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diff --git a/38645.txt b/38645.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21c5c91 --- /dev/null +++ b/38645.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2240 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Minstrel Weather, by Marian Storm + +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: Minstrel Weather + +Author: Marian Storm + +Illustrator: Clinton Balmer + +Release Date: January 23, 2012 [EBook #38645] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MINSTREL WEATHER *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Markus Brenner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + Minstrel Weather + + BY + MARIAN STORM + + _With Illustrations and Decorations + By Clinton Balmer_ + + + [Illustration] + + + Knowledge, we are not foes. + Long hast thou toiled with me; + But the world with a great wind blows, + Crying, and not of thee! + + EURIPIDES + + + HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + + [Illustration] + + + + MINSTREL WEATHER + + Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers + Printed in the United States of America + Published November, 1920 + K--U + + + + _For_ + AMY LOVEMAN + + The Minstrel Made His Tune of Hours and Seasons + + + Dewfall, moonrise, high sweet clover, + Chimney swifts at their twilight play; + Quail call, owl hoot, moth a-hover, + Midnight pale at the step of day. + + Star wane, cobweb, brown-plumed bracken; + Morning laughs, with the frost in flower; + Duck flight, hound cry; wild grapes blacken. + Day leaps up at the amber hour. + + Sun dark, snowcloud, eaves ice cumbered, + Gray sand piled on a carmine West; + Faint wing, flake dance; winds unnumbered + Swing the cradles where leaf-buds rest. + + Wide light, bough flush, gold-fringed meadows, + Berries red in the rippled grass; + Stream song, nest note, dream deep shadows + Drawn back slowly for noon to pass. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP. PAGE + +I. Faces of Janus 1 + +II. A Woodland Valentine 7 + +III. Ways of the March Hare 13 + +IV. The April Moment 19 + +V. The Crest of Spring 25 + +VI. Hay Harvest Time 31 + +VII. The Month of Yellow Flowers 37 + +VIII. The Mood of August 43 + +IX. Summer Pauses 48 + +X. When the Oaks Wear Damson 54 + +XI. November Traits 60 + +XII. The Christmas Woods 66 + +XIII. Landscapes Seen in Dreams 72 + +XIV. Hiding Places 78 + +XV. The Play of Leaves 84 + +XVI. The Brown Frontier 90 + +XVII. Far Altars 96 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The Milky Way Revealed to Lonely Herdsmen _Frontispiece_ + +The Comforting Symbolism of Firelight + at Play upon Clean Hearths _Facing p._ 4 + +The Powers of Light " 10 + +On the Topmost Boughs the Fairies Sleep " 26 + +The Rejoicing Shout of Coming Summer " 28 + +The Swooping Bat Darts Noiselessly " 34 + +Now the Mountaineer's Girl Hurries Indoors + at Nightfall from the Hallooing Specter + of the Wild Huntsman in the Clouds " 54 + +Baldwins Mellow by Twelfth-night " 58 + +December Acknowledges an Unpitying + Fate--Anything May Happen " 68 + + + + +MINSTREL WEATHER + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +FACES OF JANUS + + +[Illustration] + +Though January has days that dress in saffron for their going, and noons +of yellow light, foretelling crocuses, the month is yet not altogether +friendly. The year is moving now toward its most unpitying season. +Nights that came on kindly may turn the meadows to iron, tear off the +last faithful leaves from oaks, drive thick clouds across the moon, to +end in a violent dawn. January holds gentle weather in one hand and +blizzards in the other, and what a blizzard can be only dwellers on +prairies or among the mountains know. Snow gone mad, its legions +rushing across the land with daggers drawn, furious, bearing no malice, +but certainly no compassion, and overwhelming all creatures abroad: +bewildered flocks, birds half frozen on their twigs, cattle unwisely +left on shelterless ranges, and people who lose the way long before +animals give up. Snow hardly seems made of fairy stars and flowers when +its full terror sweeps Northern valleys or the interminable solitudes of +the plains. The gale so armed for attack owns something of the wicked +intention which Conrad says that sailors often perceive in a storm at +sea. The rider pursued by a blizzard may feel, like the tossed mariner, +that "these elemental forces are coming at him with a purpose, with an +unbridled cruelty which means to sweep the whole precious world away by +the simple and appalling act of taking his life." We do not smile at the +pathetic fallacy when we are alone with cold. The overtaken mountaineer +understands--it means to get him. These things happen in places where +weather is not obedient to wraps and furnaces, but where it must be +fought hand to hand and where the pretty snow tangles its victim's feet +and slowly puts him to sleep in a delicious dream of warmth. Tropical +lightning has not the calm omnipotence of cold when it walks lonely +ways. + +January knows days on which the haze of spring and the dim tenderness of +the sunshine tempt the rabbit to try another nap _al fresco_, indiscreet +though he knows it to be. Even the woodchuck must turn over and sniff in +his sleep as the thaw creeps downward; and the muskrat takes his safe +way by water once more, while the steel trap waits on the bank, to be +sprung humanely by a falling cone. The lithe red fox glides across the +upper pastures and weaves among the hardhack unchallenged, for this is +not hunting weather. A fleeting respite comes to the tormented mink. +Toward the last of the month, innocent of the February and March to +come, pussy willows, ingenuously deceived by the brief mildness, come +out inquisitively and stand in expectation beside the brook, convinced +that this ice is only left over--what can have delayed the garnet-veined +skunk's cabbage, always on hand the first of all? So many willows are +needed by the florists that perhaps they do not pay heavily for their +premature debut. But they are all gray now. In March they show a cloudy +crimson and yellow not alone of the final blossom, but of their fur. +There are plenty of scarlet rose hips in uplifted clusters, for the +birds somehow neglect them while they pursue other delicacies of the +same color and contour. Nature has probably told the winter chippies +that rose hips are no good--spring decorations must not be pilfered by +the snow sprites. Puffballs have broken off from old logs, and in +walking through low woods you may step on one here and there, awakening +the fancy that the world is burning, under its sad cloak of sepia +leaves, and sending up small puffs of smoke to warn those who have +trodden it in love and comprehension. + +When the winsome skies turn stony, and melancholy winter rain ends in +chill mist, January has days to breathe whose air is like breathing +under water, down in spring-cold lake, where the incredible, +pleasureless fishes move through their gray element, finding pallid +amusement perhaps in nudging frogs and turtles, well tucked up under a +blanket of mud. They are cold-blooded, of course, and not supposed to +mind the oppressiveness of the liquid atmosphere. But after ourselves +moving in such an environment it is marvelous to ponder that any +creatures prefer it, and good to foreknow that our own world will swim +out into a splendid frosty weather. + +[Illustration] + +For its days of quiet sparkle we would remember January, not for lashing +tempests, April delusions, or brooding fog. Unbroken snow with blazing +spangles shifting as the sun moves, and above it twittering sparrows +clinging by one claw to stalks of yarrow or mustard while they shake the +seeds loose with the other; old stone walls suddenly demonstrating that +they have color, when the foreground is white, and showing bluish, +brown, earthen red, and gray alight with mica; streams covered with +pearly ice that floods into brilliant orange at sunset; spruce and +hemlock imperiously outlined on even far-off hills; skating-time without +and kindled logs within--that is the midwinter we remember when the +sterner messengers sped from the Pole have gone again. Were it not for +the blizzard we might fail to know so well the comforting symbolism of +firelight at play upon clean hearths. Many go all their lives, aware +only of the coziness or inconvenience of winter, never facing the +daggered gale alone, nor struck by the terror of a hostile Nature or the +awe of cold that may not soon relent. What one perceives in the volcano, +tidal wave, or blizzard, another is spared; the lesson, perhaps, being +postponed until he is ready for it. Spring comes sweetly to the +milliners' this month. To the wilderness with rapid and menacing step +comes full winter. + + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +A WOODLAND VALENTINE + + +[Illustration] + +Forces astir in the deepest roots grow restless beneath the lock of +frost. Bulbs try the door. February's stillness is charged with a faint +anxiety, as if the powers of light, pressing up from the earth's center +and streaming down from the stronger sun, had troubled the buried seeds, +who strive to answer their liberator, so that the guarding mother must +whisper over and over, "Not yet, not yet!" Better to stay behind the +frozen gate than to come too early up into realms where the wolves of +cold are still aprowl. Wisely the snow places a white hand over +eager--life unseen, but perceived in February's woods as a swimmer feels +the changing moods of water in a lake fed by springs. Only the thick +stars, closer and more companionable than in months of foliage, burn +alert and serene. In February the Milky Way is revealed divinely lucent +to lonely peoples--herdsmen, mountaineers, fishermen, trappers--who are +abroad in the starlight hours of this grave and silent time of year. It +is in the long, frozen nights that the sky has most red flowers. + +February knows the beat of twilight wings. Drifting north again come +birds who only pretended to forsake us--adventurers, not so fond of +safety but that they dare risk finding how snow bunting and pine finch +have plundered the cones of the evergreens, while chickadees, sparrows, +and crows are supervising from established stations all the more +domestic supplies available; a sparrow often making it possible to annoy +even a duck out of her share of cracked corn. Ranged along a +brown-draped oak branch in the waxing light, crows show a lordly +glistening of feathers. (Sun on a sweeping wing in flight has the +quality of sun on a ripple.) Where hemlocks gather, deep in somber +woods, the great horned owl has thus soon, perhaps working amid snows at +her task, built a nest wherein March will find sturdy balls of fluff. +The thunderous love song of her mate sounds through the timber. By the +time the wren has nested these winter babies will be solemn with the +wisdom of their famous race. + +There is no season like the end of February for cleaning out brooks. +Hastening yellow waters toss a dreary wreckage of torn or ashen leaves, +twigs, acorn cups, stranded rafts of bark, and buttonballs from the +sycamore, never to come to seed. Standing on one bank or both, according +to the sundering flood's ambition, the knight with staff and bold +forefinger sets the water princess free. She goes then curtsying and +dimpling over the shining gravel, sliding from beneath the ice that +roofs her on the uplands down to the softer valleys, where her quickened +step will be heard by the frogs in their mansions of mud, and the fish, +recluses in rayless pools, will rise to the light she brings. + +Down from the frozen mountains, in summer, birds and winds must bear +the seed of alpine flowers--lilies that lean against unmelting snows, +poppies, bright-colored herbs, and the palely gleaming, fringed beauties +that change names with countries. How just and reasonable it would seem +to be that flowers which edge the ice in July should consent to bloom in +lowlands no colder in February! The pageant of blue, magenta, and +scarlet on the austere upper slopes of the Rockies, where nights are +bitter to the summer wanderer--why should it not flourish to leeward of a +valley barn in months when icicles hang from the eaves in this tamer +setting? But no. Mountain tempests are endurable to the silken-petaled. +The treacherous lowland winter, with its coaxing suns followed by +roaring desolation, is for blooms bred in a different tradition. + +[Illustration] + +The light is clear but hesitant, a delicate wine, by no means the mighty +vintage of April. February has no intoxication; the vague eagerness that +gives the air a pulse where fields lie voiceless comes from the secret +stirring of imprisoned life. Spring and sunrise are forever miracles, +but the early hour of the wonder hardly hints the exuberance of its +fulfillment. Even the forest dwellers move gravely, thankful for any +promise of kindness from the lord of day as he hangs above a sea-gray +landscape, but knowing well that their long duress is not yet to end. +Deer pathetically haunt the outskirts of farms, gazing upon cattle +feeding in winter pasture from the stack, and often, after dark, +clearing the fences and robbing the same disheveled storehouse. Not a +chipmunk winks from the top rail. The woodchuck, after his single +expeditionary effort on Candlemas, which he is obliged to make for +mankind's enlightenment, has retired without being seen, in sunshine or +shadow, and has not the slightest intention of disturbing himself just +yet. Though snowdrops may feel uneasy, he knows too much about the Ides +of March! Quietest of all Northern woods creatures, the otter slides +from one ice-hung waterfall to the next. The solitary scamperer left is +the cottontail, appealing because he is the most pursued and politest of +the furry; faithfully trying to give no offense, except when starvation +points to winter cabbage, he is none the less fey. So is the mink, +though he moves like a phantom. + +Mosses, whereon March in coming treads first, show one hue brighter in +the swamps. Pussy willows have made a gray dawn in viny caverns where +the day's own dawn looks in but faintly, and the flushing of the red +willow betrays reveries of a not impossible cowslip upon the bank +beneath. The blue jay has mentioned it in the course of his voluble +recollections. He is unwilling to prophesy arbutus, but he will just +hint that when the leaves in the wood lot show through snow as early as +this ... Once he found a hepatica bud the last day of February ... +Speaking with his old friend, the muskrat, last week ... And when you +can see red pebbles in the creek at five o'clock in the afternoon ... +But it is no use to expect yellow orchids on the west knoll this spring, +for some people found them there last year, and after that you might as +well ... Of course cowslips beside red willows are remarkably pretty, +just as blue jays in a cedar with blue berries.... He is interminable, +but then he has seen a great deal of life. And February needs her blue +jays' unwearied and conquering faith. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +WAYS OF THE MARCH HARE + + +[Illustration] + +Follow him to the woods and you know his fascination, but never give the +March hare a reference for sobriety. His reputation cannot be +rehabilitated, yet his intimates love him in spite of it. He is such an +accomplished tease! He wakens, playful and ingratiating, with the sun; +he skips cajolingly among the crocuses; and before an hour passes he is +rushing about the fields in a fury, scattering the worn-out, brown +grasses, scaring the first robins, and bouncing over the garden fence to +break the necks of any tulips deceived by his morning mood. Impossible +animal, he is an eccentric born, glorying in his queerness; and none the +less, there are some who think he knows the zest of life better than +April's infatuated starling or the woodchuck drowsing in May clover. He +loves to kick the chilly brooks into foam and fluster them until they +run over their unthawed banks and tear downhill and through the swamp to +alarm the rivers, so that they, too, come out on land and the whole +world looks as though it had gone back to the watery beginning. He +chases north the snowy owl, ornament of our winter woods, and +fraternizes with the sinful sparrow. Shrike and grosbeak leave, saying +that really it is growing quite warm, and, glancing behind them, they +behold the March hare turning somersaults in snowdrifts. He freezes the +mud that the shore lark was enjoying. No one depends upon him. Yet, to +see swift and enchanting changes of sky, lake, and woodland, go forth +with the March hare and find with him, better than quiet, the earth +astir. + +Trees lose the archaic outline as leaf buds swell. Reddened maples and +black ash twigs, yellow flowers on the willow, begin the coloring of a +landscape that will not fade to gray and dun again until December +comes. The lilacs are growing impatient, for already the sophisticated +city lilac bush is wearing costly bloom, careless that a debut made so +early early ends. The crocuses, spring's opening ballet, dressed in +pastel tints, take their places on the lawn, standing delicately erect, +waiting for bird music. Unknown to March's gales, the still swamp pools +are fringed with shooting green, full of hints of cowslips; and +arbutus--few know on what hillsides--is lifting the warm leaf blanket, +trusting that vandal admirers are far away. The March violet is sung +more than seen, visiting Northern slopes and woods hollows only by +caprice, but all the legends lingering over it, and the magic beauty it +gives to maidens who gather it at dawn, make the violet still, for +lyrical needs, the flower of March. Cuddled close to sun-warmed stones, +cloaked by quaint leaves lined with sapphire and maroon, sometimes now +the hepatica has come; and bloodroot nested under bowlders, and in fence +corners where the sun is faithful, lifts praying, exquisite petals that +open swiftly from the slim bud and are scattered by a touch. The dark +blue grape hyacinth stands calm in winds and bitter weather; waist-deep +in snow, it proudly holds its ground. Sap is visibly climbing to the +highest limbs. It seems even to be mounting in the ancient wild-grape +vines that swing from the roof of the wood, bearing no buds and looking +dead a hundred years, though there is life beneath the somber and shaggy +bark. Sap called back through the ducts of the winter-warped thorn, +solitary in the clearing where the cruel nor'easter raced, will cover +the sad branches, once the soft days are here, with shining blossoms. +The year turns when the sap runs. Little boys who have their sugar +maples picked out and under guard, being more forehanded about some +things than others, are whittling intensely. + +Loneliest of all sounds, the "peepers" take up their forsaken song in +flooded meadows, silenced in ghostly fashion by a footstep that comes +near. Heartbroken chant, it is more elegy than spring song, hard to hear +at dusk, yet it is certain that those peepers are delighted that March +is here--as content with their fate, while they utter the poignant notes, +as the emphatic old frogs by the deeper water. Wander-birds, almost +unresting, are posting north again through the twilights. Bold wild +geese are awing for Canada. Quiet returning hawks cross the valleys, and +the pine grosbeak hastens past. Spring dowers the devoted but undesired +starling with a pleasant voice which will change by summer into an +exasperating croak, and so many of our birds suffer this unfair loss +that a feathered critic would have good reason to declare that poets +ought to be slain in youth. The terrifying little screech owl wails from +shadowy woods, and from the venerable timber sounds the horned owl's +obscure threat. The chickadee repeats with natural pride his charming +repertoire of two notes--"Spring soon!" Nothing is refused this fortunate +one, born with a sweet disposition and a winsome song, while sparrows, +angrily conducting their courtships, remain on earth solely by dint of +original cleverness. + +Meadow mole and turtle, woodchuck and chipmunk, are recovering from a +three months' nap, waiting patiently in the sunshine for the season to +begin. Snakes come out with the rest of the yawning company. Fish +glitter again in the hurrying streams, building their nests and houses +like the others--often obeying a spring impulse to rush from lake to +outlet or from quiet water to streamhead, ending their journey suddenly +and forever amid wire meshes. The brooks are icy on the mildest days +with melted snow from the mountains, where hemlocks green as arctic +waters, shutting out the sun, keep a white floor long after the valley +wears grasses. + +Whoever has a touch of madness to lend him sympathy with the March hare +likes the bewildering days through which he scampers to vanish at the +edge of April. Rebellious, whitening ponds and wind-bent trees; defiant +buds and all the kindled life of marsh, hill, and woodland, set free +once more from cold, but not from dread--hear at the coming of the mighty +month their promise of release. But only to comrades who will run with +him through muddy lanes and tangled brush does he show his treasures: +forest creatures sped like the couriers, petals lifted like the banners, +of life resurgent. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE APRIL MOMENT + + +[Illustration] + +Survivor of so much that her fear is gone, triumphant April answers the +dark powers as if they could never speak again. Spring after spring she +stands among flying petals and smiles at the last bitter winds. She will +not grant that the green earth was ever vanquished, fiercely alive as +now it is. Scornfully the new silver bloom on the clover sheds the +relentless rain. Undaunted, reaffirming, she summons all beauty of +color, music, and fragrance beneath her banners, with a vitality so +profound and impregnable that more than other months she is careless of +man's sympathy. April, preoccupied, hastens from crumbling furrow to +meadows that shout the coming of the green. Intense and too eager for +tenderness, she craves no admiration. Quite without excuse, the song +sparrow sits on a wine-colored willow twig and sings frantically. Anyone +has as good a reason for ecstasy as he--merely that the dumb struggle is +ended and the long suns have returned in splendor. + +Contemplative between their dark exotic leaves, dogtooth violets fill +the light-flecked hollows. Spring beauties open warily at daybreak to +show stamens of deep rose. Where imperious amber waters go foaming +through the swamp, spendthrift gold of cowslips is swept down to the +rivers, and budded branches that leaned too close above the ripple are +shut out from the sun world for a while. Mauve and canary slippers are +waiting for the fairy queen where our wild orchid of the North dangles +them on remote knolls, but they are usually found and borne off by some +one for whom they are in no way suitable. Translucent young leaves +glitter beside the stream's path. Dandelion rosettes appear with serene +impartiality on guarded lawn and mountain pasture, where steal also the +polite but persistent "pussy tiptoes," asserting the right to display +white leaves in spring, if so a plant should choose. The snail has +deserted his shell and gone forth to take the air at the risk of being +plowed under. None of April's children remember or foresee. The vivid +present is enough. + +The apple boughs are inlaid with coral. The peach is a cloud of dawn, +and petals of the forward cherry and pear are floating reluctantly down. +Wild-fruit trees, mysteriously planted, are misty white above the +woodland thicket--scented crabapple and twisted branch of plum. This is +the month of blossoms, as May is the month of shimmering leaves and June +of the fruitless flower. + +The blackbird swings at the foamy crest of the haw, disturbed by a +thousand delights, and notes too few to tell them. The crow hoarsely +mentions his rapture as he flaps above the moving harrow, and the new +lambs look on in a tremulous, wounded manner while the famished +woodchuck makes away with the cloverheads they were just about to +endeavor to bite off. Uncertainly the wondering calves proceed about the +pasture, not yet at the stage in life where they will skip with touching +curiosity after every object that stirs. At dusk and glistening morning +there are bird songs such as only April hears--the outburst of welcome to +the light, and the sleepy fluting of the robins when the sky turns to a +soft prism in the west. Fainter, more melancholy even than in March, is +the twilight lament of the peepers. They are alien to the aria of April. + +New England's forget-me-nots are fleet turquoise in the grasses; New +England's arbutus flowers lie flushed pearls among the ancient leaves; +but everywhere are the violets of three colors--yellow for the pool's +edge, white among the bog lands, and blue as pervasive as the sunlight +on hill slope, road bank, and forest floor. And there are violets of an +unfathomable blue, sprinkled with white like wisps of cloud against far +mountains. Some grow close to earth, taught by past dismay; others, +long-stemmed and sweet, will live and suffer and mend their ways next +year. The windflower meets the breeze, a slim princess, incredibly +fragile, yet broken less easily than the strong tulip, vaguely touched +with rose or white as bloodroot. Tulips dwell not only on the ground; +they have parted great, opaque petals at the tops of trees, startling to +see in the leafless wood. Watercress glitters in the cold streams where +trout, winter-weary, are on patrol for those flies now magnificent in +their jeweled dress of spring. The first oak leaves are delicately +crimson at the end of the bough. Disregard, amid this pageantry of _la +vita nuova_, the outrageous satire of brown skeleton "fingers" that +point stiffly up through the shining blades of grass. If they seem to be +a chilling cynicism of Nature, who has not found an April dandelion +telling a braver story through winter snow? + +Cedar and balsam twig are golden-tipped. Nothing is unchanged. Immortal +wings that beat through February gales to reach this land of their +tradition are fluttering now about the building of the nest. The smooth +chimney swift flashes above the barn and is gone. With drooping wings he +hangs poised against the daffodil sky in his evening play. Peaceably +among the lilacs the contented bluebird sits, though through bulb, root, +and chrysalis has passed the irresistible current that will let no +sharer of the earth be still--not stone nor seed nor man. Into this +forced march April steps with gladness, hailing the order, predestined +to change. Joining her unresisting, take for your own the moment of +escape which the singer in the blossoms freely claims. Life's fullness +is measured by these salvaged April moments when suddenly joy becomes a +simple and close-dwelling thing, when for a merciful, lighted instant +the impersonal and endless beauty of the world seems enough. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE CREST OF SPRING + + +[Illustration] + +Flickering soft leaves spangled with sunlit rain give May a robe +diamond-sown, as lighted spray may weave for the sea. Skimming wings +catch sunrise colors. The grass blade is borne down by the exquisite +burden of one translucent pearl. This is the luminous youth of the year, +and its splendor lies deeper than the glitter of dew-and-rain jewels, +for it is visible in the forbidding strongholds of hemlock and pine, +where a sunless world still shines with May. In one month only Nature +lights her unquenchable lamp. Look down upon the orchard from a hill: +the young leaves are lanterns of sheer green silk, not the richly +draped and shadowy foliage of full summer. Lustrous is the new red of +poison ivy and woodbine, of swamp maple and slowly budding oak. Where in +July the hard light will play as upon metal, lake and stream are faintly +shimmering gray. Rain cannot dim the radiant freshness, for trees thus +queenly clothed in blossoms never bend submissive to the pelting skies. +Let that fragment of creation which bears umbrellas prostrate its spirit +before the "blossom storm," seven times renewed--the answer of the +flowered thorn is always exultant. Amid departing petals which have +played their role and gone, voyaging on raindrops, "the May month flaps +its glad green leaves like wings." + +[Illustration] + +Wild shrubs upon the mountain slopes are in thronging bloom. Delicately +pink and nectar-laden, the prodigal azalea calls to the honeybees, +always bitterly industrious and severely intent upon duty amid a general +festival. It is a great satisfaction sometimes to find a bee overtaken +by intoxication and night within a water lily or hollyhock, his +obtrusive good example smothered sweetly. For once he was not at the +hive in time to murmur of his heavy day of posting from garden to +meadow! Dowered with a white simplicity beyond the pensive moonflower's, +the bracts of the dogwood seem afloat among gray branches--misty, seen +far off; clear cut to nearer view; eloquent of spring; without fragrance +as without pretense. The mountain laurel holds above gleaming leaves its +marvelously carven cups, faint pink or white, amber-flecked. All winter +it has kept the green, when ground pine lay snowbound and spruces sagged +with sleet. The victor may find his wreath at any time of year, for our +laurel has it ready. High toward the stars in regal manner the tulip +trees lift their broader chalices. It is probably in these, on the +topmost boughs, that the fairies sleep where mortals never climb up to +look in. Bilberry, shadbush, and brier stand in May marriage robes of +white, quiet and beautiful, scented at dusk when the sun warmth begins +to leave the blossoms. The red haw wears a little fine golden lace. +Farther south the rhododendron is gorgeously displayed--magenta verging +on damson. + +The air is precious with the plentiful sweetness of lilac and magnolia, +of the memorial lavender lilac that summons homesickness to city parks +on evenings of May. The carmine glow of the flowering quince is here, +brought from its tropic wilderness. The long flushed curve of the almond +spray bends meekly toward the sod. Opulent is every bush, though its +blossoming may be secret. In colors beloved of kings, the velvet, +minutely perfect iris commands the garden path. Beside it in despair the +old-time bleeding-heart laments, and the bells of the valley lily hang, +chiming fragrance. Impatient climb the red-stalked peonies. The currant +is in green but pleadingly sweet blossom. + +High, thick grass and clover in May fields are only the setting for the +dazzling buttercup, who shakes the dews from her closed petals before +daybreak and folds them prayerfully at about the time the birds turn +home. First white daisies, supremely fresh and lucid as all May's +glories are, show a few misleading foam flecks of the flood with which +they intend to overwhelm the crop of hay. Feathery yellow of the wild +mustard nods beside the road as if it were not anchored to immovable +roots. Already the sapphire star grass is hiding in the meadows. Gone +are the blossoms of the wild strawberry. The canary-colored five-finger +vine would lace itself over the world, given but half an opportunity. So +would the bramble of the fair white blossom and maroon-bordered leaf. + +[Illustration] + +Still are restless wings now upon the guarded nest. Some flash along the +turned furrow, circle near the eaves, dip sharply to the ripple. Willow +fronds are startled by the glinting blue of the kingfisher, scarlet of +the tanager. Once more the chimneys of old houses know the flickering +swallow. The oriole has come to the orchard again, the wren to the grape +arbor. Tiny rabbits, beholding for the first time what white clover can +be, twitch their noses in content. Tired children, returning from rifled +woodlands with too many posies, drop them in the path, like flower girls +intrusted to strew the way of summer. It is more comfortable not to +grant flowers the capacity for pain, but we demand, nevertheless, that +they enjoy giving pleasure to us, so doubtless they are glad to be of +service even in this thwarted fashion. Yet May's store is manifold; her +waiting buds can replace the scattered ones. + +The face of Nature wears in the shining month a beauty something less +than mature, but more than the mischief and troubling intensity of +April. The wonder of the hour--the adieu of spring and the rejoicing +shout of coming summer--dwells there, a subdued, impassioned note. The +crest of the year's youth merges like all crests into the wave beyond, +renewed forever like the waves. To man alone has been given the +difficult task of keeping on without a spring. That singular adversity +is ours in common with inanimate things: May rose and lilac come back +each year to the forsaken house, but to the house May brings no change. +About it a world of snow becomes a world of blossoms, as for us, and the +sun creates. But the house needs aid of human hands, man of earth's +quickened beauty in luminous May. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +HAY HARVEST TIME + + +[Illustration] + +By the manifold hayfields only, were her wild-rose token banished, a +traveler returning from another land to our June, not knowing the time +of year, might name the month. In days just before hay harvest the +glistening dance of meadow grasses is most splendid, their soft +obedience to the winds is readiest. Deep rose plumes of sorrel, the +wine-colored red-top, smoky heads of timothy, are forever aripple, and, +though overstrewn with flowers, they reveal when bent beneath the step +of the southwest breeze a thousand lowlier flowers near the roots. Here +the "wild morning-glory," the tiny fields convolvulus, hides perilously +in the mowing; white clover and yellow five-finger are spread; the +grassflower holds up its single jewel. The swaying stems are trellises +to many a wandering vine; there are fairy arbors where a tired elf might +sleep guarded from the sun as well as in a jungle. Here, too, the wild +strawberries are ripening, not breathing yet the bouquet of July; but +the white wild strawberry, lover of the shades, has already reached its +pallid ripeness. Far beneath the moving surface of the grass ocean lies +a dim and mysterious world, lined with track and countertrack of the +beetle, caverns of the mole, and the unremaining castle of the ant. Here +the sleek woodchuck passes imperceptibly, the ingenuous cottontail finds +his brief paradise; small moths fold their wings and sleep. + +Above are light, motion, and the clearest, strongest colors of the year, +untarnished by hot suns, unmixed with the later browns. The dark-eyed +yellow daisy, sun worshiper, rises amid the fresh brilliance of that +other starry-petaled weed which only sheep will eat. Celestial-blue +chicory wanders in from the roadside and will not thereafter be denied. +Yarrow with its balsam fragrance and fernlike leaf, the first delicate +wild carrot asway, goldfinch yellow of the moth mullein, cloverheads of +the Tyrian dye, sunny spray of mustard, lie scattered on the crests of +hayfield waves. + +In the lowgrounds, on bowldered hillsides, far in the woods, wherever +the mowing machine will grant it a summer, spreads the exquisite wild +rose, dowered like other flowers of June--the water lily, the wild-grape +blossom, the syringa--with a perfume as wistfully sweet as the form and +hue of its chalice. That fragrance, unearthly, never fails to bring a +catch of the breath, a start of memory, when in whatever place it is +encountered again. You seldom find a wild rose withered; they cast their +petals down without a struggle, and a throng of ardent pink buds are +waiting on the bush. So it is with the water lily--when the hour strikes +she draws her green cloak once more about her and retires from the sun. + +The meadow rue has shaken out veil upon floating veil in the woodlands. +The shaded knolls are sprinkled lavender with wild geraniums, willing +to be background for the May windflower or the buttercups of June. Among +the rocks, twinkling red and yellow in the sandy, sunny places, the +columbine swings her cups of honey impartially for glittering humming +bird and blunt-nosed, serious bee. Columbines are delicious--could anyone +regard them sensibly, and not as something animate and almost winged. +The claret-colored milkweed (a natural paradox) holds flowing nectar, +too, but there is a paler milkweed, so softly tinted of pink, yellow, +and white as to be no color at all, whereto the little yellow +butterflies drift to sip at dusk. The blossomed elder rests like white +fog in the hollows, scenting all the country ways and promising +elder-blossom wine, the dryad's draught. In moist and dark +retreats--under hemlocks and at the doors of caves--the ghost lamp is +lighted. In the brightest spot it can find the small blackberry lily +paints against the ledge its speckled orange star. + +It is the time of perfect ferns, uncurled quickly from the brown balls, +and making our Northern woods tropical with the sumptuous brake and +temperate imitations of the tree fern. They fill the glades and scale +the cliffs. They mingle enchantingly along creeks and at the edge of the +pond with the regal hosts of the blue flag--the lavishly sown iris of the +meadows. They are matted close in the swamps, plumy on the hilltops. +From mosses on old logs spring ferns almost as faery as the fronds of +the moss itself. + +[Illustration] + +Into the whispering twilight of June come many creatures to play strange +games and sing such songs as even the many-stringed orchestra of the +sunlit hayfield does not know. The swooping bat darts from thick-hung +woodbine and noiselessly crosses the garden, brushes the hollyhocks, and +speeds toward the moon. Moths, white and pallid green, wander like +spirits among the peonies. Sometimes the humming bird shakes the trumpet +vine in the dark, queerly restless, though he is Apollo's acolyte. The +fireflies are lambently awing. The cricket's pleading, interrupted song +is half silenced by the steady, hot throb of the locust's. The tree +toad's eerie note comes faint and sweet, but from what cranny of the +bark he only knows. The mother bird, guardian even in sleep, speaks +drowsily to her children. From the brooding timber the owl sends his +call of despair across acres of friendly fields placid in the dew. June +nights are wakeful. Then enchantment deepens, for there comes no pause +in darkness for the joy of earth. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE MONTH OF YELLOW FLOWERS + + +[Illustration] + +From valley after valley dies away the drowsy croon of the mowing +machine, leaving to the grasshoppers the fragrant drying hay. Now comes +July in many hues of yellow, spreading her gold beside dark, hidden +beaver backwaters and along the sun-warmed stubble, whose various, +singing life is loudest through these shimmering afternoons. Tawny +beauties are abroad in woodways and sea marshes. Where the hot air +shines and quivers over shallow pools yellow water lilies float sleepily +beneath curved canopies, while the lucent pallors of the white water +lily one by one are dimmed. Moving serenely toward its climax, the +season drinks the sun and takes the color of its slanting light. + +The flame lily lifts a burnt-orange cup straight toward the sky. The +yellow meadow lily bends down over the damp mold it seeks. But both love +deep woods, and, blazing suddenly above a fern bed, the rich flowers +startle, like a butterfly of the Andes adrift in Canadian forests. They +are princesses of the tropics, incongruously banished to Northern +swamps, but scornfully at ease. The false Solomon's-seal in proud +assemblies wears with an oddly holiday air its freckled coral beads, +always a lure to the errant cow; and jack-in-the-pulpit, having been +invested with some churchly rank which demands the red robe, is ready to +cast off his cassock of lustrous striped green for one of scarlet. The +pendent-flowered jewelweed, plant with temperament and therefore called, +too, touch-me-not, droops its dew-lined leaves along the traveled lanes, +for it is making ready small surprise packages of seed that snap +ferociously open at a touch; and thus intriguing every passer-by into +sowing its crop, it earns the name unfairly borne by the innocent yellow +toadflax--snapdragon, which snaps only at bumblebees. + +Gayly in possession of the fields, black-eyed Susan, known to the farmer +as "that confounded yellow bull's-eye," is holding her own, prepared to +resist to the utmost the onslaught of the goldenrod, which presumes to +unfurl in summer the banners of fall. The clear yellow evening primrose, +scion of one of our very best old English families, associates +democratically with a peasant mullein stalk, canary-flecked, since they +both fancy sun and sand. Magnificent sometimes upon the sand banks rises +a clump of that copper-in-the-sunshine flower, the butterfly weed, soon +to become as fugitive as our fair, lost trailing arbutus, the cardinal, +and the fringed gentian, if its lovers do not woo it less selfishly. All +beauty refuses captivity. In upland meadows the orange hawkweed is +afoot, waving its delirious-colored "paint brush" wantonly amid the +pasture grass in the light hours, but folding it at sunset, no sipper of +the dews. Brook sunflowers have come to the edge of the stream, but not +to look into the waters; their sunward-gazing petals are delicately +scented, surpassing their sisters of the fenced garden. The half-tamed +tiger lily, haunter of deserted dooryards and faithful even to abandoned +mountain farms long since given over to the wildcat and the owl, +wanderer by dusty roadsides, offers each morning new buds, and by +twilight they have bloomed and withered. Like the May rose, this is an +elegiac flower, clinging to lost gardens when all the rest have +vanished, though patches of tansy, herb of witchlore, will show pungent +golden buttons for long years untended, let the forgotten gardener but +plant it once. How many a little cabin, built in eagerness and hope, is +remembered at last only by the tiger lily, May rose, and chimney swift! +Yellow sweet clover, catching a roothold anywhere, declaring the gravel +bed a garden, makes it happiness to breathe the entranced air. The +yellow butterflies, like leaves of autumn, tremble and flurry where the +sun-steeped field meets the sweet dark wood. Among the rocks gleam ebony +seeds of the blackberry lily, whose star of orange and umber is about +to set. + +Who knows, besides the birds, that embroidered on the moss new scarlet +partridge berries are ripe, hung from the vagrant vine of pale-veined +leaf that does not fear the snow? Only a month ago in this fairy +greenery lay the furry white partridge blossom, almost invisible, but +with a fragrance like that of just-opened water lilies, and now the +green fruit colors to the Christmas hue. There are no flowers like +these. The wood fairies wear them with their gowns of spangled cobweb +trimmed with moonlight. + +Bough apples, with a sweetness like that of flowers distilled by the +intense sun, show the first brown seeds. From the high-piled loads of +hay journeying slowly to the mow fall the dried buttercups and daisies +that danced in the mowing grass. Ceaseless are locusts; heavy is the air +above the garden, where phlox and strawberry shrub tinge it +Persian-sweet. Clustered blueberries are drooped upon the mountains, and +in the swamps, sometimes over quicksands, shows the darkling sheen of +the high-bush huckleberry. The odor of the balsam fir is drawn out and +spread far by the heat. Now the pursued brambles become the blackberry +patch. The waste lands shine yellow with the blooms of the marching +hardhack. It is the triumph of the sun, and his priest, the white day +lily of the cloistral leaf, worships in fragrance. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE MOOD OF AUGUST + + +[Illustration] + +The wild cherries are no longer garnet; they have darkened to their +harvest and hang in somber ripeness from the twig. Drowsy lie the grain +fields and slowly purpling vineyards. The robin in the apple orchard is +hardly to be seen among the red-fruited boughs from which the first +Astrakhans are dropping. Days of uncertain suns and exultant growing are +over. A languorous pause has come to the year. Even the crows, flapping +away across the windy blue, caw in a sleepy fashion, not yet hoarse with +anxiety because the huskers are hurrying the corn to cover with that +penurious vigilance which a crow finds so objectionable. The rabbits, +scampering and wary in the new clover time, sit out in the hot sun a +good deal now, like convalescent patients; they will keep this up until +the faint noons of November, storing the warmth that lets them sleep, +come winter, through many a hunting party overhead. The woodpecker +knocks with less ferocity. Stately on his favorite dead branch at the +lake's edge the blue-armored kingfisher sits to watch the ripple. Only +the grasshopper persists with tragical intensity in his futile rehearsal +for the role of humming bird. A satirical Italian compares man to the +grasshopper, but no man is capable of such devotion to baffled +aspirations. Practice in grace makes him more and more imperfect. Young +wood duck, with portentous dignity, follow their mother down the topaz +creek in single file, an attentive field class, observing the demented +lucky bugs, the red-lined lily pads of the coves, the turtles sound +asleep on the warm stones. For the wood's feathered children this is no +month of play and slumber; it will soon be autumn, and they must attempt +the long flight. + +The aspect of the buckwheat fields is August's signet. From their +goldenrod borders reaches a world of happy whiteness, against sky the +color of the pickerelweed flower, waving softly, shadowed only by the +plumy clouds. The corn is out in topgallant, and if you look from a +mountain path into the planted valley, the ecru tassels have hidden the +lustrous ribbon leaves. Cornfields are never silent. Always there is a +low swish, like that of little summer waves on a lake shore. + +Lavender and purple thistles, brimmed with nectar, are besought by +imperious bees and the great blue-black butterfly, but already their +pale-lit ships drift, unreturning, under sealed orders, to some far +harbor in the port of spring. More silvery still, the milkweed is +adrift. Fleets of white butterflies rise and fall with the sunset +breeze, and slow, twilight moths come from under the brakes at the hour +of dew. White-flowered, the clematis and wild cucumber, the creamy +honeysuckle of the amorous fragrance, cover fence rail and stone wall, +give petals to the barren underbrush, twine fearlessly around barbed +wire, and festoon deserted barns. Healing herbs of long ago that once +were hung every fall from attic rafters--the "wild isep," or mountain +mint, and the gray-blooming boneset--stand profuse but unregarded in the +lowgrounds. We buy our magic potions now. Once they were brewed above +the back log, as occasion came. In ferny shadows glimmers the ivory +Indian pipe. The wild carrot, with delicate insistence, takes the field. + +Ironweed of royal purple, maroon-shot, mingles in illogical harmony with +the blue vervain and magenta trumpet-weeds. The note makers name over +for us a score of flowers that Shakespeare meant by "long purples"; but +surely he foresaw our Northern swamps in August, on fire with those +exuberant, torchlike weeds that rise tall above the bogs and earn, by +their arresting splendor against a crimson sky, the need of immortality +in song. They bloom before the katydids begin and survive the first +frost. A few violets--a seed crop, not intended for men's gaze, and +hidden cautiously beneath the leaves, are timidly aflower. They will not +go unwed, but would crave to die obscure. + +The last of the new-tasting bough apples lie in the orchard grass. The +later apple trees, like the sunning rabbit and the thought-worn crow, +wait for the harvest moon. Already the unresting twigs are preparing +their winter mail of cork and gum, which will not be unfastened by the +fiercest assaults of the sleet. Short-stemmed flowers have arisen to +clothe the sharp wheat stubble. Along the mountain road grow vagabond +peach trees, to whose fruit cling eager blue wasps, whose aromatic gum +traps many a climbing robber. Other wanderers from the tended +orchard--cruelly sour plums and rouge-cheeked pears--growing among the +cornel bushes, drop down for the field mouse and woodchuck their harvest +of the wilderness. Some of them, companioned by the faithful phlox and +sunflower, once grew in dooryards now desolate. The surpassing rose +mallow like sunrise lights the marshes. + +It is not a month of growth. Fruit and grain are only expanding--weeks +ago the marvel of formation was complete. It is the time of warm, +untroubled slumber that ends with the reveille of frost. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +SUMMER PAUSES + + +[Illustration] + +Where the slow creek is putting out to sea, freighted with seed and wan +leaf, cardinal-flowers watch the waters reddened by their image. Old +gold and ocher, the ferns beneath move listlessly up and down with the +ripple. As spring walks first along the stream, autumn, too, comes early +to the waterside, to kindle swamp maples and give the alder colors of +onyx. The lustrous indigo of the silky cornel hangs there in profusion. +Scented white balls of the river bush have lost their golden haloes, and +even the red-grounded purple of the ironweed is turning umber. The +fruited sweetbrier shows rust. Fall's ancient tapestry, the browns of +decay worked over with carmine, olive, maroon, and buff, is being hung, +but where the blue lobelia is clustered in the lowground summer pauses. +A parting sun catches the clear yellow of curtsying, transfigured birch +leaves, and looks back, waiting, to give September's landscape a +hesitant farewell. It seems early to go. Pickerelweed is azure still. +Among the green bogs the fragrant lady's-tresses wear the white timidity +of April, and the three petals of the enameled arrowhead flower are +dusty with gold. But seeds wrapped up in brown are scattering. +Remembrance yields to prophecy. + +The harvesters of grain and grass have gone, and the tinted stubble is +full of crickets and monotonous cicadas. Now the crumbling furrow is +folded back behind the plow and corn knives are swinging close to the +solemn pumpkins, for in cornfield, vineyard, and orchard and in the +squirrel's domain the last harvests of all are hastening to ripeness as +the sunset chill gives warning of a disaster foretold since August by +the katydid. The honey-colored pippins, cracked and mellow in the +brooding heat, encounter the windfalls of October's trees--deepening red, +soft yellow, and polished green. Great, sheltering leaves are dropping +from the burdened vine. Every breath tells of fruits, drying herbs, and +the late flowers that in deserted gardens are most pungent in +September--marigolds, tansy, and the cinnamon pink. Pennyroyal and mint +are betrayed. Thorn apples, not near ripened, are knocked from the twig +by south-bound birds. + +Still, among wine-colored and vermilion foliage, the acorn is green, +though flushed wintergreen berry and red-gemmed partridge vine proclaim +autumn along the forest floor. The auburn splendors are upon the sumac +and the burning-bush of old-fashioned dooryards, where, too, the smoke +tree holds its haze of seeds. Sometimes a gentian stands erect among +dead grasses--a slim senora with a fringed mantilla swirled close about +her shoulders in the chilly dusk. The closed gentian keeps its darkly +impenetrable blue beside the pink-tipped companion stalks of the +snake's-head. Fair are the sheathed berries of the prickly ash--but +daggers to the taste. Often they grow among wild cherries, which, +juiceless now, are sweet as dried fruits from Persia. And there are the +black nannyberries with their watermelon flavor, and the first spicy +wild grapes. + +Immortelles are bleached paper white on sandy hills. The nightshade +holds berries of three colors, passing from brilliant green to clouded +amber and deep crimson lake, and still upon it hangs the mysterious blue +blossom, shunned. Dogwood boughs are gorgeous as a sunset, and the thick +scarlet clusters droop from the mountain ash. The last humming birds +haunt tanned honeysuckles. Languid, but clinging yet to the sun world, +the yellow lily dies on weedy streams. If the all-conquering goldenrod +hangs the way for summer's passing with the color of regret, it has made +every meadow El Dorado with its plumes, sprays, clumps, and spears. +Spray upon delicate spray, the fairy lavender aster has taken possession +of the roadsides and fields, and before it, far into the shade, goes the +white wood aster, mingling with the flamboyant leaves of dwarf oaks and +the glistening red seeds of the wild turnip. To make September's pageant +the scented, pale petals of spring, the drowsy contentedness of summer's +fulfillment and the Tyrian dyes of fall are joined. + +The pallid clematis, in flower along rail fences, still hides the +blacksnake, chipmunk, and red squirrel--sometimes even the unsylphlike +woodchuck--but the marshes and the branches of the lakeside pines have +felt for days past the brief touch of many a strange bird's feet as the +vanguard migrants seek regions of longer days. Finely dressed visitors +have come to the blue-berried juniper and the monstrous pokeweed of the +terra-cotta stem. The heron breaks his profound meditation to engulf a +meadow frog, for he will not leave until the wild geese "with mingled +sound of horn and bells" press south above the watercourses. Starling +and blue jay stay awhile to oblige with their clatter to the dawn. The +fur has thickened on the woods creatures. + +The blind might hear September in the uproarious arguments of the crow, +the despondent cries of katydid, tree toad, and hoot owl. In the air is +reluctance, pause. Flaming festoons of woodbine and poison ivy begarland +the stone wall. Summer cannot wait. Elegiac purples of the aster beckon, +and the butterfly sleeps long upon the thistle, but she would not go +now, in the month of the first bittersweet and the last sweet pea. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +WHEN THE OAKS WEAR DAMSON + + +[Illustration] + +The wild ducks are streaming south upon their journey of uncounted days. +Resting a little after sunset upon the cedar-bordered pond, they are +startled into flight again by some hound hunting in the night, and with +beating wing and eerie cry go on. The later flying geese rise clamorous +from among the cat-tails, and in silent haste the blue heron and the +pair of sad old cranes that had roosted in a dead elm alongshore take +the chill, invisible trail. When day comes in spreading fire the crows +will humorously watch these wander-birds from the forest edges. They +feel no southward impulse. Circling the clearing, they comment in uproar +upon the most advisable oak for their afternoon symposium, expand their +polished feathers, and, seated in a derisive row, caw a farewell to the +wader's long, departing legs. Now the mountaineer's girl, remembering +Old World peasant tales that never have been told her, hurries indoors +at nightfall from the hallooing specter of the Wild Huntsman in the +clouds, who is but the anxious leader of the flying wedge. + +[Illustration] + +Buckwheat stubble in October is such a crimson as no Fiesolan rose +garden ever unfurled. Gray hill slopes of the North are festal with its +color, insistent even through rains, glowing from rose madder to maroon. +Lower stretches out the pale yellow of oats stubble, which breaks into +flashing splinters under the noon sun. The wheat fields show ocher, and +darker--burnt sienna at the roots--lie the reaped fields of barley. Small +rash flowers, fancying that the ground between the grain stalks has been +cultivated especially for them, now that they see the sun freely again, +put on the petals of spring amid this fair desolation. Strawberry +blossoms, visibly fey, appear; long-stemmed and scanty-flowered fall +dandelions; an ill-timed display of April's buttercups. The blackberry +vines go richly dyed--superb red-velvet settings for the jewels of frost. + +Down in the valley, through the wood-smoke haze, move the slow apple +wagons through the lanes. This is appleland. Northern Spy and Lemon +Pippin are ripe to cracking; Baldwins will be mellow by Twelfth-night, +the russet at Easter. Gorgeous and ephemeral hangs the Maiden's Blush. +The strawberry apples are like embers on the little trees, rubies of the +orchard. Lady Sweets and Dominies are respectfully being urged into the +cellar, and for those who will pay to learn the falseness of this +world's shows the freight cars are receiving Ben Davises. Sheep-noses, +left often on the boughs, will hold cold nectar after the black frosts +have killed the last marigold. They lie, dull red, by the orchard fence +in the early snow, their blunt expression revealing no secrets. You have +to know about them. Nothing is more inscrutable than a sheep-nose. + +Fast above the indigo crests stir the light clouds, harried by the west +wind whereon the hawk floats across the valley. In the afternoon +October's lover takes the hill path, mica-gemmed, that leads between +birches of the translucent yellow leaf and maples still green but +wearing scarlet woodbine like a gypsy's sash. For here the sunset +lingers till the stars, though from the valley's goblet evening has +sipped the waning sunlight like a clear amber wine. But take at morning +the path through brown lowgrounds, or close along the wood where frost +sleeps late, for here that flower of desire, the fringed gentian, grows. +Its blue is less mysterious and deep than the closed gentian's, and yet +how many name it the cup of autumn delight! + +In the woods where leafless boughs give them blue sky at last are +revealed in quaint perfection the ferneries of the moss: palm trees +towering higher than a snail's house, gallant green plumes with +cornelians at the tip, vast tropical forests spreading for long inches, +gray trailing rivers and orange cliffs of lichen, leagues of delicate +jungle lost under a fallen leaf. A beetle clad in shining mail presses +through the wilderness. A cobalt dragonfly lights on a shaken palm. +Pursuing a rolling hickory nut, the chipmunk brings a hurricane--but +these are elastic trees. + +That same mischief maker, incurably curious, chases every stranger, +shooting along the stone wall and pausing to peer out from the crevices +with unregenerate eyes. The handsome but vain woodpecker pounds at the +grub-dowered tree he has chosen to persecute. Enormously ingenuous, the +wayside cow lumbers reproachfully out of the path, knocking the grains +of excellent make-believe coffee from the withered dock. The drumming of +a partridge in his solitary transport sounds where reddened dogwood +glorifies a clump of firs. Sometimes the kittle pheasant, hardly at +home in our woods, ducks her head and vanishes in the briers. + +[Illustration] + +Now the harvest moon, yellower than the hunter's moon of ending autumn +or the strawberry moon that looks upon June's roses, rises for husking +time. It is the last harvest; when the corn is in, winter comes. Piled, +tumbling ears, their grain set in many a curious pattern, go by to the +sorting floor and crib, with pumpkins, the satraps of New England, +perched in rickety fashion on the gleaming load. The mountain ash hangs +flamboyant clusters along the road from the field. Obedient to the +frost, the acorns are dropping, and the first chestnuts lie, polished +mahogany, in the whitened grass at sunrise. The shagbark has scattered +its largess, the butternut its dainties in their staining coats. Against +the slopes the tinted fern patches show bronze, russet, and pansy brown. +Speaking October and our own purple East, the tall asters, darkening +from lavender to the ultimate shadowy violet, join the goldenrod. Sumacs +are thronging, with their proudly blazoned crests; the haw is hung with +Chinese scarlet lanterns; sweetbrier, stem and leaf, is scented of +menthol and spices of the Orient. The oaks stand regal in umber and +damson. Who that has known October could ever forget? How quiet the +nights are after frost! + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +NOVEMBER TRAITS + + +[Illustration] + +By the time November comes the year is used to the caprices of the sun +and no longer frantically brings out flowers for his gaze or hides them +in hurt surprise from his indifference. Now the year is resigned, +untroubled of hope, far off from impatient April with her craving and +effort. Experienced month, November waits ready to face the snows. She +wraps up the buds too warmly for sleet to pierce their overcoats, +comforts the roots in the woods with mats of wrecked leaves, spreads a +little jewelry of frost as a warning before the black frosts come, and +for all else lives in the moment. November has been through this before. +But sometimes, in a reverie, she delights the blue jays and persistent +wild asters by a day of Indian summer. + +There has been a great deal of ill feeling about Indian summer, and the +kinder way is not to persecute those who have since youth believed and +will maintain forever that it comes in October. Victims of this +perverted fancy, they will go through life calling the first hot spell +after Labor Day Indian summer. Every fall one explains to them that this +brief season of perfection may come as late as Thanksgiving, but the +very next year they will be heard to murmur, under frostless skies, +"Well, we are having our Indian summer." Let them go their indoors way, +or follow the deserting robins down to Paraguay! Indian summer could +just as well come when the oaks have turned forlorn if it wanted to. In +truth, it comes and goes, by no means exhausted in a solitary burst of +flaring sumacs, fringed gentians lighted by frost along the rims, +damson-colored alder leaves and old yellow pumpkins, perilously exposed +among forgotten furrows, now that the corn is being drawn in. It goes, +and comes again, which is its charm--the one time of year that cannot be +calendared. + +There is in all the world a small, choice coterie of people who like +November and March best of the months, and it must be admitted that +these are often a bit arrogant about their refined perceptions. They +manage to look down upon the many of us who prefer the daisy fields to +the time "when hills take on the noble lines of death." But whims of the +worshiper steal no splendor from the god. June has nothing to place +beside a moonlit November night, whose shadow dance of multiform boughs +is never seen through leaves, while shadows on the snow are hard of +outline, unlike the illusive phantoms running over autumn's brown grass. +June has no flowers so quaint, pathetic, and austere as the trembling +weeds of November. What does the goldenrod, white with age, care for +frost? All winter it will shake out seeds unthriftily upon the snow, +standing with a calm brotherhood who have gone beyond dependence on the +day. June's forests do not take a thousand colors under a low sun. +June's gray dews have no magnificence of frost. June's incorrigible +sparrows are not the brave, flitting "snowbirds" whose sins we forgive, +once we hear them chirping in a blizzard. June is a lyric, November a +hymn. + +The squirrels have put away enough nuts to last through the holidays, +and after that they come out and get something else--no one ever knows +what. They have gone off with most of the acorns, leaving the fairies +their usual autumn supply of cupless saucers. No birds worth fighting +with are left, for the crows will not notice them, so they go for the +chipmunks. Sometimes at the wood's edge a bird that came only with the +blossoms and that should long since have gone sits lost, half grotesque, +on a stark twig--spent and beautiful singer, belated by perversity or by +untimely faintness of wing! The muskrat's winter house is ready, but no +happy quiet such as his good citizenship deserves is in store for him, +because soon the trappers will begin their patrol of the forest, and his +skin, called wild Patagonian ox, the exquisite new fur, will bring a +good price. Emotional wild geese still pass overhead in the dawns and +sunsets--the crows can scarcely conceal their amusement: "What nonsense, +to be always coming or going!" The crow does not remain in the pale +North simply out of devotion to us. He is above mortal vicissitudes; +behind his demoniac eye dwells a critique of humanity which he would not +be bothered to utter if he could. The soul of the satirist once abode in +a crow. + +Forsaken nests and rattling reeds along the stream, pools in the hollows +edged with thin ice, ragged leaves clutched at by the winds, desperate +buds of hepatica and cowslip where a sloping bank catches warmth at +noon, fences stripped of vines and ghostly with dead clematis, a few +frozen apples swinging on the top boughs, trampled fields and pelting +rain--and with it all a grandeur more serene than melancholy. November's +lovers are not perverse, declaring this. They see half-indicated colors +and hear low sounds. They love the mellow light better than the blaze of +rich July, and they are loyal to November because she speaks in quiet +tones not heard through the eagerness or snow silence of other months. +It is the sentimentalist who sees only gloom and the weariness of +departure now. November is ruddier than many a day of spring and the +sharp air forbids languor. Indian summer, her gift and our most fleeting +season, is like the autumn ecstasy of the partridge, passionate and +irresistible, but not ending in despondency because he knows it will +return, and it is like joy in that it cannot be foreseen nor detained. +The bacchanal may have dreaded November, not the dryad. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE CHRISTMAS WOODS + + +[Illustration] + +The Southern woods hang their Christmas trimmings high. Laurel and +rhododendron, mistletoe and holly, reach up against the walls of tinted +bark. Our Northern forests trail greens along the floor, and roped +ground pine, pricking through the prone leaves or a gentle snow, appears +as a procession of tiny palm trees, come North for the holiday, +surprised and lost, but determined to keep together. Under the haw +bushes and over spruce roots, wherever shade was thick last summer, +partridge vines twine red-berried wreaths and the little plants of +wintergreen flavor and of that wandering name hold their rubies low on +the mountain side. After the enduring snows have come, these glimmering +fruits will be requisitioned--dug out by the furry owners of such +plantations on days when even covered roots seem barren of sap, and nuts +should really be saved awhile longer. Clumps of sword fern, beaten down +by November rains, are round green mats; other ferns long ago were +brown. But seldom save in its sunsets and woodlands has December color. +Ponds, fanged with ice, lie sullen or stir resentfully into whitecaps. +The sky is stony and often vanishes in brooding fog. Uncloaked, but +courageous in their gray armor, the trees wait tensely for the +intolerable onslaught of the cold: the blizzard with knives of sleet. + +Over the marshes at the hour of dusk when the bronze and topaz are +quenched passes the breath of foreboding. December acknowledges an +unpitying fate--anything may happen. It is not the fireside month, softly +white outdoors and candlelit within. Time of miracles, it stands +expectant, and the thronging stars of the Christmas midnight wear a +restless look. Rutted paths answer harshly to the step. Delayed snow is +a menace in the air, but lands beyond the cities would be grateful +should it hasten, bringing safety to the soil and winter peace. Yet snow +is a betrayer, a sheet of paper upon which the feet of rabbit, mink, and +fox write a guide to their dwellings and to the whole plan of their +days. + +Snow for Christmas there must be--on the lighted trees indoors, on our +far-scattered, similar cards. But save as a convenience to the reindeer +and a compliment to their driver, who cannot create his stocking stock +unless he is snowbound, and who must feel sadly languid as he tears +through Florida heavens, city people would quite willingly manage with +alum. Early in school life, however, comes the dangerous knowledge that +nothing is so easy to draw as Christmas Eve: a white hillside, a path of +one unchanging curve, a steeple or a chimney with smoke, a fir tree or a +star. Thus snow eases art for the credulous who think it white. +Glittering under starlight, shadowed with purple, lemon, or deep blue +as sunset turns to evening, taking on daffodil hues at noon, snow is +harder to paint. Fretted with windy tracery and drawn out into streaming +lines where the gale races along by a fence, snow is not, on Christmas +greetings, permitted to be seen. + +[Illustration] + +The first snowstorm of the year should be sent from Labrador on +Christmas Eve and sprinkled impartially and ornamentally over all the +land. Then, the Yule atmosphere once provided, the distribution should +be confined to the rural clientele until the next December, for on +streets the hoar frost is indeed like ashes. But why, in somber justice, +should the far South pretend to holiday snow at all? Why not Christmas +cards pranked with live oaks, alligators, lagoons, and other beauties of +an Everglade scene--an inspiring escape from tradition and sentiment? For +the antlered steeds must prance above hibiscus flowers as well as round +the Pole. Yet it must seem dull to hang stockings by a fireplace that +needs fire merely as a decoration and never to have loved a sleigh! + +Abandoned, but still no downcast company, slanting corn shocks not +honored with winter shelter stand patient sentinels in the field. +Abandoned they may seem, yet could you suddenly tip one over there would +be a startled scurrying, for these are the choice snow-time residences +of field mice, cottontails, weasels, and meadow moles--not, of course, +together in harmony, but in their separate establishments. Let the +blizzard come; it only makes warmer a house of cornstalks properly +built, which bears, nevertheless, some of the dangers of a gingerbread +home--passing cows may feel tempted. + +Vermilion heraldry of the wild rose is waved undimmed. Witch-hazel with +her yellow blossoms, last flowers of the year, gazes upon the vanquished +shrubs about her with a smile. Why, she will not even sow her seed until +February! There is plenty of time for hardy petals. + +Massed against the stern horizon, the forest stands an unresponsive +gray; entered, the twigs are seen sleek brown, dark red, and a fawn soft +as the tan orchid. In towns December shows the iron mood. But in the +open places, where pools of light and shadow lie, it is a water-color +month, made fine with no gorgeous velvets of autumn, but hung with +blending veils of dawn mist and of new snow, so that the subdued day +rises in flushed, drifting vapors, like April's awakening, and when the +sun comes, pale, we wonder that there is no summons in his light. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +LANDSCAPES SEEN IN DREAMS + + +[Illustration] + +The painter of landscapes seen in dreams must be a memory that knows +fantastic woods and faery seas all strange to the waking memory. Or else +the artist is only a weariness with the day just past that gives us in +sleep sight of the country which, so Mr. Maugham and other story-tellers +say, is the real home that men may go their whole lives long without +finding, because we are not always born at home, nor even brought up +there, and we might for years be homesick for a land unseen. Once +beheld, the recognition is instant, and in the foreign place begins a +_vita nuova_--relief and an intensity of living never known before the +new and familiar harbor came down to meet us at the shore. So sometimes +it is in dreams. Recurrent and vivid, a scene of sheerest unreality will +take on an earthly air, or landscapes flamboyantly exotic will hold the +peace denied by every country it has been our daily fortune to know. + +Dream landscapes come back again and again, as if they waited there +forever, substantial, and we were the transient comers. Some, in ether +dreams, shrink always from the same green waves, the same black, open +mine, and two have now and then been found who saw on sleep journeys +places that words repictured curiously alike. The fantasies may be +patchwork of poems, plays, and paintings long forgotten, but when they +rise in their compelling fusion they owe no debt to the lumber attic of +the subconscious. The world they fashion is their own, and they do offer +by their ethereal pathway a compensation for the insufficiencies of +life. + +There is a long, uncurving sea strand whose gray immensity of sands lies +smooth for miles along the upper beach, but is feathered near the water +by the stroking of little afterwaves, and draped unendingly with umber +bands of kelp. Here as in no place seen the seaweed laces are edged with +colors ground in unlighted depths, as if the tide cast carvings of lapis +lazuli and feldspar up with the argent pebbles, and all the drifting +algae are incrusted with yellow shells. Shoreward the palms climb up +until they make a green horizon, and their unnatural fronds sink down +again like green chiffon that veils the entrance to the pensive forest. +Vines with scented flowers as intangible as fog creep over root and +trunk, and among them now and then with soundless foot and molten eye a +leopard winds. Perpetual sunset wanes and glows behind the palms. There +is never any wind. The violence of the ocean, the beasts, the tempest, +is held in languorous leash while the treader of the sands goes on with +unfelt steps toward rocks where the waters break importunate and sink +moaning back. They hang black above a cave, and waves come in to prowl +and snakes with scales like gems twine back and forth, glittering in the +half light, with narcotic and effortless motion, until they with the +rocks and all the scene fade. + +A tiny stream, a pixy's river, slips from beneath a bowlder in a wood +long known, and leads through thicket, glade, and clearing to a +terrifying land, desolated by ancient fires and strewn with blackened +stones and charred boughs. The place itself is athirst, and the dreamer +kneels to drink. The tiny stream is dark, like a deep water, and bitter +cold as if it flowed through ice. A staff thrust down cannot sound its +depths. A finger's span across and bottomless! Nothing could dam its +flow. Old embers at its borders are suddenly scattered when a gleaming +hand parts the current and waves back toward the way just traced, but +the flame-blasted firs have closed behind into a forbidding wall. Other +pallid fingers rise from the portal of the abyss in warning gesture, but +the narrow gulf opens underfoot. + +There is a town where gay people in white dress promenade in a plaza +shaded by orange trees, and they are always humming tunes. Little white +streets lead to shuttered houses. A glory of buginvillaea overflows +trellis and bower in splendid war with the hibiscus hedges and the +dropping yellow fruit. Down the hill and over cobblestones, pursued by +music and laughter, ministered to by odors of the lemon blossom, he whom +sleep leads here may go toward a lake of fluent amethyst. The way is +past the market place where brown women crouch by baskets of brilliant +wares and venders of glistening lizards sit drowsily bent, and then at a +step the forest dense and brooding is above him and its low boughs sweep +the ripple of the lake. Immense leaves hang like curtains, and among +them men with unquiet eyes move and hold monotoned speech while they hew +sparkling rock into monstrous shapes. They are circling round a pit. +They cast in ornaments of opal and dark gold and garlands of venomous +forest growths, gray and blood-red, tied with withered vines. Cries come +from the pit, but the chant never stops. + +Marching from a stronghold far up on a mountain of cedars, men in mail +come at dusk with standards flickering crimson, fringed with gold, down +to a valley full of blossomed iris where there is a wide pool with +torches at its rim. Their flare streams out toward the circling cliffs. +Each marcher dips his silken flag into the quiet waters, and lights rise +upon the battlements above as one by one all the black plumes are lost +in the meadow's darkness and the torches burn low and fall into the +pool. + +A garden planted only with dark-red nasturtiums that lift for the +dreamer's touch a flower's velvet cheek lies filmed with dew and +fragrant as a noon breath from Ceylon spice groves. The miracle of color +is spread along a hillside up to a high wall of great gray stones, and +inside the gate is a house grown all over with grapevines, some borne +down by blue clusters with shadowy bloom, some by clusters of topaz and +ripe green. There is a pond among the grasses, where broad, wan lilies +float, and purple pansies border all the walks. Very slowly the paneled +door opens and the sun floods the central hall. It is hung with silver +draperies, and an old woman stands there with a candle, mumbling and +peering in a cataract of light. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +HIDING PLACES + + +[Illustration] + +Childhood remembers a secret place--refuge, confessional, and couch of +dreams--where through the years that bring the first bewildering hints of +creation's loneliness he goes to hide and to rebuild the joyous world +that every now and then is laid in flowery ruins beneath the trampling +necessities of growing up. These little nooks where we confronted so +many puzzles, wondered over incomprehension, and looked into the hard +eyes of derision, abide caressingly for memory, who flies to them still +from cities of dreadful light. The need for those small havens is +lifelong. They are rarely at hand in later days, but no locked door and +no walled chamber of the mind can take their place. + +The suns of midsummer, tempered by spruce boughs, flicker and play upon +a broad-backed rock where fairy pools made by the late rain in its +crannies are frequented by waxwing and woodpecker, even though an +intruder sleeps upon that dryad's couch. Brakes and sweet fern crowd +around it. Tasseled alders are its curtains. Here one might be forever +at rest. It is to such a place that rebel wishes turn when the early +grass and clover thicken in the pastures or when the summer birds begin +their slow recessional. The longing to lie upon a sun-warmed rock in the +woods comes back desperately in April and October to them who once have +known that place of healing and stillness. + +Yellow bells from the wands of circling forsythia bushes drop into a +deep hollow lined with velvet grass. Pale butterflies of new-come May +flutter among the dandelions that bejewel this emerald cup of Gaea, and +sometimes drowsy wings are folded sleepily upon a gold rosette. Light +beams pass and repass in jubilance over the grass blades. The sun is +enchanted in the clear yellow of the flowers. Glints, movement, gayety, +and withal peace and silence were in that place of exultant color and +radiant life. It was a rare spot, and unvisited save by birds in quest +of screening branches for their nests and perhaps by some one who hid +there and always had to laugh before he left. + +A round space of soft sward is guarded by strawberry shrub and by the +bridal-wreath spiraea that droops white branches lowly to the ground. +Here you could lie on a moonlit summer night, with arms outstretched and +face pressed into the soft grass, and beneath your fingers you could +feel the world turn on and on, immensely, soothingly, and everlastingly, +the only sound the bats' wings above, or a baby robin protesting +musically at the slowness of the night's divine pace. Here the smell of +the sod is keen and sweet. Here dew would cool a throbbing brow. Here +the undertones of earth vibrate through the body, and all its nerves, +strung to intense perception, yet would be wrapped in persuasive peace. + +An old balm-o'-Gilead tree, growing on a hillside, kindly lets down one +mighty limb as pathway to a leafy hiding place incomparably remote and +dimly lighted even at noon. The branches make an armchair far back +against the trunk, and that glossy foliage, always cool, swishes like +waves at low tide. The tree has much to tell, but never an intrusive +word. You may sit there with a book or in the distracting company of +secret happiness or tears, and it will ignore you courteously, going on +about its daylong task of gathering greenness from the sun, and only +from time to time touching your hand with an inquiring leaf. Sometimes a +red squirrel looks in and departs in shocked fashion through the air. +Sometimes the sheep pass far below on their way home. But the refuge is +secure, and the balm-o'-Gilead's cradling arms wait peacefully to hold +an asking child. + +A foamy brown brook that flashes and dallies, is captured and breaks +free again, down along the mountain has been coaxed by some wood nymph +to furnish sparkling water for her round rock bath. Dutifully it pours +in every moment its curveting freshness, bringing now and then the +tribute of a laurel leaf or a petal from some flower that bent too +close. This bath is gemmed with glittering quartz and floored with red +and white pebbles. Gray mosses broider it where the sun lies, and dark +green where the water drips. The nymph has been at some pains to train +the five-finger ivy and nightshade heavily all about, and the great +brakes carpet the path her gleaming feet must tread at sunrise. Now at +noon you may come there, troubling no living drapery, and dangle your +feet over the moss into the dimpling coolness of that mountain pool. A +trout might dart in, a red lizard appear upon a ledge, but nothing else. +The wild-cherry clusters hang within reach. + +In the corner of a meadow where dispassionate cows graze and snort +scornfully at the collie who comes to get them in the late afternoon +stands a great red oak that has somehow inspired the grass underneath it +to grow to tropic heights. But between two of its wandering ancient +roots is short grass, woven with canary-flowered cinquefoil vines, and +into this nook you may creep, screened by wind-ruffled blades beyond, +and taste of the white wild strawberries that reach their eerie ripeness +in the shade. A woodchuck may sit up and gaze at you across the barrier, +or a bright-eyed chipmunk scuttle out on a limb for a better view. They +leave you alone soon, and at twilight even the cow bell is quiet. + +A balsam fir that grows on a bowlder leaning out halfway down a ravine +hospitably spreads its aromatic boughs flat upon the rock, after the +inviting manner of this slumber-giving Northern tree. The very breath of +the hills is shed here. It is almost dark by day, and at night the stars +show yellow above the upper firs. The wind goes murmuring between gray +walls, and the sound of the stream, far down, comes vaguely save in the +freshet month. This is the farthest hiding place of all. Only the daring +would find the perilous way to its solitude. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE PLAY OF LEAVES + + +[Illustration] + +For fox and partridge, fawn and squirrel--all the wood dwellers that run +or fly--youth, like the rest of life, is a time of stress and effort. +They have a short babyhood and little childhood. Once they begin to move +they must take up for themselves the burden of those that prey and are +preyed upon. They step from nest or den into a world in arms against +them, and while they sensibly fail to worry over this, undoubtedly it +complicates their fun. Baby foxes playing are winsome innocents, but +they have become sly and wary while lambs, colts, and calves are still +making themselves admirably ridiculous in fenced meadows. And neither +hunter, hawk, nor wildcat makes allowances for the youth and +inexperience of debutante game. + +It is different with little leaves. They are as playful as kittens, with +their dances, poses, flutters, their delicate bursts of glee. Unless +involved with flowers, or with timber or real estate, they are safe, not +alone in winter babyhood, but through spring and summer, that minister +to them with baths of dew and rain and with the somnolent wine of the +sun. Only when old age has brought weariness with winds and heat, and +even with the drawing of sap, are they confronted by their enemy, frost. +You will say, caterpillars, forest fires, but they are the fault of man +and an unanticipated flaw in nature's plan for letting the leaves off +easily. We brought foreign trees that had their own mysterious +protection at home into lands where that immunity vanished, and so the +chestnut has left us, and apple and rose are threatened by foes whom +their mother had not foreseen. Were it not for man's mistakes the leaves +would have had an outrageously gay time by comparison with the darkling +lives of the creatures that move among them and beneath them. + +All winter long in its leaf bud the baby tulip leaf drowses, curled up +tight. It is completely ready to spring full formed into the light as +soon as the frost line has been driven back by the triumphant lances of +the sun, and there it dips and laughs and nods, and sometimes goes quite +wild when a running breeze comes by at the hour wherein morning makes +opals of July's heavy dew. The poplars, the maidenhair trees, shake out +spangles then. The maples show their silver sides. Always the forest +lives and breathes, but when the new leaves come it draws long, +shuddering breaths of delight. Whoever has dwelt with trees knows how +differently the small leaves of May talk from the draped and weighted +boughs of August. + +Stepping along the rustling wood road, you can hear the reveries of the +leaves around you. They whisper and sigh in youth; they reach out to +touch the friendly stranger's cheek. In summer they hang their patterned +curtains tenderly about him, in a silence made vocal only by a teasing +gale. In autumn they are loud beneath his tread. Snow alone can hush +them. When they are voiceless they are dead at last, but already their +successors, snugly cradled and blanketed with cotton, are being rocked +to sleep upon the twigs. + +The rippling, shimmering birch upon a wind-stroked hill talks with +falling cadence, like a chant. The naiad willow, arching lowland brooks, +speaks as water, very secretly. The oak could not be silent, with his +story of many days to tell, and keeping his leaves throughout the snow +time, his speech is perpetual. Only the pines and kindred evergreens are +now and then melancholy, as if the new needles and leaves looked down +upon the carpet below, forever thickened, of those whose hold grew +faint. Leaves of cherry and apple, born into a world of tinted blossoms, +are gay to the last. The sprays of locust leaves that keep their +yellow-green until the sober tree flowers into clustered fragrance of +white, arboreal sweet peas whisper by night and day of the bats and tree +toads that dwell in their channeled and vine-loved bark. The sycamore's +voice is cool-toned and light, but the mountain ash murmurs low, and +low the beech. + +Watching leaves adrift on November winds, there comes the memory of +Stevenson's song of another ended life--of days they "lived the better +part. April came to bloom and never dim December breathed its killing +chill." But the tree that wore them, standing in stripped starkness that +month--if stark means strong--shall enter dazzling splendors when the days +of ice storms come. That miracle of lucent grayness, an elm in the +morning sun, when every branch and every smallest twig is cased in ice +outdoes its green enchantments of June. It is more beautiful than a tree +of coral. It is the color of pussy willows made to shine. It is as gray +as sunrise cobwebs on the grass, as starlight on dew. Its branches, +tossed by January, clash sword on delicate sword, or, left quiet, the +elm stands like a pensive dancer and swings against one another long +strands of crystal beads. And in the city little ice-sheathed maples +along an avenue, glistening under white arc lights, surpass the changing +lusters of gray enamel. Trees robed in ice are the very home of light, +of fire frozen fast in water and turned pale. + +Between the going and coming of the leaves the sky is background for the +cunning lacework of twigs. Were it always May, we should never see how +finely wrought is the loom upon which those leafy embroideries are +woven. In autumn the design is more austere, the colors show more +somber, but when the March branches flush with sap, and the buds, +waking, put forth hesitant green fingers, that infinitely complex +tracery of the twigs is a spring charm as moving as the perfume of the +thorn. Outlined against a sunset, it foretells in beauty the months when +the leaf chorus will sound with the birds'. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE BROWN FRONTIER + + +[Illustration] + +One warm March noon a hushing wing is lifted from the piping nest of +earth. Voices of forest floor, tree trunk, and lowground break forth, +never to be silent again until Thanksgiving weather finds a muted world. +Croon and murmur from the swaying grasses, brief lyrics from the top of +the thorn, a sunrise chant from the bee tree, rise and fall through all +the hours of dew and light, intense in the sun-rusted fields, climbing +to an ecstatic swan song when frosts hover close. Whoever walks through +middle realms of the woods, never lying on the mosses nor winning to +skyward branches of the trees, has not shared the earth's most ardent +life--the pensive songs a bird sings merely for himself; his impulsive, +goalless flights; and rarer still the industry and traffic at the roots +of growth: the epic of the ground. + +Cricket follows pickering frog and cicada cricket. That earliest +invisible singer asks only a little warmth in the waters of the pond to +melt the springs of frozen song. He comes with lady's-tresses, pussy +willows, and unfurling lily pads. The cricket, sleepy-voiced in the +August afternoon, grows gay at twilight, and does his best when the +firefly and bat are abroad, darting out from the creeper-veiled bark and +setting sail upon the placid air. Locusts play persistently a G string +out of tune until, when the first goldenrod peers above the yarrow, the +overwhelming night chorus of the katydids is heard, lifted bravely again +and again within the domains of autumn, not quenched before the +bittersweet berry and the chestnut fling open portals and surrender to +the cold. + +Little they know of trees who have not seen spruce and larches against +the deep October sky, looking straight up from a yielding club-moss +pillow. The outlines and colors of the quiet branches are shown most +memorably upon the vault of that arching lapis-lazuli roof, draped with +floating chiffon of the clouds. Climb up among the boughs, and the +carven quality is gone. They are dim and soft. You must go close to +earth to behold tree-top forms. The supine view is magical. + +Revealed in uncanny splendor by the death of verdure, brilliant and evil +fungi come from the dark mold in fall, orange and copper, vermilion and +cinnabar, dwelling as vampires upon trees brought low. Some wear the +terra-cotta of the alert little lizards that, inquisitive as squirrels, +will lift their heads from bark or stone and give back gaze for gaze. As +leaves that came from the sap of roots go back to the roots in ashes, so +ants take care that fallen oaks shall be transformed into the soil from +which young oaks will spring, and brown dust, when they have ended, is +all that abides of the tallest tree. Among them pass the bobbing, +glistening beetles. This immortal and thronging activity of the loam +can be heard, if you bend low enough and listen long. + +When the air is frost-clear fairy landscapes, hidden since spring came +with mists and masking leaves, rise with an effect of unbeheld creation. +Small pools appear, and avenues among the bracken that still wave +banners of chestnut and old gold. The lonely homes of ground-nesting +birds grow visible. Trinkets are scattered as the forest makes ready for +night--tiny cones, abandoned snail shells, and feathers which the +woodpecker and oriole dropped when they took leave. The sun dapples with +yellow the partridge haunts where once drooped films of maidenhair fern. + +The home that the squirrel built for his summer idyl is shattered by the +winds aloft and falls to earth with other finished things. The feathery +wrack of cat-tails sails the waters and is hung upon the grasses of the +marsh. Fallow fields spread a tangle of livid stems, but jewels lie in +the wood road, for berries, the last harvest, are shaken down by bird +gleaners from vine and shrub, where they hang in festal plenty, so that +all hardy creatures that do not fly from winter to the South or to an +underground Nirvana may here find reward. Dark blue beads drop from the +woodbine. The rose keeps her carmine caskets, full of other roses; but +the bayberry is generous with dove-gray pebble seeds. Witch-hazel, +reversing seasons like the eccentric trout--who, after all, probably +enjoys the solitude at the stream-heads after the other fish have +gone--sends wide her mysterious fusillade, and that, too, finds its aim +in the floor of the forest. + +Life more remote than that of snowfield or jungle, beneath our tread, +guarded from our glances and our hearing unless we seek it out, the +subtle cycles of the soil go on everlastingly, alien even to those who +know in intimacy the meadows and the woods. Vigorously though it toils, +there is a peace in the vision of continuity delicately given. Most of +the singers in the mowing grass live for a day, yet next morning the +song ascends unbroken. Here on the frontier between the world of the air +and that within the earth passports are granted back and forth--the red +lily is summoned from the depths; the topmost acorn, lifting its cup +toward the sky, obediently falls and passes through the dark barrier, to +return when the life-call bids. Steadily go on arrival and departure. +The gorgeous lichen is hung upon the rotting log. White rue rises and +white snows sink. Fire demons split the rocks, and after them in a +thousand years comes bloodroot. Floods rush down, and windflowers and +cities follow; and leisurely, another spring, the gates that received +them part, and a legion of new cowslips marches out. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +FAR ALTARS + + +[Illustration] + +Guarded by treacherous green marshes whose murmuring rushes will close +without a change of cadence over the despair of the unwarned, in August +there lives a scene of tender and appealing beauty. The languid creek, +turned the color of iron rust with its plunder--spoil of the wild and +impractical fertility of the roots of bog and bracken--pauses in a pool +that shows now brown, now sorrel, now satiny green as the clouds wait or +hasten above and the supple rushes lean back and forth. This is the +tourney field of gorgeous dragonflies. Emerald, gold, and amethyst, they +hold resplendent play, sparkling above the water like magnets of light, +causing the placid depths to shimmer, and drawing the minnows from their +sunlit rest. Even the bird-dog does not know this pool. No messenger +more personal than a prowling shot comes there from man. + +It is a sturdy conceit that wonders why Nature should spend her freshest +art on treasure scenes she decrees invisible, as if the mother of +mountains, tempests, deserts, toiled anxiously for the approval of a +particular generation, keeping one eye on Mr. Gray and the other on Mr. +Emerson in the hope that they will justify her flower blushing unseen +and her excusable rhodora. Nature is far too unmoral to bother about +rendering economists an account for her spendthrift loveliness. She +willfully deserts the imitation Sicilian garden, though she would be +well paid to stay, and rollicks in the jungle, clothing magnificently +the useless snake and leopard, dressing their breakfast in paradise +plumes, puzzling Victorian poets, and badly scaring the urban +manicurist, who returns after her first country vacation with decided +views concerning the cheerful humanity of streets compared with lodges +in the wilderness. + +Were Nature careworn and personal, where should we turn for consolation +or rest? Hers is the tonic gift of a strength that, underlying all life, +does not pity or praise. As in the Cave of the Winds the most restless +spirit surely might find peace, so in the eternal changefulness of the +forest under the touch of forces fierce or serene we find the soul of +quiet because the powers at work are beyond our control, control us +utterly, hold us in an immense and soothing grasp where thought and +energy are fused and contend no more. So those who live upon the ocean +come to possess that which they will not barter for ease, and so the +timber cruiser shortens his visit to town. They would not tell what they +gain who relinquish readily the things for which others pour out their +years upon the ground that commerce may grow. It is because words are +not fashioned to speak what shapes the wind takes, the motion whereby +mists climb after the sun out of ravines, or how the tropic orchids lift +at daybreak among their fragrant shadows wings of ivory and fawn that +drooped against ferny trunks. + +Many days must bloom and fade between you and the sound of human voices +before, in the wilderness, there can be surrender to the giant arms that +forever hold the body, and to the spirit, supreme and unemotional, that +has sped beyond the utmost outposts the mind ever reached. But after the +homecoming--when the confused echoes of a swarming, blind humanity are +lost in the exalted quiet of wide spaces--the vast impersonality of woods +and plains, swamps, hills, and sea, takes on a tenderness more deep than +lies in human gift and a glorious hostility that calls to combat without +grudge or motive, ennobling because it gives no mercy; challenges alike +the craft of man and the strength of the hills. + +The exuberant fancy of a less earnest day made air and fire the +dwellings of creatures formed like ourselves, and, though immortal, shod +with lightning, guarded from common sight, they were afflicted with our +own vexations, our loves and hates. Nymph and naiad, faun and satyr, +were always plotting and gossiping, and little better were the +subsequent gnomes and fairies--more personal and cantankerous than +persons; resorting upon occasion to divorce; tangling skeins, and +teasing kind old horses. These were not the earth deities. + +Earth deities wear no human shape. No one has looked upon the sky fire's +face, the pinions of the gale. Enormously they have wrought, without +regard for man and sharing no passion, yet yielding sometimes their +limitless force to the mind that soared with them. In the age of winged +serpents, in the days when Assyria was mistress, they were the same, +holding an equal welcome for the boy and sage, unchanging and unresting, +free from mortal attributes of good and evil, mighty and healing as no +half-human god could be. Therefore that lavish scattering of beauty +without regard to man. Therefore the wonder given to all who dare call +to them when far from other men. + +The disrepute of the pathetic fallacy has come from making the forest +sentimental. Sentient beyond all doubt its lovers know it is. Even as +water visibly rebels, warring with headlands and leaping after the wind, +and as it slumbers dimpling and caresses the swimmer, so the woodlands +are solemn and aloof, or breathe to give the open-hearted their vast +serenity. The nymph or fairy rises at the bidding of imagination, but +the everlasting deities of the elements, past our reckoning elder than +they, need no fiction. They are presences, and accord communion. They +can be gentle as the twilight call of quail. They can be indifferent and +gigantic as the prairie fire and typhoon. But they brood to-day as +yesterday over cities that they will not enter, but which sometimes they +destroy. They march above mountain ridges and loiter among flowered +laurel, impartial as nothing else is, and in their dispassionate +companionship supremely consoling, offering for playthings the ripple +and the gleam. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Minstrel Weather, by Marian Storm + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MINSTREL WEATHER *** + +***** This file should be named 38645.txt or 38645.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/6/4/38645/ + +Produced by Irma Spehar, Markus Brenner and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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