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diff --git a/35956-h/35956-h.htm b/35956-h/35956-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b360b6c --- /dev/null +++ b/35956-h/35956-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7508 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" > +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> + <meta content="A Northern Countryside" name="DC.Title"/> + <meta content="Rosalind Richards" name="DC.Creator"/> + <meta content="en" name="DC.Language"/> + <meta content="1916" name="DC.Created"/> + <meta name="generator" content="ppgen (0.82) generated Apr 25, 2011 02:32 AM" /> + <title>A Northern Countryside</title> + <style type="text/css"> + body {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%;} + p {margin-top:1ex; margin-bottom:0; text-align:justify;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size:x-small; text-align:right; text-indent:0; + position:absolute; right:2%; padding:1px 3px; font-style:normal; + font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration:none; + background-color:inherit; border:1px solid #eee;} + .pncolor {color:silver;} + h1,h2 {text-align:left; font-weight:normal;} + h1 {font-size:1.2em; margin-top:4ex; margin-bottom:2ex;} + h2 {font-size:1.1em; margin-top:4ex; margin-bottom:2ex;} + hr.pb {margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver; clear:both;} + .sc {font-variant: small-caps;} + hr.fnsep {border:none; border-bottom: 1px solid black; width:10%; margin-left:0; margin-top:20px} + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + .caption {font-size: 80%;} + .footnote a {text-decoration:none;} + div.center p {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; text-align:center;} + .footnote {font-size: 80%;} + .fnanchor {font-size: 80%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: 0.25em;} + .sc {font-variant:small-caps} + .footnote .label {float:left; text-align:left; width:2em;} + </style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +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 + + + + + + +</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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