, and pink lemonade booths, +with their little flaring lights, are ugly, if compared, for instance, +to kindred things in Italy, but they manifest the same spirit. The +coming of a circus shows this feeling at its height, but it does not +need a circus to bring it out; and the Merry-go-round on one of our +wharves toots its gay little whistle all summer. Music, sometimes queer +and naive in expression, comes stealing out through the town. Our music +is never organized, but the strains of brass or string quartettes or a +small band, or of a little part singing, are heard of an evening. + +Everybody who can manage it goes down to the sea, if but for one day, +and the small excursion steamer is crowded on her daily trips to “The +Islands.” + +“It takes from trade,” remarks I. Scanlon, the teamster, “but you’ve +only got one life to live. At a time!” he adds reverently; and he and +his wife and six children travel down to a much-be-cottaged island, set +up their tent on the beach, and for a delicious, barefoot fortnight live +on fish of their own catching, and potatoes brought with them from home. + +We almost live on our lawns, and neighbors stray across to each other’s +piazzas for friendly talk, friendly silence, all through the warm summer +evenings. + +By October every string needs tautening. The still, keen weather takes +matters into its own hands, and we are brought back strictly to work. +Meetings are held, committees appointed, plans made for the winter’s +tasks, and soon each group is hard at it, for this and that missionary +barrel, this and that campaign; and at Thanksgiving the matrons meet +again at Grand Army Hall, to apportion and send out the Thanksgiving +Dinner. It is a privilege to be with the kind, able women, to watch +their capable hands, their shortcuts to the heart of the matter in +question, their easy authority, their large friendliness; in more cases +than not, their distinction of bearing as well. + +Thanksgiving once over, the pace quickens. Each church has its yearly +sale and supper at hand, for which months of faithful work have been +preparing, and these once worked off, the whole town, as I have said, +loses its head in a perfect fever of giving. What does anything matter +but happiness? Christmas is coming! Every man, woman, and child is a +hurrying Santa Claus. The first snow brings its strange hush, its +strange sheltering pureness, and the sleigh-bells begin once more to +jingle all about. During Christmas week hundreds of strings of colored +lights are hung across the business streets. Wreaths and garlands of +fragrant balsam fir, the very breath and expression of our countryside, +are hung everywhere, over shop windows and doorways, in every house +window, and on quiet mounds in the churchyard and cemetery. The +solemnity of the great festival, which is our Christmas, our All Saints’ +and All Souls’ in one, folds round us. + +The churches are all dark and sweet, like rich nests, with their heavy +fir garlands, lit up by candles. Pews that may be scantily filled at +most times are crowded to-night, for here are the boys and girls, +thronging home from business and college. Here are the three tall boys +of one household, whom we have not seen for a long time, and there are +four others. Here are girls home from boarding-school, rosy and sweet, +blossomed into full maidenhood, bringing a whiff of the city in their +furs and well-cut frocks. There is the only son of one family, who left +home a stripling, now back for the first time, a stalwart man, with his +young wife and three children. His little mother cannot see plainly, +through her happy tears; and there, and there, and there again, are +re-united households. + +The bells ring out, and after them comes the silver sound of the first +hymn. + +Of late, on Christmas evening, the choirs of the different churches have +begun the custom of meeting on the Common, to lead the crowd in hymns, +round the town Christmas Tree. Later they separate and go about singing +to different invalids and shut-ins, and many of the houses are lighted +up. + + “Silent Night! Holy Night!” + +So, within doors, we neighbors meet in reverent and thankful worship; +while without, the pure snow, the grave trees, the stars, bear their +enduring witness to that of which they, and we and our human worship, +are a part. + +Peace and good-will to our town, where it lies sheltered among its +hills. 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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. diff --git a/35956-0.zip b/35956-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a4f18a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/35956-0.zip diff --git a/35956-8.txt b/35956-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd50e03 --- /dev/null +++ b/35956-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4663 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Northern Countryside, by Rosalind Richards + +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: A Northern Countryside + +Author: Rosalind Richards + +Release Date: April 25, 2011 [EBook #35956] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD.] + + + + + A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + By + ROSALIND RICHARDS + Illustrated from photographs + by + BERTRAND H. WENTWORTH + + NEW YORK + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + 1916 + + + + + Copyright, 1916 + BY + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + Published April, 1916 + THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS + RAHWAY, N. J. + + + + + To + J. R., L. E. W., and L. T. S., + without whose help this small record + could not have been written. + + + + +PREFACE + +No one person can fitly describe a neighborhood, no matter how long +known, how well loved. Yet records of what is lovely and of good report +in a district should be treasured and preserved, however imperfectly. + +My father's name, not mine, should rightly be signed to these pages, for +it is his intimate knowledge of our countryside, loved and explored with +a boy's ardor and a naturalist's insight since childhood, which they +strive to set down. + +I have taken care to write almost wholly of two or more generations ago, +and of persons who, with few exceptions, have now passed out of this +life; and I have in all cases altered names, and shifted families from +one part of the county to another, to avoid possible annoyance to +surviving connections. It has even seemed best in some cases--though I +have done so with reluctance--to change the names of villages, of hills +and streams, as well. + +Beyond this, I have striven only to record faithfully the anecdotes and +memories that have come down to me. But no record, however faithful, can +be in any way adequate. The rays will be refracted by the medium of the +writer's personality; and the best that can be done will be but a small +mirrored fragment, before the daily repeated miracle of the living +reality. + + + + +CONTENTS + + - PREFACE + - CHAPTER I--A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + - CHAPTER II--THE RIVER + - CHAPTER III--THE BANKS OF THE RIVER + - CHAPTER IV--THE CAPTAINS + - CHAPTER V--BY THE ACUSHTICOOK + - CHAPTER VI--SPRING + - CHAPTER VII--THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + - CHAPTER VIII--RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR'S MILLS + - CHAPTER IX--MARY GUILFOYLE + - CHAPTER X--TRESUMPSCOTT POND + - CHAPTER XI--IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS + - CHAPTER XII--HARVEST + - CHAPTER XIII--WATSON'S HILL + - CHAPTER XIV--EARLY WINTER. + - CHAPTER XV--ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON + - CHAPTER XVI--OUR TOWN + +Thanks are due Mr. Bertrand H. Wentworth of Gardiner, Maine, for his +very kind permission to illustrate this book with reproductions of his +photographs. + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE + INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER'S COURSE + THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH + THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE + PLOUGHING MARY'S FIELD + ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND + THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES + THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN STACKS + THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES + LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS + ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY + THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT + + + + +A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + + +CHAPTER I--A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + + +Our county lies in a northern State, in the midst of one of those +districts known geographically as "regions of innumerable lakes." It is +in good part wooded--hilly, irregular country, not mountainous, but often +bold and marked in outline. Save for its lakes, strangers might pass +through it without especial notice; but its broken hills have a peculiar +intimacy and lovableness, and to us it is so beautiful that new wonder +falls on us year after year as we dwell in it. + +There is a marked trend of the land. I suppose the first landmark a bird +would distinguish in its flight would be our long, round-shouldered +ridges, running north and south. Driving across country, either eastward +or westward, you go up and up in leisurely rises, with plenty of fairly +level resting places between, up long calm shoulder after shoulder, to +the Height of Land. And there you take breath of wonder, for lo, before +you and below you, behold a whole new countryside framed by new hills. + +Sometimes the lower country thus revealed is in its turn broken into +lesser hills, or moulded into noble rounding valleys. Sometimes there +are stretches of intervale or old lake bottom, of real flat-land, a rare +beauty with us, on which the eyes rest with delight. More often than not +there is shining water, lake or pond or stream. Sometimes this lower +valley country extends for miles before the next range rises, so that +your glance travels restfully out over the wide spaces. Sometimes it is +little, like a cup. + +As you get up towards the Height of Land you come to what makes the +returning New Englander draw breath quickly, the pleasure is so +poignant: upland pastures dotted with juniper and boulders, and broken +by clumps of balsam fir and spruce. Most fragrant, most beloved places. +Dicksonia fern grows thick about the boulders. The pasturage is thin +June-grass, the color of beach sand, as it ripens, and in August this is +transformed to a queen's garden by the blossoming of blue asters and the +little _nemoralis_ golden-rod, which grew unnoticed all the earlier +summer. Often whole stretches of the slope are carpeted with mayflowers +and checkerberries, and as you climb higher, and meet the wind from the +other side of the ridge, your foot crunches on gray reindeer-moss. + +Last week, before climbing a small bare-peaked mountain, I turned aside +to explore a path which led through a field of scattered balsam firs, +with lady-fern growing thick about their feet. A little further on, the +firs were assembled in groups and clumps, and then group was joined to +group. The valley grew deeper and darker, and still the same small path +led on, till I found myself in the tallest and most solemn wood of firs +that I have ever seen. They were sixty feet high, needle-pointed, black, +and they filled the long hollow between the hills, like a dark river. + +The woods alternate with fields to clothe the hills and intervales and +valleys, and make a constant and lovely variety over the landscape. +Sometimes they seem a shore instead of a river. They jut out into the +meadowland, in capes and promontories, and stand in little islands, +clustered round an outcropping ledge or a boulder too big to be removed. +You are confronted everywhere with this meeting of the natural and +indented shore of the woods, close, feathery, impenetrable, with the +bays and inlets of field and pasture and meadow. The jutting portions +are apt to be made more sharp and marked by the most striking part of +our growth, the evergreens. There they grow, white pine and red pine, +black spruce, hemlock, and balsam fir, in lovely sisterhood. Their +needles shine in the sun. They taper perfectly, finished at every point, +clean, dry, and resinous; and the fragrance distilled from them by our +crystal air is as surely the very breath of New England as that of the +Spice Islands is the breath of the East. + +Our soil is often spoken of as barren, but this is only where it has +been neglected. Hay and apples give us abundant crops; indeed our apples +have made a name at home and abroad. Potatoes also give us a very fine +yield, and a great part of the State is rich in lumber. When it is left +to itself, the land reverts to wave after wave of luxuriant pine forest. +Forty miles east of us they are cutting out masts again where the +_Constitution's_ masts were cut. + +[Illustration: THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE] + +The apple orchards are scattered over the slopes. In the more upland +places, sheep are kept, and the sheep-pastures are often hillside +orchards of tall sugar maples. We have neat fields of oats and barley, +more or less scattered, and once in a while a buckwheat patch, while +every farm has a good cornfield, beans, pumpkins, and potatoes, besides +"the woman's" little patch of "garden truck." A good many bees are kept, +in colonies of gray hives under the apple trees. + +The people who live on the farms are, I suppose, much like farm people +everywhere. "Folks are folks"; yet, after being much with them, certain +qualities impress themselves upon one's notice as characteristic; they +have a dry sense of humor, and quaint and whimsical ways of expressing +it, and with this, a refinement of thought and speech that is almost +fastidious; a fine reticence about the physical aspects of life such as +is only found, I believe, in a strong race, a people drawing their vigor +from deep and untainted springs. I often wonder whether there is another +place in the world where women are sheltered from any possible +coarseness of expression with such considerate delicacy as they find +among the rough men on a New England farm. + +The life is so hard, the hours so necessarily long, in our harsh +climate, that small-natured persons too often become little more than +machines. They get through their work, and they save every penny they +can; and that is all. The Granges, however, are increasing a pleasant +and wholesome social element which is beyond price, and all winter you +meet sleighs full of rosy-cheeked families, driving to the Hall for +Grange Meeting, or Sunday Meeting, or for the weekly dance. + +Many of the farm people are large-minded enough to do their work well, +and still keep above and on top of it; and some of these stand up in a +sort of splendor. Their fibres have been seasoned in a life that calls +for all a man's powers. Their grave kind faces show that, living all +their lives in one place, they have taken the longest of all journeys, +and traveled deep into the un-map-able country of Life. I do not know +how to write fittingly of some of these older farm people; wise enough +to be simple, and deep-rooted as the trees that grow round them; so +strong and attuned to their work that the burdens of others grow light +in their presence, and life takes on its right and happier proportions +when one is with them. + +If the first impression of our country is its uniformity, the second and +amazing one is its surprises, its secret places. The long ridges +accentuate themselves suddenly into sharp slopes and steep cup-shaped +valleys, covered with sweet-fern and juniper. The wooded hills are often +full of hidden cliffs (rich gardens in themselves, they are so deep in +ferns and moss), and quick brooks run through them, so that you are +never long without the talk of one to keep you company. There are rocky +glens, where you meet cold, sweet air, the ceaseless comforting of a +waterfall, and moss on moss, to velvet depths of green. + +The ridges rise and slope and rise again with general likeness, but two +of them open amazingly to disclose the wide blue surface of our great +River. We are rich in rivers, and never have to journey far to reach +one, but I never can get quite used to the surprise of coming among the +hills on this broad strong full-running stream, with gulls circling over +it. + +One thing sets us apart from other regions: our wonderful lakes. They +lie all around us, so that from every hill-top you see their shining and +gleaming. It is as if the worn mirror of the glacier had been splintered +into a thousand shining fragments, and the common saying is that our +State is more than half water. They are so many that we call them +_ponds_, not lakes, whether they are two miles long, or ten, or +twenty.[1] I have counted over nine hundred on the State map, and then +given up counting. No one person could ever know them all; there still +would be new "Lost Ponds" and "New Found Lakes." + +The greater part of them lie in the unbroken woods, but countless +numbers are in open farming country. They run from great sunlit sheets +with many islands to the most perfect tiny hidden forest jewels, places +utterly lonely and apart, mirroring only the depths of the green woods. + +Each "pond," large or little, is a world in itself. You can almost +believe that the moon looks down on each with different radiance, that +the south wind has a special fragrance as it blows across each; and each +one has some peculiar, intimate beauty; deep bays, lovely and secluded +channels between wooded islands, or small curved beaches which shine +between dark headlands, lit up now and then by a camp fire. + +Hill after hill, round-shouldered ridge after ridge; low nearer the salt +water, increasing very gradually in height till they form the wild +amphitheatre of blue peaks in the northern part of the State; partly +farming country, and greater part wooded; this is our countryside, and +across it and in and out of the forests its countless lovely lakes shine +and its great rivers thread their tranquil way to the sea. + +----- +[1] The legal distinction in our State is not between ponds and lakes, +but between ponds and "Great Ponds." All land-locked waters over ten +acres in area are Great Ponds; in which the public have rights of +fishing, ice-cutting, etc. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE RIVER + + +Our river is one of the pair of kingly streams which traverse almost our +entire State from north to south. The first twenty-five miles of its +course, after leaving the great lake which it drains, is a tearing rapid +between rocky walls: then follows perhaps a hundred miles of alternating +falls and "dead water," the falls being now fast taken up as water +powers. It has eleven hundred feet to fall to reach the sea, and it does +most of this in its first thirty miles. + +The river's course through part of our county is marked by a noticeable +geological formation. For a space of fifteen miles, the greater and +lesser tributary streams have broken their way down through the western +ridge of the river valley in a succession of small chasms that are so +many true mountain defiles in little. They have the sharp descents and +extreme variety of slopes and counter-slopes, though with walls never +more than a hundred and fifty feet high. + +There are forty or fifty of these ravines, some nourishing strong +brooks, some a mere trickle, or a stream of green marsh and ferns where +water once ran. Acushticook, which threads the largest, is really a +river, and Rollingdam, Bombahook, and Worromontogus are all powerful +streams. Rollingdam follows a very private course, hidden in deep mossy +woods for several miles. The ravine presently deepens and becomes more +marked, descending in abrupt slopes, then narrows to a gorge, the rocky +sides of which are covered with moss and ferns, nourished by spray. The +brook runs through it in two or three short cascades, and falls sheer +and white to a pool, twelve feet below. + +Below our Town, the river sweeps on, steadily wider and nobler in +expanse, till it reaches the place where five other rivers pour their +streams into its waters, and it broadens into the sheet of Merrymeeting +Bay, three miles from shore to shore. + +Below the bay the channel narrows almost to a gorge. The sides are steep +and rocky, crowned with black growth of fir and spruce, and through this +space the swollen waters pour in great force. There are strong tide +races, in which the river steamers reel and tremble, and below this +there begins a perfect labyrinth of channels, some mere backwaters, some +leading through intricate passages among a hundred fairy islands. There +are cliffs, moss and fern-grown, and countless dark headlands. The +islands are heavily wooded with characteristic evergreen growth, dense, +fragrant, of a rich color, and they are ringed with cream-white granite +above the sea-weed, where the blue water circles them.--And so down, till +the first break of blue sea shows between the spruces. + +We never feel cut off, or too far inland, having our river. The actual +sea fog reaches us on a south wind, salt to the lips. Gulls come up all +the way from the sea, and save for the winter months, there is hardly a +day when you do not see four or five of them wheeling and circling; +while twice or thrice in a lifetime a gale brings us Mother Carey's +chickens, scudding low, or else worn out and resting after the storm. + +The river sleeps all winter under its white covering, but great cracks +go ringing and resounding up stream as the tide makes or ebbs, leaping +half a mile to a note, to tell of the life that is pulsing beneath; and +before the snow comes, you can watch, through the black ice, the drift +stuff move quietly beneath your feet with the tide as you skate. I have +read fine print through two feet of ice, from a bit of newspaper carried +along below by the current. One winter a dovekie lived for three weeks +by a small open space made by the eddy near some ledges; then a hard +freeze came, and the poor thing broke its neck, diving at the round +black space of ice which looked scarcely different from the same space +of open water. + +The river lies frozen for at least four months. The ice weakens with the +March thaws and rains. Then comes a night in April when the forces which +move the mountains are at work, and in the morning, lo, the chains are +broken. The great stream runs swift and brown and the ice cakes crowd +and jostle each other as they spin past. + +The river traffic goes steadily on through our three open seasons, and +with it a little of the longer perspective of all sea-faring life comes +to us, and off-sets the day-in-day-out of the town's shop and factory +routine. + +Our southern lumber is brought us by handsome three and four-masted +schooners, which take northern lumber and ice on the return voyage. The +other day two schooners, on their maiden voyage, white and trim as +yachts, were at the lumber wharf, the _Break of Day_ and the _Herald of +the Morning_. + +Our coal comes in the usual long ugly barges. One or two small excursion +steamers connect us with the nearer coast towns, forty miles distant, +and every day all summer, the one large passenger steamer which connects +us with the big coast cities, comes to or from our town. She takes her +tranquil way between the river hills, not without majesty, while the +water draws back from the shores as she passes and the high banks +reverberate to the peaceful thunder of her paddles. Like other river +towns, we have now a fleet of motor boats, in use for pleasure and small +fishing. + +Traffic on the river shrank immensely with the forming of the Ice Trust, +which holds our ice-fields now only as a reserve. We see three or four +tall schooners at a time now, where we used to count the riding lights +of a dozen at anchor in the channel. + +The greater part of our fleet of tugs is scattered. The _Resolute_ and +_Adelia_,--dear me, even their names are like old friends--the _Clara +Clarita_, the _City of Lynn_, the _Knickerbocker_, and the trim smart +twin tugs, _Charlie Lawrence_ and _Stella_, have gone to other waters. +The _Ice-King_ plies now in the coast-wise trade. Our lessened river +work is done by the _Seguin_, a large and handsome boat, the _Ariel_, a +T-wharf tug from Boston, and the _Sarah J. Green_, an ugly boat with a +smokestack too tall for her. + +The Government boat comes up in late April, while the river is still +very rapid, brown and swirling after the spring freshet, and sets the +channel buoys. We always thrill a little at her unwonted, sea-sounding +whistle. She comes again in November, takes up the buoys, and carries +them to some strange buoy paddock in one of the winter harbors, where +hundreds and hundreds of them are stacked and repainted. The names of +the revenue cutters in this service are prettily chosen, the _Lilac_, +_Geranium_, etc. + +Before the days of tugs, schooners and larger vessels sailed up and down +the thirty-odd navigable miles of our river under their own canvas, and +the traffic to and from Atlantic ports was carried on by packets: brigs, +schooners, and topsail schooners. One of the captains has told me that, +seventy-five years ago, on his first voyage, it took his brig seven days +to beat to the mouth of the river, a passage now made in six hours. It +must have been extremely difficult piloting. The channel is narrow in +many places, though the river itself is so wide. There are sand-bars, +mud-flats, and ledges. + +In my Father's childhood a curious, indeed a unique type of vessel, +known as a Waterville Sloop, plied between what was then (before the +building of the dams), the head of navigation, twenty-six miles above +us, and Boston, taking lumber and hay. They carried one square-rigged +mast, and sailed with lee-boards, like the Dutch galliots, and were in +fact a survival of the square-rigged sloops of old time, immortal in the +memories of the glorious Sloops of War, and in Turner's pictures. + +Once in a while you still see "pinkies," which were once so common: +small schooner-rigged vessels with a "pink" (probably originally a +_pinked_) stern, _i.e._, a stern rising to a point, with a crotch to +rest the boom in. + +Scows are rarer than they used to be, but they still carry on their +humble, casual lumber and hay business, sailing up with the flood-tide, +and tying up for the ebb. They are sloop-rigged, quite smart-looking +under sail, and sail with lee-boards, like the Waterville Sloops. + +The Lobster Smack, a tiny two-masted schooner, not more than thirty feet +long, comes once a week in the season, and we buy our lobsters on the +wharf and carry them home all sprawling, and are delighted when we get a +little sea-weed with them. + +The laborers of the river are the dredges, pile-drivers, and their kind. +They must see to the journeyman's work that keeps the river's traffic +unhampered. They drive piers and jetties and dredge out sand-bars. They +go and come, unnoticed by smarter vessels, laden heavily with broken +stone, sand, or gravel. They are dingy powerful boats, fitted with a +derrick and hoist or other machinery. They carry big rope buffers at bow +and sides, and in spite of this their bulwarks are splintered and +scarred where they have been jammed against wharves and knocked about. +There is no fresh paint or bright brass about them, they are grimy +citizens, but are all strong and seaworthy. Sometimes the Captain is +also owner; sometimes one man owns a whole little fleet, of two dredges, +say, and a small tug, named perhaps after wife and daughters, as in one +case I know, the _Nellie_, _Sophia_, and _Doris_. This is the family +venture, followed with as much anxious pride in "our Vessels" as if the +fleet were Cunarders. + +One day what should come up the river but a white schooner, tapering and +tall, and glistening with new masts and cordage, bearing a fairy cargo +of shells and corals. The rare shells, some of them costly museum +pieces, were to be sold to collectors, if any were to be found along our +northern harbors, while others, as beautiful as flowers or sunset +clouds, the children might have for a few pennies. + +The Captain was a young Spaniard, very dark, and as handsome, grave, and +simple in bearing, as a Spanish Captain should be. His men seemed to +adore him, and to obey the turn of his eyelashes. They all gave us a +charming welcome, especially to the children. It was a leisurely and +pleasant little venture. I do not know whether it brought in profit, but +all the town flocked to the schooner, day after day, for the week that +she stayed with us. + +The rafts come down the river when they please. They look about as easy +to manoeuvre as an ice-house, but the flannel-shirted lumbermen who +operate them, two to a raft, seem unconcerned, and scull away at their +long "sweeps," in the apparently hopeless task of keeping their clumsy +craft off the shallows. With the breaking up of the ice, stray logs, +escaped from the holding booms, come down stream. The moment the +ice-cakes are out of the river, even before, you begin to notice shabby +old row-boats tied up and waiting at the mouth of every stream and +"guzzle"; and as soon as a log whirls down amongst the confusion of ice, +you will see boats put out, perhaps with a couple of boys, or else some +old humped-up fellow, in a coat green with age, rowing cross-handed, +nosing out like an old pickerel watching for minnows. The logs that are +missed drift about till they are water-logged, when they sink little by +little, and at last become what are known as "tide-waiters," or +"tide-rollers," _i.e._ snags drifting above, or resting partly on, the +bottom, a menace to vessels. + +There are holding booms at different turns of the river, with odd shabby +little house-boats for the rafts-men moored beside them; and what are +these called but _gundalows_, an old, old "Down-east" corruption of +_gondola_; whether in derision, or in ignorance, is not now known. +Sometimes they are fitted up with some coziness, perhaps with white +curtains and a little fresh paint, and I have even seen geraniums at +their windows. + +Another brand-new schooner, the _William D'Arcy_, tied up at our lumber +wharf this last spring, and lay there for nearly a week. We all went on +board her. She lay at the sheltered side of the wharf, out of the cold +wind, and the sun poured down on her. The smell of salt and cordage was +so strong that you could almost feel the lift of her bows to the swell, +but there she lay, as quiet as if she had never lifted to a wave at all. +The men were at work at various jobs; no one was in a hurry; it plainly +made no difference whether they were two days at the wharf or ten. + +The bulwarks and outside fittings, anchors, hawsers, and hawse-holes, +seemed wonderfully large to our landsman eyes, and the inside fittings, +lockers, etc., as wonderfully small and compact. The enormous masts were +of new yellow Oregon pine. + +The Captain welcomed us hospitably, and took us down into his cabin, +which was fitted with shelves, lockers, and cupboards, neat and compact, +all brand-new and shining with varnish. There was a shelf of books, the +table had a red cover and reading lamp, and the wife's work-basket stood +on it, with some mending. She had gone "upstreet" for her marketing. + +"Oh," said one of us, "it looks so homelike and cozy!" + +The Captain looked round it complacently, but with remembering eyes that +spoke of many things. He had been cruising all winter. + +"It looks so to you," he said, "but often it ain't." + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE BANKS OF THE RIVER + + +The river-bank boys pick up, as easily as they breathe, knowledge as +miscellaneous as the drift piled on the shores. They know all the shoals +and principal eddies, without the aid of buoys. They know the ways and +seasons of the different fish. They learn to recognize the owner's marks +on the logs, and they know the times and ways of all the humbler as well +as the larger river craft, the scows and smacks, and the "gundalows" +which spend mysterious month after month hauled up among the sedges at +the mouths of the streams. Their own row-boats are heavy, square at both +ends, and clumsy to row, but as I have said, they are out in them in the +spring before the floating ice is out of the river, rescuing logs and +fragments of lumber from between the ice-cakes. + +There is a good deal to the business of picking up logs. The price for +returning "strays" to the right owners is ten cents a log (the rate +increasing as you go down stream), and a good many can be towed at once +by a small boat. The price per log rises to twenty-five cents, near the +sea. In times of high freshet, the up-river booms often break, and then +there is a tremendous to-do at the mouth of the river: men, women, and +children, all who can handle or half-handle a dory, are at work at +log-rescuing. Incoming ships have found the surface of the ocean brown +with logs at these times, and have a great work to get through them. + +Logs that have lost their marks are called "scalawags," and these are +sold for the benefit of the log-driving company. Hollow-hearted _pine_ +logs are known by the curious term "concussy," or "conquassy." To show +the immense change in the prices of lumber, the best pine lumber, which +in 1870 was worth ten dollars a thousand feet, is now one hundred +dollars a thousand. + +Now and then a boy takes to the river so strongly that he makes his life +work out of its teachings. The captains and engineers of most of our +river and harbor steamers, and of bigger craft, too, began life as +riverbank boys. Some of them take to fishing in earnest, some become +lumbermen, or go into the Coast-Survey service, or the Rivers and +Harbors; and the winter work on the ice leads to an interesting life for +a good many others. Once in a while one of these boys goes far from +home. We have had word of one and another, serving as pilot or engineer +in Japanese, Brazilian, and East Indian waters. + +The three Tucker brothers, Joel, Reuel, and Amos, three finely-built +men, all worked up to be registered pilots. Joel, the eldest, was pilot +of an ocean-going steamer all his life. He grew very stout, and had a +fine nautical presence, in blue cloth and brass buttons. Reuel was lazy. +He never went higher than small raft-towing tugs, and he often gave up +his work and loafed about, fishing. He was the man who swam five miles +down river, and stopped then because he was bored, not because he was +tired. Amos, the finest of them, a gallant looking fellow, with very +bright blue eyes, was a pilot for a good many years, and then a foreman +in the ice business. He was a man of such shining kindness that he was +always up to the handle in work in the heart of his town, as selectman, +honorary and volunteer overseer of the poor, and helper-out in general. +In a case of all-night nursing, in a poor family, where a man's strength +was needed, Amos was on hand, rubbing his eyes, but watchful and ready. +Once, when a neighbor's wife had to be taken to the Insane Hospital, +Amos undertook the sad task, and his gentleness made it just bearable. +Parents looked to him for help in the care of a bad or unruly boy. + +Then there were the Tracys, who ran--and still run--a queer little ferry +at Jonestown, "according to seasons." When the ice begins to break up +they row the passengers across, somehow, in a heavy flat-boat, between +the ice cakes. Their regular boat, in which they embark wagons and even +a motor, is a large scow pulled across by a chain, with a sail to help +when the wind serves. The Tracys' ferry is, I think, unique for one +regulation; man and wife go as one fare. + +Some of the river bank people are mere squatters. _The_ squatter, as we +called him, _par excellence_, pulled the logs and bits for his dwelling +actually out of the river, as a muskrat collects bits of drift for his +house. He was a Frenchman, and such a house as he built! Part tar-paper, +part bark, part clay bank, the rest logs, barrel-staves, and a few +railroad sleepers. But there he lived, on a tiny level plot under the +railroad bank, so near the river that each spring freshet threatened +entire destruction. He made or acquired a boat that matched his house, +and presently he brought not only his wife and children, but two +brothers and an old mother to live with him. The women contrived some +tiny garden patches on the slopes of the river bank, and with the rich +silt of the stream these throve wonderfully. The men fished, and +"odd-jobbed" about. + +Then came the Great Freshet. Dear me! shall we ever forget it? We woke +one March night to hear every bell in town ringing, while a long ominous +whistle repeated the terrifying signal of the freshet alarm. + +There was a confusion of sounds from the river, wild crashings and +grindings and thunders, as the ice broke up in its full strength, with a +noise almost like cannon. + +The water rose and rose. By daybreak it was up to the shop-counters in +the street, and people paddled in and out of the shops in canoes, +rescuing their goods. The ice-cakes were piled ten feet high on our +unfortunate railroad. Then a great holding-boom broke, a mile up river. +A twenty-foot wall of logs swept round the bend, and the watchers on the +roofs and raised platforms saw it splinter and carry out the Town Bridge +as if it had been kindlings. + +Sheds and boat-houses and wharfing were whirled past all day in the +tumble of ice cakes. Like other people in danger, the Squatter carried +out his gipsy household goods, and moved up town with his family; all +but the old French mother. She would not be moved, but sat in the middle +of the road on a backless chair, watching her dwelling. She could have +done nothing to save it, but nothing could tear her away. The rain +poured all that day and the next. Some one lent her a big broken +umbrella, and there she sat. I could think of nothing but a forlorn old +eaves swallow, watching the place where her mud dwelling was being torn +off. + +By some miracle of the eddy, however, the house stayed intact; but soon +after they all moved away, to safer, and, I believe, more comfortable +quarters. + +The Lamont family lived a mile north of the Town. They had a ramshackle +house and barn, in a bit of open meadow by the mouth of one of the +brooks. You might say of the Lamonts that they were so steeped in river +mud that every bone of them was lazy and easy and slack. There were the +father and mother, and seven children. They were as unkempt and ragged +as could be, but they always seemed cheerful and smiling, and the +younger children were fat as little dumplings. The three eldest were +shambling young men; they and the father seemed perfectly content with a +little fishing and odd-jobbing, and now and then one of them took a turn +as deck-hand or stevedore, or--as a last resort--as farm-hand. The girls +and the mother dug and sold dandelion greens, dock, and thoroughwort and +other old-fashioned simples. + +None of them had ever gone to school a day beyond the time required by +law, and they kept the truant officer busy at that; then all of a sudden +the youngest and fattest Lamont, whose incongruous name was Hernaldo, +appeared at the High School. He was an imperturbable child, and quite +dull, but he worked with a cheerful slow patience. He only held on for a +year, but no one had imagined he could keep on for so long, and he did +not do badly. + +The elders died before the younger children were quite grown, and the +family scattered; one night, after it had been empty a year or two, the +ramshackle house burned, leaving the barn standing. + +One morning about ten years afterwards a radiant being appeared at the +High School, a fat young man in frock coat and tall hat, who came +forward and shook hands effusively. It was Hernaldo Lamont! He was now +_chef_, it appeared, at one of the great California hotels through the +winters, and in Vancouver in summer, at a very large salary. A pretty +girl, charmingly dressed, whom he introduced as his wife, waited +modestly at the door. + +His clothes were quite wonderful. He was shining with soap and with +fashion, and so full of warmth and of pleasure. He brought out colored +photographs of his two fat little children, told of his staff and his +patrons, beamed upon everyone, and showed his pretty wife all about our +plain High School, admiring and reverent. I think that if it had been +Oxford he could not have been prouder, and indeed Oxford could never be +to the average student a place of higher achievement than High School to +a Lamont! + +He was so simple and kindly that I believe he would have taken his wife +to the Lamont shanty as happily. The Lamont barn is still standing, +grown up with tall nettles and dandelions. A farmer uses it for his +extra hay, mowed in the low rich patches of river meadow. Tramps sleep +in the hay, and quantities of barn-swallows flash in and out of the +empty windows. + +Long ago our River was one of the great salmon streams of the country. +In my great grandfather's time agreements between apprentices and +servants, and their employers, held the stipulation that the employees +should not have to eat salmon _above five times in the week_; and the +fish were used for fertilizing the fields. There are none now at all, +and the sturgeon fishing, which in my father's boyhood used to make +summer nights on the River a time of torchlit adventure, is over too, +though still late on a summer afternoon you may see now and then a +silver flash, and hear a crash, as the huge creature jumps; and only +last week two sturgeon of over eight hundred pounds weight each were +brought in right near the Town Bridge. They were caught by two +hard-working lads, and brought them a little fortune, for they were sold +in New York for over $250. + +Not even the flight of the birds from the south, unbelievable in wonder +as this is, is more miraculous than the run of the fish, from the vast +spaces of ocean up all our fresh-water streams for hundreds of miles. +Their bright thousands find their way unerringly, up into the heart of +the country. No one knows whence they come, and save for an occasional +straggler, no one has ever taken salmon or shad or ale-wife in deep +water. We know their passage up-stream, but no one knows when they take +their way down again. + +The smelts run up, when winter is still at its height. They are caught +through holes in the ice. The men build huts of boards or of boughs, +each round his own smelt hole. They build a fire on the ice, or have a +kerosene lantern or lamp, and fish thus all day in fair comfort. They +catch smelts by thousands, so that our town's people, who can eat them +not two hours out of the water, are spoiled for the smelts which are +called fresh in cities. Tom-cod come up a little ahead of the smelts. + +Soon after the ice goes out, while the water is still very rapid and +turgid, the alewives run up, and they are as good eating as smelts, +though too full of bones. They are smoked slightly, but not salted. +About this time, too, the smaller boys begin catching yellow-perch at +the mouths of the brooks. These, and tom-cod, are not thought worth +putting on the market, but they are crisp little fish, and a string of +them, thirteen for twelve cents, makes a good supper.[2] + +Suckers also come with the opening of the brooks. The discovery has been +made lately, that these fish, which New Englanders despise (quite +wrongly, for if well cooked they are firm and good), are prized by the +Jewish population of some of the bigger cities, and bring a good price. +A ton and a half of suckers were shipped from our river this season. + +Our royal fish are the shad, which arrive in the middle of May, when the +woods are all blossoming. The May river is full of their great silvery +squadrons. They are caught at night, in drift nets, by hundreds. Most of +them are shipped away, but our Town must and does eat as many as +possible. One family, who know what they like, practically abjure all +other solid food for the shad season! + +Of all our fish, eels are the most mysterious; for they go _down_ river +to the ocean (out of the fresh water streams and lakes) to spawn, +instead of coming up. No one knows what mysterious depths they +penetrate, but it is said that baby eels are found in one and two +thousand fathoms of water. By midsummer they are about six inches long, +and are running home up the brooks. They wriggle up waterfalls and scale +the sheer faces of dams. They stay three or four years in their inland +home, growing to full size, and in September, the fat grown-up eels run +down the streams again, to spawn in the sea. This is the time when they +are caught at dams and in mill streams, and shipped to the big cities in +quantities. Our biggest paper mill, not long ago, was shut down entirely +because of the eels, which got in through the flumes by hundreds, and +stopped the water wheels. + +The taking of the Acushticook eels is now a regular industry, and this +came about rather sadly. Stephen Mitchell, the millwright of the +Acushticook paper mill, was a fine man, with a turn for inventing. His +ideas were sound and a good many of his mechanical devices turned out +excellently. He became interested in explosives, and worked for a long +time at a new method for capping torpedoes. He had been warned time and +again, and such an intelligent man must have realized perfectly the +danger of work with explosive materials, but one day an accident +happened. There was an explosion which took not only both hands, but his +eyes. + +I think everyone in the town felt sickened by the accident, and by the +prospect of helpless invalidism ahead of a fine active man. But Stephen, +as soon as his wounds healed, began looking for something to do. + +The Acushticook eels had always been fished for in a desultory fashion, +and Stephen cast about for a way to make the fishing amount to more. The +mill owners did all in their power to help him. They gladly gave him the +sole right of the use of the stream, and helped him in building his dam. +He had also a grant from the Legislature. He hired good workers, and for +many years he and his wife, who was a master hand, lived happily and +successfully on their fishery. Sometimes two tons of eels were shipped +in the course of the autumn. + +Stephen always was cheerful. He could see enough difference between +light and darkness to find his way about town, and he was so quick to +recognize voices that you forgot his blindness. He kept among people a +great deal, and was an animated talker at town gatherings. He was an +opinionated man, but a fine and upright one. After his death his widow +kept on with the fishery, and she still runs it with profit. + +----- +[2] Both tom-cod and perch are now shipped to the cities in quantities. + + + + +CHAPTER IV.--THE CAPTAINS + + +You would never think now that tall Indiamen were once built here in our +town, but they were, and sailed hence round the world away, and we too +boasted our wharves, with the once-familiar notice: + +"All ships required to cock-a-bill their yards before lying at this +dock." + +The last ship built in the town was the _Valley Forge_, launched about +1860; the last built at Bowman's Point, two miles above, was the _Two +Brothers_. The _Valley Forge_ for ten whole years was never out of +Eastern waters, plying between China and Sumatra, and the seaports of +the Inland Sea. + +Mr. Peter Simons, one of our early magnates, and "ship's husband," of +many vessels (kind, merry, handsome Mr. Peter, he never was husband to +anyone but his ships), took a treasure voyage to the Spanish Main once, +and brought home a moderate sized treasure, some of the doubloons of +which are preserved in his family to this day. + +Ship-building was the chief industry of the place. There were four +principal ship-yards. The skippers as well as the lumber came from close +at hand. It seems a wonderful thing, in these stay-at-home times, that +keen young lads from the farms could have been, at twenty-one, in +command of full-rigged ships, fearlessly making their way, in prosperous +trade, to places that might as well be in Mars, for all most of us know +of them to-day: but Java and the Spice Islands, Shanghai, Tasmania, and +the Moluccas were household words in those days, and you still hear a +sentence now and then which shows the one-time familiarity of ways which +have passed from our knowledge. + +The portraits at the house of Captain George Annable, the last of our +clipper-ship captains, were painted in Antwerp. So were those (very +queer ones), at Captain Charles Aiken's, and at Captain Andrews'. It +appears now in talk with Captain Annable that _of course_ they were +painted at Antwerp, for that was where the American skippers as a rule +wintered. Living there was better and cheaper for them and their +families than at any other foreign port. It became the custom to winter +at Antwerp, and there grew to be an American society there. + +Captain Annable has crossed the Atlantic sixty-three times, sailing +clipper mail-ships. + +The Captains are nearly all gone now. Little trace of the ship-yards +remains, and even the wharves from which the Indiamen sailed have +rotted, and been replaced by the lumber and coal wharves of to-day; but +all through the countryside you come on touches of the shipping days, +and of the East, as startling as a sudden fragrance of sandalwood in +some old cabinet. At one house I know there is a collection of +butterflies and moths of the Far East, with two cream-colored Atlas +moths eight inches from tip to tip. At another there is a set of +rice-paper paintings of the orders of the Japanese nobility and gentry, +with full insignia of state robes, which ought to be in a museum; and +the parlor of a third neighbor, the gracious widow of a sea-captain, +has, besides carved teak furniture and Chinese embroideries, a set of +carved ivory chessmen fit for a palace. The king and queen stand over +eight inches high. The castles are true elephant-and-castles, and the +pawns are tiny mounted and turbaned warriors, brandishing scimitars. The +figures stand on carved open-work balls-within-balls, four +deep--"Laborious Orient ivory, sphere in sphere"--as delicate as +frost-work. This set was bought in Shanghai, when the foreign compound +still had its guard of soldiers, and the Chinese thronged the doorways +to stare at the "white devils." + +The great gold-figured lacquer cabinet, the pride of one of our +statelier houses, was brought from China a hundred years ago, by a young +Captain Jameson, who was coming home for his wedding. He sailed again +with his bride immediately after the marriage, and their ship never was +heard of. The cabinet was sold, and then sold again, till it finally +reached the setting which fits it so well. + +You find lacquered Indian teapoys, Eastern porcelains, shells and corals +from all round the world far out in scattered farmhouses; and farm-hands +are still summoned to meals by a blast on a conch-shell, a queer note, +not unlike the belling of an elk. + +Beside the actual china and embroideries and carvings, something of the +character bred in the seafaring days has spread, like nourishing silt, +through our countryside. The Captains were grave, quiet men. They had +power of command, and keenness in emergency. Contact with many people of +many nations quickened their perceptions and gave them charming manners; +but more than this, there was something large-minded and tranquil about +them. All their lives they had to deal with an element stronger than +themselves. The next day's work could never be planned or calculated on, +and something of the detached quality which comes from dealing with the +sea, a long and simple perspective towards human affairs, became part of +them. + +An expression of married life, so beautiful that I can never forget it, +came from the lips of the widow of one of our sea-captains, a little old +lady, now over eighty, who lives alone in a tiny brick cottage (where +she has accomplished the almost unique feat of making English ivy +flourish in our sub-arctic climate). She wears a wonderful cap, and +fills her house with quilts and cushions of silk patch-work which would +make a kaleidoscope blink. I had an errand to her about a poorer +neighbor, one Thanksgiving time. Her house is an outlying one, and I +remember how the farm lights, scattered all about our river hills, shone +in the soft autumn evening. + +Her bright warm kitchen was coziness itself, with a shiny stove, full to +the brim with red coals, and a big lamp. She sat with her cat on her +knee, sewing on an orange and green cushion, made in queer little puffs, +and she jumped up, dropping thimble, and spectacles, in her warm-hearted +welcome. After my errand, we fell into talk, about "Cap'n," and their +long voyaging together. That was when the Captains as a matter of course +took their wives, and often their children, with them, keeping a cow on +board for the family's use, and sometimes chickens and pigs. Many babies +who grew to be sturdy citizens were born on the high seas in those days. + +She told about long peaceful days, slipping through the Trades, and +about gales, but mostly about china and pottery, for this was their +hobby, almost their passion. They took inconvenient journeys of great +length to see new potteries, and hoped at last to see all the sea-board +china factories, in East and West. She showed me her treasures, pretty +bits of Sevres, majolica, Doulton, and Wedgewood, all standing together, +and among them an alabaster model of the leaning tower of Pisa (Pysa, +she called it). At last, with a lowered voice, she spoke of the worst +danger they had ever been through, a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal. The +ship lay dismasted, and the waves broke over her helplessness. She was +lifted up and dashed down like a log, and every soul on board expected +only to perish. + +"Cap'n come downstairs to our cabin: + +"Oh, Mary," he says, "if only you was to home! I could die easy if only +you was to home!" + +"I be to home!" I says. "If I had the wings of a dove, I wouldn't be +anywheres but where I be!" + +This ranks with the epitaph at Nantucket: + +"Think what a wife should be, and she was that!" + +Another seafaring friend was, as so often happens, the last person whom +you would ever connect with adventures, a little lady so tiny, so +dainty, that a trip across the lawn with garden gloves and hat, to tie +up her roses, might have been her longest excursion; but instead she has +sailed round and round the world with her courtly sea-captain father, +has lifted her quiet gray eyes to see coral islands and spice islands, +and the strange mountain ranges of the East Indies. + +"She wore white mostly when we were in the Trades or the Tropics," her +father has told me, "and she sat on deck all day, with her white +fancy-work. She always seemed to like whatever was happening." + +One day, in a fog with a heavy sea running, the ship ran on a reef. The +life-saving crew got the men off with great difficulty, but the Captain +refused to leave his post, and little Miss Jessie refused too. + +"No, thank you," she said, in her soft voice, "No, thanks very much, I +think I will stay with the Captain." + +"And you couldn't move her," he said, "any more than the rock of +Gibraltar." + +With the night the storm lessened, and almost by a miracle the ship was +got off safely next morning. + +I must tell of one more seafaring couple, who lived down the river in a +low white cottage where "Captain," retired from service, could watch +vessels passing, even without his handsome brass-bound binoculars, a +much-prized tribute for life-saving. + +The wife was long paralyzed, and the Captain, with the simple-minded +nephew they had adopted, tended her as he might have tended an adored +child. He bought her silk waists, fine aprons, little frills of one sort +or another, fastened them on her with clumsy, loving fingers, and then +would sit back, laughing with pride, while the paralyzed woman, with her +wrecked face, managed to make uncouth sounds of pleasure. + +"Don't she look handsome? Don't she look nice as anybody?" he would ask +of the neighbors, and show the new wig he had bought her, as the poor +hair was thin. His simple pride thought it as beautiful as any young +girl's curls, and indeed it was very youthful. One's heart was wrung, +yet uplifted, too, for here was love which had passed through the +absolute wrecking of life, and was untouched. + +The Captain was a tall hearty man, but it was he who died first, after +all, and all in a minute. The paralyzed creature thus bereaved, moaned, +day after day; her eyes seemed to be asking for something, there in the +room, and no one could find the right thing, till someone thought of the +Captain's binoculars, which he always had by him. From that moment she +became tranquil, and even grew happy again, if only she had the bright +brass thing where her poor hand could touch it. If it was moved, she +moaned for it to be set back. It was her precious token, from his hand +to hers. With it beside her she could wait and be good, poor dear soul, +until, in about two years, her release came, and she went to join +"Captain." + +One word more about Mr. Peter Simons, of whom the town keeps pleasant +memories. He lived handsomely, in a handsome house overlooking the +river, and his housekeeper, Deborah Twycross, was as much of a magnate +in her own way as himself. Mr. Peter was very high with her; but he +stood in awe of her, too. Still, he never would let her engage his +second servant, a privilege which she coveted. + +In his young days a "hired girl" received $2.00 a week wages, if she +could milk, $1.50 if she could not. By the time Mr. Peter was +established in stately bachelor housekeeping no girl was any longer +expected to milk, and few knew how. But when engaging a servant, if he +did not like the applicant's looks, Mr. Peter would say, + +"Can you milk?" + +Of course, she could not, and there the matter would end. He never asked +a girl whose looks he liked, if she could milk! + +He was a man of endless secret benevolence, and posed all the time as a +hard-fisted person and a miser. He was at the most devious pains to +conceal his constant kindnesses. The noble minister who at that time +carried our Town on his young shoulders, received sums of money, in +every time of need, for library, schools, or cases of poverty and +suffering, directed in a variety of elaborately disguised handwritings. +He was able in time to trace them all to Mr. Peter. Many a struggling +young man was set on his feet and established in life by this secret +benefactor; and after Mr. Peter's death, his coal dealer told how for +years he had had orders to deliver loads of coal to this and that family +in distress, after dark, and as noiselessly as possible, under an +agreement of secrecy, enforced by such threats that he never dared +disobey. + +The Town has changed since Mr. Peter's day. Boys no longer brave the +terrors of a visit to a White Witch to have their warts charmed, or a +toothache healed. ("Mother Hatch," who plied her arts some thirty years +ago, was the last of these. Her appliances for fortune-telling were the +correct ones of cards, an ink-well, and a glass to gaze in; but a small +trembling sufferer in knickerbockers--a hero to the still more trembling +group of friends and eggers-on outside--did not benefit by these higher +mysteries. The enchantress, beside her traffic in the black arts, took +in washing; she would withdraw her hands from the suds, and lay a +reeking finger on the offending tooth, the patient gasping and shutting +his terror-stricken eyes while she recited a sufficient incantation.) + +Even the memory of the Whipping-post, which still stood in Mr. Peter's +childhood, has long since vanished. The town bell is no longer rung at +seven in the morning and at noon, and a steam fire-whistle has replaced +the tocsin of alarm that formerly was rung from all the church steeples; +but the curfew still rings every night, at nine in the evening (the bell +which rings it was made by Paul Revere); and, among the customary +Scriptural-sounding offices of fence-viewers, field-drivers, measurers +of wood and bark, etc., the town still has a town crier. A very few +years ago it still had a pound-keeper and hog-reeve, but by now the +outlines of the pound itself have disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER V--BY THE ACUSHTICOOK + + +A smaller river, the Acushticook, tumbles and foams down through the +midst of our town, and brings us the wonderfully soft pure water of a +chain of over twenty lakes and ponds. It flung the hills apart to join +the larger stream which it meets at right angles at the Town Bridge, and +the last mile of its course is through a beautiful small gorge, in a +succession of falls, now compacted into the eight dams which turn our +mills. + +Above the falls, though it breaks into occasional rapids, its course is +quieter, and as you travel towards the setting sun, your canoe follows a +peaceful stream, running for the most part through woods. + +The country along the Acushticook is broken and hilly, woods or open +pastures full of boulders and junipers. The farms depend on their stock +and apple orchards for their prosperity. You see big chicken yards, and +the more enterprising farmers send their eggs and broilers to city +markets. Pigs do well among the apple trees, and most of the farms have +ducks and geese as well as chickens. A well-trodden road follows the +crest of the ridge, parallel to the river. + +The Baxters, good, silent people, live well out on this road, and +handsome Ambrose Baxter has a thriving milk route. Sefami Baxter, his +uncle, worked in the paper mill his whole life, and now his son, young +Sefami, has built up a good market garden business on the Acushticook +road. He started it years ago with a tiny greenhouse, which he built on +to his farm kitchen. He raised tomatoes and other seedlings, and early +lettuce. It was an innovation in our part of the world, and neighbors +shook their heads; but one bit of greenhouse was added to another, and +now Sefami has three long stacks of them and is a prosperous man. He has +a whole field of rhubarb and a large orchard, where he keeps twenty +hives of bees. He had no capital beyond the savings of a plain working +family, and he had to find his market for himself. + +The Drews, now old people, live beyond Ambrose Baxter, and life has been +a more poignant thing for them than for most of the farm neighbors. +Their boy, Lawrence, was born for learning. He _foamed_ to it, as a +stream rushes down hill, and he had the vision and faithfulness which +lead to high and lonely places. The parents were industrious and frugal, +and Lawrence was the channel through which everything they had, mind and +ambitions as well as savings, poured itself out. As a boy, he was all +ardor and eagerness. Now he is a tall careworn man of fifty, unmarried, +with hair and beard streaked with gray. He is a man of importance in +many ways beside that of his own department in a great Western +university. He is a good son, and comes home to the comfortable white +farmhouse for every day in the year that it is possible, but his +parents, of necessity, have had to grow old without him, and their look, +in speaking of him, is one of acceptance, as well as of a high pride. + +Acushticook has changed her course from time to time through the +centuries, and about five miles from town a stretch of flat land which +must once have been either intervale along the river's course or one of +its many small lakes, lies pocketed among the hills. This stretch, which +is very fertile, belongs, or belonged, to the Dunnacks, and they were +surely a family which will be remembered. They never pretended to be +anything more than plain farming people, but they were marked by a +personal dignity and refinement, even fastidiousness, by their +intelligence, and alas, by their many sorrows. Old Warren Dunnack was a +farmer of substance. His son, the Warren Dunnack of our time, was nearly +all his life in charge of the "Homestead" (one of the few country places +in our neighborhood), during the long absence abroad of its owners. He +married a beautiful woman, Sarah Brant. She was a magnificent creature, +in a hard, almost animal sort of way, but was a shallow person, with a +vain nature, coveting show, fine food and clothes, and she broke +Warren's heart. He took her back again and again after her many flights, +for he had an unconquerable chivalry and gentleness for all women, and +he let her have everything that he could earn. + +[Illustration: INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER'S COURSE] + +Lucretia was the beauty of the family, a slip of a girl with eyes like +black diamonds. She married a showy business man, who turned out badly. +She came home, a handsome and embittered older woman, and made life +uncomfortable for herself and everyone else on the farm. Afterwards she +became companion to a widow of some means, a fantastic person, and they +lived together (unharmoniously) all their days. + +Delia, who was so pretty, though not striking like Lucretia, married +silly Ephraim Simmons; but her affection for her brother Warren was the +abiding thing of her life. When Warren's wife left him, and Delia was +offered the position of housekeeper at the Homestead, she took it, and +there she and Warren kept house for fifteen years. Two good-natured +slack daughters (they were all Simmons; not a trace of their mother's +fire in them) helped Ephraim with his farm, and he certainly needed the +money that their mother earned. He was a poor enough farmer; but his +foolish face used to look wistful when he drove the six miles, every +other Saturday, to see Delia. + +Delia, for her part, never seemed anything but clear as to her duty. She +drove over now and then to see Ephraim, and sent her money to him and +the girls, or put it in the bank for them, but her heart clave to her +brother. She kept the long delightfully rambling house, and he kept the +farm, lawns, and gardens, punctiliously in order for the owners who +never came; and the honeysuckles blossomed in the corner of the great +dark hedges, the lilies opened, and the grapes ripened and dropped on +the sunny terraces of the garden as the unmarked years went by. I think +that Delia's life was one of untroubled serenity. Warren was a grave +man, and his trouble with his wife underlay all his days, but with Delia +he found a rare companionship and understanding. Their sitting-room in +the ell of the big house was a gathering place for the farm neighbors. +There was a deep fireplace, a table with a big lamp, a sofa, high-backed +arm-chairs with worsted-work cushions and tidies, and windows filled +with blossoming plants. + +Warren died after a lingering illness, which he met with his usual grave +cheerfulness, and Delia went back to Ephraim on the Acushticook road. +Whatever she thought of the difference between the Homestead and the +bare little farm, between Warren and Ephraim, she met the change with +the charming, half-whimsical philosophy that was hers through life. She +had pretty ways, and an unconquerable sense of fun. She lived to be +nearly eighty. She was a fine, fine woman; delicately organized, but of +such vigorous fibre that she struck her roots deep into life, and gave +out good to everyone who came near her. She was a magnet, drawing people +by her warmth and sweetness. + +It was to poor, good, hard-working John Dunnack that actual tragedy +came. He was a plain dull man, of a far humbler stripe than his +brothers. Misfortune came to his only child, a young adopted daughter. +He lost his place at the mill not long after, from age. He was eighty +years old. It was too much. His mind failed, and he took his own life. + +A cheerful family, the Greenleafs, live next beyond the Dunnacks. They +keep bees on a large scale, and "Greenleaf Honey," in pretty-shaped +glass jars, with a green beech leaf on the label, has had its +established market for two generations. They also grew cherries for +market, nearly as large as damsons. + +Harvey Greenleaf had luck, and has what our people know as "gumption," +and "git-up-and-git," and Mrs. Greenleaf, a fair, ample person, is a +born woman of business. Once a neighbor, a farm hand, who had been +discharged for slackness, planted buckwheat in a small clearing next the +Greenleafs', out of spite. (Buckwheat honey is unmarketable, because of +its marked peculiar flavor, and its dark color.) Harvey was away at the +County Grange Meeting--he was Master of his Grange that year--at the time +it flowered. Two little girls, out picking wild raspberries, brought +word of the trouble. + +"Mis' Greenleaf! Mis' Greenleaf! There's buckwheat in blow at Jasper +Derry's clearing, an' it's full of your bees!" + +Mrs. Greenleaf harnessed up the old white mare herself, and drove over +to the offender's house. No one knows how she dealt with him, but the +buckwheat was cut before night. Harvey chuckles, and says she swung the +scythe herself. Not much harm was done, and only a little of the yield +turned out to have been injured by the buckwheat. + +There are no rules about the planting of buckwheat near bee-hives. It is +a matter of good feeling and neighborliness, and buckwheat is seldom +grown where a neighbor keeps bees for profit; but it is impossible to +guard against the trouble entirely and I have known a whole season's +yield to be discolored with honey brought from buckwheat, nine miles +from the hives. + +One early morning this June, as we were at breakfast on the piazza, a +boy came round the corner of the house, and asked if we wanted "a quart +of wild strawberries, a pint of cream, and a dozen of Mother's fresh +rolls, for forty cents!" We certainly did; and in the driveway we saw +"Mother" waiting in the wagon, an alert-looking woman with a friendly +face. She told us that she was Harvey Greenleaf's daughter-in-law, and +the boy her eldest son. + +"I think there's lots of small extra business that folks can do on the +farms, if they're spry, that sets things ahead a lot," she said, _ +propos_ of the strawberries. + +The rolls were as light as feather, and the cream very thick. We +arranged for the same bargain twice a week while the berry season +lasted! + +In the autumn the same couple came again, this time with vegetables and +fruit, nicely arranged, and with small cakes of fresh cream cheese done +up in waxed paper in neat packages, each package stamped with S. +Greenleaf, Eagle Cliff Farm. This is a new venture in our part of the +country. + +A mile of beautiful pasture, on a big scale, as smooth as an English +down, slopes down from the back of the Greenleafs' farm, rises in a +noble ridge, and slopes again to where the Acushticook sparkles and +dances over some thirty yards of rapids. The turf is close cropped and +there are boulders and groups of half-sized firs and spruces scattered +over the slope. There is a little wood in the upper corner, cool and +shadowy, with a brooklet set deep in mosses, trickling through the +midst. The pasture road leads through the firs and hemlocks, growing +closer and more feathery, then through this wood, where Lady's Slippers +grow. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--SPRING + + +April 3. Last night the river "went out." We were so used, all winter, +to its sleeping whiteness, that it seemed as unlikely to change as the +outlines of the hills; then came a tumultuous week, and now it is a +brown, strong, full-running stream, with swirls and whirlpools of +hastening current all over its wide surface. These are indescribable +days. The air is sweet with wet bark and melting snow and +newly-uncovered earth. The lesser streams are rushing and roaring +through the woods. There are little clear dark foam-topped pools under +all the spouts, and bright drops falling from rocks and roofs, where +there were icicles so lately; and the roads endure miniature floods, +from the torrents of snow-water that gush down their gutters and spread +the mud in fan-shapes over them. Wherever you stand, you cannot get away +from the rushing and trickling and rilling. The whole frozen strength of +winter is breaking up in a wealth of life-giving waters. + +There is a neglected-looking time for the fields just after the snow +goes. The snow-patches recede and leave the soaked grass covered with +odds and ends of loose sticks and roots and with untidy wefts of cobweb. +The dead leaves lie limp and dank, and are of lovely but sad colors, +soft browns and umbers, ash-grays and ash-purples; but in the midst of +this waste the ponds are all awake--dimpling, soft water, tender and +alive--and their bright blue is a new wonder after our winter world of +white and brown and gray. + +Robins came yesterday. Their crisp voices woke us with a start, after +the winter's silence. They were busy all over the lawn, and nearly a +week ago we heard the first blue-birds and meadow-larks. + +The fir boughs that were banked about the houses last fall, for warmth, +must be burnt, and bonfires are being lighted all about the fields and +gardens. They blaze up into a crackling roar of burning brush, and the +smoke comes pouring and creaming out in thick white torrents. The clean, +hilarious smell spreads everywhere, the touch of it clings to our hair +and clothing. This is a wonderful, Indian time for children, when all +sorts of strange inherited knowledge stirs in them. Look at their eyes, +as they play and plan round their fires! + +[Illustration: THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH] + +Cumulus clouds came back, as always, with late winter. Through the +autumn, and early winter, clear days are practically cloudless; and +cloud-masses, cirrus, not cumulus, herald and follow storms; but with +February, the clear-weather summer clouds return. They begin to be trim +again, and marshaled, and take up the ordered leisurely sailing of their +pretty squadrons. + +April 10. + +There is already a general warming and yellowing of twigs. The elm tops +are growing feathery and show a warm brown, and a crimson-coral mist +begins to flush over the low-lying woods, where the swamp maples are in +flower. Pussy-willows are as thick on their twigs as drops after a rain, +and as silvery. You would say at first that nothing had changed yet in +the main forest. The brown aisles and misty dark hollows seem the same, +but no; fringed about the openings and coverts along their borders the +birch and alder catkins are in flower. They are powdery and +gold-colored, and overhead they dangle like the tails of little fairy +sheep against the sky. + +The wild geese woke us in the dark, just before dawn, this morning. Last +year there was a violent snow-storm, a perfect smothering whirl of +flakes, the night they flew over, and the great birds were beaten down +among the house-tops, creakling and honkling in dismay and confusion, +but holding on their way. + +Now at dusk comes the first silvery evening whistling of the frogs, the +peepers. If a cloud passes over the sun, even as early as three in the +afternoon, they start up as if at a signal, all together, and as the sun +shines out again fall instantly silent. + +May 3. + +All this time the green has been spreading and spreading through the +pastures till now it clothes them, and the dandelions are scattered over +them like a king's largesse. Dew falls all winter, but it is in star and +fern shapes of frost; now every morning and evening the thick grass is +pearled again with a million nourishing drops. + +Now rainbow colors begin to show over the hillsides. It is as if a +thousand and a thousand tiny butterflies, pink and cream color and +living green and crimson, had alighted in the woods. Light comes through +them, and they give back light, from the shining, fine down that covers +them. The little leaves are almost like clear jewels against the sun, +beaded all over the twigs. They only make a slightly dotted veil as yet, +they do not hide or screen. You can see as far into the wood-openings as +in winter. The brown stems and branches are as delicate and distinct as +those of a bed of maiden-hair fern. + +The roadside willows are puffs of gold-green smoke, the sapling birches +and quaking aspens like green mounting flames up the hillsides, and the +catkins of the canoe birches shine like the mist of gold sparks from a +rocket. + +The different trees develop by different stages, and each stands out in +turn against its fellows, as if illuminated, before it loses itself in +the growing sea of green. You see its full leafy shape, the mass of each +round top, as at no other time of year; yet the individual habit of +branching is still manifest, as in winter: the long springing sprays of +the swamp maples, the more compact strong branches of the oaks, the +maze-like firm twigs of the hop-hornbeams, lying in whorls and layers. +The branchlets of the beeches are like thorns. The elms are soft brown +spirits of trees throughout the woods; their entire fern-like outline is +silhouetted, and the swamp maples stand like delicate living shapes of +bronze. + +Innocents are out in patches in the pastures, looking as if white powder +had been spilt. Purple and white hepaticas are clustered in crannies of +the rocks, and after a rain mayflowers stand up thick, thick in the +fields, in masses of pink and white fragrance. Blood-root covers whole +banks with snow-white, and dog-tooth violets, littlest of lilies, nod +their yellow-and-brown prettiness over the slopes carpeted with their +strange mottled leaves. + +Shad-bush is out now in fairy white, tasseled over knolls and hillsides +and overhanging wooded banks along the streams. Its opening leaves are +reddish, delicately serrate, and finely downy. The pure white flowers +are loosely starred all over it. They are long-petaled and lightly hung, +and the tree is slender and very pliable, the whole thing suggesting a +delicate raggedness, as if young Spring went lightly on bare feet with +fluttering clothes. + +This is the most fairy-scented time of the whole year. "The wood-bine +spices are wafted abroad," indeed. The willows perfume the lanes with +their intoxicating sweetness; and there is a cool pure dawn-like +fragrance everywhere, from the countless millions of opening leaves, +steeped every night with dew. + +Last week we saw the first swallows. There they skimmed and flew, as if +they had never gone to other skies at all. Their flight is so +effortless, they seem to pour and stream down unseen cataracts of air. +To-day chimney-swallows came, and we watched their endless rippling and +circling. They sailed and wheeled, in little companies or singly, now +twittering and now silent, and from now on all summer the sky will never +be empty of their beautiful activities. + +May 26. + +At last the woods are like a garden of delicate flowers, clothing the +hills as far as eye can see with colors of sunrise. The red-oaks are +gold color, with strong brown stems; ash and lindens are golden green; +maples soft copper and bronze, or deep flesh-color. + +The flower-like delicacy of leafing out is wonderfully prolonged. The +willows come first, then elms, in brown flower, then quaking-asps and +birches, and then maples. Later, lindens and ash-trees catch the light, +and the ash leaves (which grow far apart, and in bunches, with the +flower-buds) are indeed like just-alighted butterflies. The small leaves +are so bright that even in the rain they shine as if a shaft of sunlight +from some unseen break in the clouds were lighting the woods. + +Now long shining leaf buds show among the elm flowers and on the +beeches. The later poplars are cream-white and as downy as velvet. A +wood of maples and poplars is almost a pink-and-white wood; shell-pink, +and palest, most silvery-and-creamy gray. + +The tall gold-colored red-oaks make masses of strong color; and later, +when we think the shimmering of the fairy rainbow is fading, the white +oaks come out in a mist of pale carnation--pink and gray and cream. + +In June, after all the hardwoods have merged into uniform light green, +firs and spruces become jeweled at every point with tips of light, the +new growth for the year. Red pines and white pines are set all over with +candelabra of lighter green, until high on the tops of the seeding white +pines little clusters of finger-slender pale green cones begin to show. + +By this time the forest-flowers have faded through the woods. The +brighter colors of the field-flowers are gay along the roadsides and +over meadows and pastures, and with them Summer has come. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + + +The cross-road under the great leafy ridge of Eastman Hill has pretty +farms along it, and half-way across there is a country burying ground, +where wild plums blossom, and the grave-stones are half hidden all +summer in a green thicket. + +One name in the graveyard we all hold in special honor, that of Serena +Eastman. I never knew her myself, and it is only from her granddaughter +and from the neighbors that I learned of her beautiful life. + +She was a mother in Israel; one of + + "All-Saints--the unknown good that rest + In God's still memory folded deep." + +She brought up eleven children to upright manhood and womanhood, and +beside this a whole neighborhood was nourished from the wells of her +deep nature. She lived and died before the days of trained nurses, and +in addition to her own cares she was the principal nurse of her +countryside. Those were the days when nursing was not and could not be +paid for, but was a priceless gift from neighbor to neighbor. She stood +ready to be up all night, and night after night, to ease pain by her +ministering, or to help to bring a new life into the world; her faith +lifted the spirits of the dying, and of those about to be bereaved, as +if on strong pinions. + +Small-pox was still a terrible scourge in those times, and she was the +only woman in the district who would nurse it. Her granddaughter has +told me how she kept a change of clothes in an out-house, and how she +bathed and dressed there (the only precautions against infection known +to the times), whether in winter or summer, before rejoining her family. +She always drove to and from such cases at night, to run as little +danger as possible of coming in contact with people. Her husband took +the same risks that she did. He drove back and forth, and lent his +strength in lifting and carrying patients. + +They had a large farm, which meant cooking for hired men in the busy +seasons, and beside Serena's eleven children there were older relations +to do for, her husband's father and mother, and one or two unmarried +sisters. She was active in Dorcas society and in meeting. Her +granddaughter feels that only the completeness of her religious life +could have carried her through the fatigues which she underwent. She +lived in that conscious obedience to duty which eliminates friction, and +her view of duty was one taken through wide-opened windows. She walked +with God daily. + +The house of this dear woman burned, not long after she and her husband +died, and only the blossoming lilacs mark its empty cellar-hole, but the +next farm, which belonged to Mr. Eastman's brother, and is now his +nephew's, is a fine one. You drive on to a wide green, as smoothly kept +as a lawn, where three huge trees, a willow and two elms, overhang the +house. There are big comfortable barns and outhouses, a corn-crib and +well-sweep, and the house is square and ample, with two big chimneys. + +Next to the Eastmans', beyond their orchard, comes a neat small farm, +with a long wide stone wall, where grapes are trained, owned once by two +queer old sisters, the Misses Pushard, or as we have it, the Miss +Pushhards. (A Huguenot name, pronounced _Pushaw_ by the older +generation.) They went to Lyceum in their young days, and, a rare thing +then so far in the country, they had a piano. This gave them "a great +shape." Poor ladies, with their piano! Years later they were in +straitened circumstances, and anxious to sell it, but to their +indignation nobody wanted it, or not at the price they thought fitting; +so, one night, they _chopped it up_, and hid the pieces. Thus they were +not left with the instrument on their hands; and they had not accepted +an unworthy price for their treasure. All this was learned years +afterwards from some old papers. The fragments of the piano were found +in the cistern. + +The last farm on the road is owned by Sam Marston and his dear wife, +Susan; who, though you never would think it (except for a little +remaining crispness of speech), was born in England, in Essex, and came +as a young English housemaid--dear me, how long ago now!--to the +Homestead, eight miles away, by the River. Sam Marston worked there in +the stables, and lost his heart promptly, and after four or five years +of characteristic Yankee courting, leisurely, but humorously determined, +Susan made up her mind, and said "yes," and came out to the farm, with +her fresh print gowns, her trimness and stanchness, and her abiding +religion. + +Susan keeps also her fixed ideas of the "quality." She is now a power in +her whole neighborhood. She and Sam, alas, have no children, a great +sorrow, but the young people growing up near her show the reflection of +her uprightness and that of her Sam. But after all these years she is +still an exotic. The Sunday-school which she has gathered about her is +strictly Church of England. The children learn their catechism, and "to +do their duty in life in that station into which it shall please God to +call them"; and they are instructed perfectly clearly as to their +betters! + +The other day we drove out to her farm. We were going to climb Eastman +Hill, after Lady's Slippers, and then were to have supper with Susan. + +The sky was very deep blue, with flocks of little white clouds sailing. +The woods were still all different shades of light and bright green, and +the apple trees were in full blossom. The barn swallows were skimming +and pouring low about the green fields in their effortless flight. I +think I never drove through so smiling a country. + +The house is a long low brick one, with dormer windows, in the midst of +an old orchard. There is a fence and a hedge, and a brick path leads to +the door. There are lilac bushes at the corner of the house, and +cinnamon roses and yellow lilies on each side of the doorway. + +Susan came out, laughing, and nearly crying, with pleasure, to welcome +us. She "jumped" us down with her kind hands, and took all our wraps. We +went as far as the house, asking questions and chattering, and then +Susan showed us our way, an opening in the screen of the woods reached +by a path through the orchard, and stood shading her eyes with her hand +to look after us. + +We followed a bit of mossy old corduroy road, through moist rich woods, +and then began to climb among a wood of beeches. Soon the rock began to +crop out in small cliffs, and we found different treasures, the little +pale pink _corydalis_, a black-and-white creeper's nest in a ferny cleft +between two rocks, quantities of twin-flower, and then, rising a +beech-covered knoll, we came on our first Lady's Slippers. The glade +ahead was thronged with them. They spread their broad light-green leaves +like wings, and their beautiful heads bent proudly. They grew sometimes +singly, sometimes in clumps of fifteen or twenty blossoms, and were +scattered over the whole glade as if a flight of rose-colored +butterflies had just alighted. + +We came on this same sight seven different times; this lovely company +scattered over the slope among the rocks, where the ridge broke out into +low gray pinnacles among the beeches. + +When at last we could make up our minds to climb down, following the +white thread of a waterfall, into the deeper woods, we found Painted +Trilliums, bright white and painted with crimson, with +Jack-in-the-pulpits, both grown to a great size in the rich mould, +amongst a green mist of uncurling ferns. + +The brook which we followed came out at last in an open pasture above +the farm. It was as refreshing as a bath in running water to come out +into the cool, sweet evening air, for the heavy woods were warm, and +there had been quantities of black flies and mosquitoes, which our hands +were too full to fight. Beside all our baskets, our handkerchiefs and +hats were full of flowers. One of our number carried a young cherry +tree, with roots and sod, over his shoulder, and mosses in his pockets, +and the girls had Lady's Slippers and fern roots in their caught-up +skirts. + +The turf was powdered white as snow with Innocents, and there were +violets. The pasture slopes down through dark needle-pointed clumps of +balsam fir, and scattered hawthorn and cherry trees, which were in +flower. A hermit thrush sang from one of the firs as we came down. The +heavenly, pure carillon rang out again and again, as dusk fell deeper, +the singer altering the pitch with each repetition of the song, ringing +one lovely change after another. + +Such a supper was set out on the porch! Fresh rolls and butter, cream +cheese and chicken, jugs of milk and cream, fresh hot gingerbread, and +bowls of wild strawberries. The porch runs out into the orchard, and the +white petals of the apple-blossoms drifted down as we sat laughing and +talking. Susan placed her chair near us, but nothing would induce her to +eat with us, and she jumped up every minute and fluttered into the +house, to press more good things on us. Presently, Sam came in from +milking, and was a fellow-Yankee and a brother at once. + +We could hardly bear to go home, and almost took Sam's offer (which so +scandalized Susan) of a night in the hay in the new barn. It would be so +pretty to lie watching the swallows darting in and out after sunrise. + +We went all through Susan's trim farmhouse, and saw her dairy, with its +airy and spotless arrangements. The milk, thick and yellow with cream, +was in curious blue glass pans, which Susan said came long ago from the +Homestead. We saw all the chickens, the calves, and the black pigs. The +Jerseys blew long breaths at us from their mangers, and the horses put +out their soft noses for sugar. The ducks were quacking and waddling all +over the yard, and the pigeons fluttered about. + +The late veeries and robins were singing, and the warm fragrance of the +apple-blossoms was all about us, as we gathered our treasures together +and drove home in the dusk. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR'S MILLS + + +The two adjoining districts of Ridgefield and Weir's Mills lie about ten +miles to the east of us, in level and fertile farm country, between two +ridges of hills. Ridgefield is an old Roman Catholic settlement. +Twenty-five years ago it still had a prosperous convent, and children +educated in the convent school have gone out all over the country; but +the centre of the farming population shifted, and at last the convent +was closed. The cheerful-faced, black-gowned sisters are all gone. The +bell has been silent for years now, and its tower stands up with blank +windows, nothing more than a strange landmark in the open farming +landscape. + +The Ridgefield Irish were a noted community. They all came from one +county, and were marked to a surprising degree by their personal beauty. +There were Esmonds and Desmonds, Considines, Burkes, and McCanns, and +two names now gone (except for one old representative) Guilfoyles and +Guilshannons. Four lovely Esmond girls of one family are now growing up, +bearing four saints' names--Agatha, Ursula, Patricia, Cecily. + +Honoria Considine walks down our street, beautiful creature that she is, +with a port and carriage that a princess might envy. She has brought up +an orphaned nephew and niece to capability and prosperity, supporting +them entirely by her sewing. The Considines have possessions which show +that they came to this country as something more than farmers. They have +a little old silver, two finely inlaid card-tables in the farm +"best-room," and two larger mahogany tables. They are great +prohibitionists, and would be shocked, good souls, to know that what +they call the "old refrigerator" is a beautifully carved wine-cooler! + +Lawrence McCann and Joe Fitzgerald were two as handsome creatures as +ever were seen, with great dark blue eyes, delicate brows, dark curls, +and mantling Irish color. + +Lawrence died of consumption at twenty-four, as did his cousin, +delightful Con Guilshannon, but Joe did well and married. The other day +I saw him out walking with three little rosy children, all with penciled +eyebrows and very dark blue eyes. + +There lives an old lady in a great western city (I don't give its name) +who ought to wear a crown instead of a bonnet. The town trembles before +her masterful benevolence. Her magnificent house dominates the "best +community," and her six middle-aged married children, established +near-by in houses of equal magnificence, do not dare call their souls +their own. + +A neighbor of mine was in her city last year, and was taken to see her. +The old lady seemed to know an amazing amount, not only about our +far-away eastern State, but about our actual county. She finally showed +such an absorbing interest in particular households that my friend said: + +"But how can you know? How _can_ you have heard about so-and-so?" + +"Child," said the old chieftainess, her fine eyes twinkling and filling, +"My name is no guide to you now, except that it's Irish, but I was born +and brought up in your county. I was an Esmond from Ridgefield, and had +my schooling at the convent, not six miles from your door." + +After Ridgefield, with its deserted convent, you come presently to where +the rolling country is suddenly flung amazingly apart in the chasm-like +valley of the Winding River. Weir's Mills, the village at the head of +navigation, is a pleasant peaceful little place, a very old settlement, +with a noted old church. + +A neighbor of ours, a man now of eighty, has told me that in his +childhood at Weir's Mills, the school had neither paper nor blackboard +nor slates for the children to write on. The teacher smoothed the ashes +of the hearthstone out flat with a shingle, and the children did their +figuring on that. Farmers going into town chalked the figures of their +sales on their beaver hats, and the assessor chalked the taxes up on the +doors. + +The school-teachers were taken to board in turn, two weeks at a time, by +different families; and a friend, now an elderly woman, has told me that +when teaching, as a young girl, she had as a rule to share her bed with +three or four children of the family. In several places the hens slept +in the room too. The schools of course were ungraded. After her teaching +hours she helped in the housework, but she liked it, and made warm +friends. She found the life vigorous and hardy--"It was life that was +every bit of it alive," she has told me. + +It is sometimes said that marriage and divorce are taken lightly in the +country districts, and certainly the Jingroes and their like, of whom +more later, make their gipsy marriages, which bind only at will; but +even among some of our outlying communities of far higher standing than +the forest settlements, it is true that a curious, primitive view of +wedlock often obtains. Marriages in the country are deep as the rock, +enduring as the hills, _once the real mate is found_. The fine, +toil-worn faces of man and wife, in Golden-Wedding and Four-generations +groups in local newspapers, show a thing before which one puts off the +shoes from off one's feet. But, when husband and wife find only misery +in their marriage, find themselves fundamentally at variance, they +quietly "get a bill," (_i. e._ of divorce,) and each is considered free +to marry again. The adjustment, according to their lights, is made +decently and in order; and all cases come quickly before the final court +of public opinion, which in these clear-eyed country districts metes out +an inexorable judgment to lightness, to cowardice or selfishness. + +It is difficult not to mis-state, about so subtle a matter; but the +attitude of these neighborhoods is not a lax one. It is rather as if, in +places so small, where the margin of everything is so narrow, the +tremendous exigencies of life enforce a tolerance which is no conscious +action of men's minds, but a thing larger than themselves, before which +they must bow. Life is so simple and vital, so cleared by necessity of a +million extraneous complexities, that people are able, as one of the +Saints says, to judge the action by the person, not the person by the +action. + +Long ago there was plenty of shipping direct from Weir's Mills to +Boston, and even to-day scows, and a few small schooners, come up +between the hills for hay and wood, up all the windings of the Winding +River, slipping through the draws at the peaceful, pretty hamlets of +Upper, Middle, and Lower Bridge. + +The country about Weir's Mills shows in indefinable ways that you are +approaching the sea. You get the taste of salt, with a south wind, more +often than with us. The roads show sandy, and you see an occasional +clump of sweet bay in the pastures. The pines grow more and more +dwarfed, and so maritime in look that you expect to see blue water and +the masts of ships ten miles before you come to them. We came on another +indication one day, in asking our way of a young girl at a farm door. + +"The second turn to the _west_," she told us. In our part of the county +we do not often think of the points of the compass. "The second turn on +your left," it would have been. + +This is one of our older districts, and a certain amount of +old-fashioned speech remains. Many persons still speak of _ninepence_ +(twelve and a half cents) and a _shilling_ (sixteen and two-thirds +cents). A High School pupil (one of the many boys who walk three or four +miles in to our Town, in all weathers, to get their schooling) brought +in some Mountain Ash berries to the botanical class. _Round-Tree +berries_, he called them, and the master was puzzled, until he realized +that this meant _Rowan Tree_, and that the name had come down straight +from the boy's English forefathers, who picked the rowan berries by +their home streams. + +[Illustration: THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE] + +All through our county, and in our Town itself, among the homelier +neighbors, many of the old strong preterites, which have become obsolete +elsewhere, are still in use. "I _wed_ the garden," for "I _weeded_," "I +_bet_ the carpet"; _riz_ for _raised_, _hove_ for _heaved_; and among +our old established families of substance you may still hear _shew_ for +_showed_ and _clim_ for _climbed_. + +"I _clim_ a little ways up into the rigging," one of our magnates said +to me this very week, speaking of an adventure of his seafaring youth. + +After the Revolution certain of the unfortunate Hessians drifted to the +southern part of our county, and being stranded, poor souls, they made +the best of it, settled and married. They named our town of Dresden. The +Theobalds come from this Hessian stock, the Vannahs, who started as +Werners, the Dockendorffs, and we have a precious although extremely +local seashore name, _Winkiepaw_, which began life as Wenckebach. But +the adaptation of surnames is in process all around us. Uriah Briery's +people used to be _Brieryhurst_; and Samuel Powers has told me that his +grandfather wrote his name in "a queer Frenchy sort of way, he spelled +it _de la Poer_"(!) The Goslines, of whom we have a good sized family, +were _du Gueslins_, not long since, and Alec Duffy, who sounds entirely +Irish, was born _Alexis D'Urfe_. + +A queer old person lived on the Weir's Mills road when we were children. +He had prospered in farming and trade, and was quite a rich man for +those parts. He wanted to be richer still, and all his last years he was +ridden by two chimerical dreams; one, that a piece of his land was to be +bought for a monster hotel, at a fabulous price, and the other that +Captain Kidd's treasure was buried in a small island he owned in the +river. He dug and he dug for it. He had absolute faith in the +superstition that a fork of green wood--perhaps of witch-hazel only, but +I am not sure about this--held firmly in both hands, will point straight +to buried water or buried treasure. He has led us all over his island, +holding the forked stick. + +"There! See him! See him turn!" he would cry out excitedly. "Wild oxen +won't hold him!" The stick certainly turned in his hands, and in ours, +when he placed it right for us. I suppose the wood is so elastic and +springy that, holding it in a certain way you unconsciously turn it +yourself; but it gave a queer feeling. + +This whole district is fragrant with the memory of a saint, Mary Scott. +She was a cripple her whole life. Her shoulders and the upper part of +her body were those of a powerful woman, but her feet and legs were +those of a child, and were withered and useless. She lived all alone +when I knew her, in a tiny neat house. She spent her days in a child's +cart, which she could move about by the wheels with her hands, and she +was most active and busy. + +No one could go through a life of such affliction without untellable +suffering; but Mary's sweet faith never seemed to know that she had a +self at all, still less a crippled self. She had quick skillful hands, +and her absorbing pleasure all through the year was her work for her +Christmas tree. She saved, and her neighbors saved for her, every bit of +tinfoil and silver or gold paper that could be found, and fashioned out +of it bright stars and spangles for trimming. She knitted and knitted, +mittens and stockings and comforters, and when the time came near she +made candy, and corn-balls, and strung popcorn into garlands. The +neighbors all helped her, and good Jacob Damren, at Tresumpscott, always +cut her a tree from his woods and set it up for her; and then on +Christmas Eve the door of her cottage stood open, and the light streamed +out from the bright lighted tree, and the children of the whole district +came thronging in with their parents. + +The tributary streams from this eastern side of our river come in very +quietly. Worromontogus, the largest, is dammed just as it emerges from +its hills, to turn the Wilsons' saw-mill, which was once owned and run +by Mary Scott's father. The mill and mill-pond are in an open, sunny +pocket of the woods. The winding lane which leads in to them is bordered +with elms and willows, and the road is soft underfoot with bark and +sawdust. Feathery elms stand all about the stream's basin, and after you +have followed the road in you reach the weather-stained mill, the logs, +the new-cut lumber, as fragrant as can be, and the great heap of +bright-colored sawdust. Worromontogus drains the pond of the same name, +five miles long, some distance back in the country. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--MARY GUILFOYLE + + +The sun had come out bright after a rain, and every leaf was shining, +the June day when we drove over to Ridgefield to fetch Mary Guilfoyle. +We started early in the morning, but it was already like noon in that +midsummer season. Daisies were powdering the fields, as white as snow, +and yellow and orange hawkweeds were growing in among them, so that +whole fields showed yellow, orange, and white. The orange hawkweed is +very fragrant, and its sweetness mixed with the spicy bitterness of the +daisies. Then, on a knoll as the road rose above the river, we found +patches of bright blue lupins in the yellow and orange and white, making +such a blaze of color as I have never seen before in our northern +fields. + +There were streaks of crimson sorrel in the fields where there were no +daisies, among the ripening June-grass and red-top; all the grasses, and +the fields of grain, were beginning to turn a little tawny, and quick +waves chased each other across them with the light summer wind. + +Mary lives in a scrap of a new house, in a thick wood of young firs and +spruces. The last mile of our road led through these sweet-smelling +trees, which were set all over with light green jewels of new growth. +Grass grew in the ruts, and the moist earth of the wood road was +thronged with yellow butterflies; and tiny "blues," like bits of the sky +come to life, fluttered among the ferns. Breath after breath of +sweetness came from the warm woods in the sunshine. + +Mary was waiting for us at the door, with her knitting in her hand, and +her cat at her skirts. Her small rough fields across the road were +ploughed and planted, and she was ready to come to us. She is a strongly +built old woman with bright blue eyes and yellowish gray hair, sturdy as +a weather-beaten piece of white-oak timber. Many is the time that she +has left our house of an afternoon (in our impossible spring going, too, +with the frost coming out of the ground and the mud a foot deep); walked +out to her farm, six full miles, seen to some detail of farm-work that +worried her, and walked back, arriving before seven the next morning, to +cook our breakfast. + +She works on her farm all summer, planting and hoeing her corn and beans +and potatoes. She has help from the men of the neighborhood when she can +get it, but I believe she follows the plough herself when she is put to +it. In winter she comes into town, and works for households in +difficulties. If the cook deserts us, or we have a sudden influx of +guests or everyone has grippe, we send for Mary Guilfoyle and she sees +us through. She comes into a house like a blast of clear air. Nothing +ruffles her, and her mere presence seems to return its right proportions +and gayety to life. She knows how to work as few people do nowadays, and +she is so sound-hearted and unafraid that there is something royal and +powerful about her. + +Mary's mother was French, and it is from her she gets her gestures. Her +hands move finely, with a dignity and control a duchess might envy, and +they say more than mere words could. And then, her funny expressions! +She is a Roman Catholic, but so far from being a church-goer that I was +surprised, last Easter morning, at seeing her ready for church; and my +surprise was rebuked with, + +[Illustration: PLOUGHING MARY'S FIELD] + +"Child, the heretic and the hangman go to church on this morning!" + +Her speech is unlike anybody else's. Every sentence is vivid, but they +lose their quaint flavor in telling. She is delighted (she is a fine +cook), but excited, too, at getting a "company meal," and loses her +appetite. + +"The cook cannot eat, not if she were at the gates of heaven, at these +times," she puts it. + +She was telling one day of an unfortunate young farm neighbor-- + +"He knelt on a nail, and took lock-jaw. They hoisted him to Portland, +but it warn't of no use. He died in four days. He was a beautiful young +man. Warn't it terrible?" + +Somehow I never fail to see the poor youth caught up in a sheet and +swung through the air the whole journey. + +Mary was born and brought up in the Catholic community at Ridgefield; +but she has spent little time there. Fifty-five years ago, when she was +sixteen, she learned fine sewing and clear-starching at the Great House +of our neighborhood, and then nothing would do but she must seek her +fortune in Boston, where she already had two sisters in service. She +made the voyage in a sailing vessel, a small brig laden with hay. She +found out the name of a first-rate dressmaker, in Temple Place; next she +bought a piece of fine gray cashmere, and cut and made herself a jacket +and dress. Then she presented herself. + +"How do I know you are a seamstress at all?" the dressmaker asked. + +"I cut and made every stitch I have on me." + +"You may go right upstairs, at seven dollars a week, with the others." + +A sweep of the hand illustrated the triumph; seven dollars was fine pay +in those days. + +One of her sisters was cook for many years for Oliver Wendell Holmes. + +("A little man, the face wrinkled"--and Mary's eloquent hands made me see +the Doctor again in person.) He took care of her money for her; and Mary +has often told me how one day, after many years, he said, + +"Now, Anna, you are a rich woman; you need never work again, and can do +what you like." + +She bought a nice little house in one of the suburbs. + +"But a year was all she could stand of it. She couldn't make out to +live, away from the Holmeses, and back she goes to them." + +Mary married at twenty, and lived quietly in Chelsea for five and twenty +years. Then her husband died, and instead of going home to the farm, or +staying on where she was, to take boarders, this born adventurer was off +to see the world. + +"I hadn't seen, not one thing, cooped up there in Chelsea. I wanted to +find out about new things, and new places, whilst I was strong." + +She took a part of her savings, sewed up in the front of her gown, to +fall back on, but her capable hands were the real funds on which she +depended. She traveled to Denver, and there went out to service, and +afterwards worked in a restaurant. She found light work in plenty, and +in between jobs took her heart's fill of sight-seeing. She saw Pike's +Peak and the Grand Canyon. By the end of the winter she had earned +enough to take her to San Francisco. Here she had a sister- and +brother-in-law who ran a good restaurant, and Mary joined forces with +them. A year brim-full of life followed, but after this her two own +sisters, her only surviving near relations, fell ill, and she came home +to nurse them. It was then that she bought her farm, near her old home +in Ridgefield, planning that the three should spend their old age +together. Both sisters, though, died; but my indomitable Mary keeps the +farm almost as well as a man could, and her strong nature, tremendously +intent on the present moment, never feels loneliness. + +As I said, she is not much of a church-goer, but she is devout in her +own way, and plans to go back to San Francisco, to the convent where a +cousin of hers is now Abbess, and there + +"Get ready to die; and a good thing to do, too, first-rate!" + +I never knew anyone so indifferent about dress as Mary; she is quite +pretty in her way, and must always have been so, but she puts on +whatever is nearest at hand, and will hamper her least. It is a fact +that I saw her out in the rain the other day, taking in clothes from the +line, with a length of brown oil-cloth tied about her stout person, by +way of an apron, with marline, and an empty shredded-wheat box, split up +on one side, on her head for a hat. + +The lower meadows were still yellow with the gold of buttercups as we +drove home, and where the swales ran lower and richer we saw tall Canada +Lilies, Loose-strife, and purple and white fringed orchids, in among the +Meadow-rue, and light green ferns and ripening grasses. There was +Blue-eyed Grass, too, and Iris. It was all rich and fragrant, and +butterflies were hovering about the lilies; and as if this were not +enough, a breath of woodsy sweetness, much like the fragrance of Lady's +Slippers, met us from a mixed meadow and cranberry bog, and there were +flocks of rose-pink Arethusas all delicately poised among the grasses. + +Meadow-larks were rising all about, singing their piercingly sweet +notes. The children were picking wild strawberries, and the blackberries +flung out long springing sprays down the perfected June roadways. Their +blossoms are very like small single sweet-briar roses. + +[Illustration: ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND] + + + + +CHAPTER X--TRESUMPSCOTT POND + + +Tresumpscott Pond lies three miles eastward from our river, set deep +between the folds of wooded and rocky hills, and the woods frame it +close. + +You climb the rise of a long slow-mounting hill which at its southern +extremity breaks sharply down in granite ledges, mostly pine-covered, +and there right below you lies this little lonely, perfectly guarded +lake. There is only one opening in the woods, a farm which slopes down +to the shore in two wide fields, with a low rambling farmhouse. There is +no other roof in sight. + +The pond is about a mile long and half as wide. It has the attributes of +a big lake, in little; deep bays up which loons nest, and wooded +headlands, ending in smooth abrupt rocks which enclose small curved +beaches of white sand, as firm and fine as sea sand. The western bay +ends in a river of swamp, and all along the north side the wood screens +a broken wall of fern-grown cliffs, with quantities of columbines among +their crannies. The long slope above the woods is a sheep pasture, +partly under pines and partly open, with ledge and cinquefoil-covered +boulders cropping out in the close turf, and tall mulleins standing all +about like candlesticks. + +The whole locality is rich in treasures, and here on the north side of +the pond is a stretch of mossy glades and openings in the underwood +which are covered with the fairy elegance of maiden-hair fern, the +delicate black stems standing out against the rocks and moss. They grow +under cool rich woods, with pink Lady's Slippers scattered in clumps +among them. + +The farm at Tresumpscott is an ample one, and Jacob Damren, who farms +it, comes of fine stock, and is a big, hearty figure of a man. The Pond +was his father's before him. His wife is a plain little woman, always +clean and trim in fresh cotton print. They say her habitual sadness is +because she has never liked the Pond. She was town-bred, and finds it +utterly lonely, while to Jacob it holds everything that earth can give. + +The land is very fertile and they prospered till well past middle life, +when Jacob met with an accident that was hard to bear. A neglected cut +on his thumb became infected, and soon there was swelling and pain in +the whole hand. No one did the right thing, no one knew what to do +beyond the old-fashioned farm treatments, and after a week of fever the +arm had to go. They said it was only his wife's despairing weeping which +brought him at last to consent to amputation. At first he begged to be +allowed to die sooner than face life again thus maimed. + +He met the blow, once it fell, in a steady manly way, and now has come +well out from under its shadow. A month ago I saw him out with his horse +and drag, getting out stumps, and he was managing this troublesome +business successfully. He smiled a patient, slow smile, as we came up. + +"This comes kind of awkward for a one-armed man!" he called out, but +spoke cheerily, and seemed delighted at the way he was achieving his +stumping. + +They have had other troubles. A son who lived at home and shared the +farm, married a shallow, heartless girl, who left him, and so broke his +heart and his whole hold on life that he could not bear the place +without her, and has led a wandering, broken sort of existence since. +Their other boy, though, is a good son indeed. He is part owner in a +small cooperage and he drives over from week to week, puts in solid help +on the farm, and brings his wife and babies to make cheerful Sundays for +the old people. + +Jacob and his wife love animals. The last time I was over there the +cosset lamb came into the kitchen to ask for milk. Mrs. Damren was +caressing two new red calves as if they were kittens, while Flora, +Jacob's foxhound, and her two velvet-skinned, soft-eyed puppies played +round them. + +We drive over to the pond from time to time for swamp treasures of +different kinds. Jacob has a tumble-down, lichen-covered boathouse where +water-pewees and white-bellied swallows nest, in which he keeps a few of +the worst boats in the world (with ash oars shaped like flattened poles +and heavy as lead), and lets them out to people who come for pickerel or +water-lilies. The whole western end of the pond is a laughing expanse of +water-lilies and yellow Beaver Lilies, with the bright yellow +butterfly-shaped blossoms of bladderwort in among them. Beyond these you +come to a mixture of floating islands, tussocks, intricate channels of +black water, and stretches of shaking cotton grass, which in June and +July hide a host of slim-stemmed rose-colored swamp orchids, _Arethusa_, +_calopogon_, and _pogonia_. You pole and shove your boat between the +floating islands, submerging orchids and cotton-grasses alike in the +black peat water, and beyond them reach the parti-colored velvet of the +peat bog itself. + +Balsam fir grows here, sweet rush and sweet gale, and quantities of +Labrador Tea, with shining dark leaves (of which Thoreau made tea when +camping on Chesuncook) and masses of delicate-stamened white flowers, +which give out a warm resinous sweetness. All around there is the +general bog fragrance of sphagnum and water-lilies, and the woodsy +perfume of the rose-colored orchids. + +Farther in shore, among the balsam firs, the growth dwindles to a +general velvety richness of gem-like green and crimson mosses, +blueberries, and cranberries and huckleberries, the large handsome +maroon-crimson flowers of the Pitcher-Plant, and the little +bright-yellow-flowered Sundew, getting its nourishment from the insects +caught in its sticky crimson filaments. + +The pond is alive all summer with butterflies and birds. We spent a day +there in June, and tried to follow a pair of Carolina rails, which ran +and hid among the cotton-grasses, and ran again, and suddenly vanished +as completely as if they had melted in air. We put up a bittern, but did +not find her nest. Scores of red-wing black-birds had nested in the +clustered bushes of the floating islands. We laid our oars down on the +shaking cotton grass as a sort of bridge and worked our way from island +to island, while a perfect cloud of birds chuckled and wheeled round us, +uttering their guttural warning cries and their fresh "Hock-a-lees!" We +looked into three red-wings' nests, and one king-bird's, all with eggs. +The red-wing's eggs were pale blue, scratched and blotched with black as +if by a child playing with ink and pen, while the king-bird's were a +beautiful cream-color, marked in a circle round the large end with rich +brown blotches. + +As we went on to gather Pitcher-Plants and Sundew, we saw an eagle +fishing over the lonely little lake; saw, too, a thing I have never seen +before or since, for he caught a fish so big it pulled him under. He +vanished out of sight completely, came up with a great flap, and, making +heavy work of it, and flying so low he almost touched the water, he made +off and gained the woods with his prize. + +Besides our orchids and pitcher-plants (we washed the pitchers clear of +insects, and drank from them), we had come for stickle-backs, which are +found in the clear shallows by one of the small beaches. We had a net, +and glass jars. They are such quick darting creatures that it is hard to +get them. They are the liveliest of all pets for an aquarium, and +prosper very fairly in captivity. + +Early in the morning, when we first reached the pond, the bobolinks were +rising and singing all over the lower water meadows, and the mists were +turning to silver in the early sunlight. When we came up from the bog in +the late afternoon the bobolinks were silent, but a mother sand-peep +wheeled and cried about the field, afraid that we would find her +chickens. + +We cooled our hands and faces in the clear water and washed off the +black peat mold, and went up to the farm. Mrs. Damren had fresh +gingerbread for us, and creamy milk, and we sat round a table with a +cheerful red cloth. The room was very homelike, with a good deal of dark +wood, and bright pots and pans. A shot-gun and a rifle hung over the +mantel, the guns poor Jacob will never use again. His hunting dog sat +close to his chair. + +The wife's sorrowful eyes turned always to her husband, but seemed at +the same time to try to guard his empty sleeve from our glances. He, +with a larger patience, was unconscious of it. + +They told us a good thing; that two lads, sons of a minister in a +neighboring town, have built a little camp in Jacob's woods. They come +over often to spend the night, and sometimes stay a week, and are great +company. They come to Jacob for milk, butter, and eggs, and often spend +the evening. The week before they had shot two coons, and they are busy +mounting them, under his directions. + +Jacob's face has a great peace in it, that of a man who has given +everything in him to the place he lives in, and held nothing back. His +beautiful, lonely little holding of wood and field and lake is better, +for the work he has put into it, than when his father left it to him. He +has cleared more fields, enriched the land, and drained the lower +meadows. His son will have it after him. I have seldom seen a place +which seemed more entirely home. + +Jacob had cut the hay in his upper meadow early (he has to take his +son's or a neighbor's help when he can get it), and it was already piled +in sweet-smelling haycocks as we drove by, but the water meadows, where +the purple fringed orchids and loosestrife grow in among the grasses, +were still uncut. It was dusk, and the fireflies were out. Thousands of +them flashed their soft radiance low over the perfumed meadow, and the +fragrance of sweet rush and of the open water came to us from the lake. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS + + +The population of a district can never be classified. Once again, "folks +are folks," and the smallest hamlet shows infinite variety. Yet here and +there the individual quality of a neighborhood seems as marked as that +of the different belts and communities of trees which clothe the land +about it. + +Watson's Hill, Ridgefield, and Weir's Mills are fine up-standing +neighborhoods, with good houses, big barns, fresh paint, and bright milk +cans catching the sun; but in near-by folds of the hills, where the +ridges slope up into higher country, there are poor and scattered farms +and farmhouses which are no more than shanties. A neighborhood six miles +from a big town may be more rustic than another twice as far. It is +partly the soil, partly inheritance, and surely it is a third part +influence. The land of our Silvester's Mills Quakers is not specially +good, but the impulse imparted by three or four industrious good +families is the foundation of its marked prosperity. + +A Swede and an Italian have lately taken up two farms which were +considered quite run out, one in North Ridgefield, six miles from us, +and the other at the top of a long hill on the Tresumpscott Road. + +The Swede asked William Pender, a thin, vague, grumbling man, of whom he +hired the land, + +"How long time to clear these fields of stones?" + +"Ninety-nine years!" said William solemnly. But the Swede, a fair, +strong-built man named Jansen, went to work, with his wife and his three +children. They put on leather aprons, and worked early and late, in +every spare minute that could be taken from planting and cultivating. +(William looked on, from his brother's farm, whither he had retreated, +in a mixture of incredulity, disapprobation and envy.) _They worked in +the rain_; and now, after three years, the farm is clear of stones, and +Jansen owns it clear. He has a thousand hens, and sells his eggs and +broilers at fancy prices in New York; and Mrs. Jansen's lawn and +flower-beds are as gay as those of a neat farm in Holland. + +The Italian farmer is a larger pattern of man. He came here as a young +fellow with no better start than a push-cart, but he came of good +intelligent Tuscan people, and has not only endless industry, but wits +to see, and enterprise to take, all sorts of chances. He did not take +any chances, though, when he married Alice Farrell, the daughter of one +of our best farmers, a strong pretty girl, as industrious as her +husband, and even more intelligent, with a free sort of outlook, and +something kindling about her. Her husband is now the big man of his +neighborhood. The district goes by his name, and he has represented it +in the Legislature. He owns a fine herd of registered Guernseys, and his +apples bring fancy prices. + +A friend of mine, a farmer, once asked one of the great Connecticut +nurserymen to what he attributed the success of the Italians in nursery +work and truck farming. The older man's eyes twinkled. + +"I'll tell you," he said. "They're willing to work in the rain!" + +Our farm conditions are improving, almost while you watch them. The +Agricultural Department of the State University is doing yeoman service. +People are beginning to realize what science is bringing to agriculture, +and the young men are fired by it. They are especially beginning to +realize what ignorance it was to leave so many farms deserted, and to +condemn so much of the land as hopeless and used up. The friend who +asked the question about the Italians said of our own farmers: + +"They stick to their grandfathers' ways, and not to their grandfathers' +enterprise and ambition for improvement." But this statement is fast +coming to be untrue. + +Interspersed, however, among the prosperous districts there are curious, +backward hamlets, where the woods seem to encroach. Their hills shut +them about too closely. Some set of the tide of human affairs, some +change of transportation or of market, cuts off the wholesome currents +of life from them, and they stagnate like cut-off water and become +degenerate. + +There is a sad combination of receding prosperity and a run-out +population in a town a long day's drive from us. Poor place, it has +become bankrupt. Its timber was cut off, and the cooperages, on which +its tiny livelihood depended, moved away. Its farms straggle up the +flanks of a round-topped mountain. Apple-raising might perhaps have +saved it, but either such of its people as had the enterprise for this +moved away, or it possessed none such. The people I saw there looked as +different as possible from our hearty sun-and-air neighbors. Unkempt +faces thronged the dirty windows of farms that were mere shacks. They +looked at once ambitionless and sinister. "Merricktown folks," people of +the neighboring districts say, when tools disappear or robes are stolen +from the sleighs at a Grange supper. + +No Indians are left in our part of the world; but here and there a +family shows marked traces of Indian blood, as old Sile Taylor, beyond +Watson's Hill, a frowsy and hospitable patriarch, whose little black +eyes twinkle with a kind of foxy kindliness. Though none dwell here, +Indians come two or three times a year from the State Reservation, with +snow-shoes, moccasins, and sweet-grass baskets to sell. They make a +yearly pilgrimage to the seashore for the sweet-grass, which grows in +the salt meadows at the mouths of a few rivers. They cut and dry it, and +carry home many hundred pounds for the winter's weaving. The Gabriel +brothers, Joe and Bill, are regular visitors among us, enormous dark +men, with that Indian habit of silence which implies not so much +taciturnity, as a certain tranquil quality. Tranquillity and kindness +seem to flow from the big brothers. They seem untroubled by any need of +speech. + +Then beyond Rattlesnake Hill there are the "Jingroes." They are credited +with being pure-blooded gipsies, and they certainly look it. I do not +know whether they started with a definite Mr. and Mrs. Jingroe or not. +The name is applied to the whole tribe. They live "over back," in +clearings in a wide belt of forest. They are perfectly indolent, but +cheerful, and content with the most primitive farming. + +Once in a while, when things go hard with them, they all set to work, +and weave very good baskets, which they bring in town to sell. You are +met at every street corner by handsome, dark-eyed Mrs. Jingroes, in +kerchief and bright earrings, importuning every passer-by to buy a +basket. + +About once a year a gipsy caravan drives through our town, and stops in +the street on its way. The slim, handsome barefooted children and their +dark square-built mothers are all about. The women bustle from shop to +shop, making small purchases, and pick up a little money by telling +fortunes. + +Once, when the gipsies camped in a rough pasture near town, one of the +children died, and a touching deputation came, to ask permission (which +was of course given) to bury it in the town cemetery. + +Another time, as a caravan drove through the town, I noticed a girl +lying at the back of one of the flimsy, covered wagons, so ill she +seemed to be unconscious. She was a lovely creature, dark and pale, and +her slim body swayed and shook with the shaking of the wheels. I wanted +to call out to the drivers to stop, but the crazy caravan rattled away +at a half-canter, and paid no attention. + +Tresumpscott Pond lies in the midst of our most heavily forested +district. There is no village or hamlet near it, but a handful of little +farms, on tiny clearings or no clearings at all, are scattered through +the woods. + +The dwellers in these forest farms are not people of substance, like the +farmers of the open country near them, but they are intelligent folk, +and are rich in the treasure of a varied and interesting life. The men +of the family are sure to have hunting coats and gaiters,--leather or +canvas; good guns, which they keep well oiled and bright; and most of +them keep a good fox hound or two, whose jubilant music may be heard as +they range through the winter woods with their masters, or on +independent hunting excursions. The boys begin by seven years old to +have trapping enterprises of their own up the little quick forest +brooks, and what looks to the ordinary person like the merest mossy +runnel, hardly a brook at all, may be well known as a drinking-place of +coons, or a haunt where sharp eyes may see a mink. They are sent out to +gather thoroughwort, dill, dock, and other simples, and mosses and roots +for the farm dyeing. (_Cruttles_, or _crottles_, the farm name for the +dark moss growing on ash-trees, makes a fine yellow dye.) They know +where to lie hidden at half past three in the morning on the chance of +seeing a deer, and under which stretch of lily-pads is the best chance +for a pickerel. And not only the boys: I know a girl on a farm, whose +grown-up brother has such confidence in her marksmanship, that he will +shake an apple-tree, while she nicks the falling apples with her rifle. +They make use of a far greater number of wild plants than are known to +the farmers of the more open country, as "greens," cooking and eating +young milk-weed stalks, shepherd's purse, and the uncurling fronds of +the _Osmundas_ and other great ferns, which they call "fiddle-heads." + +They grow up sinewy and alert, under this eager life, and the best of +them attain, beside their farm knowledge, to the undefinable huntsman's +knowledge, which sets its mark on a man. Their bearing is confident and +fearless, and with it they have a certain forest quality on which it is +hard to lay a finger. It is noticeable that the greater part of the +families who cleave to this forest way of life are apt to be of dark +complexion. It is a great pity that most of them can get so little +schooling, but they have all been educated, since they were little, in a +training which certainly develops and intensifies some of man's best +powers. + +[Illustration: THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES] + +The deep tranquil woods cover the rise and fall of the ridges for a good +stretch of miles, and a good deal of hunting and trapping is to be had +in them. Last month we came on fresh raccoon tracks, like prints of +little hands, in the leaf mould of the wood road, and coons are often +shot here. One day, as we were walking, there was a great growling and +barking from our dogs, and we found that they had treed a porcupine. + +In my Grandfather's time, sheep had to be driven at night to the tops of +the hills, because of the bears in the Tresumpscott woods; and only two +years ago there was an outcry among the farmers because sheep were being +killed. Everybody watched his neighbor's dog, but Oliver Newcomb, who +lives on a little farm in the heart of the forest tract, coming home at +dusk up the wood road, heard a growling and snarling, and came on a +great Bay Lynx, the only one seen in this part of the country for many +years. Oliver is a man who is almost never seen without his gun, and he +shot the marauder, and got twenty-five dollars for the skin, a real +windfall for a young man on a small forest farm, with wife to keep and +five children. The skin was mounted, and set up in the library of the +Soldiers' Home. + +The Bay Lynx is a much longer, more panther-like creature than our +common Canada Lynx (the _Loup Cervier_ or Bob-cat), and is of a general +bay color, not unlike that of the Mountain Lion of the West. I have +wondered if this might not be the panther or "painter" which was the +terror of our Northern woods to early settlers. + +"Big Game" has increased greatly in our State of late years, partly from +the enforcement of strict game laws, partly because the wolves have +nearly all been killed off. Deer are so common as to be a menace to +crops in some places, and there are at least three thriving beaver +colonies in our part of the State. + +In 1868 my father, driving on a fishing trip through a town sixty-five +miles north of us, was shown a pair of blanched moose antlers, set up +over the sign-post at the cross-roads. + +"Look at that well," the stage driver said. "That's a sight you'll never +see again, not in this State!" + +To-day, as every hunter knows, moose are plentiful, all through the +two-thirds of the State that lies under forest; and not only there, for +this very autumn three have been seen in the Tresumpscott woods, while +both last year and this, a black bear has spent several weeks in our +neighborhood. + +Muskrat are found in Tresumpscott Pond and its small tributary streams, +hares and partridges and foxes all through its woods. Black duck, and +sometimes wood duck, breed about the Pond, and Carolina rails; and where +the brooks that feed the Pond spread out into broad estuaries of alder +covert, you may see the marked flight of snipe or woodcock. + +It was in these woods that Jerome Mitchell, our local authority on game +and fur (a very fair naturalist, also), grew up. He is a slender, +well-knit fellow, whose mother had great ambitions for him. He walked +into town, five miles and back, every day, to get one year in the High +School, after his country schooling. He could not afford any more, but +when he was seventeen, having picked up a knowledge of taxidermy and +simple mechanics, he moved into town. He worked early and late with +dogged patience, taking every smallest job that offered, till at last he +realized his ambition, and opened a small, but good sportsmen's and +general repair shop. Gradually he picked up the fur trade of the +neighborhood. He is anxiously fair, and boys from the farms soon began +to bring in skunk, squirrel, and muskrat skins, and every little while a +fox or a coon. + +Last year Jerome ran into hard luck. A stranger, a good-looking man, +brought in an extra fine looking lot of muskrat skins. There were $600 +worth, and this was a low figure for them. It was a serious venture, +still Jerome took them; they turned out, however, to be stolen goods, +and he had to pay the rightful owner, as the stranger was nowhere to be +found. Poor Jerome! he was near tears when he told my father about it. +Then, when he just had his store new painted and set in order for the +summer's trade, someone dropped a lighted match among the shavings, and +the whole stock and fixtures were in a blaze. + +This loss turned out to be not so serious. Jerome worked nearly all +night for a week, and made better fittings than he had had before. The +wholesale dealers were generous, and the shop re-opened with the best +outfit of goods that it has had at all. + +Now a good windfall has come to him. A rural mail-carrier brought word +of a silver fox which had been trapped on a farm fifteen miles out in +the country. Jerome only waited to telegraph to a big fur dealer for +whom he works, who has lately established a fox farm, and started off at +once. He found even better than he had hoped. The fox was a perfect +young male, coal black, and hardly scratched by the trap. + +In the recent craze over fox-raising, as much as ten thousand dollars +has been paid, in our State, for a first-rate black fox. Of course +Jerome would only get a commission, but this was the first big chance +that had come to him and he was beside himself with anxiety lest it +miscarry. It was a sharp February night, but he slept in the barn beside +his prize, and the next morning drove home, dreading every drift and +thank-you-ma'am, for fear they might upset, and the slight crate that +held the fox might break. + +That night he slept on the floor of his shop, wrapping himself in the +sleigh robes. The fox ate the meat given him with a good appetite, and +curled up contentedly enough to sleep; but as the first grayness began +to show before dawn, he stood up, bristling a little, and barked, a +far-away, lonely sound, Jerome said. The next day he was forwarded to +the dealer in safety. + +My father has shot and hunted all about this region, going on snow-shoes +after foxes and hares in winter, with one of the forest +farmers--generally one of the Huntingtons--as guide or companion; coming +into the warm dark farm kitchen for a warm-up before the long ride or +drive home. The Huntingtons always had good dogs. Bugle, a fox-hound +famous through the countryside, belonged to them. + +John Huntington is the man whom neither bee nor wasp will sting. He is +sent for all about to take away troublesome hornets' nests, which he +simply tears down and pulls to pieces with his bare hands. Some hornets +built a huge nest over the door of the stable at the Homestead not long +ago, just where the men come and go for milking. One of the farm men +wanted to take a torch and smoke it out, but Thomas Burnham, the farmer +in charge, sent all the way over to Tresumpscott for John Huntington. He +came, a silent, dark, shambling man; looked at the nest, nodded, asked +for a ladder, climbed up, and unconcernedly pulled the whole thing down, +while the furious hornets swarmed over his uncovered face and hands. He +reached a finger down his neck, first on one side, then the other, and +took out handfuls of them, and scraped them off where they had crawled +up his sleeves. He tore the nest up, threw it on the ground, and stamped +on it, and with few words went back to his farm. + +I have never heard any adequate explanation of this phenomenon. Some +people say that persons having this power have a distinctive odor about +them, which wasps and bees dislike, and others ascribe it only to an +entire fearlessness and unconcern. + +Sam Huntington, John's younger brother, is a handsome, strong, +slender-built fellow, taller than John and even darker. It was Sam who +showed my father, one day out snipe shooting, what a _bee line_ really +means, and how to take one, and find the bee-tree. You catch two wild +bees, and attach a bit of cotton wool, big enough to mark the bee's +flight, to each; let the first bee go, getting the line of his flight +well, then walk on two or three hundred yards, and let the second go, +taking note equally carefully. Where the two lines intersect is the +bee-tree and the hidden treasure of wild honey. + +Sitting in Jacob Damren's clover field one day, my father showed me how +to find bumble-bee honey. We sat still, and watched the fat bee go his +buzzing way from head to head of red clover. At last he had honey +enough, and off he started on a swifter, straighter flight, but he was +heavy with honey, and we could easily follow. He did not go far, but +swung on a long slant to his hole in the ground. We dug where he entered +(he emerged, part way through the process, very angry and buzzing) and +about six inches down we found the honey cells. There was a lump or +cluster of them, perhaps half as big as your hand. They were longer than +the cells of honey bees; not hexagonal like these, but roughly +cylindrical, dark brown, and full of very good, clear, dark brown honey. + +Tresumpscott Pond is a great haunt of whippoorwills. As dusk begins to +fringe the coverts of the wood, they begin their strange, almost ghostly +chorus, like the swift whistling of a rod through the air, powerful and +regular, "whip," and "whip," and "whip" again, answering each other all +night. I noticed the time of their first notes, one night in early July. +The voices of the veeries fell away, and then stopped, at quarter past +eight, and at quarter of nine the first whippoorwill struck up, and was +instantly answered. (I have known them to begin sharp at eight o'clock, +or even earlier.) + +It is extremely hard to see the birds themselves, for they lie hid all +day in the deep woods, sleeping. Like owls, they seem unable to see well +if roused by daylight. At night they gather close about the farms, one +perhaps on the roof of the barn, and one or two on a fence (sitting +always _lengthwise_ to their perch, never across), and sometimes you can +see their shape silhouetted against the sky. Last May, a whippoorwill +was bewildered in a sudden gale, and did not get back to the woods, but +spent the day sound asleep in broad sunlight on the railing of a +balcony, right in the midst of our town. I stood within four feet of +him. He is a strange-shaped bird, with whiskers like a cat's, and a flat +head; about the size of a small hawk, and mottled, like his cousin the +night-hawk, with gray and white markings like those of rocks and +lichens, or of some of the larger moths. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--HARVEST + + +In late September an errand took us out to Sam Marston's again. We +wanted a quantity of early farm things, sweet cider, Porter apples, and +honey. + +The woods were in a flame of fiery color as we drove out through the +intricacies of the river hills. They glowed like beds of tulips, with +only the dark evergreens to set them off, and turned our whole country +into a huge flower garden. + +The crops had all been very good this season. Hay and grain were both +heavy, and the apple trees had to be propped, the branches were so +loaded with fruit. Our own grapes bore heavily. + +The early apples were just gathering when we reached the farm, amongst +all sorts of pleasant orchard sounds, the rumble of apples poured from +bushel baskets into barrels, the squeak of the cider mill, and the men +talking at work. The large new orchard of Bellefleurs is hand-picked, in +the modern method; each apple is wrapped in paper, and the fruit has its +special first-rate market; but Sam is not going to take his father's old +miscellaneous orchard in hand until next year, and here he and his men +were picking and piling in the old wholesale fashion. The sweet-smelling +pyramids stood waist-high under the trees. + +Sam scrambled down his ladder, and shouted to Susan, who came out from +her baking with her hands white with flour. The last time we came, we +had seen only the house and dairy; now we must see the farm, and we +strolled together through the sunny orchard and then were taken to the +apple cellar, where the filled barrels stood in close ranks already. The +cellar was fragrant with them. Susan's own special apples, Snows, +Strawberries, and Porters, were at one side. + +"Has to have 'em!" Sam said. "Every farm book tells you how mixed apples +can't pay, and hinder the farm, but come Grange suppers and church +suppers, and young folks happening in, and Fair times, if Susan couldn't +have her mixed fruit, she'd think we might full as well be at the +Town-Farm." + +The root cellar, smelling earthy, was next the apple cellar, and here +Sam had a few beets and carrots, in neat bins, but the greater part of +the roots were still undug. + +The cider-mill was at the edge of the orchard, with piles of windfall +apples beside it; Sam turned a fresh jug-full for us to drink, and then +filled our cans. + +After this we had to see all Susan's pets. There were two handsome +collies; and a yellow house cat, and a great black barn cat, on stiff +terms with each other, came and rubbed against us with arched backs. +There were the ducks and geese, and tumbler pigeons, fluttering down in +great haste when Susan scattered corn. The newest pet was a raccoon. He +was in the tool-room of the barn, nibbling corn. He steadied the ear as +he ate, with little hands as careful as a child's. He looked sly and +mischievous, and sidled away as we came in, looking up at us with bright +eyes. He wore a little collar, and dragged a short length of chain, so +that the pigeons could hear him coming; but he was not confined in any +way, and seemed entirely happy and at home about the barn. + +"Pretty fellow, then," said Susan, scratching his handsome fur. "But +he's a scamp, he is. Only to think, what happened to my pies, last +baking! I'd made a quantity, both mince and pumpkin, and if this rascal +doesn't slip into the pantry, eat all he can hold, and mark the rest of +the pies all over with his little hands, and throw them on the floor!" + +She asked if we had ever seen a raccoon with a piece of meat. We had +not, and she fetched a bit from the ice chest and gave it to her pet. He +took it in his little hands, went to his water dish, and _washed_ the +meat thoroughly, sousing it up and down till it was almost a pulp, +before he swallowed it. Susan said that raccoons, wild or tame, will +always do this, with all animal food; mouse or mole or grasshopper, they +will not touch it till they have washed it well, and will go hungry +rather than eat unwashed food. Sam, who knows the woods like the back of +his hand, confirmed this. + +"Souse it in a brook, they will, till they have it soggy. They won't eat +it till then." + +While we were looking, a morose-looking old man drove into the yard. He +checked his horse, and sat gazing straight before him with a wooden +expression. + +"Hullo, Uncle!" said Sam. "Come for apples?" + +The old man shook his head, but said nothing. + +"Cider?" said Sam. + +He shook his head also at this, and at every other suggestion, and never +opened his lips. After a while Sam, who seemed to know his ways, nodded +cheerfully, said, "Well, tell us when you get ready to!" and turned +towards the house. + +The old man waited till he had gone twenty feet, and then said +grudgingly: + +"I come to see that there cow. You finish with your company! I'll wait." + +"That's old Ammi Peaslee," Susan whispered. "He always acts odd. Oh, no, +no relation; everyone on the road calls him Uncle: 'Uncle Batch' when +he's not round." + +"He didn't mean to be a batch" (bachelor), she went on reflectively; and +then with some shamefacedness, she told us how Mr. Peaselee had once +been engaged to be married to Miss Charity Jordan (who lived alone in +the big brick Jordan house at the corner) for twenty-five long years. +One day the lady's roof needed shingling, and she called on her suitor +to shingle it. ("She never could bear to spend money, nor he either, and +it's a fact that neither one of them had much to spend!") + +He did it, and did a good job; but afterwards, thinking it but right and +fair, he brought a set of shirts for his sweetheart to make. + +"She made them, _and she sent him in a bill_; and he paid it, and never +spoke to her again from that day to this, and that is fifteen years ago. + +"Now hear me gossip! I am fairly ashamed!" Susan cried out. + +The barn was sweet with hay. Part of the season's pumpkins were piled in +the grain room, and lit up the dusk with their dark gold. Some of them +still lay in golden piles in the barn-yard. The ears of corn, yellow and +red, lay in separate heaps. + +"I miss Mother!" Susan said (she spoke of Sam's mother, who had passed +on the year before). "She saw to all the pretty things about the farm. +She used to hang the corn in patterns on the ceiling-hooks, red and +yellow. She'd place the onions in amongst the corn, in ropes or bunches, +and contrive all kinds of pretty notions." + +Susan sighed, and called the two collies to her, and patted and fondled +their heads. As I said before, she and Sam have no children. + +Sam went to get our honey, saying that he should be stung to death, and +never mourned for, for nobody missed a left-handed fellar; and Susan +took us into the house, and brought out doughnuts, a pumpkin pie, and +cream so thick that it could hardly be skimmed. + +When Sam came back with the honey there was a to-do, for Susan's Jersey +calf, outside in the orchard, had tangled itself in its rope, and fallen +and sprained its shoulder. The little creature was trembling all over. +Susan rubbed in fresh goose-oil, while Sam asked if she "didn't want he +should get him up a nice pair of crutches." + +For our cranberries, we were to go on a mile further, to a farm on the +slope of the next hill, the Pennys'. + +"The old woman's deaf, but you can make her hear by shouting. Most +likely she'll be the only one of the folks at home. They're odd folks," +Susan called, shading her eyes to look after us, after Sam had succeeded +in packing our purchases in the wagon, laughing and talking about the +way Noah filled the ark, and Susan had given my little sister a wistful +kiss. + +The Pennys' was an out-of-the-way place. The farm was on the northern +slope of a hill, the house a tiny unpainted one, weathered almost to +black. The corn was standing among the golden pumpkins in stacks that +looked like huddled witches. A wild grapevine grew over the shed, but +the grapes were already shriveled. + +Old Mrs. Penny was shriveled too, and witch-like, and she was smoking a +pipe. It was hard to make her understand what we wanted, but at last she +came out, with a checked shawl held over her head, and pointed out a +path which led through a thicket and across the flank of the hills, to +the cranberry bog in the hollow. + +[Illustration: THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN +STACKS THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES] + +Mrs. Penny, Jr., was squatted down among the swamp mosses, picking +cranberries into sacks. She was a fat Indian-looking woman, and two dark +little girls, pretty, and also like Indians, with black hair neatly +parted, were at work with her. They were delighted to sell their +berries. + +The swamp glowed like a Turkey carpet. The cranberry vines and +huckleberry bushes were pure crimson, the black alder berries scarlet, +and the ferns burnt-orange. Just beyond us, in the velvet of the swamp, +was a pond, across which the wind ruffled; living blue, with tawny +rushes around it. + +As we came back, a hunter, in a leather jacket, with his gun on his +shoulder and partridges hanging out of his pockets, stepped out of the +woods on the path just ahead of us. This was old Mrs. Penny's son Jason. +The open season had not begun yet, but the farm looked a hard place for +a living, and we saw no need of telling, in town, that the Penny family +had partridge for supper. + +We had a long quiet drive home. It had been so extraordinarily warm, all +through early September, that we saw a fine second crop of hay being got +in, in a low-lying meadow bordered by thick woods, part of which must +have been an old lake-bottom. The grass was heavy, and a good many fresh +haycocks were made and standing already, as if in July. The solitary +mower rested on his scythe to watch us, and then went on, though the +dusk was fast deepening. + +We stopped when we came to Height of Land, to look out over the painted +woods. They flamed round us to the horizon. + +Later the moon rose, in the half-blue, half-dusk, and presently shone on +a white mist-lake, over the low land through which we were then passing. +The mist was rising, and wreathing the colored woods with white. Next +came two more hills, and then another mist-lake in the moonlight. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--WATSON'S HILL + + +By October of this year the fires of September had sunk to a rich +smouldering glow. The rolling woods, as far as the eye could see, were +masses of dusky gold and wine-color. There was actual smoke, too, pale +blue in the hollows, from many forest fires. + +Nearly all of October was Indian Summer. Every day there was a soft +golden haze, just veiling the yellow of the woods, and the days were +warm and still, like midsummer, but with a kind of mellow peacefulness. + +We spent a whole day out on Watson's Hill, watching the distant smoke of +forest fires, and listening to the different Autumn sounds, the ring of +axes from the wooded part of the hill, an occasional shot, the tapping +of woodpeckers, and the friendly chirruping of chickadees and juncos. +The bare hill-top was steeped in sunshine. The checkerberries and +beechnuts were just ripe, and very good. We built our fire on a +flat-topped, lichened rock, and found water to drink in a little tarn +among the russet and tawny ferns and cotton-grasses, fed by a spring +which stirred and dimpled the surface. + +Driving home, at dusk, we passed field after field of Indian Warriors, +corn-stacks, all looking the same way, with golden pumpkins among them; +and suddenly, over the eastern ridge, the great round yellow Hunter's +Moon rose. + +It was strange, later, to see the oaks and sugar maples, towers of +_gold_, instead of towers of green, in the moonlight. + +A few days later we had a three days' storm of rain and heavy wind, and +then the golden harvest lay on the ground. It was heaped and piled along +the roadsides in winrows, through which the children scuffed and +frolicked. + +(The leaves in the town streets are burned, which is a waste, but if we +were so thrifty as to keep them we should lose the autumn bonfires. I +counted fourteen about the different streets, one evening, each with a +glow lighting up the dusk, and giving out an indescribable +sweet-and-acrid smell as the smoke poured out in cream-white swirls, +almost thick enough to be felt. The men in charge of them looked black +against the blaze, and a flock of children were scampering about each +fire.) The day after the rain the leaves lay all through the woods like +a yellow carpet, and threw up actual light. In some places they had +fallen in lines and patterns, and, wet with rain and autumn dew, they +gave out fragrance which was as sweet as wine. + +Late in October there was sudden illness at a friend's house. Every +nurse in town was busy already, and we drove out to see if we could get +Marcia Watson, at Watson's Hill. Marcia is not a graduate nurse, but she +knows what a sick woman wants, and what a sick household, paralyzed by +the illness of its head, must have, and can set the whole stricken +machinery in order again. She is a tiny creature, as merry as a +squirrel, with quick, tranquil ways. + +The Watson's Hill district is six miles east of us. The Hill is a +beech-wooded ridge, rocky through its whole length, and curving almost +enough to suggest an amphitheatre. A good farming region lies spread out +below it, and there is a village nucleus, a store, the Grange Hall, and +a meeting-house. The hall was burnt, two years ago, and the whole +neighborhood set to work to rebuild it. They had fifteen-cent +entertainments and peanut parties, and sales of aprons and cooked food. +The men did the building, giving their time, and the women cooked for +the men, and this fall the last shingle of the substantial new building +was laid. + +The only mill for many miles is the corn-cannery. Corn-husking always +brings farm neighbors together; sweet corn, for canning, is husked in +August, fodder corn in late October. Families come to husk for each +other, and the wide barn floors where they sit are piled high with +husks; but in the districts near a cannery, as here, the whole community +gathers. In good weather the work is all done out of doors, and the +laughing and chatting groups, men, women, and children, sit up to their +waists in husks. The stoves and kitchens of neighbors are all +pre-empted, and the women bake and fry, and come bustling out to the +workers with milk, bread and cheese, pies and doughnuts. + +Here, at Watson's Hill, as at nearly every farm village in our part of +the world, the neighbors meet for the weekly dance, which is as much a +matter of course as church on Sundays. It would be hard to describe +adequately the friendliness and complete sociableness of these +neighborhood gatherings. Old and middle-aged and young are called by +their first names, and everybody dances; not round dances, but the +beautiful old country dances, which, transplanted over seas and carried +down a century, still show their quality, and keep something of the +courtly nature of the great houses in France and England where they had +their stately beginnings: a quality that gives a certain true social +training. Everyone in the hall is truly in company. Hands must be given +and glances met, all round the dance, and awkwardness and shyness are +quickly danced out of existence. + +We have the Lancers, the Tempest, the Lady of the Lake, and various +quadrilles. They cannot now perhaps be called exactly stately. + +"Balance to partners!" calls out old Abel Tarbox, master of ceremonies +of the Grange Hall, as he fiddles. + +"Balance to partner! Swing the same! All sashy!" And then comes the +splendid romp of, + +"Eight hands round!" and "Eight hands down the middle!" + +Besides the old court dances, there are Pop Goes the Weasel, Money Musk, +Hull's Victory, and others, pretty, intricate frolics, which in their +day were the _dernier cri_ of fashion, danced by gilded youth in great +cities, velvet coat and ruffles, flowered silk petticoat, and spangled +fan. + +The Chorus Jig is very difficult. It has "contra-corners," and other +mysteries impossible to uninitiated feet. + +When money is to be raised for some neighborhood purpose partners for +the evening are chosen in what I should think might be a trying, though +a most practical fashion. On one Saturday evening the ladies, on the +next the gentlemen, are put up for auction as partners, the price paid +being in peanuts. A popular partner will sometimes bring as much as a +hundred and twenty-five peanuts; and why little Alfred Stoddard, who +never did anything in his life but get a musical degree at some tiny +college (there are even those who say that he bought the degree), who +reads catalogues and nurses his dignity while his wife works the farm, +should regularly fetch this fancy price, I never could see. + +"Oh, well!" says Sam Marston, "Alfred has them handsome, mournful dark +eyes. The ladies can't resist 'em." + +The three Watson farms lie to the east of the hill, right under its +rocky ledges, and are sheltered by it; indeed the whole of the beautiful +rounded valley which they occupy is rimmed entirely by low abrupt hills. +It must be an old lake bottom, for the last remnant of the lake, a pond +a hundred yards or so long, still sparkles bright blue in the midst of +it. + +Forty years ago Tristam Watson, with his wife and four children, three +boys, and Marcia, the youngest, went north two hundred miles, to the +Aroostook, when that region still lay under heavy forest. He built his +cabin among the first-growth pines, and cleared and planted among the +trees, burning and uprooting the stumps gradually, as he could. It was +pioneer life, with no roads and almost no neighbors. Bear and moose were +common, and deer more than common, and there were wolves in a hard +winter; but he was a hardy, vigorous man with hardy children, and he did +well. + +He had no idea of cutting himself and his family off from their home +ties. Nothing of the sort. The railroad ran only a short part of the +way, and they could not afford that part, but every year they hitched up +and _drove_ home, the whole distance. It took them about five days. They +had a little home-made tent, and they built their fire and set up their +gipsy housekeeping each night beside the road. If it rained, "why then +it rained," Marcia says. The year was marked by this flight; it was +their great adventure, and apparently a perfect frolic, at least for the +children. They stayed two or three weeks, saw all the "folks," and went +back to their strenuous forest life. + +Tristam died at about sixty, and the family came home, and took up the +three beautiful farms left to the sons by their grandparents. The two +elder sons married, the third stayed with his mother and sister. + +Not long after they came back, Marcia fell ill. There was a badly +aggravated strain, and she had measles and bronchitis, and after that, +as we say in the country, she "commenced ailing." She changed in a year +from a blooming girl to the little thin, white-faced woman she is now +(though her black eyes never stopped twinkling). + +A long illness on an isolated farm is a bad thing for more than bodily +health. The Rural Free Delivery and Rural Telephone, and the lengthening +trolley lines, are bringing the most wholesome stir imaginable after the +old colorless days; but in old times the outlying farms too often held +pitiful brooding figures of women, sunk in depression. Marcia's terror +was lest she should fall under this shadow. She had seen only too many +such cases, and the fear was beginning to realize itself, she often has +told me; but from its very danger her mind, fundamentally sane and +vigorous, plucked out its salvation. First absorbed in her own ailments, +she began to question her doctor about the cure of other diseases. Soon +she asked him for books on medicine. She read and studied, and then one +day she asked him to take her to see a suffering neighbor. To humor her, +he did, and almost at once, ill as she still was, she began to help +nursing patients on the neighboring farms. Once her mind took hold of +work, it cleared itself as the sky clears of clouds when the wind blows. +It was like a slender but vigorous-fibred little tree reaching out and +finding life-giving soil for itself. I do not believe she has an ounce +of extra strength, even now, and she is by no means always free from +pain, but she can do her work, and for five years she has been the most +sought-after nurse in half the county. + +She has an imp's fun (and had, even when she was most ill) and can make +a groaning patient laugh, as she lays on hot compresses. As we drove +home that day in October, she told me how she had been outwitting her +brother. (He is a handsome blond-bearded fellow, with what is rare on +the farms, a carriage as erect as a soldier's. He is far slower-natured +than Marcia.) + +"He's been real tardy, this year, in getting the hams smoked, and he put +off building a smoke-house. He was all for hauling his lumber. Nothing +would do but that lumber must be hauled first, whether the pigs were +smoked, or whether they flew; and there were Mother and I in want of our +bacon." + +He started out with the lumber. The moment his back was turned Marcia +pounced on his brand-new chicken coop ("he fusses like a woman buying a +bonnet, over his chicken coops"), which was just finished and right, and +smoked the meat for herself. + +"That man was fairly annoyed!" she told me demurely. + +Last spring the brother and sister shingled the barn roof together. +Leonard, the brother, was deliberate and painstaking, and Marcia in +triumph nailed his coat-tails to the roof, according to the time-honored +privilege of the shingle-nailer, if the shingle-layer lets himself get +caught up with. + +It was from Marcia and her brother that I first heard the expression +"var," for balsam fir. This is our general country term; but I do not +know whether this is a survival of some older form, or a corruption. +Here in the Watson Hill neighborhood I have also heard the old-fashioned +word "suent," meaning convenient, suitable, so familiar in dialect +stories of Somersetshire and Devon. + +It was well past the fall of the year before we drove Marcia home again, +and a wild autumn storm of wind and heavy rain had carried away all but +the last of the hanging leaves. The shores of the ponds and rivers +showed clear ashes-and-slate colors, and clear dark grays, but the +fields were the pale russet which lasts all winter under the snow. Beech +leaves were still hanging, a beautiful tender fawn color, and, of +course, oak leaves, and the gray birches were like puffs of pale yellow +smoke in among the purple and ashen woods. Crab-apples still hung, +withered red, on the trees, and the hips of the wild roses and haws of +the hawthorns, and the black alder berries, made little blurs of scarlet +in the swamps. Here and there the road dipped through small copses, bare +of leaves, where there were masses of clematis, carrying its tufts of +soft gray fluff, entwined among the bushes, and milkweed pods, just +letting out their shining silver-white silk. Witch-hazel was in flower +all through the woods. + +The evergreens showed up everywhere, in delicate vigorous beauty, and we +counted unguessed masses of pine among the hills. I think we always +expect a little sadness with the fall of the leaves, but instead there +is a sense of elation, with the greater spread of light and the wider +views opening everywhere. The wood roads showed more plainly than in +summer, and paths stood out green across the fields. The tender +unveiling of autumn had revealed the hidden topography of the forest, +and countless small ravines and slopes were suddenly made plain. There +were smaller, friendly revelations, too, for we came here and there, on +large and small nests, and saw where the vireos and warblers had had +their tiny housekeeping. + +Late ploughing was over, and hauling had begun. We passed a good many +loads of potatoes and apples, on their way to the railroad, and then a +load of wood, and one of balsam fir boughs, for banking the houses. The +wood was drawn by a pair of handsome black and cream-white oxen, and the +boughs by a pair of "old natives," plain red brown. The potatoes and +fruit must all be hauled before the cold is too great. + +For the last three miles before the land opens out into the Watson +farms, the hills are covered with low woods, above which rises the +pointed head of Rattlesnake Hill, the only high land in sight. The woods +were like purplish fur over the hillsides, and nearer showed countless +perfect rounded gray rods and wands, like fine strokes of a brush. There +was a great shining of wet rocks and mossy places. It was one of those +still late-autumn mornings, perfectly clear after the rain, when the air +is as fragrant and full of life as in spring. + +Longfellow Pond lies in a hollow of the woods, three miles from +anywhere, a beautiful little wild wooded place, three-quarters of a mile +long, where wild duck come. Alas! when we came near, a portable saw-mill +was at work close to the shore! A high pile of warm-colored sawdust rose +already in the beautiful green of the pine wood. They had just felled +three big pines, and the new-cut butts showed white among the masses of +lopped branches. + +[Illustration: LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS] + +The stretch of wooded country about the pond lies in a belt or fold +between two prosperous farming districts, and has its own population, a +gipsy-looking set, living in the woods in little shacks, half-farmhouse, +half-shanty, with a few straggling chickens. The men of this place were +working for the operator of the saw-mill. It was dinner-time when we +came by, and half a dozen lithe dark young men were sitting about on the +log ends, eating their dinner, which some little dusky children had +brought them in pails and odd dishes. + +We walked down between the stacks of fragrant new-cut lumber to the edge +of the pond, which lay between its wooded shores, as blue as the sky, +sparkling in the sunshine. We could make out three duck at the farther +end of it. It is a pity to have the fine growth of pine cut, but it +grows fast again with us. Nobody cares for the lesser hard wood growths +in such an over-forested State as ours, and once the saw-mill is gone, +the pond will probably stay its wild lonely self, perhaps for ages. + +The last day that Marcia was with us she wanted to see the river, and we +went down and found the flood tide making strongly, two or three gulls +sailing peacefully about, and a late coal barge being towed down against +the tide. We had three days of still deep frost after this, and the next +day when I went down to a hill overlooking one of the most beautiful +reaches of the river, there it lay, a transparent gray mirror, not to +move again until April. All the colors of the banks were pearl and +ashen. Though it lay so still, it whispered and talked to itself +incessantly. There were little ringing gurgles, like the sound of a +glass water-hammer; now tinklings, now the fall of a tiny crystal +avalanche; with occasional deeper soft boomings and resoundings, and all +the time a whispered swish-swish along the banks, the sound of the soft +breaking and fall of the shell ice as the tide ebbed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--EARLY WINTER. + + +Like the inside of a pearl; like the inside of a star-sapphire; like a +rainbow at twilight. We are in a white world, and save for the rich +warmth of the pines and hemlocks there is no color stronger than the +delicate penciling of the woods; but the whiteness is softened all day +by a frost-haze which the sunlight turns into silver. The horizon is +veiled with smoke-color and tender opal. It is as if the world retired +for a little to a space of softened sunrise colors, never hard or sharp; +lovely and unearthly as the clouds. We are so well to the north that in +winter we enter the sub-arctic borderland, the shadowy-twilight regions +of the two ends of the earth. + +It is a very still time of year, there is a wonderful uplifting quiet. +The sun burns low in the south, a mass of soft white fire, not blinding +as in summer; its light plainly that of a great low-hanging star. + +This is the dark season; but to make up for the shortness of the days we +are given such glories of sunrise and sunset, and such a glittering +brilliancy of stars, as come at no other time. All summer these belong +to farmers, shepherds, and sailors; but now even slug-abeds can be out +before first light, and watch the great stars fade, and dawn grow, and +then come back to that cozy and exciting feast, breakfast by candle and +fire light. + +You step out into the frosty dark, with Venus pulsing and burning like a +great lamp, and the snow luminous around you. The stars are like +diamonds, and the sky black, and lo! there is the Dipper, straight +overhead. It is night, yet not night, because of the whiteness of the +snow, and because the air is already alive with the coming morning. The +snow crunches sharply underfoot. The dry air tickles and tingles and +makes you cough. The street lamps are still bright, and here and there +the lighted windows of other early risers show a cheerful yellow in the +snow. It is a friendly time of day. Neighbors call good-morning to each +other in the dark, and sleigh-bells jingle past. Then you come home to +the firelight and the gay-lighted breakfast table, with dawn stealing up +fast, like lamplight spreading from the bright crack under a door. + +As the first shafts of sunlight strike across, they light up a million +frost-crystals. The air is alive with them, on all sides, delicate star +and wheel shapes, flashing like diamonds. This beautiful phenomenon +lasts only about half an hour. The fairy crystals, light as the air, +floating about you, vanish, but the snow continues to flash softly, from +countless tiny stars and facets, all day. + +Frost mists hover all day about our valley, the breath of the sleeping +river. They are drawn through our streets all day in veils and wisps of +softness. Smoke and steam clouds hold their shape long in the winter +temperatures. At night the smoke from the chimneys curls up in pale blue +columns in the rarefied air, against the dark but clear blue of the +winter night sky. By day the steam puffs from the locomotives rise +pinky-buff, or almost gold-color, and keep their shape for a few moments +as firm as thunderheads. + +This year, mid-winter for the sun is the moon's midsummer. The full moon +rises and sets so far to the north that she completes full +three-quarters of the circle. At night she rides at the zenith, high and +small, and the snow fields seem illimitable and remote under her lonely +light. The expanse of snow so increases both sun and moon light that she +seems to rise while it is still broad day; and still to be shining with +full silver, in her unwonted northern station, after broad day again, at +dawn. + +We share some of the phenomena of light of the polar regions. Moon +rainbows are sometimes seen at night; and as this is the season of most +frequent mock suns--_par-helia_--so also mock +moons--_par-selenes_--half-nebulous, massed effects of softly bright +radiance, appear on the hovering frost mists; and sharply outlined lunar +halos herald snowstorms. + +Indeed the greatly increased extent of snow-expanse magnifies all +effects of light extraordinarily. + +At sunset, softened colors, "peach-blossom and dove-color," like the +bands of a wide and diffused rainbow, appear in the _east_; this is the +sunset light, caught by the snowfields, and reflected on the eastern +clouds and mists. Not only this; the "old moon in the new moon's arms," +instead of being a blank mass, as in summer, is darkly luminous, so +greatly has the earth-shine on the moon been magnified. + +A winter night is never really dark. Thanks to the rarefied air, the +stars burn and blaze as at no other season; Sirius appearing to sparkle +with an even bluer light than in summer. You can tell time by a small +watch, easily, by starlight, with no other aid but the diffused glimmer +of the snow fields. + +The other morning an errand took my brother and me out early over the +long hill that makes the Height of Land to the west. There must have +been an amazing fall of frost-dew the night before, for we saw a sight +which I shall never forget; not only the twigs and the branches, but the +actual trunks of the trees, the stone-walls, and the roadside +shrubberies and seed-vessels, frosted with crystals like fern-fronds, +two inches or more long. There is a wood of pines at the crest of the +hill, and here not a green needle showed, not one bit of bark; the trees +rose pure white against the pure blue sky, over the white skyline of the +hill. Looking out over the country, all the woods were silver; +silver-white where the light took them, silver-gray in shadow. Light +flashed round us everywhere, so that it was almost dazzling, yet it was +softened light; stars, not diamonds. + +Once the snow comes, the neighborhood settles to a certain happy quiet. +It is as if winter laid a strong arm about us, encircling and soothing. +The dry air sparkles like wine. Dusk falls early; the wood fires on the +hearths burn bright, and the evenings beside them are never too long. It +is a neighborly time, and the long peaceful hours of work bring a sense +of achievement. + +Out on the farms, the year's supply of wood is being cut. This, with +hauling the hay, and ice-cutting, makes the chief winter work; and the +men who are out chopping all day in the woods become hardy indeed. + +[Illustration: ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY] + +Ice-cutting on the river begins in January. The wide hollow of the river +valley is so white that the men and horses moving up and down stand out +in warm color; the strange snow silence makes an almost palpable +background to the cheerful and sharp sounds of work, the ring of metal, +the squeak of leather, the men's shouts and talk, and the steady roar +which goes up from the ice ploughs and cutters. There are small portable +forges here and there for mending tools, at the fires of which the men +heat their coffee. The ice-cakes are clear blue, and they are lifted out +and started up the run in leisurely procession. Directly the first +cutting is made you have the startling sight of a field of bright blue +living water in the midst of the whiteness; while along the shore, the +rising tide often overflows the shore ice, in pools and rivulets, the +color of yellow-green jade. + +The work is done with heavy steel tools. First the ice must be marked, +then planed to a smooth surface, then grooved more deeply, and for the +last few inches sawed by hand with long ice-saws. It is pleasant work on +sunny days, and the men, who have mostly come in from the farms, like +its sociableness; but often the wind sweeps down the valley bitterly +cold, and then it is very severe, especially the work of keeping the +canals open at night. The ice generally runs to about two feet thick. + +The ice-business in our valley has fallen off since the formation of the +Ice Trust and the increased use of artificial ice. A great part of our +ice fields are only held in reserve now, in case the more southern ice +fails, but it still makes a winter harvest for us. The river towns must +always have their own ice, and the farmers who cut it get good pay for +their work and that of their horses. They speak of the work entirely in +farm terms. They "cultivate" the ice, and "harvest" the "crop." + +Last week we made an expedition across country to where the beautiful +little chain of the Assimasqua ponds and streams lies between the ranges +of Maple Hill on the west, and Wrenn's Mountain on the east; and there, +on Upper Assimasqua, was the same phenomenon of frost-crystals which we +saw on Dunnack Hill, only here it was on the ice. We thought at first +the pond was covered with snow, but as we walked out on it, we saw it +was frost, in such ice-flowers as I have never seen before. They were +like clusters of crystal fern-fronds, each frond an inch and a half to +two inches long. At first these flowers were scattered in clusters about +six inches apart over the black ice, but farther on they ran together +into a solid field of silver, a miniature forest of flashing fern or +palm fronds, so delicate and light it seemed as if they must bend with +the breeze. They outlined each crack in the ice with close garlands. We +could hardly bear to crush them as we walked through them. + +The four Assimasqua Ponds lie low between hills that are heavily wooded, +mostly with beech and hemlock. The shores are high and irregular and jut +out in narrow points, and these and the islands have small cliffs, of +gnarled and twisted strata, which the hemlocks overhang, in masses of +feathery green. + +There was something appealing and endearing in the beauty of this little +forest chain of lakes and streams, lying still and white between its +wooded shores. We crossed its wide surface on foot, and followed up the +course of the stream which whirled and tumbled so, only a month ago. +Every tiny reach and channel was ours to explore. It was as quiet as a +child lying asleep. + +We built a fire on the south shore of a headland, where a curve of the +gnarled cliffs enclosed a tiny beach, cooked bacon, and heated coffee. +Twenty yards from the shore there was a round hole, some eight inches +across, of black dimpling water. It had not been cut, but was natural, +being, I suppose, over a warm spring. The ice was so strong around it +that we could drink from it. + +It was so warm in the sun that we sat about bareheaded and barehanded, +yet not a frost-needle melted. The sunlight glinted on the hemlock +needles, all the way up the hillsides, and a balsamy sweetness seemed to +be all about us, mixed with the pungent smoke of our wood fire. + +The chickadees were busy all round us, making little bright chirrupy +sounds. We could hear blue-jays calling, deeper in the woods, and the +occasional "crake, crake, crake," of a blue nuthatch. The dry winter +woods cracked and the pond rang and gurgled with pretty hollow noises. +The hemlocks had fruited heavily, and were hung all over with little +bright brown cones, like Christmas trees. They seem to give out fragrant +sunny health all winter, a dry thrifty vigor. + +We did not see a soul on all the Upper Ponds, and only fox tracks ran in +and out of the marsh-grasses of the stream, but on Lower Assimasqua +there were men cutting wood. They were cutting out beech and white and +yellow birch for firewood, and leaving the hemlock, which grew very +thick here. The cut wood stood about the slope in neatly piled +bright-colored stacks, with colored chips among the fallen branches, and +the axe blows rang sharp and musical in the winter silence. The men, who +were good-looking fellows, wore woolen or corduroy, with high moccasins, +and their sheepskin and mackinaw coats were thrown aside on the snow. +There were five or six of them, mostly young men, and one handsome older +man, with hawk features and a bright color, silver hair and beard, and +bright warm brown eyes. They had bread, doughnuts, and pie for their +dinner, and a jug of cider. + +The Lower is the largest of the four ponds. It is, perhaps, three miles +long by a mile wide, but it seemed almost limitless, under the snow, and +we felt like pygmy creatures, walking in the midst, with the unbroken +level stretching away around us. + +The sky was deepening into indescribable colors, peacock blue, peacock +gray, and in the middle of the expanse, over the woods, we saw the great +full moon, just rising clear out of the violet and opal tenebrae, the +fringes of the sky. She was as pale as a bubble, or as the palest pink +summer cloud, but gathered color fast, then poured her floods of silver. +The whiteness of the pond glimmered more and more strangely as dusk +increased. + +We came home, stiff and happy, to a great wood fire, piled in a wide and +deep fireplace, and to a room of firelight and evergreen-scented +shadows. + +That night a light rain fell, then turned to a busy snow-storm, which +fell for hours on the wet surfaces in thick soft-falling flakes, so that +by the next morning the world was a fairy forest of white. The trees +bent down under their feathery load. Wonderful low intricately crossed +branches were everywhere. Each littlest grove and clump of shrubbery +became a dense thicket of white. This fairy forest was close, close +round us, so that each street seemed magical and unfamiliar, a place +that we had never seen before. It was a perfectly hushed world. Our +footsteps made no sound, and even the masses from the overladen branches +came down silently. Everything but whiteness was obliterated; then at +night the moon came out clear again, and lighted up this fairy world, +and the white spirits of trees stood up against the gray-black sky. + +Ten days after this there followed a great ice-storm, when for two days +rain fell incessantly, and, as it fell, covered the twigs and branches +with crystal. It cleared on the third morning, and instead of white, we +were in a world of diamond. The dazzling brilliancy was almost more than +the eye could bear. Every blade of grass and seed-vessel was changed to +a crystal jewel, and the breeze set them tinkling. The sky was fairy +blue. The woods and all the fields flashed round us as we walked almost +spell-bound through their strange beauty. The wonder was that the whole +star-like world did not clash and ring as if with silver harp music. + +As the sun rose higher, the country was veiled with frost haze, but +through it, and beyond, we saw the shining of the crust on all the +distant hills. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON + + +Assimasqua Mountain rises abruptly to the west of the four ponds, a +noble hill or range, five miles in length. + +The west shore of the Assimasqua lakes sweeps abruptly up to the high +crest of the ridge, which is very irregular. It is partly wooded, partly +half-grown-up pasture, partly ledge, and along the high grassy summit +small chasms open and lead away into deep woods of hemlock. The steep +east side is covered for most of its length with an amazing growth of +juniper, hundreds and hundreds of close-massed bushes of great size and +thickness. The ridge holds a number of little dark mountain tarns, and +half a dozen good brooks tumble down its sides in small cascades. The +folds of its forest skirts broaden out to the west into the bottom lands +at its feet. To the east, the valleys of the brooks deepen and sharpen +into ravines through the woods, as they draw near the lakes. + +The shores all about the four lakes, as I said, are heavily wooded, and +there are but one or two farms, and these only small clearings. A +singular person lived in one of them, who worked for years over a great +invention, a boat which was to utilize the wind by means of a windmill, +which in turn worked a small paddle-wheel. No one now knows whether he +had never heard of such a thing as a sail, or merely thought sails +dangerous. He was absorbed in his project; and he did get his boat to +go, in time, and at least a few times she trundled a clumsy course +around the lake. + +Near the south end of the Mountain is the old Hale place. Mr. Hale was a +gentle-looking man, very neat, with a quiet voice and ways. He kept his +wide fields finely cultivated, and had a large orchard, and twelve +Jersey cows. The lane through which they filed home at night is enclosed +between the two mightiest stump fences I have ever seen, fully ten feet +high, and a perfect wilderness to climb over. They look like the +brandished arms of witches, or like enormous antlers, against the sky, +and are thickly fringed all along their base with delicate Dicksonia +fern. Stump fences are fast becoming rare with us, and these must be the +over-turned stumps of first-growth pine. + +After Mr. and Mrs. Hale died, the farm passed to a sister, Mrs. Wrenn, +and when her husband, too, died--he had been a slack man, with no hold on +anything--she made the fatal mistake, too common among old people on the +farms, of making over the property to a kinsman (in this case, a married +step-niece and her husband) on condition of support. I never knew Mrs. +Wrenn, but a young farmer's wife, a friend of mine, was anxious about +her troubles, and through her there came to our notice an incident which +seemed to light up the whole gray region of the farm. + +The neighbors began to hear rumors of neglect and abuse. Mrs. Wrenn was +never seen, and those who knew the skinflint ways of her entertainers +suspected trouble and presently confided their fears to the young doctor +of the neighborhood. He came at once, and found the poor soul in a fatal +illness, left alone in unspeakable dirt and squalor in a sort of +out-house, with unwashed bed-clothes, no one to feed or tend her, and +food which she could not touch put roughly beside her once a day. There +were signs too of actual rough handling. + +"Don't try to make me live!" the old lady whispered, with command and +entreaty. "Don't ye dare to keep me living," and he assured her solemnly +that he would not, except in reason, and would only make her more +comfortable. He rated the bad woman in charge till he had her well +frightened, and then, though it was not only dark already, but raining +fast (and though he was poor himself, with his way to make and no +financial backing) he drove five miles to town and brought back and +installed a nurse at his own expense. + +"The tears were running down his cheeks," the nurse herself told me, +"when he assured that poor old creature that either he or I would be +with her day and night, that we would never leave her, and she would be +safe with us. He paid my charges, and all supplies and food, out of his +own pocket. He saw her every day, and when her release came, he was +close beside her, and had her hand in his. He couldn't have been more +tender to his own mother. And he gave that bad woman a part of what she +deserved." + +I should like to say something more of this young physician. He started +as a farm boy, with no capital beyond insight and purpose, and skilled +hands, and was led to his career, or rather could not keep himself from +his career, because of the fire of pity and tenderness that possessed +him. He has come to honor and recognition now, but at the time of which +I write, and for years, he was known only to a thirty-mile circle of +farm people, a good part of them too poor to pay for any services. He +gave himself to them, without knowing that he was giving anything. He +was a born citizen, too, served as overseer of the poor, and as +selectman, and people consulted him about their quarrels and troubles. + +I spoke of the incident about Mrs. Wrenn, which the nurse had told me a +year or more after it happened, to the doctor's wife, some weeks since. +He had never told her of it. Her eyes filled with tears. + +"That is just like him," she said. + +The Ridge slopes down to the west, to the rich plains through which the +Marston communities are scattered--Marston Centre, North and West +Marston, Marston Plains. The "Four Marstons" are a notable district, for +Marston Academy had the luck to be founded, nearly a hundred years ago, +by persons of liberal education, and the dwellers in the comfortable +four-square brick houses of the neighborhood have more than kept up its +intellectual traditions; though the town has no railroad communication, +and only one mill, the shovel factory, since the old saw-mill which cut +the first-growth pines on the slopes of Assimasqua has been given up. + +The Marston saw-mill is chiefly remembered because of Hiram Andros, who +worked there as sawyer for forty-five years, and had the name of the +best judge of timber in the State. The _sawyer's_ is a notable position. +He himself does no actual work, but stands near the saw, and in the +brief moment when each log is run on to the carriage, holds up the +requisite number of fingers to show whether it is to be a three, a four, +or five-inch timber, or cut into boards or planks; which cut will make +the best use of the log, with the least waste. The sawyer gets high pay, +six to ten dollars a day, and earns it, for on his single judgment, +delivered in that fraction of a minute, the mill's prosperity hangs. + +What is it that gives a town so distinct a color and fibre? Marston +people have kept, generation after generation, a fine flavor and +distinction. They are in touch with the world, in the best sense, and +men of science and leaders of thought in university life, as well as +business magnates, have gone out from Marston, yet still feel they +belong there. + +Eliphalet Marston, who built and owned the shovel factory, made it his +study to produce the best shovel that could be made, the best wearing, +the soundest. In later life his son tried to induce him to go about +through the country, and look up his customers, to increase trade. The +son was very emphatic; it was what everyone did, the only way to keep +up-to-date and advertise the business, and Eliphalet must not become +moss-grown. He shook his head, but after much hammering started off, +though not really persuaded. He went to a big wholesale dealer in +Chicago, but did not mention his name, merely said he was there to talk +shovels. + +"Don't mention shovels to me," said the dealer. "There's just one shovel +that's worth having, just one that's honest, and that's the one that I'm +handling. There it is," he said, producing it. "Look at it; that's the +only _shovel_ that's made in this country; made by a man named Marston, +at Marston Plains, State of ----" + +Eliphalet chuckled, and went home. + +The Barnards were Marston people, a brilliant but strange family; and +next door to the Barnards lived a remarkable woman, Miss Persis Wayland. +She was a tall handsome person, of a large frame. She lived to a great +age, passing all her later life alone, save for one attendant, in her +father's large house, with its gardens and hedges around it. She was +well-to-do, and dressed with old-fashioned stateliness in heavy black +silk. + +She was a woman of fine understanding, and a trained scholar. She read +four languages easily, and at forty took up the study of Hebrew, that +she might have her Bible free from the perversions of translation. She +was about thirty when the religious temperament which was later to +dominate her first manifested itself. She has told me herself of her +experience. + +She had been conscious for years of a vague dissatisfaction, and of +life's seeming empty and purposeless. She threw herself, first into +study, then into works of charity, in her effort to find peace. She rose +early, and worked till she was utterly worn out and exhausted, at her +Sunday School class, at missionary work, and till late hours at her +Spanish and Latin, all to no purpose. + +Then one day she found herself at a meeting at which a Methodist +evangelist (she herself was a strict Episcopalian) was to speak. She +went in without thought, from a chance impulse as she passed the door. +After the speaking, those who felt moved to do so were asked to come +forward and kneel; and as she knelt, she felt the breath of the Spirit +upon her forehead. + +"It was as plain as the touch of your hand and mine," she said, as she +laid her handsome old hand on my fingers; and from that moment, all her +life, the light never left her, she felt "held round by an unspeakable +peace and sunshine." + +She always held to her own church, but became more and more of a +Spiritualist, till she saw her rooms constantly thronged with the faces +of her childhood, father and mother, and the brothers and sisters and +playmates who had passed on. + +She gradually withdrew from active life, and for the last ten years, I +think, never stepped outside her door. She had a fine presence always, +rapt and stately. She was distantly glad to see friends who called upon +her, but never showed much human warmth. She lived till her +ninety-eighth year. + +[Illustration: THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT] + +In the farming country near Marston began the ministry of Clarissa Gray, +the beloved evangelist. An unusual experience in illness led this grave, +charming girl to thought apart upon the things of God, and as she grew +up, persons vexed in spirit began to turn to her for comfort. Her +personality was so tranquil and at rest that she seemed to diffuse a +sense of musing peace about her; yet she was not dreamy; her nature was +rather so limpidly clear that she was never pre-occupied, and she had +clear practical good-sense. Hard-drinking, violent men would yield to +her direct and fearless influence. Presently she was asked more and more +widely to lead in meeting, and to her unquestioning nature this came as +a clear call. Her voice, fervent and pure, led in prayer, her crystal +judgement solved problems, till without her ever knowing it the +community lay in the hollow of her small hands. + +I was last at Marston on a day of deep winter. We were to make a visit +in the town, and then explore the fields and woods of the west slopes of +Assimasqua. + +A marked change comes to us by the middle of January. We emerge from the +softened twilight world of earlier winter into a brilliancy of white, +with bright blue shadows. The deep snow is changed by the action of the +wind and its own weight, to a wonderful smooth firmness. It takes on +carved and graven shapes, and might be a sublimated building material, a +fairy alabaster or marble, fit to built the palaces in the clouds. After +each storm the snow-plough piles it, often above one's head, on both +sides of the roads and sidewalks; we walk between high walls built of +blocks and masses of blue-shadowed white. + +The brightness is almost too great, through the middle of the day; it is +dazzling; but about sunset a curious opaque look falls on the landscape; +a flattening, till they are like the hues of old pastels, of all the +delicate colors. The country has an appearance of almost infinite space, +under the snow, and the wind carves out pure sharp wave-like curves of +drift about the fields and hills. + +The still air, dry and fiery, is like champagne. It almost _burns_, it +is so cold and pure. A great feeling of lightness comes to moccasined +feet, in walking in this rarefied air through powdery snow; but fingers +and toes quickly become numb without even feeling the cold. + +Starting early out of Marston Plains village, we passed a tall rounded +hill which had a grove of maples near its top, the countless fine lines +of their stems like the strings of some harp-like instrument. The light +breeze, hardly more than a stirring, made music through them. The +sunrise was hidden behind this hill, but the delicate bare trees were +lighted up as with a gold mist. + +As we entered the forest on the skirts of Assimasqua, the wind rose +outside. A fresh fall of snow the day before had weighted every branch +of the evergreens with piled-up whiteness, which now came down in bright +showers, the snow crystals glinting around us where stray sunbeams stole +down among the trees: but in the shelter of the great pines and hemlocks +not a breath of wind reached us, and the woods were held fast in the +snow hush, against which any chance sound rings out sharply. + +The bark of the different trees was like a set of fine etchings, the +yellow birches shining as if burnished; the patches of handsome dark +mosses on the ash-trees, and the fine-grained bark of lindens, ashes, +and hop-hornbeams stood out brightly. + +As we followed a wood road we heard chirruping and tweeting, and saw a +flock of pine siskins among the pine-tops, and later we heard the +vigorous tapping of a great pileated woodpecker. + +All the northern woodpeckers winter with us; as do bluejays, and +chickadees, (the "friendly birds" of the Indians); juncos and +nuthatches; and partridges, which burrow under the snow for roots and +berries, and are sometimes caught, poor things, by the foxes, when the +crust freezes over them. Crows stay with us through a very mild winter, +but more often are off to the sea, thirty miles distant, to grow fat on +periwinkles; and very rarely indeed a winter wren or a song-sparrow +remains with us. The beautiful cream-white snow-buntings, cross-bills, +fat handsome pine-grosbeaks, golden-crowned kinglets, brown-creepers, +and those pirates, the butcher birds, come for short winter visits. +Evening grosbeaks, and Bohemian wax-wings, we see more rarely. By the +end of February, when the cold may be deepest, the great owls are +already building, deep in the woods. + +Ever so many small sharp valleys and ravines were revealed among the +woods, some winding deep into the darkness of the pines and hemlocks. +Their perfect curves were made more perfect by the unbroken snow, and +they were flecked all over with the feathery blue shadows of their +trees. At the bottom of one we heard a musical tinkling, and found a +brook partly open. We scrambled down to it, and knelt there, watching +it, till we were half frozen. The ice was frosted deep with delicate +lace-work, and looking up underneath we saw a perfect wonderland of +organ-pipes and colonnades of crystal, through which the water tinkled +melodiously. + +We came out high on the north side of Assimasqua, in the sugaring grove +that spreads up the steep slope to the crest. The tall maples were very +beautiful in their winter bareness, and the slope about their feet was +massed with a close feathery growth of young balsam firs and hemlocks, +with openings between. The snow lay even with the eaves of the small +bark sugaring-shanty. The sight of a roof made the silence seem almost +palpable, but in March the hillside will have plenty of sound and stir, +for fires will be lighted and the big kettles swung, while the men come +and go on sledges. Sugaring goes on all through the countryside, and +even in the town boys are out with "spiles," drilling the maple +"shade-trees," as soon as the sap begins running. The bright drops fall +slowly, one by one, into the pail hung to the end of the spile, and the +sap is like the clearest spring water, with a refreshing woodsy +sweetness. + +The high rough crest of Assimasqua dominates a wide stretch of country. +The long sweep of the fields, and the lakes, lying asleep, showed +perfect, featureless white, as we stood looking down; but all about, and +in among them, the low broken hills, the knolls and ridges, bore scarfs +or mantles of smoke-colored bare woods, mixed with evergreens. + +All day the sky had been of an aquamarine color, of the liquid and +luminous clearness which comes only in mid-winter, and deep afternoon +shadows were falling as we came down the hillside. We were on +snow-shoes, and had brought a toboggan, as the last part of our way lay +down hill. The country was open below the sugaring grove, and the +unbroken snow masked all the contours and mouldings of the fields, so +that we found ourselves suddenly dropping into totally unrealized +hollows and skimming up unrealized hillocks. + +When we reached the small dome-like hill where we were to take the +cross-country trolley, the blue-green sky had changed to a pure +primrose, and in this, as the marvelous dusk of the snow fields deepened +about us, the thin golden sickle of the new moon, and then Venus, came +out slowly till they blazed above the horizon; the primrose hue changed +to a low band of burning orange beneath the fast-striding darkness, then +to a blue-green color, a robin's egg blue, which showed liquid-clear +behind the pines; but long before we reached home the colors had +deepened into the peacock blue darkness of the winter night. + +Just before the distant whistle of the trolley broke the stillness, we +had a tiny adventure; we strayed over the brow of the hill, and came on +two baby foxes playing in the soft snow like kittens. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--OUR TOWN + + +I + +The farms become smaller, and string along nearer and nearer each other, +the hills slope more and more sharply, till suddenly, there below them +lies our Town, held round in their embrace, its factory chimneys sending +up blossoms of steam, its host of scattered lights at night a company of +low-dropped stars. There is no visible boundary; but with the first +electric light pole there is a change, and something deeper-rooted than +its convenience and compactness, its theatres and trolleys, makes the +town's life as different as possible from that of the farm districts. +Yet an affectionate relationship maintains itself between the two. Farm +neighbors bring in a little area of unhurried friendliness which clings +around their Concord wagons or pungs; hurrying townsfolk, stopping to +greet them, relax their tension and an exchange of jokes and chaff +begins. Leisurely, ample farm women settle down in our Rest Room for +friendly talk and laughter, and hot coffee or tea. + +Our dearest Town! We have perhaps some of the faults of all northern +places. We, at least we women, are sad _Marthas_, careful and troubled, +including house-cleaning with seed-time and harvest among the things +ordained not to fail, no matter at what cost of peace of mind and +health. We hug each our own fireside; but this is because, for eight +months of the year, the great cold gives us a habit of tension. We enjoy +too little the elixir of our still winter days, and hurry, hurry as we +go, to pop back to our warm hearths as fast as ever we can. + +Now and again through the year, the big cities call us with a Siren's +voice. + +"My wife and I put in ten days at the Waldorf-Astoria each year, and we +count it good business," says one of our tradesmen, and he speaks for +many. The clustered brilliancy at the entrances of the great theatres, +the shop windows, the sense of being _carried_ by the great current of +life, sets our feet and our pulses dancing; but I think it is not quite +so much the stir and gaiety which we sometimes thirst for as the +protecting insulation of the crowd, to draw breath in a little and let +the mind relax. The wall that guards one's citadel of inner privacy +needs, in a small town, to be built of strong stuff; it is subjected to +hard wear. Indeed we share some of the privations of royalty, in that we +lead our whole lives in the public eye. We see each other walk past +every day, greet each other daily in shops and at street corners, and +meet each other's good frocks and company manners at every church supper +and afternoon tea. It takes a nature with Heaven's gift of +unconsciousness to withstand this wear and tear; yet there are plenty of +these among us, people of such quality and fibre that they keep a fine +aloofness and privacy of life, like sanctuary gardens within guardian +hedges. + +But if our closeness to each other has these slight drawbacks, it has +advantages that are unspeakably precious. Our neighbors' joys and +troubles are of instant importance to us, each and all. In the city one +can look on while one's neighbor dies or goes bankrupt. Too often, one +cannot help even where one would; here we _must_ help, whether we will +or no! We cannot get away from duties that are so imperative. Our +neighbor's necessities are unescapable, and a certain soldierly quality +comes to us in that we cannot _choose_. + +An instinct, whether Puritan or Quaker, runs straight through us, which +at social gatherings draws men and women to the two sides of a room, as +a magnet draws needles. Perhaps it is merely the shyness inherent in +towns of small compass; in all the annals of small places, in Cranford, +in John Galt's villages, the ladies bridle and simper, the gentlemen +"begin for to bash and to blush," in each other's society. Whatever it +is, it narrows and pinches communities, and does sometimes more +far-reaching harm than the mere stiffening-up of parties and gatherings; +it narrows the women's habit of thought, so that children are deprived +of some of the wider outlook of citizenship; and the woman's ministry of +cheering and soothing, which pours itself out without stint to all +_women_ in old age or sorrow or sickness, is too often withheld from the +men, who may be as lonely and troubled, and may be left forlorn and +uncheered. However, this foolish thing vanishes before rich and warm +natures, like snow in a March sun. + +I sometimes wish that our latch-strings hung a little more on the +outside. It is easier for us to give a party, with great effort, and our +ancestral china, than to have a friend drop in to share family supper; +yet there is something that makes for strength in this fine privacy of +each family's circle, and no doubt, as our social occasions are +necessarily few, a certain formality is the more a real need. It "keeps +up." + +One grave trouble runs through our community, and leaves a black trail. +Drink poisons the lives of too many of our working-men. + +The drain to the cities, which robs all small places of part of their +life's blood, touches us nearly; the young wings must be tried, the +young feet take the road. The restless sand is in the shoes, and one out +of perhaps every twenty pairs sold in our street is to take a boy or +girl out to make a new home, far from father and mother. + +But this, although it robs us, is also our pride and strength. Many of +the boys and girls who have gone out from among us have become +torch-bearers, and their light shines back to us; and if the town's +veins are drained, it is, by the very means which drain it, made part of +the arterial system of the whole country, and throbs with its heart +beats. The enormous variety of post-marks on our incoming mail tells its +absorbing story. + +There is no sameness, even in a small town. Here, as everywhere, the +Creator lays here and there His finger of difference; as if He said, +"Conformity is the law--and non-conformity." Why should one clear-eyed +boy among us have been born with the voice and vision, and the +sorrow-and-reward-full consecration, of high poetry, rather than his +brothers? Why should another, of different bringing-up, among a din of +voices crying down the town's possibilities, have had the wit and +enterprise, yes, and the vision, too, to build up, here, a vigorous +manufactory, whose wares, well planned and well made, now have their +market many States away? + +I think of a third boy, the child of a well-read, but not a studious +household, who at ten was laying hands on everything that he could find +to study in the branch of science to which his life was later to be +dedicated. He had the same surroundings as the rest of us, we went to +school and played at Indians together; and now, for years, in a distant +city, his life has led him daily upon voyages of thought, beyond the ken +of those who played with him. + +Another boy, our dear naturalist, also lives far away. His able, merry +brothers were the most practical creatures; so was he, too, but in +another way. He turned, a little grave-eyed child, to out-of-doors, as a +duck takes to water, caring for birds and beasts with a pure passion, as +absorbed in watching their ways as were the other boys in games and +food. It was nothing to him to miss a meal, or two, if a turtle's eggs +might be hatching. He had very little to help him, for his father, a +very fine man, a master builder, failed in health early; but he helped +himself. He found countless little out-of-the-way jobs; he mounted trout +or partridges for older friends, caught bait, exchanged specimens +through magazines, etc., to keep himself out of doors, and to buy books +and collecting materials. By the time he was twelve he had a little +taxidermy business; and with the growth of technical skill, the finer +part, the naturalist's seeing eye for infinite difference--the shading of +the moth's wing, the marking of the wren's egg--grew faster yet; and with +it the patient reverent absorption in the whole. + +People come to him now for accurate and delicate knowledge. His word +gives the authority which for so long he sought; and, at least once, he +has been sent by his Government to bring back a report of birds and +fishes, and to plant his country's flag on a lone coral island. + +The other night we went to a play given by some of the school children. +Their orchestra played with spirit; and from the first we grew absorbed +in watching a little boy who played the bass drum. The bass drum! He +played the snare-drum, the triangle, the cymbals, a set of musical +rattles, and I do not know how many extraordinary things attached to +hand or feet, as well. Our northern music is choked in the sand of +over-business, prisoned by northern stiffness, but shy, stiff, awkward +though it may be, the divine thing is there, as groundwater is present +where there is land; and nothing can keep our children from buying +(generally with their own earnings) instruments of one sort or another, +and picking up lessons. + +I know this little boy. His father is a laborer, a slack man, down at +heels, but kind and indulgent. The boy is a chubby little soul, and he +accompanied the showy rag-time as Bach's son might have played his +father's masses, with a serious, reverent absorption, his little +unconscious face lighting up at any prettier change in the rag-time. +They live in a tiny cottage, and are well-fed, but very untidy. As the +humming bird finds honey, this child had somehow picked up odd pennies +to buy, and found time to master, his extraordinary collection of +instruments, and he sat playing as if in Heaven. Surely we had seen yet +another manifestation of the Power, which, together with the bright +fields of golden-rod and daisies, plants also the hidden lily in the +woods. + + +II + +Of the town's politics, the less said the better, but in every matter +outside of their withering realm, I wonder how many other communities +there are in which public spirit is as much a matter of course as +drawing breath, where heart and soul are poured into the town's needs so +royally. Our churches, our Library, our Rest Room, Board of Trade, and +Merchants' Association have been earned by the hardest of hard work, +shoulder to shoulder. Most of our women do their own household work, all +of our men work long hours; but when there is question of a public work +to be done, people will pledge, gravely and with their eyes open, an +amount of work that would fairly stagger persons whose easier lives have +trained their fibres less hardily. I wonder what would be the +equivalent, in dollars and cents, of the gift to one of the town's +undertakings, by a stalwart house-wife (who does all the work for a +family of five) of _every afternoon for three weeks_, and this in +December, when our Town loses its head in a perfect riot of Christmas +present-giving. + +What is it in politics, what can it be, which so poisons human +initiative at its well-springs? Here is public work which, we are told, +we must accept (must we?) as a corrupting and corrupt thing; it deadens +and poisons; and almost interlocking with it is work for the same town's +good, done by the same people, which invigorates as if with new breath +and kindles a living fire among us. + +The peculiar problem of our town, the bitter, fighting quality of our +politics, is a mystery to ourselves. One condition which presses equally +hard on the whole State: the constant friction, and consequent moral +undermining, of a law constantly evaded: may be in part responsible. But +no doubt our intense, flint-and-steel individualism is the chief factor; +yet this individualism is also the sap, the very life-blood, of the +tree! + +(Surely things will be better when the ethics of citizenship is taught +to children as unequivocally as the duty of telling the truth.) + +With this citizen's work, goes on a private kindness so beautiful that +one finds one's self without words, uplifted and humbled before it; it +is as if, below the obstructions of our busy lives, there ran a river of +friendship, so strong, so single-purposed, that when the rock above it +is struck by need or adversity, its pure current wells forth and carries +everything before it. + +How many times have this or that old person's last days been made +peaceful and tranquil, instead of torn with anxiety, by the hidden +action of "a few friends": (ah, the fine and sweet reticence!); and +these not persons of means, but of slender purses; young men, among +others, with the new cares of marriage and children already heavy upon +them. + +Doctor's bills "seen to"; a summer at the seashore, for a drooping young +mother, "arranged for"; the new home cozily furnished, and books and +clothing found, for a burnt-out household; a telephone installed, a year +at college provided for; a girl, not at fault, but in trouble, taken in +and made one of the family; these instances and their like crowd the +town's unwritten annals. + +I must not seem to rate our dear Town too highly, or to claim that these +examples are anything out of the common, that they shine brighter than +the countless other unseen stars of the Milky Way of Kindness. I only +stand abashed before a bed-rock quality of friendship, which never wears +out nor tires; which gives and gives again, gravely, yet not counting +the cost, and does not withhold that last sharing of hearth and privacy, +before which so many dwellers in more sophisticated places cannot but +waver. + +Have I given too many examples? How can I withhold them! + +I think of the machine-tender and his wife, who, in a year of ill-health +and doctor's bills for themselves and their two children, took in the +young wife of a fellow-worker who had lost his position; tended her when +her baby came, cared for mother and child for eight months, till a new +job was found. + +Of two households, who took in and made happy, the one a broken-down +artist who had fallen on evil times in a great city, the other a +sour-tempered old working woman, left without kin. The first household +have growing-up children, an automobile, horses, all the complexities of +well-to-do life in these days, but the tie of old friendship was the one +thing considered. The householders in the second case were not even near +friends, merely fellow church members, a kind man and wife, left without +children, who could not enjoy their warm house while old Hannah was +friendless. They tended her as they might have tended their own sister. + +Of the young teacher, alone in the world, who, when calamity came to two +married friends (a burnt house and office, and desperate illness) took +_all_ the savings that were to have gone for three years' special +training, went to them, a three-days' railroad journey, brought them +home, and bore all the household expenses of the young couple, and of +their baby's coming, until new work was found. + +The cooking and housework for four persons, (together with a heavy +amount of neighborhood work,) would seem enough for even a very capable +and kind pair of hands. Well, one friend, in addition to this, for two +years cooked and carried in _all_ the meals for a neighbor (a good many +doors away), a crippled girl, a prey, heretofore, to torturing +dyspepsia. There was no chance of saving the girl's life, she had a +fatal complaint, but thanks to this simple ministry, her last two years +were free from pain, and she was as happy a creature as could well be. + +These and like cases crowd to one's mind, till the memories of the town +ring like a chime of bells. + +I remember how troubled we were about one neighbor, a gentle, sweet +lady, left the last of a large and affectionate family circle; how we +dreaded the loneliness for her. We need not have been troubled. There +was a place for her at every hearth in the neighborhood, and when the +long last illness set in, kind, pitiful hands of neighbors were close +about, soothing and tending her. One younger friend, like a daughter, +never left her, day after day. Her own people were all gone before her, +her harvest was gathered, there could be no more anguish of parting; and +her last years seemed, as one might say, carried forward on a sunny +river of friendship. + + +III + +People from sunnier climates speak sometimes of our lack of community +cheer and of festivals; but a temperature of twenty below zero--or even +twenty above--does not conduce to dancing on the green; and it may be +that the spirit's light-footedness, like that of the outward person, is +hampered by many wrappings. Yet once in a while even we northern people +do "break out"; as on Fourth of July, when, in the early morning, the +"Antiques and Horribles," masked and painted, ride, grinning, through +the streets. + +After a football victory, our High School boys, like boys everywhere, +break out in unorganized revel. They caper about in night-shirts put on +over their clothes, or in their mother's and sisters' skirts, and with +the girls as well, they dance down the street in a snake-dance. They +light a bonfire in the square, and sing, cheer, and frolic around it. +Though they do not know it, it is pure carnival. + +The long white months of winter see us all very busy and settled. This +is the time of year when solid reading is done, and sheets are hemmed, +when our Literary Societies write and read their papers, when we get up +plays and tableaux, and the best work is done in the schools. Nobody +minds the long evenings, the lamplight beside the open fires is so +infinitely cozy; and on moonlight nights, all winter, the long +double-runners slip past outside, with joyful laughter and clatter, as +the boys and girls--and their elders--take one hill after another in the +Mile Coast. + +With the breaking-up of the ice, all our settled order breaks up, too, +in the tremendous effort of Spring Cleaning. It is as chaotic within the +house as without. The furniture is huddled in the middle of the room, +swathed in sheets. The master of the house mourns and seeks, like a bird +robbed of its nest. We live in aprons and sweeping caps, and in mock +despair. The painter will not come; the step-ladder is broken; the +spare-room matting is too worn to be put down again; but every dimmest +corner of the attic, every picture and molding, every fragment of +put-away china, is shining and polished before the weary wives will take +rest. + +With the first warm-scented May nights, the children's bedtime becomes +an indefinite hour. They are all out after dusk, like flights of +chimney-swallows. They run and race down the streets, they don't know +why, and frolic like moths about the electric-light poles. + +Memorial Day, with its grave celebration, renews our citizenship. The +children are in the fields almost at sunrise, gathering scarlet +columbines in the hill crannies, yellow dog-tooth violets, buttercups in +the tall wet grass, stripping their mothers' gardens of their brilliant +blaze of tulips, bending down the heavy, dewy heads of white and purple +lilacs. The matrons meet early at Grand Army Hall, and tie up and trim +bouquets and baskets busily till noon. The talk is sober, but cheerful, +and there is a realization of harvest-home and achievement, rather than +sadness. The little sacred procession marches past, to the sound of +music that is more elating than mournful. Later, after the marching, the +tired men find hot coffee and sandwiches ready for them. + +With summer, inconsequence and irresponsibility steal happily over the +town. Even in the shops and factories the work is not the same, for +employers and employees have become easy-going, and the business streets +look contentedly drowsy. Bricks and paving stones cannot keep out the +wafts of summer fragrance, and with them an ease and gayety, a _joie de +vivre_, diffuse themselves, which are astonishing after our winter +soberness. Our night-lunch carts, popcorn, and pink lemonade booths, +with their little flaring lights, are ugly, if compared, for instance, +to kindred things in Italy, but they manifest the same spirit. The +coming of a circus shows this feeling at its height, but it does not +need a circus to bring it out; and the Merry-go-round on one of our +wharves toots its gay little whistle all summer. Music, sometimes queer +and naive in expression, comes stealing out through the town. Our music +is never organized, but the strains of brass or string quartettes or a +small band, or of a little part singing, are heard of an evening. + +Everybody who can manage it goes down to the sea, if but for one day, +and the small excursion steamer is crowded on her daily trips to "The +Islands." + +"It takes from trade," remarks I. Scanlon, the teamster, "but you've +only got one life to live. At a time!" he adds reverently; and he and +his wife and six children travel down to a much-be-cottaged island, set +up their tent on the beach, and for a delicious, barefoot fortnight live +on fish of their own catching, and potatoes brought with them from home. + +We almost live on our lawns, and neighbors stray across to each other's +piazzas for friendly talk, friendly silence, all through the warm summer +evenings. + +By October every string needs tautening. The still, keen weather takes +matters into its own hands, and we are brought back strictly to work. +Meetings are held, committees appointed, plans made for the winter's +tasks, and soon each group is hard at it, for this and that missionary +barrel, this and that campaign; and at Thanksgiving the matrons meet +again at Grand Army Hall, to apportion and send out the Thanksgiving +Dinner. It is a privilege to be with the kind, able women, to watch +their capable hands, their shortcuts to the heart of the matter in +question, their easy authority, their large friendliness; in more cases +than not, their distinction of bearing as well. + +Thanksgiving once over, the pace quickens. Each church has its yearly +sale and supper at hand, for which months of faithful work have been +preparing, and these once worked off, the whole town, as I have said, +loses its head in a perfect fever of giving. What does anything matter +but happiness? Christmas is coming! Every man, woman, and child is a +hurrying Santa Claus. The first snow brings its strange hush, its +strange sheltering pureness, and the sleigh-bells begin once more to +jingle all about. During Christmas week hundreds of strings of colored +lights are hung across the business streets. Wreaths and garlands of +fragrant balsam fir, the very breath and expression of our countryside, +are hung everywhere, over shop windows and doorways, in every house +window, and on quiet mounds in the churchyard and cemetery. The +solemnity of the great festival, which is our Christmas, our All Saints' +and All Souls' in one, folds round us. + +The churches are all dark and sweet, like rich nests, with their heavy +fir garlands, lit up by candles. Pews that may be scantily filled at +most times are crowded to-night, for here are the boys and girls, +thronging home from business and college. Here are the three tall boys +of one household, whom we have not seen for a long time, and there are +four others. Here are girls home from boarding-school, rosy and sweet, +blossomed into full maidenhood, bringing a whiff of the city in their +furs and well-cut frocks. There is the only son of one family, who left +home a stripling, now back for the first time, a stalwart man, with his +young wife and three children. His little mother cannot see plainly, +through her happy tears; and there, and there, and there again, are +re-united households. + +The bells ring out, and after them comes the silver sound of the first +hymn. + +Of late, on Christmas evening, the choirs of the different churches have +begun the custom of meeting on the Common, to lead the crowd in hymns, +round the town Christmas Tree. Later they separate and go about singing +to different invalids and shut-ins, and many of the houses are lighted +up. + + "Silent Night! Holy Night!" + +So, within doors, we neighbors meet in reverent and thankful worship; +while without, the pure snow, the grave trees, the stars, bear their +enduring witness to that of which they, and we and our human worship, +are a part. + +Peace and good-will to our town, where it lies sheltered among its +hills. The country rises on each side of it, and stretches peacefully +away to east and west. The valleys gather their waters, the wooded hills +climb to the stars; they wait, guarding in silent bosoms the treasure of +their memories, the secret of their hopes. + + + + +THE NEW POETRY CHICAGO POEMS + +By Carl Sandburg. _$1.25 net._ + +In his ability to concentrate a whole story or picture or character +within the compass of a few lines, Mr. Sandburg's work compares +favorably with the best achievements of the recent successful American +poets. 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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: A Northern Countryside + +Author: Rosalind Richards + +Release Date: April 25, 2011 [EBook #35956] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i001' id='i001'></a> +<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' width='60%' title=''/><br /> +</div> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i002' id='i002'></a> +<img src='images/illus001.jpg' alt='ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD.' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD.</span> +</div> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div class='center'> +<p style='font-size:1.4em'>A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE</p> +<p>By</p> +<p style='font-size:1.2em'>ROSALIND RICHARDS</p> +<p style='margin-top:3em'>Illustrated from photographs</p> +<p>by</p> +<p>BERTRAND H. WENTWORTH</p> +</div> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i003' id='i003'></a> +<img src='images/illus002.jpg' alt='' width='14%' title=''/><br /> +</div> +<div class='center'> +<p>NEW YORK<br/>HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br/>1916</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<div class='center'> +<p><span class='sc'>Copyright</span>, 1916</p> +<p>BY</p> +<p>HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY</p> +<p>Published April, 1916</p> +<p>THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS</p> +<p>RAHWAY, N. J.</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<div class='center'> +<p>To</p> +<p>J. R., L. E. W., and L. T. S.,</p> +<p>without whose help this small record</p> +<p>could not have been written.</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<div><a name='preface' id='preface'></a></div> +<p style='font-size:larger; text-align: center; margin-top: 2em;'>PREFACE</p> +<p> +No one person can fitly describe a neighborhood, +no matter how long known, how well +loved. Yet records of what is lovely and of +good report in a district should be treasured +and preserved, however imperfectly. +</p> +<p> +My father’s name, not mine, should rightly +be signed to these pages, for it is his intimate +knowledge of our countryside, loved and explored +with a boy’s ardor and a naturalist’s +insight since childhood, which they strive to +set down. +</p> +<p> +I have taken care to write almost wholly +of two or more generations ago, and of persons +who, with few exceptions, have now +passed out of this life; and I have in all cases +altered names, and shifted families from one +part of the county to another, to avoid possible +annoyance to surviving connections. It +has even seemed best in some cases—though +I have done so with reluctance—to change the +names of villages, of hills and streams, as +well. +</p> +<p> +Beyond this, I have striven only to record +faithfully the anecdotes and memories that +have come down to me. But no record, however +faithful, can be in any way adequate. +The rays will be refracted by the medium of +the writer’s personality; and the best that can +be done will be but a small mirrored fragment, +before the daily repeated miracle of +the living reality. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<p> <br/></p> +<p> <br/></p> +<p style='font-size:larger; text-align: center'>CONTENTS</p> +<p> <br/></p> +<table style='margin-left:auto; margin-right: auto;' summary=''> +<tr><td align='right'><span style='font-size:smaller'>CHAPTER</span></td><td></td><td><span style='font-size:smaller'>PAGE</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'></td><td>PREFACE</td><td align='right'><a href='#preface'>v</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>I</td><td>A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_3'>3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>II</td><td>THE RIVER</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_12'>12</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>III</td><td>THE BANKS OF THE RIVER</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_25'>25</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>IV</td><td>THE CAPTAINS</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_40'>40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>V</td><td>BY THE ACUSHTICOOK</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_53'>53</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>VI</td><td>SPRING</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_63'>63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>VII</td><td>THE EASTMAN HILL CROSSROAD</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_72'>72</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>VIII</td><td>RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR'S MILLS</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_82'>82</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>IX</td><td>MARY GUILFOYLE</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_94'>94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>X</td><td>TRESUMPSCOTT POND</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_103'>103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>XI</td><td>IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_112'>112</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>XII</td><td>HARVEST</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_131'>131</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>XIII</td><td>WATSON’S HILL</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_141'>141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>XIV</td><td>EARLY WINTER</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_157'>157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>XV</td><td>ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_171'>171</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right' style='padding-right:15px'>XVI</td><td>OUR TOWN</td><td align='right'><a href='#page_188'>188</a></td></tr> +</table> +<p> +Thanks are due Mr. Bertrand H. Wentworth of +Gardiner, Maine, for his very kind permission to illustrate +this book with reproductions of his photographs. +</p> +<p> <br/></p> +<p> <br/></p> +<p style='font-size:larger; text-align: center'>ILLUSTRATIONS</p> +<p> <br/></p> +<table style='margin-left:auto; margin-right: auto;' summary=''> +<tr><td>ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD</td><td align='right'><em>Frontispiece</em></td></tr> +<tr><td></td><td align='right'><span style='font-size:smaller; text-align:right'>FACING PAGE</span></td></tr> +<tr><td>THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE</td><td align='right'><a href='#i004'>6</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER’S COURSE</td><td align='right'><a href='#i005'>56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH</td><td align='right'><a href='#i006'>64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE</td><td align='right'><a href='#i007'>88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>PLOUGHING MARY’S FIELD</td><td align='right'><a href='#i008'>96</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND</td><td align='right'><a href='#i009'>103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES</td><td align='right'><a href='#i010'>121</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN STACKS THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES</td><td align='right'><a href='#i011'>138</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS</td><td align='right'><a href='#i012'>154</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY</td><td align='right'><a href='#i013'>162</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT</td><td align='right'><a href='#i014'>181</a></td></tr> +</table> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<p style='font-size:1.4em; text-align: center; margin-top: 2em;'>A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE</p> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3'></a>3</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER I—A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +Our county lies in a northern State, in +the midst of one of those districts known +geographically as “regions of innumerable +lakes.” It is in good part wooded—hilly, +irregular country, not mountainous, but often +bold and marked in outline. Save for its +lakes, strangers might pass through it without +especial notice; but its broken hills have +a peculiar intimacy and lovableness, and to +us it is so beautiful that new wonder falls on +us year after year as we dwell in it. +</p> +<p> +There is a marked trend of the land. I +suppose the first landmark a bird would distinguish +in its flight would be our long, +round-shouldered ridges, running north and +south. Driving across country, either eastward +or westward, you go up and up in +leisurely rises, with plenty of fairly level +resting places between, up long calm shoulder +after shoulder, to the Height of Land. And +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4'></a>4</span> +there you take breath of wonder, for lo, before +you and below you, behold a whole new +countryside framed by new hills. +</p> +<p> +Sometimes the lower country thus revealed +is in its turn broken into lesser hills, or +moulded into noble rounding valleys. Sometimes +there are stretches of intervale or old +lake bottom, of real flat-land, a rare beauty +with us, on which the eyes rest with delight. +More often than not there is shining water, +lake or pond or stream. Sometimes this lower +valley country extends for miles before the +next range rises, so that your glance travels +restfully out over the wide spaces. Sometimes +it is little, like a cup. +</p> +<p> +As you get up towards the Height of Land +you come to what makes the returning New +Englander draw breath quickly, the pleasure +is so poignant: upland pastures dotted with +juniper and boulders, and broken by clumps +of balsam fir and spruce. Most fragrant, most +beloved places. Dicksonia fern grows thick +about the boulders. The pasturage is thin +June-grass, the color of beach sand, as it ripens, +and in August this is transformed to a queen’s +garden by the blossoming of blue asters and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5'></a>5</span> +the little <em>nemoralis</em> golden-rod, which grew +unnoticed all the earlier summer. Often +whole stretches of the slope are carpeted with +mayflowers and checkerberries, and as you +climb higher, and meet the wind from the +other side of the ridge, your foot crunches on +gray reindeer-moss. +</p> +<p> +Last week, before climbing a small bare-peaked +mountain, I turned aside to explore a +path which led through a field of scattered +balsam firs, with lady-fern growing thick +about their feet. A little further on, the firs +were assembled in groups and clumps, and +then group was joined to group. The valley +grew deeper and darker, and still the same +small path led on, till I found myself in the +tallest and most solemn wood of firs that I have +ever seen. They were sixty feet high, needle-pointed, +black, and they filled the long hollow +between the hills, like a dark river. +</p> +<p> +The woods alternate with fields to clothe +the hills and intervales and valleys, and make +a constant and lovely variety over the landscape. +Sometimes they seem a shore instead +of a river. They jut out into the meadowland, +in capes and promontories, and stand +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_6'></a>6</span> +in little islands, clustered round an outcropping +ledge or a boulder too big to be removed. +You are confronted everywhere with +this meeting of the natural and indented shore +of the woods, close, feathery, impenetrable, +with the bays and inlets of field and pasture +and meadow. The jutting portions are apt +to be made more sharp and marked by the +most striking part of our growth, the evergreens. +There they grow, white pine and +red pine, black spruce, hemlock, and balsam +fir, in lovely sisterhood. Their needles shine +in the sun. They taper perfectly, finished at +every point, clean, dry, and resinous; and the +fragrance distilled from them by our crystal +air is as surely the very breath of New England +as that of the Spice Islands is the breath +of the East. +</p> +<p> +Our soil is often spoken of as barren, but +this is only where it has been neglected. Hay +and apples give us abundant crops; indeed our +apples have made a name at home and +abroad. Potatoes also give us a very fine +yield, and a great part of the State is rich +in lumber. When it is left to itself, the +land reverts to wave after wave of luxuriant +pine forest. Forty miles east of us they are +cutting out masts again where the <em>Constitution’s</em> +masts were cut. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i004' id='i004'></a> +<img src='images/illus018.jpg' alt='THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE</span> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7'></a>7</span></div> +<p> +The apple orchards are scattered over the +slopes. In the more upland places, sheep are +kept, and the sheep-pastures are often +hillside orchards of tall sugar maples. +We have neat fields of oats and barley, more +or less scattered, and once in a while a buckwheat +patch, while every farm has a good +cornfield, beans, pumpkins, and potatoes, besides +“the woman’s” little patch of “garden +truck.” A good many bees are kept, in +colonies of gray hives under the apple +trees. +</p> +<p> +The people who live on the farms are, I +suppose, much like farm people everywhere. +“Folks are folks”; yet, after being much with +them, certain qualities impress themselves +upon one’s notice as characteristic; they have +a dry sense of humor, and quaint and whimsical +ways of expressing it, and with this, a +refinement of thought and speech that is almost +fastidious; a fine reticence about the +physical aspects of life such as is only found, +I believe, in a strong race, a people drawing +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8'></a>8</span> +their vigor from deep and untainted springs. +I often wonder whether there is another +place in the world where women are sheltered +from any possible coarseness of expression +with such considerate delicacy as they +find among the rough men on a New England +farm. +</p> +<p> +The life is so hard, the hours so necessarily +long, in our harsh climate, that small-natured +persons too often become little +more than machines. They get through their +work, and they save every penny they can; +and that is all. The Granges, however, are +increasing a pleasant and wholesome social +element which is beyond price, and all winter +you meet sleighs full of rosy-cheeked families, +driving to the Hall for Grange Meeting, or +Sunday Meeting, or for the weekly dance. +</p> +<p> +Many of the farm people are large-minded +enough to do their work well, and still keep +above and on top of it; and some of these +stand up in a sort of splendor. Their fibres +have been seasoned in a life that calls for +all a man’s powers. Their grave kind faces +show that, living all their lives in one place, +they have taken the longest of all journeys, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9'></a>9</span> +and traveled deep into the un-map-able country +of Life. I do not know how to write +fittingly of some of these older farm people; +wise enough to be simple, and deep-rooted as +the trees that grow round them; so strong +and attuned to their work that the burdens +of others grow light in their presence, and +life takes on its right and happier proportions +when one is with them. +</p> +<p> +If the first impression of our country is +its uniformity, the second and amazing one +is its surprises, its secret places. The long +ridges accentuate themselves suddenly into +sharp slopes and steep cup-shaped valleys, +covered with sweet-fern and juniper. The +wooded hills are often full of hidden cliffs +(rich gardens in themselves, they are so +deep in ferns and moss), and quick brooks run +through them, so that you are never long +without the talk of one to keep you company. +There are rocky glens, where you meet cold, +sweet air, the ceaseless comforting of a +waterfall, and moss on moss, to velvet depths +of green. +</p> +<p> +The ridges rise and slope and rise again +with general likeness, but two of them open +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10'></a>10</span> +amazingly to disclose the wide blue surface of +our great River. We are rich in rivers, and +never have to journey far to reach one, but +I never can get quite used to the surprise of +coming among the hills on this broad strong +full-running stream, with gulls circling +over it. +</p> +<p> +One thing sets us apart from other regions: +our wonderful lakes. They lie all around us, +so that from every hill-top you see their +shining and gleaming. It is as if the worn +mirror of the glacier had been splintered into +a thousand shining fragments, and the common +saying is that our State is more than +half water. They are so many that we call +them <em>ponds</em>, not lakes, whether they are two +miles long, or ten, or twenty.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor"><sup>[1]</sup></a> I have counted +over nine hundred on the State map, and then +given up counting. No one person could ever +know them all; there still would be new “Lost +Ponds” and “New Found Lakes.” +</p> +<p> +The greater part of them lie in the unbroken +woods, but countless numbers are in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11'></a>11</span> +open farming country. They run from great +sunlit sheets with many islands to the most +perfect tiny hidden forest jewels, places +utterly lonely and apart, mirroring only the +depths of the green woods. +</p> +<p> +Each “pond,” large or little, is a world in itself. +You can almost believe that the moon +looks down on each with different radiance, +that the south wind has a special fragrance +as it blows across each; and each one has +some peculiar, intimate beauty; deep bays, +lovely and secluded channels between wooded +islands, or small curved beaches which shine +between dark headlands, lit up now and then +by a camp fire. +</p> +<p> +Hill after hill, round-shouldered ridge after +ridge; low nearer the salt water, increasing +very gradually in height till they form the +wild amphitheatre of blue peaks in the northern +part of the State; partly farming country, +and greater part wooded; this is our countryside, +and across it and in and out of the +forests its countless lovely lakes shine and its +great rivers thread their tranquil way to the +sea. +</p> +<hr class='fnsep' /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> +The legal distinction in our State is not between ponds and lakes, but between ponds and “Great Ponds.” All land-locked waters over ten acres in area are Great Ponds; in which the public have rights of fishing, ice-cutting, etc. +</p></div> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12'></a>12</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER II—THE RIVER</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +Our river is one of the pair of kingly +streams which traverse almost our entire State +from north to south. The first twenty-five +miles of its course, after leaving the great +lake which it drains, is a tearing rapid between +rocky walls: then follows perhaps a +hundred miles of alternating falls and “dead +water,” the falls being now fast taken up +as water powers. It has eleven hundred feet +to fall to reach the sea, and it does most of +this in its first thirty miles. +</p> +<p> +The river’s course through part of our +county is marked by a noticeable geological +formation. For a space of fifteen miles, the +greater and lesser tributary streams have +broken their way down through the western +ridge of the river valley in a succession of +small chasms that are so many true mountain +defiles in little. They have the sharp descents +and extreme variety of slopes and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13'></a>13</span> +counter-slopes, though with walls never more +than a hundred and fifty feet high. +</p> +<p> +There are forty or fifty of these ravines, +some nourishing strong brooks, some a mere +trickle, or a stream of green marsh and +ferns where water once ran. Acushticook, +which threads the largest, is really a river, and +Rollingdam, Bombahook, and Worromontogus +are all powerful streams. Rollingdam +follows a very private course, hidden in deep +mossy woods for several miles. The ravine +presently deepens and becomes more marked, +descending in abrupt slopes, then narrows to +a gorge, the rocky sides of which are covered +with moss and ferns, nourished by spray. +The brook runs through it in two or three +short cascades, and falls sheer and white to a +pool, twelve feet below. +</p> +<p> +Below our Town, the river sweeps on, +steadily wider and nobler in expanse, till it +reaches the place where five other rivers pour +their streams into its waters, and it broadens +into the sheet of Merrymeeting Bay, three +miles from shore to shore. +</p> +<p> +Below the bay the channel narrows almost +to a gorge. The sides are steep and rocky, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14'></a>14</span> +crowned with black growth of fir and +spruce, and through this space the swollen +waters pour in great force. There are strong +tide races, in which the river steamers reel and +tremble, and below this there begins a perfect +labyrinth of channels, some mere backwaters, +some leading through intricate passages +among a hundred fairy islands. There are +cliffs, moss and fern-grown, and countless +dark headlands. The islands are heavily +wooded with characteristic evergreen growth, +dense, fragrant, of a rich color, and they are +ringed with cream-white granite above the +sea-weed, where the blue water circles them.—And +so down, till the first break of blue +sea shows between the spruces. +</p> +<p> +We never feel cut off, or too far inland, +having our river. The actual sea fog reaches +us on a south wind, salt to the lips. Gulls +come up all the way from the sea, and save +for the winter months, there is hardly a day +when you do not see four or five of them +wheeling and circling; while twice or thrice +in a lifetime a gale brings us Mother Carey’s +chickens, scudding low, or else worn out and +resting after the storm. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15'></a>15</span> +</p> +<p> +The river sleeps all winter under its white +covering, but great cracks go ringing and resounding +up stream as the tide makes or +ebbs, leaping half a mile to a note, to tell +of the life that is pulsing beneath; and before +the snow comes, you can watch, through +the black ice, the drift stuff move quietly +beneath your feet with the tide as you skate. +I have read fine print through two feet of +ice, from a bit of newspaper carried along +below by the current. One winter a dovekie +lived for three weeks by a small open space +made by the eddy near some ledges; then a +hard freeze came, and the poor thing broke its +neck, diving at the round black space of ice +which looked scarcely different from the same +space of open water. +</p> +<p> +The river lies frozen for at least four +months. The ice weakens with the March +thaws and rains. Then comes a night in +April when the forces which move the mountains +are at work, and in the morning, lo, +the chains are broken. The great stream +runs swift and brown and the ice cakes +crowd and jostle each other as they spin +past. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16'></a>16</span> +</p> +<p> +The river traffic goes steadily on through +our three open seasons, and with it a little +of the longer perspective of all sea-faring +life comes to us, and off-sets the day-in-day-out +of the town’s shop and factory routine. +</p> +<p> +Our southern lumber is brought us by +handsome three and four-masted schooners, +which take northern lumber and ice on the +return voyage. The other day two schooners, +on their maiden voyage, white and trim as +yachts, were at the lumber wharf, the <em>Break +of Day</em> and the <em>Herald of the Morning</em>. +</p> +<p> +Our coal comes in the usual long ugly +barges. One or two small excursion steamers +connect us with the nearer coast towns, forty +miles distant, and every day all summer, the +one large passenger steamer which connects +us with the big coast cities, comes to or from +our town. She takes her tranquil way between +the river hills, not without majesty, +while the water draws back from the shores +as she passes and the high banks reverberate +to the peaceful thunder of her paddles. Like +other river towns, we have now a fleet of +motor boats, in use for pleasure and small +fishing. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17'></a>17</span> +</p> +<p> +Traffic on the river shrank immensely with +the forming of the Ice Trust, which holds +our ice-fields now only as a reserve. We see +three or four tall schooners at a time now, +where we used to count the riding lights of a +dozen at anchor in the channel. +</p> +<p> +The greater part of our fleet of tugs is scattered. +The <em>Resolute</em> and <em>Adelia</em>,—dear me, +even their names are like old friends—the +<em>Clara Clarita</em>, the <em>City of Lynn</em>, the <em>Knickerbocker</em>, +and the trim smart twin tugs, <em>Charlie +Lawrence</em> and <em>Stella</em>, have gone to other +waters. The <em>Ice-King</em> plies now in the coast-wise +trade. Our lessened river work is done +by the <em>Seguin</em>, a large and handsome boat, the +<em>Ariel</em>, a T-wharf tug from Boston, and the +<em>Sarah J. Green</em>, an ugly boat with a smokestack +too tall for her. +</p> +<p> +The Government boat comes up in late April, +while the river is still very rapid, brown and +swirling after the spring freshet, and sets the +channel buoys. We always thrill a little at +her unwonted, sea-sounding whistle. She +comes again in November, takes up the buoys, +and carries them to some strange buoy paddock +in one of the winter harbors, where hundreds +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18'></a>18</span> +and hundreds of them are stacked and repainted. +The names of the revenue cutters in +this service are prettily chosen, the <em>Lilac</em>, +<em>Geranium</em>, etc. +</p> +<p> +Before the days of tugs, schooners and +larger vessels sailed up and down the thirty-odd +navigable miles of our river under their +own canvas, and the traffic to and from Atlantic +ports was carried on by packets: brigs, +schooners, and topsail schooners. One of the +captains has told me that, seventy-five years +ago, on his first voyage, it took his brig seven +days to beat to the mouth of the river, a +passage now made in six hours. It must +have been extremely difficult piloting. The +channel is narrow in many places, though the +river itself is so wide. There are sand-bars, +mud-flats, and ledges. +</p> +<p> +In my Father’s childhood a curious, indeed +a unique type of vessel, known as a +Waterville Sloop, plied between what was +then (before the building of the dams), the +head of navigation, twenty-six miles above +us, and Boston, taking lumber and hay. They +carried one square-rigged mast, and sailed +with lee-boards, like the Dutch galliots, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19'></a>19</span> +were in fact a survival of the square-rigged +sloops of old time, immortal in the memories +of the glorious Sloops of War, and in Turner’s +pictures. +</p> +<p> +Once in a while you still see “pinkies,” +which were once so common: small schooner-rigged +vessels with a “pink” (probably +originally a <em>pinked</em>) stern, <em>i.e.</em>, a stern rising +to a point, with a crotch to rest the boom in. +</p> +<p> +Scows are rarer than they used to be, but +they still carry on their humble, casual lumber +and hay business, sailing up with the flood-tide, +and tying up for the ebb. They are +sloop-rigged, quite smart-looking under sail, +and sail with lee-boards, like the Waterville +Sloops. +</p> +<p> +The Lobster Smack, a tiny two-masted +schooner, not more than thirty feet long, +comes once a week in the season, and we buy +our lobsters on the wharf and carry them +home all sprawling, and are delighted when +we get a little sea-weed with them. +</p> +<p> +The laborers of the river are the dredges, +pile-drivers, and their kind. They must see +to the journeyman’s work that keeps the +river’s traffic unhampered. They drive piers +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20'></a>20</span> +and jetties and dredge out sand-bars. They +go and come, unnoticed by smarter vessels, +laden heavily with broken stone, sand, or +gravel. They are dingy powerful boats, fitted +with a derrick and hoist or other machinery. +They carry big rope buffers at bow and sides, +and in spite of this their bulwarks are splintered +and scarred where they have been +jammed against wharves and knocked about. +There is no fresh paint or bright brass about +them, they are grimy citizens, but are all +strong and seaworthy. Sometimes the Captain +is also owner; sometimes one man owns +a whole little fleet, of two dredges, say, and a +small tug, named perhaps after wife and +daughters, as in one case I know, the <em>Nellie</em>, +<em>Sophia</em>, and <em>Doris</em>. This is the family venture, +followed with as much anxious pride in +“our Vessels” as if the fleet were Cunarders. +</p> +<p> +One day what should come up the river +but a white schooner, tapering and tall, and +glistening with new masts and cordage, bearing +a fairy cargo of shells and corals. The +rare shells, some of them costly museum +pieces, were to be sold to collectors, if any +were to be found along our northern harbors, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21'></a>21</span> +while others, as beautiful as flowers or sunset +clouds, the children might have for a few +pennies. +</p> +<p> +The Captain was a young Spaniard, very +dark, and as handsome, grave, and simple in +bearing, as a Spanish Captain should be. +His men seemed to adore him, and to obey +the turn of his eyelashes. They all gave us +a charming welcome, especially to the children. +It was a leisurely and pleasant little +venture. I do not know whether it brought +in profit, but all the town flocked to the +schooner, day after day, for the week that +she stayed with us. +</p> +<p> +The rafts come down the river when they +please. They look about as easy to manœuvre +as an ice-house, but the flannel-shirted lumbermen +who operate them, two to a raft, +seem unconcerned, and scull away at their long +“sweeps,” in the apparently hopeless task +of keeping their clumsy craft off the shallows. +With the breaking up of the ice, stray +logs, escaped from the holding booms, come +down stream. The moment the ice-cakes are +out of the river, even before, you begin to +notice shabby old row-boats tied up and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22'></a>22</span> +waiting at the mouth of every stream and +“guzzle”; and as soon as a log whirls down +amongst the confusion of ice, you will see +boats put out, perhaps with a couple of boys, +or else some old humped-up fellow, in a coat +green with age, rowing cross-handed, nosing +out like an old pickerel watching for minnows. +The logs that are missed drift about +till they are water-logged, when they sink +little by little, and at last become what are +known as “tide-waiters,” or “tide-rollers,” +<em>i.e.</em> snags drifting above, or resting partly on, +the bottom, a menace to vessels. +</p> +<p> +There are holding booms at different turns +of the river, with odd shabby little house-boats +for the rafts-men moored beside them; and +what are these called but <em>gundalows</em>, an old, +old “Down-east” corruption of <em>gondola</em>; +whether in derision, or in ignorance, is +not now known. Sometimes they are fitted +up with some coziness, perhaps with +white curtains and a little fresh paint, +and I have even seen geraniums at their +windows. +</p> +<p> +Another brand-new schooner, the <em>William +D’Arcy</em>, tied up at our lumber wharf this last +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23'></a>23</span> +spring, and lay there for nearly a week. We +all went on board her. She lay at the sheltered +side of the wharf, out of the cold wind, +and the sun poured down on her. The smell +of salt and cordage was so strong that you +could almost feel the lift of her bows to the +swell, but there she lay, as quiet as if she had +never lifted to a wave at all. The men were at +work at various jobs; no one was in a hurry; +it plainly made no difference whether they +were two days at the wharf or ten. +</p> +<p> +The bulwarks and outside fittings, anchors, +hawsers, and hawse-holes, seemed wonderfully +large to our landsman eyes, and the inside +fittings, lockers, etc., as wonderfully small +and compact. The enormous masts were of +new yellow Oregon pine. +</p> +<p> +The Captain welcomed us hospitably, and +took us down into his cabin, which was fitted +with shelves, lockers, and cupboards, neat and +compact, all brand-new and shining with varnish. +There was a shelf of books, the table +had a red cover and reading lamp, and the +wife’s work-basket stood on it, with some +mending. She had gone “upstreet” for her +marketing. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24'></a>24</span> +</p> +<p> +“Oh,” said one of us, “it looks so homelike +and cozy!” +</p> +<p> +The Captain looked round it complacently, +but with remembering eyes that spoke of +many things. He had been cruising all +winter. +</p> +<p> +“It looks so to you,” he said, “but often +it ain’t.” +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25'></a>25</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER III—THE BANKS OF THE RIVER</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +The river-bank boys pick up, as easily as +they breathe, knowledge as miscellaneous as +the drift piled on the shores. They know all +the shoals and principal eddies, without the +aid of buoys. They know the ways and +seasons of the different fish. They learn to +recognize the owner’s marks on the logs, and +they know the times and ways of all the +humbler as well as the larger river craft, the +scows and smacks, and the “gundalows” +which spend mysterious month after month +hauled up among the sedges at the mouths +of the streams. Their own row-boats are +heavy, square at both ends, and clumsy to +row, but as I have said, they are out in them +in the spring before the floating ice is out of +the river, rescuing logs and fragments of lumber +from between the ice-cakes. +</p> +<p> +There is a good deal to the business of +picking up logs. The price for returning +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26'></a>26</span> +“strays” to the right owners is ten cents a +log (the rate increasing as you go down +stream), and a good many can be towed at +once by a small boat. The price per log rises +to twenty-five cents, near the sea. In times +of high freshet, the up-river booms often +break, and then there is a tremendous to-do at +the mouth of the river: men, women, and +children, all who can handle or half-handle a +dory, are at work at log-rescuing. Incoming +ships have found the surface of the ocean +brown with logs at these times, and have a +great work to get through them. +</p> +<p> +Logs that have lost their marks are called +“scalawags,” and these are sold for the benefit +of the log-driving company. Hollow-hearted +<em>pine</em> logs are known by the curious +term “concussy,” or “conquassy.” To show +the immense change in the prices of lumber, +the best pine lumber, which in 1870 was +worth ten dollars a thousand feet, is now one +hundred dollars a thousand. +</p> +<p> +Now and then a boy takes to the river so +strongly that he makes his life work out of +its teachings. The captains and engineers +of most of our river and harbor steamers, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27'></a>27</span> +and of bigger craft, too, began life as riverbank +boys. Some of them take to fishing in +earnest, some become lumbermen, or go into +the Coast-Survey service, or the Rivers and +Harbors; and the winter work on the ice +leads to an interesting life for a good many +others. Once in a while one of these boys goes +far from home. We have had word of one and +another, serving as pilot or engineer in Japanese, +Brazilian, and East Indian waters. +</p> +<p> +The three Tucker brothers, Joel, Reuel, and +Amos, three finely-built men, all worked up to +be registered pilots. Joel, the eldest, was +pilot of an ocean-going steamer all his life. +He grew very stout, and had a fine nautical +presence, in blue cloth and brass buttons. +Reuel was lazy. He never went higher than +small raft-towing tugs, and he often gave +up his work and loafed about, fishing. He +was the man who swam five miles down +river, and stopped then because he was +bored, not because he was tired. Amos, the +finest of them, a gallant looking fellow, with +very bright blue eyes, was a pilot for a good +many years, and then a foreman in the ice +business. He was a man of such shining +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28'></a>28</span> +kindness that he was always up to the handle +in work in the heart of his town, as +selectman, honorary and volunteer overseer of +the poor, and helper-out in general. In a +case of all-night nursing, in a poor family, +where a man’s strength was needed, Amos +was on hand, rubbing his eyes, but watchful +and ready. Once, when a neighbor’s wife +had to be taken to the Insane Hospital, Amos +undertook the sad task, and his gentleness +made it just bearable. Parents looked to +him for help in the care of a bad or unruly +boy. +</p> +<p> +Then there were the Tracys, who ran—and +still run—a queer little ferry at Jonestown, +“according to seasons.” When the +ice begins to break up they row the passengers +across, somehow, in a heavy flat-boat, +between the ice cakes. Their regular boat, +in which they embark wagons and even a +motor, is a large scow pulled across by a +chain, with a sail to help when the wind +serves. The Tracys’ ferry is, I think, unique +for one regulation; man and wife go as one +fare. +</p> +<p> +Some of the river bank people are mere +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29'></a>29</span> +squatters. <em>The</em> squatter, as we called him, <em>par +excellence</em>, pulled the logs and bits for his +dwelling actually out of the river, as a muskrat +collects bits of drift for his house. He +was a Frenchman, and such a house as he +built! Part tar-paper, part bark, part clay +bank, the rest logs, barrel-staves, and a few +railroad sleepers. But there he lived, on a +tiny level plot under the railroad bank, so +near the river that each spring freshet threatened +entire destruction. He made or acquired +a boat that matched his house, and presently +he brought not only his wife and children, +but two brothers and an old mother to live +with him. The women contrived some tiny +garden patches on the slopes of the river +bank, and with the rich silt of the stream +these throve wonderfully. The men fished, +and “odd-jobbed” about. +</p> +<p> +Then came the Great Freshet. Dear me! +shall we ever forget it? We woke one March +night to hear every bell in town ringing, +while a long ominous whistle repeated the +terrifying signal of the freshet alarm. +</p> +<p> +There was a confusion of sounds from the +river, wild crashings and grindings and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30'></a>30</span> +thunders, as the ice broke up in its full +strength, with a noise almost like cannon. +</p> +<p> +The water rose and rose. By daybreak it +was up to the shop-counters in the street, +and people paddled in and out of the shops +in canoes, rescuing their goods. The ice-cakes +were piled ten feet high on our unfortunate +railroad. Then a great holding-boom +broke, a mile up river. A twenty-foot +wall of logs swept round the bend, and the +watchers on the roofs and raised platforms +saw it splinter and carry out the Town +Bridge as if it had been kindlings. +</p> +<p> +Sheds and boat-houses and wharfing were +whirled past all day in the tumble of ice +cakes. Like other people in danger, the +Squatter carried out his gipsy household +goods, and moved up town with his family; +all but the old French mother. She would +not be moved, but sat in the middle of the +road on a backless chair, watching her dwelling. +She could have done nothing to save +it, but nothing could tear her away. The +rain poured all that day and the next. Some +one lent her a big broken umbrella, and there +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31'></a>31</span> +she sat. I could think of nothing but a forlorn +old eaves swallow, watching the place +where her mud dwelling was being torn +off. +</p> +<p> +By some miracle of the eddy, however, the +house stayed intact; but soon after they all +moved away, to safer, and, I believe, more +comfortable quarters. +</p> +<p> +The Lamont family lived a mile north of +the Town. They had a ramshackle house and +barn, in a bit of open meadow by the mouth +of one of the brooks. You might say of the +Lamonts that they were so steeped in river +mud that every bone of them was lazy and +easy and slack. There were the father and +mother, and seven children. They were as +unkempt and ragged as could be, but they +always seemed cheerful and smiling, and the +younger children were fat as little dumplings. +The three eldest were shambling young men; +they and the father seemed perfectly content +with a little fishing and odd-jobbing, +and now and then one of them took a turn +as deck-hand or stevedore, or—as a last +resort—as farm-hand. The girls and the +mother dug and sold dandelion greens, dock, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32'></a>32</span> +and thoroughwort and other old-fashioned +simples. +</p> +<p> +None of them had ever gone to school a +day beyond the time required by law, and +they kept the truant officer busy at that; +then all of a sudden the youngest and fattest +Lamont, whose incongruous name was Hernaldo, +appeared at the High School. He +was an imperturbable child, and quite dull, +but he worked with a cheerful slow patience. +He only held on for a year, but no one had +imagined he could keep on for so long, and +he did not do badly. +</p> +<p> +The elders died before the younger children +were quite grown, and the family scattered; +one night, after it had been empty a +year or two, the ramshackle house burned, +leaving the barn standing. +</p> +<p> +One morning about ten years afterwards a +radiant being appeared at the High School, +a fat young man in frock coat and tall hat, +who came forward and shook hands effusively. +It was Hernaldo Lamont! He was +now <em>chef</em>, it appeared, at one of the great +California hotels through the winters, and in +Vancouver in summer, at a very large salary. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33'></a>33</span> +A pretty girl, charmingly dressed, whom he +introduced as his wife, waited modestly at the +door. +</p> +<p> +His clothes were quite wonderful. He was +shining with soap and with fashion, and so +full of warmth and of pleasure. He brought +out colored photographs of his two fat little +children, told of his staff and his patrons, +beamed upon everyone, and showed his pretty +wife all about our plain High School, admiring +and reverent. I think that if it had +been Oxford he could not have been prouder, +and indeed Oxford could never be to the +average student a place of higher achievement +than High School to a Lamont! +</p> +<p> +He was so simple and kindly that I believe +he would have taken his wife to the +Lamont shanty as happily. The Lamont +barn is still standing, grown up with tall +nettles and dandelions. A farmer uses it for +his extra hay, mowed in the low rich patches +of river meadow. Tramps sleep in the hay, +and quantities of barn-swallows flash in and +out of the empty windows. +</p> +<p> +Long ago our River was one of the great +salmon streams of the country. In my +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34'></a>34</span> +great grandfather’s time agreements between +apprentices and servants, and their employers, +held the stipulation that the employees +should not have to eat salmon <em>above +five times in the week</em>; and the fish were used +for fertilizing the fields. There are none now +at all, and the sturgeon fishing, which in my +father’s boyhood used to make summer nights +on the River a time of torchlit adventure, is +over too, though still late on a summer +afternoon you may see now and then a +silver flash, and hear a crash, as the huge +creature jumps; and only last week two sturgeon +of over eight hundred pounds weight +each were brought in right near the Town +Bridge. They were caught by two hard-working +lads, and brought them a little fortune, +for they were sold in New York for +over $250. +</p> +<p> +Not even the flight of the birds from the +south, unbelievable in wonder as this is, is +more miraculous than the run of the fish, +from the vast spaces of ocean up all our +fresh-water streams for hundreds of miles. +Their bright thousands find their way unerringly, +up into the heart of the country. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35'></a>35</span> +No one knows whence they come, and save +for an occasional straggler, no one has ever +taken salmon or shad or ale-wife in deep +water. We know their passage up-stream, +but no one knows when they take their way +down again. +</p> +<p> +The smelts run up, when winter is still at +its height. They are caught through holes +in the ice. The men build huts of boards or +of boughs, each round his own smelt hole. +They build a fire on the ice, or have a kerosene +lantern or lamp, and fish thus all day in +fair comfort. They catch smelts by thousands, +so that our town’s people, who can +eat them not two hours out of the water, are +spoiled for the smelts which are called fresh +in cities. Tom-cod come up a little ahead +of the smelts. +</p> +<p> +Soon after the ice goes out, while the water +is still very rapid and turgid, the alewives +run up, and they are as good eating as smelts, +though too full of bones. They are smoked +slightly, but not salted. About this time, too, +the smaller boys begin catching yellow-perch +at the mouths of the brooks. These, and tom-cod, +are not thought worth putting on the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36'></a>36</span> +market, but they are crisp little fish, and a +string of them, thirteen for twelve cents, +makes a good supper.<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +</p> +<p> +Suckers also come with the opening of +the brooks. The discovery has been made +lately, that these fish, which New Englanders +despise (quite wrongly, for if well cooked +they are firm and good), are prized by the +Jewish population of some of the bigger +cities, and bring a good price. A ton and a +half of suckers were shipped from our river +this season. +</p> +<p> +Our royal fish are the shad, which arrive in +the middle of May, when the woods are all +blossoming. The May river is full of their +great silvery squadrons. They are caught at +night, in drift nets, by hundreds. Most of +them are shipped away, but our Town must +and does eat as many as possible. One +family, who know what they like, practically +abjure all other solid food for the shad +season! +</p> +<p> +Of all our fish, eels are the most mysterious; +for they go <em>down</em> river to the ocean +(out of the fresh water streams and lakes) +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37'></a>37</span> +to spawn, instead of coming up. No one +knows what mysterious depths they penetrate, +but it is said that baby eels are found +in one and two thousand fathoms of water. +By midsummer they are about six inches +long, and are running home up the brooks. +They wriggle up waterfalls and scale the +sheer faces of dams. They stay three or +four years in their inland home, growing to +full size, and in September, the fat grown-up +eels run down the streams again, to spawn +in the sea. This is the time when they are +caught at dams and in mill streams, and +shipped to the big cities in quantities. Our +biggest paper mill, not long ago, was shut +down entirely because of the eels, which got +in through the flumes by hundreds, and +stopped the water wheels. +</p> +<p> +The taking of the Acushticook eels is now +a regular industry, and this came about rather +sadly. Stephen Mitchell, the millwright of +the Acushticook paper mill, was a fine man, +with a turn for inventing. His ideas were +sound and a good many of his mechanical +devices turned out excellently. He became +interested in explosives, and worked for a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38'></a>38</span> +long time at a new method for capping torpedoes. +He had been warned time and again, +and such an intelligent man must have realized +perfectly the danger of work with explosive +materials, but one day an accident +happened. There was an explosion which +took not only both hands, but his eyes. +</p> +<p> +I think everyone in the town felt sickened +by the accident, and by the prospect of helpless +invalidism ahead of a fine active man. +But Stephen, as soon as his wounds healed, +began looking for something to do. +</p> +<p> +The Acushticook eels had always been +fished for in a desultory fashion, and Stephen +cast about for a way to make the fishing +amount to more. The mill owners did all in +their power to help him. They gladly gave +him the sole right of the use of the stream, +and helped him in building his dam. He had +also a grant from the Legislature. He hired +good workers, and for many years he and +his wife, who was a master hand, lived +happily and successfully on their fishery. +Sometimes two tons of eels were shipped in +the course of the autumn. +</p> +<p> +Stephen always was cheerful. He could +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39'></a>39</span> +see enough difference between light and darkness +to find his way about town, and he was +so quick to recognize voices that you forgot +his blindness. He kept among people a great +deal, and was an animated talker at town +gatherings. He was an opinionated man, but +a fine and upright one. After his death his +widow kept on with the fishery, and she still +runs it with profit. +</p> +<hr class='fnsep' /> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> +Both tom-cod and perch are now shipped to the cities in quantities. +</p></div> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40'></a>40</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER IV.—THE CAPTAINS</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +You would never think now that tall Indiamen +were once built here in our town, but +they were, and sailed hence round the world +away, and we too boasted our wharves, with +the once-familiar notice: +</p> +<p> +“All ships required to cock-a-bill their +yards before lying at this dock.” +</p> +<p> +The last ship built in the town was the +<em>Valley Forge</em>, launched about 1860; the last +built at Bowman’s Point, two miles above, +was the <em>Two Brothers</em>. The <em>Valley Forge</em> for +ten whole years was never out of Eastern +waters, plying between China and Sumatra, +and the seaports of the Inland Sea. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Peter Simons, one of our early magnates, +and “ship’s husband,” of many vessels +(kind, merry, handsome Mr. Peter, he never +was husband to anyone but his ships), took +a treasure voyage to the Spanish Main once, +and brought home a moderate sized treasure, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41'></a>41</span> +some of the doubloons of which are preserved +in his family to this day. +</p> +<p> +Ship-building was the chief industry of the +place. There were four principal ship-yards. +The skippers as well as the lumber came from +close at hand. It seems a wonderful thing, +in these stay-at-home times, that keen young +lads from the farms could have been, at +twenty-one, in command of full-rigged ships, +fearlessly making their way, in prosperous +trade, to places that might as well be in +Mars, for all most of us know of them to-day: +but Java and the Spice Islands, Shanghai, +Tasmania, and the Moluccas were household +words in those days, and you still hear a +sentence now and then which shows the one-time +familiarity of ways which have passed +from our knowledge. +</p> +<p> +The portraits at the house of Captain +George Annable, the last of our clipper-ship +captains, were painted in Antwerp. So were +those (very queer ones), at Captain Charles +Aiken’s, and at Captain Andrews’. It +appears now in talk with Captain Annable +that <em>of course</em> they were painted at Antwerp, +for that was where the American skippers +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42'></a>42</span> +as a rule wintered. Living there was better +and cheaper for them and their families than +at any other foreign port. It became the custom +to winter at Antwerp, and there grew +to be an American society there. +</p> +<p> +Captain Annable has crossed the Atlantic +sixty-three times, sailing clipper mail-ships. +</p> +<p> +The Captains are nearly all gone now. Little +trace of the ship-yards remains, and even +the wharves from which the Indiamen sailed +have rotted, and been replaced by the lumber +and coal wharves of to-day; but all through +the countryside you come on touches of the +shipping days, and of the East, as startling +as a sudden fragrance of sandalwood in some +old cabinet. At one house I know there is a +collection of butterflies and moths of the +Far East, with two cream-colored Atlas +moths eight inches from tip to tip. At another +there is a set of rice-paper paintings +of the orders of the Japanese nobility and +gentry, with full insignia of state robes, which +ought to be in a museum; and the parlor of +a third neighbor, the gracious widow of a sea-captain, +has, besides carved teak furniture and +Chinese embroideries, a set of carved ivory +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43'></a>43</span> +chessmen fit for a palace. The king and +queen stand over eight inches high. The +castles are true elephant-and-castles, and the +pawns are tiny mounted and turbaned warriors, +brandishing scimitars. The figures +stand on carved open-work balls-within-balls, +four deep—“Laborious Orient ivory, sphere +in sphere”—as delicate as frost-work. This +set was bought in Shanghai, when the foreign +compound still had its guard of soldiers, and +the Chinese thronged the doorways to stare +at the “white devils.” +</p> +<p> +The great gold-figured lacquer cabinet, the +pride of one of our statelier houses, was +brought from China a hundred years ago, by +a young Captain Jameson, who was coming +home for his wedding. He sailed again with +his bride immediately after the marriage, +and their ship never was heard of. The +cabinet was sold, and then sold again, till +it finally reached the setting which fits it so +well. +</p> +<p> +You find lacquered Indian teapoys, +Eastern porcelains, shells and corals from all +round the world far out in scattered farmhouses; +and farm-hands are still summoned to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44'></a>44</span> +meals by a blast on a conch-shell, a queer +note, not unlike the belling of an elk. +</p> +<p> +Beside the actual china and embroideries +and carvings, something of the character bred +in the seafaring days has spread, like nourishing +silt, through our countryside. The Captains +were grave, quiet men. They had power +of command, and keenness in emergency. +Contact with many people of many nations +quickened their perceptions and gave them +charming manners; but more than this, there +was something large-minded and tranquil +about them. All their lives they had to deal +with an element stronger than themselves. The +next day’s work could never be planned or +calculated on, and something of the detached +quality which comes from dealing with the +sea, a long and simple perspective towards +human affairs, became part of them. +</p> +<p> +An expression of married life, so beautiful +that I can never forget it, came from the +lips of the widow of one of our sea-captains, +a little old lady, now over eighty, who lives +alone in a tiny brick cottage (where she has +accomplished the almost unique feat of making +English ivy flourish in our sub-arctic +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45'></a>45</span> +climate). She wears a wonderful cap, and +fills her house with quilts and cushions +of silk patch-work which would make a +kaleidoscope blink. I had an errand to her +about a poorer neighbor, one Thanksgiving +time. Her house is an outlying one, and I +remember how the farm lights, scattered all +about our river hills, shone in the soft autumn +evening. +</p> +<p> +Her bright warm kitchen was coziness itself, +with a shiny stove, full to the brim with red +coals, and a big lamp. She sat with her cat on +her knee, sewing on an orange and green cushion, +made in queer little puffs, and she jumped +up, dropping thimble, and spectacles, in her +warm-hearted welcome. After my errand, we +fell into talk, about “Cap’n,” and their long +voyaging together. That was when the Captains +as a matter of course took their wives, +and often their children, with them, keeping +a cow on board for the family’s use, and +sometimes chickens and pigs. Many babies +who grew to be sturdy citizens were born +on the high seas in those days. +</p> +<p> +She told about long peaceful days, slipping +through the Trades, and about gales, but +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46'></a>46</span> +mostly about china and pottery, for this was +their hobby, almost their passion. They took +inconvenient journeys of great length to see +new potteries, and hoped at last to see all the +sea-board china factories, in East and West. +She showed me her treasures, pretty bits of +Sevres, majolica, Doulton, and Wedgewood, +all standing together, and among them an +alabaster model of the leaning tower of Pisa +(Pysa, she called it). At last, with a lowered +voice, she spoke of the worst danger they had +ever been through, a typhoon in the Bay of +Bengal. The ship lay dismasted, and the +waves broke over her helplessness. She was +lifted up and dashed down like a log, and +every soul on board expected only to perish. +</p> +<p> +“Cap’n come downstairs to our cabin: +</p> +<p> +“Oh, Mary,” he says, “if only you was to +home! I could die easy if only you was to +home!” +</p> +<p> +“I be to home!” I says. “If I had the +wings of a dove, I wouldn’t be anywheres +but where I be!” +</p> +<p> +This ranks with the epitaph at Nantucket: +</p> +<p> +“Think what a wife should be, and she +was that!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47'></a>47</span> +</p> +<p> +Another seafaring friend was, as so often +happens, the last person whom you would +ever connect with adventures, a little lady so +tiny, so dainty, that a trip across the lawn +with garden gloves and hat, to tie up her +roses, might have been her longest excursion; +but instead she has sailed round and round +the world with her courtly sea-captain father, +has lifted her quiet gray eyes to see coral +islands and spice islands, and the strange +mountain ranges of the East Indies. +</p> +<p> +“She wore white mostly when we were in +the Trades or the Tropics,” her father has +told me, “and she sat on deck all day, with +her white fancy-work. She always seemed +to like whatever was happening.” +</p> +<p> +One day, in a fog with a heavy sea running, +the ship ran on a reef. The life-saving crew +got the men off with great difficulty, but the +Captain refused to leave his post, and little +Miss Jessie refused too. +</p> +<p> +“No, thank you,” she said, in her soft voice, +“No, thanks very much, I think I will stay +with the Captain.” +</p> +<p> +“And you couldn’t move her,” he said, +“any more than the rock of Gibraltar.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48'></a>48</span> +</p> +<p> +With the night the storm lessened, and almost +by a miracle the ship was got off safely +next morning. +</p> +<p> +I must tell of one more seafaring couple, +who lived down the river in a low white cottage +where “Captain,” retired from service, +could watch vessels passing, even without his +handsome brass-bound binoculars, a much-prized +tribute for life-saving. +</p> +<p> +The wife was long paralyzed, and the Captain, +with the simple-minded nephew they +had adopted, tended her as he might have +tended an adored child. He bought her silk +waists, fine aprons, little frills of one sort or +another, fastened them on her with clumsy, +loving fingers, and then would sit back, laughing +with pride, while the paralyzed woman, +with her wrecked face, managed to make uncouth +sounds of pleasure. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t she look handsome? Don’t she +look nice as anybody?” he would ask of the +neighbors, and show the new wig he had +bought her, as the poor hair was thin. His +simple pride thought it as beautiful as any +young girl’s curls, and indeed it was very +youthful. One’s heart was wrung, yet +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49'></a>49</span> +uplifted, too, for here was love which had passed +through the absolute wrecking of life, and +was untouched. +</p> +<p> +The Captain was a tall hearty man, but it +was he who died first, after all, and all in a +minute. The paralyzed creature thus bereaved, +moaned, day after day; her eyes +seemed to be asking for something, there in +the room, and no one could find the right +thing, till someone thought of the Captain’s +binoculars, which he always had by him. +From that moment she became tranquil, and +even grew happy again, if only she had the +bright brass thing where her poor hand could +touch it. If it was moved, she moaned for +it to be set back. It was her precious token, +from his hand to hers. With it beside +her she could wait and be good, poor dear +soul, until, in about two years, her release +came, and she went to join “Captain.” +</p> +<p> +One word more about Mr. Peter Simons, of +whom the town keeps pleasant memories. He +lived handsomely, in a handsome house overlooking +the river, and his housekeeper, Deborah +Twycross, was as much of a magnate +in her own way as himself. Mr. Peter was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50'></a>50</span> +very high with her; but he stood in awe of +her, too. Still, he never would let her engage +his second servant, a privilege which she +coveted. +</p> +<p> +In his young days a “hired girl” received +$2.00 a week wages, if she could milk, $1.50 +if she could not. By the time Mr. Peter was +established in stately bachelor housekeeping +no girl was any longer expected to milk, and +few knew how. But when engaging a servant, +if he did not like the applicant’s looks, +Mr. Peter would say, +</p> +<p> +“Can you milk?” +</p> +<p> +Of course, she could not, and there the +matter would end. He never asked a girl +whose looks he liked, if she could milk! +</p> +<p> +He was a man of endless secret benevolence, +and posed all the time as a hard-fisted +person and a miser. He was at the most devious +pains to conceal his constant kindnesses. +The noble minister who at that time carried +our Town on his young shoulders, received +sums of money, in every time of need, for +library, schools, or cases of poverty and suffering, +directed in a variety of elaborately +disguised handwritings. He was able in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51'></a>51</span> +time to trace them all to Mr. Peter. Many +a struggling young man was set on his feet +and established in life by this secret benefactor; +and after Mr. Peter’s death, his +coal dealer told how for years he had had +orders to deliver loads of coal to this and +that family in distress, after dark, and as +noiselessly as possible, under an agreement +of secrecy, enforced by such threats that he +never dared disobey. +</p> +<p> +The Town has changed since Mr. Peter’s +day. Boys no longer brave the terrors of a +visit to a White Witch to have their warts +charmed, or a toothache healed. (“Mother +Hatch,” who plied her arts some thirty years +ago, was the last of these. Her appliances +for fortune-telling were the correct ones of +cards, an ink-well, and a glass to gaze in; +but a small trembling sufferer in knickerbockers—a +hero to the still more trembling +group of friends and eggers-on outside—did +not benefit by these higher mysteries. +The enchantress, beside her traffic in the black +arts, took in washing; she would withdraw +her hands from the suds, and lay a reeking +finger on the offending tooth, the patient +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52'></a>52</span> +gasping and shutting his terror-stricken eyes +while she recited a sufficient incantation.) +</p> +<p> +Even the memory of the Whipping-post, +which still stood in Mr. Peter’s childhood, has +long since vanished. The town bell is no +longer rung at seven in the morning and at +noon, and a steam fire-whistle has replaced +the tocsin of alarm that formerly was rung +from all the church steeples; but the curfew +still rings every night, at nine in the evening +(the bell which rings it was made by Paul +Revere); and, among the customary Scriptural-sounding +offices of fence-viewers, field-drivers, +measurers of wood and bark, etc., +the town still has a town crier. A very few +years ago it still had a pound-keeper and +hog-reeve, but by now the outlines of the +pound itself have disappeared. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53'></a>53</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER V—BY THE ACUSHTICOOK</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +A smaller river, the Acushticook, tumbles +and foams down through the midst of our +town, and brings us the wonderfully soft +pure water of a chain of over twenty lakes +and ponds. It flung the hills apart to join +the larger stream which it meets at right +angles at the Town Bridge, and the last +mile of its course is through a beautiful small +gorge, in a succession of falls, now compacted +into the eight dams which turn our mills. +</p> +<p> +Above the falls, though it breaks into +occasional rapids, its course is quieter, and +as you travel towards the setting sun, your +canoe follows a peaceful stream, running for +the most part through woods. +</p> +<p> +The country along the Acushticook is +broken and hilly, woods or open pastures full +of boulders and junipers. The farms depend +on their stock and apple orchards for their +prosperity. You see big chicken yards, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54'></a>54</span> +the more enterprising farmers send their eggs +and broilers to city markets. Pigs do well +among the apple trees, and most of the farms +have ducks and geese as well as chickens. A +well-trodden road follows the crest of the +ridge, parallel to the river. +</p> +<p> +The Baxters, good, silent people, live well +out on this road, and handsome Ambrose Baxter +has a thriving milk route. Sefami Baxter, +his uncle, worked in the paper mill his whole +life, and now his son, young Sefami, has +built up a good market garden business on +the Acushticook road. He started it years +ago with a tiny greenhouse, which he built +on to his farm kitchen. He raised tomatoes +and other seedlings, and early lettuce. It +was an innovation in our part of the world, +and neighbors shook their heads; but one bit +of greenhouse was added to another, and now +Sefami has three long stacks of them and is +a prosperous man. He has a whole field of +rhubarb and a large orchard, where he keeps +twenty hives of bees. He had no capital beyond +the savings of a plain working family, +and he had to find his market for himself. +</p> +<p> +The Drews, now old people, live beyond +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55'></a>55</span> +Ambrose Baxter, and life has been a more +poignant thing for them than for most of +the farm neighbors. Their boy, Lawrence, +was born for learning. He <em>foamed</em> to it, as +a stream rushes down hill, and he had the +vision and faithfulness which lead to high and +lonely places. The parents were industrious +and frugal, and Lawrence was the channel +through which everything they had, mind and +ambitions as well as savings, poured itself +out. As a boy, he was all ardor and eagerness. +Now he is a tall careworn man of +fifty, unmarried, with hair and beard streaked +with gray. He is a man of importance in +many ways beside that of his own department +in a great Western university. He is +a good son, and comes home to the comfortable +white farmhouse for every day in the +year that it is possible, but his parents, of +necessity, have had to grow old without him, +and their look, in speaking of him, is one of +acceptance, as well as of a high pride. +</p> +<p> +Acushticook has changed her course from +time to time through the centuries, and about +five miles from town a stretch of flat land +which must once have been either intervale +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56'></a>56</span> +along the river’s course or one of its many +small lakes, lies pocketed among the hills. +This stretch, which is very fertile, belongs, +or belonged, to the Dunnacks, and they were +surely a family which will be remembered. +They never pretended to be anything more +than plain farming people, but they were +marked by a personal dignity and refinement, +even fastidiousness, by their intelligence, and +alas, by their many sorrows. Old Warren +Dunnack was a farmer of substance. His +son, the Warren Dunnack of our time, was +nearly all his life in charge of the “Homestead” +(one of the few country places in +our neighborhood), during the long absence +abroad of its owners. He married a beautiful +woman, Sarah Brant. She was a magnificent +creature, in a hard, almost animal sort +of way, but was a shallow person, with a +vain nature, coveting show, fine food and +clothes, and she broke Warren’s heart. He +took her back again and again after her many +flights, for he had an unconquerable chivalry +and gentleness for all women, and he let her +have everything that he could earn. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i005' id='i005'></a> +<img src='images/illus070.jpg' alt='INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER’S COURSE' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER’S COURSE</span> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57'></a>57</span></div> +<p> +Lucretia was the beauty of the family, a +slip of a girl with eyes like black diamonds. +She married a showy business man, who +turned out badly. She came home, a handsome +and embittered older woman, and made +life uncomfortable for herself and everyone +else on the farm. Afterwards she became +companion to a widow of some means, a +fantastic person, and they lived together (unharmoniously) +all their days. +</p> +<p> +Delia, who was so pretty, though not striking +like Lucretia, married silly Ephraim Simmons; +but her affection for her brother Warren +was the abiding thing of her life. When +Warren’s wife left him, and Delia was offered +the position of housekeeper at the Homestead, +she took it, and there she and Warren kept +house for fifteen years. Two good-natured +slack daughters (they were all Simmons; not +a trace of their mother’s fire in them) helped +Ephraim with his farm, and he certainly +needed the money that their mother earned. +He was a poor enough farmer; but his foolish +face used to look wistful when he drove the +six miles, every other Saturday, to see Delia. +</p> +<p> +Delia, for her part, never seemed anything +but clear as to her duty. She drove over +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58'></a>58</span> +now and then to see Ephraim, and sent her +money to him and the girls, or put it in the +bank for them, but her heart clave to her +brother. She kept the long delightfully +rambling house, and he kept the farm, lawns, +and gardens, punctiliously in order for the +owners who never came; and the honeysuckles +blossomed in the corner of the great +dark hedges, the lilies opened, and the grapes +ripened and dropped on the sunny terraces of +the garden as the unmarked years went by. I +think that Delia’s life was one of untroubled +serenity. Warren was a grave man, and his +trouble with his wife underlay all his days, +but with Delia he found a rare companionship +and understanding. Their sitting-room +in the ell of the big house was a gathering +place for the farm neighbors. There was a +deep fireplace, a table with a big lamp, a +sofa, high-backed arm-chairs with worsted-work +cushions and tidies, and windows filled +with blossoming plants. +</p> +<p> +Warren died after a lingering illness, which +he met with his usual grave cheerfulness, and +Delia went back to Ephraim on the Acushticook +road. Whatever she thought of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59'></a>59</span> +difference between the Homestead and the bare +little farm, between Warren and Ephraim, +she met the change with the charming, half-whimsical +philosophy that was hers through +life. She had pretty ways, and an unconquerable +sense of fun. She lived to be nearly +eighty. She was a fine, fine woman; delicately +organized, but of such vigorous fibre +that she struck her roots deep into life, and +gave out good to everyone who came near +her. She was a magnet, drawing people by +her warmth and sweetness. +</p> +<p> +It was to poor, good, hard-working John +Dunnack that actual tragedy came. He was a +plain dull man, of a far humbler stripe than +his brothers. Misfortune came to his only +child, a young adopted daughter. He lost +his place at the mill not long after, from +age. He was eighty years old. It was too +much. His mind failed, and he took his own +life. +</p> +<p> +A cheerful family, the Greenleafs, live next +beyond the Dunnacks. They keep bees on +a large scale, and “Greenleaf Honey,” in +pretty-shaped glass jars, with a green beech +leaf on the label, has had its established +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60'></a>60</span> +market for two generations. They also grew +cherries for market, nearly as large as +damsons. +</p> +<p> +Harvey Greenleaf had luck, and has what +our people know as “gumption,” and “git-up-and-git,” +and Mrs. Greenleaf, a fair, ample +person, is a born woman of business. Once a +neighbor, a farm hand, who had been discharged +for slackness, planted buckwheat in +a small clearing next the Greenleafs’, out of +spite. (Buckwheat honey is unmarketable, +because of its marked peculiar flavor, and +its dark color.) Harvey was away at the +County Grange Meeting—he was Master of +his Grange that year—at the time it flowered. +Two little girls, out picking wild raspberries, +brought word of the trouble. +</p> +<p> +“Mis’ Greenleaf! Mis’ Greenleaf! There’s +buckwheat in blow at Jasper Derry’s clearing, +an’ it’s full of your bees!” +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Greenleaf harnessed up the old white +mare herself, and drove over to the offender’s +house. No one knows how she dealt with +him, but the buckwheat was cut before night. +Harvey chuckles, and says she swung the +scythe herself. Not much harm was done, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61'></a>61</span> +only a little of the yield turned out to have +been injured by the buckwheat. +</p> +<p> +There are no rules about the planting of +buckwheat near bee-hives. It is a matter of +good feeling and neighborliness, and buckwheat +is seldom grown where a neighbor +keeps bees for profit; but it is impossible to +guard against the trouble entirely and I have +known a whole season’s yield to be discolored +with honey brought from buckwheat, nine +miles from the hives. +</p> +<p> +One early morning this June, as we were at +breakfast on the piazza, a boy came round +the corner of the house, and asked if we +wanted “a quart of wild strawberries, a pint +of cream, and a dozen of Mother’s fresh rolls, +for forty cents!” We certainly did; and in +the driveway we saw “Mother” waiting in +the wagon, an alert-looking woman with a +friendly face. She told us that she was +Harvey Greenleaf’s daughter-in-law, and the +boy her eldest son. +</p> +<p> +“I think there’s lots of small extra business +that folks can do on the farms, if they’re +spry, that sets things ahead a lot,” she said, +<em>à propos</em> of the strawberries. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62'></a>62</span> +</p> +<p> +The rolls were as light as feather, and the +cream very thick. We arranged for the same +bargain twice a week while the berry season +lasted! +</p> +<p> +In the autumn the same couple came again, +this time with vegetables and fruit, nicely +arranged, and with small cakes of fresh cream +cheese done up in waxed paper in neat packages, +each package stamped with S. Greenleaf, +Eagle Cliff Farm. This is a new venture +in our part of the country. +</p> +<p> +A mile of beautiful pasture, on a big scale, +as smooth as an English down, slopes down +from the back of the Greenleafs’ farm, rises +in a noble ridge, and slopes again to where +the Acushticook sparkles and dances over +some thirty yards of rapids. The turf is +close cropped and there are boulders and +groups of half-sized firs and spruces scattered +over the slope. There is a little wood in the +upper corner, cool and shadowy, with a +brooklet set deep in mosses, trickling through +the midst. The pasture road leads through +the firs and hemlocks, growing closer and +more feathery, then through this wood, where +Lady’s Slippers grow. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63'></a>63</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER VI—SPRING</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +April 3. +Last night the river “went out.” We were +so used, all winter, to its sleeping whiteness, +that it seemed as unlikely to change as the +outlines of the hills; then came a tumultuous +week, and now it is a brown, strong, full-running +stream, with swirls and whirlpools +of hastening current all over its wide surface. +These are indescribable days. The air is +sweet with wet bark and melting snow and +newly-uncovered earth. The lesser streams +are rushing and roaring through the woods. +There are little clear dark foam-topped pools +under all the spouts, and bright drops falling +from rocks and roofs, where there were icicles +so lately; and the roads endure miniature +floods, from the torrents of snow-water that +gush down their gutters and spread the mud +in fan-shapes over them. Wherever you +stand, you cannot get away from the rushing +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64'></a>64</span> +and trickling and rilling. The whole +frozen strength of winter is breaking up in a +wealth of life-giving waters. +</p> +<p> +There is a neglected-looking time for the +fields just after the snow goes. The snow-patches +recede and leave the soaked grass +covered with odds and ends of loose sticks +and roots and with untidy wefts of cobweb. +The dead leaves lie limp and dank, and are +of lovely but sad colors, soft browns and +umbers, ash-grays and ash-purples; but in the +midst of this waste the ponds are all awake—dimpling, +soft water, tender and alive—and +their bright blue is a new wonder after our +winter world of white and brown and gray. +</p> +<p> +Robins came yesterday. Their crisp voices +woke us with a start, after the winter’s +silence. They were busy all over the lawn, +and nearly a week ago we heard the first +blue-birds and meadow-larks. +</p> +<p> +The fir boughs that were banked about the +houses last fall, for warmth, must be burnt, +and bonfires are being lighted all about the +fields and gardens. They blaze up into a +crackling roar of burning brush, and the +smoke comes pouring and creaming out +in thick white torrents. The clean, hilarious +smell spreads everywhere, the touch of it +clings to our hair and clothing. This is a +wonderful, Indian time for children, when all +sorts of strange inherited knowledge stirs in +them. Look at their eyes, as they play and +plan round their fires! +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i006' id='i006'></a> +<img src='images/illus080.jpg' alt='THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH</span> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65'></a>65</span></div> +<p> +Cumulus clouds came back, as always, with +late winter. Through the autumn, and early +winter, clear days are practically cloudless; +and cloud-masses, cirrus, not cumulus, herald +and follow storms; but with February, the +clear-weather summer clouds return. They +begin to be trim again, and marshaled, and +take up the ordered leisurely sailing of their +pretty squadrons. +</p> +<p> +April 10. +</p> +<p> +There is already a general warming and +yellowing of twigs. The elm tops are growing +feathery and show a warm brown, and a +crimson-coral mist begins to flush over the +low-lying woods, where the swamp maples +are in flower. Pussy-willows are as thick on +their twigs as drops after a rain, and as +silvery. You would say at first that nothing +had changed yet in the main forest. The +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66'></a>66</span> +brown aisles and misty dark hollows seem +the same, but no; fringed about the openings +and coverts along their borders the birch and +alder catkins are in flower. They are powdery +and gold-colored, and overhead they dangle +like the tails of little fairy sheep against the +sky. +</p> +<p> +The wild geese woke us in the dark, just +before dawn, this morning. Last year there +was a violent snow-storm, a perfect smothering +whirl of flakes, the night they flew over, +and the great birds were beaten down among +the house-tops, creakling and honkling in dismay +and confusion, but holding on their +way. +</p> +<p> +Now at dusk comes the first silvery evening +whistling of the frogs, the peepers. If +a cloud passes over the sun, even as early +as three in the afternoon, they start up as +if at a signal, all together, and as the sun +shines out again fall instantly silent. +</p> +<p> +May 3. +</p> +<p> +All this time the green has been spreading +and spreading through the pastures till now +it clothes them, and the dandelions are scattered +over them like a king’s largesse. Dew +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67'></a>67</span> +falls all winter, but it is in star and fern +shapes of frost; now every morning and evening +the thick grass is pearled again with a +million nourishing drops. +</p> +<p> +Now rainbow colors begin to show over the +hillsides. It is as if a thousand and a thousand +tiny butterflies, pink and cream color +and living green and crimson, had alighted +in the woods. Light comes through them, +and they give back light, from the shining, +fine down that covers them. The little leaves +are almost like clear jewels against the sun, +beaded all over the twigs. They only make a +slightly dotted veil as yet, they do not hide +or screen. You can see as far into the wood-openings +as in winter. The brown stems and +branches are as delicate and distinct as those +of a bed of maiden-hair fern. +</p> +<p> +The roadside willows are puffs of gold-green +smoke, the sapling birches and quaking aspens +like green mounting flames up the hillsides, +and the catkins of the canoe birches shine like +the mist of gold sparks from a rocket. +</p> +<p> +The different trees develop by different +stages, and each stands out in turn against +its fellows, as if illuminated, before it loses +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68'></a>68</span> +itself in the growing sea of green. You see +its full leafy shape, the mass of each round +top, as at no other time of year; yet +the individual habit of branching is still +manifest, as in winter: the long springing +sprays of the swamp maples, the more compact +strong branches of the oaks, the maze-like +firm twigs of the hop-hornbeams, lying +in whorls and layers. The branchlets of the +beeches are like thorns. The elms are soft +brown spirits of trees throughout the woods; +their entire fern-like outline is silhouetted, +and the swamp maples stand like delicate +living shapes of bronze. +</p> +<p> +Innocents are out in patches in the pastures, +looking as if white powder had been +spilt. Purple and white hepaticas are clustered +in crannies of the rocks, and after a +rain mayflowers stand up thick, thick in the +fields, in masses of pink and white fragrance. +Blood-root covers whole banks with snow-white, +and dog-tooth violets, littlest of lilies, +nod their yellow-and-brown prettiness over +the slopes carpeted with their strange mottled +leaves. +</p> +<p> +Shad-bush is out now in fairy white, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69'></a>69</span> +tasseled over knolls and hillsides and overhanging +wooded banks along the streams. Its +opening leaves are reddish, delicately serrate, +and finely downy. The pure white flowers are +loosely starred all over it. They are long-petaled +and lightly hung, and the tree is +slender and very pliable, the whole thing suggesting +a delicate raggedness, as if young +Spring went lightly on bare feet with fluttering +clothes. +</p> +<p> +This is the most fairy-scented time of the +whole year. “The wood-bine spices are wafted +abroad,” indeed. The willows perfume the +lanes with their intoxicating sweetness; and +there is a cool pure dawn-like fragrance everywhere, +from the countless millions of opening +leaves, steeped every night with dew. +</p> +<p> +Last week we saw the first swallows. +There they skimmed and flew, as if they +had never gone to other skies at all. Their +flight is so effortless, they seem to pour and +stream down unseen cataracts of air. To-day +chimney-swallows came, and we watched +their endless rippling and circling. They +sailed and wheeled, in little companies or +singly, now twittering and now silent, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70'></a>70</span> +from now on all summer the sky will never +be empty of their beautiful activities. +</p> +<p> +May 26. +</p> +<p> +At last the woods are like a garden of +delicate flowers, clothing the hills as far as +eye can see with colors of sunrise. The +red-oaks are gold color, with strong brown +stems; ash and lindens are golden green; +maples soft copper and bronze, or deep flesh-color. +</p> +<p> +The flower-like delicacy of leafing out is +wonderfully prolonged. The willows come +first, then elms, in brown flower, then quaking-asps +and birches, and then maples. Later, +lindens and ash-trees catch the light, and the +ash leaves (which grow far apart, and in +bunches, with the flower-buds) are indeed +like just-alighted butterflies. The small leaves +are so bright that even in the rain they shine +as if a shaft of sunlight from some unseen +break in the clouds were lighting the +woods. +</p> +<p> +Now long shining leaf buds show among +the elm flowers and on the beeches. The +later poplars are cream-white and as downy +as velvet. A wood of maples and poplars +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71'></a>71</span> +is almost a pink-and-white wood; shell-pink, +and palest, most silvery-and-creamy gray. +</p> +<p> +The tall gold-colored red-oaks make masses +of strong color; and later, when we think the +shimmering of the fairy rainbow is fading, the +white oaks come out in a mist of pale carnation—pink +and gray and cream. +</p> +<p> +In June, after all the hardwoods have +merged into uniform light green, firs and +spruces become jeweled at every point with +tips of light, the new growth for the year. +Red pines and white pines are set all over +with candelabra of lighter green, until high +on the tops of the seeding white pines little +clusters of finger-slender pale green cones +begin to show. +</p> +<p> +By this time the forest-flowers have faded +through the woods. The brighter colors of +the field-flowers are gay along the roadsides +and over meadows and pastures, and with +them Summer has come. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72'></a>72</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER VII—THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +The cross-road under the great leafy ridge +of Eastman Hill has pretty farms along it, +and half-way across there is a country burying +ground, where wild plums blossom, and the +grave-stones are half hidden all summer in +a green thicket. +</p> +<p> +One name in the graveyard we all hold +in special honor, that of Serena Eastman. +I never knew her myself, and it is only +from her granddaughter and from the neighbors +that I learned of her beautiful life. +</p> +<p> +She was a mother in Israel; one of +</p> +<p> + “All-Saints—the unknown good that rest<br /> + In God’s still memory folded deep.”<br /> +</p> +<p> +She brought up eleven children to upright +manhood and womanhood, and beside this a +whole neighborhood was nourished from the +wells of her deep nature. She lived and died +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73'></a>73</span> +before the days of trained nurses, and in addition +to her own cares she was the principal +nurse of her countryside. Those were the +days when nursing was not and could not be +paid for, but was a priceless gift from neighbor +to neighbor. She stood ready to be up +all night, and night after night, to ease pain +by her ministering, or to help to bring a new +life into the world; her faith lifted the spirits +of the dying, and of those about to be bereaved, +as if on strong pinions. +</p> +<p> +Small-pox was still a terrible scourge in +those times, and she was the only woman in +the district who would nurse it. Her granddaughter +has told me how she kept a change +of clothes in an out-house, and how she +bathed and dressed there (the only precautions +against infection known to the times), +whether in winter or summer, before rejoining +her family. She always drove to and +from such cases at night, to run as little +danger as possible of coming in contact with +people. Her husband took the same risks +that she did. He drove back and forth, +and lent his strength in lifting and carrying +patients. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74'></a>74</span> +</p> +<p> +They had a large farm, which meant cooking +for hired men in the busy seasons, and +beside Serena’s eleven children there were +older relations to do for, her husband’s father +and mother, and one or two unmarried sisters. +She was active in Dorcas society and in meeting. +Her granddaughter feels that only the +completeness of her religious life could have +carried her through the fatigues which she +underwent. She lived in that conscious obedience +to duty which eliminates friction, and +her view of duty was one taken through wide-opened +windows. She walked with God +daily. +</p> +<p> +The house of this dear woman burned, not +long after she and her husband died, and only +the blossoming lilacs mark its empty cellar-hole, +but the next farm, which belonged to Mr. +Eastman’s brother, and is now his nephew’s, is +a fine one. You drive on to a wide green, as +smoothly kept as a lawn, where three huge +trees, a willow and two elms, overhang the +house. There are big comfortable barns and +outhouses, a corn-crib and well-sweep, and +the house is square and ample, with two big +chimneys. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75'></a>75</span> +</p> +<p> +Next to the Eastmans’, beyond their orchard, +comes a neat small farm, with a long +wide stone wall, where grapes are trained, +owned once by two queer old sisters, the +Misses Pushard, or as we have it, the Miss +Pushhards. (A Huguenot name, pronounced +<em>Pushaw</em> by the older generation.) They went +to Lyceum in their young days, and, a rare +thing then so far in the country, they had +a piano. This gave them “a great shape.” +Poor ladies, with their piano! Years later +they were in straitened circumstances, and +anxious to sell it, but to their indignation +nobody wanted it, or not at the price they +thought fitting; so, one night, they <em>chopped +it up</em>, and hid the pieces. Thus they were +not left with the instrument on their hands; +and they had not accepted an unworthy price +for their treasure. All this was learned years +afterwards from some old papers. The fragments +of the piano were found in the cistern. +</p> +<p> +The last farm on the road is owned by +Sam Marston and his dear wife, Susan; who, +though you never would think it (except for +a little remaining crispness of speech), was +born in England, in Essex, and came as a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76'></a>76</span> +young English housemaid—dear me, how +long ago now!—to the Homestead, eight +miles away, by the River. Sam Marston +worked there in the stables, and lost his heart +promptly, and after four or five years of +characteristic Yankee courting, leisurely, but +humorously determined, Susan made up her +mind, and said “yes,” and came out to the +farm, with her fresh print gowns, her trimness +and stanchness, and her abiding religion. +</p> +<p> +Susan keeps also her fixed ideas of the +“quality.” She is now a power in her whole +neighborhood. She and Sam, alas, have no +children, a great sorrow, but the young people +growing up near her show the reflection +of her uprightness and that of her Sam. +But after all these years she is still an exotic. +The Sunday-school which she has gathered +about her is strictly Church of England. +The children learn their catechism, and “to +do their duty in life in that station into +which it shall please God to call them”; and +they are instructed perfectly clearly as to +their betters! +</p> +<p> +The other day we drove out to her farm. +We were going to climb Eastman Hill, after +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77'></a>77</span> +Lady’s Slippers, and then were to have supper +with Susan. +</p> +<p> +The sky was very deep blue, with flocks of +little white clouds sailing. The woods were +still all different shades of light and bright +green, and the apple trees were in full blossom. +The barn swallows were skimming and +pouring low about the green fields in their +effortless flight. I think I never drove +through so smiling a country. +</p> +<p> +The house is a long low brick one, with +dormer windows, in the midst of an old +orchard. There is a fence and a hedge, and +a brick path leads to the door. There are +lilac bushes at the corner of the house, and +cinnamon roses and yellow lilies on each +side of the doorway. +</p> +<p> +Susan came out, laughing, and nearly crying, +with pleasure, to welcome us. She +“jumped” us down with her kind hands, +and took all our wraps. We went as far as +the house, asking questions and chattering, +and then Susan showed us our way, an opening +in the screen of the woods reached by a +path through the orchard, and stood shading +her eyes with her hand to look after us. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78'></a>78</span> +</p> +<p> +We followed a bit of mossy old corduroy +road, through moist rich woods, and then +began to climb among a wood of beeches. +Soon the rock began to crop out in small +cliffs, and we found different treasures, the +little pale pink <em>corydalis</em>, a black-and-white +creeper’s nest in a ferny cleft between two +rocks, quantities of twin-flower, and then, +rising a beech-covered knoll, we came on our +first Lady’s Slippers. The glade ahead was +thronged with them. They spread their +broad light-green leaves like wings, and their +beautiful heads bent proudly. They grew +sometimes singly, sometimes in clumps +of fifteen or twenty blossoms, and were +scattered over the whole glade as if a +flight of rose-colored butterflies had just +alighted. +</p> +<p> +We came on this same sight seven different +times; this lovely company scattered over +the slope among the rocks, where the ridge +broke out into low gray pinnacles among the +beeches. +</p> +<p> +When at last we could make up our minds +to climb down, following the white thread +of a waterfall, into the deeper woods, we +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79'></a>79</span> +found Painted Trilliums, bright white and +painted with crimson, with Jack-in-the-pulpits, +both grown to a great size in the rich mould, +amongst a green mist of uncurling ferns. +</p> +<p> +The brook which we followed came out at +last in an open pasture above the farm. It +was as refreshing as a bath in running water +to come out into the cool, sweet evening air, for +the heavy woods were warm, and there had +been quantities of black flies and mosquitoes, +which our hands were too full to fight. Beside +all our baskets, our handkerchiefs and +hats were full of flowers. One of our number +carried a young cherry tree, with roots and +sod, over his shoulder, and mosses in his +pockets, and the girls had Lady’s Slippers and +fern roots in their caught-up skirts. +</p> +<p> +The turf was powdered white as snow with +Innocents, and there were violets. The pasture +slopes down through dark needle-pointed +clumps of balsam fir, and scattered hawthorn +and cherry trees, which were in flower. +A hermit thrush sang from one of the firs +as we came down. The heavenly, pure carillon +rang out again and again, as dusk fell +deeper, the singer altering the pitch with each +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80'></a>80</span> +repetition of the song, ringing one lovely +change after another. +</p> +<p> +Such a supper was set out on the porch! +Fresh rolls and butter, cream cheese and +chicken, jugs of milk and cream, fresh hot +gingerbread, and bowls of wild strawberries. +The porch runs out into the orchard, and the +white petals of the apple-blossoms drifted +down as we sat laughing and talking. Susan +placed her chair near us, but nothing would +induce her to eat with us, and she jumped up +every minute and fluttered into the house, to +press more good things on us. Presently, +Sam came in from milking, and was a fellow-Yankee +and a brother at once. +</p> +<p> +We could hardly bear to go home, and almost +took Sam’s offer (which so scandalized +Susan) of a night in the hay in the new +barn. It would be so pretty to lie watching +the swallows darting in and out after sunrise. +</p> +<p> +We went all through Susan’s trim farmhouse, +and saw her dairy, with its airy +and spotless arrangements. The milk, thick +and yellow with cream, was in curious blue +glass pans, which Susan said came long ago +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81'></a>81</span> +from the Homestead. We saw all the chickens, +the calves, and the black pigs. The +Jerseys blew long breaths at us from their +mangers, and the horses put out their soft +noses for sugar. The ducks were quacking +and waddling all over the yard, and the +pigeons fluttered about. +</p> +<p> +The late veeries and robins were singing, +and the warm fragrance of the apple-blossoms +was all about us, as we gathered our +treasures together and drove home in the +dusk. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82'></a>82</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER VIII—RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR’S MILLS</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +The two adjoining districts of Ridgefield +and Weir’s Mills lie about ten miles to the +east of us, in level and fertile farm country, +between two ridges of hills. Ridgefield is +an old Roman Catholic settlement. Twenty-five +years ago it still had a prosperous convent, +and children educated in the convent +school have gone out all over the country; but +the centre of the farming population shifted, +and at last the convent was closed. The +cheerful-faced, black-gowned sisters are all +gone. The bell has been silent for years now, +and its tower stands up with blank windows, +nothing more than a strange landmark in the +open farming landscape. +</p> +<p> +The Ridgefield Irish were a noted community. +They all came from one county, +and were marked to a surprising degree by +their personal beauty. There were Esmonds +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83'></a>83</span> +and Desmonds, Considines, Burkes, and McCanns, +and two names now gone (except for +one old representative) Guilfoyles and Guilshannons. +Four lovely Esmond girls of one +family are now growing up, bearing four +saints’ names—Agatha, Ursula, Patricia, +Cecily. +</p> +<p> +Honoria Considine walks down our street, +beautiful creature that she is, with a port +and carriage that a princess might envy. +She has brought up an orphaned nephew and +niece to capability and prosperity, supporting +them entirely by her sewing. The Considines +have possessions which show that they +came to this country as something more than +farmers. They have a little old silver, two +finely inlaid card-tables in the farm “best-room,” +and two larger mahogany tables. +They are great prohibitionists, and would be +shocked, good souls, to know that what they +call the “old refrigerator” is a beautifully +carved wine-cooler! +</p> +<p> +Lawrence McCann and Joe Fitzgerald were +two as handsome creatures as ever were +seen, with great dark blue eyes, delicate +brows, dark curls, and mantling Irish color. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84'></a>84</span> +</p> +<p> +Lawrence died of consumption at twenty-four, +as did his cousin, delightful Con Guilshannon, +but Joe did well and married. The +other day I saw him out walking with three +little rosy children, all with penciled eyebrows +and very dark blue eyes. +</p> +<p> +There lives an old lady in a great western +city (I don’t give its name) who ought to +wear a crown instead of a bonnet. The town +trembles before her masterful benevolence. +Her magnificent house dominates the “best +community,” and her six middle-aged married +children, established near-by in houses of +equal magnificence, do not dare call their +souls their own. +</p> +<p> +A neighbor of mine was in her city last +year, and was taken to see her. The old +lady seemed to know an amazing amount, +not only about our far-away eastern State, +but about our actual county. She finally +showed such an absorbing interest in particular +households that my friend said: +</p> +<p> +“But how can you know? How <em>can</em> you +have heard about so-and-so?” +</p> +<p> +“Child,” said the old chieftainess, her fine +eyes twinkling and filling, “My name is no +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85'></a>85</span> +guide to you now, except that it’s Irish, but +I was born and brought up in your county. +I was an Esmond from Ridgefield, and had +my schooling at the convent, not six miles +from your door.” +</p> +<p> +After Ridgefield, with its deserted convent, +you come presently to where the rolling country +is suddenly flung amazingly apart in the +chasm-like valley of the Winding River. +Weir’s Mills, the village at the head of navigation, +is a pleasant peaceful little place, +a very old settlement, with a noted old church. +</p> +<p> +A neighbor of ours, a man now of eighty, has +told me that in his childhood at Weir’s Mills, +the school had neither paper nor blackboard +nor slates for the children to write on. The +teacher smoothed the ashes of the hearthstone +out flat with a shingle, and the children +did their figuring on that. Farmers going +into town chalked the figures of their sales +on their beaver hats, and the assessor chalked +the taxes up on the doors. +</p> +<p> +The school-teachers were taken to board +in turn, two weeks at a time, by different +families; and a friend, now an elderly woman, +has told me that when teaching, as a young +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86'></a>86</span> +girl, she had as a rule to share her bed with +three or four children of the family. In several +places the hens slept in the room too. +The schools of course were ungraded. After +her teaching hours she helped in the housework, +but she liked it, and made warm +friends. She found the life vigorous and +hardy—“It was life that was every bit of +it alive,” she has told me. +</p> +<p> +It is sometimes said that marriage and +divorce are taken lightly in the country districts, +and certainly the Jingroes and their +like, of whom more later, make their gipsy +marriages, which bind only at will; but even +among some of our outlying communities of +far higher standing than the forest settlements, +it is true that a curious, primitive view +of wedlock often obtains. Marriages in the +country are deep as the rock, enduring as the +hills, <em>once the real mate is found</em>. The fine, +toil-worn faces of man and wife, in Golden-Wedding +and Four-generations groups in +local newspapers, show a thing before which +one puts off the shoes from off one’s feet. +But, when husband and wife find only misery +in their marriage, find themselves fundamentally +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87'></a>87</span> +at variance, they quietly “get a bill,” (<em>i. e.</em> +of divorce,) and each is considered free to +marry again. The adjustment, according to +their lights, is made decently and in order; and +all cases come quickly before the final court of +public opinion, which in these clear-eyed country +districts metes out an inexorable judgment +to lightness, to cowardice or selfishness. +</p> +<p> +It is difficult not to mis-state, about so +subtle a matter; but the attitude of these +neighborhoods is not a lax one. It is rather +as if, in places so small, where the margin +of everything is so narrow, the tremendous +exigencies of life enforce a tolerance which +is no conscious action of men’s minds, but a +thing larger than themselves, before which +they must bow. Life is so simple and +vital, so cleared by necessity of a million +extraneous complexities, that people are able, +as one of the Saints says, to judge the action +by the person, not the person by the action. +</p> +<p> +Long ago there was plenty of shipping +direct from Weir’s Mills to Boston, and even +to-day scows, and a few small schooners, +come up between the hills for hay and wood, +up all the windings of the Winding River, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88'></a>88</span> +slipping through the draws at the peaceful, +pretty hamlets of Upper, Middle, and Lower +Bridge. +</p> +<p> +The country about Weir’s Mills shows in +indefinable ways that you are approaching the +sea. You get the taste of salt, with a south +wind, more often than with us. The roads +show sandy, and you see an occasional clump +of sweet bay in the pastures. The pines grow +more and more dwarfed, and so maritime in +look that you expect to see blue water and +the masts of ships ten miles before you come +to them. We came on another indication one +day, in asking our way of a young girl at a +farm door. +</p> +<p> +“The second turn to the <em>west</em>,” she told us. +In our part of the county we do not often +think of the points of the compass. “The +second turn on your left,” it would have +been. +</p> +<p> +This is one of our older districts, and a +certain amount of old-fashioned speech remains. +Many persons still speak of <em>ninepence</em> +(twelve and a half cents) and a <em>shilling</em> (sixteen +and two-thirds cents). A High School +pupil (one of the many boys who walk +three or four miles in to our Town, in all +weathers, to get their schooling) brought in +some Mountain Ash berries to the botanical +class. <em>Round-Tree berries</em>, he called them, +and the master was puzzled, until he realized +that this meant <em>Rowan Tree</em>, and that the +name had come down straight from the boy’s +English forefathers, who picked the rowan +berries by their home streams. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i007' id='i007'></a> +<img src='images/illus106.jpg' alt='THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE</span> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89'></a>89</span></div> +<p> +All through our county, and in our Town +itself, among the homelier neighbors, many +of the old strong preterites, which have become +obsolete elsewhere, are still in use. “I +<em>wed</em> the garden,” for “I <em>weeded</em>,” “I <em>bet</em> the +carpet”; <em>riz</em> for <em>raised</em>, <em>hove</em> for <em>heaved</em>; and +among our old established families of substance +you may still hear <em>shew</em> for <em>showed</em> and +<em>clim</em> for <em>climbed</em>. +</p> +<p> +“I <em>clim</em> a little ways up into the rigging,” +one of our magnates said to me this very +week, speaking of an adventure of his seafaring +youth. +</p> +<p> +After the Revolution certain of the unfortunate +Hessians drifted to the southern +part of our county, and being stranded, poor +souls, they made the best of it, settled and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90'></a>90</span> +married. They named our town of Dresden. +The Theobalds come from this Hessian stock, +the Vannahs, who started as Werners, the +Dockendorffs, and we have a precious although +extremely local seashore name, <em>Winkiepaw</em>, +which began life as Wenckebach. +But the adaptation of surnames is in process +all around us. Uriah Briery’s people used to +be <em>Brieryhurst</em>; and Samuel Powers has told +me that his grandfather wrote his name in +“a queer Frenchy sort of way, he spelled it +<em>de la Poer</em>”(!) The Goslines, of whom we +have a good sized family, were <em>du Gueslins</em>, +not long since, and Alec Duffy, who sounds +entirely Irish, was born <em>Alexis D’Urfeé</em>. +</p> +<p> +A queer old person lived on the Weir’s +Mills road when we were children. He had +prospered in farming and trade, and was +quite a rich man for those parts. He wanted +to be richer still, and all his last years he +was ridden by two chimerical dreams; one, +that a piece of his land was to be bought +for a monster hotel, at a fabulous price, and +the other that Captain Kidd’s treasure was +buried in a small island he owned in the +river. He dug and he dug for it. He had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91'></a>91</span> +absolute faith in the superstition that a fork +of green wood—perhaps of witch-hazel only, +but I am not sure about this—held firmly in +both hands, will point straight to buried water +or buried treasure. He has led us all over his +island, holding the forked stick. +</p> +<p> +“There! See him! See him turn!” he +would cry out excitedly. “Wild oxen won’t +hold him!” The stick certainly turned in +his hands, and in ours, when he placed it +right for us. I suppose the wood is so elastic +and springy that, holding it in a certain way +you unconsciously turn it yourself; but it +gave a queer feeling. +</p> +<p> +This whole district is fragrant with the +memory of a saint, Mary Scott. She was +a cripple her whole life. Her shoulders and +the upper part of her body were those of a +powerful woman, but her feet and legs were +those of a child, and were withered and useless. +She lived all alone when I knew her, +in a tiny neat house. She spent her days in +a child’s cart, which she could move about +by the wheels with her hands, and she was +most active and busy. +</p> +<p> +No one could go through a life of such +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92'></a>92</span> +affliction without untellable suffering; but +Mary’s sweet faith never seemed to know that +she had a self at all, still less a crippled self. +She had quick skillful hands, and her absorbing +pleasure all through the year was her +work for her Christmas tree. She saved, and +her neighbors saved for her, every bit of tinfoil +and silver or gold paper that could be +found, and fashioned out of it bright stars and +spangles for trimming. She knitted and +knitted, mittens and stockings and comforters, +and when the time came near she +made candy, and corn-balls, and strung popcorn +into garlands. The neighbors all helped +her, and good Jacob Damren, at Tresumpscott, +always cut her a tree from his woods +and set it up for her; and then on Christmas +Eve the door of her cottage stood open, and +the light streamed out from the bright +lighted tree, and the children of the whole +district came thronging in with their parents. +</p> +<p> +The tributary streams from this eastern +side of our river come in very quietly. Worromontogus, +the largest, is dammed just as +it emerges from its hills, to turn the Wilsons’ +saw-mill, which was once owned and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93'></a>93</span> +run by Mary Scott’s father. The mill and +mill-pond are in an open, sunny pocket of +the woods. The winding lane which leads +in to them is bordered with elms and willows, +and the road is soft underfoot with bark and +sawdust. Feathery elms stand all about the +stream’s basin, and after you have followed the +road in you reach the weather-stained mill, the +logs, the new-cut lumber, as fragrant as can +be, and the great heap of bright-colored sawdust. +Worromontogus drains the pond of +the same name, five miles long, some distance +back in the country. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94'></a>94</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER IX—MARY GUILFOYLE</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +The sun had come out bright after a rain, +and every leaf was shining, the June day +when we drove over to Ridgefield to fetch +Mary Guilfoyle. We started early in the +morning, but it was already like noon in that +midsummer season. Daisies were powdering +the fields, as white as snow, and yellow and +orange hawkweeds were growing in among +them, so that whole fields showed yellow, +orange, and white. The orange hawkweed is +very fragrant, and its sweetness mixed with +the spicy bitterness of the daisies. Then, on +a knoll as the road rose above the river, we +found patches of bright blue lupins in the +yellow and orange and white, making such a +blaze of color as I have never seen before +in our northern fields. +</p> +<p> +There were streaks of crimson sorrel in +the fields where there were no daisies, among +the ripening June-grass and red-top; all +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95'></a>95</span> +the grasses, and the fields of grain, were beginning +to turn a little tawny, and quick +waves chased each other across them with +the light summer wind. +</p> +<p> +Mary lives in a scrap of a new house, in a +thick wood of young firs and spruces. The +last mile of our road led through these sweet-smelling +trees, which were set all over with +light green jewels of new growth. Grass +grew in the ruts, and the moist earth of the +wood road was thronged with yellow butterflies; +and tiny “blues,” like bits of the sky +come to life, fluttered among the ferns. +Breath after breath of sweetness came from +the warm woods in the sunshine. +</p> +<p> +Mary was waiting for us at the door, with +her knitting in her hand, and her cat at her +skirts. Her small rough fields across the road +were ploughed and planted, and she was ready +to come to us. She is a strongly built old +woman with bright blue eyes and yellowish +gray hair, sturdy as a weather-beaten piece +of white-oak timber. Many is the time that +she has left our house of an afternoon (in our +impossible spring going, too, with the frost +coming out of the ground and the mud a foot +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96'></a>96</span> +deep); walked out to her farm, six full miles, +seen to some detail of farm-work that worried +her, and walked back, arriving before seven +the next morning, to cook our breakfast. +</p> +<p> +She works on her farm all summer, planting +and hoeing her corn and beans and potatoes. +She has help from the men of the neighborhood +when she can get it, but I believe she +follows the plough herself when she is put to +it. In winter she comes into town, and works +for households in difficulties. If the cook +deserts us, or we have a sudden influx of +guests or everyone has grippe, we send for +Mary Guilfoyle and she sees us through. She +comes into a house like a blast of clear air. +Nothing ruffles her, and her mere presence +seems to return its right proportions and +gayety to life. She knows how to work as +few people do nowadays, and she is so sound-hearted +and unafraid that there is something +royal and powerful about her. +</p> +<p> +Mary’s mother was French, and it is from +her she gets her gestures. Her hands move +finely, with a dignity and control a duchess +might envy, and they say more than mere +words could. And then, her funny expressions! +She is a Roman Catholic, but so far +from being a church-goer that I was surprised, +last Easter morning, at seeing her +ready for church; and my surprise was rebuked +with, +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i008' id='i008'></a> +<img src='images/illus116.jpg' alt='PLOUGHING MARY’S FIELD' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>PLOUGHING MARY’S FIELD</span> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97'></a>97</span></div> +<p> +“Child, the heretic and the hangman go +to church on this morning!” +</p> +<p> +Her speech is unlike anybody else’s. Every +sentence is vivid, but they lose their quaint +flavor in telling. She is delighted (she is a +fine cook), but excited, too, at getting a +“company meal,” and loses her appetite. +</p> +<p> +“The cook cannot eat, not if she were at +the gates of heaven, at these times,” she +puts it. +</p> +<p> +She was telling one day of an unfortunate +young farm neighbor— +</p> +<p> +“He knelt on a nail, and took lock-jaw. +They hoisted him to Portland, but it warn’t +of no use. He died in four days. He was a +beautiful young man. Warn’t it terrible?” +</p> +<p> +Somehow I never fail to see the poor youth +caught up in a sheet and swung through the +air the whole journey. +</p> +<p> +Mary was born and brought up in the +Catholic community at Ridgefield; but she +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98'></a>98</span> +has spent little time there. Fifty-five years +ago, when she was sixteen, she learned fine +sewing and clear-starching at the Great +House of our neighborhood, and then nothing +would do but she must seek her fortune in +Boston, where she already had two sisters +in service. She made the voyage in a sailing +vessel, a small brig laden with hay. She +found out the name of a first-rate dressmaker, +in Temple Place; next she bought a piece of +fine gray cashmere, and cut and made herself +a jacket and dress. Then she presented herself. +</p> +<p> +“How do I know you are a seamstress at +all?” the dressmaker asked. +</p> +<p> +“I cut and made every stitch I have on +me.” +</p> +<p> +“You may go right upstairs, at seven dollars +a week, with the others.” +</p> +<p> +A sweep of the hand illustrated the triumph; +seven dollars was fine pay in those +days. +</p> +<p> +One of her sisters was cook for many +years for Oliver Wendell Holmes. +</p> +<p> +(“A little man, the face wrinkled”—and +Mary’s eloquent hands made me see the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99'></a>99</span> +Doctor again in person.) He took care of her +money for her; and Mary has often told +me how one day, after many years, he said, +</p> +<p> +“Now, Anna, you are a rich woman; you +need never work again, and can do what you +like.” +</p> +<p> +She bought a nice little house in one of +the suburbs. +</p> +<p> +“But a year was all she could stand of it. +She couldn’t make out to live, away from the +Holmeses, and back she goes to them.” +</p> +<p> +Mary married at twenty, and lived quietly +in Chelsea for five and twenty years. Then +her husband died, and instead of going home +to the farm, or staying on where she was, to +take boarders, this born adventurer was off +to see the world. +</p> +<p> +“I hadn’t seen, not one thing, cooped up +there in Chelsea. I wanted to find out about +new things, and new places, whilst I was +strong.” +</p> +<p> +She took a part of her savings, sewed up in +the front of her gown, to fall back on, but +her capable hands were the real funds on +which she depended. She traveled to Denver, +and there went out to service, and afterwards +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100'></a>100</span> +worked in a restaurant. She found light +work in plenty, and in between jobs took her +heart’s fill of sight-seeing. She saw Pike’s +Peak and the Grand Canyon. By the end +of the winter she had earned enough to take +her to San Francisco. Here she had a sister- +and brother-in-law who ran a good restaurant, +and Mary joined forces with them. A year +brim-full of life followed, but after this her +two own sisters, her only surviving near relations, +fell ill, and she came home to nurse +them. It was then that she bought her farm, +near her old home in Ridgefield, planning that +the three should spend their old age together. +Both sisters, though, died; but my indomitable +Mary keeps the farm almost as well as +a man could, and her strong nature, tremendously +intent on the present moment, +never feels loneliness. +</p> +<p> +As I said, she is not much of a church-goer, +but she is devout in her own way, and plans +to go back to San Francisco, to the convent +where a cousin of hers is now Abbess, and +there +</p> +<p> +“Get ready to die; and a good thing to do, +too, first-rate!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101'></a>101</span> +</p> +<p> +I never knew anyone so indifferent about +dress as Mary; she is quite pretty in her way, +and must always have been so, but she +puts on whatever is nearest at hand, and will +hamper her least. It is a fact that I saw her +out in the rain the other day, taking in clothes +from the line, with a length of brown oil-cloth +tied about her stout person, by way of +an apron, with marline, and an empty +shredded-wheat box, split up on one side, on +her head for a hat. +</p> +<p> +The lower meadows were still yellow with +the gold of buttercups as we drove home, +and where the swales ran lower and richer +we saw tall Canada Lilies, Loose-strife, and +purple and white fringed orchids, in among +the Meadow-rue, and light green ferns and +ripening grasses. There was Blue-eyed +Grass, too, and Iris. It was all rich and +fragrant, and butterflies were hovering about +the lilies; and as if this were not enough, a +breath of woodsy sweetness, much like the +fragrance of Lady’s Slippers, met us from a +mixed meadow and cranberry bog, and there +were flocks of rose-pink Arethusas all delicately +poised among the grasses. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102'></a>102</span> +</p> +<p> +Meadow-larks were rising all about, singing +their piercingly sweet notes. The children +were picking wild strawberries, and the blackberries +flung out long springing sprays down +the perfected June roadways. Their blossoms +are very like small single sweet-briar roses. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i009' id='i009'></a> +<img src='images/illus124.jpg' alt='ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND</span> +</div> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103'></a>103</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER X—TRESUMPSCOTT POND</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +Tresumpscott Pond lies three miles eastward +from our river, set deep between the +folds of wooded and rocky hills, and the +woods frame it close. +</p> +<p> +You climb the rise of a long slow-mounting +hill which at its southern extremity breaks +sharply down in granite ledges, mostly pine-covered, +and there right below you lies this +little lonely, perfectly guarded lake. There +is only one opening in the woods, a farm +which slopes down to the shore in two wide +fields, with a low rambling farmhouse. There +is no other roof in sight. +</p> +<p> +The pond is about a mile long and half as +wide. It has the attributes of a big lake, in +little; deep bays up which loons nest, and +wooded headlands, ending in smooth abrupt +rocks which enclose small curved beaches of +white sand, as firm and fine as sea sand. +The western bay ends in a river of swamp, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104'></a>104</span> +and all along the north side the wood screens +a broken wall of fern-grown cliffs, with quantities +of columbines among their crannies. +The long slope above the woods is a sheep +pasture, partly under pines and partly open, +with ledge and cinquefoil-covered boulders +cropping out in the close turf, and tall +mulleins standing all about like candlesticks. +</p> +<p> +The whole locality is rich in treasures, and +here on the north side of the pond is a stretch +of mossy glades and openings in the underwood +which are covered with the fairy elegance +of maiden-hair fern, the delicate black +stems standing out against the rocks and +moss. They grow under cool rich woods, +with pink Lady’s Slippers scattered in clumps +among them. +</p> +<p> +The farm at Tresumpscott is an ample one, +and Jacob Damren, who farms it, comes of +fine stock, and is a big, hearty figure of a +man. The Pond was his father’s before him. +His wife is a plain little woman, always +clean and trim in fresh cotton print. They +say her habitual sadness is because she has +never liked the Pond. She was town-bred, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105'></a>105</span> +finds it utterly lonely, while to Jacob it holds +everything that earth can give. +</p> +<p> +The land is very fertile and they prospered +till well past middle life, when Jacob met with +an accident that was hard to bear. A neglected +cut on his thumb became infected, +and soon there was swelling and pain in the +whole hand. No one did the right thing, no +one knew what to do beyond the old-fashioned +farm treatments, and after a week of +fever the arm had to go. They said it was +only his wife’s despairing weeping which +brought him at last to consent to amputation. +At first he begged to be allowed to die sooner +than face life again thus maimed. +</p> +<p> +He met the blow, once it fell, in a steady +manly way, and now has come well out +from under its shadow. A month ago I saw +him out with his horse and drag, getting out +stumps, and he was managing this troublesome +business successfully. He smiled a +patient, slow smile, as we came up. +</p> +<p> +“This comes kind of awkward for a one-armed +man!” he called out, but spoke +cheerily, and seemed delighted at the way he +was achieving his stumping. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106'></a>106</span> +</p> +<p> +They have had other troubles. A son who +lived at home and shared the farm, married +a shallow, heartless girl, who left him, and +so broke his heart and his whole hold on life +that he could not bear the place without her, +and has led a wandering, broken sort of existence +since. Their other boy, though, is a +good son indeed. He is part owner in a small +cooperage and he drives over from week to +week, puts in solid help on the farm, and +brings his wife and babies to make cheerful +Sundays for the old people. +</p> +<p> +Jacob and his wife love animals. The last +time I was over there the cosset lamb came +into the kitchen to ask for milk. Mrs. Damren +was caressing two new red calves as if they +were kittens, while Flora, Jacob’s foxhound, +and her two velvet-skinned, soft-eyed puppies +played round them. +</p> +<p> +We drive over to the pond from time to time +for swamp treasures of different kinds. Jacob +has a tumble-down, lichen-covered boathouse +where water-pewees and white-bellied swallows +nest, in which he keeps a few of the worst +boats in the world (with ash oars shaped like +flattened poles and heavy as lead), and lets +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107'></a>107</span> +them out to people who come for pickerel or +water-lilies. The whole western end of the +pond is a laughing expanse of water-lilies and +yellow Beaver Lilies, with the bright yellow +butterfly-shaped blossoms of bladderwort in +among them. Beyond these you come to a +mixture of floating islands, tussocks, intricate +channels of black water, and stretches of +shaking cotton grass, which in June and July +hide a host of slim-stemmed rose-colored +swamp orchids, <em>Arethusa</em>, <em>calopogon</em>, and +<em>pogonia</em>. You pole and shove your boat +between the floating islands, submerging orchids +and cotton-grasses alike in the black +peat water, and beyond them reach the parti-colored +velvet of the peat bog itself. +</p> +<p> +Balsam fir grows here, sweet rush and +sweet gale, and quantities of Labrador Tea, +with shining dark leaves (of which Thoreau +made tea when camping on Chesuncook) and +masses of delicate-stamened white flowers, +which give out a warm resinous sweetness. +All around there is the general bog fragrance +of sphagnum and water-lilies, and the woodsy +perfume of the rose-colored orchids. +</p> +<p> +Farther in shore, among the balsam firs, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108'></a>108</span> +the growth dwindles to a general velvety +richness of gem-like green and crimson +mosses, blueberries, and cranberries and +huckleberries, the large handsome maroon-crimson +flowers of the Pitcher-Plant, and the +little bright-yellow-flowered Sundew, getting +its nourishment from the insects caught in its +sticky crimson filaments. +</p> +<p> +The pond is alive all summer with butterflies +and birds. We spent a day there in June, +and tried to follow a pair of Carolina rails, +which ran and hid among the cotton-grasses, +and ran again, and suddenly vanished as completely +as if they had melted in air. We put +up a bittern, but did not find her nest. Scores +of red-wing black-birds had nested in the clustered +bushes of the floating islands. We laid +our oars down on the shaking cotton grass +as a sort of bridge and worked our way from +island to island, while a perfect cloud of birds +chuckled and wheeled round us, uttering +their guttural warning cries and their fresh +“Hock-a-lees!” We looked into three red-wings’ +nests, and one king-bird’s, all with +eggs. The red-wing’s eggs were pale blue, +scratched and blotched with black as if by +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109'></a>109</span> +a child playing with ink and pen, while the +king-bird’s were a beautiful cream-color, +marked in a circle round the large end with +rich brown blotches. +</p> +<p> +As we went on to gather Pitcher-Plants and +Sundew, we saw an eagle fishing over the +lonely little lake; saw, too, a thing I have +never seen before or since, for he caught a +fish so big it pulled him under. He vanished +out of sight completely, came up with a great +flap, and, making heavy work of it, and flying +so low he almost touched the water, he made +off and gained the woods with his prize. +</p> +<p> +Besides our orchids and pitcher-plants (we +washed the pitchers clear of insects, and +drank from them), we had come for stickle-backs, +which are found in the clear shallows +by one of the small beaches. We had a net, +and glass jars. They are such quick darting +creatures that it is hard to get them. They +are the liveliest of all pets for an aquarium, +and prosper very fairly in captivity. +</p> +<p> +Early in the morning, when we first reached +the pond, the bobolinks were rising and singing +all over the lower water meadows, and +the mists were turning to silver in the early +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110'></a>110</span> +sunlight. When we came up from the bog +in the late afternoon the bobolinks were silent, +but a mother sand-peep wheeled and cried +about the field, afraid that we would find her +chickens. +</p> +<p> +We cooled our hands and faces in the clear +water and washed off the black peat mold, +and went up to the farm. Mrs. Damren had +fresh gingerbread for us, and creamy milk, +and we sat round a table with a cheerful red +cloth. The room was very homelike, with a +good deal of dark wood, and bright pots and +pans. A shot-gun and a rifle hung over the +mantel, the guns poor Jacob will never use +again. His hunting dog sat close to his chair. +</p> +<p> +The wife’s sorrowful eyes turned always +to her husband, but seemed at the same time +to try to guard his empty sleeve from our +glances. He, with a larger patience, was +unconscious of it. +</p> +<p> +They told us a good thing; that two lads, +sons of a minister in a neighboring town, +have built a little camp in Jacob’s woods. +They come over often to spend the night, and +sometimes stay a week, and are great company. +They come to Jacob for milk, butter, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111'></a>111</span> +and eggs, and often spend the evening. The +week before they had shot two coons, and +they are busy mounting them, under his +directions. +</p> +<p> +Jacob’s face has a great peace in it, that +of a man who has given everything in him +to the place he lives in, and held nothing back. +His beautiful, lonely little holding of wood +and field and lake is better, for the work he +has put into it, than when his father left it to +him. He has cleared more fields, enriched the +land, and drained the lower meadows. His +son will have it after him. I have seldom seen +a place which seemed more entirely home. +</p> +<p> +Jacob had cut the hay in his upper meadow +early (he has to take his son’s or a neighbor’s +help when he can get it), and it was already +piled in sweet-smelling haycocks as we drove +by, but the water meadows, where the purple +fringed orchids and loosestrife grow in +among the grasses, were still uncut. It was +dusk, and the fireflies were out. Thousands +of them flashed their soft radiance low over +the perfumed meadow, and the fragrance of +sweet rush and of the open water came to +us from the lake. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112'></a>112</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER XI—IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +The population of a district can never be +classified. Once again, “folks are folks,” and +the smallest hamlet shows infinite variety. Yet +here and there the individual quality of a +neighborhood seems as marked as that of the +different belts and communities of trees which +clothe the land about it. +</p> +<p> +Watson’s Hill, Ridgefield, and Weir’s Mills +are fine up-standing neighborhoods, with good +houses, big barns, fresh paint, and bright milk +cans catching the sun; but in near-by folds of +the hills, where the ridges slope up into higher +country, there are poor and scattered farms +and farmhouses which are no more than +shanties. A neighborhood six miles from a +big town may be more rustic than another +twice as far. It is partly the soil, partly inheritance, +and surely it is a third part influence. +The land of our Silvester’s Mills +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113'></a>113</span> +Quakers is not specially good, but the impulse +imparted by three or four industrious +good families is the foundation of its marked +prosperity. +</p> +<p> +A Swede and an Italian have lately taken +up two farms which were considered quite +run out, one in North Ridgefield, six miles +from us, and the other at the top of a long +hill on the Tresumpscott Road. +</p> +<p> +The Swede asked William Pender, a thin, +vague, grumbling man, of whom he hired +the land, +</p> +<p> +“How long time to clear these fields of +stones?” +</p> +<p> +“Ninety-nine years!” said William solemnly. +But the Swede, a fair, strong-built +man named Jansen, went to work, with his +wife and his three children. They put on +leather aprons, and worked early and late, +in every spare minute that could be taken +from planting and cultivating. (William +looked on, from his brother’s farm, whither +he had retreated, in a mixture of incredulity, +disapprobation and envy.) <em>They worked in +the rain</em>; and now, after three years, the farm +is clear of stones, and Jansen owns it clear. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114'></a>114</span> +He has a thousand hens, and sells his eggs +and broilers at fancy prices in New York; +and Mrs. Jansen’s lawn and flower-beds are +as gay as those of a neat farm in Holland. +</p> +<p> +The Italian farmer is a larger pattern of +man. He came here as a young fellow with +no better start than a push-cart, but he came +of good intelligent Tuscan people, and has +not only endless industry, but wits to see, and +enterprise to take, all sorts of chances. He did +not take any chances, though, when he married +Alice Farrell, the daughter of one of our +best farmers, a strong pretty girl, as industrious +as her husband, and even more intelligent, +with a free sort of outlook, and something +kindling about her. Her husband is +now the big man of his neighborhood. The +district goes by his name, and he has represented +it in the Legislature. He owns a +fine herd of registered Guernseys, and his +apples bring fancy prices. +</p> +<p> +A friend of mine, a farmer, once asked one +of the great Connecticut nurserymen to what +he attributed the success of the Italians in +nursery work and truck farming. The older +man’s eyes twinkled. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115'></a>115</span> +</p> +<p> +“I’ll tell you,” he said. “They’re willing +to work in the rain!” +</p> +<p> +Our farm conditions are improving, almost +while you watch them. The Agricultural Department +of the State University is doing +yeoman service. People are beginning to +realize what science is bringing to agriculture, +and the young men are fired by it. They are +especially beginning to realize what ignorance +it was to leave so many farms deserted, and +to condemn so much of the land as hopeless +and used up. The friend who asked the question +about the Italians said of our own farmers: +</p> +<p> +“They stick to their grandfathers’ ways, +and not to their grandfathers’ enterprise and +ambition for improvement.” But this statement +is fast coming to be untrue. +</p> +<p> +Interspersed, however, among the prosperous +districts there are curious, backward hamlets, +where the woods seem to encroach. +Their hills shut them about too closely. Some +set of the tide of human affairs, some change +of transportation or of market, cuts off the +wholesome currents of life from them, and +they stagnate like cut-off water and become +degenerate. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116'></a>116</span> +</p> +<p> +There is a sad combination of receding +prosperity and a run-out population in a town +a long day’s drive from us. Poor place, it has +become bankrupt. Its timber was cut off, and +the cooperages, on which its tiny livelihood +depended, moved away. Its farms straggle +up the flanks of a round-topped mountain. +Apple-raising might perhaps have saved it, +but either such of its people as had the enterprise +for this moved away, or it possessed +none such. The people I saw there looked +as different as possible from our hearty sun-and-air +neighbors. Unkempt faces thronged +the dirty windows of farms that were mere +shacks. They looked at once ambitionless and +sinister. “Merricktown folks,” people of the +neighboring districts say, when tools disappear +or robes are stolen from the sleighs +at a Grange supper. +</p> +<p> +No Indians are left in our part of the world; +but here and there a family shows marked +traces of Indian blood, as old Sile Taylor, +beyond Watson’s Hill, a frowsy and hospitable +patriarch, whose little black eyes twinkle +with a kind of foxy kindliness. Though none +dwell here, Indians come two or three +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117'></a>117</span> +times a year from the State Reservation, +with snow-shoes, moccasins, and sweet-grass +baskets to sell. They make a yearly pilgrimage +to the seashore for the sweet-grass, which +grows in the salt meadows at the mouths of +a few rivers. They cut and dry it, and carry +home many hundred pounds for the winter’s +weaving. The Gabriel brothers, Joe and Bill, +are regular visitors among us, enormous dark +men, with that Indian habit of silence which +implies not so much taciturnity, as a certain +tranquil quality. Tranquillity and kindness +seem to flow from the big brothers. They +seem untroubled by any need of speech. +</p> +<p> +Then beyond Rattlesnake Hill there are the +“Jingroes.” They are credited with being +pure-blooded gipsies, and they certainly look +it. I do not know whether they started with +a definite Mr. and Mrs. Jingroe or not. The +name is applied to the whole tribe. They +live “over back,” in clearings in a wide belt +of forest. They are perfectly indolent, but +cheerful, and content with the most primitive +farming. +</p> +<p> +Once in a while, when things go hard with +them, they all set to work, and weave very +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118'></a>118</span> +good baskets, which they bring in town to +sell. You are met at every street corner by +handsome, dark-eyed Mrs. Jingroes, in kerchief +and bright earrings, importuning every +passer-by to buy a basket. +</p> +<p> +About once a year a gipsy caravan drives +through our town, and stops in the street +on its way. The slim, handsome barefooted +children and their dark square-built mothers +are all about. The women bustle from shop +to shop, making small purchases, and pick up +a little money by telling fortunes. +</p> +<p> +Once, when the gipsies camped in a rough +pasture near town, one of the children died, +and a touching deputation came, to ask permission +(which was of course given) to bury +it in the town cemetery. +</p> +<p> +Another time, as a caravan drove through +the town, I noticed a girl lying at the back +of one of the flimsy, covered wagons, so ill +she seemed to be unconscious. She was a +lovely creature, dark and pale, and her slim +body swayed and shook with the shaking of +the wheels. I wanted to call out to the +drivers to stop, but the crazy caravan rattled +away at a half-canter, and paid no attention. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119'></a>119</span> +</p> +<p> +Tresumpscott Pond lies in the midst of our +most heavily forested district. There is no +village or hamlet near it, but a handful of +little farms, on tiny clearings or no clearings +at all, are scattered through the woods. +</p> +<p> +The dwellers in these forest farms are not +people of substance, like the farmers of the +open country near them, but they are intelligent +folk, and are rich in the treasure of a +varied and interesting life. The men of the +family are sure to have hunting coats and +gaiters,—leather or canvas; good guns, which +they keep well oiled and bright; and most of +them keep a good fox hound or two, whose +jubilant music may be heard as they range +through the winter woods with their masters, +or on independent hunting excursions. The +boys begin by seven years old to have trapping +enterprises of their own up the little +quick forest brooks, and what looks to the +ordinary person like the merest mossy runnel, +hardly a brook at all, may be well known +as a drinking-place of coons, or a haunt where +sharp eyes may see a mink. They are sent out +to gather thoroughwort, dill, dock, and other +simples, and mosses and roots for the farm +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120'></a>120</span> +dyeing. (<em>Cruttles</em>, or <em>crottles</em>, the farm name +for the dark moss growing on ash-trees, makes +a fine yellow dye.) They know where to lie +hidden at half past three in the morning +on the chance of seeing a deer, and under +which stretch of lily-pads is the best chance +for a pickerel. And not only the boys: I +know a girl on a farm, whose grown-up +brother has such confidence in her marksmanship, +that he will shake an apple-tree, while +she nicks the falling apples with her rifle. +They make use of a far greater number of +wild plants than are known to the farmers +of the more open country, as “greens,” cooking +and eating young milk-weed stalks, shepherd’s +purse, and the uncurling fronds of the +<em>Osmundas</em> and other great ferns, which they +call “fiddle-heads.” +</p> +<p> +They grow up sinewy and alert, under this +eager life, and the best of them attain, beside +their farm knowledge, to the undefinable +huntsman’s knowledge, which sets its mark +on a man. Their bearing is confident and +fearless, and with it they have a certain forest +quality on which it is hard to lay a finger. +It is noticeable that the greater part of the +families who cleave to this forest way of life +are apt to be of dark complexion. It is a great +pity that most of them can get so little +schooling, but they have all been educated, +since they were little, in a training which +certainly develops and intensifies some of +man’s best powers. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i010' id='i010'></a> +<img src='images/illus144.jpg' alt='THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES</span> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121'></a>121</span></div> +<p> +The deep tranquil woods cover the rise +and fall of the ridges for a good stretch of +miles, and a good deal of hunting and trapping +is to be had in them. Last month we +came on fresh raccoon tracks, like prints of +little hands, in the leaf mould of the wood +road, and coons are often shot here. One +day, as we were walking, there was a great +growling and barking from our dogs, and +we found that they had treed a porcupine. +</p> +<p> +In my Grandfather’s time, sheep had to +be driven at night to the tops of the hills, +because of the bears in the Tresumpscott +woods; and only two years ago there was an +outcry among the farmers because sheep were +being killed. Everybody watched his neighbor’s +dog, but Oliver Newcomb, who lives on +a little farm in the heart of the forest tract, +coming home at dusk up the wood road, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122'></a>122</span> +heard a growling and snarling, and came on +a great Bay Lynx, the only one seen in this +part of the country for many years. Oliver +is a man who is almost never seen without +his gun, and he shot the marauder, and got +twenty-five dollars for the skin, a real windfall +for a young man on a small forest farm, +with wife to keep and five children. The skin +was mounted, and set up in the library of the +Soldiers’ Home. +</p> +<p> +The Bay Lynx is a much longer, more +panther-like creature than our common +Canada Lynx (the <em>Loup Cervier</em> or Bob-cat), +and is of a general bay color, not unlike that +of the Mountain Lion of the West. I have +wondered if this might not be the panther +or “painter” which was the terror of our +Northern woods to early settlers. +</p> +<p> +“Big Game” has increased greatly in our +State of late years, partly from the enforcement +of strict game laws, partly because the +wolves have nearly all been killed off. Deer +are so common as to be a menace to crops +in some places, and there are at least three +thriving beaver colonies in our part of the +State. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123'></a>123</span> +</p> +<p> +In 1868 my father, driving on a fishing trip +through a town sixty-five miles north of us, +was shown a pair of blanched moose antlers, +set up over the sign-post at the cross-roads. +</p> +<p> +“Look at that well,” the stage driver said. +“That’s a sight you’ll never see again, not +in this State!” +</p> +<p> +To-day, as every hunter knows, moose are +plentiful, all through the two-thirds of the +State that lies under forest; and not only +there, for this very autumn three have been +seen in the Tresumpscott woods, while both +last year and this, a black bear has spent several +weeks in our neighborhood. +</p> +<p> +Muskrat are found in Tresumpscott Pond +and its small tributary streams, hares and +partridges and foxes all through its woods. +Black duck, and sometimes wood duck, breed +about the Pond, and Carolina rails; and +where the brooks that feed the Pond spread +out into broad estuaries of alder covert, you +may see the marked flight of snipe or woodcock. +</p> +<p> +It was in these woods that Jerome Mitchell, +our local authority on game and fur (a very +fair naturalist, also), grew up. He is a slender, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124'></a>124</span> +well-knit fellow, whose mother had great ambitions +for him. He walked into town, five +miles and back, every day, to get one year in +the High School, after his country schooling. +He could not afford any more, but when he +was seventeen, having picked up a knowledge +of taxidermy and simple mechanics, he moved +into town. He worked early and late with +dogged patience, taking every smallest job +that offered, till at last he realized his ambition, +and opened a small, but good sportsmen’s +and general repair shop. Gradually +he picked up the fur trade of the neighborhood. +He is anxiously fair, and boys from +the farms soon began to bring in skunk, squirrel, +and muskrat skins, and every little while +a fox or a coon. +</p> +<p> +Last year Jerome ran into hard luck. A +stranger, a good-looking man, brought in an +extra fine looking lot of muskrat skins. +There were $600 worth, and this was a low +figure for them. It was a serious venture, +still Jerome took them; they turned out, however, +to be stolen goods, and he had to pay +the rightful owner, as the stranger was nowhere +to be found. Poor Jerome! he was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125'></a>125</span> +near tears when he told my father about it. +Then, when he just had his store new painted +and set in order for the summer’s trade, someone +dropped a lighted match among the shavings, +and the whole stock and fixtures were +in a blaze. +</p> +<p> +This loss turned out to be not so serious. +Jerome worked nearly all night for a week, +and made better fittings than he had had +before. The wholesale dealers were generous, +and the shop re-opened with the best outfit +of goods that it has had at all. +</p> +<p> +Now a good windfall has come to him. A +rural mail-carrier brought word of a silver fox +which had been trapped on a farm fifteen miles +out in the country. Jerome only waited to +telegraph to a big fur dealer for whom he +works, who has lately established a fox farm, +and started off at once. He found even better +than he had hoped. The fox was a perfect +young male, coal black, and hardly scratched +by the trap. +</p> +<p> +In the recent craze over fox-raising, as much +as ten thousand dollars has been paid, in our +State, for a first-rate black fox. Of course +Jerome would only get a commission, but +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126'></a>126</span> +this was the first big chance that had come +to him and he was beside himself with +anxiety lest it miscarry. It was a sharp +February night, but he slept in the barn +beside his prize, and the next morning drove +home, dreading every drift and thank-you-ma’am, +for fear they might upset, and +the slight crate that held the fox might +break. +</p> +<p> +That night he slept on the floor of his +shop, wrapping himself in the sleigh robes. +The fox ate the meat given him with a good +appetite, and curled up contentedly enough +to sleep; but as the first grayness began to +show before dawn, he stood up, bristling a +little, and barked, a far-away, lonely sound, +Jerome said. The next day he was forwarded +to the dealer in safety. +</p> +<p> +My father has shot and hunted all about +this region, going on snow-shoes after foxes +and hares in winter, with one of the forest +farmers—generally one of the Huntingtons—as +guide or companion; coming into the warm +dark farm kitchen for a warm-up before the +long ride or drive home. The Huntingtons +always had good dogs. Bugle, a fox-hound +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127'></a>127</span> +famous through the countryside, belonged to +them. +</p> +<p> +John Huntington is the man whom neither +bee nor wasp will sting. He is sent for all +about to take away troublesome hornets’ +nests, which he simply tears down and pulls +to pieces with his bare hands. Some hornets +built a huge nest over the door of the +stable at the Homestead not long ago, just +where the men come and go for milking. +One of the farm men wanted to take a torch +and smoke it out, but Thomas Burnham, the +farmer in charge, sent all the way over to +Tresumpscott for John Huntington. He +came, a silent, dark, shambling man; looked +at the nest, nodded, asked for a ladder, +climbed up, and unconcernedly pulled the +whole thing down, while the furious hornets +swarmed over his uncovered face and hands. +He reached a finger down his neck, first on one +side, then the other, and took out handfuls of +them, and scraped them off where they had +crawled up his sleeves. He tore the nest up, +threw it on the ground, and stamped on it, and +with few words went back to his farm. +</p> +<p> +I have never heard any adequate explanation +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128'></a>128</span> +of this phenomenon. Some people say +that persons having this power have a distinctive +odor about them, which wasps and +bees dislike, and others ascribe it only to an +entire fearlessness and unconcern. +</p> +<p> +Sam Huntington, John’s younger brother, is +a handsome, strong, slender-built fellow, taller +than John and even darker. It was Sam who +showed my father, one day out snipe shooting, +what a <em>bee line</em> really means, and how to take +one, and find the bee-tree. You catch two +wild bees, and attach a bit of cotton wool, +big enough to mark the bee’s flight, to each; +let the first bee go, getting the line of his +flight well, then walk on two or three hundred +yards, and let the second go, taking note +equally carefully. Where the two lines intersect +is the bee-tree and the hidden treasure +of wild honey. +</p> +<p> +Sitting in Jacob Damren’s clover field one +day, my father showed me how to find +bumble-bee honey. We sat still, and watched +the fat bee go his buzzing way from head +to head of red clover. At last he had honey +enough, and off he started on a swifter, +straighter flight, but he was heavy with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129'></a>129</span> +honey, and we could easily follow. He did +not go far, but swung on a long slant to his +hole in the ground. We dug where he entered +(he emerged, part way through the +process, very angry and buzzing) and about +six inches down we found the honey cells. +There was a lump or cluster of them, perhaps +half as big as your hand. They were +longer than the cells of honey bees; not hexagonal +like these, but roughly cylindrical, dark +brown, and full of very good, clear, dark +brown honey. +</p> +<p> +Tresumpscott Pond is a great haunt of +whippoorwills. As dusk begins to fringe the +coverts of the wood, they begin their strange, +almost ghostly chorus, like the swift whistling +of a rod through the air, powerful and regular, +“whip,” and “whip,” and “whip” again, +answering each other all night. I noticed the +time of their first notes, one night in early +July. The voices of the veeries fell away, +and then stopped, at quarter past eight, and +at quarter of nine the first whippoorwill +struck up, and was instantly answered. (I +have known them to begin sharp at eight +o’clock, or even earlier.) +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130'></a>130</span> +</p> +<p> +It is extremely hard to see the birds themselves, +for they lie hid all day in the deep +woods, sleeping. Like owls, they seem unable +to see well if roused by daylight. At +night they gather close about the farms, one +perhaps on the roof of the barn, and one or +two on a fence (sitting always <em>lengthwise</em> to +their perch, never across), and sometimes you +can see their shape silhouetted against the +sky. Last May, a whippoorwill was bewildered +in a sudden gale, and did not get back +to the woods, but spent the day sound asleep +in broad sunlight on the railing of a balcony, +right in the midst of our town. I stood +within four feet of him. He is a strange-shaped +bird, with whiskers like a cat’s, and +a flat head; about the size of a small hawk, +and mottled, like his cousin the night-hawk, +with gray and white markings like those of +rocks and lichens, or of some of the larger +moths. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131'></a>131</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER XII—HARVEST</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +In late September an errand took us out to +Sam Marston’s again. We wanted a quantity +of early farm things, sweet cider, Porter +apples, and honey. +</p> +<p> +The woods were in a flame of fiery color +as we drove out through the intricacies of +the river hills. They glowed like beds of +tulips, with only the dark evergreens to +set them off, and turned our whole country +into a huge flower garden. +</p> +<p> +The crops had all been very good this +season. Hay and grain were both heavy, and +the apple trees had to be propped, the +branches were so loaded with fruit. Our own +grapes bore heavily. +</p> +<p> +The early apples were just gathering when +we reached the farm, amongst all sorts of +pleasant orchard sounds, the rumble of apples +poured from bushel baskets into barrels, the +squeak of the cider mill, and the men talking +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132'></a>132</span> +at work. The large new orchard of Bellefleurs +is hand-picked, in the modern method; +each apple is wrapped in paper, and the fruit +has its special first-rate market; but Sam is +not going to take his father’s old miscellaneous +orchard in hand until next year, and +here he and his men were picking and piling +in the old wholesale fashion. The sweet-smelling +pyramids stood waist-high under the +trees. +</p> +<p> +Sam scrambled down his ladder, and +shouted to Susan, who came out from her +baking with her hands white with flour. The +last time we came, we had seen only the +house and dairy; now we must see the farm, +and we strolled together through the sunny +orchard and then were taken to the apple +cellar, where the filled barrels stood in close +ranks already. The cellar was fragrant with +them. Susan’s own special apples, Snows, +Strawberries, and Porters, were at one side. +</p> +<p> +“Has to have ’em!” Sam said. “Every +farm book tells you how mixed apples can’t +pay, and hinder the farm, but come Grange +suppers and church suppers, and young folks +happening in, and Fair times, if Susan +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133'></a>133</span> +couldn’t have her mixed fruit, she’d think we +might full as well be at the Town-Farm.” +</p> +<p> +The root cellar, smelling earthy, was next +the apple cellar, and here Sam had a few +beets and carrots, in neat bins, but the greater +part of the roots were still undug. +</p> +<p> +The cider-mill was at the edge of the orchard, +with piles of windfall apples beside +it; Sam turned a fresh jug-full for us to drink, +and then filled our cans. +</p> +<p> +After this we had to see all Susan’s pets. +There were two handsome collies; and a yellow +house cat, and a great black barn cat, on +stiff terms with each other, came and +rubbed against us with arched backs. There +were the ducks and geese, and tumbler +pigeons, fluttering down in great haste when +Susan scattered corn. The newest pet was +a raccoon. He was in the tool-room of the +barn, nibbling corn. He steadied the ear as +he ate, with little hands as careful as a +child’s. He looked sly and mischievous, and +sidled away as we came in, looking up at us +with bright eyes. He wore a little collar, and +dragged a short length of chain, so that the +pigeons could hear him coming; but he was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134'></a>134</span> +not confined in any way, and seemed entirely +happy and at home about the barn. +</p> +<p> +“Pretty fellow, then,” said Susan, scratching +his handsome fur. “But he’s a scamp, he +is. Only to think, what happened to my pies, +last baking! I’d made a quantity, both mince +and pumpkin, and if this rascal doesn’t slip +into the pantry, eat all he can hold, and mark +the rest of the pies all over with his little +hands, and throw them on the floor!” +</p> +<p> +She asked if we had ever seen a raccoon +with a piece of meat. We had not, and she +fetched a bit from the ice chest and gave it to +her pet. He took it in his little hands, went +to his water dish, and <em>washed</em> the meat thoroughly, +sousing it up and down till it was almost +a pulp, before he swallowed it. Susan +said that raccoons, wild or tame, will always +do this, with all animal food; mouse or +mole or grasshopper, they will not touch it +till they have washed it well, and will go +hungry rather than eat unwashed food. Sam, +who knows the woods like the back of his +hand, confirmed this. +</p> +<p> +“Souse it in a brook, they will, till they +have it soggy. They won’t eat it till then.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135'></a>135</span> +</p> +<p> +While we were looking, a morose-looking +old man drove into the yard. He checked his +horse, and sat gazing straight before him +with a wooden expression. +</p> +<p> +“Hullo, Uncle!” said Sam. “Come for +apples?” +</p> +<p> +The old man shook his head, but said +nothing. +</p> +<p> +“Cider?” said Sam. +</p> +<p> +He shook his head also at this, and at every +other suggestion, and never opened his lips. +After a while Sam, who seemed to know his +ways, nodded cheerfully, said, “Well, tell us +when you get ready to!” and turned towards +the house. +</p> +<p> +The old man waited till he had gone twenty +feet, and then said grudgingly: +</p> +<p> +“I come to see that there cow. You finish +with your company! I’ll wait.” +</p> +<p> +“That’s old Ammi Peaslee,” Susan whispered. +“He always acts odd. Oh, no, no +relation; everyone on the road calls him +Uncle: ‘Uncle Batch’ when he’s not +round.” +</p> +<p> +“He didn’t mean to be a batch” (bachelor), +she went on reflectively; and then +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136'></a>136</span> +with some shamefacedness, she told us how +Mr. Peaselee had once been engaged to be +married to Miss Charity Jordan (who lived +alone in the big brick Jordan house at the +corner) for twenty-five long years. One day +the lady’s roof needed shingling, and she +called on her suitor to shingle it. (“She +never could bear to spend money, nor he +either, and it’s a fact that neither one of them +had much to spend!”) +</p> +<p> +He did it, and did a good job; but afterwards, +thinking it but right and fair, he +brought a set of shirts for his sweetheart to +make. +</p> +<p> +“She made them, <em>and she sent him in a bill</em>; +and he paid it, and never spoke to her again +from that day to this, and that is fifteen years +ago. +</p> +<p> +“Now hear me gossip! I am fairly +ashamed!” Susan cried out. +</p> +<p> +The barn was sweet with hay. Part of the +season’s pumpkins were piled in the grain +room, and lit up the dusk with their dark gold. +Some of them still lay in golden piles in the +barn-yard. The ears of corn, yellow and red, +lay in separate heaps. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137'></a>137</span> +</p> +<p> +“I miss Mother!” Susan said (she spoke +of Sam’s mother, who had passed on the +year before). “She saw to all the pretty +things about the farm. She used to hang +the corn in patterns on the ceiling-hooks, +red and yellow. She’d place the onions in +amongst the corn, in ropes or bunches, and +contrive all kinds of pretty notions.” +</p> +<p> +Susan sighed, and called the two collies to +her, and patted and fondled their heads. As +I said before, she and Sam have no children. +</p> +<p> +Sam went to get our honey, saying that +he should be stung to death, and never +mourned for, for nobody missed a left-handed +fellar; and Susan took us into the house, and +brought out doughnuts, a pumpkin pie, and +cream so thick that it could hardly be +skimmed. +</p> +<p> +When Sam came back with the honey there +was a to-do, for Susan’s Jersey calf, outside +in the orchard, had tangled itself in its rope, +and fallen and sprained its shoulder. The +little creature was trembling all over. Susan +rubbed in fresh goose-oil, while Sam asked if +she “didn’t want he should get him up a nice +pair of crutches.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138'></a>138</span> +</p> +<p> +For our cranberries, we were to go on a +mile further, to a farm on the slope of the +next hill, the Pennys’. +</p> +<p> +“The old woman’s deaf, but you can make +her hear by shouting. Most likely she’ll be +the only one of the folks at home. They’re +odd folks,” Susan called, shading her eyes to +look after us, after Sam had succeeded in +packing our purchases in the wagon, laughing +and talking about the way Noah filled +the ark, and Susan had given my little sister +a wistful kiss. +</p> +<p> +The Pennys’ was an out-of-the-way place. +The farm was on the northern slope of a +hill, the house a tiny unpainted one, weathered +almost to black. The corn was standing +among the golden pumpkins in stacks that +looked like huddled witches. A wild grapevine +grew over the shed, but the grapes were +already shriveled. +</p> +<p> +Old Mrs. Penny was shriveled too, and +witch-like, and she was smoking a pipe. It +was hard to make her understand what we +wanted, but at last she came out, with a +checked shawl held over her head, and pointed +out a path which led through a thicket and +across the flank of the hills, to the cranberry +bog in the hollow. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i011' id='i011'></a> +<img src='images/illus164.jpg' alt='THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN STACKS THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN STACKS THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES</span> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139'></a>139</span></div> +<p> +Mrs. Penny, Jr., was squatted down among +the swamp mosses, picking cranberries into +sacks. She was a fat Indian-looking woman, +and two dark little girls, pretty, and also like +Indians, with black hair neatly parted, were +at work with her. They were delighted to +sell their berries. +</p> +<p> +The swamp glowed like a Turkey carpet. +The cranberry vines and huckleberry bushes +were pure crimson, the black alder berries +scarlet, and the ferns burnt-orange. Just +beyond us, in the velvet of the swamp, was a +pond, across which the wind ruffled; living +blue, with tawny rushes around it. +</p> +<p> +As we came back, a hunter, in a leather +jacket, with his gun on his shoulder and +partridges hanging out of his pockets, stepped +out of the woods on the path just ahead of +us. This was old Mrs. Penny’s son Jason. +The open season had not begun yet, but the +farm looked a hard place for a living, and +we saw no need of telling, in town, that the +Penny family had partridge for supper. +</p> +<p> +We had a long quiet drive home. It had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140'></a>140</span> +been so extraordinarily warm, all through +early September, that we saw a fine second +crop of hay being got in, in a low-lying +meadow bordered by thick woods, part of +which must have been an old lake-bottom. +The grass was heavy, and a good many fresh +haycocks were made and standing already, as +if in July. The solitary mower rested on his +scythe to watch us, and then went on, though +the dusk was fast deepening. +</p> +<p> +We stopped when we came to Height of +Land, to look out over the painted woods. +They flamed round us to the horizon. +</p> +<p> +Later the moon rose, in the half-blue, half-dusk, +and presently shone on a white mist-lake, +over the low land through which we +were then passing. The mist was rising, and +wreathing the colored woods with white. +Next came two more hills, and then another +mist-lake in the moonlight. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141'></a>141</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER XIII—WATSON’S HILL</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +By October of this year the fires of September +had sunk to a rich smouldering glow. +The rolling woods, as far as the eye could +see, were masses of dusky gold and wine-color. +There was actual smoke, too, pale +blue in the hollows, from many forest fires. +</p> +<p> +Nearly all of October was Indian Summer. +Every day there was a soft golden haze, just +veiling the yellow of the woods, and the days +were warm and still, like midsummer, but +with a kind of mellow peacefulness. +</p> +<p> +We spent a whole day out on Watson’s +Hill, watching the distant smoke of forest +fires, and listening to the different Autumn +sounds, the ring of axes from the wooded +part of the hill, an occasional shot, the tapping +of woodpeckers, and the friendly chirruping +of chickadees and juncos. The bare +hill-top was steeped in sunshine. The checkerberries +and beechnuts were just ripe, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142'></a>142</span> +very good. We built our fire on a flat-topped, +lichened rock, and found water to +drink in a little tarn among the russet and +tawny ferns and cotton-grasses, fed by a +spring which stirred and dimpled the surface. +</p> +<p> +Driving home, at dusk, we passed field after +field of Indian Warriors, corn-stacks, all looking +the same way, with golden pumpkins +among them; and suddenly, over the eastern +ridge, the great round yellow Hunter’s Moon +rose. +</p> +<p> +It was strange, later, to see the oaks and +sugar maples, towers of <em>gold</em>, instead of +towers of green, in the moonlight. +</p> +<p> +A few days later we had a three days’ +storm of rain and heavy wind, and then the +golden harvest lay on the ground. It was +heaped and piled along the roadsides in winrows, +through which the children scuffed and +frolicked. +</p> +<p> +(The leaves in the town streets are burned, +which is a waste, but if we were so thrifty +as to keep them we should lose the autumn +bonfires. I counted fourteen about the different +streets, one evening, each with a glow +lighting up the dusk, and giving out an +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143'></a>143</span> +indescribable sweet-and-acrid smell as the +smoke poured out in cream-white swirls, almost +thick enough to be felt. The men in +charge of them looked black against the +blaze, and a flock of children were scampering +about each fire.) The day after the rain +the leaves lay all through the woods like a +yellow carpet, and threw up actual light. In +some places they had fallen in lines and patterns, +and, wet with rain and autumn dew, +they gave out fragrance which was as sweet +as wine. +</p> +<p> +Late in October there was sudden illness +at a friend’s house. Every nurse in town was +busy already, and we drove out to see if we +could get Marcia Watson, at Watson’s Hill. +Marcia is not a graduate nurse, but she knows +what a sick woman wants, and what a sick +household, paralyzed by the illness of its +head, must have, and can set the whole +stricken machinery in order again. She is a +tiny creature, as merry as a squirrel, with +quick, tranquil ways. +</p> +<p> +The Watson’s Hill district is six miles east +of us. The Hill is a beech-wooded ridge, +rocky through its whole length, and curving +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144'></a>144</span> +almost enough to suggest an amphitheatre. +A good farming region lies +spread out below it, and there is a village +nucleus, a store, the Grange Hall, and a +meeting-house. The hall was burnt, two +years ago, and the whole neighborhood set +to work to rebuild it. They had fifteen-cent +entertainments and peanut parties, and sales +of aprons and cooked food. The men did the +building, giving their time, and the women +cooked for the men, and this fall the last +shingle of the substantial new building was +laid. +</p> +<p> +The only mill for many miles is the corn-cannery. +Corn-husking always brings farm +neighbors together; sweet corn, for canning, +is husked in August, fodder corn +in late October. Families come to husk +for each other, and the wide barn floors +where they sit are piled high with +husks; but in the districts near a cannery, +as here, the whole community gathers. +In good weather the work is all done out of +doors, and the laughing and chatting groups, +men, women, and children, sit up to their +waists in husks. The stoves and kitchens of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145'></a>145</span> +neighbors are all pre-empted, and the women +bake and fry, and come bustling out to the +workers with milk, bread and cheese, pies and +doughnuts. +</p> +<p> +Here, at Watson’s Hill, as at nearly every +farm village in our part of the world, the +neighbors meet for the weekly dance, which +is as much a matter of course as church on +Sundays. It would be hard to describe adequately +the friendliness and complete sociableness +of these neighborhood gatherings. Old +and middle-aged and young are called by +their first names, and everybody dances; not +round dances, but the beautiful old country +dances, which, transplanted over seas and +carried down a century, still show their quality, +and keep something of the courtly nature +of the great houses in France and England +where they had their stately beginnings: a +quality that gives a certain true social training. +Everyone in the hall is truly in company. +Hands must be given and glances met, +all round the dance, and awkwardness and +shyness are quickly danced out of existence. +</p> +<p> +We have the Lancers, the Tempest, the +Lady of the Lake, and various quadrilles. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146'></a>146</span> +They cannot now perhaps be called exactly +stately. +</p> +<p> +“Balance to partners!” calls out old Abel +Tarbox, master of ceremonies of the Grange +Hall, as he fiddles. +</p> +<p> +“Balance to partner! Swing the same! +All sashy!” And then comes the splendid +romp of, +</p> +<p> +“Eight hands round!” and “Eight hands +down the middle!” +</p> +<p> +Besides the old court dances, there are +Pop Goes the Weasel, Money Musk, Hull’s +Victory, and others, pretty, intricate frolics, +which in their day were the <em>dernier cri</em> of +fashion, danced by gilded youth in great +cities, velvet coat and ruffles, flowered silk +petticoat, and spangled fan. +</p> +<p> +The Chorus Jig is very difficult. It has +“contra-corners,” and other mysteries impossible +to uninitiated feet. +</p> +<p> +When money is to be raised for some +neighborhood purpose partners for the evening +are chosen in what I should think might +be a trying, though a most practical fashion. +On one Saturday evening the ladies, on the +next the gentlemen, are put up for auction +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147'></a>147</span> +as partners, the price paid being in peanuts. +A popular partner will sometimes bring as +much as a hundred and twenty-five peanuts; +and why little Alfred Stoddard, who never +did anything in his life but get a musical +degree at some tiny college (there are even +those who say that he bought the degree), who +reads catalogues and nurses his dignity while +his wife works the farm, should regularly fetch +this fancy price, I never could see. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, well!” says Sam Marston, “Alfred +has them handsome, mournful dark eyes. +The ladies can’t resist ’em.” +</p> +<p> +The three Watson farms lie to the east of +the hill, right under its rocky ledges, and are +sheltered by it; indeed the whole of the beautiful +rounded valley which they occupy is +rimmed entirely by low abrupt hills. It must +be an old lake bottom, for the last remnant +of the lake, a pond a hundred yards or so +long, still sparkles bright blue in the midst +of it. +</p> +<p> +Forty years ago Tristam Watson, with +his wife and four children, three boys, and +Marcia, the youngest, went north two hundred +miles, to the Aroostook, when that +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148'></a>148</span> +region still lay under heavy forest. He built +his cabin among the first-growth pines, and +cleared and planted among the trees, burning +and uprooting the stumps gradually, as he +could. It was pioneer life, with no roads and +almost no neighbors. Bear and moose were +common, and deer more than common, and +there were wolves in a hard winter; but he +was a hardy, vigorous man with hardy children, +and he did well. +</p> +<p> +He had no idea of cutting himself and his +family off from their home ties. Nothing of +the sort. The railroad ran only a short part +of the way, and they could not afford that +part, but every year they hitched up and +<em>drove</em> home, the whole distance. It took them +about five days. They had a little home-made +tent, and they built their fire and set up their +gipsy housekeeping each night beside the +road. If it rained, “why then it rained,” +Marcia says. The year was marked by this +flight; it was their great adventure, and +apparently a perfect frolic, at least for the +children. They stayed two or three weeks, +saw all the “folks,” and went back to their +strenuous forest life. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149'></a>149</span> +</p> +<p> +Tristam died at about sixty, and the family +came home, and took up the three beautiful +farms left to the sons by their grandparents. +The two elder sons married, the third stayed +with his mother and sister. +</p> +<p> +Not long after they came back, Marcia fell +ill. There was a badly aggravated strain, and +she had measles and bronchitis, and after that, +as we say in the country, she “commenced +ailing.” She changed in a year from a blooming +girl to the little thin, white-faced woman +she is now (though her black eyes never +stopped twinkling). +</p> +<p> +A long illness on an isolated farm is a bad +thing for more than bodily health. The +Rural Free Delivery and Rural Telephone, +and the lengthening trolley lines, are bringing +the most wholesome stir imaginable after the +old colorless days; but in old times the outlying +farms too often held pitiful brooding +figures of women, sunk in depression. Marcia’s +terror was lest she should fall under this +shadow. She had seen only too many such +cases, and the fear was beginning to realize itself, +she often has told me; but from its very +danger her mind, fundamentally sane and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150'></a>150</span> +vigorous, plucked out its salvation. First +absorbed in her own ailments, she began to +question her doctor about the cure of other +diseases. Soon she asked him for books on +medicine. She read and studied, and then one +day she asked him to take her to see a suffering +neighbor. To humor her, he did, and +almost at once, ill as she still was, she began +to help nursing patients on the neighboring +farms. Once her mind took hold of work, it +cleared itself as the sky clears of clouds +when the wind blows. It was like a slender +but vigorous-fibred little tree reaching out +and finding life-giving soil for itself. I do +not believe she has an ounce of extra strength, +even now, and she is by no means always free +from pain, but she can do her work, and for +five years she has been the most sought-after +nurse in half the county. +</p> +<p> +She has an imp’s fun (and had, even when +she was most ill) and can make a groaning +patient laugh, as she lays on hot compresses. +As we drove home that day in October, she +told me how she had been outwitting her +brother. (He is a handsome blond-bearded +fellow, with what is rare on the farms, a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151'></a>151</span> +carriage as erect as a soldier’s. He is far +slower-natured than Marcia.) +</p> +<p> +“He’s been real tardy, this year, in getting +the hams smoked, and he put off building a +smoke-house. He was all for hauling his lumber. +Nothing would do but that lumber must +be hauled first, whether the pigs were smoked, +or whether they flew; and there were Mother +and I in want of our bacon.” +</p> +<p> +He started out with the lumber. The moment +his back was turned Marcia pounced on +his brand-new chicken coop (“he fusses like +a woman buying a bonnet, over his chicken +coops”), which was just finished and right, +and smoked the meat for herself. +</p> +<p> +“That man was fairly annoyed!” she told +me demurely. +</p> +<p> +Last spring the brother and sister shingled +the barn roof together. Leonard, the brother, +was deliberate and painstaking, and Marcia in +triumph nailed his coat-tails to the roof, according +to the time-honored privilege of the +shingle-nailer, if the shingle-layer lets himself +get caught up with. +</p> +<p> +It was from Marcia and her brother that +I first heard the expression “var,” for balsam +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152'></a>152</span> +fir. This is our general country term; but +I do not know whether this is a survival of +some older form, or a corruption. Here in the +Watson Hill neighborhood I have also heard +the old-fashioned word “suent,” meaning convenient, +suitable, so familiar in dialect stories +of Somersetshire and Devon. +</p> +<p> +It was well past the fall of the year before +we drove Marcia home again, and a wild +autumn storm of wind and heavy rain had +carried away all but the last of the hanging +leaves. The shores of the ponds and rivers +showed clear ashes-and-slate colors, and clear +dark grays, but the fields were the pale russet +which lasts all winter under the snow. Beech +leaves were still hanging, a beautiful tender +fawn color, and, of course, oak leaves, and the +gray birches were like puffs of pale yellow +smoke in among the purple and ashen woods. +Crab-apples still hung, withered red, on the +trees, and the hips of the wild roses and haws +of the hawthorns, and the black alder berries, +made little blurs of scarlet in the swamps. +Here and there the road dipped through small +copses, bare of leaves, where there were +masses of clematis, carrying its tufts of soft +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153'></a>153</span> +gray fluff, entwined among the bushes, and +milkweed pods, just letting out their shining +silver-white silk. Witch-hazel was in flower +all through the woods. +</p> +<p> +The evergreens showed up everywhere, in +delicate vigorous beauty, and we counted unguessed +masses of pine among the hills. I +think we always expect a little sadness with +the fall of the leaves, but instead there is a +sense of elation, with the greater spread of +light and the wider views opening everywhere. +The wood roads showed more plainly +than in summer, and paths stood out green +across the fields. The tender unveiling of +autumn had revealed the hidden topography +of the forest, and countless small ravines and +slopes were suddenly made plain. There were +smaller, friendly revelations, too, for we came +here and there, on large and small nests, and +saw where the vireos and warblers had had +their tiny housekeeping. +</p> +<p> +Late ploughing was over, and hauling had +begun. We passed a good many loads of +potatoes and apples, on their way to the railroad, +and then a load of wood, and one of +balsam fir boughs, for banking the houses. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154'></a>154</span> +The wood was drawn by a pair of handsome +black and cream-white oxen, and the +boughs by a pair of “old natives,” plain red +brown. The potatoes and fruit must all be +hauled before the cold is too great. +</p> +<p> +For the last three miles before the land +opens out into the Watson farms, the hills +are covered with low woods, above which rises +the pointed head of Rattlesnake Hill, the +only high land in sight. The woods were +like purplish fur over the hillsides, and nearer +showed countless perfect rounded gray rods +and wands, like fine strokes of a brush. There +was a great shining of wet rocks and mossy +places. It was one of those still late-autumn +mornings, perfectly clear after the rain, when +the air is as fragrant and full of life as in +spring. +</p> +<p> +Longfellow Pond lies in a hollow of the +woods, three miles from anywhere, a beautiful +little wild wooded place, three-quarters +of a mile long, where wild duck come. Alas! +when we came near, a portable saw-mill was +at work close to the shore! A high pile of +warm-colored sawdust rose already in the +beautiful green of the pine wood. They had +just felled three big pines, and the new-cut +butts showed white among the masses of +lopped branches. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i012' id='i012'></a> +<img src='images/illus182.jpg' alt='LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS</span> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155'></a>155</span></div> +<p> +The stretch of wooded country about the +pond lies in a belt or fold between two prosperous +farming districts, and has its own +population, a gipsy-looking set, living in the +woods in little shacks, half-farmhouse, half-shanty, +with a few straggling chickens. The +men of this place were working for the +operator of the saw-mill. It was dinner-time +when we came by, and half a dozen lithe dark +young men were sitting about on the log ends, +eating their dinner, which some little dusky +children had brought them in pails and odd +dishes. +</p> +<p> +We walked down between the stacks of +fragrant new-cut lumber to the edge of the +pond, which lay between its wooded shores, +as blue as the sky, sparkling in the sunshine. +We could make out three duck at the farther +end of it. It is a pity to have the fine growth +of pine cut, but it grows fast again with us. +Nobody cares for the lesser hard wood +growths in such an over-forested State as +ours, and once the saw-mill is gone, the pond +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156'></a>156</span> +will probably stay its wild lonely self, perhaps +for ages. +</p> +<p> +The last day that Marcia was with us she +wanted to see the river, and we went down +and found the flood tide making strongly, +two or three gulls sailing peacefully about, +and a late coal barge being towed down +against the tide. We had three days of still +deep frost after this, and the next day when +I went down to a hill overlooking one of the +most beautiful reaches of the river, there it +lay, a transparent gray mirror, not to move +again until April. All the colors of the banks +were pearl and ashen. Though it lay so still, +it whispered and talked to itself incessantly. +There were little ringing gurgles, like the +sound of a glass water-hammer; now tinklings, +now the fall of a tiny crystal avalanche; with +occasional deeper soft boomings and resoundings, +and all the time a whispered swish-swish +along the banks, the sound of the soft breaking +and fall of the shell ice as the tide ebbed. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157'></a>157</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER XIV—EARLY WINTER.</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +Like the inside of a pearl; like the inside +of a star-sapphire; like a rainbow at twilight. +We are in a white world, and save for the rich +warmth of the pines and hemlocks there is +no color stronger than the delicate penciling +of the woods; but the whiteness is softened +all day by a frost-haze which the sunlight +turns into silver. The horizon is veiled with +smoke-color and tender opal. It is as if the +world retired for a little to a space of softened +sunrise colors, never hard or sharp; lovely and +unearthly as the clouds. We are so well to +the north that in winter we enter the sub-arctic +borderland, the shadowy-twilight regions +of the two ends of the earth. +</p> +<p> +It is a very still time of year, there is a +wonderful uplifting quiet. The sun burns low +in the south, a mass of soft white fire, not +blinding as in summer; its light plainly that +of a great low-hanging star. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158'></a>158</span> +</p> +<p> +This is the dark season; but to make up +for the shortness of the days we are given +such glories of sunrise and sunset, and such +a glittering brilliancy of stars, as come at no +other time. All summer these belong to +farmers, shepherds, and sailors; but now even +slug-abeds can be out before first light, and +watch the great stars fade, and dawn grow, +and then come back to that cozy and exciting +feast, breakfast by candle and fire light. +</p> +<p> +You step out into the frosty dark, with +Venus pulsing and burning like a great lamp, +and the snow luminous around you. The +stars are like diamonds, and the sky black, +and lo! there is the Dipper, straight overhead. +It is night, yet not night, because of the +whiteness of the snow, and because the air is +already alive with the coming morning. The +snow crunches sharply underfoot. The dry +air tickles and tingles and makes you cough. +The street lamps are still bright, and here and +there the lighted windows of other early +risers show a cheerful yellow in the snow. +It is a friendly time of day. Neighbors call +good-morning to each other in the dark, and +sleigh-bells jingle past. Then you come home +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159'></a>159</span> +to the firelight and the gay-lighted breakfast +table, with dawn stealing up fast, like lamplight +spreading from the bright crack under a +door. +</p> +<p> +As the first shafts of sunlight strike across, +they light up a million frost-crystals. The +air is alive with them, on all sides, delicate +star and wheel shapes, flashing like diamonds. +This beautiful phenomenon lasts only about +half an hour. The fairy crystals, light as the +air, floating about you, vanish, but the snow +continues to flash softly, from countless tiny +stars and facets, all day. +</p> +<p> +Frost mists hover all day about our valley, +the breath of the sleeping river. They are +drawn through our streets all day in veils and +wisps of softness. Smoke and steam clouds hold +their shape long in the winter temperatures. +At night the smoke from the chimneys curls +up in pale blue columns in the rarefied air, +against the dark but clear blue of the winter +night sky. By day the steam puffs from the +locomotives rise pinky-buff, or almost gold-color, +and keep their shape for a few moments +as firm as thunderheads. +</p> +<p> +This year, mid-winter for the sun is the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160'></a>160</span> +moon’s midsummer. The full moon rises and +sets so far to the north that she completes full +three-quarters of the circle. At night she rides +at the zenith, high and small, and the snow +fields seem illimitable and remote under her +lonely light. The expanse of snow so increases +both sun and moon light that she seems to rise +while it is still broad day; and still to be shining +with full silver, in her unwonted northern +station, after broad day again, at dawn. +</p> +<p> +We share some of the phenomena of +light of the polar regions. Moon rainbows +are sometimes seen at night; and as this is +the season of most frequent mock suns—<em>par-helia</em>—so +also mock moons—<em>par-selenes</em>—half-nebulous, +massed effects of softly bright +radiance, appear on the hovering frost mists; +and sharply outlined lunar halos herald snowstorms. +</p> +<p> +Indeed the greatly increased extent of snow-expanse +magnifies all effects of light extraordinarily. +</p> +<p> +At sunset, softened colors, “peach-blossom +and dove-color,” like the bands of a wide and +diffused rainbow, appear in the <em>east</em>; this is +the sunset light, caught by the snowfields, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161'></a>161</span> +reflected on the eastern clouds and mists. Not +only this; the “old moon in the new moon’s +arms,” instead of being a blank mass, as in +summer, is darkly luminous, so greatly has the +earth-shine on the moon been magnified. +</p> +<p> +A winter night is never really dark. Thanks +to the rarefied air, the stars burn and blaze as +at no other season; Sirius appearing to sparkle +with an even bluer light than in summer. You +can tell time by a small watch, easily, by starlight, +with no other aid but the diffused glimmer +of the snow fields. +</p> +<p> +The other morning an errand took my +brother and me out early over the long hill +that makes the Height of Land to the west. +There must have been an amazing fall of +frost-dew the night before, for we saw a +sight which I shall never forget; not only +the twigs and the branches, but the actual +trunks of the trees, the stone-walls, and the +roadside shrubberies and seed-vessels, frosted +with crystals like fern-fronds, two inches or +more long. There is a wood of pines at +the crest of the hill, and here not a green +needle showed, not one bit of bark; the trees +rose pure white against the pure blue +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162'></a>162</span> +sky, over the white skyline of the hill. Looking +out over the country, all the woods were +silver; silver-white where the light took them, +silver-gray in shadow. Light flashed round +us everywhere, so that it was almost dazzling, +yet it was softened light; stars, not diamonds. +</p> +<p> +Once the snow comes, the neighborhood +settles to a certain happy quiet. It is as if +winter laid a strong arm about us, encircling +and soothing. The dry air sparkles like +wine. Dusk falls early; the wood fires on the +hearths burn bright, and the evenings beside +them are never too long. It is a neighborly +time, and the long peaceful hours of work +bring a sense of achievement. +</p> +<p> +Out on the farms, the year’s supply of +wood is being cut. This, with hauling the +hay, and ice-cutting, makes the chief winter +work; and the men who are out chopping all +day in the woods become hardy indeed. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i013' id='i013'></a> +<img src='images/illus192.jpg' alt='ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY</span> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163'></a>163</span></div> +<p> +Ice-cutting on the river begins in January. +The wide hollow of the river valley is so +white that the men and horses moving up +and down stand out in warm color; the +strange snow silence makes an almost palpable +background to the cheerful and sharp +sounds of work, the ring of metal, the squeak +of leather, the men’s shouts and talk, and the +steady roar which goes up from the ice ploughs +and cutters. There are small portable forges +here and there for mending tools, at the fires +of which the men heat their coffee. The ice-cakes +are clear blue, and they are lifted out +and started up the run in leisurely procession. +Directly the first cutting is made you have the +startling sight of a field of bright blue living +water in the midst of the whiteness; while +along the shore, the rising tide often overflows +the shore ice, in pools and rivulets, the color +of yellow-green jade. +</p> +<p> +The work is done with heavy steel tools. +First the ice must be marked, then planed to a +smooth surface, then grooved more deeply, +and for the last few inches sawed by hand +with long ice-saws. It is pleasant work on +sunny days, and the men, who have mostly +come in from the farms, like its sociableness; +but often the wind sweeps down the valley +bitterly cold, and then it is very severe, especially +the work of keeping the canals open at +night. The ice generally runs to about two +feet thick. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164'></a>164</span> +</p> +<p> +The ice-business in our valley has fallen +off since the formation of the Ice Trust and +the increased use of artificial ice. A great +part of our ice fields are only held in reserve +now, in case the more southern ice fails, but it +still makes a winter harvest for us. The +river towns must always have their own ice, +and the farmers who cut it get good pay for +their work and that of their horses. They +speak of the work entirely in farm terms. +They “cultivate” the ice, and “harvest” the +“crop.” +</p> +<p> +Last week we made an expedition across +country to where the beautiful little chain +of the Assimasqua ponds and streams lies +between the ranges of Maple Hill on the west, +and Wrenn’s Mountain on the east; and there, +on Upper Assimasqua, was the same phenomenon +of frost-crystals which we saw on +Dunnack Hill, only here it was on the ice. +We thought at first the pond was covered with +snow, but as we walked out on it, we saw +it was frost, in such ice-flowers as I have +never seen before. They were like clusters of +crystal fern-fronds, each frond an inch and a +half to two inches long. At first these flowers +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165'></a>165</span> +were scattered in clusters about six inches +apart over the black ice, but farther on they +ran together into a solid field of silver, a +miniature forest of flashing fern or palm +fronds, so delicate and light it seemed as if +they must bend with the breeze. They outlined +each crack in the ice with close garlands. +We could hardly bear to crush them as we +walked through them. +</p> +<p> +The four Assimasqua Ponds lie low between +hills that are heavily wooded, mostly with +beech and hemlock. The shores are high and +irregular and jut out in narrow points, and +these and the islands have small cliffs, of +gnarled and twisted strata, which the hemlocks +overhang, in masses of feathery green. +</p> +<p> +There was something appealing and endearing +in the beauty of this little forest chain +of lakes and streams, lying still and white +between its wooded shores. We crossed its +wide surface on foot, and followed up the +course of the stream which whirled and tumbled +so, only a month ago. Every tiny reach +and channel was ours to explore. It was as +quiet as a child lying asleep. +</p> +<p> +We built a fire on the south shore of a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166'></a>166</span> +headland, where a curve of the gnarled cliffs +enclosed a tiny beach, cooked bacon, and +heated coffee. Twenty yards from the shore +there was a round hole, some eight inches +across, of black dimpling water. It had +not been cut, but was natural, being, I +suppose, over a warm spring. The ice +was so strong around it that we could drink +from it. +</p> +<p> +It was so warm in the sun that we sat +about bareheaded and barehanded, yet not a +frost-needle melted. The sunlight glinted on +the hemlock needles, all the way up the hillsides, +and a balsamy sweetness seemed to be +all about us, mixed with the pungent smoke +of our wood fire. +</p> +<p> +The chickadees were busy all round us, +making little bright chirrupy sounds. We +could hear blue-jays calling, deeper in the +woods, and the occasional “crake, crake, +crake,” of a blue nuthatch. The dry winter +woods cracked and the pond rang and gurgled +with pretty hollow noises. The hemlocks +had fruited heavily, and were hung all +over with little bright brown cones, like +Christmas trees. They seem to give out +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167'></a>167</span> +fragrant sunny health all winter, a dry thrifty +vigor. +</p> +<p> +We did not see a soul on all the Upper +Ponds, and only fox tracks ran in and out of +the marsh-grasses of the stream, but on +Lower Assimasqua there were men cutting +wood. They were cutting out beech and +white and yellow birch for firewood, and +leaving the hemlock, which grew very thick +here. The cut wood stood about the slope in +neatly piled bright-colored stacks, with colored +chips among the fallen branches, and the +axe blows rang sharp and musical in the winter +silence. The men, who were good-looking +fellows, wore woolen or corduroy, with high +moccasins, and their sheepskin and mackinaw +coats were thrown aside on the snow. There +were five or six of them, mostly young men, +and one handsome older man, with hawk +features and a bright color, silver hair and +beard, and bright warm brown eyes. They +had bread, doughnuts, and pie for their dinner, +and a jug of cider. +</p> +<p> +The Lower is the largest of the four ponds. +It is, perhaps, three miles long by a mile wide, +but it seemed almost limitless, under the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168'></a>168</span> +snow, and we felt like pygmy creatures, walking +in the midst, with the unbroken level +stretching away around us. +</p> +<p> +The sky was deepening into indescribable +colors, peacock blue, peacock gray, and in +the middle of the expanse, over the woods, +we saw the great full moon, just rising clear +out of the violet and opal tenebrae, the +fringes of the sky. She was as pale as a +bubble, or as the palest pink summer cloud, +but gathered color fast, then poured her floods +of silver. The whiteness of the pond glimmered +more and more strangely as dusk increased. +</p> +<p> +We came home, stiff and happy, to a great +wood fire, piled in a wide and deep fireplace, +and to a room of firelight and evergreen-scented +shadows. +</p> +<p> +That night a light rain fell, then turned +to a busy snow-storm, which fell for hours +on the wet surfaces in thick soft-falling +flakes, so that by the next morning the +world was a fairy forest of white. The +trees bent down under their feathery load. +Wonderful low intricately crossed branches +were everywhere. Each littlest grove and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169'></a>169</span> +clump of shrubbery became a dense thicket +of white. This fairy forest was close, close +round us, so that each street seemed magical +and unfamiliar, a place that we had never +seen before. It was a perfectly hushed world. +Our footsteps made no sound, and even the +masses from the overladen branches came +down silently. Everything but whiteness was +obliterated; then at night the moon came +out clear again, and lighted up this fairy +world, and the white spirits of trees stood up +against the gray-black sky. +</p> +<p> +Ten days after this there followed a great +ice-storm, when for two days rain fell incessantly, +and, as it fell, covered the twigs +and branches with crystal. It cleared on the +third morning, and instead of white, we were +in a world of diamond. The dazzling brilliancy +was almost more than the eye could +bear. Every blade of grass and seed-vessel +was changed to a crystal jewel, and the +breeze set them tinkling. The sky was fairy +blue. The woods and all the fields flashed +round us as we walked almost spell-bound +through their strange beauty. The wonder +was that the whole star-like world did not +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170'></a>170</span> +clash and ring as if with silver harp music. +</p> +<p> +As the sun rose higher, the country was +veiled with frost haze, but through it, and +beyond, we saw the shining of the crust on +all the distant hills. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171'></a>171</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER XV—ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +Assimasqua Mountain rises abruptly to the +west of the four ponds, a noble hill or range, +five miles in length. +</p> +<p> +The west shore of the Assimasqua lakes +sweeps abruptly up to the high crest of the +ridge, which is very irregular. It is partly +wooded, partly half-grown-up pasture, partly +ledge, and along the high grassy summit +small chasms open and lead away into deep +woods of hemlock. The steep east side is +covered for most of its length with an amazing +growth of juniper, hundreds and hundreds +of close-massed bushes of great size and +thickness. The ridge holds a number of little +dark mountain tarns, and half a dozen good +brooks tumble down its sides in small cascades. +The folds of its forest skirts broaden +out to the west into the bottom lands at its +feet. To the east, the valleys of the brooks +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172'></a>172</span> +deepen and sharpen into ravines through the +woods, as they draw near the lakes. +</p> +<p> +The shores all about the four lakes, as +I said, are heavily wooded, and there are but +one or two farms, and these only small clearings. +A singular person lived in one of them, +who worked for years over a great invention, +a boat which was to utilize the wind by +means of a windmill, which in turn worked a +small paddle-wheel. No one now knows +whether he had never heard of such a thing +as a sail, or merely thought sails dangerous. +He was absorbed in his project; and he did +get his boat to go, in time, and at least a +few times she trundled a clumsy course +around the lake. +</p> +<p> +Near the south end of the Mountain is +the old Hale place. Mr. Hale was a gentle-looking +man, very neat, with a quiet voice +and ways. He kept his wide fields finely +cultivated, and had a large orchard, and +twelve Jersey cows. The lane through which +they filed home at night is enclosed between +the two mightiest stump fences I have ever +seen, fully ten feet high, and a perfect wilderness +to climb over. They look like the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173'></a>173</span> +brandished arms of witches, or like enormous +antlers, against the sky, and are thickly +fringed all along their base with delicate +Dicksonia fern. Stump fences are fast becoming +rare with us, and these must be the over-turned +stumps of first-growth pine. +</p> +<p> +After Mr. and Mrs. Hale died, the farm +passed to a sister, Mrs. Wrenn, and when her +husband, too, died—he had been a slack +man, with no hold on anything—she made +the fatal mistake, too common among old +people on the farms, of making over the +property to a kinsman (in this case, a married +step-niece and her husband) on condition of +support. I never knew Mrs. Wrenn, but a +young farmer’s wife, a friend of mine, was +anxious about her troubles, and through her +there came to our notice an incident which +seemed to light up the whole gray region +of the farm. +</p> +<p> +The neighbors began to hear rumors of +neglect and abuse. Mrs. Wrenn was never +seen, and those who knew the skinflint ways +of her entertainers suspected trouble and +presently confided their fears to the young +doctor of the neighborhood. He came at +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174'></a>174</span> +once, and found the poor soul in a fatal illness, +left alone in unspeakable dirt and +squalor in a sort of out-house, with unwashed +bed-clothes, no one to feed or tend her, and +food which she could not touch put roughly +beside her once a day. There were signs too +of actual rough handling. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t try to make me live!” the old lady +whispered, with command and entreaty. +“Don’t ye dare to keep me living,” and he +assured her solemnly that he would not, except +in reason, and would only make her +more comfortable. He rated the bad woman +in charge till he had her well frightened, and +then, though it was not only dark already, +but raining fast (and though he was +poor himself, with his way to make and no +financial backing) he drove five miles to town +and brought back and installed a nurse at his +own expense. +</p> +<p> +“The tears were running down his cheeks,” +the nurse herself told me, “when he assured +that poor old creature that either he or I +would be with her day and night, that we +would never leave her, and she would be +safe with us. He paid my charges, and all +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175'></a>175</span> +supplies and food, out of his own pocket. +He saw her every day, and when her release +came, he was close beside her, and had her +hand in his. He couldn’t have been more +tender to his own mother. And he gave +that bad woman a part of what she deserved.” +</p> +<p> +I should like to say something more of this +young physician. He started as a farm boy, +with no capital beyond insight and purpose, +and skilled hands, and was led to his career, +or rather could not keep himself from his +career, because of the fire of pity and tenderness +that possessed him. He has come to +honor and recognition now, but at the time +of which I write, and for years, he was known +only to a thirty-mile circle of farm people, +a good part of them too poor to pay for any +services. He gave himself to them, without +knowing that he was giving anything. He +was a born citizen, too, served as overseer of +the poor, and as selectman, and people consulted +him about their quarrels and troubles. +</p> +<p> +I spoke of the incident about Mrs. Wrenn, +which the nurse had told me a year or more +after it happened, to the doctor’s wife, some +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176'></a>176</span> +weeks since. He had never told her of it. Her +eyes filled with tears. +</p> +<p> +“That is just like him,” she said. +</p> +<p> +The Ridge slopes down to the west, to the +rich plains through which the Marston communities +are scattered—Marston Centre, +North and West Marston, Marston Plains. +The “Four Marstons” are a notable district, +for Marston Academy had the luck to be +founded, nearly a hundred years ago, by persons +of liberal education, and the dwellers in +the comfortable four-square brick houses of +the neighborhood have more than kept up its +intellectual traditions; though the town has +no railroad communication, and only one mill, +the shovel factory, since the old saw-mill +which cut the first-growth pines on the slopes +of Assimasqua has been given up. +</p> +<p> +The Marston saw-mill is chiefly remembered +because of Hiram Andros, who worked +there as sawyer for forty-five years, and had +the name of the best judge of timber in the +State. The <em>sawyer’s</em> is a notable position. He +himself does no actual work, but stands near +the saw, and in the brief moment when each +log is run on to the carriage, holds up the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177'></a>177</span> +requisite number of fingers to show whether +it is to be a three, a four, or five-inch timber, +or cut into boards or planks; which cut will +make the best use of the log, with the least +waste. The sawyer gets high pay, six to ten +dollars a day, and earns it, for on his single +judgment, delivered in that fraction of a +minute, the mill’s prosperity hangs. +</p> +<p> +What is it that gives a town so distinct a +color and fibre? Marston people have kept, +generation after generation, a fine flavor and +distinction. They are in touch with the +world, in the best sense, and men of science +and leaders of thought in university life, as +well as business magnates, have gone out +from Marston, yet still feel they belong there. +</p> +<p> +Eliphalet Marston, who built and owned +the shovel factory, made it his study to produce +the best shovel that could be made, the +best wearing, the soundest. In later life his +son tried to induce him to go about through +the country, and look up his customers, to +increase trade. The son was very emphatic; +it was what everyone did, the only way to +keep up-to-date and advertise the business, +and Eliphalet must not become moss-grown. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178'></a>178</span> +He shook his head, but after much hammering +started off, though not really persuaded. +He went to a big wholesale dealer in Chicago, +but did not mention his name, merely said he +was there to talk shovels. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t mention shovels to me,” said the +dealer. “There’s just one shovel that’s worth +having, just one that’s honest, and that’s the +one that I’m handling. There it is,” he said, +producing it. “Look at it; that’s the only +<em>shovel</em> that’s made in this country; made by +a man named Marston, at Marston Plains, +State of ——” +</p> +<p> +Eliphalet chuckled, and went home. +</p> +<p> +The Barnards were Marston people, a brilliant +but strange family; and next door to the +Barnards lived a remarkable woman, Miss +Persis Wayland. She was a tall handsome +person, of a large frame. She lived to a +great age, passing all her later life alone, save +for one attendant, in her father’s large +house, with its gardens and hedges around +it. She was well-to-do, and dressed with old-fashioned +stateliness in heavy black silk. +</p> +<p> +She was a woman of fine understanding, +and a trained scholar. She read four +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179'></a>179</span> +languages easily, and at forty took up the study +of Hebrew, that she might have her Bible +free from the perversions of translation. She +was about thirty when the religious temperament +which was later to dominate her first +manifested itself. She has told me herself +of her experience. +</p> +<p> +She had been conscious for years of a +vague dissatisfaction, and of life’s seeming +empty and purposeless. She threw herself, +first into study, then into works of charity, +in her effort to find peace. She rose early, and +worked till she was utterly worn out and exhausted, +at her Sunday School class, at missionary +work, and till late hours at her Spanish +and Latin, all to no purpose. +</p> +<p> +Then one day she found herself at a meeting +at which a Methodist evangelist (she herself +was a strict Episcopalian) was to speak. +She went in without thought, from a chance +impulse as she passed the door. After the +speaking, those who felt moved to do so were +asked to come forward and kneel; and as she +knelt, she felt the breath of the Spirit upon her +forehead. +</p> +<p> +“It was as plain as the touch of your hand +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180'></a>180</span> +and mine,” she said, as she laid her handsome +old hand on my fingers; and from that moment, +all her life, the light never left her, she +felt “held round by an unspeakable peace and +sunshine.” +</p> +<p> +She always held to her own church, but +became more and more of a Spiritualist, till +she saw her rooms constantly thronged with +the faces of her childhood, father and mother, +and the brothers and sisters and playmates +who had passed on. +</p> +<p> +She gradually withdrew from active life, +and for the last ten years, I think, never +stepped outside her door. She had a fine +presence always, rapt and stately. She was +distantly glad to see friends who called upon +her, but never showed much human warmth. +She lived till her ninety-eighth year. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i014' id='i014'></a> +<img src='images/illus212.jpg' alt='THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT' width='95%' title=''/><br /> +<span class='caption'>THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT</span> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181'></a>181</span></div> +<p> +In the farming country near Marston began +the ministry of Clarissa Gray, the beloved +evangelist. An unusual experience in illness +led this grave, charming girl to thought apart +upon the things of God, and as she grew up, +persons vexed in spirit began to turn to her +for comfort. Her personality was so tranquil +and at rest that she seemed to diffuse a sense +of musing peace about her; yet she was not +dreamy; her nature was rather so limpidly +clear that she was never pre-occupied, and +she had clear practical good-sense. Hard-drinking, +violent men would yield to her +direct and fearless influence. Presently she +was asked more and more widely to lead in +meeting, and to her unquestioning nature this +came as a clear call. Her voice, fervent and +pure, led in prayer, her crystal judgement +solved problems, till without her ever knowing +it the community lay in the hollow of +her small hands. +</p> +<p> +I was last at Marston on a day of deep +winter. We were to make a visit in the town, +and then explore the fields and woods of the +west slopes of Assimasqua. +</p> +<p> +A marked change comes to us by the middle +of January. We emerge from the softened +twilight world of earlier winter into a brilliancy +of white, with bright blue shadows. +The deep snow is changed by the action of +the wind and its own weight, to a wonderful +smooth firmness. It takes on carved and +graven shapes, and might be a sublimated +building material, a fairy alabaster or marble, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182'></a>182</span> +fit to built the palaces in the clouds. After +each storm the snow-plough piles it, often +above one’s head, on both sides of the roads +and sidewalks; we walk between high walls +built of blocks and masses of blue-shadowed +white. +</p> +<p> +The brightness is almost too great, through +the middle of the day; it is dazzling; but +about sunset a curious opaque look falls on the +landscape; a flattening, till they are like the +hues of old pastels, of all the delicate colors. +The country has an appearance of almost infinite +space, under the snow, and the wind +carves out pure sharp wave-like curves of drift +about the fields and hills. +</p> +<p> +The still air, dry and fiery, is like champagne. +It almost <em>burns</em>, it is so cold and pure. +A great feeling of lightness comes to moccasined +feet, in walking in this rarefied air +through powdery snow; but fingers and toes +quickly become numb without even feeling +the cold. +</p> +<p> +Starting early out of Marston Plains village, +we passed a tall rounded hill which had +a grove of maples near its top, the countless +fine lines of their stems like the strings of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183'></a>183</span> +some harp-like instrument. The light breeze, +hardly more than a stirring, made music +through them. The sunrise was hidden behind +this hill, but the delicate bare trees were +lighted up as with a gold mist. +</p> +<p> +As we entered the forest on the skirts of +Assimasqua, the wind rose outside. A fresh +fall of snow the day before had weighted every +branch of the evergreens with piled-up whiteness, +which now came down in bright +showers, the snow crystals glinting around +us where stray sunbeams stole down among +the trees: but in the shelter of the great +pines and hemlocks not a breath of wind +reached us, and the woods were held fast in +the snow hush, against which any chance +sound rings out sharply. +</p> +<p> +The bark of the different trees was like a +set of fine etchings, the yellow birches +shining as if burnished; the patches of +handsome dark mosses on the ash-trees, and +the fine-grained bark of lindens, ashes, and +hop-hornbeams stood out brightly. +</p> +<p> +As we followed a wood road we heard chirruping +and tweeting, and saw a flock of pine +siskins among the pine-tops, and later we +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184'></a>184</span> +heard the vigorous tapping of a great pileated +woodpecker. +</p> +<p> +All the northern woodpeckers winter with +us; as do bluejays, and chickadees, (the +“friendly birds” of the Indians); juncos and +nuthatches; and partridges, which burrow +under the snow for roots and berries, and are +sometimes caught, poor things, by the foxes, +when the crust freezes over them. Crows +stay with us through a very mild winter, but +more often are off to the sea, thirty miles distant, +to grow fat on periwinkles; and very +rarely indeed a winter wren or a song-sparrow +remains with us. The beautiful +cream-white snow-buntings, cross-bills, fat +handsome pine-grosbeaks, golden-crowned +kinglets, brown-creepers, and those pirates, +the butcher birds, come for short winter visits. +Evening grosbeaks, and Bohemian wax-wings, +we see more rarely. By the end of February, +when the cold may be deepest, the great owls +are already building, deep in the woods. +</p> +<p> +Ever so many small sharp valleys and ravines +were revealed among the woods, some winding +deep into the darkness of the pines and +hemlocks. Their perfect curves were made +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185'></a>185</span> +more perfect by the unbroken snow, and they +were flecked all over with the feathery blue +shadows of their trees. At the bottom of one +we heard a musical tinkling, and found a +brook partly open. We scrambled down to +it, and knelt there, watching it, till we were +half frozen. The ice was frosted deep with +delicate lace-work, and looking up underneath +we saw a perfect wonderland of organ-pipes +and colonnades of crystal, through which the +water tinkled melodiously. +</p> +<p> +We came out high on the north side of +Assimasqua, in the sugaring grove that +spreads up the steep slope to the crest. The +tall maples were very beautiful in their winter +bareness, and the slope about their feet +was massed with a close feathery growth of +young balsam firs and hemlocks, with openings +between. The snow lay even with the +eaves of the small bark sugaring-shanty. The +sight of a roof made the silence seem almost +palpable, but in March the hillside will have +plenty of sound and stir, for fires will be +lighted and the big kettles swung, while the +men come and go on sledges. Sugaring goes +on all through the countryside, and even in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186'></a>186</span> +the town boys are out with “spiles,” drilling +the maple “shade-trees,” as soon as the sap +begins running. The bright drops fall slowly, +one by one, into the pail hung to the end of +the spile, and the sap is like the clearest +spring water, with a refreshing woodsy +sweetness. +</p> +<p> +The high rough crest of Assimasqua dominates +a wide stretch of country. The long +sweep of the fields, and the lakes, lying asleep, +showed perfect, featureless white, as we stood +looking down; but all about, and in among +them, the low broken hills, the knolls and +ridges, bore scarfs or mantles of smoke-colored +bare woods, mixed with evergreens. +</p> +<p> +All day the sky had been of an aquamarine +color, of the liquid and luminous clearness +which comes only in mid-winter, and deep +afternoon shadows were falling as we came +down the hillside. We were on snow-shoes, +and had brought a toboggan, as the last part +of our way lay down hill. The country +was open below the sugaring grove, and +the unbroken snow masked all the contours +and mouldings of the fields, so that we +found ourselves suddenly dropping into +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187'></a>187</span> +totally unrealized hollows and skimming up +unrealized hillocks. +</p> +<p> +When we reached the small dome-like hill +where we were to take the cross-country trolley, +the blue-green sky had changed to a +pure primrose, and in this, as the marvelous +dusk of the snow fields deepened +about us, the thin golden sickle of the new +moon, and then Venus, came out slowly till +they blazed above the horizon; the primrose +hue changed to a low band of burning orange +beneath the fast-striding darkness, then to a +blue-green color, a robin’s egg blue, which +showed liquid-clear behind the pines; but long +before we reached home the colors had deepened +into the peacock blue darkness of the +winter night. +</p> +<p> +Just before the distant whistle of the trolley +broke the stillness, we had a tiny adventure; +we strayed over the brow of the hill, +and came on two baby foxes playing in the +soft snow like kittens. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188'></a>188</span></div> +<h1>CHAPTER XVI—OUR TOWN</h1> +<p> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +I +</p> +<p> +The farms become smaller, and string along +nearer and nearer each other, the hills slope +more and more sharply, till suddenly, there +below them lies our Town, held round in +their embrace, its factory chimneys sending +up blossoms of steam, its host of scattered +lights at night a company of low-dropped +stars. There is no visible boundary; but with +the first electric light pole there is a change, +and something deeper-rooted than its convenience +and compactness, its theatres and trolleys, +makes the town’s life as different as possible +from that of the farm districts. Yet an +affectionate relationship maintains itself between +the two. Farm neighbors bring in a +little area of unhurried friendliness which +clings around their Concord wagons or pungs; +hurrying townsfolk, stopping to greet them, +relax their tension and an exchange of jokes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189'></a>189</span> +and chaff begins. Leisurely, ample farm +women settle down in our Rest Room for +friendly talk and laughter, and hot coffee or +tea. +</p> +<p> +Our dearest Town! We have perhaps some +of the faults of all northern places. We, at +least we women, are sad <em>Marthas</em>, careful and +troubled, including house-cleaning with seed-time +and harvest among the things ordained +not to fail, no matter at what cost of peace of +mind and health. We hug each our own fireside; +but this is because, for eight months of +the year, the great cold gives us a habit of +tension. We enjoy too little the elixir of +our still winter days, and hurry, hurry as we +go, to pop back to our warm hearths as fast +as ever we can. +</p> +<p> +Now and again through the year, the big +cities call us with a Siren’s voice. +</p> +<p> +“My wife and I put in ten days at the Waldorf-Astoria +each year, and we count it good +business,” says one of our tradesmen, and he +speaks for many. The clustered brilliancy at +the entrances of the great theatres, the shop +windows, the sense of being <em>carried</em> by the +great current of life, sets our feet and our +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190'></a>190</span> +pulses dancing; but I think it is not quite so +much the stir and gaiety which we sometimes +thirst for as the protecting insulation of the +crowd, to draw breath in a little and let the +mind relax. The wall that guards one’s citadel +of inner privacy needs, in a small town, to be +built of strong stuff; it is subjected to hard +wear. Indeed we share some of the privations +of royalty, in that we lead our whole lives in +the public eye. We see each other walk past +every day, greet each other daily in shops and +at street corners, and meet each other’s good +frocks and company manners at every church +supper and afternoon tea. It takes a nature +with Heaven’s gift of unconsciousness to withstand +this wear and tear; yet there are plenty +of these among us, people of such quality and +fibre that they keep a fine aloofness and privacy +of life, like sanctuary gardens within +guardian hedges. +</p> +<p> +But if our closeness to each other has +these slight drawbacks, it has advantages that +are unspeakably precious. Our neighbors’ +joys and troubles are of instant importance +to us, each and all. In the city one can look +on while one’s neighbor dies or goes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191'></a>191</span> +bankrupt. Too often, one cannot help even where +one would; here we <em>must</em> help, whether we +will or no! We cannot get away from duties +that are so imperative. Our neighbor’s necessities +are unescapable, and a certain soldierly +quality comes to us in that we cannot <em>choose</em>. +</p> +<p> +An instinct, whether Puritan or Quaker, +runs straight through us, which at social +gatherings draws men and women to the two +sides of a room, as a magnet draws needles. +Perhaps it is merely the shyness inherent in +towns of small compass; in all the annals of +small places, in Cranford, in John Galt’s +villages, the ladies bridle and simper, the +gentlemen “begin for to bash and to blush,” +in each other’s society. Whatever it is, it +narrows and pinches communities, and does +sometimes more far-reaching harm than the +mere stiffening-up of parties and gatherings; +it narrows the women’s habit of thought, so +that children are deprived of some of the wider +outlook of citizenship; and the woman’s ministry +of cheering and soothing, which pours itself +out without stint to all <em>women</em> in old age or +sorrow or sickness, is too often withheld from +the men, who may be as lonely and troubled, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192'></a>192</span> +and may be left forlorn and uncheered. However, +this foolish thing vanishes before rich +and warm natures, like snow in a March sun. +</p> +<p> +I sometimes wish that our latch-strings +hung a little more on the outside. It is +easier for us to give a party, with great +effort, and our ancestral china, than to have +a friend drop in to share family supper; yet +there is something that makes for strength in +this fine privacy of each family’s circle, and +no doubt, as our social occasions are necessarily +few, a certain formality is the more a +real need. It “keeps up.” +</p> +<p> +One grave trouble runs through our community, +and leaves a black trail. Drink +poisons the lives of too many of our working-men. +</p> +<p> +The drain to the cities, which robs all small +places of part of their life’s blood, touches us +nearly; the young wings must be tried, the +young feet take the road. The restless sand +is in the shoes, and one out of perhaps every +twenty pairs sold in our street is to take a boy +or girl out to make a new home, far from father +and mother. +</p> +<p> +But this, although it robs us, is also our pride +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193'></a>193</span> +and strength. Many of the boys and girls who +have gone out from among us have become +torch-bearers, and their light shines back to +us; and if the town’s veins are drained, it is, +by the very means which drain it, made part +of the arterial system of the whole country, +and throbs with its heart beats. The enormous +variety of post-marks on our incoming mail +tells its absorbing story. +</p> +<p> +There is no sameness, even in a small town. +Here, as everywhere, the Creator lays here +and there His finger of difference; as if He +said, “Conformity is the law—and non-conformity.” +Why should one clear-eyed boy +among us have been born with the voice and +vision, and the sorrow-and-reward-full consecration, +of high poetry, rather than his +brothers? Why should another, of different +bringing-up, among a din of voices crying +down the town’s possibilities, have had the +wit and enterprise, yes, and the vision, too, to +build up, here, a vigorous manufactory, whose +wares, well planned and well made, now have +their market many States away? +</p> +<p> +I think of a third boy, the child of a well-read, +but not a studious household, who at ten +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194'></a>194</span> +was laying hands on everything that he could +find to study in the branch of science to which +his life was later to be dedicated. He had the +same surroundings as the rest of us, we went +to school and played at Indians together; and +now, for years, in a distant city, his life has led +him daily upon voyages of thought, beyond the +ken of those who played with him. +</p> +<p> +Another boy, our dear naturalist, also lives +far away. His able, merry brothers were the +most practical creatures; so was he, too, but +in another way. He turned, a little grave-eyed +child, to out-of-doors, as a duck takes to water, +caring for birds and beasts with a pure passion, +as absorbed in watching their ways as +were the other boys in games and food. It was +nothing to him to miss a meal, or two, if a +turtle’s eggs might be hatching. He had very +little to help him, for his father, a very fine +man, a master builder, failed in health early; +but he helped himself. He found countless little +out-of-the-way jobs; he mounted trout or +partridges for older friends, caught bait, exchanged +specimens through magazines, etc., +to keep himself out of doors, and to buy books +and collecting materials. By the time he was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195'></a>195</span> +twelve he had a little taxidermy business; and +with the growth of technical skill, the finer +part, the naturalist’s seeing eye for infinite difference—the +shading of the moth’s wing, the +marking of the wren’s egg—grew faster yet; +and with it the patient reverent absorption in +the whole. +</p> +<p> +People come to him now for accurate and +delicate knowledge. His word gives the authority +which for so long he sought; and, at +least once, he has been sent by his Government +to bring back a report of birds and fishes, +and to plant his country’s flag on a lone coral +island. +</p> +<p> +The other night we went to a play given by +some of the school children. Their orchestra +played with spirit; and from the first we grew +absorbed in watching a little boy who played +the bass drum. The bass drum! He played +the snare-drum, the triangle, the cymbals, a +set of musical rattles, and I do not know how +many extraordinary things attached to hand +or feet, as well. Our northern music is choked +in the sand of over-business, prisoned by northern +stiffness, but shy, stiff, awkward though it +may be, the divine thing is there, as groundwater +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196'></a>196</span> +is present where there is land; and nothing +can keep our children from buying (generally +with their own earnings) instruments of +one sort or another, and picking up lessons. +</p> +<p> +I know this little boy. His father is a laborer, +a slack man, down at heels, but kind and +indulgent. The boy is a chubby little soul, +and he accompanied the showy rag-time as +Bach’s son might have played his father’s +masses, with a serious, reverent absorption, +his little unconscious face lighting up at any +prettier change in the rag-time. They live in +a tiny cottage, and are well-fed, but very untidy. +As the humming bird finds honey, this +child had somehow picked up odd pennies to +buy, and found time to master, his extraordinary +collection of instruments, and he sat playing +as if in Heaven. Surely we had seen yet another +manifestation of the Power, which, together +with the bright fields of golden-rod and +daisies, plants also the hidden lily in the woods. +</p> +<p> +II +</p> +<p> +Of the town’s politics, the less said the +better, but in every matter outside of their +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197'></a>197</span> +withering realm, I wonder how many other +communities there are in which public spirit is +as much a matter of course as drawing breath, +where heart and soul are poured into the +town’s needs so royally. Our churches, our +Library, our Rest Room, Board of Trade, +and Merchants’ Association have been earned +by the hardest of hard work, shoulder to +shoulder. Most of our women do their own +household work, all of our men work long +hours; but when there is question of a public +work to be done, people will pledge, gravely +and with their eyes open, an amount of work +that would fairly stagger persons whose easier +lives have trained their fibres less hardily. +I wonder what would be the equivalent, in +dollars and cents, of the gift to one of the +town’s undertakings, by a stalwart house-wife +(who does all the work for a family of +five) of <em>every afternoon for three weeks</em>, and +this in December, when our Town loses its +head in a perfect riot of Christmas present-giving. +</p> +<p> +What is it in politics, what can it be, which +so poisons human initiative at its well-springs? +Here is public work which, we are told, we +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198'></a>198</span> +must accept (must we?) as a corrupting and +corrupt thing; it deadens and poisons; and almost +interlocking with it is work for the same +town’s good, done by the same people, which +invigorates as if with new breath and kindles +a living fire among us. +</p> +<p> +The peculiar problem of our town, the bitter, +fighting quality of our politics, is a mystery to +ourselves. One condition which presses +equally hard on the whole State: the constant +friction, and consequent moral undermining, +of a law constantly evaded: may be in part +responsible. But no doubt our intense, flint-and-steel +individualism is the chief factor; yet +this individualism is also the sap, the very +life-blood, of the tree! +</p> +<p> +(Surely things will be better when the ethics +of citizenship is taught to children as unequivocally +as the duty of telling the truth.) +</p> +<p> +With this citizen’s work, goes on a private +kindness so beautiful that one finds one’s self +without words, uplifted and humbled before +it; it is as if, below the obstructions of our +busy lives, there ran a river of friendship, so +strong, so single-purposed, that when the +rock above it is struck by need or adversity, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199'></a>199</span> +its pure current wells forth and carries everything +before it. +</p> +<p> +How many times have this or that old +person’s last days been made peaceful and +tranquil, instead of torn with anxiety, by the +hidden action of “a few friends”: (ah, the +fine and sweet reticence!); and these not persons +of means, but of slender purses; young +men, among others, with the new cares of +marriage and children already heavy upon +them. +</p> +<p> +Doctor’s bills “seen to”; a summer at the +seashore, for a drooping young mother, +“arranged for”; the new home cozily furnished, +and books and clothing found, for a +burnt-out household; a telephone installed, a +year at college provided for; a girl, not at +fault, but in trouble, taken in and made one +of the family; these instances and their like +crowd the town’s unwritten annals. +</p> +<p> +I must not seem to rate our dear Town too +highly, or to claim that these examples are +anything out of the common, that they shine +brighter than the countless other unseen stars +of the Milky Way of Kindness. I only stand +abashed before a bed-rock quality of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200'></a>200</span> +friendship, which never wears out nor tires; which +gives and gives again, gravely, yet not counting +the cost, and does not withhold that last +sharing of hearth and privacy, before which so +many dwellers in more sophisticated places +cannot but waver. +</p> +<p> +Have I given too many examples? How +can I withhold them! +</p> +<p> +I think of the machine-tender and his wife, +who, in a year of ill-health and doctor’s bills +for themselves and their two children, took in +the young wife of a fellow-worker who had +lost his position; tended her when her baby +came, cared for mother and child for eight +months, till a new job was found. +</p> +<p> +Of two households, who took in and made +happy, the one a broken-down artist who had +fallen on evil times in a great city, the other +a sour-tempered old working woman, left +without kin. The first household have growing-up +children, an automobile, horses, all +the complexities of well-to-do life in these +days, but the tie of old friendship was the +one thing considered. The householders in +the second case were not even near friends, +merely fellow church members, a kind man +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201'></a>201</span> +and wife, left without children, who could not +enjoy their warm house while old Hannah +was friendless. They tended her as they +might have tended their own sister. +</p> +<p> +Of the young teacher, alone in the world, +who, when calamity came to two married +friends (a burnt house and office, and desperate +illness) took <em>all</em> the savings that were +to have gone for three years’ special training, +went to them, a three-days’ railroad journey, +brought them home, and bore all the household +expenses of the young couple, and of their +baby’s coming, until new work was found. +</p> +<p> +The cooking and housework for four persons, +(together with a heavy amount of neighborhood +work,) would seem enough for even a +very capable and kind pair of hands. Well, +one friend, in addition to this, for two years +cooked and carried in <em>all</em> the meals for a neighbor +(a good many doors away), a crippled girl, +a prey, heretofore, to torturing dyspepsia. +There was no chance of saving the girl’s life, +she had a fatal complaint, but thanks to this +simple ministry, her last two years were free +from pain, and she was as happy a creature as +could well be. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202'></a>202</span> +</p> +<p> +These and like cases crowd to one’s mind, +till the memories of the town ring like a +chime of bells. +</p> +<p> +I remember how troubled we were about +one neighbor, a gentle, sweet lady, left the +last of a large and affectionate family circle; +how we dreaded the loneliness for her. We +need not have been troubled. There was a +place for her at every hearth in the neighborhood, +and when the long last illness set in, +kind, pitiful hands of neighbors were close +about, soothing and tending her. One +younger friend, like a daughter, never left +her, day after day. Her own people were +all gone before her, her harvest was gathered, +there could be no more anguish of parting; +and her last years seemed, as one might say, +carried forward on a sunny river of friendship. +</p> +<p> +III +</p> +<p> +People from sunnier climates speak sometimes +of our lack of community cheer and of +festivals; but a temperature of twenty below +zero—or even twenty above—does not conduce +to dancing on the green; and it may be that +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203'></a>203</span> +the spirit’s light-footedness, like that of the +outward person, is hampered by many wrappings. +Yet once in a while even we northern +people do “break out”; as on Fourth of July, +when, in the early morning, the “Antiques +and Horribles,” masked and painted, ride, +grinning, through the streets. +</p> +<p> +After a football victory, our High School +boys, like boys everywhere, break out in unorganized +revel. They caper about in night-shirts +put on over their clothes, or in their +mother’s and sisters’ skirts, and with the +girls as well, they dance down the street in +a snake-dance. They light a bonfire in the +square, and sing, cheer, and frolic around it. +Though they do not know it, it is pure +carnival. +</p> +<p> +The long white months of winter see us all +very busy and settled. This is the time of +year when solid reading is done, and sheets +are hemmed, when our Literary Societies +write and read their papers, when we get up +plays and tableaux, and the best work is done +in the schools. Nobody minds the long +evenings, the lamplight beside the open fires +is so infinitely cozy; and on moonlight nights, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204'></a>204</span> +all winter, the long double-runners slip past +outside, with joyful laughter and clatter, as +the boys and girls—and their elders—take one +hill after another in the Mile Coast. +</p> +<p> +With the breaking-up of the ice, all our +settled order breaks up, too, in the tremendous +effort of Spring Cleaning. It is as +chaotic within the house as without. The +furniture is huddled in the middle of the +room, swathed in sheets. The master of the +house mourns and seeks, like a bird robbed +of its nest. We live in aprons and sweeping +caps, and in mock despair. The painter will +not come; the step-ladder is broken; the +spare-room matting is too worn to be put +down again; but every dimmest corner of the +attic, every picture and molding, every fragment +of put-away china, is shining and polished +before the weary wives will take rest. +</p> +<p> +With the first warm-scented May nights, +the children’s bedtime becomes an indefinite +hour. They are all out after dusk, like +flights of chimney-swallows. They run and +race down the streets, they don’t know why, +and frolic like moths about the electric-light +poles. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205'></a>205</span> +</p> +<p> +Memorial Day, with its grave celebration, +renews our citizenship. The children are in +the fields almost at sunrise, gathering scarlet +columbines in the hill crannies, yellow dog-tooth +violets, buttercups in the tall wet grass, +stripping their mothers’ gardens of their brilliant +blaze of tulips, bending down the heavy, +dewy heads of white and purple lilacs. The +matrons meet early at Grand Army Hall, and +tie up and trim bouquets and baskets busily +till noon. The talk is sober, but cheerful, and +there is a realization of harvest-home and +achievement, rather than sadness. The little +sacred procession marches past, to the sound +of music that is more elating than mournful. +Later, after the marching, the tired men find +hot coffee and sandwiches ready for them. +</p> +<p> +With summer, inconsequence and irresponsibility +steal happily over the town. +Even in the shops and factories the work is +not the same, for employers and employees +have become easy-going, and the business +streets look contentedly drowsy. Bricks +and paving stones cannot keep out the wafts +of summer fragrance, and with them an ease +and gayety, a <em>joie de vivre</em>, diffuse themselves, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206'></a>206</span> +which are astonishing after our winter soberness. +Our night-lunch carts, popcorn, and +pink lemonade booths, with their little flaring +lights, are ugly, if compared, for instance, to +kindred things in Italy, but they manifest the +same spirit. The coming of a circus shows +this feeling at its height, but it does not need +a circus to bring it out; and the Merry-go-round +on one of our wharves toots its gay +little whistle all summer. Music, sometimes +queer and naive in expression, comes stealing +out through the town. Our music is never +organized, but the strains of brass or string +quartettes or a small band, or of a little part +singing, are heard of an evening. +</p> +<p> +Everybody who can manage it goes down +to the sea, if but for one day, and the small +excursion steamer is crowded on her daily +trips to “The Islands.” +</p> +<p> +“It takes from trade,” remarks I. Scanlon, +the teamster, “but you’ve only got one life +to live. At a time!” he adds reverently; +and he and his wife and six children travel +down to a much-be-cottaged island, set up +their tent on the beach, and for a delicious, +barefoot fortnight live on fish of their +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207'></a>207</span> +own catching, and potatoes brought with +them from home. +</p> +<p> +We almost live on our lawns, and neighbors +stray across to each other’s piazzas for +friendly talk, friendly silence, all through the +warm summer evenings. +</p> +<p> +By October every string needs tautening. +The still, keen weather takes matters into its +own hands, and we are brought back strictly +to work. Meetings are held, committees appointed, +plans made for the winter’s tasks, +and soon each group is hard at it, for this and +that missionary barrel, this and that campaign; +and at Thanksgiving the matrons meet +again at Grand Army Hall, to apportion and +send out the Thanksgiving Dinner. It is a +privilege to be with the kind, able women, +to watch their capable hands, their shortcuts +to the heart of the matter in question, +their easy authority, their large friendliness; +in more cases than not, their distinction of +bearing as well. +</p> +<p> +Thanksgiving once over, the pace quickens. +Each church has its yearly sale and supper +at hand, for which months of faithful work +have been preparing, and these once worked +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208'></a>208</span> +off, the whole town, as I have said, loses its +head in a perfect fever of giving. What does +anything matter but happiness? Christmas +is coming! Every man, woman, and child is +a hurrying Santa Claus. The first snow +brings its strange hush, its strange sheltering +pureness, and the sleigh-bells begin once more +to jingle all about. During Christmas week +hundreds of strings of colored lights are +hung across the business streets. Wreaths +and garlands of fragrant balsam fir, the very +breath and expression of our countryside, are +hung everywhere, over shop windows and +doorways, in every house window, and on +quiet mounds in the churchyard and cemetery. +The solemnity of the great festival, which is +our Christmas, our All Saints’ and All Souls’ +in one, folds round us. +</p> +<p> +The churches are all dark and sweet, like +rich nests, with their heavy fir garlands, lit +up by candles. Pews that may be scantily +filled at most times are crowded to-night, +for here are the boys and girls, thronging +home from business and college. Here are +the three tall boys of one household, whom +we have not seen for a long time, and there +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209'></a>209</span> +are four others. Here are girls home from +boarding-school, rosy and sweet, blossomed +into full maidenhood, bringing a whiff of the +city in their furs and well-cut frocks. There +is the only son of one family, who left home +a stripling, now back for the first time, a +stalwart man, with his young wife and three +children. His little mother cannot see plainly, +through her happy tears; and there, and there, +and there again, are re-united households. +</p> +<p> +The bells ring out, and after them comes +the silver sound of the first hymn. +</p> +<p> +Of late, on Christmas evening, the choirs +of the different churches have begun the +custom of meeting on the Common, to +lead the crowd in hymns, round the town +Christmas Tree. Later they separate and +go about singing to different invalids and +shut-ins, and many of the houses are +lighted up. +</p> +<div class='center'> +<p>“Silent Night! Holy Night!”</p> +</div> +<p> +So, within doors, we neighbors meet in reverent +and thankful worship; while without, +the pure snow, the grave trees, the stars, bear +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210'></a>210</span> +their enduring witness to that of which they, +and we and our human worship, are a part. +</p> +<p> +Peace and good-will to our town, where it +lies sheltered among its hills. The country +rises on each side of it, and stretches peacefully +away to east and west. The valleys +gather their waters, the wooded hills climb +to the stars; they wait, guarding in silent +bosoms the treasure of their memories, the +secret of their hopes. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +THE NEW POETRY +CHICAGO POEMS +</p> +<p> +By <span class='sc'>Carl Sandburg</span>. <em>$1.25 net.</em> +</p> +<p> +In his ability to concentrate a whole story or picture or +character within the compass of a few lines, Mr. Sandburg’s +work compares favorably with the best achievements +of the recent successful American poets. It is, +however, distinguished by its trenchant note of social +criticism and by its vision of a better social order. +</p> +<p> +NORTH OF BOSTON +</p> +<p> +By <span class='sc'>Robert Frost</span>. <em>6th printing, $1.25 net.</em> +</p> +<p> +“The first poet for half a century to express New England +life completely with a fresh, original and appealing way of his +own.”—<em>Boston Transcript.</em> +</p> +<p> +“An authentic original voice in literature.”—<em>Atlantic Monthly.</em> +</p> +<p> +A BOY’S WILL +</p> +<p> +By <span class='sc'>Robert Frost</span>. <em>2nd printing, 75 cents net.</em> +</p> +<p> +Mr. Frost’s first volume of poetry. +</p> +<p> +“We have read every line with that amazement and delight +which are too seldom evoked by books of modern verse.”—<em>The Academy (London).</em> +</p> +<p> +THE LISTENERS +</p> +<p> +By <span class='sc'>Walter De La Mare</span>. <em>$1.20 net.</em> +</p> +<p> +Mr. De la Mare expresses with undeniable beauty of +verse those things a little bit beyond our ken and consciousness, +and, as well, our subtlest reactions to nature +and to life. +</p> +<p> +“—— and Other Poets” +</p> +<p> +By <span class='sc'>Louis Untermeyer</span>. <em>$1.25 net.</em> +</p> +<p> +Mirth and thought-provoking parodies, by the author +of “<em>Challenge</em>” of such modern Parnassians as Masefield, +Frost, Masters, Yeats, Amy Lowell, Noyes, Dobson +and “F. P. A.” +</p> +<p> +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +<span class='sc'>36 West 33d Street</span> (3‘16) <span class='sc'>36 West 33d Street</span> +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +TWO NOTABLE NATURE BOOKS. +</p> +<p> +FERNS +</p> +<p> +A Manual for the Northeastern States. By C. E. WATERS, Ph.D. +(Johns Hopkins). With Analytical Keys Based on the Stalks. +<em>With over 200 illustrations</em> from original drawings and photographs. +362 pp. Square 8vo. Boxed. <em>$3.00 net.</em> (By mail, $3.34.) +</p> +<p> +A popular, but thoroughly scientific book, including all the +ferns in the region covered by Britton’s Manual. Much information +is also given concerning reproduction and classification, +fern photography, etc. +</p> +<p> +PROF. L. M. UNDERWOOD, OF COLUMBIA: +</p> +<p> +“It is really more scientific than one would expect from +a work of a somewhat popular nature. The photographs are +very fine, very carefully selected and will add much to the +text. I do not see how they could be much finer.” +</p> +<p> +THE PLANT WORLD: +</p> +<p> +“This book is likely to prove the leading popular work +on ferns. The majority of the illustrations are from original +photographs; in respect to this feature, it can be confidently +asserted that <em>no finer examples of fern photography have ever +been produced</em>.... May be expected to prove of permanent +scientific value, as well as to satisfy a want which existing +treatises have but imperfectly filled.” +</p> +<p> +MUSHROOMS +</p> +<p> +Edible, Poisonous Mushrooms, etc. By Prof. GEO. F. ATKINSON, +of Cornell. +</p> +<p> +With recipes for cooking by Mrs. S. T. RORER, and +the chemistry and toxicology of mushrooms, by J. F. +CLARK. With 230 illustrations from photographs, including +fifteen colored plates. 320pp. 8vo. $3.00 net (by mail, $3.23). +</p> +<p> +Among the additions in this second edition are ten new plates, +chapters on the “Uses of Mushrooms,” and on the “Cultivation of +Mushrooms,” illustrated by several flashlight photographs. +</p> +<p> +EDUCATIONAL REVIEW: +</p> +<p> +“It would be difficult to conceive of a more attractive +and useful book, nor one that is destined to exert a greater +influence in the study of an important class of plants that +have been overlooked and avoided simply because of ignorance +of their qualities, and the want of a suitable book of +low price. In addition to its general attractiveness and the +beauty of its illustrations, it is written in a style well calculated +to win the merest tyro or the most accomplished student +of the fungi.... These clear photographs and the +plain descriptions make the book especially valuable for the +amateur fungus hunter in picking out the edible from the +poisonous species of the most common kinds.” +</p> +<p> +THE PLANT WORLD: +</p> +<p> +“This is, without doubt, the most important and valuable +work of its kind that has appeared in this country in recent +years.... No student, either amateur or professional, can +afford to be without it.” +</p> +<p> +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY, +</p> +<p> +NEW YORK, (xii, ‘03), CHICAGO. +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +BY DOROTHY CANFIELD +</p> +<p> +THE BENT TWIG +</p> +<p> +The story of a lovely, opened-eyed, open-minded American +girl. <em>3rd large printing, $1.35 net.</em> +</p> +<p> +“One of the best, perhaps the very best, of American novels +of the season.”—<em>The Outlook.</em> +</p> +<p> +“The romance holds you, the philosophy grips you, the characters +delight you, the humor charms you—one of the most +realistic American families ever drawn.”—<em>Cleveland Plain-dealer.</em> +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +THE SQUIRREL-CAGE +</p> +<p> +Illustrated by J. A. <span class='sc'>Williams</span>. <em>6th printing, $1.35 net.</em> +</p> +<p> +An unusual personal and real story of American family life. +</p> +<p> +“We recall no recent interpretation of American life which +has possessed more of dignity and less of shrillness than this.”—<em>The +Nation.</em> +</p> +<p> +HILLSBORO PEOPLE +</p> +<p> +With occasional Vermont verse by <span class='sc'>Sarah N. Cleghorn</span>. +<em>3rd printing, $1.35 net.</em> +</p> +<p> +A collection of stories about a Vermont village. +</p> +<p> +“No writer since Lowell has interpreted the rural Yankee +more faithfully.”—<em>Review of Reviews.</em> +</p> +<p> +THE REAL MOTIVE +</p> +<p> +Unlike “Hillsboro People,” this collection of stories +has many backgrounds, but it is unified by the underlying +humanity which unites all the characters. <em>Just ready, +$1.35 net.</em> +</p> +<p> +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +<span class='sc'>36 West 33d Street</span> (3‘16) <span class='sc'>36 West 33d Street</span> +</p> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<p> +DELIGHTFUL ANTHOLOGIES +</p> +<p> +The following books are uniform, with full gilt flexible +covers and pictured cover linings, 16mo. Each, cloth, +$1.50; leather, $2.50. +</p> +<p> +THE GARLAND OF CHILDHOOD +</p> +<p> +A Little Book for All Lovers of Children. Compiled by +<span class='sc'>Percy Withers</span>. A collection of poetry about children +for grown-ups to read. +</p> +<p> +“This exquisite anthology.”—<em>Boston Transcript.</em> +</p> +<p> +THE VISTA OF ENGLISH VERSE +</p> +<p> +Compiled by <span class='sc'>Henry S. Pancoast</span>. +</p> +<p> +From Spenser to Kipling, based on the editor’s Standard +English Poems with additions. +</p> +<p> +LETTERS THAT LIVE +</p> +<p> +Compiled by <span class='sc'>Laura E. Lockwood</span> and <span class='sc'>Laura E. Lockwood</span>. +</p> +<p> +Some 150 letters from Walter Paston to Lewis Carroll. +</p> +<p> +“These self-records preserve and extend the personality of this rare +company of folk.”—<em>Chicago Tribune.</em> +</p> +<p> +THE POETIC OLD-WORLD +</p> +<p> +Compiled by <span class='sc'>Lucy H. Humphrey</span>. +</p> +<p> +Covers Europe, including Spain, Belgium and the British Isles. +</p> +<p> +THE POETIC NEW-WORLD +</p> +<p> +Compiled by <span class='sc'>Lucy H. Humphrey</span>, a companion volume to +Miss Humphrey’s “The Poetic Old-World.” +</p> +<p> +THE OPEN ROAD +</p> +<p> +A little book for wayfarers. Compiled by <span class='sc'>E. V. Lucas</span>. +</p> +<p> +Some 125 poems from over 60 authors. +</p> +<p> +“A very charming book from cover to cover.”—<em>Dial.</em> +</p> +<p> +THE FRIENDLY TOWN +</p> +<p> +A little book for the urbane, compiled by <span class='sc'>E. V. Lucas</span>. +</p> +<p> +Over 200 selections in verse and prose from 100 authors. +</p> +<p> +“Would have delighted Charles Lamb.”—<em>The Nation.</em> +</p> +<p> +POEMS FOR TRAVELERS +</p> +<p> +Compiled by <span class='sc'>Mary R. J. Dubois</span>. 16mo. Cloth, $1.50; +leather, $2.50. Covers France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, +Italy, and Greece in some 300 poems. +</p> +<p> +A BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN +</p> +<p> +Over 200 poems representing some 80 authors. Compiled by +<span class='sc'>E. V. Lucas</span>. With decorations by <span class='sc'>E. V. Lucas</span>. Gift +edition, $2.00. Library edition, $1.00 net. +</p> +<p> +“We know of no other anthology for children so complete and well +arranged.”—<em>Critic.</em> +</p> +<p> +HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY +</p> +<p> +<span class='sc'>34 West 33d Street</span> NEW YORK +</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Northern Countryside, by Rosalind Richards + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE *** + +***** This file should be named 35956-h.htm or 35956-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/9/5/35956/ + +Produced by Roger Frank, Juliet Sutherland 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: A Northern Countryside + +Author: Rosalind Richards + +Release Date: April 25, 2011 [EBook #35956] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD.] + + + + + A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + By + ROSALIND RICHARDS + Illustrated from photographs + by + BERTRAND H. WENTWORTH + + NEW YORK + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + 1916 + + + + + Copyright, 1916 + BY + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + Published April, 1916 + THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS + RAHWAY, N. J. + + + + + To + J. R., L. E. W., and L. T. S., + without whose help this small record + could not have been written. + + + + +PREFACE + +No one person can fitly describe a neighborhood, no matter how long +known, how well loved. Yet records of what is lovely and of good report +in a district should be treasured and preserved, however imperfectly. + +My father's name, not mine, should rightly be signed to these pages, for +it is his intimate knowledge of our countryside, loved and explored with +a boy's ardor and a naturalist's insight since childhood, which they +strive to set down. + +I have taken care to write almost wholly of two or more generations ago, +and of persons who, with few exceptions, have now passed out of this +life; and I have in all cases altered names, and shifted families from +one part of the county to another, to avoid possible annoyance to +surviving connections. It has even seemed best in some cases--though I +have done so with reluctance--to change the names of villages, of hills +and streams, as well. + +Beyond this, I have striven only to record faithfully the anecdotes and +memories that have come down to me. But no record, however faithful, can +be in any way adequate. The rays will be refracted by the medium of the +writer's personality; and the best that can be done will be but a small +mirrored fragment, before the daily repeated miracle of the living +reality. + + + + +CONTENTS + + - PREFACE + - CHAPTER I--A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + - CHAPTER II--THE RIVER + - CHAPTER III--THE BANKS OF THE RIVER + - CHAPTER IV--THE CAPTAINS + - CHAPTER V--BY THE ACUSHTICOOK + - CHAPTER VI--SPRING + - CHAPTER VII--THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + - CHAPTER VIII--RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR'S MILLS + - CHAPTER IX--MARY GUILFOYLE + - CHAPTER X--TRESUMPSCOTT POND + - CHAPTER XI--IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS + - CHAPTER XII--HARVEST + - CHAPTER XIII--WATSON'S HILL + - CHAPTER XIV--EARLY WINTER. + - CHAPTER XV--ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON + - CHAPTER XVI--OUR TOWN + +Thanks are due Mr. Bertrand H. Wentworth of Gardiner, Maine, for his +very kind permission to illustrate this book with reproductions of his +photographs. + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE + INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER'S COURSE + THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH + THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE + PLOUGHING MARY'S FIELD + ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND + THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES + THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN STACKS + THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES + LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS + ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY + THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT + + + + +A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + + +CHAPTER I--A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + + +Our county lies in a northern State, in the midst of one of those +districts known geographically as "regions of innumerable lakes." It is +in good part wooded--hilly, irregular country, not mountainous, but often +bold and marked in outline. Save for its lakes, strangers might pass +through it without especial notice; but its broken hills have a peculiar +intimacy and lovableness, and to us it is so beautiful that new wonder +falls on us year after year as we dwell in it. + +There is a marked trend of the land. I suppose the first landmark a bird +would distinguish in its flight would be our long, round-shouldered +ridges, running north and south. Driving across country, either eastward +or westward, you go up and up in leisurely rises, with plenty of fairly +level resting places between, up long calm shoulder after shoulder, to +the Height of Land. And there you take breath of wonder, for lo, before +you and below you, behold a whole new countryside framed by new hills. + +Sometimes the lower country thus revealed is in its turn broken into +lesser hills, or moulded into noble rounding valleys. Sometimes there +are stretches of intervale or old lake bottom, of real flat-land, a rare +beauty with us, on which the eyes rest with delight. More often than not +there is shining water, lake or pond or stream. Sometimes this lower +valley country extends for miles before the next range rises, so that +your glance travels restfully out over the wide spaces. Sometimes it is +little, like a cup. + +As you get up towards the Height of Land you come to what makes the +returning New Englander draw breath quickly, the pleasure is so +poignant: upland pastures dotted with juniper and boulders, and broken +by clumps of balsam fir and spruce. Most fragrant, most beloved places. +Dicksonia fern grows thick about the boulders. The pasturage is thin +June-grass, the color of beach sand, as it ripens, and in August this is +transformed to a queen's garden by the blossoming of blue asters and the +little _nemoralis_ golden-rod, which grew unnoticed all the earlier +summer. Often whole stretches of the slope are carpeted with mayflowers +and checkerberries, and as you climb higher, and meet the wind from the +other side of the ridge, your foot crunches on gray reindeer-moss. + +Last week, before climbing a small bare-peaked mountain, I turned aside +to explore a path which led through a field of scattered balsam firs, +with lady-fern growing thick about their feet. A little further on, the +firs were assembled in groups and clumps, and then group was joined to +group. The valley grew deeper and darker, and still the same small path +led on, till I found myself in the tallest and most solemn wood of firs +that I have ever seen. They were sixty feet high, needle-pointed, black, +and they filled the long hollow between the hills, like a dark river. + +The woods alternate with fields to clothe the hills and intervales and +valleys, and make a constant and lovely variety over the landscape. +Sometimes they seem a shore instead of a river. They jut out into the +meadowland, in capes and promontories, and stand in little islands, +clustered round an outcropping ledge or a boulder too big to be removed. +You are confronted everywhere with this meeting of the natural and +indented shore of the woods, close, feathery, impenetrable, with the +bays and inlets of field and pasture and meadow. The jutting portions +are apt to be made more sharp and marked by the most striking part of +our growth, the evergreens. There they grow, white pine and red pine, +black spruce, hemlock, and balsam fir, in lovely sisterhood. Their +needles shine in the sun. They taper perfectly, finished at every point, +clean, dry, and resinous; and the fragrance distilled from them by our +crystal air is as surely the very breath of New England as that of the +Spice Islands is the breath of the East. + +Our soil is often spoken of as barren, but this is only where it has +been neglected. Hay and apples give us abundant crops; indeed our apples +have made a name at home and abroad. Potatoes also give us a very fine +yield, and a great part of the State is rich in lumber. When it is left +to itself, the land reverts to wave after wave of luxuriant pine forest. +Forty miles east of us they are cutting out masts again where the +_Constitution's_ masts were cut. + +[Illustration: THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE] + +The apple orchards are scattered over the slopes. In the more upland +places, sheep are kept, and the sheep-pastures are often hillside +orchards of tall sugar maples. We have neat fields of oats and barley, +more or less scattered, and once in a while a buckwheat patch, while +every farm has a good cornfield, beans, pumpkins, and potatoes, besides +"the woman's" little patch of "garden truck." A good many bees are kept, +in colonies of gray hives under the apple trees. + +The people who live on the farms are, I suppose, much like farm people +everywhere. "Folks are folks"; yet, after being much with them, certain +qualities impress themselves upon one's notice as characteristic; they +have a dry sense of humor, and quaint and whimsical ways of expressing +it, and with this, a refinement of thought and speech that is almost +fastidious; a fine reticence about the physical aspects of life such as +is only found, I believe, in a strong race, a people drawing their vigor +from deep and untainted springs. I often wonder whether there is another +place in the world where women are sheltered from any possible +coarseness of expression with such considerate delicacy as they find +among the rough men on a New England farm. + +The life is so hard, the hours so necessarily long, in our harsh +climate, that small-natured persons too often become little more than +machines. They get through their work, and they save every penny they +can; and that is all. The Granges, however, are increasing a pleasant +and wholesome social element which is beyond price, and all winter you +meet sleighs full of rosy-cheeked families, driving to the Hall for +Grange Meeting, or Sunday Meeting, or for the weekly dance. + +Many of the farm people are large-minded enough to do their work well, +and still keep above and on top of it; and some of these stand up in a +sort of splendor. Their fibres have been seasoned in a life that calls +for all a man's powers. Their grave kind faces show that, living all +their lives in one place, they have taken the longest of all journeys, +and traveled deep into the un-map-able country of Life. I do not know +how to write fittingly of some of these older farm people; wise enough +to be simple, and deep-rooted as the trees that grow round them; so +strong and attuned to their work that the burdens of others grow light +in their presence, and life takes on its right and happier proportions +when one is with them. + +If the first impression of our country is its uniformity, the second and +amazing one is its surprises, its secret places. The long ridges +accentuate themselves suddenly into sharp slopes and steep cup-shaped +valleys, covered with sweet-fern and juniper. The wooded hills are often +full of hidden cliffs (rich gardens in themselves, they are so deep in +ferns and moss), and quick brooks run through them, so that you are +never long without the talk of one to keep you company. There are rocky +glens, where you meet cold, sweet air, the ceaseless comforting of a +waterfall, and moss on moss, to velvet depths of green. + +The ridges rise and slope and rise again with general likeness, but two +of them open amazingly to disclose the wide blue surface of our great +River. We are rich in rivers, and never have to journey far to reach +one, but I never can get quite used to the surprise of coming among the +hills on this broad strong full-running stream, with gulls circling over +it. + +One thing sets us apart from other regions: our wonderful lakes. They +lie all around us, so that from every hill-top you see their shining and +gleaming. It is as if the worn mirror of the glacier had been splintered +into a thousand shining fragments, and the common saying is that our +State is more than half water. They are so many that we call them +_ponds_, not lakes, whether they are two miles long, or ten, or +twenty.[1] I have counted over nine hundred on the State map, and then +given up counting. No one person could ever know them all; there still +would be new "Lost Ponds" and "New Found Lakes." + +The greater part of them lie in the unbroken woods, but countless +numbers are in open farming country. They run from great sunlit sheets +with many islands to the most perfect tiny hidden forest jewels, places +utterly lonely and apart, mirroring only the depths of the green woods. + +Each "pond," large or little, is a world in itself. You can almost +believe that the moon looks down on each with different radiance, that +the south wind has a special fragrance as it blows across each; and each +one has some peculiar, intimate beauty; deep bays, lovely and secluded +channels between wooded islands, or small curved beaches which shine +between dark headlands, lit up now and then by a camp fire. + +Hill after hill, round-shouldered ridge after ridge; low nearer the salt +water, increasing very gradually in height till they form the wild +amphitheatre of blue peaks in the northern part of the State; partly +farming country, and greater part wooded; this is our countryside, and +across it and in and out of the forests its countless lovely lakes shine +and its great rivers thread their tranquil way to the sea. + +----- +[1] The legal distinction in our State is not between ponds and lakes, +but between ponds and "Great Ponds." All land-locked waters over ten +acres in area are Great Ponds; in which the public have rights of +fishing, ice-cutting, etc. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE RIVER + + +Our river is one of the pair of kingly streams which traverse almost our +entire State from north to south. The first twenty-five miles of its +course, after leaving the great lake which it drains, is a tearing rapid +between rocky walls: then follows perhaps a hundred miles of alternating +falls and "dead water," the falls being now fast taken up as water +powers. It has eleven hundred feet to fall to reach the sea, and it does +most of this in its first thirty miles. + +The river's course through part of our county is marked by a noticeable +geological formation. For a space of fifteen miles, the greater and +lesser tributary streams have broken their way down through the western +ridge of the river valley in a succession of small chasms that are so +many true mountain defiles in little. They have the sharp descents and +extreme variety of slopes and counter-slopes, though with walls never +more than a hundred and fifty feet high. + +There are forty or fifty of these ravines, some nourishing strong +brooks, some a mere trickle, or a stream of green marsh and ferns where +water once ran. Acushticook, which threads the largest, is really a +river, and Rollingdam, Bombahook, and Worromontogus are all powerful +streams. Rollingdam follows a very private course, hidden in deep mossy +woods for several miles. The ravine presently deepens and becomes more +marked, descending in abrupt slopes, then narrows to a gorge, the rocky +sides of which are covered with moss and ferns, nourished by spray. The +brook runs through it in two or three short cascades, and falls sheer +and white to a pool, twelve feet below. + +Below our Town, the river sweeps on, steadily wider and nobler in +expanse, till it reaches the place where five other rivers pour their +streams into its waters, and it broadens into the sheet of Merrymeeting +Bay, three miles from shore to shore. + +Below the bay the channel narrows almost to a gorge. The sides are steep +and rocky, crowned with black growth of fir and spruce, and through this +space the swollen waters pour in great force. There are strong tide +races, in which the river steamers reel and tremble, and below this +there begins a perfect labyrinth of channels, some mere backwaters, some +leading through intricate passages among a hundred fairy islands. There +are cliffs, moss and fern-grown, and countless dark headlands. The +islands are heavily wooded with characteristic evergreen growth, dense, +fragrant, of a rich color, and they are ringed with cream-white granite +above the sea-weed, where the blue water circles them.--And so down, till +the first break of blue sea shows between the spruces. + +We never feel cut off, or too far inland, having our river. The actual +sea fog reaches us on a south wind, salt to the lips. Gulls come up all +the way from the sea, and save for the winter months, there is hardly a +day when you do not see four or five of them wheeling and circling; +while twice or thrice in a lifetime a gale brings us Mother Carey's +chickens, scudding low, or else worn out and resting after the storm. + +The river sleeps all winter under its white covering, but great cracks +go ringing and resounding up stream as the tide makes or ebbs, leaping +half a mile to a note, to tell of the life that is pulsing beneath; and +before the snow comes, you can watch, through the black ice, the drift +stuff move quietly beneath your feet with the tide as you skate. I have +read fine print through two feet of ice, from a bit of newspaper carried +along below by the current. One winter a dovekie lived for three weeks +by a small open space made by the eddy near some ledges; then a hard +freeze came, and the poor thing broke its neck, diving at the round +black space of ice which looked scarcely different from the same space +of open water. + +The river lies frozen for at least four months. The ice weakens with the +March thaws and rains. Then comes a night in April when the forces which +move the mountains are at work, and in the morning, lo, the chains are +broken. The great stream runs swift and brown and the ice cakes crowd +and jostle each other as they spin past. + +The river traffic goes steadily on through our three open seasons, and +with it a little of the longer perspective of all sea-faring life comes +to us, and off-sets the day-in-day-out of the town's shop and factory +routine. + +Our southern lumber is brought us by handsome three and four-masted +schooners, which take northern lumber and ice on the return voyage. The +other day two schooners, on their maiden voyage, white and trim as +yachts, were at the lumber wharf, the _Break of Day_ and the _Herald of +the Morning_. + +Our coal comes in the usual long ugly barges. One or two small excursion +steamers connect us with the nearer coast towns, forty miles distant, +and every day all summer, the one large passenger steamer which connects +us with the big coast cities, comes to or from our town. She takes her +tranquil way between the river hills, not without majesty, while the +water draws back from the shores as she passes and the high banks +reverberate to the peaceful thunder of her paddles. Like other river +towns, we have now a fleet of motor boats, in use for pleasure and small +fishing. + +Traffic on the river shrank immensely with the forming of the Ice Trust, +which holds our ice-fields now only as a reserve. We see three or four +tall schooners at a time now, where we used to count the riding lights +of a dozen at anchor in the channel. + +The greater part of our fleet of tugs is scattered. The _Resolute_ and +_Adelia_,--dear me, even their names are like old friends--the _Clara +Clarita_, the _City of Lynn_, the _Knickerbocker_, and the trim smart +twin tugs, _Charlie Lawrence_ and _Stella_, have gone to other waters. +The _Ice-King_ plies now in the coast-wise trade. Our lessened river +work is done by the _Seguin_, a large and handsome boat, the _Ariel_, a +T-wharf tug from Boston, and the _Sarah J. Green_, an ugly boat with a +smokestack too tall for her. + +The Government boat comes up in late April, while the river is still +very rapid, brown and swirling after the spring freshet, and sets the +channel buoys. We always thrill a little at her unwonted, sea-sounding +whistle. She comes again in November, takes up the buoys, and carries +them to some strange buoy paddock in one of the winter harbors, where +hundreds and hundreds of them are stacked and repainted. The names of +the revenue cutters in this service are prettily chosen, the _Lilac_, +_Geranium_, etc. + +Before the days of tugs, schooners and larger vessels sailed up and down +the thirty-odd navigable miles of our river under their own canvas, and +the traffic to and from Atlantic ports was carried on by packets: brigs, +schooners, and topsail schooners. One of the captains has told me that, +seventy-five years ago, on his first voyage, it took his brig seven days +to beat to the mouth of the river, a passage now made in six hours. It +must have been extremely difficult piloting. The channel is narrow in +many places, though the river itself is so wide. There are sand-bars, +mud-flats, and ledges. + +In my Father's childhood a curious, indeed a unique type of vessel, +known as a Waterville Sloop, plied between what was then (before the +building of the dams), the head of navigation, twenty-six miles above +us, and Boston, taking lumber and hay. They carried one square-rigged +mast, and sailed with lee-boards, like the Dutch galliots, and were in +fact a survival of the square-rigged sloops of old time, immortal in the +memories of the glorious Sloops of War, and in Turner's pictures. + +Once in a while you still see "pinkies," which were once so common: +small schooner-rigged vessels with a "pink" (probably originally a +_pinked_) stern, _i.e._, a stern rising to a point, with a crotch to +rest the boom in. + +Scows are rarer than they used to be, but they still carry on their +humble, casual lumber and hay business, sailing up with the flood-tide, +and tying up for the ebb. They are sloop-rigged, quite smart-looking +under sail, and sail with lee-boards, like the Waterville Sloops. + +The Lobster Smack, a tiny two-masted schooner, not more than thirty feet +long, comes once a week in the season, and we buy our lobsters on the +wharf and carry them home all sprawling, and are delighted when we get a +little sea-weed with them. + +The laborers of the river are the dredges, pile-drivers, and their kind. +They must see to the journeyman's work that keeps the river's traffic +unhampered. They drive piers and jetties and dredge out sand-bars. They +go and come, unnoticed by smarter vessels, laden heavily with broken +stone, sand, or gravel. They are dingy powerful boats, fitted with a +derrick and hoist or other machinery. They carry big rope buffers at bow +and sides, and in spite of this their bulwarks are splintered and +scarred where they have been jammed against wharves and knocked about. +There is no fresh paint or bright brass about them, they are grimy +citizens, but are all strong and seaworthy. Sometimes the Captain is +also owner; sometimes one man owns a whole little fleet, of two dredges, +say, and a small tug, named perhaps after wife and daughters, as in one +case I know, the _Nellie_, _Sophia_, and _Doris_. This is the family +venture, followed with as much anxious pride in "our Vessels" as if the +fleet were Cunarders. + +One day what should come up the river but a white schooner, tapering and +tall, and glistening with new masts and cordage, bearing a fairy cargo +of shells and corals. The rare shells, some of them costly museum +pieces, were to be sold to collectors, if any were to be found along our +northern harbors, while others, as beautiful as flowers or sunset +clouds, the children might have for a few pennies. + +The Captain was a young Spaniard, very dark, and as handsome, grave, and +simple in bearing, as a Spanish Captain should be. His men seemed to +adore him, and to obey the turn of his eyelashes. They all gave us a +charming welcome, especially to the children. It was a leisurely and +pleasant little venture. I do not know whether it brought in profit, but +all the town flocked to the schooner, day after day, for the week that +she stayed with us. + +The rafts come down the river when they please. They look about as easy +to manoeuvre as an ice-house, but the flannel-shirted lumbermen who +operate them, two to a raft, seem unconcerned, and scull away at their +long "sweeps," in the apparently hopeless task of keeping their clumsy +craft off the shallows. With the breaking up of the ice, stray logs, +escaped from the holding booms, come down stream. The moment the +ice-cakes are out of the river, even before, you begin to notice shabby +old row-boats tied up and waiting at the mouth of every stream and +"guzzle"; and as soon as a log whirls down amongst the confusion of ice, +you will see boats put out, perhaps with a couple of boys, or else some +old humped-up fellow, in a coat green with age, rowing cross-handed, +nosing out like an old pickerel watching for minnows. The logs that are +missed drift about till they are water-logged, when they sink little by +little, and at last become what are known as "tide-waiters," or +"tide-rollers," _i.e._ snags drifting above, or resting partly on, the +bottom, a menace to vessels. + +There are holding booms at different turns of the river, with odd shabby +little house-boats for the rafts-men moored beside them; and what are +these called but _gundalows_, an old, old "Down-east" corruption of +_gondola_; whether in derision, or in ignorance, is not now known. +Sometimes they are fitted up with some coziness, perhaps with white +curtains and a little fresh paint, and I have even seen geraniums at +their windows. + +Another brand-new schooner, the _William D'Arcy_, tied up at our lumber +wharf this last spring, and lay there for nearly a week. We all went on +board her. She lay at the sheltered side of the wharf, out of the cold +wind, and the sun poured down on her. The smell of salt and cordage was +so strong that you could almost feel the lift of her bows to the swell, +but there she lay, as quiet as if she had never lifted to a wave at all. +The men were at work at various jobs; no one was in a hurry; it plainly +made no difference whether they were two days at the wharf or ten. + +The bulwarks and outside fittings, anchors, hawsers, and hawse-holes, +seemed wonderfully large to our landsman eyes, and the inside fittings, +lockers, etc., as wonderfully small and compact. The enormous masts were +of new yellow Oregon pine. + +The Captain welcomed us hospitably, and took us down into his cabin, +which was fitted with shelves, lockers, and cupboards, neat and compact, +all brand-new and shining with varnish. There was a shelf of books, the +table had a red cover and reading lamp, and the wife's work-basket stood +on it, with some mending. She had gone "upstreet" for her marketing. + +"Oh," said one of us, "it looks so homelike and cozy!" + +The Captain looked round it complacently, but with remembering eyes that +spoke of many things. He had been cruising all winter. + +"It looks so to you," he said, "but often it ain't." + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE BANKS OF THE RIVER + + +The river-bank boys pick up, as easily as they breathe, knowledge as +miscellaneous as the drift piled on the shores. They know all the shoals +and principal eddies, without the aid of buoys. They know the ways and +seasons of the different fish. They learn to recognize the owner's marks +on the logs, and they know the times and ways of all the humbler as well +as the larger river craft, the scows and smacks, and the "gundalows" +which spend mysterious month after month hauled up among the sedges at +the mouths of the streams. Their own row-boats are heavy, square at both +ends, and clumsy to row, but as I have said, they are out in them in the +spring before the floating ice is out of the river, rescuing logs and +fragments of lumber from between the ice-cakes. + +There is a good deal to the business of picking up logs. The price for +returning "strays" to the right owners is ten cents a log (the rate +increasing as you go down stream), and a good many can be towed at once +by a small boat. The price per log rises to twenty-five cents, near the +sea. In times of high freshet, the up-river booms often break, and then +there is a tremendous to-do at the mouth of the river: men, women, and +children, all who can handle or half-handle a dory, are at work at +log-rescuing. Incoming ships have found the surface of the ocean brown +with logs at these times, and have a great work to get through them. + +Logs that have lost their marks are called "scalawags," and these are +sold for the benefit of the log-driving company. Hollow-hearted _pine_ +logs are known by the curious term "concussy," or "conquassy." To show +the immense change in the prices of lumber, the best pine lumber, which +in 1870 was worth ten dollars a thousand feet, is now one hundred +dollars a thousand. + +Now and then a boy takes to the river so strongly that he makes his life +work out of its teachings. The captains and engineers of most of our +river and harbor steamers, and of bigger craft, too, began life as +riverbank boys. Some of them take to fishing in earnest, some become +lumbermen, or go into the Coast-Survey service, or the Rivers and +Harbors; and the winter work on the ice leads to an interesting life for +a good many others. Once in a while one of these boys goes far from +home. We have had word of one and another, serving as pilot or engineer +in Japanese, Brazilian, and East Indian waters. + +The three Tucker brothers, Joel, Reuel, and Amos, three finely-built +men, all worked up to be registered pilots. Joel, the eldest, was pilot +of an ocean-going steamer all his life. He grew very stout, and had a +fine nautical presence, in blue cloth and brass buttons. Reuel was lazy. +He never went higher than small raft-towing tugs, and he often gave up +his work and loafed about, fishing. He was the man who swam five miles +down river, and stopped then because he was bored, not because he was +tired. Amos, the finest of them, a gallant looking fellow, with very +bright blue eyes, was a pilot for a good many years, and then a foreman +in the ice business. He was a man of such shining kindness that he was +always up to the handle in work in the heart of his town, as selectman, +honorary and volunteer overseer of the poor, and helper-out in general. +In a case of all-night nursing, in a poor family, where a man's strength +was needed, Amos was on hand, rubbing his eyes, but watchful and ready. +Once, when a neighbor's wife had to be taken to the Insane Hospital, +Amos undertook the sad task, and his gentleness made it just bearable. +Parents looked to him for help in the care of a bad or unruly boy. + +Then there were the Tracys, who ran--and still run--a queer little ferry +at Jonestown, "according to seasons." When the ice begins to break up +they row the passengers across, somehow, in a heavy flat-boat, between +the ice cakes. Their regular boat, in which they embark wagons and even +a motor, is a large scow pulled across by a chain, with a sail to help +when the wind serves. The Tracys' ferry is, I think, unique for one +regulation; man and wife go as one fare. + +Some of the river bank people are mere squatters. _The_ squatter, as we +called him, _par excellence_, pulled the logs and bits for his dwelling +actually out of the river, as a muskrat collects bits of drift for his +house. He was a Frenchman, and such a house as he built! Part tar-paper, +part bark, part clay bank, the rest logs, barrel-staves, and a few +railroad sleepers. But there he lived, on a tiny level plot under the +railroad bank, so near the river that each spring freshet threatened +entire destruction. He made or acquired a boat that matched his house, +and presently he brought not only his wife and children, but two +brothers and an old mother to live with him. The women contrived some +tiny garden patches on the slopes of the river bank, and with the rich +silt of the stream these throve wonderfully. The men fished, and +"odd-jobbed" about. + +Then came the Great Freshet. Dear me! shall we ever forget it? We woke +one March night to hear every bell in town ringing, while a long ominous +whistle repeated the terrifying signal of the freshet alarm. + +There was a confusion of sounds from the river, wild crashings and +grindings and thunders, as the ice broke up in its full strength, with a +noise almost like cannon. + +The water rose and rose. By daybreak it was up to the shop-counters in +the street, and people paddled in and out of the shops in canoes, +rescuing their goods. The ice-cakes were piled ten feet high on our +unfortunate railroad. Then a great holding-boom broke, a mile up river. +A twenty-foot wall of logs swept round the bend, and the watchers on the +roofs and raised platforms saw it splinter and carry out the Town Bridge +as if it had been kindlings. + +Sheds and boat-houses and wharfing were whirled past all day in the +tumble of ice cakes. Like other people in danger, the Squatter carried +out his gipsy household goods, and moved up town with his family; all +but the old French mother. She would not be moved, but sat in the middle +of the road on a backless chair, watching her dwelling. She could have +done nothing to save it, but nothing could tear her away. The rain +poured all that day and the next. Some one lent her a big broken +umbrella, and there she sat. I could think of nothing but a forlorn old +eaves swallow, watching the place where her mud dwelling was being torn +off. + +By some miracle of the eddy, however, the house stayed intact; but soon +after they all moved away, to safer, and, I believe, more comfortable +quarters. + +The Lamont family lived a mile north of the Town. They had a ramshackle +house and barn, in a bit of open meadow by the mouth of one of the +brooks. You might say of the Lamonts that they were so steeped in river +mud that every bone of them was lazy and easy and slack. There were the +father and mother, and seven children. They were as unkempt and ragged +as could be, but they always seemed cheerful and smiling, and the +younger children were fat as little dumplings. The three eldest were +shambling young men; they and the father seemed perfectly content with a +little fishing and odd-jobbing, and now and then one of them took a turn +as deck-hand or stevedore, or--as a last resort--as farm-hand. The girls +and the mother dug and sold dandelion greens, dock, and thoroughwort and +other old-fashioned simples. + +None of them had ever gone to school a day beyond the time required by +law, and they kept the truant officer busy at that; then all of a sudden +the youngest and fattest Lamont, whose incongruous name was Hernaldo, +appeared at the High School. He was an imperturbable child, and quite +dull, but he worked with a cheerful slow patience. He only held on for a +year, but no one had imagined he could keep on for so long, and he did +not do badly. + +The elders died before the younger children were quite grown, and the +family scattered; one night, after it had been empty a year or two, the +ramshackle house burned, leaving the barn standing. + +One morning about ten years afterwards a radiant being appeared at the +High School, a fat young man in frock coat and tall hat, who came +forward and shook hands effusively. It was Hernaldo Lamont! He was now +_chef_, it appeared, at one of the great California hotels through the +winters, and in Vancouver in summer, at a very large salary. A pretty +girl, charmingly dressed, whom he introduced as his wife, waited +modestly at the door. + +His clothes were quite wonderful. He was shining with soap and with +fashion, and so full of warmth and of pleasure. He brought out colored +photographs of his two fat little children, told of his staff and his +patrons, beamed upon everyone, and showed his pretty wife all about our +plain High School, admiring and reverent. I think that if it had been +Oxford he could not have been prouder, and indeed Oxford could never be +to the average student a place of higher achievement than High School to +a Lamont! + +He was so simple and kindly that I believe he would have taken his wife +to the Lamont shanty as happily. The Lamont barn is still standing, +grown up with tall nettles and dandelions. A farmer uses it for his +extra hay, mowed in the low rich patches of river meadow. Tramps sleep +in the hay, and quantities of barn-swallows flash in and out of the +empty windows. + +Long ago our River was one of the great salmon streams of the country. +In my great grandfather's time agreements between apprentices and +servants, and their employers, held the stipulation that the employees +should not have to eat salmon _above five times in the week_; and the +fish were used for fertilizing the fields. There are none now at all, +and the sturgeon fishing, which in my father's boyhood used to make +summer nights on the River a time of torchlit adventure, is over too, +though still late on a summer afternoon you may see now and then a +silver flash, and hear a crash, as the huge creature jumps; and only +last week two sturgeon of over eight hundred pounds weight each were +brought in right near the Town Bridge. They were caught by two +hard-working lads, and brought them a little fortune, for they were sold +in New York for over $250. + +Not even the flight of the birds from the south, unbelievable in wonder +as this is, is more miraculous than the run of the fish, from the vast +spaces of ocean up all our fresh-water streams for hundreds of miles. +Their bright thousands find their way unerringly, up into the heart of +the country. No one knows whence they come, and save for an occasional +straggler, no one has ever taken salmon or shad or ale-wife in deep +water. We know their passage up-stream, but no one knows when they take +their way down again. + +The smelts run up, when winter is still at its height. They are caught +through holes in the ice. The men build huts of boards or of boughs, +each round his own smelt hole. They build a fire on the ice, or have a +kerosene lantern or lamp, and fish thus all day in fair comfort. They +catch smelts by thousands, so that our town's people, who can eat them +not two hours out of the water, are spoiled for the smelts which are +called fresh in cities. Tom-cod come up a little ahead of the smelts. + +Soon after the ice goes out, while the water is still very rapid and +turgid, the alewives run up, and they are as good eating as smelts, +though too full of bones. They are smoked slightly, but not salted. +About this time, too, the smaller boys begin catching yellow-perch at +the mouths of the brooks. These, and tom-cod, are not thought worth +putting on the market, but they are crisp little fish, and a string of +them, thirteen for twelve cents, makes a good supper.[2] + +Suckers also come with the opening of the brooks. The discovery has been +made lately, that these fish, which New Englanders despise (quite +wrongly, for if well cooked they are firm and good), are prized by the +Jewish population of some of the bigger cities, and bring a good price. +A ton and a half of suckers were shipped from our river this season. + +Our royal fish are the shad, which arrive in the middle of May, when the +woods are all blossoming. The May river is full of their great silvery +squadrons. They are caught at night, in drift nets, by hundreds. Most of +them are shipped away, but our Town must and does eat as many as +possible. One family, who know what they like, practically abjure all +other solid food for the shad season! + +Of all our fish, eels are the most mysterious; for they go _down_ river +to the ocean (out of the fresh water streams and lakes) to spawn, +instead of coming up. No one knows what mysterious depths they +penetrate, but it is said that baby eels are found in one and two +thousand fathoms of water. By midsummer they are about six inches long, +and are running home up the brooks. They wriggle up waterfalls and scale +the sheer faces of dams. They stay three or four years in their inland +home, growing to full size, and in September, the fat grown-up eels run +down the streams again, to spawn in the sea. This is the time when they +are caught at dams and in mill streams, and shipped to the big cities in +quantities. Our biggest paper mill, not long ago, was shut down entirely +because of the eels, which got in through the flumes by hundreds, and +stopped the water wheels. + +The taking of the Acushticook eels is now a regular industry, and this +came about rather sadly. Stephen Mitchell, the millwright of the +Acushticook paper mill, was a fine man, with a turn for inventing. His +ideas were sound and a good many of his mechanical devices turned out +excellently. He became interested in explosives, and worked for a long +time at a new method for capping torpedoes. He had been warned time and +again, and such an intelligent man must have realized perfectly the +danger of work with explosive materials, but one day an accident +happened. There was an explosion which took not only both hands, but his +eyes. + +I think everyone in the town felt sickened by the accident, and by the +prospect of helpless invalidism ahead of a fine active man. But Stephen, +as soon as his wounds healed, began looking for something to do. + +The Acushticook eels had always been fished for in a desultory fashion, +and Stephen cast about for a way to make the fishing amount to more. The +mill owners did all in their power to help him. They gladly gave him the +sole right of the use of the stream, and helped him in building his dam. +He had also a grant from the Legislature. He hired good workers, and for +many years he and his wife, who was a master hand, lived happily and +successfully on their fishery. Sometimes two tons of eels were shipped +in the course of the autumn. + +Stephen always was cheerful. He could see enough difference between +light and darkness to find his way about town, and he was so quick to +recognize voices that you forgot his blindness. He kept among people a +great deal, and was an animated talker at town gatherings. He was an +opinionated man, but a fine and upright one. After his death his widow +kept on with the fishery, and she still runs it with profit. + +----- +[2] Both tom-cod and perch are now shipped to the cities in quantities. + + + + +CHAPTER IV.--THE CAPTAINS + + +You would never think now that tall Indiamen were once built here in our +town, but they were, and sailed hence round the world away, and we too +boasted our wharves, with the once-familiar notice: + +"All ships required to cock-a-bill their yards before lying at this +dock." + +The last ship built in the town was the _Valley Forge_, launched about +1860; the last built at Bowman's Point, two miles above, was the _Two +Brothers_. The _Valley Forge_ for ten whole years was never out of +Eastern waters, plying between China and Sumatra, and the seaports of +the Inland Sea. + +Mr. Peter Simons, one of our early magnates, and "ship's husband," of +many vessels (kind, merry, handsome Mr. Peter, he never was husband to +anyone but his ships), took a treasure voyage to the Spanish Main once, +and brought home a moderate sized treasure, some of the doubloons of +which are preserved in his family to this day. + +Ship-building was the chief industry of the place. There were four +principal ship-yards. The skippers as well as the lumber came from close +at hand. It seems a wonderful thing, in these stay-at-home times, that +keen young lads from the farms could have been, at twenty-one, in +command of full-rigged ships, fearlessly making their way, in prosperous +trade, to places that might as well be in Mars, for all most of us know +of them to-day: but Java and the Spice Islands, Shanghai, Tasmania, and +the Moluccas were household words in those days, and you still hear a +sentence now and then which shows the one-time familiarity of ways which +have passed from our knowledge. + +The portraits at the house of Captain George Annable, the last of our +clipper-ship captains, were painted in Antwerp. So were those (very +queer ones), at Captain Charles Aiken's, and at Captain Andrews'. It +appears now in talk with Captain Annable that _of course_ they were +painted at Antwerp, for that was where the American skippers as a rule +wintered. Living there was better and cheaper for them and their +families than at any other foreign port. It became the custom to winter +at Antwerp, and there grew to be an American society there. + +Captain Annable has crossed the Atlantic sixty-three times, sailing +clipper mail-ships. + +The Captains are nearly all gone now. Little trace of the ship-yards +remains, and even the wharves from which the Indiamen sailed have +rotted, and been replaced by the lumber and coal wharves of to-day; but +all through the countryside you come on touches of the shipping days, +and of the East, as startling as a sudden fragrance of sandalwood in +some old cabinet. At one house I know there is a collection of +butterflies and moths of the Far East, with two cream-colored Atlas +moths eight inches from tip to tip. At another there is a set of +rice-paper paintings of the orders of the Japanese nobility and gentry, +with full insignia of state robes, which ought to be in a museum; and +the parlor of a third neighbor, the gracious widow of a sea-captain, +has, besides carved teak furniture and Chinese embroideries, a set of +carved ivory chessmen fit for a palace. The king and queen stand over +eight inches high. The castles are true elephant-and-castles, and the +pawns are tiny mounted and turbaned warriors, brandishing scimitars. The +figures stand on carved open-work balls-within-balls, four +deep--"Laborious Orient ivory, sphere in sphere"--as delicate as +frost-work. This set was bought in Shanghai, when the foreign compound +still had its guard of soldiers, and the Chinese thronged the doorways +to stare at the "white devils." + +The great gold-figured lacquer cabinet, the pride of one of our +statelier houses, was brought from China a hundred years ago, by a young +Captain Jameson, who was coming home for his wedding. He sailed again +with his bride immediately after the marriage, and their ship never was +heard of. The cabinet was sold, and then sold again, till it finally +reached the setting which fits it so well. + +You find lacquered Indian teapoys, Eastern porcelains, shells and corals +from all round the world far out in scattered farmhouses; and farm-hands +are still summoned to meals by a blast on a conch-shell, a queer note, +not unlike the belling of an elk. + +Beside the actual china and embroideries and carvings, something of the +character bred in the seafaring days has spread, like nourishing silt, +through our countryside. The Captains were grave, quiet men. They had +power of command, and keenness in emergency. Contact with many people of +many nations quickened their perceptions and gave them charming manners; +but more than this, there was something large-minded and tranquil about +them. All their lives they had to deal with an element stronger than +themselves. The next day's work could never be planned or calculated on, +and something of the detached quality which comes from dealing with the +sea, a long and simple perspective towards human affairs, became part of +them. + +An expression of married life, so beautiful that I can never forget it, +came from the lips of the widow of one of our sea-captains, a little old +lady, now over eighty, who lives alone in a tiny brick cottage (where +she has accomplished the almost unique feat of making English ivy +flourish in our sub-arctic climate). She wears a wonderful cap, and +fills her house with quilts and cushions of silk patch-work which would +make a kaleidoscope blink. I had an errand to her about a poorer +neighbor, one Thanksgiving time. Her house is an outlying one, and I +remember how the farm lights, scattered all about our river hills, shone +in the soft autumn evening. + +Her bright warm kitchen was coziness itself, with a shiny stove, full to +the brim with red coals, and a big lamp. She sat with her cat on her +knee, sewing on an orange and green cushion, made in queer little puffs, +and she jumped up, dropping thimble, and spectacles, in her warm-hearted +welcome. After my errand, we fell into talk, about "Cap'n," and their +long voyaging together. That was when the Captains as a matter of course +took their wives, and often their children, with them, keeping a cow on +board for the family's use, and sometimes chickens and pigs. Many babies +who grew to be sturdy citizens were born on the high seas in those days. + +She told about long peaceful days, slipping through the Trades, and +about gales, but mostly about china and pottery, for this was their +hobby, almost their passion. They took inconvenient journeys of great +length to see new potteries, and hoped at last to see all the sea-board +china factories, in East and West. She showed me her treasures, pretty +bits of Sevres, majolica, Doulton, and Wedgewood, all standing together, +and among them an alabaster model of the leaning tower of Pisa (Pysa, +she called it). At last, with a lowered voice, she spoke of the worst +danger they had ever been through, a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal. The +ship lay dismasted, and the waves broke over her helplessness. She was +lifted up and dashed down like a log, and every soul on board expected +only to perish. + +"Cap'n come downstairs to our cabin: + +"Oh, Mary," he says, "if only you was to home! I could die easy if only +you was to home!" + +"I be to home!" I says. "If I had the wings of a dove, I wouldn't be +anywheres but where I be!" + +This ranks with the epitaph at Nantucket: + +"Think what a wife should be, and she was that!" + +Another seafaring friend was, as so often happens, the last person whom +you would ever connect with adventures, a little lady so tiny, so +dainty, that a trip across the lawn with garden gloves and hat, to tie +up her roses, might have been her longest excursion; but instead she has +sailed round and round the world with her courtly sea-captain father, +has lifted her quiet gray eyes to see coral islands and spice islands, +and the strange mountain ranges of the East Indies. + +"She wore white mostly when we were in the Trades or the Tropics," her +father has told me, "and she sat on deck all day, with her white +fancy-work. She always seemed to like whatever was happening." + +One day, in a fog with a heavy sea running, the ship ran on a reef. The +life-saving crew got the men off with great difficulty, but the Captain +refused to leave his post, and little Miss Jessie refused too. + +"No, thank you," she said, in her soft voice, "No, thanks very much, I +think I will stay with the Captain." + +"And you couldn't move her," he said, "any more than the rock of +Gibraltar." + +With the night the storm lessened, and almost by a miracle the ship was +got off safely next morning. + +I must tell of one more seafaring couple, who lived down the river in a +low white cottage where "Captain," retired from service, could watch +vessels passing, even without his handsome brass-bound binoculars, a +much-prized tribute for life-saving. + +The wife was long paralyzed, and the Captain, with the simple-minded +nephew they had adopted, tended her as he might have tended an adored +child. He bought her silk waists, fine aprons, little frills of one sort +or another, fastened them on her with clumsy, loving fingers, and then +would sit back, laughing with pride, while the paralyzed woman, with her +wrecked face, managed to make uncouth sounds of pleasure. + +"Don't she look handsome? Don't she look nice as anybody?" he would ask +of the neighbors, and show the new wig he had bought her, as the poor +hair was thin. His simple pride thought it as beautiful as any young +girl's curls, and indeed it was very youthful. One's heart was wrung, +yet uplifted, too, for here was love which had passed through the +absolute wrecking of life, and was untouched. + +The Captain was a tall hearty man, but it was he who died first, after +all, and all in a minute. The paralyzed creature thus bereaved, moaned, +day after day; her eyes seemed to be asking for something, there in the +room, and no one could find the right thing, till someone thought of the +Captain's binoculars, which he always had by him. From that moment she +became tranquil, and even grew happy again, if only she had the bright +brass thing where her poor hand could touch it. If it was moved, she +moaned for it to be set back. It was her precious token, from his hand +to hers. With it beside her she could wait and be good, poor dear soul, +until, in about two years, her release came, and she went to join +"Captain." + +One word more about Mr. Peter Simons, of whom the town keeps pleasant +memories. He lived handsomely, in a handsome house overlooking the +river, and his housekeeper, Deborah Twycross, was as much of a magnate +in her own way as himself. Mr. Peter was very high with her; but he +stood in awe of her, too. Still, he never would let her engage his +second servant, a privilege which she coveted. + +In his young days a "hired girl" received $2.00 a week wages, if she +could milk, $1.50 if she could not. By the time Mr. Peter was +established in stately bachelor housekeeping no girl was any longer +expected to milk, and few knew how. But when engaging a servant, if he +did not like the applicant's looks, Mr. Peter would say, + +"Can you milk?" + +Of course, she could not, and there the matter would end. He never asked +a girl whose looks he liked, if she could milk! + +He was a man of endless secret benevolence, and posed all the time as a +hard-fisted person and a miser. He was at the most devious pains to +conceal his constant kindnesses. The noble minister who at that time +carried our Town on his young shoulders, received sums of money, in +every time of need, for library, schools, or cases of poverty and +suffering, directed in a variety of elaborately disguised handwritings. +He was able in time to trace them all to Mr. Peter. Many a struggling +young man was set on his feet and established in life by this secret +benefactor; and after Mr. Peter's death, his coal dealer told how for +years he had had orders to deliver loads of coal to this and that family +in distress, after dark, and as noiselessly as possible, under an +agreement of secrecy, enforced by such threats that he never dared +disobey. + +The Town has changed since Mr. Peter's day. Boys no longer brave the +terrors of a visit to a White Witch to have their warts charmed, or a +toothache healed. ("Mother Hatch," who plied her arts some thirty years +ago, was the last of these. Her appliances for fortune-telling were the +correct ones of cards, an ink-well, and a glass to gaze in; but a small +trembling sufferer in knickerbockers--a hero to the still more trembling +group of friends and eggers-on outside--did not benefit by these higher +mysteries. The enchantress, beside her traffic in the black arts, took +in washing; she would withdraw her hands from the suds, and lay a +reeking finger on the offending tooth, the patient gasping and shutting +his terror-stricken eyes while she recited a sufficient incantation.) + +Even the memory of the Whipping-post, which still stood in Mr. Peter's +childhood, has long since vanished. The town bell is no longer rung at +seven in the morning and at noon, and a steam fire-whistle has replaced +the tocsin of alarm that formerly was rung from all the church steeples; +but the curfew still rings every night, at nine in the evening (the bell +which rings it was made by Paul Revere); and, among the customary +Scriptural-sounding offices of fence-viewers, field-drivers, measurers +of wood and bark, etc., the town still has a town crier. A very few +years ago it still had a pound-keeper and hog-reeve, but by now the +outlines of the pound itself have disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER V--BY THE ACUSHTICOOK + + +A smaller river, the Acushticook, tumbles and foams down through the +midst of our town, and brings us the wonderfully soft pure water of a +chain of over twenty lakes and ponds. It flung the hills apart to join +the larger stream which it meets at right angles at the Town Bridge, and +the last mile of its course is through a beautiful small gorge, in a +succession of falls, now compacted into the eight dams which turn our +mills. + +Above the falls, though it breaks into occasional rapids, its course is +quieter, and as you travel towards the setting sun, your canoe follows a +peaceful stream, running for the most part through woods. + +The country along the Acushticook is broken and hilly, woods or open +pastures full of boulders and junipers. The farms depend on their stock +and apple orchards for their prosperity. You see big chicken yards, and +the more enterprising farmers send their eggs and broilers to city +markets. Pigs do well among the apple trees, and most of the farms have +ducks and geese as well as chickens. A well-trodden road follows the +crest of the ridge, parallel to the river. + +The Baxters, good, silent people, live well out on this road, and +handsome Ambrose Baxter has a thriving milk route. Sefami Baxter, his +uncle, worked in the paper mill his whole life, and now his son, young +Sefami, has built up a good market garden business on the Acushticook +road. He started it years ago with a tiny greenhouse, which he built on +to his farm kitchen. He raised tomatoes and other seedlings, and early +lettuce. It was an innovation in our part of the world, and neighbors +shook their heads; but one bit of greenhouse was added to another, and +now Sefami has three long stacks of them and is a prosperous man. He has +a whole field of rhubarb and a large orchard, where he keeps twenty +hives of bees. He had no capital beyond the savings of a plain working +family, and he had to find his market for himself. + +The Drews, now old people, live beyond Ambrose Baxter, and life has been +a more poignant thing for them than for most of the farm neighbors. +Their boy, Lawrence, was born for learning. He _foamed_ to it, as a +stream rushes down hill, and he had the vision and faithfulness which +lead to high and lonely places. The parents were industrious and frugal, +and Lawrence was the channel through which everything they had, mind and +ambitions as well as savings, poured itself out. As a boy, he was all +ardor and eagerness. Now he is a tall careworn man of fifty, unmarried, +with hair and beard streaked with gray. He is a man of importance in +many ways beside that of his own department in a great Western +university. He is a good son, and comes home to the comfortable white +farmhouse for every day in the year that it is possible, but his +parents, of necessity, have had to grow old without him, and their look, +in speaking of him, is one of acceptance, as well as of a high pride. + +Acushticook has changed her course from time to time through the +centuries, and about five miles from town a stretch of flat land which +must once have been either intervale along the river's course or one of +its many small lakes, lies pocketed among the hills. This stretch, which +is very fertile, belongs, or belonged, to the Dunnacks, and they were +surely a family which will be remembered. They never pretended to be +anything more than plain farming people, but they were marked by a +personal dignity and refinement, even fastidiousness, by their +intelligence, and alas, by their many sorrows. Old Warren Dunnack was a +farmer of substance. His son, the Warren Dunnack of our time, was nearly +all his life in charge of the "Homestead" (one of the few country places +in our neighborhood), during the long absence abroad of its owners. He +married a beautiful woman, Sarah Brant. She was a magnificent creature, +in a hard, almost animal sort of way, but was a shallow person, with a +vain nature, coveting show, fine food and clothes, and she broke +Warren's heart. He took her back again and again after her many flights, +for he had an unconquerable chivalry and gentleness for all women, and +he let her have everything that he could earn. + +[Illustration: INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER'S COURSE] + +Lucretia was the beauty of the family, a slip of a girl with eyes like +black diamonds. She married a showy business man, who turned out badly. +She came home, a handsome and embittered older woman, and made life +uncomfortable for herself and everyone else on the farm. Afterwards she +became companion to a widow of some means, a fantastic person, and they +lived together (unharmoniously) all their days. + +Delia, who was so pretty, though not striking like Lucretia, married +silly Ephraim Simmons; but her affection for her brother Warren was the +abiding thing of her life. When Warren's wife left him, and Delia was +offered the position of housekeeper at the Homestead, she took it, and +there she and Warren kept house for fifteen years. Two good-natured +slack daughters (they were all Simmons; not a trace of their mother's +fire in them) helped Ephraim with his farm, and he certainly needed the +money that their mother earned. He was a poor enough farmer; but his +foolish face used to look wistful when he drove the six miles, every +other Saturday, to see Delia. + +Delia, for her part, never seemed anything but clear as to her duty. She +drove over now and then to see Ephraim, and sent her money to him and +the girls, or put it in the bank for them, but her heart clave to her +brother. She kept the long delightfully rambling house, and he kept the +farm, lawns, and gardens, punctiliously in order for the owners who +never came; and the honeysuckles blossomed in the corner of the great +dark hedges, the lilies opened, and the grapes ripened and dropped on +the sunny terraces of the garden as the unmarked years went by. I think +that Delia's life was one of untroubled serenity. Warren was a grave +man, and his trouble with his wife underlay all his days, but with Delia +he found a rare companionship and understanding. Their sitting-room in +the ell of the big house was a gathering place for the farm neighbors. +There was a deep fireplace, a table with a big lamp, a sofa, high-backed +arm-chairs with worsted-work cushions and tidies, and windows filled +with blossoming plants. + +Warren died after a lingering illness, which he met with his usual grave +cheerfulness, and Delia went back to Ephraim on the Acushticook road. +Whatever she thought of the difference between the Homestead and the +bare little farm, between Warren and Ephraim, she met the change with +the charming, half-whimsical philosophy that was hers through life. She +had pretty ways, and an unconquerable sense of fun. She lived to be +nearly eighty. She was a fine, fine woman; delicately organized, but of +such vigorous fibre that she struck her roots deep into life, and gave +out good to everyone who came near her. She was a magnet, drawing people +by her warmth and sweetness. + +It was to poor, good, hard-working John Dunnack that actual tragedy +came. He was a plain dull man, of a far humbler stripe than his +brothers. Misfortune came to his only child, a young adopted daughter. +He lost his place at the mill not long after, from age. He was eighty +years old. It was too much. His mind failed, and he took his own life. + +A cheerful family, the Greenleafs, live next beyond the Dunnacks. They +keep bees on a large scale, and "Greenleaf Honey," in pretty-shaped +glass jars, with a green beech leaf on the label, has had its +established market for two generations. They also grew cherries for +market, nearly as large as damsons. + +Harvey Greenleaf had luck, and has what our people know as "gumption," +and "git-up-and-git," and Mrs. Greenleaf, a fair, ample person, is a +born woman of business. Once a neighbor, a farm hand, who had been +discharged for slackness, planted buckwheat in a small clearing next the +Greenleafs', out of spite. (Buckwheat honey is unmarketable, because of +its marked peculiar flavor, and its dark color.) Harvey was away at the +County Grange Meeting--he was Master of his Grange that year--at the time +it flowered. Two little girls, out picking wild raspberries, brought +word of the trouble. + +"Mis' Greenleaf! Mis' Greenleaf! There's buckwheat in blow at Jasper +Derry's clearing, an' it's full of your bees!" + +Mrs. Greenleaf harnessed up the old white mare herself, and drove over +to the offender's house. No one knows how she dealt with him, but the +buckwheat was cut before night. Harvey chuckles, and says she swung the +scythe herself. Not much harm was done, and only a little of the yield +turned out to have been injured by the buckwheat. + +There are no rules about the planting of buckwheat near bee-hives. It is +a matter of good feeling and neighborliness, and buckwheat is seldom +grown where a neighbor keeps bees for profit; but it is impossible to +guard against the trouble entirely and I have known a whole season's +yield to be discolored with honey brought from buckwheat, nine miles +from the hives. + +One early morning this June, as we were at breakfast on the piazza, a +boy came round the corner of the house, and asked if we wanted "a quart +of wild strawberries, a pint of cream, and a dozen of Mother's fresh +rolls, for forty cents!" We certainly did; and in the driveway we saw +"Mother" waiting in the wagon, an alert-looking woman with a friendly +face. She told us that she was Harvey Greenleaf's daughter-in-law, and +the boy her eldest son. + +"I think there's lots of small extra business that folks can do on the +farms, if they're spry, that sets things ahead a lot," she said, _a +propos_ of the strawberries. + +The rolls were as light as feather, and the cream very thick. We +arranged for the same bargain twice a week while the berry season +lasted! + +In the autumn the same couple came again, this time with vegetables and +fruit, nicely arranged, and with small cakes of fresh cream cheese done +up in waxed paper in neat packages, each package stamped with S. +Greenleaf, Eagle Cliff Farm. This is a new venture in our part of the +country. + +A mile of beautiful pasture, on a big scale, as smooth as an English +down, slopes down from the back of the Greenleafs' farm, rises in a +noble ridge, and slopes again to where the Acushticook sparkles and +dances over some thirty yards of rapids. The turf is close cropped and +there are boulders and groups of half-sized firs and spruces scattered +over the slope. There is a little wood in the upper corner, cool and +shadowy, with a brooklet set deep in mosses, trickling through the +midst. The pasture road leads through the firs and hemlocks, growing +closer and more feathery, then through this wood, where Lady's Slippers +grow. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--SPRING + + +April 3. Last night the river "went out." We were so used, all winter, +to its sleeping whiteness, that it seemed as unlikely to change as the +outlines of the hills; then came a tumultuous week, and now it is a +brown, strong, full-running stream, with swirls and whirlpools of +hastening current all over its wide surface. These are indescribable +days. The air is sweet with wet bark and melting snow and +newly-uncovered earth. The lesser streams are rushing and roaring +through the woods. There are little clear dark foam-topped pools under +all the spouts, and bright drops falling from rocks and roofs, where +there were icicles so lately; and the roads endure miniature floods, +from the torrents of snow-water that gush down their gutters and spread +the mud in fan-shapes over them. Wherever you stand, you cannot get away +from the rushing and trickling and rilling. The whole frozen strength of +winter is breaking up in a wealth of life-giving waters. + +There is a neglected-looking time for the fields just after the snow +goes. The snow-patches recede and leave the soaked grass covered with +odds and ends of loose sticks and roots and with untidy wefts of cobweb. +The dead leaves lie limp and dank, and are of lovely but sad colors, +soft browns and umbers, ash-grays and ash-purples; but in the midst of +this waste the ponds are all awake--dimpling, soft water, tender and +alive--and their bright blue is a new wonder after our winter world of +white and brown and gray. + +Robins came yesterday. Their crisp voices woke us with a start, after +the winter's silence. They were busy all over the lawn, and nearly a +week ago we heard the first blue-birds and meadow-larks. + +The fir boughs that were banked about the houses last fall, for warmth, +must be burnt, and bonfires are being lighted all about the fields and +gardens. They blaze up into a crackling roar of burning brush, and the +smoke comes pouring and creaming out in thick white torrents. The clean, +hilarious smell spreads everywhere, the touch of it clings to our hair +and clothing. This is a wonderful, Indian time for children, when all +sorts of strange inherited knowledge stirs in them. Look at their eyes, +as they play and plan round their fires! + +[Illustration: THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH] + +Cumulus clouds came back, as always, with late winter. Through the +autumn, and early winter, clear days are practically cloudless; and +cloud-masses, cirrus, not cumulus, herald and follow storms; but with +February, the clear-weather summer clouds return. They begin to be trim +again, and marshaled, and take up the ordered leisurely sailing of their +pretty squadrons. + +April 10. + +There is already a general warming and yellowing of twigs. The elm tops +are growing feathery and show a warm brown, and a crimson-coral mist +begins to flush over the low-lying woods, where the swamp maples are in +flower. Pussy-willows are as thick on their twigs as drops after a rain, +and as silvery. You would say at first that nothing had changed yet in +the main forest. The brown aisles and misty dark hollows seem the same, +but no; fringed about the openings and coverts along their borders the +birch and alder catkins are in flower. They are powdery and +gold-colored, and overhead they dangle like the tails of little fairy +sheep against the sky. + +The wild geese woke us in the dark, just before dawn, this morning. Last +year there was a violent snow-storm, a perfect smothering whirl of +flakes, the night they flew over, and the great birds were beaten down +among the house-tops, creakling and honkling in dismay and confusion, +but holding on their way. + +Now at dusk comes the first silvery evening whistling of the frogs, the +peepers. If a cloud passes over the sun, even as early as three in the +afternoon, they start up as if at a signal, all together, and as the sun +shines out again fall instantly silent. + +May 3. + +All this time the green has been spreading and spreading through the +pastures till now it clothes them, and the dandelions are scattered over +them like a king's largesse. Dew falls all winter, but it is in star and +fern shapes of frost; now every morning and evening the thick grass is +pearled again with a million nourishing drops. + +Now rainbow colors begin to show over the hillsides. It is as if a +thousand and a thousand tiny butterflies, pink and cream color and +living green and crimson, had alighted in the woods. Light comes through +them, and they give back light, from the shining, fine down that covers +them. The little leaves are almost like clear jewels against the sun, +beaded all over the twigs. They only make a slightly dotted veil as yet, +they do not hide or screen. You can see as far into the wood-openings as +in winter. The brown stems and branches are as delicate and distinct as +those of a bed of maiden-hair fern. + +The roadside willows are puffs of gold-green smoke, the sapling birches +and quaking aspens like green mounting flames up the hillsides, and the +catkins of the canoe birches shine like the mist of gold sparks from a +rocket. + +The different trees develop by different stages, and each stands out in +turn against its fellows, as if illuminated, before it loses itself in +the growing sea of green. You see its full leafy shape, the mass of each +round top, as at no other time of year; yet the individual habit of +branching is still manifest, as in winter: the long springing sprays of +the swamp maples, the more compact strong branches of the oaks, the +maze-like firm twigs of the hop-hornbeams, lying in whorls and layers. +The branchlets of the beeches are like thorns. The elms are soft brown +spirits of trees throughout the woods; their entire fern-like outline is +silhouetted, and the swamp maples stand like delicate living shapes of +bronze. + +Innocents are out in patches in the pastures, looking as if white powder +had been spilt. Purple and white hepaticas are clustered in crannies of +the rocks, and after a rain mayflowers stand up thick, thick in the +fields, in masses of pink and white fragrance. Blood-root covers whole +banks with snow-white, and dog-tooth violets, littlest of lilies, nod +their yellow-and-brown prettiness over the slopes carpeted with their +strange mottled leaves. + +Shad-bush is out now in fairy white, tasseled over knolls and hillsides +and overhanging wooded banks along the streams. Its opening leaves are +reddish, delicately serrate, and finely downy. The pure white flowers +are loosely starred all over it. They are long-petaled and lightly hung, +and the tree is slender and very pliable, the whole thing suggesting a +delicate raggedness, as if young Spring went lightly on bare feet with +fluttering clothes. + +This is the most fairy-scented time of the whole year. "The wood-bine +spices are wafted abroad," indeed. The willows perfume the lanes with +their intoxicating sweetness; and there is a cool pure dawn-like +fragrance everywhere, from the countless millions of opening leaves, +steeped every night with dew. + +Last week we saw the first swallows. There they skimmed and flew, as if +they had never gone to other skies at all. Their flight is so +effortless, they seem to pour and stream down unseen cataracts of air. +To-day chimney-swallows came, and we watched their endless rippling and +circling. They sailed and wheeled, in little companies or singly, now +twittering and now silent, and from now on all summer the sky will never +be empty of their beautiful activities. + +May 26. + +At last the woods are like a garden of delicate flowers, clothing the +hills as far as eye can see with colors of sunrise. The red-oaks are +gold color, with strong brown stems; ash and lindens are golden green; +maples soft copper and bronze, or deep flesh-color. + +The flower-like delicacy of leafing out is wonderfully prolonged. The +willows come first, then elms, in brown flower, then quaking-asps and +birches, and then maples. Later, lindens and ash-trees catch the light, +and the ash leaves (which grow far apart, and in bunches, with the +flower-buds) are indeed like just-alighted butterflies. The small leaves +are so bright that even in the rain they shine as if a shaft of sunlight +from some unseen break in the clouds were lighting the woods. + +Now long shining leaf buds show among the elm flowers and on the +beeches. The later poplars are cream-white and as downy as velvet. A +wood of maples and poplars is almost a pink-and-white wood; shell-pink, +and palest, most silvery-and-creamy gray. + +The tall gold-colored red-oaks make masses of strong color; and later, +when we think the shimmering of the fairy rainbow is fading, the white +oaks come out in a mist of pale carnation--pink and gray and cream. + +In June, after all the hardwoods have merged into uniform light green, +firs and spruces become jeweled at every point with tips of light, the +new growth for the year. Red pines and white pines are set all over with +candelabra of lighter green, until high on the tops of the seeding white +pines little clusters of finger-slender pale green cones begin to show. + +By this time the forest-flowers have faded through the woods. The +brighter colors of the field-flowers are gay along the roadsides and +over meadows and pastures, and with them Summer has come. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + + +The cross-road under the great leafy ridge of Eastman Hill has pretty +farms along it, and half-way across there is a country burying ground, +where wild plums blossom, and the grave-stones are half hidden all +summer in a green thicket. + +One name in the graveyard we all hold in special honor, that of Serena +Eastman. I never knew her myself, and it is only from her granddaughter +and from the neighbors that I learned of her beautiful life. + +She was a mother in Israel; one of + + "All-Saints--the unknown good that rest + In God's still memory folded deep." + +She brought up eleven children to upright manhood and womanhood, and +beside this a whole neighborhood was nourished from the wells of her +deep nature. She lived and died before the days of trained nurses, and +in addition to her own cares she was the principal nurse of her +countryside. Those were the days when nursing was not and could not be +paid for, but was a priceless gift from neighbor to neighbor. She stood +ready to be up all night, and night after night, to ease pain by her +ministering, or to help to bring a new life into the world; her faith +lifted the spirits of the dying, and of those about to be bereaved, as +if on strong pinions. + +Small-pox was still a terrible scourge in those times, and she was the +only woman in the district who would nurse it. Her granddaughter has +told me how she kept a change of clothes in an out-house, and how she +bathed and dressed there (the only precautions against infection known +to the times), whether in winter or summer, before rejoining her family. +She always drove to and from such cases at night, to run as little +danger as possible of coming in contact with people. Her husband took +the same risks that she did. He drove back and forth, and lent his +strength in lifting and carrying patients. + +They had a large farm, which meant cooking for hired men in the busy +seasons, and beside Serena's eleven children there were older relations +to do for, her husband's father and mother, and one or two unmarried +sisters. She was active in Dorcas society and in meeting. Her +granddaughter feels that only the completeness of her religious life +could have carried her through the fatigues which she underwent. She +lived in that conscious obedience to duty which eliminates friction, and +her view of duty was one taken through wide-opened windows. She walked +with God daily. + +The house of this dear woman burned, not long after she and her husband +died, and only the blossoming lilacs mark its empty cellar-hole, but the +next farm, which belonged to Mr. Eastman's brother, and is now his +nephew's, is a fine one. You drive on to a wide green, as smoothly kept +as a lawn, where three huge trees, a willow and two elms, overhang the +house. There are big comfortable barns and outhouses, a corn-crib and +well-sweep, and the house is square and ample, with two big chimneys. + +Next to the Eastmans', beyond their orchard, comes a neat small farm, +with a long wide stone wall, where grapes are trained, owned once by two +queer old sisters, the Misses Pushard, or as we have it, the Miss +Pushhards. (A Huguenot name, pronounced _Pushaw_ by the older +generation.) They went to Lyceum in their young days, and, a rare thing +then so far in the country, they had a piano. This gave them "a great +shape." Poor ladies, with their piano! Years later they were in +straitened circumstances, and anxious to sell it, but to their +indignation nobody wanted it, or not at the price they thought fitting; +so, one night, they _chopped it up_, and hid the pieces. Thus they were +not left with the instrument on their hands; and they had not accepted +an unworthy price for their treasure. All this was learned years +afterwards from some old papers. The fragments of the piano were found +in the cistern. + +The last farm on the road is owned by Sam Marston and his dear wife, +Susan; who, though you never would think it (except for a little +remaining crispness of speech), was born in England, in Essex, and came +as a young English housemaid--dear me, how long ago now!--to the +Homestead, eight miles away, by the River. Sam Marston worked there in +the stables, and lost his heart promptly, and after four or five years +of characteristic Yankee courting, leisurely, but humorously determined, +Susan made up her mind, and said "yes," and came out to the farm, with +her fresh print gowns, her trimness and stanchness, and her abiding +religion. + +Susan keeps also her fixed ideas of the "quality." She is now a power in +her whole neighborhood. She and Sam, alas, have no children, a great +sorrow, but the young people growing up near her show the reflection of +her uprightness and that of her Sam. But after all these years she is +still an exotic. The Sunday-school which she has gathered about her is +strictly Church of England. The children learn their catechism, and "to +do their duty in life in that station into which it shall please God to +call them"; and they are instructed perfectly clearly as to their +betters! + +The other day we drove out to her farm. We were going to climb Eastman +Hill, after Lady's Slippers, and then were to have supper with Susan. + +The sky was very deep blue, with flocks of little white clouds sailing. +The woods were still all different shades of light and bright green, and +the apple trees were in full blossom. The barn swallows were skimming +and pouring low about the green fields in their effortless flight. I +think I never drove through so smiling a country. + +The house is a long low brick one, with dormer windows, in the midst of +an old orchard. There is a fence and a hedge, and a brick path leads to +the door. There are lilac bushes at the corner of the house, and +cinnamon roses and yellow lilies on each side of the doorway. + +Susan came out, laughing, and nearly crying, with pleasure, to welcome +us. She "jumped" us down with her kind hands, and took all our wraps. We +went as far as the house, asking questions and chattering, and then +Susan showed us our way, an opening in the screen of the woods reached +by a path through the orchard, and stood shading her eyes with her hand +to look after us. + +We followed a bit of mossy old corduroy road, through moist rich woods, +and then began to climb among a wood of beeches. Soon the rock began to +crop out in small cliffs, and we found different treasures, the little +pale pink _corydalis_, a black-and-white creeper's nest in a ferny cleft +between two rocks, quantities of twin-flower, and then, rising a +beech-covered knoll, we came on our first Lady's Slippers. The glade +ahead was thronged with them. They spread their broad light-green leaves +like wings, and their beautiful heads bent proudly. They grew sometimes +singly, sometimes in clumps of fifteen or twenty blossoms, and were +scattered over the whole glade as if a flight of rose-colored +butterflies had just alighted. + +We came on this same sight seven different times; this lovely company +scattered over the slope among the rocks, where the ridge broke out into +low gray pinnacles among the beeches. + +When at last we could make up our minds to climb down, following the +white thread of a waterfall, into the deeper woods, we found Painted +Trilliums, bright white and painted with crimson, with +Jack-in-the-pulpits, both grown to a great size in the rich mould, +amongst a green mist of uncurling ferns. + +The brook which we followed came out at last in an open pasture above +the farm. It was as refreshing as a bath in running water to come out +into the cool, sweet evening air, for the heavy woods were warm, and +there had been quantities of black flies and mosquitoes, which our hands +were too full to fight. Beside all our baskets, our handkerchiefs and +hats were full of flowers. One of our number carried a young cherry +tree, with roots and sod, over his shoulder, and mosses in his pockets, +and the girls had Lady's Slippers and fern roots in their caught-up +skirts. + +The turf was powdered white as snow with Innocents, and there were +violets. The pasture slopes down through dark needle-pointed clumps of +balsam fir, and scattered hawthorn and cherry trees, which were in +flower. A hermit thrush sang from one of the firs as we came down. The +heavenly, pure carillon rang out again and again, as dusk fell deeper, +the singer altering the pitch with each repetition of the song, ringing +one lovely change after another. + +Such a supper was set out on the porch! Fresh rolls and butter, cream +cheese and chicken, jugs of milk and cream, fresh hot gingerbread, and +bowls of wild strawberries. The porch runs out into the orchard, and the +white petals of the apple-blossoms drifted down as we sat laughing and +talking. Susan placed her chair near us, but nothing would induce her to +eat with us, and she jumped up every minute and fluttered into the +house, to press more good things on us. Presently, Sam came in from +milking, and was a fellow-Yankee and a brother at once. + +We could hardly bear to go home, and almost took Sam's offer (which so +scandalized Susan) of a night in the hay in the new barn. It would be so +pretty to lie watching the swallows darting in and out after sunrise. + +We went all through Susan's trim farmhouse, and saw her dairy, with its +airy and spotless arrangements. The milk, thick and yellow with cream, +was in curious blue glass pans, which Susan said came long ago from the +Homestead. We saw all the chickens, the calves, and the black pigs. The +Jerseys blew long breaths at us from their mangers, and the horses put +out their soft noses for sugar. The ducks were quacking and waddling all +over the yard, and the pigeons fluttered about. + +The late veeries and robins were singing, and the warm fragrance of the +apple-blossoms was all about us, as we gathered our treasures together +and drove home in the dusk. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR'S MILLS + + +The two adjoining districts of Ridgefield and Weir's Mills lie about ten +miles to the east of us, in level and fertile farm country, between two +ridges of hills. Ridgefield is an old Roman Catholic settlement. +Twenty-five years ago it still had a prosperous convent, and children +educated in the convent school have gone out all over the country; but +the centre of the farming population shifted, and at last the convent +was closed. The cheerful-faced, black-gowned sisters are all gone. The +bell has been silent for years now, and its tower stands up with blank +windows, nothing more than a strange landmark in the open farming +landscape. + +The Ridgefield Irish were a noted community. They all came from one +county, and were marked to a surprising degree by their personal beauty. +There were Esmonds and Desmonds, Considines, Burkes, and McCanns, and +two names now gone (except for one old representative) Guilfoyles and +Guilshannons. Four lovely Esmond girls of one family are now growing up, +bearing four saints' names--Agatha, Ursula, Patricia, Cecily. + +Honoria Considine walks down our street, beautiful creature that she is, +with a port and carriage that a princess might envy. She has brought up +an orphaned nephew and niece to capability and prosperity, supporting +them entirely by her sewing. The Considines have possessions which show +that they came to this country as something more than farmers. They have +a little old silver, two finely inlaid card-tables in the farm +"best-room," and two larger mahogany tables. They are great +prohibitionists, and would be shocked, good souls, to know that what +they call the "old refrigerator" is a beautifully carved wine-cooler! + +Lawrence McCann and Joe Fitzgerald were two as handsome creatures as +ever were seen, with great dark blue eyes, delicate brows, dark curls, +and mantling Irish color. + +Lawrence died of consumption at twenty-four, as did his cousin, +delightful Con Guilshannon, but Joe did well and married. The other day +I saw him out walking with three little rosy children, all with penciled +eyebrows and very dark blue eyes. + +There lives an old lady in a great western city (I don't give its name) +who ought to wear a crown instead of a bonnet. The town trembles before +her masterful benevolence. Her magnificent house dominates the "best +community," and her six middle-aged married children, established +near-by in houses of equal magnificence, do not dare call their souls +their own. + +A neighbor of mine was in her city last year, and was taken to see her. +The old lady seemed to know an amazing amount, not only about our +far-away eastern State, but about our actual county. She finally showed +such an absorbing interest in particular households that my friend said: + +"But how can you know? How _can_ you have heard about so-and-so?" + +"Child," said the old chieftainess, her fine eyes twinkling and filling, +"My name is no guide to you now, except that it's Irish, but I was born +and brought up in your county. I was an Esmond from Ridgefield, and had +my schooling at the convent, not six miles from your door." + +After Ridgefield, with its deserted convent, you come presently to where +the rolling country is suddenly flung amazingly apart in the chasm-like +valley of the Winding River. Weir's Mills, the village at the head of +navigation, is a pleasant peaceful little place, a very old settlement, +with a noted old church. + +A neighbor of ours, a man now of eighty, has told me that in his +childhood at Weir's Mills, the school had neither paper nor blackboard +nor slates for the children to write on. The teacher smoothed the ashes +of the hearthstone out flat with a shingle, and the children did their +figuring on that. Farmers going into town chalked the figures of their +sales on their beaver hats, and the assessor chalked the taxes up on the +doors. + +The school-teachers were taken to board in turn, two weeks at a time, by +different families; and a friend, now an elderly woman, has told me that +when teaching, as a young girl, she had as a rule to share her bed with +three or four children of the family. In several places the hens slept +in the room too. The schools of course were ungraded. After her teaching +hours she helped in the housework, but she liked it, and made warm +friends. She found the life vigorous and hardy--"It was life that was +every bit of it alive," she has told me. + +It is sometimes said that marriage and divorce are taken lightly in the +country districts, and certainly the Jingroes and their like, of whom +more later, make their gipsy marriages, which bind only at will; but +even among some of our outlying communities of far higher standing than +the forest settlements, it is true that a curious, primitive view of +wedlock often obtains. Marriages in the country are deep as the rock, +enduring as the hills, _once the real mate is found_. The fine, +toil-worn faces of man and wife, in Golden-Wedding and Four-generations +groups in local newspapers, show a thing before which one puts off the +shoes from off one's feet. But, when husband and wife find only misery +in their marriage, find themselves fundamentally at variance, they +quietly "get a bill," (_i. e._ of divorce,) and each is considered free +to marry again. The adjustment, according to their lights, is made +decently and in order; and all cases come quickly before the final court +of public opinion, which in these clear-eyed country districts metes out +an inexorable judgment to lightness, to cowardice or selfishness. + +It is difficult not to mis-state, about so subtle a matter; but the +attitude of these neighborhoods is not a lax one. It is rather as if, in +places so small, where the margin of everything is so narrow, the +tremendous exigencies of life enforce a tolerance which is no conscious +action of men's minds, but a thing larger than themselves, before which +they must bow. Life is so simple and vital, so cleared by necessity of a +million extraneous complexities, that people are able, as one of the +Saints says, to judge the action by the person, not the person by the +action. + +Long ago there was plenty of shipping direct from Weir's Mills to +Boston, and even to-day scows, and a few small schooners, come up +between the hills for hay and wood, up all the windings of the Winding +River, slipping through the draws at the peaceful, pretty hamlets of +Upper, Middle, and Lower Bridge. + +The country about Weir's Mills shows in indefinable ways that you are +approaching the sea. You get the taste of salt, with a south wind, more +often than with us. The roads show sandy, and you see an occasional +clump of sweet bay in the pastures. The pines grow more and more +dwarfed, and so maritime in look that you expect to see blue water and +the masts of ships ten miles before you come to them. We came on another +indication one day, in asking our way of a young girl at a farm door. + +"The second turn to the _west_," she told us. In our part of the county +we do not often think of the points of the compass. "The second turn on +your left," it would have been. + +This is one of our older districts, and a certain amount of +old-fashioned speech remains. Many persons still speak of _ninepence_ +(twelve and a half cents) and a _shilling_ (sixteen and two-thirds +cents). A High School pupil (one of the many boys who walk three or four +miles in to our Town, in all weathers, to get their schooling) brought +in some Mountain Ash berries to the botanical class. _Round-Tree +berries_, he called them, and the master was puzzled, until he realized +that this meant _Rowan Tree_, and that the name had come down straight +from the boy's English forefathers, who picked the rowan berries by +their home streams. + +[Illustration: THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE] + +All through our county, and in our Town itself, among the homelier +neighbors, many of the old strong preterites, which have become obsolete +elsewhere, are still in use. "I _wed_ the garden," for "I _weeded_," "I +_bet_ the carpet"; _riz_ for _raised_, _hove_ for _heaved_; and among +our old established families of substance you may still hear _shew_ for +_showed_ and _clim_ for _climbed_. + +"I _clim_ a little ways up into the rigging," one of our magnates said +to me this very week, speaking of an adventure of his seafaring youth. + +After the Revolution certain of the unfortunate Hessians drifted to the +southern part of our county, and being stranded, poor souls, they made +the best of it, settled and married. They named our town of Dresden. The +Theobalds come from this Hessian stock, the Vannahs, who started as +Werners, the Dockendorffs, and we have a precious although extremely +local seashore name, _Winkiepaw_, which began life as Wenckebach. But +the adaptation of surnames is in process all around us. Uriah Briery's +people used to be _Brieryhurst_; and Samuel Powers has told me that his +grandfather wrote his name in "a queer Frenchy sort of way, he spelled +it _de la Poer_"(!) The Goslines, of whom we have a good sized family, +were _du Gueslins_, not long since, and Alec Duffy, who sounds entirely +Irish, was born _Alexis D'Urfee_. + +A queer old person lived on the Weir's Mills road when we were children. +He had prospered in farming and trade, and was quite a rich man for +those parts. He wanted to be richer still, and all his last years he was +ridden by two chimerical dreams; one, that a piece of his land was to be +bought for a monster hotel, at a fabulous price, and the other that +Captain Kidd's treasure was buried in a small island he owned in the +river. He dug and he dug for it. He had absolute faith in the +superstition that a fork of green wood--perhaps of witch-hazel only, but +I am not sure about this--held firmly in both hands, will point straight +to buried water or buried treasure. He has led us all over his island, +holding the forked stick. + +"There! See him! See him turn!" he would cry out excitedly. "Wild oxen +won't hold him!" The stick certainly turned in his hands, and in ours, +when he placed it right for us. I suppose the wood is so elastic and +springy that, holding it in a certain way you unconsciously turn it +yourself; but it gave a queer feeling. + +This whole district is fragrant with the memory of a saint, Mary Scott. +She was a cripple her whole life. Her shoulders and the upper part of +her body were those of a powerful woman, but her feet and legs were +those of a child, and were withered and useless. She lived all alone +when I knew her, in a tiny neat house. She spent her days in a child's +cart, which she could move about by the wheels with her hands, and she +was most active and busy. + +No one could go through a life of such affliction without untellable +suffering; but Mary's sweet faith never seemed to know that she had a +self at all, still less a crippled self. She had quick skillful hands, +and her absorbing pleasure all through the year was her work for her +Christmas tree. She saved, and her neighbors saved for her, every bit of +tinfoil and silver or gold paper that could be found, and fashioned out +of it bright stars and spangles for trimming. She knitted and knitted, +mittens and stockings and comforters, and when the time came near she +made candy, and corn-balls, and strung popcorn into garlands. The +neighbors all helped her, and good Jacob Damren, at Tresumpscott, always +cut her a tree from his woods and set it up for her; and then on +Christmas Eve the door of her cottage stood open, and the light streamed +out from the bright lighted tree, and the children of the whole district +came thronging in with their parents. + +The tributary streams from this eastern side of our river come in very +quietly. Worromontogus, the largest, is dammed just as it emerges from +its hills, to turn the Wilsons' saw-mill, which was once owned and run +by Mary Scott's father. The mill and mill-pond are in an open, sunny +pocket of the woods. The winding lane which leads in to them is bordered +with elms and willows, and the road is soft underfoot with bark and +sawdust. Feathery elms stand all about the stream's basin, and after you +have followed the road in you reach the weather-stained mill, the logs, +the new-cut lumber, as fragrant as can be, and the great heap of +bright-colored sawdust. Worromontogus drains the pond of the same name, +five miles long, some distance back in the country. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--MARY GUILFOYLE + + +The sun had come out bright after a rain, and every leaf was shining, +the June day when we drove over to Ridgefield to fetch Mary Guilfoyle. +We started early in the morning, but it was already like noon in that +midsummer season. Daisies were powdering the fields, as white as snow, +and yellow and orange hawkweeds were growing in among them, so that +whole fields showed yellow, orange, and white. The orange hawkweed is +very fragrant, and its sweetness mixed with the spicy bitterness of the +daisies. Then, on a knoll as the road rose above the river, we found +patches of bright blue lupins in the yellow and orange and white, making +such a blaze of color as I have never seen before in our northern +fields. + +There were streaks of crimson sorrel in the fields where there were no +daisies, among the ripening June-grass and red-top; all the grasses, and +the fields of grain, were beginning to turn a little tawny, and quick +waves chased each other across them with the light summer wind. + +Mary lives in a scrap of a new house, in a thick wood of young firs and +spruces. The last mile of our road led through these sweet-smelling +trees, which were set all over with light green jewels of new growth. +Grass grew in the ruts, and the moist earth of the wood road was +thronged with yellow butterflies; and tiny "blues," like bits of the sky +come to life, fluttered among the ferns. Breath after breath of +sweetness came from the warm woods in the sunshine. + +Mary was waiting for us at the door, with her knitting in her hand, and +her cat at her skirts. Her small rough fields across the road were +ploughed and planted, and she was ready to come to us. She is a strongly +built old woman with bright blue eyes and yellowish gray hair, sturdy as +a weather-beaten piece of white-oak timber. Many is the time that she +has left our house of an afternoon (in our impossible spring going, too, +with the frost coming out of the ground and the mud a foot deep); walked +out to her farm, six full miles, seen to some detail of farm-work that +worried her, and walked back, arriving before seven the next morning, to +cook our breakfast. + +She works on her farm all summer, planting and hoeing her corn and beans +and potatoes. She has help from the men of the neighborhood when she can +get it, but I believe she follows the plough herself when she is put to +it. In winter she comes into town, and works for households in +difficulties. If the cook deserts us, or we have a sudden influx of +guests or everyone has grippe, we send for Mary Guilfoyle and she sees +us through. She comes into a house like a blast of clear air. Nothing +ruffles her, and her mere presence seems to return its right proportions +and gayety to life. She knows how to work as few people do nowadays, and +she is so sound-hearted and unafraid that there is something royal and +powerful about her. + +Mary's mother was French, and it is from her she gets her gestures. Her +hands move finely, with a dignity and control a duchess might envy, and +they say more than mere words could. And then, her funny expressions! +She is a Roman Catholic, but so far from being a church-goer that I was +surprised, last Easter morning, at seeing her ready for church; and my +surprise was rebuked with, + +[Illustration: PLOUGHING MARY'S FIELD] + +"Child, the heretic and the hangman go to church on this morning!" + +Her speech is unlike anybody else's. Every sentence is vivid, but they +lose their quaint flavor in telling. She is delighted (she is a fine +cook), but excited, too, at getting a "company meal," and loses her +appetite. + +"The cook cannot eat, not if she were at the gates of heaven, at these +times," she puts it. + +She was telling one day of an unfortunate young farm neighbor-- + +"He knelt on a nail, and took lock-jaw. They hoisted him to Portland, +but it warn't of no use. He died in four days. He was a beautiful young +man. Warn't it terrible?" + +Somehow I never fail to see the poor youth caught up in a sheet and +swung through the air the whole journey. + +Mary was born and brought up in the Catholic community at Ridgefield; +but she has spent little time there. Fifty-five years ago, when she was +sixteen, she learned fine sewing and clear-starching at the Great House +of our neighborhood, and then nothing would do but she must seek her +fortune in Boston, where she already had two sisters in service. She +made the voyage in a sailing vessel, a small brig laden with hay. She +found out the name of a first-rate dressmaker, in Temple Place; next she +bought a piece of fine gray cashmere, and cut and made herself a jacket +and dress. Then she presented herself. + +"How do I know you are a seamstress at all?" the dressmaker asked. + +"I cut and made every stitch I have on me." + +"You may go right upstairs, at seven dollars a week, with the others." + +A sweep of the hand illustrated the triumph; seven dollars was fine pay +in those days. + +One of her sisters was cook for many years for Oliver Wendell Holmes. + +("A little man, the face wrinkled"--and Mary's eloquent hands made me see +the Doctor again in person.) He took care of her money for her; and Mary +has often told me how one day, after many years, he said, + +"Now, Anna, you are a rich woman; you need never work again, and can do +what you like." + +She bought a nice little house in one of the suburbs. + +"But a year was all she could stand of it. She couldn't make out to +live, away from the Holmeses, and back she goes to them." + +Mary married at twenty, and lived quietly in Chelsea for five and twenty +years. Then her husband died, and instead of going home to the farm, or +staying on where she was, to take boarders, this born adventurer was off +to see the world. + +"I hadn't seen, not one thing, cooped up there in Chelsea. I wanted to +find out about new things, and new places, whilst I was strong." + +She took a part of her savings, sewed up in the front of her gown, to +fall back on, but her capable hands were the real funds on which she +depended. She traveled to Denver, and there went out to service, and +afterwards worked in a restaurant. She found light work in plenty, and +in between jobs took her heart's fill of sight-seeing. She saw Pike's +Peak and the Grand Canyon. By the end of the winter she had earned +enough to take her to San Francisco. Here she had a sister- and +brother-in-law who ran a good restaurant, and Mary joined forces with +them. A year brim-full of life followed, but after this her two own +sisters, her only surviving near relations, fell ill, and she came home +to nurse them. It was then that she bought her farm, near her old home +in Ridgefield, planning that the three should spend their old age +together. Both sisters, though, died; but my indomitable Mary keeps the +farm almost as well as a man could, and her strong nature, tremendously +intent on the present moment, never feels loneliness. + +As I said, she is not much of a church-goer, but she is devout in her +own way, and plans to go back to San Francisco, to the convent where a +cousin of hers is now Abbess, and there + +"Get ready to die; and a good thing to do, too, first-rate!" + +I never knew anyone so indifferent about dress as Mary; she is quite +pretty in her way, and must always have been so, but she puts on +whatever is nearest at hand, and will hamper her least. It is a fact +that I saw her out in the rain the other day, taking in clothes from the +line, with a length of brown oil-cloth tied about her stout person, by +way of an apron, with marline, and an empty shredded-wheat box, split up +on one side, on her head for a hat. + +The lower meadows were still yellow with the gold of buttercups as we +drove home, and where the swales ran lower and richer we saw tall Canada +Lilies, Loose-strife, and purple and white fringed orchids, in among the +Meadow-rue, and light green ferns and ripening grasses. There was +Blue-eyed Grass, too, and Iris. It was all rich and fragrant, and +butterflies were hovering about the lilies; and as if this were not +enough, a breath of woodsy sweetness, much like the fragrance of Lady's +Slippers, met us from a mixed meadow and cranberry bog, and there were +flocks of rose-pink Arethusas all delicately poised among the grasses. + +Meadow-larks were rising all about, singing their piercingly sweet +notes. The children were picking wild strawberries, and the blackberries +flung out long springing sprays down the perfected June roadways. Their +blossoms are very like small single sweet-briar roses. + +[Illustration: ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND] + + + + +CHAPTER X--TRESUMPSCOTT POND + + +Tresumpscott Pond lies three miles eastward from our river, set deep +between the folds of wooded and rocky hills, and the woods frame it +close. + +You climb the rise of a long slow-mounting hill which at its southern +extremity breaks sharply down in granite ledges, mostly pine-covered, +and there right below you lies this little lonely, perfectly guarded +lake. There is only one opening in the woods, a farm which slopes down +to the shore in two wide fields, with a low rambling farmhouse. There is +no other roof in sight. + +The pond is about a mile long and half as wide. It has the attributes of +a big lake, in little; deep bays up which loons nest, and wooded +headlands, ending in smooth abrupt rocks which enclose small curved +beaches of white sand, as firm and fine as sea sand. The western bay +ends in a river of swamp, and all along the north side the wood screens +a broken wall of fern-grown cliffs, with quantities of columbines among +their crannies. The long slope above the woods is a sheep pasture, +partly under pines and partly open, with ledge and cinquefoil-covered +boulders cropping out in the close turf, and tall mulleins standing all +about like candlesticks. + +The whole locality is rich in treasures, and here on the north side of +the pond is a stretch of mossy glades and openings in the underwood +which are covered with the fairy elegance of maiden-hair fern, the +delicate black stems standing out against the rocks and moss. They grow +under cool rich woods, with pink Lady's Slippers scattered in clumps +among them. + +The farm at Tresumpscott is an ample one, and Jacob Damren, who farms +it, comes of fine stock, and is a big, hearty figure of a man. The Pond +was his father's before him. His wife is a plain little woman, always +clean and trim in fresh cotton print. They say her habitual sadness is +because she has never liked the Pond. She was town-bred, and finds it +utterly lonely, while to Jacob it holds everything that earth can give. + +The land is very fertile and they prospered till well past middle life, +when Jacob met with an accident that was hard to bear. A neglected cut +on his thumb became infected, and soon there was swelling and pain in +the whole hand. No one did the right thing, no one knew what to do +beyond the old-fashioned farm treatments, and after a week of fever the +arm had to go. They said it was only his wife's despairing weeping which +brought him at last to consent to amputation. At first he begged to be +allowed to die sooner than face life again thus maimed. + +He met the blow, once it fell, in a steady manly way, and now has come +well out from under its shadow. A month ago I saw him out with his horse +and drag, getting out stumps, and he was managing this troublesome +business successfully. He smiled a patient, slow smile, as we came up. + +"This comes kind of awkward for a one-armed man!" he called out, but +spoke cheerily, and seemed delighted at the way he was achieving his +stumping. + +They have had other troubles. A son who lived at home and shared the +farm, married a shallow, heartless girl, who left him, and so broke his +heart and his whole hold on life that he could not bear the place +without her, and has led a wandering, broken sort of existence since. +Their other boy, though, is a good son indeed. He is part owner in a +small cooperage and he drives over from week to week, puts in solid help +on the farm, and brings his wife and babies to make cheerful Sundays for +the old people. + +Jacob and his wife love animals. The last time I was over there the +cosset lamb came into the kitchen to ask for milk. Mrs. Damren was +caressing two new red calves as if they were kittens, while Flora, +Jacob's foxhound, and her two velvet-skinned, soft-eyed puppies played +round them. + +We drive over to the pond from time to time for swamp treasures of +different kinds. Jacob has a tumble-down, lichen-covered boathouse where +water-pewees and white-bellied swallows nest, in which he keeps a few of +the worst boats in the world (with ash oars shaped like flattened poles +and heavy as lead), and lets them out to people who come for pickerel or +water-lilies. The whole western end of the pond is a laughing expanse of +water-lilies and yellow Beaver Lilies, with the bright yellow +butterfly-shaped blossoms of bladderwort in among them. Beyond these you +come to a mixture of floating islands, tussocks, intricate channels of +black water, and stretches of shaking cotton grass, which in June and +July hide a host of slim-stemmed rose-colored swamp orchids, _Arethusa_, +_calopogon_, and _pogonia_. You pole and shove your boat between the +floating islands, submerging orchids and cotton-grasses alike in the +black peat water, and beyond them reach the parti-colored velvet of the +peat bog itself. + +Balsam fir grows here, sweet rush and sweet gale, and quantities of +Labrador Tea, with shining dark leaves (of which Thoreau made tea when +camping on Chesuncook) and masses of delicate-stamened white flowers, +which give out a warm resinous sweetness. All around there is the +general bog fragrance of sphagnum and water-lilies, and the woodsy +perfume of the rose-colored orchids. + +Farther in shore, among the balsam firs, the growth dwindles to a +general velvety richness of gem-like green and crimson mosses, +blueberries, and cranberries and huckleberries, the large handsome +maroon-crimson flowers of the Pitcher-Plant, and the little +bright-yellow-flowered Sundew, getting its nourishment from the insects +caught in its sticky crimson filaments. + +The pond is alive all summer with butterflies and birds. We spent a day +there in June, and tried to follow a pair of Carolina rails, which ran +and hid among the cotton-grasses, and ran again, and suddenly vanished +as completely as if they had melted in air. We put up a bittern, but did +not find her nest. Scores of red-wing black-birds had nested in the +clustered bushes of the floating islands. We laid our oars down on the +shaking cotton grass as a sort of bridge and worked our way from island +to island, while a perfect cloud of birds chuckled and wheeled round us, +uttering their guttural warning cries and their fresh "Hock-a-lees!" We +looked into three red-wings' nests, and one king-bird's, all with eggs. +The red-wing's eggs were pale blue, scratched and blotched with black as +if by a child playing with ink and pen, while the king-bird's were a +beautiful cream-color, marked in a circle round the large end with rich +brown blotches. + +As we went on to gather Pitcher-Plants and Sundew, we saw an eagle +fishing over the lonely little lake; saw, too, a thing I have never seen +before or since, for he caught a fish so big it pulled him under. He +vanished out of sight completely, came up with a great flap, and, making +heavy work of it, and flying so low he almost touched the water, he made +off and gained the woods with his prize. + +Besides our orchids and pitcher-plants (we washed the pitchers clear of +insects, and drank from them), we had come for stickle-backs, which are +found in the clear shallows by one of the small beaches. We had a net, +and glass jars. They are such quick darting creatures that it is hard to +get them. They are the liveliest of all pets for an aquarium, and +prosper very fairly in captivity. + +Early in the morning, when we first reached the pond, the bobolinks were +rising and singing all over the lower water meadows, and the mists were +turning to silver in the early sunlight. When we came up from the bog in +the late afternoon the bobolinks were silent, but a mother sand-peep +wheeled and cried about the field, afraid that we would find her +chickens. + +We cooled our hands and faces in the clear water and washed off the +black peat mold, and went up to the farm. Mrs. Damren had fresh +gingerbread for us, and creamy milk, and we sat round a table with a +cheerful red cloth. The room was very homelike, with a good deal of dark +wood, and bright pots and pans. A shot-gun and a rifle hung over the +mantel, the guns poor Jacob will never use again. His hunting dog sat +close to his chair. + +The wife's sorrowful eyes turned always to her husband, but seemed at +the same time to try to guard his empty sleeve from our glances. He, +with a larger patience, was unconscious of it. + +They told us a good thing; that two lads, sons of a minister in a +neighboring town, have built a little camp in Jacob's woods. They come +over often to spend the night, and sometimes stay a week, and are great +company. They come to Jacob for milk, butter, and eggs, and often spend +the evening. The week before they had shot two coons, and they are busy +mounting them, under his directions. + +Jacob's face has a great peace in it, that of a man who has given +everything in him to the place he lives in, and held nothing back. His +beautiful, lonely little holding of wood and field and lake is better, +for the work he has put into it, than when his father left it to him. He +has cleared more fields, enriched the land, and drained the lower +meadows. His son will have it after him. I have seldom seen a place +which seemed more entirely home. + +Jacob had cut the hay in his upper meadow early (he has to take his +son's or a neighbor's help when he can get it), and it was already piled +in sweet-smelling haycocks as we drove by, but the water meadows, where +the purple fringed orchids and loosestrife grow in among the grasses, +were still uncut. It was dusk, and the fireflies were out. Thousands of +them flashed their soft radiance low over the perfumed meadow, and the +fragrance of sweet rush and of the open water came to us from the lake. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS + + +The population of a district can never be classified. Once again, "folks +are folks," and the smallest hamlet shows infinite variety. Yet here and +there the individual quality of a neighborhood seems as marked as that +of the different belts and communities of trees which clothe the land +about it. + +Watson's Hill, Ridgefield, and Weir's Mills are fine up-standing +neighborhoods, with good houses, big barns, fresh paint, and bright milk +cans catching the sun; but in near-by folds of the hills, where the +ridges slope up into higher country, there are poor and scattered farms +and farmhouses which are no more than shanties. A neighborhood six miles +from a big town may be more rustic than another twice as far. It is +partly the soil, partly inheritance, and surely it is a third part +influence. The land of our Silvester's Mills Quakers is not specially +good, but the impulse imparted by three or four industrious good +families is the foundation of its marked prosperity. + +A Swede and an Italian have lately taken up two farms which were +considered quite run out, one in North Ridgefield, six miles from us, +and the other at the top of a long hill on the Tresumpscott Road. + +The Swede asked William Pender, a thin, vague, grumbling man, of whom he +hired the land, + +"How long time to clear these fields of stones?" + +"Ninety-nine years!" said William solemnly. But the Swede, a fair, +strong-built man named Jansen, went to work, with his wife and his three +children. They put on leather aprons, and worked early and late, in +every spare minute that could be taken from planting and cultivating. +(William looked on, from his brother's farm, whither he had retreated, +in a mixture of incredulity, disapprobation and envy.) _They worked in +the rain_; and now, after three years, the farm is clear of stones, and +Jansen owns it clear. He has a thousand hens, and sells his eggs and +broilers at fancy prices in New York; and Mrs. Jansen's lawn and +flower-beds are as gay as those of a neat farm in Holland. + +The Italian farmer is a larger pattern of man. He came here as a young +fellow with no better start than a push-cart, but he came of good +intelligent Tuscan people, and has not only endless industry, but wits +to see, and enterprise to take, all sorts of chances. He did not take +any chances, though, when he married Alice Farrell, the daughter of one +of our best farmers, a strong pretty girl, as industrious as her +husband, and even more intelligent, with a free sort of outlook, and +something kindling about her. Her husband is now the big man of his +neighborhood. The district goes by his name, and he has represented it +in the Legislature. He owns a fine herd of registered Guernseys, and his +apples bring fancy prices. + +A friend of mine, a farmer, once asked one of the great Connecticut +nurserymen to what he attributed the success of the Italians in nursery +work and truck farming. The older man's eyes twinkled. + +"I'll tell you," he said. "They're willing to work in the rain!" + +Our farm conditions are improving, almost while you watch them. The +Agricultural Department of the State University is doing yeoman service. +People are beginning to realize what science is bringing to agriculture, +and the young men are fired by it. They are especially beginning to +realize what ignorance it was to leave so many farms deserted, and to +condemn so much of the land as hopeless and used up. The friend who +asked the question about the Italians said of our own farmers: + +"They stick to their grandfathers' ways, and not to their grandfathers' +enterprise and ambition for improvement." But this statement is fast +coming to be untrue. + +Interspersed, however, among the prosperous districts there are curious, +backward hamlets, where the woods seem to encroach. Their hills shut +them about too closely. Some set of the tide of human affairs, some +change of transportation or of market, cuts off the wholesome currents +of life from them, and they stagnate like cut-off water and become +degenerate. + +There is a sad combination of receding prosperity and a run-out +population in a town a long day's drive from us. Poor place, it has +become bankrupt. Its timber was cut off, and the cooperages, on which +its tiny livelihood depended, moved away. Its farms straggle up the +flanks of a round-topped mountain. Apple-raising might perhaps have +saved it, but either such of its people as had the enterprise for this +moved away, or it possessed none such. The people I saw there looked as +different as possible from our hearty sun-and-air neighbors. Unkempt +faces thronged the dirty windows of farms that were mere shacks. They +looked at once ambitionless and sinister. "Merricktown folks," people of +the neighboring districts say, when tools disappear or robes are stolen +from the sleighs at a Grange supper. + +No Indians are left in our part of the world; but here and there a +family shows marked traces of Indian blood, as old Sile Taylor, beyond +Watson's Hill, a frowsy and hospitable patriarch, whose little black +eyes twinkle with a kind of foxy kindliness. Though none dwell here, +Indians come two or three times a year from the State Reservation, with +snow-shoes, moccasins, and sweet-grass baskets to sell. They make a +yearly pilgrimage to the seashore for the sweet-grass, which grows in +the salt meadows at the mouths of a few rivers. They cut and dry it, and +carry home many hundred pounds for the winter's weaving. The Gabriel +brothers, Joe and Bill, are regular visitors among us, enormous dark +men, with that Indian habit of silence which implies not so much +taciturnity, as a certain tranquil quality. Tranquillity and kindness +seem to flow from the big brothers. They seem untroubled by any need of +speech. + +Then beyond Rattlesnake Hill there are the "Jingroes." They are credited +with being pure-blooded gipsies, and they certainly look it. I do not +know whether they started with a definite Mr. and Mrs. Jingroe or not. +The name is applied to the whole tribe. They live "over back," in +clearings in a wide belt of forest. They are perfectly indolent, but +cheerful, and content with the most primitive farming. + +Once in a while, when things go hard with them, they all set to work, +and weave very good baskets, which they bring in town to sell. You are +met at every street corner by handsome, dark-eyed Mrs. Jingroes, in +kerchief and bright earrings, importuning every passer-by to buy a +basket. + +About once a year a gipsy caravan drives through our town, and stops in +the street on its way. The slim, handsome barefooted children and their +dark square-built mothers are all about. The women bustle from shop to +shop, making small purchases, and pick up a little money by telling +fortunes. + +Once, when the gipsies camped in a rough pasture near town, one of the +children died, and a touching deputation came, to ask permission (which +was of course given) to bury it in the town cemetery. + +Another time, as a caravan drove through the town, I noticed a girl +lying at the back of one of the flimsy, covered wagons, so ill she +seemed to be unconscious. She was a lovely creature, dark and pale, and +her slim body swayed and shook with the shaking of the wheels. I wanted +to call out to the drivers to stop, but the crazy caravan rattled away +at a half-canter, and paid no attention. + +Tresumpscott Pond lies in the midst of our most heavily forested +district. There is no village or hamlet near it, but a handful of little +farms, on tiny clearings or no clearings at all, are scattered through +the woods. + +The dwellers in these forest farms are not people of substance, like the +farmers of the open country near them, but they are intelligent folk, +and are rich in the treasure of a varied and interesting life. The men +of the family are sure to have hunting coats and gaiters,--leather or +canvas; good guns, which they keep well oiled and bright; and most of +them keep a good fox hound or two, whose jubilant music may be heard as +they range through the winter woods with their masters, or on +independent hunting excursions. The boys begin by seven years old to +have trapping enterprises of their own up the little quick forest +brooks, and what looks to the ordinary person like the merest mossy +runnel, hardly a brook at all, may be well known as a drinking-place of +coons, or a haunt where sharp eyes may see a mink. They are sent out to +gather thoroughwort, dill, dock, and other simples, and mosses and roots +for the farm dyeing. (_Cruttles_, or _crottles_, the farm name for the +dark moss growing on ash-trees, makes a fine yellow dye.) They know +where to lie hidden at half past three in the morning on the chance of +seeing a deer, and under which stretch of lily-pads is the best chance +for a pickerel. And not only the boys: I know a girl on a farm, whose +grown-up brother has such confidence in her marksmanship, that he will +shake an apple-tree, while she nicks the falling apples with her rifle. +They make use of a far greater number of wild plants than are known to +the farmers of the more open country, as "greens," cooking and eating +young milk-weed stalks, shepherd's purse, and the uncurling fronds of +the _Osmundas_ and other great ferns, which they call "fiddle-heads." + +They grow up sinewy and alert, under this eager life, and the best of +them attain, beside their farm knowledge, to the undefinable huntsman's +knowledge, which sets its mark on a man. Their bearing is confident and +fearless, and with it they have a certain forest quality on which it is +hard to lay a finger. It is noticeable that the greater part of the +families who cleave to this forest way of life are apt to be of dark +complexion. It is a great pity that most of them can get so little +schooling, but they have all been educated, since they were little, in a +training which certainly develops and intensifies some of man's best +powers. + +[Illustration: THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES] + +The deep tranquil woods cover the rise and fall of the ridges for a good +stretch of miles, and a good deal of hunting and trapping is to be had +in them. Last month we came on fresh raccoon tracks, like prints of +little hands, in the leaf mould of the wood road, and coons are often +shot here. One day, as we were walking, there was a great growling and +barking from our dogs, and we found that they had treed a porcupine. + +In my Grandfather's time, sheep had to be driven at night to the tops of +the hills, because of the bears in the Tresumpscott woods; and only two +years ago there was an outcry among the farmers because sheep were being +killed. Everybody watched his neighbor's dog, but Oliver Newcomb, who +lives on a little farm in the heart of the forest tract, coming home at +dusk up the wood road, heard a growling and snarling, and came on a +great Bay Lynx, the only one seen in this part of the country for many +years. Oliver is a man who is almost never seen without his gun, and he +shot the marauder, and got twenty-five dollars for the skin, a real +windfall for a young man on a small forest farm, with wife to keep and +five children. The skin was mounted, and set up in the library of the +Soldiers' Home. + +The Bay Lynx is a much longer, more panther-like creature than our +common Canada Lynx (the _Loup Cervier_ or Bob-cat), and is of a general +bay color, not unlike that of the Mountain Lion of the West. I have +wondered if this might not be the panther or "painter" which was the +terror of our Northern woods to early settlers. + +"Big Game" has increased greatly in our State of late years, partly from +the enforcement of strict game laws, partly because the wolves have +nearly all been killed off. Deer are so common as to be a menace to +crops in some places, and there are at least three thriving beaver +colonies in our part of the State. + +In 1868 my father, driving on a fishing trip through a town sixty-five +miles north of us, was shown a pair of blanched moose antlers, set up +over the sign-post at the cross-roads. + +"Look at that well," the stage driver said. "That's a sight you'll never +see again, not in this State!" + +To-day, as every hunter knows, moose are plentiful, all through the +two-thirds of the State that lies under forest; and not only there, for +this very autumn three have been seen in the Tresumpscott woods, while +both last year and this, a black bear has spent several weeks in our +neighborhood. + +Muskrat are found in Tresumpscott Pond and its small tributary streams, +hares and partridges and foxes all through its woods. Black duck, and +sometimes wood duck, breed about the Pond, and Carolina rails; and where +the brooks that feed the Pond spread out into broad estuaries of alder +covert, you may see the marked flight of snipe or woodcock. + +It was in these woods that Jerome Mitchell, our local authority on game +and fur (a very fair naturalist, also), grew up. He is a slender, +well-knit fellow, whose mother had great ambitions for him. He walked +into town, five miles and back, every day, to get one year in the High +School, after his country schooling. He could not afford any more, but +when he was seventeen, having picked up a knowledge of taxidermy and +simple mechanics, he moved into town. He worked early and late with +dogged patience, taking every smallest job that offered, till at last he +realized his ambition, and opened a small, but good sportsmen's and +general repair shop. Gradually he picked up the fur trade of the +neighborhood. He is anxiously fair, and boys from the farms soon began +to bring in skunk, squirrel, and muskrat skins, and every little while a +fox or a coon. + +Last year Jerome ran into hard luck. A stranger, a good-looking man, +brought in an extra fine looking lot of muskrat skins. There were $600 +worth, and this was a low figure for them. It was a serious venture, +still Jerome took them; they turned out, however, to be stolen goods, +and he had to pay the rightful owner, as the stranger was nowhere to be +found. Poor Jerome! he was near tears when he told my father about it. +Then, when he just had his store new painted and set in order for the +summer's trade, someone dropped a lighted match among the shavings, and +the whole stock and fixtures were in a blaze. + +This loss turned out to be not so serious. Jerome worked nearly all +night for a week, and made better fittings than he had had before. The +wholesale dealers were generous, and the shop re-opened with the best +outfit of goods that it has had at all. + +Now a good windfall has come to him. A rural mail-carrier brought word +of a silver fox which had been trapped on a farm fifteen miles out in +the country. Jerome only waited to telegraph to a big fur dealer for +whom he works, who has lately established a fox farm, and started off at +once. He found even better than he had hoped. The fox was a perfect +young male, coal black, and hardly scratched by the trap. + +In the recent craze over fox-raising, as much as ten thousand dollars +has been paid, in our State, for a first-rate black fox. Of course +Jerome would only get a commission, but this was the first big chance +that had come to him and he was beside himself with anxiety lest it +miscarry. It was a sharp February night, but he slept in the barn beside +his prize, and the next morning drove home, dreading every drift and +thank-you-ma'am, for fear they might upset, and the slight crate that +held the fox might break. + +That night he slept on the floor of his shop, wrapping himself in the +sleigh robes. The fox ate the meat given him with a good appetite, and +curled up contentedly enough to sleep; but as the first grayness began +to show before dawn, he stood up, bristling a little, and barked, a +far-away, lonely sound, Jerome said. The next day he was forwarded to +the dealer in safety. + +My father has shot and hunted all about this region, going on snow-shoes +after foxes and hares in winter, with one of the forest +farmers--generally one of the Huntingtons--as guide or companion; coming +into the warm dark farm kitchen for a warm-up before the long ride or +drive home. The Huntingtons always had good dogs. Bugle, a fox-hound +famous through the countryside, belonged to them. + +John Huntington is the man whom neither bee nor wasp will sting. He is +sent for all about to take away troublesome hornets' nests, which he +simply tears down and pulls to pieces with his bare hands. Some hornets +built a huge nest over the door of the stable at the Homestead not long +ago, just where the men come and go for milking. One of the farm men +wanted to take a torch and smoke it out, but Thomas Burnham, the farmer +in charge, sent all the way over to Tresumpscott for John Huntington. He +came, a silent, dark, shambling man; looked at the nest, nodded, asked +for a ladder, climbed up, and unconcernedly pulled the whole thing down, +while the furious hornets swarmed over his uncovered face and hands. He +reached a finger down his neck, first on one side, then the other, and +took out handfuls of them, and scraped them off where they had crawled +up his sleeves. He tore the nest up, threw it on the ground, and stamped +on it, and with few words went back to his farm. + +I have never heard any adequate explanation of this phenomenon. Some +people say that persons having this power have a distinctive odor about +them, which wasps and bees dislike, and others ascribe it only to an +entire fearlessness and unconcern. + +Sam Huntington, John's younger brother, is a handsome, strong, +slender-built fellow, taller than John and even darker. It was Sam who +showed my father, one day out snipe shooting, what a _bee line_ really +means, and how to take one, and find the bee-tree. You catch two wild +bees, and attach a bit of cotton wool, big enough to mark the bee's +flight, to each; let the first bee go, getting the line of his flight +well, then walk on two or three hundred yards, and let the second go, +taking note equally carefully. Where the two lines intersect is the +bee-tree and the hidden treasure of wild honey. + +Sitting in Jacob Damren's clover field one day, my father showed me how +to find bumble-bee honey. We sat still, and watched the fat bee go his +buzzing way from head to head of red clover. At last he had honey +enough, and off he started on a swifter, straighter flight, but he was +heavy with honey, and we could easily follow. He did not go far, but +swung on a long slant to his hole in the ground. We dug where he entered +(he emerged, part way through the process, very angry and buzzing) and +about six inches down we found the honey cells. There was a lump or +cluster of them, perhaps half as big as your hand. They were longer than +the cells of honey bees; not hexagonal like these, but roughly +cylindrical, dark brown, and full of very good, clear, dark brown honey. + +Tresumpscott Pond is a great haunt of whippoorwills. As dusk begins to +fringe the coverts of the wood, they begin their strange, almost ghostly +chorus, like the swift whistling of a rod through the air, powerful and +regular, "whip," and "whip," and "whip" again, answering each other all +night. I noticed the time of their first notes, one night in early July. +The voices of the veeries fell away, and then stopped, at quarter past +eight, and at quarter of nine the first whippoorwill struck up, and was +instantly answered. (I have known them to begin sharp at eight o'clock, +or even earlier.) + +It is extremely hard to see the birds themselves, for they lie hid all +day in the deep woods, sleeping. Like owls, they seem unable to see well +if roused by daylight. At night they gather close about the farms, one +perhaps on the roof of the barn, and one or two on a fence (sitting +always _lengthwise_ to their perch, never across), and sometimes you can +see their shape silhouetted against the sky. Last May, a whippoorwill +was bewildered in a sudden gale, and did not get back to the woods, but +spent the day sound asleep in broad sunlight on the railing of a +balcony, right in the midst of our town. I stood within four feet of +him. He is a strange-shaped bird, with whiskers like a cat's, and a flat +head; about the size of a small hawk, and mottled, like his cousin the +night-hawk, with gray and white markings like those of rocks and +lichens, or of some of the larger moths. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--HARVEST + + +In late September an errand took us out to Sam Marston's again. We +wanted a quantity of early farm things, sweet cider, Porter apples, and +honey. + +The woods were in a flame of fiery color as we drove out through the +intricacies of the river hills. They glowed like beds of tulips, with +only the dark evergreens to set them off, and turned our whole country +into a huge flower garden. + +The crops had all been very good this season. Hay and grain were both +heavy, and the apple trees had to be propped, the branches were so +loaded with fruit. Our own grapes bore heavily. + +The early apples were just gathering when we reached the farm, amongst +all sorts of pleasant orchard sounds, the rumble of apples poured from +bushel baskets into barrels, the squeak of the cider mill, and the men +talking at work. The large new orchard of Bellefleurs is hand-picked, in +the modern method; each apple is wrapped in paper, and the fruit has its +special first-rate market; but Sam is not going to take his father's old +miscellaneous orchard in hand until next year, and here he and his men +were picking and piling in the old wholesale fashion. The sweet-smelling +pyramids stood waist-high under the trees. + +Sam scrambled down his ladder, and shouted to Susan, who came out from +her baking with her hands white with flour. The last time we came, we +had seen only the house and dairy; now we must see the farm, and we +strolled together through the sunny orchard and then were taken to the +apple cellar, where the filled barrels stood in close ranks already. The +cellar was fragrant with them. Susan's own special apples, Snows, +Strawberries, and Porters, were at one side. + +"Has to have 'em!" Sam said. "Every farm book tells you how mixed apples +can't pay, and hinder the farm, but come Grange suppers and church +suppers, and young folks happening in, and Fair times, if Susan couldn't +have her mixed fruit, she'd think we might full as well be at the +Town-Farm." + +The root cellar, smelling earthy, was next the apple cellar, and here +Sam had a few beets and carrots, in neat bins, but the greater part of +the roots were still undug. + +The cider-mill was at the edge of the orchard, with piles of windfall +apples beside it; Sam turned a fresh jug-full for us to drink, and then +filled our cans. + +After this we had to see all Susan's pets. There were two handsome +collies; and a yellow house cat, and a great black barn cat, on stiff +terms with each other, came and rubbed against us with arched backs. +There were the ducks and geese, and tumbler pigeons, fluttering down in +great haste when Susan scattered corn. The newest pet was a raccoon. He +was in the tool-room of the barn, nibbling corn. He steadied the ear as +he ate, with little hands as careful as a child's. He looked sly and +mischievous, and sidled away as we came in, looking up at us with bright +eyes. He wore a little collar, and dragged a short length of chain, so +that the pigeons could hear him coming; but he was not confined in any +way, and seemed entirely happy and at home about the barn. + +"Pretty fellow, then," said Susan, scratching his handsome fur. "But +he's a scamp, he is. Only to think, what happened to my pies, last +baking! I'd made a quantity, both mince and pumpkin, and if this rascal +doesn't slip into the pantry, eat all he can hold, and mark the rest of +the pies all over with his little hands, and throw them on the floor!" + +She asked if we had ever seen a raccoon with a piece of meat. We had +not, and she fetched a bit from the ice chest and gave it to her pet. He +took it in his little hands, went to his water dish, and _washed_ the +meat thoroughly, sousing it up and down till it was almost a pulp, +before he swallowed it. Susan said that raccoons, wild or tame, will +always do this, with all animal food; mouse or mole or grasshopper, they +will not touch it till they have washed it well, and will go hungry +rather than eat unwashed food. Sam, who knows the woods like the back of +his hand, confirmed this. + +"Souse it in a brook, they will, till they have it soggy. They won't eat +it till then." + +While we were looking, a morose-looking old man drove into the yard. He +checked his horse, and sat gazing straight before him with a wooden +expression. + +"Hullo, Uncle!" said Sam. "Come for apples?" + +The old man shook his head, but said nothing. + +"Cider?" said Sam. + +He shook his head also at this, and at every other suggestion, and never +opened his lips. After a while Sam, who seemed to know his ways, nodded +cheerfully, said, "Well, tell us when you get ready to!" and turned +towards the house. + +The old man waited till he had gone twenty feet, and then said +grudgingly: + +"I come to see that there cow. You finish with your company! I'll wait." + +"That's old Ammi Peaslee," Susan whispered. "He always acts odd. Oh, no, +no relation; everyone on the road calls him Uncle: 'Uncle Batch' when +he's not round." + +"He didn't mean to be a batch" (bachelor), she went on reflectively; and +then with some shamefacedness, she told us how Mr. Peaselee had once +been engaged to be married to Miss Charity Jordan (who lived alone in +the big brick Jordan house at the corner) for twenty-five long years. +One day the lady's roof needed shingling, and she called on her suitor +to shingle it. ("She never could bear to spend money, nor he either, and +it's a fact that neither one of them had much to spend!") + +He did it, and did a good job; but afterwards, thinking it but right and +fair, he brought a set of shirts for his sweetheart to make. + +"She made them, _and she sent him in a bill_; and he paid it, and never +spoke to her again from that day to this, and that is fifteen years ago. + +"Now hear me gossip! I am fairly ashamed!" Susan cried out. + +The barn was sweet with hay. Part of the season's pumpkins were piled in +the grain room, and lit up the dusk with their dark gold. Some of them +still lay in golden piles in the barn-yard. The ears of corn, yellow and +red, lay in separate heaps. + +"I miss Mother!" Susan said (she spoke of Sam's mother, who had passed +on the year before). "She saw to all the pretty things about the farm. +She used to hang the corn in patterns on the ceiling-hooks, red and +yellow. She'd place the onions in amongst the corn, in ropes or bunches, +and contrive all kinds of pretty notions." + +Susan sighed, and called the two collies to her, and patted and fondled +their heads. As I said before, she and Sam have no children. + +Sam went to get our honey, saying that he should be stung to death, and +never mourned for, for nobody missed a left-handed fellar; and Susan +took us into the house, and brought out doughnuts, a pumpkin pie, and +cream so thick that it could hardly be skimmed. + +When Sam came back with the honey there was a to-do, for Susan's Jersey +calf, outside in the orchard, had tangled itself in its rope, and fallen +and sprained its shoulder. The little creature was trembling all over. +Susan rubbed in fresh goose-oil, while Sam asked if she "didn't want he +should get him up a nice pair of crutches." + +For our cranberries, we were to go on a mile further, to a farm on the +slope of the next hill, the Pennys'. + +"The old woman's deaf, but you can make her hear by shouting. Most +likely she'll be the only one of the folks at home. They're odd folks," +Susan called, shading her eyes to look after us, after Sam had succeeded +in packing our purchases in the wagon, laughing and talking about the +way Noah filled the ark, and Susan had given my little sister a wistful +kiss. + +The Pennys' was an out-of-the-way place. The farm was on the northern +slope of a hill, the house a tiny unpainted one, weathered almost to +black. The corn was standing among the golden pumpkins in stacks that +looked like huddled witches. A wild grapevine grew over the shed, but +the grapes were already shriveled. + +Old Mrs. Penny was shriveled too, and witch-like, and she was smoking a +pipe. It was hard to make her understand what we wanted, but at last she +came out, with a checked shawl held over her head, and pointed out a +path which led through a thicket and across the flank of the hills, to +the cranberry bog in the hollow. + +[Illustration: THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN +STACKS THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES] + +Mrs. Penny, Jr., was squatted down among the swamp mosses, picking +cranberries into sacks. She was a fat Indian-looking woman, and two dark +little girls, pretty, and also like Indians, with black hair neatly +parted, were at work with her. They were delighted to sell their +berries. + +The swamp glowed like a Turkey carpet. The cranberry vines and +huckleberry bushes were pure crimson, the black alder berries scarlet, +and the ferns burnt-orange. Just beyond us, in the velvet of the swamp, +was a pond, across which the wind ruffled; living blue, with tawny +rushes around it. + +As we came back, a hunter, in a leather jacket, with his gun on his +shoulder and partridges hanging out of his pockets, stepped out of the +woods on the path just ahead of us. This was old Mrs. Penny's son Jason. +The open season had not begun yet, but the farm looked a hard place for +a living, and we saw no need of telling, in town, that the Penny family +had partridge for supper. + +We had a long quiet drive home. It had been so extraordinarily warm, all +through early September, that we saw a fine second crop of hay being got +in, in a low-lying meadow bordered by thick woods, part of which must +have been an old lake-bottom. The grass was heavy, and a good many fresh +haycocks were made and standing already, as if in July. The solitary +mower rested on his scythe to watch us, and then went on, though the +dusk was fast deepening. + +We stopped when we came to Height of Land, to look out over the painted +woods. They flamed round us to the horizon. + +Later the moon rose, in the half-blue, half-dusk, and presently shone on +a white mist-lake, over the low land through which we were then passing. +The mist was rising, and wreathing the colored woods with white. Next +came two more hills, and then another mist-lake in the moonlight. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--WATSON'S HILL + + +By October of this year the fires of September had sunk to a rich +smouldering glow. The rolling woods, as far as the eye could see, were +masses of dusky gold and wine-color. There was actual smoke, too, pale +blue in the hollows, from many forest fires. + +Nearly all of October was Indian Summer. Every day there was a soft +golden haze, just veiling the yellow of the woods, and the days were +warm and still, like midsummer, but with a kind of mellow peacefulness. + +We spent a whole day out on Watson's Hill, watching the distant smoke of +forest fires, and listening to the different Autumn sounds, the ring of +axes from the wooded part of the hill, an occasional shot, the tapping +of woodpeckers, and the friendly chirruping of chickadees and juncos. +The bare hill-top was steeped in sunshine. The checkerberries and +beechnuts were just ripe, and very good. We built our fire on a +flat-topped, lichened rock, and found water to drink in a little tarn +among the russet and tawny ferns and cotton-grasses, fed by a spring +which stirred and dimpled the surface. + +Driving home, at dusk, we passed field after field of Indian Warriors, +corn-stacks, all looking the same way, with golden pumpkins among them; +and suddenly, over the eastern ridge, the great round yellow Hunter's +Moon rose. + +It was strange, later, to see the oaks and sugar maples, towers of +_gold_, instead of towers of green, in the moonlight. + +A few days later we had a three days' storm of rain and heavy wind, and +then the golden harvest lay on the ground. It was heaped and piled along +the roadsides in winrows, through which the children scuffed and +frolicked. + +(The leaves in the town streets are burned, which is a waste, but if we +were so thrifty as to keep them we should lose the autumn bonfires. I +counted fourteen about the different streets, one evening, each with a +glow lighting up the dusk, and giving out an indescribable +sweet-and-acrid smell as the smoke poured out in cream-white swirls, +almost thick enough to be felt. The men in charge of them looked black +against the blaze, and a flock of children were scampering about each +fire.) The day after the rain the leaves lay all through the woods like +a yellow carpet, and threw up actual light. In some places they had +fallen in lines and patterns, and, wet with rain and autumn dew, they +gave out fragrance which was as sweet as wine. + +Late in October there was sudden illness at a friend's house. Every +nurse in town was busy already, and we drove out to see if we could get +Marcia Watson, at Watson's Hill. Marcia is not a graduate nurse, but she +knows what a sick woman wants, and what a sick household, paralyzed by +the illness of its head, must have, and can set the whole stricken +machinery in order again. She is a tiny creature, as merry as a +squirrel, with quick, tranquil ways. + +The Watson's Hill district is six miles east of us. The Hill is a +beech-wooded ridge, rocky through its whole length, and curving almost +enough to suggest an amphitheatre. A good farming region lies spread out +below it, and there is a village nucleus, a store, the Grange Hall, and +a meeting-house. The hall was burnt, two years ago, and the whole +neighborhood set to work to rebuild it. They had fifteen-cent +entertainments and peanut parties, and sales of aprons and cooked food. +The men did the building, giving their time, and the women cooked for +the men, and this fall the last shingle of the substantial new building +was laid. + +The only mill for many miles is the corn-cannery. Corn-husking always +brings farm neighbors together; sweet corn, for canning, is husked in +August, fodder corn in late October. Families come to husk for each +other, and the wide barn floors where they sit are piled high with +husks; but in the districts near a cannery, as here, the whole community +gathers. In good weather the work is all done out of doors, and the +laughing and chatting groups, men, women, and children, sit up to their +waists in husks. The stoves and kitchens of neighbors are all +pre-empted, and the women bake and fry, and come bustling out to the +workers with milk, bread and cheese, pies and doughnuts. + +Here, at Watson's Hill, as at nearly every farm village in our part of +the world, the neighbors meet for the weekly dance, which is as much a +matter of course as church on Sundays. It would be hard to describe +adequately the friendliness and complete sociableness of these +neighborhood gatherings. Old and middle-aged and young are called by +their first names, and everybody dances; not round dances, but the +beautiful old country dances, which, transplanted over seas and carried +down a century, still show their quality, and keep something of the +courtly nature of the great houses in France and England where they had +their stately beginnings: a quality that gives a certain true social +training. Everyone in the hall is truly in company. Hands must be given +and glances met, all round the dance, and awkwardness and shyness are +quickly danced out of existence. + +We have the Lancers, the Tempest, the Lady of the Lake, and various +quadrilles. They cannot now perhaps be called exactly stately. + +"Balance to partners!" calls out old Abel Tarbox, master of ceremonies +of the Grange Hall, as he fiddles. + +"Balance to partner! Swing the same! All sashy!" And then comes the +splendid romp of, + +"Eight hands round!" and "Eight hands down the middle!" + +Besides the old court dances, there are Pop Goes the Weasel, Money Musk, +Hull's Victory, and others, pretty, intricate frolics, which in their +day were the _dernier cri_ of fashion, danced by gilded youth in great +cities, velvet coat and ruffles, flowered silk petticoat, and spangled +fan. + +The Chorus Jig is very difficult. It has "contra-corners," and other +mysteries impossible to uninitiated feet. + +When money is to be raised for some neighborhood purpose partners for +the evening are chosen in what I should think might be a trying, though +a most practical fashion. On one Saturday evening the ladies, on the +next the gentlemen, are put up for auction as partners, the price paid +being in peanuts. A popular partner will sometimes bring as much as a +hundred and twenty-five peanuts; and why little Alfred Stoddard, who +never did anything in his life but get a musical degree at some tiny +college (there are even those who say that he bought the degree), who +reads catalogues and nurses his dignity while his wife works the farm, +should regularly fetch this fancy price, I never could see. + +"Oh, well!" says Sam Marston, "Alfred has them handsome, mournful dark +eyes. The ladies can't resist 'em." + +The three Watson farms lie to the east of the hill, right under its +rocky ledges, and are sheltered by it; indeed the whole of the beautiful +rounded valley which they occupy is rimmed entirely by low abrupt hills. +It must be an old lake bottom, for the last remnant of the lake, a pond +a hundred yards or so long, still sparkles bright blue in the midst of +it. + +Forty years ago Tristam Watson, with his wife and four children, three +boys, and Marcia, the youngest, went north two hundred miles, to the +Aroostook, when that region still lay under heavy forest. He built his +cabin among the first-growth pines, and cleared and planted among the +trees, burning and uprooting the stumps gradually, as he could. It was +pioneer life, with no roads and almost no neighbors. Bear and moose were +common, and deer more than common, and there were wolves in a hard +winter; but he was a hardy, vigorous man with hardy children, and he did +well. + +He had no idea of cutting himself and his family off from their home +ties. Nothing of the sort. The railroad ran only a short part of the +way, and they could not afford that part, but every year they hitched up +and _drove_ home, the whole distance. It took them about five days. They +had a little home-made tent, and they built their fire and set up their +gipsy housekeeping each night beside the road. If it rained, "why then +it rained," Marcia says. The year was marked by this flight; it was +their great adventure, and apparently a perfect frolic, at least for the +children. They stayed two or three weeks, saw all the "folks," and went +back to their strenuous forest life. + +Tristam died at about sixty, and the family came home, and took up the +three beautiful farms left to the sons by their grandparents. The two +elder sons married, the third stayed with his mother and sister. + +Not long after they came back, Marcia fell ill. There was a badly +aggravated strain, and she had measles and bronchitis, and after that, +as we say in the country, she "commenced ailing." She changed in a year +from a blooming girl to the little thin, white-faced woman she is now +(though her black eyes never stopped twinkling). + +A long illness on an isolated farm is a bad thing for more than bodily +health. The Rural Free Delivery and Rural Telephone, and the lengthening +trolley lines, are bringing the most wholesome stir imaginable after the +old colorless days; but in old times the outlying farms too often held +pitiful brooding figures of women, sunk in depression. Marcia's terror +was lest she should fall under this shadow. She had seen only too many +such cases, and the fear was beginning to realize itself, she often has +told me; but from its very danger her mind, fundamentally sane and +vigorous, plucked out its salvation. First absorbed in her own ailments, +she began to question her doctor about the cure of other diseases. Soon +she asked him for books on medicine. She read and studied, and then one +day she asked him to take her to see a suffering neighbor. To humor her, +he did, and almost at once, ill as she still was, she began to help +nursing patients on the neighboring farms. Once her mind took hold of +work, it cleared itself as the sky clears of clouds when the wind blows. +It was like a slender but vigorous-fibred little tree reaching out and +finding life-giving soil for itself. I do not believe she has an ounce +of extra strength, even now, and she is by no means always free from +pain, but she can do her work, and for five years she has been the most +sought-after nurse in half the county. + +She has an imp's fun (and had, even when she was most ill) and can make +a groaning patient laugh, as she lays on hot compresses. As we drove +home that day in October, she told me how she had been outwitting her +brother. (He is a handsome blond-bearded fellow, with what is rare on +the farms, a carriage as erect as a soldier's. He is far slower-natured +than Marcia.) + +"He's been real tardy, this year, in getting the hams smoked, and he put +off building a smoke-house. He was all for hauling his lumber. Nothing +would do but that lumber must be hauled first, whether the pigs were +smoked, or whether they flew; and there were Mother and I in want of our +bacon." + +He started out with the lumber. The moment his back was turned Marcia +pounced on his brand-new chicken coop ("he fusses like a woman buying a +bonnet, over his chicken coops"), which was just finished and right, and +smoked the meat for herself. + +"That man was fairly annoyed!" she told me demurely. + +Last spring the brother and sister shingled the barn roof together. +Leonard, the brother, was deliberate and painstaking, and Marcia in +triumph nailed his coat-tails to the roof, according to the time-honored +privilege of the shingle-nailer, if the shingle-layer lets himself get +caught up with. + +It was from Marcia and her brother that I first heard the expression +"var," for balsam fir. This is our general country term; but I do not +know whether this is a survival of some older form, or a corruption. +Here in the Watson Hill neighborhood I have also heard the old-fashioned +word "suent," meaning convenient, suitable, so familiar in dialect +stories of Somersetshire and Devon. + +It was well past the fall of the year before we drove Marcia home again, +and a wild autumn storm of wind and heavy rain had carried away all but +the last of the hanging leaves. The shores of the ponds and rivers +showed clear ashes-and-slate colors, and clear dark grays, but the +fields were the pale russet which lasts all winter under the snow. Beech +leaves were still hanging, a beautiful tender fawn color, and, of +course, oak leaves, and the gray birches were like puffs of pale yellow +smoke in among the purple and ashen woods. Crab-apples still hung, +withered red, on the trees, and the hips of the wild roses and haws of +the hawthorns, and the black alder berries, made little blurs of scarlet +in the swamps. Here and there the road dipped through small copses, bare +of leaves, where there were masses of clematis, carrying its tufts of +soft gray fluff, entwined among the bushes, and milkweed pods, just +letting out their shining silver-white silk. Witch-hazel was in flower +all through the woods. + +The evergreens showed up everywhere, in delicate vigorous beauty, and we +counted unguessed masses of pine among the hills. I think we always +expect a little sadness with the fall of the leaves, but instead there +is a sense of elation, with the greater spread of light and the wider +views opening everywhere. The wood roads showed more plainly than in +summer, and paths stood out green across the fields. The tender +unveiling of autumn had revealed the hidden topography of the forest, +and countless small ravines and slopes were suddenly made plain. There +were smaller, friendly revelations, too, for we came here and there, on +large and small nests, and saw where the vireos and warblers had had +their tiny housekeeping. + +Late ploughing was over, and hauling had begun. We passed a good many +loads of potatoes and apples, on their way to the railroad, and then a +load of wood, and one of balsam fir boughs, for banking the houses. The +wood was drawn by a pair of handsome black and cream-white oxen, and the +boughs by a pair of "old natives," plain red brown. The potatoes and +fruit must all be hauled before the cold is too great. + +For the last three miles before the land opens out into the Watson +farms, the hills are covered with low woods, above which rises the +pointed head of Rattlesnake Hill, the only high land in sight. The woods +were like purplish fur over the hillsides, and nearer showed countless +perfect rounded gray rods and wands, like fine strokes of a brush. There +was a great shining of wet rocks and mossy places. It was one of those +still late-autumn mornings, perfectly clear after the rain, when the air +is as fragrant and full of life as in spring. + +Longfellow Pond lies in a hollow of the woods, three miles from +anywhere, a beautiful little wild wooded place, three-quarters of a mile +long, where wild duck come. Alas! when we came near, a portable saw-mill +was at work close to the shore! A high pile of warm-colored sawdust rose +already in the beautiful green of the pine wood. They had just felled +three big pines, and the new-cut butts showed white among the masses of +lopped branches. + +[Illustration: LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS] + +The stretch of wooded country about the pond lies in a belt or fold +between two prosperous farming districts, and has its own population, a +gipsy-looking set, living in the woods in little shacks, half-farmhouse, +half-shanty, with a few straggling chickens. The men of this place were +working for the operator of the saw-mill. It was dinner-time when we +came by, and half a dozen lithe dark young men were sitting about on the +log ends, eating their dinner, which some little dusky children had +brought them in pails and odd dishes. + +We walked down between the stacks of fragrant new-cut lumber to the edge +of the pond, which lay between its wooded shores, as blue as the sky, +sparkling in the sunshine. We could make out three duck at the farther +end of it. It is a pity to have the fine growth of pine cut, but it +grows fast again with us. Nobody cares for the lesser hard wood growths +in such an over-forested State as ours, and once the saw-mill is gone, +the pond will probably stay its wild lonely self, perhaps for ages. + +The last day that Marcia was with us she wanted to see the river, and we +went down and found the flood tide making strongly, two or three gulls +sailing peacefully about, and a late coal barge being towed down against +the tide. We had three days of still deep frost after this, and the next +day when I went down to a hill overlooking one of the most beautiful +reaches of the river, there it lay, a transparent gray mirror, not to +move again until April. All the colors of the banks were pearl and +ashen. Though it lay so still, it whispered and talked to itself +incessantly. There were little ringing gurgles, like the sound of a +glass water-hammer; now tinklings, now the fall of a tiny crystal +avalanche; with occasional deeper soft boomings and resoundings, and all +the time a whispered swish-swish along the banks, the sound of the soft +breaking and fall of the shell ice as the tide ebbed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--EARLY WINTER. + + +Like the inside of a pearl; like the inside of a star-sapphire; like a +rainbow at twilight. We are in a white world, and save for the rich +warmth of the pines and hemlocks there is no color stronger than the +delicate penciling of the woods; but the whiteness is softened all day +by a frost-haze which the sunlight turns into silver. The horizon is +veiled with smoke-color and tender opal. It is as if the world retired +for a little to a space of softened sunrise colors, never hard or sharp; +lovely and unearthly as the clouds. We are so well to the north that in +winter we enter the sub-arctic borderland, the shadowy-twilight regions +of the two ends of the earth. + +It is a very still time of year, there is a wonderful uplifting quiet. +The sun burns low in the south, a mass of soft white fire, not blinding +as in summer; its light plainly that of a great low-hanging star. + +This is the dark season; but to make up for the shortness of the days we +are given such glories of sunrise and sunset, and such a glittering +brilliancy of stars, as come at no other time. All summer these belong +to farmers, shepherds, and sailors; but now even slug-abeds can be out +before first light, and watch the great stars fade, and dawn grow, and +then come back to that cozy and exciting feast, breakfast by candle and +fire light. + +You step out into the frosty dark, with Venus pulsing and burning like a +great lamp, and the snow luminous around you. The stars are like +diamonds, and the sky black, and lo! there is the Dipper, straight +overhead. It is night, yet not night, because of the whiteness of the +snow, and because the air is already alive with the coming morning. The +snow crunches sharply underfoot. The dry air tickles and tingles and +makes you cough. The street lamps are still bright, and here and there +the lighted windows of other early risers show a cheerful yellow in the +snow. It is a friendly time of day. Neighbors call good-morning to each +other in the dark, and sleigh-bells jingle past. Then you come home to +the firelight and the gay-lighted breakfast table, with dawn stealing up +fast, like lamplight spreading from the bright crack under a door. + +As the first shafts of sunlight strike across, they light up a million +frost-crystals. The air is alive with them, on all sides, delicate star +and wheel shapes, flashing like diamonds. This beautiful phenomenon +lasts only about half an hour. The fairy crystals, light as the air, +floating about you, vanish, but the snow continues to flash softly, from +countless tiny stars and facets, all day. + +Frost mists hover all day about our valley, the breath of the sleeping +river. They are drawn through our streets all day in veils and wisps of +softness. Smoke and steam clouds hold their shape long in the winter +temperatures. At night the smoke from the chimneys curls up in pale blue +columns in the rarefied air, against the dark but clear blue of the +winter night sky. By day the steam puffs from the locomotives rise +pinky-buff, or almost gold-color, and keep their shape for a few moments +as firm as thunderheads. + +This year, mid-winter for the sun is the moon's midsummer. The full moon +rises and sets so far to the north that she completes full +three-quarters of the circle. At night she rides at the zenith, high and +small, and the snow fields seem illimitable and remote under her lonely +light. The expanse of snow so increases both sun and moon light that she +seems to rise while it is still broad day; and still to be shining with +full silver, in her unwonted northern station, after broad day again, at +dawn. + +We share some of the phenomena of light of the polar regions. Moon +rainbows are sometimes seen at night; and as this is the season of most +frequent mock suns--_par-helia_--so also mock +moons--_par-selenes_--half-nebulous, massed effects of softly bright +radiance, appear on the hovering frost mists; and sharply outlined lunar +halos herald snowstorms. + +Indeed the greatly increased extent of snow-expanse magnifies all +effects of light extraordinarily. + +At sunset, softened colors, "peach-blossom and dove-color," like the +bands of a wide and diffused rainbow, appear in the _east_; this is the +sunset light, caught by the snowfields, and reflected on the eastern +clouds and mists. Not only this; the "old moon in the new moon's arms," +instead of being a blank mass, as in summer, is darkly luminous, so +greatly has the earth-shine on the moon been magnified. + +A winter night is never really dark. Thanks to the rarefied air, the +stars burn and blaze as at no other season; Sirius appearing to sparkle +with an even bluer light than in summer. You can tell time by a small +watch, easily, by starlight, with no other aid but the diffused glimmer +of the snow fields. + +The other morning an errand took my brother and me out early over the +long hill that makes the Height of Land to the west. There must have +been an amazing fall of frost-dew the night before, for we saw a sight +which I shall never forget; not only the twigs and the branches, but the +actual trunks of the trees, the stone-walls, and the roadside +shrubberies and seed-vessels, frosted with crystals like fern-fronds, +two inches or more long. There is a wood of pines at the crest of the +hill, and here not a green needle showed, not one bit of bark; the trees +rose pure white against the pure blue sky, over the white skyline of the +hill. Looking out over the country, all the woods were silver; +silver-white where the light took them, silver-gray in shadow. Light +flashed round us everywhere, so that it was almost dazzling, yet it was +softened light; stars, not diamonds. + +Once the snow comes, the neighborhood settles to a certain happy quiet. +It is as if winter laid a strong arm about us, encircling and soothing. +The dry air sparkles like wine. Dusk falls early; the wood fires on the +hearths burn bright, and the evenings beside them are never too long. It +is a neighborly time, and the long peaceful hours of work bring a sense +of achievement. + +Out on the farms, the year's supply of wood is being cut. This, with +hauling the hay, and ice-cutting, makes the chief winter work; and the +men who are out chopping all day in the woods become hardy indeed. + +[Illustration: ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY] + +Ice-cutting on the river begins in January. The wide hollow of the river +valley is so white that the men and horses moving up and down stand out +in warm color; the strange snow silence makes an almost palpable +background to the cheerful and sharp sounds of work, the ring of metal, +the squeak of leather, the men's shouts and talk, and the steady roar +which goes up from the ice ploughs and cutters. There are small portable +forges here and there for mending tools, at the fires of which the men +heat their coffee. The ice-cakes are clear blue, and they are lifted out +and started up the run in leisurely procession. Directly the first +cutting is made you have the startling sight of a field of bright blue +living water in the midst of the whiteness; while along the shore, the +rising tide often overflows the shore ice, in pools and rivulets, the +color of yellow-green jade. + +The work is done with heavy steel tools. First the ice must be marked, +then planed to a smooth surface, then grooved more deeply, and for the +last few inches sawed by hand with long ice-saws. It is pleasant work on +sunny days, and the men, who have mostly come in from the farms, like +its sociableness; but often the wind sweeps down the valley bitterly +cold, and then it is very severe, especially the work of keeping the +canals open at night. The ice generally runs to about two feet thick. + +The ice-business in our valley has fallen off since the formation of the +Ice Trust and the increased use of artificial ice. A great part of our +ice fields are only held in reserve now, in case the more southern ice +fails, but it still makes a winter harvest for us. The river towns must +always have their own ice, and the farmers who cut it get good pay for +their work and that of their horses. They speak of the work entirely in +farm terms. They "cultivate" the ice, and "harvest" the "crop." + +Last week we made an expedition across country to where the beautiful +little chain of the Assimasqua ponds and streams lies between the ranges +of Maple Hill on the west, and Wrenn's Mountain on the east; and there, +on Upper Assimasqua, was the same phenomenon of frost-crystals which we +saw on Dunnack Hill, only here it was on the ice. We thought at first +the pond was covered with snow, but as we walked out on it, we saw it +was frost, in such ice-flowers as I have never seen before. They were +like clusters of crystal fern-fronds, each frond an inch and a half to +two inches long. At first these flowers were scattered in clusters about +six inches apart over the black ice, but farther on they ran together +into a solid field of silver, a miniature forest of flashing fern or +palm fronds, so delicate and light it seemed as if they must bend with +the breeze. They outlined each crack in the ice with close garlands. We +could hardly bear to crush them as we walked through them. + +The four Assimasqua Ponds lie low between hills that are heavily wooded, +mostly with beech and hemlock. The shores are high and irregular and jut +out in narrow points, and these and the islands have small cliffs, of +gnarled and twisted strata, which the hemlocks overhang, in masses of +feathery green. + +There was something appealing and endearing in the beauty of this little +forest chain of lakes and streams, lying still and white between its +wooded shores. We crossed its wide surface on foot, and followed up the +course of the stream which whirled and tumbled so, only a month ago. +Every tiny reach and channel was ours to explore. It was as quiet as a +child lying asleep. + +We built a fire on the south shore of a headland, where a curve of the +gnarled cliffs enclosed a tiny beach, cooked bacon, and heated coffee. +Twenty yards from the shore there was a round hole, some eight inches +across, of black dimpling water. It had not been cut, but was natural, +being, I suppose, over a warm spring. The ice was so strong around it +that we could drink from it. + +It was so warm in the sun that we sat about bareheaded and barehanded, +yet not a frost-needle melted. The sunlight glinted on the hemlock +needles, all the way up the hillsides, and a balsamy sweetness seemed to +be all about us, mixed with the pungent smoke of our wood fire. + +The chickadees were busy all round us, making little bright chirrupy +sounds. We could hear blue-jays calling, deeper in the woods, and the +occasional "crake, crake, crake," of a blue nuthatch. The dry winter +woods cracked and the pond rang and gurgled with pretty hollow noises. +The hemlocks had fruited heavily, and were hung all over with little +bright brown cones, like Christmas trees. They seem to give out fragrant +sunny health all winter, a dry thrifty vigor. + +We did not see a soul on all the Upper Ponds, and only fox tracks ran in +and out of the marsh-grasses of the stream, but on Lower Assimasqua +there were men cutting wood. They were cutting out beech and white and +yellow birch for firewood, and leaving the hemlock, which grew very +thick here. The cut wood stood about the slope in neatly piled +bright-colored stacks, with colored chips among the fallen branches, and +the axe blows rang sharp and musical in the winter silence. The men, who +were good-looking fellows, wore woolen or corduroy, with high moccasins, +and their sheepskin and mackinaw coats were thrown aside on the snow. +There were five or six of them, mostly young men, and one handsome older +man, with hawk features and a bright color, silver hair and beard, and +bright warm brown eyes. They had bread, doughnuts, and pie for their +dinner, and a jug of cider. + +The Lower is the largest of the four ponds. It is, perhaps, three miles +long by a mile wide, but it seemed almost limitless, under the snow, and +we felt like pygmy creatures, walking in the midst, with the unbroken +level stretching away around us. + +The sky was deepening into indescribable colors, peacock blue, peacock +gray, and in the middle of the expanse, over the woods, we saw the great +full moon, just rising clear out of the violet and opal tenebrae, the +fringes of the sky. She was as pale as a bubble, or as the palest pink +summer cloud, but gathered color fast, then poured her floods of silver. +The whiteness of the pond glimmered more and more strangely as dusk +increased. + +We came home, stiff and happy, to a great wood fire, piled in a wide and +deep fireplace, and to a room of firelight and evergreen-scented +shadows. + +That night a light rain fell, then turned to a busy snow-storm, which +fell for hours on the wet surfaces in thick soft-falling flakes, so that +by the next morning the world was a fairy forest of white. The trees +bent down under their feathery load. Wonderful low intricately crossed +branches were everywhere. Each littlest grove and clump of shrubbery +became a dense thicket of white. This fairy forest was close, close +round us, so that each street seemed magical and unfamiliar, a place +that we had never seen before. It was a perfectly hushed world. Our +footsteps made no sound, and even the masses from the overladen branches +came down silently. Everything but whiteness was obliterated; then at +night the moon came out clear again, and lighted up this fairy world, +and the white spirits of trees stood up against the gray-black sky. + +Ten days after this there followed a great ice-storm, when for two days +rain fell incessantly, and, as it fell, covered the twigs and branches +with crystal. It cleared on the third morning, and instead of white, we +were in a world of diamond. The dazzling brilliancy was almost more than +the eye could bear. Every blade of grass and seed-vessel was changed to +a crystal jewel, and the breeze set them tinkling. The sky was fairy +blue. The woods and all the fields flashed round us as we walked almost +spell-bound through their strange beauty. The wonder was that the whole +star-like world did not clash and ring as if with silver harp music. + +As the sun rose higher, the country was veiled with frost haze, but +through it, and beyond, we saw the shining of the crust on all the +distant hills. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON + + +Assimasqua Mountain rises abruptly to the west of the four ponds, a +noble hill or range, five miles in length. + +The west shore of the Assimasqua lakes sweeps abruptly up to the high +crest of the ridge, which is very irregular. It is partly wooded, partly +half-grown-up pasture, partly ledge, and along the high grassy summit +small chasms open and lead away into deep woods of hemlock. The steep +east side is covered for most of its length with an amazing growth of +juniper, hundreds and hundreds of close-massed bushes of great size and +thickness. The ridge holds a number of little dark mountain tarns, and +half a dozen good brooks tumble down its sides in small cascades. The +folds of its forest skirts broaden out to the west into the bottom lands +at its feet. To the east, the valleys of the brooks deepen and sharpen +into ravines through the woods, as they draw near the lakes. + +The shores all about the four lakes, as I said, are heavily wooded, and +there are but one or two farms, and these only small clearings. A +singular person lived in one of them, who worked for years over a great +invention, a boat which was to utilize the wind by means of a windmill, +which in turn worked a small paddle-wheel. No one now knows whether he +had never heard of such a thing as a sail, or merely thought sails +dangerous. He was absorbed in his project; and he did get his boat to +go, in time, and at least a few times she trundled a clumsy course +around the lake. + +Near the south end of the Mountain is the old Hale place. Mr. Hale was a +gentle-looking man, very neat, with a quiet voice and ways. He kept his +wide fields finely cultivated, and had a large orchard, and twelve +Jersey cows. The lane through which they filed home at night is enclosed +between the two mightiest stump fences I have ever seen, fully ten feet +high, and a perfect wilderness to climb over. They look like the +brandished arms of witches, or like enormous antlers, against the sky, +and are thickly fringed all along their base with delicate Dicksonia +fern. Stump fences are fast becoming rare with us, and these must be the +over-turned stumps of first-growth pine. + +After Mr. and Mrs. Hale died, the farm passed to a sister, Mrs. Wrenn, +and when her husband, too, died--he had been a slack man, with no hold on +anything--she made the fatal mistake, too common among old people on the +farms, of making over the property to a kinsman (in this case, a married +step-niece and her husband) on condition of support. I never knew Mrs. +Wrenn, but a young farmer's wife, a friend of mine, was anxious about +her troubles, and through her there came to our notice an incident which +seemed to light up the whole gray region of the farm. + +The neighbors began to hear rumors of neglect and abuse. Mrs. Wrenn was +never seen, and those who knew the skinflint ways of her entertainers +suspected trouble and presently confided their fears to the young doctor +of the neighborhood. He came at once, and found the poor soul in a fatal +illness, left alone in unspeakable dirt and squalor in a sort of +out-house, with unwashed bed-clothes, no one to feed or tend her, and +food which she could not touch put roughly beside her once a day. There +were signs too of actual rough handling. + +"Don't try to make me live!" the old lady whispered, with command and +entreaty. "Don't ye dare to keep me living," and he assured her solemnly +that he would not, except in reason, and would only make her more +comfortable. He rated the bad woman in charge till he had her well +frightened, and then, though it was not only dark already, but raining +fast (and though he was poor himself, with his way to make and no +financial backing) he drove five miles to town and brought back and +installed a nurse at his own expense. + +"The tears were running down his cheeks," the nurse herself told me, +"when he assured that poor old creature that either he or I would be +with her day and night, that we would never leave her, and she would be +safe with us. He paid my charges, and all supplies and food, out of his +own pocket. He saw her every day, and when her release came, he was +close beside her, and had her hand in his. He couldn't have been more +tender to his own mother. And he gave that bad woman a part of what she +deserved." + +I should like to say something more of this young physician. He started +as a farm boy, with no capital beyond insight and purpose, and skilled +hands, and was led to his career, or rather could not keep himself from +his career, because of the fire of pity and tenderness that possessed +him. He has come to honor and recognition now, but at the time of which +I write, and for years, he was known only to a thirty-mile circle of +farm people, a good part of them too poor to pay for any services. He +gave himself to them, without knowing that he was giving anything. He +was a born citizen, too, served as overseer of the poor, and as +selectman, and people consulted him about their quarrels and troubles. + +I spoke of the incident about Mrs. Wrenn, which the nurse had told me a +year or more after it happened, to the doctor's wife, some weeks since. +He had never told her of it. Her eyes filled with tears. + +"That is just like him," she said. + +The Ridge slopes down to the west, to the rich plains through which the +Marston communities are scattered--Marston Centre, North and West +Marston, Marston Plains. The "Four Marstons" are a notable district, for +Marston Academy had the luck to be founded, nearly a hundred years ago, +by persons of liberal education, and the dwellers in the comfortable +four-square brick houses of the neighborhood have more than kept up its +intellectual traditions; though the town has no railroad communication, +and only one mill, the shovel factory, since the old saw-mill which cut +the first-growth pines on the slopes of Assimasqua has been given up. + +The Marston saw-mill is chiefly remembered because of Hiram Andros, who +worked there as sawyer for forty-five years, and had the name of the +best judge of timber in the State. The _sawyer's_ is a notable position. +He himself does no actual work, but stands near the saw, and in the +brief moment when each log is run on to the carriage, holds up the +requisite number of fingers to show whether it is to be a three, a four, +or five-inch timber, or cut into boards or planks; which cut will make +the best use of the log, with the least waste. The sawyer gets high pay, +six to ten dollars a day, and earns it, for on his single judgment, +delivered in that fraction of a minute, the mill's prosperity hangs. + +What is it that gives a town so distinct a color and fibre? Marston +people have kept, generation after generation, a fine flavor and +distinction. They are in touch with the world, in the best sense, and +men of science and leaders of thought in university life, as well as +business magnates, have gone out from Marston, yet still feel they +belong there. + +Eliphalet Marston, who built and owned the shovel factory, made it his +study to produce the best shovel that could be made, the best wearing, +the soundest. In later life his son tried to induce him to go about +through the country, and look up his customers, to increase trade. The +son was very emphatic; it was what everyone did, the only way to keep +up-to-date and advertise the business, and Eliphalet must not become +moss-grown. He shook his head, but after much hammering started off, +though not really persuaded. He went to a big wholesale dealer in +Chicago, but did not mention his name, merely said he was there to talk +shovels. + +"Don't mention shovels to me," said the dealer. "There's just one shovel +that's worth having, just one that's honest, and that's the one that I'm +handling. There it is," he said, producing it. "Look at it; that's the +only _shovel_ that's made in this country; made by a man named Marston, +at Marston Plains, State of ----" + +Eliphalet chuckled, and went home. + +The Barnards were Marston people, a brilliant but strange family; and +next door to the Barnards lived a remarkable woman, Miss Persis Wayland. +She was a tall handsome person, of a large frame. She lived to a great +age, passing all her later life alone, save for one attendant, in her +father's large house, with its gardens and hedges around it. She was +well-to-do, and dressed with old-fashioned stateliness in heavy black +silk. + +She was a woman of fine understanding, and a trained scholar. She read +four languages easily, and at forty took up the study of Hebrew, that +she might have her Bible free from the perversions of translation. She +was about thirty when the religious temperament which was later to +dominate her first manifested itself. She has told me herself of her +experience. + +She had been conscious for years of a vague dissatisfaction, and of +life's seeming empty and purposeless. She threw herself, first into +study, then into works of charity, in her effort to find peace. She rose +early, and worked till she was utterly worn out and exhausted, at her +Sunday School class, at missionary work, and till late hours at her +Spanish and Latin, all to no purpose. + +Then one day she found herself at a meeting at which a Methodist +evangelist (she herself was a strict Episcopalian) was to speak. She +went in without thought, from a chance impulse as she passed the door. +After the speaking, those who felt moved to do so were asked to come +forward and kneel; and as she knelt, she felt the breath of the Spirit +upon her forehead. + +"It was as plain as the touch of your hand and mine," she said, as she +laid her handsome old hand on my fingers; and from that moment, all her +life, the light never left her, she felt "held round by an unspeakable +peace and sunshine." + +She always held to her own church, but became more and more of a +Spiritualist, till she saw her rooms constantly thronged with the faces +of her childhood, father and mother, and the brothers and sisters and +playmates who had passed on. + +She gradually withdrew from active life, and for the last ten years, I +think, never stepped outside her door. She had a fine presence always, +rapt and stately. She was distantly glad to see friends who called upon +her, but never showed much human warmth. She lived till her +ninety-eighth year. + +[Illustration: THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT] + +In the farming country near Marston began the ministry of Clarissa Gray, +the beloved evangelist. An unusual experience in illness led this grave, +charming girl to thought apart upon the things of God, and as she grew +up, persons vexed in spirit began to turn to her for comfort. Her +personality was so tranquil and at rest that she seemed to diffuse a +sense of musing peace about her; yet she was not dreamy; her nature was +rather so limpidly clear that she was never pre-occupied, and she had +clear practical good-sense. Hard-drinking, violent men would yield to +her direct and fearless influence. Presently she was asked more and more +widely to lead in meeting, and to her unquestioning nature this came as +a clear call. Her voice, fervent and pure, led in prayer, her crystal +judgement solved problems, till without her ever knowing it the +community lay in the hollow of her small hands. + +I was last at Marston on a day of deep winter. We were to make a visit +in the town, and then explore the fields and woods of the west slopes of +Assimasqua. + +A marked change comes to us by the middle of January. We emerge from the +softened twilight world of earlier winter into a brilliancy of white, +with bright blue shadows. The deep snow is changed by the action of the +wind and its own weight, to a wonderful smooth firmness. It takes on +carved and graven shapes, and might be a sublimated building material, a +fairy alabaster or marble, fit to built the palaces in the clouds. After +each storm the snow-plough piles it, often above one's head, on both +sides of the roads and sidewalks; we walk between high walls built of +blocks and masses of blue-shadowed white. + +The brightness is almost too great, through the middle of the day; it is +dazzling; but about sunset a curious opaque look falls on the landscape; +a flattening, till they are like the hues of old pastels, of all the +delicate colors. The country has an appearance of almost infinite space, +under the snow, and the wind carves out pure sharp wave-like curves of +drift about the fields and hills. + +The still air, dry and fiery, is like champagne. It almost _burns_, it +is so cold and pure. A great feeling of lightness comes to moccasined +feet, in walking in this rarefied air through powdery snow; but fingers +and toes quickly become numb without even feeling the cold. + +Starting early out of Marston Plains village, we passed a tall rounded +hill which had a grove of maples near its top, the countless fine lines +of their stems like the strings of some harp-like instrument. The light +breeze, hardly more than a stirring, made music through them. The +sunrise was hidden behind this hill, but the delicate bare trees were +lighted up as with a gold mist. + +As we entered the forest on the skirts of Assimasqua, the wind rose +outside. A fresh fall of snow the day before had weighted every branch +of the evergreens with piled-up whiteness, which now came down in bright +showers, the snow crystals glinting around us where stray sunbeams stole +down among the trees: but in the shelter of the great pines and hemlocks +not a breath of wind reached us, and the woods were held fast in the +snow hush, against which any chance sound rings out sharply. + +The bark of the different trees was like a set of fine etchings, the +yellow birches shining as if burnished; the patches of handsome dark +mosses on the ash-trees, and the fine-grained bark of lindens, ashes, +and hop-hornbeams stood out brightly. + +As we followed a wood road we heard chirruping and tweeting, and saw a +flock of pine siskins among the pine-tops, and later we heard the +vigorous tapping of a great pileated woodpecker. + +All the northern woodpeckers winter with us; as do bluejays, and +chickadees, (the "friendly birds" of the Indians); juncos and +nuthatches; and partridges, which burrow under the snow for roots and +berries, and are sometimes caught, poor things, by the foxes, when the +crust freezes over them. Crows stay with us through a very mild winter, +but more often are off to the sea, thirty miles distant, to grow fat on +periwinkles; and very rarely indeed a winter wren or a song-sparrow +remains with us. The beautiful cream-white snow-buntings, cross-bills, +fat handsome pine-grosbeaks, golden-crowned kinglets, brown-creepers, +and those pirates, the butcher birds, come for short winter visits. +Evening grosbeaks, and Bohemian wax-wings, we see more rarely. By the +end of February, when the cold may be deepest, the great owls are +already building, deep in the woods. + +Ever so many small sharp valleys and ravines were revealed among the +woods, some winding deep into the darkness of the pines and hemlocks. +Their perfect curves were made more perfect by the unbroken snow, and +they were flecked all over with the feathery blue shadows of their +trees. At the bottom of one we heard a musical tinkling, and found a +brook partly open. We scrambled down to it, and knelt there, watching +it, till we were half frozen. The ice was frosted deep with delicate +lace-work, and looking up underneath we saw a perfect wonderland of +organ-pipes and colonnades of crystal, through which the water tinkled +melodiously. + +We came out high on the north side of Assimasqua, in the sugaring grove +that spreads up the steep slope to the crest. The tall maples were very +beautiful in their winter bareness, and the slope about their feet was +massed with a close feathery growth of young balsam firs and hemlocks, +with openings between. The snow lay even with the eaves of the small +bark sugaring-shanty. The sight of a roof made the silence seem almost +palpable, but in March the hillside will have plenty of sound and stir, +for fires will be lighted and the big kettles swung, while the men come +and go on sledges. Sugaring goes on all through the countryside, and +even in the town boys are out with "spiles," drilling the maple +"shade-trees," as soon as the sap begins running. The bright drops fall +slowly, one by one, into the pail hung to the end of the spile, and the +sap is like the clearest spring water, with a refreshing woodsy +sweetness. + +The high rough crest of Assimasqua dominates a wide stretch of country. +The long sweep of the fields, and the lakes, lying asleep, showed +perfect, featureless white, as we stood looking down; but all about, and +in among them, the low broken hills, the knolls and ridges, bore scarfs +or mantles of smoke-colored bare woods, mixed with evergreens. + +All day the sky had been of an aquamarine color, of the liquid and +luminous clearness which comes only in mid-winter, and deep afternoon +shadows were falling as we came down the hillside. We were on +snow-shoes, and had brought a toboggan, as the last part of our way lay +down hill. The country was open below the sugaring grove, and the +unbroken snow masked all the contours and mouldings of the fields, so +that we found ourselves suddenly dropping into totally unrealized +hollows and skimming up unrealized hillocks. + +When we reached the small dome-like hill where we were to take the +cross-country trolley, the blue-green sky had changed to a pure +primrose, and in this, as the marvelous dusk of the snow fields deepened +about us, the thin golden sickle of the new moon, and then Venus, came +out slowly till they blazed above the horizon; the primrose hue changed +to a low band of burning orange beneath the fast-striding darkness, then +to a blue-green color, a robin's egg blue, which showed liquid-clear +behind the pines; but long before we reached home the colors had +deepened into the peacock blue darkness of the winter night. + +Just before the distant whistle of the trolley broke the stillness, we +had a tiny adventure; we strayed over the brow of the hill, and came on +two baby foxes playing in the soft snow like kittens. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--OUR TOWN + + +I + +The farms become smaller, and string along nearer and nearer each other, +the hills slope more and more sharply, till suddenly, there below them +lies our Town, held round in their embrace, its factory chimneys sending +up blossoms of steam, its host of scattered lights at night a company of +low-dropped stars. There is no visible boundary; but with the first +electric light pole there is a change, and something deeper-rooted than +its convenience and compactness, its theatres and trolleys, makes the +town's life as different as possible from that of the farm districts. +Yet an affectionate relationship maintains itself between the two. Farm +neighbors bring in a little area of unhurried friendliness which clings +around their Concord wagons or pungs; hurrying townsfolk, stopping to +greet them, relax their tension and an exchange of jokes and chaff +begins. Leisurely, ample farm women settle down in our Rest Room for +friendly talk and laughter, and hot coffee or tea. + +Our dearest Town! We have perhaps some of the faults of all northern +places. We, at least we women, are sad _Marthas_, careful and troubled, +including house-cleaning with seed-time and harvest among the things +ordained not to fail, no matter at what cost of peace of mind and +health. We hug each our own fireside; but this is because, for eight +months of the year, the great cold gives us a habit of tension. We enjoy +too little the elixir of our still winter days, and hurry, hurry as we +go, to pop back to our warm hearths as fast as ever we can. + +Now and again through the year, the big cities call us with a Siren's +voice. + +"My wife and I put in ten days at the Waldorf-Astoria each year, and we +count it good business," says one of our tradesmen, and he speaks for +many. The clustered brilliancy at the entrances of the great theatres, +the shop windows, the sense of being _carried_ by the great current of +life, sets our feet and our pulses dancing; but I think it is not quite +so much the stir and gaiety which we sometimes thirst for as the +protecting insulation of the crowd, to draw breath in a little and let +the mind relax. The wall that guards one's citadel of inner privacy +needs, in a small town, to be built of strong stuff; it is subjected to +hard wear. Indeed we share some of the privations of royalty, in that we +lead our whole lives in the public eye. We see each other walk past +every day, greet each other daily in shops and at street corners, and +meet each other's good frocks and company manners at every church supper +and afternoon tea. It takes a nature with Heaven's gift of +unconsciousness to withstand this wear and tear; yet there are plenty of +these among us, people of such quality and fibre that they keep a fine +aloofness and privacy of life, like sanctuary gardens within guardian +hedges. + +But if our closeness to each other has these slight drawbacks, it has +advantages that are unspeakably precious. Our neighbors' joys and +troubles are of instant importance to us, each and all. In the city one +can look on while one's neighbor dies or goes bankrupt. Too often, one +cannot help even where one would; here we _must_ help, whether we will +or no! We cannot get away from duties that are so imperative. Our +neighbor's necessities are unescapable, and a certain soldierly quality +comes to us in that we cannot _choose_. + +An instinct, whether Puritan or Quaker, runs straight through us, which +at social gatherings draws men and women to the two sides of a room, as +a magnet draws needles. Perhaps it is merely the shyness inherent in +towns of small compass; in all the annals of small places, in Cranford, +in John Galt's villages, the ladies bridle and simper, the gentlemen +"begin for to bash and to blush," in each other's society. Whatever it +is, it narrows and pinches communities, and does sometimes more +far-reaching harm than the mere stiffening-up of parties and gatherings; +it narrows the women's habit of thought, so that children are deprived +of some of the wider outlook of citizenship; and the woman's ministry of +cheering and soothing, which pours itself out without stint to all +_women_ in old age or sorrow or sickness, is too often withheld from the +men, who may be as lonely and troubled, and may be left forlorn and +uncheered. However, this foolish thing vanishes before rich and warm +natures, like snow in a March sun. + +I sometimes wish that our latch-strings hung a little more on the +outside. It is easier for us to give a party, with great effort, and our +ancestral china, than to have a friend drop in to share family supper; +yet there is something that makes for strength in this fine privacy of +each family's circle, and no doubt, as our social occasions are +necessarily few, a certain formality is the more a real need. It "keeps +up." + +One grave trouble runs through our community, and leaves a black trail. +Drink poisons the lives of too many of our working-men. + +The drain to the cities, which robs all small places of part of their +life's blood, touches us nearly; the young wings must be tried, the +young feet take the road. The restless sand is in the shoes, and one out +of perhaps every twenty pairs sold in our street is to take a boy or +girl out to make a new home, far from father and mother. + +But this, although it robs us, is also our pride and strength. Many of +the boys and girls who have gone out from among us have become +torch-bearers, and their light shines back to us; and if the town's +veins are drained, it is, by the very means which drain it, made part of +the arterial system of the whole country, and throbs with its heart +beats. The enormous variety of post-marks on our incoming mail tells its +absorbing story. + +There is no sameness, even in a small town. Here, as everywhere, the +Creator lays here and there His finger of difference; as if He said, +"Conformity is the law--and non-conformity." Why should one clear-eyed +boy among us have been born with the voice and vision, and the +sorrow-and-reward-full consecration, of high poetry, rather than his +brothers? Why should another, of different bringing-up, among a din of +voices crying down the town's possibilities, have had the wit and +enterprise, yes, and the vision, too, to build up, here, a vigorous +manufactory, whose wares, well planned and well made, now have their +market many States away? + +I think of a third boy, the child of a well-read, but not a studious +household, who at ten was laying hands on everything that he could find +to study in the branch of science to which his life was later to be +dedicated. He had the same surroundings as the rest of us, we went to +school and played at Indians together; and now, for years, in a distant +city, his life has led him daily upon voyages of thought, beyond the ken +of those who played with him. + +Another boy, our dear naturalist, also lives far away. His able, merry +brothers were the most practical creatures; so was he, too, but in +another way. He turned, a little grave-eyed child, to out-of-doors, as a +duck takes to water, caring for birds and beasts with a pure passion, as +absorbed in watching their ways as were the other boys in games and +food. It was nothing to him to miss a meal, or two, if a turtle's eggs +might be hatching. He had very little to help him, for his father, a +very fine man, a master builder, failed in health early; but he helped +himself. He found countless little out-of-the-way jobs; he mounted trout +or partridges for older friends, caught bait, exchanged specimens +through magazines, etc., to keep himself out of doors, and to buy books +and collecting materials. By the time he was twelve he had a little +taxidermy business; and with the growth of technical skill, the finer +part, the naturalist's seeing eye for infinite difference--the shading of +the moth's wing, the marking of the wren's egg--grew faster yet; and with +it the patient reverent absorption in the whole. + +People come to him now for accurate and delicate knowledge. His word +gives the authority which for so long he sought; and, at least once, he +has been sent by his Government to bring back a report of birds and +fishes, and to plant his country's flag on a lone coral island. + +The other night we went to a play given by some of the school children. +Their orchestra played with spirit; and from the first we grew absorbed +in watching a little boy who played the bass drum. The bass drum! He +played the snare-drum, the triangle, the cymbals, a set of musical +rattles, and I do not know how many extraordinary things attached to +hand or feet, as well. Our northern music is choked in the sand of +over-business, prisoned by northern stiffness, but shy, stiff, awkward +though it may be, the divine thing is there, as groundwater is present +where there is land; and nothing can keep our children from buying +(generally with their own earnings) instruments of one sort or another, +and picking up lessons. + +I know this little boy. His father is a laborer, a slack man, down at +heels, but kind and indulgent. The boy is a chubby little soul, and he +accompanied the showy rag-time as Bach's son might have played his +father's masses, with a serious, reverent absorption, his little +unconscious face lighting up at any prettier change in the rag-time. +They live in a tiny cottage, and are well-fed, but very untidy. As the +humming bird finds honey, this child had somehow picked up odd pennies +to buy, and found time to master, his extraordinary collection of +instruments, and he sat playing as if in Heaven. Surely we had seen yet +another manifestation of the Power, which, together with the bright +fields of golden-rod and daisies, plants also the hidden lily in the +woods. + + +II + +Of the town's politics, the less said the better, but in every matter +outside of their withering realm, I wonder how many other communities +there are in which public spirit is as much a matter of course as +drawing breath, where heart and soul are poured into the town's needs so +royally. Our churches, our Library, our Rest Room, Board of Trade, and +Merchants' Association have been earned by the hardest of hard work, +shoulder to shoulder. Most of our women do their own household work, all +of our men work long hours; but when there is question of a public work +to be done, people will pledge, gravely and with their eyes open, an +amount of work that would fairly stagger persons whose easier lives have +trained their fibres less hardily. I wonder what would be the +equivalent, in dollars and cents, of the gift to one of the town's +undertakings, by a stalwart house-wife (who does all the work for a +family of five) of _every afternoon for three weeks_, and this in +December, when our Town loses its head in a perfect riot of Christmas +present-giving. + +What is it in politics, what can it be, which so poisons human +initiative at its well-springs? Here is public work which, we are told, +we must accept (must we?) as a corrupting and corrupt thing; it deadens +and poisons; and almost interlocking with it is work for the same town's +good, done by the same people, which invigorates as if with new breath +and kindles a living fire among us. + +The peculiar problem of our town, the bitter, fighting quality of our +politics, is a mystery to ourselves. One condition which presses equally +hard on the whole State: the constant friction, and consequent moral +undermining, of a law constantly evaded: may be in part responsible. But +no doubt our intense, flint-and-steel individualism is the chief factor; +yet this individualism is also the sap, the very life-blood, of the +tree! + +(Surely things will be better when the ethics of citizenship is taught +to children as unequivocally as the duty of telling the truth.) + +With this citizen's work, goes on a private kindness so beautiful that +one finds one's self without words, uplifted and humbled before it; it +is as if, below the obstructions of our busy lives, there ran a river of +friendship, so strong, so single-purposed, that when the rock above it +is struck by need or adversity, its pure current wells forth and carries +everything before it. + +How many times have this or that old person's last days been made +peaceful and tranquil, instead of torn with anxiety, by the hidden +action of "a few friends": (ah, the fine and sweet reticence!); and +these not persons of means, but of slender purses; young men, among +others, with the new cares of marriage and children already heavy upon +them. + +Doctor's bills "seen to"; a summer at the seashore, for a drooping young +mother, "arranged for"; the new home cozily furnished, and books and +clothing found, for a burnt-out household; a telephone installed, a year +at college provided for; a girl, not at fault, but in trouble, taken in +and made one of the family; these instances and their like crowd the +town's unwritten annals. + +I must not seem to rate our dear Town too highly, or to claim that these +examples are anything out of the common, that they shine brighter than +the countless other unseen stars of the Milky Way of Kindness. I only +stand abashed before a bed-rock quality of friendship, which never wears +out nor tires; which gives and gives again, gravely, yet not counting +the cost, and does not withhold that last sharing of hearth and privacy, +before which so many dwellers in more sophisticated places cannot but +waver. + +Have I given too many examples? How can I withhold them! + +I think of the machine-tender and his wife, who, in a year of ill-health +and doctor's bills for themselves and their two children, took in the +young wife of a fellow-worker who had lost his position; tended her when +her baby came, cared for mother and child for eight months, till a new +job was found. + +Of two households, who took in and made happy, the one a broken-down +artist who had fallen on evil times in a great city, the other a +sour-tempered old working woman, left without kin. The first household +have growing-up children, an automobile, horses, all the complexities of +well-to-do life in these days, but the tie of old friendship was the one +thing considered. The householders in the second case were not even near +friends, merely fellow church members, a kind man and wife, left without +children, who could not enjoy their warm house while old Hannah was +friendless. They tended her as they might have tended their own sister. + +Of the young teacher, alone in the world, who, when calamity came to two +married friends (a burnt house and office, and desperate illness) took +_all_ the savings that were to have gone for three years' special +training, went to them, a three-days' railroad journey, brought them +home, and bore all the household expenses of the young couple, and of +their baby's coming, until new work was found. + +The cooking and housework for four persons, (together with a heavy +amount of neighborhood work,) would seem enough for even a very capable +and kind pair of hands. Well, one friend, in addition to this, for two +years cooked and carried in _all_ the meals for a neighbor (a good many +doors away), a crippled girl, a prey, heretofore, to torturing +dyspepsia. There was no chance of saving the girl's life, she had a +fatal complaint, but thanks to this simple ministry, her last two years +were free from pain, and she was as happy a creature as could well be. + +These and like cases crowd to one's mind, till the memories of the town +ring like a chime of bells. + +I remember how troubled we were about one neighbor, a gentle, sweet +lady, left the last of a large and affectionate family circle; how we +dreaded the loneliness for her. We need not have been troubled. There +was a place for her at every hearth in the neighborhood, and when the +long last illness set in, kind, pitiful hands of neighbors were close +about, soothing and tending her. One younger friend, like a daughter, +never left her, day after day. Her own people were all gone before her, +her harvest was gathered, there could be no more anguish of parting; and +her last years seemed, as one might say, carried forward on a sunny +river of friendship. + + +III + +People from sunnier climates speak sometimes of our lack of community +cheer and of festivals; but a temperature of twenty below zero--or even +twenty above--does not conduce to dancing on the green; and it may be +that the spirit's light-footedness, like that of the outward person, is +hampered by many wrappings. Yet once in a while even we northern people +do "break out"; as on Fourth of July, when, in the early morning, the +"Antiques and Horribles," masked and painted, ride, grinning, through +the streets. + +After a football victory, our High School boys, like boys everywhere, +break out in unorganized revel. They caper about in night-shirts put on +over their clothes, or in their mother's and sisters' skirts, and with +the girls as well, they dance down the street in a snake-dance. They +light a bonfire in the square, and sing, cheer, and frolic around it. +Though they do not know it, it is pure carnival. + +The long white months of winter see us all very busy and settled. This +is the time of year when solid reading is done, and sheets are hemmed, +when our Literary Societies write and read their papers, when we get up +plays and tableaux, and the best work is done in the schools. Nobody +minds the long evenings, the lamplight beside the open fires is so +infinitely cozy; and on moonlight nights, all winter, the long +double-runners slip past outside, with joyful laughter and clatter, as +the boys and girls--and their elders--take one hill after another in the +Mile Coast. + +With the breaking-up of the ice, all our settled order breaks up, too, +in the tremendous effort of Spring Cleaning. It is as chaotic within the +house as without. The furniture is huddled in the middle of the room, +swathed in sheets. The master of the house mourns and seeks, like a bird +robbed of its nest. We live in aprons and sweeping caps, and in mock +despair. The painter will not come; the step-ladder is broken; the +spare-room matting is too worn to be put down again; but every dimmest +corner of the attic, every picture and molding, every fragment of +put-away china, is shining and polished before the weary wives will take +rest. + +With the first warm-scented May nights, the children's bedtime becomes +an indefinite hour. They are all out after dusk, like flights of +chimney-swallows. They run and race down the streets, they don't know +why, and frolic like moths about the electric-light poles. + +Memorial Day, with its grave celebration, renews our citizenship. The +children are in the fields almost at sunrise, gathering scarlet +columbines in the hill crannies, yellow dog-tooth violets, buttercups in +the tall wet grass, stripping their mothers' gardens of their brilliant +blaze of tulips, bending down the heavy, dewy heads of white and purple +lilacs. The matrons meet early at Grand Army Hall, and tie up and trim +bouquets and baskets busily till noon. The talk is sober, but cheerful, +and there is a realization of harvest-home and achievement, rather than +sadness. The little sacred procession marches past, to the sound of +music that is more elating than mournful. Later, after the marching, the +tired men find hot coffee and sandwiches ready for them. + +With summer, inconsequence and irresponsibility steal happily over the +town. Even in the shops and factories the work is not the same, for +employers and employees have become easy-going, and the business streets +look contentedly drowsy. Bricks and paving stones cannot keep out the +wafts of summer fragrance, and with them an ease and gayety, a _joie de +vivre_, diffuse themselves, which are astonishing after our winter +soberness. Our night-lunch carts, popcorn, and pink lemonade booths, +with their little flaring lights, are ugly, if compared, for instance, +to kindred things in Italy, but they manifest the same spirit. The +coming of a circus shows this feeling at its height, but it does not +need a circus to bring it out; and the Merry-go-round on one of our +wharves toots its gay little whistle all summer. Music, sometimes queer +and naive in expression, comes stealing out through the town. Our music +is never organized, but the strains of brass or string quartettes or a +small band, or of a little part singing, are heard of an evening. + +Everybody who can manage it goes down to the sea, if but for one day, +and the small excursion steamer is crowded on her daily trips to "The +Islands." + +"It takes from trade," remarks I. Scanlon, the teamster, "but you've +only got one life to live. At a time!" he adds reverently; and he and +his wife and six children travel down to a much-be-cottaged island, set +up their tent on the beach, and for a delicious, barefoot fortnight live +on fish of their own catching, and potatoes brought with them from home. + +We almost live on our lawns, and neighbors stray across to each other's +piazzas for friendly talk, friendly silence, all through the warm summer +evenings. + +By October every string needs tautening. The still, keen weather takes +matters into its own hands, and we are brought back strictly to work. +Meetings are held, committees appointed, plans made for the winter's +tasks, and soon each group is hard at it, for this and that missionary +barrel, this and that campaign; and at Thanksgiving the matrons meet +again at Grand Army Hall, to apportion and send out the Thanksgiving +Dinner. It is a privilege to be with the kind, able women, to watch +their capable hands, their shortcuts to the heart of the matter in +question, their easy authority, their large friendliness; in more cases +than not, their distinction of bearing as well. + +Thanksgiving once over, the pace quickens. Each church has its yearly +sale and supper at hand, for which months of faithful work have been +preparing, and these once worked off, the whole town, as I have said, +loses its head in a perfect fever of giving. What does anything matter +but happiness? Christmas is coming! Every man, woman, and child is a +hurrying Santa Claus. The first snow brings its strange hush, its +strange sheltering pureness, and the sleigh-bells begin once more to +jingle all about. During Christmas week hundreds of strings of colored +lights are hung across the business streets. Wreaths and garlands of +fragrant balsam fir, the very breath and expression of our countryside, +are hung everywhere, over shop windows and doorways, in every house +window, and on quiet mounds in the churchyard and cemetery. The +solemnity of the great festival, which is our Christmas, our All Saints' +and All Souls' in one, folds round us. + +The churches are all dark and sweet, like rich nests, with their heavy +fir garlands, lit up by candles. Pews that may be scantily filled at +most times are crowded to-night, for here are the boys and girls, +thronging home from business and college. Here are the three tall boys +of one household, whom we have not seen for a long time, and there are +four others. Here are girls home from boarding-school, rosy and sweet, +blossomed into full maidenhood, bringing a whiff of the city in their +furs and well-cut frocks. There is the only son of one family, who left +home a stripling, now back for the first time, a stalwart man, with his +young wife and three children. His little mother cannot see plainly, +through her happy tears; and there, and there, and there again, are +re-united households. + +The bells ring out, and after them comes the silver sound of the first +hymn. + +Of late, on Christmas evening, the choirs of the different churches have +begun the custom of meeting on the Common, to lead the crowd in hymns, +round the town Christmas Tree. Later they separate and go about singing +to different invalids and shut-ins, and many of the houses are lighted +up. + + "Silent Night! Holy Night!" + +So, within doors, we neighbors meet in reverent and thankful worship; +while without, the pure snow, the grave trees, the stars, bear their +enduring witness to that of which they, and we and our human worship, +are a part. + +Peace and good-will to our town, where it lies sheltered among its +hills. The country rises on each side of it, and stretches peacefully +away to east and west. The valleys gather their waters, the wooded hills +climb to the stars; they wait, guarding in silent bosoms the treasure of +their memories, the secret of their hopes. + + + + +THE NEW POETRY CHICAGO POEMS + +By Carl Sandburg. _$1.25 net._ + +In his ability to concentrate a whole story or picture or character +within the compass of a few lines, Mr. Sandburg's work compares +favorably with the best achievements of the recent successful American +poets. It is, however, distinguished by its trenchant note of social +criticism and by its vision of a better social order. + +NORTH OF BOSTON + +By Robert Frost. _6th printing, $1.25 net._ + +"The first poet for half a century to express New England life +completely with a fresh, original and appealing way of his own."--_Boston +Transcript._ + +"An authentic original voice in literature."--_Atlantic Monthly._ + +A BOY'S WILL + +By Robert Frost. _2nd printing, 75 cents net._ + +Mr. Frost's first volume of poetry. + +"We have read every line with that amazement and delight which are too +seldom evoked by books of modern verse."--_The Academy (London)._ + +THE LISTENERS + +By Walter De La Mare. _$1.20 net._ + +Mr. De la Mare expresses with undeniable beauty of verse those things a +little bit beyond our ken and consciousness, and, as well, our subtlest +reactions to nature and to life. + +"---- and Other Poets" + +By Louis Untermeyer. _$1.25 net._ + +Mirth and thought-provoking parodies, by the author of "_Challenge_" of +such modern Parnassians as Masefield, Frost, Masters, Yeats, Amy Lowell, +Noyes, Dobson and "F. 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