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diff --git a/35956-8.txt b/35956-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd50e03 --- /dev/null +++ b/35956-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4663 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Northern Countryside, by Rosalind Richards + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Northern Countryside + +Author: Rosalind Richards + +Release Date: April 25, 2011 [EBook #35956] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD.] + + + + + A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + By + ROSALIND RICHARDS + Illustrated from photographs + by + BERTRAND H. WENTWORTH + + NEW YORK + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + 1916 + + + + + Copyright, 1916 + BY + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + Published April, 1916 + THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS + RAHWAY, N. J. + + + + + To + J. R., L. E. W., and L. T. S., + without whose help this small record + could not have been written. + + + + +PREFACE + +No one person can fitly describe a neighborhood, no matter how long +known, how well loved. Yet records of what is lovely and of good report +in a district should be treasured and preserved, however imperfectly. + +My father's name, not mine, should rightly be signed to these pages, for +it is his intimate knowledge of our countryside, loved and explored with +a boy's ardor and a naturalist's insight since childhood, which they +strive to set down. + +I have taken care to write almost wholly of two or more generations ago, +and of persons who, with few exceptions, have now passed out of this +life; and I have in all cases altered names, and shifted families from +one part of the county to another, to avoid possible annoyance to +surviving connections. It has even seemed best in some cases--though I +have done so with reluctance--to change the names of villages, of hills +and streams, as well. + +Beyond this, I have striven only to record faithfully the anecdotes and +memories that have come down to me. But no record, however faithful, can +be in any way adequate. The rays will be refracted by the medium of the +writer's personality; and the best that can be done will be but a small +mirrored fragment, before the daily repeated miracle of the living +reality. + + + + +CONTENTS + + - PREFACE + - CHAPTER I--A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + - CHAPTER II--THE RIVER + - CHAPTER III--THE BANKS OF THE RIVER + - CHAPTER IV--THE CAPTAINS + - CHAPTER V--BY THE ACUSHTICOOK + - CHAPTER VI--SPRING + - CHAPTER VII--THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + - CHAPTER VIII--RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR'S MILLS + - CHAPTER IX--MARY GUILFOYLE + - CHAPTER X--TRESUMPSCOTT POND + - CHAPTER XI--IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS + - CHAPTER XII--HARVEST + - CHAPTER XIII--WATSON'S HILL + - CHAPTER XIV--EARLY WINTER. + - CHAPTER XV--ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON + - CHAPTER XVI--OUR TOWN + +Thanks are due Mr. Bertrand H. Wentworth of Gardiner, Maine, for his +very kind permission to illustrate this book with reproductions of his +photographs. + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE + INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER'S COURSE + THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH + THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE + PLOUGHING MARY'S FIELD + ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND + THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES + THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN STACKS + THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES + LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS + ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY + THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT + + + + +A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + + +CHAPTER I--A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE + + +Our county lies in a northern State, in the midst of one of those +districts known geographically as "regions of innumerable lakes." It is +in good part wooded--hilly, irregular country, not mountainous, but often +bold and marked in outline. Save for its lakes, strangers might pass +through it without especial notice; but its broken hills have a peculiar +intimacy and lovableness, and to us it is so beautiful that new wonder +falls on us year after year as we dwell in it. + +There is a marked trend of the land. I suppose the first landmark a bird +would distinguish in its flight would be our long, round-shouldered +ridges, running north and south. Driving across country, either eastward +or westward, you go up and up in leisurely rises, with plenty of fairly +level resting places between, up long calm shoulder after shoulder, to +the Height of Land. And there you take breath of wonder, for lo, before +you and below you, behold a whole new countryside framed by new hills. + +Sometimes the lower country thus revealed is in its turn broken into +lesser hills, or moulded into noble rounding valleys. Sometimes there +are stretches of intervale or old lake bottom, of real flat-land, a rare +beauty with us, on which the eyes rest with delight. More often than not +there is shining water, lake or pond or stream. Sometimes this lower +valley country extends for miles before the next range rises, so that +your glance travels restfully out over the wide spaces. Sometimes it is +little, like a cup. + +As you get up towards the Height of Land you come to what makes the +returning New Englander draw breath quickly, the pleasure is so +poignant: upland pastures dotted with juniper and boulders, and broken +by clumps of balsam fir and spruce. Most fragrant, most beloved places. +Dicksonia fern grows thick about the boulders. The pasturage is thin +June-grass, the color of beach sand, as it ripens, and in August this is +transformed to a queen's garden by the blossoming of blue asters and the +little _nemoralis_ golden-rod, which grew unnoticed all the earlier +summer. Often whole stretches of the slope are carpeted with mayflowers +and checkerberries, and as you climb higher, and meet the wind from the +other side of the ridge, your foot crunches on gray reindeer-moss. + +Last week, before climbing a small bare-peaked mountain, I turned aside +to explore a path which led through a field of scattered balsam firs, +with lady-fern growing thick about their feet. A little further on, the +firs were assembled in groups and clumps, and then group was joined to +group. The valley grew deeper and darker, and still the same small path +led on, till I found myself in the tallest and most solemn wood of firs +that I have ever seen. They were sixty feet high, needle-pointed, black, +and they filled the long hollow between the hills, like a dark river. + +The woods alternate with fields to clothe the hills and intervales and +valleys, and make a constant and lovely variety over the landscape. +Sometimes they seem a shore instead of a river. They jut out into the +meadowland, in capes and promontories, and stand in little islands, +clustered round an outcropping ledge or a boulder too big to be removed. +You are confronted everywhere with this meeting of the natural and +indented shore of the woods, close, feathery, impenetrable, with the +bays and inlets of field and pasture and meadow. The jutting portions +are apt to be made more sharp and marked by the most striking part of +our growth, the evergreens. There they grow, white pine and red pine, +black spruce, hemlock, and balsam fir, in lovely sisterhood. Their +needles shine in the sun. They taper perfectly, finished at every point, +clean, dry, and resinous; and the fragrance distilled from them by our +crystal air is as surely the very breath of New England as that of the +Spice Islands is the breath of the East. + +Our soil is often spoken of as barren, but this is only where it has +been neglected. Hay and apples give us abundant crops; indeed our apples +have made a name at home and abroad. Potatoes also give us a very fine +yield, and a great part of the State is rich in lumber. When it is left +to itself, the land reverts to wave after wave of luxuriant pine forest. +Forty miles east of us they are cutting out masts again where the +_Constitution's_ masts were cut. + +[Illustration: THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE] + +The apple orchards are scattered over the slopes. In the more upland +places, sheep are kept, and the sheep-pastures are often hillside +orchards of tall sugar maples. We have neat fields of oats and barley, +more or less scattered, and once in a while a buckwheat patch, while +every farm has a good cornfield, beans, pumpkins, and potatoes, besides +"the woman's" little patch of "garden truck." A good many bees are kept, +in colonies of gray hives under the apple trees. + +The people who live on the farms are, I suppose, much like farm people +everywhere. "Folks are folks"; yet, after being much with them, certain +qualities impress themselves upon one's notice as characteristic; they +have a dry sense of humor, and quaint and whimsical ways of expressing +it, and with this, a refinement of thought and speech that is almost +fastidious; a fine reticence about the physical aspects of life such as +is only found, I believe, in a strong race, a people drawing their vigor +from deep and untainted springs. I often wonder whether there is another +place in the world where women are sheltered from any possible +coarseness of expression with such considerate delicacy as they find +among the rough men on a New England farm. + +The life is so hard, the hours so necessarily long, in our harsh +climate, that small-natured persons too often become little more than +machines. They get through their work, and they save every penny they +can; and that is all. The Granges, however, are increasing a pleasant +and wholesome social element which is beyond price, and all winter you +meet sleighs full of rosy-cheeked families, driving to the Hall for +Grange Meeting, or Sunday Meeting, or for the weekly dance. + +Many of the farm people are large-minded enough to do their work well, +and still keep above and on top of it; and some of these stand up in a +sort of splendor. Their fibres have been seasoned in a life that calls +for all a man's powers. Their grave kind faces show that, living all +their lives in one place, they have taken the longest of all journeys, +and traveled deep into the un-map-able country of Life. I do not know +how to write fittingly of some of these older farm people; wise enough +to be simple, and deep-rooted as the trees that grow round them; so +strong and attuned to their work that the burdens of others grow light +in their presence, and life takes on its right and happier proportions +when one is with them. + +If the first impression of our country is its uniformity, the second and +amazing one is its surprises, its secret places. The long ridges +accentuate themselves suddenly into sharp slopes and steep cup-shaped +valleys, covered with sweet-fern and juniper. The wooded hills are often +full of hidden cliffs (rich gardens in themselves, they are so deep in +ferns and moss), and quick brooks run through them, so that you are +never long without the talk of one to keep you company. There are rocky +glens, where you meet cold, sweet air, the ceaseless comforting of a +waterfall, and moss on moss, to velvet depths of green. + +The ridges rise and slope and rise again with general likeness, but two +of them open amazingly to disclose the wide blue surface of our great +River. We are rich in rivers, and never have to journey far to reach +one, but I never can get quite used to the surprise of coming among the +hills on this broad strong full-running stream, with gulls circling over +it. + +One thing sets us apart from other regions: our wonderful lakes. They +lie all around us, so that from every hill-top you see their shining and +gleaming. It is as if the worn mirror of the glacier had been splintered +into a thousand shining fragments, and the common saying is that our +State is more than half water. They are so many that we call them +_ponds_, not lakes, whether they are two miles long, or ten, or +twenty.[1] I have counted over nine hundred on the State map, and then +given up counting. No one person could ever know them all; there still +would be new "Lost Ponds" and "New Found Lakes." + +The greater part of them lie in the unbroken woods, but countless +numbers are in open farming country. They run from great sunlit sheets +with many islands to the most perfect tiny hidden forest jewels, places +utterly lonely and apart, mirroring only the depths of the green woods. + +Each "pond," large or little, is a world in itself. You can almost +believe that the moon looks down on each with different radiance, that +the south wind has a special fragrance as it blows across each; and each +one has some peculiar, intimate beauty; deep bays, lovely and secluded +channels between wooded islands, or small curved beaches which shine +between dark headlands, lit up now and then by a camp fire. + +Hill after hill, round-shouldered ridge after ridge; low nearer the salt +water, increasing very gradually in height till they form the wild +amphitheatre of blue peaks in the northern part of the State; partly +farming country, and greater part wooded; this is our countryside, and +across it and in and out of the forests its countless lovely lakes shine +and its great rivers thread their tranquil way to the sea. + +----- +[1] The legal distinction in our State is not between ponds and lakes, +but between ponds and "Great Ponds." All land-locked waters over ten +acres in area are Great Ponds; in which the public have rights of +fishing, ice-cutting, etc. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE RIVER + + +Our river is one of the pair of kingly streams which traverse almost our +entire State from north to south. The first twenty-five miles of its +course, after leaving the great lake which it drains, is a tearing rapid +between rocky walls: then follows perhaps a hundred miles of alternating +falls and "dead water," the falls being now fast taken up as water +powers. It has eleven hundred feet to fall to reach the sea, and it does +most of this in its first thirty miles. + +The river's course through part of our county is marked by a noticeable +geological formation. For a space of fifteen miles, the greater and +lesser tributary streams have broken their way down through the western +ridge of the river valley in a succession of small chasms that are so +many true mountain defiles in little. They have the sharp descents and +extreme variety of slopes and counter-slopes, though with walls never +more than a hundred and fifty feet high. + +There are forty or fifty of these ravines, some nourishing strong +brooks, some a mere trickle, or a stream of green marsh and ferns where +water once ran. Acushticook, which threads the largest, is really a +river, and Rollingdam, Bombahook, and Worromontogus are all powerful +streams. Rollingdam follows a very private course, hidden in deep mossy +woods for several miles. The ravine presently deepens and becomes more +marked, descending in abrupt slopes, then narrows to a gorge, the rocky +sides of which are covered with moss and ferns, nourished by spray. The +brook runs through it in two or three short cascades, and falls sheer +and white to a pool, twelve feet below. + +Below our Town, the river sweeps on, steadily wider and nobler in +expanse, till it reaches the place where five other rivers pour their +streams into its waters, and it broadens into the sheet of Merrymeeting +Bay, three miles from shore to shore. + +Below the bay the channel narrows almost to a gorge. The sides are steep +and rocky, crowned with black growth of fir and spruce, and through this +space the swollen waters pour in great force. There are strong tide +races, in which the river steamers reel and tremble, and below this +there begins a perfect labyrinth of channels, some mere backwaters, some +leading through intricate passages among a hundred fairy islands. There +are cliffs, moss and fern-grown, and countless dark headlands. The +islands are heavily wooded with characteristic evergreen growth, dense, +fragrant, of a rich color, and they are ringed with cream-white granite +above the sea-weed, where the blue water circles them.--And so down, till +the first break of blue sea shows between the spruces. + +We never feel cut off, or too far inland, having our river. The actual +sea fog reaches us on a south wind, salt to the lips. Gulls come up all +the way from the sea, and save for the winter months, there is hardly a +day when you do not see four or five of them wheeling and circling; +while twice or thrice in a lifetime a gale brings us Mother Carey's +chickens, scudding low, or else worn out and resting after the storm. + +The river sleeps all winter under its white covering, but great cracks +go ringing and resounding up stream as the tide makes or ebbs, leaping +half a mile to a note, to tell of the life that is pulsing beneath; and +before the snow comes, you can watch, through the black ice, the drift +stuff move quietly beneath your feet with the tide as you skate. I have +read fine print through two feet of ice, from a bit of newspaper carried +along below by the current. One winter a dovekie lived for three weeks +by a small open space made by the eddy near some ledges; then a hard +freeze came, and the poor thing broke its neck, diving at the round +black space of ice which looked scarcely different from the same space +of open water. + +The river lies frozen for at least four months. The ice weakens with the +March thaws and rains. Then comes a night in April when the forces which +move the mountains are at work, and in the morning, lo, the chains are +broken. The great stream runs swift and brown and the ice cakes crowd +and jostle each other as they spin past. + +The river traffic goes steadily on through our three open seasons, and +with it a little of the longer perspective of all sea-faring life comes +to us, and off-sets the day-in-day-out of the town's shop and factory +routine. + +Our southern lumber is brought us by handsome three and four-masted +schooners, which take northern lumber and ice on the return voyage. The +other day two schooners, on their maiden voyage, white and trim as +yachts, were at the lumber wharf, the _Break of Day_ and the _Herald of +the Morning_. + +Our coal comes in the usual long ugly barges. One or two small excursion +steamers connect us with the nearer coast towns, forty miles distant, +and every day all summer, the one large passenger steamer which connects +us with the big coast cities, comes to or from our town. She takes her +tranquil way between the river hills, not without majesty, while the +water draws back from the shores as she passes and the high banks +reverberate to the peaceful thunder of her paddles. Like other river +towns, we have now a fleet of motor boats, in use for pleasure and small +fishing. + +Traffic on the river shrank immensely with the forming of the Ice Trust, +which holds our ice-fields now only as a reserve. We see three or four +tall schooners at a time now, where we used to count the riding lights +of a dozen at anchor in the channel. + +The greater part of our fleet of tugs is scattered. The _Resolute_ and +_Adelia_,--dear me, even their names are like old friends--the _Clara +Clarita_, the _City of Lynn_, the _Knickerbocker_, and the trim smart +twin tugs, _Charlie Lawrence_ and _Stella_, have gone to other waters. +The _Ice-King_ plies now in the coast-wise trade. Our lessened river +work is done by the _Seguin_, a large and handsome boat, the _Ariel_, a +T-wharf tug from Boston, and the _Sarah J. Green_, an ugly boat with a +smokestack too tall for her. + +The Government boat comes up in late April, while the river is still +very rapid, brown and swirling after the spring freshet, and sets the +channel buoys. We always thrill a little at her unwonted, sea-sounding +whistle. She comes again in November, takes up the buoys, and carries +them to some strange buoy paddock in one of the winter harbors, where +hundreds and hundreds of them are stacked and repainted. The names of +the revenue cutters in this service are prettily chosen, the _Lilac_, +_Geranium_, etc. + +Before the days of tugs, schooners and larger vessels sailed up and down +the thirty-odd navigable miles of our river under their own canvas, and +the traffic to and from Atlantic ports was carried on by packets: brigs, +schooners, and topsail schooners. One of the captains has told me that, +seventy-five years ago, on his first voyage, it took his brig seven days +to beat to the mouth of the river, a passage now made in six hours. It +must have been extremely difficult piloting. The channel is narrow in +many places, though the river itself is so wide. There are sand-bars, +mud-flats, and ledges. + +In my Father's childhood a curious, indeed a unique type of vessel, +known as a Waterville Sloop, plied between what was then (before the +building of the dams), the head of navigation, twenty-six miles above +us, and Boston, taking lumber and hay. They carried one square-rigged +mast, and sailed with lee-boards, like the Dutch galliots, and were in +fact a survival of the square-rigged sloops of old time, immortal in the +memories of the glorious Sloops of War, and in Turner's pictures. + +Once in a while you still see "pinkies," which were once so common: +small schooner-rigged vessels with a "pink" (probably originally a +_pinked_) stern, _i.e._, a stern rising to a point, with a crotch to +rest the boom in. + +Scows are rarer than they used to be, but they still carry on their +humble, casual lumber and hay business, sailing up with the flood-tide, +and tying up for the ebb. They are sloop-rigged, quite smart-looking +under sail, and sail with lee-boards, like the Waterville Sloops. + +The Lobster Smack, a tiny two-masted schooner, not more than thirty feet +long, comes once a week in the season, and we buy our lobsters on the +wharf and carry them home all sprawling, and are delighted when we get a +little sea-weed with them. + +The laborers of the river are the dredges, pile-drivers, and their kind. +They must see to the journeyman's work that keeps the river's traffic +unhampered. They drive piers and jetties and dredge out sand-bars. They +go and come, unnoticed by smarter vessels, laden heavily with broken +stone, sand, or gravel. They are dingy powerful boats, fitted with a +derrick and hoist or other machinery. They carry big rope buffers at bow +and sides, and in spite of this their bulwarks are splintered and +scarred where they have been jammed against wharves and knocked about. +There is no fresh paint or bright brass about them, they are grimy +citizens, but are all strong and seaworthy. Sometimes the Captain is +also owner; sometimes one man owns a whole little fleet, of two dredges, +say, and a small tug, named perhaps after wife and daughters, as in one +case I know, the _Nellie_, _Sophia_, and _Doris_. This is the family +venture, followed with as much anxious pride in "our Vessels" as if the +fleet were Cunarders. + +One day what should come up the river but a white schooner, tapering and +tall, and glistening with new masts and cordage, bearing a fairy cargo +of shells and corals. The rare shells, some of them costly museum +pieces, were to be sold to collectors, if any were to be found along our +northern harbors, while others, as beautiful as flowers or sunset +clouds, the children might have for a few pennies. + +The Captain was a young Spaniard, very dark, and as handsome, grave, and +simple in bearing, as a Spanish Captain should be. His men seemed to +adore him, and to obey the turn of his eyelashes. They all gave us a +charming welcome, especially to the children. It was a leisurely and +pleasant little venture. I do not know whether it brought in profit, but +all the town flocked to the schooner, day after day, for the week that +she stayed with us. + +The rafts come down the river when they please. They look about as easy +to manoeuvre as an ice-house, but the flannel-shirted lumbermen who +operate them, two to a raft, seem unconcerned, and scull away at their +long "sweeps," in the apparently hopeless task of keeping their clumsy +craft off the shallows. With the breaking up of the ice, stray logs, +escaped from the holding booms, come down stream. The moment the +ice-cakes are out of the river, even before, you begin to notice shabby +old row-boats tied up and waiting at the mouth of every stream and +"guzzle"; and as soon as a log whirls down amongst the confusion of ice, +you will see boats put out, perhaps with a couple of boys, or else some +old humped-up fellow, in a coat green with age, rowing cross-handed, +nosing out like an old pickerel watching for minnows. The logs that are +missed drift about till they are water-logged, when they sink little by +little, and at last become what are known as "tide-waiters," or +"tide-rollers," _i.e._ snags drifting above, or resting partly on, the +bottom, a menace to vessels. + +There are holding booms at different turns of the river, with odd shabby +little house-boats for the rafts-men moored beside them; and what are +these called but _gundalows_, an old, old "Down-east" corruption of +_gondola_; whether in derision, or in ignorance, is not now known. +Sometimes they are fitted up with some coziness, perhaps with white +curtains and a little fresh paint, and I have even seen geraniums at +their windows. + +Another brand-new schooner, the _William D'Arcy_, tied up at our lumber +wharf this last spring, and lay there for nearly a week. We all went on +board her. She lay at the sheltered side of the wharf, out of the cold +wind, and the sun poured down on her. The smell of salt and cordage was +so strong that you could almost feel the lift of her bows to the swell, +but there she lay, as quiet as if she had never lifted to a wave at all. +The men were at work at various jobs; no one was in a hurry; it plainly +made no difference whether they were two days at the wharf or ten. + +The bulwarks and outside fittings, anchors, hawsers, and hawse-holes, +seemed wonderfully large to our landsman eyes, and the inside fittings, +lockers, etc., as wonderfully small and compact. The enormous masts were +of new yellow Oregon pine. + +The Captain welcomed us hospitably, and took us down into his cabin, +which was fitted with shelves, lockers, and cupboards, neat and compact, +all brand-new and shining with varnish. There was a shelf of books, the +table had a red cover and reading lamp, and the wife's work-basket stood +on it, with some mending. She had gone "upstreet" for her marketing. + +"Oh," said one of us, "it looks so homelike and cozy!" + +The Captain looked round it complacently, but with remembering eyes that +spoke of many things. He had been cruising all winter. + +"It looks so to you," he said, "but often it ain't." + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE BANKS OF THE RIVER + + +The river-bank boys pick up, as easily as they breathe, knowledge as +miscellaneous as the drift piled on the shores. They know all the shoals +and principal eddies, without the aid of buoys. They know the ways and +seasons of the different fish. They learn to recognize the owner's marks +on the logs, and they know the times and ways of all the humbler as well +as the larger river craft, the scows and smacks, and the "gundalows" +which spend mysterious month after month hauled up among the sedges at +the mouths of the streams. Their own row-boats are heavy, square at both +ends, and clumsy to row, but as I have said, they are out in them in the +spring before the floating ice is out of the river, rescuing logs and +fragments of lumber from between the ice-cakes. + +There is a good deal to the business of picking up logs. The price for +returning "strays" to the right owners is ten cents a log (the rate +increasing as you go down stream), and a good many can be towed at once +by a small boat. The price per log rises to twenty-five cents, near the +sea. In times of high freshet, the up-river booms often break, and then +there is a tremendous to-do at the mouth of the river: men, women, and +children, all who can handle or half-handle a dory, are at work at +log-rescuing. Incoming ships have found the surface of the ocean brown +with logs at these times, and have a great work to get through them. + +Logs that have lost their marks are called "scalawags," and these are +sold for the benefit of the log-driving company. Hollow-hearted _pine_ +logs are known by the curious term "concussy," or "conquassy." To show +the immense change in the prices of lumber, the best pine lumber, which +in 1870 was worth ten dollars a thousand feet, is now one hundred +dollars a thousand. + +Now and then a boy takes to the river so strongly that he makes his life +work out of its teachings. The captains and engineers of most of our +river and harbor steamers, and of bigger craft, too, began life as +riverbank boys. Some of them take to fishing in earnest, some become +lumbermen, or go into the Coast-Survey service, or the Rivers and +Harbors; and the winter work on the ice leads to an interesting life for +a good many others. Once in a while one of these boys goes far from +home. We have had word of one and another, serving as pilot or engineer +in Japanese, Brazilian, and East Indian waters. + +The three Tucker brothers, Joel, Reuel, and Amos, three finely-built +men, all worked up to be registered pilots. Joel, the eldest, was pilot +of an ocean-going steamer all his life. He grew very stout, and had a +fine nautical presence, in blue cloth and brass buttons. Reuel was lazy. +He never went higher than small raft-towing tugs, and he often gave up +his work and loafed about, fishing. He was the man who swam five miles +down river, and stopped then because he was bored, not because he was +tired. Amos, the finest of them, a gallant looking fellow, with very +bright blue eyes, was a pilot for a good many years, and then a foreman +in the ice business. He was a man of such shining kindness that he was +always up to the handle in work in the heart of his town, as selectman, +honorary and volunteer overseer of the poor, and helper-out in general. +In a case of all-night nursing, in a poor family, where a man's strength +was needed, Amos was on hand, rubbing his eyes, but watchful and ready. +Once, when a neighbor's wife had to be taken to the Insane Hospital, +Amos undertook the sad task, and his gentleness made it just bearable. +Parents looked to him for help in the care of a bad or unruly boy. + +Then there were the Tracys, who ran--and still run--a queer little ferry +at Jonestown, "according to seasons." When the ice begins to break up +they row the passengers across, somehow, in a heavy flat-boat, between +the ice cakes. Their regular boat, in which they embark wagons and even +a motor, is a large scow pulled across by a chain, with a sail to help +when the wind serves. The Tracys' ferry is, I think, unique for one +regulation; man and wife go as one fare. + +Some of the river bank people are mere squatters. _The_ squatter, as we +called him, _par excellence_, pulled the logs and bits for his dwelling +actually out of the river, as a muskrat collects bits of drift for his +house. He was a Frenchman, and such a house as he built! Part tar-paper, +part bark, part clay bank, the rest logs, barrel-staves, and a few +railroad sleepers. But there he lived, on a tiny level plot under the +railroad bank, so near the river that each spring freshet threatened +entire destruction. He made or acquired a boat that matched his house, +and presently he brought not only his wife and children, but two +brothers and an old mother to live with him. The women contrived some +tiny garden patches on the slopes of the river bank, and with the rich +silt of the stream these throve wonderfully. The men fished, and +"odd-jobbed" about. + +Then came the Great Freshet. Dear me! shall we ever forget it? We woke +one March night to hear every bell in town ringing, while a long ominous +whistle repeated the terrifying signal of the freshet alarm. + +There was a confusion of sounds from the river, wild crashings and +grindings and thunders, as the ice broke up in its full strength, with a +noise almost like cannon. + +The water rose and rose. By daybreak it was up to the shop-counters in +the street, and people paddled in and out of the shops in canoes, +rescuing their goods. The ice-cakes were piled ten feet high on our +unfortunate railroad. Then a great holding-boom broke, a mile up river. +A twenty-foot wall of logs swept round the bend, and the watchers on the +roofs and raised platforms saw it splinter and carry out the Town Bridge +as if it had been kindlings. + +Sheds and boat-houses and wharfing were whirled past all day in the +tumble of ice cakes. Like other people in danger, the Squatter carried +out his gipsy household goods, and moved up town with his family; all +but the old French mother. She would not be moved, but sat in the middle +of the road on a backless chair, watching her dwelling. She could have +done nothing to save it, but nothing could tear her away. The rain +poured all that day and the next. Some one lent her a big broken +umbrella, and there she sat. I could think of nothing but a forlorn old +eaves swallow, watching the place where her mud dwelling was being torn +off. + +By some miracle of the eddy, however, the house stayed intact; but soon +after they all moved away, to safer, and, I believe, more comfortable +quarters. + +The Lamont family lived a mile north of the Town. They had a ramshackle +house and barn, in a bit of open meadow by the mouth of one of the +brooks. You might say of the Lamonts that they were so steeped in river +mud that every bone of them was lazy and easy and slack. There were the +father and mother, and seven children. They were as unkempt and ragged +as could be, but they always seemed cheerful and smiling, and the +younger children were fat as little dumplings. The three eldest were +shambling young men; they and the father seemed perfectly content with a +little fishing and odd-jobbing, and now and then one of them took a turn +as deck-hand or stevedore, or--as a last resort--as farm-hand. The girls +and the mother dug and sold dandelion greens, dock, and thoroughwort and +other old-fashioned simples. + +None of them had ever gone to school a day beyond the time required by +law, and they kept the truant officer busy at that; then all of a sudden +the youngest and fattest Lamont, whose incongruous name was Hernaldo, +appeared at the High School. He was an imperturbable child, and quite +dull, but he worked with a cheerful slow patience. He only held on for a +year, but no one had imagined he could keep on for so long, and he did +not do badly. + +The elders died before the younger children were quite grown, and the +family scattered; one night, after it had been empty a year or two, the +ramshackle house burned, leaving the barn standing. + +One morning about ten years afterwards a radiant being appeared at the +High School, a fat young man in frock coat and tall hat, who came +forward and shook hands effusively. It was Hernaldo Lamont! He was now +_chef_, it appeared, at one of the great California hotels through the +winters, and in Vancouver in summer, at a very large salary. A pretty +girl, charmingly dressed, whom he introduced as his wife, waited +modestly at the door. + +His clothes were quite wonderful. He was shining with soap and with +fashion, and so full of warmth and of pleasure. He brought out colored +photographs of his two fat little children, told of his staff and his +patrons, beamed upon everyone, and showed his pretty wife all about our +plain High School, admiring and reverent. I think that if it had been +Oxford he could not have been prouder, and indeed Oxford could never be +to the average student a place of higher achievement than High School to +a Lamont! + +He was so simple and kindly that I believe he would have taken his wife +to the Lamont shanty as happily. The Lamont barn is still standing, +grown up with tall nettles and dandelions. A farmer uses it for his +extra hay, mowed in the low rich patches of river meadow. Tramps sleep +in the hay, and quantities of barn-swallows flash in and out of the +empty windows. + +Long ago our River was one of the great salmon streams of the country. +In my great grandfather's time agreements between apprentices and +servants, and their employers, held the stipulation that the employees +should not have to eat salmon _above five times in the week_; and the +fish were used for fertilizing the fields. There are none now at all, +and the sturgeon fishing, which in my father's boyhood used to make +summer nights on the River a time of torchlit adventure, is over too, +though still late on a summer afternoon you may see now and then a +silver flash, and hear a crash, as the huge creature jumps; and only +last week two sturgeon of over eight hundred pounds weight each were +brought in right near the Town Bridge. They were caught by two +hard-working lads, and brought them a little fortune, for they were sold +in New York for over $250. + +Not even the flight of the birds from the south, unbelievable in wonder +as this is, is more miraculous than the run of the fish, from the vast +spaces of ocean up all our fresh-water streams for hundreds of miles. +Their bright thousands find their way unerringly, up into the heart of +the country. No one knows whence they come, and save for an occasional +straggler, no one has ever taken salmon or shad or ale-wife in deep +water. We know their passage up-stream, but no one knows when they take +their way down again. + +The smelts run up, when winter is still at its height. They are caught +through holes in the ice. The men build huts of boards or of boughs, +each round his own smelt hole. They build a fire on the ice, or have a +kerosene lantern or lamp, and fish thus all day in fair comfort. They +catch smelts by thousands, so that our town's people, who can eat them +not two hours out of the water, are spoiled for the smelts which are +called fresh in cities. Tom-cod come up a little ahead of the smelts. + +Soon after the ice goes out, while the water is still very rapid and +turgid, the alewives run up, and they are as good eating as smelts, +though too full of bones. They are smoked slightly, but not salted. +About this time, too, the smaller boys begin catching yellow-perch at +the mouths of the brooks. These, and tom-cod, are not thought worth +putting on the market, but they are crisp little fish, and a string of +them, thirteen for twelve cents, makes a good supper.[2] + +Suckers also come with the opening of the brooks. The discovery has been +made lately, that these fish, which New Englanders despise (quite +wrongly, for if well cooked they are firm and good), are prized by the +Jewish population of some of the bigger cities, and bring a good price. +A ton and a half of suckers were shipped from our river this season. + +Our royal fish are the shad, which arrive in the middle of May, when the +woods are all blossoming. The May river is full of their great silvery +squadrons. They are caught at night, in drift nets, by hundreds. Most of +them are shipped away, but our Town must and does eat as many as +possible. One family, who know what they like, practically abjure all +other solid food for the shad season! + +Of all our fish, eels are the most mysterious; for they go _down_ river +to the ocean (out of the fresh water streams and lakes) to spawn, +instead of coming up. No one knows what mysterious depths they +penetrate, but it is said that baby eels are found in one and two +thousand fathoms of water. By midsummer they are about six inches long, +and are running home up the brooks. They wriggle up waterfalls and scale +the sheer faces of dams. They stay three or four years in their inland +home, growing to full size, and in September, the fat grown-up eels run +down the streams again, to spawn in the sea. This is the time when they +are caught at dams and in mill streams, and shipped to the big cities in +quantities. Our biggest paper mill, not long ago, was shut down entirely +because of the eels, which got in through the flumes by hundreds, and +stopped the water wheels. + +The taking of the Acushticook eels is now a regular industry, and this +came about rather sadly. Stephen Mitchell, the millwright of the +Acushticook paper mill, was a fine man, with a turn for inventing. His +ideas were sound and a good many of his mechanical devices turned out +excellently. He became interested in explosives, and worked for a long +time at a new method for capping torpedoes. He had been warned time and +again, and such an intelligent man must have realized perfectly the +danger of work with explosive materials, but one day an accident +happened. There was an explosion which took not only both hands, but his +eyes. + +I think everyone in the town felt sickened by the accident, and by the +prospect of helpless invalidism ahead of a fine active man. But Stephen, +as soon as his wounds healed, began looking for something to do. + +The Acushticook eels had always been fished for in a desultory fashion, +and Stephen cast about for a way to make the fishing amount to more. The +mill owners did all in their power to help him. They gladly gave him the +sole right of the use of the stream, and helped him in building his dam. +He had also a grant from the Legislature. He hired good workers, and for +many years he and his wife, who was a master hand, lived happily and +successfully on their fishery. Sometimes two tons of eels were shipped +in the course of the autumn. + +Stephen always was cheerful. He could see enough difference between +light and darkness to find his way about town, and he was so quick to +recognize voices that you forgot his blindness. He kept among people a +great deal, and was an animated talker at town gatherings. He was an +opinionated man, but a fine and upright one. After his death his widow +kept on with the fishery, and she still runs it with profit. + +----- +[2] Both tom-cod and perch are now shipped to the cities in quantities. + + + + +CHAPTER IV.--THE CAPTAINS + + +You would never think now that tall Indiamen were once built here in our +town, but they were, and sailed hence round the world away, and we too +boasted our wharves, with the once-familiar notice: + +"All ships required to cock-a-bill their yards before lying at this +dock." + +The last ship built in the town was the _Valley Forge_, launched about +1860; the last built at Bowman's Point, two miles above, was the _Two +Brothers_. The _Valley Forge_ for ten whole years was never out of +Eastern waters, plying between China and Sumatra, and the seaports of +the Inland Sea. + +Mr. Peter Simons, one of our early magnates, and "ship's husband," of +many vessels (kind, merry, handsome Mr. Peter, he never was husband to +anyone but his ships), took a treasure voyage to the Spanish Main once, +and brought home a moderate sized treasure, some of the doubloons of +which are preserved in his family to this day. + +Ship-building was the chief industry of the place. There were four +principal ship-yards. The skippers as well as the lumber came from close +at hand. It seems a wonderful thing, in these stay-at-home times, that +keen young lads from the farms could have been, at twenty-one, in +command of full-rigged ships, fearlessly making their way, in prosperous +trade, to places that might as well be in Mars, for all most of us know +of them to-day: but Java and the Spice Islands, Shanghai, Tasmania, and +the Moluccas were household words in those days, and you still hear a +sentence now and then which shows the one-time familiarity of ways which +have passed from our knowledge. + +The portraits at the house of Captain George Annable, the last of our +clipper-ship captains, were painted in Antwerp. So were those (very +queer ones), at Captain Charles Aiken's, and at Captain Andrews'. It +appears now in talk with Captain Annable that _of course_ they were +painted at Antwerp, for that was where the American skippers as a rule +wintered. Living there was better and cheaper for them and their +families than at any other foreign port. It became the custom to winter +at Antwerp, and there grew to be an American society there. + +Captain Annable has crossed the Atlantic sixty-three times, sailing +clipper mail-ships. + +The Captains are nearly all gone now. Little trace of the ship-yards +remains, and even the wharves from which the Indiamen sailed have +rotted, and been replaced by the lumber and coal wharves of to-day; but +all through the countryside you come on touches of the shipping days, +and of the East, as startling as a sudden fragrance of sandalwood in +some old cabinet. At one house I know there is a collection of +butterflies and moths of the Far East, with two cream-colored Atlas +moths eight inches from tip to tip. At another there is a set of +rice-paper paintings of the orders of the Japanese nobility and gentry, +with full insignia of state robes, which ought to be in a museum; and +the parlor of a third neighbor, the gracious widow of a sea-captain, +has, besides carved teak furniture and Chinese embroideries, a set of +carved ivory chessmen fit for a palace. The king and queen stand over +eight inches high. The castles are true elephant-and-castles, and the +pawns are tiny mounted and turbaned warriors, brandishing scimitars. The +figures stand on carved open-work balls-within-balls, four +deep--"Laborious Orient ivory, sphere in sphere"--as delicate as +frost-work. This set was bought in Shanghai, when the foreign compound +still had its guard of soldiers, and the Chinese thronged the doorways +to stare at the "white devils." + +The great gold-figured lacquer cabinet, the pride of one of our +statelier houses, was brought from China a hundred years ago, by a young +Captain Jameson, who was coming home for his wedding. He sailed again +with his bride immediately after the marriage, and their ship never was +heard of. The cabinet was sold, and then sold again, till it finally +reached the setting which fits it so well. + +You find lacquered Indian teapoys, Eastern porcelains, shells and corals +from all round the world far out in scattered farmhouses; and farm-hands +are still summoned to meals by a blast on a conch-shell, a queer note, +not unlike the belling of an elk. + +Beside the actual china and embroideries and carvings, something of the +character bred in the seafaring days has spread, like nourishing silt, +through our countryside. The Captains were grave, quiet men. They had +power of command, and keenness in emergency. Contact with many people of +many nations quickened their perceptions and gave them charming manners; +but more than this, there was something large-minded and tranquil about +them. All their lives they had to deal with an element stronger than +themselves. The next day's work could never be planned or calculated on, +and something of the detached quality which comes from dealing with the +sea, a long and simple perspective towards human affairs, became part of +them. + +An expression of married life, so beautiful that I can never forget it, +came from the lips of the widow of one of our sea-captains, a little old +lady, now over eighty, who lives alone in a tiny brick cottage (where +she has accomplished the almost unique feat of making English ivy +flourish in our sub-arctic climate). She wears a wonderful cap, and +fills her house with quilts and cushions of silk patch-work which would +make a kaleidoscope blink. I had an errand to her about a poorer +neighbor, one Thanksgiving time. Her house is an outlying one, and I +remember how the farm lights, scattered all about our river hills, shone +in the soft autumn evening. + +Her bright warm kitchen was coziness itself, with a shiny stove, full to +the brim with red coals, and a big lamp. She sat with her cat on her +knee, sewing on an orange and green cushion, made in queer little puffs, +and she jumped up, dropping thimble, and spectacles, in her warm-hearted +welcome. After my errand, we fell into talk, about "Cap'n," and their +long voyaging together. That was when the Captains as a matter of course +took their wives, and often their children, with them, keeping a cow on +board for the family's use, and sometimes chickens and pigs. Many babies +who grew to be sturdy citizens were born on the high seas in those days. + +She told about long peaceful days, slipping through the Trades, and +about gales, but mostly about china and pottery, for this was their +hobby, almost their passion. They took inconvenient journeys of great +length to see new potteries, and hoped at last to see all the sea-board +china factories, in East and West. She showed me her treasures, pretty +bits of Sevres, majolica, Doulton, and Wedgewood, all standing together, +and among them an alabaster model of the leaning tower of Pisa (Pysa, +she called it). At last, with a lowered voice, she spoke of the worst +danger they had ever been through, a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal. The +ship lay dismasted, and the waves broke over her helplessness. She was +lifted up and dashed down like a log, and every soul on board expected +only to perish. + +"Cap'n come downstairs to our cabin: + +"Oh, Mary," he says, "if only you was to home! I could die easy if only +you was to home!" + +"I be to home!" I says. "If I had the wings of a dove, I wouldn't be +anywheres but where I be!" + +This ranks with the epitaph at Nantucket: + +"Think what a wife should be, and she was that!" + +Another seafaring friend was, as so often happens, the last person whom +you would ever connect with adventures, a little lady so tiny, so +dainty, that a trip across the lawn with garden gloves and hat, to tie +up her roses, might have been her longest excursion; but instead she has +sailed round and round the world with her courtly sea-captain father, +has lifted her quiet gray eyes to see coral islands and spice islands, +and the strange mountain ranges of the East Indies. + +"She wore white mostly when we were in the Trades or the Tropics," her +father has told me, "and she sat on deck all day, with her white +fancy-work. She always seemed to like whatever was happening." + +One day, in a fog with a heavy sea running, the ship ran on a reef. The +life-saving crew got the men off with great difficulty, but the Captain +refused to leave his post, and little Miss Jessie refused too. + +"No, thank you," she said, in her soft voice, "No, thanks very much, I +think I will stay with the Captain." + +"And you couldn't move her," he said, "any more than the rock of +Gibraltar." + +With the night the storm lessened, and almost by a miracle the ship was +got off safely next morning. + +I must tell of one more seafaring couple, who lived down the river in a +low white cottage where "Captain," retired from service, could watch +vessels passing, even without his handsome brass-bound binoculars, a +much-prized tribute for life-saving. + +The wife was long paralyzed, and the Captain, with the simple-minded +nephew they had adopted, tended her as he might have tended an adored +child. He bought her silk waists, fine aprons, little frills of one sort +or another, fastened them on her with clumsy, loving fingers, and then +would sit back, laughing with pride, while the paralyzed woman, with her +wrecked face, managed to make uncouth sounds of pleasure. + +"Don't she look handsome? Don't she look nice as anybody?" he would ask +of the neighbors, and show the new wig he had bought her, as the poor +hair was thin. His simple pride thought it as beautiful as any young +girl's curls, and indeed it was very youthful. One's heart was wrung, +yet uplifted, too, for here was love which had passed through the +absolute wrecking of life, and was untouched. + +The Captain was a tall hearty man, but it was he who died first, after +all, and all in a minute. The paralyzed creature thus bereaved, moaned, +day after day; her eyes seemed to be asking for something, there in the +room, and no one could find the right thing, till someone thought of the +Captain's binoculars, which he always had by him. From that moment she +became tranquil, and even grew happy again, if only she had the bright +brass thing where her poor hand could touch it. If it was moved, she +moaned for it to be set back. It was her precious token, from his hand +to hers. With it beside her she could wait and be good, poor dear soul, +until, in about two years, her release came, and she went to join +"Captain." + +One word more about Mr. Peter Simons, of whom the town keeps pleasant +memories. He lived handsomely, in a handsome house overlooking the +river, and his housekeeper, Deborah Twycross, was as much of a magnate +in her own way as himself. Mr. Peter was very high with her; but he +stood in awe of her, too. Still, he never would let her engage his +second servant, a privilege which she coveted. + +In his young days a "hired girl" received $2.00 a week wages, if she +could milk, $1.50 if she could not. By the time Mr. Peter was +established in stately bachelor housekeeping no girl was any longer +expected to milk, and few knew how. But when engaging a servant, if he +did not like the applicant's looks, Mr. Peter would say, + +"Can you milk?" + +Of course, she could not, and there the matter would end. He never asked +a girl whose looks he liked, if she could milk! + +He was a man of endless secret benevolence, and posed all the time as a +hard-fisted person and a miser. He was at the most devious pains to +conceal his constant kindnesses. The noble minister who at that time +carried our Town on his young shoulders, received sums of money, in +every time of need, for library, schools, or cases of poverty and +suffering, directed in a variety of elaborately disguised handwritings. +He was able in time to trace them all to Mr. Peter. Many a struggling +young man was set on his feet and established in life by this secret +benefactor; and after Mr. Peter's death, his coal dealer told how for +years he had had orders to deliver loads of coal to this and that family +in distress, after dark, and as noiselessly as possible, under an +agreement of secrecy, enforced by such threats that he never dared +disobey. + +The Town has changed since Mr. Peter's day. Boys no longer brave the +terrors of a visit to a White Witch to have their warts charmed, or a +toothache healed. ("Mother Hatch," who plied her arts some thirty years +ago, was the last of these. Her appliances for fortune-telling were the +correct ones of cards, an ink-well, and a glass to gaze in; but a small +trembling sufferer in knickerbockers--a hero to the still more trembling +group of friends and eggers-on outside--did not benefit by these higher +mysteries. The enchantress, beside her traffic in the black arts, took +in washing; she would withdraw her hands from the suds, and lay a +reeking finger on the offending tooth, the patient gasping and shutting +his terror-stricken eyes while she recited a sufficient incantation.) + +Even the memory of the Whipping-post, which still stood in Mr. Peter's +childhood, has long since vanished. The town bell is no longer rung at +seven in the morning and at noon, and a steam fire-whistle has replaced +the tocsin of alarm that formerly was rung from all the church steeples; +but the curfew still rings every night, at nine in the evening (the bell +which rings it was made by Paul Revere); and, among the customary +Scriptural-sounding offices of fence-viewers, field-drivers, measurers +of wood and bark, etc., the town still has a town crier. A very few +years ago it still had a pound-keeper and hog-reeve, but by now the +outlines of the pound itself have disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER V--BY THE ACUSHTICOOK + + +A smaller river, the Acushticook, tumbles and foams down through the +midst of our town, and brings us the wonderfully soft pure water of a +chain of over twenty lakes and ponds. It flung the hills apart to join +the larger stream which it meets at right angles at the Town Bridge, and +the last mile of its course is through a beautiful small gorge, in a +succession of falls, now compacted into the eight dams which turn our +mills. + +Above the falls, though it breaks into occasional rapids, its course is +quieter, and as you travel towards the setting sun, your canoe follows a +peaceful stream, running for the most part through woods. + +The country along the Acushticook is broken and hilly, woods or open +pastures full of boulders and junipers. The farms depend on their stock +and apple orchards for their prosperity. You see big chicken yards, and +the more enterprising farmers send their eggs and broilers to city +markets. Pigs do well among the apple trees, and most of the farms have +ducks and geese as well as chickens. A well-trodden road follows the +crest of the ridge, parallel to the river. + +The Baxters, good, silent people, live well out on this road, and +handsome Ambrose Baxter has a thriving milk route. Sefami Baxter, his +uncle, worked in the paper mill his whole life, and now his son, young +Sefami, has built up a good market garden business on the Acushticook +road. He started it years ago with a tiny greenhouse, which he built on +to his farm kitchen. He raised tomatoes and other seedlings, and early +lettuce. It was an innovation in our part of the world, and neighbors +shook their heads; but one bit of greenhouse was added to another, and +now Sefami has three long stacks of them and is a prosperous man. He has +a whole field of rhubarb and a large orchard, where he keeps twenty +hives of bees. He had no capital beyond the savings of a plain working +family, and he had to find his market for himself. + +The Drews, now old people, live beyond Ambrose Baxter, and life has been +a more poignant thing for them than for most of the farm neighbors. +Their boy, Lawrence, was born for learning. He _foamed_ to it, as a +stream rushes down hill, and he had the vision and faithfulness which +lead to high and lonely places. The parents were industrious and frugal, +and Lawrence was the channel through which everything they had, mind and +ambitions as well as savings, poured itself out. As a boy, he was all +ardor and eagerness. Now he is a tall careworn man of fifty, unmarried, +with hair and beard streaked with gray. He is a man of importance in +many ways beside that of his own department in a great Western +university. He is a good son, and comes home to the comfortable white +farmhouse for every day in the year that it is possible, but his +parents, of necessity, have had to grow old without him, and their look, +in speaking of him, is one of acceptance, as well as of a high pride. + +Acushticook has changed her course from time to time through the +centuries, and about five miles from town a stretch of flat land which +must once have been either intervale along the river's course or one of +its many small lakes, lies pocketed among the hills. This stretch, which +is very fertile, belongs, or belonged, to the Dunnacks, and they were +surely a family which will be remembered. They never pretended to be +anything more than plain farming people, but they were marked by a +personal dignity and refinement, even fastidiousness, by their +intelligence, and alas, by their many sorrows. Old Warren Dunnack was a +farmer of substance. His son, the Warren Dunnack of our time, was nearly +all his life in charge of the "Homestead" (one of the few country places +in our neighborhood), during the long absence abroad of its owners. He +married a beautiful woman, Sarah Brant. She was a magnificent creature, +in a hard, almost animal sort of way, but was a shallow person, with a +vain nature, coveting show, fine food and clothes, and she broke +Warren's heart. He took her back again and again after her many flights, +for he had an unconquerable chivalry and gentleness for all women, and +he let her have everything that he could earn. + +[Illustration: INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER'S COURSE] + +Lucretia was the beauty of the family, a slip of a girl with eyes like +black diamonds. She married a showy business man, who turned out badly. +She came home, a handsome and embittered older woman, and made life +uncomfortable for herself and everyone else on the farm. Afterwards she +became companion to a widow of some means, a fantastic person, and they +lived together (unharmoniously) all their days. + +Delia, who was so pretty, though not striking like Lucretia, married +silly Ephraim Simmons; but her affection for her brother Warren was the +abiding thing of her life. When Warren's wife left him, and Delia was +offered the position of housekeeper at the Homestead, she took it, and +there she and Warren kept house for fifteen years. Two good-natured +slack daughters (they were all Simmons; not a trace of their mother's +fire in them) helped Ephraim with his farm, and he certainly needed the +money that their mother earned. He was a poor enough farmer; but his +foolish face used to look wistful when he drove the six miles, every +other Saturday, to see Delia. + +Delia, for her part, never seemed anything but clear as to her duty. She +drove over now and then to see Ephraim, and sent her money to him and +the girls, or put it in the bank for them, but her heart clave to her +brother. She kept the long delightfully rambling house, and he kept the +farm, lawns, and gardens, punctiliously in order for the owners who +never came; and the honeysuckles blossomed in the corner of the great +dark hedges, the lilies opened, and the grapes ripened and dropped on +the sunny terraces of the garden as the unmarked years went by. I think +that Delia's life was one of untroubled serenity. Warren was a grave +man, and his trouble with his wife underlay all his days, but with Delia +he found a rare companionship and understanding. Their sitting-room in +the ell of the big house was a gathering place for the farm neighbors. +There was a deep fireplace, a table with a big lamp, a sofa, high-backed +arm-chairs with worsted-work cushions and tidies, and windows filled +with blossoming plants. + +Warren died after a lingering illness, which he met with his usual grave +cheerfulness, and Delia went back to Ephraim on the Acushticook road. +Whatever she thought of the difference between the Homestead and the +bare little farm, between Warren and Ephraim, she met the change with +the charming, half-whimsical philosophy that was hers through life. She +had pretty ways, and an unconquerable sense of fun. She lived to be +nearly eighty. She was a fine, fine woman; delicately organized, but of +such vigorous fibre that she struck her roots deep into life, and gave +out good to everyone who came near her. She was a magnet, drawing people +by her warmth and sweetness. + +It was to poor, good, hard-working John Dunnack that actual tragedy +came. He was a plain dull man, of a far humbler stripe than his +brothers. Misfortune came to his only child, a young adopted daughter. +He lost his place at the mill not long after, from age. He was eighty +years old. It was too much. His mind failed, and he took his own life. + +A cheerful family, the Greenleafs, live next beyond the Dunnacks. They +keep bees on a large scale, and "Greenleaf Honey," in pretty-shaped +glass jars, with a green beech leaf on the label, has had its +established market for two generations. They also grew cherries for +market, nearly as large as damsons. + +Harvey Greenleaf had luck, and has what our people know as "gumption," +and "git-up-and-git," and Mrs. Greenleaf, a fair, ample person, is a +born woman of business. Once a neighbor, a farm hand, who had been +discharged for slackness, planted buckwheat in a small clearing next the +Greenleafs', out of spite. (Buckwheat honey is unmarketable, because of +its marked peculiar flavor, and its dark color.) Harvey was away at the +County Grange Meeting--he was Master of his Grange that year--at the time +it flowered. Two little girls, out picking wild raspberries, brought +word of the trouble. + +"Mis' Greenleaf! Mis' Greenleaf! There's buckwheat in blow at Jasper +Derry's clearing, an' it's full of your bees!" + +Mrs. Greenleaf harnessed up the old white mare herself, and drove over +to the offender's house. No one knows how she dealt with him, but the +buckwheat was cut before night. Harvey chuckles, and says she swung the +scythe herself. Not much harm was done, and only a little of the yield +turned out to have been injured by the buckwheat. + +There are no rules about the planting of buckwheat near bee-hives. It is +a matter of good feeling and neighborliness, and buckwheat is seldom +grown where a neighbor keeps bees for profit; but it is impossible to +guard against the trouble entirely and I have known a whole season's +yield to be discolored with honey brought from buckwheat, nine miles +from the hives. + +One early morning this June, as we were at breakfast on the piazza, a +boy came round the corner of the house, and asked if we wanted "a quart +of wild strawberries, a pint of cream, and a dozen of Mother's fresh +rolls, for forty cents!" We certainly did; and in the driveway we saw +"Mother" waiting in the wagon, an alert-looking woman with a friendly +face. She told us that she was Harvey Greenleaf's daughter-in-law, and +the boy her eldest son. + +"I think there's lots of small extra business that folks can do on the +farms, if they're spry, that sets things ahead a lot," she said, _à +propos_ of the strawberries. + +The rolls were as light as feather, and the cream very thick. We +arranged for the same bargain twice a week while the berry season +lasted! + +In the autumn the same couple came again, this time with vegetables and +fruit, nicely arranged, and with small cakes of fresh cream cheese done +up in waxed paper in neat packages, each package stamped with S. +Greenleaf, Eagle Cliff Farm. This is a new venture in our part of the +country. + +A mile of beautiful pasture, on a big scale, as smooth as an English +down, slopes down from the back of the Greenleafs' farm, rises in a +noble ridge, and slopes again to where the Acushticook sparkles and +dances over some thirty yards of rapids. The turf is close cropped and +there are boulders and groups of half-sized firs and spruces scattered +over the slope. There is a little wood in the upper corner, cool and +shadowy, with a brooklet set deep in mosses, trickling through the +midst. The pasture road leads through the firs and hemlocks, growing +closer and more feathery, then through this wood, where Lady's Slippers +grow. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--SPRING + + +April 3. Last night the river "went out." We were so used, all winter, +to its sleeping whiteness, that it seemed as unlikely to change as the +outlines of the hills; then came a tumultuous week, and now it is a +brown, strong, full-running stream, with swirls and whirlpools of +hastening current all over its wide surface. These are indescribable +days. The air is sweet with wet bark and melting snow and +newly-uncovered earth. The lesser streams are rushing and roaring +through the woods. There are little clear dark foam-topped pools under +all the spouts, and bright drops falling from rocks and roofs, where +there were icicles so lately; and the roads endure miniature floods, +from the torrents of snow-water that gush down their gutters and spread +the mud in fan-shapes over them. Wherever you stand, you cannot get away +from the rushing and trickling and rilling. The whole frozen strength of +winter is breaking up in a wealth of life-giving waters. + +There is a neglected-looking time for the fields just after the snow +goes. The snow-patches recede and leave the soaked grass covered with +odds and ends of loose sticks and roots and with untidy wefts of cobweb. +The dead leaves lie limp and dank, and are of lovely but sad colors, +soft browns and umbers, ash-grays and ash-purples; but in the midst of +this waste the ponds are all awake--dimpling, soft water, tender and +alive--and their bright blue is a new wonder after our winter world of +white and brown and gray. + +Robins came yesterday. Their crisp voices woke us with a start, after +the winter's silence. They were busy all over the lawn, and nearly a +week ago we heard the first blue-birds and meadow-larks. + +The fir boughs that were banked about the houses last fall, for warmth, +must be burnt, and bonfires are being lighted all about the fields and +gardens. They blaze up into a crackling roar of burning brush, and the +smoke comes pouring and creaming out in thick white torrents. The clean, +hilarious smell spreads everywhere, the touch of it clings to our hair +and clothing. This is a wonderful, Indian time for children, when all +sorts of strange inherited knowledge stirs in them. Look at their eyes, +as they play and plan round their fires! + +[Illustration: THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH] + +Cumulus clouds came back, as always, with late winter. Through the +autumn, and early winter, clear days are practically cloudless; and +cloud-masses, cirrus, not cumulus, herald and follow storms; but with +February, the clear-weather summer clouds return. They begin to be trim +again, and marshaled, and take up the ordered leisurely sailing of their +pretty squadrons. + +April 10. + +There is already a general warming and yellowing of twigs. The elm tops +are growing feathery and show a warm brown, and a crimson-coral mist +begins to flush over the low-lying woods, where the swamp maples are in +flower. Pussy-willows are as thick on their twigs as drops after a rain, +and as silvery. You would say at first that nothing had changed yet in +the main forest. The brown aisles and misty dark hollows seem the same, +but no; fringed about the openings and coverts along their borders the +birch and alder catkins are in flower. They are powdery and +gold-colored, and overhead they dangle like the tails of little fairy +sheep against the sky. + +The wild geese woke us in the dark, just before dawn, this morning. Last +year there was a violent snow-storm, a perfect smothering whirl of +flakes, the night they flew over, and the great birds were beaten down +among the house-tops, creakling and honkling in dismay and confusion, +but holding on their way. + +Now at dusk comes the first silvery evening whistling of the frogs, the +peepers. If a cloud passes over the sun, even as early as three in the +afternoon, they start up as if at a signal, all together, and as the sun +shines out again fall instantly silent. + +May 3. + +All this time the green has been spreading and spreading through the +pastures till now it clothes them, and the dandelions are scattered over +them like a king's largesse. Dew falls all winter, but it is in star and +fern shapes of frost; now every morning and evening the thick grass is +pearled again with a million nourishing drops. + +Now rainbow colors begin to show over the hillsides. It is as if a +thousand and a thousand tiny butterflies, pink and cream color and +living green and crimson, had alighted in the woods. Light comes through +them, and they give back light, from the shining, fine down that covers +them. The little leaves are almost like clear jewels against the sun, +beaded all over the twigs. They only make a slightly dotted veil as yet, +they do not hide or screen. You can see as far into the wood-openings as +in winter. The brown stems and branches are as delicate and distinct as +those of a bed of maiden-hair fern. + +The roadside willows are puffs of gold-green smoke, the sapling birches +and quaking aspens like green mounting flames up the hillsides, and the +catkins of the canoe birches shine like the mist of gold sparks from a +rocket. + +The different trees develop by different stages, and each stands out in +turn against its fellows, as if illuminated, before it loses itself in +the growing sea of green. You see its full leafy shape, the mass of each +round top, as at no other time of year; yet the individual habit of +branching is still manifest, as in winter: the long springing sprays of +the swamp maples, the more compact strong branches of the oaks, the +maze-like firm twigs of the hop-hornbeams, lying in whorls and layers. +The branchlets of the beeches are like thorns. The elms are soft brown +spirits of trees throughout the woods; their entire fern-like outline is +silhouetted, and the swamp maples stand like delicate living shapes of +bronze. + +Innocents are out in patches in the pastures, looking as if white powder +had been spilt. Purple and white hepaticas are clustered in crannies of +the rocks, and after a rain mayflowers stand up thick, thick in the +fields, in masses of pink and white fragrance. Blood-root covers whole +banks with snow-white, and dog-tooth violets, littlest of lilies, nod +their yellow-and-brown prettiness over the slopes carpeted with their +strange mottled leaves. + +Shad-bush is out now in fairy white, tasseled over knolls and hillsides +and overhanging wooded banks along the streams. Its opening leaves are +reddish, delicately serrate, and finely downy. The pure white flowers +are loosely starred all over it. They are long-petaled and lightly hung, +and the tree is slender and very pliable, the whole thing suggesting a +delicate raggedness, as if young Spring went lightly on bare feet with +fluttering clothes. + +This is the most fairy-scented time of the whole year. "The wood-bine +spices are wafted abroad," indeed. The willows perfume the lanes with +their intoxicating sweetness; and there is a cool pure dawn-like +fragrance everywhere, from the countless millions of opening leaves, +steeped every night with dew. + +Last week we saw the first swallows. There they skimmed and flew, as if +they had never gone to other skies at all. Their flight is so +effortless, they seem to pour and stream down unseen cataracts of air. +To-day chimney-swallows came, and we watched their endless rippling and +circling. They sailed and wheeled, in little companies or singly, now +twittering and now silent, and from now on all summer the sky will never +be empty of their beautiful activities. + +May 26. + +At last the woods are like a garden of delicate flowers, clothing the +hills as far as eye can see with colors of sunrise. The red-oaks are +gold color, with strong brown stems; ash and lindens are golden green; +maples soft copper and bronze, or deep flesh-color. + +The flower-like delicacy of leafing out is wonderfully prolonged. The +willows come first, then elms, in brown flower, then quaking-asps and +birches, and then maples. Later, lindens and ash-trees catch the light, +and the ash leaves (which grow far apart, and in bunches, with the +flower-buds) are indeed like just-alighted butterflies. The small leaves +are so bright that even in the rain they shine as if a shaft of sunlight +from some unseen break in the clouds were lighting the woods. + +Now long shining leaf buds show among the elm flowers and on the +beeches. The later poplars are cream-white and as downy as velvet. A +wood of maples and poplars is almost a pink-and-white wood; shell-pink, +and palest, most silvery-and-creamy gray. + +The tall gold-colored red-oaks make masses of strong color; and later, +when we think the shimmering of the fairy rainbow is fading, the white +oaks come out in a mist of pale carnation--pink and gray and cream. + +In June, after all the hardwoods have merged into uniform light green, +firs and spruces become jeweled at every point with tips of light, the +new growth for the year. Red pines and white pines are set all over with +candelabra of lighter green, until high on the tops of the seeding white +pines little clusters of finger-slender pale green cones begin to show. + +By this time the forest-flowers have faded through the woods. The +brighter colors of the field-flowers are gay along the roadsides and +over meadows and pastures, and with them Summer has come. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD + + +The cross-road under the great leafy ridge of Eastman Hill has pretty +farms along it, and half-way across there is a country burying ground, +where wild plums blossom, and the grave-stones are half hidden all +summer in a green thicket. + +One name in the graveyard we all hold in special honor, that of Serena +Eastman. I never knew her myself, and it is only from her granddaughter +and from the neighbors that I learned of her beautiful life. + +She was a mother in Israel; one of + + "All-Saints--the unknown good that rest + In God's still memory folded deep." + +She brought up eleven children to upright manhood and womanhood, and +beside this a whole neighborhood was nourished from the wells of her +deep nature. She lived and died before the days of trained nurses, and +in addition to her own cares she was the principal nurse of her +countryside. Those were the days when nursing was not and could not be +paid for, but was a priceless gift from neighbor to neighbor. She stood +ready to be up all night, and night after night, to ease pain by her +ministering, or to help to bring a new life into the world; her faith +lifted the spirits of the dying, and of those about to be bereaved, as +if on strong pinions. + +Small-pox was still a terrible scourge in those times, and she was the +only woman in the district who would nurse it. Her granddaughter has +told me how she kept a change of clothes in an out-house, and how she +bathed and dressed there (the only precautions against infection known +to the times), whether in winter or summer, before rejoining her family. +She always drove to and from such cases at night, to run as little +danger as possible of coming in contact with people. Her husband took +the same risks that she did. He drove back and forth, and lent his +strength in lifting and carrying patients. + +They had a large farm, which meant cooking for hired men in the busy +seasons, and beside Serena's eleven children there were older relations +to do for, her husband's father and mother, and one or two unmarried +sisters. She was active in Dorcas society and in meeting. Her +granddaughter feels that only the completeness of her religious life +could have carried her through the fatigues which she underwent. She +lived in that conscious obedience to duty which eliminates friction, and +her view of duty was one taken through wide-opened windows. She walked +with God daily. + +The house of this dear woman burned, not long after she and her husband +died, and only the blossoming lilacs mark its empty cellar-hole, but the +next farm, which belonged to Mr. Eastman's brother, and is now his +nephew's, is a fine one. You drive on to a wide green, as smoothly kept +as a lawn, where three huge trees, a willow and two elms, overhang the +house. There are big comfortable barns and outhouses, a corn-crib and +well-sweep, and the house is square and ample, with two big chimneys. + +Next to the Eastmans', beyond their orchard, comes a neat small farm, +with a long wide stone wall, where grapes are trained, owned once by two +queer old sisters, the Misses Pushard, or as we have it, the Miss +Pushhards. (A Huguenot name, pronounced _Pushaw_ by the older +generation.) They went to Lyceum in their young days, and, a rare thing +then so far in the country, they had a piano. This gave them "a great +shape." Poor ladies, with their piano! Years later they were in +straitened circumstances, and anxious to sell it, but to their +indignation nobody wanted it, or not at the price they thought fitting; +so, one night, they _chopped it up_, and hid the pieces. Thus they were +not left with the instrument on their hands; and they had not accepted +an unworthy price for their treasure. All this was learned years +afterwards from some old papers. The fragments of the piano were found +in the cistern. + +The last farm on the road is owned by Sam Marston and his dear wife, +Susan; who, though you never would think it (except for a little +remaining crispness of speech), was born in England, in Essex, and came +as a young English housemaid--dear me, how long ago now!--to the +Homestead, eight miles away, by the River. Sam Marston worked there in +the stables, and lost his heart promptly, and after four or five years +of characteristic Yankee courting, leisurely, but humorously determined, +Susan made up her mind, and said "yes," and came out to the farm, with +her fresh print gowns, her trimness and stanchness, and her abiding +religion. + +Susan keeps also her fixed ideas of the "quality." She is now a power in +her whole neighborhood. She and Sam, alas, have no children, a great +sorrow, but the young people growing up near her show the reflection of +her uprightness and that of her Sam. But after all these years she is +still an exotic. The Sunday-school which she has gathered about her is +strictly Church of England. The children learn their catechism, and "to +do their duty in life in that station into which it shall please God to +call them"; and they are instructed perfectly clearly as to their +betters! + +The other day we drove out to her farm. We were going to climb Eastman +Hill, after Lady's Slippers, and then were to have supper with Susan. + +The sky was very deep blue, with flocks of little white clouds sailing. +The woods were still all different shades of light and bright green, and +the apple trees were in full blossom. The barn swallows were skimming +and pouring low about the green fields in their effortless flight. I +think I never drove through so smiling a country. + +The house is a long low brick one, with dormer windows, in the midst of +an old orchard. There is a fence and a hedge, and a brick path leads to +the door. There are lilac bushes at the corner of the house, and +cinnamon roses and yellow lilies on each side of the doorway. + +Susan came out, laughing, and nearly crying, with pleasure, to welcome +us. She "jumped" us down with her kind hands, and took all our wraps. We +went as far as the house, asking questions and chattering, and then +Susan showed us our way, an opening in the screen of the woods reached +by a path through the orchard, and stood shading her eyes with her hand +to look after us. + +We followed a bit of mossy old corduroy road, through moist rich woods, +and then began to climb among a wood of beeches. Soon the rock began to +crop out in small cliffs, and we found different treasures, the little +pale pink _corydalis_, a black-and-white creeper's nest in a ferny cleft +between two rocks, quantities of twin-flower, and then, rising a +beech-covered knoll, we came on our first Lady's Slippers. The glade +ahead was thronged with them. They spread their broad light-green leaves +like wings, and their beautiful heads bent proudly. They grew sometimes +singly, sometimes in clumps of fifteen or twenty blossoms, and were +scattered over the whole glade as if a flight of rose-colored +butterflies had just alighted. + +We came on this same sight seven different times; this lovely company +scattered over the slope among the rocks, where the ridge broke out into +low gray pinnacles among the beeches. + +When at last we could make up our minds to climb down, following the +white thread of a waterfall, into the deeper woods, we found Painted +Trilliums, bright white and painted with crimson, with +Jack-in-the-pulpits, both grown to a great size in the rich mould, +amongst a green mist of uncurling ferns. + +The brook which we followed came out at last in an open pasture above +the farm. It was as refreshing as a bath in running water to come out +into the cool, sweet evening air, for the heavy woods were warm, and +there had been quantities of black flies and mosquitoes, which our hands +were too full to fight. Beside all our baskets, our handkerchiefs and +hats were full of flowers. One of our number carried a young cherry +tree, with roots and sod, over his shoulder, and mosses in his pockets, +and the girls had Lady's Slippers and fern roots in their caught-up +skirts. + +The turf was powdered white as snow with Innocents, and there were +violets. The pasture slopes down through dark needle-pointed clumps of +balsam fir, and scattered hawthorn and cherry trees, which were in +flower. A hermit thrush sang from one of the firs as we came down. The +heavenly, pure carillon rang out again and again, as dusk fell deeper, +the singer altering the pitch with each repetition of the song, ringing +one lovely change after another. + +Such a supper was set out on the porch! Fresh rolls and butter, cream +cheese and chicken, jugs of milk and cream, fresh hot gingerbread, and +bowls of wild strawberries. The porch runs out into the orchard, and the +white petals of the apple-blossoms drifted down as we sat laughing and +talking. Susan placed her chair near us, but nothing would induce her to +eat with us, and she jumped up every minute and fluttered into the +house, to press more good things on us. Presently, Sam came in from +milking, and was a fellow-Yankee and a brother at once. + +We could hardly bear to go home, and almost took Sam's offer (which so +scandalized Susan) of a night in the hay in the new barn. It would be so +pretty to lie watching the swallows darting in and out after sunrise. + +We went all through Susan's trim farmhouse, and saw her dairy, with its +airy and spotless arrangements. The milk, thick and yellow with cream, +was in curious blue glass pans, which Susan said came long ago from the +Homestead. We saw all the chickens, the calves, and the black pigs. The +Jerseys blew long breaths at us from their mangers, and the horses put +out their soft noses for sugar. The ducks were quacking and waddling all +over the yard, and the pigeons fluttered about. + +The late veeries and robins were singing, and the warm fragrance of the +apple-blossoms was all about us, as we gathered our treasures together +and drove home in the dusk. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR'S MILLS + + +The two adjoining districts of Ridgefield and Weir's Mills lie about ten +miles to the east of us, in level and fertile farm country, between two +ridges of hills. Ridgefield is an old Roman Catholic settlement. +Twenty-five years ago it still had a prosperous convent, and children +educated in the convent school have gone out all over the country; but +the centre of the farming population shifted, and at last the convent +was closed. The cheerful-faced, black-gowned sisters are all gone. The +bell has been silent for years now, and its tower stands up with blank +windows, nothing more than a strange landmark in the open farming +landscape. + +The Ridgefield Irish were a noted community. They all came from one +county, and were marked to a surprising degree by their personal beauty. +There were Esmonds and Desmonds, Considines, Burkes, and McCanns, and +two names now gone (except for one old representative) Guilfoyles and +Guilshannons. Four lovely Esmond girls of one family are now growing up, +bearing four saints' names--Agatha, Ursula, Patricia, Cecily. + +Honoria Considine walks down our street, beautiful creature that she is, +with a port and carriage that a princess might envy. She has brought up +an orphaned nephew and niece to capability and prosperity, supporting +them entirely by her sewing. The Considines have possessions which show +that they came to this country as something more than farmers. They have +a little old silver, two finely inlaid card-tables in the farm +"best-room," and two larger mahogany tables. They are great +prohibitionists, and would be shocked, good souls, to know that what +they call the "old refrigerator" is a beautifully carved wine-cooler! + +Lawrence McCann and Joe Fitzgerald were two as handsome creatures as +ever were seen, with great dark blue eyes, delicate brows, dark curls, +and mantling Irish color. + +Lawrence died of consumption at twenty-four, as did his cousin, +delightful Con Guilshannon, but Joe did well and married. The other day +I saw him out walking with three little rosy children, all with penciled +eyebrows and very dark blue eyes. + +There lives an old lady in a great western city (I don't give its name) +who ought to wear a crown instead of a bonnet. The town trembles before +her masterful benevolence. Her magnificent house dominates the "best +community," and her six middle-aged married children, established +near-by in houses of equal magnificence, do not dare call their souls +their own. + +A neighbor of mine was in her city last year, and was taken to see her. +The old lady seemed to know an amazing amount, not only about our +far-away eastern State, but about our actual county. She finally showed +such an absorbing interest in particular households that my friend said: + +"But how can you know? How _can_ you have heard about so-and-so?" + +"Child," said the old chieftainess, her fine eyes twinkling and filling, +"My name is no guide to you now, except that it's Irish, but I was born +and brought up in your county. I was an Esmond from Ridgefield, and had +my schooling at the convent, not six miles from your door." + +After Ridgefield, with its deserted convent, you come presently to where +the rolling country is suddenly flung amazingly apart in the chasm-like +valley of the Winding River. Weir's Mills, the village at the head of +navigation, is a pleasant peaceful little place, a very old settlement, +with a noted old church. + +A neighbor of ours, a man now of eighty, has told me that in his +childhood at Weir's Mills, the school had neither paper nor blackboard +nor slates for the children to write on. The teacher smoothed the ashes +of the hearthstone out flat with a shingle, and the children did their +figuring on that. Farmers going into town chalked the figures of their +sales on their beaver hats, and the assessor chalked the taxes up on the +doors. + +The school-teachers were taken to board in turn, two weeks at a time, by +different families; and a friend, now an elderly woman, has told me that +when teaching, as a young girl, she had as a rule to share her bed with +three or four children of the family. In several places the hens slept +in the room too. The schools of course were ungraded. After her teaching +hours she helped in the housework, but she liked it, and made warm +friends. She found the life vigorous and hardy--"It was life that was +every bit of it alive," she has told me. + +It is sometimes said that marriage and divorce are taken lightly in the +country districts, and certainly the Jingroes and their like, of whom +more later, make their gipsy marriages, which bind only at will; but +even among some of our outlying communities of far higher standing than +the forest settlements, it is true that a curious, primitive view of +wedlock often obtains. Marriages in the country are deep as the rock, +enduring as the hills, _once the real mate is found_. The fine, +toil-worn faces of man and wife, in Golden-Wedding and Four-generations +groups in local newspapers, show a thing before which one puts off the +shoes from off one's feet. But, when husband and wife find only misery +in their marriage, find themselves fundamentally at variance, they +quietly "get a bill," (_i. e._ of divorce,) and each is considered free +to marry again. The adjustment, according to their lights, is made +decently and in order; and all cases come quickly before the final court +of public opinion, which in these clear-eyed country districts metes out +an inexorable judgment to lightness, to cowardice or selfishness. + +It is difficult not to mis-state, about so subtle a matter; but the +attitude of these neighborhoods is not a lax one. It is rather as if, in +places so small, where the margin of everything is so narrow, the +tremendous exigencies of life enforce a tolerance which is no conscious +action of men's minds, but a thing larger than themselves, before which +they must bow. Life is so simple and vital, so cleared by necessity of a +million extraneous complexities, that people are able, as one of the +Saints says, to judge the action by the person, not the person by the +action. + +Long ago there was plenty of shipping direct from Weir's Mills to +Boston, and even to-day scows, and a few small schooners, come up +between the hills for hay and wood, up all the windings of the Winding +River, slipping through the draws at the peaceful, pretty hamlets of +Upper, Middle, and Lower Bridge. + +The country about Weir's Mills shows in indefinable ways that you are +approaching the sea. You get the taste of salt, with a south wind, more +often than with us. The roads show sandy, and you see an occasional +clump of sweet bay in the pastures. The pines grow more and more +dwarfed, and so maritime in look that you expect to see blue water and +the masts of ships ten miles before you come to them. We came on another +indication one day, in asking our way of a young girl at a farm door. + +"The second turn to the _west_," she told us. In our part of the county +we do not often think of the points of the compass. "The second turn on +your left," it would have been. + +This is one of our older districts, and a certain amount of +old-fashioned speech remains. Many persons still speak of _ninepence_ +(twelve and a half cents) and a _shilling_ (sixteen and two-thirds +cents). A High School pupil (one of the many boys who walk three or four +miles in to our Town, in all weathers, to get their schooling) brought +in some Mountain Ash berries to the botanical class. _Round-Tree +berries_, he called them, and the master was puzzled, until he realized +that this meant _Rowan Tree_, and that the name had come down straight +from the boy's English forefathers, who picked the rowan berries by +their home streams. + +[Illustration: THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE] + +All through our county, and in our Town itself, among the homelier +neighbors, many of the old strong preterites, which have become obsolete +elsewhere, are still in use. "I _wed_ the garden," for "I _weeded_," "I +_bet_ the carpet"; _riz_ for _raised_, _hove_ for _heaved_; and among +our old established families of substance you may still hear _shew_ for +_showed_ and _clim_ for _climbed_. + +"I _clim_ a little ways up into the rigging," one of our magnates said +to me this very week, speaking of an adventure of his seafaring youth. + +After the Revolution certain of the unfortunate Hessians drifted to the +southern part of our county, and being stranded, poor souls, they made +the best of it, settled and married. They named our town of Dresden. The +Theobalds come from this Hessian stock, the Vannahs, who started as +Werners, the Dockendorffs, and we have a precious although extremely +local seashore name, _Winkiepaw_, which began life as Wenckebach. But +the adaptation of surnames is in process all around us. Uriah Briery's +people used to be _Brieryhurst_; and Samuel Powers has told me that his +grandfather wrote his name in "a queer Frenchy sort of way, he spelled +it _de la Poer_"(!) The Goslines, of whom we have a good sized family, +were _du Gueslins_, not long since, and Alec Duffy, who sounds entirely +Irish, was born _Alexis D'Urfeé_. + +A queer old person lived on the Weir's Mills road when we were children. +He had prospered in farming and trade, and was quite a rich man for +those parts. He wanted to be richer still, and all his last years he was +ridden by two chimerical dreams; one, that a piece of his land was to be +bought for a monster hotel, at a fabulous price, and the other that +Captain Kidd's treasure was buried in a small island he owned in the +river. He dug and he dug for it. He had absolute faith in the +superstition that a fork of green wood--perhaps of witch-hazel only, but +I am not sure about this--held firmly in both hands, will point straight +to buried water or buried treasure. He has led us all over his island, +holding the forked stick. + +"There! See him! See him turn!" he would cry out excitedly. "Wild oxen +won't hold him!" The stick certainly turned in his hands, and in ours, +when he placed it right for us. I suppose the wood is so elastic and +springy that, holding it in a certain way you unconsciously turn it +yourself; but it gave a queer feeling. + +This whole district is fragrant with the memory of a saint, Mary Scott. +She was a cripple her whole life. Her shoulders and the upper part of +her body were those of a powerful woman, but her feet and legs were +those of a child, and were withered and useless. She lived all alone +when I knew her, in a tiny neat house. She spent her days in a child's +cart, which she could move about by the wheels with her hands, and she +was most active and busy. + +No one could go through a life of such affliction without untellable +suffering; but Mary's sweet faith never seemed to know that she had a +self at all, still less a crippled self. She had quick skillful hands, +and her absorbing pleasure all through the year was her work for her +Christmas tree. She saved, and her neighbors saved for her, every bit of +tinfoil and silver or gold paper that could be found, and fashioned out +of it bright stars and spangles for trimming. She knitted and knitted, +mittens and stockings and comforters, and when the time came near she +made candy, and corn-balls, and strung popcorn into garlands. The +neighbors all helped her, and good Jacob Damren, at Tresumpscott, always +cut her a tree from his woods and set it up for her; and then on +Christmas Eve the door of her cottage stood open, and the light streamed +out from the bright lighted tree, and the children of the whole district +came thronging in with their parents. + +The tributary streams from this eastern side of our river come in very +quietly. Worromontogus, the largest, is dammed just as it emerges from +its hills, to turn the Wilsons' saw-mill, which was once owned and run +by Mary Scott's father. The mill and mill-pond are in an open, sunny +pocket of the woods. The winding lane which leads in to them is bordered +with elms and willows, and the road is soft underfoot with bark and +sawdust. Feathery elms stand all about the stream's basin, and after you +have followed the road in you reach the weather-stained mill, the logs, +the new-cut lumber, as fragrant as can be, and the great heap of +bright-colored sawdust. Worromontogus drains the pond of the same name, +five miles long, some distance back in the country. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--MARY GUILFOYLE + + +The sun had come out bright after a rain, and every leaf was shining, +the June day when we drove over to Ridgefield to fetch Mary Guilfoyle. +We started early in the morning, but it was already like noon in that +midsummer season. Daisies were powdering the fields, as white as snow, +and yellow and orange hawkweeds were growing in among them, so that +whole fields showed yellow, orange, and white. The orange hawkweed is +very fragrant, and its sweetness mixed with the spicy bitterness of the +daisies. Then, on a knoll as the road rose above the river, we found +patches of bright blue lupins in the yellow and orange and white, making +such a blaze of color as I have never seen before in our northern +fields. + +There were streaks of crimson sorrel in the fields where there were no +daisies, among the ripening June-grass and red-top; all the grasses, and +the fields of grain, were beginning to turn a little tawny, and quick +waves chased each other across them with the light summer wind. + +Mary lives in a scrap of a new house, in a thick wood of young firs and +spruces. The last mile of our road led through these sweet-smelling +trees, which were set all over with light green jewels of new growth. +Grass grew in the ruts, and the moist earth of the wood road was +thronged with yellow butterflies; and tiny "blues," like bits of the sky +come to life, fluttered among the ferns. Breath after breath of +sweetness came from the warm woods in the sunshine. + +Mary was waiting for us at the door, with her knitting in her hand, and +her cat at her skirts. Her small rough fields across the road were +ploughed and planted, and she was ready to come to us. She is a strongly +built old woman with bright blue eyes and yellowish gray hair, sturdy as +a weather-beaten piece of white-oak timber. Many is the time that she +has left our house of an afternoon (in our impossible spring going, too, +with the frost coming out of the ground and the mud a foot deep); walked +out to her farm, six full miles, seen to some detail of farm-work that +worried her, and walked back, arriving before seven the next morning, to +cook our breakfast. + +She works on her farm all summer, planting and hoeing her corn and beans +and potatoes. She has help from the men of the neighborhood when she can +get it, but I believe she follows the plough herself when she is put to +it. In winter she comes into town, and works for households in +difficulties. If the cook deserts us, or we have a sudden influx of +guests or everyone has grippe, we send for Mary Guilfoyle and she sees +us through. She comes into a house like a blast of clear air. Nothing +ruffles her, and her mere presence seems to return its right proportions +and gayety to life. She knows how to work as few people do nowadays, and +she is so sound-hearted and unafraid that there is something royal and +powerful about her. + +Mary's mother was French, and it is from her she gets her gestures. Her +hands move finely, with a dignity and control a duchess might envy, and +they say more than mere words could. And then, her funny expressions! +She is a Roman Catholic, but so far from being a church-goer that I was +surprised, last Easter morning, at seeing her ready for church; and my +surprise was rebuked with, + +[Illustration: PLOUGHING MARY'S FIELD] + +"Child, the heretic and the hangman go to church on this morning!" + +Her speech is unlike anybody else's. Every sentence is vivid, but they +lose their quaint flavor in telling. She is delighted (she is a fine +cook), but excited, too, at getting a "company meal," and loses her +appetite. + +"The cook cannot eat, not if she were at the gates of heaven, at these +times," she puts it. + +She was telling one day of an unfortunate young farm neighbor-- + +"He knelt on a nail, and took lock-jaw. They hoisted him to Portland, +but it warn't of no use. He died in four days. He was a beautiful young +man. Warn't it terrible?" + +Somehow I never fail to see the poor youth caught up in a sheet and +swung through the air the whole journey. + +Mary was born and brought up in the Catholic community at Ridgefield; +but she has spent little time there. Fifty-five years ago, when she was +sixteen, she learned fine sewing and clear-starching at the Great House +of our neighborhood, and then nothing would do but she must seek her +fortune in Boston, where she already had two sisters in service. She +made the voyage in a sailing vessel, a small brig laden with hay. She +found out the name of a first-rate dressmaker, in Temple Place; next she +bought a piece of fine gray cashmere, and cut and made herself a jacket +and dress. Then she presented herself. + +"How do I know you are a seamstress at all?" the dressmaker asked. + +"I cut and made every stitch I have on me." + +"You may go right upstairs, at seven dollars a week, with the others." + +A sweep of the hand illustrated the triumph; seven dollars was fine pay +in those days. + +One of her sisters was cook for many years for Oliver Wendell Holmes. + +("A little man, the face wrinkled"--and Mary's eloquent hands made me see +the Doctor again in person.) He took care of her money for her; and Mary +has often told me how one day, after many years, he said, + +"Now, Anna, you are a rich woman; you need never work again, and can do +what you like." + +She bought a nice little house in one of the suburbs. + +"But a year was all she could stand of it. She couldn't make out to +live, away from the Holmeses, and back she goes to them." + +Mary married at twenty, and lived quietly in Chelsea for five and twenty +years. Then her husband died, and instead of going home to the farm, or +staying on where she was, to take boarders, this born adventurer was off +to see the world. + +"I hadn't seen, not one thing, cooped up there in Chelsea. I wanted to +find out about new things, and new places, whilst I was strong." + +She took a part of her savings, sewed up in the front of her gown, to +fall back on, but her capable hands were the real funds on which she +depended. She traveled to Denver, and there went out to service, and +afterwards worked in a restaurant. She found light work in plenty, and +in between jobs took her heart's fill of sight-seeing. She saw Pike's +Peak and the Grand Canyon. By the end of the winter she had earned +enough to take her to San Francisco. Here she had a sister- and +brother-in-law who ran a good restaurant, and Mary joined forces with +them. A year brim-full of life followed, but after this her two own +sisters, her only surviving near relations, fell ill, and she came home +to nurse them. It was then that she bought her farm, near her old home +in Ridgefield, planning that the three should spend their old age +together. Both sisters, though, died; but my indomitable Mary keeps the +farm almost as well as a man could, and her strong nature, tremendously +intent on the present moment, never feels loneliness. + +As I said, she is not much of a church-goer, but she is devout in her +own way, and plans to go back to San Francisco, to the convent where a +cousin of hers is now Abbess, and there + +"Get ready to die; and a good thing to do, too, first-rate!" + +I never knew anyone so indifferent about dress as Mary; she is quite +pretty in her way, and must always have been so, but she puts on +whatever is nearest at hand, and will hamper her least. It is a fact +that I saw her out in the rain the other day, taking in clothes from the +line, with a length of brown oil-cloth tied about her stout person, by +way of an apron, with marline, and an empty shredded-wheat box, split up +on one side, on her head for a hat. + +The lower meadows were still yellow with the gold of buttercups as we +drove home, and where the swales ran lower and richer we saw tall Canada +Lilies, Loose-strife, and purple and white fringed orchids, in among the +Meadow-rue, and light green ferns and ripening grasses. There was +Blue-eyed Grass, too, and Iris. It was all rich and fragrant, and +butterflies were hovering about the lilies; and as if this were not +enough, a breath of woodsy sweetness, much like the fragrance of Lady's +Slippers, met us from a mixed meadow and cranberry bog, and there were +flocks of rose-pink Arethusas all delicately poised among the grasses. + +Meadow-larks were rising all about, singing their piercingly sweet +notes. The children were picking wild strawberries, and the blackberries +flung out long springing sprays down the perfected June roadways. Their +blossoms are very like small single sweet-briar roses. + +[Illustration: ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND] + + + + +CHAPTER X--TRESUMPSCOTT POND + + +Tresumpscott Pond lies three miles eastward from our river, set deep +between the folds of wooded and rocky hills, and the woods frame it +close. + +You climb the rise of a long slow-mounting hill which at its southern +extremity breaks sharply down in granite ledges, mostly pine-covered, +and there right below you lies this little lonely, perfectly guarded +lake. There is only one opening in the woods, a farm which slopes down +to the shore in two wide fields, with a low rambling farmhouse. There is +no other roof in sight. + +The pond is about a mile long and half as wide. It has the attributes of +a big lake, in little; deep bays up which loons nest, and wooded +headlands, ending in smooth abrupt rocks which enclose small curved +beaches of white sand, as firm and fine as sea sand. The western bay +ends in a river of swamp, and all along the north side the wood screens +a broken wall of fern-grown cliffs, with quantities of columbines among +their crannies. The long slope above the woods is a sheep pasture, +partly under pines and partly open, with ledge and cinquefoil-covered +boulders cropping out in the close turf, and tall mulleins standing all +about like candlesticks. + +The whole locality is rich in treasures, and here on the north side of +the pond is a stretch of mossy glades and openings in the underwood +which are covered with the fairy elegance of maiden-hair fern, the +delicate black stems standing out against the rocks and moss. They grow +under cool rich woods, with pink Lady's Slippers scattered in clumps +among them. + +The farm at Tresumpscott is an ample one, and Jacob Damren, who farms +it, comes of fine stock, and is a big, hearty figure of a man. The Pond +was his father's before him. His wife is a plain little woman, always +clean and trim in fresh cotton print. They say her habitual sadness is +because she has never liked the Pond. She was town-bred, and finds it +utterly lonely, while to Jacob it holds everything that earth can give. + +The land is very fertile and they prospered till well past middle life, +when Jacob met with an accident that was hard to bear. A neglected cut +on his thumb became infected, and soon there was swelling and pain in +the whole hand. No one did the right thing, no one knew what to do +beyond the old-fashioned farm treatments, and after a week of fever the +arm had to go. They said it was only his wife's despairing weeping which +brought him at last to consent to amputation. At first he begged to be +allowed to die sooner than face life again thus maimed. + +He met the blow, once it fell, in a steady manly way, and now has come +well out from under its shadow. A month ago I saw him out with his horse +and drag, getting out stumps, and he was managing this troublesome +business successfully. He smiled a patient, slow smile, as we came up. + +"This comes kind of awkward for a one-armed man!" he called out, but +spoke cheerily, and seemed delighted at the way he was achieving his +stumping. + +They have had other troubles. A son who lived at home and shared the +farm, married a shallow, heartless girl, who left him, and so broke his +heart and his whole hold on life that he could not bear the place +without her, and has led a wandering, broken sort of existence since. +Their other boy, though, is a good son indeed. He is part owner in a +small cooperage and he drives over from week to week, puts in solid help +on the farm, and brings his wife and babies to make cheerful Sundays for +the old people. + +Jacob and his wife love animals. The last time I was over there the +cosset lamb came into the kitchen to ask for milk. Mrs. Damren was +caressing two new red calves as if they were kittens, while Flora, +Jacob's foxhound, and her two velvet-skinned, soft-eyed puppies played +round them. + +We drive over to the pond from time to time for swamp treasures of +different kinds. Jacob has a tumble-down, lichen-covered boathouse where +water-pewees and white-bellied swallows nest, in which he keeps a few of +the worst boats in the world (with ash oars shaped like flattened poles +and heavy as lead), and lets them out to people who come for pickerel or +water-lilies. The whole western end of the pond is a laughing expanse of +water-lilies and yellow Beaver Lilies, with the bright yellow +butterfly-shaped blossoms of bladderwort in among them. Beyond these you +come to a mixture of floating islands, tussocks, intricate channels of +black water, and stretches of shaking cotton grass, which in June and +July hide a host of slim-stemmed rose-colored swamp orchids, _Arethusa_, +_calopogon_, and _pogonia_. You pole and shove your boat between the +floating islands, submerging orchids and cotton-grasses alike in the +black peat water, and beyond them reach the parti-colored velvet of the +peat bog itself. + +Balsam fir grows here, sweet rush and sweet gale, and quantities of +Labrador Tea, with shining dark leaves (of which Thoreau made tea when +camping on Chesuncook) and masses of delicate-stamened white flowers, +which give out a warm resinous sweetness. All around there is the +general bog fragrance of sphagnum and water-lilies, and the woodsy +perfume of the rose-colored orchids. + +Farther in shore, among the balsam firs, the growth dwindles to a +general velvety richness of gem-like green and crimson mosses, +blueberries, and cranberries and huckleberries, the large handsome +maroon-crimson flowers of the Pitcher-Plant, and the little +bright-yellow-flowered Sundew, getting its nourishment from the insects +caught in its sticky crimson filaments. + +The pond is alive all summer with butterflies and birds. We spent a day +there in June, and tried to follow a pair of Carolina rails, which ran +and hid among the cotton-grasses, and ran again, and suddenly vanished +as completely as if they had melted in air. We put up a bittern, but did +not find her nest. Scores of red-wing black-birds had nested in the +clustered bushes of the floating islands. We laid our oars down on the +shaking cotton grass as a sort of bridge and worked our way from island +to island, while a perfect cloud of birds chuckled and wheeled round us, +uttering their guttural warning cries and their fresh "Hock-a-lees!" We +looked into three red-wings' nests, and one king-bird's, all with eggs. +The red-wing's eggs were pale blue, scratched and blotched with black as +if by a child playing with ink and pen, while the king-bird's were a +beautiful cream-color, marked in a circle round the large end with rich +brown blotches. + +As we went on to gather Pitcher-Plants and Sundew, we saw an eagle +fishing over the lonely little lake; saw, too, a thing I have never seen +before or since, for he caught a fish so big it pulled him under. He +vanished out of sight completely, came up with a great flap, and, making +heavy work of it, and flying so low he almost touched the water, he made +off and gained the woods with his prize. + +Besides our orchids and pitcher-plants (we washed the pitchers clear of +insects, and drank from them), we had come for stickle-backs, which are +found in the clear shallows by one of the small beaches. We had a net, +and glass jars. They are such quick darting creatures that it is hard to +get them. They are the liveliest of all pets for an aquarium, and +prosper very fairly in captivity. + +Early in the morning, when we first reached the pond, the bobolinks were +rising and singing all over the lower water meadows, and the mists were +turning to silver in the early sunlight. When we came up from the bog in +the late afternoon the bobolinks were silent, but a mother sand-peep +wheeled and cried about the field, afraid that we would find her +chickens. + +We cooled our hands and faces in the clear water and washed off the +black peat mold, and went up to the farm. Mrs. Damren had fresh +gingerbread for us, and creamy milk, and we sat round a table with a +cheerful red cloth. The room was very homelike, with a good deal of dark +wood, and bright pots and pans. A shot-gun and a rifle hung over the +mantel, the guns poor Jacob will never use again. His hunting dog sat +close to his chair. + +The wife's sorrowful eyes turned always to her husband, but seemed at +the same time to try to guard his empty sleeve from our glances. He, +with a larger patience, was unconscious of it. + +They told us a good thing; that two lads, sons of a minister in a +neighboring town, have built a little camp in Jacob's woods. They come +over often to spend the night, and sometimes stay a week, and are great +company. They come to Jacob for milk, butter, and eggs, and often spend +the evening. The week before they had shot two coons, and they are busy +mounting them, under his directions. + +Jacob's face has a great peace in it, that of a man who has given +everything in him to the place he lives in, and held nothing back. His +beautiful, lonely little holding of wood and field and lake is better, +for the work he has put into it, than when his father left it to him. He +has cleared more fields, enriched the land, and drained the lower +meadows. His son will have it after him. I have seldom seen a place +which seemed more entirely home. + +Jacob had cut the hay in his upper meadow early (he has to take his +son's or a neighbor's help when he can get it), and it was already piled +in sweet-smelling haycocks as we drove by, but the water meadows, where +the purple fringed orchids and loosestrife grow in among the grasses, +were still uncut. It was dusk, and the fireflies were out. Thousands of +them flashed their soft radiance low over the perfumed meadow, and the +fragrance of sweet rush and of the open water came to us from the lake. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS + + +The population of a district can never be classified. Once again, "folks +are folks," and the smallest hamlet shows infinite variety. Yet here and +there the individual quality of a neighborhood seems as marked as that +of the different belts and communities of trees which clothe the land +about it. + +Watson's Hill, Ridgefield, and Weir's Mills are fine up-standing +neighborhoods, with good houses, big barns, fresh paint, and bright milk +cans catching the sun; but in near-by folds of the hills, where the +ridges slope up into higher country, there are poor and scattered farms +and farmhouses which are no more than shanties. A neighborhood six miles +from a big town may be more rustic than another twice as far. It is +partly the soil, partly inheritance, and surely it is a third part +influence. The land of our Silvester's Mills Quakers is not specially +good, but the impulse imparted by three or four industrious good +families is the foundation of its marked prosperity. + +A Swede and an Italian have lately taken up two farms which were +considered quite run out, one in North Ridgefield, six miles from us, +and the other at the top of a long hill on the Tresumpscott Road. + +The Swede asked William Pender, a thin, vague, grumbling man, of whom he +hired the land, + +"How long time to clear these fields of stones?" + +"Ninety-nine years!" said William solemnly. But the Swede, a fair, +strong-built man named Jansen, went to work, with his wife and his three +children. They put on leather aprons, and worked early and late, in +every spare minute that could be taken from planting and cultivating. +(William looked on, from his brother's farm, whither he had retreated, +in a mixture of incredulity, disapprobation and envy.) _They worked in +the rain_; and now, after three years, the farm is clear of stones, and +Jansen owns it clear. He has a thousand hens, and sells his eggs and +broilers at fancy prices in New York; and Mrs. Jansen's lawn and +flower-beds are as gay as those of a neat farm in Holland. + +The Italian farmer is a larger pattern of man. He came here as a young +fellow with no better start than a push-cart, but he came of good +intelligent Tuscan people, and has not only endless industry, but wits +to see, and enterprise to take, all sorts of chances. He did not take +any chances, though, when he married Alice Farrell, the daughter of one +of our best farmers, a strong pretty girl, as industrious as her +husband, and even more intelligent, with a free sort of outlook, and +something kindling about her. Her husband is now the big man of his +neighborhood. The district goes by his name, and he has represented it +in the Legislature. He owns a fine herd of registered Guernseys, and his +apples bring fancy prices. + +A friend of mine, a farmer, once asked one of the great Connecticut +nurserymen to what he attributed the success of the Italians in nursery +work and truck farming. The older man's eyes twinkled. + +"I'll tell you," he said. "They're willing to work in the rain!" + +Our farm conditions are improving, almost while you watch them. The +Agricultural Department of the State University is doing yeoman service. +People are beginning to realize what science is bringing to agriculture, +and the young men are fired by it. They are especially beginning to +realize what ignorance it was to leave so many farms deserted, and to +condemn so much of the land as hopeless and used up. The friend who +asked the question about the Italians said of our own farmers: + +"They stick to their grandfathers' ways, and not to their grandfathers' +enterprise and ambition for improvement." But this statement is fast +coming to be untrue. + +Interspersed, however, among the prosperous districts there are curious, +backward hamlets, where the woods seem to encroach. Their hills shut +them about too closely. Some set of the tide of human affairs, some +change of transportation or of market, cuts off the wholesome currents +of life from them, and they stagnate like cut-off water and become +degenerate. + +There is a sad combination of receding prosperity and a run-out +population in a town a long day's drive from us. Poor place, it has +become bankrupt. Its timber was cut off, and the cooperages, on which +its tiny livelihood depended, moved away. Its farms straggle up the +flanks of a round-topped mountain. Apple-raising might perhaps have +saved it, but either such of its people as had the enterprise for this +moved away, or it possessed none such. The people I saw there looked as +different as possible from our hearty sun-and-air neighbors. Unkempt +faces thronged the dirty windows of farms that were mere shacks. They +looked at once ambitionless and sinister. "Merricktown folks," people of +the neighboring districts say, when tools disappear or robes are stolen +from the sleighs at a Grange supper. + +No Indians are left in our part of the world; but here and there a +family shows marked traces of Indian blood, as old Sile Taylor, beyond +Watson's Hill, a frowsy and hospitable patriarch, whose little black +eyes twinkle with a kind of foxy kindliness. Though none dwell here, +Indians come two or three times a year from the State Reservation, with +snow-shoes, moccasins, and sweet-grass baskets to sell. They make a +yearly pilgrimage to the seashore for the sweet-grass, which grows in +the salt meadows at the mouths of a few rivers. They cut and dry it, and +carry home many hundred pounds for the winter's weaving. The Gabriel +brothers, Joe and Bill, are regular visitors among us, enormous dark +men, with that Indian habit of silence which implies not so much +taciturnity, as a certain tranquil quality. Tranquillity and kindness +seem to flow from the big brothers. They seem untroubled by any need of +speech. + +Then beyond Rattlesnake Hill there are the "Jingroes." They are credited +with being pure-blooded gipsies, and they certainly look it. I do not +know whether they started with a definite Mr. and Mrs. Jingroe or not. +The name is applied to the whole tribe. They live "over back," in +clearings in a wide belt of forest. They are perfectly indolent, but +cheerful, and content with the most primitive farming. + +Once in a while, when things go hard with them, they all set to work, +and weave very good baskets, which they bring in town to sell. You are +met at every street corner by handsome, dark-eyed Mrs. Jingroes, in +kerchief and bright earrings, importuning every passer-by to buy a +basket. + +About once a year a gipsy caravan drives through our town, and stops in +the street on its way. The slim, handsome barefooted children and their +dark square-built mothers are all about. The women bustle from shop to +shop, making small purchases, and pick up a little money by telling +fortunes. + +Once, when the gipsies camped in a rough pasture near town, one of the +children died, and a touching deputation came, to ask permission (which +was of course given) to bury it in the town cemetery. + +Another time, as a caravan drove through the town, I noticed a girl +lying at the back of one of the flimsy, covered wagons, so ill she +seemed to be unconscious. She was a lovely creature, dark and pale, and +her slim body swayed and shook with the shaking of the wheels. I wanted +to call out to the drivers to stop, but the crazy caravan rattled away +at a half-canter, and paid no attention. + +Tresumpscott Pond lies in the midst of our most heavily forested +district. There is no village or hamlet near it, but a handful of little +farms, on tiny clearings or no clearings at all, are scattered through +the woods. + +The dwellers in these forest farms are not people of substance, like the +farmers of the open country near them, but they are intelligent folk, +and are rich in the treasure of a varied and interesting life. The men +of the family are sure to have hunting coats and gaiters,--leather or +canvas; good guns, which they keep well oiled and bright; and most of +them keep a good fox hound or two, whose jubilant music may be heard as +they range through the winter woods with their masters, or on +independent hunting excursions. The boys begin by seven years old to +have trapping enterprises of their own up the little quick forest +brooks, and what looks to the ordinary person like the merest mossy +runnel, hardly a brook at all, may be well known as a drinking-place of +coons, or a haunt where sharp eyes may see a mink. They are sent out to +gather thoroughwort, dill, dock, and other simples, and mosses and roots +for the farm dyeing. (_Cruttles_, or _crottles_, the farm name for the +dark moss growing on ash-trees, makes a fine yellow dye.) They know +where to lie hidden at half past three in the morning on the chance of +seeing a deer, and under which stretch of lily-pads is the best chance +for a pickerel. And not only the boys: I know a girl on a farm, whose +grown-up brother has such confidence in her marksmanship, that he will +shake an apple-tree, while she nicks the falling apples with her rifle. +They make use of a far greater number of wild plants than are known to +the farmers of the more open country, as "greens," cooking and eating +young milk-weed stalks, shepherd's purse, and the uncurling fronds of +the _Osmundas_ and other great ferns, which they call "fiddle-heads." + +They grow up sinewy and alert, under this eager life, and the best of +them attain, beside their farm knowledge, to the undefinable huntsman's +knowledge, which sets its mark on a man. Their bearing is confident and +fearless, and with it they have a certain forest quality on which it is +hard to lay a finger. It is noticeable that the greater part of the +families who cleave to this forest way of life are apt to be of dark +complexion. It is a great pity that most of them can get so little +schooling, but they have all been educated, since they were little, in a +training which certainly develops and intensifies some of man's best +powers. + +[Illustration: THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES] + +The deep tranquil woods cover the rise and fall of the ridges for a good +stretch of miles, and a good deal of hunting and trapping is to be had +in them. Last month we came on fresh raccoon tracks, like prints of +little hands, in the leaf mould of the wood road, and coons are often +shot here. One day, as we were walking, there was a great growling and +barking from our dogs, and we found that they had treed a porcupine. + +In my Grandfather's time, sheep had to be driven at night to the tops of +the hills, because of the bears in the Tresumpscott woods; and only two +years ago there was an outcry among the farmers because sheep were being +killed. Everybody watched his neighbor's dog, but Oliver Newcomb, who +lives on a little farm in the heart of the forest tract, coming home at +dusk up the wood road, heard a growling and snarling, and came on a +great Bay Lynx, the only one seen in this part of the country for many +years. Oliver is a man who is almost never seen without his gun, and he +shot the marauder, and got twenty-five dollars for the skin, a real +windfall for a young man on a small forest farm, with wife to keep and +five children. The skin was mounted, and set up in the library of the +Soldiers' Home. + +The Bay Lynx is a much longer, more panther-like creature than our +common Canada Lynx (the _Loup Cervier_ or Bob-cat), and is of a general +bay color, not unlike that of the Mountain Lion of the West. I have +wondered if this might not be the panther or "painter" which was the +terror of our Northern woods to early settlers. + +"Big Game" has increased greatly in our State of late years, partly from +the enforcement of strict game laws, partly because the wolves have +nearly all been killed off. Deer are so common as to be a menace to +crops in some places, and there are at least three thriving beaver +colonies in our part of the State. + +In 1868 my father, driving on a fishing trip through a town sixty-five +miles north of us, was shown a pair of blanched moose antlers, set up +over the sign-post at the cross-roads. + +"Look at that well," the stage driver said. "That's a sight you'll never +see again, not in this State!" + +To-day, as every hunter knows, moose are plentiful, all through the +two-thirds of the State that lies under forest; and not only there, for +this very autumn three have been seen in the Tresumpscott woods, while +both last year and this, a black bear has spent several weeks in our +neighborhood. + +Muskrat are found in Tresumpscott Pond and its small tributary streams, +hares and partridges and foxes all through its woods. Black duck, and +sometimes wood duck, breed about the Pond, and Carolina rails; and where +the brooks that feed the Pond spread out into broad estuaries of alder +covert, you may see the marked flight of snipe or woodcock. + +It was in these woods that Jerome Mitchell, our local authority on game +and fur (a very fair naturalist, also), grew up. He is a slender, +well-knit fellow, whose mother had great ambitions for him. He walked +into town, five miles and back, every day, to get one year in the High +School, after his country schooling. He could not afford any more, but +when he was seventeen, having picked up a knowledge of taxidermy and +simple mechanics, he moved into town. He worked early and late with +dogged patience, taking every smallest job that offered, till at last he +realized his ambition, and opened a small, but good sportsmen's and +general repair shop. Gradually he picked up the fur trade of the +neighborhood. He is anxiously fair, and boys from the farms soon began +to bring in skunk, squirrel, and muskrat skins, and every little while a +fox or a coon. + +Last year Jerome ran into hard luck. A stranger, a good-looking man, +brought in an extra fine looking lot of muskrat skins. There were $600 +worth, and this was a low figure for them. It was a serious venture, +still Jerome took them; they turned out, however, to be stolen goods, +and he had to pay the rightful owner, as the stranger was nowhere to be +found. Poor Jerome! he was near tears when he told my father about it. +Then, when he just had his store new painted and set in order for the +summer's trade, someone dropped a lighted match among the shavings, and +the whole stock and fixtures were in a blaze. + +This loss turned out to be not so serious. Jerome worked nearly all +night for a week, and made better fittings than he had had before. The +wholesale dealers were generous, and the shop re-opened with the best +outfit of goods that it has had at all. + +Now a good windfall has come to him. A rural mail-carrier brought word +of a silver fox which had been trapped on a farm fifteen miles out in +the country. Jerome only waited to telegraph to a big fur dealer for +whom he works, who has lately established a fox farm, and started off at +once. He found even better than he had hoped. The fox was a perfect +young male, coal black, and hardly scratched by the trap. + +In the recent craze over fox-raising, as much as ten thousand dollars +has been paid, in our State, for a first-rate black fox. Of course +Jerome would only get a commission, but this was the first big chance +that had come to him and he was beside himself with anxiety lest it +miscarry. It was a sharp February night, but he slept in the barn beside +his prize, and the next morning drove home, dreading every drift and +thank-you-ma'am, for fear they might upset, and the slight crate that +held the fox might break. + +That night he slept on the floor of his shop, wrapping himself in the +sleigh robes. The fox ate the meat given him with a good appetite, and +curled up contentedly enough to sleep; but as the first grayness began +to show before dawn, he stood up, bristling a little, and barked, a +far-away, lonely sound, Jerome said. The next day he was forwarded to +the dealer in safety. + +My father has shot and hunted all about this region, going on snow-shoes +after foxes and hares in winter, with one of the forest +farmers--generally one of the Huntingtons--as guide or companion; coming +into the warm dark farm kitchen for a warm-up before the long ride or +drive home. The Huntingtons always had good dogs. Bugle, a fox-hound +famous through the countryside, belonged to them. + +John Huntington is the man whom neither bee nor wasp will sting. He is +sent for all about to take away troublesome hornets' nests, which he +simply tears down and pulls to pieces with his bare hands. Some hornets +built a huge nest over the door of the stable at the Homestead not long +ago, just where the men come and go for milking. One of the farm men +wanted to take a torch and smoke it out, but Thomas Burnham, the farmer +in charge, sent all the way over to Tresumpscott for John Huntington. He +came, a silent, dark, shambling man; looked at the nest, nodded, asked +for a ladder, climbed up, and unconcernedly pulled the whole thing down, +while the furious hornets swarmed over his uncovered face and hands. He +reached a finger down his neck, first on one side, then the other, and +took out handfuls of them, and scraped them off where they had crawled +up his sleeves. He tore the nest up, threw it on the ground, and stamped +on it, and with few words went back to his farm. + +I have never heard any adequate explanation of this phenomenon. Some +people say that persons having this power have a distinctive odor about +them, which wasps and bees dislike, and others ascribe it only to an +entire fearlessness and unconcern. + +Sam Huntington, John's younger brother, is a handsome, strong, +slender-built fellow, taller than John and even darker. It was Sam who +showed my father, one day out snipe shooting, what a _bee line_ really +means, and how to take one, and find the bee-tree. You catch two wild +bees, and attach a bit of cotton wool, big enough to mark the bee's +flight, to each; let the first bee go, getting the line of his flight +well, then walk on two or three hundred yards, and let the second go, +taking note equally carefully. Where the two lines intersect is the +bee-tree and the hidden treasure of wild honey. + +Sitting in Jacob Damren's clover field one day, my father showed me how +to find bumble-bee honey. We sat still, and watched the fat bee go his +buzzing way from head to head of red clover. At last he had honey +enough, and off he started on a swifter, straighter flight, but he was +heavy with honey, and we could easily follow. He did not go far, but +swung on a long slant to his hole in the ground. We dug where he entered +(he emerged, part way through the process, very angry and buzzing) and +about six inches down we found the honey cells. There was a lump or +cluster of them, perhaps half as big as your hand. They were longer than +the cells of honey bees; not hexagonal like these, but roughly +cylindrical, dark brown, and full of very good, clear, dark brown honey. + +Tresumpscott Pond is a great haunt of whippoorwills. As dusk begins to +fringe the coverts of the wood, they begin their strange, almost ghostly +chorus, like the swift whistling of a rod through the air, powerful and +regular, "whip," and "whip," and "whip" again, answering each other all +night. I noticed the time of their first notes, one night in early July. +The voices of the veeries fell away, and then stopped, at quarter past +eight, and at quarter of nine the first whippoorwill struck up, and was +instantly answered. (I have known them to begin sharp at eight o'clock, +or even earlier.) + +It is extremely hard to see the birds themselves, for they lie hid all +day in the deep woods, sleeping. Like owls, they seem unable to see well +if roused by daylight. At night they gather close about the farms, one +perhaps on the roof of the barn, and one or two on a fence (sitting +always _lengthwise_ to their perch, never across), and sometimes you can +see their shape silhouetted against the sky. Last May, a whippoorwill +was bewildered in a sudden gale, and did not get back to the woods, but +spent the day sound asleep in broad sunlight on the railing of a +balcony, right in the midst of our town. I stood within four feet of +him. He is a strange-shaped bird, with whiskers like a cat's, and a flat +head; about the size of a small hawk, and mottled, like his cousin the +night-hawk, with gray and white markings like those of rocks and +lichens, or of some of the larger moths. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--HARVEST + + +In late September an errand took us out to Sam Marston's again. We +wanted a quantity of early farm things, sweet cider, Porter apples, and +honey. + +The woods were in a flame of fiery color as we drove out through the +intricacies of the river hills. They glowed like beds of tulips, with +only the dark evergreens to set them off, and turned our whole country +into a huge flower garden. + +The crops had all been very good this season. Hay and grain were both +heavy, and the apple trees had to be propped, the branches were so +loaded with fruit. Our own grapes bore heavily. + +The early apples were just gathering when we reached the farm, amongst +all sorts of pleasant orchard sounds, the rumble of apples poured from +bushel baskets into barrels, the squeak of the cider mill, and the men +talking at work. The large new orchard of Bellefleurs is hand-picked, in +the modern method; each apple is wrapped in paper, and the fruit has its +special first-rate market; but Sam is not going to take his father's old +miscellaneous orchard in hand until next year, and here he and his men +were picking and piling in the old wholesale fashion. The sweet-smelling +pyramids stood waist-high under the trees. + +Sam scrambled down his ladder, and shouted to Susan, who came out from +her baking with her hands white with flour. The last time we came, we +had seen only the house and dairy; now we must see the farm, and we +strolled together through the sunny orchard and then were taken to the +apple cellar, where the filled barrels stood in close ranks already. The +cellar was fragrant with them. Susan's own special apples, Snows, +Strawberries, and Porters, were at one side. + +"Has to have 'em!" Sam said. "Every farm book tells you how mixed apples +can't pay, and hinder the farm, but come Grange suppers and church +suppers, and young folks happening in, and Fair times, if Susan couldn't +have her mixed fruit, she'd think we might full as well be at the +Town-Farm." + +The root cellar, smelling earthy, was next the apple cellar, and here +Sam had a few beets and carrots, in neat bins, but the greater part of +the roots were still undug. + +The cider-mill was at the edge of the orchard, with piles of windfall +apples beside it; Sam turned a fresh jug-full for us to drink, and then +filled our cans. + +After this we had to see all Susan's pets. There were two handsome +collies; and a yellow house cat, and a great black barn cat, on stiff +terms with each other, came and rubbed against us with arched backs. +There were the ducks and geese, and tumbler pigeons, fluttering down in +great haste when Susan scattered corn. The newest pet was a raccoon. He +was in the tool-room of the barn, nibbling corn. He steadied the ear as +he ate, with little hands as careful as a child's. He looked sly and +mischievous, and sidled away as we came in, looking up at us with bright +eyes. He wore a little collar, and dragged a short length of chain, so +that the pigeons could hear him coming; but he was not confined in any +way, and seemed entirely happy and at home about the barn. + +"Pretty fellow, then," said Susan, scratching his handsome fur. "But +he's a scamp, he is. Only to think, what happened to my pies, last +baking! I'd made a quantity, both mince and pumpkin, and if this rascal +doesn't slip into the pantry, eat all he can hold, and mark the rest of +the pies all over with his little hands, and throw them on the floor!" + +She asked if we had ever seen a raccoon with a piece of meat. We had +not, and she fetched a bit from the ice chest and gave it to her pet. He +took it in his little hands, went to his water dish, and _washed_ the +meat thoroughly, sousing it up and down till it was almost a pulp, +before he swallowed it. Susan said that raccoons, wild or tame, will +always do this, with all animal food; mouse or mole or grasshopper, they +will not touch it till they have washed it well, and will go hungry +rather than eat unwashed food. Sam, who knows the woods like the back of +his hand, confirmed this. + +"Souse it in a brook, they will, till they have it soggy. They won't eat +it till then." + +While we were looking, a morose-looking old man drove into the yard. He +checked his horse, and sat gazing straight before him with a wooden +expression. + +"Hullo, Uncle!" said Sam. "Come for apples?" + +The old man shook his head, but said nothing. + +"Cider?" said Sam. + +He shook his head also at this, and at every other suggestion, and never +opened his lips. After a while Sam, who seemed to know his ways, nodded +cheerfully, said, "Well, tell us when you get ready to!" and turned +towards the house. + +The old man waited till he had gone twenty feet, and then said +grudgingly: + +"I come to see that there cow. You finish with your company! I'll wait." + +"That's old Ammi Peaslee," Susan whispered. "He always acts odd. Oh, no, +no relation; everyone on the road calls him Uncle: 'Uncle Batch' when +he's not round." + +"He didn't mean to be a batch" (bachelor), she went on reflectively; and +then with some shamefacedness, she told us how Mr. Peaselee had once +been engaged to be married to Miss Charity Jordan (who lived alone in +the big brick Jordan house at the corner) for twenty-five long years. +One day the lady's roof needed shingling, and she called on her suitor +to shingle it. ("She never could bear to spend money, nor he either, and +it's a fact that neither one of them had much to spend!") + +He did it, and did a good job; but afterwards, thinking it but right and +fair, he brought a set of shirts for his sweetheart to make. + +"She made them, _and she sent him in a bill_; and he paid it, and never +spoke to her again from that day to this, and that is fifteen years ago. + +"Now hear me gossip! I am fairly ashamed!" Susan cried out. + +The barn was sweet with hay. Part of the season's pumpkins were piled in +the grain room, and lit up the dusk with their dark gold. Some of them +still lay in golden piles in the barn-yard. The ears of corn, yellow and +red, lay in separate heaps. + +"I miss Mother!" Susan said (she spoke of Sam's mother, who had passed +on the year before). "She saw to all the pretty things about the farm. +She used to hang the corn in patterns on the ceiling-hooks, red and +yellow. She'd place the onions in amongst the corn, in ropes or bunches, +and contrive all kinds of pretty notions." + +Susan sighed, and called the two collies to her, and patted and fondled +their heads. As I said before, she and Sam have no children. + +Sam went to get our honey, saying that he should be stung to death, and +never mourned for, for nobody missed a left-handed fellar; and Susan +took us into the house, and brought out doughnuts, a pumpkin pie, and +cream so thick that it could hardly be skimmed. + +When Sam came back with the honey there was a to-do, for Susan's Jersey +calf, outside in the orchard, had tangled itself in its rope, and fallen +and sprained its shoulder. The little creature was trembling all over. +Susan rubbed in fresh goose-oil, while Sam asked if she "didn't want he +should get him up a nice pair of crutches." + +For our cranberries, we were to go on a mile further, to a farm on the +slope of the next hill, the Pennys'. + +"The old woman's deaf, but you can make her hear by shouting. Most +likely she'll be the only one of the folks at home. They're odd folks," +Susan called, shading her eyes to look after us, after Sam had succeeded +in packing our purchases in the wagon, laughing and talking about the +way Noah filled the ark, and Susan had given my little sister a wistful +kiss. + +The Pennys' was an out-of-the-way place. The farm was on the northern +slope of a hill, the house a tiny unpainted one, weathered almost to +black. The corn was standing among the golden pumpkins in stacks that +looked like huddled witches. A wild grapevine grew over the shed, but +the grapes were already shriveled. + +Old Mrs. Penny was shriveled too, and witch-like, and she was smoking a +pipe. It was hard to make her understand what we wanted, but at last she +came out, with a checked shawl held over her head, and pointed out a +path which led through a thicket and across the flank of the hills, to +the cranberry bog in the hollow. + +[Illustration: THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN +STACKS THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES] + +Mrs. Penny, Jr., was squatted down among the swamp mosses, picking +cranberries into sacks. She was a fat Indian-looking woman, and two dark +little girls, pretty, and also like Indians, with black hair neatly +parted, were at work with her. They were delighted to sell their +berries. + +The swamp glowed like a Turkey carpet. The cranberry vines and +huckleberry bushes were pure crimson, the black alder berries scarlet, +and the ferns burnt-orange. Just beyond us, in the velvet of the swamp, +was a pond, across which the wind ruffled; living blue, with tawny +rushes around it. + +As we came back, a hunter, in a leather jacket, with his gun on his +shoulder and partridges hanging out of his pockets, stepped out of the +woods on the path just ahead of us. This was old Mrs. Penny's son Jason. +The open season had not begun yet, but the farm looked a hard place for +a living, and we saw no need of telling, in town, that the Penny family +had partridge for supper. + +We had a long quiet drive home. It had been so extraordinarily warm, all +through early September, that we saw a fine second crop of hay being got +in, in a low-lying meadow bordered by thick woods, part of which must +have been an old lake-bottom. The grass was heavy, and a good many fresh +haycocks were made and standing already, as if in July. The solitary +mower rested on his scythe to watch us, and then went on, though the +dusk was fast deepening. + +We stopped when we came to Height of Land, to look out over the painted +woods. They flamed round us to the horizon. + +Later the moon rose, in the half-blue, half-dusk, and presently shone on +a white mist-lake, over the low land through which we were then passing. +The mist was rising, and wreathing the colored woods with white. Next +came two more hills, and then another mist-lake in the moonlight. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--WATSON'S HILL + + +By October of this year the fires of September had sunk to a rich +smouldering glow. The rolling woods, as far as the eye could see, were +masses of dusky gold and wine-color. There was actual smoke, too, pale +blue in the hollows, from many forest fires. + +Nearly all of October was Indian Summer. Every day there was a soft +golden haze, just veiling the yellow of the woods, and the days were +warm and still, like midsummer, but with a kind of mellow peacefulness. + +We spent a whole day out on Watson's Hill, watching the distant smoke of +forest fires, and listening to the different Autumn sounds, the ring of +axes from the wooded part of the hill, an occasional shot, the tapping +of woodpeckers, and the friendly chirruping of chickadees and juncos. +The bare hill-top was steeped in sunshine. The checkerberries and +beechnuts were just ripe, and very good. We built our fire on a +flat-topped, lichened rock, and found water to drink in a little tarn +among the russet and tawny ferns and cotton-grasses, fed by a spring +which stirred and dimpled the surface. + +Driving home, at dusk, we passed field after field of Indian Warriors, +corn-stacks, all looking the same way, with golden pumpkins among them; +and suddenly, over the eastern ridge, the great round yellow Hunter's +Moon rose. + +It was strange, later, to see the oaks and sugar maples, towers of +_gold_, instead of towers of green, in the moonlight. + +A few days later we had a three days' storm of rain and heavy wind, and +then the golden harvest lay on the ground. It was heaped and piled along +the roadsides in winrows, through which the children scuffed and +frolicked. + +(The leaves in the town streets are burned, which is a waste, but if we +were so thrifty as to keep them we should lose the autumn bonfires. I +counted fourteen about the different streets, one evening, each with a +glow lighting up the dusk, and giving out an indescribable +sweet-and-acrid smell as the smoke poured out in cream-white swirls, +almost thick enough to be felt. The men in charge of them looked black +against the blaze, and a flock of children were scampering about each +fire.) The day after the rain the leaves lay all through the woods like +a yellow carpet, and threw up actual light. In some places they had +fallen in lines and patterns, and, wet with rain and autumn dew, they +gave out fragrance which was as sweet as wine. + +Late in October there was sudden illness at a friend's house. Every +nurse in town was busy already, and we drove out to see if we could get +Marcia Watson, at Watson's Hill. Marcia is not a graduate nurse, but she +knows what a sick woman wants, and what a sick household, paralyzed by +the illness of its head, must have, and can set the whole stricken +machinery in order again. She is a tiny creature, as merry as a +squirrel, with quick, tranquil ways. + +The Watson's Hill district is six miles east of us. The Hill is a +beech-wooded ridge, rocky through its whole length, and curving almost +enough to suggest an amphitheatre. A good farming region lies spread out +below it, and there is a village nucleus, a store, the Grange Hall, and +a meeting-house. The hall was burnt, two years ago, and the whole +neighborhood set to work to rebuild it. They had fifteen-cent +entertainments and peanut parties, and sales of aprons and cooked food. +The men did the building, giving their time, and the women cooked for +the men, and this fall the last shingle of the substantial new building +was laid. + +The only mill for many miles is the corn-cannery. Corn-husking always +brings farm neighbors together; sweet corn, for canning, is husked in +August, fodder corn in late October. Families come to husk for each +other, and the wide barn floors where they sit are piled high with +husks; but in the districts near a cannery, as here, the whole community +gathers. In good weather the work is all done out of doors, and the +laughing and chatting groups, men, women, and children, sit up to their +waists in husks. The stoves and kitchens of neighbors are all +pre-empted, and the women bake and fry, and come bustling out to the +workers with milk, bread and cheese, pies and doughnuts. + +Here, at Watson's Hill, as at nearly every farm village in our part of +the world, the neighbors meet for the weekly dance, which is as much a +matter of course as church on Sundays. It would be hard to describe +adequately the friendliness and complete sociableness of these +neighborhood gatherings. Old and middle-aged and young are called by +their first names, and everybody dances; not round dances, but the +beautiful old country dances, which, transplanted over seas and carried +down a century, still show their quality, and keep something of the +courtly nature of the great houses in France and England where they had +their stately beginnings: a quality that gives a certain true social +training. Everyone in the hall is truly in company. Hands must be given +and glances met, all round the dance, and awkwardness and shyness are +quickly danced out of existence. + +We have the Lancers, the Tempest, the Lady of the Lake, and various +quadrilles. They cannot now perhaps be called exactly stately. + +"Balance to partners!" calls out old Abel Tarbox, master of ceremonies +of the Grange Hall, as he fiddles. + +"Balance to partner! Swing the same! All sashy!" And then comes the +splendid romp of, + +"Eight hands round!" and "Eight hands down the middle!" + +Besides the old court dances, there are Pop Goes the Weasel, Money Musk, +Hull's Victory, and others, pretty, intricate frolics, which in their +day were the _dernier cri_ of fashion, danced by gilded youth in great +cities, velvet coat and ruffles, flowered silk petticoat, and spangled +fan. + +The Chorus Jig is very difficult. It has "contra-corners," and other +mysteries impossible to uninitiated feet. + +When money is to be raised for some neighborhood purpose partners for +the evening are chosen in what I should think might be a trying, though +a most practical fashion. On one Saturday evening the ladies, on the +next the gentlemen, are put up for auction as partners, the price paid +being in peanuts. A popular partner will sometimes bring as much as a +hundred and twenty-five peanuts; and why little Alfred Stoddard, who +never did anything in his life but get a musical degree at some tiny +college (there are even those who say that he bought the degree), who +reads catalogues and nurses his dignity while his wife works the farm, +should regularly fetch this fancy price, I never could see. + +"Oh, well!" says Sam Marston, "Alfred has them handsome, mournful dark +eyes. The ladies can't resist 'em." + +The three Watson farms lie to the east of the hill, right under its +rocky ledges, and are sheltered by it; indeed the whole of the beautiful +rounded valley which they occupy is rimmed entirely by low abrupt hills. +It must be an old lake bottom, for the last remnant of the lake, a pond +a hundred yards or so long, still sparkles bright blue in the midst of +it. + +Forty years ago Tristam Watson, with his wife and four children, three +boys, and Marcia, the youngest, went north two hundred miles, to the +Aroostook, when that region still lay under heavy forest. He built his +cabin among the first-growth pines, and cleared and planted among the +trees, burning and uprooting the stumps gradually, as he could. It was +pioneer life, with no roads and almost no neighbors. Bear and moose were +common, and deer more than common, and there were wolves in a hard +winter; but he was a hardy, vigorous man with hardy children, and he did +well. + +He had no idea of cutting himself and his family off from their home +ties. Nothing of the sort. The railroad ran only a short part of the +way, and they could not afford that part, but every year they hitched up +and _drove_ home, the whole distance. It took them about five days. They +had a little home-made tent, and they built their fire and set up their +gipsy housekeeping each night beside the road. If it rained, "why then +it rained," Marcia says. The year was marked by this flight; it was +their great adventure, and apparently a perfect frolic, at least for the +children. They stayed two or three weeks, saw all the "folks," and went +back to their strenuous forest life. + +Tristam died at about sixty, and the family came home, and took up the +three beautiful farms left to the sons by their grandparents. The two +elder sons married, the third stayed with his mother and sister. + +Not long after they came back, Marcia fell ill. There was a badly +aggravated strain, and she had measles and bronchitis, and after that, +as we say in the country, she "commenced ailing." She changed in a year +from a blooming girl to the little thin, white-faced woman she is now +(though her black eyes never stopped twinkling). + +A long illness on an isolated farm is a bad thing for more than bodily +health. The Rural Free Delivery and Rural Telephone, and the lengthening +trolley lines, are bringing the most wholesome stir imaginable after the +old colorless days; but in old times the outlying farms too often held +pitiful brooding figures of women, sunk in depression. Marcia's terror +was lest she should fall under this shadow. She had seen only too many +such cases, and the fear was beginning to realize itself, she often has +told me; but from its very danger her mind, fundamentally sane and +vigorous, plucked out its salvation. First absorbed in her own ailments, +she began to question her doctor about the cure of other diseases. Soon +she asked him for books on medicine. She read and studied, and then one +day she asked him to take her to see a suffering neighbor. To humor her, +he did, and almost at once, ill as she still was, she began to help +nursing patients on the neighboring farms. Once her mind took hold of +work, it cleared itself as the sky clears of clouds when the wind blows. +It was like a slender but vigorous-fibred little tree reaching out and +finding life-giving soil for itself. I do not believe she has an ounce +of extra strength, even now, and she is by no means always free from +pain, but she can do her work, and for five years she has been the most +sought-after nurse in half the county. + +She has an imp's fun (and had, even when she was most ill) and can make +a groaning patient laugh, as she lays on hot compresses. As we drove +home that day in October, she told me how she had been outwitting her +brother. (He is a handsome blond-bearded fellow, with what is rare on +the farms, a carriage as erect as a soldier's. He is far slower-natured +than Marcia.) + +"He's been real tardy, this year, in getting the hams smoked, and he put +off building a smoke-house. He was all for hauling his lumber. Nothing +would do but that lumber must be hauled first, whether the pigs were +smoked, or whether they flew; and there were Mother and I in want of our +bacon." + +He started out with the lumber. The moment his back was turned Marcia +pounced on his brand-new chicken coop ("he fusses like a woman buying a +bonnet, over his chicken coops"), which was just finished and right, and +smoked the meat for herself. + +"That man was fairly annoyed!" she told me demurely. + +Last spring the brother and sister shingled the barn roof together. +Leonard, the brother, was deliberate and painstaking, and Marcia in +triumph nailed his coat-tails to the roof, according to the time-honored +privilege of the shingle-nailer, if the shingle-layer lets himself get +caught up with. + +It was from Marcia and her brother that I first heard the expression +"var," for balsam fir. This is our general country term; but I do not +know whether this is a survival of some older form, or a corruption. +Here in the Watson Hill neighborhood I have also heard the old-fashioned +word "suent," meaning convenient, suitable, so familiar in dialect +stories of Somersetshire and Devon. + +It was well past the fall of the year before we drove Marcia home again, +and a wild autumn storm of wind and heavy rain had carried away all but +the last of the hanging leaves. The shores of the ponds and rivers +showed clear ashes-and-slate colors, and clear dark grays, but the +fields were the pale russet which lasts all winter under the snow. Beech +leaves were still hanging, a beautiful tender fawn color, and, of +course, oak leaves, and the gray birches were like puffs of pale yellow +smoke in among the purple and ashen woods. Crab-apples still hung, +withered red, on the trees, and the hips of the wild roses and haws of +the hawthorns, and the black alder berries, made little blurs of scarlet +in the swamps. Here and there the road dipped through small copses, bare +of leaves, where there were masses of clematis, carrying its tufts of +soft gray fluff, entwined among the bushes, and milkweed pods, just +letting out their shining silver-white silk. Witch-hazel was in flower +all through the woods. + +The evergreens showed up everywhere, in delicate vigorous beauty, and we +counted unguessed masses of pine among the hills. I think we always +expect a little sadness with the fall of the leaves, but instead there +is a sense of elation, with the greater spread of light and the wider +views opening everywhere. The wood roads showed more plainly than in +summer, and paths stood out green across the fields. The tender +unveiling of autumn had revealed the hidden topography of the forest, +and countless small ravines and slopes were suddenly made plain. There +were smaller, friendly revelations, too, for we came here and there, on +large and small nests, and saw where the vireos and warblers had had +their tiny housekeeping. + +Late ploughing was over, and hauling had begun. We passed a good many +loads of potatoes and apples, on their way to the railroad, and then a +load of wood, and one of balsam fir boughs, for banking the houses. The +wood was drawn by a pair of handsome black and cream-white oxen, and the +boughs by a pair of "old natives," plain red brown. The potatoes and +fruit must all be hauled before the cold is too great. + +For the last three miles before the land opens out into the Watson +farms, the hills are covered with low woods, above which rises the +pointed head of Rattlesnake Hill, the only high land in sight. The woods +were like purplish fur over the hillsides, and nearer showed countless +perfect rounded gray rods and wands, like fine strokes of a brush. There +was a great shining of wet rocks and mossy places. It was one of those +still late-autumn mornings, perfectly clear after the rain, when the air +is as fragrant and full of life as in spring. + +Longfellow Pond lies in a hollow of the woods, three miles from +anywhere, a beautiful little wild wooded place, three-quarters of a mile +long, where wild duck come. Alas! when we came near, a portable saw-mill +was at work close to the shore! A high pile of warm-colored sawdust rose +already in the beautiful green of the pine wood. They had just felled +three big pines, and the new-cut butts showed white among the masses of +lopped branches. + +[Illustration: LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS] + +The stretch of wooded country about the pond lies in a belt or fold +between two prosperous farming districts, and has its own population, a +gipsy-looking set, living in the woods in little shacks, half-farmhouse, +half-shanty, with a few straggling chickens. The men of this place were +working for the operator of the saw-mill. It was dinner-time when we +came by, and half a dozen lithe dark young men were sitting about on the +log ends, eating their dinner, which some little dusky children had +brought them in pails and odd dishes. + +We walked down between the stacks of fragrant new-cut lumber to the edge +of the pond, which lay between its wooded shores, as blue as the sky, +sparkling in the sunshine. We could make out three duck at the farther +end of it. It is a pity to have the fine growth of pine cut, but it +grows fast again with us. Nobody cares for the lesser hard wood growths +in such an over-forested State as ours, and once the saw-mill is gone, +the pond will probably stay its wild lonely self, perhaps for ages. + +The last day that Marcia was with us she wanted to see the river, and we +went down and found the flood tide making strongly, two or three gulls +sailing peacefully about, and a late coal barge being towed down against +the tide. We had three days of still deep frost after this, and the next +day when I went down to a hill overlooking one of the most beautiful +reaches of the river, there it lay, a transparent gray mirror, not to +move again until April. All the colors of the banks were pearl and +ashen. Though it lay so still, it whispered and talked to itself +incessantly. There were little ringing gurgles, like the sound of a +glass water-hammer; now tinklings, now the fall of a tiny crystal +avalanche; with occasional deeper soft boomings and resoundings, and all +the time a whispered swish-swish along the banks, the sound of the soft +breaking and fall of the shell ice as the tide ebbed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--EARLY WINTER. + + +Like the inside of a pearl; like the inside of a star-sapphire; like a +rainbow at twilight. We are in a white world, and save for the rich +warmth of the pines and hemlocks there is no color stronger than the +delicate penciling of the woods; but the whiteness is softened all day +by a frost-haze which the sunlight turns into silver. The horizon is +veiled with smoke-color and tender opal. It is as if the world retired +for a little to a space of softened sunrise colors, never hard or sharp; +lovely and unearthly as the clouds. We are so well to the north that in +winter we enter the sub-arctic borderland, the shadowy-twilight regions +of the two ends of the earth. + +It is a very still time of year, there is a wonderful uplifting quiet. +The sun burns low in the south, a mass of soft white fire, not blinding +as in summer; its light plainly that of a great low-hanging star. + +This is the dark season; but to make up for the shortness of the days we +are given such glories of sunrise and sunset, and such a glittering +brilliancy of stars, as come at no other time. All summer these belong +to farmers, shepherds, and sailors; but now even slug-abeds can be out +before first light, and watch the great stars fade, and dawn grow, and +then come back to that cozy and exciting feast, breakfast by candle and +fire light. + +You step out into the frosty dark, with Venus pulsing and burning like a +great lamp, and the snow luminous around you. The stars are like +diamonds, and the sky black, and lo! there is the Dipper, straight +overhead. It is night, yet not night, because of the whiteness of the +snow, and because the air is already alive with the coming morning. The +snow crunches sharply underfoot. The dry air tickles and tingles and +makes you cough. The street lamps are still bright, and here and there +the lighted windows of other early risers show a cheerful yellow in the +snow. It is a friendly time of day. Neighbors call good-morning to each +other in the dark, and sleigh-bells jingle past. Then you come home to +the firelight and the gay-lighted breakfast table, with dawn stealing up +fast, like lamplight spreading from the bright crack under a door. + +As the first shafts of sunlight strike across, they light up a million +frost-crystals. The air is alive with them, on all sides, delicate star +and wheel shapes, flashing like diamonds. This beautiful phenomenon +lasts only about half an hour. The fairy crystals, light as the air, +floating about you, vanish, but the snow continues to flash softly, from +countless tiny stars and facets, all day. + +Frost mists hover all day about our valley, the breath of the sleeping +river. They are drawn through our streets all day in veils and wisps of +softness. Smoke and steam clouds hold their shape long in the winter +temperatures. At night the smoke from the chimneys curls up in pale blue +columns in the rarefied air, against the dark but clear blue of the +winter night sky. By day the steam puffs from the locomotives rise +pinky-buff, or almost gold-color, and keep their shape for a few moments +as firm as thunderheads. + +This year, mid-winter for the sun is the moon's midsummer. The full moon +rises and sets so far to the north that she completes full +three-quarters of the circle. At night she rides at the zenith, high and +small, and the snow fields seem illimitable and remote under her lonely +light. The expanse of snow so increases both sun and moon light that she +seems to rise while it is still broad day; and still to be shining with +full silver, in her unwonted northern station, after broad day again, at +dawn. + +We share some of the phenomena of light of the polar regions. Moon +rainbows are sometimes seen at night; and as this is the season of most +frequent mock suns--_par-helia_--so also mock +moons--_par-selenes_--half-nebulous, massed effects of softly bright +radiance, appear on the hovering frost mists; and sharply outlined lunar +halos herald snowstorms. + +Indeed the greatly increased extent of snow-expanse magnifies all +effects of light extraordinarily. + +At sunset, softened colors, "peach-blossom and dove-color," like the +bands of a wide and diffused rainbow, appear in the _east_; this is the +sunset light, caught by the snowfields, and reflected on the eastern +clouds and mists. Not only this; the "old moon in the new moon's arms," +instead of being a blank mass, as in summer, is darkly luminous, so +greatly has the earth-shine on the moon been magnified. + +A winter night is never really dark. Thanks to the rarefied air, the +stars burn and blaze as at no other season; Sirius appearing to sparkle +with an even bluer light than in summer. You can tell time by a small +watch, easily, by starlight, with no other aid but the diffused glimmer +of the snow fields. + +The other morning an errand took my brother and me out early over the +long hill that makes the Height of Land to the west. There must have +been an amazing fall of frost-dew the night before, for we saw a sight +which I shall never forget; not only the twigs and the branches, but the +actual trunks of the trees, the stone-walls, and the roadside +shrubberies and seed-vessels, frosted with crystals like fern-fronds, +two inches or more long. There is a wood of pines at the crest of the +hill, and here not a green needle showed, not one bit of bark; the trees +rose pure white against the pure blue sky, over the white skyline of the +hill. Looking out over the country, all the woods were silver; +silver-white where the light took them, silver-gray in shadow. Light +flashed round us everywhere, so that it was almost dazzling, yet it was +softened light; stars, not diamonds. + +Once the snow comes, the neighborhood settles to a certain happy quiet. +It is as if winter laid a strong arm about us, encircling and soothing. +The dry air sparkles like wine. Dusk falls early; the wood fires on the +hearths burn bright, and the evenings beside them are never too long. It +is a neighborly time, and the long peaceful hours of work bring a sense +of achievement. + +Out on the farms, the year's supply of wood is being cut. This, with +hauling the hay, and ice-cutting, makes the chief winter work; and the +men who are out chopping all day in the woods become hardy indeed. + +[Illustration: ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY] + +Ice-cutting on the river begins in January. The wide hollow of the river +valley is so white that the men and horses moving up and down stand out +in warm color; the strange snow silence makes an almost palpable +background to the cheerful and sharp sounds of work, the ring of metal, +the squeak of leather, the men's shouts and talk, and the steady roar +which goes up from the ice ploughs and cutters. There are small portable +forges here and there for mending tools, at the fires of which the men +heat their coffee. The ice-cakes are clear blue, and they are lifted out +and started up the run in leisurely procession. Directly the first +cutting is made you have the startling sight of a field of bright blue +living water in the midst of the whiteness; while along the shore, the +rising tide often overflows the shore ice, in pools and rivulets, the +color of yellow-green jade. + +The work is done with heavy steel tools. First the ice must be marked, +then planed to a smooth surface, then grooved more deeply, and for the +last few inches sawed by hand with long ice-saws. It is pleasant work on +sunny days, and the men, who have mostly come in from the farms, like +its sociableness; but often the wind sweeps down the valley bitterly +cold, and then it is very severe, especially the work of keeping the +canals open at night. The ice generally runs to about two feet thick. + +The ice-business in our valley has fallen off since the formation of the +Ice Trust and the increased use of artificial ice. A great part of our +ice fields are only held in reserve now, in case the more southern ice +fails, but it still makes a winter harvest for us. The river towns must +always have their own ice, and the farmers who cut it get good pay for +their work and that of their horses. They speak of the work entirely in +farm terms. They "cultivate" the ice, and "harvest" the "crop." + +Last week we made an expedition across country to where the beautiful +little chain of the Assimasqua ponds and streams lies between the ranges +of Maple Hill on the west, and Wrenn's Mountain on the east; and there, +on Upper Assimasqua, was the same phenomenon of frost-crystals which we +saw on Dunnack Hill, only here it was on the ice. We thought at first +the pond was covered with snow, but as we walked out on it, we saw it +was frost, in such ice-flowers as I have never seen before. They were +like clusters of crystal fern-fronds, each frond an inch and a half to +two inches long. At first these flowers were scattered in clusters about +six inches apart over the black ice, but farther on they ran together +into a solid field of silver, a miniature forest of flashing fern or +palm fronds, so delicate and light it seemed as if they must bend with +the breeze. They outlined each crack in the ice with close garlands. We +could hardly bear to crush them as we walked through them. + +The four Assimasqua Ponds lie low between hills that are heavily wooded, +mostly with beech and hemlock. The shores are high and irregular and jut +out in narrow points, and these and the islands have small cliffs, of +gnarled and twisted strata, which the hemlocks overhang, in masses of +feathery green. + +There was something appealing and endearing in the beauty of this little +forest chain of lakes and streams, lying still and white between its +wooded shores. We crossed its wide surface on foot, and followed up the +course of the stream which whirled and tumbled so, only a month ago. +Every tiny reach and channel was ours to explore. It was as quiet as a +child lying asleep. + +We built a fire on the south shore of a headland, where a curve of the +gnarled cliffs enclosed a tiny beach, cooked bacon, and heated coffee. +Twenty yards from the shore there was a round hole, some eight inches +across, of black dimpling water. It had not been cut, but was natural, +being, I suppose, over a warm spring. The ice was so strong around it +that we could drink from it. + +It was so warm in the sun that we sat about bareheaded and barehanded, +yet not a frost-needle melted. The sunlight glinted on the hemlock +needles, all the way up the hillsides, and a balsamy sweetness seemed to +be all about us, mixed with the pungent smoke of our wood fire. + +The chickadees were busy all round us, making little bright chirrupy +sounds. We could hear blue-jays calling, deeper in the woods, and the +occasional "crake, crake, crake," of a blue nuthatch. The dry winter +woods cracked and the pond rang and gurgled with pretty hollow noises. +The hemlocks had fruited heavily, and were hung all over with little +bright brown cones, like Christmas trees. They seem to give out fragrant +sunny health all winter, a dry thrifty vigor. + +We did not see a soul on all the Upper Ponds, and only fox tracks ran in +and out of the marsh-grasses of the stream, but on Lower Assimasqua +there were men cutting wood. They were cutting out beech and white and +yellow birch for firewood, and leaving the hemlock, which grew very +thick here. The cut wood stood about the slope in neatly piled +bright-colored stacks, with colored chips among the fallen branches, and +the axe blows rang sharp and musical in the winter silence. The men, who +were good-looking fellows, wore woolen or corduroy, with high moccasins, +and their sheepskin and mackinaw coats were thrown aside on the snow. +There were five or six of them, mostly young men, and one handsome older +man, with hawk features and a bright color, silver hair and beard, and +bright warm brown eyes. They had bread, doughnuts, and pie for their +dinner, and a jug of cider. + +The Lower is the largest of the four ponds. It is, perhaps, three miles +long by a mile wide, but it seemed almost limitless, under the snow, and +we felt like pygmy creatures, walking in the midst, with the unbroken +level stretching away around us. + +The sky was deepening into indescribable colors, peacock blue, peacock +gray, and in the middle of the expanse, over the woods, we saw the great +full moon, just rising clear out of the violet and opal tenebrae, the +fringes of the sky. She was as pale as a bubble, or as the palest pink +summer cloud, but gathered color fast, then poured her floods of silver. +The whiteness of the pond glimmered more and more strangely as dusk +increased. + +We came home, stiff and happy, to a great wood fire, piled in a wide and +deep fireplace, and to a room of firelight and evergreen-scented +shadows. + +That night a light rain fell, then turned to a busy snow-storm, which +fell for hours on the wet surfaces in thick soft-falling flakes, so that +by the next morning the world was a fairy forest of white. The trees +bent down under their feathery load. Wonderful low intricately crossed +branches were everywhere. Each littlest grove and clump of shrubbery +became a dense thicket of white. This fairy forest was close, close +round us, so that each street seemed magical and unfamiliar, a place +that we had never seen before. It was a perfectly hushed world. Our +footsteps made no sound, and even the masses from the overladen branches +came down silently. Everything but whiteness was obliterated; then at +night the moon came out clear again, and lighted up this fairy world, +and the white spirits of trees stood up against the gray-black sky. + +Ten days after this there followed a great ice-storm, when for two days +rain fell incessantly, and, as it fell, covered the twigs and branches +with crystal. It cleared on the third morning, and instead of white, we +were in a world of diamond. The dazzling brilliancy was almost more than +the eye could bear. Every blade of grass and seed-vessel was changed to +a crystal jewel, and the breeze set them tinkling. The sky was fairy +blue. The woods and all the fields flashed round us as we walked almost +spell-bound through their strange beauty. The wonder was that the whole +star-like world did not clash and ring as if with silver harp music. + +As the sun rose higher, the country was veiled with frost haze, but +through it, and beyond, we saw the shining of the crust on all the +distant hills. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON + + +Assimasqua Mountain rises abruptly to the west of the four ponds, a +noble hill or range, five miles in length. + +The west shore of the Assimasqua lakes sweeps abruptly up to the high +crest of the ridge, which is very irregular. It is partly wooded, partly +half-grown-up pasture, partly ledge, and along the high grassy summit +small chasms open and lead away into deep woods of hemlock. The steep +east side is covered for most of its length with an amazing growth of +juniper, hundreds and hundreds of close-massed bushes of great size and +thickness. The ridge holds a number of little dark mountain tarns, and +half a dozen good brooks tumble down its sides in small cascades. The +folds of its forest skirts broaden out to the west into the bottom lands +at its feet. To the east, the valleys of the brooks deepen and sharpen +into ravines through the woods, as they draw near the lakes. + +The shores all about the four lakes, as I said, are heavily wooded, and +there are but one or two farms, and these only small clearings. A +singular person lived in one of them, who worked for years over a great +invention, a boat which was to utilize the wind by means of a windmill, +which in turn worked a small paddle-wheel. No one now knows whether he +had never heard of such a thing as a sail, or merely thought sails +dangerous. He was absorbed in his project; and he did get his boat to +go, in time, and at least a few times she trundled a clumsy course +around the lake. + +Near the south end of the Mountain is the old Hale place. Mr. Hale was a +gentle-looking man, very neat, with a quiet voice and ways. He kept his +wide fields finely cultivated, and had a large orchard, and twelve +Jersey cows. The lane through which they filed home at night is enclosed +between the two mightiest stump fences I have ever seen, fully ten feet +high, and a perfect wilderness to climb over. They look like the +brandished arms of witches, or like enormous antlers, against the sky, +and are thickly fringed all along their base with delicate Dicksonia +fern. Stump fences are fast becoming rare with us, and these must be the +over-turned stumps of first-growth pine. + +After Mr. and Mrs. Hale died, the farm passed to a sister, Mrs. Wrenn, +and when her husband, too, died--he had been a slack man, with no hold on +anything--she made the fatal mistake, too common among old people on the +farms, of making over the property to a kinsman (in this case, a married +step-niece and her husband) on condition of support. I never knew Mrs. +Wrenn, but a young farmer's wife, a friend of mine, was anxious about +her troubles, and through her there came to our notice an incident which +seemed to light up the whole gray region of the farm. + +The neighbors began to hear rumors of neglect and abuse. Mrs. Wrenn was +never seen, and those who knew the skinflint ways of her entertainers +suspected trouble and presently confided their fears to the young doctor +of the neighborhood. He came at once, and found the poor soul in a fatal +illness, left alone in unspeakable dirt and squalor in a sort of +out-house, with unwashed bed-clothes, no one to feed or tend her, and +food which she could not touch put roughly beside her once a day. There +were signs too of actual rough handling. + +"Don't try to make me live!" the old lady whispered, with command and +entreaty. "Don't ye dare to keep me living," and he assured her solemnly +that he would not, except in reason, and would only make her more +comfortable. He rated the bad woman in charge till he had her well +frightened, and then, though it was not only dark already, but raining +fast (and though he was poor himself, with his way to make and no +financial backing) he drove five miles to town and brought back and +installed a nurse at his own expense. + +"The tears were running down his cheeks," the nurse herself told me, +"when he assured that poor old creature that either he or I would be +with her day and night, that we would never leave her, and she would be +safe with us. He paid my charges, and all supplies and food, out of his +own pocket. He saw her every day, and when her release came, he was +close beside her, and had her hand in his. He couldn't have been more +tender to his own mother. And he gave that bad woman a part of what she +deserved." + +I should like to say something more of this young physician. He started +as a farm boy, with no capital beyond insight and purpose, and skilled +hands, and was led to his career, or rather could not keep himself from +his career, because of the fire of pity and tenderness that possessed +him. He has come to honor and recognition now, but at the time of which +I write, and for years, he was known only to a thirty-mile circle of +farm people, a good part of them too poor to pay for any services. He +gave himself to them, without knowing that he was giving anything. He +was a born citizen, too, served as overseer of the poor, and as +selectman, and people consulted him about their quarrels and troubles. + +I spoke of the incident about Mrs. Wrenn, which the nurse had told me a +year or more after it happened, to the doctor's wife, some weeks since. +He had never told her of it. Her eyes filled with tears. + +"That is just like him," she said. + +The Ridge slopes down to the west, to the rich plains through which the +Marston communities are scattered--Marston Centre, North and West +Marston, Marston Plains. The "Four Marstons" are a notable district, for +Marston Academy had the luck to be founded, nearly a hundred years ago, +by persons of liberal education, and the dwellers in the comfortable +four-square brick houses of the neighborhood have more than kept up its +intellectual traditions; though the town has no railroad communication, +and only one mill, the shovel factory, since the old saw-mill which cut +the first-growth pines on the slopes of Assimasqua has been given up. + +The Marston saw-mill is chiefly remembered because of Hiram Andros, who +worked there as sawyer for forty-five years, and had the name of the +best judge of timber in the State. The _sawyer's_ is a notable position. +He himself does no actual work, but stands near the saw, and in the +brief moment when each log is run on to the carriage, holds up the +requisite number of fingers to show whether it is to be a three, a four, +or five-inch timber, or cut into boards or planks; which cut will make +the best use of the log, with the least waste. The sawyer gets high pay, +six to ten dollars a day, and earns it, for on his single judgment, +delivered in that fraction of a minute, the mill's prosperity hangs. + +What is it that gives a town so distinct a color and fibre? Marston +people have kept, generation after generation, a fine flavor and +distinction. They are in touch with the world, in the best sense, and +men of science and leaders of thought in university life, as well as +business magnates, have gone out from Marston, yet still feel they +belong there. + +Eliphalet Marston, who built and owned the shovel factory, made it his +study to produce the best shovel that could be made, the best wearing, +the soundest. In later life his son tried to induce him to go about +through the country, and look up his customers, to increase trade. The +son was very emphatic; it was what everyone did, the only way to keep +up-to-date and advertise the business, and Eliphalet must not become +moss-grown. He shook his head, but after much hammering started off, +though not really persuaded. He went to a big wholesale dealer in +Chicago, but did not mention his name, merely said he was there to talk +shovels. + +"Don't mention shovels to me," said the dealer. "There's just one shovel +that's worth having, just one that's honest, and that's the one that I'm +handling. There it is," he said, producing it. "Look at it; that's the +only _shovel_ that's made in this country; made by a man named Marston, +at Marston Plains, State of ----" + +Eliphalet chuckled, and went home. + +The Barnards were Marston people, a brilliant but strange family; and +next door to the Barnards lived a remarkable woman, Miss Persis Wayland. +She was a tall handsome person, of a large frame. She lived to a great +age, passing all her later life alone, save for one attendant, in her +father's large house, with its gardens and hedges around it. She was +well-to-do, and dressed with old-fashioned stateliness in heavy black +silk. + +She was a woman of fine understanding, and a trained scholar. She read +four languages easily, and at forty took up the study of Hebrew, that +she might have her Bible free from the perversions of translation. She +was about thirty when the religious temperament which was later to +dominate her first manifested itself. She has told me herself of her +experience. + +She had been conscious for years of a vague dissatisfaction, and of +life's seeming empty and purposeless. She threw herself, first into +study, then into works of charity, in her effort to find peace. She rose +early, and worked till she was utterly worn out and exhausted, at her +Sunday School class, at missionary work, and till late hours at her +Spanish and Latin, all to no purpose. + +Then one day she found herself at a meeting at which a Methodist +evangelist (she herself was a strict Episcopalian) was to speak. She +went in without thought, from a chance impulse as she passed the door. +After the speaking, those who felt moved to do so were asked to come +forward and kneel; and as she knelt, she felt the breath of the Spirit +upon her forehead. + +"It was as plain as the touch of your hand and mine," she said, as she +laid her handsome old hand on my fingers; and from that moment, all her +life, the light never left her, she felt "held round by an unspeakable +peace and sunshine." + +She always held to her own church, but became more and more of a +Spiritualist, till she saw her rooms constantly thronged with the faces +of her childhood, father and mother, and the brothers and sisters and +playmates who had passed on. + +She gradually withdrew from active life, and for the last ten years, I +think, never stepped outside her door. She had a fine presence always, +rapt and stately. She was distantly glad to see friends who called upon +her, but never showed much human warmth. She lived till her +ninety-eighth year. + +[Illustration: THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT] + +In the farming country near Marston began the ministry of Clarissa Gray, +the beloved evangelist. An unusual experience in illness led this grave, +charming girl to thought apart upon the things of God, and as she grew +up, persons vexed in spirit began to turn to her for comfort. Her +personality was so tranquil and at rest that she seemed to diffuse a +sense of musing peace about her; yet she was not dreamy; her nature was +rather so limpidly clear that she was never pre-occupied, and she had +clear practical good-sense. Hard-drinking, violent men would yield to +her direct and fearless influence. Presently she was asked more and more +widely to lead in meeting, and to her unquestioning nature this came as +a clear call. Her voice, fervent and pure, led in prayer, her crystal +judgement solved problems, till without her ever knowing it the +community lay in the hollow of her small hands. + +I was last at Marston on a day of deep winter. We were to make a visit +in the town, and then explore the fields and woods of the west slopes of +Assimasqua. + +A marked change comes to us by the middle of January. We emerge from the +softened twilight world of earlier winter into a brilliancy of white, +with bright blue shadows. The deep snow is changed by the action of the +wind and its own weight, to a wonderful smooth firmness. It takes on +carved and graven shapes, and might be a sublimated building material, a +fairy alabaster or marble, fit to built the palaces in the clouds. After +each storm the snow-plough piles it, often above one's head, on both +sides of the roads and sidewalks; we walk between high walls built of +blocks and masses of blue-shadowed white. + +The brightness is almost too great, through the middle of the day; it is +dazzling; but about sunset a curious opaque look falls on the landscape; +a flattening, till they are like the hues of old pastels, of all the +delicate colors. The country has an appearance of almost infinite space, +under the snow, and the wind carves out pure sharp wave-like curves of +drift about the fields and hills. + +The still air, dry and fiery, is like champagne. It almost _burns_, it +is so cold and pure. A great feeling of lightness comes to moccasined +feet, in walking in this rarefied air through powdery snow; but fingers +and toes quickly become numb without even feeling the cold. + +Starting early out of Marston Plains village, we passed a tall rounded +hill which had a grove of maples near its top, the countless fine lines +of their stems like the strings of some harp-like instrument. The light +breeze, hardly more than a stirring, made music through them. The +sunrise was hidden behind this hill, but the delicate bare trees were +lighted up as with a gold mist. + +As we entered the forest on the skirts of Assimasqua, the wind rose +outside. A fresh fall of snow the day before had weighted every branch +of the evergreens with piled-up whiteness, which now came down in bright +showers, the snow crystals glinting around us where stray sunbeams stole +down among the trees: but in the shelter of the great pines and hemlocks +not a breath of wind reached us, and the woods were held fast in the +snow hush, against which any chance sound rings out sharply. + +The bark of the different trees was like a set of fine etchings, the +yellow birches shining as if burnished; the patches of handsome dark +mosses on the ash-trees, and the fine-grained bark of lindens, ashes, +and hop-hornbeams stood out brightly. + +As we followed a wood road we heard chirruping and tweeting, and saw a +flock of pine siskins among the pine-tops, and later we heard the +vigorous tapping of a great pileated woodpecker. + +All the northern woodpeckers winter with us; as do bluejays, and +chickadees, (the "friendly birds" of the Indians); juncos and +nuthatches; and partridges, which burrow under the snow for roots and +berries, and are sometimes caught, poor things, by the foxes, when the +crust freezes over them. Crows stay with us through a very mild winter, +but more often are off to the sea, thirty miles distant, to grow fat on +periwinkles; and very rarely indeed a winter wren or a song-sparrow +remains with us. The beautiful cream-white snow-buntings, cross-bills, +fat handsome pine-grosbeaks, golden-crowned kinglets, brown-creepers, +and those pirates, the butcher birds, come for short winter visits. +Evening grosbeaks, and Bohemian wax-wings, we see more rarely. By the +end of February, when the cold may be deepest, the great owls are +already building, deep in the woods. + +Ever so many small sharp valleys and ravines were revealed among the +woods, some winding deep into the darkness of the pines and hemlocks. +Their perfect curves were made more perfect by the unbroken snow, and +they were flecked all over with the feathery blue shadows of their +trees. At the bottom of one we heard a musical tinkling, and found a +brook partly open. We scrambled down to it, and knelt there, watching +it, till we were half frozen. The ice was frosted deep with delicate +lace-work, and looking up underneath we saw a perfect wonderland of +organ-pipes and colonnades of crystal, through which the water tinkled +melodiously. + +We came out high on the north side of Assimasqua, in the sugaring grove +that spreads up the steep slope to the crest. The tall maples were very +beautiful in their winter bareness, and the slope about their feet was +massed with a close feathery growth of young balsam firs and hemlocks, +with openings between. The snow lay even with the eaves of the small +bark sugaring-shanty. The sight of a roof made the silence seem almost +palpable, but in March the hillside will have plenty of sound and stir, +for fires will be lighted and the big kettles swung, while the men come +and go on sledges. Sugaring goes on all through the countryside, and +even in the town boys are out with "spiles," drilling the maple +"shade-trees," as soon as the sap begins running. The bright drops fall +slowly, one by one, into the pail hung to the end of the spile, and the +sap is like the clearest spring water, with a refreshing woodsy +sweetness. + +The high rough crest of Assimasqua dominates a wide stretch of country. +The long sweep of the fields, and the lakes, lying asleep, showed +perfect, featureless white, as we stood looking down; but all about, and +in among them, the low broken hills, the knolls and ridges, bore scarfs +or mantles of smoke-colored bare woods, mixed with evergreens. + +All day the sky had been of an aquamarine color, of the liquid and +luminous clearness which comes only in mid-winter, and deep afternoon +shadows were falling as we came down the hillside. We were on +snow-shoes, and had brought a toboggan, as the last part of our way lay +down hill. The country was open below the sugaring grove, and the +unbroken snow masked all the contours and mouldings of the fields, so +that we found ourselves suddenly dropping into totally unrealized +hollows and skimming up unrealized hillocks. + +When we reached the small dome-like hill where we were to take the +cross-country trolley, the blue-green sky had changed to a pure +primrose, and in this, as the marvelous dusk of the snow fields deepened +about us, the thin golden sickle of the new moon, and then Venus, came +out slowly till they blazed above the horizon; the primrose hue changed +to a low band of burning orange beneath the fast-striding darkness, then +to a blue-green color, a robin's egg blue, which showed liquid-clear +behind the pines; but long before we reached home the colors had +deepened into the peacock blue darkness of the winter night. + +Just before the distant whistle of the trolley broke the stillness, we +had a tiny adventure; we strayed over the brow of the hill, and came on +two baby foxes playing in the soft snow like kittens. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--OUR TOWN + + +I + +The farms become smaller, and string along nearer and nearer each other, +the hills slope more and more sharply, till suddenly, there below them +lies our Town, held round in their embrace, its factory chimneys sending +up blossoms of steam, its host of scattered lights at night a company of +low-dropped stars. There is no visible boundary; but with the first +electric light pole there is a change, and something deeper-rooted than +its convenience and compactness, its theatres and trolleys, makes the +town's life as different as possible from that of the farm districts. +Yet an affectionate relationship maintains itself between the two. Farm +neighbors bring in a little area of unhurried friendliness which clings +around their Concord wagons or pungs; hurrying townsfolk, stopping to +greet them, relax their tension and an exchange of jokes and chaff +begins. Leisurely, ample farm women settle down in our Rest Room for +friendly talk and laughter, and hot coffee or tea. + +Our dearest Town! We have perhaps some of the faults of all northern +places. We, at least we women, are sad _Marthas_, careful and troubled, +including house-cleaning with seed-time and harvest among the things +ordained not to fail, no matter at what cost of peace of mind and +health. We hug each our own fireside; but this is because, for eight +months of the year, the great cold gives us a habit of tension. We enjoy +too little the elixir of our still winter days, and hurry, hurry as we +go, to pop back to our warm hearths as fast as ever we can. + +Now and again through the year, the big cities call us with a Siren's +voice. + +"My wife and I put in ten days at the Waldorf-Astoria each year, and we +count it good business," says one of our tradesmen, and he speaks for +many. The clustered brilliancy at the entrances of the great theatres, +the shop windows, the sense of being _carried_ by the great current of +life, sets our feet and our pulses dancing; but I think it is not quite +so much the stir and gaiety which we sometimes thirst for as the +protecting insulation of the crowd, to draw breath in a little and let +the mind relax. The wall that guards one's citadel of inner privacy +needs, in a small town, to be built of strong stuff; it is subjected to +hard wear. Indeed we share some of the privations of royalty, in that we +lead our whole lives in the public eye. We see each other walk past +every day, greet each other daily in shops and at street corners, and +meet each other's good frocks and company manners at every church supper +and afternoon tea. It takes a nature with Heaven's gift of +unconsciousness to withstand this wear and tear; yet there are plenty of +these among us, people of such quality and fibre that they keep a fine +aloofness and privacy of life, like sanctuary gardens within guardian +hedges. + +But if our closeness to each other has these slight drawbacks, it has +advantages that are unspeakably precious. Our neighbors' joys and +troubles are of instant importance to us, each and all. In the city one +can look on while one's neighbor dies or goes bankrupt. Too often, one +cannot help even where one would; here we _must_ help, whether we will +or no! We cannot get away from duties that are so imperative. Our +neighbor's necessities are unescapable, and a certain soldierly quality +comes to us in that we cannot _choose_. + +An instinct, whether Puritan or Quaker, runs straight through us, which +at social gatherings draws men and women to the two sides of a room, as +a magnet draws needles. Perhaps it is merely the shyness inherent in +towns of small compass; in all the annals of small places, in Cranford, +in John Galt's villages, the ladies bridle and simper, the gentlemen +"begin for to bash and to blush," in each other's society. Whatever it +is, it narrows and pinches communities, and does sometimes more +far-reaching harm than the mere stiffening-up of parties and gatherings; +it narrows the women's habit of thought, so that children are deprived +of some of the wider outlook of citizenship; and the woman's ministry of +cheering and soothing, which pours itself out without stint to all +_women_ in old age or sorrow or sickness, is too often withheld from the +men, who may be as lonely and troubled, and may be left forlorn and +uncheered. However, this foolish thing vanishes before rich and warm +natures, like snow in a March sun. + +I sometimes wish that our latch-strings hung a little more on the +outside. It is easier for us to give a party, with great effort, and our +ancestral china, than to have a friend drop in to share family supper; +yet there is something that makes for strength in this fine privacy of +each family's circle, and no doubt, as our social occasions are +necessarily few, a certain formality is the more a real need. It "keeps +up." + +One grave trouble runs through our community, and leaves a black trail. +Drink poisons the lives of too many of our working-men. + +The drain to the cities, which robs all small places of part of their +life's blood, touches us nearly; the young wings must be tried, the +young feet take the road. The restless sand is in the shoes, and one out +of perhaps every twenty pairs sold in our street is to take a boy or +girl out to make a new home, far from father and mother. + +But this, although it robs us, is also our pride and strength. Many of +the boys and girls who have gone out from among us have become +torch-bearers, and their light shines back to us; and if the town's +veins are drained, it is, by the very means which drain it, made part of +the arterial system of the whole country, and throbs with its heart +beats. The enormous variety of post-marks on our incoming mail tells its +absorbing story. + +There is no sameness, even in a small town. Here, as everywhere, the +Creator lays here and there His finger of difference; as if He said, +"Conformity is the law--and non-conformity." Why should one clear-eyed +boy among us have been born with the voice and vision, and the +sorrow-and-reward-full consecration, of high poetry, rather than his +brothers? Why should another, of different bringing-up, among a din of +voices crying down the town's possibilities, have had the wit and +enterprise, yes, and the vision, too, to build up, here, a vigorous +manufactory, whose wares, well planned and well made, now have their +market many States away? + +I think of a third boy, the child of a well-read, but not a studious +household, who at ten was laying hands on everything that he could find +to study in the branch of science to which his life was later to be +dedicated. He had the same surroundings as the rest of us, we went to +school and played at Indians together; and now, for years, in a distant +city, his life has led him daily upon voyages of thought, beyond the ken +of those who played with him. + +Another boy, our dear naturalist, also lives far away. His able, merry +brothers were the most practical creatures; so was he, too, but in +another way. He turned, a little grave-eyed child, to out-of-doors, as a +duck takes to water, caring for birds and beasts with a pure passion, as +absorbed in watching their ways as were the other boys in games and +food. It was nothing to him to miss a meal, or two, if a turtle's eggs +might be hatching. He had very little to help him, for his father, a +very fine man, a master builder, failed in health early; but he helped +himself. He found countless little out-of-the-way jobs; he mounted trout +or partridges for older friends, caught bait, exchanged specimens +through magazines, etc., to keep himself out of doors, and to buy books +and collecting materials. By the time he was twelve he had a little +taxidermy business; and with the growth of technical skill, the finer +part, the naturalist's seeing eye for infinite difference--the shading of +the moth's wing, the marking of the wren's egg--grew faster yet; and with +it the patient reverent absorption in the whole. + +People come to him now for accurate and delicate knowledge. His word +gives the authority which for so long he sought; and, at least once, he +has been sent by his Government to bring back a report of birds and +fishes, and to plant his country's flag on a lone coral island. + +The other night we went to a play given by some of the school children. +Their orchestra played with spirit; and from the first we grew absorbed +in watching a little boy who played the bass drum. The bass drum! He +played the snare-drum, the triangle, the cymbals, a set of musical +rattles, and I do not know how many extraordinary things attached to +hand or feet, as well. Our northern music is choked in the sand of +over-business, prisoned by northern stiffness, but shy, stiff, awkward +though it may be, the divine thing is there, as groundwater is present +where there is land; and nothing can keep our children from buying +(generally with their own earnings) instruments of one sort or another, +and picking up lessons. + +I know this little boy. His father is a laborer, a slack man, down at +heels, but kind and indulgent. The boy is a chubby little soul, and he +accompanied the showy rag-time as Bach's son might have played his +father's masses, with a serious, reverent absorption, his little +unconscious face lighting up at any prettier change in the rag-time. +They live in a tiny cottage, and are well-fed, but very untidy. As the +humming bird finds honey, this child had somehow picked up odd pennies +to buy, and found time to master, his extraordinary collection of +instruments, and he sat playing as if in Heaven. Surely we had seen yet +another manifestation of the Power, which, together with the bright +fields of golden-rod and daisies, plants also the hidden lily in the +woods. + + +II + +Of the town's politics, the less said the better, but in every matter +outside of their withering realm, I wonder how many other communities +there are in which public spirit is as much a matter of course as +drawing breath, where heart and soul are poured into the town's needs so +royally. Our churches, our Library, our Rest Room, Board of Trade, and +Merchants' Association have been earned by the hardest of hard work, +shoulder to shoulder. Most of our women do their own household work, all +of our men work long hours; but when there is question of a public work +to be done, people will pledge, gravely and with their eyes open, an +amount of work that would fairly stagger persons whose easier lives have +trained their fibres less hardily. I wonder what would be the +equivalent, in dollars and cents, of the gift to one of the town's +undertakings, by a stalwart house-wife (who does all the work for a +family of five) of _every afternoon for three weeks_, and this in +December, when our Town loses its head in a perfect riot of Christmas +present-giving. + +What is it in politics, what can it be, which so poisons human +initiative at its well-springs? Here is public work which, we are told, +we must accept (must we?) as a corrupting and corrupt thing; it deadens +and poisons; and almost interlocking with it is work for the same town's +good, done by the same people, which invigorates as if with new breath +and kindles a living fire among us. + +The peculiar problem of our town, the bitter, fighting quality of our +politics, is a mystery to ourselves. One condition which presses equally +hard on the whole State: the constant friction, and consequent moral +undermining, of a law constantly evaded: may be in part responsible. But +no doubt our intense, flint-and-steel individualism is the chief factor; +yet this individualism is also the sap, the very life-blood, of the +tree! + +(Surely things will be better when the ethics of citizenship is taught +to children as unequivocally as the duty of telling the truth.) + +With this citizen's work, goes on a private kindness so beautiful that +one finds one's self without words, uplifted and humbled before it; it +is as if, below the obstructions of our busy lives, there ran a river of +friendship, so strong, so single-purposed, that when the rock above it +is struck by need or adversity, its pure current wells forth and carries +everything before it. + +How many times have this or that old person's last days been made +peaceful and tranquil, instead of torn with anxiety, by the hidden +action of "a few friends": (ah, the fine and sweet reticence!); and +these not persons of means, but of slender purses; young men, among +others, with the new cares of marriage and children already heavy upon +them. + +Doctor's bills "seen to"; a summer at the seashore, for a drooping young +mother, "arranged for"; the new home cozily furnished, and books and +clothing found, for a burnt-out household; a telephone installed, a year +at college provided for; a girl, not at fault, but in trouble, taken in +and made one of the family; these instances and their like crowd the +town's unwritten annals. + +I must not seem to rate our dear Town too highly, or to claim that these +examples are anything out of the common, that they shine brighter than +the countless other unseen stars of the Milky Way of Kindness. I only +stand abashed before a bed-rock quality of friendship, which never wears +out nor tires; which gives and gives again, gravely, yet not counting +the cost, and does not withhold that last sharing of hearth and privacy, +before which so many dwellers in more sophisticated places cannot but +waver. + +Have I given too many examples? How can I withhold them! + +I think of the machine-tender and his wife, who, in a year of ill-health +and doctor's bills for themselves and their two children, took in the +young wife of a fellow-worker who had lost his position; tended her when +her baby came, cared for mother and child for eight months, till a new +job was found. + +Of two households, who took in and made happy, the one a broken-down +artist who had fallen on evil times in a great city, the other a +sour-tempered old working woman, left without kin. The first household +have growing-up children, an automobile, horses, all the complexities of +well-to-do life in these days, but the tie of old friendship was the one +thing considered. The householders in the second case were not even near +friends, merely fellow church members, a kind man and wife, left without +children, who could not enjoy their warm house while old Hannah was +friendless. They tended her as they might have tended their own sister. + +Of the young teacher, alone in the world, who, when calamity came to two +married friends (a burnt house and office, and desperate illness) took +_all_ the savings that were to have gone for three years' special +training, went to them, a three-days' railroad journey, brought them +home, and bore all the household expenses of the young couple, and of +their baby's coming, until new work was found. + +The cooking and housework for four persons, (together with a heavy +amount of neighborhood work,) would seem enough for even a very capable +and kind pair of hands. Well, one friend, in addition to this, for two +years cooked and carried in _all_ the meals for a neighbor (a good many +doors away), a crippled girl, a prey, heretofore, to torturing +dyspepsia. There was no chance of saving the girl's life, she had a +fatal complaint, but thanks to this simple ministry, her last two years +were free from pain, and she was as happy a creature as could well be. + +These and like cases crowd to one's mind, till the memories of the town +ring like a chime of bells. + +I remember how troubled we were about one neighbor, a gentle, sweet +lady, left the last of a large and affectionate family circle; how we +dreaded the loneliness for her. We need not have been troubled. There +was a place for her at every hearth in the neighborhood, and when the +long last illness set in, kind, pitiful hands of neighbors were close +about, soothing and tending her. One younger friend, like a daughter, +never left her, day after day. Her own people were all gone before her, +her harvest was gathered, there could be no more anguish of parting; and +her last years seemed, as one might say, carried forward on a sunny +river of friendship. + + +III + +People from sunnier climates speak sometimes of our lack of community +cheer and of festivals; but a temperature of twenty below zero--or even +twenty above--does not conduce to dancing on the green; and it may be +that the spirit's light-footedness, like that of the outward person, is +hampered by many wrappings. Yet once in a while even we northern people +do "break out"; as on Fourth of July, when, in the early morning, the +"Antiques and Horribles," masked and painted, ride, grinning, through +the streets. + +After a football victory, our High School boys, like boys everywhere, +break out in unorganized revel. They caper about in night-shirts put on +over their clothes, or in their mother's and sisters' skirts, and with +the girls as well, they dance down the street in a snake-dance. They +light a bonfire in the square, and sing, cheer, and frolic around it. +Though they do not know it, it is pure carnival. + +The long white months of winter see us all very busy and settled. This +is the time of year when solid reading is done, and sheets are hemmed, +when our Literary Societies write and read their papers, when we get up +plays and tableaux, and the best work is done in the schools. Nobody +minds the long evenings, the lamplight beside the open fires is so +infinitely cozy; and on moonlight nights, all winter, the long +double-runners slip past outside, with joyful laughter and clatter, as +the boys and girls--and their elders--take one hill after another in the +Mile Coast. + +With the breaking-up of the ice, all our settled order breaks up, too, +in the tremendous effort of Spring Cleaning. It is as chaotic within the +house as without. The furniture is huddled in the middle of the room, +swathed in sheets. The master of the house mourns and seeks, like a bird +robbed of its nest. We live in aprons and sweeping caps, and in mock +despair. The painter will not come; the step-ladder is broken; the +spare-room matting is too worn to be put down again; but every dimmest +corner of the attic, every picture and molding, every fragment of +put-away china, is shining and polished before the weary wives will take +rest. + +With the first warm-scented May nights, the children's bedtime becomes +an indefinite hour. They are all out after dusk, like flights of +chimney-swallows. They run and race down the streets, they don't know +why, and frolic like moths about the electric-light poles. + +Memorial Day, with its grave celebration, renews our citizenship. The +children are in the fields almost at sunrise, gathering scarlet +columbines in the hill crannies, yellow dog-tooth violets, buttercups in +the tall wet grass, stripping their mothers' gardens of their brilliant +blaze of tulips, bending down the heavy, dewy heads of white and purple +lilacs. The matrons meet early at Grand Army Hall, and tie up and trim +bouquets and baskets busily till noon. The talk is sober, but cheerful, +and there is a realization of harvest-home and achievement, rather than +sadness. The little sacred procession marches past, to the sound of +music that is more elating than mournful. Later, after the marching, the +tired men find hot coffee and sandwiches ready for them. + +With summer, inconsequence and irresponsibility steal happily over the +town. Even in the shops and factories the work is not the same, for +employers and employees have become easy-going, and the business streets +look contentedly drowsy. Bricks and paving stones cannot keep out the +wafts of summer fragrance, and with them an ease and gayety, a _joie de +vivre_, diffuse themselves, which are astonishing after our winter +soberness. Our night-lunch carts, popcorn, and pink lemonade booths, +with their little flaring lights, are ugly, if compared, for instance, +to kindred things in Italy, but they manifest the same spirit. The +coming of a circus shows this feeling at its height, but it does not +need a circus to bring it out; and the Merry-go-round on one of our +wharves toots its gay little whistle all summer. Music, sometimes queer +and naive in expression, comes stealing out through the town. Our music +is never organized, but the strains of brass or string quartettes or a +small band, or of a little part singing, are heard of an evening. + +Everybody who can manage it goes down to the sea, if but for one day, +and the small excursion steamer is crowded on her daily trips to "The +Islands." + +"It takes from trade," remarks I. Scanlon, the teamster, "but you've +only got one life to live. At a time!" he adds reverently; and he and +his wife and six children travel down to a much-be-cottaged island, set +up their tent on the beach, and for a delicious, barefoot fortnight live +on fish of their own catching, and potatoes brought with them from home. + +We almost live on our lawns, and neighbors stray across to each other's +piazzas for friendly talk, friendly silence, all through the warm summer +evenings. + +By October every string needs tautening. The still, keen weather takes +matters into its own hands, and we are brought back strictly to work. +Meetings are held, committees appointed, plans made for the winter's +tasks, and soon each group is hard at it, for this and that missionary +barrel, this and that campaign; and at Thanksgiving the matrons meet +again at Grand Army Hall, to apportion and send out the Thanksgiving +Dinner. It is a privilege to be with the kind, able women, to watch +their capable hands, their shortcuts to the heart of the matter in +question, their easy authority, their large friendliness; in more cases +than not, their distinction of bearing as well. + +Thanksgiving once over, the pace quickens. Each church has its yearly +sale and supper at hand, for which months of faithful work have been +preparing, and these once worked off, the whole town, as I have said, +loses its head in a perfect fever of giving. What does anything matter +but happiness? Christmas is coming! Every man, woman, and child is a +hurrying Santa Claus. The first snow brings its strange hush, its +strange sheltering pureness, and the sleigh-bells begin once more to +jingle all about. During Christmas week hundreds of strings of colored +lights are hung across the business streets. Wreaths and garlands of +fragrant balsam fir, the very breath and expression of our countryside, +are hung everywhere, over shop windows and doorways, in every house +window, and on quiet mounds in the churchyard and cemetery. The +solemnity of the great festival, which is our Christmas, our All Saints' +and All Souls' in one, folds round us. + +The churches are all dark and sweet, like rich nests, with their heavy +fir garlands, lit up by candles. Pews that may be scantily filled at +most times are crowded to-night, for here are the boys and girls, +thronging home from business and college. Here are the three tall boys +of one household, whom we have not seen for a long time, and there are +four others. Here are girls home from boarding-school, rosy and sweet, +blossomed into full maidenhood, bringing a whiff of the city in their +furs and well-cut frocks. There is the only son of one family, who left +home a stripling, now back for the first time, a stalwart man, with his +young wife and three children. His little mother cannot see plainly, +through her happy tears; and there, and there, and there again, are +re-united households. + +The bells ring out, and after them comes the silver sound of the first +hymn. + +Of late, on Christmas evening, the choirs of the different churches have +begun the custom of meeting on the Common, to lead the crowd in hymns, +round the town Christmas Tree. Later they separate and go about singing +to different invalids and shut-ins, and many of the houses are lighted +up. + + "Silent Night! Holy Night!" + +So, within doors, we neighbors meet in reverent and thankful worship; +while without, the pure snow, the grave trees, the stars, bear their +enduring witness to that of which they, and we and our human worship, +are a part. + +Peace and good-will to our town, where it lies sheltered among its +hills. The country rises on each side of it, and stretches peacefully +away to east and west. The valleys gather their waters, the wooded hills +climb to the stars; they wait, guarding in silent bosoms the treasure of +their memories, the secret of their hopes. + + + + +THE NEW POETRY CHICAGO POEMS + +By Carl Sandburg. _$1.25 net._ + +In his ability to concentrate a whole story or picture or character +within the compass of a few lines, Mr. Sandburg's work compares +favorably with the best achievements of the recent successful American +poets. 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