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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53772e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #50650 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50650) diff --git a/old/50650-0.txt b/old/50650-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 69f7fc9..0000000 --- a/old/50650-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5166 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lay of the Land, by Dallas Lore Sharp, -Illustrated by Elizabeth Myers Snagg - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: The Lay of the Land - - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - - - -Release Date: December 8, 2015 [eBook #50650] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAY OF THE LAND*** - - -E-text prepared by Giovanni Fini, Bryan Ness, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive/American Libraries -(https://archive.org/details/americana) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 50650-h.htm or 50650-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50650/50650-h/50650-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50650/50650-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive/American Libraries. See - https://archive.org/details/layoflandsharpda00sharrich - - - - - -THE LAY OF THE LAND - -by - -DALLAS LORE SHARP - -Author of “Wild Life Near Home” and -“Roof and Meadow” - -With Drawings by Elizabeth Myers Snagg - - - - - - - -[Illustration: LOGO] - -Boston and New York -Houghton Mifflin Company - -The Riverside Press Cambridge -1908 - -Copyright 1908 by Dallas Lore Sharp -All Rights Reserved - -Published September 1908 - - - - - To the Memory of my Friend - William Frank Morrison, M. D. - - - - -Contents - - I. The Muskrats are Building 1 - - II. Christmas in the Woods 19 - - III. A Cure for Winter 35 - - IV. The Nature-Student 56 - - V. Chickadee 74 - - VI. The Missing Tooth 89 - - VII. The Sign of the Shad-bush 105 - - VIII. The Nature Movement 114 - - IX. June 127 - - X. A Broken Feather 137 - - XI. High Noon 148 - - XII. The Palace in the Pig-pen 161 - - XIII. An Account with Nature 175 - - XIV. The Buzzard of the Bear Swamp 189 - - XV. The Lay of the Land 200 - - - - -[Illustration] - -I - -The Muskrats are Building - - -WE have had a series of long, heavy rains, and water is standing over -the swampy meadow. It is a dreary stretch, this wet, sedgy land in -the cold twilight, drearier than any part of the woods or the upland -pastures. They are empty, but the meadow is flat and wet, naked and all -unsheltered. And a November night is falling. - -The darkness deepens. A raw wind is rising. At nine o’clock the moon -swings round and full to the crest of the ridge, and pours softly over. -I button the heavy ulster close, and in my rubber boots go down to the -river and follow it out to the middle of the meadow, where it meets the -main ditch at the sharp turn toward the swamp. Here at the bend, behind -a clump of black alders, I sit quietly down and wait. - -I am not mad, nor melancholy; I am not after copy. Nothing is the -matter with me. I have come out to the bend to watch the muskrats -building, for that small mound up the ditch is not an old haycock, but -a half-finished muskrat house. - -The moon climbs higher. The water on the meadow shivers in the light. -The wind bites through my heavy coat and sends me back, but not until -I have seen one, two, three little figures scaling the walls of the -house with loads of mud-and-reed mortar. I am driven back by the cold, -but not until I know that here in the desolate meadow is being rounded -off a lodge, thick-walled and warm, and proof against the longest, -bitterest of winters. - -This is near the end of November. My wood is in the cellar; I am about -ready to put on the double windows and storm doors; and the muskrats’ -house is all but finished. Winter is at hand: but we are prepared, the -muskrats even better prepared than I, for theirs is an adequate house, -planned perfectly. - -Throughout the summer they had no house, only their tunnels into the -sides of the ditch, their roadways out into the grass, and their beds -under the tussocks or among the roots of the old stumps. All these -months the water had been low in the ditch, and the beds among the -tussocks had been safe and dry enough. - -Now the autumnal rains have filled river and ditch, flooded the -tunnels, and crept up into the beds under the tussocks. Even a muskrat -will creep out of his bed when cold, wet water creeps in. What shall he -do for a house? He does not want to leave his meadow. The only thing -to do is to build,—move from under the tussock, out upon the top, and -here, in the deep, wiry grass, make a new bed, high and dry above the -rising water, and close the new bed in with walls that circle and dome -and defy the winter. - -Such a house will require a great deal of work to build. Why not -combine, make it big enough to hold half a dozen, save labor and -warmth, and, withal, live sociably together? So they left, each one -his bed, and joining efforts, started, about the middle of October, to -build this winter house. - -Slowly, night after night, the domed walls have been rising, although -for several nights at a time there would be no apparent progress with -the work. The builders were in no hurry, it seems; the cold was -far off; but it is coming, and to-night it feels near and keen. And -to-night there is no loafing about the lodge. - -When this house is done, then the rains may descend, and the floods -come, but it will not fall. It is built upon a tussock; and a tussock, -you will know, who have ever grubbed at one, has hold on the bottom of -creation. The winter may descend, and the boys, and foxes, come,—and -they will come, but not before the walls are frozen,—yet the house -stands. It is boy-proof, almost; it is entirely rain-, cold-, and -fox-proof. Many a time I have hacked at its walls with my axe when -fishing through the ice, but I never got in. I have often seen, too, -where the fox has gone round and round the house in the snow, and -where, at places, he has attempted to dig into the frozen mortar; but -it was a foot thick, as hard as flint, and utterly impossible for his -pick and shovel. - -Yet strangely enough the house sometimes fails of the very purpose -for which it was erected. I said the floods may come. So they may, -ordinarily; but along in March when one comes as a freshet, it rises -sometimes to the dome of the house, filling the single bedchamber -and drowning the dwellers out. I remember a freshet once in the end -of February that flooded Lupton’s Pond and drove the muskrats of the -whole pond village to their ridgepoles, to the bushes, and to whatever -wreckage the waters brought along. - - The best laid schemes o’ _muskrats too_ - Gang aft a-gley. - -But ganging a-gley is not the interesting thing, not the point with -my muskrats: it is rather that my muskrats, and the mice that Burns -ploughed up, the birds and the bees, and even the very trees of the -forest, have foresight. They all look ahead and provide against -the coming cold. That a mouse, or a muskrat, or even a bee, should -occasionally prove foresight to be vain, only shows that the life of -the fields is very human. Such foresight, however, oftener proves -entirely adequate for the winter, dire as some of the emergencies are -sure to be. - - The north wind doth blow, - And we shall have snow, - And what will Robin do then, - Poor thing? - -And what will Muskrat do? and Chipmunk? and Whitefoot? and little -Chickadee? poor things! Never fear. Robin has heard the trumpets of the -north wind and is retreating leisurely toward the south, wise thing! -Muskrat is building a warm winter lodge; Chipmunk has already dug his -but and ben, and so far down under the stone wall that a month of zeros -could not break in; Whitefoot, the woodmouse, has stored the hollow -poplar stub full of acorns, and has turned Robin’s deserted nest, near -by, into a cosy house; and Chickadee, dear thing, Nature herself looks -after him. There are plenty of provisions for the hunting, and a big -piece of suet on my lilac bush. His clothes are warm, and he will hide -his head under his wing in the elm-tree hole when the north wind doth -blow, and never mind the weather. - -I shall not mind it either, not so much, anyway, on account of -Chickadee. He lends me a deal of support. So do Chipmunk, Whitefoot, -and Muskrat. - -This lodge of my muskrats in the meadow makes a difference, I am sure, -of at least ten degrees in the mean temperature of my winter. How can -the out-of-doors freeze entirely up with such a house as this at the -middle of it? For in this house is life, warm life,—and fire. On the -coldest day I can look out over the bleak white waste to where the -house shows, a tiny mound in the snow, and I can see the fire burn, -just as I can see and feel the glow when I watch the slender blue -wraith rise into the still air from the chimney of the old farmhouse -along the road below. For I share in the life of both houses; and not -less in the life of the mud house of the meadow, because, instead of -Swedes, they are muskrats who live there. I can share the existence of -a muskrat? Easily. I like to curl up with the three or four of them in -that mud house and there spend the worst days of the winter. My own big -house here on the hilltop is sometimes cold. And the wind! If sometimes -I could only drive the insistent winter wind from the house corners! -But down in the meadow the house has no corners; the mud walls are -thick, so thick and round that the shrieking wind sweeps past unheard, -and all unheeded the cold creeps over and over the thatch, then crawls -back and stiffens upon the meadow. - -The doors of our house in the meadow swing open the winter through. -Just outside the doors stand our stacks of fresh calamus roots, and -iris, and arum. The roof of the universe has settled close and hard -upon us,—a sheet of ice extending from the ridge of the house far out -to the shores of the meadow. The winter is all above the roof—outside. -It blows and snows and freezes out there. In here, beneath the -ice-roof, the roots of the sedges are pink and tender; our roads are -all open and they run every way, over all the rich, rooty meadow. - -The muskrats are building. Winter is coming. The muskrats are making -preparations, but not they alone. The preparation for hard weather is -to be seen everywhere, and it has been going on ever since the first -flocking of the swallows back in July. Up to that time the season still -seemed young; no one thought of harvest, of winter;—when there upon -the telegraph wires one day were the swallows, and work against the -winter had commenced. - -The great migratory movements of the birds, mysterious in some of their -courses as the currents of the sea, were in the beginning, and are -still, for the most part, mere shifts to escape the cold. Why in the -spring these same birds should leave the southern lands of plenty and -travel back to the hungrier north to nest, is not easily explained. -Perhaps it is the home instinct that draws them back; for home to birds -(and men) is the land of the nest. However, it is very certain that -among the autumn migrants there would be at once a great falling off -should there come a series of warm open winters with abundance of food. - -Bad as the weather is, there are a few of the seed-eating birds, like -the quail, and some of the insect-eaters, like the chickadee, who are -so well provided for that they can stay and survive the winter. But the -great majority of the birds, because they have no storehouse nor barn, -must take wing and fly away from the lean and hungry cold. - -And I am glad to see them go. The thrilling honk of the flying wild -geese out of the November sky tells me that the hollow forests and -closing bays of the vast desolate north are empty now, except for the -few creatures that find food and shelter in the snow. The wild geese -pass, and I hear behind them the clang of the arctic gates, the boom of -the bolt—then the long frozen silence. Yet it is not for long. Soon -the bar will slip back, the gates will swing wide, and the wild geese -will come honking over, swift to the greening marshes of the arctic -bays once more. - -Here in my own small woods and marshes there is much getting ready, -much comforting assurance that Nature is quite equal to herself, that -winter is not approaching unawares. There will be great lack, no -doubt, before there is plenty again; there will be suffering and death. -But what with the migrating, the strange deep sleeping, the building -and harvesting, there will be also much comfortable, much joyous and -sociable living. - -Long before the muskrats began to build, even before the swallows -commenced to flock, my chipmunks started their winter stores. I don’t -know which began his work first, which kept harder at it, chipmunk or -the provident ant. The ant has come by a reputation for thrift, which, -though entirely deserved, is still not the exceptional virtue it is -made to seem. Chipmunk is just as thrifty. So is the busy bee. It is -the thought of approaching winter that keeps the bee busy far beyond -her summer needs. Much of her labor is entirely for the winter. By the -first of August she has filled the brood chamber with honey—forty -pounds of it, enough for the hatching bees and for the whole colony -until the willows tassel again. But who knows what the winter may be? -How cold and long drawn out into the coming May? So the harvesting is -pushed with vigor on to the flowering of the last autumn asters—on -until fifty, a hundred, or even three hundred pounds of surplus honey -are sealed in the combs, and the colony is safe should the sun not -shine again for a year and a day. - -But here is Nature, in these extra pounds of honey, making preparation -for me, incapable drone that I am. I could not make a drop of honey -from a whole forest of linden bloom. Yet I must live, so I give the -bees a bigger gum log than they need; I build them greater barns; and -when the harvest is all in, this extra store I make my own. I too with -the others am getting ready for the cold. - -It is well that I am. The last of the asters have long since gone; so -have the witch-hazels. All is quiet about the hives. The bees have -formed into their warm winter clusters upon the combs, and except “when -come the calm, mild days,” they will fly no more until March or April. -I will contract their entrances,—put on their storm-doors. And now -there is little else that I can do but put on my own. - -The whole of my out-of-doors is a great hive, stored and sealed for the -winter, its swarming life close-clustered, and covering in its centre, -as coals in the ashes, the warm life-fires of summer. - -I stand along the edge of the hillside here and look down the length of -its frozen slope. The brown leaves have drifted into the entrances, -as if every burrow were forsaken; sand and sticks have washed in, too, -littering and choking the doorways. - -There is no sign of life. A stranger would find it hard to believe that -my whole drove of forty-six ground hogs (woodchucks) are gently snoring -at the bottoms of these old uninteresting holes. Yet here they are, and -quite out of danger, sleeping the sleep of the furry, the fat, and the -forgetful. - -The woodchuck’s is a curious shift, a case of Nature outdoing herself. -Winter spreads far and fast, and Woodchuck, in order to keep ahead -out of danger, would need wings. But he wasn’t given any. Must he -perish then? Winter spreads far, but does not go deep—down only about -four feet; and Woodchuck, if he cannot escape overland, can, perhaps, -_under_land. So down he goes _through_ the winter, down into a mild and -even temperature, five long feet away—but as far away from the snow -and cold as Bobolink among the reeds of the distant Orinoco. - -Indeed, Woodchuck’s is a farther journey and even more wonderful than -Bobolink’s, for these five feet carry him beyond the bounds of time and -space into the mysterious realm of sleep, of suspended life, to the -very gates of death. That he will return with Bobolink, that he will -come up alive with the spring out of this dark way, is very strange. - -For he went in most meagrely prepared. He took nothing with him, -apparently. The muskrat built him a house, and under the spreading ice -turned all the meadow into a well-stocked cellar. The beaver built a -dam, cut and anchored under water a plenty of green sticks near his -lodge, so that he too would be under cover when the ice formed, and -have an abundance of tender bark at hand. Chipmunk spent half of his -summer laying up food near his underground nest. But Woodchuck simply -digged him a hole, a grave, then ate until no particle more of fat -could be got into his baggy hide, and then crawled into his tomb, gave -up the ghost, and waited the resurrection of the spring. - -This is his shift! This is the length to which he goes, because he has -no wings, and because he cannot cut, cure, and mow away in the depths -of the stony hillside, enough clover hay to last him over the winter. -The beaver cans his fresh food in cold water; the chipmunk selects -long-keeping things and buries them; the woodchuck makes of himself a -silo, eats all his winter hay in the summer while it is green, turns it -at once into a surplus of himself, then buries that self, feeds upon -it, and sleeps—and lives! - - The north wind doth blow, - And we shall have snow, - -but what good reason is there for our being daunted at the prospect? -Robin and all the others are well prepared. Even the wingless frog, who -is also lacking in fur and feathers and fat, even he has no care at the -sound of the cold winds. Nature provides for him too, in her way, which -is neither the way for the robin, the muskrat, nor the woodchuck. He -survives, and all he has to do about it is to dig into the mud at the -bottom of the ditch. This looks at first like the journey Woodchuck -takes. But it is really a longer, stranger journey than Woodchuck’s, -for it takes the frog far beyond the realms of mere sleep, on into the -cold, black land where no one can tell the quick from the dead. - -The frost may or may not reach him here in the ooze. No matter. If the -cold works down and freezes him into the mud, he never knows. But he -will thaw out as good as new; he will sing again for joy and love as -soon as his heart warms up enough to beat. - -I have seen frogs frozen into the middle of solid lumps of ice in the -laboratory. Drop the lump on the floor, and the frog would break out -like a fragment of the ice itself. And this has happened more than once -to the same frog without causing him the least apparent suffering or -inconvenience. He would come to, and croak, and look as wise as ever. - - The north wind _may_ blow, - -but the muskrats are building; and it is by no means a cheerless -prospect, this wood-and-meadow world of mine in the gray November -light. The frost will not fall to-night as falls the plague on men; -the brightness of the summer is gone, yet this chill gloom is not -the sombre shadow of a pall. Nothing is dying in the fields: the -grass-blades are wilting, the old leaves are falling, but no square -foot of greensward will the winter kill, nor a single tree perhaps in -my woodlot. There will be no less of life next April because of this -winter, unless, perchance, conditions altogether exceptional starve -some of the winter birds. These suffer most; yet as the seasons go, -life even for the winter birds is comfortable and abundant. - -The fence-rows and old pastures are full of berries that will keep the -fires burning in the quail and partridge during the bitterest weather. -Last February, however, I came upon two partridges in the snow, dead of -hunger and cold. It was after an extremely long severe spell. But this -was not all. These two birds since fall had been feeding regularly in -the dried fodder corn that stood shocked over the field. One day all -the corn was carted away. The birds found their supply of food suddenly -cut off, and, unused to foraging the fence-rows and tangles for wild -seeds, they seem to have given up the struggle at once, although within -easy reach of plenty. - -Hardly a minute’s flight away was a great thicket of dwarf sumac -covered with berries; there were bayberries, rose hips, green brier, -bittersweet, black alder, and checkerberries—hillsides of the -latter—that they might have found. These were hard fare, doubtless, -after an unstinted supply of sweet corn; but still they were plentiful, -and would have been sufficient had the birds made use of them. - -The smaller birds of the winter, like the tree sparrow and junco, -feed upon the weeds and grasses that ripen unmolested along the -roadsides and waste places. A mixed flock of these small birds lived -several days last winter upon the seeds of the ragweed in my mowing. -The weeds came up in the early fall after the field was laid down to -clover and timothy. They threatened to choke out the grass. I looked -at them, rising shoulder-high and seedy over the greening field, and -thought with dismay of how they would cover it by the next fall. After -a time the snow came, a foot and a half of it, till only the tops of -the seedy ragweeds showed above the level white; then the juncos, -goldfinches, and tree sparrows came, and there was a five-day shucking -of ragweed-seed in the mowing, and five days of life and plenty. - -Then I looked and thought again—that, perhaps, into the original -divine scheme of things were put even ragweeds. But then, perhaps, -there was no original divine scheme of things. I don’t know. As I watch -the changing seasons, however, across the changeless years, I seem to -find a scheme, a plan, a purpose, and there are weeds and winters in -it, and it seems divine. - -The muskrats are building; the last of the migrating geese have -gone over; the wild mice have harvested their acorns; the bees have -clustered; the woodchucks are asleep; and the sap in the big hickory by -the side of the house has crept down out of reach of the fingers of the -frost. I will put on the storm-doors and the double windows. Even now -the logs are blazing cheerily on the wide, warm hearth. - - - - -[Illustration] - -II - -Christmas in the Woods - - -ON the night before this particular Christmas every creature of the -woods that could stir was up and stirring, for over the old snow was -falling swiftly, silently, a soft, fresh covering that might mean a -hungry Christmas unless the dinner were had before morning. - -But when the morning dawned, a cheery Christmas sun broke across the -great gum swamp, lighting the snowy boles and soft-piled limbs of the -giant trees with indescribable glory, and pouring, a golden flood, -into the deep spongy bottoms below. It would be a perfect Christmas -in the woods, clear, mild, stirless, with silent footing for me, and -everywhere the telltale snow. - -[Illustration] - -And everywhere the Christmas spirit, too. As I paused among the -pointed cedars of the pasture, looking down into the cripple at the -head of the swamp, a clear wild whistle rang in the thicket, followed -by a flash through the alders like a tongue of fire, as a cardinal -grosbeak shot down to the tangle of greenbrier and magnolia under the -slope. It was a fleck of flaming summer. As warm as summer, too, the -stag-horn sumac burned on the crest of the ridge against the group of -holly trees,—trees as fresh as April, and all aglow with berries. The -woods were decorated for the holy day. The gentleness of the soft new -snow touched everything; cheer and good-will lighted the unclouded -sky and warmed the thick depths of the evergreens, and blazed in the -crimson-berried bushes of the ilex and alder. The Christmas woods were -glad. - -Nor was the gladness all show, mere decoration. There was real cheer -in abundance, for I was back in the old home woods, back along -the Cohansey, back where you can pick persimmons off the trees at -Christmas. There are persons who say the Lord might have made a better -berry than the strawberry, but He didn’t. Perhaps He didn’t make the -strawberry at all. But He did make the Cohansey Creek persimmon, and -He made it as good as He could. Nowhere else under the sun can you find -such persimmons as these along the creek, such richness of flavor, such -gummy, candied quality, woodsy, wild, crude,—especially the fruit of -two particular trees on the west bank, near Lupton’s Pond. But they -never come to this perfection, never quite lose their pucker, until -midwinter,—as if they had been intended for the Christmas table of the -woods. - -It had been nearly twenty years since I crossed this pasture of the -cedars on my way to the persimmon trees. The cows had been crossing -every year, yet not a single new crook had they worn in the old paths. -But I was half afraid as I came to the fence where I could look down -upon the pond and over to the persimmon trees. Not one of the Luptons, -who owned pasture and pond and trees, had ever been a boy, so far as I -could remember, or had ever eaten of those persimmons. Would they have -left the trees through all these years? - -I pushed through the hedge of cedars and stopped for an instant, -confused. The very pond was gone! and the trees! No, there was the -pond,—but how small the patch of water! and the two persimmon trees? -The bush and undergrowth had grown these twenty years. Which way? Ah, -there they stand, only their leafless tops showing; but see the hard -angular limbs, how closely globed with fruit! how softly etched upon -the sky! - -I hurried around to the trees and climbed the one with the two broken -branches, up, clear up to the top, into the thick of the persimmons. - -Did I say it had been twenty years? That could not be. Twenty years -would have made me a man, and this sweet, real taste in my mouth only a -_boy_ could know. But there was college, and marriage, a Massachusetts -farm, four boys of my own, and—no matter! it could not have been -_years_—twenty years—since. It was only yesterday that I last climbed -this tree and ate the rich rimy fruit frosted with a Christmas snow. - -And yet, could it have been yesterday? It was storming, and I clung -here in the swirling snow and heard the wild ducks go over in their -hurry toward the bay. Yesterday, and all this change in the vast -treetop world, this huddled pond, those narrowed meadows, that shrunken -creek! I should have eaten the persimmons and climbed straight down, -not stopped to gaze out upon the pond, and away over the dark ditches -to the creek. But reaching out quickly I gathered another handful,—and -all was yesterday again. - -I filled both pockets of my coat and climbed down. I kept those -persimmons and am tasting them to-night. Lupton’s Pond may fill to -a puddle, the meadows may shrivel, the creek dry up and disappear, -and old Time may even try his wiles on me. But I shall foil him to -the end; for I am carrying still in my pocket some of yesterday’s -persimmons,—persimmons that ripened in the rime of a winter when I was -a boy. - -High and alone in a bare persimmon tree for one’s dinner hardly sounds -like a merry Christmas. But I was not alone. I had noted the fresh -tracks beneath the tree before I climbed up, and now I saw that the -snow had been partly brushed from several of the large limbs as the -’possum had moved about in the tree for his Christmas dinner. We -were guests at the same festive board, and both of us at Nature’s -invitation. It mattered not that the ’possum had eaten and gone this -hour or more. Such is good form in the woods. He was expecting me, so -he came early, out of modesty, and, that I too might be entirely at my -ease, he departed early, leaving his greetings for me in the snow. - -Thus I was not alone; here was good company and plenty of it. I never -lack a companion in the woods when I can pick up a trail. The ’possum -and I ate together. And this was just the fellowship I needed, this -sharing the persimmons with the ’possum. I had broken bread, not with -the ’possum only, but with all the out-of-doors. I was now fit to enter -the woods, for I was filled with good-will and persimmons, as full as -the ’possum; and putting myself under his gentle guidance, I got down -upon the ground, took up his clumsy trail, and descended toward the -swamp. Such an entry is one of the particular joys of the winter. To -go in with a fox, a mink, or a ’possum through the door of the woods -is to find yourself at home. Any one can get inside the out-of-doors, -as the grocery boy or the census man gets inside our houses. You -can bolt in at any time on business. A trail, however, is Nature’s -invitation. There may be other, better beaten paths for mere feet. But -go softly with the ’possum, and at the threshold you are met by the -spirit of the wood, you are made the guest of the open, silent, secret -out-of-doors. - -I went down with the ’possum. He had traveled home leisurely and -without fear, as his tracks plainly showed. He was full of persimmons. -A good happy world this, where such fare could be had for the picking! -What need to hurry home, except one were in danger of falling asleep -by the way? So I thought, too, as I followed his winding path; and if -I was tracking him to his den, it was only to wake him for a moment -with the compliments of the season. But it was not even a momentary -disturbance; for when I finally found him in his hollow gum, he was -sound asleep, and only half realized that some one was poking him -gently in the ribs and wishing him a merry Christmas. - -The ’possum had led me to the centre of the empty, hollow swamp, where -the great-boled gums lifted their branches like a timbered, unshingled -roof between me and the wide sky. Far away through the spaces of the -rafters I saw a pair of wheeling buzzards, and under them, in lesser -circles, a broad-winged hawk. Here, at the feet of the tall, clean -trees, looking up through the leafless limbs, I had something of a -measure for the flight of the birds. The majesty and the mystery of the -distant buoyant wings were singularly impressive. - -I have seen the turkey-buzzard sailing the skies on the bitterest -winter days. To-day, however, could hardly be called winter. Indeed, -nothing yet had felt the pinch of the cold. There was no hunger yet in -the swamp, though this new snow had scared the raccoons out, and their -half-human tracks along the margin of the swamp stream showed that, if -not hungry, they at least feared that they might be. - -For a coon hates snow. He will invariably sleep off the first light -snowfalls, and even in the late winter he will not venture forth in -fresh snow unless driven by hunger or some other dire need. Perhaps, -like a cat or a hen, he dislikes the wetting of his feet. Or it may be -that the soft snow makes bad hunting—for him. The truth is, I believe, -that such a snow makes too good hunting for the dogs and the gunner. -The new snow tells too clear a story. His home is no inaccessible den -among the ledges; only a hollow in some ancient oak or tupelo. Once -within, he is safe from the dogs, but the long fierce fight for life -taught him generations ago that the nest-tree is a fatal trap when -behind the dogs come the axe and the gun. So he has grown wary and -enduring. He waits until the snow grows crusty, when without sign, and -almost without scent, he can slip forth among the long shadows and -prowl to the edge of dawn. - -Skirting the stream out toward the higher back woods, I chanced to spy -a bunch of snow in one of the great sour gums that I thought was an old -nest. A second look showed me tiny green leaves, then white berries, -then mistletoe. - -It was not a surprise, for I had found it here before,—a long, long -time before. It was back in my schoolboy days, back beyond those -twenty years, that I first stood here under the mistletoe and had -my first romance. There was no chandelier, no pretty girl, in that -romance,—only a boy, the mistletoe, the giant trees, and the sombre -silent swamp. Then there was his discovery, the thrill of deep delight, -and the wonder of his knowledge of the strange unnatural plant! All -plants had been plants to him until, one day, he read the life of the -mistletoe. But that was English mistletoe; so the boy’s wonder world of -plant life was still as far away as Mars, when, rambling alone through -the swamp along the creek, he stopped under a big curious bunch of -green, high up in one of the gums, and—made his first discovery. - -So the boy climbed up again this Christmas Day at the peril of his -precious neck, and brought down a bit of that old romance. - -I followed the stream along through the swamp to the open meadows, and -then on under the steep wooded hillside that ran up to the higher land -of corn and melon fields. Here at the foot of the slope the winter -sun lay warm, and here in the sheltered briery border I came upon the -Christmas birds. - -There was a great variety of them, feeding and preening and chirping -in the vines. The tangle was a-twitter with their quiet, cheery talk. -Such a medley of notes you could not hear at any other season outside a -city bird store. How far the different species understood one another -I should like to know, and whether the hum of voices meant sociability -to them, as it certainly meant to me. Doubtless the first cause of -their flocking here was the sheltered warmth and the great numbers -of berry-laden bushes, for there was no lack either of abundance or -variety on the Christmas table. - -In sight from where I stood hung bunches of withering chicken or frost -grapes, plump clusters of blue-black berries of the greenbrier, and -limbs of the smooth winterberry bending with their flaming fruit. There -were bushes of crimson ilex, too, trees of fruiting dogwood and holly, -cedars in berry, dwarf sumac and seedy sedges, while patches on the -wood slopes uncovered by the sun were spread with trailing partridge -berry and the coral-fruited wintergreen. I had eaten part of my dinner -with the ’possum; I picked a quantity of these wintergreen berries, and -continued my meal with the birds. And they also had enough and to spare. - -Among the birds in the tangle was a large flock of northern fox -sparrows, whose vigorous and continuous scratching in the bared spots -made a most lively and cheery commotion. Many of them were splashing -about in tiny pools of snow-water, melted partly by the sun and partly -by the warmth of their bodies as they bathed. One would hop to a -softening bit of snow at the base of a tussock, keel over and begin -to flop, soon sending up a shower of sparkling drops from his rather -chilly tub. A winter snow-water bath seemed a necessity, a luxury -indeed, for they all indulged, splashing with the same purpose and -zest that they put into their scratching among the leaves. - -A much bigger splashing drew me quietly through the bushes to find a -marsh hawk giving himself a Christmas souse. The scratching, washing, -and talking of the birds; the masses of green in the cedars, holly, and -laurels; the glowing colors of the berries against the snow; the blue -of the sky, and the golden warmth of the light made Christmas in the -heart of the noon that the very swamp seemed to feel. - -Three months later there was to be scant picking here, for this was the -beginning of the severest winter I ever knew. From this very ridge, in -February, I had reports of berries gone, of birds starving, of whole -coveys of quail frozen dead in the snow; but neither the birds nor I -dreamed to-day of any such hunger and death. A flock of robins whirled -into the cedars above me; a pair of cardinals whistled back and forth; -tree sparrows, juncos, nuthatches, chickadees, and cedar-birds cheeped -among the trees and bushes; and from the farm lands at the top of the -slope rang the calls of meadowlarks. - -Halfway up the hill I stopped under a blackjack oak, where, in the -thin snow, there were signs of something like a Christmas revel. The -ground was sprinkled with acorn shells and trampled over with feet -of several kinds and sizes,—quail, jay, and partridge feet; rabbit, -squirrel, and mice feet, all over the snow as the feast of acorns had -gone on. Hundreds of the acorns were lying about, gnawed away at the -cup end, where the shell was thinnest, many of them further broken and -cleaned out by the birds. - -As I sat studying the signs in the snow, my eye caught a tiny trail -leading out from the others straight away toward a broken pile of -cord-wood. The tracks were planted one after the other, so directly in -line as to seem like the prints of a single foot. “That’s a weasel’s -trail,” I said, “the death’s-head at this feast,” and followed it -slowly to the wood. A shiver crept over me as I felt, even sooner than -I saw, a pair of small sinister eyes fixed upon mine. The evil pointed -head, heavy but alert, and with a suggestion of fierce strength out -of all relation to the slender body, was watching me from between the -sticks of cord-wood. And so he had been watching the mice and birds and -rabbits feasting under the tree! - -I packed a ball of snow round and hard, slipped forward upon my knees, -and hurled it. “Spat!” it struck the end of a stick within an inch -of the ugly head, filling the crevice with snow. Instantly the head -appeared at another crack, and another ball struck viciously beside it. -Now it was back where it first appeared, and did not flinch for the -next, nor the next ball. The third went true, striking with a “chug” -and packing the crack. But the black, hating eyes were still watching -me a foot lower down. - -It is not all peace and good-will in the Christmas woods. But there -is more of peace and good-will than of any other spirit. The weasels -are few. More friendly and timid eyes were watching me than bold and -murderous. It was foolish to want to kill—even the weasel. For one’s -woods are what one makes them, and so I let the man with the gun, who -chanced along, think that I had turned boy again, and was snowballing -the woodpile, just for the fun of trying to hit the end of the biggest -stick. - -I was glad he had come. As he strode off with his stained bag I -felt kindlier toward the weasel. There were worse in the woods than -he,—worse, because all of their killing was pastime. The weasel must -kill to live, and if he gloated over the kill, why, what fault of his? -But the other weasel, the one with the blood-stained bag, he killed for -the love of killing. I was glad he was gone. - -The crows were winging over toward their great roost in the pines when -I turned toward the town. They, too, had had good picking along the -creek flats and ditches of the meadows. Their powerful wing-beats and -constant play told of full crops and no fear for the night, already -softly gray across the white silent fields. The air was crisper; the -snow began to crackle under foot; the twigs creaked and rattled as I -brushed along; a brown beech leaf wavered down and skated with a thin -scratch over crust; and pure as the snow-wrapped crystal world, and -sweet as the soft gray twilight, came the call of a quail. - -The voices, colors, odors, and forms of summer were gone. The very -face of things had changed; all had been reduced, made plain, simple, -single, pure! There was less for the senses, but how much keener now -their joy! The wide landscape, the frosty air, the tinkle of tiny -icicles, and, out of the quiet of the falling twilight, the voice of -the quail! - -There is no day but is beautiful in the woods; and none more beautiful -than one like this Christmas Day,—warm and still and wrapped, to the -round red berries of the holly, in the magic of the snow. - - - - -[Illustration] - -III - -A Cure for Winter - - - FOR, lo, the winter is past, - The rain is over and gone— - -yet the snow lies white upon the fields, my little river huddles under -the ice, and a new calendar hangs against the faded wall. But the storm -is spent, the sun is out, there is a cheery _drip, drip, drip_ from the -eaves, eggs are sixty cents a dozen, and I am writing to the golden -cackle of my hens. New Year’s Day, and winter gone! No, not quite gone, -with eggs at such a price; still, it must be plain to every one that I -can have but little of winter left: eggs are liable to come down any -day. - -It would be different, of course, were I buying eggs at sixty -cents,—all the difference between a winter-sick and a winter-well -condition. Selling eggs for sixty cents is a cure, though not for -poverty when one has only thirty hens; but it is a cure for winter. The -virtue, however, is not in the sixty cents. There is no cure for winter -in mere money. The virtue is in the eggs, or, perhaps, it is really -found in keeping the hens. - -Keeping the hens, and the two pigs, the horse, the cow, the four boys, -and the farm, for the year around, is a sure cure for winter, and for -a great many other ills. In addition to the farm, one must have some -kind of a salary, and a real love for nature; but given the boys and -the farm, the love will come, for it lies dormant in human nature, as -certain seeds seem to lie dormant in the soil; and as for the salary, -one must have a salary—farm or flat. - -The prescription, then, should read:— - -[Rx] - -A small farm—of an acre or more, - -A small income—of a thousand or more, - -A small family—of four boys or more, - -A real love of nature. - -_Sig._ Morning and evening chores. The dose to be taken daily, as long -as winter lasts. - -This will cure. It is an old-fashioned household mixture that can be -compounded in any country kitchen. But that is the trouble with it,—it -is a _home_ remedy that cannot be bought of the apothecary. There is -more trouble with it, too, largely on account of the regularity with -which milking time returns and the dose of chores. But it is effective. -A farm and congenial chores are a sovereign cure for uncongenial time. - -Here on the farm the signs of coming winter are not ominous signs. The -pensive, mellowing days of early autumn have been preparing the garden -and your mind for the shock of the first frost. Once past this and -winter is welcome; it becomes a physical, spiritual need. The blood -reddens at the promise of it; the soul turns comfortingly in and finds -itself; and the digging of the potatoes commences, and the shocking of -the corn, the picking of the apples, the piling up on the sunny side of -the barn of the big golden squashes. - -A single golden squash holds over almost enough of the summer to keep -a long winter away from the farm; and the six of them in the attic, -filling the rafter room with sunshine, never allow the hoary old -monarch to show more than his face at the skylight. Pie is not the -only thing one brings in with his winter squashes. He stores the ripe -September in their wrinkled rinds, rinds that are ridged and bossy with -the summer’s gold. - -To dig one’s own potatoes! to shock one’s own corn! to pick one’s -own apples! to pile one’s own squashes at one’s own barn! It is -like filling one’s system with an antitoxin before going into a -fever-plagued country. One is immune to winter after this, provided -he stays to bake his apples in his own wood fire. One works himself -into a glow with all this digging, and picking, and piling that lasts -until warm weather comes again; and along with this harvest glow comes -stealing over him the after-harvest peace. It is the serenity of Indian -summer, the mood of the after-harvest season, upon him,—upon him and -his fields and woods. - -The stores are all in: the acorns have ripened and lie hidden where the -squirrels will forget some of them, but where none of the forgotten -will forget to grow; the winged seeds of the asters have drifted down -the highways, over the hillsides and meadows; the birds are gone; the -muskrats’ lodge is all but finished; the hickories and the leaf-hid -hepaticas are budded against the coming spring. All is ready, all is -safe,—the stores are all in. Quiet and a golden peace lie warm upon -the fields. It is Indian summer. - -Such a mood is a necessary condition for the cure. Such a mood _is_ the -cure, indeed, for such a mood means harmony with earth and sky, and -every wind that blows. In all his physical life man is as much a part -of Nature, and as subject to her inexorable laws, as the fields and the -trees and the birds. I have seen a maple growing out of the pavement of -a city street, but no such maple as stands yonder at the centre of my -neighbor’s meadow. I lived and grew on the same street with the maple; -but not as I live and grow here on the farm. Only on a farm does a man -live in a normal, natural environment, only here can he comply with all -the demands of Nature, can he find a cure for winter. - -To Nature man is just as precious as a woodchuck or a sparrow, but -not more. She cares for the woodchuck as long as he behaves like a -woodchuck; so she cares for the sparrow, the oyster, the orchid, and -for man. But he must behave like a natural man, must live where she -intended him to live, and at the approach of winter he must neither -hibernate nor migrate, for he is what the naturalists call a “winter -resident.” It is not in his nature to fly away nor to go to sleep, but, -like the red squirrel and the muskrat, to prepare to live up all the -winter. So his original, unperverted animal instinct leads him to store. - -Long ago he buried his provisions in pits and hung them up on poles. -Even his vocabulary he gathered together as his word-hoard. He is still -possessed of the remnant of the instinct; he will still store. Cage him -in a city, give him more than he needs for winter, relieve him of all -possibility of want, and yet he will store. You cannot cage an instinct -nor eradicate it. It will be obeyed, if all that can be found in the -way of pit and pole be a grated vault in the deep recesses of some city -bank. - -Cage a red squirrel and he will store in the cage; so will the -white-footed mouse. Give the mouse more than he can use, put him in a -cellar, where there is enough already stored for a city of mice, and he -will take from your piles and make piles of his own. He must store or -be unhappy and undone. - -A white-footed mouse got into my cellar last winter and found it, like -the cellar of the country mouse in the fable,— - - Full benely stuffit, baith but and ben, - Of beirris and nuttis, peis, ry and quheit— - -all of it, ready stored, so that, - - Quhen ever scho list scho had aneuch to eit. - -Enough to eat? Certainly; but is enough to eat all that a mouse wants? -So far from being satisfied with mere meat was this particular mouse, -that finding herself in the cellar in the midst of plenty, she at once -began to carry my winter stores from where I had put them, and to make -little heaps for herself in every dark cranny and corner of the cellar. -A pint, or less, of “nuttis”—shagbarks—she tucked away in the toe of -my hunting boot. The nuts had been left in a basket in the vegetable -cellar; the boots stood out by the chimney in the furnace room, and -there were double doors and a brick partition wall between. No matter. -Here were the nuts she had not yet stored, and out yonder was the hole, -smooth and deep and dark, to store them in. She found a way past the -partition wall. - -Every morning I shook those nuts out of my boot and sent them rattling -over the cellar floor. Every night the mouse gathered them up and put -them snugly back into the toe of the boot. She could not have carried -more than one nut at a time,—up the tall boot-leg and down the oily, -slippery inside. I should have liked to see her scurrying about the -cellar, looking after her curiously difficult harvest. Apparently, -they were new nuts to her every evening. Once or twice I came down to -find them lying untouched. The mouse, perhaps, was away over night on -other business. But the following night they were all gathered and -nicely packed in the boot as before. And as before I sent them sixty -ways among the barrels and boxes of the furnace room. But I did it once -too often, for it dawned upon the mouse one night that these were the -same old nuts that she had gathered now a dozen times; and that night -they disappeared. Where? I wondered. Weeks passed, and I had entirely -forgotten about the nuts, when I came upon them, the identical nuts of -my boot, tiered carefully up in a corner of the deep, empty water-tank -away off in the attic. - -Store? The mouse had to store. She had to, not to feed her body,—there -was plenty in the cellar for that,—but to satisfy her soul. A mouse’s -soul, that something within a mouse which makes for more than meat, may -not be a soul at all, but only a bundle of blind instincts. The human -soul, that thing whose satisfaction is so often a box of chocolates -and a silk petticoat, may be better and higher than the soul of a -mouse, may be a different thing indeed; but originally it, too, had -simple, healthful instincts; and among them, atrophied now, but not -wholly gone, may still be found the desire for a life that is more than -something to eat and something to put on. - -To be sure, here on the farm, one may eat all of his potatoes, his -corn, his beans and squashes before the long, lean winter comes to an -end. But if squashes _to eat_ were all, then he could buy squashes, -bigger, fairer, fatter ones, and at less cost, no doubt, at the grocery -store. He may need to eat the squash, but what he needs more, and -cannot buy, is the raising of it, the harvesting of it, the fathering -of it. He needs to watch it grow, to pick it, to heft it, and have his -neighbor heft it; to go up occasionally to the attic and look at it. He -almost hates to _eat_ it. - -A man may live in the city and buy a squash and eat it. That is all he -can do with a boughten squash; for a squash that he cannot raise, he -cannot store, nor take delight in outside of pie. And can a man live -where his garden is a grocery? his storehouse a grocery? his bins, -cribs, mows, and attics so many pasteboard boxes, bottles, and tin -cans? Tinned squash in pie may taste like any squash pie; but it is no -longer squash; and is a squash nothing if not pie? Oh, but he gets a -lithograph squash upon the can to show him how the pulp looked as God -made it. This is a sop to his higher sensibilities; it is a commercial -reminder, too, that life even in the city should be more than pie,—it -is also the commercial way of preserving the flavor of the canned -squash, else he would not know whether he were eating squash or pumpkin -or sweet potato. But then it makes little difference, all things taste -the same in the city,—all taste of tin. - -There is a need in the nature of man for many things,—for a wife, a -home, children, friends, and a need for winter. The wild goose feels -it, too, and no length of domesticating can tame the wild desire to fly -when the frosts begin to fall; the woodchuck feels it; carry him to the -tropics and still he will sleep as though the snows of New England lay -deep in the mouth of his burrow. The partridge’s foot broadens at the -approach of winter into a snowshoe; the ermine’s fur turns snow-white. -Winter is in their bones; it is good for them; it is health, not -disease—with snowshoes provided and snow-colored fur. - -Nature supplies her own remedies. Winter brings its own -cure,—snowshoes and snowy coats, short days and long nights, the -narrowed round, the widened view, the open fire, leisure, quiet, and -the companionship of your books, your children, your wife, your own -strange soul—here on the farm. - -Where else does it come, bringing all of this? Where else are -conditions such that all weather is good weather? The weather a man -needs? Here he is planted like his trees; his roots are in the soil; -the changing seasons are his life. He feeds upon them; works with them; -rests in them; yields to them, and finds in their cycle more than the -sum of his physical needs. - -A man lives quite without roots in a city, like some of the orchids, -hung up in the air; or oftener, like the mistletoe, rooted, but drawing -his life parasitically from some simpler, stronger, fresher life -planted far below him in the soil. There he cannot touch the earth and -feed upon life’s first sources. He knows little of any kind but bad -weather. Summer is hot, winter is nasty, spring and autumn scarcely are -at all, for they do not make him uncomfortable. The round year is four -changes of clothes—and a tank-sprinkled, snow-choked, smoke-clouded, -cobble-paved, wheel-wracked, street-scented, wire-lighted half-day, -half-night something, that is neither spring, summer, autumn, nor -winter. - -A city is a sore on the face of Nature; not a dangerous, ugly sore, -necessarily, if one can get out of it often enough and far enough, -but a sore, nevertheless, that Nature will have nothing kindly to do -with. The snows that roof my sheds with Carrara, that robe my trees -with ermine, that spread close and warm over my mowing, that call out -the sleds and the sleigh-bells, fall into the city streets as mud, as -danger on the city roofs,—as a nuisance over the city’s length and -breadth, a nuisance to be hauled off and dumped into the harbor as fast -as shovels and carts can move it. - -But you cannot dump your winter and send it off to sea. There is -no cure for winter in a tip-cart; no cure in the city. There is -consolation in the city, for there is plenty of company in the misery. -But company really means more of the misery. If life is to be endured, -if all that one can do with winter is to shovel it and suffer it, then -to the city for the winter, for there one’s share of the shoveling is -small, and the suffering there seems very evenly distributed. - -Here on the farm is neither shoveling nor suffering, no quarrel -whatever with the season. Here you have nothing to do with its coming -or going further than making preparation to welcome it and to bid it -farewell. You slide, instead, with your boys; you do up the chores -early in the short twilight, pile the logs high by the blazing chimney -and—you remember that there is to be a lecture to-night by the man who -has said it all in his book; there is to be a concert, a reception, -a club dinner, in the city, sixteen blissful miles away,—and it -is snowing! You can go if you have to. But the soft tapping on the -window-panes grows faster, the voices at the corners of the house rise -higher, shriller. You look down at your slippers, poke up the fire, -settle a little deeper into the big chair, and beg Eve to go on with -the reading. - -And she reads on— - - Shut in from all the world without, - We sat the clean-winged hearth about, - Content to let the north wind roar - In baffled rage at pane and door, - While the red logs before us beat - The frost-line back with tropic heat; - And ever, when a louder blast - Shook beam and rafter as it passed, - The merrier up its roaring draught - The great throat of the chimney laughed. - - * * * * * - - And, for the winter fireside meet, - Between the andirons’ straddling feet, - The mug of cider simmered slow, - The apples sputtered in a row, - And, close at hand, the basket stood - With nuts from brown October’s wood. - -But you will be snow-bound in the morning and cannot get to town? -Perhaps; but it happened so only twice to me in the long snowy winter -of 1904. So twice we read the poem, and twice we lived the poem, and -twice? yes, a thousand times, we were glad for a day at home that -wasn’t Sunday, for a whole long day to pop corn with the boys. - -A farm, of all human habitations, is most of a home, and never so much -of a home as in the winter when the stock and the crops are housed, -when furrow and boundary fence are covered, when earth and sky conspire -to drive a man indoors and to keep him in,—where he needs to stay for -a while and be quiet. - -No problem of city life is more serious than the problem of making in -the city a home. A habitation where you can have no garden, no barn, -no attic, no cellar, no chickens, no bees, no boys (we were allowed -_one_ boy by the janitor of our city flat), no fields, no sunset skies, -no snow-bound days, can hardly be a home. To live in the fifth flat, -at No. 6 West Seventh Street, is not to have a home. Pictures on the -walls, a fire in the grate, and a prayer in blending zephyrs over the -door for God to bless the place can scarcely make of No. 6 more than a -sum in arithmetic. There is no home environment about this fifth flat -at No. 6, just as there is none about cell No. 6, in the fifth tier of -the west corridor of the Tombs. - -The idea, the concept, home, is a house set back from the road behind -a hedge of trees, a house with a yard, with flowers, chickens, and a -garden,—a country home. The songs of home are all of country homes:— - - How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood - When fond recollection presents them to view: - - * * * * * - - The gutter, the lamp-post, the curb that ran by it, - And e’en the brass spigot that did for a well.— - -Impossible! You cannot sing of No. 6, West Seventh, fifth flight up. -And what of a home that cannot be remembered as a song! It is not a -home, but only a floor over your head, a floor under your feet, a hole -in the wall of the street, a burrow into which you are dumped by a -hoisting machine. It is warm inside; Eve is with you, and the baby, -and your books. But you do not hear the patter of the rain upon the -roof, nor the murmur of the wind in the trees; you do not see the sun -go down beyond the wooded hills, nor ever feel the quiet of the stars. -You have no largeness round about you; you are the centre of nothing; -you have no garden, no harvest, no chores,—no home! There is not room -enough about a city flat for a home, nor chores enough in city life for -a living. - -For a man’s life consisteth not in an abundance of things, but in the -particular kind and number of his chores. A chore is a fragment of real -life that is lived with the doing. All real living must be lived; it -cannot be bought or hired. And herein is another serious problem in -city life,—it is the tragedy of city life that it is so nearly all -lived for us. We hire Tom, Dick, and Harry to live it; we buy it of the -butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker. It is not so here on the -farm; for here one has the full round of life’s chores, and here, on a -professor’s salary, one may do all the chores himself. - -We may hire our praying and our thinking done for us and still live; -but not our chores. They are to the life of the spirit what breathing -and eating and sleeping are to the life of the body. Not to feed your -own horse is to miss the finest joy of having a horse,—the friendship -of the noble creature; not to “pick up” the eggs yourself, nor hoe your -own garden, nor play with your own boys! Why, what is the use of having -boys if you are never going to be “it” again, if you are not to be a -boy once more along with them! - -There are some things, the making of our clothes, perhaps, that we must -hire done for us. But clothes are not primitive and essential; they are -accidental, an adjunct, a necessary adjunct, it may be, but belonging -to a different category from children, gardens, domestic animals, and a -domestic home. And yet, how much less cloth we should need, and what a -saving, too, of life’s selvage, could we return to the spinning-wheel -and loom as we go back to the farm and the daily chores! - - She, harvest done, to char work did aspire, - Meat, drink, and twopence were her daily hire. - -And who has not known the same aspiration? has not had a longing for -mere chores, and their ample compensation? It is such a reasonable, -restful, satisfying aspiration! Harvest done! Done the work and worry -of the day! Then the twilight, and the evening chores, and the soft -closing of the door! At dawn we shall go forth again until the evening; -but with a better spirit for our labor after the fine discipline of the -morning chores. The day should start and stop in our own selves; labor -should begin and come to an end in the responsibility of the wholesome, -homely round of our own chores. - -Summer is gone, the harvest is done, and winter is passing on its -swiftest days. So swift, indeed, are the days that morning and evening -meet, bound up like a sheaf by the circle of the chores. For there is -never an end to the chores; never a time when they are all done; never -a day when the round of them is not to be done again. And herein lies -more of their virtue as a winter cure. - -Life is not busier here than elsewhere; time is not swifter, but more -enjoyable, because so much of life is left unfinished and time is -thrown so much more into the future. There is no past on the farm; it -is all to come; no sure defeat, but always promise; no settled winter, -but always the signs of coming spring. - -To-day is the first of January, snowy, brilliant, but dripping with the -sound of spring wherever the sun lies warm, and calling with the heart -of spring yonder where the crows are flocking. There is spring in the -talk of the chickadees outside my window, and in the cheerful bluster -of a red squirrel in the hickory. No bluebird has returned yet: spring -is not here, not quite, I hope, but it is coming, and so near that -I shall drop my pen and go out to the barn to put together some new -beehives, for I must have them ready for the spring. Winter! The winter -is almost gone. Why, it is barely a month since I brought my bees into -the cellar, and here I am taking them out again—in prospect. - -The hives have just come from the factory “in the flat”: sawed, planed, -dovetailed, and matched,—a delightful set of big blocks,—ready to be -nailed together. You feel a bit mean, keeping them from the children. -But the oldest of the boys is only six, and he had a walking bear -for Christmas. Besides, when you were a _little_ boy you never had -many blocks, and never a walking bear. So you keep the hives. And how -suddenly the January day goes! You hammer on into the deepening dusk, -and the chickens go to roost without their supper. You would have -hammered on all night, but the hives ran out. Five hives won’t last -very long; and you sigh as they stand finished. You could wish them all -in pieces to do over again, so smooth the stock, so fragrant the piny -smell, so accurate and nice the parts from cover to bottom board! - -Winter! with January started, and February two days short! It is all a -fiction. You had dreams of long evenings, of books and crackling fires, -and of days shut in. It still snows; there is something still left of -the nights, but not half enough, for the seed catalogues are already -beginning to arrive. - -The snow lies a foot deep over the strawberry bed and the frozen soil -where the potatoes are to be. Yet the garden grows—on paper? No, not -on paper, but in your own eager soul. The joy of a garden is as real in -January as in June. - -And so the winter goes. For if it is not the garden and the bees, it -is some of a thousand other chores that keep you busy and living past -the present,—and past the present is the spring. - -I am watching for the phœbes to return to the shed,—they are my first -birds. I long to hear the shrill piping of the March frogs, to pick -a blue hepatica from beneath the pines; for these are some of the -things, besides cheaper rent, more room, more boys, fresh air, quiet, -and a cow, that one lives for here on the farm. But I am not waiting, -winter-sick, for I have stored the summer in attic and cellar; I am -already having my spring—in prospect; and as for the actual winter, -the snow-bound days are all too few for the real winter joys of this -simple, ample life, here in the quiet, among the neighbor fields. - - - - -[Illustration] - -IV - -The Nature-Student - - -I - -I HAD made a nice piece of dissection, a pretty demonstration—for a -junior. - -“You didn’t know a dog was put together so beautifully, did you?” said -the professor, frankly enjoying the sight of the marvelous system of -nerves laid bare by the knife. “Now, see here,” he went on, eyeing me -keenly, “doesn’t a revelation like that take all the moonshine about -the ‘beauties of nature’ clean out of you?” - -I looked at the lifeless lump upon my table, and answered very -deliberately: “No, it doesn’t. That’s a fearful piece of mechanism. I -appreciate that. But what is any system of nerves or muscles—mere dead -dog—compared with the love and affection of the dog alive?” - -The professor was trying to make a biologist out of me. He had worked -faithfully, but I had persisted in a very unscientific love for live -dog. Not that I didn’t enjoy comparative anatomy, for I did. The -problem of concrescence or differentiation in the cod’s egg also was -intensely interesting to me. And so was the sight and the suggestion -of the herring as they crowded up the run on their way to the spawning -pond. The professor had lost patience. I don’t blame him. - -“Well,” he said, turning abruptly, “you had better quit. You’ll be only -a biological fifth wheel.” - -I quit. Here on my table lies the scalpel. Since that day it has only -sharpened lead pencils. - -Now a somewhat extensive acquaintance with scientific folk leads me -to believe that the attitude of my professor toward the out-of-doors -is not exceptional. The love for nature is all moonshine, all -maudlin sentiment. Even those like my professor, who have to do -with out-of-door life and conditions,—zoölogists, botanists, -geologists,—look upon naturalists, and others who love birds and -fields, as of a kind with those harmless but useless inanities who -collect tobacco tags, postage stamps, and picture postal cards. -Sentiment is not scientific. - -I have a biological friend, a professor of zoölogy, who never saw a -woodchuck in the flesh. He would not know a woodchuck with the fur on -from a mongoose. Not until he had skinned it and set up the skeleton -could he pronounce it _Arctomys monax_ with certainty. Yes, he could -tell by the teeth. Dentition is a great thing. He could tell a white -pine (_strobus_) from a pitch pine (_rigida_) by just a cone and a -bundle of needles,—one has five, the other three, to the bundle. But -he wouldn’t recognize a columned aisle of the one from a Jersey barren -of the other. That is not the worst of it: he would not see even the -aisle or the barren,—only trees. - -As we jogged along recently, on a soft midwinter day that followed a -day of freezing, my little three-year-old threw his nose into the air -and cried: “Oh, fader, I smell de pitch pines, de scraggly pines,—’ou -calls ’em Joisey pines!” And sure enough, around a double curve in the -road we came upon a single clump of the scraggly pitch pines. Our -drive had taken us through miles of the common white species. - -Did you ever smell the pitch pines when they are thawing out? It is -quite as healthful, if not as scientific, to recognize them by their -resinous breath as by their needles per bundle. - -I want this small boy some time to know the difference between these -needle bundles. But I want him to learn now, and to remember always, -that the hard days are sure to soften, and that then there oozes -from the scraggly pitch pines a balm, a piny, penetrating, purifying -balm,—a tonic to the lungs, a healing to the soul. - -All foolishness? sentiment? moonshine?—this love for woods and fields, -this need I have for companionship with birds and trees, this longing -for the feel of grass and the smell of earth? When I told my biological -friend that these longings were real and vital, as vital as the highest -problems of the stars and the deepest questions of life, he pitied me, -but made no reply. - -He sees clearly a difference between live and dead men, a difference -between the pleasure he gets from the society of his friends, and -the knowledge, interesting as it may be, which he obtains in a -dissecting-room. But he sees no such difference between live and dead -nature, nature in the fields and in the laboratory. Nature is all a -biological problem to him, not a quick thing,—a shape, a million -shapes, informed with spirit,—a voice of gladness, a mild and healing -sympathy, a companionable soul. - -“But there you go!” he exclaims, “talking poetry again. Why don’t -you deal with facts? What do you mean by nature-study, love for the -out-of-doors, anyway!” - -I do not mean a sixteen weeks’ course in zoölogy, or botany, or in -Wordsworth. I mean, rather, a gentle life course in getting acquainted -with the toads and stars that sing together, for most of us, just -within and above our own dooryards. It is a long life course in the -deep and beautiful things of living nature,—the nature we know so well -as a corpse. It is of necessity a somewhat unsystematized, incidental, -vacation-time course,—the more’s the pity. The results do not often -come as scientific discoveries. They are personal, rather; more after -the manner of revelations,—data that the professors have little faith -in. For the scientist cannot put an April dawn into a bottle, cannot -cabin a Hockomock marsh, nor cage a December storm in a laboratory. And -when, in such a place, did a scientist ever overturn a “wee bit heap o’ -weeds an’ stibble”? Yet it is out of dawns and marshes and storms that -the revelations come; yes, and out of mice nests, too, if you love all -the out-of-doors, and chance to be ploughing late in the fall. - -But there is the trouble with my professor. He never ploughs at all. -How can he understand and believe? And isn’t this the trouble with many -of our preacher poets, also? Some of them spend their summers in the -garden; but the true poet—and the naturalist—must stay later, and -they must plough, plough the very edge of winter, if they would turn up -what Burns did that November day in the field at Mossgiel. - -How amazingly fortunate were the conditions of Burns’s life! What if he -had been professor of English literature at Edinburgh University? He -might have written a life of Milton in six volumes,—a monumental work, -but how unimportant compared with the lines “To a Mouse”! - -We are going to live real life and write real poetry again,—when all -who want to live, who want to write, draw directly upon life’s first -sources. To live simply, and out of the soil! To live by one’s own -ploughing, and to write! - -Instead, how do we live? How do I live? Nine months in the year by -talking bravely about books that I have not written. Between times I -live on the farm, hoe, and think, and write,—whenever the hoeing is -done. And where is my poem to a mouse? - - Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin! - -With a whole farm o’ foggage green, and all the year before me, I am -not sure that I could build a single line of genuine poetry. But I am -certain that, in living close to the fields, we are close to the source -of true and great poetry, where each of us, at times, hears lines that -Burns and Wordsworth left unmeasured,—lines that we at least may -_live_ into song. - -Now, I have done just what my biological friend knew I would do,—made -over my course of nature-study into a pleasant but idle waiting for -inspiration. I have frankly turned poet! No, not unless Gilbert White -and Jefferies, Thoreau, Burroughs, Gibson, Torrey, and Rowland Robinson -are poets. But they are poets. We all are,—even the biologist, with -half a chance,—and in some form we are all waiting for inspiration. -The nature-lover who lives with his fields and skies simply puts -himself in the way of the most and gentlest of such inspirations. - -He may be ploughing when the spirit comes, or wandering, a mere boy, -along the silent shores of a lake, and hooting at the owls. You -remember the boy along the waters of Winander, how he would hoot at -the owls in the twilight, and they would call back to him across the -echoing lake? And when there would come a pause of baffling silence, - - Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung - Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise - Has carried far into his heart the voice - Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene - Would enter unawares into his mind - With all its solemn imagery. - -That is an inspiration, the kind of experience one has in living with -the out-of-doors. It doesn’t come from books, from laboratories, not -even from an occasional tramp afield. It is out of companionship with -nature that it comes; not often, perhaps, to any one, nor only to poets -who write. I have had such experiences, such moments of quiet insight -and uplift, while in the very narrowest of the paths of the woods. - -It was in the latter end of December, upon a gloomy day that was heavy -with the oppression of a coming storm. In the heart of the maple swamp -all was still and cold and dead. Suddenly, as out of a tomb, I heard -the small, thin cry of a tiny tree frog. And how small and thin it -sounded in the vast silences of that winter swamp! And yet how clear -and ringing! A thrill of life tingling out through the numb, nerveless -body of the woods that has ever since made a dead day for me impossible. - -That was an inspiration. I learned something, something deep and -beautiful. Had I been Burns or Wordsworth I should have written a poem -to Hyla. All prose as I am, I was, nevertheless, so quickened by that -brave little voice as to write:— - - The fields are bleak, the forests bare, - The swirling snowflakes fall - About the trees a winding-sheet, - Across the fields a pall. - - A wide, dead waste, and leaden sky, - Wild winds, and dark and cold! - The river’s tongue is frozen thick, - With life’s sweet tale half told. - - Dead! Ah, no! the white fields sleep, - The frozen rivers flow; - And summer’s myriad seed-hearts beat - Within this breast of snow. - - With spring’s first green the holly glows - And flame of autumn late,— - The embers of the summer warm - In winter’s roaring grate. - - The thrush’s song is silent now, - The rill no longer sings, - But loud and long the strong winds strike - Ten million singing strings. - - O’er mountains high, o’er prairies far, - Hark! the wild pæan’s roll! - The lyre is strung ’twixt ocean shores - And swept from pole to pole! - -My meeting with that frog in the dead of winter was no trifling -experience, nor one that the biologist ought to fail to understand. Had -I been a poet, that meeting would have been of consequence to all the -world; as I was, however, it meant something only to me,—a new point -of view, an inspiration,—a beautiful poem that I cannot write. - -This attitude of the nature-lover, because it is contemplative and -poetical, is not therefore mystical or purely sentimental. Hooting at -the owls and hearing things in baffling silences may not be scientific. -Neither is it unscientific. The attitude of the boy beside the starlit -lake is not that of Charlie, the man who helps me occasionally on the -farm. - -We were clearing up a bit of mucky meadow recently when we found a -stone just above the surface that was too large for the horse to haul -out. We decided to bury it. - -Charlie took the shovel and mined away under the rock until he struck a -layer of rather hard sandstone. He picked a while at this, then stopped -a while; picked again, rather feebly, then stopped and began to think -about it. It was hard work,—the thinking, I mean, harder than the -picking,—but Charlie, however unscientific, is an honest workman, so -he thought it through. - -“Well,” he said finally, “‘t ain’t no use, nohow. You can’t keep it -down. You bury the darned thing, and it’ll come right up. I suppose it -grows. Of course it does. It must. Everything grows.” - -Now that is an unscientific attitude. But that is not the mind of the -nature-lover, of the boy with the baffling silences along the starlit -lake. He is sentimental, certainly, yet not ignorant, nor merely -vapid. He does not always wander along the lake by night. He is a -nature-student, as well as a nature-lover, and he does a great deal -more than hoot at the owls. This, though, is as near as he comes to -anything scientific, and so worth while, according to the professor. - - -II - -And it is as near as he ought to come to reality and facts—according -to the philosopher. - -“We want only the facts of nature,” says the scientist. “Nothing in -nature is worth while,” says the philosopher, “but mood, background, -atmosphere.” - -“Nor can I recollect that my mind,” says one of our philosophers, “in -these walks, was much called away from contemplation by the petty -curiosities of the herbalist or birdlorist, for I am not one zealously -addicted to scrutinizing into the minuter secrets of nature. It never -seemed to me that a flower was made sweeter by knowing the construction -of its ovaries.... The wood thrush and the veery sing as melodiously to -the uninformed as to the subtly curious. Indeed, I sometimes think a -little ignorance is wholesome in our communion with nature.” - -So it is. Certainly if ignorance, a great deal of ignorance, were -unwholesome, then nature-study would be a very unhealthy course, -indeed. For, when the most curious of the herbalists and birdlorists -(Mr. Burroughs, say) has made his last prying peep into the private -life of a ten-acre woodlot, he will still be wholesomely ignorant of -the ways of nature. Is the horizon just back of the brook that marks -the terminus of our philosopher’s path? Let him leap across, walk on, -on, out of his woods to the grassy knoll in the next pasture, and -there look! Lo! far yonder the horizon! beyond a vaster forest than he -has known, behind a range of higher rolling hills, within a shroud of -wider, deeper mystery. - -There isn’t the slightest danger of walking off the earth; nor of -unlearning our modicum of wholesome ignorance concerning the universe. -The nature-lover may turn nature-student and have no fear of losing -nature. The vision will not fade. - -Let him go softly through the May twilight and wait at the edge of -the swamp. A voice serene and pure, a hymn, a prayer, fills all the -dusk with peace. Let him watch and see the singer, a brown-winged wood -thrush, with full, spotted breast. Let him be glad that it is not a -white-winged spirit, or a disembodied voice. And let him wonder the -more that so plain a singer knows so divine a song. - -Our philosopher mistakes his own dominant mood for the constant mood of -nature. But nature has no constant mood. No more have we. Dawn and dusk -are different moods. The roll of the prairie is unlike the temper of a -winding cowpath in a New England pasture. Nature is not always sublime, -awful, and mysterious; and no one but a philosopher is persistently -contemplative. Indeed, at four o’clock on a June morning in some old -apple orchard, even the philosopher would shout,— - - “Hence, loathèd melancholy!” - -He is in no mind for meditation; and it is just possible, before the -day is done, that the capture of a drifting seed of the dandelion and -the study of its fairy wings might so add to the wonder, if not to the -sweetness, of the flower, as to give him thought for a sermon. - -There are times when the companionship of your library is enough; there -are other times when you want a single book, a chapter, a particular -poem. It is good at times just to know that you are turning with the -earth under the blue of the sky; and just as good again to puzzle over -the size of the spots in the breasts of our several thrushes. For I -believe you can hear more in the song when you know it is the veery and -not the wood thrush singing. Indeed, I am acquainted with persons who -had lived neighbors to the veery since childhood, and never had heard -its song until the bird was pointed out to them. Then they could not -help but hear. - -No amount of familiarity will breed contempt for your fields. Is the -summer’s longest, brightest day long enough and bright enough, to -dispel the brooding mystery of the briefest of its nights? And tell me, -what of the vastness and terror of the sea will the deep dredges ever -bring to the surface, or all the circumnavigating drive to shore? The -nature-lover is a man in a particular mood; the nature-student is the -same man in another mood, as the fading shadows of the morning are the -same that lengthen and deepen in the afternoon. There are times when -he will go apart into the desert places to pray. Most of the time, -however, he will live contentedly within sound of the dinner horn, glad -of the companionship of his bluebirds, chipmunks, and pine trees. - -This is best. And the question most frequently asked me is, How can I -come by a real love for my pine trees, chipmunks, and bluebirds? How -can I know real companionship with nature? - -How did the boy along the starlit lake come by it,—a companionship so -real and intimate that the very cliffs knew him, that the owls answered -him, that even the silences spoke to him, and the imagery of his rocks -and skies became a part of the inner world in which he dwelt? Simply -by living along Winander and hallooing so often to the owls that they -learned to halloo in reply. You may need to be born again before you -can talk the language of the owls; but if there is in you any hankering -for the soil, then all you need for companionship with nature is a -Winander of your own, a range, a haunt, that you can visit, walk -around, and get home from in a day’s time. If this region can be the -pastures, woodlots, and meadows that make your own door-yard, then that -is good; especially if you buy the land and live on it, for then Nature -knows that you are not making believe. She will accept you as she -does the peas you plant, and she will cherish you as she does them. -This farm, or haunt, or range, you will come to know intimately: its -flowers, birds, walls, streams, trees,—its features large and small, -as they appear in June, and as they look in July and in January. - -For the first you will need the how-to-know books,—these while you are -getting acquainted; but soon acquaintance grows into friendship. You -are done naming things. The meanings of things now begin to come home -to you. Nature is taking you slowly back to herself. Companionship has -begun. - -Many persons of the right mind never know this friendship, because -they never realize the necessity of being friendly. They walk through -a field as they walk through a crowded street; they go into the -country as they go abroad. And the result is that all this talk of the -herbalist and birdlorist, to quote the philosopher again, seems “little -better than cant and self-deception.” - -But let the philosopher cease philosophizing (he was also a hermit), -and leave off hermiting; let him live at home with his wife and -children, like the rest of us; let him work in the city for his living, -hoe in his garden for his recreation; and then (I don’t care by -what prompting) let him study the lay of his neighbor fields, woods, -and orchards until he knows every bird and beast, every tree-hole, -earth-hole, even the times and places of the things that grow in -the ground; let him do this through the seasons of the year,—for -two or three years,—and he will know how to enjoy a woodchuck; he -will understand many of the family affairs of his chipmunks; he will -recognize and welcome back his bluebirds; he will love and often listen -to the solemn talk of his pines. - -All of this may be petty prying, not communion at all; it may be -all moonshine and sentiment, not science. But it is not cant and -self-deception,—in the hearts of thousands of simple, sufficient folk, -who know a wood thrush when they hear him, and whose woodpaths are of -their own wearing. And if it is not communion with nature, I know that -it is at least real pleasure, and rest, peace, contentment, red blood, -sound sleep, and, at times, it seems to me, something close akin to -religion. - - - - -[Illustration] - -V - -Chickadee - - -ONCE (it was a good while ago, when I was a boy), I tried to write a -poem. The first stanza ran:— - - I heard him when the reeds were young - Along a clover sea; - Above the purple waves he hung, - And o’er the fragrant waters flung - His storm of ecstasy; - -and the last stanza ran:— - - He’s left the meadows burnt and hot, - He’s left me lone and drear; - But still within the white-birch lot - Cheeps Chickadee—whom I forgot - While Bobolink was here; - -which means in plainer prose that chickadee does not sing a while in -June and then fly away and leave us. He stays the year around; he is -constant and faithful in his friendship, though I sometimes forget. - -He cannot sing with bobolink. But suppose I could have only one of -the birds? As it is, I get along for more than half the year without -bobolink, but what would my out-of-doors be without chickadee? There is -not a single day in the year that I cannot find him, no matter how hot, -or cold, how hard it rains or snows. Often he is the only voice in all -the silent woods, the only spark of life aglow in all my frozen winter -world. - -I was crunching along through the January dusk toward home. The cold -was bitter. A half-starved partridge had just risen from the road and -fluttered off among the naked bushes,—a moment of sound, a bit of life -vanishing in the winter night of the woods. I knew the very hemlock -in which he would roost; but what were the thick, snow-bent boughs of -his hemlock, and what were all his winter feathers in such a night as -this?—this vast of sweeping winds and frozen snow! - -The road dipped from the woods into a meadow, where the winds were -free. The cold was driving, numbing here with a power for death that -the thermometer could not mark. I backed into the wind and hastened on -toward the double line of elms that arched the road in front of the -house. Already I could hear them creak and rattle like things of glass. -It was not the sound of life. Nothing was alive; for what could live in -this long darkness and fearful cold? - -Could live? The question was hardly thought, when an answer was whirled -past me into the nearest of the naked elms. A chickadee! He caught for -an instant on a dead limb over the road, scrambled along to its broken -tip, and whisked over into a hole that ran straight down the centre of -the stub, down, for I don’t know how far. - -I stopped. The stub lay out upon the wind, with only an eddy of the -gale sucking at the little round hole in the broken end, while far down -in its hollow heart, huddling himself into a downy, dozy ball for the -night, was the chickadee. I know by the very way he struck the limb and -turned in that he had been there before. He knew whither, across the -sweeping meadows, he was being blown. He had even helped the winds as -they whirled him, for he had tarried along the roads till late. But he -was safe for the night now, in the very bed, it may be, where he was -hatched last summer, and where at this moment, who knows, were half a -dozen other chickadees, the rest of that last summer’s brood, unscathed -still, and still sharing the old home hollow, as snug and warm this -bitter night as in the soft May days when they were nestlings here -together. - -The cold drove me on; but the chickadee had warmed me and all my naked -world of night and death. And so he ever does. The winter has yet to be -that drives him seeking shelter to the south. I never knew it colder -than in January and February of 1904. During both of those months, -morning and evening, I drove through a long mile of empty, snow-buried -woods. For days at a time I would not see even a crow, but morning and -evening, at a certain dip in the road, two chickadees would fly from -bush to bush across the hollow and cheer me on the way. They came out -to the road, really, to pick up whatever scanty crumbs were to be found -in my wake. They came also to hear me, to see me pass,—to escape for a -moment, I think, the silence, desertion, and death of the woods. They -helped me to escape, too. - -Four other chickadees, all winter long, ate with us, sharing, as far -as the double windows would allow, the cheer of our dining-room. We -served them on the lilac bush outside the window, tying their suet on -so that they could see us and we them during meal time. Perhaps it was -mere suet, no feast of soul at all, that they got; but constantly, when -our pie was opened, the birds began to sing,—a dainty dish indeed, -savory, wholesome, and good for our souls. - -There are states in the far Northwest where the porcupine is protected -by law, as a last food resource for men lost and starving in the -forests. Perhaps the porcupine was not designed by nature for any such -purpose. Perhaps chickadee was not left behind by summer to feed our -lost and starving hope through the cheerless months. But that is the -use I make of him. He is summer’s pledge to me. The woods are hollow, -the winds chill, the earth cold and stiff, but there flits chickadee, -and—I cannot lose faith, nor feel that this procession of bleak white -days is all a funeral! - -He is the only bird in my little world that I can find without fail -three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. From December to the end -of March he comes daily to my lilac bush for suet; from April to early -July he is busy with domestic cares in the gray birches of the woodlot; -from August to December he and his family come hunting quietly and -sociably as a little flock among the trees and bushes of the farm; and -from then on he is back for his winter meals at “The Lilac.” - -Is it any wonder that he was the first bird I ever felt personally -acquainted with, and the first bird my children knew? That early -acquaintance, however, was not due to his abundance and intrusion, as -it might be with the English sparrow, but rather due to the cheerful, -confiding, sociable spirit of the little bird. He drops down and peeps -under your hat-brim to see what manner of boy you are, and if you -are really fit to be abroad in this world, so altogether good—for -chickadees. - -He has a mission to perform besides the eating of eggs and grubs of -the pestiferous insects. This destruction he does that the balance of -things may be maintained out of doors. He has quite another work to -do, which is not economic, and which, in nowise, is a matter of fine -feathers or sweet voice, but simply a matter of sweet nature, vigor, -and concentrated cheerfulness. - -I said he is summer’s pledge, the token of hope to me. He is a lesson -also. I don’t often find sermons in stones, because, no doubt, I -look so little for the sermons, so little for the very stones. But I -cannot help seeing chickadee,—and chickadee is all sermon. I hear -him on a joyous May morning calling _Chick-a-dee! dee! Chick-a-dee! -dee!_—brisk, bright, and cheery; or, soft and gentle as a caress, he -whistles, _Phœ-ee-bee! Phœ-ee-bee!_ I meet him again on the edge of -a bleak, midwinter night. He is hungry and cold, and he calls, as I -hasten along, _Chick-a-dee! dee! Chick-a-dee! dee!_—brisk, bright, -and cheery; or, soft and gentle as a caress, he whistles, _Phœ-ee-bee! -Phœ-ee-bee!_ - -Will you lend me your wings, chickadee, those invisible wings on which -you ride the winds of life so evenly? For I would hang my ill-balanced -soul between them, as your bird soul hangs, and fly as you fly. - -The abundant summer, the lean and wolfish winter, find chickadee -cheerful and gentle. He is busier at some seasons than at others, with -fewer chances for friendship. He almost disappears in the early summer. -But this is because of family cares; and because the bigger, louder -birds have come back, and the big leaves have come out and hidden him. -A little searching, and you will discover him, in one of your old -decayed fence posts, maybe, or else deep in the swamp, foraging for a -family so numerous that they spill over at the door of their home. - -Here about the farm, this is sure to be a gray birch home. Other trees -will do—on a pinch. I have found chickadee nesting in live white oaks, -maples, upturned roots, and tumbling fence posts. These were shifts, -however, mere houses, not real homes. The only good homelike trees are -old gray birches dead these many years and gone to punk,—mere shells -of tough circular bark walls. - -Why has chickadee this very decided preference? Is it a case of -protective coloration,—the little gray and black bird choosing to nest -in this little gray and black tree because bird and tree so exactly -match each other in size and color? Or (and there are many instances -in nature) is there a subtle strain of poetry in chickadee’s soul, -something æsthetic, that leads him into this exquisite harmony,—into -this little gray house for his little gray self? - -Explain it as you may, it is a fact that this little bird shows a -marked preference, makes deliberate choice, and in his choice is -protection, and poetry, too. Doubtless he follows the guidance of a -sure and watchful instinct (whatever instinct be), but who shall deny -to him a share of the higher, finer things of the imagination? a share -of real æsthetic taste? - -His life inside the birch is of a piece with the artistic exterior. -It is all gentle and sweet and idyllic. There is no happier spot in -the summer woods than that about the birch of the chickadees; and none -whose happiness you will be so little liable to disturb. - -Before the woods were in leaf one spring I found a pair of chickadees -building in a birch along the edge of the swamp. They had just begun, -having dug out only an inch of cavity. It was very interesting to -discover them doing the work themselves, for usually they refit some -abandoned chamber or adapt a ready-made hole. - -The birch was a long, limbless cylinder of bark, broken off about -fourteen feet up, and utterly rotten, the mere skin of a tree stuffed -with dust. I could push my finger into it at any point. It was so weak -that every time the birds lighted upon the top the whole stub wobbled -and reeled. Surely they were building their house upon the sand. Any -creature without wings would have known that. Birds, however, seem to -have lost the sense of such insecurity, often placing their nests as if -they expected them also to take wings and fly to safety when the rains -descend and the winds come. - -This shaking stub of the chickadees was standing directly beneath a -great overshadowing pine, where, if no partridge bumped into it, if two -squirrels did not scamper up it together, if the crows nesting overhead -did not discover it, if no strong wind bore down upon it from the -meadow side, it might totter out the nesting season. But it didn’t. The -birds were leaving too much to luck. I knew it, and should have pushed -their card house down, then and there, and saved the greater ruin -later. Perhaps so, but I was too interested in their labor. - -Both birds were working when I discovered them, and so busily that my -coming up did not delay them for a single billful. It was not hard -digging, but it was very slow, for chickadee is neither carpenter nor -mason. He has difficulty in killing a hard-backed beetle. So, whenever -you find him occupying a clean-walled cavity, with a neat, freshly -clipped doorway, you may be sure that some woodpecker built the house, -not this short-billed, soft-tailed little tit. He lacks both the -bill-chisel and the tail-brace. Perhaps the explanation of his fondness -for birch trees lies here: they die young and soon decay. - -The birds were going down through the top, not by a hole in the -leathery rind of the sides, for the bark would have been too tough for -their beaks. They would drop into the top of the stub, pick up a wad -of decayed wood, and fly off to the dead limb of the pine. Here, with -a jerk and a snap of their bills, they would scatter the stuff in a -shower so thin and far around that I could neither hear it fall nor -find a trace of it upon the dead leaves of the ground. This nest would -never be betrayed by the workmen’s chips. - -Between the pair there averaged three beakfuls of excavating every two -minutes, one of the birds regularly shoveling twice to the other’s -once. They looked so exactly alike that I could not tell which bird was -pushing the enterprise; but I have my suspicions. - -There is nothing so superior about his voice or appearance that he -should thus shirk. He was doing part of his duty, apparently, but it -was half-hearted work. Hers was the real interest, the real anxiety; -and hers the initiative. To be a male and show off! That’s the thing. -To be a male and let your wife carry the baby! The final distinctive -difference between a truly humanized, civilized man and all other males -of every order, is a willingness to push the baby carriage. - -The finer the feathers or the song among male birds the less use they -are in practical, domestic ways. Fine beaux, captivating lovers, they -become little else than a nuisance as husbands. One of my friends has -been watching a pair of bluebirds building. The male sat around for -a week without bringing in a feather. Then one day he was seen to -enter the hole, after his busy mate had just left it, and carry out a -beakful of grass which he scattered to the winds in pure perversity, -criticising her bungling work, maybe! More likely he was jealous. - -Chickadee was no such precious fool as that. He was doing something; -trying to drown his regret for the departing honeymoon in hard labor, -not, however, to the danger of his health. - -I sat a long time watching the work. It went on in perfect silence, not -a chirp, not the sound of a fluttering wing. The swamp along whose -margin the birds were building had not a joyous atmosphere. Damp, -dim-shadowed, and secret, it seemed to have laid its spell upon the -birds. Their very gray and black was as if mixed of the dusk, and of -the gray, half-light of the swamp; their noiseless coming and going was -like the slipping to and fro of shadows. They were a part of it all, -and that sharing was their defense, the best defense they knew. - -It didn’t save their nest, however. They felt and obeyed the spirit of -the swamp in their own conduct, but the swamp did not tell them where -to build. It was about three weeks later that I stopped again under the -pine and found the birch stub in pieces upon the ground. Some robber -had been after the eggs and had brought the whole house tumbling down. -This is not the fate of all such birch-bark houses. Now and again they -escape; but it is always a matter for wonder. - -I was following an old disused wood road once when I scared a robin -from her nest. Her mate joined her, and together they raised a great -hubbub. Immediately a chewink, a pair of vireos, and two black and -white warblers joined the robins in their din. Then a chickadee -appeared. He (I say “he” knowingly; and here he quite redeems himself) -had a worm in his beak. His anxiety seemed so real that I began to -watch him, when, looking down among the stones for a place to step, -what should I see but his mate emerging from the end of a birch stump -at my very feet. She had heard the din and had come out to see what it -was all about. At sight of her, he hastened with his worm, brushing my -face, almost, as he darted to her side. She took it sweetly, for she -knew he had intended it for her. But how do I know that? Perhaps he -meant it for the young! There were no young in the nest, only eight -eggs. Even after the young came (there were eight of them!), and when -life, from daylight to dark, was one ceaseless, hurried hunt for worms, -I saw him over and over again fly to her side caressingly and tempt her -to eat. - -The house of this pair did not fall. How could it when it stood -precisely two and a half feet from the ground! But that it wasn’t -looted is due to the sheer audacity of its situation. It stood alone, -against the road, so close that the hub of a low wheel in passing might -have knocked it down. Perhaps a hundred persons had brushed it in going -by. How many dogs and cats had overlooked it no one can say, nor how -many skunks and snakes and squirrels. The accident that discovered it -to me happened apparently to no one else, and I was friendly. - -Cutting a tiny window in the bark just above the eggs, I looked in upon -the little people every day. I watched them grow and fill the cavity -and hang over at the top. I was there the day they forced my window -open, the day when there was no more room at the top, and when, at the -call of their parents, one after another of this largest and sweetest -of bird families found his wings and flew away through the woods. - - - - -[Illustration] - -VI - -The Missing Tooth - - -THE snow had melted from the river meadows, leaving them flattened, -faded, and stained with mud,—a dull, dreary waste in the gray -February. I had stopped beside a tiny bundle of bones that lay in the -matted grass a dozen feet from a ditch. Here, still showing, was the -narrow path along which the bones had dragged themselves; there the -hole by which they had left the burrow in the bank of the ditch. They -had crawled out in this old runway, then turned off a little into the -heavy autumn grass and laid them down. The rains had come and the -winter snows. The spring was breaking now, and the small bundle, gently -loosened and uncovered, was whitening on the wide, bare meadow. - -I had recognized the bones at once as the skeleton of a muskrat. It was -something peculiar in the way they lay that had caused me to pause. -They seemed outstretched, as if composed by gentle hands, the hands of -Sleep. They had not been flung down. The delicate ribs had fallen in, -but not a bone was broken or displaced, not one showed the splinter -of shot, or the crack that might have been made by a steel trap. No -violence had been done them. They had been touched by nothing rougher -than the snow. Out into the hidden runway they had crept. Death had -passed them here; but no one else in all the winter months. - -The creature had died—a “natural” death. It had starved, while a -hundred acres of plenty lay round about. Picking up the skull, I found -the jaws locked together as if they were a single solid bone. One of -the two incisor teeth of the upper jaw was missing, and apparently had -never developed. The opposite tooth on the lower jaw, thus unopposed -and so unworn, had grown beyond its normal height up into the empty -socket above, then on, turning outward and piercing the cheek-bone in -front of the eye, whence, curving like a boar’s tusk, it had slowly -closed the jaws and locked them, rigid, set, as fixed as jaws of stone. - -Death had lingered cruelly. At first the animal had been able to gnaw; -but as the tooth curved through the bones of the face and gradually -tightened the jaws, the creature got less and less to eat, until, one -day, creeping out of the burrow for food, the poor wretch was unable to -get back. - -One seldom comes upon the like of this. It is commoner than we think; -but it is usually hidden away and quickly over. How often do we see -a wild thing sick,—a bird or animal suffering from an accident, or -dying, like this muskrat, because of some physical defect? The struggle -between two lives for life—the falling of the weak as prey to the -strong—is ever before us; but this single-handed fight between the -creature and Nature is a far rarer, silenter tragedy. Nature is too -swift, too merciless to allow us time for sympathy. It was she who -taught the old Roman to take away his weak and malformed offspring and -expose it on the hills. - -There is, at best, scarcely a fighting chance in the meadow. Only -strength and craft may win. The muskrat with the missing tooth never -enters the race at all. He slinks from some abandoned burrow, and, -if the owl and mink are not watching, dies alone in the grass, and we -rarely know. - -I shall never forget the impression made upon me by those quiet bones. -It was like that made by my first visit to a great city hospital,—out -of the busy, cheerful street into a surgical ward, where the sick and -injured lay in long white lines. We tramp the woods and meadows and -never step from the sweet air and the pure sunlight of health into a -hospital. But that is not because no sick, ill-formed, or injured are -there. The proportion is smaller than among us humans, and for very -good reasons, yet there is much real suffering, and to come upon it, -as we will, now and then, must certainly quicken our understanding and -deepen our sympathy with the life out of doors. - -No sensible person could for a moment believe the animals capable -of suffering as a human being can suffer, or that there is any such -call for our sympathy from them as from our human neighbors. But an -unselfish sharing of the life of the fields demands that we take part -in all of it,—and all of it is but little short of tragedy. Nature -wears a brave face. Her smile is ever in the open, her laughter quick -and contagious. This brave front is no mask. It is real. Sunlight, -song, color, form, and fragrance are real. And so our love and joy in -Nature is real. Real, also, should be our love and sorrow with Nature. -For do I share fully in as much of her life as even the crow lives as -long as I think of the creature only with admiration for his cunning or -with wrath for his destruction of my melons and corn? - -A crow has his solemn moments. He frequently knows fear, pain, hunger, -accident, and disease; he knows something very like affection and love. -For all that, he is a mere crow. But a mere crow is no mean thing. Few -of us, indeed, are ourselves, and as much besides as a mere crow. A -real love, however, will give us part in all of his existence. We will -forage and fight with him; we will parley and play; and when the keen -north winds find him in the frozen pines, we will suffer, too. - -With Nature as mere waters, fields, and skies, it is, perhaps, -impossible for us to sorrow. She is too self-sufficient, too -impersonal. She asks, or compels, everything except tears. But when she -becomes birds and beasts,—a little world of individuals among whom -you are only one of a different kind,—then all the others, no matter -their kind, are earth-born companions and fellow mortals. - -Here are the meadow voles. I know that my hay crop is shorter every -year for them,—a very little shorter. And I can look with satisfaction -at a cat carrying a big bobtailed vole out of my mowing. The voles are -rated, along with other mice, as injurious to man. I have an impulse to -plant both of my precious feet upon every one that stirs in its runway. - -If that feeling was habitual once, it is so no longer; for now it is -only when the instincts of the farmer get the better of me that I -spring at this quiet stir in the grass. Perhaps, long ago, my forbears -wore claws, like pussy; and, perhaps (there isn’t the slightest doubt), -I should develop claws if I continued to jump at every mouse in the -grass because he is a mouse, and because I have a little patch of mucky -land in hay. - -One day I came upon two of my voles struggling in the water. They were -exhausted and well-nigh dead. I helped them out as I should have helped -out any other creature, and having saved them, why, what could I do -but let them go—even into my own meadow? This has happened several -times. - -When the drought dries the meadow, the voles come to the deep, walled -spring at the upper end, apparently to drink. The water usually -trickles over the curb, but in a long dry spell it shrinks a foot or -more below the edge, and the voles, once within for their drink, cannot -get out. Time and time again I had fished them up, until I thought to -leave a board slanting down to the water, so that they could climb back -to the top. - -It is stupid and careless to drown thus. The voles are blunderers. -White-footed mice and house mice are abundant in the stumps and grass -of the vicinity, but they never tumble into the spring. Still, I am -partly responsible for the voles, for I walled up the spring and -changed it into this trap. I owe them the drink and the plank, for -certainly there are rights of mice, as well as of men, in this meadow -of mine, where I do little but mow. But even if they have no rights, -surely - - A daimen icker in a thrave - ’S a sma’ request - -for such of them as the foxes, cats, skunks, snakes, hawks, and owls -leave! Rights or no, hay or no, I don’t jump at _my_ meadow mice any -more, for fear of killing one who has taken a cup of cold water from -me off the plank, or has had my helping hand out of the depths of the -spring. - -It is wholesome to be the good Samaritan to a meadow mouse, to pour -out, even waste, a little of the oil and wine of sympathy on the -humblest of our needy neighbors. - -Here are the chimney swallows. One can look with complacency, with -gratitude, indeed, upon the swallows of other chimneys, as they hawk -in the sky; yet, when the little creatures, so useful, but so uncombed -and unfumigated, set up their establishments in _your_ chimney, to the -jeopardy of the whole house, then you need an experience like mine. - -I had had a like experience years before, when the house did not belong -to me. Now, however, the house was mine, and if it became infested -because of the swallows, I could not move away; so I felt like burning -them in the chimney, bag and baggage. There were four nests, as -nearly as I could make out, and, from the frequent squeakings, I knew -they were all filled with young. Then one day, when the birds were -feathered and nearly ready to fly, there came a rain that ran wet far -down the sooty chimney, loosened the mortar of the nests, and sent them -crashing into the fireplace. - -Some of the young birds were killed outright; the others were at my -mercy, flung upon me,—helpless, wailing infants! Of course I made it -comfortable for them on the back-log, and let their mothers flutter -down unhindered to feed them. Had I understood the trick, I would have -hawked for them and helped feed them myself. - -They made a great thunder in the chimney; they rattled down into the -living-room a little soot; but nothing further came of it. We were not -quarantined. On the contrary, we had our reward, according to promise; -for it was an extremely interesting event to us all. It dispelled some -silly qualms, it gave us intimate part in a strange small life, so -foreign, yet so closely linked to our own, and it made us pause with -wonder that even our empty, sooty chimney could be made use of by -Nature to our great benefit. - -I wonder if the nests of the chimney swallows came tumbling down when -the birds used to build in caves and hollow trees? It is a most -extraordinary change, this change from the trees to the chimneys, -and it does not seem to have been accompanied by an increase of -architectural wisdom necessary to meet all the contingencies of the -new hollow. The mortar or glue, which, I imagine, held firmly in the -empty trees, will not mix with the chimney soot, so that the nest, -especially when crowded with young, is easily loosened by the rain, and -is sometimes even broken away by the slight wing-stroke of a descending -swallow, or by the added weight of a parent bird as it settles with -food. - -We little realize how frequent fear is among the birds and animals, -nor how often it proves fatal. A situation which would have caused -no trouble ordinarily, becomes through sudden fright a tangle or a -trap. I have known many a quail to bolt into a fast express train and -fall dead. Last winter I left the large door of the barn open, so -that my flock of juncos could feed inside upon the floor. They found -their way into the hayloft, and went up and down freely. On two or -three occasions I happened in so suddenly that they were thoroughly -frightened, and flew madly into the cupola to escape through the -windows. They beat against the glass until utterly dazed, and would -have perished there, had I not climbed up later and brought them down. -So thousands of the migrating birds perish yearly by flying wildly -against the dazzling lanterns of the lighthouses, and thousands more -lose their way in the thick darkness of the stormy nights, or are blown -out of their course, and drift away to sea. - -Hasty, careless, miscalculated movements are not as frequent among the -careful wild folk as among us, perhaps; but there is abundant evidence -of their occasional occurrence and of their sometimes fatal results. - -Several instances are recorded of birds that have been tangled in the -threads of their nests; and one case of a bluebird that was caught in -the flying meshes of an oriole’s nest into which it had been spying. - -I once found the mummied body of a chippy twisting and swinging in the -leafless branches of a peach tree. The little creature was suspended in -a web of horsehair about two inches below the nest. It looked as if she -had brought a snarled bunch of the hair and left it loose in the twigs. -Later on, a careless step and her foot was fast, when every frantic -effort for freedom only tangled her the worse. In the nest above were -four other tiny mummies,—a double tragedy that might with care have -been averted. - -A similar fate befell a song sparrow that I discovered hanging dead -upon a barbed-wire fence. By some chance it had slipped a foot through -an open place between the two twisted strands, and then, fluttering -along, had wedged the leg and broken it in the struggle to escape. - -We have all held our breath at the hazardous traveling of the squirrels -in the treetops. What other animals take such risks,—leaping at dizzy -heights from bending limbs to catch the tips of limbs still smaller, -saving themselves again and again by the merest chance. - -But luck sometimes fails. My brother, a careful watcher in the woods, -was hunting on one occasion, when he saw a gray squirrel miss its -footing in a tree and fall, breaking its neck upon a log beneath. - -I have frequently known them to fall short distances, and once I saw -a red squirrel come to grief like the gray squirrel above. He was -scurrying through the tops of some lofty pitch pines, a little hurried -and flustered at sight of me, and nearing the end of a high branch was -in the act of springing, when the dead tip cracked under him and he -came tumbling headlong. The height must have been forty feet, so that -before he reached the ground he had righted himself,—his tail out and -legs spread,—but the fall was too great. He hit the earth with a dull -thud, and before I could reach him lay dead upon the needles, with -blood oozing from his eyes and nostrils. - -Unhoused and often unsheltered, the wild things suffer as we hardly yet -understand. No one can estimate the deaths of a year from severe cold, -heavy storms, high winds and tides. I have known the nests of a whole -colony of gulls and terns to be swept away in a great storm; and I have -seen the tides, over and over, flood the inlet marshes, and drown out -the nests in the grass,—those of the clapper-rails by thousands. - -I remember a late spring storm that came with the returning redstarts -and, in my neighborhood, killed many of them. Toward evening of that -day one of the little black and orange voyageurs fluttered against the -window and we let him in, wet, chilled, and so exhausted that for a -moment he lay on his back in my open palm. Soon after there was another -soft tapping at the window,—and two little redstarts were sharing our -cheer and drying their butterfly wings in our warmth. - -During the summer of 1903 one of the commonest of the bird calls about -the farm was the whistle of the quails. A covey roosted down the -hillside within fifty yards of the house. Then came the winter,—such -a winter as the birds had never known. Since then, just once have we -heard the whistle of a quail, and that, perhaps, was the call of one -which a game protective association had liberated in the woods about -two miles away. - -The birds and animals are not as weather-wise as we; they cannot -foretell as far ahead nor provide as certainly against need, despite -the popular notion to the contrary. - -We point to the migrating birds, to the muskrat houses, and the -hoards of the squirrels, and say, “How wise and far-sighted these -nature-taught children are!” True, they are, but only for conditions -that are normal. Their wisdom does not cover the exceptional. The gray -squirrels did not provide for the unusually hard weather of the winter -of 1904. Three of them from the woodlot came begging of me, and lived -on my wisdom, not on their own. - -Consider the ravens, that neither sow nor reap, that have neither -storehouse nor barn, yet they are fed,—but not always. Indeed, there -are few of our winter birds that go hungry so often, and that die in so -great numbers for lack of food and shelter, as the crows. - -After severe and protracted cold, with a snow-covered ground, a -crow-roost looks like a battlefield, so thick lie the dead and wounded. -Morning after morning the flock goes over to forage in the frozen -fields, and night after night returns hungrier, weaker, and less able -to resist the cold. Now, as the darkness falls, a bitter wind breaks -loose and sweeps down upon the pines. - - List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle, - I thought me on the owrie cattle, - -and how often I have thought me on the crows biding the night yonder in -the moaning pines! So often, as a boy, and with so real an awe, have I -watched them returning at night, that the crows will never cease flying -through my wintry sky,—an endless line of wavering black figures, -weary, retreating figures, beating over in the early dusk. - -To-night another wild storm sweeps across the January fields. All the -afternoon the crows have been going over, and at five o’clock are still -passing though the darkness settles rapidly. Now it is eight, and the -long night is but just begun. The storm is increasing. The wind shrieks -about the house, whirling the fine snow in hissing eddies past the -corners and driving it on into long, curling crests across the fields. -I can hear the roar as the wind strikes the shoal of pines where the -fields roll into the woods,—a vast surf sound, but softer and higher, -with a wail like the wail of some vast heart in pain. - -I can see the tall trees rock and sway with their burden of dark forms. -As close together as they can crowd on the bending limbs cling the -crows, their breasts turned all to the storm. With crops empty and -bodies weak, they rise and fall in the cutting, ice-filled wind for -thirteen hours of night! - -Is it a wonder that the life fires burn low? that the small flames -flicker and go out? - - - - -[Illustration] - -VII - -The Sign of the Shad-bush - - -THE shad-bush is open! My bees have seen the sign. They are dropping -down upon the alighting-boards of their hives and running with little -bags of gold into the still half-closed entrances. During the sunny -hours of the last three weeks there has been a quiet buzzing about the -hives: the bees have been visiting the early alders, the soft maples, -and the dusty-catkined willows; but not before to-day, the first day of -the blowing shad-bush, have things been busy at the hives,—have they -hummed. - -Off along the meadows I can see large patches of garnet against the -purple of the sky,—the bloom of the red maples. As I approach, a soft -murmur around and through the misty garnet fills the air, like the -murmur of a million tiny tongues. Nearer still, and I can see the -bees. Here is where they are getting their gold. But not all of it. -Some of it to-day is coming from the marsh marigolds. - -Early in April, before the shad-bush had opened, or a bee had ventured -to the meadows, I picked the first hardy blossom of the marigolds -out of icy water, out of mud that had barely thawed. A token this, a -promise; but not the sure sign of spring. The bees did not see it; -they were waiting, like me, for the shad-bush. So were the marigolds, -for to-day the low, wet edge of the meadow ditch is all aglow with the -shining of their gold, which the bees are pocketing by the thighful. -Among the “flowers,” the marigolds are the first here to offer a -harvest for the hives. - -The procession is under way. The assembling began weeks ago, with the -March hepatica, the stray April arbutus, windflower, spice-bush, and -bloodroot. There were saxifrage and everlasting out, too; but they -all came singly and timidly. There was no movement of the flowers -until the shad-bush opened. Now the marigolds appear in companies, the -windflowers drift together, and the hepaticas, leading the line, make a -show. The procession of the flowers has started; spring is here. - -_My_ spring, I should have said. Your spring came long ago, perhaps, or -still delays. “The dandelion tells me when to look for the swallow, the -dog-tooth violet when to expect the wood thrush, and when I have found -the wake-robin in bloom I know the season is fairly inaugurated. With -me this flower is associated, not merely with the awakening of Robin, -for he has been awake some weeks, but with the universal awakening and -rehabilitation of Nature.” - -I watch for the sign of the shad-bush. Spring! There is the smell of -spring in the yellow spice-bush; the sound of spring in the trills of -the hylas; the color of spring in the blue of the hepatica. A February -rain spatters your face with spring; the wild geese trumpet spring in -the gray skies as they pass; the bluebird brings spring in spite of -your fears and the weather:— - - All white and still lie stream and hill— - The winter cold and drear! - When from the skies, a bluebird flies - And—spring is here! - -True enough. But then suddenly the bluebird disappears; a heavy -snowstorm sets in (as happened not many springs ago), and thousands of -the birds perish. Spring was here. It has gone again. And so it will -come and go until the shad-bush blooms—for me. - -You will not miss one of the returning birds, not even the wild geese; -not one of the early flowers, either, by waiting for the shad-bush. -The skunk-cabbage and pussy-willow are still in blossom; and still in -the woods and fields is the smell of the soil,—that fragrance, that -essence which is the breath of the wakening earth. You can yet taste -it on the lips of the hepatica, the arbutus, and bloodroot. It still -lingers on the early catkins, too,—a strangely rare and delicate odor, -that is not of the flowers at all, but of the earth, and sweeter than -any perfume that the summer can distill. - -It has been a slow, unwilling season until to-day, so slow that the -green still shows richest in the sheltered meadows, and the lively -color on the rocky slope that runs up from my tiny river is largely -the color of mosses and Christmas ferns. Here is a stretch of southern -exposure, however, and here are spots where springtime came weeks ago. -Already the dog-tooth violets are out in a sunny saucer between the -rocks; just above them, on an unshaded shelf, is a patch of saxifrage, -and close at hand among the clefts, their “honey pitcher upside down,” -swing the first of my columbines. - -Yet Spring does not come thus by spots; she does not crawl out and sun -herself like a lizard. The columbine seeks the sun, but the hepaticas -came up and opened their exquisite eyes in the deepest, dampest shadows -of the woods. I have seen them and the lingering snowdrifts together. -Many of them are never touched with a sunbeam, their warmth and life -coming from within, from a store saved through the winter, rather than -from without. Here under the mat of fallen leaves and winter snow they -have kept enough of the summer to make a spring. - -The fires of summer are never out. They are only banked in the winter, -smouldering always under the snow, and quick to brighten and burst -into blaze. There came a warm day in January, and across my thawing -path crawled a woolly bear caterpillar, a vanessa butterfly flitted -through the woods, and the juncos sang. That night a howling snowstorm -swept out of the north. The coals were covered again. So they kindled -and darkened, until to-day they leap from the ashes of winter, a pure, -thin blaze in the shad-bush, to burn higher and hotter across the -summer, to flicker and die away, a line of yellow embers in the weird -witch-hazel of the autumn. - -At the sign of the shad-bush the doors of my springtime swing wide -open. My birds are back, my turtles are out, my squirrels and -woodchucks show themselves, my garden is ready to plough and plant. -There is not a stretch of woodland or meadow now that shows a trace of -winter. Over the pasture the bluets are beginning to drift, as if the -haze, on the distant hills, floating down in the night, had been caught -in the dew-wet grass. They wash the field to its borders in their -delicate azure hue. - -Along with the bluets (“innocence” we should always call them), under -the open sky, there unroll in the wet shaded bottoms of the maple -swamps the pointed arum leaves of the Jacks, or Indian turnips. How -they fight for room! There are patches where all the pews are pulpits, -with some of the preachers standing three deep. - -Now why should there be such a scramble for place among the Jacks, -while just above them in the dry woods the large showy lady’s-slipper -opens in isolated splendor? Here is one, yonder another, with room -between for a thousand. Occasionally you will see a dozen together, -though not in a crowd; but more often the solitary blossom opens alone -and far removed from any of its kind. - -The lady’s-slippers, however, are really social compared with the -arbutus. Here is a flower that is naturally tribal,—bound together by -common root-stalks, trailing shrubby plants that seem free to possess -the earth. They were doubtless here in the soil before the Pilgrim -came. The angels planted them, I am sure, for they smell of a celestial -garden. The paths of heaven are carpeted with them, not paved with -gold. But something is the matter with this earthly soil. They grow -just where they were originally planted and nowhere else. There was a -patch set in the woods three quarters of a mile, as the crow flies, -from my front door. That was several millenniums ago. It is there -still, a patch as big as my hat. There are other scattered bits of it -beyond, but none any nearer to me, yet the soil seems the same, and -there are woods all the way between. - -Were it as common as the violet, perhaps some of its sweetness would -be lost upon us. After all, the heavenly streets may be paved with -gold, and instead of a carpet of arbutus, we shall find patches of -it only, hidden away under the fallen leaves of the Elysian groves. -For we shall need to get out of even the celestial city into the open -fields and woods, and I can think of nothing so likely to draw us away -from our mansions and beyond the pearly gates as the chance to go -“May-flowering.” - -And, even here below, among the unransomed souls of Boston, when -Mayflower-time arrives, you may see young men and maidens, children -and grandfathers, trooping out to the woods for a handful of the -flowers. And up from the Cape, to those who cannot go into the woods, -the flowers, themselves, come,—tight, naked bunches, stripped of -all but the pink of their faces and the sweet of their souls. They -possess every quarter of the city. Jew and Gentile sell them, Greek and -Barbarian buy them, as they buy and sell no other wild flower. - -Why, then, is it not the arbutus, instead of the shad-bush, that spells -for me the spring? I don’t know; unless it is because the shad-bush -takes deeper hold upon my imagination. It certainly is not its form, -or color, or fragrance,—though it has grace,—an airy, misty, -half-substantial shape, a wraith in the leafless woods; it has odor, -too, and color. But it is something more than all of these that the -soft blowing shad-bush means to me. Perhaps the something is in its -name,—because it links my inland round with the round of the sea; and -because it links this present narrowing round with the wide-winging -round of the past. - -At the sign of the shad-bush I know the fish are running,—the sturgeon -up the Delaware; the shad into Cohansey Creek; and through Five-Forks -Sluice, these soft, stirring nights, I know the catfish are slipping. -Is there any boy now in Lupton’s Meadows to watch them come? to listen -in the moonlit quiet for the _splash_, _splash_, as the fish pass up -through the main ditch toward the dam? - -At the sign of the shad-bush how swiftly the tides of life rise! -how mysteriously their currents run! drifting, flying, flowing, -creeping—colors, perfumes, forms, and voices—across the heavens, over -the earth, and down the deep, dim aisles of the sea! and down the deep, -dim aisles of our memories. - - - - -[Illustration] - -VIII - -The Nature Movement - - -I WAS hurrying across Boston Common. Two or three hundred others were -hurrying with me. But ahead, at the union of several paths, was a -crowd, standing still. I kept hurrying on, not to join the crowd, but -simply to keep up the hurry. The crowd was not standing still, it was -a-hurrying, too, scattering as fast as it gathered, and as it scattered -I noticed that it wore a smile. I hastened up, pushed in, as I had done -a score of times on the Common, and got my glimpse of the show. It was -not a Mormon preaching, not a single-taxer, not a dog fight. It was -Billy, a gray squirrel, taking peanuts out of a bootblack’s pocket. And -every age, sex, sort, and condition of Bostonian came around to watch -the little beast shuck the nuts and bury them singly in the grass of -the Common. - -“Ain’t he a cute little cuss, mister?” said the boy of the brush, -feeling the bottom of his empty pocket, and looking up into the -prosperous face of Calumet and Hecla at his side. C. and H. smiled, -slipped something into the boy’s hand with which to buy another -pocketful of peanuts for Billy, and hurried down to State Street. - -This crowd on the Common is nothing exceptional. It happens every day, -and everywhere, the wide country over. We are all stopping to watch, -to feed, and—to smile. The longest, most far-reaching pause in our -hurrying American life to-day is this halt to look at the out-of-doors, -this attempt to share its life; and nothing more significant is being -added to our American character than the resulting thoughtfulness, -sympathy, and simplicity,—the smile on the faces of the crowd hurrying -over the Common. - -Whether one will or not, he is caught up by this nature movement and -set adrift in the fields. It may, indeed, be “adrift” for him until he -gets thankfully back to the city. “It was a raw November day,” wrote -one of these new nature students, who happened also to be a college -student, “and we went for our usual Saturday’s birding into the woods. -The chestnuts were ripe, and we gathered a peck between us. On our way -home, we discovered a small bird perched upon a cedar tree with a worm -in its beak. It was a hummingbird, and after a little searching we -found its tiny nest close up against the trunk of the cedar, full of -tiny nestlings just ready to fly.” - -This is what they find, many of these who are caught up by the movement -toward the fields; but not all of them. A little five-year-old from the -village came out to see me recently, and while playing in the orchard -she brought me five flowers, called them by their right names, and -told me how they grew. Down in the loneliest marshes of Delaware Bay -I know a lighthouse keeper and his solitary neighbor, a farmer: both -have been touched by this nature spirit; both are interested, informed, -and observant. The farmer there, on the old Zane’s Place, is no man -of books, like the rector of Selborne, but he is a man of birds and -beasts, of limitless marsh and bay and sky, of everlasting silence and -wideness and largeness and eternal solitude. He could write a Natural -History of the Maurice River Marshes. - -These are not rare cases. The nature books, the nature magazines, the -nature teachers, are directing us all to the out-of-doors. I subscribe -to a farm journal (club rates, twenty-five cents a year!) in which an -entire page is devoted to “nature studies,” while the whole paper is -remarkably fresh and odorous of the real fields. In the city, on my -way to and from the station, I pass three large bookstores, and from -March until July each of these shops has a big window given over almost -continuously to “nature books.” I have before me from one of these -shops a little catalogue of nature books—“a select list”—for 1907, -containing 233 titles, varying in kind all the way from “The Tramp’s -Handbook” to one (to a dozen) on the very stable subject of “The -Farmstead.” These are all distinctively “nature books,” books with an -appeal to sentiment as well as to sense, and very unlike the earlier -desiccated, unimaginative treatises. - -There are a multitude of other signs that show as clearly as the nature -books how full and strong is this tide that sets toward the open fields -and woods. There are as many and as good evidences, too, of the -genuineness of this interest in the out-of-doors. It may be a fad just -now to adopt abandoned farms, to attend parlor lectures on birds, and -to possess a how-to-know library. It is pathetic to see “nature study” -taught by schoolma’ams who never did and who never will climb a rail -fence; it is sad, to speak softly, to have the makers of certain animal -books preface the stories with a declaration of their absolute truth; -it is passing sad that the unnatural natural history, the impossible -out-of-doors, of some of the recent nature books, should have been -created. But fibs and failures and impossibilities aside, there still -remains the thing itself,—the widespread turning to nature, and the -deep, vital need to turn. - -The note of sincerity is clear, however, in most of our nature writers; -the faith is real in most of our nature teachers; and the love,—who -can doubt the love of the tens of thousands of those whose feet feel -the earth nowadays, whose lives share in the existence of some pond or -wood or field? And who can doubt the rest, the health, the sanity, and -the satisfaction that these get from the companionship of their field -or wood or pond? - -There is no way of accounting for the movement that reflects in -the least upon its reality and genuineness. It may be only the -appropriation by the common people of the world that the scientists -have discovered to us; it may be a popular reaction against the -conventionality of the eighteenth century; or the result of our growing -wealth and leisure; or a fashion set by Thoreau and Burroughs,—one -or all of these may account for its origin; but nothing can explain -the movement away, or hinder us from being borne by it out, at least -a little way, under the open of heaven, to the great good of body and -soul. - -Among the cultural influences of our times that have developed the -proportions of a movement, this so-called nature movement is peculiarly -American. No such general, widespread turning to the out-of-doors is -seen anywhere else; no other such body of nature literature as ours; no -other people so close to nature in sympathy and understanding, because -there is no other people of the same degree of culture living so close -to the real, wild out-of-doors. - -The extraordinary interest in the out-of-doors is not altogether a -recent acquirement. We inherited it. Nature study is an American -habit. What else had the pioneers and colonists to study but the -out-of-doors? and what else was half as wonderful? They came from an -old urban world into this new country world, where all was strange, -unnamed, and unexplored. Their chief business was observing nature, not -as dull savages, nor as children born to a dead familiarity with their -surroundings, but as interested men and women, with a need and a desire -to know. Their coming was the real beginning of our nature movement; -their observing has developed into our nature study habit. - -Our nature literature also began with them. There is scarcely a -journal, a diary, or a set of letters of this early time in which -we do not find that careful seeing, and often that imaginative -interpretation, so characteristic of the present day. Even the modern -animal romancer is represented among these early writers in John -Josselyn and his delicious book, “New England’s Rarities Discovered.” - -It was not until the time of Emerson and Bryant and Thoreau, however, -that our interest in nature became general and grew into something -deeper than mere curiosity. There had been naturalists such as Audubon -(he was a poet, also), but they went off into the deep woods alone. -They were after new facts, new species. Emerson and Bryant and Thoreau -went into the woods, too, but not for facts, nor did they go far, and -they invited us to go along. We went, because they got no farther than -the back-pasture fence. It was not to the woods they took us, but to -nature; not a-hunting after new species in the name of science, but for -new inspirations, new estimates of life, new health for mind and spirit. - -But we were slow to get as far even as their back-pasture fence, slow -to find nature in the fields and woods. It was fifty years ago that -Emerson tried to take us to nature; but fifty years ago, how few -there were who could make sense out of his invitation, to say nothing -of accepting it! And of Thoreau’s first nature book, “A Week on the -Concord and Merrimack Rivers,” there were sold, in four years after -publication, two hundred and twenty copies. But two hundred and twenty -of such books at work in the mind of the country could leaven, in time, -a big lump of it. And they did. The out-of-doors, our attitude toward -it, and our literature about it have never been the same since. - -Even yet, however, it is the few only who respond to Thoreau, Emerson, -and Burroughs, who can find nature, as well as birds and trees, who -can think and feel as well as wonder and look. Before we can think and -feel we must get over our wondering, and we must get entirely used -to looking. This we are slowly doing,—slowly, I say, for it is the -monstrous, the marvelous, the unreal that most of us still go out into -the wilderness for to see,—bears and wolves, foxes, eagles, orioles, -salmon, mustangs, porcupines of extraordinary parts and powers. - -There came to my desk, tied up with the same string, not long since, -three nature books of a sort to make Thoreau turn over in his -grave,—accounts of beasts and birds such as old Thetbaldus gave us -in his “Physiologus,” that pious and marvelous bestiary of the dark -ages. These three volumes that I refer to are modern and about American -animals, but they, too, might have been written during the dark ages. -All three have the same solemn preface, declaring the absolute truth -of the observations that follow (as if we might doubt?), and piously -pointing out their high moral purpose; all three likewise start out -with the same wonderful story,—an animal biography: one, of a slum -cat, born in a cracker box. Among the kittens of the cracker box was -an extraordinary kitten of “pronounced color,” who survives and comes -to glory. The next book tells the biography of a fox, born in a hole -among the Canadian hills. Among the pups born in this hole was one -extraordinary pup “more finely colored” than the others, who survives -and comes to glory. The third book tells the biography of a wolf, born -in a cave among the rocks, still farther north. Among the cubs born -in this cave was one extraordinary cub, “larger than the others,” who -survives and, as is to be expected of a wolf, comes to more glory than -the cracker-box kitten or the fox pup of the hills. - -Such are the stories that are made into texts and readers for our -public schools; such are the animals that go roaming through the woods -of the American child’s imagination. But no such kittens or cubs or -pups lurk in my eight-acre woodlot. I have seen several (six, to be -exact) fox pups, but never did I see this overworked, extraordinary, -_cum laude_ pup of the recent nature books. - -So long as we continue to read and believe such accounts, just so -long shall we find it impossible to go with Audubon and Thoreau and -Burroughs, for they have no place to take us, nothing to show us when -we arrive. Their real world does not exist. - -But we know that a real, ordinary, yet a marvelous world does exist, -and right at hand. The present great nature movement is an outgoing -to discover it,—its trees, birds, flowers, its myriad forms. This is -the meaning of the countless manuals, the “how-to-know” books, and the -nature study of the public schools. And this desire to know Nature -is the reasonable, natural preparation for the deeper insight that -leads to communion with her,—a desire to be traced more directly to -Agassiz, and the hosts of teachers he inspired, perhaps, than to the -poet-essayists like Emerson and Thoreau and Burroughs. - -Let us learn to see and name first. The inexperienced, the unknowing, -the unthinking, cannot love. One must live until tired, and think -until baffled, before he can know his need of Nature; and then he will -not know how to approach her unless already acquainted. To expect -anything more than curiosity and animal delight in a child is foolish, -and the attempt to teach him anything more at first than to know the -out-of-doors is equally foolish. Poets are born, but not until they are -old. - -But if one got no farther than his how-to-know book would lead him, he -still would get into the fields,—the best place for him this side of -heaven,—he would get ozone for his lungs, red blood, sound sleep, and -health. As a nation, we had just begun to get away from the farm and -out of touch with the soil. The nature movement is sending us back in -time. A new wave of physical soundness is to roll in upon us as the -result, accompanied with a newness of mind and of morals. - -For, next to bodily health, the influence of the fields makes for the -health of the spirit. It is easier to be good in a good body and an -environment of largeness, beauty, and peace,—easier here than anywhere -else to be sane, sincere, and “in little thyng have suffisaunce.” If -it means anything to think upon whatsoever things are good and lovely, -then it means much to own a how-to-know book and to make use of it. - -This is hardly more than a beginning, however, merely satisfying an -instinct of the mind. It is good if done afield, even though such -classifying of the out-of-doors is only scraping an acquaintance with -nature. The best good, the deep healing, come when one, no longer -a stranger, breaks away from his getting and spending, from his -thinking with men, and camps under the open sky, where he knows without -thinking, and worships without priest or chant or prayer. - -The world’s work must be done, and only a small part of it can be done -in the woods and fields. The merchants may not all turn ploughmen -and wood-choppers. Nor is it necessary. What we need to do, and -are learning to do, is to go to nature for our rest and health and -recreation. - - - - -[Illustration] - -IX - -June - - -A REFERENCE to one of my notebooks shows that in June, 1895, there were -thirty-six species of birds nesting within singing distance of my study -windows; in 1907 there were thirty-two, the most distant nest being -less than five minutes’ walk from my door. - -This is not a modern natural history story,—an extraordinary discovery -that only I am capable of making. Start your own June list, and I -warrant you will find as many. For there is nothing peculiarly birdy -about my small farm. Any place as uncongenial to English sparrows and -one that offers a fair chance to the native birds will keep you busy -counting nests in June. - -In the chimney built the swifts (three or four families of them); in -the barn loft a small colony of barn swallows; and under the roof of -the pig-pen a pair of phœbes, my earliest spring birds and often the -latest with a brood. - -A bushy hillside drops from the porch to the old orchard, and along -this steep southern slope nested a pair of indigo buntings and a -pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks (my rarest neighbors); also, here in -the thick underbrush were found chewinks, thrashers, black and white -warblers, song sparrows, and a pair of partridges. - -In the orchard there were half a dozen chippies’ nests, even more -robins’, two nests of bluebirds, and one each of the tree swallow, -flicker, yellow warbler, chebec, downy woodpecker, kingbird, great -crested flycatcher, redstart, and screech owl. - -Baltimore orioles nested in the elms along the road; close to the -little river were the nests of catbirds and red-winged blackbirds; a -nest of swamp sparrows and of Maryland yellow-throats in the meadow, -and in the woodlot a pewee’s nest, a crow’s nest, and three nests of -ovenbirds. - -All these I found; but besides these I know that a pair of -yellow-billed cuckoos built somewhere near the house, as did a pair of -blue jays, wood thrushes, and chestnut-sided warblers. These I am still -waiting for. I need another June. - -Not one of all these birds is rare or even shy, unless it be the swamp -sparrow; none of them that the veriest beginner should not come to know -in the course of one June. For these are almost domesticated, our near -neighbors and friends, who desire and who will return our friendly, -neighborly calls. - -There are other birds, like the hawks, the owls, the herons, the rarer -thrushes, sparrows, warblers, and marsh birds, that require time and -tramping for their discovery. I know the very log in which I could find -young turkey buzzards in June; the clump of dog-roses where a least -bittern will build; the old gum that for years has harbored a pair of -barred owls; the little cove where, spring after spring, a black duck -nests. But I should need a vacation to visit these. - -I watch the others between times,—between five o’clock in the morning -and breakfast, between breakfast and train time and church time, and -on Saturdays to and from the garden. If you are your own gardener, you -can carry not only a hoe, but along with it a pair of field glasses. I -even combine the care of my pig and the study of the phœbes that share -his pen. Occasionally I drop everything and hunt for a nest, as if life -depended upon my finding it. But life doesn’t, the more’s the pity, -for me. Life depends on the finding of things that are very different -from birds’ nests, things that require a deal of hunting the whole year -around. Yet I take the time to hunt birds’ nests, too, for life is more -than meat (I raise a good many vegetables), and, after all, _my_ life -does depend, in no small measure, upon my finding a few birds’ nests in -June. - -I remember a June when I tried to get life out of a grocery store, and -the sickness of it comes over me even yet at times. I sold kerosene -oil, brown sugar, coffee, salt mackerel, and plug tobacco. I breathed -the mingled breath of kerosene oil, brown sugar, coffee, salt mackerel, -and plug tobacco,—the odor of mere money,—when I knew the fox grapes -were in blossom, the magnolias and the azaleas; when I knew the -fields were green and the birds were in song! I have longed for many -things, but never as I longed that June for the farm, for the long, -long day, yes, and for the long, long row. It was that kerosened, -salt-mackereled, plug-tobaccoed—moneyed—June that took me back to -sweet poverty and the farm. - -I do not wish to think of living where the birds and wild flowers do -not live with me. A city flat is convenient, and city life is exciting; -but convenience and excitement plus meat and raiment are not the sum -of life; neither, on the other hand, are pure air, sunshine, birds, -flowers, a garden, quiet, and time to think, the whole of life. No; -but when you consider the matter, there appears very little still -needing to make life whole that you cannot have along with your birds, -thoughts, and garden. - -Whether you love the country or not, whether you know the difference -between a kingbird and a kingcrab or not, you owe it to your body and -your soul to get out into the open fields in June,—not to collect bird -skins or birds’ eggs or to make a herbarium or a nature diary, but to -live a while where the birds and flowers live. The city may be heaven -enough for you all the rest of the year; but God didn’t make the city. -There are seasons—March and February, usually—when it seems as if -some one else has a hand in making the country. In June, however, the -country is all and more than the poets say,—if it is poetry that you -come out into the country for to feel. - -Take my meadow, for instance, all aglow in June with buttercups, as if -spread with a sheet of beaten gold! But now, if it is only hay that -I am after (alas, too often it is), then my gold turns all to brass, -and worse than brass, for buttercups, as my dairyman neighbor tells -me, make the poorest kind of hay. I should keep no cow, perhaps. She -gives nice milk, to be sure, but she eats up my beaten gold, she kills -my buttercup poetry. Maybe I am too rich, I own too much: one cow, one -horse, two pigs, thirty hens, fourteen acres of hills and trees. For -it is the truth that I do not enjoy the foxes now as I did before I -kept hens, nor the buttercups as I did before I got the cow. Suppose, -now, besides all of this, I had money,—a lot of it!—several thousand -dollars! You never get money along with a farm, and that is one reason -why a farm is such a safe and sure investment for the soul. It is not -the cow nor the chores, but money in or out of the bank, that robs life -of its June. - -Nor is owning _one_ cow like having a dairy farm. The average man had -better keep his money in the bank than invest in more than one cow. A -single cow cannot eat all the gold out of one’s meadow. I am still glad -for the buttercups; and where the meadow passes into the upland, where -the buttercups give place to the daisies, my gold runs into silver; -which means certainly that I am not making the farm pay, for on a -paying farm a daisy—weed that it is, and not a native weed at that—is -more like a spot of leprosy than of silver. Our daisies are not even -those sung by the poets, I understand. What of it? A ten-acre field of -them lies snow-white in my memory, fresh with the freshness of early -June and the sweeter freshness of boyhood. And as for poetry, I have -my own for them,—the poetry of boyhood, of Commencement days at the -Institute, and of girls in white frocks. - -There is no particular flower that means June to me as the hepatica -means March, the arbutus April, the shad-bush May, and the red -wood-lily July. I cannot think of single blossoms, or of here and there -a spot of rare flowers, in June, but only of pastures drifted white, -meadows purple-misted, and rolling hillsides billowy pink,—of laurel, -forget-me-nots, daisies, viburnums, and buttercups. This is no time -to botanize. Leave the collecting can at home, for one day at least, -and wander forth, not to hunt, but to drift and float, or, if you run -aground, to wade knee-deep in June. A botanist who is never poet misses -as much in the out-of-doors as the poet who is never botanist. - -If there were no other flower in the month but the white water-lily, -June would still be June. “Who can contemplate it,” exclaims Mr. -Burroughs, “as it opens in the morning sun, and distills such perfume, -such purity, such snow of petal, and such gold of anther, from the dark -water and still darker ooze! How feminine it seems beside its coarser -and more robust congeners, how shy, how pliant, how fine in texture and -starlike in form!” - -How the water-lily and spatter-dock can grow from the same mud is past -understanding. One has every grace, the other none. But the dock can -live in stagnant water, which perhaps is a sort of compensation. - -And these two, for me, are always associated with magnolias,—_Magnolia -glauca_,—and magnolias are associated with “old, forgotten, far-off -things.” Their absence from my swamps here is part of the price I pay -for my transplanting to these New England fields. - -If that were all, it were price enough. But think of June in New -Jersey, with buzzards soaring, cardinals whistling, and turtle doves -cooing; with swamps magnolia-scented, and woods astir with box-turtles, -pine snakes, pine-tree lizards, and ’possums! Then think of June in -Massachusetts with none of these,—at least in my neighborhood! - -What then? I could scarcely strain the magnolia’s breath from the -mingling odors if it were here, for the common air I breathe is the -breath of blossoming clover, wild grape, elder, blackberry, rose, -and azalea. I must almost smell them by _families_. For here are six -wild roses perfuming my air, five viburnums, six dogwoods (these last -quite lacking in perfume, be it said), and wild blackberries that I -have never dared to number. Who wants to number them? to spend his -June with a “plant analysis,” dissecting and keeping tally? It is -enough now to be alive and out of doors among the flowers. Nor is -it all of June to find thirty-six species of birds nesting within a -radius of five hundred and fifty-five and one half feet from your -_front_ door. I do not cite these figures in order to startle, but to -suggest, if I might, the joyous medley of life in June, its variety -and abundance. You may not be able to name all the warblers; you have -never yet made out which is which among the dogwoods and viburnums; the -dogwood flowers are all four-pointed stars, while the viburnums are -all five-pointed. But what of it,—four or five, dogwood or viburnum! -Here they are, banked in soft, snowy fragrance along the margin of the -pond. A tiny nest swings from a fork among them, a tiny bird with a -white ring around her eye broods and watches you drift past. You have a -fish-pole, and all about you and within you is the June. - - - - -[Illustration] - -X - -A Broken Feather - - -ONE of the pair of crows that nest in my woodlot has been flying -over all winter long with a gap in his right wing. Three at least of -the large wing feathers are missing, and the result is a perceptible -limp. The bird moves through the air with the list of a boat that has -shifted or lost its ballast. Were he set upon in the air by a hawk, -as might happen if he were smaller, the race would be short. He is -plainly disabled by the loss of these three feathers, and has been for -months. Just how and when the loss occurred I don’t know. It is likely, -however, that the feathers were shot away in June,—in corn-stealing -time. Now for nearly a year he has been hobbling about on one whole and -one half wing, trusting to luck to escape his enemies, until he can get -three new feathers to take the places of these that are missing. - -Well, why, in all this time, if these three feathers are so necessary, -has he not gotten them? He might reply, “Which of you by taking thought -can add as much as one cubit to your stature, to say nothing of three -hairs to the top of your head?” By taking time (which is a fine human -phrase for giving Nature time), and with the right conditions, you may -add the cubit. So the crow may get his feathers. It is not an affair -between the crow and his feathers, nor between the crow and Nature. It -is wholly Nature’s affair with the crow’s feathers, and so seriously -does Nature take it, so careful is she, so systematic, so almost -arbitrary about it, that the feathers of crows, like the hairs of our -heads, can truly be said to be numbered. - -Nothing could look more haphazard, certainly, than the way a hen’s -feathers seem to drop off at moulting time. The most forlorn, undone, -abject creature about the farm is the half-moulted hen. There is one -in the chicken yard now, so nearly naked that she really is ashamed -of herself, and so miserably helpless that she squats in a corner all -night, unable to reach the low poles of the roost. It is a critical -experience with the hen, this moulting of her feathers, and were it not -for the protection of the yard it might be a fatal experience. Nature -seems to have no hand in the business at all; if she has, then what a -mess she is making of it! - -But pick up the hen, study the falling of the feathers carefully, and -lo! here is law and order, system and sequence, as if every feather -were a star, every quill a planet, and the old white hen the round -sphere of the universe. You will put her down reverently, awfully, this -hen that you took up with such compassion, and you will say, “Such -knowledge is too wonderful for me.” - -So it is, for the moult means a great deal more than the mere renewal -of feathers, just how much more no one seems to know. This much is -plain, that once a year, usually after the nesting season, it seems a -physical necessity for most birds to renew their plumage. - -We get a new suit (some of us) because our old one wears out. That is -the most apparent cause for the new annual suit of the birds. Yet with -them, as with some of the favored of us humans, the feathers go out of -fashion, and the change, the moult, is a mere matter of style. - -But the annual moult, first of all, is Nature’s wise provision for -the safety and warmth of the bird. Feathers are not only covering, -as our clothes, but also means of locomotion, and, hence, the bird’s -very means of life. A year of use leaves many of the feathers worn and -broken, some of them through accident entirely lost (as with my crow), -and while they might last for two years, or even longer, Nature has -found it necessary to provide a new plumage as often as once a year, in -order to keep the race of birds at its best. - -But there are other reasons, at least there are advantages taken of the -moult for other ends: such as the adaptation of the feathers to the -varying temperatures of the seasons,—heavier in winter and lighter in -summer; also the adaptation of the color of the plumage to the changing -colors of the environment,—as the change from the dark summer color -of the ptarmigan to its snow-white winter plumage to match the snows -of its far northern home; then, and perhaps most interesting of all, -is the advantage taken of the moult, for the adorning of the bird for -the mating season. Indeed, Nature goes so far, in some cases, as to -cause a special moult to meet the exigencies of the wedding,—as if -fine feathers _do_ make a fine bird. All this to meet the fancy of the -bride! so, at least, the scientists tell us. Whether or not her fancy -is the cause, it is a fact that among the birds it is the bridegroom -who is adorned for his wife, and sometimes the fine feathers come by a -special moult. - -Not far from my house is a nest of black-crowned night herons, or -“quawks.” Preparatory to the mating of the pair there started from -the crown of the male (and female, also, in this case,) two or three -white, rounded plumes, which now hang eight inches in length, waving -gracefully to his shoulders. They are the special glory of the wedding -time; but soon after the nesting season is over they will drop out, -not to come again until he goes a-wooing Mrs. Quawk once more. In the -white American egret, and in the snowy egret, the plumes number about -fifty, and occur upon the back close to the tail. They are straight in -the American, recurved in the snowy, and make the famous “aigrette” -plumes of the milliner. The birds are shot in their nuptial dress, and -so great has been the heartless demand that both species, once very -abundant, are now almost extinct. - -Bobolink is another special case. He has two complete moults a year. -Now, as I write, I hear him singing over the meadow,—a jet black, -white, and cream-buff lover, most strikingly adorned. His wife, down -in the grass, looks as little like him as a sparrow looks like a -blackbird. After the breeding season he moults, changing color so -completely that he and his wife and children all look alike, all like -sparrows. They even lose their name now, flying south under the assumed -name of “reedbirds.” - -Bobolink passes the winter in Brazil, and at the coming of spring, -just before the long northward journey begins, he moults again; but -you would hardly know it to look at him, for, strangely enough, he is -not black and white, but still colored like a sparrow as he was in the -fall. _Apparently_ he is. Look at him more closely, however, and you -will find the brownish yellow color is all caused by a veil of fine -fringes hanging from the edges of the feathers. Underneath are the -black and white and cream-buff. He starts northward, and by the time he -reaches Massachusetts the fringe veil is worn off and the black and -white bobolink appears. Specimens taken after their arrival here still -show traces of the yellow veil. - -Many birds do not have this spring moult at all, and with most of -those that do, the great wing feathers are not then renewed as are -bobolink’s, but only at the annual moult after the nesting is done. -In fact, the moulting of the remiges, or wing feathers, seems to be a -_family_ affair, the process differing with different families; for -these are the bird’s most important feathers, and their loss is so -serious a matter that Nature has come to make the change according to -the habits and needs of the birds. - -With all birds the order is for the body feathers to begin to go -first, then the wings, and last the tail. But the shedding of the -wing feathers is a very slow and carefully regulated process. In the -wild geese and other water birds the wing feathers drop out with the -feathers of the body, and all go so simultaneously that the birds -cannot fly. On land you could catch them with your hands, but they keep -near or on the water and thus escape, though times have been when it -was necessary to protect them from their human enemies at this season -by special laws. - -The necessity for the moult entails many risks, for it exposes the -bird to peculiar dangers; yet no single bird is abandoned during this -period, none left without a way of escape. The geese, as we have seen, -moult most rapidly and hence are most helpless, but there are few of -their enemies that they cannot avoid by keeping to the water and grassy -marshes; the hawks, that hunt by wing, moult so slowly that they do not -feel a loss of power; while such birds as the quail and grouse, that -always depend in part for protection upon the blending of their colors -with the colors of their environment, seem especially so protected -during the moulting season. A grouse blotched with light patches, where -the dark-tipped feathers have fallen away, may so melt into the mottled -color scheme of its background as to escape the sharpest eye. - -Such a rapid, wholesale moult as in the case of the geese would be -fatal to land birds. Instead, their primaries, or large wing feathers, -drop out one or two at a time and symmetrically from the two wings. -Oftentimes it is the two inner primaries that go first, then the others -following one at a time, the outermost last. This order varies, as in -the kingfisher. In the snow bunting all but two of the old primaries -are gone before any new ones have grown as large as the secondaries. In -the hawks, again, birds that must use their wings and must have them -always at their best, the moulting of the wing feathers is very slow, -lasting nearly the whole year. The homing pigeon, another great flier, -but not of the same kind as the hawks, begins about May to moult his -wing feathers, losing the tenth primary first, a month later the ninth, -then the others at intervals of from eight to fifteen days. - -It is quite enough to make one pause, to make one even wonder, when he -finds that this seemingly insignificant matter is taken so seriously by -nature, and that even here there is that perfect adaptation of means -to end. The gosling, to cite another instance, goes six weeks in down, -then gets its first feathers, which it sheds in the fall. The young -quail, on the other hand, is born with quills so far advanced that -it is able to fly almost as soon as it is hatched. These are mature -feathers; but the bird is still young and growing, and soon outgrows -these first flight feathers, so that they are quickly lost and new -ones come. This goes on till fall, several moults occurring the first -summer to meet the increasing weight of the growing body. - -Where there are peculiar uses made of the tail, as with the chimney -swifts and woodpeckers, there is a peculiar order of moulting. In most -birds the tail is a kind of balance or steering-gear, and not of equal -importance with the wings. Nature, consequently, seems to have attached -less importance to the feathers of the tail. They are not so firmly -set, and they are hardly of the same quality or kind; for if a wing -feather is once broken or lost, after the moult, it must go unmended -until the annual moulting time comes round again; whereas, if a tail -feather is lost through accident, it is made good, no matter when. -How do you explain that? I know that old theory of the birds roosting -with their tails out, and so, through generations of lost tails, those -feathers now grow, expecting to be plucked by some enemy, and so have -only a temporary hold. Perhaps. - -The normal, natural way, of course, is to replace a lost feather with -a new one as soon as possible; but in order to give extra strength to -the wing feathers nature has found it necessary to check their frequent -change, and so complete is the check that the annual moult is required -to replace one of them. The Japanese have discovered the secret of -this check, and are able by it to keep certain feathers in the tails -of their cocks growing until they reach the enormous length of ten to -twelve feet. - -My crow, it seems, lost his three feathers just after his annual moult; -the three broken shafts he carries still in his wing, and must continue -to carry, as the stars must continue their courses. These three -feathers must round out their cycle to the annual moult. The universe -of worlds and feathers is a universe of law, of order, and of reason. - - - - -[Illustration] - -XI - -High Noon - - -LAZILY sailing clouds, and between them, far away, the illimitable -blue! And how blue! how cool! how far away! Never does the sky seem -of so real azure, so fresh and new, but so mysteriously distant, as -upon such a July day as this; and never does the earth seem so warm -and near. I lie outstretched upon it as close as I ever lay upon my -mother’s breast. I feel the crisp moss beneath me, the creeping of the -beetle under my shoulder, the heat of the gray stone against my side. -I throw out my hands, push my fingers into the hot soil and feel them -take root. Mother earth! The clouds sail on; the bending blue recedes; -and—heaven? It matters not. Here are my brothers,—the beetle, the -moss, the gray stone; and here I lie in the arms of the mother who bore -me. - -I have questions to ask—to-morrow; dreams to dream—to-morrow; things -to do—to-morrow. To-day I am free in the fields; to-day I am brother -to the beetle and the stone; I am neighbor to this ancient white oak in -whose shade I lie; I am child to the earth. It is enough to be to-day. - -How warm is this mother breast, even here, under the tree! The sun is -overhead. The summer is at its height. The flood-tide of life has come. -It is high noon of the year. - -The drowsy silence of the full, hot noon lies deep across the field. -Stream and cattle and pasture-slope are quiet in repose. The eyes of -the earth are heavy. The air is asleep. Yet the round shadow of my oak -begins to shift. The cattle do not move; the pasture still sleeps under -the wide, white glare. But already the noon is passing. - -Of the four seasons summer is the shortest, and the one we are least -acquainted with. Summer is only a pause between spring and autumn, only -the hour of the year’s noon. But the hour is long enough were we able -to stop, to lie down under a tree for the hour, unwearied, wide-awake, -and still. - -We can be glad with the spring, sad with the autumn, eager with the -winter; but it is hard for us to go softly, to pause, to be still, -complete, sufficient, full with the full, sufficient summer; to hang -poised and expanded like the broad-winged hawk yonder far up in the -wide sky. - -But the hawk is not still. The shadow of my oak begins to lengthen. -The hour is gone even while it comes, for wavering softly down the -languid air falls a yellow leaf from a slender gray birch near by. I -remember, too, that on my way through the woodlot I frightened a small -flock of robins from a pine; and more than a week ago the swallows were -gathering upon the telegraph wires. It was springtime even yesterday; -to-day there are signs of autumn everywhere. Perhaps, after all, there -is no such time as summer,—no pause, no rest, no quiet in the fields, -no hour of noon. - -Yet I get something out of the fields, these slumberous July days, that -is neither of springtime nor of autumn, a ripening, mellowing, quieting -something, that falls only when the leaves hang limp, when the earth -warms in the shadows, when the wood-lily opens in the sun, and the whir -of the cicada times the throbbing of the heat. And when that something -falls, then I know it is summer. - -This is a late July day, but its dawn was still of the springtime. At -daybreak the birds were singing, fresh and full-throated as in May; -then the sun burned through the mist and the chorus ceased. Now I do -not hear even the chewink and the talkative vireo. Only the fiery notes -of the scarlet tanager come to me through the dry white heat of the -noon, and the resonant, reverberated song of the indigo bunting, a hot, -metallic, quivering song, as out of a hot and copper sky. - -There are nestlings still in the woods. This indigo bunting has eggs -or young in the bushes up the hillside; the scarlet tanager but lately -finished his nest in the tall oaks; I looked in upon some half-fledged -cuckoos along the fence. But all of these are late. The year’s young -are upon the wing. A few of the spring’s flowers are still opening. -I noticed the bees upon some tardy raspberry blossoms; and yonder, -amid the fixed shining colors of the wooded ridge, I see the top of -a chestnut tree, misty and tender, with foamy white bloom. These are -the last of the season. The July flowering of the chestnut always -seems delayed and accidental. The season’s fruit has set, is already -ripening. Spring is gone; the sun is overhead; the red wood-lily is -open. To-day is summer,—noon of the year. - -High noon! and the hour strikes in the red wood-lily aflame in the old -fields and in the low thick tangles of sweet-fern and blackberry that -border the upland woods. - -This is a flower of fire, the worshiper of the sun, the very heart of -the summer. How impossible it would be to kindle a wood-lily on the -cold, damp soil of April! It can be lighted only on this kiln-dried -soil of July. This old hilly pasture is baking in the sun; the mouldy -moss that creeps over its thin breast crackles and crumbles under my -feet; the patches of sweet-fern that blotch it here and there crisp -in the heat and fill the smothered air with a spicy breath; but the -wood-lily opens wide and full, lifting its spotted lips to the Sun, for -it loves his scorching kiss. See it glow! Should the withered thicket -burst suddenly into a blaze it would be no wonder, so little would it -take to fan these glowing petals into flame. - -The marsh marigolds of May spread the meadows with a glow of warmth, -yet that was but a gilded fire beside the wilting, withering heat of -this midsummer lily. That early flush has gone. There is hardly a -fleck of spring’s freshness and delicacy on the fields, none of the -tenderness of the bluets that touched everything in May, none even -of the softness of the hardwood greens that lasted far into June. -The colors are set now, dry and glistening, as if varnished over. -The odors, too, have changed. They were moist and faint then,—the -fragrance of the breath of things. Now they are strong, pungent, -heavy,—the tried out smells of the sweat of things. - -Life has grown lusty and lazy and rank. It stood no higher than the -heads of the violets along my little river at the coming of June; -to-day I cannot catch a glimpse of the water without breaking through a -hedge of swamp milkweed, boneset, and peppermint. Here are turtle-head, -joe-pye-weed, jewel-weed, the budding goldenrods, and the spreading, -choking, rasping smartweed. The year is full grown. It is strong, rich, -luxuriant. - -And how erect and unblushing! The pointed spireas, the sumacs, the -thistles, this crowd along the river, this red wood-lily, even the tall -swaying spray of meadow-rue! Slender, dainty, airy, the meadow-rue -falls just short of grace and delicacy. It feels the season’s pride of -life. It is angled, rigid, rank. Were there the slightest bend to its -branches, the merest suggestion of soul to the plant, then, from root -to spreading panicles, there had been more grace, more misty, penciled -delicacy wrought into the tall meadow-rue than into any flower-form of -my summer. - -But the suggestion of soul in the meadow-rue, as in the whole face -of nature, is lost in flesh. It is the body, not the spirit, that -is now present. She is well fed, well clothed, opulent, mature. She -is conventional,—as conventional as a single, stiff spire of the -steeple-bush,—turned to such a pointed nicety as to seem done by -machine. - -And yet the steeple-bush rarely grows as single spires, but by the -meadow-full. We rarely see a single spire. We never gather summer -flowers one by one, as we gather the arbutus and hepatica of spring. -Life has lost its individuality. It is all massed, crowded, communal. -The odors mingle now and drift wide on the winds, and as wide on the -hillsides spread the colors, gold and green and white, and, where the -rocky pasture runs down to the woods, the pink of the steeple-bush, -like a flush of dawn. - -Across my neighbor’s pasture lies this soft glory of the spireas all -through July. It runs in irregular streams down to the brook, rising -there into a low-hanging bank of mist where the clustering spires -of pink are interspersed with the taller, whiter meadow-sweet,—the -“willow-leaved spirea.” - -There are shadowy rooms in the deep woods where the spring lingers -until the leaves of autumn begin to fall. Here, in July, I can find the -little twin flowers Linnea and Mitchella, blossoms that should have -opened with the bloodroot and anemone. But Life has largely fled the -woods and left them empty and still. She is out in the open, along the -roadsides, rioting in the sun. The time of her maidenhood is gone. She -is entirely maternal now, bent on replenishing the earth, on reseeding -it against all possibility of death. She covers the ground with seed, -and fills the very air with seed that the winds may sow. She has grown -lusty, bold, almost defiant, no longer asking leave, but claiming -for her own the pastures, gardens, waysides, even the dumps and waste -places. - -Yonder where the cattle feed stands the barbed purple thistle, -arrogant, royal, unapproachable by man or beast. “Stand back,” it says, -by every one of its thousand nettles; “this field is mine.” How savage -and how splendid it is! After the royal purple fades, the goldfinches -will dare to come and eat the plumed seeds and scatter them by the -million, but even the goldfinch has been known to perish upon the -poisoned spikes with which the plant is armed. - -As persistent and successful as the thistle, though not as arrogant and -savage, grows the wild white carrot in the mowing fields. The courts -have called it names and set a price upon its life. It has been pulled -out, cut off and burned,—exterminated again and again by statute. - -Life snaps her fingers at us in July; lays hold of us, even, as we -pass, and makes us carry her burs and beggar’s-ticks for a wider -planting. I am as useful as the tail of my cow. Neither the cow nor -I ever come home from the July fields without an abundant sowing of -stick-tights, tick-seeds, and burdock burs. - -There is little beauty, fragrance, or even economic value in this wild, -overrunning host of thistles, docks, daisies, plantains, yarrows, -carrots, that now possess the earth; but when they crowd out along the -dusty roadsides and cover the sterile, neglected, and unsightly places, -we can sing, like the good gray poet, “the leaves and flowers of the -commonest weeds” in our “Song of Joys.” - -There is certainly some praise due the chicory, or blue corn-flower, -for it is a waste transformer, a “slummer” among flowers, if ever there -was one. Like the daisy, it is a foreigner; but unlike the daisy, its -coming is wholly benevolent. It asks only the roadsides, and for these -along only the choked, deserted stretches; and where the summer dust -lies deepest. Coarse, common, weedy, it doubtless is; but it never -droops in the heat, and its blue shines through the smother like azure -through the mists of the sky. - -The winds and the birds are the sowers of the wayside, and to them I am -indebted for this touch of midsummer color. But they miss certain spots -along the roads, or else these are the patches that have no deepness -of earth, where the seed of the winds’ sowing can get no hold, for I -have had to sow these myself. As I go up and down I carry a pocketful -of sweet clover seed,—melilotus,—and over every waste and sandy place -I scatter a few of the tiny seeds, when, lo! not two blades of grass -where one grew before, but a patch of tall white flowers, breathing -the sweetness of heaven into all the air, and humming in the July sun -with the joyous sound of my honey bees. All this, and for season after -season, where nothing grew before! - -Along with melilotus in the gravelly cuts and burnt woodlands grows -the fireweed, a tall showy annual that waves its pink, plumed head -throughout July. Farther north and west, this striking flower, like -the melilotus, yields a heavy flow of delicious honey, but it does not -attract the bees in this locality. Neither do my bees get any nectar -from the fat little indigo-bush that takes possession of the unfarmed, -sandy fields in July, though the wild bumblebees are busy upon it as -long as it remains in bloom. - -But this is not the native land of the honey bee, and it is sheer luck -that the white clover, the basswood, the goldenrod, and here in July, -the sumac, give down to these immigrant bees their honey-sweets. - -High noon of the year! The laggard breeze comes to me now from the -maple swamp, slow and sleepy with the odor of the white azaleas; a -flock of chickadees stop and quiz me; the quivering click-clack of a -distant mowing-machine fills the air with a drowsy hum. - -Up to this time I have not seen a black snake, but now one is watching -me with raised head from the edge of ferns among the rocks. One step -toward him and the lifted, rigid neck, a flashing streak of jet, glides -swiftly, evenly, mysteriously away, leaving me with an uncanny feeling -of chill. - -It, too, is a creature of the sun, as is everything that seems to -belong especially to July. Smells, colors, sounds, shapes, are all -sun-born. The hum of the insects, the music of the mower, the clear, -strong hues of the flowers, the sweet breath of curing hay, the heavy -balsamic odors of the woods,—everything seems either a distillation, a -vibration, an essence, or some direct, immediate work of the sun. - -Has your blood been work and winter faded until it runs thin? Would you -feel the pulse of a new life? Come, we will take a day out of July and -bask like the wood-lily and the snake; we will sleep for this one day -in the blazing, sleeping, living, midsummer sun. - - - - -[Illustration] - -XII - -The Palace in the Pig-pen - - -IT is certainly a humble environment. The delicious spring of water, -the plenty of wild, cool air, and the clean pavement of loose stones do -not surround this home as they did the home of Mr. Burroughs’s phœbes, -nor does this look “out upon some wild scene and overhung by beetling -crags.” Instead, this phœbe’s nest is stuck close up to the low board -roof in my pig-pen. - -“You have taken a handful of my wooded acres,” says Nature, “and if you -have not improved them, you at least have changed them greatly. But -they are mine still. Be friendly now, go softly, and you shall have -them all,—and I shall have them all, too. We will share them together.” - -And we do. Every part of the fourteen acres is mine, yielding some -kind of food or fuel or shelter. And every foot, yes, every _foot_, -is Nature’s; as entirely hers as when the thick primeval forest stood -here. The apple trees are hers as much as mine, and she has an average -of ten different bird families, living in them every spring. A pair of -crows and a pair of red-tailed hawks are nesting in the woodlot; there -are at least three families of chipmunks in as many of my stone piles; -a fine old tree toad (his fourth season now) sleeps on the porch under -the climbing rose; a hornet’s nest hangs in a corner of the eaves; a -small colony of swifts thunder in the chimney; swallows twitter in the -hayloft; a chipmunk and a half-tame gray squirrel feed in the barn; -and—to bring an end to this bare beginning—under the roof of the -pig-pen dwell this pair of phœbes. - -To make a bird house of a pig-pen, to divide it between the pig and the -bird—this is as far as Nature can go, and this is certainly enough to -redeem the whole farm. For she has not sent an outcast or a scavenger -to dwell in the pen, but a bird of character, however much he may lack -in song or color. Phœbe does not make up well in a picture; neither -does he perform well as a singer; there is little to him, in fact, but -personality,—personality of a kind and quantity, sufficient to make -the pig-pen a decent and respectable neighborhood. - -Phœbe is altogether more than his surroundings. Every time I go to feed -the pig, he lights upon a post near by and says to me: “It’s what you -are! Not what you do, but how you do it!”—with a launch into the air, -a whirl, an unerring snap at a cabbage butterfly, and an easy drop to -the post again, by way of illustration. “Not where you live, but how -you live there; not the feathers you wear, but how you wear them,—it -is what you are that counts!” - -There is a difference between being a “character” and having one. “Jim” -Crow is a character, largely because he has so little. That is why he -is “Jim.” My phœbe lives over the pig, but he has no nickname like the -crow. I cannot feel familiar with a bird of his air and carriage, who -faces the world so squarely, who settles upon a stake as if he owned -it, who lives a prince in my pig-pen. - -Look at him! How alert, able, free! Notice the limber drop of his tail, -the ready energy it suggests. By that one sign you would know the bird -had force. He is afraid of nothing, not even the cold, and he migrates -only because he is a flycatcher, and is thus compelled to. The earliest -spring day, however, that you find the flies buzzing in the sun, look -for phœbe. He is back. The first of my birds to return in the spring -is he, often beating the bluebird and robin by almost a week. It was a -fearful spring, the spring of 1904. How phœbe managed to exist those -miserable March days is a mystery. He came directly to the pen, as he -had come the year before, and his presence in that bleakest of Marches -made it almost spring. - -The same force and promptness are manifest in the domestic affairs of -the bird. The first to arrive that spring, he was also the first to -build and bring off a brood,—or, perhaps, _She_ was. And the size of -the brood—of the broods, for the second one is now a-wing, and there -may yet be a third! - -Phœbe appeared without his mate, and for nearly three weeks he hunted -in the vicinity of the pen, calling the day long, and, toward the end -of the second week, occasionally soaring into the air, flapping and -pouring forth a small, ecstatic song that seemed fairly forced from him. - -These aerial bursts meant just one thing: _she_ was coming, was coming -soon! Was she coming, or was he getting ready to go for her? Here he -had been for nearly three weeks, his house-lot chosen, his mind at -rest, his heart beating faster with every sunrise. It was as plain as -day that he knew—was certain—just how and just when something lovely -was going to happen. I wished I knew. I was half in love with her -myself, half jealous of him, and I, too, watched for her. - -But she was not for me. On the evening of April 14, he was alone as -usual. The next morning a pair of phœbes flitted in and out of the -windows of the pen. Here she was. Will some one tell me all about it? -Had she just come along and fallen instantly in love with him and his -fine pig-pen? There are foolish female birds; and there are records of -just such love affairs; but this was too early in the season. It is -pretty evident that he nested here last year. Was she his old mate, -as Wilson believes? Did they keep together all through the autumn and -winter, all the way from Massachusetts to Florida and back? Or was she -a new bride, who had promised him before he left Florida? If so, then -how did she know where to find him? - -Here is a pretty story. But who will tell it to me? - -What followed is a pretty story, too, had I a lover’s pen with which -to write it,—the story of his love, of their love, and of her love -especially, which was last and best. - -For several days after she came the weather continued raw and wet, so -that nest-building was greatly delayed. The scar of an old, last year’s -nest still showed on a stringer, and I wondered if they had decided on -this or some other site for the new nest. They had not made up their -minds, for when they did start it was to make three beginnings. - -Then I offered a suggestion. Out of a bit of stick, branching at -right angles, I made a little bracket and tacked it up on one of the -stringers, down near the lower end of the roof. It appealed to the -birds at once, and from that moment the building went steadily on. - -Saddled upon this bracket, as well as mortared to the stringer, the -nest, when finished, was as safe as a castle. And how perfect a -thing! Few nests, indeed, combine the solidity, the softness, and the -exquisite curve of phœbe’s. - -In placing the bracket, I had carelessly nailed it under one of the -cracks in the loose board roof. The nest was receiving its first -linings when there came a long, hard rain that beat through the crack -and soaked the little cradle. This was serious, for a great deal of mud -had been worked into the thick foundation, and here, in the constant -shade, the dampness would be long in drying out. - -The builders saw the mistake, too, and with their great good sense -immediately began to remedy it. They built the bottom up thicker, -carried the wall over on a slant that brought the outermost point -within the crack, then raised the whole nest until the cup was as -round-rimmed and hollow as the mould of the bird’s breast could make it. - -The outside of the nest, its base, is broad and rough and shapeless -enough; but nothing could be softer and lovelier than the inside, the -cradle, and nothing drier, for the slanting walls shed every drop from -the leaky crack. - -Wet weather followed the heavy rain until long after the nest was -finished. The whole structure was as damp and cold as a newly plastered -house. It felt wet to my touch. Yet I noticed the birds were already -brooding. Every night, and often during the day, I would see one of -them in the nest, so deep in that only a head or a tail showed over -the round rim. After several days I looked to see the eggs, but to my -surprise found the nest empty. It had been robbed, I thought, yet by -what creature I could not imagine. Then down cuddled one of the birds -again,—and I understood. Instead of wet and cold, the nest to-day felt -warm to my hand; it was dry almost to the bottom. It had changed color, -too, all the upper part having turned a soft silver-gray. She (I am -sure it was she) had not been brooding her eggs at all; she had been -brooding her mother’s thought of them; and for them had been nestling -here these days and nights, drying and warming their damp cradle with -the fire of her life and love. - -In due time the eggs came,—five of them, white, spotless, and shapely. -While the little hen was hatching them I gave my attention further to -the cock. - -I am writing this with a black suspicion overhanging him. But of that -later. I hope it is unfounded, and I shall give him the benefit of -the doubt. A man is innocent until proved guilty. I have no positive -evidence of Mr. Phœbe’s wrong. - -Our intimate friendship has revealed a most pleasing nature in phœbe. -Perhaps such close and continued association would show like qualities -in every bird, even in the kingbird. But I fear only a woman, like Mrs. -Olive Thorne Miller, could find them in him. Not much can be said of -this flycatcher family, except that it is useful,—a kind of virtue -that gets its chief reward in heaven. I am acquainted with only four of -the other nine members,—great-crest, kingbird, pewee, and chebec,—and -each of these has some redeeming attributes besides the habit of -catching flies. - -They are all good nest-builders, good parents, and brave, independent -birds; but aside from phœbe and pewee—the latter in his small way -the sweetest voice of the oak woods—the whole family is an odd lot, -cross-grained, cross-looking, and about as musical as a family of -ducks. A duck seems to know that he cannot sing. A flycatcher knows -nothing of any shortcoming. He knows he can sing, and in time he will -prove it. If desire and effort count for anything, he certainly must -prove it in time. How long the family has already been training, no one -knows. Everybody knows, however, the success each flycatcher of them -has thus far attained. According to Mr. Chapman’s authority, the five -rarer members perform as follows: the olive-sided swoops from the tops -of the tallest trees uttering “pu-pu” or “pu-pip”; the yellow-bellied -sits upon the low twigs and sneezes a song, an abrupt “pse-ek,” -explosive and harsh, produced with a painful, convulsive jerk; the -Acadian by the help of his tail says “spee” or “peet,” now and then a -loud “pee-e-yúk,” meanwhile trembling violently; Trail’s flycatcher -jerks out his notes rapidly, doubling himself up and fairly vibrating -with the explosive effort to sing “ee-zee-e-up”; the gray kingbird says -a strong, simple “pitirri.” - -It would make a good minstrel show, doubtless, if the family would -appear together. In chorus, surely, they would be far from a tuneful -choir. - -I should hate to hear the flycatchers all together. Yet individually, -in the wide universal chorus of the out-of-doors, how much we should -miss the kingbird’s metallic twitter and the chebec’s insistent call! - -There was little excitement for phœbe during this period of incubation. -He hunted in the neighborhood and occasionally called to his mate, -contented enough perhaps, but certainly sometimes appearing tired. One -rainy day he sat in the pig-pen window looking out at the gray wet -world. He was humped and silent and meditative, his whole attitude -speaking the extreme length of his day, the monotony of the drip, drip, -drip from the eaves, and the sitting, the ceaseless sitting, of his -brooding wife. - -He might have hastened the time by catching a few flies for her or by -taking her place on the nest, but I never saw him do it. - -Things were livelier when the eggs hatched, for it required a good many -flies a day to keep the five young ones growing. And how they grew! -Like bread sponge in a pan, they began to rise, pushing the mother up -so that she was forced to stand over them; then pushing her out until -she could cling only to the side of the nest at night; then pushing -her off altogether. By this time they were hanging to the outside -themselves, covering the nest from sight, almost, until finally they -spilled off upon their wings. - -Out of the nest upon the air! Out of the pen and into a sweet, wide -world of green and blue and golden light! I saw the second brood take -their first flight, and it was thrilling. - -The nest was placed back from and below the window, so that in leaving -it the young would have to drop, then turn and fly up to get out. Below -was the pig. - -As they grew I began to fear that they might try their wings before -this feat could be accomplished, and so fall to the pig below. But -Nature, in this case, was careful of her pearls. Day after day they -clung to the nest, even after they might have flown; and when they did -go, it was with a sure and a long flight that carried them out and away -to the tops of the neighboring trees. - -They left the nest one at a time, and were met in the air by their -mother, who darting to them, calling loudly, and, whirling about them, -helped them as high and as far away as they could go. - -I wish the simple record of these family affairs could be closed -without one tragic entry. But that can rarely be of any family. Seven -days after the first brood were a-wing, I found the new eggs in the -nest. Soon after that the male bird disappeared. The second brood has -now been out a week, and in all this time no sight or sound has been -had of the father. - -What happened? Was he killed? Caught by a cat or a hawk? It is -possible; and this is an easy and kindly way to think of him. Nor is -it impossible that he may have remained as leader and protector to -the first brood, or (perish the thought!) might he perhaps have grown -weary at sight of the second lot of five eggs, of the long days and the -neglect that they meant for him, and out of jealousy and fickleness -wickedly deserted? - -I hope it was death, a stainless, even ignominious death by one of my -neighbor’s dozen cats. - -Death or desertion, it involved a second tragedy. Five such young -ones at this time were too many for the mother. She fought nobly; no -mother could have done more. All five were brought within a few days of -flight; then, one day, I saw a little wing hanging listlessly over the -side of the nest. I went closer. One had died. It had starved to death. -There were none of the parasites in the nest that often kill these -birds. It was a plain case of sacrifice,—by the mother, perhaps; by -the other young, maybe,—one for the other four. - -But she did well. Nine such young birds to her credit since April. Who -shall measure her actual use to the world? How does she compare in -value with the pig? Yesterday I saw several of her brood along the -meadow fence hawking for flies. They were not far from my cabbage patch. - -I hope that a pair of them returns to me another spring, and that they -come early. Any bird that deigns to dwell under roof of mine commands -my friendship; but no other bird takes phœbe’s place in my affections, -there is so much in him to like and he speaks for so much of the -friendship of nature. - -“Humble and inoffensive bird” he has been called by one of our leading -ornithologies—because he comes to my pig-pen! “Inoffensive”? this bird -with the cabbage butterfly in his beak? The faint and damning praise! -And “humble”? There is not a humble feather on his body. Humble to -those who see the pen and not the bird. But to me—why, the bird has -made a palace of my pig-pen. - -The very pig seems less a pig because of this exquisite association; -and the lowly work of feeding the creature has been turned by phœbe -into an æsthetic course in bird study. - - - - -[Illustration] - -XIII - -An Account with Nature - - -THERE were chipmunks everywhere. The stone walls squeaked with them. At -every turn, from early spring to early autumn, a chipmunk was scurrying -away from you. Chipmunks were common. They did no particular harm, no -particular good; they did nothing in particular, being only chipmunks -and common, until one morning (it was June-bug time) I stopped and -watched a chipmunk that sat atop the stone wall down in the orchard. He -was eating, and the shells of his meal lay in a little pile upon the -big flat stone which served as his table. - -They were acorn shells, I thought, yet June seemed rather early in the -season for acorns, and looking closer I discovered that the pile was -entirely composed of June-bug shells,—wings and hollow bodies of the -pestiferous beetles! - -Well, well! I had never seen this before, never even heard of it. -Chipmunk, a _useful_ member of society! actually eating bugs in this -bug-ridden world of mine! This was interesting and important. Why, I -had really never known chipmunk, after all! - -So I hadn’t. He had always been too common. Flying squirrels were more -worth while, because there were none on the farm. Now, however, I -determined to cultivate the acquaintance of chipmunk, for there might -be other discoveries awaiting me. - -And there were. A narrow strip of grass separated the orchard and my -garden patch. It was on my way to the garden that I most often stopped -to watch this chipmunk, or rather the pair of them, in the orchard -wall. June advanced, the beetles disappeared, and my garden grew -apace. For the first time in four years there were prospects of good -strawberries. Most of my small patch was given over to a new berry, one -that I had originated, and I was waiting with an eagerness which was -almost anxiety for the earliest berries. - -The two chipmunks in the wall were now seven, the young ones quite as -large as their parents, and both young and old on the best of terms -with me. - -I had put a little stick beside each of the three big berries that were -reddening first (though I could have walked from the house blindfolded -and picked them). I might have had the biggest of the three on June -7th, but for the sake of the flavor I thought it best to wait another -day. On the 8th I went down with a box to get it. The big berry was -gone, and so was one of the others, while only half of the third was -left on the vine! - -Gardening has its disappointments, its seasons of despair,—and wrath, -too. Had a toad showed himself at that moment he would have fared -badly. I snatched a stone and let it go at a robin flying over, for -more than likely it was he who had stolen my berries. On the garden -wall sat a friendly chipmunk eyeing me sympathetically. - -Three days later several fine berries were ripe. On my way to the -garden I passed the chipmunks in the orchard. A shining red spot among -the vine-covered stones of their wall brought me to a stop, for I -thought, on the instant, that it was my rose-breasted grosbeak, and -that I was about to get a clue to its nest. Then up to the slab where -he ate the June-bugs scrambled the chipmunk, and the rose-red spot on -the breast of the grosbeak dissolved into a big scarlet-red strawberry. -And by its long wedge shape I knew it was one of my new variety. - -I hurried across to the patch and found every berry gone, while a line -of bloody fragments led me back to the orchard wall, where a half dozen -fresh calyx crowns completed my second discovery. - -No, it did not complete it. It took a little watching to find out that -the whole family—all seven!—were after berries. They were picking -them half ripe, even, and actually storing them away, canning them down -in the cavernous depths of the stone pile! - -Alarmed? Yes, and I was wrathful, too. The taste for strawberries is -innate, original; you can’t be human without it. But joy in chipmunks -is a cultivated liking, æsthetic in its nature. What chance in such a -circumstance has the nature-lover with the human man? What shadow of -doubt as to his choice between the chipmunks and the strawberries? - -I had no gun then and no time to go over to my neighbor’s to borrow -his. So I stationed myself near by with a fistful of stones, and -waited for the thieves to show themselves. I came so near to hitting -one of them once that the sweat started all over me. After that there -was no danger. I lost my nerve. The little scamps knew that war was -declared, and they hid and dodged and sighted me so far off that even -with a gun I should have been all summer killing the seven of them. - -Meantime, a big rain and the warm June days were turning the berries -red by the quart. They had more than caught up to the squirrels. I -dropped my stones and picked. The squirrels picked, too, so did the -toads and robins. Everybody picked. It was free for all. We picked -them and ate them, jammed them and canned them. I almost carried some -over to my neighbor, but took peas instead. You simply can’t give your -strawberries in New England to ordinary neighbors, who are not of your -choosing. You have no fears at all as to what they will say to your -peas. - -The season closed on the Fourth of July, and our taste was not dim nor -this natural love for strawberries abated; but all four of the small -boys had the hives from over-indulgence, so bountifully did nature -provide, so many did the seven chipmunks leave us! - -Peace between me and the chipmunks had been signed before the -strawberry season closed, and the pact still holds. Other things have -occurred since to threaten it, however. Among them, an article in a -recent number of a carefully edited out-of-door magazine, of wide -circulation. Herein the chipmunk family was most roundly rated, in fact -condemned to annihilation because of its wicked taste for birds’ eggs -and for young birds. Numerous photographs accompanied the article, -showing the red squirrel with eggs in his mouth, but no such proof -(even the red squirrel photographs I strongly believe were done from a -_stuffed_ squirrel) of chipmunk’s guilt, though he was counted equally -bad and, doubtless, will suffer with chickaree at the hands of those -who took the article seriously. - -I believe that is a great mistake. Indeed, I believe the whole -article a deliberate falsehood, concocted in order to sell the fake -photographs. Chipmunk is not an egg-sucker, else I should have found -it out. But because I never caught him at it does not mean that no one -else has. It does mean, however, that if chipmunk robs at all he does -it so seldom as to call for no alarm nor for any retribution. - -There is scarcely a day in the nesting season when I fail to see -half a dozen chipmunks about the walls, yet I never noticed one -even suspiciously near a bird’s nest. In an apple tree, barely six -jumps from the home of the family in the orchard wall, a brood of -white-bellied swallows came to wing one spring; while robins, chippies, -and red-eyed vireos—not to mention a cowbird, which I wish they had -devoured—have also hatched and flown away from nests that these -squirrels might easily have rifled. - -It is not often that one comes upon even the red squirrel in the very -act of robbing a nest. But the black snake, the glittering fiend! and -the dear house cats! If I run across a dozen black snakes in the early -summer, it is safe to say that six of them will be discovered by the -cries of the birds they are robbing. Likewise the cats. No creature, -however, larger than a June-bug was ever distressed by a chipmunk. - -In a recent letter to me Mr. Burroughs says: “No, I never knew the -chipmunk to suck or destroy eggs of any kind, and I have never heard of -any well-authenticated instance of his doing so. The red squirrel is -the sinner in this respect, and probably the gray squirrel also.” - -It will be difficult to find a true bill against him. Were the evidence -all in, I believe that instead of a culprit we should find chipmunk a -useful citizen. I reckon that the pile of June-bug bodies on the flat -stone leaves me still in debt to him even after the strawberries have -been credited. He may err occasionally, and may, on occasion, make a -nuisance of himself,—but so do my four small boys, bless them! And, -well—who doesn’t? When a family of chipmunks, which you have fed all -summer on the veranda, take up their winter quarters inside the closed -cabin, and chew up your quilts, hammocks, table-cloths, and whatever -else there is of chewable properties, then they are anathema. - -The litter and havoc that those squirrels made were dreadful. But -instead of exterminating them root and branch, a big box was prepared -the next summer and lined with tin, in which the linen was successfully -wintered. - -But how real was the loss, after all? Here is a rough log cabin on -the side of Thorn Mountain. What sort of a tablecloth ought to be -found in such a cabin, if not one that has been artistically chewed by -chipmunks? Is it for fine linen that we take to the woods in summer? -The chipmunks are well worth a tablecloth now and then,—well worth, -besides these, all the strawberries and all the oats they can steal -from my small patch. - -Only it isn’t stealing. Since I ceased throwing stones and began to -watch the chipmunks carefully, I do not find their manner that of -thieves in the least. They do not act as if they were taking what they -have no right to. For who has told chipmunk to earn his oats in the -sweat of his brow? No one. Instead he seems to understand that he is -one of the innumerable factors ordained to make me sweat,—a good and -wholesome experience for me so long as I get the necessary oats. - -And I get them, in spite of the chipmunks, though I don’t like to guess -at how much they carried off,—anywhere, I should say, from a peck -to a bushel, which they stored, as they tried to store the berries, -somewhere in the big recesses of the stone wall. - -All this, however, is beside the point. It isn’t a case of oats and -berries against June-bugs. You don’t haggle with Nature after that -fashion. The farm is not a marketplace where you get exactly what -you pay for. You must spend on the farm all you have of time and -strength and brains; but you must not expect merely your money’s -worth. Infinitely more than that, and oftentimes less. Farming is like -virtue,—its own reward. It pays the man who loves it, no matter how -short the oats and corn. - -So it is with chipmunk. Perhaps his books don’t balance,—a few -June-bugs short on the credit side. What then? It isn’t mere bugs -and berries, as I have just suggested, but stone piles. What is the -difference in value to me between a stone pile with and without a -chipmunk in it. Just the difference, relatively speaking, between the -house with or without my four boys in it. - -Chipmunk, with his sleek, round form, his rich color and his stripes, -is the daintiest, most beautiful of all our squirrels. He is one of the -friendliest of my tenants, too, friendlier even than chickadee. The two -are very much alike in spirit, but however tame and confiding chickadee -may become, he is still a bird, and, despite his wings, belongs to a -different and a lower order of beings. Chickadee is often curious -about me; he can be coaxed to eat from my hand. Chipmunk is more than -curious; he is interested; and it is not crumbs that he wants, but -friendship. He can be coaxed to eat from my lips, sleep in my pocket, -and even come to be stroked. - -I have sometimes seen chickadee in winter when he seemed to come to me -out of very need for living companionship. But in the flood-tide of -summer life chipmunk will watch me from his stone pile and tag me along -with every show of friendship. - -The family in the orchard wall have grown very familiar. They -flatter me. I really believe, to be Emersonian, that I am the great -circumstance in this household. One of the number is sure to be sitting -upon the high flat slab to await my coming. He sits on the very edge of -the crack, to be truthful, and if I take a single step aside toward him -he flips, and all there is left of him is a little angry squeak from -the depths of the stones. If, however, I pass properly along, do not -stop or make any sudden motions, he sees me past, then usually follows -me, especially if I get well off and pause. - -During a shower one day I halted under a large hickory just beyond his -den. He came running after me, so interested that he forgot to look -to his footing, and just opposite me slipped and bumped his nose hard -against a stone,—so hard that he sat up immediately and vigorously -rubbed it. Another time he followed me across to the garden and on to -the barbed-wire fence along the meadow. Here he climbed a post and -continued after me by way of the middle strand of the wire, wriggling, -twisting, even grabbing the barbs, in his efforts to maintain his -balance. He got midway between the posts, when the sagging strand -tripped him and he fell with a splash into a shallow pool below. - -Did the family in the orchard wall stay together as a family for the -first summer, I should like to know. As late as August they all seemed -to be in the wall, for in August I cut my oats, and during this harvest -they all worked together. - -I mowed the oats as soon as they began to yellow, cocking them to -cure for hay. It was necessary to let them “make” for six or seven -days, and all this time the squirrels raced back and forth between the -cocks and the stone wall. They might have hidden their gleanings in -a dozen crannies nearer at hand; but evidently they had a particular -storehouse, near the home nest, where the family could get at their -provisions in bad weather without coming forth. - -Had I removed the stones and dug out the nest, I should have found -a tunnel leading into the ground for a few feet and opening into a -chamber filled with a bulky grass nest,—a bed capable of holding half -a dozen chipmunks, and adjoining this, by a short passageway, the -storehouse of the oats. - -How many trips they made between this crib and the oat patch, how many -kernels they carried in their pouches at a trip, and how big a pile -they had when all the grains were in,—these are more of the questions -I should like to know. - -I might have killed one of the squirrels and numbered the contents of -his pouches, but my scientific zeal does not quite reach that pitch any -more. The knowledge of just how many oat kernels a chipmunk can stuff -into his left cheek (into _both_ cheeks he can put twenty-nine kernels -of corn) is really not worth the cost of his life. Of course some one -has counted them,—just as some one has counted the hairs on the tail -of the dog of the child of the wife of the Wild Man of Borneo, or at -least seriously guessed at the number. - -But this is thesis work for the doctors of philosophy, not a task -for farmers and mere watchers in the woods. The chipmunks are in no -danger because of my zeal for science; not that I am uninterested in -the capacity of their cheeks in terms of oats, but that I am more -interested in the whole squirrel, the whole family of squirrels. - -When the first frosts come, the family—if they are still a -family—seek the nest in the ground beneath the stone wall. But they do -not go to sleep immediately. Their outer entrances have not yet been -closed. There is still plenty of fresh air, and, of course, plenty of -food,—acorns, chestnuts, hickory nuts, and oats. They doze quietly -for a time and eat, pushing the empty shells and hulls into some side -passage prepared beforehand to receive the débris. - -But soon the frost is creeping down through the stones and earth -overhead, the rains are filling the outer doorways and shutting off the -supply of fresh air, and one day, though not sound sleepers, the family -cuddles down and forgets to wake,—until the frost has begun to creep -back toward the surface, and down through the softened soil is felt the -thrill of the waking spring. - - - - -[Illustration] - -XIV - -The Buzzard of the Bear Swamp - - -TO most eyes, no doubt, the prospect would have seemed desolate, -even forbidding. A single track of railroad lay under my feet, while -down and away in front of me stretched the Bear Swamp, the largest, -least-trod area of primeval swamp in southern New Jersey. - -To me it was neither desolate nor forbidding, because I knew it -well,—its gloomy depths, its silent streams, its hollow stumps, -its trails, and its haunting mysteries. Yet I had never crossed its -borders. I was born within its shadows, close enough to smell the -magnolias of the margin, and had lived my first ten years only a little -farther off; but not till now, after twice ten years of absence, had -I stood here ready to enter and tread the paths where so long I had -slipped to and fro as a shadow. - -But what a pity ever to cross such a country! ever to map these -unexplored child-lands to a scale of after years! I tramped the Bear -Swamp over from edge to edge, letting the light of day into the deepest -of its recesses, and found—a turkey buzzard’s nest. - -The silent streams, the stumps, the trails, I found, too, and there, it -seems, they must be found a century hence; but the haunting mysteries -of the great swamp fled away before me, and are gone forever. So much -did I pay for my buzzard’s nest. - -The cost in time and trouble was what came near undoing my good uncle, -with whom I was staying near the swamp. “What in thunderation!” he -exclaimed, when I made known my desires. “From Boston to Haleyville to -see a buzzard’s nest!” As there are some things that even one’s wife -cannot quite understand, I didn’t try to reason the matter of buzzards’ -nests with an uncle. If it had been a hawk’s nest or a cardinal’s, he -would have thought nothing strange. But a buzzard’s! - -Perhaps my years of absence from the skies of the buzzard account for -it. Yet it was never mere bird, mere buzzard, to me; so much more than -buzzard, indeed, that I often wish it would sail into these empty New -England skies. How eagerly I watch for it when homeward bound toward -Jersey! The moment I cross the Delaware I begin to search the skies, -and I know, for sure, when it swims into view, that I am near the -blessed fields once more. No matter how wide and free, how full of -clouds and color, my sky to the end will always need a soaring buzzard. - -This is a burst of sentiment, truly, and doesn’t explain at all why I -should want to see the creature of these divine wings in the gruesome -light of an earth-view, on its nesting stump or in its hollow log. - - Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown! - It must, or we shall rue it: - We have a vision of our own; - Ah! why should we undo it? - -I understand. Nevertheless, I wanted to find a buzzard’s nest,—the -nest of the Bear Swamp buzzard; and here at last I stood; and yonder on -the clouds, a mere mote in the distance, floated one of the birds. It -was coming toward me over the wide reach of the swamp. - -Its coming seemed perfectly natural, as the sight of the swamp seemed -entirely familiar, though I had never looked upon it from this point -before. Silent, inscrutable, and alien it lay, untouched by human hands -except for this narrow braid of railroad binding its outer edges. -Over it hung a quiet and reserve as real as twilight. Like a mask it -was worn, and was slipped on, I know, at my approach. I could feel -the silent spirit of the place drawing back away from me, though not -to leave me quite alone. I should have at least a guide to lead me -through the shadow land, for out of the lower living green towered a -line of limbless stubs, their bleached bones gleaming white, or showing -dark and gaunt against the horizon and marking for me a path far out -across the swamp. Besides, here came the buzzard winding slowly down -the clouds. Soon its spiral changed to a long pendulum swing, till -just above the skeleton trees it wheeled, and bracing itself with its -flapping wings, dropped heavily upon one of their headless trunks. - -It had come leisurely, yet with a definiteness that was unmistakable -and that was also meaningful. It had discovered me in the distance, -and while still invisible to my eyes, had started down to perch upon -that giant stub in order to watch me. Its eye had told it that I was -not a workman upon the track, nor a traveler between stations. If there -was a purpose to its movements that suggested just one thing to me, -there was a lack of purpose in mine that meant many things to it. It -was suspicious, and had come because somewhere beneath its perch lay -a hollow log, the creature’s den, holding the two eggs or young. A -buzzard has some soul. - -Marking the direction of the stub, and the probable distance, I waded -into the deep underbrush, the buzzard for my guide, and for my quest -the stump or hollow log that held the creature’s nest. - -The rank ferns and ropy vines swallowed me up, and shut out at times -even the sight of the sky. Nothing could be seen of the buzzard. Half -an hour’s struggle left me climbing a pine-crested swell in the low -bottom, and here I sighted the bird again. It had not moved. - -I was now in the real swamp, the old uncut forest. It was a land of -giants; huge tulip poplar and swamp white oak, so old that they had -become solitary, their comrades having fallen one by one, or else, -unable to loose the grip upon the soil that had widened and tightened -through centuries, they had died standing. It was upon one of these -that the buzzard sat humped. - -Directly in my path stood an ancient swamp white oak, the greatest -tree, I think, that I have ever seen. It was not the highest, nor the -largest round, perhaps, but individually, spiritually, the greatest. -Hoary, hollow, and broken-limbed, its huge bole seemed encircled with -the centuries, and into its green and grizzled top all the winds of -heaven had some time come. - -One could worship in the presence of such a tree as easily as in the -shadow of a vast cathedral. - - For it had bene an auncient tree, - Sacred with many a mysteree. - -Indeed, what is there built with hands that has the dignity, the -majesty, the divinity of life? And what life was here! Life whose -beginnings lay so far back that I could no more reckon the years than I -could count the atoms it had builded into this majestic form. - -Looking down upon the oak from twice its height loomed a tulip poplar, -clean-bolled for thirty feet, and in the top all green and gold -with blossoms. It was a resplendent thing beside the oak, yet how -unmistakably the gnarled old monarch wore the crown. Its girth more -than balanced the poplar’s greater height, and as for blossoms, Nature -knows the beauty of strength and inward majesty, and has pinned no -boutonnière upon the oak. - -My buzzard now was hardly more than half a mile away, and plainly seen -through the rifts in the lofty timbered roof above me. As I was nearing -the top of a large fallen pine that lay in my course, I was startled -by the _burrh! burrh! burrh!_ of three partridges taking flight just -beyond, near the foot of the tree. Their exploding seemed all the more -real when three little clouds of dust-smoke rose out of the low, wet -bottom and drifted up against the green. - -Then I saw an interesting sight. In falling, the pine with its -wide-reaching, multitudinous roots had snatched at the shallow, sandy -bottom and torn out a giant fistful, leaving a hole about two feet deep -and more than a dozen feet wide. The sand thus lifted into the air had -gradually washed down into a mound on each side of the butt, where it -lay high and dry above the level of the swamp. This the swamp birds -had turned into a great dust-bath. It was in constant use, surely, for -not a spear of grass had sprouted in it, and all over it were pits -and craters of various sizes, showing that not only the partridges, -but also the quails, and such small things as the warblers, washed -here,—though I can’t recall ever having seen a warbler bathe in the -dust. A dry bath in the swamp was something of a luxury, evidently. I -wonder if the buzzards used it? - -I went forward cautiously now, and expectantly, for I was close enough -to see the white beak and red wattled neck of my guide. It saw me, too, -and began to twist its head as I shifted, and to twitch its wing tips -nervously. Suddenly its long, black wings opened, and with a heavy -lurch that left the stub rocking, it dropped and was soon soaring high -up in the blue. - -This was the right locality; now where should I find the nest? -Apparently I was to have no further help from the old bird. The -underbrush was so thick that I could see hardly farther than my nose. -A half-rotten tree trunk lay near, the top end resting across the -backs of several saplings which it had borne down in its fall. I crept -up on this for a look around, and almost tumbled off at finding myself -staring directly into the dark, cavernous hollow of an immense log -lying on a slight rise of ground a few feet ahead of me. - -It was a yawning hole, which at a glance I knew belonged to the -buzzard. The log, a mere shell of a mighty white oak, had been girdled -and felled with an axe, by coon hunters, probably, and still lay -with one side resting upon the rim of the stump. As I stood looking, -something white stirred vaguely in the hole and disappeared. - -Leaping from my perch, I scrambled forward to the mouth of the hollow -and was greeted with hisses from far back in the dark. Then came a -thumping of bare feet, more hisses, and a sound of snapping beaks. I -had found my buzzard’s nest. - -Hardly that, either, for there was not a feather, stick, or chip as -evidence of a nest. The eggs had been laid upon the sloping cavern -floor, and in the course of their incubation must have rolled clear -down to the opposite end, where the opening was so narrow that the -buzzard could not have brooded them until she had rolled them back. -The wonder is that they ever hatched. - -But they had, and what they hatched was another wonder. It was a right -instinct which led the mother to seek the middle of the Bear Swamp -and there hide her young in a hollow log. My sense of the fitness of -things should have equaled hers, certainly, and I should have allowed -her the privacy of the swamp. It was unfair of me and rude. Nature -never intended a young buzzard for any eye but its mother’s, and _she_ -hates the sight of it. Elsewhere I have told of a buzzard that devoured -her eggs at the approach of an enemy, so delicately balanced are her -unnamable appetites and her maternal affections! - -The two freaks in the log must have been three weeks old, I should say, -the larger weighing about four pounds. They were covered, as young -owls are, with deep, snow-white down, out of which protruded their -legs, long, black, scaly, snaky legs. They stood braced on these, their -receding heads drawn back, their shoulders thrust forward, their bodies -humped between the featherless wings like challenging tomcats. - -In order to examine them, I crawled into the den;—not a difficult -act, for the opening measured four feet and a half at the mouth. The -air was musty inside, yet surprisingly free from odor. The floor -was absolutely clean, but on the top and sides of the cavity was a -thick coating of live mosquitoes, most of them gorged, hanging like a -red-beaded tapestry over the walls. - -I had taken pains that the flying buzzard should not see me enter, for -I hoped she would descend to look after her young. But she would take -no chances with herself. I sat near the mouth of the hollow, where I -could catch the fresh breeze that pulled at the end, and where I had a -view of a far-away bit of sky. Suddenly across this field of blue, as -you have seen an infusorian scud across the field of your microscope, -there swept a meteor of black,—the buzzard! and evidently in that -instant of passage, at a distance certainly of half a mile, she spied -me in the log. - -I waited more than an hour longer, and when I tumbled out with a dozen -kinds of cramps, the maternal creature was soaring serenely far up in -the clear, cool sky. - - - - -[Illustration] - -XV - -The Lay of the Land - - -SHE loved nature—from a veranda, a dog-cart, the deck of a vessel. -She had been to the seashore for a whole June, the next June to -the mountains, then a June to an inland farm. “And I enjoyed it!” -she exclaimed; “the sky-blue, I mean, the sea-blue, and the green -of the hills. But as for seeing fiddler crabs and chewinks and -woodchucks—_things_! why, I simply didn’t. In fact, I believe that -most of your fiddling crabs and moralizing stumps and philosophizing -woodchucks are simply the creatures of a disordered imagination.” - -I quite agreed as to the fiddling (some of it) and the philosophizing; -I disagreed, however, as to the reality of the crabs and the -woodchucks; for it was not the attributes and powers of these creatures -that she really disbelieved in, but the very existence of the creatures -themselves,—along _her_ seashore, and upon the farm that _she_ visited. - -“As for fiddler crabs and chewinks and woodchucks—_things_,” she did -not see them. Certainly not. Yet a fiddler crab is as real an entity as -a thousand-acre marsh,—and in its way as interesting. It is a sorry -soul that looks for nothing out of doors but fiddler crabs, and insists -upon their fiddling; that never sees the sky-blue, the sea-blue, and -the green of the rolling hills. I shall never forget a moonrise over -the Maurice River marshes that I witnessed one night in early June. -It was a peculiarly solemn sight, and one of the profoundly beautiful -experiences of my life, there in the wide, weird silence of the half -sea-land, with the tide at flood. Nor shall I ever forget two or three -of the stops which I made in the marshes that day to watch the fiddler -crabs. Nor shall I forget how they fiddled. For fiddle they did, just -as they used to years ago, when they and I lived on these marshes -together. - -If my skeptic found no fiddler crabs along her seashore, found nothing -of interest smaller and more thing-like than color and fresh air, it -may be that she did not understand how to look for crabs and things. - -To go to the seashore for one June, to the mountains for a second, to -the farm for a third, is not a good way to study the out-of-doors. A -better way is to spend all three Junes at this shore or upon this same -farm. It is when one abides upon the farm, indeed, the year around, -through several Junes, that one discovers the woodchucks. The clover is -too high in June. As one of twelve, June is a very good month to be out -of doors; but as a season for nature study,—no single month, not even -June, is satisfactory. - -It takes time and patience and close watching to discover woodchucks. -This means a limited territory; one can easily have too much ground -to cultivate. I know a man who owns five hundred acres of Jersey pine -barrens, and who can hardly till enough of it to pay taxes, whereas a -friend of mine here near Boston is quietly getting rich on three acres -and a half. - -My skeptic had too many acres. She went to the seashore one summer, -then to the mountains, then to a farm, and now she doubts the existence -of crabs and woodchucks. Well she may. She might almost doubt the -reality of the mountains and shore, to say nothing of the farm. One can -scarcely come to believe in a mountain in the course of a mere June. -The trouble is one of size. As well try to make friends with a crowded -street. Crabs and woodchucks live in little holes. You must hunt for -the holes; you must wait until the woodchucks come out. - -For more than five years now I have been hunting holes here on the -farm, and it is astonishing the number I have discovered. I doubt if -driving past you would see anything extraordinary in this small farm of -mine,—a steep, tree-grown ridge, with a house at the top, a patch of -garden, a bit of meadow, a piece of woods, a stream, a few old apple -trees, a rather sterile, stony field. But live here as I do, mow and -dig and trim and chop as I do, know all the paths, the stumps, the -stone heaps, the tree holes, earth holes,—there simply is no end of -holes, and they are all inhabited. - -By actual count there are forty-six woodchuck holes on these fourteen -acres. Now forty-six woodchuck holes are a good many holes, but I have -been these five years counting them. Only two of them are in the open, -and visible from the road. Driving past, I say, you might actually -think I had no woodchucks at all! - -You should stop all summer and milk for me some morning. Throughout -the early part of the season I had left the kitchen with my milk-pail -rather late,—a little after five o’clock. One morning in September I -stepped out of the door a little before five, and there in the clover -close to the stoop sat a fine old woodchuck. I stood still and watched -him. He was not expecting me yet, for he knew my comings out and goings -in. He was up to his eyes in the clover, and he neither saw nor heard -me. - -Here about the kitchen door he had fed since the clover started, and -I had not known it. He had timed his breakfast so as to be through by -five o’clock,—before I came out. Had I been a boarder, with no cow to -milk, perhaps I never should have known it. But after that morning I -saw him frequently. I took pains to get up with him. Just over the edge -of the lawn, about five feet down the wooded slope, was his burrow, -which was one of the latest of the forty-six holes to be discovered. - -When I shall have been milking and huckleberrying and hen’s nesting and -aimlessly wandering over these fourteen acres for five years more, I -shall have found, it may be, the very last of the woodchuck holes. No, -not in five, nor in five hundred years, for the families in the old -holes keep multiplying, and the new holes keep multiplying too. - -But woodchucks are not the only “things,” not the only crop that the -farm yields, although it must certainly seem that there can be little -room on these scant acres for anything more. My farming, however, is -intensive,—from the tops of my tallest pines to the bottoms of my -deepest woodchuck burrows,—so that I have an abundant crop of crows, -chipmunks, muskrats, mice, skunks, foxes, and rabbits (few rabbits, I -ought to say, because of the many foxes). - -Lately I found a den of young foxes within barking distance of the -house, but along a stony ridge on the adjoining farm. No one would -believe in the number of foxes (or the number of times I have counted -the same fox) here on the farm, and this only sixteen miles by the -roundabout road from Boston Common! But let him live here—and keep -chickens! - -One day, as we were sitting down to a noon dinner, I heard the hens -squawk, and out I tore. The fox had a big black hen and was making off -for the woods. I made after the fox. There is a sharp ridge back of the -henyard, which was thickly covered with stump sprouts and slashings. -The fox took to the ridge. From the house to the henyard it is all -downhill, and I wanted that hen. She weighed a good eight pounds,—a -load for any fox,—and what with her squawking and flopping, the tangle -of brush and the steep hillside, it is small wonder that just short of -the top I fell upon her, to the great sorrow of the fox, who held on -until I was within reach of him. - -But such an experience as this, while it would be quite impossible to -a summer boarder, is yet a not uncommon experience for my unobserving, -fox-hating neighbors. They seldom see more, however; whereas, a study -of the lay of the land hereabout reveals a real fox community overlying -our farm community like some faint tracing. We humans possess the land -by day and the foxes keep to their dens; the foxes possess the land at -night and we humans take to our dens. - -One of the high roads of the foxes runs across the farm. Foxes, like -men, are more or less mechanical in their coming and going. They will -move within certain well-defined boundaries, running certain definite -routes; crossing the stream at a particular ford every time, traveling -this ridge and not that, leaving the road at this point, and swinging -off in just such a circle through the swamp. - -One autumn two foxes were shot at my lower bars as they were jumping -the little river. Their road crosses the stream here, then leads -through the bars, along the base of the ridge, and up my path to the -pasture. - -I stood in this path one night when a fox that the dogs were driving -came up behind me, stopped, and sniffed at my boots. This last -November, 1907, a young fox, leaving the hounds in the tangle of his -trails, trotted up this same path, turned in the pasture, and came -up to the house. He halted on the edge of the lawn just above the -woodchuck hole that I mentioned a few pages back, and for full ten -minutes sat there in the moonlight yapping back at the shepherd dog -barking at him from my neighbor’s yard below. - -This run up the ridge to the pasture is the highway from west to east. -When the pack is baying off to the eastward, and coming nearer, I can -stand by the fence between the yard and my neighbor’s pasture with the -certainty of seeing the fox once in half a dozen times, and the dogs -almost every time, for the fox breaks from the sprout land back of the -henyard, crosses the neighboring pasture, jumps the wall, and runs my -driveway to the public road and on to the woods beyond the river. - -All of this sounds very wild, indeed, and so it is—at night; in the -daylight it is all tame enough. Only the patient watcher knows what -wild feet run these open roads; only he who knows the lay of every foot -of this rocky, pastured land knows that these winding cow paths lead -past the barnyards on into the ledges and into dens. And no one can -find all of this out in a single June. - -Many of our happiest glimpses of nature are accidental. We stumble upon -things, yet it happens usually when we are trying to find something. -The finding of a hummingbird’s nest is always an accident; and such -accidents are extremely rare, as will be seen from a statement by Mr. -Burroughs in which he says he has come upon but three hummingbirds’ -nests in all his life! He has doubtless found many more than three -owls’ nests, but perhaps not one of such finds was an accident. He -_hunted_ for the owls. - -Night after night, in the sweet silence through which our little river -sings, we hear the whimpering of the small screech owls. They are -beating for mice and frogs over the meadow. So much we get without -watching; but the sight of them and their nest, that came only with my -visiting every tree in the neighborhood having a cavity big enough to -hold the birds. - -At twilight, in the late spring and early summer, we frequently hear a -gentle, tremulous call from the woods, or from below in the orchard. -“What is it?” I had been asked a hundred times, and as many times had -answered that it sounded like the hen partridge clucking to her brood; -or that it made me think of the mate-call of a coon; or that I half -inclined to believe it the cry of the woodchucks; or that possibly it -might be made by the owls. In fact, I didn’t know the peculiar call, -and year after year I kept waiting for an accident to reveal its maker -and its meaning to me. - -There were accidents and discoveries of many sorts during these years, -but not this particular accident. The accident you wait for is slow in -coming. - -We were seated one evening on the porch listening to the -whip-poor-wills, when some one said, “There’s your woodchuck -singing again.” Sure enough, there sounded the tremulous -woodchuck-partridge-coon-owl cry, and I slipped down through the -birches determined to know that cry if I had to follow it all night. - -The moon was high and full, the footing almost noiseless, and -everything so quiet that I quickly located the clucking sounds as -coming from the orchard. I came out of the birches into the wood road, -and was crossing the open field to the orchard, when something dropped -with a swish and a vicious clacking almost upon my head. I jumped from -under,—I should say a part of my hair,—and saw a screech owl swoop -softly up into the nearest apple tree. Instantly she turned toward me -and uttered the gentle purring cluck that I had been guessing so hard -at for at least three years. And even while I looked at her I saw -in the tree beyond, silhouetted against the moonlit sky, two round -bunches,—young owls evidently,—which were the interpretation of the -calls. These two, and another young one, were found in the orchard the -following day. - -I rejoined the guessers on the porch, and gave them the satisfying -facts. But let me say that this was very fast, even exceptional time, -indeed, for the solving of an outdoor problem. I have questions enough -for a big chapter upon which I have been _working_ these more than -three years. The point is this: I might have gone on guessing about -the mother call of the screech owl to the end of time; whereas with a -little searching and I must certainly have found out the cry in much -less time than three years. - -I had laughed at some good friends over on the other road who had -bolted their front door and had gone out of the door at the side of -the house for precisely twenty-one years because the key in the front -door lock wouldn’t work. They kept intending to have it fixed, but the -children were little and kept them busy; then they grew up, and of -course kept them busy; got married at last and left home,—all but one -daughter. Still the locksmith was not called to fix the front door. One -day this unmarried daughter, in a fit of dire impatience, got at the -door herself, and found that the key had been inserted just twenty-one -years before—upside down! - -So I had sat on the porch and guessed about it. I had left the key -upside down in the lock of the front door, and had gone out by way of -the kitchen. - -The first necessity for interesting nature study is an intimate -acquaintance with some locality. It does not matter how small, how -commonplace, how near the city,—the nearer the better, provided there -are trees, water, fences, and some seclusion. If your own roof-tree -stands in the midst of it all, then that is ideal. - -But you must be limited. It is a small amount of land that one man -can till with profit. Your very bees range hardly more than two miles -from the hive. They cannot fly farther than that and store honey. -Within this little world, however, they know every bank whereon the -honey-yielding flowers grow. In early August I can follow their line -of flight westward, through the woods for more than a mile, to an old -pasture where great patches of dwarf sumac are in bloom. The bees hum -about me in a fever of excitement. Then I fetch a compass far around -toward home, and wherever I find the sumac in blossom, whether a -hundred clustered bushes, or a single panicle of flowers hidden deep -in the woods, there I find my golden bees. I wonder if, in all their -range, they let waste one drop of this heavy golden sumac honey? - -Do you know the flowers in your range as well as the bees know them in -theirs? And, what is more, are you getting the honey? Do you know your -dead trees and stone piles, and the folk who dwell in them? Could you -take me, silent and soft of foot, from hole to hole, from nest to nest, -from hedgerow to thicket, to cripple, to meadow, making me acquainted -with your neighbors? - -This is what Gilbert White could have done had you visited him at -Selborne. This is what John Burroughs still does when the college girls -go out to Slabsides. - -Owning a farm is not necessary for all of this. Only the parish house -and the yard belonged to the old naturalist of Selborne. Sometimes, -indeed, I am quite convinced that, for pure and lasting joy in the -fields, you should not be possessed even of a garden patch; for, -once you have digged into earth of your own, then have a care, else -along with the cucumber seed you will plant your soul. The man in the -Scriptures who bought a piece of land and wished thereafter only to -dig, had a real case. - -Owning a farm is not necessary. To be near the open country is enough, -so near that you can know it intimately the year around. “He is a -thoroughly good naturalist,” says Kingsley, “who knows his own parish -thoroughly.” He was thinking of Gilbert White, I am sure,—that gentle -rector who _lived_ in Selborne, and there grew old with his tortoise. - -This is all there is to nature study, this growing old with your garden -and your tame tortoise. The study of the out-of-doors is not a new -cult; it is not a search after a living uintatherium, or after a frog -that can swallow his pond, or a fish hawk that reads,—not a hunt for -the extraordinary or the marvelous at all, but for things as the Lord -made them. Nature study is the out-of-door side of natural history, the -unmeasured, unprinted side of poetry. It is joy in breathing the air of -the fields; joy in seeing, hearing, living the life of the fields; joy -in knowing and loving all that lives with you in _your_ out-of-doors. - - - The Riverside Press - - CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS - - U · S · A - - - - - _A SELECTED LIST OF - OUT OF DOOR AND NATURE BOOKS_ - - -BY JOHN BURROUGHS - - -WAYS OF NATURE - -FAR AND NEAR - - Each of the above, 16mo, gilt top, $1.10, _net_. Postpaid, $1.20. - -WAKE-ROBIN - -WINTER SUNSHINE - -PEPACTON, AND OTHER SKETCHES - -FRESH FIELDS - -SIGNS AND SEASONS - -BIRDS AND POETS, WITH OTHER PAPERS - -LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY - -RIVERBY - - Each of the above, 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. - -A YEAR IN THE FIELDS - - Selections appropriate to each season of the year from the writings - of JOHN BURROUGHS. With a Biographical Sketch, and 24 Illustrations - from Photographs by CLIFTON JOHNSON. 12mo, gilt top, $1.50. - -SQUIRRELS AND OTHER FUR-BEARERS - - Illustrated in color after AUDUBON. Square 12mo, $1.00. - - -BY HENRY D. THOREAU - - -A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS. With Portrait. - -WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS - -THE MAINE WOODS - -CAPE COD - - -EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS - -SUMMER. With Map of Concord. - -AUTUMN - -WINTER - - The above four are from the journal of THOREAU. Edited by H. G. 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- margin-left: 4.7em; - margin-top: 0.5em; - margin-bottom: 0.5em; - line-height: 1em;} - -.pagenum { /* visibility: hidden; */ - position: absolute; - left: 94%; - color: gray; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - text-indent: 0em; - font-style: normal; - font-weight: normal;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - -.figcenter {margin: auto; - text-align: center; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em;} - -.floatleft {float: left; - clear: left; - text-align: center; - padding: 5px; - margin: 0 7px 0 0;} - -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - padding:0.5em; - margin-bottom:5em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - - hr.pg { width: 100%; - margin-top: 3em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - height: 4px; - border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ - border-style: solid; - border-color: #000000; - clear: both; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lay of the Land, by Dallas Lore Sharp, -Illustrated by Elizabeth Myers Snagg</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world 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 <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: The Lay of the Land</p> -<p>Author: Dallas Lore Sharp</p> -<p>Release Date: December 8, 2015 [eBook #50650]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAY OF THE LAND***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4>E-text prepared by Giovanni Fini, Bryan Ness,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive/American Libraries<br /> - (<a href="https://archive.org/details/americana">https://archive.org/details/americana</a>)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive/American Libraries. See - <a href="https://archive.org/details/layoflandsharpda00sharrich"> - https://archive.org/details/layoflandsharpda00sharrich</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pg" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - - -<div class="limit"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="350" height="559" alt="cover" /> -</div> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="font40 pc4">The Lay of the Land</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a><br /><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<h1 class="p2 font60 red">The Lay of the Land</h1> -<p class="pc2 font20">By</p> -<p class="pc1 font30">Dallas Lore Sharp</p> -<p class="pc">AUTHOR OF “WILD LIFE NEAR HOME” AND<br /> -“ROOF AND MEADOW”</p> - -<p class="pc2 font30">With Drawings by<br /> -Elizabeth Myers Snagg</p> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/logo.jpg" width="200" height="266" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<p class="pc1">BOSTON AND NEW YORK</p> -<p class="pc mid">HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY</p> -<p class="pc font20 red">The Riverside Press Cambridge</p> -<p class="pc">1908</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pc4 reduct">COPYRIGHT 1908 BY DALLAS LORE SHARP<br /> -ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<br /> -<i>Published September 1908</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pc4 font30">To the Memory of my Friend<br /> -William Frank Morrison, M. D.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a><br /><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="p4 font30">Contents</h2> - -<table id="toc" summary="cont"> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">I.</td> - <td class="tdl">The Muskrats are Building</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">II.</td> - <td class="tdl">Christmas in the Woods</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">III.</td> - <td class="tdl">A Cure for Winter</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">IV.</td> - <td class="tdl">The Nature-Student</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">V.</td> - <td class="tdl">Chickadee</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VI.</td> - <td class="tdl">The Missing Tooth</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VII.</td> - <td class="tdl">The Sign of the Shad-bush</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">VIII.</td> - <td class="tdl">The Nature Movement</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">IX.</td> - <td class="tdl">June</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">X.</td> - <td class="tdl">A Broken Feather</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XI.</td> - <td class="tdl">High Noon</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XII.</td> - <td class="tdl">The Palace in the Pig-pen</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XIII.</td> - <td class="tdl">An Account with Nature</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XIV.</td> - <td class="tdl">The Buzzard of the Bear Swamp</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> - </tr> - - <tr> - <td class="tdr">XV.</td> - <td class="tdl">The Lay of the Land</td> - <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td> - </tr> - -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a><br /><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-009.jpg" width="400" height="150" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>I</h2> - -<p class="pch">The Muskrats are Building</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">We</span> have had a series of long, heavy rains, and water -is standing over the swampy meadow. It is a dreary -stretch, this wet, sedgy land in the cold twilight, -drearier than any part of the woods or the upland -pastures. They are empty, but the meadow is flat -and wet, naked and all unsheltered. And a November -night is falling.</p> - -<p>The darkness deepens. A raw wind is rising. At -nine o’clock the moon swings round and full to the -crest of the ridge, and pours softly over. I button the -heavy ulster close, and in my rubber boots go down -to the river and follow it out to the middle of the -meadow, where it meets the main ditch at the sharp -turn toward the swamp. Here at the bend, behind a -clump of black alders, I sit quietly down and wait.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<p>I am not mad, nor melancholy; I am not after -copy. Nothing is the matter with me. I have come -out to the bend to watch the muskrats building, for -that small mound up the ditch is not an old haycock, -but a half-finished muskrat house.</p> - -<p>The moon climbs higher. The water on the meadow -shivers in the light. The wind bites through my -heavy coat and sends me back, but not until I have -seen one, two, three little figures scaling the walls of -the house with loads of mud-and-reed mortar. I am -driven back by the cold, but not until I know that -here in the desolate meadow is being rounded off a -lodge, thick-walled and warm, and proof against the -longest, bitterest of winters.</p> - -<p>This is near the end of November. My wood is in -the cellar; I am about ready to put on the double -windows and storm doors; and the muskrats’ house -is all but finished. Winter is at hand: but we are -prepared, the muskrats even better prepared than -I, for theirs is an adequate house, planned perfectly.</p> - -<p>Throughout the summer they had no house, only -their tunnels into the sides of the ditch, their roadways -out into the grass, and their beds under the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> -tussocks or among the roots of the old stumps. All -these months the water had been low in the ditch, -and the beds among the tussocks had been safe and -dry enough.</p> - -<p>Now the autumnal rains have filled river and ditch, -flooded the tunnels, and crept up into the beds under -the tussocks. Even a muskrat will creep out of his -bed when cold, wet water creeps in. What shall he do -for a house? He does not want to leave his meadow. -The only thing to do is to build,—move from under -the tussock, out upon the top, and here, in the deep, -wiry grass, make a new bed, high and dry above the -rising water, and close the new bed in with walls -that circle and dome and defy the winter.</p> - -<p>Such a house will require a great deal of work to -build. Why not combine, make it big enough to hold -half a dozen, save labor and warmth, and, withal, live -sociably together? So they left, each one his bed, -and joining efforts, started, about the middle of October, -to build this winter house.</p> - -<p>Slowly, night after night, the domed walls have -been rising, although for several nights at a time -there would be no apparent progress with the work. -The builders were in no hurry, it seems; the cold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> -was far off; but it is coming, and to-night it feels -near and keen. And to-night there is no loafing about -the lodge.</p> - -<p>When this house is done, then the rains may descend, -and the floods come, but it will not fall. It is -built upon a tussock; and a tussock, you will know, -who have ever grubbed at one, has hold on the bottom -of creation. The winter may descend, and the -boys, and foxes, come,—and they will come, but not -before the walls are frozen,—yet the house stands. -It is boy-proof, almost; it is entirely rain-, cold-, and -fox-proof. Many a time I have hacked at its walls -with my axe when fishing through the ice, but I never -got in. I have often seen, too, where the fox has gone -round and round the house in the snow, and where, -at places, he has attempted to dig into the frozen -mortar; but it was a foot thick, as hard as flint, and -utterly impossible for his pick and shovel.</p> - -<p>Yet strangely enough the house sometimes fails of -the very purpose for which it was erected. I said the -floods may come. So they may, ordinarily; but along -in March when one comes as a freshet, it rises sometimes -to the dome of the house, filling the single bedchamber -and drowning the dwellers out. I remember<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -a freshet once in the end of February that flooded -Lupton’s Pond and drove the muskrats of the whole -pond village to their ridgepoles, to the bushes, and -to whatever wreckage the waters brought along.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">The best laid schemes o’ <i>muskrats too</i><br /> -Gang aft a-gley.</p> - -<p class="pn1">But ganging a-gley is not the interesting thing, not -the point with my muskrats: it is rather that my -muskrats, and the mice that Burns ploughed up, the -birds and the bees, and even the very trees of the -forest, have foresight. They all look ahead and provide -against the coming cold. That a mouse, or a -muskrat, or even a bee, should occasionally prove -foresight to be vain, only shows that the life of the -fields is very human. Such foresight, however, oftener -proves entirely adequate for the winter, dire as some -of the emergencies are sure to be.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">The north wind doth blow,<br /> -And we shall have snow,<br /> -And what will Robin do then,</p> -<p class="pp6">Poor thing?</p> - -<p class="pn1">And what will Muskrat do? and Chipmunk? and -Whitefoot? and little Chickadee? poor things! Never -fear. Robin has heard the trumpets of the north wind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -and is retreating leisurely toward the south, wise -thing! Muskrat is building a warm winter lodge; -Chipmunk has already dug his but and ben, and so -far down under the stone wall that a month of zeros -could not break in; Whitefoot, the woodmouse, has -stored the hollow poplar stub full of acorns, and has -turned Robin’s deserted nest, near by, into a cosy -house; and Chickadee, dear thing, Nature herself -looks after him. There are plenty of provisions for -the hunting, and a big piece of suet on my lilac bush. -His clothes are warm, and he will hide his head under -his wing in the elm-tree hole when the north wind -doth blow, and never mind the weather.</p> - -<p>I shall not mind it either, not so much, anyway, -on account of Chickadee. He lends me a deal of -support. So do Chipmunk, Whitefoot, and Muskrat.</p> - -<p>This lodge of my muskrats in the meadow makes -a difference, I am sure, of at least ten degrees in the -mean temperature of my winter. How can the out-of-doors -freeze entirely up with such a house as this -at the middle of it? For in this house is life, warm -life,—and fire. On the coldest day I can look out -over the bleak white waste to where the house shows, -a tiny mound in the snow, and I can see the fire burn,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -just as I can see and feel the glow when I watch the -slender blue wraith rise into the still air from the -chimney of the old farmhouse along the road below. -For I share in the life of both houses; and not less -in the life of the mud house of the meadow, because, -instead of Swedes, they are muskrats who live there. -I can share the existence of a muskrat? Easily. I -like to curl up with the three or four of them in that -mud house and there spend the worst days of the -winter. My own big house here on the hilltop is -sometimes cold. And the wind! If sometimes I could -only drive the insistent winter wind from the house -corners! But down in the meadow the house has no -corners; the mud walls are thick, so thick and round -that the shrieking wind sweeps past unheard, and all -unheeded the cold creeps over and over the thatch, -then crawls back and stiffens upon the meadow.</p> - -<p>The doors of our house in the meadow swing open -the winter through. Just outside the doors stand our -stacks of fresh calamus roots, and iris, and arum. The -roof of the universe has settled close and hard upon -us,—a sheet of ice extending from the ridge of the -house far out to the shores of the meadow. The winter -is all above the roof—outside. It blows and snows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -and freezes out there. In here, beneath the ice-roof, -the roots of the sedges are pink and tender; our roads -are all open and they run every way, over all the rich, -rooty meadow.</p> - -<p>The muskrats are building. Winter is coming. The -muskrats are making preparations, but not they alone. -The preparation for hard weather is to be seen everywhere, -and it has been going on ever since the first -flocking of the swallows back in July. Up to that -time the season still seemed young; no one thought -of harvest, of winter;—when there upon the telegraph -wires one day were the swallows, and work -against the winter had commenced.</p> - -<p>The great migratory movements of the birds, mysterious -in some of their courses as the currents of -the sea, were in the beginning, and are still, for the -most part, mere shifts to escape the cold. Why in -the spring these same birds should leave the southern -lands of plenty and travel back to the hungrier -north to nest, is not easily explained. Perhaps it is -the home instinct that draws them back; for home -to birds (and men) is the land of the nest. However, -it is very certain that among the autumn migrants -there would be at once a great falling off should there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -come a series of warm open winters with abundance -of food.</p> - -<p>Bad as the weather is, there are a few of the seed-eating -birds, like the quail, and some of the insect-eaters, -like the chickadee, who are so well provided -for that they can stay and survive the winter. But -the great majority of the birds, because they have no -storehouse nor barn, must take wing and fly away -from the lean and hungry cold.</p> - -<p>And I am glad to see them go. The thrilling honk -of the flying wild geese out of the November sky -tells me that the hollow forests and closing bays of -the vast desolate north are empty now, except for -the few creatures that find food and shelter in the -snow. The wild geese pass, and I hear behind them -the clang of the arctic gates, the boom of the bolt—then -the long frozen silence. Yet it is not for long. -Soon the bar will slip back, the gates will swing wide, -and the wild geese will come honking over, swift to -the greening marshes of the arctic bays once more.</p> - -<p>Here in my own small woods and marshes there -is much getting ready, much comforting assurance -that Nature is quite equal to herself, that winter is -not approaching unawares. There will be great lack,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -no doubt, before there is plenty again; there will be -suffering and death. But what with the migrating, -the strange deep sleeping, the building and harvesting, -there will be also much comfortable, much joyous -and sociable living.</p> - -<p>Long before the muskrats began to build, even before -the swallows commenced to flock, my chipmunks -started their winter stores. I don’t know which began -his work first, which kept harder at it, chipmunk -or the provident ant. The ant has come by a reputation -for thrift, which, though entirely deserved, is -still not the exceptional virtue it is made to seem. -Chipmunk is just as thrifty. So is the busy bee. It -is the thought of approaching winter that keeps the -bee busy far beyond her summer needs. Much of -her labor is entirely for the winter. By the first of -August she has filled the brood chamber with honey—forty -pounds of it, enough for the hatching bees -and for the whole colony until the willows tassel -again. But who knows what the winter may be? -How cold and long drawn out into the coming May? -So the harvesting is pushed with vigor on to the -flowering of the last autumn asters—on until fifty, a -hundred, or even three hundred pounds of surplus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -honey are sealed in the combs, and the colony is safe -should the sun not shine again for a year and a day.</p> - -<p>But here is Nature, in these extra pounds of honey, -making preparation for me, incapable drone that I -am. I could not make a drop of honey from a whole -forest of linden bloom. Yet I must live, so I give -the bees a bigger gum log than they need; I build -them greater barns; and when the harvest is all -in, this extra store I make my own. I too with the -others am getting ready for the cold.</p> - -<p>It is well that I am. The last of the asters have -long since gone; so have the witch-hazels. All is quiet -about the hives. The bees have formed into their -warm winter clusters upon the combs, and except -“when come the calm, mild days,” they will fly no -more until March or April. I will contract their -entrances,—put on their storm-doors. And now -there is little else that I can do but put on my own.</p> - -<p>The whole of my out-of-doors is a great hive, -stored and sealed for the winter, its swarming life -close-clustered, and covering in its centre, as coals -in the ashes, the warm life-fires of summer.</p> - -<p>I stand along the edge of the hillside here and -look down the length of its frozen slope. The brown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -leaves have drifted into the entrances, as if every -burrow were forsaken; sand and sticks have washed -in, too, littering and choking the doorways.</p> - -<p>There is no sign of life. A stranger would find it -hard to believe that my whole drove of forty-six -ground hogs (woodchucks) are gently snoring at the -bottoms of these old uninteresting holes. Yet here -they are, and quite out of danger, sleeping the sleep -of the furry, the fat, and the forgetful.</p> - -<p>The woodchuck’s is a curious shift, a case of Nature -outdoing herself. Winter spreads far and fast, -and Woodchuck, in order to keep ahead out of danger, -would need wings. But he wasn’t given any. -Must he perish then? Winter spreads far, but does -not go deep—down only about four feet; and Woodchuck, -if he cannot escape overland, can, perhaps, -<i>under</i>land. So down he goes <i>through</i> the winter, -down into a mild and even temperature, five long -feet away—but as far away from the snow and cold -as Bobolink among the reeds of the distant Orinoco.</p> - -<p>Indeed, Woodchuck’s is a farther journey and even -more wonderful than Bobolink’s, for these five feet -carry him beyond the bounds of time and space into -the mysterious realm of sleep, of suspended life, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -the very gates of death. That he will return with -Bobolink, that he will come up alive with the spring -out of this dark way, is very strange.</p> - -<p>For he went in most meagrely prepared. He took -nothing with him, apparently. The muskrat built -him a house, and under the spreading ice turned all -the meadow into a well-stocked cellar. The beaver -built a dam, cut and anchored under water a plenty -of green sticks near his lodge, so that he too would -be under cover when the ice formed, and have an -abundance of tender bark at hand. Chipmunk spent -half of his summer laying up food near his underground -nest. But Woodchuck simply digged him a -hole, a grave, then ate until no particle more of fat -could be got into his baggy hide, and then crawled -into his tomb, gave up the ghost, and waited the -resurrection of the spring.</p> - -<p>This is his shift! This is the length to which he -goes, because he has no wings, and because he cannot -cut, cure, and mow away in the depths of the -stony hillside, enough clover hay to last him over -the winter. The beaver cans his fresh food in cold -water; the chipmunk selects long-keeping things -and buries them; the woodchuck makes of himself a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> -silo, eats all his winter hay in the summer while it is -green, turns it at once into a surplus of himself, then -buries that self, feeds upon it, and sleeps—and -lives!</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">The north wind doth blow,<br /> -And we shall have snow,</p> - -<p class="p1">but what good reason is there for our being daunted -at the prospect? Robin and all the others are well -prepared. Even the wingless frog, who is also lacking -in fur and feathers and fat, even he has no care -at the sound of the cold winds. Nature provides for -him too, in her way, which is neither the way for the -robin, the muskrat, nor the woodchuck. He survives, -and all he has to do about it is to dig into the mud -at the bottom of the ditch. This looks at first like -the journey Woodchuck takes. But it is really a -longer, stranger journey than Woodchuck’s, for it -takes the frog far beyond the realms of mere sleep, -on into the cold, black land where no one can tell -the quick from the dead.</p> - -<p>The frost may or may not reach him here in the -ooze. No matter. If the cold works down and freezes -him into the mud, he never knows. But he will -thaw out as good as new; he will sing again for joy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -and love as soon as his heart warms up enough to -beat.</p> - -<p>I have seen frogs frozen into the middle of solid -lumps of ice in the laboratory. Drop the lump on the -floor, and the frog would break out like a fragment -of the ice itself. And this has happened more than -once to the same frog without causing him the least -apparent suffering or inconvenience. He would come -to, and croak, and look as wise as ever.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">The north wind <i>may</i> blow,</p> - -<p class="pn1">but the muskrats are building; and it is by no -means a cheerless prospect, this wood-and-meadow -world of mine in the gray November light. The -frost will not fall to-night as falls the plague on men; -the brightness of the summer is gone, yet this chill -gloom is not the sombre shadow of a pall. Nothing -is dying in the fields: the grass-blades are wilting, -the old leaves are falling, but no square foot of -greensward will the winter kill, nor a single tree -perhaps in my woodlot. There will be no less of -life next April because of this winter, unless, perchance, -conditions altogether exceptional starve some -of the winter birds. These suffer most; yet as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -seasons go, life even for the winter birds is comfortable -and abundant.</p> - -<p>The fence-rows and old pastures are full of berries -that will keep the fires burning in the quail and partridge -during the bitterest weather. Last February, -however, I came upon two partridges in the snow, -dead of hunger and cold. It was after an extremely -long severe spell. But this was not all. These two -birds since fall had been feeding regularly in the -dried fodder corn that stood shocked over the field. -One day all the corn was carted away. The birds -found their supply of food suddenly cut off, and, unused -to foraging the fence-rows and tangles for wild -seeds, they seem to have given up the struggle at -once, although within easy reach of plenty.</p> - -<p>Hardly a minute’s flight away was a great thicket -of dwarf sumac covered with berries; there were -bayberries, rose hips, green brier, bittersweet, black -alder, and checkerberries—hillsides of the latter—that -they might have found. These were hard fare, -doubtless, after an unstinted supply of sweet corn; -but still they were plentiful, and would have been -sufficient had the birds made use of them.</p> - -<p>The smaller birds of the winter, like the tree<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -sparrow and junco, feed upon the weeds and grasses -that ripen unmolested along the roadsides and waste -places. A mixed flock of these small birds lived -several days last winter upon the seeds of the ragweed -in my mowing. The weeds came up in the -early fall after the field was laid down to clover and -timothy. They threatened to choke out the grass. I -looked at them, rising shoulder-high and seedy over -the greening field, and thought with dismay of how -they would cover it by the next fall. After a time -the snow came, a foot and a half of it, till only the -tops of the seedy ragweeds showed above the level -white; then the juncos, goldfinches, and tree sparrows -came, and there was a five-day shucking of -ragweed-seed in the mowing, and five days of life -and plenty.</p> - -<p>Then I looked and thought again—that, perhaps, -into the original divine scheme of things were put -even ragweeds. But then, perhaps, there was no -original divine scheme of things. I don’t know. As -I watch the changing seasons, however, across the -changeless years, I seem to find a scheme, a plan, a -purpose, and there are weeds and winters in it, and -it seems divine.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> - -<p>The muskrats are building; the last of the migrating -geese have gone over; the wild mice have harvested -their acorns; the bees have clustered; the -woodchucks are asleep; and the sap in the big hickory -by the side of the house has crept down out of -reach of the fingers of the frost. I will put on the -storm-doors and the double windows. Even now the -logs are blazing cheerily on the wide, warm hearth.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-027a.jpg" width="400" height="321" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2 class="upper shiftr">II</h2> - -<p class="pch shiftr">Christmas in the Woods</p> - - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">On</span> the night before this particular Christmas -every creature of the woods that could -stir was up and stirring, for over the old snow was -falling swiftly, silently, a soft, fresh covering that -might mean a hungry Christmas unless the dinner -were had before morning.</p> - -<p>But when the morning dawned, a cheery Christmas -sun broke across the great gum swamp, lighting -the snowy boles and soft-piled limbs of the giant -trees with indescribable glory, and pouring, a golden -flood, into the deep spongy bottoms -below. It would be a perfect Christmas -in the woods, clear, mild, -stirless, with silent footing for me, -and everywhere the telltale snow.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> - -<div class="floatleft"> - <img src="images/ill-027b.jpg" width="200" height="188" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<p>And everywhere the Christmas spirit, too. As I -paused among the pointed cedars of the pasture, -looking down into the cripple at the head of the -swamp, a clear wild whistle rang in the thicket, followed -by a flash through the alders like a tongue of -fire, as a cardinal grosbeak shot down to the tangle -of greenbrier and magnolia under the slope. It was a -fleck of flaming summer. As warm as summer, too, -the stag-horn sumac burned on the crest of the ridge -against the group of holly trees,—trees as fresh as -April, and all aglow with berries. The woods were -decorated for the holy day. The gentleness of the -soft new snow touched everything; cheer and good-will -lighted the unclouded sky and warmed the thick -depths of the evergreens, and blazed in the crimson-berried -bushes of the ilex and alder. The Christmas -woods were glad.</p> - -<p>Nor was the gladness all show, mere decoration. -There was real cheer in abundance, for I was back -in the old home woods, back along the Cohansey, -back where you can pick persimmons off the trees at -Christmas. There are persons who say the Lord might -have made a better berry than the strawberry, but He -didn’t. Perhaps He didn’t make the strawberry at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -all. But He did make the Cohansey Creek persimmon, -and He made it as good as He could. Nowhere else -under the sun can you find such persimmons as these -along the creek, such richness of flavor, such gummy, -candied quality, woodsy, wild, crude,—especially the -fruit of two particular trees on the west bank, near -Lupton’s Pond. But they never come to this perfection, -never quite lose their pucker, until midwinter,—as -if they had been intended for the Christmas -table of the woods.</p> - -<p>It had been nearly twenty years since I crossed -this pasture of the cedars on my way to the persimmon -trees. The cows had been crossing every -year, yet not a single new crook had they worn in -the old paths. But I was half afraid as I came to -the fence where I could look down upon the pond -and over to the persimmon trees. Not one of the -Luptons, who owned pasture and pond and trees, -had ever been a boy, so far as I could remember, or -had ever eaten of those persimmons. Would they -have left the trees through all these years?</p> - -<p>I pushed through the hedge of cedars and stopped -for an instant, confused. The very pond was gone! -and the trees! No, there was the pond,—but how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -small the patch of water! and the two persimmon -trees? The bush and undergrowth had grown these -twenty years. Which way? Ah, there they stand, -only their leafless tops showing; but see the hard -angular limbs, how closely globed with fruit! how -softly etched upon the sky!</p> - -<p>I hurried around to the trees and climbed the one -with the two broken branches, up, clear up to the -top, into the thick of the persimmons.</p> - -<p>Did I say it had been twenty years? That could -not be. Twenty years would have made me a man, -and this sweet, real taste in my mouth only a <i>boy</i> -could know. But there was college, and marriage, a -Massachusetts farm, four boys of my own, and—no -matter! it could not have been <i>years</i>—twenty years—since. -It was only yesterday that I last climbed this -tree and ate the rich rimy fruit frosted with a Christmas -snow.</p> - -<p>And yet, could it have been yesterday? It was -storming, and I clung here in the swirling snow and -heard the wild ducks go over in their hurry toward -the bay. Yesterday, and all this change in the vast -treetop world, this huddled pond, those narrowed -meadows, that shrunken creek! I should have eaten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -the persimmons and climbed straight down, not -stopped to gaze out upon the pond, and away over -the dark ditches to the creek. But reaching out -quickly I gathered another handful,—and all was -yesterday again.</p> - -<p>I filled both pockets of my coat and climbed down. -I kept those persimmons and am tasting them to-night. -Lupton’s Pond may fill to a puddle, the meadows -may shrivel, the creek dry up and disappear, and -old Time may even try his wiles on me. But I shall -foil him to the end; for I am carrying still in my -pocket some of yesterday’s persimmons,—persimmons -that ripened in the rime of a winter when I was -a boy.</p> - -<p>High and alone in a bare persimmon tree for one’s -dinner hardly sounds like a merry Christmas. But I -was not alone. I had noted the fresh tracks beneath -the tree before I climbed up, and now I saw that the -snow had been partly brushed from several of the -large limbs as the ’possum had moved about in -the tree for his Christmas dinner. We were guests -at the same festive board, and both of us at Nature’s -invitation. It mattered not that the ’possum had -eaten and gone this hour or more. Such is good form<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -in the woods. He was expecting me, so he came -early, out of modesty, and, that I too might be entirely -at my ease, he departed early, leaving his greetings -for me in the snow.</p> - -<p>Thus I was not alone; here was good company and -plenty of it. I never lack a companion in the woods -when I can pick up a trail. The ’possum and I ate -together. And this was just the fellowship I needed, -this sharing the persimmons with the ’possum. I had -broken bread, not with the ’possum only, but with all -the out-of-doors. I was now fit to enter the woods, -for I was filled with good-will and persimmons, as -full as the ’possum; and putting myself under his -gentle guidance, I got down upon the ground, took -up his clumsy trail, and descended toward the swamp. -Such an entry is one of the particular joys of the -winter. To go in with a fox, a mink, or a ’possum -through the door of the woods is to find yourself at -home. Any one can get inside the out-of-doors, as the -grocery boy or the census man gets inside our houses. -You can bolt in at any time on business. A trail, -however, is Nature’s invitation. There may be other, -better beaten paths for mere feet. But go softly with -the ’possum, and at the threshold you are met by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -spirit of the wood, you are made the guest of the -open, silent, secret out-of-doors.</p> - -<p>I went down with the ’possum. He had traveled -home leisurely and without fear, as his tracks plainly -showed. He was full of persimmons. A good happy -world this, where such fare could be had for the -picking! What need to hurry home, except one were -in danger of falling asleep by the way? So I thought, -too, as I followed his winding path; and if I was -tracking him to his den, it was only to wake him for -a moment with the compliments of the season. But it -was not even a momentary disturbance; for when I -finally found him in his hollow gum, he was sound -asleep, and only half realized that some one was poking -him gently in the ribs and wishing him a merry -Christmas.</p> - -<p>The ’possum had led me to the centre of the -empty, hollow swamp, where the great-boled gums -lifted their branches like a timbered, unshingled roof -between me and the wide sky. Far away through the -spaces of the rafters I saw a pair of wheeling buzzards, -and under them, in lesser circles, a broad-winged -hawk. Here, at the feet of the tall, clean -trees, looking up through the leafless limbs, I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -something of a measure for the flight of the birds. -The majesty and the mystery of the distant buoyant -wings were singularly impressive.</p> - -<p>I have seen the turkey-buzzard sailing the skies on -the bitterest winter days. To-day, however, could -hardly be called winter. Indeed, nothing yet had felt -the pinch of the cold. There was no hunger yet in -the swamp, though this new snow had scared the -raccoons out, and their half-human tracks along the -margin of the swamp stream showed that, if not hungry, -they at least feared that they might be.</p> - -<p>For a coon hates snow. He will invariably sleep -off the first light snowfalls, and even in the late -winter he will not venture forth in fresh snow unless -driven by hunger or some other dire need. Perhaps, -like a cat or a hen, he dislikes the wetting of his feet. -Or it may be that the soft snow makes bad hunting—for -him. The truth is, I believe, that such a snow -makes too good hunting for the dogs and the gunner. -The new snow tells too clear a story. His home is no -inaccessible den among the ledges; only a hollow in -some ancient oak or tupelo. Once within, he is safe -from the dogs, but the long fierce fight for life taught -him generations ago that the nest-tree is a fatal trap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -when behind the dogs come the axe and the gun. So -he has grown wary and enduring. He waits until the -snow grows crusty, when without sign, and almost -without scent, he can slip forth among the long -shadows and prowl to the edge of dawn.</p> - -<p>Skirting the stream out toward the higher back -woods, I chanced to spy a bunch of snow in one of -the great sour gums that I thought was an old nest. -A second look showed me tiny green leaves, then -white berries, then mistletoe.</p> - -<p>It was not a surprise, for I had found it here before,—a -long, long time before. It was back in my -schoolboy days, back beyond those twenty years, that -I first stood here under the mistletoe and had my first -romance. There was no chandelier, no pretty girl, in -that romance,—only a boy, the mistletoe, the giant -trees, and the sombre silent swamp. Then there was -his discovery, the thrill of deep delight, and the -wonder of his knowledge of the strange unnatural -plant! All plants had been plants to him until, one -day, he read the life of the mistletoe. But that was -English mistletoe; so the boy’s wonder world of -plant life was still as far away as Mars, when, rambling -alone through the swamp along the creek, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -stopped under a big curious bunch of green, high up -in one of the gums, and—made his first discovery.</p> - -<p>So the boy climbed up again this Christmas Day -at the peril of his precious neck, and brought down -a bit of that old romance.</p> - -<p>I followed the stream along through the swamp to -the open meadows, and then on under the steep -wooded hillside that ran up to the higher land of -corn and melon fields. Here at the foot of the slope -the winter sun lay warm, and here in the sheltered -briery border I came upon the Christmas birds.</p> - -<p>There was a great variety of them, feeding and -preening and chirping in the vines. The tangle was -a-twitter with their quiet, cheery talk. Such a medley -of notes you could not hear at any other season outside -a city bird store. How far the different species -understood one another I should like to know, and -whether the hum of voices meant sociability to them, -as it certainly meant to me. Doubtless the first cause -of their flocking here was the sheltered warmth and -the great numbers of berry-laden bushes, for there -was no lack either of abundance or variety on the -Christmas table.</p> - -<p>In sight from where I stood hung bunches of withering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -chicken or frost grapes, plump clusters of blue-black -berries of the greenbrier, and limbs of the -smooth winterberry bending with their flaming fruit. -There were bushes of crimson ilex, too, trees of fruiting -dogwood and holly, cedars in berry, dwarf sumac -and seedy sedges, while patches on the wood slopes -uncovered by the sun were spread with trailing partridge -berry and the coral-fruited wintergreen. I had -eaten part of my dinner with the ’possum; I picked a -quantity of these wintergreen berries, and continued -my meal with the birds. And they also had enough -and to spare.</p> - -<p>Among the birds in the tangle was a large flock -of northern fox sparrows, whose vigorous and continuous -scratching in the bared spots made a most -lively and cheery commotion. Many of them were -splashing about in tiny pools of snow-water, melted -partly by the sun and partly by the warmth of their -bodies as they bathed. One would hop to a softening -bit of snow at the base of a tussock, keel over and -begin to flop, soon sending up a shower of sparkling -drops from his rather chilly tub. A winter snow-water -bath seemed a necessity, a luxury indeed, for -they all indulged, splashing with the same purpose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -and zest that they put into their scratching among -the leaves.</p> - -<p>A much bigger splashing drew me quietly through -the bushes to find a marsh hawk giving himself -a Christmas souse. The scratching, washing, and -talking of the birds; the masses of green in the -cedars, holly, and laurels; the glowing colors of the -berries against the snow; the blue of the sky, and -the golden warmth of the light made Christmas in -the heart of the noon that the very swamp seemed -to feel.</p> - -<p>Three months later there was to be scant picking -here, for this was the beginning of the severest winter -I ever knew. From this very ridge, in February, -I had reports of berries gone, of birds starving, of -whole coveys of quail frozen dead in the snow; but -neither the birds nor I dreamed to-day of any such -hunger and death. A flock of robins whirled into -the cedars above me; a pair of cardinals whistled -back and forth; tree sparrows, juncos, nuthatches, -chickadees, and cedar-birds cheeped among the trees -and bushes; and from the farm lands at the top of -the slope rang the calls of meadowlarks.</p> - -<p>Halfway up the hill I stopped under a blackjack<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -oak, where, in the thin snow, there were signs of -something like a Christmas revel. The ground was -sprinkled with acorn shells and trampled over with -feet of several kinds and sizes,—quail, jay, and partridge -feet; rabbit, squirrel, and mice feet, all over -the snow as the feast of acorns had gone on. Hundreds -of the acorns were lying about, gnawed away -at the cup end, where the shell was thinnest, many -of them further broken and cleaned out by the birds.</p> - -<p>As I sat studying the signs in the snow, my eye -caught a tiny trail leading out from the others -straight away toward a broken pile of cord-wood. -The tracks were planted one after the other, so -directly in line as to seem like the prints of a single -foot. “That’s a weasel’s trail,” I said, “the death’s-head -at this feast,” and followed it slowly to the -wood. A shiver crept over me as I felt, even sooner -than I saw, a pair of small sinister eyes fixed upon -mine. The evil pointed head, heavy but alert, and -with a suggestion of fierce strength out of all relation -to the slender body, was watching me from -between the sticks of cord-wood. And so he had been -watching the mice and birds and rabbits feasting -under the tree!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> - -<p>I packed a ball of snow round and hard, slipped -forward upon my knees, and hurled it. “Spat!” it -struck the end of a stick within an inch of the ugly -head, filling the crevice with snow. Instantly the -head appeared at another crack, and another ball -struck viciously beside it. Now it was back where it -first appeared, and did not flinch for the next, nor -the next ball. The third went true, striking with a -“chug” and packing the crack. But the black, hating -eyes were still watching me a foot lower down.</p> - -<p>It is not all peace and good-will in the Christmas -woods. But there is more of peace and good-will -than of any other spirit. The weasels are few. More -friendly and timid eyes were watching me than bold -and murderous. It was foolish to want to kill—even -the weasel. For one’s woods are what one makes -them, and so I let the man with the gun, who -chanced along, think that I had turned boy again, -and was snowballing the woodpile, just for the fun -of trying to hit the end of the biggest stick.</p> - -<p>I was glad he had come. As he strode off with -his stained bag I felt kindlier toward the weasel. -There were worse in the woods than he,—worse, -because all of their killing was pastime. The weasel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -must kill to live, and if he gloated over the kill, why, -what fault of his? But the other weasel, the one -with the blood-stained bag, he killed for the love -of killing. I was glad he was gone.</p> - -<p>The crows were winging over toward their great -roost in the pines when I turned toward the town. -They, too, had had good picking along the creek -flats and ditches of the meadows. Their powerful -wing-beats and constant play told of full crops and -no fear for the night, already softly gray across the -white silent fields. The air was crisper; the snow -began to crackle under foot; the twigs creaked and -rattled as I brushed along; a brown beech leaf wavered -down and skated with a thin scratch over -crust; and pure as the snow-wrapped crystal world, -and sweet as the soft gray twilight, came the call of -a quail.</p> - -<p>The voices, colors, odors, and forms of summer -were gone. The very face of things had changed; all -had been reduced, made plain, simple, single, pure! -There was less for the senses, but how much keener -now their joy! The wide landscape, the frosty air, -the tinkle of tiny icicles, and, out of the quiet of the -falling twilight, the voice of the quail!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> - -<p>There is no day but is beautiful in the woods; and -none more beautiful than one like this Christmas -Day,—warm and still and wrapped, to the round red -berries of the holly, in the magic of the snow.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-043.jpg" width="400" height="168" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>III</h2> - -<p class="pch">A Cure for Winter</p> - -<p class="pp6"><span class="smcap">For</span>, lo, the winter is past,<br /> -The rain is over and gone—</p> - -<p class="pn1">yet the snow lies white upon the fields, my little -river huddles under the ice, and a new calendar -hangs against the faded wall. But the storm is spent, -the sun is out, there is a cheery <i>drip, drip, drip</i> from -the eaves, eggs are sixty cents a dozen, and I am -writing to the golden cackle of my hens. New Year’s -Day, and winter gone! No, not quite gone, with eggs -at such a price; still, it must be plain to every one -that I can have but little of winter left: eggs are -liable to come down any day.</p> - -<p>It would be different, of course, were I buying -eggs at sixty cents,—all the difference between a -winter-sick and a winter-well condition. Selling eggs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> -for sixty cents is a cure, though not for poverty -when one has only thirty hens; but it is a cure for -winter. The virtue, however, is not in the sixty cents. -There is no cure for winter in mere money. The -virtue is in the eggs, or, perhaps, it is really found -in keeping the hens.</p> - -<p>Keeping the hens, and the two pigs, the horse, -the cow, the four boys, and the farm, for the year -around, is a sure cure for winter, and for a great -many other ills. In addition to the farm, one must -have some kind of a salary, and a real love for nature; -but given the boys and the farm, the love will -come, for it lies dormant in human nature, as certain -seeds seem to lie dormant in the soil; and as for the -salary, one must have a salary—farm or flat.</p> - -<p>The prescription, then, should read:—</p> - -<p class="pn large">℞</p> - -<p>A small farm—of an acre or more,</p> - -<p>A small income—of a thousand or more,</p> - -<p>A small family—of four boys or more,</p> - -<p>A real love of nature.</p> - -<p><i>Sig.</i> Morning and evening chores. The dose to be -taken daily, as long as winter lasts.</p> - -<p>This will cure. It is an old-fashioned household<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -mixture that can be compounded in any country -kitchen. But that is the trouble with it,—it is a -<i>home</i> remedy that cannot be bought of the apothecary. -There is more trouble with it, too, largely on -account of the regularity with which milking time -returns and the dose of chores. But it is effective. -A farm and congenial chores are a sovereign cure -for uncongenial time.</p> - -<p>Here on the farm the signs of coming winter are -not ominous signs. The pensive, mellowing days of -early autumn have been preparing the garden and -your mind for the shock of the first frost. Once past -this and winter is welcome; it becomes a physical, -spiritual need. The blood reddens at the promise of -it; the soul turns comfortingly in and finds itself; -and the digging of the potatoes commences, and the -shocking of the corn, the picking of the apples, the -piling up on the sunny side of the barn of the big -golden squashes.</p> - -<p>A single golden squash holds over almost enough -of the summer to keep a long winter away from the -farm; and the six of them in the attic, filling the -rafter room with sunshine, never allow the hoary old -monarch to show more than his face at the skylight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -Pie is not the only thing one brings in with his winter -squashes. He stores the ripe September in their -wrinkled rinds, rinds that are ridged and bossy with -the summer’s gold.</p> - -<p>To dig one’s own potatoes! to shock one’s own -corn! to pick one’s own apples! to pile one’s own -squashes at one’s own barn! It is like filling one’s -system with an antitoxin before going into a fever-plagued -country. One is immune to winter after this, -provided he stays to bake his apples in his own wood -fire. One works himself into a glow with all this -digging, and picking, and piling that lasts until -warm weather comes again; and along with this harvest -glow comes stealing over him the after-harvest -peace. It is the serenity of Indian summer, the mood -of the after-harvest season, upon him,—upon him -and his fields and woods.</p> - -<p>The stores are all in: the acorns have ripened and -lie hidden where the squirrels will forget some of -them, but where none of the forgotten will forget to -grow; the winged seeds of the asters have drifted -down the highways, over the hillsides and meadows; -the birds are gone; the muskrats’ lodge is all but -finished; the hickories and the leaf-hid hepaticas are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -budded against the coming spring. All is ready, all -is safe,—the stores are all in. Quiet and a golden -peace lie warm upon the fields. It is Indian summer.</p> - -<p>Such a mood is a necessary condition for the cure. -Such a mood <i>is</i> the cure, indeed, for such a mood -means harmony with earth and sky, and every wind -that blows. In all his physical life man is as much a -part of Nature, and as subject to her inexorable laws, -as the fields and the trees and the birds. I have seen -a maple growing out of the pavement of a city street, -but no such maple as stands yonder at the centre of -my neighbor’s meadow. I lived and grew on the same -street with the maple; but not as I live and grow -here on the farm. Only on a farm does a man live in -a normal, natural environment, only here can he comply -with all the demands of Nature, can he find a cure -for winter.</p> - -<p>To Nature man is just as precious as a woodchuck -or a sparrow, but not more. She cares for the woodchuck -as long as he behaves like a woodchuck; so -she cares for the sparrow, the oyster, the orchid, and -for man. But he must behave like a natural man, -must live where she intended him to live, and at the -approach of winter he must neither hibernate nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -migrate, for he is what the naturalists call a “winter -resident.” It is not in his nature to fly away nor to go -to sleep, but, like the red squirrel and the muskrat, -to prepare to live up all the winter. So his original, -unperverted animal instinct leads him to store.</p> - -<p>Long ago he buried his provisions in pits and hung -them up on poles. Even his vocabulary he gathered -together as his word-hoard. He is still possessed of -the remnant of the instinct; he will still store. Cage -him in a city, give him more than he needs for winter, -relieve him of all possibility of want, and yet he will -store. You cannot cage an instinct nor eradicate it. -It will be obeyed, if all that can be found in the way -of pit and pole be a grated vault in the deep recesses -of some city bank.</p> - -<p>Cage a red squirrel and he will store in the cage; -so will the white-footed mouse. Give the mouse more -than he can use, put him in a cellar, where there is -enough already stored for a city of mice, and he will -take from your piles and make piles of his own. He -must store or be unhappy and undone.</p> - -<p>A white-footed mouse got into my cellar last winter -and found it, like the cellar of the country mouse in -the fable,—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Full benely stuffit, baith but and ben,<br /> -Of beirris and nuttis, peis, ry and quheit—</p> - -<p class="p1">all of it, ready stored, so that,</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Quhen ever scho list scho had aneuch to eit.</p> - -<p class="p1">Enough to eat? Certainly; but is enough to eat all -that a mouse wants? So far from being satisfied with -mere meat was this particular mouse, that finding -herself in the cellar in the midst of plenty, she at -once began to carry my winter stores from where I -had put them, and to make little heaps for herself -in every dark cranny and corner of the cellar. A pint, -or less, of “nuttis”—shagbarks—she tucked away -in the toe of my hunting boot. The nuts had been -left in a basket in the vegetable cellar; the boots -stood out by the chimney in the furnace room, and -there were double doors and a brick partition wall -between. No matter. Here were the nuts she had -not yet stored, and out yonder was the hole, smooth -and deep and dark, to store them in. She found a -way past the partition wall.</p> - -<p>Every morning I shook those nuts out of my boot -and sent them rattling over the cellar floor. Every -night the mouse gathered them up and put them -snugly back into the toe of the boot. She could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -have carried more than one nut at a time,—up the -tall boot-leg and down the oily, slippery inside. I -should have liked to see her scurrying about the -cellar, looking after her curiously difficult harvest. -Apparently, they were new nuts to her every evening. -Once or twice I came down to find them lying untouched. -The mouse, perhaps, was away over night -on other business. But the following night they -were all gathered and nicely packed in the boot -as before. And as before I sent them sixty ways -among the barrels and boxes of the furnace room. -But I did it once too often, for it dawned upon -the mouse one night that these were the same old -nuts that she had gathered now a dozen times; and -that night they disappeared. Where? I wondered. -Weeks passed, and I had entirely forgotten about the -nuts, when I came upon them, the identical nuts of -my boot, tiered carefully up in a corner of the deep, -empty water-tank away off in the attic.</p> - -<p>Store? The mouse had to store. She had to, not -to feed her body,—there was plenty in the cellar for -that,—but to satisfy her soul. A mouse’s soul, that -something within a mouse which makes for more than -meat, may not be a soul at all, but only a bundle of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -blind instincts. The human soul, that thing whose -satisfaction is so often a box of chocolates and a silk -petticoat, may be better and higher than the soul of -a mouse, may be a different thing indeed; but originally -it, too, had simple, healthful instincts; and -among them, atrophied now, but not wholly gone, -may still be found the desire for a life that is more -than something to eat and something to put on.</p> - -<p>To be sure, here on the farm, one may eat all of his -potatoes, his corn, his beans and squashes before the -long, lean winter comes to an end. But if squashes -<i>to eat</i> were all, then he could buy squashes, bigger, -fairer, fatter ones, and at less cost, no doubt, at the -grocery store. He may need to eat the squash, but -what he needs more, and cannot buy, is the raising -of it, the harvesting of it, the fathering of it. He needs -to watch it grow, to pick it, to heft it, and have his -neighbor heft it; to go up occasionally to the attic -and look at it. He almost hates to <i>eat</i> it.</p> - -<p>A man may live in the city and buy a squash and -eat it. That is all he can do with a boughten squash; -for a squash that he cannot raise, he cannot store, -nor take delight in outside of pie. And can a man -live where his garden is a grocery? his storehouse a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -grocery? his bins, cribs, mows, and attics so many -pasteboard boxes, bottles, and tin cans? Tinned squash -in pie may taste like any squash pie; but it is no longer -squash; and is a squash nothing if not pie? Oh, but -he gets a lithograph squash upon the can to show him -how the pulp looked as God made it. This is a sop -to his higher sensibilities; it is a commercial reminder, -too, that life even in the city should be more -than pie,—it is also the commercial way of preserving -the flavor of the canned squash, else he would not -know whether he were eating squash or pumpkin or -sweet potato. But then it makes little difference, -all things taste the same in the city,—all taste of -tin.</p> - -<p>There is a need in the nature of man for many -things,—for a wife, a home, children, friends, and a -need for winter. The wild goose feels it, too, and no -length of domesticating can tame the wild desire to -fly when the frosts begin to fall; the woodchuck feels -it; carry him to the tropics and still he will sleep as -though the snows of New England lay deep in the -mouth of his burrow. The partridge’s foot broadens -at the approach of winter into a snowshoe; the ermine’s -fur turns snow-white. Winter is in their bones;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -it is good for them; it is health, not disease—with -snowshoes provided and snow-colored fur.</p> - -<p>Nature supplies her own remedies. Winter brings -its own cure,—snowshoes and snowy coats, short -days and long nights, the narrowed round, the widened -view, the open fire, leisure, quiet, and the companionship -of your books, your children, your wife, -your own strange soul—here on the farm.</p> - -<p>Where else does it come, bringing all of this? -Where else are conditions such that all weather is -good weather? The weather a man needs? Here he -is planted like his trees; his roots are in the soil; the -changing seasons are his life. He feeds upon them; -works with them; rests in them; yields to them, and -finds in their cycle more than the sum of his physical -needs.</p> - -<p>A man lives quite without roots in a city, like some -of the orchids, hung up in the air; or oftener, like -the mistletoe, rooted, but drawing his life parasitically -from some simpler, stronger, fresher life planted -far below him in the soil. There he cannot touch the -earth and feed upon life’s first sources. He knows -little of any kind but bad weather. Summer is hot, -winter is nasty, spring and autumn scarcely are at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -all, for they do not make him uncomfortable. The -round year is four changes of clothes—and a tank-sprinkled, -snow-choked, smoke-clouded, cobble-paved, -wheel-wracked, street-scented, wire-lighted half-day, -half-night something, that is neither spring, summer, -autumn, nor winter.</p> - -<p>A city is a sore on the face of Nature; not a dangerous, -ugly sore, necessarily, if one can get out of -it often enough and far enough, but a sore, nevertheless, -that Nature will have nothing kindly to do with. -The snows that roof my sheds with Carrara, that -robe my trees with ermine, that spread close and -warm over my mowing, that call out the sleds and -the sleigh-bells, fall into the city streets as mud, as -danger on the city roofs,—as a nuisance over the -city’s length and breadth, a nuisance to be hauled -off and dumped into the harbor as fast as shovels -and carts can move it.</p> - -<p>But you cannot dump your winter and send it off -to sea. There is no cure for winter in a tip-cart; no -cure in the city. There is consolation in the city, for -there is plenty of company in the misery. But company -really means more of the misery. If life is to -be endured, if all that one can do with winter is to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -shovel it and suffer it, then to the city for the winter, -for there one’s share of the shoveling is small, and -the suffering there seems very evenly distributed.</p> - -<p>Here on the farm is neither shoveling nor suffering, -no quarrel whatever with the season. Here you -have nothing to do with its coming or going further -than making preparation to welcome it and to bid it -farewell. You slide, instead, with your boys; you do -up the chores early in the short twilight, pile the -logs high by the blazing chimney and—you remember -that there is to be a lecture to-night by the man -who has said it all in his book; there is to be a concert, -a reception, a club dinner, in the city, sixteen -blissful miles away,—and it is snowing! You can go -if you have to. But the soft tapping on the window-panes -grows faster, the voices at the corners of the -house rise higher, shriller. You look down at your -slippers, poke up the fire, settle a little deeper into -the big chair, and beg Eve to go on with the reading.</p> - -<p>And she reads on—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Shut in from all the world without,<br /> -We sat the clean-winged hearth about,<br /> -Content to let the north wind roar<br /> -In baffled rage at pane and door,<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>While the red logs before us beat<br /> -The frost-line back with tropic heat;<br /> -And ever, when a louder blast<br /> -Shook beam and rafter as it passed,<br /> -The merrier up its roaring draught<br /> -The great throat of the chimney laughed.</p> - -<table id="tb1" summary="tb1"> - - <tr> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - </tr> - -</table> - -<p class="pp4">And, for the winter fireside meet,<br /> -Between the andirons’ straddling feet,<br /> -The mug of cider simmered slow,<br /> -The apples sputtered in a row,<br /> -And, close at hand, the basket stood<br /> -With nuts from brown October’s wood.</p> - -<p class="p1">But you will be snow-bound in the morning and -cannot get to town? Perhaps; but it happened so -only twice to me in the long snowy winter of 1904. -So twice we read the poem, and twice we lived the -poem, and twice? yes, a thousand times, we were -glad for a day at home that wasn’t Sunday, for a -whole long day to pop corn with the boys.</p> - -<p>A farm, of all human habitations, is most of a -home, and never so much of a home as in the winter -when the stock and the crops are housed, when furrow -and boundary fence are covered, when earth and -sky conspire to drive a man indoors and to keep him -in,—where he needs to stay for a while and be quiet.</p> - -<p>No problem of city life is more serious than the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -problem of making in the city a home. A habitation -where you can have no garden, no barn, no attic, no -cellar, no chickens, no bees, no boys (we were allowed -<i>one</i> boy by the janitor of our city flat), no -fields, no sunset skies, no snow-bound days, can -hardly be a home. To live in the fifth flat, at No. 6 -West Seventh Street, is not to have a home. Pictures -on the walls, a fire in the grate, and a prayer -in blending zephyrs over the door for God to bless -the place can scarcely make of No. 6 more than a -sum in arithmetic. There is no home environment -about this fifth flat at No. 6, just as there is none -about cell No. 6, in the fifth tier of the west corridor -of the Tombs.</p> - -<p>The idea, the concept, home, is a house set back -from the road behind a hedge of trees, a house with a -yard, with flowers, chickens, and a garden,—a country -home. The songs of home are all of country homes:—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood<br /> -When fond recollection presents them to view:</p> - -<table id="tb2" summary="tb2"> - - <tr> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - <td class="tdc">•</td> - </tr> - -</table> - -<p class="pp4">The gutter, the lamp-post, the curb that ran by it,<br /> -And e’en the brass spigot that did for a well.—</p> - -<p class="pn1">Impossible! You cannot sing of No. 6, West Seventh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -fifth flight up. And what of a home that cannot be -remembered as a song! It is not a home, but only a -floor over your head, a floor under your feet, a hole -in the wall of the street, a burrow into which you -are dumped by a hoisting machine. It is warm inside; -Eve is with you, and the baby, and your books. -But you do not hear the patter of the rain upon the -roof, nor the murmur of the wind in the trees; you -do not see the sun go down beyond the wooded hills, -nor ever feel the quiet of the stars. You have no -largeness round about you; you are the centre of -nothing; you have no garden, no harvest, no chores,—no -home! There is not room enough about a city -flat for a home, nor chores enough in city life for a -living.</p> - -<p>For a man’s life consisteth not in an abundance of -things, but in the particular kind and number of his -chores. A chore is a fragment of real life that is -lived with the doing. All real living must be lived; -it cannot be bought or hired. And herein is another -serious problem in city life,—it is the tragedy of city -life that it is so nearly all lived for us. We hire -Tom, Dick, and Harry to live it; we buy it of the -butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker. It is not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -so here on the farm; for here one has the full round -of life’s chores, and here, on a professor’s salary, one -may do all the chores himself.</p> - -<p>We may hire our praying and our thinking done -for us and still live; but not our chores. They are to -the life of the spirit what breathing and eating and -sleeping are to the life of the body. Not to feed your -own horse is to miss the finest joy of having a horse,—the -friendship of the noble creature; not to “pick -up” the eggs yourself, nor hoe your own garden, nor -play with your own boys! Why, what is the use of -having boys if you are never going to be “it” again, -if you are not to be a boy once more along with -them!</p> - -<p>There are some things, the making of our clothes, -perhaps, that we must hire done for us. But clothes -are not primitive and essential; they are accidental, -an adjunct, a necessary adjunct, it may be, but belonging -to a different category from children, gardens, -domestic animals, and a domestic home. And -yet, how much less cloth we should need, and what -a saving, too, of life’s selvage, could we return to the -spinning-wheel and loom as we go back to the farm -and the daily chores!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">She, harvest done, to char work did aspire,<br /> -Meat, drink, and twopence were her daily hire.</p> - -<p class="pn1">And who has not known the same aspiration? has -not had a longing for mere chores, and their ample -compensation? It is such a reasonable, restful, satisfying -aspiration! Harvest done! Done the work and -worry of the day! Then the twilight, and the evening -chores, and the soft closing of the door! At -dawn we shall go forth again until the evening; -but with a better spirit for our labor after the fine -discipline of the morning chores. The day should -start and stop in our own selves; labor should begin -and come to an end in the responsibility of the wholesome, -homely round of our own chores.</p> - -<p>Summer is gone, the harvest is done, and winter -is passing on its swiftest days. So swift, indeed, are -the days that morning and evening meet, bound up -like a sheaf by the circle of the chores. For there is -never an end to the chores; never a time when they -are all done; never a day when the round of them -is not to be done again. And herein lies more of -their virtue as a winter cure.</p> - -<p>Life is not busier here than elsewhere; time is not -swifter, but more enjoyable, because so much of life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -is left unfinished and time is thrown so much more -into the future. There is no past on the farm; it is -all to come; no sure defeat, but always promise; -no settled winter, but always the signs of coming -spring.</p> - -<p>To-day is the first of January, snowy, brilliant, -but dripping with the sound of spring wherever the -sun lies warm, and calling with the heart of spring -yonder where the crows are flocking. There is -spring in the talk of the chickadees outside my window, -and in the cheerful bluster of a red squirrel in -the hickory. No bluebird has returned yet: spring is -not here, not quite, I hope, but it is coming, and so -near that I shall drop my pen and go out to the barn -to put together some new beehives, for I must have -them ready for the spring. Winter! The winter is -almost gone. Why, it is barely a month since I -brought my bees into the cellar, and here I am -taking them out again—in prospect.</p> - -<p>The hives have just come from the factory “in the -flat”: sawed, planed, dovetailed, and matched,—a -delightful set of big blocks,—ready to be nailed together. -You feel a bit mean, keeping them from the -children. But the oldest of the boys is only six, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -he had a walking bear for Christmas. Besides, when -you were a <i>little</i> boy you never had many blocks, and -never a walking bear. So you keep the hives. And -how suddenly the January day goes! You hammer -on into the deepening dusk, and the chickens go to -roost without their supper. You would have hammered -on all night, but the hives ran out. Five hives -won’t last very long; and you sigh as they stand -finished. You could wish them all in pieces to do -over again, so smooth the stock, so fragrant the piny -smell, so accurate and nice the parts from cover to -bottom board!</p> - -<p>Winter! with January started, and February two -days short! It is all a fiction. You had dreams of -long evenings, of books and crackling fires, and of -days shut in. It still snows; there is something -still left of the nights, but not half enough, for the -seed catalogues are already beginning to arrive.</p> - -<p>The snow lies a foot deep over the strawberry -bed and the frozen soil where the potatoes are to -be. Yet the garden grows—on paper? No, not on -paper, but in your own eager soul. The joy of a -garden is as real in January as in June.</p> - -<p>And so the winter goes. For if it is not the garden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -and the bees, it is some of a thousand other -chores that keep you busy and living past the present,—and -past the present is the spring.</p> - -<p>I am watching for the phœbes to return to the -shed,—they are my first birds. I long to hear the -shrill piping of the March frogs, to pick a blue -hepatica from beneath the pines; for these are some -of the things, besides cheaper rent, more room, more -boys, fresh air, quiet, and a cow, that one lives for -here on the farm. But I am not waiting, winter-sick, -for I have stored the summer in attic and cellar; -I am already having my spring—in prospect; and -as for the actual winter, the snow-bound days are all -too few for the real winter joys of this simple, ample -life, here in the quiet, among the neighbor fields.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-064.jpg" width="300" height="406" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>IV</h2> - -<p class="pch">The Nature-Student</p> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">I had</span> made a nice piece of dissection, a pretty -demonstration—for a junior.</p> - -<p>“You didn’t know a dog was put together so -beautifully, did you?” said the professor, frankly -enjoying the sight of the marvelous system of nerves -laid bare by the knife. “Now, see here,” he went -on, eyeing me keenly, “doesn’t a revelation like -that take all the moonshine about the ‘beauties of -nature’ clean out of you?”</p> - -<p>I looked at the lifeless lump upon my table, and -answered very deliberately: “No, it doesn’t. That’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -a fearful piece of mechanism. I appreciate that. But -what is any system of nerves or muscles—mere -dead dog—compared with the love and affection -of the dog alive?”</p> - -<p>The professor was trying to make a biologist out -of me. He had worked faithfully, but I had persisted -in a very unscientific love for live dog. Not that I -didn’t enjoy comparative anatomy, for I did. The -problem of concrescence or differentiation in the -cod’s egg also was intensely interesting to me. And -so was the sight and the suggestion of the herring -as they crowded up the run on their way to the -spawning pond. The professor had lost patience. I -don’t blame him.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said, turning abruptly, “you had better -quit. You’ll be only a biological fifth wheel.”</p> - -<p>I quit. Here on my table lies the scalpel. Since -that day it has only sharpened lead pencils.</p> - -<p>Now a somewhat extensive acquaintance with scientific -folk leads me to believe that the attitude of -my professor toward the out-of-doors is not exceptional. -The love for nature is all moonshine, all -maudlin sentiment. Even those like my professor, -who have to do with out-of-door life and conditions,—zoölogists,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -botanists, geologists,—look upon naturalists, -and others who love birds and fields, as of -a kind with those harmless but useless inanities who -collect tobacco tags, postage stamps, and picture -postal cards. Sentiment is not scientific.</p> - -<p>I have a biological friend, a professor of zoölogy, -who never saw a woodchuck in the flesh. He would -not know a woodchuck with the fur on from a mongoose. -Not until he had skinned it and set up the -skeleton could he pronounce it <i>Arctomys monax</i> with -certainty. Yes, he could tell by the teeth. Dentition -is a great thing. He could tell a white pine (<i>strobus</i>) -from a pitch pine (<i>rigida</i>) by just a cone and a -bundle of needles,—one has five, the other three, -to the bundle. But he wouldn’t recognize a columned -aisle of the one from a Jersey barren of the other. -That is not the worst of it: he would not see even -the aisle or the barren,—only trees.</p> - -<p>As we jogged along recently, on a soft midwinter -day that followed a day of freezing, my little three-year-old -threw his nose into the air and cried: “Oh, -fader, I smell de pitch pines, de scraggly pines,—’ou -calls ’em Joisey pines!” And sure enough, around -a double curve in the road we came upon a single<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -clump of the scraggly pitch pines. Our drive had -taken us through miles of the common white species.</p> - -<p>Did you ever smell the pitch pines when they are -thawing out? It is quite as healthful, if not as scientific, -to recognize them by their resinous breath as -by their needles per bundle.</p> - -<p>I want this small boy some time to know the difference -between these needle bundles. But I want -him to learn now, and to remember always, that the -hard days are sure to soften, and that then there -oozes from the scraggly pitch pines a balm, a piny, -penetrating, purifying balm,—a tonic to the lungs, -a healing to the soul.</p> - -<p>All foolishness? sentiment? moonshine?—this -love for woods and fields, this need I have for companionship -with birds and trees, this longing for -the feel of grass and the smell of earth? When -I told my biological friend that these longings were -real and vital, as vital as the highest problems of the -stars and the deepest questions of life, he pitied me, -but made no reply.</p> - -<p>He sees clearly a difference between live and dead -men, a difference between the pleasure he gets from -the society of his friends, and the knowledge, interesting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -as it may be, which he obtains in a dissecting-room. -But he sees no such difference between live -and dead nature, nature in the fields and in the laboratory. -Nature is all a biological problem to him, -not a quick thing,—a shape, a million shapes, informed -with spirit,—a voice of gladness, a mild and -healing sympathy, a companionable soul.</p> - -<p>“But there you go!” he exclaims, “talking poetry -again. Why don’t you deal with facts? What do -you mean by nature-study, love for the out-of-doors, -anyway!”</p> - -<p>I do not mean a sixteen weeks’ course in zoölogy, -or botany, or in Wordsworth. I mean, rather, a gentle -life course in getting acquainted with the toads and -stars that sing together, for most of us, just within -and above our own dooryards. It is a long life course -in the deep and beautiful things of living nature,—the -nature we know so well as a corpse. It is of -necessity a somewhat unsystematized, incidental, -vacation-time course,—the more’s the pity. The -results do not often come as scientific discoveries. -They are personal, rather; more after the manner -of revelations,—data that the professors have little -faith in. For the scientist cannot put an April dawn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -into a bottle, cannot cabin a Hockomock marsh, nor -cage a December storm in a laboratory. And when, -in such a place, did a scientist ever overturn a “wee -bit heap o’ weeds an’ stibble”? Yet it is out of -dawns and marshes and storms that the revelations -come; yes, and out of mice nests, too, if you love all -the out-of-doors, and chance to be ploughing late in -the fall.</p> - -<p>But there is the trouble with my professor. He -never ploughs at all. How can he understand and -believe? And isn’t this the trouble with many of -our preacher poets, also? Some of them spend their -summers in the garden; but the true poet—and -the naturalist—must stay later, and they must -plough, plough the very edge of winter, if they would -turn up what Burns did that November day in the -field at Mossgiel.</p> - -<p>How amazingly fortunate were the conditions of -Burns’s life! What if he had been professor of English -literature at Edinburgh University? He might -have written a life of Milton in six volumes,—a -monumental work, but how unimportant compared -with the lines “To a Mouse”!</p> - -<p>We are going to live real life and write real poetry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -again,—when all who want to live, who want to -write, draw directly upon life’s first sources. To live -simply, and out of the soil! To live by one’s own -ploughing, and to write!</p> - -<p>Instead, how do we live? How do I live? Nine -months in the year by talking bravely about books -that I have not written. Between times I live on the -farm, hoe, and think, and write,—whenever the hoeing -is done. And where is my poem to a mouse?</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!</p> - -<p class="pn1">With a whole farm o’ foggage green, and all the -year before me, I am not sure that I could build a -single line of genuine poetry. But I am certain that, -in living close to the fields, we are close to the source -of true and great poetry, where each of us, at times, -hears lines that Burns and Wordsworth left unmeasured,—lines -that we at least may <i>live</i> into song.</p> - -<p>Now, I have done just what my biological friend -knew I would do,—made over my course of nature-study -into a pleasant but idle waiting for inspiration. -I have frankly turned poet! No, not unless Gilbert -White and Jefferies, Thoreau, Burroughs, Gibson, Torrey, -and Rowland Robinson are poets. But they are -poets. We all are,—even the biologist, with half a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -chance,—and in some form we are all waiting for -inspiration. The nature-lover who lives with his fields -and skies simply puts himself in the way of the most -and gentlest of such inspirations.</p> - -<p>He may be ploughing when the spirit comes, or -wandering, a mere boy, along the silent shores of a -lake, and hooting at the owls. You remember the -boy along the waters of Winander, how he would -hoot at the owls in the twilight, and they would call -back to him across the echoing lake? And when -there would come a pause of baffling silence,</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung<br /> -Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise<br /> -Has carried far into his heart the voice<br /> -Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene<br /> -Would enter unawares into his mind<br /> -With all its solemn imagery.</p> - -<p class="p1">That is an inspiration, the kind of experience one -has in living with the out-of-doors. It doesn’t come -from books, from laboratories, not even from an -occasional tramp afield. It is out of companionship -with nature that it comes; not often, perhaps, to any -one, nor only to poets who write. I have had such -experiences, such moments of quiet insight and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -uplift, while in the very narrowest of the paths of -the woods.</p> - -<p>It was in the latter end of December, upon a -gloomy day that was heavy with the oppression of -a coming storm. In the heart of the maple swamp all -was still and cold and dead. Suddenly, as out of a -tomb, I heard the small, thin cry of a tiny tree frog. -And how small and thin it sounded in the vast -silences of that winter swamp! And yet how clear -and ringing! A thrill of life tingling out through -the numb, nerveless body of the woods that has ever -since made a dead day for me impossible.</p> - -<p>That was an inspiration. I learned something, -something deep and beautiful. Had I been Burns or -Wordsworth I should have written a poem to Hyla. -All prose as I am, I was, nevertheless, so quickened -by that brave little voice as to write:—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">The fields are bleak, the forests bare,</p> -<p class="pp6">The swirling snowflakes fall</p> -<p class="pp4">About the trees a winding-sheet,</p> -<p class="pp6">Across the fields a pall.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">A wide, dead waste, and leaden sky,</p> -<p class="pp6">Wild winds, and dark and cold!</p> -<p class="pp4">The river’s tongue is frozen thick,</p> -<p class="pp6">With life’s sweet tale half told.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Dead! Ah, no! the white fields sleep,</p> -<p class="pp6">The frozen rivers flow;</p> -<p class="pp4">And summer’s myriad seed-hearts beat</p> -<p class="pp6">Within this breast of snow.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">With spring’s first green the holly glows</p> -<p class="pp6">And flame of autumn late,—</p> -<p class="pp4">The embers of the summer warm</p> -<p class="pp6">In winter’s roaring grate.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">The thrush’s song is silent now,</p> -<p class="pp6">The rill no longer sings,</p> -<p class="pp4">But loud and long the strong winds strike</p> -<p class="pp6">Ten million singing strings.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">O’er mountains high, o’er prairies far,</p> -<p class="pp6">Hark! the wild pæan’s roll!</p> -<p class="pp4">The lyre is strung ’twixt ocean shores</p> -<p class="pp6">And swept from pole to pole!</p> - -<p class="pn1">My meeting with that frog in the dead of winter -was no trifling experience, nor one that the biologist -ought to fail to understand. Had I been a poet, that -meeting would have been of consequence to all the -world; as I was, however, it meant something only -to me,—a new point of view, an inspiration,—a -beautiful poem that I cannot write.</p> - -<p>This attitude of the nature-lover, because it is -contemplative and poetical, is not therefore mystical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -or purely sentimental. Hooting at the owls and -hearing things in baffling silences may not be scientific. -Neither is it unscientific. The attitude of -the boy beside the starlit lake is not that of Charlie, -the man who helps me occasionally on the farm.</p> - -<p>We were clearing up a bit of mucky meadow recently -when we found a stone just above the surface -that was too large for the horse to haul out. We -decided to bury it.</p> - -<p>Charlie took the shovel and mined away under the -rock until he struck a layer of rather hard sandstone. -He picked a while at this, then stopped a while; picked -again, rather feebly, then stopped and began to think -about it. It was hard work,—the thinking, I mean, -harder than the picking,—but Charlie, however unscientific, -is an honest workman, so he thought it -through.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said finally, “‘t ain’t no use, nohow. -You can’t keep it down. You bury the darned thing, -and it’ll come right up. I suppose it grows. Of -course it does. It must. Everything grows.”</p> - -<p>Now that is an unscientific attitude. But that is -not the mind of the nature-lover, of the boy with the -baffling silences along the starlit lake. He is sentimental,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -certainly, yet not ignorant, nor merely vapid. -He does not always wander along the lake by night. -He is a nature-student, as well as a nature-lover, and -he does a great deal more than hoot at the owls. -This, though, is as near as he comes to anything -scientific, and so worth while, according to the professor.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>And it is as near as he ought to come to reality -and facts—according to the philosopher.</p> - -<p>“We want only the facts of nature,” says the scientist. -“Nothing in nature is worth while,” says the -philosopher, “but mood, background, atmosphere.”</p> - -<p>“Nor can I recollect that my mind,” says one of -our philosophers, “in these walks, was much called -away from contemplation by the petty curiosities of -the herbalist or birdlorist, for I am not one zealously -addicted to scrutinizing into the minuter secrets of -nature. It never seemed to me that a flower was -made sweeter by knowing the construction of its -ovaries.... The wood thrush and the veery sing as -melodiously to the uninformed as to the subtly curious. -Indeed, I sometimes think a little ignorance is -wholesome in our communion with nature.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> - -<p>So it is. Certainly if ignorance, a great deal of ignorance, -were unwholesome, then nature-study would -be a very unhealthy course, indeed. For, when the -most curious of the herbalists and birdlorists (Mr. -Burroughs, say) has made his last prying peep into -the private life of a ten-acre woodlot, he will still be -wholesomely ignorant of the ways of nature. Is the -horizon just back of the brook that marks the terminus -of our philosopher’s path? Let him leap across, -walk on, on, out of his woods to the grassy knoll in -the next pasture, and there look! Lo! far yonder the -horizon! beyond a vaster forest than he has known, -behind a range of higher rolling hills, within a shroud -of wider, deeper mystery.</p> - -<p>There isn’t the slightest danger of walking off -the earth; nor of unlearning our modicum of wholesome -ignorance concerning the universe. The nature-lover -may turn nature-student and have no fear of -losing nature. The vision will not fade.</p> - -<p>Let him go softly through the May twilight and -wait at the edge of the swamp. A voice serene and -pure, a hymn, a prayer, fills all the dusk with peace. -Let him watch and see the singer, a brown-winged -wood thrush, with full, spotted breast. Let him be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -glad that it is not a white-winged spirit, or a disembodied -voice. And let him wonder the more that so -plain a singer knows so divine a song.</p> - -<p>Our philosopher mistakes his own dominant mood -for the constant mood of nature. But nature has no -constant mood. No more have we. Dawn and dusk -are different moods. The roll of the prairie is unlike -the temper of a winding cowpath in a New England -pasture. Nature is not always sublime, awful, and -mysterious; and no one but a philosopher is persistently -contemplative. Indeed, at four o’clock on a -June morning in some old apple orchard, even the -philosopher would shout,—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">“Hence, loathèd melancholy!”</p> - -<p class="pn1">He is in no mind for meditation; and it is just possible, -before the day is done, that the capture of a -drifting seed of the dandelion and the study of its -fairy wings might so add to the wonder, if not to -the sweetness, of the flower, as to give him thought -for a sermon.</p> - -<p>There are times when the companionship of your -library is enough; there are other times when you -want a single book, a chapter, a particular poem. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -is good at times just to know that you are turning -with the earth under the blue of the sky; and just -as good again to puzzle over the size of the spots in -the breasts of our several thrushes. For I believe -you can hear more in the song when you know it is -the veery and not the wood thrush singing. Indeed, -I am acquainted with persons who had lived neighbors -to the veery since childhood, and never had -heard its song until the bird was pointed out to -them. Then they could not help but hear.</p> - -<p>No amount of familiarity will breed contempt for -your fields. Is the summer’s longest, brightest day -long enough and bright enough, to dispel the brooding -mystery of the briefest of its nights? And tell -me, what of the vastness and terror of the sea will -the deep dredges ever bring to the surface, or all -the circumnavigating drive to shore? The nature-lover -is a man in a particular mood; the nature-student -is the same man in another mood, as the -fading shadows of the morning are the same that -lengthen and deepen in the afternoon. There are -times when he will go apart into the desert places -to pray. Most of the time, however, he will live contentedly -within sound of the dinner horn, glad of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -the companionship of his bluebirds, chipmunks, and -pine trees.</p> - -<p>This is best. And the question most frequently -asked me is, How can I come by a real love for my -pine trees, chipmunks, and bluebirds? How can I -know real companionship with nature?</p> - -<p>How did the boy along the starlit lake come by -it,—a companionship so real and intimate that the -very cliffs knew him, that the owls answered him, -that even the silences spoke to him, and the imagery -of his rocks and skies became a part of the inner -world in which he dwelt? Simply by living along -Winander and hallooing so often to the owls that -they learned to halloo in reply. You may need to -be born again before you can talk the language of -the owls; but if there is in you any hankering for -the soil, then all you need for companionship with -nature is a Winander of your own, a range, a haunt, -that you can visit, walk around, and get home from -in a day’s time. If this region can be the pastures, -woodlots, and meadows that make your own door-yard, -then that is good; especially if you buy the -land and live on it, for then Nature knows that you -are not making believe. She will accept you as she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -does the peas you plant, and she will cherish you as -she does them. This farm, or haunt, or range, you -will come to know intimately: its flowers, birds, -walls, streams, trees,—its features large and small, -as they appear in June, and as they look in July and -in January.</p> - -<p>For the first you will need the how-to-know books,—these -while you are getting acquainted; but soon -acquaintance grows into friendship. You are done -naming things. The meanings of things now begin -to come home to you. Nature is taking you slowly -back to herself. Companionship has begun.</p> - -<p>Many persons of the right mind never know this -friendship, because they never realize the necessity -of being friendly. They walk through a field as they -walk through a crowded street; they go into the -country as they go abroad. And the result is that all -this talk of the herbalist and birdlorist, to quote the -philosopher again, seems “little better than cant -and self-deception.”</p> - -<p>But let the philosopher cease philosophizing (he -was also a hermit), and leave off hermiting; let him -live at home with his wife and children, like the rest -of us; let him work in the city for his living, hoe in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -his garden for his recreation; and then (I don’t care -by what prompting) let him study the lay of his neighbor -fields, woods, and orchards until he knows every -bird and beast, every tree-hole, earth-hole, even the -times and places of the things that grow in the -ground; let him do this through the seasons of the -year,—for two or three years,—and he will know -how to enjoy a woodchuck; he will understand many -of the family affairs of his chipmunks; he will recognize -and welcome back his bluebirds; he will love -and often listen to the solemn talk of his pines.</p> - -<p>All of this may be petty prying, not communion -at all; it may be all moonshine and sentiment, not -science. But it is not cant and self-deception,—in -the hearts of thousands of simple, sufficient folk, -who know a wood thrush when they hear him, and -whose woodpaths are of their own wearing. And if -it is not communion with nature, I know that it is -at least real pleasure, and rest, peace, contentment, -red blood, sound sleep, and, at times, it seems to me, -something close akin to religion.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-082.jpg" width="400" height="190" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>V</h2> - -<p class="pch">Chickadee</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">Once</span> (it was a good while ago, when I was a boy), I -tried to write a poem. The first stanza ran:—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">I heard him when the reeds were young</p> -<p class="pp6">Along a clover sea;</p> -<p class="pp4">Above the purple waves he hung,<br /> -And o’er the fragrant waters flung</p> -<p class="pp6">His storm of ecstasy;</p> - -<p class="pn1">and the last stanza ran:—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">He’s left the meadows burnt and hot,</p> -<p class="pp6">He’s left me lone and drear;</p> -<p class="pp4">But still within the white-birch lot<br /> -Cheeps Chickadee—whom I forgot</p> -<p class="pp6">While Bobolink was here;</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pn1">which means in plainer prose that chickadee does not -sing a while in June and then fly away and leave us. -He stays the year around; he is constant and faithful -in his friendship, though I sometimes forget.</p> - -<p>He cannot sing with bobolink. But suppose I could -have only one of the birds? As it is, I get along for -more than half the year without bobolink, but what -would my out-of-doors be without chickadee? There -is not a single day in the year that I cannot find him, -no matter how hot, or cold, how hard it rains or snows. -Often he is the only voice in all the silent woods, the -only spark of life aglow in all my frozen winter world.</p> - -<p>I was crunching along through the January dusk -toward home. The cold was bitter. A half-starved -partridge had just risen from the road and fluttered -off among the naked bushes,—a moment of sound, a -bit of life vanishing in the winter night of the woods. -I knew the very hemlock in which he would roost; -but what were the thick, snow-bent boughs of his -hemlock, and what were all his winter feathers in -such a night as this?—this vast of sweeping winds -and frozen snow!</p> - -<p>The road dipped from the woods into a meadow, -where the winds were free. The cold was driving,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -numbing here with a power for death that the thermometer -could not mark. I backed into the wind -and hastened on toward the double line of elms that -arched the road in front of the house. Already I -could hear them creak and rattle like things of glass. -It was not the sound of life. Nothing was alive; for -what could live in this long darkness and fearful cold?</p> - -<p>Could live? The question was hardly thought, -when an answer was whirled past me into the nearest -of the naked elms. A chickadee! He caught for -an instant on a dead limb over the road, scrambled -along to its broken tip, and whisked over into a hole -that ran straight down the centre of the stub, down, -for I don’t know how far.</p> - -<p>I stopped. The stub lay out upon the wind, with only -an eddy of the gale sucking at the little round hole in -the broken end, while far down in its hollow heart, -huddling himself into a downy, dozy ball for the night, -was the chickadee. I know by the very way he struck -the limb and turned in that he had been there before. -He knew whither, across the sweeping meadows, he -was being blown. He had even helped the winds as -they whirled him, for he had tarried along the roads -till late. But he was safe for the night now, in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -very bed, it may be, where he was hatched last summer, -and where at this moment, who knows, were half -a dozen other chickadees, the rest of that last summer’s -brood, unscathed still, and still sharing the old -home hollow, as snug and warm this bitter night as -in the soft May days when they were nestlings here -together.</p> - -<p>The cold drove me on; but the chickadee had -warmed me and all my naked world of night and -death. And so he ever does. The winter has yet to -be that drives him seeking shelter to the south. I -never knew it colder than in January and February -of 1904. During both of those months, morning and -evening, I drove through a long mile of empty, snow-buried -woods. For days at a time I would not see even -a crow, but morning and evening, at a certain dip in -the road, two chickadees would fly from bush to bush -across the hollow and cheer me on the way. They -came out to the road, really, to pick up whatever -scanty crumbs were to be found in my wake. They -came also to hear me, to see me pass,—to escape for -a moment, I think, the silence, desertion, and death -of the woods. They helped me to escape, too.</p> - -<p>Four other chickadees, all winter long, ate with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -us, sharing, as far as the double windows would allow, -the cheer of our dining-room. We served them on the -lilac bush outside the window, tying their suet on so -that they could see us and we them during meal time. -Perhaps it was mere suet, no feast of soul at all, that -they got; but constantly, when our pie was opened, -the birds began to sing,—a dainty dish indeed, savory, -wholesome, and good for our souls.</p> - -<p>There are states in the far Northwest where the -porcupine is protected by law, as a last food resource -for men lost and starving in the forests. Perhaps the -porcupine was not designed by nature for any such -purpose. Perhaps chickadee was not left behind by -summer to feed our lost and starving hope through -the cheerless months. But that is the use I make of -him. He is summer’s pledge to me. The woods are -hollow, the winds chill, the earth cold and stiff, but -there flits chickadee, and—I cannot lose faith, nor -feel that this procession of bleak white days is all a -funeral!</p> - -<p>He is the only bird in my little world that I can find -without fail three hundred and sixty-five days in the -year. From December to the end of March he comes -daily to my lilac bush for suet; from April to early<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -July he is busy with domestic cares in the gray birches -of the woodlot; from August to December he and his -family come hunting quietly and sociably as a little -flock among the trees and bushes of the farm; and -from then on he is back for his winter meals at “The -Lilac.”</p> - -<p>Is it any wonder that he was the first bird I ever -felt personally acquainted with, and the first bird my -children knew? That early acquaintance, however, -was not due to his abundance and intrusion, as it -might be with the English sparrow, but rather due -to the cheerful, confiding, sociable spirit of the little -bird. He drops down and peeps under your hat-brim -to see what manner of boy you are, and if you are -really fit to be abroad in this world, so altogether -good—for chickadees.</p> - -<p>He has a mission to perform besides the eating -of eggs and grubs of the pestiferous insects. This -destruction he does that the balance of things may -be maintained out of doors. He has quite another -work to do, which is not economic, and which, in -nowise, is a matter of fine feathers or sweet voice, -but simply a matter of sweet nature, vigor, and concentrated -cheerfulness.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> - -<p>I said he is summer’s pledge, the token of hope -to me. He is a lesson also. I don’t often find sermons -in stones, because, no doubt, I look so little -for the sermons, so little for the very stones. But I -cannot help seeing chickadee,—and chickadee is all -sermon. I hear him on a joyous May morning calling -<i>Chick-a-dee! dee! Chick-a-dee! dee!</i>—brisk, -bright, and cheery; or, soft and gentle as a caress, -he whistles, <i>Phœ-ee-bee! Phœ-ee-bee!</i> I meet him -again on the edge of a bleak, midwinter night. He -is hungry and cold, and he calls, as I hasten along, -<i>Chick-a-dee! dee! Chick-a-dee! dee!</i>—brisk, bright, -and cheery; or, soft and gentle as a caress, he -whistles, <i>Phœ-ee-bee! Phœ-ee-bee!</i></p> - -<p>Will you lend me your wings, chickadee, those invisible -wings on which you ride the winds of life so -evenly? For I would hang my ill-balanced soul between -them, as your bird soul hangs, and fly as you -fly.</p> - -<p>The abundant summer, the lean and wolfish winter, -find chickadee cheerful and gentle. He is busier at -some seasons than at others, with fewer chances -for friendship. He almost disappears in the early -summer. But this is because of family cares; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -because the bigger, louder birds have come back, -and the big leaves have come out and hidden him. -A little searching, and you will discover him, in one -of your old decayed fence posts, maybe, or else deep -in the swamp, foraging for a family so numerous -that they spill over at the door of their home.</p> - -<p>Here about the farm, this is sure to be a gray -birch home. Other trees will do—on a pinch. I -have found chickadee nesting in live white oaks, -maples, upturned roots, and tumbling fence posts. -These were shifts, however, mere houses, not real -homes. The only good homelike trees are old gray -birches dead these many years and gone to punk,—mere -shells of tough circular bark walls.</p> - -<p>Why has chickadee this very decided preference? -Is it a case of protective coloration,—the little gray -and black bird choosing to nest in this little gray and -black tree because bird and tree so exactly match each -other in size and color? Or (and there are many -instances in nature) is there a subtle strain of poetry -in chickadee’s soul, something æsthetic, that leads -him into this exquisite harmony,—into this little gray -house for his little gray self?</p> - -<p>Explain it as you may, it is a fact that this little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -bird shows a marked preference, makes deliberate -choice, and in his choice is protection, and poetry, -too. Doubtless he follows the guidance of a sure and -watchful instinct (whatever instinct be), but who shall -deny to him a share of the higher, finer things of the -imagination? a share of real æsthetic taste?</p> - -<p>His life inside the birch is of a piece with the -artistic exterior. It is all gentle and sweet and idyllic. -There is no happier spot in the summer woods than -that about the birch of the chickadees; and none -whose happiness you will be so little liable to disturb.</p> - -<p>Before the woods were in leaf one spring I found -a pair of chickadees building in a birch along the edge -of the swamp. They had just begun, having dug out -only an inch of cavity. It was very interesting to discover -them doing the work themselves, for usually -they refit some abandoned chamber or adapt a ready-made -hole.</p> - -<p>The birch was a long, limbless cylinder of bark, -broken off about fourteen feet up, and utterly rotten, -the mere skin of a tree stuffed with dust. I could -push my finger into it at any point. It was so weak -that every time the birds lighted upon the top the -whole stub wobbled and reeled. Surely they were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> -building their house upon the sand. Any creature -without wings would have known that. Birds, however, -seem to have lost the sense of such insecurity, -often placing their nests as if they expected -them also to take wings and fly to safety when the -rains descend and the winds come.</p> - -<p>This shaking stub of the chickadees was standing -directly beneath a great overshadowing pine, where, -if no partridge bumped into it, if two squirrels did not -scamper up it together, if the crows nesting overhead -did not discover it, if no strong wind bore down upon -it from the meadow side, it might totter out the nesting -season. But it didn’t. The birds were leaving -too much to luck. I knew it, and should have pushed -their card house down, then and there, and saved the -greater ruin later. Perhaps so, but I was too interested -in their labor.</p> - -<p>Both birds were working when I discovered them, -and so busily that my coming up did not delay them -for a single billful. It was not hard digging, but it -was very slow, for chickadee is neither carpenter nor -mason. He has difficulty in killing a hard-backed beetle. -So, whenever you find him occupying a clean-walled -cavity, with a neat, freshly clipped doorway,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -you may be sure that some woodpecker built the house, -not this short-billed, soft-tailed little tit. He lacks -both the bill-chisel and the tail-brace. Perhaps the -explanation of his fondness for birch trees lies here: -they die young and soon decay.</p> - -<p>The birds were going down through the top, not -by a hole in the leathery rind of the sides, for the -bark would have been too tough for their beaks. -They would drop into the top of the stub, pick up a -wad of decayed wood, and fly off to the dead limb of -the pine. Here, with a jerk and a snap of their bills, -they would scatter the stuff in a shower so thin and -far around that I could neither hear it fall nor find a -trace of it upon the dead leaves of the ground. This -nest would never be betrayed by the workmen’s -chips.</p> - -<p>Between the pair there averaged three beakfuls of -excavating every two minutes, one of the birds regularly -shoveling twice to the other’s once. They looked -so exactly alike that I could not tell which bird was -pushing the enterprise; but I have my suspicions.</p> - -<p>There is nothing so superior about his voice or -appearance that he should thus shirk. He was doing -part of his duty, apparently, but it was half-hearted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -work. Hers was the real interest, the real anxiety; -and hers the initiative. To be a male and show off! -That’s the thing. To be a male and let your wife -carry the baby! The final distinctive difference between -a truly humanized, civilized man and all other -males of every order, is a willingness to push the -baby carriage.</p> - -<p>The finer the feathers or the song among male -birds the less use they are in practical, domestic ways. -Fine beaux, captivating lovers, they become little else -than a nuisance as husbands. One of my friends has -been watching a pair of bluebirds building. The male -sat around for a week without bringing in a feather. -Then one day he was seen to enter the hole, after his -busy mate had just left it, and carry out a beakful of -grass which he scattered to the winds in pure perversity, -criticising her bungling work, maybe! More -likely he was jealous.</p> - -<p>Chickadee was no such precious fool as that. He -was doing something; trying to drown his regret for -the departing honeymoon in hard labor, not, however, -to the danger of his health.</p> - -<p>I sat a long time watching the work. It went on in -perfect silence, not a chirp, not the sound of a fluttering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -wing. The swamp along whose margin the -birds were building had not a joyous atmosphere. -Damp, dim-shadowed, and secret, it seemed to have -laid its spell upon the birds. Their very gray and -black was as if mixed of the dusk, and of the gray, -half-light of the swamp; their noiseless coming and -going was like the slipping to and fro of shadows. -They were a part of it all, and that sharing was their -defense, the best defense they knew.</p> - -<p>It didn’t save their nest, however. They felt and -obeyed the spirit of the swamp in their own conduct, -but the swamp did not tell them where to build. It -was about three weeks later that I stopped again -under the pine and found the birch stub in pieces -upon the ground. Some robber had been after the -eggs and had brought the whole house tumbling down. -This is not the fate of all such birch-bark houses. -Now and again they escape; but it is always a matter -for wonder.</p> - -<p>I was following an old disused wood road once when -I scared a robin from her nest. Her mate joined her, -and together they raised a great hubbub. Immediately -a chewink, a pair of vireos, and two black and -white warblers joined the robins in their din. Then a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -chickadee appeared. He (I say “he” knowingly; -and here he quite redeems himself) had a worm in -his beak. His anxiety seemed so real that I began to -watch him, when, looking down among the stones for -a place to step, what should I see but his mate emerging -from the end of a birch stump at my very feet. -She had heard the din and had come out to see what -it was all about. At sight of her, he hastened with -his worm, brushing my face, almost, as he darted to -her side. She took it sweetly, for she knew he had -intended it for her. But how do I know that? Perhaps -he meant it for the young! There were no young -in the nest, only eight eggs. Even after the young -came (there were eight of them!), and when life, from -daylight to dark, was one ceaseless, hurried hunt for -worms, I saw him over and over again fly to her side -caressingly and tempt her to eat.</p> - -<p>The house of this pair did not fall. How could it -when it stood precisely two and a half feet from the -ground! But that it wasn’t looted is due to the sheer -audacity of its situation. It stood alone, against the -road, so close that the hub of a low wheel in passing -might have knocked it down. Perhaps a hundred -persons had brushed it in going by. How many dogs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -and cats had overlooked it no one can say, nor how -many skunks and snakes and squirrels. The accident -that discovered it to me happened apparently to no -one else, and I was friendly.</p> - -<p>Cutting a tiny window in the bark just above the -eggs, I looked in upon the little people every day. -I watched them grow and fill the cavity and hang -over at the top. I was there the day they forced my -window open, the day when there was no more room -at the top, and when, at the call of their parents, one -after another of this largest and sweetest of bird -families found his wings and flew away through the -woods.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-097.jpg" width="400" height="210" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>VI</h2> - -<p class="pch">The Missing Tooth</p> - -<p class="pn1"><span class="smcap">The</span> snow had melted from the river meadows, leaving -them flattened, faded, and stained with mud,—a -dull, dreary waste in the gray February. I had stopped -beside a tiny bundle of bones that lay in the matted -grass a dozen feet from a ditch. Here, still showing, -was the narrow path along which the bones had -dragged themselves; there the hole by which they -had left the burrow in the bank of the ditch. They -had crawled out in this old runway, then turned off -a little into the heavy autumn grass and laid them -down. The rains had come and the winter snows. -The spring was breaking now, and the small bundle, -gently loosened and uncovered, was whitening on the -wide, bare meadow.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> - -<p>I had recognized the bones at once as the skeleton -of a muskrat. It was something peculiar in the way -they lay that had caused me to pause. They seemed -outstretched, as if composed by gentle hands, the hands -of Sleep. They had not been flung down. The delicate -ribs had fallen in, but not a bone was broken -or displaced, not one showed the splinter of shot, or -the crack that might have been made by a steel trap. -No violence had been done them. They had been -touched by nothing rougher than the snow. Out -into the hidden runway they had crept. Death had -passed them here; but no one else in all the winter -months.</p> - -<p>The creature had died—a “natural” death. It had -starved, while a hundred acres of plenty lay round -about. Picking up the skull, I found the jaws locked -together as if they were a single solid bone. One of -the two incisor teeth of the upper jaw was missing, -and apparently had never developed. The opposite -tooth on the lower jaw, thus unopposed and so unworn, -had grown beyond its normal height up into the -empty socket above, then on, turning outward and -piercing the cheek-bone in front of the eye, whence, -curving like a boar’s tusk, it had slowly closed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -jaws and locked them, rigid, set, as fixed as jaws of -stone.</p> - -<p>Death had lingered cruelly. At first the animal had -been able to gnaw; but as the tooth curved through -the bones of the face and gradually tightened the -jaws, the creature got less and less to eat, until, one -day, creeping out of the burrow for food, the poor -wretch was unable to get back.</p> - -<p>One seldom comes upon the like of this. It is commoner -than we think; but it is usually hidden away -and quickly over. How often do we see a wild thing -sick,—a bird or animal suffering from an accident, or -dying, like this muskrat, because of some physical -defect? The struggle between two lives for life—the -falling of the weak as prey to the strong—is ever -before us; but this single-handed fight between the -creature and Nature is a far rarer, silenter tragedy. -Nature is too swift, too merciless to allow us time -for sympathy. It was she who taught the old Roman -to take away his weak and malformed offspring and -expose it on the hills.</p> - -<p>There is, at best, scarcely a fighting chance in -the meadow. Only strength and craft may win. The -muskrat with the missing tooth never enters the race<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -at all. He slinks from some abandoned burrow, and, -if the owl and mink are not watching, dies alone in -the grass, and we rarely know.</p> - -<p>I shall never forget the impression made upon me -by those quiet bones. It was like that made by my -first visit to a great city hospital,—out of the busy, -cheerful street into a surgical ward, where the sick -and injured lay in long white lines. We tramp the -woods and meadows and never step from the sweet -air and the pure sunlight of health into a hospital. -But that is not because no sick, ill-formed, or injured -are there. The proportion is smaller than -among us humans, and for very good reasons, yet -there is much real suffering, and to come upon it, as -we will, now and then, must certainly quicken our -understanding and deepen our sympathy with the -life out of doors.</p> - -<p>No sensible person could for a moment believe -the animals capable of suffering as a human being -can suffer, or that there is any such call for our -sympathy from them as from our human neighbors. -But an unselfish sharing of the life of the fields demands -that we take part in all of it,—and all of it is -but little short of tragedy. Nature wears a brave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -face. Her smile is ever in the open, her laughter -quick and contagious. This brave front is no mask. -It is real. Sunlight, song, color, form, and fragrance -are real. And so our love and joy in Nature is real. -Real, also, should be our love and sorrow with Nature. -For do I share fully in as much of her life as -even the crow lives as long as I think of the creature -only with admiration for his cunning or with wrath -for his destruction of my melons and corn?</p> - -<p>A crow has his solemn moments. He frequently -knows fear, pain, hunger, accident, and disease; he -knows something very like affection and love. For -all that, he is a mere crow. But a mere crow is no -mean thing. Few of us, indeed, are ourselves, and -as much besides as a mere crow. A real love, however, -will give us part in all of his existence. We will -forage and fight with him; we will parley and play; -and when the keen north winds find him in the -frozen pines, we will suffer, too.</p> - -<p>With Nature as mere waters, fields, and skies, it is, -perhaps, impossible for us to sorrow. She is too self-sufficient, -too impersonal. She asks, or compels, -everything except tears. But when she becomes -birds and beasts,—a little world of individuals<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -among whom you are only one of a different kind,—then -all the others, no matter their kind, are -earth-born companions and fellow mortals.</p> - -<p>Here are the meadow voles. I know that my hay -crop is shorter every year for them,—a very little -shorter. And I can look with satisfaction at a cat -carrying a big bobtailed vole out of my mowing. -The voles are rated, along with other mice, as injurious -to man. I have an impulse to plant both of my -precious feet upon every one that stirs in its runway.</p> - -<p>If that feeling was habitual once, it is so no longer; -for now it is only when the instincts of the farmer -get the better of me that I spring at this quiet stir -in the grass. Perhaps, long ago, my forbears wore -claws, like pussy; and, perhaps (there isn’t the -slightest doubt), I should develop claws if I continued -to jump at every mouse in the grass because -he is a mouse, and because I have a little patch of -mucky land in hay.</p> - -<p>One day I came upon two of my voles struggling in -the water. They were exhausted and well-nigh dead. -I helped them out as I should have helped out any -other creature, and having saved them, why, what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -could I do but let them go—even into my own -meadow? This has happened several times.</p> - -<p>When the drought dries the meadow, the voles -come to the deep, walled spring at the upper end, -apparently to drink. The water usually trickles over -the curb, but in a long dry spell it shrinks a foot or -more below the edge, and the voles, once within for -their drink, cannot get out. Time and time again I -had fished them up, until I thought to leave a board -slanting down to the water, so that they could climb -back to the top.</p> - -<p>It is stupid and careless to drown thus. The voles -are blunderers. White-footed mice and house mice -are abundant in the stumps and grass of the vicinity, -but they never tumble into the spring. Still, I am -partly responsible for the voles, for I walled up the -spring and changed it into this trap. I owe them -the drink and the plank, for certainly there are rights -of mice, as well as of men, in this meadow of mine, -where I do little but mow. But even if they have no -rights, surely</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">A daimen icker in a thrave<br /> -’S a sma’ request</p> - -<p class="pn1">for such of them as the foxes, cats, skunks, snakes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -hawks, and owls leave! Rights or no, hay or no, I -don’t jump at <i>my</i> meadow mice any more, for fear of -killing one who has taken a cup of cold water from -me off the plank, or has had my helping hand out of -the depths of the spring.</p> - -<p>It is wholesome to be the good Samaritan to a -meadow mouse, to pour out, even waste, a little of -the oil and wine of sympathy on the humblest of our -needy neighbors.</p> - -<p>Here are the chimney swallows. One can look with -complacency, with gratitude, indeed, upon the swallows -of other chimneys, as they hawk in the sky; yet, -when the little creatures, so useful, but so uncombed -and unfumigated, set up their establishments in <i>your</i> -chimney, to the jeopardy of the whole house, then -you need an experience like mine.</p> - -<p>I had had a like experience years before, when the -house did not belong to me. Now, however, the -house was mine, and if it became infested because of -the swallows, I could not move away; so I felt like -burning them in the chimney, bag and baggage. -There were four nests, as nearly as I could make -out, and, from the frequent squeakings, I knew they -were all filled with young. Then one day, when the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -birds were feathered and nearly ready to fly, there -came a rain that ran wet far down the sooty chimney, -loosened the mortar of the nests, and sent them -crashing into the fireplace.</p> - -<p>Some of the young birds were killed outright; the -others were at my mercy, flung upon me,—helpless, -wailing infants! Of course I made it comfortable -for them on the back-log, and let their mothers flutter -down unhindered to feed them. Had I understood -the trick, I would have hawked for them and -helped feed them myself.</p> - -<p>They made a great thunder in the chimney; they -rattled down into the living-room a little soot; but -nothing further came of it. We were not quarantined. -On the contrary, we had our reward, according -to promise; for it was an extremely interesting -event to us all. It dispelled some silly qualms, it -gave us intimate part in a strange small life, so -foreign, yet so closely linked to our own, and it -made us pause with wonder that even our empty, -sooty chimney could be made use of by Nature to -our great benefit.</p> - -<p>I wonder if the nests of the chimney swallows -came tumbling down when the birds used to build in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -caves and hollow trees? It is a most extraordinary -change, this change from the trees to the chimneys, -and it does not seem to have been accompanied by -an increase of architectural wisdom necessary to -meet all the contingencies of the new hollow. The -mortar or glue, which, I imagine, held firmly in the -empty trees, will not mix with the chimney soot, so -that the nest, especially when crowded with young, -is easily loosened by the rain, and is sometimes even -broken away by the slight wing-stroke of a descending -swallow, or by the added weight of a parent bird -as it settles with food.</p> - -<p>We little realize how frequent fear is among the -birds and animals, nor how often it proves fatal. A -situation which would have caused no trouble ordinarily, -becomes through sudden fright a tangle or a -trap. I have known many a quail to bolt into a fast -express train and fall dead. Last winter I left the -large door of the barn open, so that my flock of juncos -could feed inside upon the floor. They found -their way into the hayloft, and went up and down -freely. On two or three occasions I happened in so -suddenly that they were thoroughly frightened, and -flew madly into the cupola to escape through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -windows. They beat against the glass until utterly -dazed, and would have perished there, had I not -climbed up later and brought them down. So thousands -of the migrating birds perish yearly by flying -wildly against the dazzling lanterns of the lighthouses, -and thousands more lose their way in the -thick darkness of the stormy nights, or are blown -out of their course, and drift away to sea.</p> - -<p>Hasty, careless, miscalculated movements are not -as frequent among the careful wild folk as among -us, perhaps; but there is abundant evidence of their -occasional occurrence and of their sometimes fatal -results.</p> - -<p>Several instances are recorded of birds that have -been tangled in the threads of their nests; and one -case of a bluebird that was caught in the flying -meshes of an oriole’s nest into which it had been -spying.</p> - -<p>I once found the mummied body of a chippy twisting -and swinging in the leafless branches of a peach -tree. The little creature was suspended in a web of -horsehair about two inches below the nest. It looked -as if she had brought a snarled bunch of the hair -and left it loose in the twigs. Later on, a careless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -step and her foot was fast, when every frantic effort -for freedom only tangled her the worse. In the nest -above were four other tiny mummies,—a double -tragedy that might with care have been averted.</p> - -<p>A similar fate befell a song sparrow that I discovered -hanging dead upon a barbed-wire fence. By -some chance it had slipped a foot through an open -place between the two twisted strands, and then, fluttering -along, had wedged the leg and broken it in -the struggle to escape.</p> - -<p>We have all held our breath at the hazardous traveling -of the squirrels in the treetops. What other -animals take such risks,—leaping at dizzy heights -from bending limbs to catch the tips of limbs still -smaller, saving themselves again and again by the -merest chance.</p> - -<p>But luck sometimes fails. My brother, a careful -watcher in the woods, was hunting on one occasion, -when he saw a gray squirrel miss its footing in a -tree and fall, breaking its neck upon a log beneath.</p> - -<p>I have frequently known them to fall short distances, -and once I saw a red squirrel come to grief -like the gray squirrel above. He was scurrying -through the tops of some lofty pitch pines, a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -hurried and flustered at sight of me, and nearing -the end of a high branch was in the act of springing, -when the dead tip cracked under him and he came -tumbling headlong. The height must have been -forty feet, so that before he reached the ground he -had righted himself,—his tail out and legs spread,—but -the fall was too great. He hit the earth with -a dull thud, and before I could reach him lay dead -upon the needles, with blood oozing from his eyes -and nostrils.</p> - -<p>Unhoused and often unsheltered, the wild things -suffer as we hardly yet understand. No one can estimate -the deaths of a year from severe cold, heavy -storms, high winds and tides. I have known the nests -of a whole colony of gulls and terns to be swept away -in a great storm; and I have seen the tides, over -and over, flood the inlet marshes, and drown out -the nests in the grass,—those of the clapper-rails -by thousands.</p> - -<p>I remember a late spring storm that came with -the returning redstarts and, in my neighborhood, -killed many of them. Toward evening of that day -one of the little black and orange voyageurs fluttered -against the window and we let him in, wet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -chilled, and so exhausted that for a moment he lay -on his back in my open palm. Soon after there was -another soft tapping at the window,—and two little -redstarts were sharing our cheer and drying their -butterfly wings in our warmth.</p> - -<p>During the summer of 1903 one of the commonest -of the bird calls about the farm was the whistle of -the quails. A covey roosted down the hillside within -fifty yards of the house. Then came the winter,—such -a winter as the birds had never known. Since -then, just once have we heard the whistle of a quail, -and that, perhaps, was the call of one which a game -protective association had liberated in the woods -about two miles away.</p> - -<p>The birds and animals are not as weather-wise as -we; they cannot foretell as far ahead nor provide as -certainly against need, despite the popular notion to -the contrary.</p> - -<p>We point to the migrating birds, to the muskrat -houses, and the hoards of the squirrels, and say, -“How wise and far-sighted these nature-taught children -are!” True, they are, but only for conditions -that are normal. Their wisdom does not cover the -exceptional. The gray squirrels did not provide for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -the unusually hard weather of the winter of 1904. -Three of them from the woodlot came begging of -me, and lived on my wisdom, not on their own.</p> - -<p>Consider the ravens, that neither sow nor reap, -that have neither storehouse nor barn, yet they are -fed,—but not always. Indeed, there are few of our -winter birds that go hungry so often, and that die in -so great numbers for lack of food and shelter, as the -crows.</p> - -<p>After severe and protracted cold, with a snow-covered -ground, a crow-roost looks like a battlefield, -so thick lie the dead and wounded. Morning after -morning the flock goes over to forage in the frozen -fields, and night after night returns hungrier, weaker, -and less able to resist the cold. Now, as the darkness -falls, a bitter wind breaks loose and sweeps -down upon the pines.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">List’ning the doors an’ winnocks rattle,<br /> -I thought me on the owrie cattle,</p> - -<p class="pn1">and how often I have thought me on the crows biding -the night yonder in the moaning pines! So often, as -a boy, and with so real an awe, have I watched them -returning at night, that the crows will never cease -flying through my wintry sky,—an endless line of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -wavering black figures, weary, retreating figures, -beating over in the early dusk.</p> - -<p>To-night another wild storm sweeps across the -January fields. All the afternoon the crows have -been going over, and at five o’clock are still passing -though the darkness settles rapidly. Now it is eight, -and the long night is but just begun. The storm -is increasing. The wind shrieks about the house, -whirling the fine snow in hissing eddies past the -corners and driving it on into long, curling crests -across the fields. I can hear the roar as the wind -strikes the shoal of pines where the fields roll into -the woods,—a vast surf sound, but softer and higher, -with a wail like the wail of some vast heart in pain.</p> - -<p>I can see the tall trees rock and sway with their -burden of dark forms. As close together as they can -crowd on the bending limbs cling the crows, their -breasts turned all to the storm. With crops empty -and bodies weak, they rise and fall in the cutting, -ice-filled wind for thirteen hours of night!</p> - -<p>Is it a wonder that the life fires burn low? that -the small flames flicker and go out?</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-113.jpg" width="400" height="147" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>VII</h2> - -<p class="pch">The Sign of the Shad-bush</p> - -<p class="pn1"><span class="smcap">The</span> shad-bush is open! My bees have seen the -sign. They are dropping down upon the alighting-boards -of their hives and running with little bags of -gold into the still half-closed entrances. During the -sunny hours of the last three weeks there has been -a quiet buzzing about the hives: the bees have been -visiting the early alders, the soft maples, and the -dusty-catkined willows; but not before to-day, the -first day of the blowing shad-bush, have things been -busy at the hives,—have they hummed.</p> - -<p>Off along the meadows I can see large patches of -garnet against the purple of the sky,—the bloom -of the red maples. As I approach, a soft murmur -around and through the misty garnet fills the air, -like the murmur of a million tiny tongues. Nearer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -still, and I can see the bees. Here is where they -are getting their gold. But not all of it. Some of it -to-day is coming from the marsh marigolds.</p> - -<p>Early in April, before the shad-bush had opened, -or a bee had ventured to the meadows, I picked the -first hardy blossom of the marigolds out of icy water, -out of mud that had barely thawed. A token this, -a promise; but not the sure sign of spring. The bees -did not see it; they were waiting, like me, for the -shad-bush. So were the marigolds, for to-day the low, -wet edge of the meadow ditch is all aglow with the -shining of their gold, which the bees are pocketing by -the thighful. Among the “flowers,” the marigolds -are the first here to offer a harvest for the hives.</p> - -<p>The procession is under way. The assembling began -weeks ago, with the March hepatica, the stray -April arbutus, windflower, spice-bush, and bloodroot. -There were saxifrage and everlasting out, too; but -they all came singly and timidly. There was no movement -of the flowers until the shad-bush opened. Now -the marigolds appear in companies, the windflowers -drift together, and the hepaticas, leading the line, -make a show. The procession of the flowers has -started; spring is here.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>My</i> spring, I should have said. Your spring came -long ago, perhaps, or still delays. “The dandelion -tells me when to look for the swallow, the dog-tooth -violet when to expect the wood thrush, and when -I have found the wake-robin in bloom I know the -season is fairly inaugurated. With me this flower is -associated, not merely with the awakening of Robin, -for he has been awake some weeks, but with the -universal awakening and rehabilitation of Nature.”</p> - -<p>I watch for the sign of the shad-bush. Spring! -There is the smell of spring in the yellow spice-bush; -the sound of spring in the trills of the hylas; -the color of spring in the blue of the hepatica. A -February rain spatters your face with spring; the -wild geese trumpet spring in the gray skies as they -pass; the bluebird brings spring in spite of your -fears and the weather:—</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">All white and still lie stream and hill—</p> -<p class="pp6">The winter cold and drear!</p> -<p class="pp4">When from the skies, a bluebird flies</p> -<p class="pp6">And—spring is here!</p> - -<p class="pn1">True enough. But then suddenly the bluebird disappears; -a heavy snowstorm sets in (as happened -not many springs ago), and thousands of the birds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -perish. Spring was here. It has gone again. And -so it will come and go until the shad-bush blooms—for -me.</p> - -<p>You will not miss one of the returning birds, not -even the wild geese; not one of the early flowers, -either, by waiting for the shad-bush. The skunk-cabbage -and pussy-willow are still in blossom; and -still in the woods and fields is the smell of the soil,—that -fragrance, that essence which is the breath of -the wakening earth. You can yet taste it on the lips -of the hepatica, the arbutus, and bloodroot. It still -lingers on the early catkins, too,—a strangely rare -and delicate odor, that is not of the flowers at all, -but of the earth, and sweeter than any perfume that -the summer can distill.</p> - -<p>It has been a slow, unwilling season until to-day, -so slow that the green still shows richest in the -sheltered meadows, and the lively color on the rocky -slope that runs up from my tiny river is largely the -color of mosses and Christmas ferns. Here is a -stretch of southern exposure, however, and here are -spots where springtime came weeks ago. Already -the dog-tooth violets are out in a sunny saucer between -the rocks; just above them, on an unshaded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -shelf, is a patch of saxifrage, and close at hand -among the clefts, their “honey pitcher upside down,” -swing the first of my columbines.</p> - -<p>Yet Spring does not come thus by spots; she -does not crawl out and sun herself like a lizard. The -columbine seeks the sun, but the hepaticas came up -and opened their exquisite eyes in the deepest, dampest -shadows of the woods. I have seen them and -the lingering snowdrifts together. Many of them are -never touched with a sunbeam, their warmth and life -coming from within, from a store saved through -the winter, rather than from without. Here under -the mat of fallen leaves and winter snow they have -kept enough of the summer to make a spring.</p> - -<p>The fires of summer are never out. They are -only banked in the winter, smouldering always -under the snow, and quick to brighten and burst -into blaze. There came a warm day in January, and -across my thawing path crawled a woolly bear caterpillar, -a vanessa butterfly flitted through the woods, -and the juncos sang. That night a howling snowstorm -swept out of the north. The coals were covered -again. So they kindled and darkened, until to-day -they leap from the ashes of winter, a pure, thin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -blaze in the shad-bush, to burn higher and hotter -across the summer, to flicker and die away, a line of -yellow embers in the weird witch-hazel of the autumn.</p> - -<p>At the sign of the shad-bush the doors of my -springtime swing wide open. My birds are back, -my turtles are out, my squirrels and woodchucks -show themselves, my garden is ready to plough and -plant. There is not a stretch of woodland or meadow -now that shows a trace of winter. Over the pasture -the bluets are beginning to drift, as if the haze, on -the distant hills, floating down in the night, had -been caught in the dew-wet grass. They wash the -field to its borders in their delicate azure hue.</p> - -<p>Along with the bluets (“innocence” we should -always call them), under the open sky, there unroll -in the wet shaded bottoms of the maple swamps the -pointed arum leaves of the Jacks, or Indian turnips. -How they fight for room! There are patches where -all the pews are pulpits, with some of the preachers -standing three deep.</p> - -<p>Now why should there be such a scramble for -place among the Jacks, while just above them in the -dry woods the large showy lady’s-slipper opens in -isolated splendor? Here is one, yonder another, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -room between for a thousand. Occasionally you will -see a dozen together, though not in a crowd; but -more often the solitary blossom opens alone and far -removed from any of its kind.</p> - -<p>The lady’s-slippers, however, are really social compared -with the arbutus. Here is a flower that is -naturally tribal,—bound together by common root-stalks, -trailing shrubby plants that seem free to -possess the earth. They were doubtless here in the -soil before the Pilgrim came. The angels planted -them, I am sure, for they smell of a celestial garden. -The paths of heaven are carpeted with them, not -paved with gold. But something is the matter with -this earthly soil. They grow just where they were -originally planted and nowhere else. There was a -patch set in the woods three quarters of a mile, as -the crow flies, from my front door. That was several -millenniums ago. It is there still, a patch as big as -my hat. There are other scattered bits of it beyond, -but none any nearer to me, yet the soil seems the -same, and there are woods all the way between.</p> - -<p>Were it as common as the violet, perhaps some of -its sweetness would be lost upon us. After all, the -heavenly streets may be paved with gold, and instead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -of a carpet of arbutus, we shall find patches of it -only, hidden away under the fallen leaves of the -Elysian groves. For we shall need to get out of even -the celestial city into the open fields and woods, -and I can think of nothing so likely to draw us away -from our mansions and beyond the pearly gates as -the chance to go “May-flowering.”</p> - -<p>And, even here below, among the unransomed -souls of Boston, when Mayflower-time arrives, you -may see young men and maidens, children and -grandfathers, trooping out to the woods for a handful -of the flowers. And up from the Cape, to those -who cannot go into the woods, the flowers, themselves, -come,—tight, naked bunches, stripped of all -but the pink of their faces and the sweet of their -souls. They possess every quarter of the city. Jew -and Gentile sell them, Greek and Barbarian buy -them, as they buy and sell no other wild flower.</p> - -<p>Why, then, is it not the arbutus, instead of the -shad-bush, that spells for me the spring? I don’t -know; unless it is because the shad-bush takes -deeper hold upon my imagination. It certainly is -not its form, or color, or fragrance,—though it has -grace,—an airy, misty, half-substantial shape, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -wraith in the leafless woods; it has odor, too, and -color. But it is something more than all of these -that the soft blowing shad-bush means to me. Perhaps -the something is in its name,—because it links -my inland round with the round of the sea; and -because it links this present narrowing round with -the wide-winging round of the past.</p> - -<p>At the sign of the shad-bush I know the fish are -running,—the sturgeon up the Delaware; the shad -into Cohansey Creek; and through Five-Forks Sluice, -these soft, stirring nights, I know the catfish are -slipping. Is there any boy now in Lupton’s Meadows -to watch them come? to listen in the moonlit -quiet for the <i>splash</i>, <i>splash</i>, as the fish pass up -through the main ditch toward the dam?</p> - -<p>At the sign of the shad-bush how swiftly the tides -of life rise! how mysteriously their currents run! -drifting, flying, flowing, creeping—colors, perfumes, -forms, and voices—across the heavens, over the -earth, and down the deep, dim aisles of the sea! and -down the deep, dim aisles of our memories.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-122.jpg" width="400" height="114" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>VIII</h2> - -<p class="pch">The Nature Movement</p> - -<p class="pn1"><span class="smcap">I was</span> hurrying across Boston Common. Two or three -hundred others were hurrying with me. But ahead, at -the union of several paths, was a crowd, standing still. -I kept hurrying on, not to join the crowd, but simply -to keep up the hurry. The crowd was not standing -still, it was a-hurrying, too, scattering as fast as it -gathered, and as it scattered I noticed that it wore a -smile. I hastened up, pushed in, as I had done a score -of times on the Common, and got my glimpse of the -show. It was not a Mormon preaching, not a single-taxer, -not a dog fight. It was Billy, a gray squirrel, -taking peanuts out of a bootblack’s pocket. And every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> -age, sex, sort, and condition of Bostonian came around -to watch the little beast shuck the nuts and bury them -singly in the grass of the Common.</p> - -<p>“Ain’t he a cute little cuss, mister?” said the boy -of the brush, feeling the bottom of his empty pocket, -and looking up into the prosperous face of Calumet -and Hecla at his side. C. and H. smiled, slipped something -into the boy’s hand with which to buy another -pocketful of peanuts for Billy, and hurried down to -State Street.</p> - -<p>This crowd on the Common is nothing exceptional. -It happens every day, and everywhere, the wide country -over. We are all stopping to watch, to feed, and—to -smile. The longest, most far-reaching pause in our -hurrying American life to-day is this halt to look at -the out-of-doors, this attempt to share its life; and -nothing more significant is being added to our American -character than the resulting thoughtfulness, sympathy, -and simplicity,—the smile on the faces of the -crowd hurrying over the Common.</p> - -<p>Whether one will or not, he is caught up by this -nature movement and set adrift in the fields. It may, -indeed, be “adrift” for him until he gets thankfully -back to the city. “It was a raw November day,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>” -wrote one of these new nature students, who happened -also to be a college student, “and we went -for our usual Saturday’s birding into the woods. -The chestnuts were ripe, and we gathered a peck -between us. On our way home, we discovered a -small bird perched upon a cedar tree with a worm in -its beak. It was a hummingbird, and after a little -searching we found its tiny nest close up against the -trunk of the cedar, full of tiny nestlings just ready -to fly.”</p> - -<p>This is what they find, many of these who are -caught up by the movement toward the fields; but -not all of them. A little five-year-old from the village -came out to see me recently, and while playing in the -orchard she brought me five flowers, called them by -their right names, and told me how they grew. Down -in the loneliest marshes of Delaware Bay I know a -lighthouse keeper and his solitary neighbor, a farmer: -both have been touched by this nature spirit; both -are interested, informed, and observant. The farmer -there, on the old Zane’s Place, is no man of books, like -the rector of Selborne, but he is a man of birds and -beasts, of limitless marsh and bay and sky, of everlasting -silence and wideness and largeness and eternal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -solitude. He could write a Natural History of the -Maurice River Marshes.</p> - -<p>These are not rare cases. The nature books, the -nature magazines, the nature teachers, are directing -us all to the out-of-doors. I subscribe to a farm journal -(club rates, twenty-five cents a year!) in which an -entire page is devoted to “nature studies,” while the -whole paper is remarkably fresh and odorous of -the real fields. In the city, on my way to and from -the station, I pass three large bookstores, and from -March until July each of these shops has a big window -given over almost continuously to “nature books.” I -have before me from one of these shops a little catalogue -of nature books—“a select list”—for 1907, -containing 233 titles, varying in kind all the way from -“The Tramp’s Handbook” to one (to a dozen) on the -very stable subject of “The Farmstead.” These are -all distinctively “nature books,” books with an appeal -to sentiment as well as to sense, and very unlike the -earlier desiccated, unimaginative treatises.</p> - -<p>There are a multitude of other signs that show as -clearly as the nature books how full and strong is -this tide that sets toward the open fields and woods. -There are as many and as good evidences, too, of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -genuineness of this interest in the out-of-doors. It -may be a fad just now to adopt abandoned farms, to -attend parlor lectures on birds, and to possess a how-to-know -library. It is pathetic to see “nature study” -taught by schoolma’ams who never did and who never -will climb a rail fence; it is sad, to speak softly, to -have the makers of certain animal books preface the -stories with a declaration of their absolute truth; it is -passing sad that the unnatural natural history, the -impossible out-of-doors, of some of the recent nature -books, should have been created. But fibs and failures -and impossibilities aside, there still remains the thing -itself,—the widespread turning to nature, and the -deep, vital need to turn.</p> - -<p>The note of sincerity is clear, however, in most of -our nature writers; the faith is real in most of our -nature teachers; and the love,—who can doubt the -love of the tens of thousands of those whose feet feel -the earth nowadays, whose lives share in the existence -of some pond or wood or field? And who can -doubt the rest, the health, the sanity, and the satisfaction -that these get from the companionship of their -field or wood or pond?</p> - -<p>There is no way of accounting for the movement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -that reflects in the least upon its reality and genuineness. -It may be only the appropriation by the common -people of the world that the scientists have discovered -to us; it may be a popular reaction against -the conventionality of the eighteenth century; or -the result of our growing wealth and leisure; or a -fashion set by Thoreau and Burroughs,—one or all -of these may account for its origin; but nothing -can explain the movement away, or hinder us from -being borne by it out, at least a little way, under -the open of heaven, to the great good of body and -soul.</p> - -<p>Among the cultural influences of our times that -have developed the proportions of a movement, this -so-called nature movement is peculiarly American. -No such general, widespread turning to the out-of-doors -is seen anywhere else; no other such body of -nature literature as ours; no other people so close -to nature in sympathy and understanding, because -there is no other people of the same degree of culture -living so close to the real, wild out-of-doors.</p> - -<p>The extraordinary interest in the out-of-doors is -not altogether a recent acquirement. We inherited it. -Nature study is an American habit. What else had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -the pioneers and colonists to study but the out-of-doors? -and what else was half as wonderful? They -came from an old urban world into this new country -world, where all was strange, unnamed, and unexplored. -Their chief business was observing nature, -not as dull savages, nor as children born to a dead -familiarity with their surroundings, but as interested -men and women, with a need and a desire to know. -Their coming was the real beginning of our nature -movement; their observing has developed into our -nature study habit.</p> - -<p>Our nature literature also began with them. There -is scarcely a journal, a diary, or a set of letters of -this early time in which we do not find that careful -seeing, and often that imaginative interpretation, so -characteristic of the present day. Even the modern -animal romancer is represented among these early -writers in John Josselyn and his delicious book, -“New England’s Rarities Discovered.”</p> - -<p>It was not until the time of Emerson and Bryant -and Thoreau, however, that our interest in nature -became general and grew into something deeper -than mere curiosity. There had been naturalists such -as Audubon (he was a poet, also), but they went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -off into the deep woods alone. They were after new -facts, new species. Emerson and Bryant and Thoreau -went into the woods, too, but not for facts, nor did they -go far, and they invited us to go along. We went, -because they got no farther than the back-pasture -fence. It was not to the woods they took us, but to -nature; not a-hunting after new species in the name -of science, but for new inspirations, new estimates -of life, new health for mind and spirit.</p> - -<p>But we were slow to get as far even as their back-pasture -fence, slow to find nature in the fields and -woods. It was fifty years ago that Emerson tried to -take us to nature; but fifty years ago, how few there -were who could make sense out of his invitation, to -say nothing of accepting it! And of Thoreau’s first -nature book, “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack -Rivers,” there were sold, in four years after -publication, two hundred and twenty copies. But two -hundred and twenty of such books at work in the -mind of the country could leaven, in time, a big lump -of it. And they did. The out-of-doors, our attitude -toward it, and our literature about it have never -been the same since.</p> - -<p>Even yet, however, it is the few only who respond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> -to Thoreau, Emerson, and Burroughs, who can find -nature, as well as birds and trees, who can think and -feel as well as wonder and look. Before we can think -and feel we must get over our wondering, and we -must get entirely used to looking. This we are slowly -doing,—slowly, I say, for it is the monstrous, the -marvelous, the unreal that most of us still go out -into the wilderness for to see,—bears and wolves, -foxes, eagles, orioles, salmon, mustangs, porcupines -of extraordinary parts and powers.</p> - -<p>There came to my desk, tied up with the same -string, not long since, three nature books of a sort -to make Thoreau turn over in his grave,—accounts -of beasts and birds such as old Thetbaldus gave us in -his “Physiologus,” that pious and marvelous bestiary -of the dark ages. These three volumes that I refer -to are modern and about American animals, but they, -too, might have been written during the dark ages. -All three have the same solemn preface, declaring -the absolute truth of the observations that follow (as -if we might doubt?), and piously pointing out their -high moral purpose; all three likewise start out with -the same wonderful story,—an animal biography: -one, of a slum cat, born in a cracker box. Among the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -kittens of the cracker box was an extraordinary kitten -of “pronounced color,” who survives and comes to -glory. The next book tells the biography of a fox, -born in a hole among the Canadian hills. Among -the pups born in this hole was one extraordinary pup -“more finely colored” than the others, who survives -and comes to glory. The third book tells the biography -of a wolf, born in a cave among the rocks, -still farther north. Among the cubs born in this cave -was one extraordinary cub, “larger than the others,” -who survives and, as is to be expected of a wolf, -comes to more glory than the cracker-box kitten or -the fox pup of the hills.</p> - -<p>Such are the stories that are made into texts and -readers for our public schools; such are the animals -that go roaming through the woods of the American -child’s imagination. But no such kittens or cubs or -pups lurk in my eight-acre woodlot. I have seen several -(six, to be exact) fox pups, but never did I see -this overworked, extraordinary, <i>cum laude</i> pup of the -recent nature books.</p> - -<p>So long as we continue to read and believe such -accounts, just so long shall we find it impossible to -go with Audubon and Thoreau and Burroughs, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -they have no place to take us, nothing to show us -when we arrive. Their real world does not exist.</p> - -<p>But we know that a real, ordinary, yet a marvelous -world does exist, and right at hand. The present -great nature movement is an outgoing to discover it,—its -trees, birds, flowers, its myriad forms. This is -the meaning of the countless manuals, the “how-to-know” -books, and the nature study of the public -schools. And this desire to know Nature is the reasonable, -natural preparation for the deeper insight -that leads to communion with her,—a desire to be -traced more directly to Agassiz, and the hosts of -teachers he inspired, perhaps, than to the poet-essayists -like Emerson and Thoreau and Burroughs.</p> - -<p>Let us learn to see and name first. The inexperienced, -the unknowing, the unthinking, cannot love. -One must live until tired, and think until baffled, before -he can know his need of Nature; and then he -will not know how to approach her unless already -acquainted. To expect anything more than curiosity -and animal delight in a child is foolish, and the -attempt to teach him anything more at first than to -know the out-of-doors is equally foolish. Poets are -born, but not until they are old.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> - -<p>But if one got no farther than his how-to-know -book would lead him, he still would get into the -fields,—the best place for him this side of heaven,—he -would get ozone for his lungs, red blood, sound -sleep, and health. As a nation, we had just begun to -get away from the farm and out of touch with the -soil. The nature movement is sending us back in -time. A new wave of physical soundness is to roll -in upon us as the result, accompanied with a newness -of mind and of morals.</p> - -<p>For, next to bodily health, the influence of the -fields makes for the health of the spirit. It is easier -to be good in a good body and an environment of -largeness, beauty, and peace,—easier here than anywhere -else to be sane, sincere, and “in little thyng -have suffisaunce.” If it means anything to think -upon whatsoever things are good and lovely, then it -means much to own a how-to-know book and to -make use of it.</p> - -<p>This is hardly more than a beginning, however, -merely satisfying an instinct of the mind. It is good -if done afield, even though such classifying of the -out-of-doors is only scraping an acquaintance with -nature. The best good, the deep healing, come when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -one, no longer a stranger, breaks away from his getting -and spending, from his thinking with men, and -camps under the open sky, where he knows without -thinking, and worships without priest or chant or -prayer.</p> - -<p>The world’s work must be done, and only a small -part of it can be done in the woods and fields. The -merchants may not all turn ploughmen and wood-choppers. -Nor is it necessary. What we need to do, -and are learning to do, is to go to nature for our rest -and health and recreation.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-135.jpg" width="400" height="155" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>IX</h2> - -<p class="pch">June</p> - -<p class="pn1"><span class="smcap">A reference</span> to one of my notebooks shows that -in June, 1895, there were thirty-six species of birds -nesting within singing distance of my study windows; -in 1907 there were thirty-two, the most distant -nest being less than five minutes’ walk from my -door.</p> - -<p>This is not a modern natural history story,—an -extraordinary discovery that only I am capable of -making. Start your own June list, and I warrant you -will find as many. For there is nothing peculiarly -birdy about my small farm. Any place as uncongenial -to English sparrows and one that offers a fair -chance to the native birds will keep you busy counting -nests in June.</p> - -<p>In the chimney built the swifts (three or four<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -families of them); in the barn loft a small colony of -barn swallows; and under the roof of the pig-pen a -pair of phœbes, my earliest spring birds and often -the latest with a brood.</p> - -<p>A bushy hillside drops from the porch to the old -orchard, and along this steep southern slope nested -a pair of indigo buntings and a pair of rose-breasted -grosbeaks (my rarest neighbors); also, here in the -thick underbrush were found chewinks, thrashers, -black and white warblers, song sparrows, and a pair -of partridges.</p> - -<p>In the orchard there were half a dozen chippies’ -nests, even more robins’, two nests of bluebirds, and -one each of the tree swallow, flicker, yellow warbler, -chebec, downy woodpecker, kingbird, great crested -flycatcher, redstart, and screech owl.</p> - -<p>Baltimore orioles nested in the elms along the road; -close to the little river were the nests of catbirds -and red-winged blackbirds; a nest of swamp sparrows -and of Maryland yellow-throats in the meadow, -and in the woodlot a pewee’s nest, a crow’s nest, -and three nests of ovenbirds.</p> - -<p>All these I found; but besides these I know that -a pair of yellow-billed cuckoos built somewhere near<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -the house, as did a pair of blue jays, wood thrushes, -and chestnut-sided warblers. These I am still waiting -for. I need another June.</p> - -<p>Not one of all these birds is rare or even shy, -unless it be the swamp sparrow; none of them that -the veriest beginner should not come to know in the -course of one June. For these are almost domesticated, -our near neighbors and friends, who desire -and who will return our friendly, neighborly calls.</p> - -<p>There are other birds, like the hawks, the owls, -the herons, the rarer thrushes, sparrows, warblers, -and marsh birds, that require time and tramping for -their discovery. I know the very log in which I could -find young turkey buzzards in June; the clump of -dog-roses where a least bittern will build; the old -gum that for years has harbored a pair of barred -owls; the little cove where, spring after spring, a -black duck nests. But I should need a vacation to -visit these.</p> - -<p>I watch the others between times,—between five -o’clock in the morning and breakfast, between breakfast -and train time and church time, and on Saturdays -to and from the garden. If you are your own -gardener, you can carry not only a hoe, but along<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -with it a pair of field glasses. I even combine the -care of my pig and the study of the phœbes that share -his pen. Occasionally I drop everything and hunt for -a nest, as if life depended upon my finding it. But life -doesn’t, the more’s the pity, for me. Life depends -on the finding of things that are very different from -birds’ nests, things that require a deal of hunting -the whole year around. Yet I take the time to hunt -birds’ nests, too, for life is more than meat (I raise -a good many vegetables), and, after all, <i>my</i> life does -depend, in no small measure, upon my finding a few -birds’ nests in June.</p> - -<p>I remember a June when I tried to get life out of -a grocery store, and the sickness of it comes over -me even yet at times. I sold kerosene oil, brown -sugar, coffee, salt mackerel, and plug tobacco. I -breathed the mingled breath of kerosene oil, brown -sugar, coffee, salt mackerel, and plug tobacco,—the -odor of mere money,—when I knew the fox grapes -were in blossom, the magnolias and the azaleas; -when I knew the fields were green and the birds -were in song! I have longed for many things, but -never as I longed that June for the farm, for the long, -long day, yes, and for the long, long row. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -that kerosened, salt-mackereled, plug-tobaccoed—moneyed—June -that took me back to sweet poverty -and the farm.</p> - -<p>I do not wish to think of living where the birds -and wild flowers do not live with me. A city flat is -convenient, and city life is exciting; but convenience -and excitement plus meat and raiment are not the -sum of life; neither, on the other hand, are pure air, -sunshine, birds, flowers, a garden, quiet, and time to -think, the whole of life. No; but when you consider -the matter, there appears very little still needing to -make life whole that you cannot have along with -your birds, thoughts, and garden.</p> - -<p>Whether you love the country or not, whether you -know the difference between a kingbird and a kingcrab -or not, you owe it to your body and your soul -to get out into the open fields in June,—not to collect -bird skins or birds’ eggs or to make a herbarium -or a nature diary, but to live a while where the birds -and flowers live. The city may be heaven enough for -you all the rest of the year; but God didn’t make -the city. There are seasons—March and February, -usually—when it seems as if some one else has -a hand in making the country. In June, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -the country is all and more than the poets say,—if -it is poetry that you come out into the country for to -feel.</p> - -<p>Take my meadow, for instance, all aglow in June -with buttercups, as if spread with a sheet of beaten -gold! But now, if it is only hay that I am after (alas, -too often it is), then my gold turns all to brass, and -worse than brass, for buttercups, as my dairyman -neighbor tells me, make the poorest kind of hay. I -should keep no cow, perhaps. She gives nice milk, to -be sure, but she eats up my beaten gold, she kills my -buttercup poetry. Maybe I am too rich, I own too -much: one cow, one horse, two pigs, thirty hens, -fourteen acres of hills and trees. For it is the truth -that I do not enjoy the foxes now as I did before I -kept hens, nor the buttercups as I did before I got the -cow. Suppose, now, besides all of this, I had money,—a -lot of it!—several thousand dollars! You never -get money along with a farm, and that is one reason -why a farm is such a safe and sure investment for the -soul. It is not the cow nor the chores, but money in -or out of the bank, that robs life of its June.</p> - -<p>Nor is owning <i>one</i> cow like having a dairy farm. -The average man had better keep his money in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -bank than invest in more than one cow. A single -cow cannot eat all the gold out of one’s meadow. -I am still glad for the buttercups; and where the -meadow passes into the upland, where the buttercups -give place to the daisies, my gold runs into silver; -which means certainly that I am not making the -farm pay, for on a paying farm a daisy—weed that it -is, and not a native weed at that—is more like a spot -of leprosy than of silver. Our daisies are not even -those sung by the poets, I understand. What of it? -A ten-acre field of them lies snow-white in my memory, -fresh with the freshness of early June and the -sweeter freshness of boyhood. And as for poetry, I -have my own for them,—the poetry of boyhood, of -Commencement days at the Institute, and of girls in -white frocks.</p> - -<p>There is no particular flower that means June to -me as the hepatica means March, the arbutus April, -the shad-bush May, and the red wood-lily July. I cannot -think of single blossoms, or of here and there -a spot of rare flowers, in June, but only of pastures -drifted white, meadows purple-misted, and rolling -hillsides billowy pink,—of laurel, forget-me-nots, daisies, -viburnums, and buttercups. This is no time to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -botanize. Leave the collecting can at home, for one -day at least, and wander forth, not to hunt, but to -drift and float, or, if you run aground, to wade knee-deep -in June. A botanist who is never poet misses -as much in the out-of-doors as the poet who is never -botanist.</p> - -<p>If there were no other flower in the month but the -white water-lily, June would still be June. “Who can -contemplate it,” exclaims Mr. Burroughs, “as it -opens in the morning sun, and distills such perfume, -such purity, such snow of petal, and such gold of -anther, from the dark water and still darker ooze! -How feminine it seems beside its coarser and more -robust congeners, how shy, how pliant, how fine in -texture and starlike in form!”</p> - -<p>How the water-lily and spatter-dock can grow from -the same mud is past understanding. One has every -grace, the other none. But the dock can live in -stagnant water, which perhaps is a sort of compensation.</p> - -<p>And these two, for me, are always associated with -magnolias,—<i>Magnolia glauca</i>,—and magnolias are -associated with “old, forgotten, far-off things.” Their -absence from my swamps here is part of the price<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -I pay for my transplanting to these New England -fields.</p> - -<p>If that were all, it were price enough. But think -of June in New Jersey, with buzzards soaring, cardinals -whistling, and turtle doves cooing; with swamps -magnolia-scented, and woods astir with box-turtles, -pine snakes, pine-tree lizards, and ’possums! Then -think of June in Massachusetts with none of these,—at -least in my neighborhood!</p> - -<p>What then? I could scarcely strain the magnolia’s -breath from the mingling odors if it were here, for -the common air I breathe is the breath of blossoming -clover, wild grape, elder, blackberry, rose, and -azalea. I must almost smell them by <i>families</i>. For -here are six wild roses perfuming my air, five viburnums, -six dogwoods (these last quite lacking in perfume, -be it said), and wild blackberries that I have -never dared to number. Who wants to number them? -to spend his June with a “plant analysis,” dissecting -and keeping tally? It is enough now to be alive and -out of doors among the flowers. Nor is it all of June -to find thirty-six species of birds nesting within a -radius of five hundred and fifty-five and one half feet -from your <i>front</i> door. I do not cite these figures in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -order to startle, but to suggest, if I might, the joyous -medley of life in June, its variety and abundance. -You may not be able to name all the warblers; -you have never yet made out which is which among -the dogwoods and viburnums; the dogwood flowers -are all four-pointed stars, while the viburnums are -all five-pointed. But what of it,—four or five, dogwood -or viburnum! Here they are, banked in soft, -snowy fragrance along the margin of the pond. A -tiny nest swings from a fork among them, a tiny -bird with a white ring around her eye broods and -watches you drift past. You have a fish-pole, and all -about you and within you is the June.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-145.jpg" width="400" height="183" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>X</h2> - -<p class="pch">A Broken Feather</p> - -<p class="pn1"><span class="smcap">One</span> of the pair of crows that nest in my woodlot has -been flying over all winter long with a gap in his right -wing. Three at least of the large wing feathers are -missing, and the result is a perceptible limp. The bird -moves through the air with the list of a boat that has -shifted or lost its ballast. Were he set upon in the -air by a hawk, as might happen if he were smaller, -the race would be short. He is plainly disabled -by the loss of these three feathers, and has been -for months. Just how and when the loss occurred -I don’t know. It is likely, however, that the feathers -were shot away in June,—in corn-stealing -time. Now for nearly a year he has been hobbling -about on one whole and one half wing, trusting to -luck to escape his enemies, until he can get three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -new feathers to take the places of these that are -missing.</p> - -<p>Well, why, in all this time, if these three feathers -are so necessary, has he not gotten them? He might -reply, “Which of you by taking thought can add as -much as one cubit to your stature, to say nothing of -three hairs to the top of your head?” By taking time -(which is a fine human phrase for giving Nature time), -and with the right conditions, you may add the cubit. -So the crow may get his feathers. It is not an affair -between the crow and his feathers, nor between the -crow and Nature. It is wholly Nature’s affair with -the crow’s feathers, and so seriously does Nature -take it, so careful is she, so systematic, so almost -arbitrary about it, that the feathers of crows, like -the hairs of our heads, can truly be said to be numbered.</p> - -<p>Nothing could look more haphazard, certainly, than -the way a hen’s feathers seem to drop off at moulting -time. The most forlorn, undone, abject creature about -the farm is the half-moulted hen. There is one in the -chicken yard now, so nearly naked that she really is -ashamed of herself, and so miserably helpless that -she squats in a corner all night, unable to reach the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -low poles of the roost. It is a critical experience -with the hen, this moulting of her feathers, and were -it not for the protection of the yard it might be a -fatal experience. Nature seems to have no hand in -the business at all; if she has, then what a mess she -is making of it!</p> - -<p>But pick up the hen, study the falling of the feathers -carefully, and lo! here is law and order, system -and sequence, as if every feather were a star, every -quill a planet, and the old white hen the round sphere -of the universe. You will put her down reverently, -awfully, this hen that you took up with such compassion, -and you will say, “Such knowledge is too wonderful -for me.”</p> - -<p>So it is, for the moult means a great deal more than -the mere renewal of feathers, just how much more no -one seems to know. This much is plain, that once -a year, usually after the nesting season, it seems -a physical necessity for most birds to renew their -plumage.</p> - -<p>We get a new suit (some of us) because our old -one wears out. That is the most apparent cause for -the new annual suit of the birds. Yet with them, as -with some of the favored of us humans, the feathers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -go out of fashion, and the change, the moult, is a -mere matter of style.</p> - -<p>But the annual moult, first of all, is Nature’s wise -provision for the safety and warmth of the bird. -Feathers are not only covering, as our clothes, but -also means of locomotion, and, hence, the bird’s very -means of life. A year of use leaves many of the feathers -worn and broken, some of them through accident -entirely lost (as with my crow), and while they might -last for two years, or even longer, Nature has found -it necessary to provide a new plumage as often as -once a year, in order to keep the race of birds at -its best.</p> - -<p>But there are other reasons, at least there are advantages -taken of the moult for other ends: such as -the adaptation of the feathers to the varying temperatures -of the seasons,—heavier in winter and -lighter in summer; also the adaptation of the color -of the plumage to the changing colors of the environment,—as -the change from the dark summer -color of the ptarmigan to its snow-white winter -plumage to match the snows of its far northern -home; then, and perhaps most interesting of all, is -the advantage taken of the moult, for the adorning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -of the bird for the mating season. Indeed, Nature -goes so far, in some cases, as to cause a special -moult to meet the exigencies of the wedding,—as if -fine feathers <i>do</i> make a fine bird. All this to meet -the fancy of the bride! so, at least, the scientists tell -us. Whether or not her fancy is the cause, it is -a fact that among the birds it is the bridegroom -who is adorned for his wife, and sometimes the fine -feathers come by a special moult.</p> - -<p>Not far from my house is a nest of black-crowned -night herons, or “quawks.” Preparatory to the mating -of the pair there started from the crown of the male -(and female, also, in this case,) two or three white, -rounded plumes, which now hang eight inches in -length, waving gracefully to his shoulders. They are -the special glory of the wedding time; but soon after -the nesting season is over they will drop out, not to -come again until he goes a-wooing Mrs. Quawk once -more. In the white American egret, and in the snowy -egret, the plumes number about fifty, and occur upon -the back close to the tail. They are straight in -the American, recurved in the snowy, and make the -famous “aigrette” plumes of the milliner. The birds -are shot in their nuptial dress, and so great has been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -the heartless demand that both species, once very -abundant, are now almost extinct.</p> - -<p>Bobolink is another special case. He has two complete -moults a year. Now, as I write, I hear him -singing over the meadow,—a jet black, white, and -cream-buff lover, most strikingly adorned. His wife, -down in the grass, looks as little like him as a sparrow -looks like a blackbird. After the breeding season -he moults, changing color so completely that he and -his wife and children all look alike, all like sparrows. -They even lose their name now, flying south under -the assumed name of “reedbirds.”</p> - -<p>Bobolink passes the winter in Brazil, and at the -coming of spring, just before the long northward -journey begins, he moults again; but you would -hardly know it to look at him, for, strangely enough, -he is not black and white, but still colored like a -sparrow as he was in the fall. <i>Apparently</i> he is. -Look at him more closely, however, and you will find -the brownish yellow color is all caused by a veil of -fine fringes hanging from the edges of the feathers. -Underneath are the black and white and cream-buff. -He starts northward, and by the time he reaches -Massachusetts the fringe veil is worn off and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -black and white bobolink appears. Specimens taken -after their arrival here still show traces of the yellow -veil.</p> - -<p>Many birds do not have this spring moult at all, -and with most of those that do, the great wing -feathers are not then renewed as are bobolink’s, but -only at the annual moult after the nesting is done. -In fact, the moulting of the remiges, or wing feathers, -seems to be a <i>family</i> affair, the process differing with -different families; for these are the bird’s most important -feathers, and their loss is so serious a matter -that Nature has come to make the change according -to the habits and needs of the birds.</p> - -<p>With all birds the order is for the body feathers -to begin to go first, then the wings, and last the -tail. But the shedding of the wing feathers is a very -slow and carefully regulated process. In the wild -geese and other water birds the wing feathers drop -out with the feathers of the body, and all go so simultaneously -that the birds cannot fly. On land you could -catch them with your hands, but they keep near or -on the water and thus escape, though times have -been when it was necessary to protect them from -their human enemies at this season by special laws.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p> - -<p>The necessity for the moult entails many risks, -for it exposes the bird to peculiar dangers; yet no -single bird is abandoned during this period, none left -without a way of escape. The geese, as we have seen, -moult most rapidly and hence are most helpless, but -there are few of their enemies that they cannot -avoid by keeping to the water and grassy marshes; -the hawks, that hunt by wing, moult so slowly that -they do not feel a loss of power; while such birds as -the quail and grouse, that always depend in part for -protection upon the blending of their colors with the -colors of their environment, seem especially so protected -during the moulting season. A grouse blotched -with light patches, where the dark-tipped feathers -have fallen away, may so melt into the mottled color -scheme of its background as to escape the sharpest -eye.</p> - -<p>Such a rapid, wholesale moult as in the case of the -geese would be fatal to land birds. Instead, their -primaries, or large wing feathers, drop out one or two -at a time and symmetrically from the two wings. -Oftentimes it is the two inner primaries that go first, -then the others following one at a time, the outermost -last. This order varies, as in the kingfisher.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -In the snow bunting all but two of the old primaries -are gone before any new ones have grown as large as -the secondaries. In the hawks, again, birds that must -use their wings and must have them always at their -best, the moulting of the wing feathers is very slow, -lasting nearly the whole year. The homing pigeon, -another great flier, but not of the same kind as the -hawks, begins about May to moult his wing feathers, -losing the tenth primary first, a month later the ninth, -then the others at intervals of from eight to fifteen -days.</p> - -<p>It is quite enough to make one pause, to make one -even wonder, when he finds that this seemingly insignificant -matter is taken so seriously by nature, -and that even here there is that perfect adaptation -of means to end. The gosling, to cite another instance, -goes six weeks in down, then gets its first -feathers, which it sheds in the fall. The young quail, -on the other hand, is born with quills so far advanced -that it is able to fly almost as soon as it is hatched. -These are mature feathers; but the bird is still young -and growing, and soon outgrows these first flight -feathers, so that they are quickly lost and new ones -come. This goes on till fall, several moults occurring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -the first summer to meet the increasing weight of -the growing body.</p> - -<p>Where there are peculiar uses made of the tail, as -with the chimney swifts and woodpeckers, there is a -peculiar order of moulting. In most birds the tail is -a kind of balance or steering-gear, and not of equal -importance with the wings. Nature, consequently, -seems to have attached less importance to the feathers -of the tail. They are not so firmly set, and they -are hardly of the same quality or kind; for if a wing -feather is once broken or lost, after the moult, it must -go unmended until the annual moulting time comes -round again; whereas, if a tail feather is lost through -accident, it is made good, no matter when. How -do you explain that? I know that old theory of the -birds roosting with their tails out, and so, through -generations of lost tails, those feathers now grow, -expecting to be plucked by some enemy, and so have -only a temporary hold. Perhaps.</p> - -<p>The normal, natural way, of course, is to replace a -lost feather with a new one as soon as possible; but -in order to give extra strength to the wing feathers -nature has found it necessary to check their frequent -change, and so complete is the check that the annual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -moult is required to replace one of them. The Japanese -have discovered the secret of this check, and -are able by it to keep certain feathers in the tails -of their cocks growing until they reach the enormous -length of ten to twelve feet.</p> - -<p>My crow, it seems, lost his three feathers just after -his annual moult; the three broken shafts he carries -still in his wing, and must continue to carry, as -the stars must continue their courses. These three -feathers must round out their cycle to the annual -moult. The universe of worlds and feathers is a universe -of law, of order, and of reason.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-156.jpg" width="400" height="555" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2 class="upper2 shiftr3">XI</h2> - -<p class="pch shiftr2">High Noon</p> - -<div class="limit2"> -<p class="pn1"><span class="smcap">Lazily</span> sailing clouds, and between -them, far away, the illimitable blue! -And how blue! how cool! how far -away! Never does the sky seem of so -real azure, so fresh and new, but so -mysteriously distant, as upon such a -July day as this; and never does the -earth seem so warm and near. I lie -outstretched upon it as close as I ever -lay upon my mother’s breast. I feel the -crisp moss beneath me, the creeping of the beetle -under my shoulder, the heat of the gray stone -against my side. I throw out my hands, push my -fingers into the hot soil and feel them take root. -Mother earth! The clouds sail on; the bending blue -recedes; and—heaven? It matters not. Here are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -my brothers,—the beetle, the moss, the gray stone; -and here I lie in the arms of the mother who bore -me.</p></div> - -<p>I have questions to ask—to-morrow; dreams to -dream—to-morrow; things to do—to-morrow. To-day -I am free in the fields; to-day I am brother to -the beetle and the stone; I am neighbor to this -ancient white oak in whose shade I lie; I am child -to the earth. It is enough to be to-day.</p> - -<p>How warm is this mother breast, even here, under -the tree! The sun is overhead. The summer is at -its height. The flood-tide of life has come. It is high -noon of the year.</p> - -<p>The drowsy silence of the full, hot noon lies deep -across the field. Stream and cattle and pasture-slope -are quiet in repose. The eyes of the earth are heavy. -The air is asleep. Yet the round shadow of my oak -begins to shift. The cattle do not move; the pasture -still sleeps under the wide, white glare. But already -the noon is passing.</p> - -<p>Of the four seasons summer is the shortest, and -the one we are least acquainted with. Summer is -only a pause between spring and autumn, only -the hour of the year’s noon. But the hour is long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -enough were we able to stop, to lie down under -a tree for the hour, unwearied, wide-awake, and -still.</p> - -<p>We can be glad with the spring, sad with the -autumn, eager with the winter; but it is hard for us -to go softly, to pause, to be still, complete, sufficient, -full with the full, sufficient summer; to hang poised -and expanded like the broad-winged hawk yonder far -up in the wide sky.</p> - -<p>But the hawk is not still. The shadow of my oak -begins to lengthen. The hour is gone even while it -comes, for wavering softly down the languid air falls -a yellow leaf from a slender gray birch near by. I -remember, too, that on my way through the woodlot -I frightened a small flock of robins from a pine; and -more than a week ago the swallows were gathering -upon the telegraph wires. It was springtime even -yesterday; to-day there are signs of autumn everywhere. -Perhaps, after all, there is no such time as -summer,—no pause, no rest, no quiet in the fields, -no hour of noon.</p> - -<p>Yet I get something out of the fields, these slumberous -July days, that is neither of springtime nor of -autumn, a ripening, mellowing, quieting something,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -that falls only when the leaves hang limp, when the -earth warms in the shadows, when the wood-lily -opens in the sun, and the whir of the cicada times -the throbbing of the heat. And when that something -falls, then I know it is summer.</p> - -<p>This is a late July day, but its dawn was still of -the springtime. At daybreak the birds were singing, -fresh and full-throated as in May; then the sun -burned through the mist and the chorus ceased. -Now I do not hear even the chewink and the talkative -vireo. Only the fiery notes of the scarlet tanager -come to me through the dry white heat of the -noon, and the resonant, reverberated song of the -indigo bunting, a hot, metallic, quivering song, as -out of a hot and copper sky.</p> - -<p>There are nestlings still in the woods. This indigo -bunting has eggs or young in the bushes up the hillside; -the scarlet tanager but lately finished his nest -in the tall oaks; I looked in upon some half-fledged -cuckoos along the fence. But all of these are late. -The year’s young are upon the wing. A few of the -spring’s flowers are still opening. I noticed the bees -upon some tardy raspberry blossoms; and yonder, -amid the fixed shining colors of the wooded ridge, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -see the top of a chestnut tree, misty and tender, with -foamy white bloom. These are the last of the season. -The July flowering of the chestnut always seems delayed -and accidental. The season’s fruit has set, is -already ripening. Spring is gone; the sun is overhead; -the red wood-lily is open. To-day is summer,—noon -of the year.</p> - -<p>High noon! and the hour strikes in the red wood-lily -aflame in the old fields and in the low thick -tangles of sweet-fern and blackberry that border the -upland woods.</p> - -<p>This is a flower of fire, the worshiper of the sun, -the very heart of the summer. How impossible it -would be to kindle a wood-lily on the cold, damp soil -of April! It can be lighted only on this kiln-dried -soil of July. This old hilly pasture is baking in the -sun; the mouldy moss that creeps over its thin -breast crackles and crumbles under my feet; the -patches of sweet-fern that blotch it here and there -crisp in the heat and fill the smothered air with a -spicy breath; but the wood-lily opens wide and full, -lifting its spotted lips to the Sun, for it loves his -scorching kiss. See it glow! Should the withered -thicket burst suddenly into a blaze it would be no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -wonder, so little would it take to fan these glowing -petals into flame.</p> - -<p>The marsh marigolds of May spread the meadows -with a glow of warmth, yet that was but a gilded fire -beside the wilting, withering heat of this midsummer -lily. That early flush has gone. There is hardly a -fleck of spring’s freshness and delicacy on the fields, -none of the tenderness of the bluets that touched -everything in May, none even of the softness of the -hardwood greens that lasted far into June. The colors -are set now, dry and glistening, as if varnished over. -The odors, too, have changed. They were moist and -faint then,—the fragrance of the breath of things. -Now they are strong, pungent, heavy,—the tried out -smells of the sweat of things.</p> - -<p>Life has grown lusty and lazy and rank. It stood -no higher than the heads of the violets along my -little river at the coming of June; to-day I cannot -catch a glimpse of the water without breaking -through a hedge of swamp milkweed, boneset, and -peppermint. Here are turtle-head, joe-pye-weed, jewel-weed, -the budding goldenrods, and the spreading, -choking, rasping smartweed. The year is full grown. -It is strong, rich, luxuriant.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p> - -<p>And how erect and unblushing! The pointed -spireas, the sumacs, the thistles, this crowd along -the river, this red wood-lily, even the tall swaying -spray of meadow-rue! Slender, dainty, airy, the -meadow-rue falls just short of grace and delicacy. -It feels the season’s pride of life. It is angled, rigid, -rank. Were there the slightest bend to its branches, -the merest suggestion of soul to the plant, then, -from root to spreading panicles, there had been more -grace, more misty, penciled delicacy wrought into -the tall meadow-rue than into any flower-form of -my summer.</p> - -<p>But the suggestion of soul in the meadow-rue, as -in the whole face of nature, is lost in flesh. It is the -body, not the spirit, that is now present. She is well -fed, well clothed, opulent, mature. She is conventional,—as -conventional as a single, stiff spire of the -steeple-bush,—turned to such a pointed nicety as to -seem done by machine.</p> - -<p>And yet the steeple-bush rarely grows as single -spires, but by the meadow-full. We rarely see a single -spire. We never gather summer flowers one by one, -as we gather the arbutus and hepatica of spring. -Life has lost its individuality. It is all massed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -crowded, communal. The odors mingle now and drift -wide on the winds, and as wide on the hillsides spread -the colors, gold and green and white, and, where the -rocky pasture runs down to the woods, the pink of -the steeple-bush, like a flush of dawn.</p> - -<p>Across my neighbor’s pasture lies this soft glory -of the spireas all through July. It runs in irregular -streams down to the brook, rising there into a low-hanging -bank of mist where the clustering spires of -pink are interspersed with the taller, whiter meadow-sweet,—the -“willow-leaved spirea.”</p> - -<p>There are shadowy rooms in the deep woods where -the spring lingers until the leaves of autumn begin -to fall. Here, in July, I can find the little twin flowers -Linnea and Mitchella, blossoms that should have -opened with the bloodroot and anemone. But Life -has largely fled the woods and left them empty and -still. She is out in the open, along the roadsides, -rioting in the sun. The time of her maidenhood -is gone. She is entirely maternal now, bent on replenishing -the earth, on reseeding it against all possibility -of death. She covers the ground with seed, -and fills the very air with seed that the winds may -sow. She has grown lusty, bold, almost defiant, no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -longer asking leave, but claiming for her own the -pastures, gardens, waysides, even the dumps and -waste places.</p> - -<p>Yonder where the cattle feed stands the barbed -purple thistle, arrogant, royal, unapproachable by -man or beast. “Stand back,” it says, by every one -of its thousand nettles; “this field is mine.” How -savage and how splendid it is! After the royal purple -fades, the goldfinches will dare to come and eat -the plumed seeds and scatter them by the million, -but even the goldfinch has been known to perish -upon the poisoned spikes with which the plant is -armed.</p> - -<p>As persistent and successful as the thistle, though -not as arrogant and savage, grows the wild white -carrot in the mowing fields. The courts have called -it names and set a price upon its life. It has been -pulled out, cut off and burned,—exterminated again -and again by statute.</p> - -<p>Life snaps her fingers at us in July; lays hold of -us, even, as we pass, and makes us carry her burs -and beggar’s-ticks for a wider planting. I am as -useful as the tail of my cow. Neither the cow nor -I ever come home from the July fields without an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -abundant sowing of stick-tights, tick-seeds, and -burdock burs.</p> - -<p>There is little beauty, fragrance, or even economic -value in this wild, overrunning host of thistles, docks, -daisies, plantains, yarrows, carrots, that now possess -the earth; but when they crowd out along the dusty -roadsides and cover the sterile, neglected, and unsightly -places, we can sing, like the good gray poet, -“the leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds” in -our “Song of Joys.”</p> - -<p>There is certainly some praise due the chicory, -or blue corn-flower, for it is a waste transformer, a -“slummer” among flowers, if ever there was one. -Like the daisy, it is a foreigner; but unlike the -daisy, its coming is wholly benevolent. It asks only -the roadsides, and for these along only the choked, -deserted stretches; and where the summer dust lies -deepest. Coarse, common, weedy, it doubtless is; -but it never droops in the heat, and its blue shines -through the smother like azure through the mists of -the sky.</p> - -<p>The winds and the birds are the sowers of the -wayside, and to them I am indebted for this touch of -midsummer color. But they miss certain spots along<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -the roads, or else these are the patches that have no -deepness of earth, where the seed of the winds’ sowing -can get no hold, for I have had to sow these myself. -As I go up and down I carry a pocketful of -sweet clover seed,—melilotus,—and over every waste -and sandy place I scatter a few of the tiny seeds, -when, lo! not two blades of grass where one grew before, -but a patch of tall white flowers, breathing the -sweetness of heaven into all the air, and humming in -the July sun with the joyous sound of my honey bees. -All this, and for season after season, where nothing -grew before!</p> - -<p>Along with melilotus in the gravelly cuts and burnt -woodlands grows the fireweed, a tall showy annual -that waves its pink, plumed head throughout July. -Farther north and west, this striking flower, like the -melilotus, yields a heavy flow of delicious honey, but -it does not attract the bees in this locality. Neither -do my bees get any nectar from the fat little indigo-bush -that takes possession of the unfarmed, sandy -fields in July, though the wild bumblebees are busy -upon it as long as it remains in bloom.</p> - -<p>But this is not the native land of the honey bee, and -it is sheer luck that the white clover, the basswood,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -the goldenrod, and here in July, the sumac, give down -to these immigrant bees their honey-sweets.</p> - -<p>High noon of the year! The laggard breeze comes -to me now from the maple swamp, slow and sleepy -with the odor of the white azaleas; a flock of chickadees -stop and quiz me; the quivering click-clack of -a distant mowing-machine fills the air with a drowsy -hum.</p> - -<p>Up to this time I have not seen a black snake, but -now one is watching me with raised head from the -edge of ferns among the rocks. One step toward him -and the lifted, rigid neck, a flashing streak of jet, glides -swiftly, evenly, mysteriously away, leaving me with an -uncanny feeling of chill.</p> - -<p>It, too, is a creature of the sun, as is everything that -seems to belong especially to July. Smells, colors, -sounds, shapes, are all sun-born. The hum of the insects, -the music of the mower, the clear, strong hues -of the flowers, the sweet breath of curing hay, the -heavy balsamic odors of the woods,—everything seems -either a distillation, a vibration, an essence, or some -direct, immediate work of the sun.</p> - -<p>Has your blood been work and winter faded until -it runs thin? Would you feel the pulse of a new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -life? Come, we will take a day out of July and bask -like the wood-lily and the snake; we will sleep for -this one day in the blazing, sleeping, living, midsummer -sun.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-161.jpg" width="400" height="173" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>XII</h2> - -<p class="pch">The Palace in the Pig-pen</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">It</span> is certainly a humble environment. The delicious -spring of water, the plenty of wild, cool air, and the -clean pavement of loose stones do not surround this -home as they did the home of Mr. Burroughs’s -phœbes, nor does this look “out upon some wild -scene and overhung by beetling crags.” Instead, this -phœbe’s nest is stuck close up to the low board roof -in my pig-pen.</p> - -<p>“You have taken a handful of my wooded acres,” -says Nature, “and if you have not improved them, -you at least have changed them greatly. But they -are mine still. Be friendly now, go softly, and you -shall have them all,—and I shall have them all, too. -We will share them together.”</p> - -<p>And we do. Every part of the fourteen acres is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -mine, yielding some kind of food or fuel or shelter. -And every foot, yes, every <i>foot</i>, is Nature’s; as entirely -hers as when the thick primeval forest stood -here. The apple trees are hers as much as mine, and -she has an average of ten different bird families, living -in them every spring. A pair of crows and a pair -of red-tailed hawks are nesting in the woodlot; there -are at least three families of chipmunks in as many -of my stone piles; a fine old tree toad (his fourth -season now) sleeps on the porch under the climbing -rose; a hornet’s nest hangs in a corner of the eaves; -a small colony of swifts thunder in the chimney; -swallows twitter in the hayloft; a chipmunk and a -half-tame gray squirrel feed in the barn; and—to -bring an end to this bare beginning—under the roof -of the pig-pen dwell this pair of phœbes.</p> - -<p>To make a bird house of a pig-pen, to divide it between -the pig and the bird—this is as far as Nature -can go, and this is certainly enough to redeem the -whole farm. For she has not sent an outcast or a -scavenger to dwell in the pen, but a bird of character, -however much he may lack in song or color. Phœbe -does not make up well in a picture; neither does he -perform well as a singer; there is little to him, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -fact, but personality,—personality of a kind and quantity, -sufficient to make the pig-pen a decent and respectable -neighborhood.</p> - -<p>Phœbe is altogether more than his surroundings. -Every time I go to feed the pig, he lights upon a post -near by and says to me: “It’s what you are! Not -what you do, but how you do it!”—with a launch -into the air, a whirl, an unerring snap at a cabbage -butterfly, and an easy drop to the post again, by way -of illustration. “Not where you live, but how you -live there; not the feathers you wear, but how you -wear them,—it is what you are that counts!”</p> - -<p>There is a difference between being a “character” -and having one. “Jim” Crow is a character, largely -because he has so little. That is why he is “Jim.” -My phœbe lives over the pig, but he has no nickname -like the crow. I cannot feel familiar with a -bird of his air and carriage, who faces the world so -squarely, who settles upon a stake as if he owned it, -who lives a prince in my pig-pen.</p> - -<p>Look at him! How alert, able, free! Notice the -limber drop of his tail, the ready energy it suggests. -By that one sign you would know the bird had force. -He is afraid of nothing, not even the cold, and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -migrates only because he is a flycatcher, and is thus -compelled to. The earliest spring day, however, that -you find the flies buzzing in the sun, look for phœbe. -He is back. The first of my birds to return in the -spring is he, often beating the bluebird and robin by -almost a week. It was a fearful spring, the spring of -1904. How phœbe managed to exist those miserable -March days is a mystery. He came directly to the -pen, as he had come the year before, and his presence -in that bleakest of Marches made it almost -spring.</p> - -<p>The same force and promptness are manifest in -the domestic affairs of the bird. The first to arrive -that spring, he was also the first to build and bring -off a brood,—or, perhaps, <i>She</i> was. And the size of -the brood—of the broods, for the second one is now -a-wing, and there may yet be a third!</p> - -<p>Phœbe appeared without his mate, and for nearly -three weeks he hunted in the vicinity of the pen, -calling the day long, and, toward the end of the second -week, occasionally soaring into the air, flapping -and pouring forth a small, ecstatic song that seemed -fairly forced from him.</p> - -<p>These aerial bursts meant just one thing: <i>she</i> was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -coming, was coming soon! Was she coming, or was -he getting ready to go for her? Here he had been -for nearly three weeks, his house-lot chosen, his -mind at rest, his heart beating faster with every sunrise. -It was as plain as day that he knew—was certain—just -how and just when something lovely was -going to happen. I wished I knew. I was half in -love with her myself, half jealous of him, and I, too, -watched for her.</p> - -<p>But she was not for me. On the evening of April -14, he was alone as usual. The next morning a pair -of phœbes flitted in and out of the windows of the pen. -Here she was. Will some one tell me all about it? -Had she just come along and fallen instantly in love -with him and his fine pig-pen? There are foolish -female birds; and there are records of just such -love affairs; but this was too early in the season. -It is pretty evident that he nested here last year. -Was she his old mate, as Wilson believes? Did they -keep together all through the autumn and winter, all -the way from Massachusetts to Florida and back? Or -was she a new bride, who had promised him before -he left Florida? If so, then how did she know where -to find him?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> - -<p>Here is a pretty story. But who will tell it to me?</p> - -<p>What followed is a pretty story, too, had I a -lover’s pen with which to write it,—the story of his -love, of their love, and of her love especially, which -was last and best.</p> - -<p>For several days after she came the weather continued -raw and wet, so that nest-building was greatly -delayed. The scar of an old, last year’s nest still -showed on a stringer, and I wondered if they had -decided on this or some other site for the new nest. -They had not made up their minds, for when they -did start it was to make three beginnings.</p> - -<p>Then I offered a suggestion. Out of a bit of stick, -branching at right angles, I made a little bracket -and tacked it up on one of the stringers, down near -the lower end of the roof. It appealed to the birds -at once, and from that moment the building went -steadily on.</p> - -<p>Saddled upon this bracket, as well as mortared to -the stringer, the nest, when finished, was as safe -as a castle. And how perfect a thing! Few nests, -indeed, combine the solidity, the softness, and the -exquisite curve of phœbe’s.</p> - -<p>In placing the bracket, I had carelessly nailed it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -under one of the cracks in the loose board roof. The -nest was receiving its first linings when there came -a long, hard rain that beat through the crack and -soaked the little cradle. This was serious, for a great -deal of mud had been worked into the thick foundation, -and here, in the constant shade, the dampness -would be long in drying out.</p> - -<p>The builders saw the mistake, too, and with their -great good sense immediately began to remedy it. -They built the bottom up thicker, carried the wall -over on a slant that brought the outermost point -within the crack, then raised the whole nest until -the cup was as round-rimmed and hollow as the -mould of the bird’s breast could make it.</p> - -<p>The outside of the nest, its base, is broad and -rough and shapeless enough; but nothing could be -softer and lovelier than the inside, the cradle, and -nothing drier, for the slanting walls shed every drop -from the leaky crack.</p> - -<p>Wet weather followed the heavy rain until long -after the nest was finished. The whole structure was -as damp and cold as a newly plastered house. It felt -wet to my touch. Yet I noticed the birds were already -brooding. Every night, and often during the day, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -would see one of them in the nest, so deep in that -only a head or a tail showed over the round rim. -After several days I looked to see the eggs, but -to my surprise found the nest empty. It had been -robbed, I thought, yet by what creature I could not -imagine. Then down cuddled one of the birds again,—and -I understood. Instead of wet and cold, the -nest to-day felt warm to my hand; it was dry almost -to the bottom. It had changed color, too, all the -upper part having turned a soft silver-gray. She -(I am sure it was she) had not been brooding her -eggs at all; she had been brooding her mother’s -thought of them; and for them had been nestling -here these days and nights, drying and warming their -damp cradle with the fire of her life and love.</p> - -<p>In due time the eggs came,—five of them, white, -spotless, and shapely. While the little hen was hatching -them I gave my attention further to the cock.</p> - -<p>I am writing this with a black suspicion overhanging -him. But of that later. I hope it is unfounded, -and I shall give him the benefit of the -doubt. A man is innocent until proved guilty. I -have no positive evidence of Mr. Phœbe’s wrong.</p> - -<p>Our intimate friendship has revealed a most pleasing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -nature in phœbe. Perhaps such close and continued -association would show like qualities in every -bird, even in the kingbird. But I fear only a woman, -like Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, could find them in him. -Not much can be said of this flycatcher family, except -that it is useful,—a kind of virtue that gets its -chief reward in heaven. I am acquainted with only -four of the other nine members,—great-crest, kingbird, -pewee, and chebec,—and each of these has -some redeeming attributes besides the habit of catching -flies.</p> - -<p>They are all good nest-builders, good parents, and -brave, independent birds; but aside from phœbe and -pewee—the latter in his small way the sweetest -voice of the oak woods—the whole family is an odd -lot, cross-grained, cross-looking, and about as musical -as a family of ducks. A duck seems to know that -he cannot sing. A flycatcher knows nothing of any -shortcoming. He knows he can sing, and in time -he will prove it. If desire and effort count for anything, -he certainly must prove it in time. How long -the family has already been training, no one knows. -Everybody knows, however, the success each flycatcher -of them has thus far attained. According to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -Mr. Chapman’s authority, the five rarer members -perform as follows: the olive-sided swoops from the -tops of the tallest trees uttering “pu-pu” or “pu-pip”; -the yellow-bellied sits upon the low twigs and -sneezes a song, an abrupt “pse-ek,” explosive and -harsh, produced with a painful, convulsive jerk; the -Acadian by the help of his tail says “spee” or -“peet,” now and then a loud “pee-e-yúk,” meanwhile -trembling violently; Trail’s flycatcher jerks out his -notes rapidly, doubling himself up and fairly vibrating -with the explosive effort to sing “ee-zee-e-up”; -the gray kingbird says a strong, simple “pitirri.”</p> - -<p>It would make a good minstrel show, doubtless, if -the family would appear together. In chorus, surely, -they would be far from a tuneful choir.</p> - -<p>I should hate to hear the flycatchers all together. -Yet individually, in the wide universal chorus of the -out-of-doors, how much we should miss the kingbird’s -metallic twitter and the chebec’s insistent call!</p> - -<p>There was little excitement for phœbe during this -period of incubation. He hunted in the neighborhood -and occasionally called to his mate, contented enough -perhaps, but certainly sometimes appearing tired. -One rainy day he sat in the pig-pen window looking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -out at the gray wet world. He was humped and silent -and meditative, his whole attitude speaking the -extreme length of his day, the monotony of the drip, -drip, drip from the eaves, and the sitting, the ceaseless -sitting, of his brooding wife.</p> - -<p>He might have hastened the time by catching a -few flies for her or by taking her place on the nest, -but I never saw him do it.</p> - -<p>Things were livelier when the eggs hatched, for it -required a good many flies a day to keep the five -young ones growing. And how they grew! Like -bread sponge in a pan, they began to rise, pushing -the mother up so that she was forced to stand over -them; then pushing her out until she could cling -only to the side of the nest at night; then pushing -her off altogether. By this time they were hanging -to the outside themselves, covering the nest from -sight, almost, until finally they spilled off upon their -wings.</p> - -<p>Out of the nest upon the air! Out of the pen and -into a sweet, wide world of green and blue and golden -light! I saw the second brood take their first flight, -and it was thrilling.</p> - -<p>The nest was placed back from and below the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -window, so that in leaving it the young would have -to drop, then turn and fly up to get out. Below was -the pig.</p> - -<p>As they grew I began to fear that they might try -their wings before this feat could be accomplished, -and so fall to the pig below. But Nature, in this case, -was careful of her pearls. Day after day they clung -to the nest, even after they might have flown; and -when they did go, it was with a sure and a long flight -that carried them out and away to the tops of the -neighboring trees.</p> - -<p>They left the nest one at a time, and were met in -the air by their mother, who darting to them, calling -loudly, and, whirling about them, helped them as -high and as far away as they could go.</p> - -<p>I wish the simple record of these family affairs -could be closed without one tragic entry. But that -can rarely be of any family. Seven days after the -first brood were a-wing, I found the new eggs in the -nest. Soon after that the male bird disappeared. -The second brood has now been out a week, and in -all this time no sight or sound has been had of the -father.</p> - -<p>What happened? Was he killed? Caught by a cat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -or a hawk? It is possible; and this is an easy and -kindly way to think of him. Nor is it impossible that -he may have remained as leader and protector to the -first brood, or (perish the thought!) might he perhaps -have grown weary at sight of the second lot -of five eggs, of the long days and the neglect that -they meant for him, and out of jealousy and fickleness -wickedly deserted?</p> - -<p>I hope it was death, a stainless, even ignominious -death by one of my neighbor’s dozen cats.</p> - -<p>Death or desertion, it involved a second tragedy. -Five such young ones at this time were too many -for the mother. She fought nobly; no mother could -have done more. All five were brought within a few -days of flight; then, one day, I saw a little wing -hanging listlessly over the side of the nest. I went -closer. One had died. It had starved to death. -There were none of the parasites in the nest that -often kill these birds. It was a plain case of sacrifice,—by -the mother, perhaps; by the other young, -maybe,—one for the other four.</p> - -<p>But she did well. Nine such young birds to her -credit since April. Who shall measure her actual use -to the world? How does she compare in value with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -the pig? Yesterday I saw several of her brood along -the meadow fence hawking for flies. They were not -far from my cabbage patch.</p> - -<p>I hope that a pair of them returns to me another -spring, and that they come early. Any bird that -deigns to dwell under roof of mine commands my -friendship; but no other bird takes phœbe’s place in -my affections, there is so much in him to like and -he speaks for so much of the friendship of nature.</p> - -<p>“Humble and inoffensive bird” he has been called -by one of our leading ornithologies—because he -comes to my pig-pen! “Inoffensive”? this bird with -the cabbage butterfly in his beak? The faint and -damning praise! And “humble”? There is not a -humble feather on his body. Humble to those who -see the pen and not the bird. But to me—why, the -bird has made a palace of my pig-pen.</p> - -<p>The very pig seems less a pig because of this exquisite -association; and the lowly work of feeding -the creature has been turned by phœbe into an æsthetic -course in bird study.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-183.jpg" width="300" height="320" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>XIII</h2> - -<p class="pch">An Account with Nature</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">There</span> were chipmunks everywhere. The stone -walls squeaked with them. At every turn, from early -spring to early autumn, a chipmunk was scurrying -away from you. Chipmunks were common. They -did no particular harm, no particular good; they did -nothing in particular, being only chipmunks and -common, until one morning (it was June-bug time) I -stopped and watched a chipmunk that sat atop the -stone wall down in the orchard. He was eating, and -the shells of his meal lay in a little pile upon the big -flat stone which served as his table.</p> - -<p>They were acorn shells, I thought, yet June -seemed rather early in the season for acorns, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -looking closer I discovered that the pile was entirely -composed of June-bug shells,—wings and hollow -bodies of the pestiferous beetles!</p> - -<p>Well, well! I had never seen this before, never even -heard of it. Chipmunk, a <i>useful</i> member of society! -actually eating bugs in this bug-ridden world of -mine! This was interesting and important. Why, I -had really never known chipmunk, after all!</p> - -<p>So I hadn’t. He had always been too common. -Flying squirrels were more worth while, because -there were none on the farm. Now, however, I determined -to cultivate the acquaintance of chipmunk, for -there might be other discoveries awaiting me.</p> - -<p>And there were. A narrow strip of grass separated -the orchard and my garden patch. It was on my way -to the garden that I most often stopped to watch this -chipmunk, or rather the pair of them, in the orchard -wall. June advanced, the beetles disappeared, and -my garden grew apace. For the first time in four -years there were prospects of good strawberries. -Most of my small patch was given over to a new -berry, one that I had originated, and I was waiting -with an eagerness which was almost anxiety for the -earliest berries.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p> - -<p>The two chipmunks in the wall were now seven, -the young ones quite as large as their parents, and -both young and old on the best of terms with me.</p> - -<p>I had put a little stick beside each of the three -big berries that were reddening first (though I could -have walked from the house blindfolded and picked -them). I might have had the biggest of the three on -June 7th, but for the sake of the flavor I thought it -best to wait another day. On the 8th I went down -with a box to get it. The big berry was gone, and so -was one of the others, while only half of the third -was left on the vine!</p> - -<p>Gardening has its disappointments, its seasons of -despair,—and wrath, too. Had a toad showed himself -at that moment he would have fared badly. I -snatched a stone and let it go at a robin flying over, -for more than likely it was he who had stolen my -berries. On the garden wall sat a friendly chipmunk -eyeing me sympathetically.</p> - -<p>Three days later several fine berries were ripe. On -my way to the garden I passed the chipmunks in the -orchard. A shining red spot among the vine-covered -stones of their wall brought me to a stop, for I -thought, on the instant, that it was my rose-breasted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -grosbeak, and that I was about to get a clue to its -nest. Then up to the slab where he ate the June-bugs -scrambled the chipmunk, and the rose-red spot -on the breast of the grosbeak dissolved into a big -scarlet-red strawberry. And by its long wedge shape -I knew it was one of my new variety.</p> - -<p>I hurried across to the patch and found every -berry gone, while a line of bloody fragments led me -back to the orchard wall, where a half dozen fresh -calyx crowns completed my second discovery.</p> - -<p>No, it did not complete it. It took a little watching -to find out that the whole family—all seven!—were -after berries. They were picking them half ripe, even, -and actually storing them away, canning them down -in the cavernous depths of the stone pile!</p> - -<p>Alarmed? Yes, and I was wrathful, too. The taste -for strawberries is innate, original; you can’t be -human without it. But joy in chipmunks is a cultivated -liking, æsthetic in its nature. What chance in -such a circumstance has the nature-lover with the -human man? What shadow of doubt as to his choice -between the chipmunks and the strawberries?</p> - -<p>I had no gun then and no time to go over to my -neighbor’s to borrow his. So I stationed myself near<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -by with a fistful of stones, and waited for the thieves -to show themselves. I came so near to hitting one of -them once that the sweat started all over me. After -that there was no danger. I lost my nerve. The little -scamps knew that war was declared, and they hid and -dodged and sighted me so far off that even with a gun -I should have been all summer killing the seven of -them.</p> - -<p>Meantime, a big rain and the warm June days -were turning the berries red by the quart. They had -more than caught up to the squirrels. I dropped my -stones and picked. The squirrels picked, too, so did -the toads and robins. Everybody picked. It was free -for all. We picked them and ate them, jammed them -and canned them. I almost carried some over to my -neighbor, but took peas instead. You simply can’t -give your strawberries in New England to ordinary -neighbors, who are not of your choosing. You have -no fears at all as to what they will say to your -peas.</p> - -<p>The season closed on the Fourth of July, and our -taste was not dim nor this natural love for strawberries -abated; but all four of the small boys had -the hives from over-indulgence, so bountifully did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -nature provide, so many did the seven chipmunks -leave us!</p> - -<p>Peace between me and the chipmunks had been -signed before the strawberry season closed, and the -pact still holds. Other things have occurred since to -threaten it, however. Among them, an article in a -recent number of a carefully edited out-of-door magazine, -of wide circulation. Herein the chipmunk -family was most roundly rated, in fact condemned to -annihilation because of its wicked taste for birds’ -eggs and for young birds. Numerous photographs -accompanied the article, showing the red squirrel -with eggs in his mouth, but no such proof (even the -red squirrel photographs I strongly believe were done -from a <i>stuffed</i> squirrel) of chipmunk’s guilt, though -he was counted equally bad and, doubtless, will suffer -with chickaree at the hands of those who took the -article seriously.</p> - -<p>I believe that is a great mistake. Indeed, I believe -the whole article a deliberate falsehood, concocted -in order to sell the fake photographs. Chipmunk -is not an egg-sucker, else I should have found -it out. But because I never caught him at it does not -mean that no one else has. It does mean, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -that if chipmunk robs at all he does it so seldom as -to call for no alarm nor for any retribution.</p> - -<p>There is scarcely a day in the nesting season when -I fail to see half a dozen chipmunks about the walls, -yet I never noticed one even suspiciously near a -bird’s nest. In an apple tree, barely six jumps from -the home of the family in the orchard wall, a brood -of white-bellied swallows came to wing one spring; -while robins, chippies, and red-eyed vireos—not to -mention a cowbird, which I wish they had devoured—have -also hatched and flown away from nests that -these squirrels might easily have rifled.</p> - -<p>It is not often that one comes upon even the red -squirrel in the very act of robbing a nest. But the -black snake, the glittering fiend! and the dear house -cats! If I run across a dozen black snakes in the -early summer, it is safe to say that six of them will -be discovered by the cries of the birds they are -robbing. Likewise the cats. No creature, however, -larger than a June-bug was ever distressed by a chipmunk.</p> - -<p>In a recent letter to me Mr. Burroughs says: “No, -I never knew the chipmunk to suck or destroy eggs -of any kind, and I have never heard of any well-authenticated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -instance of his doing so. The red -squirrel is the sinner in this respect, and probably -the gray squirrel also.”</p> - -<p>It will be difficult to find a true bill against him. -Were the evidence all in, I believe that instead of a -culprit we should find chipmunk a useful citizen. I -reckon that the pile of June-bug bodies on the flat -stone leaves me still in debt to him even after the -strawberries have been credited. He may err occasionally, -and may, on occasion, make a nuisance of -himself,—but so do my four small boys, bless them! -And, well—who doesn’t? When a family of chipmunks, -which you have fed all summer on the veranda, -take up their winter quarters inside the closed -cabin, and chew up your quilts, hammocks, table-cloths, -and whatever else there is of chewable properties, -then they are anathema.</p> - -<p>The litter and havoc that those squirrels made were -dreadful. But instead of exterminating them root -and branch, a big box was prepared the next summer -and lined with tin, in which the linen was successfully -wintered.</p> - -<p>But how real was the loss, after all? Here is a -rough log cabin on the side of Thorn Mountain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -What sort of a tablecloth ought to be found in such -a cabin, if not one that has been artistically chewed -by chipmunks? Is it for fine linen that we take -to the woods in summer? The chipmunks are well -worth a tablecloth now and then,—well worth, besides -these, all the strawberries and all the oats they -can steal from my small patch.</p> - -<p>Only it isn’t stealing. Since I ceased throwing -stones and began to watch the chipmunks carefully, -I do not find their manner that of thieves in the -least. They do not act as if they were taking what -they have no right to. For who has told chipmunk -to earn his oats in the sweat of his brow? No one. -Instead he seems to understand that he is one of the -innumerable factors ordained to make me sweat,—a -good and wholesome experience for me so long as -I get the necessary oats.</p> - -<p>And I get them, in spite of the chipmunks, though -I don’t like to guess at how much they carried off,—anywhere, -I should say, from a peck to a bushel, -which they stored, as they tried to store the berries, -somewhere in the big recesses of the stone wall.</p> - -<p>All this, however, is beside the point. It isn’t -a case of oats and berries against June-bugs. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -don’t haggle with Nature after that fashion. The -farm is not a marketplace where you get exactly -what you pay for. You must spend on the farm all -you have of time and strength and brains; but you -must not expect merely your money’s worth. Infinitely -more than that, and oftentimes less. Farming -is like virtue,—its own reward. It pays the man -who loves it, no matter how short the oats and corn.</p> - -<p>So it is with chipmunk. Perhaps his books don’t -balance,—a few June-bugs short on the credit side. -What then? It isn’t mere bugs and berries, as I have -just suggested, but stone piles. What is the difference -in value to me between a stone pile with and -without a chipmunk in it. Just the difference, relatively -speaking, between the house with or without -my four boys in it.</p> - -<p>Chipmunk, with his sleek, round form, his rich -color and his stripes, is the daintiest, most beautiful -of all our squirrels. He is one of the friendliest of my -tenants, too, friendlier even than chickadee. The two -are very much alike in spirit, but however tame and -confiding chickadee may become, he is still a bird, -and, despite his wings, belongs to a different and a -lower order of beings. Chickadee is often curious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> -about me; he can be coaxed to eat from my hand. -Chipmunk is more than curious; he is interested; -and it is not crumbs that he wants, but friendship. -He can be coaxed to eat from my lips, sleep in my -pocket, and even come to be stroked.</p> - -<p>I have sometimes seen chickadee in winter when -he seemed to come to me out of very need for living -companionship. But in the flood-tide of summer life -chipmunk will watch me from his stone pile and tag -me along with every show of friendship.</p> - -<p>The family in the orchard wall have grown very -familiar. They flatter me. I really believe, to be -Emersonian, that I am the great circumstance in this -household. One of the number is sure to be sitting -upon the high flat slab to await my coming. He sits -on the very edge of the crack, to be truthful, and if -I take a single step aside toward him he flips, and -all there is left of him is a little angry squeak from -the depths of the stones. If, however, I pass properly -along, do not stop or make any sudden motions, he -sees me past, then usually follows me, especially if I -get well off and pause.</p> - -<p>During a shower one day I halted under a large -hickory just beyond his den. He came running after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> -me, so interested that he forgot to look to his footing, -and just opposite me slipped and bumped his -nose hard against a stone,—so hard that he sat up -immediately and vigorously rubbed it. Another time -he followed me across to the garden and on to -the barbed-wire fence along the meadow. Here he -climbed a post and continued after me by way of the -middle strand of the wire, wriggling, twisting, even -grabbing the barbs, in his efforts to maintain his -balance. He got midway between the posts, when -the sagging strand tripped him and he fell with a -splash into a shallow pool below.</p> - -<p>Did the family in the orchard wall stay together -as a family for the first summer, I should like to -know. As late as August they all seemed to be in -the wall, for in August I cut my oats, and during this -harvest they all worked together.</p> - -<p>I mowed the oats as soon as they began to yellow, -cocking them to cure for hay. It was necessary to let -them “make” for six or seven days, and all this time -the squirrels raced back and forth between the cocks -and the stone wall. They might have hidden their -gleanings in a dozen crannies nearer at hand; but -evidently they had a particular storehouse, near the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> -home nest, where the family could get at their provisions -in bad weather without coming forth.</p> - -<p>Had I removed the stones and dug out the nest, -I should have found a tunnel leading into the ground -for a few feet and opening into a chamber filled with -a bulky grass nest,—a bed capable of holding half a -dozen chipmunks, and adjoining this, by a short passageway, -the storehouse of the oats.</p> - -<p>How many trips they made between this crib and -the oat patch, how many kernels they carried in their -pouches at a trip, and how big a pile they had when -all the grains were in,—these are more of the questions -I should like to know.</p> - -<p>I might have killed one of the squirrels and numbered -the contents of his pouches, but my scientific -zeal does not quite reach that pitch any more. The -knowledge of just how many oat kernels a chipmunk -can stuff into his left cheek (into <i>both</i> cheeks he can put -twenty-nine kernels of corn) is really not worth the -cost of his life. Of course some one has counted -them,—just as some one has counted the hairs on -the tail of the dog of the child of the wife of the Wild -Man of Borneo, or at least seriously guessed at the -number.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p> - -<p>But this is thesis work for the doctors of philosophy, -not a task for farmers and mere watchers in -the woods. The chipmunks are in no danger because -of my zeal for science; not that I am uninterested -in the capacity of their cheeks in terms of -oats, but that I am more interested in the whole -squirrel, the whole family of squirrels.</p> - -<p>When the first frosts come, the family—if they -are still a family—seek the nest in the ground -beneath the stone wall. But they do not go to sleep -immediately. Their outer entrances have not yet -been closed. There is still plenty of fresh air, and, -of course, plenty of food,—acorns, chestnuts, hickory -nuts, and oats. They doze quietly for a time and eat, -pushing the empty shells and hulls into some side -passage prepared beforehand to receive the débris.</p> - -<p>But soon the frost is creeping down through the -stones and earth overhead, the rains are filling the -outer doorways and shutting off the supply of fresh -air, and one day, though not sound sleepers, the -family cuddles down and forgets to wake,—until -the frost has begun to creep back toward the surface, -and down through the softened soil is felt the -thrill of the waking spring.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-197.jpg" width="400" height="264" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>XIV</h2> - -<p class="pch">The Buzzard of the Bear Swamp</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">To</span> most eyes, no doubt, the prospect would have -seemed desolate, even forbidding. A single track of -railroad lay under my feet, while down and away in -front of me stretched the Bear Swamp, the largest, -least-trod area of primeval swamp in southern New -Jersey.</p> - -<p>To me it was neither desolate nor forbidding, because -I knew it well,—its gloomy depths, its silent -streams, its hollow stumps, its trails, and its haunting -mysteries. Yet I had never crossed its borders. I was -born within its shadows, close enough to smell the -magnolias of the margin, and had lived my first ten -years only a little farther off; but not till now, after -twice ten years of absence, had I stood here ready<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -to enter and tread the paths where so long I had -slipped to and fro as a shadow.</p> - -<p>But what a pity ever to cross such a country! ever -to map these unexplored child-lands to a scale of -after years! I tramped the Bear Swamp over from -edge to edge, letting the light of day into the deepest -of its recesses, and found—a turkey buzzard’s -nest.</p> - -<p>The silent streams, the stumps, the trails, I found, -too, and there, it seems, they must be found a century -hence; but the haunting mysteries of the great -swamp fled away before me, and are gone forever. -So much did I pay for my buzzard’s nest.</p> - -<p>The cost in time and trouble was what came near -undoing my good uncle, with whom I was staying -near the swamp. “What in thunderation!” he exclaimed, -when I made known my desires. “From -Boston to Haleyville to see a buzzard’s nest!” As -there are some things that even one’s wife cannot -quite understand, I didn’t try to reason the matter -of buzzards’ nests with an uncle. If it had been a -hawk’s nest or a cardinal’s, he would have thought -nothing strange. But a buzzard’s!</p> - -<p>Perhaps my years of absence from the skies of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -buzzard account for it. Yet it was never mere bird, -mere buzzard, to me; so much more than buzzard, -indeed, that I often wish it would sail into these -empty New England skies. How eagerly I watch -for it when homeward bound toward Jersey! The -moment I cross the Delaware I begin to search the -skies, and I know, for sure, when it swims into -view, that I am near the blessed fields once more. -No matter how wide and free, how full of clouds -and color, my sky to the end will always need a -soaring buzzard.</p> - -<p>This is a burst of sentiment, truly, and doesn’t -explain at all why I should want to see the creature -of these divine wings in the gruesome light of an -earth-view, on its nesting stump or in its hollow -log.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown!</p> -<p class="pp6">It must, or we shall rue it:</p> -<p class="pp4">We have a vision of our own;</p> -<p class="pp6">Ah! why should we undo it?</p> - -<p class="p1">I understand. Nevertheless, I wanted to find a -buzzard’s nest,—the nest of the Bear Swamp buzzard; -and here at last I stood; and yonder on the -clouds, a mere mote in the distance, floated one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -the birds. It was coming toward me over the wide -reach of the swamp.</p> - -<p>Its coming seemed perfectly natural, as the sight -of the swamp seemed entirely familiar, though I had -never looked upon it from this point before. Silent, -inscrutable, and alien it lay, untouched by human -hands except for this narrow braid of railroad binding -its outer edges. Over it hung a quiet and reserve -as real as twilight. Like a mask it was worn, and was -slipped on, I know, at my approach. I could feel the -silent spirit of the place drawing back away from -me, though not to leave me quite alone. I should -have at least a guide to lead me through the shadow -land, for out of the lower living green towered a -line of limbless stubs, their bleached bones gleaming -white, or showing dark and gaunt against the horizon -and marking for me a path far out across the -swamp. Besides, here came the buzzard winding -slowly down the clouds. Soon its spiral changed to -a long pendulum swing, till just above the skeleton -trees it wheeled, and bracing itself with its flapping -wings, dropped heavily upon one of their headless -trunks.</p> - -<p>It had come leisurely, yet with a definiteness that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -was unmistakable and that was also meaningful. It -had discovered me in the distance, and while still invisible -to my eyes, had started down to perch upon -that giant stub in order to watch me. Its eye had told -it that I was not a workman upon the track, nor a -traveler between stations. If there was a purpose to -its movements that suggested just one thing to me, -there was a lack of purpose in mine that meant many -things to it. It was suspicious, and had come because -somewhere beneath its perch lay a hollow log, the -creature’s den, holding the two eggs or young. A -buzzard has some soul.</p> - -<p>Marking the direction of the stub, and the probable -distance, I waded into the deep underbrush, the buzzard -for my guide, and for my quest the stump or -hollow log that held the creature’s nest.</p> - -<p>The rank ferns and ropy vines swallowed me up, -and shut out at times even the sight of the sky. -Nothing could be seen of the buzzard. Half an -hour’s struggle left me climbing a pine-crested swell -in the low bottom, and here I sighted the bird again. -It had not moved.</p> - -<p>I was now in the real swamp, the old uncut forest. -It was a land of giants; huge tulip poplar and swamp<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -white oak, so old that they had become solitary, their -comrades having fallen one by one, or else, unable to -loose the grip upon the soil that had widened and -tightened through centuries, they had died standing. -It was upon one of these that the buzzard sat -humped.</p> - -<p>Directly in my path stood an ancient swamp white -oak, the greatest tree, I think, that I have ever seen. -It was not the highest, nor the largest round, perhaps, -but individually, spiritually, the greatest. Hoary, -hollow, and broken-limbed, its huge bole seemed encircled -with the centuries, and into its green and -grizzled top all the winds of heaven had some time -come.</p> - -<p>One could worship in the presence of such a tree -as easily as in the shadow of a vast cathedral.</p> - -<p class="pp4 p1">For it had bene an auncient tree,<br /> -Sacred with many a mysteree.</p> - -<p class="p1">Indeed, what is there built with hands that has the -dignity, the majesty, the divinity of life? And what -life was here! Life whose beginnings lay so far back -that I could no more reckon the years than I could -count the atoms it had builded into this majestic -form.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> - -<p>Looking down upon the oak from twice its height -loomed a tulip poplar, clean-bolled for thirty feet, and -in the top all green and gold with blossoms. It was -a resplendent thing beside the oak, yet how unmistakably -the gnarled old monarch wore the crown. -Its girth more than balanced the poplar’s greater -height, and as for blossoms, Nature knows the beauty -of strength and inward majesty, and has pinned no -boutonnière upon the oak.</p> - -<p>My buzzard now was hardly more than half a mile -away, and plainly seen through the rifts in the lofty -timbered roof above me. As I was nearing the top of -a large fallen pine that lay in my course, I was startled -by the <i>burrh! burrh! burrh!</i> of three partridges taking -flight just beyond, near the foot of the tree. Their -exploding seemed all the more real when three little -clouds of dust-smoke rose out of the low, wet bottom -and drifted up against the green.</p> - -<p>Then I saw an interesting sight. In falling, the -pine with its wide-reaching, multitudinous roots had -snatched at the shallow, sandy bottom and torn out -a giant fistful, leaving a hole about two feet deep and -more than a dozen feet wide. The sand thus lifted into -the air had gradually washed down into a mound on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -each side of the butt, where it lay high and dry above -the level of the swamp. This the swamp birds had -turned into a great dust-bath. It was in constant use, -surely, for not a spear of grass had sprouted in it, and -all over it were pits and craters of various sizes, showing -that not only the partridges, but also the quails, -and such small things as the warblers, washed here,—though -I can’t recall ever having seen a warbler bathe -in the dust. A dry bath in the swamp was something -of a luxury, evidently. I wonder if the buzzards used -it?</p> - -<p>I went forward cautiously now, and expectantly, for -I was close enough to see the white beak and red wattled -neck of my guide. It saw me, too, and began to -twist its head as I shifted, and to twitch its wing tips -nervously. Suddenly its long, black wings opened, -and with a heavy lurch that left the stub rocking, -it dropped and was soon soaring high up in the -blue.</p> - -<p>This was the right locality; now where should I -find the nest? Apparently I was to have no further -help from the old bird. The underbrush was so thick -that I could see hardly farther than my nose. A half-rotten -tree trunk lay near, the top end resting across<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -the backs of several saplings which it had borne down -in its fall. I crept up on this for a look around, and -almost tumbled off at finding myself staring directly -into the dark, cavernous hollow of an immense log -lying on a slight rise of ground a few feet ahead of -me.</p> - -<p>It was a yawning hole, which at a glance I knew -belonged to the buzzard. The log, a mere shell of a -mighty white oak, had been girdled and felled with an -axe, by coon hunters, probably, and still lay with one -side resting upon the rim of the stump. As I stood -looking, something white stirred vaguely in the hole -and disappeared.</p> - -<p>Leaping from my perch, I scrambled forward to the -mouth of the hollow and was greeted with hisses from -far back in the dark. Then came a thumping of bare -feet, more hisses, and a sound of snapping beaks. I -had found my buzzard’s nest.</p> - -<p>Hardly that, either, for there was not a feather, -stick, or chip as evidence of a nest. The eggs had -been laid upon the sloping cavern floor, and in the -course of their incubation must have rolled clear -down to the opposite end, where the opening was so -narrow that the buzzard could not have brooded them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> -until she had rolled them back. The wonder is that -they ever hatched.</p> - -<p>But they had, and what they hatched was another -wonder. It was a right instinct which led the mother -to seek the middle of the Bear Swamp and there hide -her young in a hollow log. My sense of the fitness -of things should have equaled hers, certainly, and -I should have allowed her the privacy of the swamp. -It was unfair of me and rude. Nature never intended -a young buzzard for any eye but its mother’s, and -<i>she</i> hates the sight of it. Elsewhere I have told of -a buzzard that devoured her eggs at the approach -of an enemy, so delicately balanced are her unnamable -appetites and her maternal affections!</p> - -<p>The two freaks in the log must have been three -weeks old, I should say, the larger weighing about -four pounds. They were covered, as young owls are, -with deep, snow-white down, out of which protruded -their legs, long, black, scaly, snaky legs. They stood -braced on these, their receding heads drawn back, -their shoulders thrust forward, their bodies humped -between the featherless wings like challenging tomcats.</p> - -<p>In order to examine them, I crawled into the den;—not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -a difficult act, for the opening measured four feet -and a half at the mouth. The air was musty inside, -yet surprisingly free from odor. The floor was absolutely -clean, but on the top and sides of the cavity -was a thick coating of live mosquitoes, most of them -gorged, hanging like a red-beaded tapestry over the -walls.</p> - -<p>I had taken pains that the flying buzzard should -not see me enter, for I hoped she would descend to -look after her young. But she would take no chances -with herself. I sat near the mouth of the hollow, -where I could catch the fresh breeze that pulled -at the end, and where I had a view of a far-away -bit of sky. Suddenly across this field of blue, as you -have seen an infusorian scud across the field of -your microscope, there swept a meteor of black,—the -buzzard! and evidently in that instant of passage, -at a distance certainly of half a mile, she spied me -in the log.</p> - -<p>I waited more than an hour longer, and when I -tumbled out with a dozen kinds of cramps, the maternal -creature was soaring serenely far up in the -clear, cool sky.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/ill-208.jpg" width="400" height="426" - alt="" - title="" /> -</div> - -<h2>XV</h2> - -<p class="pch">The Lay of the Land</p> - -<p class="pn"><span class="smcap">She</span> loved nature—from a veranda, a dog-cart, the -deck of a vessel. She had been to the seashore for -a whole June, the next June to the mountains, then -a June to an inland farm. “And I enjoyed it!” she -exclaimed; “the sky-blue, I mean, the sea-blue, and -the green of the hills. But as for seeing fiddler crabs -and chewinks and woodchucks—<i>things</i>! why, I -simply didn’t. In fact, I believe that most of your -fiddling crabs and moralizing stumps and philosophizing -woodchucks are simply the creatures of a -disordered imagination.”</p> - -<p>I quite agreed as to the fiddling (some of it) and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -the philosophizing; I disagreed, however, as to the -reality of the crabs and the woodchucks; for it was -not the attributes and powers of these creatures that -she really disbelieved in, but the very existence of -the creatures themselves,—along <i>her</i> seashore, and -upon the farm that <i>she</i> visited.</p> - -<p>“As for fiddler crabs and chewinks and woodchucks—<i>things</i>,” -she did not see them. Certainly -not. Yet a fiddler crab is as real an entity as a -thousand-acre marsh,—and in its way as interesting. -It is a sorry soul that looks for nothing out of doors -but fiddler crabs, and insists upon their fiddling; that -never sees the sky-blue, the sea-blue, and the green -of the rolling hills. I shall never forget a moonrise -over the Maurice River marshes that I witnessed -one night in early June. It was a peculiarly solemn -sight, and one of the profoundly beautiful experiences -of my life, there in the wide, weird silence of the half -sea-land, with the tide at flood. Nor shall I ever -forget two or three of the stops which I made in the -marshes that day to watch the fiddler crabs. Nor -shall I forget how they fiddled. For fiddle they did, -just as they used to years ago, when they and I lived -on these marshes together.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p> - -<p>If my skeptic found no fiddler crabs along her seashore, -found nothing of interest smaller and more -thing-like than color and fresh air, it may be that -she did not understand how to look for crabs and -things.</p> - -<p>To go to the seashore for one June, to the mountains -for a second, to the farm for a third, is not a -good way to study the out-of-doors. A better way is -to spend all three Junes at this shore or upon this -same farm. It is when one abides upon the farm, -indeed, the year around, through several Junes, that -one discovers the woodchucks. The clover is too high -in June. As one of twelve, June is a very good -month to be out of doors; but as a season for nature -study,—no single month, not even June, is satisfactory.</p> - -<p>It takes time and patience and close watching to -discover woodchucks. This means a limited territory; -one can easily have too much ground to cultivate. -I know a man who owns five hundred acres of -Jersey pine barrens, and who can hardly till enough -of it to pay taxes, whereas a friend of mine here near -Boston is quietly getting rich on three acres and a -half.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p> - -<p>My skeptic had too many acres. She went to the -seashore one summer, then to the mountains, then -to a farm, and now she doubts the existence of crabs -and woodchucks. Well she may. She might almost -doubt the reality of the mountains and shore, to say -nothing of the farm. One can scarcely come to believe -in a mountain in the course of a mere June. -The trouble is one of size. As well try to make -friends with a crowded street. Crabs and woodchucks -live in little holes. You must hunt for the holes; -you must wait until the woodchucks come out.</p> - -<p>For more than five years now I have been hunting -holes here on the farm, and it is astonishing the -number I have discovered. I doubt if driving past -you would see anything extraordinary in this small -farm of mine,—a steep, tree-grown ridge, with a -house at the top, a patch of garden, a bit of meadow, -a piece of woods, a stream, a few old apple trees, a -rather sterile, stony field. But live here as I do, mow -and dig and trim and chop as I do, know all the paths, -the stumps, the stone heaps, the tree holes, earth -holes,—there simply is no end of holes, and they are -all inhabited.</p> - -<p>By actual count there are forty-six woodchuck<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -holes on these fourteen acres. Now forty-six woodchuck -holes are a good many holes, but I have been -these five years counting them. Only two of them -are in the open, and visible from the road. Driving -past, I say, you might actually think I had no woodchucks -at all!</p> - -<p>You should stop all summer and milk for me some -morning. Throughout the early part of the season I -had left the kitchen with my milk-pail rather late,—a -little after five o’clock. One morning in September -I stepped out of the door a little before five, and -there in the clover close to the stoop sat a fine old -woodchuck. I stood still and watched him. He was -not expecting me yet, for he knew my comings out -and goings in. He was up to his eyes in the clover, -and he neither saw nor heard me.</p> - -<p>Here about the kitchen door he had fed since the -clover started, and I had not known it. He had -timed his breakfast so as to be through by five -o’clock,—before I came out. Had I been a boarder, -with no cow to milk, perhaps I never should have -known it. But after that morning I saw him frequently. -I took pains to get up with him. Just over -the edge of the lawn, about five feet down the wooded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> -slope, was his burrow, which was one of the latest -of the forty-six holes to be discovered.</p> - -<p>When I shall have been milking and huckleberrying -and hen’s nesting and aimlessly wandering -over these fourteen acres for five years more, I shall -have found, it may be, the very last of the woodchuck -holes. No, not in five, nor in five hundred -years, for the families in the old holes keep multiplying, -and the new holes keep multiplying too.</p> - -<p>But woodchucks are not the only “things,” not the -only crop that the farm yields, although it must certainly -seem that there can be little room on these -scant acres for anything more. My farming, however, -is intensive,—from the tops of my tallest pines -to the bottoms of my deepest woodchuck burrows,—so -that I have an abundant crop of crows, chipmunks, -muskrats, mice, skunks, foxes, and rabbits -(few rabbits, I ought to say, because of the many -foxes).</p> - -<p>Lately I found a den of young foxes within barking -distance of the house, but along a stony ridge -on the adjoining farm. No one would believe in -the number of foxes (or the number of times I have -counted the same fox) here on the farm, and this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -only sixteen miles by the roundabout road from Boston -Common! But let him live here—and keep -chickens!</p> - -<p>One day, as we were sitting down to a noon -dinner, I heard the hens squawk, and out I tore. -The fox had a big black hen and was making off for -the woods. I made after the fox. There is a sharp -ridge back of the henyard, which was thickly covered -with stump sprouts and slashings. The fox took -to the ridge. From the house to the henyard it is -all downhill, and I wanted that hen. She weighed a -good eight pounds,—a load for any fox,—and what -with her squawking and flopping, the tangle of brush -and the steep hillside, it is small wonder that just -short of the top I fell upon her, to the great sorrow -of the fox, who held on until I was within reach of him.</p> - -<p>But such an experience as this, while it would be -quite impossible to a summer boarder, is yet a not -uncommon experience for my unobserving, fox-hating -neighbors. They seldom see more, however; whereas, -a study of the lay of the land hereabout reveals a -real fox community overlying our farm community -like some faint tracing. We humans possess the land -by day and the foxes keep to their dens; the foxes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> -possess the land at night and we humans take to our -dens.</p> - -<p>One of the high roads of the foxes runs across the -farm. Foxes, like men, are more or less mechanical -in their coming and going. They will move within -certain well-defined boundaries, running certain definite -routes; crossing the stream at a particular ford -every time, traveling this ridge and not that, leaving -the road at this point, and swinging off in just such -a circle through the swamp.</p> - -<p>One autumn two foxes were shot at my lower bars -as they were jumping the little river. Their road -crosses the stream here, then leads through the -bars, along the base of the ridge, and up my path to -the pasture.</p> - -<p>I stood in this path one night when a fox that -the dogs were driving came up behind me, stopped, -and sniffed at my boots. This last November, 1907, -a young fox, leaving the hounds in the tangle of -his trails, trotted up this same path, turned in the -pasture, and came up to the house. He halted on -the edge of the lawn just above the woodchuck hole -that I mentioned a few pages back, and for full ten -minutes sat there in the moonlight yapping back at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -the shepherd dog barking at him from my neighbor’s -yard below.</p> - -<p>This run up the ridge to the pasture is the highway -from west to east. When the pack is baying off -to the eastward, and coming nearer, I can stand by -the fence between the yard and my neighbor’s pasture -with the certainty of seeing the fox once in half a -dozen times, and the dogs almost every time, for the -fox breaks from the sprout land back of the henyard, -crosses the neighboring pasture, jumps the wall, and -runs my driveway to the public road and on to the -woods beyond the river.</p> - -<p>All of this sounds very wild, indeed, and so it is—at -night; in the daylight it is all tame enough. Only -the patient watcher knows what wild feet run these -open roads; only he who knows the lay of every -foot of this rocky, pastured land knows that these -winding cow paths lead past the barnyards on into -the ledges and into dens. And no one can find all of -this out in a single June.</p> - -<p>Many of our happiest glimpses of nature are accidental. -We stumble upon things, yet it happens -usually when we are trying to find something. The -finding of a hummingbird’s nest is always an accident;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -and such accidents are extremely rare, as will -be seen from a statement by Mr. Burroughs in which -he says he has come upon but three hummingbirds’ -nests in all his life! He has doubtless found many -more than three owls’ nests, but perhaps not one -of such finds was an accident. He <i>hunted</i> for the -owls.</p> - -<p>Night after night, in the sweet silence through -which our little river sings, we hear the whimpering -of the small screech owls. They are beating for mice -and frogs over the meadow. So much we get without -watching; but the sight of them and their nest, that -came only with my visiting every tree in the neighborhood -having a cavity big enough to hold the birds.</p> - -<p>At twilight, in the late spring and early summer, -we frequently hear a gentle, tremulous call from the -woods, or from below in the orchard. “What is it?” -I had been asked a hundred times, and as many times -had answered that it sounded like the hen partridge -clucking to her brood; or that it made me think -of the mate-call of a coon; or that I half inclined to -believe it the cry of the woodchucks; or that possibly -it might be made by the owls. In fact, I didn’t -know the peculiar call, and year after year I kept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -waiting for an accident to reveal its maker and its -meaning to me.</p> - -<p>There were accidents and discoveries of many -sorts during these years, but not this particular accident. -The accident you wait for is slow in coming.</p> - -<p>We were seated one evening on the porch listening -to the whip-poor-wills, when some one said, -“There’s your woodchuck singing again.” Sure -enough, there sounded the tremulous woodchuck-partridge-coon-owl -cry, and I slipped down through -the birches determined to know that cry if I had to -follow it all night.</p> - -<p>The moon was high and full, the footing almost noiseless, -and everything so quiet that I quickly located -the clucking sounds as coming from the orchard. I -came out of the birches into the wood road, and was -crossing the open field to the orchard, when something -dropped with a swish and a vicious clacking -almost upon my head. I jumped from under,—I -should say a part of my hair,—and saw a screech -owl swoop softly up into the nearest apple tree. Instantly -she turned toward me and uttered the gentle -purring cluck that I had been guessing so hard at for -at least three years. And even while I looked at her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> -I saw in the tree beyond, silhouetted against the -moonlit sky, two round bunches,—young owls evidently,—which -were the interpretation of the calls. -These two, and another young one, were found in -the orchard the following day.</p> - -<p>I rejoined the guessers on the porch, and gave -them the satisfying facts. But let me say that this -was very fast, even exceptional time, indeed, for the -solving of an outdoor problem. I have questions -enough for a big chapter upon which I have been -<i>working</i> these more than three years. The point is -this: I might have gone on guessing about the -mother call of the screech owl to the end of time; -whereas with a little searching and I must certainly -have found out the cry in much less time than three -years.</p> - -<p>I had laughed at some good friends over on the -other road who had bolted their front door and had -gone out of the door at the side of the house for -precisely twenty-one years because the key in the -front door lock wouldn’t work. They kept intending -to have it fixed, but the children were little and kept -them busy; then they grew up, and of course kept them -busy; got married at last and left home,—all but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> -one daughter. Still the locksmith was not called to fix -the front door. One day this unmarried daughter, in -a fit of dire impatience, got at the door herself, and -found that the key had been inserted just twenty-one -years before—upside down!</p> - -<p>So I had sat on the porch and guessed about it. I -had left the key upside down in the lock of the front -door, and had gone out by way of the kitchen.</p> - -<p>The first necessity for interesting nature study is an -intimate acquaintance with some locality. It does not -matter how small, how commonplace, how near the -city,—the nearer the better, provided there are trees, -water, fences, and some seclusion. If your own roof-tree -stands in the midst of it all, then that is ideal.</p> - -<p>But you must be limited. It is a small amount of -land that one man can till with profit. Your very -bees range hardly more than two miles from the -hive. They cannot fly farther than that and store -honey. Within this little world, however, they know -every bank whereon the honey-yielding flowers grow. -In early August I can follow their line of flight -westward, through the woods for more than a mile, -to an old pasture where great patches of dwarf sumac -are in bloom. The bees hum about me in a fever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> -of excitement. Then I fetch a compass far around -toward home, and wherever I find the sumac in -blossom, whether a hundred clustered bushes, or a -single panicle of flowers hidden deep in the woods, -there I find my golden bees. I wonder if, in all their -range, they let waste one drop of this heavy golden -sumac honey?</p> - -<p>Do you know the flowers in your range as well as -the bees know them in theirs? And, what is more, -are you getting the honey? Do you know your dead -trees and stone piles, and the folk who dwell in them? -Could you take me, silent and soft of foot, from hole -to hole, from nest to nest, from hedgerow to thicket, -to cripple, to meadow, making me acquainted with -your neighbors?</p> - -<p>This is what Gilbert White could have done had -you visited him at Selborne. This is what John -Burroughs still does when the college girls go out -to Slabsides.</p> - -<p>Owning a farm is not necessary for all of this. -Only the parish house and the yard belonged to the -old naturalist of Selborne. Sometimes, indeed, I am -quite convinced that, for pure and lasting joy in the -fields, you should not be possessed even of a garden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -patch; for, once you have digged into earth of your -own, then have a care, else along with the cucumber -seed you will plant your soul. The man in the Scriptures -who bought a piece of land and wished thereafter -only to dig, had a real case.</p> - -<p>Owning a farm is not necessary. To be near the -open country is enough, so near that you can know -it intimately the year around. “He is a thoroughly -good naturalist,” says Kingsley, “who knows his -own parish thoroughly.” He was thinking of Gilbert -White, I am sure,—that gentle rector who <i>lived</i> in -Selborne, and there grew old with his tortoise.</p> - -<p>This is all there is to nature study, this growing -old with your garden and your tame tortoise. The -study of the out-of-doors is not a new cult; it is not -a search after a living uintatherium, or after a frog -that can swallow his pond, or a fish hawk that reads,—not -a hunt for the extraordinary or the marvelous -at all, but for things as the Lord made them. Nature -study is the out-of-door side of natural history, the -unmeasured, unprinted side of poetry. It is joy in -breathing the air of the fields; joy in seeing, hearing, -living the life of the fields; joy in knowing and -loving all that lives with you in <i>your</i> out-of-doors.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a><br /><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p> - -<p class="pc4 font20">The Riverside Press</p> - -<p class="pc reduct">CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS<br /> -U · S · A</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="pc4 elarge"><i>A SELECTED LIST OF<br /> -OUT OF DOOR AND NATURE BOOKS</i></p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="pc mid">BY JOHN BURROUGHS</p> - -<p class="pn">WAYS OF NATURE</p> - -<p class="pn">FAR AND NEAR</p> - -<p class="pad1">Each of the above, 16mo, gilt top, $1.10, <i>net</i>. 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