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diff --git a/old/66205-0.txt b/old/66205-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index db949d9..0000000 --- a/old/66205-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5775 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Literary Pilgrimages of a Naturalist, by -Winthrop Packard - -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 -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Literary Pilgrimages of a Naturalist - -Author: Winthrop Packard - -Release Date: September 2, 2021 [eBook #66205] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Steve Mattern, John Campbell and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY PILGRIMAGES OF A -NATURALIST *** - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE - - Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. - - Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. - - - - - LITERARY PILGRIMAGES - OF A NATURALIST - - - - - +--------------------------------------------------------------+ - | | - | THE WORKS OF WINTHROP PACKARD | - | | - | | - | WOODLAND PATHS | - | WILD PASTURES | - | WOOD WANDERINGS | - | WILDWOOD WAYS | - | | - | _Each illustrated by Charles Copeland_ | - | | - | 12mo. Ornamental cloth, gilt top, each volume $1.20 _net_; | - | by mail, $1.28 | - | | - | These four volumes together constitute “The New England | - | Year” series, dealing, in the order given, with the four | - | seasons. Sold separately. | - | | - | | - | FLORIDA TRAILS | - | | - | As seen from Jacksonville to Key West, and from November to | - | April, inclusive | - | | - | _Illustrated from photographs by the author and others_ | - | | - | 8vo. Ornamental cloth, gilt top, boxed, $3.00 _net_; by | - | mail, $3.25 | - | | - | | - | LITERARY PILGRIMAGES OF A NATURALIST | - | | - | Visits to the haunts of Whittier, Emerson, Hawthorne, Celia | - | Thaxter, Webster, Aldrich, and others | - | | - | _Illustrated from photographs by the author and others_ | - | | - | 12mo. Ornamental cloth, gilt top, boxed, $2.00 _net_; by | - | mail, $2.20 | - | | - | | - | SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY | - | PUBLISHERS BOSTON | - +--------------------------------------------------------------+ - - - - -[Illustration: “No wonder Daniel Webster, wandering -southward over the hills in search of a country home, chose -this as his abiding place.” - -_See page 2_ ] - - - - - LITERARY PILGRIMAGES - - OF - - A NATURALIST - - BY - - WINTHROP PACKARD - - _Author of “Florida Trails,” “Wild Pastures,” - “Wood Wanderings,” etc._ - - ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE - AUTHOR AND OTHERS - - [Illustration: (colophon)] - - BOSTON - SMALL, MAYNARD, AND COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - - - - _Copyright, 1911_ - BY SMALL, MAYNARD, AND COMPANY - (INCORPORATED) - - Entered at Stationers’ Hall - - - THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. - - - - - TO THE MEMORY - OF - CLARENCE H. BERRY - - _A Schoolmaster of Long Ago_ - - THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED - - - - - The author wishes to express his thanks to the editors of - the “Boston Evening Transcript” for permission to reprint - in this volume matter which was originally contributed to - its columns. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. IN OLD MARSHFIELD 1 - - II. AT WHITTIER’S BIRTHPLACE 15 - - III. IN OLD PONKAPOAG 30 - - IV. AT THE ISLES OF SHOALS 44 - - V. THOREAU’S WALDEN 60 - - VI. ON THE FIRST TRAIL OF THE PILGRIMS 75 - - VII. IN OLD CONCORD 90 - - VIII. THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET 104 - - IX. IN OLD NEWBURYPORT 118 - - X. PLYMOUTH MAYFLOWERS 135 - - XI. OLD SALEM TOWN 148 - - XII. VERMONT MAPLE SUGAR 164 - - XIII. NATURE’S MEMORIAL DAY 183 - - XIV. BIRDS OF CHOCORUA 197 - - INDEX 213 - - - - - ILLUSTRATIONS - - - PAGE - - “No wonder Daniel Webster, wandering southward over the - hills in search of a country home, chose this as his - abiding-place.” _See page 2_ _Frontispiece_ - - “Telling the pearls on this rosary of a path one is led - beyond the homestead.” 12 - - “Within this wide circle, with the house its core, and - the hearth its shrine, revolved the homely, cheerful, - whole-hearted life of the farm.” 22 - - “Watching the crane and pendant trammels grow black - against the blaze.” _See page 18_ 28 - - A corner of the room in which Whittier was born 28 - - “The study where Aldrich wrote some of his daintiest - verse looks forth upon a sweet valley.” 30 - - “The study window in what was ‘The Bemis Place’ of the - elder days of Ponkapoag.” _See page 35_ 36 - - Celia Thaxter’s home at the Isles of Shoals 44 - - “Chasms down which you may walk to the tide between sheer - cliffs.” 50 - - “Up to the smooth turf on this knoll crowd all the - pasture shrubs that she loved.” 58 - - “Here is the cairn erected to his memory, to which with - doffed hat you may well add a stone.” _See page 65_ 66 - - “Walden is Walden still, very much as Thoreau painted - it.” 70 - - “Pilgrim Lake,” where that first washing was done by the - Pilgrim mothers 78 - - “That little creek that blocked the way of doughty Myles - Standish and his men, sending them inland on a detour.” - _See page 85_ 86 - - “Here in a volley was the summing up of the nature of the - heroes that had grown up, quite literally, in the Concord - soil.” _See page 93_ 92 - - “Hither, too, came Hawthorne, to tramp the woods as did - the others, and feel as did they, the divine afflatus.” 98 - - “The water from the old well cooled the throat of his - memory, and sparkled to the eye of it as he recalled the - dripping bucket.” 114 - - The Newburyport home of Joshua Coffin, the early friend - and teacher of Whittier 126 - - “Down river to the old chain bridge the rough rocks of - the New Hampshire hills come to get a taste of salt.” - _See page 129_ 130 - - One angle of “The House of the Seven Gables.” 150 - - “A Salem dock of the old sea-faring days.” 150 - - “The only sound was the crunch of soft snow and the - splash of sap within the barrel.” _See page 171_ 172 - - “But here is a sweetness that the tree almost bursts to - deliver.” 178 - - “The farmhouse where Bolles lived and loved the woods and - all that therein lived with him.” _See page 197_ 198 - - Nightfall on Chocorua Lake 208 - - - - - LITERARY PILGRIMAGES - OF A NATURALIST - - - - -LITERARY PILGRIMAGES OF A NATURALIST - - - - -I - -IN OLD MARSHFIELD - -_Glimpses of the Country about the Daniel Webster Place_ - - -Down in Marshfield early morning brings to the roadside troops of -blue-eyed chicory blooms, shy memories of fair Pilgrim children -who once trod these ways. They do not stay long with the wanderer, -these early morning blooms. The turmoil and heat of the mid-summer -day close them, but the dreams they bring ramble with the roads in -happy freedom from all care among drumlins and kames, vanishing in -the flooding heat of some wood-enclosed pasture corner to spring -laughingly back again as the way tops a hill and gives a glimpse -of the purple velvet of the sea. No wonder Peregrine White, the -first fair-skinned child born in New England, strayed from the -boundaries of Plymouth and chose his home here. No wonder Daniel -Webster, New England’s most vivid great man, wandering southward -over the hills in search of a country home two centuries later, -fixed upon the spot just below Black Mount, looking down upon Green -Harbor marshes and the sea, and chose this for his abiding-place. - -The statesman and orator, whose words still ring across the years -to us, with the trumpet sounding in them even from the printed -page, may well have breathed inspiration for them from the winds -that come from seaward across the aromatic marshes. There is cool -truthfulness in these winds, and understanding of the depths, and -the salty, wild flavor of the untamed marsh gives them a tang of -primal vitality. Breasting them at mid-day from under the wilt of -summer heat you seem to drink air rather than to breathe it, and -find intoxication in the draught. I never heard a robin sing in -mid-flight, soaring upward like a skylark, till I came to this bit -of sweet New England country. The east wind drifted in to him as -he sat on a treetop caroling, and he spread his wings to it and -fluttered upward, pouring out round notes of melody as he went. -Webster’s most famous speeches were composed while he tramped these -hills and marshes and sailed the blue velvet of the outlying sea, -and their richest phrases soar as they sing, even as did the robin. - -You may come to Black Mount with its panoramic view of the Webster -farm, the surrounding pastures and marshes and the little Pilgrim -cemetery where he lies buried, from either the Marshfield railway -station or that of Green Harbor, both a mile or more away by road. -A better route lay for me through the woods by paths flecked -with sunlight and dappled with shadow, paths which the Pilgrims’ -descendants first sought out and which are as fair to-day to our -feet as they were to theirs. One can easily fancy Peregrine and his -wife picking berries along here on days when the farm work allowed -them freedom, the children frolicking about with them and eating or -spilling half they picked, as the children do on these hills now. -Voices and laughter rang through the woods as I passed, and there -is small blame to the pickers if they do eat the berries as fast -as they pick them. They never taste quite so good as on this direct -route from producer to consumer. Along this path you may have your -choice of varieties as you go, from the pale blue ones that grow -so very near the earth on their tiny bushes that they seem the -salt of it, giving the day its zest, through the low-bush-blacks, -crisp with seeds and aromatic in flavor as if smoked with the -incense of the sweet-fern, to those other black ones that grow -on the high bushes and rightfully take the name of huckleberry. -The soil of these sandy hills may be thin and not worth farming, -but it produces fruit whose quality puts to shame the product -of well-cultivated gardens. The good bishop of England who once -said, “Doubtless God could have produced a better berry than the -strawberry, but doubtless He never did,” never ate blueberries from -the bush in a New England pasture. - -From the summit of Black Mount the grassy hill slopes sharply -beneath your feet to the road and beyond this to the home acres -of the Webster place, the roof tree far below you and the house -snuggling among the trees that the great statesman loved, many -of which he planted. A little farther on stands a great barn with -huge mows and the big hay doors front and rear always hospitably -open to the scores of barn swallows that build on the beams up next -the roof. In no barn have I found quite so many swallows at home. -At every vantage point on a beam, wherever a corner of a timber or -a locking pin protrudes to give a support, nests have been built, -generation following generation till some of the structures are -curious, deep, inverted mud pyramids, topped with straw and grass -and lined with feathers, downy beds for the clamorous young. I -can think of no finer picture of rural peace than such a barn as -this, the cool wind sighing gently through the wide doors, the -beams stretching across the cavernous space above dotted with the -gray nests, the air full of the friendly, homey twittering of the -birds, some resting and preening their feathers on the beams, -others swinging in amazing flight down and out through the doors -to skim the grass of the neighboring fields and marshes for food, -then flashing back again to the hungry nestlings. Such barns -grow fewer year by year here in eastern Massachusetts, and the -pleasant intimacy of the barn swallows is but a happy recollection -in the mind of many of us, more is the pity. It is worth a trip to -Marshfield just to foregather with such a colony. - -Eastward again the eye passes over wide mowing fields, rough -pastures and hills clad with short, brown grass and red cedars, -the thousand-tree orchard of Baldwin apples which Webster planted, -the tiny Pilgrim cemetery on a little hillock where he lies buried -among the pioneers of the place, the brown-green marshes flecked -with the silver of the full tide, to the deep, velvety blue rim -of the sea, which sweeps in its splendid curve uninterrupted from -north to south. Behind your back is the rich green of Massachusetts -woodland, beneath your feet this landscape of pasture, field and -marsh, scarcely changed since Webster’s day, changed but little -indeed since the days of Peregrine White and his pioneer neighbors, -and rimming it round the deep sapphire romance of the sea. Across -this blue romance of sea the winds of the world, fresh and vital -with brine, come to woo you on your way. They croon in your ears -the strange sagas that the blood of no wanderer can resist, and you -know something of the lure that led the vikings of old ever onward -to new shores as you plunge down the grassy slope to meet them. -The stately beauty of the home place may thrall you for a while -beneath the trees and the friendly great barn try to lull you to -contentment with the cradle songs of the swallows, but the marsh -adds its wild, free tang to the muted trumpets which these east -winds blow in your ears, and so you fare onward through a country -of enchantment, toward the ocean. - -Webster’s well house, where still the ancient spring flows, cool -and clear, gave me a drink as I went by. The dyke which borders -his cranberry bog and separates it from a tiny pond where white -pond lilies floated and perfumed the air, gave further progress -eastward, and soon I passed naturally into an old, old path which -led me purposefully in the desired direction. Without looking for -it I had found the footpath way which rambles from the farm across -country to Green Harbor, where the statesman kept his boats, a path -without doubt often trodden by his feet in seaward excursions. -He could have found no pleasanter way. The pastures which lie -between upland and marsh in this region are covered with a wild, -free growth of shrub and vine which no herds, however ravenous, -can keep down. The best that the cattle can do with them is to -beat paths through the lush tangle along which wild grasses find -room to work upward toward the light and add to the browse. Here -the greenbrier grows greener and more briery than anywhere else -that I know, and the staghorn sumac emulates it in vigor of growth -if not in convolutions. In places these reach almost the dignity -of young trees, and the pinnate leaves spread a wide, fern-like -shade as I walked beneath the antler-like branches. The staghorn -sumac is surely rightly named. Its antlers are covered now with an -exquisite, deep, soft velvet which clothes them to the leafbud tips -and along the very petioles of the leaves. Now it is a clear green -which with later growth will become purple and pass into brown, -the promise of autumn showing now in a slight purple tinge on the -sun-ripened petioles of the older leaves. This soft fuzz clothes -the crowded, conical heads of bloom also, heads that are of the -same sweet pink as the petals of the wild roses which grow near by -as you may see if you will hold one up against the other. But the -pink of the wild rose seems flat against that of the sumac, for it -has only a smooth surface on which to show itself, while that of -the sumac is full of soft, shadowy withdrawals and shows a yellow -background in the interstices of the blossom spike. - -Skirting this jungle so aromatic with scent of sassafras and -bayberry, perfumed with wild rose and azalea, pulsing with the -flight of unseen birds in its cool depth and echoing with their -song, the path crosses a brook that gently chuckles to itself -over its escape from the monotony of a big mowing field to the -salt freedom of the marsh, then suddenly breasts the steep -northern side of a drumlin. Here the press of toiling feet has -been supplemented by the wash of torrential rains till the narrow -way becomes a miniature chasm in places, worn down in the gravel -among great red cedars, hoary with age and lichens. To know the -slow growth of a red cedar and to calculate the age of these by -dividing their present bulk with the slight increase that each -year brings is to place the birth of these trees far back in the -centuries. Not one hundred years will account for it, nor two, and -I am quite sure that these trees were growing where they now stand -when Peregrine White’s mother first embarked on the Mayflower at -Southampton. Webster’s path may have gone through them then, and -no one knows how long before, for it is worn deep not only on the -steep hillsides where the rains have helped it but in level reaches -beyond where only the passing and re-passing of feet through -centuries would have done it. It was as direct a route from the -hills to the mouth of Cut River at Green Harbor before the white -man’s time as after, and if I am not mistaken the red men trod it -long before the first ship’s keel furrowed Plymouth Bay. - -As I topped the rise I found myself in a hilltop pasture a -half-mile long which covers the rest of the hill. Once it was a -cultivated field, and the corn-hills of the last planter still show -in spots, these, like the rest of it, now overgrown with close-set -grass and crisp reindeer lichen. The patriarchal cedars I had -left behind, old men of their tribe sitting solemn and motionless -in council. Here I had come upon a vast but scattered concourse of -young people, lithe and slender folk who seemed to stroll gayly -all about the place. Here were plumed youths and debonair maidens -regarding one another, family groups, mothers with children at the -knee and other little folk in the very attitude of playing romping -games. But there were tinier folk than these, too small to be real -cedars, gamboling among the others, as if underworld sprites also -in cedar guise had come forth to join the festivities. Nowhere else -have I seen such a merry concourse of cedars as on the long top of -this hill that some Pilgrim father first cleared for a cornfield -two centuries and a half ago. Here and there little groups of wee -wild rose shrubs seemed to dance up and scatter perfume about their -feet in tribute, then stand motionless like diffident children, -finger in mouth, stolid and uncommunicative. Hilltops are often -lonely, but this one could never be. It gladdens with its quaint -fancies. Through a veritable picnic of young cedars I tramped down -the eastward slope to the dusty road that leads on to Green Harbor -and the slumbrous uproar of the surf. - -[Illustration: “Telling the pearls on this rosary of a path one is -led beyond the homestead.”] - -Telling the pearls on this rosary of a path in the homeward -direction one is led beyond the homestead and on, by a slenderer, -less trodden way to the old Pilgrim cemetery where the great man -lies buried among the pioneers of the neighborhood, Peregrine -White, the Winslows, and a host of others whose fame has not -gone so far perhaps, but those names may be written in the final -domesday book in letters as large as his. Nor does any storied -monument recite the deeds of the statesman or bear his name higher -than that of his fellows. A simple slab with the name only stands -above the mound beneath which he lies, and in the side of this -mound a woodchuck has his burrow, seeming to emphasize by his -presence the cosy friendliness of the little spot. It is a hillock, -just a little way from the house, just a little way from the big -orchard which Webster loved so well, surrounded by pasture and -cranberry bog and with the marsh drawing lovingly up to it on one -side. Over this marsh comes the free salt air of the sea, but a -little more gently to the lowly hillock than to the summit of Black -Mount. Because of this loitering gentleness it has time to drop -among the lingerers there all the wild aromas and soft perfumes of -the marsh and pasture and bring all the soothing sounds of life to -ears that for all I know hear them dreamily and approve. Quail, -the first I have heard in New England for a long time, whistled -cheerily one to another from nearby thickets. Nor did these seem -fearful of man. One whistled as a wagon rattled by his hiding place -on the dusty winding road, and held his perch beneath a berry bush -till I approached so near that I could hear the full inflection of -the soft note with which he prefixed his “bob white,” see the swell -of his white throat and the tilt of his head as he sent forth the -call. A pair of mourning doves crooned in the old apple orchard -and flew on whistling wings as I approached too near. I have heard -heartache in the tones of these birds, but here their mourning -seemed only the gentle sorrow of a mother’s tones as she soothes a -weary child, a mourning that voiced love and sympathy rather than -pain. On a tree nearby a great-crested flycatcher sat and seemed -to say to himself, “grief, grief.” These were the only notes of -sorrow that the place held. All else in sky and field, marsh and -hillside, seemed to thrill with a gentle optimism, and the hillock -itself rested amidst this in a patriarchal peace and simplicity -that became it well. Memory of this gentle peace and simplicity -lingers long and runs like a tender refrain through the harmony -of fragrant, vivid life that marks this lovely section of old -Marshfield. - - - - -II - -AT WHITTIER’S BIRTHPLACE - -_The Homestead two Centuries Old and the Unspoiled Country about it_ - - -They lighted a fire for me in Whittier’s fireplace. The day had -been one of wilting July heat and sun glare till storm clouds -from the New Hampshire hills brought sudden cool winds and black -shadows. Twilight settled down in the wide, ancient living-room, -bringing brooding darkness and mystery. The little light that came -through the tiny, lilac-shaded windows seemed to half reveal ghosts -of legends and romance, wrapped in darkness, slipping indistinctly -from the black cavern of the fireplace, standing close before it -and hiding it, and gathering in formless groups in the corners -of the room. They whispered and the leaves on the trees outside -rustled the tale, while echoes of warlock warfare rumbled in the -sky above and witch fires flared. A witches’ twilight had come -down the Merrimac and brought under its blanket shades of all the -mountain legends that had in times past trooped to the mind of the -poet as he sat there with sensitive soul a-quiver to their touch, -photographing them in black and white for the minds of all men -forever. From the fireplace stalked Mogg Megone and the powwows of -his tribe, bringing with them all the dusky people of the weird -stories of his day. The wind wailed their lone songs outside, and -in its deep throat the aged chimney mumbled to itself old, old -tales of night and darkness. - -Then a slender flame slipped upward from the hearth, showing the -form of the caretaker faintly shadowed and edged with light against -the black background, and if I saw not her but the outline of -Whittier’s mother bending to light the fire and drive from the -minds of the children the fancies of the dusk it must have been -because the witches’ twilight still held the room under its spell. -Between the fore and back logs the brush of hemlock and of pine -crackled and sent incense across the gloom to me, and with the leap -of the flame all the weird shadows wavered into the corner and -vanished. In their stead trooped up-river the cheery hearthside -stories of the English settlers, sturdy tales and rough perhaps -but with the glow of the hearth log flickering gleefully through -them. The gusts drew whirling sparks upward, and in its deep throat -the chimney, no longer aged but stout and strong with vigorous -work to do, guffawed in cheerful content. The dancing firelight -sent gleams of quiet laughter over the face of Whittier himself, -that before had looked so grimly from the frame over his ancient -desk, and the room glowed with homey hospitality. If there were -shades there they were golden ones of gentle maids and rollicking -boys that we knew and loved so well, and though without the window -opposite the fireplace and right through the shading lilac bushes -a ghostly replica of the fireplace with its flickering flames -appeared and vanished and reappeared, there was nothing sinister in -its uncanniness, for - - “under the tree - When fire outside burns merrily, - There the witches are making tea.” - -Stormbound if not snowbound I sat for an hour by the hearth that -was the heart of a home for two hundred years, watching the -crane and pendent trammels show black against the blaze, seeing -the Turk’s heads on the andirons glow, reading by the firelight -verses which the poet wrote in that same home room, and when the -storm passed and I could go forth to his brook and his fields -and hills it could not fail to be with something of his love -for them in my heart. Some critic, whose visit must have been -shortened by homesick memories of a steam-heated flat, has said -that Whittier’s birthplace is lonely and that its loneliness had -its effect on his life and work. But how could such a place be -lonely to a man who was born there? Here was the great living-room -with its hearth, where the life of the home centered. Without -was the wonderful rolling country with all its majesty of hill, -whence he saw the crystal mountains to north and the blue lure -of the sea to eastward, with all its gentle delights of ravines -where brooks laughed, and meadows and swamps where they slipped -peacefully along, mirroring the sky, watering all wild flowers and -offering refuge to all wild creatures. Within this wide circle, -with the house its core and the hearth its shrine, revolved the -homely, cheerful, whole-hearted life of the farm. What chance for -loneliness was there? - -After the shower had passed I climbed the gentle slope of the hill -back of the house, traversing the old garden where grow the plants -that came over with pioneers from England, hollyhocks and sweet -william, old-time poppies, marjoram and London pride, dear to every -housewife’s heart in the good old days when to wrest a farm from -the forest and build a home on it was still an ambition for which -a free-born New Englander need feel no shame. The witchery of -the hour had not been for the hearthside alone. The sooth of the -rain had been for the hearts of these also, and the joy of their -answering delight made all the fresh air sweet and kindly so far as -the gentle winds blew. The perfume of an old-time garden after rain -is made up of gracious memories. Wherever chance has taken their -seeds or care has transported their roots a thousand generations -of sweet-hearted, home-keeping mothers have tended these plants -and loved their flowers and the very leaves and stalks on which -they grew. The caress of the rain brings from each leaf and petal -but the aromatic essence of such lives, welling within and flowing -forth again through the unnumbered years. - -Out of homely love of the hearth, out of wild Indian legends that -flowed down the Merrimac and English folk lore that flowered over -seas and blew westward with a sniff of the brine in it, Whittier -made his poems. But not out of these was born their greatness. That -was distilled from his own fiber where it grew out of the rugged, -honest, fearless life of generations whose home shrine had been -that glowing hearth, whose love and tenderness welled within and -overflowed like the scent of the old-time garden. To such a house -and such a hearth sweetness climbs and nestles. To stand on the -old door stone was to be greeted with dreams of meadows and lush -fields, for wild mint has left the brookside and come shyly to the -very door sill to toss its aroma to all comers. A spirit of the -meadows that the barefoot boy loved thus dwells ever by his door -and none may enter without its benediction. There is something -Quakerlike in the wild mint, that dwells apart, unnoticed and -wearing no flaunting colors, yet is so dearly fragrant and yields -its sweetness most when bruised. - -A stone’s toss from the door I found his brook, its music muted -by the summer drought so that you must bend the ear close to hear -its song. With the foam brimming on its lip in spring the brook -roars good fellowship, a stein song in which its brothers over -nearby ridges join, filled with the potency which March brews from -snow-steeped woods. Now, its March madness long passed, repentant -and shriven by the kindly sun, it slips, a pure-souled hermit, -from pool to pool, each pool so clear that in it the sky rests -content, while water striders mark changing constellations on its -surface. The pools are silent, only beneath the stones the passing -water chirps to itself a little cheerful song which the vireos in -the trees overhead faintly imitate. The trees love the brook’s -version best, for they bend their heads low to listen to it, beech -and maple, white oak and red, yellow birch and white birch and -black birch, hemlock and pine, dappling the pools with shade and -interlocking arms across the glen in which the brook flows. In the -dapple of shadow and sunlight beneath them ferns of high and low -degree, royal and lady, cinnamon, interrupted and hay-scented, wade -in the shallows and caress the deeps with their arching fronds. -The blue flags that waved beside the water a month ago are gone, -leaving only green pennants to mark their camp site for another -year; and it is well that it is thus marked, else it were lost, for -in the very brook bottom where the March flood crashed along have -come to usurp it those tender annuals, the jewel weeds. Their stems -almost transparent, their oval leaves so dark a green that it seems -as if some of the dancing shadows found rest in them, they press in -close groups into all shallow places and lean over the edges of the -clear pools to admire the gold pendants that tinkle in their ears. - -[Illustration: “Within this wide circle, with the house its -core and the hearth its shrine, revolved the homely, cheerful, -whole-hearted life of the farm.”] - -With these through the grassy shallows climb true forget-me-nots, -slenderest of brookside wanderers, each blue bloom a tiny turquoise -for the setting of the jewel-weeds’ gold. Thus shaded and carpeted -the little ravine wanders down from the hills, and the brook goes -with it, as if hand in hand, bringing to its side all sprightly -life, a place filled with boyhood fancies and echoes of boyhood -laughter. A chewink, singing on a treetop up the slope, voiced -this feeling. Someone has called the chewink the tambourine bird. -His song makes the name a deserved one. It consists of one clear, -melodious call and then an ecstatic tinkling as of a tambourine -skillfully shaken and dripping joyous notes. Always before the -chewink’s song has been without words to me. This one sang so -clearly “Whittier; ting-a-ling-a-ling” that I knew the bird and his -ancestors had made the glen home since the boyhood of the poet, -learning to sing the name that rang oftenest through the tinkle of -the brook. - -You begin to climb Job’s Hill right from the glen, passing from -beneath its trees to stone-walled mowing fields where rudbeckias -dance in the morning wind, their yellow sunbonnets flapping and -flaring about homely black faces. I fancy these fields were white -with ox-eye daisies in the spring. They are yellow now with the -sunbonnets of these jolly wenches. It is like getting from Alabama -to New England to step over the last wall which divides the fields -of the hill’s shoulder from its summit, which is a close-cropped -cow pasture. Here the winds of all the world blow keen and free and -you may look north to the crystal hills of New Hampshire whence -come their strength. Eastward under the sun lies the pale rim of -the sea. Kenoza Lake opens two wide blue eyes at your feet, and -all along beneath you roll bare, round-topped hills sloping down -to dark woods and scattered fields, as unspoiled by man as in -Whittier’s days. The making of farms does not spoil the beauty of -a country; it adds to it. It is the making of cities that spells -havoc and desolation. Through the pasture, up the steep slopes to -the summit of Job’s Hill, that seems so bare at first glimpse, -climb all the lovely pasture things to revel in the free winds. -Foremost of these is the steeplebush, prim Puritan of the open -wold, erect, trying to be just drab and green and precise, but -blushing to the top of his steeple because the pink wild roses have -insisted on dancing with him up the hill, their cheeks rosy with -the wind, their arms twined round one another at first, then round -him as well. Somehow this bachelor bush which would be so austere -reminds one of the Quaker youth at the academy, surrounded by -those rosy maidens of the world’s people, one of whom we suspect -he loved, yet could no more tell it than can the steeplebush -acknowledge how sweet is the companionship of the wild rose and how -he hopes it may go on forever. Stray red cedars stroll about the -lower slopes and climb gravely, while juniper, in close-set prickly -clumps, seems to follow their leadership. The canny, chancy thistle -holds its rosy pompons up to the bumble-bees, that fairly burrow -in them for their Scotch honey, and the mullein would be even more -erect and more Quakerly drab than the steeplebush if it could. -It is erect and gray, but just as it means to look its grimmest -dancing whorls of yellow sunshine blossom up its stalk in spirals, -the last one fairly taking flight from the tip. Among all these -strays the yarrow, whose aroma is as much a New England odor as -that of sweet-fern or bayberry. The aromatic incense of this herb -follows you up the hill and seems to bring the pungent presence of -the poet himself. - -Job’s steepest hillside drops you in one long swoop to the road -which leads through woodland windings to the haunted bridge over -Country Brook. The way itself is haunted by woodland fragrance and -chant of birds innumerable, and in the freshness of the morning -after the shower it seemed as if built new. The world is apt to be -this way after rain. Yet if the vivid morning sun and exhilarating -north wind had driven all ghosts away there had been necromancy at -work. All the day before the blossoms on the staghorn sumac had -been of that velvety pink that rivals the wild rose. Over night -they had turned a warm, rich red. Autumn brings this richer, more -stable color to the sumac blooms as they ripen toward seed time, -but it does not do it in July, over night. The pukwudgies had been -at work, painting with the rain, filling the sumac heads with it -till they hung heavy. The water had massed the tiny pubescence of -the blooms till pink had deepened into red and autumn had seemed -to come for the sumacs in a night. It took the sun and the wind -all day to dry them out and bring back the witchery of pink that -the necromancy of the rain had banished. But the spell was not -altogether broken, nor will it be till autumn has worked its will -with the world about Country Brook. Out of the birches the fresh -wind threshed here and there yellow leaves that fluttered like -colias butterflies before it. There and here among the sumacs hung -a crimson leaf, more vivid in its color than the blossoms or the -berries could ever be, and as in the woodland all news flashes from -shrub to shrub and from creature to creature, so it seemed as in -the hint of autumn, first born, a simulacrum merely, in the wet -sumac heads, had gone by birch leaf messengers to all distances. -Along the way flashed out of invisibility the yellow of tall -goldenrod heads and the blue and white of the earliest asters and, -once materialized, remained. - -August may bring vivid heat and wilting humidity if it will. The -witches’ twilight had brought down the Merrimac from the far north -the flavor of autumn which is later to follow in full force, nor -will it wholly leave us again. The ghostliest thing about Country -Brook was a sound which seemed to come up it from the cool depths -of the woods into which it flows, a soft breathing sigh, now -regular, now intermittent, as if a spirit of the woodland slept -peacefully for a little, then gasped with troubled dreams. Seeking -to discover this ghost I found a little way along the road from -the bridge a broad grassy avenue that led with a certain majesty -in its sweep as if to some woodland castle whose people were so -light-footed that they wore no paths in their broad green avenue. -Yet after all it led me only to a wide meadow where the sighing -I had heard was that of the grass going to sleep under the magic -passes of a mower’s scythe. No clatter of mowing machine was here, -just the swish of a scythe such as the meadow has heard yearly -since the pioneers came. There were deer tracks here along the -margin of Country Brook, and all the gentle wild life of woods and -meadows seemed to pass freely, without care or fear. - -[Illustration: “Watching the crane and pendant trammels grow black -against the blaze.” - -_See page 18_ ] - -[Illustration: A corner of the room in which Whittier was born] - -And so I found all the country about the Whittier homestead an -epitome of the free, cheerful, country life of the New England -of a century ago. They lighted a fire for me in Whittier’s -fireplace--and as the rose glow on the walls of the old living-room -brought back the hearth-cheer of bygone years, as the witches, -daintily making tea without under the lilac bush, brought the -romance and legend of the olden time to the threshold, so the -crackling draft of the fire up the deep throat of the chimney -seemed to draw in to the place the free, hearty, farming, -wood-loving life of the men of the earlier centuries out of -which the poet drew what was best in him, to be given out in -unforgettable verse to us all. If such a place was ever lonely it -was that gentle and desirable loneliness which great souls love. - - - - -III - -IN OLD PONKAPOAG - -_Glimpses from a Study Window of Thomas Bailey Aldrich_ - - -The study where Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote some of his daintiest -verse looks forth upon a sweet valley. Down this valley prattle -clear-eyed brooks that meet and grow, and water lush meadows filled -with all lovely things of summer, while low woods beyond set a dark -green line against the sunsets. Looking toward these of a day when -rosy mists tangle the sun’s rays and anon let them slip in arrow -flight earthward, we have pictured for us how - - “We knew it would rain, for all the morn, - A spirit on slender ropes of mist - Was lowering its golden buckets down - Into the vapory amethyst.” - -[Illustration: “The study where Aldrich wrote some of his daintiest -verse looks forth upon a sweet valley.”] - -Wherever written, this and a hundred other dainty things seem to -flock into the tiny valley upon which he looked from the study -window of his later life in what was then the quaint old village -of Ponkapoag, as if the flowers of fancy to which he gave wings -still hovered there. At nightfall it is easy along these meadows to - - “See where at intervals the firefly’s spark - Glimmers and melts into the fragrant dark; - Gilds a leaf’s edge one happy instant, then - Leaves darkness all a mystery again.” - -The quaint old Ponkapoag of not so very many years ago is changing -fast. The trolley car passes and re-passes in what was once its -one street. The real estate man has come and modern houses grow up -over night, almost, in the empty spaces over the old stone walls, -while in the surrounding pastures and woodland appear the mansions -of those who seek large estates not too far from the city. Suburban -life begins to crowd Ponkapoag and the little self-centered country -village of the genuine New England type passes. Most, however, of -the sturdy old houses of a century or more ago remain and much -of the beauty of the country round about them. On Sundays and -holidays Ponkapoag Pond teems with an uproarious holiday crowd, but -on weekdays one may still enjoy its beauty unmolested, hear the -blackbird’s music tinkle along the bogs, and see the pond lily, the -pure white spirit of Miantowonah, sit on the water. On such days -Ponkapoag Pond, “the spring bubbling from red earth,” seems still -to belong as much to the Indians, whose favorite fishing ground it -was, as to us latter-day usurpers, and the outlook across it to the -dusky loom of Blue Hill is as wild now as it was in their day. - -From the north-facing window of the poet’s study you may see the -hill again, with all its beauty of color which changes with the -whim of the day. At dawn of a clear morning it looms blue-black -against the rosy deep of the sky. At noon it looms still but -friendly and green, so near that the eye may pick out the shape of -each tree that feathers the jutting crags. At noon of such a day -Ponkapoag hill with its houses bowered in green seems a part of -it, the half mile of intervening space making no impression on the -eye. As the sun sinks a haze rises from the rich farming land which -lies level between the two hills. The spirit on slender ropes of -mist is at work, and through this vapory amethyst the larger hill -withdraws into soft colors of blue that grow violet purple with -the coming of dusk below and the rosy afterglow of reflected sunset -in the sky above. Captain John Smith named the range “The Cheviot -Hills” in recollection of old England, but all the countryside -named it Blue Hill because of the changing wonder of its coloring, -which is a constant delight to the eye. On stormy days when gray -northeasters send torn clouds, fragrant with the tonic smell of the -brine, whirling over it, the hill looms misty and vague, as if it -might well be a mountain scores of miles distant, instead of the -single mile it is along the straight road. On such days all the -wild sea myths and northland sagas seem to be blown in over the -hill barrier and trail down from the skirts of the clouds into the -secluded peace of Ponkapoag valley. Hence, to those who dream, come -sea longings. - - “The first world-sound that fell upon my ear - Was that of the great winds along the coast - Crushing the deep-sea beryl on the rocks-- - The distant breakers’ sullen cannonade. - Against the spires and gables of the town - The white fog drifted, catching here and there - At over-leaning cornice or peaked roof, - And hung--weird gonfalons. The garden walks - Were choked with leaves, and on their ragged biers - Lay dead the sweets of summer--damask rose, - Clove pink, old-fashioned, loved New England flowers. - Only keen, salt-sea odors filled the air. - Sea-sounds, sea-odors--these were all my world. - Hence it is that life languishes with me inland.” - -Infinite variance of changing moods has the hill which lifts such -abrupt crags above the Ponkapoag plain. At times the poet may have -seen it as it was one day not long ago, when a great thunderstorm, -born of the sweltering, blue haze of a fiercely hot July day, -swept across it. On that day the hill withdrew itself into the -menacing black sky, looming against it, then vanishing, becoming -part of a night like that of the apocalypse, in which hung the -observatory and the higher houses of Ponkapoag hill “as glaring as -our sins on judgment day.” The storm in which the miracle of “The -Legend of Ara-Cœli” was wrought could not have been blacker than -the sky, nor the face of the monk, when he saw the toes of the -bambino beneath the door, whiter than gleamed those houses. The -weirder, greater things of nature loom often through the poems of -the man who looked upon such scenes from the study window in what -was “The Bemis Place” of the elder days of Ponkapoag village. It -seems as if all the lighter, sweeter fancies that laugh or slip, -tear in eye, through his verse, whirled like rose petals on summer -winds or danced like butterflies into the little valley on which -the westward study windows looked. Through this, right in the -foreground, flows Ponkapoag brook, and on it falls slowly into -decay an ancient mill, a relic of the early days of the village. -The old dam no longer restrains the water which gurgles along the -stones below it, humming to itself a quatrain which never was -meant for it, but which voices the fate of the shallow mill pond, -which has been empty for so many long years that it is no longer -a pond but a tiny meadow in which cattle cool their feet and feed -contentedly. Here the spendthrift brook sings contentedly: - - “The fault’s not mine, you understand; - God shaped my palm, so I can hold - But little water in my hand - And not much gold.” - -[Illustration: “The study window in what was ‘The Bemis Place’ of -the elder days of Ponkapoag.” - -_See page 35_] - -In the meadow and along the brookside blooms to-day the Habenaria -psycodes, the smaller purple-fringed orchid, its dainty petal-mist -rising like flower steam of an August noon, a shy child of woodland -bogs, which often runs away out into the open meadow to hear the -blackbirds sing. This year I have not found the larger fringed -orchid, the Habenaria fimbriata, which comes to the meadow less -often, a flower which one might fancy the mother of the other, -coming to lead the truant home again to the seclusion of the -woodland shadows. In all the fairy nooks of this valley ferns -spring up like vagrant, delicate fancies that are real while you -hold them in close contemplation, yet vanish into the green of the -surroundings, as the form of a poet’s thought fades when you take -your eye from the printed page, though the thought itself lingers -long in your memory. In the shallow meadow that was once the tiny -pond stands, shoulder high to the feeding cattle, a solid, serried -phalanx of the tall sagittaria, its heart-shaped, lanceolate, -pointed leaves aiming this way and that, as if to fend it with keen -tips from the eager browsers. These wade through it indeed, but do -not feed on it, plunging their heads deep amoung the spear points -to gather the tender herbage beneath. While I watched them two -of these, half-grown Holstein heifers, bounded friskily to the hard -turf of the cedar-guarded pasture above and raced in a satyr-like -romp over the close turf and among the cedars for a time. It was -as if they knew that Corydon had just vanished up that roadside in -Arcady in pursuit of the maiden that the Pilgrim described to him, -and the valley was free from all supervision for a time. The white -spikes of bloom on the water-plantain nodded to let them pass, and -nodded again as if they too knew why the satyrs frisked and on what -errand the shepherd had gone. - -Daintiest of embodied thoughts which flit along this sequestered -valley are the butterflies. This is their feasting time of year, -for now the milkweed blooms hang crowded umbels of sticky sweetness -that no honey-loving insect can resist. Commonest of these by the -brookside is Asclepias cornuti with its large pale leaves and its -dull greenish-purplish flowers. It is rather odd that out of the -same brook water and the salts and humus in the black earth through -which it flows one plant should grow these dull, heavy, loutish -flowers, while just beside it, perhaps, the Habenaria psycodes -gets its misty delicacy of purple bloom from the same source. With -plants as with people it is not that on which we feed nor the spot -on which we stand that counts in the final moulding of character. -Some subtle essence, some fire of spirit within the orchid makes -its bloom. Some grosser ideal within the milkweed matures in the -dull, sticky umbels. Thus within the town, attending the same -schools, and fed by the same butcher and baker, one boy grows up a -poet and another a yokel. Even in the same family you may see it, -for the milkweeds are not all alike. Along the dry hillsides the -Asclepias tuberosa gives us bright orange flowers, exudes little -if any stickiness, and even gets a better name from the botanist, -being called the butterfly-weed. - -But however gross and homely the milkweed blooms the butterflies -find rich pasturage there and sip and cling till they fairly -fall off in satiety. Winging to the milkweed out of the chestnut -and maple shade of the deep wood comes Papilio turnus, striped -tigerwise with rich yellow and black. Out of the long saw-edged -grass that grows long in the meadow and bows before the wind -as do fields of grain sails Argynnis cybele, the great spangled -fritillary, the fulvous glory of his broad wings spangled beneath -with silver, as if he carried his coin of a fairy realm with him -wherever he goes. Over the very pine tops soars the monarch, his -rich dark red and black borne on wings that are the strongest in -butterfly flight. These three, most conspicuous sprites in the -meadow tangle, give rich coloring and the poetry of motion as -they bear down upon the milkweed blooms, to leave them no more -save for short flights taken merely to secure a better strategic -position on the umbels, till they are cloyed with the rich nectar, -and smeared with the sticky exudation which the plant puts out on -the blooms for purposes of its own. I fancy the butterflies are -vexed and indignant at this stickiness which smears their legs and -makes yellow pollen masses cling to them when, satiated and lazy, -they next take flight. Yet the whole is cleverly arranged. On -the smeared legs as they sail away cling pollen masses which the -insect is not likely to get rid of till it lights on another head -of bloom, very likely one of some distant plant. There the sticky -masses cling closer to the quaint horns which each bloom protrudes -from behind the anthers, there to drop pollen grains on the stigma -and insure the cross-fertilization of the flower. Thus unwittingly -butterfly and bee as they sail about the sun-steeped meadow suffer -discomfort for their own good, insuring vigorous crops of milkweed -for another summer, for themselves or their descendants. - -With these comes the smaller, Colias philodice, the sulphur, -bringing with him the very gold of the sunlight. Colias philodice -has many changes. Sometimes the black margins of his wings are -missing and his gold melts into the sunshine and vanishes before -your eyes. Another may come that is white instead of gold, a wan -ghost of a colias that seems born of the mist instead of the -sunshine and to vanish into nothing when he flies away, as mist -does. Sometimes the colias flies up into the wood and lights, and -as I come to the spot where I think I saw him stop I find nothing -but a single bloom of the golden gerardia which now slips from -glade to glade all along where the hardwood growth comes down to -meet the meadow grasses. The gerardia might very well explain all -this if it would, but it is born close-mouthed. If you will look at -the yellow buds which later open into the golden bells into which -the bumble-bees love to scramble, bumbling as they go, you will -see how tightly their lips are pressed together. No word can you -get from these by the most insistent questioning, and even when -they open it is easy to see that they have learned that silence is -golden. - -The Baltimore butterfly, wearing Lord Baltimore’s colors of orange -and black, is a common visitant to these meadows, too. He loves to -tipple the lees of the milkweed blooms, but he does not frequent -the meadow for that. It is because along its shoreward edges where -the cool water oozes from black mud grows his home plant, the -turtle-head. On this he was born and to it he goes for the housing -and feeding of his children. Like Gerardia flava, Chelone glabra -is close-mouthed, but its silence is a wan white one which only -blushes pink with embarrassment when questioned, but yields no -reply. You cannot learn any mysteries of the meadow from these. - -Palest and most ghostlike of all flowers that one finds as he -climbs from the meadow to the woods beyond is that of the Monotropa -uniflora, or Indian pipe. Round about it its cousins, the pyrola -and the pipsissewa, grow green leaves and show waxy white or -flesh-pink blossoms. The only color in the Indian pipe is that -of the yellow stamens, which shrink in a close circle within the -wax-white bloom that stands on a scaly, wax-white stem. A very -ghost of a flower is this, nor may we account for its ghostliness. -When, long ago, Miantowonah fled to drown her grief in the lake and -later rise from it the spirit of a flower which is the regal white -pond lily that scatters incense all along the borders of Ponkapoag -Pond, her Indian lover followed, too late to prevent the sacrifice. -Did he drop his peace pipe in the race through the wood, and did -this ghost flower spring from the spot, a faintly fragrant, almost -transparent ghostly reminder of it? If so, it has passed into no -legend. - -Coming back through the meadow, with its butterfly sprites of fancy -dancing among the flowers, I find one which always seems a reminder -of the poet’s work at its daintiest and best. That is the bloom of -the wild caraway. Here is a mist of delicate thought which speaks -to you with lace-like beauty. Nor does the closest inspection -reveal any fault. The bloom appeals as a delightful bit of -sentiment, at first glance. It is only as you examine it minutely -that you marvel at its exquisite workmanship. However carefully you -pick it to pieces you find each part perfect and as admirable in -its ingenuity as in its appeal to the imagination. And after you -have done this you pass on, touched with the white purity of it and -bearing far a gentle, aromatic pungency which is the essence of the -parent stem that bore the bloom. - - - - -IV - -AT THE ISLES OF SHOALS - -_The Island and the Garden which Celia Thaxter Loved_ - - -The poppies that grow in Celia Thaxter’s garden nod bright heads in -welcome to all who come. It is as if the sunny presence of their -mistress dwelt always in the spot, finding voice in these blooms -which are so delicate, yet so regnant in spirit. To these all the -other flowers which speak of the homely virtues, marigolds and red -geraniums, coreopsis and pinks and love-in-a-mist, seem subordinate -at first approach, though they occupy the bulk of the garden, -which seems to epitomize the life of the mistress who tended it -so long. There is no square of it without its rich aroma of love -and womanliness, yet it is the vivid personality of the poppies, -flowers for dreams, which touches first the comer from the outside -world. - -[Illustration: Celia Thaxter’s home at the Isles of Shoals] - -Round about the garden lies Appledore, the largest of the Isles -of Shoals, rocked gently on the bosom of blue seas, its margin -flashing with beryl and pearl where rocks and breakers touch, its -rounded ridges white and green again with the granite of which it -is built and the verdure with which it is clothed. Over it all -bends the blue of the summer sky, and as you look up to this from -the little garden it seems to lean lovingly upon the hill which is -the island’s highest part, heaven so near that the scent of the -flowers may easily pass to it by way of the little winding path. -To climb this path yourself is to find the sky not so near after -all. Standing on the summit, you realize first the depth of its -great dome and the wide sweep of sea that rims the islands round. -Here are but gray ledges that rise out of an immensity which dwarfs -them. Far to the north and west is a thin, blue line of land that -lifts in the farthest distance the peaks of the White Mountains. -All else is but a vast expanse of sea that seems as if it might -rise in a storm and overwhelm these rocks that it has washed so -white and smooth. Somewhere to the eastward of our coast lies, they -tell us, the lost Atlantis, submerged beneath this great sweep of -blue that smiles beryl and laughs pearl-white in wave crests. Who -knows but this granite dome of Appledore on which we seem to loom -so high in air is the westernmost peak of the vanished continent? -We are but seventy-five feet above the sea’s surface. It must be -the thought of its depths that gives us the feeling of being upon -a mountain peak. For all that, this height and distance so make us -dominate the other islands that they seem but ledges, wave-washed -reefs in comparison, and one wonders how such of them as have -buildings on them hold them during the sweep of winter gales and -full-moon tides. - -In the smile of summer it is easy to forget this. It is but a -step from the rough rocks of the island to the dense verdure of -its shrubbery. At first one wonders where the soil came from that -nourishes herb and shrub in such profusion. Here among the gray -granite grow most of the beauties of any shore-sheltered New -England pasture. Here is elder showing white, lace-like blooms, -bayberry and staghorn sumac each striving to overtop the other, -wild cherry and shadbush, and beneath and around these low-bush -black huckleberries, raspberries and blackberries, the last two -blessing the tangle with fruit. Among the grasses grow yarrow, St. -John’s-wort, mullein, toad-flax, cranes-bill, evening primrose -and other herbs, while Virginia creeper and fragrant clematis -make many a spot a bower of climbing vines. Not only do all these -familiar pasture folk grow here, but in many instances they seem -to grow with a luxuriance that exceeds that of their favorite -shore locations. Their tangle makes passage difficult except by -established paths, and the road which circumnavigates the island -is cut almost as much through the compacted shrubbery as through -the rough rocks along the tops of the cliffs. Rainfall collects -in the hollows of the granite in some places and makes miniature -marshes, and in one spot a tiny pond which is big enough to supply -ice to the islanders, filling to the brim with the winter rains and -in some winters freezing pretty nearly solid. In August this pond, -which is high in the middle of the island, is dry, its bottom green -with rushes and its sides rampant with the spears of the blue flag. - -Often in the tiny valleys in the heart of the island, surrounded -by its dense shrubbery, you lose sight of the sea, but you cannot -forget it. However still the day, you can hear the deep breathing -of the tides, sighing as they sleep, and a mystical murmur running -through the swish of the breakers, that is the song of the deep sea -waves, riding steadily in shore, ruffled but in no wise impeded by -the west winds that vainly press them in the contrary direction. -However rich the perfume of the clematis the wind brings with it -the cool, soothing odor that is born of wild gardens deep in the -brine and loosed with nascent oxygen as the curling wave crushes -to a smother of white foam. It may be that the breathing of this -nascent oxygen and the unknown life-giving principles in this deep -sea odor gives the plants of Appledore their vigor and luxuriance -of growth. Certainly it would not seem to be the soil that does -it. Down on the westward shore of the island, in an angle of the -white granite, where there was but a thin crevice for its roots -and no sign of humus, I found a single yarrow growing. Its leaves -were so luxuriant, yet delicate, so fern-like and beautiful, such -feathery fronds of soft, rich green as to make one, though knowing -it but yarrow, yet half believe it a tropic fern by some strange -chance transplanted to the rugged ledges of the lonely island. With -something in the air, and perhaps in the granite, that makes this -common roadside plant develop such luxuriance, it is no wonder that -other common pasture folk, goldenrod and aster, morning glory and -wild parsnip, and a dozen others, growing in abundant soil in the -tiny levels and hollows, are taller and fuller of leaf and petal -than elsewhere. In the richness and beauty of the yarrow leaves -growing in the very hollow of the granite’s hand, as in the height -and splendor of the Shirley poppies in the little garden, one seems -to find a parallel to Celia Thaxter, whose own character, nurtured -on the same sea air, sheltered in the hollow hand of the same -granite, grew equally rich and beautiful. - -[Illustration: “Chasms down which you may walk to the tide between -sheer cliffs.”] - -All Appledore, indeed all the Isles of Shoals are built of this -rock, which is white in the distance, but which near to shows -silver fleckings of mica that flash in the sun. Through the granite -run narrow veins of quartz that is as hard as flint, but that -has scattered among its crystals also a silvering of these mica -flecks which are in strange contrast to the tiny pin points of a -softer, darker rock which one finds evenly sprinkled through the -white. This dark rock softens to wind and weather first and leaves -these white cliffs honeycombed with the tiniest of fissures, so -that they are as rough to the hand as sandpaper. Dykes of trap run -through the island, and as this rock too is softer than its casing -the winds and waves of centuries have worn it away, leaving chasms -down which you may walk to the tide, between the sheer cliffs. One -such chasm runs quite across Appledore from east to west near the -northern end of the island, almost cutting off a round dome of -granite from its fellow rock. The soil lies rich in this narrow -hollow between ledges, and many things grow in it, lush with leaves -and beautiful with bloom. Here the shadbush had already ripened its -fruit. Here the island’s one apple tree grows vigorously, though -it dares not lift its head above the level of the rocks against -which it snuggles, lest the zero gales of winter nip it off. -Crowding round it grow wild cherry and wild rose, elder and sumac -and huckleberry and chokeberry, all eager to fend it from rough -winds in that friendliness which seems, like foliage, to flourish -in the place. Here is a soft turf of grass in which grow violets -and dandelions, both spring and fall, and plantain, cinquefoil and -evening primrose have come to make the place homelike. If rough -winds blow here rougher rocks fend them off, and though they may -whistle over the tops of these in the little valley between there -is quiet, and floods of sunshine gather and well up till the place -is full. - -This tiny valley dips toward the sea at the west and broadens -to a meadow where I fancy the islanders have at some time grown -cranberries, for a few plants remain. For the most part, however, -this meadow is set thick with the green spears of the bog rushes -which grow so close together that there is little room for anything -else. To crush your way in among these is to pass through a very -forest of dark green lances whose tips stretch upward to stab -your chin, yet burst into bloom from the sides near these tips, -as if the full life within them which could not be restrained yet -which finds no outlet in leaves, exploded in a lance pennant of -olive-brown beauty. A Maryland yellow-throat whose nest stands -empty in the grass on the borders of this little, lance-serried -marsh fluttered and chirped and clung among these rushes and from -the top of a near-by bayberry shrub a song sparrow trilled a note -or two, despite the fact that it is moulting time and few birds -have the heart to sing in dishabille. Nightfall brought no sound -of frog voices from this little marsh, yet I cannot fancy it in -spring without a hyla or two to pipe flute notes from its margin. -Near this I found the one ophidian of the island, a beautiful, -slender, graceful green snake, little more than a foot long. This -lovely little creature feeds on crickets and insect larvæ and is -the very gentlest snake that ever crawled. Jarred by my footfall -in the grass he glided away among the tangle, trusting to his -coloration, which is a perfect grass green, to hide him, which it -soon did. If Appledore must have its serpent no sweeter-natured nor -lovelier variety could be found. If modern Eves sit upon the rocks -of moonlight nights and listen to this one’s promptings one can -scarcely blame them. - -Under the eaves and under the verandas of the houses are the -nests of barn swallows, gray mud stippled up against a rafter, -the fast-growing young almost crowding one another out. So gently -familiar are these birds, and so little afraid of people, that one -has built a nest under the frequented piazza of the big hotel, -and the parent birds flit back and forth unconcerned by the rows -of guests that often take chairs and watch the nestlings for long -periods. Not only do the parents feed their young while thus -watched by crowds but a few feet away, but they fly in under the -veranda and capture food right over the heads of the promenaders -with equal freedom from fear. Barn swallows are usually friendly, -confiding birds. They seem here to have caught the sense of -protection and safety which comes to all on the little island, and -become even more fearless. It is much the same way with the tree -swallows, which, having no hollow trees, build in bird boxes all -about. These already have young in flight. Standing on the cliffs -you see their steel blue backs as they swirl with the little waves -in and out among the rockweed at low tide, seeking their food -very close to land or water. Often the young sit on some safe -pinnacle and are fed there, the old bird flashing up, twittering, -delivering a message and a mouthful at the same time, then flashing -away again, whirling and wheeling, never beyond call of the eager -fledgling. Often the fledgling soars into space, hardly to be -distinguished then from the older bird, and twitters back and -forth near the parent. Then when the latter comes with a mouthful -the former simply poises fluttering while the old bird dashes up, -twitters and feeds, and is off again in the flash of an eye, so -fleet of motion, so agile of turn, that it puzzles the watcher to -follow the course of flight. - -At the bottom of the tide the rocks over which the tree swallows -swirl with the waves are a golden olive with the sun-touched tips -of the carrageen. Higher up the boulders lift their heads with the -air-celled rockweed falling all about them like wet hair. Some of -these tresses hang down in golden luxuriance, others are dark, -almost black, as if blondes and brunettes were to be found among -tide rocks as among men. Between these rocks are still pools of -brine where mussels and crabs wait the deliverance of the full sea -and kelp waves its long, dark-olive, ruffle-margined banners. Down -among these with the ear close to the smooth, undulating surface -you may catch the eerie plaint of the whistling buoy off the -channel some miles to landward, telling its loneliness in recurrent -moans. - -Up on the rocks again in the bright sunlight, one finds the land -birds numerous, chief among which are the song sparrows. In the -secluded peace of the place these also, evidently making their -summer home here and nesting in the shrubbery that is all about, -have lost most of their fear of man and will approach very near to -gather crumbs about your feet. A small flock of robins goes by, -stopping a moment to feed, then taking wing again as if practising -for that southward migration which will begin before very long. -Olive-sided flycatchers, already working toward the sun, flit to -catch flies and light alternately almost as if playing leapfrog -from bush to bush. So far as I have observed, the olive-sided -flycatchers do most of their migrating thus, hippety-hop from perch -to perch, with a fly well caught at every hop and well swallowed -at every perch. A kingbird sat haughtily, as if mounted, on a -stub, monarch of all he surveyed, now and then giving his piercing -little cry and sailing out to the destruction of a moth or beetle, -then sailing leisurely back again. A lone gull fished and cried -lonesomely in the surf, and a few pairs of sandpipers slipped with -twinkling feet along the rocks, feeding in the moist path of the -receding wave and lifting on long, slender wings to safety at the -crash of the next one. These were the only day birds to be found of -a pleasant day at Appledore. Monarch butterflies were plentiful, -migrants these over the seven miles or more of sea between the -island and the mainland. A few cabbage butterflies fluttered white -wings over the Cruciferæ which grow in the vegetable gardens of -the place. The cabbage butterflies may well be natives, and so -might that other which danced away so rapidly that I could not be -sure of him, though I am confident that he was either a hunter’s -butterfly or an angle-wing. Yet these, too, may have come from -the mainland on a still day or with the wind right and not too -strong, such extraordinary distances do these seemingly frail and -impotent insects cover sometimes. Honey bees from hives ashore make -a regular business of flying to the islands and back laden with -honey. Students of bees ordinarily give them a range of two and a -half to four miles, yet these Appledore bees must come at least -seven miles and probably ten for their harvesting. - -At nightfall three great blue herons came flapping out from the -mainland to fish among the kelp and rockweed of the outlying reefs. -All along the western horizon the soft blue line of land began to -melt into the steel blue of the sea that the sunset fire seemed -then to temper to a violet hardness. The southwest wind had blown -the sky full of blowsy cumulus clouds that were touched with fire -from the setting sun, yet in the main had the color of the steel -sea, as if they were the flaked dross from its melting. Then the -sun for a moment burned through the thin blue line of land and set -the sea ablaze with a gentle radiance of crimson and gold that -slipped along the level miles and wrapped the blessed isles in its -arms, radiant arms that unclasped themselves in a moment, lifted -above the islands in benediction and then passed. The poppies in -Celia Thaxter’s garden folded their two inner petals like slim -hands, clasped in prayer, lifted trustfully to the sky. - -[Illustration: “Up to the smooth turf on this knoll crowd all the -pasture shrubs that she loved.”] - -A little way from the garden that she loved and tended so long -is Celia Thaxter’s grave, on a knoll to which the sky bends so -gently that it seems as if you might step off into it. Up to the -smooth turf of this knoll crowd all the pasture shrubs that she -loved, sheltering it from the wind on three sides and letting the -sun smile in upon it all day long without hindrance. The sumacs -come nearest as if they were the very guard of honor, but close -behind them press the wild roses, the St. John’s-wort, the evening -primroses and even the shy white clover slipping in between the -others, very close to the ground, and tossing soft perfumes out -over the brown grass. On the grave itself someone in loving -remembrance scatters the petals of red geranium, which seems of -all things the home-loving, home-keeping flower. The poppies are -for poets’ dreams which write themselves in the dancing morning -wind, clasp hands in prayer at sunset, and flutter away. Red -geraniums seem born of the fireside where home has been since fire -first came down out of heaven. Dreams and hearthfire both were dear -to the sweet lady of Appledore, and both flowers commemorate her -there. - - - - -V - -THOREAU’S WALDEN - -_A Survey of the Pond and its Surroundings_ - - -He who would know Thoreau’s Walden will do well to bathe in it. His -first plunge may well be in Thoreau’s story of the pond and his -life on its bank, and when he comes dripping from this and puts on -the garments of everyday life he still must feel a little of the -glow of the fire with which this alchemist of the woods transmuted -all things, showing us how rough granite, hard iron and base lead -are gold. Thoreau lived on the borders of the little clear pond but -two years. He knew it in the flesh for just his short life. But his -spirit had birth in something akin to its pure, profound waters and -dwells above them now for all centuries. - -The next plunge should be in the waters themselves, and only thus -shall you learn to the full what a miracle the pond is. Here is a -crater of glacier-crushed granite, out of which never came smoke -nor lava, only a white fire from unexplored depths, a fire of cool -austerity which burns the dross out of all that may be put into it. -There is no inflowing stream. Its waters well up from a mysterious -source within the very earth. Their outflow is equally invisible. -In their going they leap spirit-like along the golden stairs which -the sun lets down to them and pass up for the building of rainbows, -their white light breaking in its mystical seven colors, a visible -ecstasy to all who watch the heavens. To plunge in these waters at -dawn is to feel this cool fire thrill through the marrow of your -bones, and only by total immersion shall you know to the full its -purity. - -Coming to such a flight with Eos through the dusky solemnity of -the trees of the western bank, I saw the pond silvered beneath -its tense level with the frosty scintillations of the stars that -had shone into it all night. It was as if their radiance had but -penetrated the water-tension film of the surface and collected just -beneath it, making a white mirror which my plunge shattered into a -thousand prisms of scintillant light. The dancing night winds had -shaken all the rich odors from the white clethra blooms that grow -all about the pond’s rim and stored them along its surface, and to -swim out toward the center was to enter a sweetly perfumed bath. -The forest to eastward, full of black density, as it was, could not -bar out the rose of the morning from the sight. Instead it stood in -a silhouetted fretting against it and let its glow shine through a -million tiny windows of the day, blossoming again in the ripples -ahead. Here was a moving picture of the blooming and vanishing of -pink meadow-flowers, flashing a brief life upon the film, vanishing -and growing again. The cinematograph is nothing new. Walden has -operated it for those who will swim toward the dawn in its waters -since the centuries began. In our theaters we are but tawdry -imitators of its film productions. - -Chin deep in its middle you begin to feel that you know the pond. -In a sense you are its eye and look upon the world as it does. Day -breaks for the swimmer as it does for Walden, and the flash of the -sun above the wood to eastward warms you both with the same sudden -sweep of its August fire. In the same sense you are the pond’s ear -and hear as it does. The morning rustle of the trees, shaking the -dusk from their boughs, comes to you as a clear ecstasy, and you -think you can hear the wan tinkling of the invisible feet of fairy -mists as they leap sunward from the surface and vanish in the day. -Over the wood comes the intermittent pulse of Concord waking, and -by fainter reverberations the pond knows that Lincoln and more -distant villages are astir. Then the first train of the day crashes -by the southern margin and stuns the tympanum with a vast avalanche -of uproar. - -To plunge beneath the surface and escape this is to learn the -real color of the pond. From without, on the banks, this varies. -Oftenest it is a dull, clear green like that of alexandrite, a -chrysoberyl gem from the mines of Ceylon and the Ural mountains. -You see this best from the higher points of the hills along the -borders and at certain angles of the sun the green shows red -reflections and tints of blue as does the gem. If, swimming in the -center, you will tip up as a duck does and go head foremost with -open eyes into the depths, you will see none of this color. There -with all the influences of reflection and refraction eliminated -you find yourself moving through an infinitely soft blue that -is semi-opaque merely because a million generations of use has -fitted the human eye for seeing details through air only. Yet the -perception of color remains. Hold your breath desperately and swim -as far down as you may and there is no change. The color has all -the softness and gentle beauty of the turquoise. In certain lights -among the Florida Keys I have seen this sweetest, gentlest of blues -in the Gulf Stream, but in no other water. - -To turn and look at yourself in this water is to have another -surprise. Already it seems as if the mystic fires of its depths -had begun to inform you with a pure whiteness that should be akin -to nobility of soul, and as you step forth on the shore mayhap -this quality, passing subtly to the blood and brain, lingers for a -while, and in the clear fire of renewed vitality you feel that the -morning has indeed brought back to you the heroic age. - -To come to Walden at mid-day, even with Thoreau’s account of it in -the back of your head, is not at first to be impressed with the -clear spirituality of its waters nor their depth. Here, you say, -is the path from Concord, lightly worn by the spring of his tread, -clumsily rutted by the heavy footsteps of many who follow, having -indeed hitched their wagon to a star. Here is the cairn erected -in his memory, to which with doffed hat you may well add a stone -from the pond shore. And here is the pond itself, a gem of silvered -water set among low, wooded hills. Your eye may well catch first -a sight of the driftwood on the shore, of which there is much and -think it makes the place untidy and wish that the Concord selectmen -might have it removed. But the thought which this first mid-day -glimpse stirs soon passes from you and standing on the very brink -you realize the limpidity of the water and the spirit of dignity -and peace which prevails over all. The world grows up around many -shrines of its great ones and so changes the environment that you -go away sorry that you came, wishing that you had let the place -live in your imagination as it was in its heroic age, rather than -as it has since degenerated. - -[Illustration: “Here is the cairn erected to his memory, to which -with doffed hat you may well add a stone.” - -_See page 65_ ] - -Walden is Walden still, very much as Thoreau painted it. No chimney -smoke rises in view from its shore. No picnic pavilion disturbs -its outline or jangle of trolley echoes within its spaces. The -woods grow tall all about it, and if they are more frequented by -men than in his day and less by wild creatures the casual visitor -need hardly know the difference. The pond was low when he wrote -of Walden. So it is now and the same stones with which it was -“walled-in” then pave the wide margins to-day. You may walk all -around it on this crushed granite and note the sparkle of plentiful -mica in the pebbles. Near the beach where he took his morning swim -is the tiny meadow which in the years of high water is a cove to -be fished in. You may throw a stone across this meadow cove and -in any direction save at its narrow entrance from the pond you -will hit tall woods that in dense array lean lovingly over it and -give it cool shadows except when the sun is high. Between the tall -trees and the meadow grasses grows the clethra, its white spikes -of perfume seeming to make a lace collar all about the place. -In the bottom of this meadow grows much thoroughwort, which is a -plain, homely weed to the passing glance, not considered fit for -a garden nor thought to beautify a roadside as do so many fairer -pasture blooms. Yet its gray-white heads add a soft friendliness -to the coarse meadow grasses and give delicacy to the whole place, -seeming to invite invasion and preparing the invader to find the -more fragile flowers of the Gerardia tenuifolia that nestles -beneath it, its pink bells set by some fairy bell-ringer of the -dawn with mute throats open toward the sky. The little enclosure is -as deep as a well, stoned in by forest walls, and is beloved of the -argynnis butterflies whose spangled underwings shine with the same -silver as the mica along the pond shore. Meadowsweet and a half -dozen other August flowers warm their heads in the sun and cool -their feet in the shadows of this same meadow, but the thoroughwort -seems to possess it most and to have a feeling of rightful -ownership as if it were Thoreau’s own plant. All about the pond you -will find it blossoming in the same way, standing bravely out from -the wood with its feet among the close-set stones. Always before -thoroughwort has seemed to me coarse and unattractive. Here it -seems to belong and to give and take a certain beauty of virility -and appropriateness. Perhaps it is because with it came so often -the fond fragrance of the white alders and the soft, rose-pink -beauty of the gerardia bells. In many places the stones of the -beach are set so close together and have so little soil beneath -them that nothing can grow, yet in others the plucky, bright-faced -hedge hyssop has crept into the interstices among them and made a -carpet pattern of soft green that is all flecked with the golden -yellow of their blooms. And all behind these rise the woods, oak -and chestnut, maple and scattered pines, whose plumed tops seem -like the war-bonnets of Indian chiefs, standing guard over the -homely, beautiful, simple, mysterious little pond which seems to -excite love and reverence in the hearts of all who remain long on -its banks. - -The hills climb abruptly from the brink of Walden on all sides. The -woods climb the hills and top their summits with half-century-old -growth that yearly adds to its girth and stature. - -Nor, one fancies, need these trees again fear the sweep of the -woodchopper’s axe. The spirit of reverence for its shores, which -through the one-time hermit of Walden has spread to us all, should -prevent that. For now the pond is much as Thoreau remembered it had -been in his boyhood, walled in by dense forests, a place of echoes. -Your spoken word comes back to you from this shore and from that, -refined and made more sonorous, as if the wood gods would fain -teach you oratory and had taken your phrase into their own mouths -and put it forth again as an example. To your ears it comes again -sweetened with the gentle essences of juniper, birch and sassafras, -rich with the melodies taught to bare boughs by winter winds. In -the haze of the August noon these other shores are distant to the -eye. The sight must swim a long way through the quivering air to -reach one or the other. The hearing, thanks to the kindly offices -of the wood gods, leaps the space at a bound. - -The kingfisher seems as much a familiar of the place as the -echoes. Like them he flies back and forth from shore to shore till -you wonder whether he is trying to keep pace with them or whether -he is the embodiment of one that does not need to be set going by -a word but has volition of its own. The kingfisher’s voice hardly -seems to belong at Walden, it is so harsh and unlovely. Even in -this very school of sweet echoes it has learned neither modulation -nor singing quality. Far different is the gentle peet-weet of the -sandpipers which precede you along shore in scalloped flight. -Something of the bright sweetness of the hedge hyssop strolls along -the moist stones of the margin with them, as if the two became -yearly more and more related. Each fall I think the olive-fuscous -backs of these little birds get just a little more of a golden -tinge from this continual neighboring with the equally gentle, -friendly Gratiola aurea. If in return some fine summer the hedge -hyssop should blossom into twittering song no one need be terribly -surprised. - -[Illustration: “Walden is Walden still, very much as Thoreau -painted it.”] - -In contrast to the fearless rattle of the kingfisher as he echoed -from shore to shore and to the twittering, friendly sandpipers who -ran so fearlessly along the margin, was the single little green -heron that has made the pond his abiding place for a while. There -is but one, nor are there any signs that herons have nested about -the pond this year, so I fancy this bird is a bachelor visitor -seeking to reduce living to its lowest terms and finding on the -Walden shore the simplicity and seclusion that is the spirit of the -place. He is as taciturn and patient as any hermit could be. When -his country seat on one shore is invaded he simply flies silently -to another and there resumes that inward contemplation which is as -characteristic of the bird as the rattling, vibrating flight is of -the kingfisher. The little green heron was a recluse of the pond -shore long before the first pioneer planted his cabin in Concord. -His kin still cling to the place which is as lovely and lonely now -as it was then. - -At nightfall deep peace settles upon the little pond. The shores -that were so distant to the eye in the noonday haze draw in -friendlily toward one another, and the last light slips through the -trees to westward and throws a coverlet of shadow over this sleepy -child of the woods. In the growing dusk there is no mystery about -the place. It is just a wee baby of a pond that is tired and has -been put to bed. But as children often do when we think them asleep -for the night the pond, as darkness gathered, seemed to dimple -with wakeful laughter, to kick off the shadow quilt and dance -with a new radiance of life. Gathering clouds of sultry August -thunderstorms had gloomed the sky with the passing of the sun, -and there was no star to give an answering twinkle, but the whole -surface of the pond laughed up to the clouds in silvery light. It -was as if all the mica-shine of all the granite ground together and -sifted to make its unfathomed bottom had come to the surface, the -infinitesimal flakes joining hands in a fairy dance to the tiny -tune of the little evening winds. The pond was such a gentle little -part of the vocal earth then that it did not seem as if it had ever -been mysterious and informed with all the deep wisdom of the stars. -Its surface was no bigger than the counterpane of a white crib on -which danced the fairy dreams of the child that slumbered happily -below. - -Later someone lighted a fishing fire on the opposite shore, and -with a flash the mystery of the place returned. The cove where -it burned seemed infinitely far withdrawn, and about it stalked -shadowy giants who were the fishermen. Their voices, coming in -brief sentences and at long intervals, were as weird as their -shadows and as unsubstantial, from that immense distance to which -they seemed withdrawn. The whole was a mystery of the elder earth, -as if man had fished here before the flood and came, a shade among -the shadows, to try it again. - -By and by the fishing fire ceased to flare and sank to a red glow -of embers. The dense clouds, tempest-drawn toward distant skies, -dropped southward. The moon rode out of them and all dignity and -crystal beauty returned to the pond, no longer little but wide and -deep and mysterious. Down the moon’s radiance a spirit of fire -strode, walking the water along a path of golden light, right into -Thoreau’s cove as I sat there on his shore. The pond was once again -a well of crystal, now leading from the zenith to the nadir, and -the white radiance of its spirit made mountain peaks of snow-white -grandeur of the receding clouds. In the dark depths below these -peaks flashed still the crimson scimitars of the lightning, but all -about them and the pond shone a radiance of purity and serenity -such as that in which we know Thoreau walked, day by day. - - - - -VI - -ON THE FIRST TRAIL OF THE PILGRIMS - - _Present-Day Aspects of the Route of Myles Standish and his - Scouts along the Tip of Cape Cod_ - - -Cape Cod reaches like a vast fishhook into the sea, the tip of the -hook Race Point, Long Point the barb. It is as if the children of -giants had come down to the coast to play and had modeled a hook in -sand that Providence ordained should remain for all time, a sign -for the nations. For here if anywhere has been notable fishing. On -a November day in 1620 this hook caught and held for Massachusetts -the expedition of the Pilgrims that had planned to sail for the -mouth of Hudson River. Hence the epic which is William Bradford’s -account of the adventures of these argonauts is a New England epic. -Had not the Cape caught and held them, who knows if there had been -any story? - -The present-day pilgrim to Provincetown comes by the Mayflower -route, in part, at least, if he come by sea, following in the -wave-washed track of destiny. Like Gosnold’s ship, like that which -bore Captain John Smith, and like that greatest of all small -vessels which carried Bradford and his friends, his ship glides by -Race Point, coasts the long convexity of sand to and round Long -Point, and heads northwest as if to go out to sea again, but is -fairly caught by the barb of the hook, and landed. Between Boston -Light and the tip of the Cape the voyager gets a taste of that same -sea which Bradford and his friends breasted for two long months. If -the sweet summer winds have been off shore for long enough there is -little trouble, even for the landsman in this sea. It is likely to -be smooth and smiling as an inland lake. If on the other hand the -salt vigor of the east winds has shouldered it for a day or two the -pilgrim of to-day may well hail the sight of the sand hills of the -Cape with a joy as great and a hope of early relief as intense as -did the lone voyagers of 1620. Fish out of water that rolls like -this bite eagerly at the hook of sand and are happy when they are -landed. - -[Illustration: “Pilgrim Lake,” where that first washing was done by -the Pilgrim mothers] - -The summer voyager of to-day finds this land which was so lone, -this sea which was so bleak to the Pilgrims, teeming with -humanity. The harbor waters sparkle within their rim of sand and -toss innumerable boats on their bright waves. Provincetown grows -steadily between the sand hills and the sea and stretches daily -nearer Long Point at one end of the curve and the North Truro -line on the other. The town which began with a single little row -of houses and the long slant of the beach for a street, is now -miles long, has grown somewhat back among its sand hills, and is -steadily topping some of them. The fishing hamlet seaport of a half -century ago is rapidly merging in the summer resort of to-day; -is fast becoming a Pilgrim shrine also, whither come Mayflower -descendants to comfortably worship their ancestors. So far as the -old town goes little of its early quaintness remains, and that -withdraws more closely within itself day by day. The hardy English -fisherman and sailor stock that settled the Cape, such of it as -remains, is smothered under Portuguese and summer boarders; not -bad people these, but vastly different. The wind and the sea make -minor changes in the Cape itself from year to year, especially this -end of it. The waves give and the waves take away sand bars, now -making an inlet where none was, now closing one that has existed -perhaps for centuries. The winds pack the sands hard in drifts of -rounded hills where once was a tiny valley, and again they come and -take these away and establish them elsewhere as suits their vagrant -fancy. Race Point, within the friendly shelter of whose barb the -Mayflower fleet first cast anchor, is Race Point still, but I doubt -if anyone can surely locate that pond on the margin of which the -Pilgrim mothers did that first tremendous two months’ wash. The -caprice of the shifting sands may have whelmed and re-dug it a half -dozen times since then. A century ago that little creek at what is -now North Truro, that blocked the way of doughty Myles Standish and -his men, sending them inland on a detour, was open still to the sea -and a port of safety for the North Truro fishing boats. A half -century later a storm brought sand and so effectually closed this -little harbor entrance that the North Truro fishermen have ever -since launched their boats from the bare beach and the little -inland sea thus enclosed has become a long, narrow, fresh-water -pond, on which the Truro children skate in winter while their -elders cut ice for the shipment of fish and the retention of summer -visitors. - -But after all it is only man’s changes that make the tip of the -Cape and its near-by narrowness different in our day from what -it was when Myles and his men trod it with matchlocks ready and -matches lighted, spying out the land. These as yet have not gone so -deep but you may find portions that seem as wild and untrammeled -now as they were then. Indeed they may well be identical. That a -row of sand dunes has moved before the winds a half mile east or -west matters little to the eye. They are sand dunes still, and the -vegetation which grew up on them in one place or was wiped out, -cut off by gnawing sand particles and blown away by the wind, or -buried beyond all hope of resurrection in the over-riding drifts -is the same to-day as it was three centuries ago. On this primal -wildness of the Cape the march of human progress has in some -measure encroached, but it is a long way from obliterating it yet. -I fancy a man, choosing his route, could start at Race Point and -go down the land by beach and by dune, to a point far beyond the -one reached by the second, farthest, land-exploring expedition of -the Pilgrim scouts from this point, without seeing more evidence -of human settlement than the wheel tracks of a road deep in sand -or a glimpse of the towering turrets of the Pilgrim monument which -dominates the landscape for a long distance. Through this same -length of Cape wind, of course, the hard ribbon of a State-built -automobile road and the railway. But it is easy to lose and forget -these. - -In fact, you need but to climb sand hills and slide down sand -declivities a very short distance north of the center of -Provincetown itself to be as near lost as the Pilgrim scouts were -and to find those dense thickets of thorny growth which they -complained were like to tear their clothes and their very armor -itself off their backs. No doubt the greenbrier was responsible -for much of this wreckage of Pilgrim habiliments. Most varieties of -this wild smilax, of which we have a dozen or so in this country, -are to be found in more southern latitudes. But we grow here in -eastern Massachusetts commonly the Smilax rotundifolia which climbs -to treetops, is as strong almost as cod line, and is well set -with vigorous thorns. In the moist hollows among the sand dunes -this vine finds good sustenance, puts forth most vigorous growth, -and barricades gullies sometimes with an almost impenetrable -entanglement of its thorny ropes. I have rarely seen a tropical -tangle which is more impenetrable than one of these. It climbs and -twines among beach plums and scrubby wild cherry shrubs, weaving -all together in a dense matting. To Pilgrim warriors fresh from -English fields or Dutch meadows this thorny wild tangle must have -been embarrassing indeed. Even without the greenbrier the rich -growth of blueberries, high and low blackberry, wild rose, bayberry -and sweet-fern may well have sorely tangled and tripped their -unaccustomed feet. - -All these are growths of the bottom lands, the hollows among the -sand dunes back of the town. Within some of these are little fresh -ponds in which grow waterlilies and the usual aquatic plants of -such places. Here amid the prevailing wildness are many little -beauty spots which, could the Pilgrims have come to them before the -winter frosts had wrecked the vegetation, might have tempted them -to stay. Passing on down the Cape you soon leave these behind and -get into the higher dunes on the narrowest part where vegetation -has little chance for its life. Here for a mile or two one might -well think himself in Sahara. The sands, blown hither and thither -and piled in fantastic shapes by the winds, are as clean as those -of the beaten sea beach, as free from all suspicion of humus. - -Yet if you will cross Sahara in most any direction to the -camel’s-hump hills which are scattered over its border as if -a caravan had become petrified there, you will find the humps -sprouting vegetation, a vegetation that is sparse, perhaps, but to -your astonishment is glossy and luxuriant of leaf. More than one -of these mounds represents a drawn battle between whelming sands, -wind-driven, and a vigorous wild cherry tree. How such a tree finds -its start in these shifting, scouring sands is a puzzle. Yet once -started it is easy to follow with more or less accuracy the course -of the war which lasts years. The winds take the young shoot for -a nucleus and pile their sands all up about it, yet may not quite -cover the very tip, for there the varying draft whirls the topmost -sands away again. The sand really helps. It mulches the young plant -and protects it from the winter cold and the gales, from the summer -heat and the drought. Each year the thus protected plant grows -joyously more straight shoots, to be whelmed again almost to the -tips by the sand, and so the merry war goes on till finally we have -a dune twenty-five or thirty feet high, with the trunk and larger -branches of a wild cherry tree for a core, its smooth, hard-packed -surface wreathed with green leaves and often bearing rich, dark -fruit for the delectation of all who pass. - -These brief, hilltop oases do not relieve the desert-like wildness -of this narrowest part of the Cape, however; they merely serve to -accentuate it. From them you see the vasty blue velvet of the ocean -outside the Cape and think it but a brief plunge to it through the -glittering sands. Yet as you go toward it you find that one sand -ridge hides another and that the valleys between hide brackish -meadows in which grow strange plants, fleshy of stem and stubby and -thick of leaf, as if they were degenerate offspring of land plants -that had most unhappily intermarried with sea weed. On the margins -of these witch pools it is a pleasure to find growing good old -sturdy homely dusty-miller. Whatever broomstick-riding hags infest -these weird hollows of windy midnights, here stands that plain -common-sense Puritan to shame their reveries. Cineraria maritima -may not have come in the Mayflower, but some ship from England -brought him and he is a Puritan without doubt. If the witches do -gather in these wild hollows of Cape Cod’s desert I warrant you he -gets after them with a tithing rod and drives them back abashed to -their own chimney corners. - -Passing the desert you find the Cape widening again and growing -green with vegetation. Yet something of the witch impress is on -it still. In the distance you see forests of pitch pine which as -you approach show branching trees of seemingly luxuriant growth. -As you stride up to these trees you find them shrinking in stature -while yet keeping their proportions and luxuriance, and finally you -march, a modern Gulliver, through this Liliputian forest that may -not reach higher than your shoulder. Here was a Pilgrim’s progress -for Myles and his men that may well have added an eerie touch to -their expectation of wild men of the woods. Such a forest--and I -have no reason to believe the North Truro forests have changed much -in just three hundred years--might well produce trolls or giants, -as well as Indians. I can fancy the mail-clad explorers glancing at -the glades of these enchanted woods with a bit of superstition in -their apprehensions, saying prayers out of one side of their mouths -and charms against evil spirits out of the other. Nor can one blame -them, thinking what these hills are in dreary November weather, -with snow squalls hiding the sun and the wind complaining among -these loneliest of forest trees. - -[Illustration: “That little creek that blocked the way of doughty -Myles Standish and his men, sending them inland on a detour.” - -_See page 85_ ] - -In late summer it is different. Out of the gray reindeer moss and -poverty weed which are more prevalent than grass on the sands -beneath these trees spire slender scapes of Spiranthes gracilis, -the tiny orchid that someone named ladies’ tresses, not because -the flower looks like them but reminds of them, being wayward -and fragrant and lovingly blown by all winds. Here is goldenrod, -and wee asters are just opening their baby-blue eyes to the -approaching autumn. Wood warblers trill in the absurd forest, and -the rich aroma of its leaves subtends the lighter fragrance of the -blossoming wild flowers. In feathery glades among these Truro trees -one might forget that winter is to come and bring bleakness and -desolation unspeakable to the land with him. But if winter does -not always warn, the sea does. Not so deep in any witch hollow -can you hide, not so far may you wander in enchanted forests, as -to escape its call. The trees murmur continually the song of the -surf, and the crash of its breakers echoes continually in the air -overhead. The wind song in the trees is not menacing, it is -simply a minor melody, full of melancholy, as if it knew sad things -and could but let them tinge its music. But even on quiet days when -the south wind drifts gently in over the bay there sounds from the -air above these mellow glades the growl of white-faced breakers -that are never still on the northern shore. Out of the northeast -they roll over gray-green leagues of cold sea, and as they bite -deep into the sand of the shore behind Peaked Hill Bar, and drag -it and all that is on it down into their maw and hurl it all back -again, beating it on the beach and snatching it and beating it -again, it roars inarticulate threats that make the onlooker draw -back glad of a space of summer-dried sand between him and its -depths. If this threatening undertone lingers in the ear even on a -summer day with the wind warm and fragrant from the south, how must -it have sounded to the Pilgrim explorers in a November northeaster? - -And yet, for all the November bleakness to come, for all the -ever-warning growl of the sea, I wonder, had the Pilgrims arrived -at Provincetown in late August, if they would not have stayed. -Nowhere in New England would they have found the late summer -huckleberries sweeter or more plentiful, nowhere the beach plums -rounder or more prolific. Here was to be gathered in handfuls -bayberry wax for their candles, and its aromatic incense floats -over the Provincetown hills to-day as rich and enticing as then. -There is little hope of fertility in the sand banks, to be sure, -yet in the cosy hollows between these the homesteaders of to-day -plant corn and beans, pumpkins and peas, and their gardens seem as -luxuriant and productive as any that one might find in Plymouth -County. The native trees of the place seem dwarfed, as I have said. -But in the town itself are willows and silver-leafed poplars, -planted by later pilgrims, which have reached great size, a willow -in particular in the older part of the town being at least five -feet--I would readily believe it is six--in diameter. There must be -fertility somewhere to grow an immigrant to such girth. - -Here too, rioting through the old-time flower gardens and out -of them, dancing and gossiping by the roadside and in the -field, sending rich perfume across lots as a dare to us all, is -Bouncing-Bet. I cannot think of this amorous, buxom beauty as -having been allowed to come with a shipload of serious, praying -Pilgrims or any later expedition of stern-visaged Puritans. I -believe she was a stow-away and when she did reach New England -danced blithely across the gang plank and took up her abode -wherever she saw fit. Thus she does to-day. All over the Cape she -strays, a common roadside weed and a beauty of the gardens at once. -Out of this point where the Pilgrim epic first touches our shores -she comes, with the memory of the visitor, a welcome garnish to the -long sandy trail once trod by Myles Standish and his armor-clad -scouts. - - - - -VII - -IN OLD CONCORD - -_The Unspoiled Haunts of Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau_ - - -One may seek in vain in Concord the reason for Concord. “It is an -odd jealousy,” says Emerson, “but the poet finds himself not near -enough to his object. The pine tree, the river, the bank of flowers -before him, does not seem to be nature. Nature is still elsewhere. -This or this is but outskirt and far-off reflection and echo of the -triumph that has passed by, and is now in its glancing splendor and -heyday, perchance in the neighboring fields, or if you stand in the -field, then in the adjacent wood.” - -With this same odd jealousy one may tramp the fields and woods, -the pleasant highways and the village green to-day and not quite -find Concord, for the Concord that one’s mind presaged has passed -on. This is but far-off reflection and echo of the triumph. Fuit -Ilium. Yet here is all that first gave the name to the town, and -more. Here are peaceful rivers meeting in rich meadows from which -spring with the rising ground fruitful fields. Here men dwell in -amity and keep singularly intact the beauty and thrift of a New -England village of a century ago, though even here one can see -wealth taking the place of prosperity and the pretentious ugliness -of the modern attempt at Queen Anne architecture shouldering the -quiet dignity of the old Colonial residences off the street. Here -and there a little of the husk of the Concord of the Revolution -remains, though somewhat sadly hemmed in. A simulacrum of the -Concord Bridge still spans the flood, done in resonant cement, but -here the poet finds himself not near enough to his object. Nor is -his jealousy an odd one, for the rude bridge that arched the flood -led somewhere. This echo of the triumph that has passed by drops -him who would tread in the footsteps of heroes within the narrow -bounds of an iron picket fence beyond which keep-off-the-grass -signs doubly defend the way. In the presence of these the Minute -Man seems superfluous. The British never would have got by this. -Fortunately it is easy to believe that the Minute Man has never -seen the barricade or the signs. In him at least Concord, the -Concord of the Revolution, holding in its calm heart sons born -of the soil and sturdy with its grit, is personified for all men -for all time. To turn one’s back upon the fence as he does and -look across the grassy Musketaquid vigilantly at those swaying -lines of British bayonets is to dwell for a little in the Concord -which, with a streak of yellow flame and a whizzing bullet, first -leapt skyrocket-like into the world’s eye. Many things have made -the beautiful village a Mecca whither journey pilgrims from all -over the world. All come eager to look upon the spot where the -farmers marched deliberately upon the king’s troops and dared -fling back into their faces the red gauntlet of murder. It is not -to be believed that curiosity merely is the spirit which informs -these pilgrims. One can but feel that they come to the bridge in -reverence for the principles involved in the fray, and in looking -upon the very spot hope to learn what went into the making of -the men who so boldly hazarded life and worldly comfort and -prosperity in the defense of these principles. - -[Illustration: “Here in a volley was the summing up of the nature -of the heroes that had grown up, quite literally, in the Concord -soil.” - -_See page 93_ ] - -For, after all, it was the men behind the principles that counted. -Here in a volley was the summing up of the nature of the heroes -that had grown up, quite literally, in the Concord soil. Did they -come of the fertility within it? One must say yes, in part. Down -stream a little, not far below the bridge, I found an old-time -path of their day, now long since disused, along which in the rich -bottom land the meadow thistles grew ten feet tall. Such virility -the Concord soil no doubt gave to the heroes who ceased delving in -it only to grasp their muskets for the fray. The Minute Man holds -to his plow still, the sculptor justly thus carving him. Out of the -good brown earth one can easily know that courage and self-reliance -thrilled through share and beam and handle into the bone of the -man himself. Till the earth is fluid such men do not run. Like it -they stand firm. Yet here is but the bony structure of the man in -the Concord fight. Something more must go in to the making of a -hero. It has been justly said that at the narrow bridge stood men -born in direct descent from heroes of a stubborn stand, a stricken -field, of seven hundred years before, and I dare say it is true. -Planted among the Concord meadows and fertile uplands, grown lusty -upon the richness of her soil, were men of Kent, that sturdiest -county in all England; men whose very forbears had stood with -Harold behind the wattled fence at Hastings, and died there with -Norman arrows in their necks. More than all else in the building of -men blood counts. - -Yet, tramping the highways and fields of the old town, dreaming -within her woodlands and by her ponds and streams, it pleases me -to think there is more to it even than this. In Plymouth woods -grows the mayflower, as we love to call it, the trailing arbutus, -filling the spaces with rich scent in late April and early May, and -though it is eagerly sought by thousands and is sold in bunches on -all city streets in spring, yet it is not rooted out but retains -its hold on the soil there. In certain other eastern Massachusetts -towns the trailing arbutus never grew, and though I know of many -attempts to transplant it to these none have succeeded beyond a -slight growth that is hardly lusty or likely long to survive. Yet -among the Maine and New Hampshire hills again the mayflower grows -luxuriantly. So it is with the hepatica and the maidenhair fern. -Some cool northern hillsides are beautiful with these, others with -equal shade, cool springs, moss and gravel have never known these -plants. No. More is necessary than that the blood of men should -fall and take root in fertile soil. There must be fluid, where seed -and fertility meet, some of that ichor which flows in the veins of -the immortals, and it must enter into the growth. Only thus does -Hodge become hero. Without it he holds both hands on the plow and -lets the British pass the bridge and go on. How many nations have -thus been stillborn and buried in the furrow no history can tell us. - -Little by little nature gives us the secrets of these things, as -when after a time she taught the Australian planters why clover -would not produce seed there. It grew well in fertile soil when -seed was brought from England; it blossomed and made good fodder -for cattle, but never a seed. Then they imported bumble-bees from -the English meadows with probosces long enough to reach the nectar -in the bottom of the clover blooms and thus be pollen carriers -from plant to plant. Here was the solution of the problem, the -ichor of immortality that the clover needed. So with alfalfa and -most leguminous plants. Scientific investigation has shown that if -seeds of these are to grow well and thrive in new regions distant -from that of their cultivation more is needed than the right soil -and climate. Certain mysterious bacteria are present on the roots -of all plants of this genus, and in some obscure way take from the -soil and give to the plants the elements of vigor and success. Now -the scientific horticulturist steeps his seeds of alfalfa or other -leguminous plants in a culture of these bacteria, and knows that -if his planting is in fertile ground and the sun and rain do their -work well his harvest will be bountiful. Here again is the ichor of -the gods, Vishnu become fluid and incarnating himself in obscure -bacteria for the building of the plant world. - -So, I can but fancy, has it been with Concord and her men. The -seed of the Kentish heroes of Harold’s time has grown since in many -soils. In Concord when time was ripe it found fluid there some of -the ichor of the immortals coursing through farming tools to the -making of fire for heroic deeds. The Concord fight did not happen; -it had to be. It was not that every Concord farmer’s barn was full -of munitions of war. Every Concord farmer’s blood was full of -powder. The shot had to be fired there. - -For nearly three-quarters of a century this mysterious essence of -greatness that one feels must always be present in places where -great deeds have taken place seems to have flashed no spark to -the outer world. Grass waved on Concord farms and fell before the -scythe, and new generations of farmers grew up to take the places -of those which passed unmarked outside their community. For that -space of time Concord was, very much as Troy was, the scene of -a memorable fight. Then came Emerson to bring back to the place -something of the nobility of spirit and independence of thought -and action that must have come to it with his ancestor the Rev. -Peter Bulkeley. Here was the scholar and the preacher instead -of the farmer, but born of the same old sturdy stock and come -back to set roots in Concord soil. Here he walked daily in the -fields and woods with his veins open to that same ichor of the -gods which had not made patriots and heroes indeed, but had given -them tongues, which seems to have given power of expression to him -who was already poet and seer. Here with him, grown up out of the -same town, was Thoreau. Hither came Alcott to paint the bubbles -of his inchoate dreams in rainbow conversation. Hither too came -Hawthorne, to tramp the woods as did the others and feel as did -they the divine afflatus drumming in their veins and the impulse to -sturdy independence coming up to them out of the Concord soil as it -thrilled up to the Minute Man through his plow handle. It was not -so much that these men had within them the poetic fire, but that it -burned there on the hearth of freedom, independence, and intense -individuality. - -[Illustration: “Hither too came Hawthorne, to tramp the woods as -did the others and feel as did they the divine afflatus.”] - -With them Concord came again into the eye of the world, and because -they preached as well as wrought, the world’s eye is still upon it. -And, as after the Minute Man and his times passed the little -village slumbered, seeming to wait placidly for the next troubling -of the waters, so now Sleepy Hollow, where these four dreamers -lie, seems to be the real center of the town. The mystic dreams -of Hawthorne, the golden serenity of Emerson, the primal wisdom -of Thoreau, and the roseate fog of Alcott’s transcendentalism all -flow serenely forth over its rim and flood the green hills and -shadowy valleys of the region with peace and sweet content. Here, -almost side by side, rest the four, and such blood of the gods -as flowed in them is piped to all the world by way of what each -wrote. No wonder Concord is a place of pilgrimage and people come -by thousands to these graves as devout Mohammedans go to that of -the prophet. Red oaks set their roots deep in the knoll where these -lie, and white pines tower above them as if forming the first and -most fitting round in their ladder to the stars. Out of the tops -of these pines the harper wind should pluck harmonies beyond those -common to groves. - -Hither come the pilgrims that have hastily viewed the Minute Man -and the bridge, puffing in rows up the hillside and standing, -breathless but voluble, before the stone they have sought. -Reverence in their hearts they have without doubt, yet little of -it gets to the surface as they, panting, recite one to another -the legend of the stone and pass on. It is a wonderful piece of -white quartz that marks Emerson’s grave. There is dignity in its -roughness, and something of the pure opacity of Emerson’s thought -seems to dwell in its white crystals, fittingly touched here and -there with a color which might be the matrix of all gems. One -thinks from what he sees of those who pass that Emerson is best -known, Hawthorne most loved, while Thoreau and the Alcotts have -each their own special worshipers. Now and then one sees much -reverence based upon a rather slender knowledge, as when a young -man balancing a year-old baby on his arm said to his wife, “This, -my dear, is the grave of Thorough, David Thorough, the man who -wrote ‘Zounds.’” One can fancy David, who was Henry to most of us, -being willing to be called thorough, yet hesitating to acknowledge -“Zounds,” except perhaps as an exclamation of astonishment. As an -offset for this I might cite the small boy who, having been shown -the stone which marks the grave of Louisa Alcott, gave it shyly a -little loving hug and a pat before he went away. In the highest -group of Concord immortals it is not customary to include the -talented daughter of the transcendentalist, yet of the worshipers -who pass not a few lay their fondest offering on the turf that -covers her. - -For a few hours out of the twenty-four, visitors to Sleepy Hollow -come and go. Except for that the hollow indeed sleeps, steeped in -the gentle peace of all nature which seems to well up out of it and -encompass all the region round about in its golden haze. Surely -the lotos grows where the Assabet and the Sudbury join to make the -Concord, that sleeps on so gently that one may hardly know that -it is on its way. The lotos grows there and the land has eaten of -it, for the bustle of the world passes over it but does not change -nor wake it. The very farms of Revolutionary time linger on, and -if they are tilled now as they were then I do not know, but the -cattle graze on the hills in herds as great now as then, and as -broad cornfields toss their golden plumes toward the sky. The -houses where dwelt Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, still stand, -and into the fields round about them few others have crowded. The -fertile soil still yields crops to the husbandman, in whose breast -slumbers mayhap the same sturdy courage which made the Minute Men -and would make others should the need arise. Manufacturing, summer -hotel keeping, these things do not seem to have touched the town -much. I fancy it as lying fallow, waiting the flow of that ichor of -the immortals that shall some day again waken it to great things. - - “The Sphinx is drowsy, - Her wings are furled; - Her ear is heavy, - She broods on the world, - Who’ll tell me my secret, - The ages have kept? - I awaited the seer - While they slumbered and slept. - - “The fate of the man-child, - The meaning of man; - Known fruit of the unknown; - Dædalian plan; - Out of sleeping a waking; - Out of waking a sleep; - Life death overtaking; - Deep underneath deep.” - -Thus we find Concord to-day an historical and literary Mecca, a -fine example of what has always been best in a New England town, -holding firmly to the old, choosing, one believes, the best in the -new, brooding the past in dreamy persistency, biding its time for -the good that the future is to bring. Some day out of its lush -meadows and the rich mold of its hillsides will flow again into -the veins of men that subtle fluid of flame that makes heroes and -poets. It is for this the fine old town lies fallow, and in this -shall be the justification for its patience. - - - - -VIII - -“THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET” - -_Its Home in an Unspoiled Corner of Pilgrim Land_ - - -It is not often that the scenes of a man’s childhood remain -measurably intact when that childhood occurred something over a -century ago. Yet that is the case with Samuel Woodworth, whose -detached name I fancy not one man in a thousand would recall, -even among well-read people. Yet you have but to mention “The Old -Oaken Bucket” and you get an answering smile of recognition from -the veriest ignoramus. Even if he cannot recall the words he can -whistle the tune. - -People given to moralizing are apt to take instances like this for -a topic and wind up with the familiar aphorism, “Such is fame!” -And such it seems to be, rightfully enough I dare say. Here was a -man of journalistic training and literary instincts who must have -figured fairly large in the New York journalistic world of his day. -He wrote novels, plays, operas and a vast amount of miscellaneous -matter. He founded one journal after another, among these the New -York Mirror, yet the world recalls him only by way of the little -song, sweated out of him by the heat of an August day in New York. -Those things that the poets “dash off” at one sitting are usually, -rightfully, the cause of editorial derision. Now and then, it -seems, something is wrung out of a man’s heart at a single twist -that taps the deep springs of immortality. - -Governor Bradford, writing of Plymouth Colony, early regretted -that his Pilgrims were little content to stay within easy reach of -Plymouth Rock but remained Pilgrims still, migrating through the -woods and along shore to seek new and better farms. This was but -the further expression of that wanderlust which had brought so many -of the followers of the Pilgrims over seas. The spirit of adventure -manned many a ship that followed the Mayflower to Massachusetts -Bay, and the descendants of these adventurous migrants have since -explored and settled the country to the very tip of Alaska. - -One of the first of these early impulses to move on took Pilgrims -to Scituate, and here in 1636 an ancestor of Woodworth dug and -stoned a well, thirty-six feet deep, in that little corner of the -present town now known as Greenbush. The Pilgrim settlers and -farmers marked their trails behind them with stones that stand -as their most lasting physical memorial to this day. One can but -fancy that the glaciers which built the land the Pilgrims were to -occupy, grinding, mixing, sifting soil from a thousand miles of -back country and dropping it in southeastern Massachusetts, moved -on ball-bearings, so numerous are the rounded boulders they dropped -behind them in this fertile mixture. The stronger and richer the -soil the more of these boulders are to be found in it, and the -Pilgrim farmers had a double task in the clearing of their farms. -They must not only fell the trees and remove the stumps, but they -must go deeper and get out the rocks before their plows could -furrow it. How well they set their stubborn wills to the grubbing -of these rocks we know as we look upon their fields, to this day -bound in neat parallelograms of gray granite, each round stone set -upon two others, as the Pilgrims taught their sons to place them, -little disturbed by stormy centuries that have merely served to -garland them with ivy, clematis and woodbine. - -Wild things of the woods have come to know and love these old stone -walls. Chipmunks, woodchucks, foxes even, find refuge and make -their homes in the artificial galleries thus enduringly placed, -and the wild flowers of the field snuggle up to them to escape the -farmer’s scythe, paying for their shelter in beauty and fragrance. -Close to the walls, however well shorn the field, the winds of this -first day of October toss yellow curls of goldenrod blooms, while -the asters, children of the year’s late prime, open wide, roguish -blue eyes among them. Particularly do these wayside children love -to ramble along one of the old stone-walled lanes leading from the -pasture to the cow barn, as if they came up with the cows night -after night, and lingered outside only because the barn is closed -on them before they managed to loiter in. - - “The cot of my father, the dairy house nigh it, - And e’en the rude bucket that hung in the well” - -are gone, but the old barn still stands in its wonted place and -to it come the cattle by the same old lane, the cattle lane that -has been such since that pioneer set the gray stones as a fence on -either side of it nearly three hundred years ago. Up and down this -lane the farm boys of one generation after another have whistled -and dreamed dreams while the cattle went quickly forth to pasture -in the morning or loitered back at milking time, nor hardly has one -stone slipped from another in the passing of the centuries. Yet -they have been there a long time, those stones, the gray lichens -have grown black on their sides and they long ago seem to have -settled together with an air of finality. A newly built stone -wall does not look like this. It is an excrescence, an artificial -boundary. These stone walls are nothing like that. They look as if -the glacier had intended that they should rest there, a part of -the rock-ribbed arrangement of the earth as it left it. So with -all these gray stone walls that bound the farm and the road. They -long ago lost the air of having been put in place by man and have -lapsed into the primeval arrangement of valleys and moraines, -a logical result of first causes. There is a restful, old-home -feeling about the old barn and this old lane, and it is no wonder -the wild flowers that have strolled into it love to remain. - -All September it has been golden with the velvety yellow blooms of -the fall dandelion, a milky way of yellow stars that twinkled as -the wee winds slip through the pasture bars and wander down the -lane. Now, with October at hand, they pale a little at the thought -of coming winter, as the stars do at the approach of dawn, and -here and there is one that is shivering into white pappus, ready -to vanish, ghost like, down the wind. But these are but few; most -of them hold their gold bravely toward the sun still and valiantly -deny that there is anything to be afraid of. The grass is as green -and velvety there as in spring, but the other denizens of this lane -know that winter is coming and show it. The cinnamon and royal -ferns that have come up from the meadow in times past and now -snuggle their roots down between the very stones of the foundation -of the wall, know it, for they have paled to a wan, tan brown, as -delicately beautiful as you shall find on any autumn-tinted tree -of the forest. The woodbine is a deep, rich red, and the poison -ivy that helps it garland the old walls has ripened its leaves to -the loveliest apple reds and yellows that can be found. There are -sweeter-natured things than this poison ivy which beautifies old -walls and fences at this time of year, but nothing that gives us -quite such softly delectable tints of ripeness. It seems as if -these ought to tempt us from the cheek of some rarely palatable -fruit rather than the poisonous leaf of this vixenish vine. - -“The wide-spreading pond and the mill that stood by it” have long -since done their work and the mill of Woodworth’s day has passed. -Yet the pond remains in all respects as he knew it, the deep -tangled wildwood lining its one shore, the road and a fringe of -houses skirting the other, and below it another mill, long since -fallen into disuse and decay, for the one that Woodworth recalled -was a product of the century before the last one. Over the stones -of the old dam the water trickles down and meets the salt tides -of the sea, and here at a step the boy of more than a century -ago passed from one country of romance to another. Up stream lie -to-day as they did then the rolling billows of land, fertile -fields, wooded hills and the tangle of swamp and thicket that is, -I believe, more luxuriant in those parts of Plymouth County where -the forest comes down to the sea than in any other place. I have -never found, in tropical jungle or the warmer countries of the -temperate zone, such matted areas of richly growing shrub and vine -as you meet in these Plymouth County bottom lands where the fresh -water comes down to meet the salt. Fox grapes luxuriate there and -woodbine and convolvulus climb and twine, but the toughest of the -tangle is due to the greenbrier, to penetrate which one needs to -use a machete as much as ever Cuban did in Camaguay. The greenbrier -is tough and its thorns repellent, yet its glossy smilax leaves -are beautifully decorative and its close-set bunches of deep blue -fruit, now ripe, please the eye if not the palate. Thickets like -these border the pasture paths in this rich bottom land walling -in the wanderer with high tapestried walls of vivid green, richly -patterned with varied leaves and flowers the long summer through. -Somewhere there may be a more beautiful country than such pasture -land. Wandering far I have failed to find it. - -When the east wind blows in on this lovely country of pasture, -field and woodland it brings the roar of the sea and the smell of -it. The breakers that smash against the boulder-strewn base of -Third Cliff send the call of the wide spaces of the earth into the -secluded glades, and match the lure of their odors against the -fragrance of the woods. And here between the two lies the level -stretch of the salt marsh, the no-man’s land, the Tom Tiddler’s -ground, which the sea may seize but never quite possess, which the -country may invade but never overrun. The marsh is a little border -world of itself, with its own plants, its own birds, even its -own air. It infuses into the cool rich breath of the sea a tonic -fragrance of its own, and there is a rich harmony in the coloring -of its wide levels that more than matches any beauty that the land -or the sea has to give. Colors drawn from the weeds of the deep sea -caves and the clear depths of cool brine, olives and browns and -greens, keen grays and soft blues, are in the marsh, shaded and -toned to an individuality of their own, as tonic to the eye as its -ozonic odors are to the sense of smell. - -Through these comes the full tide twice a day, bringing the salt, -cool tang of its kisses to the feet of the old dam, there to meet -those of the stream brought far from cool springs in the hills and -daily perfumed with the petals of some newly ripened wild flower, -caltha in the spring, wild rose in the summer, clematis now, with -aster and witch hazel still to come. No wonder “the wide-spreading -pond and the mill that stood by it; the bridge and the rock -where the cataract fell,” were strongly fixed on the memory of -one who had in boyhood been familiar with these scenes. The farm -of his ancestors may not have held these by deed, nor the level -wonder of the marsh, and the blue reaches of the sea beyond, but -it held them, nevertheless, and the man that owned the one had -an inalienable right to the other. Nor need the passer in this -unspoiled, half-forgotten corner of Pilgrim land be without them, -though he merely rent a room by the day or come with staff and -scrip for but an afternoon. - -[Illustration: “The water from the old well cooled the throat -of his memory and sparkled to the eye of it as he recalled the -dripping bucket.”] - -It was about these, too, that “The Old Oaken Bucket” was written, -though the words of the poem do not say so, nor, I fancy, did the -author realize it. The water from the old well cooled the throat -of his memory with these and sparkled with them to the eye of it -as he recalled the dripping bucket. Without the background there -were no picture, however we forget it in the vivid figures in the -foreground. The background of Woodworth’s picture remains much as -he left it when, a boy in his teens, he started for Boston to make -the fortune he was later to find in New York. Of the figures he -painted in the immediate foreground, some remain vivid still, after -the lapse of a century. It is not so with the orchard. The great -trees that still bear good fruit that they toss over into the lane -up by the old barn are vigorous in an old age that might well seem -to go back and include the beginning of the nineteenth century, but -it does not. The trees were planted since the poet’s day. One tree -only of the orchard he knew remains. That stands just within the -wall at the road, a stone’s toss from the well, bearing on its -topmost growth old-fashioned russets. But this tree was top-grafted -some time in the early years of the last century. Before that it -was of a now forgotten variety known to our great-grandfathers as -“high top.” Of late sprouts from below the graft on this old tree -have come to maturity, and the visitor to the place may taste the -same apples, with their sweet and pleasant flavor, that pleased the -palate of the poet a century and more ago. - -The old oaken bucket itself has passed and been replaced many a -time since Woodworth’s day; the wooden well-curb and the sweep, -swinging in the upright crotch, have come and gone and come again. -Curb and bucket and sweep are there to-day, similar in form and -appearance no doubt and equally useful for the drawing of water, -as near like those of which the poet wrote as is the water of -to-day like that of his time. Even at the well itself the lapse of -a century has left but one thing permanent. That is the cylinder -of stone that walls it in. Here again, as in the walls surrounding -the ancient fields, the stones that were the ball-bearings of -the glacier serve as the enduring monument of the pioneer. And in -these we have the most lasting one that he could raise to himself. -In the passing of enough centuries the slow heaving of frost and -subsidence of thaw may throw out of alignment the carefully laid -old stone walls. Nature herself in her own good time will throw -down and scatter these tables of stone in which the early settlers -wrote their laws of the fields. New owners will change those laws -and use the stones for the foundations of other enterprises and -thus in time will pass these monuments to the memories of the -earliest occupants. It is not so with the old wells. They may -fall into disuse, be covered over and filled in and forgotten. -But the carefully laid cylinders of stone that enclosed them will -remain out of reach of frost, untouched by man through indefinite -centuries. Thirty, fifty, in some instances sixty and more feet -beneath the surface they lie, and the man of a thousand years hence -will find these memorials of early occupancy intact if he will -but dig in the right place for them. The old well is the first -settler’s most enduring monument. I fancy the poem will outlast -that, not for its singing quality which early caused it to be set -to music that has lived along with the words, though that might -well justify a green old age; not for its beauty of diction or its -purity of thought, but because it voices a sentiment that the whole -of humanity understands and approves. None so proud and none so -mean but he knows the taste of that draught of cool water and the -gratitude it inspires. To lean over the curb of the pioneer’s well -is to see your own face reflected as if with that of all mankind -in a little circle that is the counterpart of the sky overhead. -And out of the blue depths shines the gratitude of all mankind for -thirst well quenched. Adam, or whatever the first man was called, -thus gave thanks on his knees for a first draught from some clear -spring and saw the sky reflected as he did so. Even the thoughts -which “Home, Sweet Home” inspires do not go quite so far back to -the beginnings of the race, nor is that song any more likely to -live to remote times than is “The Old Oaken Bucket.” - - - - -IX - -IN OLD NEWBURYPORT - -_The Dignity, Quiet, and Beauty of the One-Time Busy Seaport_ - - -Salt marshes surround Newburyport with their level beauty and -through them you must come to it. Through them, too, the sea comes -to it, stretching long arms lovingly as if to clasp it and bear -it away. Thus fondly but placidly the tides twice a day give the -gentle old city a hug and then go about their business. It is no -wonder that this corner of old Newbury knew it belonged to the -ocean rather than to the land and was set off as a seaport long -ago. In the heyday of their affection the town sent forth its -splendid ships in great numbers to all seas, and the seas in return -sent tribute of all distant climes to Newburyport. For more than -a century shipmasters and sailors born on the long ridge south of -the Merrimac knew Guadeloupe and Surinam, Port au Prince and St. -Martins as well as they knew the streets of their own towns, for -the trade with the West Indies was very large. Ships launched at -Newburyport and manned by her men brought back wine from Madeira, -carpeting, silks and glassware from Bilbao, salt from Cadiz and -from Turk’s Island, linen from Ireland, earthenware from Dunkirk. -They brought back, too, knowledge of the wide spaces of the earth -and distant cities, and it is no wonder the town grew in dignity as -well as wealth, for it had a broad outlook upon the world. In the -year 1810, more than a century ago, twenty-one full-rigged ships, -thirteen brigs and a schooner were built and set sail on maiden -voyages from Newburyport. On the first day of May, ten years later, -forty vessels that had been held in port by contrary winds put to -sea. The thought of such fleets makes the harbor lonely to-day when -the only masts in sight are those of a coal barge or two, waiting -for the surf on the bar to go down and let them out. - -It is only a little over half a century since Newburyport saw the -launching of a ship that was famous on all seas, her exploits -woven into sea chanteys and ringing in hoarse chorus round the -capstan in many a distant port while the men bent to the capstan -bars, the pawl clicked, and ponderous anchors strained upward -out of the ooze. That was the clipper-built Liverpool packet -Dreadnaught. She was known as “The Wild Boat of the Atlantic” and -“The Flying Dutchman.” Twice she carried the latest American news -to Europe, slipping in between steamers. Once in 1860 she crossed -the wind-swept western ocean in nine days and thirteen hours, -from Sandy Hook to Queenstown, a pace which many an ocean-going -steamship does not better to-day. She was conspicuous on all seas -for the red cross painted on her foretopsail. “The Port” was proud -indeed of this vessel, and as I stood on the top deck of the gray -old custom house, looking down on the empty harbor on the one hand -and up the ridge at the great square houses of the old sea captains -and ship-builders on the other, I thought the wind crooned a snatch -or two of deep sea chantey in memory of it round the gray stone -cornices at my feet: - - “There’s a saucy, wild packet, a packet of fame, - She belongs to New York and the Dreadnaught’s her name. - She’s bound to the eastward where stormy winds blow, - Bound away in the Dreadnaught to the eastward we go. - - Oh, the Dreadnaught’s a-howling down the Long Island shore, - Captain Samuels will drive her as he’s oft done before, - With every stitch drawing aloft and alow, - She’s a Liverpool packet; Lord God, see her go!” - -Such was the building of Newburyport, and such is the romance of -memory that comes in to her on every wind of the sea to-day, though -the ships have sailed away never to return and even the foundations -of the old ship yards are hard to find. The wealth and dignity of -the old sea-faring days remain. The custom house bravely hoists its -flag each morning and waits in gray silence for the cargoes that -rarely come. Old age comes to it, though, and to climb the worn -stairs to its top is to walk with the men of other years, hearing -their footfalls in the echo of your own and seeing them vanish, -phantoms of gray dust, through dark doorways into the forgotten -past. Piled in the corners as they pass you see the outworn flags -of other years, as if draping huddled heaps of the achievements of -these phantom shipmasters. Perhaps in some dark corner lies another -story like that of the Scarlet Letter. - -Along the street on which the custom house faces passed the -sea-faring traffic of the day, and the buildings suggest Wapping -Old Stairs or some such quaint corner of old London near the -Thames. The smell of the sea lingers round all corners, and in -the little shop windows are crowded for sale pictures of ships -and fragments of ship chandlery and curios from ports once a -half-year’s sail away; wares that one fancies have waited a century -for customers. The street itself loves the sea so well that it is -always trying to reach it, swerving toward the water line often -and making detours when blocked, and always sending down little -messenger side streets to bring it news from the very shore, thus -winding its way always eastward till it gets an unobstructed view -of the harbor entrance across Joppa flats and is no doubt content, -strolling there along the very margin with a blear eye turned -seaward for the ships that come no more. - -In the debris the centuries have dropped along this once busy -street the quaint and curious mingling of useless utilities and -unvalued treasures, one is reminded of the quaint and curious -characters such surroundings seem to evolve. Among such Dickens -finds an Old Curiosity Shop and its keeper and makes them immortal. -Yet it is not often that the queer character himself goes into -print and leaves his name and pokes his personality into the -dusty corners of literary fame, to be picked out and wondered at -centuries after. Newburyport had one such, the story of whose -amazing eccentricities still lasts, linked with the dignified -reputation of the old seaport. These stories in time may be -forgotten, though they have lasted more than a century, but his -astounding book, “Pickles for the Knowing Ones,” bids fair to -last far longer, as long in fact as libraries collect and hold -absurdities of print as well as literature. It is one of the -ironies of fame that Newburyport, which can rightfully boast of -being the town in which William Lloyd Garrison established his -Free Press and wrote his anti-slavery broadsides, the town where -Whittier’s first poem was published, where Whitefield preached -and John Pierpont wrote the best of his patriotic verse, where -Richard Hildreth began his work as a historian, where many another -author of good repute was born, or lived, or died, where Harriet -Prescott Spofford still lives and adds to her literary fame, should -recall to the minds of many of us only the name of the preposterous -“Lord” Timothy Dexter. After all, perhaps it is style alone which -survives. Dexter’s style was like nothing which ever went before -or has yet come after, in print. It takes an inventive mind to -find any meaning at all in what he wrote, sense being as scarce as -punctuation, of which there was none. Yet the trail of Lord Timothy -Dexter is still eagerly followed through Newburyport annals by -people who forget that John Pierpont ever lived, and we all gloat -over the punctuation marks added in a solid page at the end of his -second edition, to be used as the reader’s fancy dictates. - -Lord Dexter lived in the solid, dignified upper portion of the -town. His mind and character belonged in the queer junk in the -little shop windows down near the water front. I can fancy John -Pierpont drawing the clear, denunciatory fire of his verses from -the keen sea winds that blow on the top of the ridge where High -Street is lined with the noble, square, stately old houses of -the one-time magnates of the place. It is not a far cry from the -shacks of Joppa and the clutter shops of the lower regions to -this atmosphere of worth and dignity along the higher levels of -Newburyport. I have an idea that more than one youth who climbed -first to reef topsails later climbed to a master’s berth and an -owner’s financial security, his abode climbing with him from the -jumbled, characterless houses of the lower regions to one of these -mansions in the skies: It may be that there is equal opportunity -now, but it is not so easy to see. Sea-faring and shipbuilding -could not make men, but it did train them to wide outlooks and -large experience in self-control and self-reliance; larger, I -believe, than do the shoe factories and other industries that have -taken their places in this town that the sea once made its own. - -Newburyport does not grow in population, but it holds its own with -a peaceful dignity and a quiet beauty that seem to belong to it as -much as do its surrounding marshes. Leisure, peace, and an assured -prosperity seem to mark the one as well as the other, whether ships -come or go. There is little bustle, even at its busiest points, -and you have but to go a little way from these to find as sweet a -country as any part of New England has to offer. Passing up the -river bank where the marsh grasses grow over the rotting stocks -of the old shipyards, you find the hills coming down to meet the -marshes and mingling with them in friendly converse. The town drops -behind you, and gentle hillocks offer kindly asylum on the placid -levels of the river bank, beauty spots full of half-wild life. - -[Illustration: The Newburyport home of Joshua Coffin, the early -friend and teacher of Whittier] - -Here and there on these is an apple tree that has strolled down -from suburban orchards as if to view the beauty of the river, and -liked the place so well that it stayed, glad to escape the humdrum -of ordered life, sending out wild shoots at will and producing -fruit that has a half-wild vigor of flavor that puts the orchard -apples to shame for their insipidity. They riot in lawless growth, -these runaway trees, and welcome their boon companions, crows and -jays, spreading an autumnal feast for their delectation and -holding the fragments far into the winter that none may go away -from a visit hungry. The pasture cedars, that love the river air, -but may not live on the marsh, have built seaside colonies on -these hillocks and spread a feast of blue cedar berries for all -passing flocks. Here the robins, now gathering for their winter -flight south, flock and feed, holding their ground at the approach -of man, crying “Tut, tut!” to his intrusion. With them are the -cedar wax-wings, also very fond of the cedar berries, the soft -gray-browns of the bird’s plumage blending most pleasantly with -the olive greens of the cedars. There is a dainty, sleek beauty -about this bird that harmonizes wonderfully well with the cedar -trees which it frequents, and the little red sealing-wax tips -on its wing feathers make one think that the flock is bringing -Christmas decorations of holly berries to each tree to deck it for -the holiday season. In wild apple trees the robins seem less than -half-wild and in the cedars the wax-wings more than half-tame. The -two give a friendly spirit to the spot and at once make you feel -that you are welcome. To sit quietly in such a place for five -minutes is to make it your own home, and you go away with regret -and a certain homesickness. Huckleberry bushes, maples, beach plums -and birches stand admiringly round, and wild grasses and pasture -flowers crowd in and add to the cosiness. - -Of these wild flowers the seaside goldenrod is most profuse. -Pasture-born like the cedars, it too loves the sea and crowds to -its very edge like the people at Revere and Nantasket, so close -indeed that at high tides the smelt and young herring, swimming in -silver shoals, nibble at the bare toes the plants dabble in the -water. You may know this even if you do not see the nibblers, for -the plants quiver and shake with suppressed laughter at being thus -tickled. The seaside goldenrod is prettier now in the cool winds -and under the pale October sun’s slant rays than it was in the -heyday of August, when it burgeoned with yellow racemes of rather -coarse bloom. Its head-gear is in the full autumn style, and it -bows beneath the weight of ostrich-plume pappus and softens all the -foreground of the view with gray fluff. - -From these sea margins where tide and river mingle and meet the -borders of Newburyport one gets glimpses of higher hills up-river, -dark with pines and gorgeous with autumn scarlet and gold, and -among them the picturesque towers and cadenced sweep of the old -chain bridge that takes you across the river to Amesbury. Down -river to the old chain bridge the rough rocks of the New Hampshire -hills, wandering far, come to get a taste of salt, and put their -lips to the water at the island home of Harriet Prescott Spofford, -whose sparkling verse and piquant prose has made the name of -Newburyport known in literary annals for more than half a century. -Hills and sea meet there, and all the beauty of marsh, pasture and -woodland surround the spot. It is no wonder that romance, vivid -life and rich atmosphere inform her work. - -[Illustration: “Down river to the old chain bridge the rough rocks -of the New Hampshire hills come to get a taste of salt.” - -_See page 129_ ] - -The herring gulls which go up and down with the tides no longer -follow the Newburyport sails to sea and escort them back again -to port, pensioners on the bounty which ships always scatter in -their wake. Instead they have reverted to their original, more -noble trade of fishing. Every time the smelt or the young herring -come in to make game of the seaside goldenrod by tickling their -toes they risk their lives. The gulls soar and wheel over the -shallows and tide rips, their wings and bodies set and quiet like -soaring monoplanes, their heads hanging loosely on supple necks -and turning this way and that as they peer with far-sighted eyes -at all beneath the surface. Suddenly the stays of the monoplane -seem to break, the wings crumple, and the bird falls to water as -if shot, going often beneath the surface. In a second he emerges -with lifted bill and you see the silvery flash of some unlucky fish -disappearing down the capacious gullet. Often this is a polite -morsel, but not always. The gull is not over particular in his -mouthfuls, and I have seen one take a herring as long as his own -body, head first, swallowing the fish as far as circumstances would -permit, then sitting placidly on the water with several inches of -shiny tail protruding, waiting, like continuous performance table -d’hôte diners, for the first course to be digested so that there -should be room to swallow the last one. Birds of the sea meet birds -of the land here, and birds of the marsh join them. Over the -river the fish hawk soars as well as the gulls, and the marsh hawk -crosses from one mouse-hunting ground to another. Out of the sky -a Wilson’s snipe fell like a gray aerolite, while I was there, a -lightning-like plunge ended by an alighting as soft as the fall of -a thistledown on the marsh grass. This was proof that the drought -has been long, for the Wilson’s snipe likes the fresh water meadows -best and rarely comes to the salt marsh grass unless his familiar -stabbing ground is too dry to be thrust with comfort. He came like -a visitor from another sphere. In the second of his lighting I -caught a flash of his mottle gray and brown, then he vanished as if -his plunge had after all taken him far into the ground and all you -need expect to find was the hole by which he entered. Yet neither -bird nor hole could I find by diligent search in the marsh grass. -Never a top waved with his progress among the culms, and only by -scent could he have been followed. - -On the other side of Newburyport you come to the marshes again, -great level stretches of them, silvered with winding threads of -the sea that seek far through the slender creeks, marshes dotted -at this time of year as far as eye can see with the rounded domes -of many-footed haystacks, a place where the full sky is yours for -the seeing, where all winds blow free, and blowing bring to your -lungs the rich, life-giving scent of the deep sea tides, caught -and concentrated in the tangled grasses and touched with a faint -essence of their own perfume. Beyond again lies Plum Island. Here -the sea beats in savage vigor, and I seem to get in its voice -an echo of the sonorous poems in which John Pierpont denounced -slavery. Pierpont was one of the great writers of his day, and his -work lasts. He may well have got the culture, depth and dignity -of his multitudinous sermons from the atmosphere he found among -the great square houses built by the old-time shipmasters and -shipbuilders on the ridge which is the backbone of the city. In the -laughing beauty of the up-river scenery I can fancy him finding -light-winged fancies such as the couplet he wrote in Miss Octavia’s -album: - - “Octavia; what, the eighth! If bounteous heaven - Hath made eight such, where are the other seven?” - -Only in the deep sea thunder of the waves on Plum Island beach -could he have heard such notes as echoed in “The Tocsin”: - - “Ay--slaves of slaves. What, sleep ye yet, - And dream of freedom while ye sleep? - Ay, dream while slavery’s foot is set - So firmly on your necks, while deep - The chain her quivering flesh endures - Gnaws likes a cancer into yours!” - -It is easy to see him striding home from a session with the Plum -Island waves and pausing to see the snow settle on and blot out -the outlines of the peaceful marshes, drawing from the sight his -best-remembered, most-quoted verse: - - “A weapon that comes down as still - As snowflakes fall upon the sod, - But executes the freeman’s will - As lightnings do the will of God; - And from its force nor doors nor locks - Can shield you; ’tis the ballot box.” - -I do not know if he wrote these lines here or later when he had -become one of Boston’s famous preachers, but I do know that he saw -these things in the years that he lived in the fine old town and -carried the memory of them long with him, just as all of us who -visit the place carry away lasting impressions of its quaintness, -dignity and wholesome quiet, and the beauty of its surrounding -country. - - - - -X - -PLYMOUTH MAYFLOWERS - -_Adventures of a Spring Day in Pilgrim Land_ - - -The first day on which one might hope for mayflowers came smilingly -to Plymouth in late April. The day before a bitter northeaster had -swept through the town, a gale like the December one in which the -Pilgrim’s shallop first weathered Manomet head and with broken -mast limped in under the lee of Clark’s Island. No promise of May -had been in this wild storm that keened the dead on Burial Hill, -yet this day that followed was to be better than a promise. It was -May itself, come a few days ahead of the calendar, so changeful -is April in Pilgrim land. The gale, ashamed of itself, ceased its -outcry in the darkness of full night and the chill of a white frost -followed on all the land. - -In the darkest hour of this night I saw a thin point of light rise -out of the mystery of the sea far to the eastward, the tiny sail -of the shallop of the old moon, blown landward by little winds of -dawn, making port on the shore of “hither Manomet.” In the velvety -blackness of this ultimate hour of night the slender sail curved -sweetly backward toward the sea, and the shallop seemed drawn to -the land by a lodestone, as was the ship of Sinbad the Sailor, and -when it magically climbed the dark headland and sailed away into -the sky above it drew out of the sea behind it the first light -of glorious morning. From Manomet head to the Gurnet the horizon -showed a level sea line of palest garnet that deepened, moment by -moment, till the coming sun arched it with rose and bounded from -it, a flattened globule of ruby fire. I like to think that the -path of gold with which the sun glorified the stippled steel of -the sea was the very one by which the first Mayflower came in from -Provincetown, the sails nobly set and the ship pressing onward to -that memorable anchorage within the protecting white arm of the -sandspit. - -I like to think that the sweet curve of the old moon’s slender sail -sways in by Manomet each month in loving remembrance of that other -shallop that so magically won by the roar of the breakers on the -dark point and brought the simple record of faith and courage for -our loving remembrance. But whether these things are so or not I -know that the very first rays of the morning sun pass in level -neglect over the bay and the town to lay a wreath of light on -the brow of Burial Hill and touch with celestial gold the simple -granite shaft that stands over the grave of William Bradford, -historian of Plymouth Colony and writer of the first American book. -Such is the unfailing ceremony of sunrise in Plymouth, and such it -has been since the first Pilgrim was laid to rest on the hill which -lifts its head above the roofs and spires to the free winds of the -world. - -Plymouth is fortunate in this hill. It bears the very presence -of its founders above the enterprise and ferment of a modern -town which grows rapidly toward city conditions, a hill which is -set upon a city and cannot be hid. Factories and city blocks and -all the wonders of steam and electrical contrivance which would -have astounded and amazed Bradford and his fellows are common in -Plymouth to-day as they are common to all cities and towns of a -vast country, yet the graves of the simple pioneers rise above -them as the story of their lives transcends in interest that of all -others that have come after them. The book that Bradford wrote, as -the tales that Homer told, will last as long as books are read. -Plymouth may pass, as Troy did, but the story of its heroes will -remain. Bradford’s book, which was our first, may well, at the end -of time, be rated our greatest. - -The trailing arbutus is peculiarly the flower of Plymouth. Not -that it grows there alone, indeed within easy reach of the landing -place of the Pilgrims it is not easy now to find it. Once, no -doubt, it blossomed about the feet of the pioneers, sending up -its fragrance to them as they trod sturdily along their first -street and through their new-found fields that first spring after -their arrival. My, but their hearts must have been homesick for -the English May they had left behind! and in memory of the pink -and white of the hawthorn hedges they called this pink and white -flower which peered from the oval-leaved vines trailed about their -feet, mayflower. It surely must have grown on the slopes of Burial -Hill, down toward Town Brook, but now one will look in vain for -it there. I found my first blossom of the year by following the -brook up to its headwaters in Billington Sea. The brook itself is -greatly changed since Bradford’s day. Its waters are now held back -by dams where it winds through the sand hills, and one mill after -another sits by the side of the ponds thus formed. Yet the “sea” -itself must be much the same in itself and its surroundings as it -was in Billington’s time. Nor do I wholly believe the legend which -has it that Billington thought it was a sea in very truth. It is -too obviously a pond to have deceived even this unsophisticated -wanderer. It covers but a little over three hundred acres including -its islands and winding coves. - -I think, rather, its name was given in good-natured derision of -Billington and his idea of the importance of his discovery, a form -of quaint humor not unknown in the descendants of the Pilgrims to -this day. Yet the waters of the little winding pond are as clear -as those of the sea which breaks on the rocks of Manomet or the -Gurnet, and the hilly shores, close set with deciduous growth, are -almost as wild as they were then. The robins that greeted the dawn -on Burial Hill sang here at mid-day, blackbirds chorused, and song -sparrows sent forth their tinkling songs from the shrubby growths. -Plymouth woods, here at least, are a monotony of oaks. Yet here and -there in the low places a maple has become a burning bush of ruby -flame, and along the bog edges the willows are in the full glory -of their yellow plumes. The richest massed coloring one can see in -the region to-day, though, is that of the cranberry bogs. Looking -away from the sun the thick-set vines are a level floor of rich -maroon, not a level color but a background showing the brush marks -of a master painter’s hand. Toward the sun this color lightens and -silvers to tiny jewel points where the light glances from glossy -leaf tips. The later spring growth will fleck the bogs with green, -but the maroon background will still be there. - -The arbutus does not trail in all spots beneath the oaks, even -in this secluded wilderness. Sometimes one thinks he sees broad -stretches green with its rounded leaves only to find last year’s -checkerberries grinning coral red at him, instead of the soft -pink tints and spicy odor of the Epigæa blooms. Sometimes the -pyrola simulates it and cracks the gloss on its leaves with a wan -wintergreen smile at the success of the deception. But after a -little the eye learns to discriminate in winter greens and to know -the outline of the arbutus leaf and its grouping from that of the -others. Then success in the hunt should come rapidly. After all -Epigæa and Gaultheria are vines closely allied, and it is no wonder -that there is a family resemblance. The checkerberry’s spicy flavor -permeates leaves, stem and fruit. That of the arbutus seems more -volatile and ethereal. It concentrates in the blossom and rises -from that to course the air invisibly, an aromatic fragrance that -the little winds of the woods sometimes carry far to those who love -it, over hill and dale. Given a day of bright sun and slow-moving -soft air and one may easily hunt the Plymouth mayflowers by scent. -Even after the grouped leaves are surely sighted the flowers are -still to be found. The winds of winter have strewn the ground deep -with oak leaves and half buried the vines in them for safety from -the cold. Out from among these the blossoms seem to peer shyly, -like sweet little Pilgrim children, ready to draw back behind -their mother’s aprons if they do not like the appearance of the -coming stranger. Perhaps they do withdraw at discretion, and this -is very likely why some people who come from far to hunt find many -mayflowers, while others get few or none. - -Just as the Mayflower in which the Pilgrims sailed to Plymouth -seems to have been but one of many English ships of that name, so -the trailing arbutus is not the only flower to be called mayflower -in New England. The mayflower of the English fields and hedgerows -was pre-eminently the hawthorn, known often just as “the may.” -But there is a species of bitter cress in England with showy -flowers, Cardamine pratensis, which is also called mayflower, -and the name is given to the yellow bloom of the marsh marigold, -Caltha palustris, often known, less lovingly, as “blobs.” The -Caltha is common to both Europe and America, and, though it is -often hereabout known by the nickname of “cowslip” which the early -English settlers seem to have given it, I do not hear it called -mayflower. In localities where the arbutus is not common the name -mayflower is here most commonly given to the pink and white -Anemone nemorosa, the wind flower of the meadow margins and low -woods, and to the rock saxifrage, Saxifraga virginiensis, both of -which are among the earliest blossoms of the month. - -None can visit Plymouth without wishing to climb the bold -promontory of “hither Manomet.” The legend has it that Eric the -Red, the Viking who explored the New England shores centuries -before the first Englishman heard of them, made this his burial -hill and that somewhere beneath its forests his bones lie to this -day. I sought long for mayflowers on the seaward slopes and in the -rough gullies of these “highlands of Plymouth.” I did not find them -there. - -On the landward slopes, gentler and less wind-swept, down toward -the “sweet waters” that flow from inland to the sea, you may with -patient search find many. But the heights shall reward you, if not -with mayflowers with greater and more lasting joys. The woods of -Manomet were full of butterflies. Splendid specimens of Vanessa -antiopa danced together by twos and threes in every sunny glade, -the gold edging of bright raiment showing beneath their “mourning -cloaks” of rich seal brown. Here in the rich sunshine Launcelot -might well have said: - - “Myself beheld three spirits, mad with joy, - Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower.” - -Here Grapta interrogationis carried his ever-present question mark -from one dry leaf to another, asking always that unanswerable -“why?” Here Pyrameis huntera, well named the hunter’s butterfly, -flashed red through the woodland, scouting silently and becoming -invisible in ambush as a hunter should. Here a tiny fleck of sky, -the spirit bluebird of the spring which the entomologists have -woefully named Lycæna pseudargiolus, fluttered along the ground as -if a new-born flower tried quivering flight, and brown Hesperiidæ, -“bedouins of the pathless air,” buzzed in vanishing eccentricity. -But it was not for these that I lingered long on the seaward crest. -There below me lay the bay that the exploring Pilgrims entered at -such hazard, that but the day before had been blotted out with a -freezing storm and gray with snow, now smiling in unforgettable -beauty at my feet, bringing irresistibly to mind the one who sang, - - “My soul to-day is far away, - Sailing the blue Vesuvian bay.” - -At Naples indeed could be no softer, fairer skies than this June -day of late April brought to Plymouth Bay and spread over the -waters that nestled within the curve of that splendid young moon -of white sand that sweeps from Manomet to the tip of the sandspit, -with the Gurnet far to the right and Plymouth’s white houses rising -in the middle distance. It lacked only the cone of Vesuvius smoking -beyond to make the memory complete. - -Nor has the Bay of Naples bluer waters than those that danced below -me. Some stray current of the Gulf Stream must have curled about -the tip of Cape Cod and spread its wonder bloom over them. Here -were the same exquisite soft blues, shoaling into tender green, -that I have seen among the Florida keys. Surely it was like a -transformation scene. The day before the torn sea wild with wind -and the dun clouds of a northeast gale hiding the distance with a -mystery of dread, a wind that beat the forest with snow and chilled -to the marrow; and this day the warmth of an Italian spring and the -blue Vesuvian Bay. - -The Pilgrims had their seasons of storm and stress, but there came -to them too halcyon days like this when the mayflower bloomed in -all the woodland about them, the mourning cloak butterflies danced -with joy down the sunny glades, and the bay spread its wonderful -blue beneath their feet in the delicious promise of June. Nor is -it any wonder that in spite of hardships and disasters manifold -they yet found heart to write home that it was a “fayere lande and -bountiful.” - -But for all the lure of Plymouth woods with their fragrance of -trailing arbutus, from all the grandeur of the wide outlook from -Manomet Heights, the hearts of all who come to Plymouth must lead -them back to the resting place of the fathers on the brow of the -little hill in the midst of the town. There where the grass was not -yet green and the buttercups that will later shine in gold have -put forth but the tiniest beginnings of their fuzzy, three-parted -leaves, I watched the sun sink, big and red in a golden mist, over -a land of whose coming material greatness Bradford and his fellow -Pilgrims could have had no inkling. Seaward the tropic bloom of -the water was all gone, and there as the sun passed I saw the -cool steel of the bay catch the last rays in little dimples of -silver light. Manomet withdrew, blue and mysterious in the haze of -nightfall. Out over the Gurnet, and beyond, the sky caught purples -from the colors in the west, and there, dropping below the horizon -line, east northeast toward England, I saw a sail vanish in the -soft haze as if it might be the first Mayflower, sailing away from -the heavy-hearted Pilgrims, toward England and home. The sun’s last -ray touched it with a fleck of rose as it passed, a rose like that -which tipped the petals of the mayflowers that I held in my hand, -mayflowers that sent up to me in the coolness of the gathering -April night a fragrance as aromatic and beloved as is the memory of -the lives of the Pilgrims that slept all about me on the brow of -Burial Hill. Bradford wrote gravely and simply the chronicles of -these, and no more, yet the fervent faith and sturdy love for fair -play, unquenchable in the hearts of these men, breathes from every -page, a fragrance that shall go forth on the winds of the world for -all time. - - - - -XI - -OLD SALEM TOWN - -_A Scarlet Letter Day in the Witch City_ - - -Over all the hum of business activity that rises from Salem town -sleeps the glamour of old-time memories. Factories drone, traffic -roars or clatters, and the multiple message of modern civilization -goes forth to eye and ear, but among all these sits the ancient -city dreaming long dreams and careless of the children of to-day. - -Along Charter Street and down Derby the once stately mansions of -the great merchants of another century droop in senile decay, -knee deep in the dust and debris that immigrant, alien races -scatter, and note it and them no more than they do the rats in the -wainscoting. The thoughts of the old houses are busy still with -ships in the China Sea, battling round the Cape of Good Hope with -the Flying Dutchman, or running down the trades from Senegambia, -Surinam or Ceylon, and their upper window eyes stare unwinkingly -across rotten wharves and out to the island gaps in the horizon of -the bay, watching for the sails that come no more. So the world -thinks of Salem to-day as the city of romantic memories. It may -weave cotton cloth and tan hides and make shoes and carry on a -thousand other inventions of modern business, yet we who dwell away -from it, far or near, will always know it best for its romance of -elder days, the dread delusion of its witch finding, the astounding -deeds of its merchant sailors, and in the end most of all perhaps, -for its man of dreams, Nathaniel Hawthorne, who dreamed there the -grim story of “The Scarlet Letter” and made it live for all men for -all time. - -More and more, as the years slip by, Hawthorne comes to be the -presiding genius of Salem, and reverent pilgrims in increasing -numbers come to seek the few abiding traces of his life there; and -though they go to Gallows Hill and also view the relics of the old -merchants and their portraits and the pictures of their ships, -they go first to the house where Hawthorne was born, to the other -houses where he lived and worked, and to the sleepy, dignified -old Custom House from whose drab duties grew the strange flower -of weird romance. It may be that out of the Ghettos and Warsaws -which now surround the old Custom House will come again as great -merchants as once dwelt there, or as great a writer of romance as -he who worked on its scarred old wooden desk now preserved with -such care in the Essex Institute, but one may be pardoned for -having his doubts. The world matures rapidly, and the heritage -of primitive environment and primitive opportunity is smoothed -out by the steel roller of modern invention. New ports no longer -wait the seaman adventurer. Steam makes all ports common, and the -knowledge of them common, to all the world. We shall look long for -the successors to Derby and Peabody and their ilk, and we may well -doubt if ships like The Grand Turk, Rajah and Astræa will sail -again from any future Salem. - -[Illustration: One angle of “The House of the Seven Gables.”] - -[Illustration: A Salem dock of the old sea-faring days] - -Never again, the world surely hopes, can come upon a pioneer people -so mysterious a madness as the Salem witchcraft delusion, yet in -it were set the roots of temperament which made Hawthorne what -he was. Its grewsome mystery seems to brood in all he wrote, and -one cannot visit his haunts and the scenes of its terror to-day -without feeling some atmosphere of it still hovering over the -place. Hawthorne’s ancestor sat in judgment over the witches, and -Judge Hathorne, invisible indeed but grimly onlooking, seems to -me to preside over many a tale which he wrote. As relentless fate -mocked the witches while it gripped them and killed them with -trivialities, so it does the characters in Hawthorne’s stories, nor -in the progress of events is there room in the tale, in the one -case or the other, for the saving grace of humor. From Hathorne to -Hawthorne came the somber impress of the days of witch finding. - -The spring sun and the spring rain fall alike gently on Gallows -Hill, yet it stands bare and wind-swept to-day as it did when the -witches met their fate there, as it has stood since the glaciers -ground over it, no one knows how many hundred thousand years ago. -The tough rock of which it was built shows everywhere the traces of -the fires which melted and reset it in its present form, its twist -and coloration burnt into it as the story of the deeds wrought on -its summit is seared into the annals of old Salem town. Here and -there on its fantastic ledges one sees zigzag marks struck pale as -if lightning had welted the tormented stone and left the impress -of its sudden anger there. The softening years can do little with -this rock. A curse far older than that of the witch finding has set -its seal upon the height, and though the gentle things of earth -strive patiently to ameliorate the evidence they do little to wipe -out the bleakness of the place. The green of spring grasses climbs -patiently toward the topmost ledges, indeed, and draws with it -the gold of potentilla and the white of wild strawberry blooms. -Dandelions set the round image of the sun in sheltered places, and -little lilac constellations of bluets star the moister spots adown -the slope, but the barren soil is too shallow and the summer turns -all these to a brown garment of sorrowful sackcloth and sprinkles -it with the gray ashes of drought. - -A few houses have boldly climbed the hill from the street below, -but none has yet dared the very spot on the bare, red-gray summit -where the irons that once helped support the gibbet rust, still -firmly bedded in their holes in the rock. Over the ledges and down -the hill to the southeast lies a little pond of sweet water that -sparkles in the spring winds, cosily sheltered in the hollow and -surrounded by the vivid green of smooth turf. But even this the -long scorn of summer heat dries to a brown bog where sedges fight -for the life remaining in the stagnant pool in its center. About -this pond the barberry bushes have found a foothold in straggling -clumps to bear little crosses of witch-pin thorns, and steeples -of hard-hack blooms spire solemnly near it in summer. Potentilla -and cudweed dare the slope toward the summit of Gallows Hill when -the rain and sun are kind, and fragaria and violets and bulbous -buttercup trail after, but even in the soft days of May the height -where the witches were hung is desolate and forbidding. Yet it -dominates the outlook upon the town as the story of the witchcraft -delusion dominates the annals of it, as both will for all time. - -Yet, for all its bareness, the country about Gallows Hill has its -golden days. These come in late June, when it seems as if the -sun had wrought a miracle among the bleak ledges and along the -treeless slopes. Everywhere then in the seemingly barren pastures -springs up the shrubby, lanceolate-leaved genista, clothing them -in a rolling sea of its golden bloom. For weeks then the hills are -glad with a wonder of papilionaceous yellow blossoms that any other -pastures, however prolific of beauty, find it hard to match. The -same Puritans that cherished the witchcraft delusion brought this -plant with them from England, the dyer’s greenweed, woadwaxen or -whin, and as they passed on into history left it behind them. It -has wandered far in the waste places in New England, but nowhere -does it so clothe the hills and rough slopes with beauty as it does -in the region about Salem. The thought of this, already pushing -up through the sod, is best to take back to the city with one. As -the good in the Puritans was far greater than their grim misdeeds, -so this goes far to hide the bleakness of the ledges, as it seems -striving to. Perhaps some day it will even overgrow and hide the -iron in the summit of the hill where children play to-day, and make -them forget the story of its tragedies which now they are so eager -to tell to the visiting stranger. - -Salem’s golden days began a century or more after the witchcraft -delusion had burnt to ashes in the fury of its own fire. Certainly -the descendants of the men who feared the devil and his emissaries -feared little else. He might be formidable dancing at night with -withered crones on the weird hills of Salem pastures, but they -laughed in his face when he came on the high seas with shotted -guns and foreign sailors outnumbering their own guns and crews -two to one. They beat the devil and they outgeneraled him, those -Salem sailors of the seventeen hundreds, whether he came in -English privateer or French man-o’-war or a score of feluccas or -piratical junks, and they brought great treasures home to Salem -town. They explored uncharted seas, visited ports unheard of before -and carried the name and fame of their home town the world over. -The world has made a great hero of Paul Jones, but there were -half-a-dozen young sea captains out of Salem in Revolutionary times -who did all that he did, and more, yet did it so unostentatiously -and so much as a part of the day’s work that the records of it -are hard to trace and for the most part have been lost. During the -Revolution Salem sent out 158 armed vessels carrying more than 2000 -guns. They took 445 prizes, losing in return fifty-one of their own -fleet. Jonathan Harraden, for instance, sailed from Salem in the -privateer General Pickering, 180 tons, carrying fourteen 6-pounders -and a crew of less than fifty men. Thus manned and equipped they -captured a British privateer of twenty-two guns. Harraden put a -part of his crew on the captured vessel and the two sailed on. Off -the coast of Spain they sighted a vessel bearing down upon them, -and the captive British captain laughed as he told Harraden that -this was the British frigate Achilles of forty-two guns. - -“Well, I shall not run from her,” said Harraden, stoutly; and -he did not. The big frigate soon recaptured the prize with its -short crew, but the little Pickering laid up alongside of her at -nightfall when the battle ceased for want of light. Harraden went -to bed and got a good night’s sleep. In the morning the battle -began again so near the coast that a hundred thousand Spaniards -made the hills black with spectators. The disparity in size of -the two vessels was such that an eyewitness said it was like a -ship’s long boat attacking a man-o’-war. But the little boat won -the battle, and not only the big frigate but the recaptured prize -struck to the indomitable Salem captain and his fearless Salem -crew. The battle was no sooner over than the sea was black with the -boats of admiring Spaniards who came out in great numbers and later -took Captain Harraden ashore and carried him about the city on -their shoulders. Report does not state whether the captain enjoyed -the ride, but at least he must have been proud of the admiration -which called it forth. Sailing again after the battle with the -Achilles, Harraden met three British ships of the size of his and -captured the three of them, one after another. In all during the -Revolution this one Salem captain took from the British more than a -thousand guns and sent home great wealth in prizes taken from the -far stronger sailor nation with which his country, one might almost -have said his town, was at war. - -Joseph Peabody was another Salem sailor whose fame was to outlast -the Revolution and grow greater in the succeeding days of -hard-won peace. In those following days of peaceful, or at least -semi-peaceful trading adventure, Peabody owned, first and last, -83 ships which he freighted himself. In his time he shipped 7000 -seamen and promoted 45 men from cabin boys to captains. In Salem -ships these cabin-boy captains, often striplings of nineteen or -twenty, sailed the seven seas, opened new ports to commerce, -conquering the prejudice of potentates, matched their wits and -wisdom against those of skilled merchants of the Orient and brought -back princely profit to the ship owners of Salem and in part to -themselves, for often captain and crew alike shared in the profits -they helped to make. In those days the Chinese called the Yankees -“the new people,” for they first heard of them when Salem ships -visited their ports, and the list of new lands first visited by -American ships from Salem is a long one. - -It was in November, 1785, that the Grand Turk, belonging to Elias -Derby and commanded by Ebenezer West, cleared for Canton, China, -the first American ship to seek this round-the-world port. -Seventeen months after she returned, the result of her voyage, for -one thing, being a cargo that brought her owners twice more capital -than she had carried out. The Salem merchants often sold not only -the cargo but the ship itself in these far distant ports, and -later the Grand Turk was thus disposed of in India, Derby building -another and a larger vessel of the same name. In 1794 Salem owned -160 vessels of a tonnage totaling 16,788 tons. In 1805 this number -had increased to 54 ships, 18 barques, 72 brigs and 86 schooners, -of which 48 were employed in trade around the Cape of Good Hope. -In 1806 there were 73 ships, 11 barques and 48 brigs, all engaged -in this foreign trade, which gave such splendid opportunity for -adventure and such princely returns. Cargoes have been brought into -Salem port that realized 800 per cent on the capital invested, -and from 1800 to 1807 inclusive 1542 vessels in the foreign trade -arrived, paying an annual average duty of $755,157.90, and this at -the 10 or 12 per cent ad valorem which was the reasonable rate of -those days. - -In the story of this Salem shipping from 1775 to 1875 is an Odyssey -that some latter-day Homer may yet make ring down the future ages. -The captains and crews of these ships needed all the courage and -wisdom of Ulysses, nor had sea-worn Odysseus so wide wanderings or -so strange adventures as they. - -In Hawthorne’s time this age of Homeric adventure had indeed passed -from the port, yet Salem ships still sailed the seas, for in 1847, -when he was dreaming of Hester Prynne, her preacher lover and her -weird and satanic husband, as he bent over that old desk in the -custom-house, 78 vessels cleared from Salem for foreign ports. So -true it is that one’s eyes see only what they are fitted to see. -All about the dreamer were the records of these mighty adventures -told for the most part indeed in invoices and clearance papers, -but also, one must believe, echoing in the traditions which his -snug-harbored mariner confrères must have known, yet no story came -from his pen that shows he felt the call of the sea to those keen, -daring sea rovers on whose trail he camped. This was no loss to us, -doubtless. We would not swap the “Scarlet Letter” for any tale -that Stevenson told. Yet think what fancies would have taken shape -in Stevenson’s brain out of the dusty ghosts that still linger in -the nooks of the old custom-house! - -More things than these are hidden away in Salem. The homing -instinct of the old sailors brought back from the seas of all the -earth thousands of strange relics which are still to be seen in the -magnificent Peabody Academy of Science and in the Essex Institute, -institutions free to all the world of which the city is justly -proud. Yet the home-keeping instinct of those who remained behind -was as strong, and the Salem homes of the days of the merchant -princes still remain, in some cases much as they were a century and -more ago. Now and then, within the uproar of a busy street one gets -a glimpse over a high board fence of gardens of quaint beauty, the -gravel walks bordered with prim box, the sward of a century green -and smooth, and the hardy perennials that the old-time home-keepers -loved and tended growing and blossoming there still, as beautiful -and deep-rooted as were the lives of the Salem mothers that sent -their sons forth to adventure on the seven seas while they waited -and wove love and longing into the beds of garden bloom. The modern -city has crowded these for long, yet the atmosphere of their brave -beauty remains still and belongs with the square, patrician dignity -of the houses. - -In one of these gardens I glimpsed an oriole, flashing his tropic -colors along the branches of a magnolia, now just in its wonder of -white bloom. It was as if white patience of mother love had waited -him there, a gay young wanderer from Surinam, where, very likely, -he had spent the winter on an annual voyage. Gay and restless he -was, and his mellow voice prattled no doubt of all the strange -sights he had seen and the adventures he had met, while the fair -tree enfolded him in her arms and worshiped him with the tender -home perfume of mother love. It made me wonder a little, too, -why Hawthorne missed the orioles in the Salem gardens which he -must have seen each spring, and only birds of such somber colors -flitted through the flowers of his fancy. But after all it was -only one more proof that out of the inner eye come the colors of -our thoughts, and that the inherited shadows of the witch-finding -days must have dwelt deep in the soul of the Salem-born, -Puritan-descended dreamer of weird and somber romances. - - - - -XII - -VERMONT MAPLE SUGAR - -_Sap-Boiling Time in the Green Mountain State_ - - -At ten o’clock the sap began to tinkle all through the grove. In -nearly eight hundred buckets it fell, drop by drop, and the sugar -season had begun. It was late March, but from the snow to the sky -the day had all the warmth and glow of June. The sun had been up -since before six. By seven it was shining bright into the Southern -Vermont valley which the Deerfield River has carved out of the -everlasting hills that roll and rise till the cone of Haystack tips -them, nearly four thousand feet above the sea level. Yet till ten -o’clock the maples sulked. - -More sap is boiled in this beautiful bowl-shaped valley of which -Wilmington is the metropolis than in any other part of the State. -Vermont makes four-fifths of the maple sugar that is made in New -England, nearly half of what is made in the United States, and -here if anywhere you may see the art practised in its perfection. -There may be better sugar makers than C. S. Grimes, who has been -at it for sixty years, but if so I do not know them. He began with -the old-time black iron kettle, boiled in the open over a green -wood fire. He has seen the business grow in the sugar house to the -use of scientifically accurate evaporating pans where sap flows in -a steady stream into one end and comes out syrup of a law-required -density of eleven pounds to the gallon at the other, the whole -working automatically; and in that time he has learned something of -the whims of the maples themselves, though not all of them. - -Much of the lore of the great gray trees he told me as we sat -together on the broad doorstone of the little white farmhouse, -steeping in the sun and looking down upon the peaceful valley and -across to Haystack, hazed in the blue smoke of spring. Everything -was ready. The spiles were driven and the white, pent-roofed pails -hung. The wood-house end of the sugar house was full to the top -of four-foot sticks ready for the boiling. Even the pan was full -of sap, for there had been a slight run a week before. But the -cold had shut down and the trees had quit. The morning before the -thermometer had stood at zero and the sap in the pan was ice. So, -no doubt, it was in the trees, and would be until the warmth had -reached the heart of them. I learned more in the grove as the -patient old horse drew the sled through a foot or two of old snow, -and we gathered the crystal-clear sap from the buckets and poured -it into the barrel, plodding from tree to tree. More still I got in -the sugar house while the veteran fed the roaring fire and skimmed -the scum from the boiling liquid as it flowed, an inch deep or so, -along the winding channels, back and forth, sap at one end, syrup -at the other. - -The white men learned from the Indians the art of making maple -sugar. In the “Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,” -published in 1684, we find the following: “The savages of Canada -in the time that the sap rises in the maple make an incision in -the tree by which it runs out. After they have evaporated eight -pounds of the liquor there remains one pound as sweet and as much -sugar as that which is got out of the canes. The savages here have -practised this art longer than any now living among them remember.” - -The white man has since brought the practice to a science. The art -remains the same. How far back into the dim ages of the past it -goes no man may tell. - -The sugar maple reaches maturity at about a hundred years. Then -in the forest the trees are seventy to eighty feet tall and have -a diameter of two to four feet. Trees grown from seed produce -the sweetest sap, second growth not being so good. The seedling -under favorable conditions may reach a diameter of sixteen inches -in fifteen years, though such growth is exceptional. It is not -profitable to tap them before the age of twenty. After that they -may be drawn from yearly, a tap to a tree at first. On the largest -trees two or more buckets may be hung, never one above the other, -as the sap flows up or down, never sidewise. The sweetest and -best sap comes from the outermost ring of growth, the wood of the -previous year. It is sweetest at the height of the run. It flows -better by day than by night; the brighter, lighter and sunnier the -day the faster it flows, the trees resting more or less at night. -As the sun declines, so does the flow, even when the temperature -remains the same. On warm nights, however, there is likely to be -some flow. Daytime sap is sweetest, and the nearer the occurrence -of a freeze or a snowstorm the sweeter the sap. Light seems to be -a powerful agent in the mystery, but a certain balance of heat -and cold is more powerful still. Freezing nights with alternating -warm days bring the ideal conditions, frozen roots and warm twigs -setting the alchemy at work. - -Yet with all this and much more general knowledge to draw from each -grove is a study. The maples are strongly individualistic, and -every tree is a law unto itself. Some have a much higher percentage -of sugar to the same amount of sap than others. Indeed, it is -confidently predicted by experts that a race of superior trees -could be easily developed by taking seed from those of highest -sugar percentage, just as superior fruit trees are thus bred. The -profit to the sugar-maker from this is obvious. The future may see -it done. As conditions exist the average yield of sugar per tree -is from two to three pounds, though in favorable seasons this is -increased in some groves to five or six pounds. On the other hand -there are records of large trees which have yielded as much as -forty pounds of sugar in a season, and many have been known to give -twenty pounds. Sometimes a certain tree on a farm gets to be known -as “the sweet tree,” because of the large amount of sugar it yields -yearly. - -The sky held a faint violet haze which deepened to royal purple -in all distances, a violet which seemed to materialize into -innumerable bluebirds which caroled coaxingly as they flew toward -the grove. Over on the edge of it song sparrows sang invitingly, -but the sugar makers did not move from the cosy doorstep until -nearly noon. Then we went toward the grove somewhat warily, as a -man tends his traps in the wilderness, rather hoping for luck but -doubtful. The sap moves when it gets ready, and no man can surely -say when. But a look into a bucket or two told us that the time -was at hand for quick action. From every tree a clear, colorless -liquid was oozing with rapid drip into the buckets, some of which -were a third full already. It looked like water, this new-born sap, -as clear as that from the finest spring, yet to my eye it seemed -to have a certain radiance, not a sparkle like an effervescent -liquid, but something purer and more effulgent, as if the nascent -life in it touched something in you by nerves dormant to ordinary -sensations. The sugar cane gives up its juice only to force. It -must be crushed and pressed. But here is a sweetness which the -tree almost bursts to deliver, which will not only drip from every -wound, but will force its way with overmastering prodigality. If -instead of putting a hollow oaken tap into the three-eighths inch -auger hole bored through the bark you drive in a solid plug, the -sap will push through the very pores of the oak wood. No wonder -when it reaches the twig tips the buds are driven into action and -the blossoms burst with astonishing vigor that nothing can delay. -There is little sweetness of taste to this wine of the wood gods, -but a cool, delectable refreshment that is born of the free winds -and mountain air. It tempts you to drink deep and often, and I -suspect that Vermonters do and have since the State was first -settled. No State has given to the nation more sturdy, dependable, -keenly vitalized, strong-souled men and women than this, from -the days of Ethan Allen down, and it may be that deep draughts -from the potent purity distilled by the rough-barked, rock-rooted -maples has more to do with it than we know. Maple syrup ought to be -recommended to the schools. I believe it would increase scholarship -and promote ethics. - -The gray grove was like a temple of white stillness as we went -from tree to tree. The only sound was the crunch of soft snow and -the splash of sap within the barrel, a cool sound like that of sea -waves curling on the rocks. A pair of white-breasted nuthatches ran -deftly among the branches and seemed to respect the hush of the -place, calling to one another in tiny tones that only emphasized -the quiet. Here was the gray column of a beech, its smooth trunk -looking as if carved out of mottled marble. There stood a yellow -birch with a fringe of flaxen curls. But for the most part the -growth was of maples alone and with little underbrush, so that -we looked between the trees down to the valley below and up its -further side till the gaze touched the sky on the distant blue -summit of Haystack. It was easy to note with what feathers and fur -the earth keeps herself warm in the fierce cold of Vermont winters. -In the distance the black growth of evergreen spruce and hemlock -would hardly let the roughest gale pass within. Where these do -not stand interwoven the misty mingling of the twigs of deciduous -trees made a cloak that was softly beautiful to the eye yet hardly -less penetrable, and over all the cleared spaces and under all -other protection was the white ermine of the snow. The March sun -and the thawing rains of approaching spring had settled this snow -ermine closer to the ground, indeed, but had only compacted it more -firmly. A foot or more of it was everywhere and you could plunge to -the shoulders in the drifts. - -[Illustration: “The only sound was the crunch of soft snow and the -splash of sap within the barrel.” - -_See page 171_ ] - -Soon the gathering barrel was full and the horse plodded back to -the sugar house, where from the hillside the sap ran into the -sapholder, a twenty-one barrel cask propped up within, thence to -go by gravity through a tube to the pan. Here the elder Grimes -was busy, feeding the roaring fire with four-foot sticks, skimming -the scum from the boiling sap and drawing the syrup into gallon -cans at the other end. Sugar making is no job for a lazy man, even -though the pan regulates the flow of the sap automatically, nor is -it nowadays to be conducted without some capital. The plant is a -small one, yet here, counting house, tools, tanks, pan, buckets, -etc., was an investment which easily figured up a thousand dollars. -The clear liquid from the trees ran in a steady stream, and the -boiling sap bubbled and frothed in one end and collected in palest -amber shallows in the other. Now that the run is started from eight -to thirty barrels of sap a day will come to the sugar house, taxing -the powers of the sugar maker to the uttermost to keep ahead of the -flow. It does not do for the sap to wait. The best syrup is made -from it when first collected and it will spoil if the delay before -boiling is too long. Often the fires roar and the sap boils for the -greater part of the twenty-four hours. It may be one or even three -o’clock in the morning during a good run before the man at the pan -can let his fire go out and snatch a few hours’ sleep. If the -night has been warm gathering may begin again soon after sunrise -and again he must be at his fires. - -It is at the sugar house that the business of making maple sugar -has lost much of the romance of old days. The big black kettle in -the little shed or the open woods with its sugaring-off frolics -by the boys and girls is a thing of the past. In its place you -have a small factory equipment running overtime, with much of the -regularity of factory drudgery, while the short season lasts. Yet -it is a godsend to the farmer. His winter’s work in the woods is -done. His farm work has not yet begun, and the sugar brings in -many hundred dollars in ready cash, readier cash than he gets -on any other farm product. Good syrup brings from $1 to $1.25 a -gallon, and on a recent year it was estimated the returns from -maple sugar averaged over $3 each for every man, woman and child -in the State. That of course is gross returns, not profits. These -vary so greatly in individual cases and in various years that it -is impossible to get at the net result. Some Vermont farmers do -not think that sugar pays, and many have even gone to the extent -of cutting off their groves for wood, preferring the cash from the -trees once for all. This, of course, is killing the goose, for it -greatly depreciates the value of the farm. Indeed it is an axiom -in the Green Mountain State that a farm without a sugar orchard is -an unmarketable commodity. For all that it is safe to say that for -one reason or another not half the available trees in the State are -tapped yearly. - -Even about Wilmington this is true. I should say that there not one -grove in three is being worked this year. To begin with, there is -the investment in “sugar tools,” no light expense for the man of -small capital. Good sugar workers are not so common as they once -were, and require good wages when they are to be obtained at all. -It is customary to pay a man fifty dollars a month and his board, -and his wages run whether the sap does or not. A start may be made -and then adverse weather or the idiosyncrasies of the trees may -keep the gang waiting a week, or even three. Even the men hired by -the day get two dollars to two and a half. In some years the snow -is not deep and the run of sap steady and prolonged. Then the -farmer makes money. During other years the snow may be so deep that -it is necessary to shovel out the roadways in the grove and go from -tree to tree on snow shoes. Last year, owing to peculiar weather -conditions, there was but a light run of sap, and it was soon over, -lasting hardly three weeks. In consequence the crop was light. Yet -maple sugar is distinctly a luxury for which the demand is greater -than the present supply, and is likely to steadily increase. It is -probable that the planting of large areas to especially productive -trees on which the most scientific business methods were used -would result in large profits. The trouble is that the season of -production is short and all trees must be worked at the same time. -Moreover, it takes twenty years for a seedling maple to grow to -producing size, and the average investor does not care to wait that -long for the first of his returns. In any case, it is a matter for -the capitalist rather than the farmer, who does not usually look so -far ahead for returns on his money. - -Along with the improvements in the sugar house have come many in -the methods of getting the sap from the trees. The pioneer method -was to “box” them. This meant cutting a receptacle in the tree -itself large enough to hold a pint or so of the liquid which ran -into it. Boxing, year after year, was destructive to the trees -which, nevertheless, survived a vast amount of it. It is probable -that boxing has not been carried on in the Vermont groves for more -than fifty years, yet there are trees standing to-day which show -marks of the old-time method. On what was known once as the Kathan -farm, just west of the Connecticut River in Dummerston, still stand -a few trees of what is believed to be the first grove in the State -from which white men made maple sugar in any quantity. Thirty-three -of these veterans were there in 1874, but now only nine remain. -They are gigantic trees, free of limbs to a great height and one at -least sixteen feet in circumference. At the base can be seen the -knotted, uneven growth covering the scars of nearly seventy years -of “boxing.” After the boxing method came the tapping iron, almost -as hard on the trees. A slanting kerf, an inch deep and four inches -long, was first made. Then the iron with a half-circle cutting -edge was driven in deep at the bottom of this to make a place for -the spout of hard wood, grooved with a gouge and finished with -draw-shave and pocket-knife. Troughs of white maple or basswood, -split in halves, dug out with the axe and smoothed with the gouge, -were used to catch the sap, which was gathered in hand-made pails -hung from a “sap-yoke” which rested on the bearer’s shoulders and -took the weight. - -The boiling was in the big black iron kettle which the elder Grimes -remembers so well. It was hung by chains from a pole set up on two -crotched sticks. Beneath it were two big green logs between which -the fire was kept. Sugar houses were unknown and dry wood was rare, -yet with care a respectably clean sugar was made. - -[Illustration: “But here is a sweetness that the tree almost bursts -to deliver.”] - -A piece of wood taken from one of these trees in 1873 is still -preserved in Vermont. It is twenty inches by four, yet it shows -five boxing places, two deep in the wood and three that the later -growth of the tree had not been able to cover. Sugar was made from -these trees in 1764, and they were tapped each year by some member -of the Kathan family until 1862. One of the largest of these -trees was cut in 1858, and the number of concentric rings of growth -showed that nearly a hundred years had then passed since the tree -was first boxed for sap. In 1894 another was cut, having a box mark -only three inches beneath the surface of the wood, showing that in -this tree at least someone had gone back to the ancient method not -more than half a generation before the date of cutting the tree. -Probably scattered trees of the groves of a century and a half ago -still stand in other portions of the State, carrying deep in their -heart wood the scars of the old-time sugar making. - -The Vermont laws against the adulterating of maple sap products are -now quite strict, and it is probable that original packages from -the State are reasonably sure to be what they are sold for. The -syrup weighing eleven pounds to the gallon is practically at the -point of saturation, a gallon weighing even an ounce more than this -showing a deposit of crystallized sugar. It was formerly considered -that the intermixture of cane syrup could not be detected, but -modern methods of chemical analysis show it, the ash from dried -and burned maple sugar being greater than that from dried and -burned cane sugar in that it, having not been recrystallized, still -contains other chemical constituents of the sap. These no doubt -contain the ingredients which go to make up the delectable flavor, -and those not yet isolated elements which help make the Vermonters -the big-hearted, big-souled people that they are. Yet the rich -golden brown color which most maple sugar has is not a quality of -the sugar itself, but due to impurities, harmless but unnecessary. -They come from tiny flecks of bark which fall into the sap or from -careless boiling. Before the sap gets to the can in the Grimes -sugar house it has been strained seven times. The iron kettle sugar -of the old days was sometimes almost black. Care in the handling -will give a syrup that is almost as colorless as water and a sugar -that is nearly white. Hence color in the final product by no means -indicates purity, though it may in no sense indicate adulteration. -The best syrup is a clear, viscous, pale straw-colored liquor, and -the sugar itself need not be much if any darker. - -To an outsider the whole trip into the upper valley of the -Deerfield River is a delight. At Hoosac Tunnel the big train gets -tired of the long climb and plunges into the very heart of the -mountain. But the little narrow-gauge road takes up the ascent -most determinedly. The boy’s-size engine snorts and chu-chus up -astounding grades, winding into defiles where the mountains close -in on each side and almost squeeze the track into the river. At -some stations the stop is on such a slant that the engine puffs -and grinds for minutes before any progress at all is noticed. -The town comes down to see the struggle, and the small boys call -the conductor and engineer by their first names and rail at -their railroading. “Hey, Bill,” says one. “What’s your coffee -mill grinding to-day?” Then, as the imperceptible first motion -accelerates to a snail pace, they stroll along with the engine and -continue their chaff till the hills shut down and cut them off. Yet -after all, when you consider the grades, the curves and the stops, -the whole trip is made at a good pace, the twenty-four miles being -covered in about an hour and a half. Coming down is coasting, and -the speed is limited only by the requirements of safety. Vermont -whole-heartedness runs through the train chaff, however, and -the favorite salutation is “neighbor.” To take the trip is like -attending a lodge meeting, and long before the final stop you feel -a friendly interest in everybody present. If you don’t know most -of the others by their first names it is because you have not kept -your ears open. At this season at least you learn how strong a -hold the good old business of sugar making still has on the hearts -of the people of the Green Mountain State, and the gossip of the -groves and farms is yours without the asking. The free, wholesome -air of the mountains is in it all, and as you breathe more and more -of it you feel that the good old-time New Englander does not need -to come back. He is there, up under the purple shadow of Haystack, -talking maple sugar and drawing its essence of vitality from the -white wood of mighty trees that clothe mountain slopes with the -kindly peace of their stately groves. - - - - -XIII - -NATURE’S MEMORIAL DAY - -_How Earth and Sky Observe this National Holiday_ - - - Up to the brow of Cemetery Hill - The serried battle ranks still press to-day. - The saxifrages in Confederate gray - Charge to the robin’s bugle, piping shrill. - In Union blue the sturdy violets still - Shoulder to shoulder in the battle sway - And, rank on rank, the rising onslaught stay, - While cheers of song-birds through the woodland thrill. - - And yet peace reigns, and both the gray and blue - Mingled in garlands on the field will lie - Marking a soldier’s grave, or blue or gray, - Shoulder to shoulder waiting, who shall say? - We only know they wait beneath the sky - While garlands deck them, wet with tears of dew. - -In my town the little “God’s Acre” in which the pioneers snuggled -to sleep under the protecting shadow of their first rough church -has grown over hill and dale to a score of acres. The church long -since moved out of its own yard, as if to give the pioneers room, -yet lingers gently within a stone’s throw, as a mother waits -within sound of her children. Where once the rough oak timbers -stood squarely upon their field-stone foundations century-old -graves stretch restfully side by side, and gray lichens cling -so close to the blue slate of headstones that the twain become -one, and the very names of the sleepers beneath are hidden and -forgotten. Shoulder to shoulder these old stones stand and lean -friendlily one on another, as brothers to whom the kindly elder -years have brought surcease of all differences. The early settlers -were bold in their beliefs and battled sturdily for them while it -was time to fight. The ancient records and traditions will tell you -of stern warfare waged between man and man and clan and clan. Then, -the battles well fought, they laid themselves down side by side in -a forgiving neighborliness that is the most lasting inscription on -the plain stones that mark their rest. Peace is most secure between -those who have fought best, and the Memorial Day spirit is no mere -growth of our later years. It was born in the scheme of all good, -just as battles were. - -Nature voices for us only kindly memories. Whatever the chisel -may have graven on these rude slate stones, the kindly sun and -rain and the slow sobbing of the earth’s bosom under frost and -thaw have taught them “de mortuis nil nisi bonum” till they voice -it in phrases which none who pass may fail to read. The lichens -have written it and the actions of the slate speak louder than the -words of the inscriptions. We in our Memorial Day offerings tell -for a brief hour only what the good gray earth has been saying -the year through, and we say it best, as she does, in flowers and -tears. Nature’s Memorial Days began with the first grave and have -continued ever since. Ours, which began with our mourning for dead -heroes of the Civil War, has extended since to those of all wars -and moves yearly nearer to Nature’s all-forgiving, all-loving -teaching. Our lesson will be complete when we understand that all -who have lived are heroes and that toward all who are dead we -should bear constant loving remembrance. The sun and the rain lead -the gentler things of earth to this all through the old cemetery -where, since the pioneers of the town, have come the heroes of the -Revolution, of 1812, the Civil War, and of countless un-uniformed -battles of daily life before and since. - -All the morning of Memorial Day children, and often their elders, -glean from field and wood, from garden and greenhouse, flowers -for the decking of graves, and later the thinning ranks of Grand -Army men march to martial music and place upon the graves of -dead comrades the flag for which they fought and garlands of -remembrance. For these the mowing fields give gladly the white and -gold of their buttercups and daisies, the hillsides the blue of -their violets, the woodlands the feathery white and glossy green -of the smilacina. It always seems as if these blossomed their best -for the occasion. But beyond all other flowers in profusion and -beauty for the ceremony is the lilac. This shrub, I am convinced, -knows that its best service to man is in garlands for Memorial Day, -and rarely does it fail in the service. There come years in which -the spring is cold and backward and blossoming shrubs are weeks -behind their accustomed time of bloom, but the lilacs press bravely -forward, hopeful even at the very last moment, and manage to put -forth flowers by the thirtieth of May. On other years, like this, -all things are three weeks or more ahead of season, yet the lilacs -hold steadfastly on, and when their need is felt there they are to -be gathered in armfuls from willing bushes that go cheerfully at -work again to repair the wrecked stems and provide buds for the -garnering of another year. The lilac should be the flower of poets -and heroes, and as we are all that, however humble our heroism or -however shyly hidden our poetry, it is fitting that it should be -commonest for the decorations of Memorial Day. - -For the lilac, for all its buxom profusion and its ability to take -care of itself in neglected fields and woods where the garden in -which it was once delicately nurtured is grown up to grass, the -house to which it belonged is crumbled to ruin, and wild woodland -things crowd and choke it, is of royal lineage. In the garden of -what prince of prehistoric days it first bloomed I cannot say, -but it was beloved of Babylonian kings and mingled its perfume -with that of the roses in Persepolis when Persia was a seat of -learning and refinement, while western Europe was yet to emerge -from savagery and America was not even a dream. There Jamshid, -founder of the then mighty city, Rustam the hero who defended it -all his life from barbarian invaders, Sadi the poet in his rose -garden, Omar with his “jug of wine and thou” watching the stars -and writing his fond, cynical, keen verses, and even Genghis Khan -and Tamerlane, barbarian conquerors out of the mysterious farther -east, must have sat beneath its shade from time to time as the -centuries dreamed on and dreamed their own dreams of conquest, of -love or of service, under the spell of its fond, pervading perfume. -Dreams these should be, of love, if you will, of constancy, and -of hope and yearning toward high ideals, for all these breathe -from the true heart of the lilac to-day, nor has the passing of -three centuries changed the subtle essences of the flower or -their meaning one whit. How far these have gone to the changing -of the hearts of men in that time one may not say, but surely the -fragrance sighs through the Gulistan and the Rubaiyat and the -culture and refinement that the Persia of those days has sent down -the years to us in their records was greater than that of any -other nation of the time. From this mother land of the lilac spread -westward the belief in one God. There the learned men taught to -princes and nobles a due reverence for parents and aged persons, a -paternal affection for the whole human species and a compassionate -tenderness even for the brute creation. There before the sovereign -in state might appear the humblest peasant for justice, and the -youth of the land were taught fortitude, clemency, justice, -prudence, to ride a horse, use the bow and speak the truth. With -the odor of these things that of the lilac filled the air there -through centuries of springs. What more fitting flower could we -lay upon the graves of our heroes, whether of the Civil War or the -Revolution, whether wearing the blue or the gray, or the homespun -of the battle of everyday workshop, farm or home? There is more of -symbolism in its giving than we heed. With the loving remembrance -of friends of to-day goes a greeting from heroes of an age long -gone but not forgotten. - -There is no remembrance of civilization, no aura of human nobility -about the smilacina, which in my regard comes next as a flower -for Memorial Day. Hardly the violet could be more modest. Its -tiny spike of white bloom is borne only a few inches high on a -two-leaved stalk, the leaves in shape and gloss reminding one -of the florist’s smilax, whence probably the name. Yet its very -simplicity makes it peculiarly a flower for garlands. The leaves, -growing on the stalk itself, make just the right amount of green, -and a nosegay or a wreath of smilacina alone has a dainty beauty -that few flowers could thus give. The misty white blooms on the -glossy green seem like shattered tears of gentle spirits of the -woods bringing their tribute of sorrow to the fallen heroes. -Nor are the blooms of this plant which the school children have -gathered and which the veterans have placed on the graves the only -ones that are there. All along one side of this cemetery the woods -themselves press their sheltering beauty, and in them the earth -is garlanded with smilacina blooms. Passing from Memorial Day -observances to these I often think that the forest itself decorates -in honor of its own whose resting places would be otherwise -unmarked. It may be for the people of an elder race all other -traces of whom are lost that the tiny, lovely flowers group their -white and green, or for the humbler creatures of the wood who would -otherwise lack tokens of mourning, but the smilacina certainly -decorates the mounds in all woodlands with mystic tracings which -have their own meaning. But it does more than this. In modest -beauty it slips shyly out from the sheltering friendliness of -the pines and stands with bowed head on many a dewy Memorial Day -morning by such mounds as it may reach, in all gentle friendliness. - -Shyer yet are the saxifrages which sometimes stand near by. These -I have seen, clad as if in Confederate gray, by a mound which -veterans had marked with a Union flag and along which tiny blue -violets nestled lovingly. So, surely, they stand in mute respect -and nestle as lovingly by many another spot where the remembered -one fought as bravely beneath another flag. Long ago the good brown -earth taught the blue and the gray to thus fraternize, and though -we forgot it for a time the lesson came soon back to us with -renewed force. The saxifrages and the smilacina have not ventured -far out of the all-sheltering wood, but the Confederate gray is -borne all over the score of memorial acres by the wild immortelles, -everlasting, as the children call them, and no caretaker’s rake or -lawnmower can keep these down, or clip the violets so close that -their blue fails to nestle lovingly where heroes lie. All over the -place from spring until autumn these two set their garlands side by -side, as do those who mourn on the one Memorial Day of the year. -Thus constant are the sun and rain and the tiny herbs of the brown -earth. - -As the boldest soldiers in the fray held oftenest the foremost -ramparts and felt themselves fortunate in their position, so I -think it must be with those veterans who rest nearest the brow of -the hill, where it seems as if they could look forth over miles of -beautiful forests to the blue hills which are other ramparts on -the horizon. Here of an early morning of this misty May they might -well think they saw gray troopers form and advance in battalions -that sweep down from the hills to eastward and charge over the -treetops of the vale below. Through the distance they can hear the -bugle calls of thrushes, and with trained ears thus know in what -formation the advance will be made and when. Well may they feel -the old-time thrill of desperate conflict as the advance sweeps up -their hill and the misty gray legions swarm over it until the fight -must need be hand to hand. Yet rarely does a day pass without final -victory for the blue. The misty legions fall back and vanish before -the flashing cavalry of the sun and the blue battalions of the -clear sky swarm forth and drive the enemy in full retreat before -them. Thus to them again out of the shades may come Gettysburg, or -Antietam, or Port Hudson. - -I like best, though, to think of them here as resting in camp with -no thought of battles past or to come, the mists that rise meaning -no more than the smoke of comrades’ campfires, the bird bugle calls -only those of the day’s routine. From a hundred treetops they may -hear the robins sound the reveille. From their hilltop these bugle -notes should wake even the soundest sleepers. No other bird is so -well fitted for this call. There is a sprightly persistence in the -robin’s song of a morning, a recurrence of rollicking refrain -which reminds one strongly of the awakening notes of the bugle as -they ring through the camp when the last of the night watches is -ended and the new day calls all to be up and stirring. The robins -are peculiarly the buglers of the reveille. No bird sings earlier, -and when the full chorus is in swing there is little chance for any -other bird to be heard. No wonder the sun gets up betimes. - -The day calls, the assembly, the retreat, the mess call and a score -of others are left to other birds than the robins. The thrush may -pipe them. Grosbeak, tanager or warbler may trill the familiar -melodies for all these, and a host of others sing at any hour of -the day in tree or shrub or in the pine woods that stand in a -phalanx, like a company under arms, pressing close up to the brow -of the hill. Sometimes I hear these in the sweet, flowing warble -of the purple finch which is not rare hereabouts, but more often -in the notes of the warbling vireos which frequent the tops of -the shade trees. These are all-day buglers, piping clear for all -occasions in firm, rich, continuous notes of whose meaning there -can be no doubt, once you have learned the calls. Nearing these -and seeing the white marble of the newer comers stretch far beyond -the slate headstones, over hill and dale, it is not difficult to -believe these indeed the tents of an army corps and to think I -hear in response to the bugle the marching tread of feet that have -been resting long. The tramp of the boys in blue on Memorial Day, -as they march and countermarch, passing from station to station, -the ringing call of the bugle that sang across Southern fields all -through Grant’s campaign could not seem much more real. - -When the busy day is ended it is the wood thrush that sings taps. -The dropping sun reflected from polished white marble lights -campfires from tent to tent, fires that shall burn low to glowworm -embers presently, their smoke curling up in night mists from the -dewy ground. It is then that the friendly forest seems to crowd -closer as if to surround the camp with a host of faithful guards. -Then out of its violet dusk rings the call of the wood thrush, a -call full of gentle mystery, of faith and longing, at once so sad -and so sweetly hopeful that it seems to voice all human sorrow -for mortality and all human, wistful belief in immortality. “Come -to me,” it pipes in tintinnabulating richness out of the deepening -dusk. “Good night; good night; all’s well; good night.” No sweeter -music than taps ever rang from bugle or from throat of wood thrush -when deepening twilight falls upon this white-tented corner of -fame’s eternal camping ground. The buttercups that stray lovingly -among the graves of the pioneers give up their gold to the sky that -sends its tears to dew their round eyes. All day the good gray -earth and the brave blue sky have held memorial service, and as the -last note of taps rings from the throat of the thrush deep in the -sheltering wood the night takes up the service with wet eyes. - - - - -XIV - -BIRDS OF CHOCORUA - -_Some May Songsters of the Frank Bolles Hinterland_ - - -To all who love the lore of woodland life the country up around -Chocorua lake and mountain must always be haunted by the gentle -spirit of Frank Bolles, whose books, all too few, breathe the very -essence of its perennial charm. To nature lovers who come year -after year to the place these books are a litany, and all the bird -songs are echoes of the notes he loved. Nor need there be an hour -of the twenty-four in this region, in May, in which the birds -do not sing. No night is too dark for the wistful plaint of the -whip-poor-wills, wandering voices that seem born of the loneliness -of the bare places in the hills before man was. To the wakeful ear -their sorrow hardly seems soothing, yet when drowsiness comes from -long days in the mountain air the whip-poor-will’s plaint is a -primal, preadamite lullaby that as surely sings to sleep as does -the cadenced sorrow of the wind in the pines or the minor murmur of -a mountain brook, intermittently tossed over the hill by the night -breeze. Often at nightfall the “clackety clack, cow, cow, cow” of -the yellow-billed cuckoo sounds through the Chocorua woods, as if a -lanternless watchman were making his rounds and sounding the hour -with his rattle. Often, too, some songbird will rouse from sleep -as if he heard the cuckoo watchman, going his rounds, pipe him a -sleepy bar or two of his day song, notes strangely vivid in the -perfumed darkness, then drowse again with the melody half finished. -But of all these the whip-poor-wills are most persistent and -loudest. They greet the dusk with antiphonal chant, and when they -finally follow the shadows to rest in the darkest wood the choir of -day takes their silence for its matin bell. - -[Illustration: “The farmhouse where Bolles lived and loved the -woods and all that therein lived with him.” - -_See page 197_ ] - -Something of Bolles’s purity of diction and sweet content in the -gentle joy of life in the fields and woods, the sapphire cadences -of distant mountain peaks and the chrysoprase tremolo of young -leaves, seems to have come from the song of the white-throated -sparrow that sings all day about Chocorua. “Peabody bird” we call -the white-throat, from long custom, but to me his notes, clear, -sweet and infinitely refreshing, seem to chant in accelerating -diminuendo, “hap-pi-ness, hap-pi-ness, happiness,” till I lose the -quivering cadences in an infinity of distance where sight and sound -blend in the passing of dear dreams. The white-throated sparrow -comes to the hills with the pink buds of the trailing arbutus, -whose blooms are nowhere else so white and fair, and something -of their fragrance seems always to come from his song. In little -nooks where the early spring sunlight wells in pools of golden -warmth the perfumes of the arbutus blooms and of the white-throat’s -song come first, and they linger long into the summer where cool -Northern hillsides hold the spring in their shadows. Sometimes -the autumn, too, gives us a rare reblooming of the arbutus, and -the white-throat sings his song of pure contentment well into the -mellow haze of late September. - -Now that May is in the mountains one may see the warblers budding -from the twigs with the leaves, nor shall he at first know which -dappling of living light has burgeoned from the wood or which -flashed in from the sky above, so harmonious are the contrasts of -rich color. Often it seems to be the leaves that sing, so well does -the tiny songster fit upon his perch. All about the lake in beech -and birch the young buds lisp and the half-open leaves trill with -the tiny music of the parulas. As you pass from ridge to lowland -and on to ridge again they lead you along the hillsides and on to -the cool depths of remoter ranges where the ancient hemlocks still -grow, their gray beards of usnea moss hanging sedately in the -shadows among their dark trunks. The parulas feed and sing in the -light of deciduous trees, but they nest in this moss in the shadows -of the black growth. Here comes true the fairy tale of the birds -that built their nests in beards, for as I rest in the cloistered -seclusion of the hemlocks two parulas come and press aside the gray -lace draperies of pendent moss and enter in. There is the beginning -of the nest, this tiny cavern which they wedge with their bodies -from the matted moss. The lower ends of this are to be turned up -and interwoven, making the bottom more secure, and pendent there -in her swinging cradle, safe from the eyes of owl or jay above, -from four-footed prowlers below, the mother bird will brood her -rufous-wreathed white eggs. - -Many another warbler will lead the May visitor to Chocorua -through these lakeside woodlands which Bolles loved. Some toll -him cheerfully from one low thicket to another, where he may see -the bird and the wood violet in the same glance or pluck painted -and purple trilliums and not lose sight of his quest. Of these is -the black-masked Maryland yellow-throat, whose song of “witchery, -witchery, witchery,” always speaks for itself alone. No bird seems -necessary for the production of this. It buds from the air as young -leaves do from the twigs, impelled by a magic power within itself, -nor, when you finally find the bird, demurely winding his masked -way through the low growth, does the voice by any chance proceed -from his throat. All warblers are ventriloquists, but I always -think the Maryland yellow-throat of the Chocorua thickets the most -demure magician of them all. Perhaps the black mask has something -to do with it, lending to the eye the same thought which the -puzzled ear conveys. The yellow-throats are building now, weaving -their grass nests in tussocks of swamp grass down by the water’s -edge, hiding them not so uniquely indeed as the parulas, but almost -as well. The spikes of swamp grass grow tall about each nest, and -its deep cup if seen at all from the outside is to the eye but a -tangle of the last year’s grasses, matted down under this year’s -growth. If I find these nests it is only by looking directly down -into the heart of each tussock until I reach the right one. Yet -this is not particularly difficult. It means only a little patience -in inspection, after the probable neighborhood has been defined by -the presence of the birds themselves. The yellow-throats are shy -about their nests. If you inspect them too often they will leave -them and begin all over again in a new locality. But, away from -the nest, they are an easy bird to see much of. A man in their -neighborhood is an object of insatiable curiosity to them, and you -do not need to discover them if they are near. Instead they will -come, creeping and peering through the bushes, to inspect you if -you will but sit quietly in the region in which that “witchery” -song is born out of the circumambient air. - -Into the upper end of Chocorua Lake flows a brook of transparent -water, fed by melting snows, out of “the heart of the mountain.” -Along this the song of the water thrush leads the wanderer from -one limpid pool to another, a song that has in it some of the -liquid prattle of the stream but more of a dominant, aggressive -note that carries far. There is a touch of sunlight in the color -of the water thrush’s breast, sunlight flecked with little brown -shadow markings that are like the uniform brown of his back, and -if it were not that he sticks so closely to the water he might -suggest the oven-bird to the careless glance. There is something -of the song sparrow and the oven-bird at once in his song. It -is as if the two birds had mated to produce him and the singing -masters of both families had had the youngsters to singing school. -Up this clear-water brook the oven-birds call you by way of the -height of land, the water thrushes from pool to pool, while the sun -drops behind Paugus in mid afternoon, and the blue shadows of the -Sandwich range add to the cool gloom which wells upward from the -deep gorge which is the heart of the mountains. - -On the way, as the water thrushes and Maryland yellow-throats -sing from the thickets near the water, so the oven-bird sends -his aggressive staccato from the middle distances of the higher -trees. I never knew an oven-bird to sing from either a treetop or -a low thicket. Always he sits on a limb well up the trunk yet well -beneath the shade also, and sends forth that aggressive, eager -call for knowledge. “Teach us, teach us, teach us,” he cries to -the wood gods, nor is he ever satisfied with his schooling, but -applies persistently for more. The oven-bird is the very voice of -the spirit of modern learning, crying always, in the wilderness of -knowledge attained, for more knowledge. The wood gods have taught -him much. Invisibility for himself he has almost learned. He sits -like a knot on a speckled brown limb, and his speckled brown breast -is so much like it that he may sing long there within a little -distance of your eye before you see him. Invisibility for his nest -he and his demure brown wife have learned completely. You may sit -on it to rest among the brown leaves in the wood and not know it is -there; unless the frightened escape of the brown mother birds gives -you a hint, and even then it is invisible, so completely is it -hidden in the debris dropped by the previous autumn. Of dead weed -stalks, grasses and brown leaves it is not only built but roofed, -and with an entrance on one side that to the uninitiated might be -an entrance to the nest of a field mouse, indeed, but never that -to a bird’s nest. It is not for greater knowledge of nest hiding -that the oven-bird need pray to the wood gods, nor may we know what -further wisdom he seeks, but all summer long he asks for it in no -uncertain tones. - -Out of the very treetops while the oven-bird shouts his prayer -below comes the voice of the red-eyed vireo, uttering moral -platitudes from dawn till dusk. It is no wonder that some birds go -wrong with this monotonous preacher steadily droning out, “Don’t -do this; don’t do that,” to them all day long. The bluejays, who -have robber baron blood stirring always under their gaudy military -coats, jeer at this prating of platitudes and descend upon the -vireo’s hanging nest and eat the eggs from it, I always think, with -more gusto than in their other freebooting, and small blame to -them. The red-eyed vireo leads an exemplary life, no doubt, living -properly on small insects and keeping up perpetual prayer-meeting, -but his self-righteous twaddle must be intensely irritating to all -but impeccably good birds that have to listen to it. In gladsome -relief from this was the demeanor of the Canadian warblers, also -flitting daintily in the treetops. I know the authorities say -that the Canadian warbler frequents low thickets, but there is no -mistaking the bird with his breast and throat of clear yellow and -his necklace of jet beads, and this May the leafy topmost twigs of -the deciduous trees in the Chocorua region held many such. They -sang their liquid warble which has in it more than a suggestion of -the song-sparrow notes of the water-thrush song, and they dashed -out into the free air for insects which they captured, flycatcher -fashion, and then dashed back again. The Canadian warblers are -migrating, feeding and singing as they go on to their nesting sites -farther north, and this year their favorite food must have been -hanging high, for they were up there after it. - -With the Canadians was the first wave of the tide of blackpolls -which sweeps over the mountains, also bound north, in late May. -More restless were these, constantly flitting and seeking food -among the leaves, now in deciduous growth, again in the evergreens, -ever moving on and ever singing their high-pitched, hissing whistle -which is not so very different from the song of the black and white -creeper, though a little more deliberate in movement and having a -more staccato quality. So far as coloration goes one might mistake -the male blackpoll for the black and white creeper were not the -movements of the birds so distinctly different and the song as wiry -but as soothingly crepitant as that of the cicada. - -Night falls early in the deep heart of Chocorua, and full and -clear the wood thrushes were yodeling of peace, one to another in -the shadows, as I turned to descend. In the worn fields of the -ancient clearing about the farmhouse where Bolles lived and loved -the woods and all that therein lived with him, the song sparrows -were trilling evening songs and the swifts twittering and circling -nearer and nearer the big chimney which is their summer home. The -bird cherry trees were white angels of bloom, and from all the land -far and near the incense of opening blossoms made the air sweet and -rose toward the high, mysterious altar of Chocorua’s peak as if in -adoration of the rose glow of its sunset tints. Chocorua Lake was -a mirror in which the glory of the summit, the blue dusk of the -lower ranges and its own shores were reflected in perfect beauty. -It was a sounding-board as well, across whose level came to the ear -innumerable bird songs, singing carols of praise to the passing of -day. Out of the blue depths of the sky the cool of night dropped -like a blessing from heaven and seemed to soften and liquefy all -melodies into purer, more mellow music. Wood thrushes and hermits -sang in the shadows hymns of praise to the most high peak of the -mountain, a pantheistic worship that was old ages before any spires -other than those of the spruces had pointed the way to heaven. - -[Illustration: Nightfall on Chocorua Lake] - -From the hillocks of the pasture to the topmost boughs of the -forest all bird life joined in the worship, making the welkin -ring with praise of the pure joy of life, a chorus that quivered -into silence only with the passing of the rose of mystery from the -very tip of the high horn of Chocorua. Nor did the silence last -long. Before the last wood thrush had finished his “Good night; -all’s well; God is good,” other songs of praise and the joy of life -were echoing from swamp and wood and lake margin. Where the birds -had ceased a myriad other voices took up new refrains. The dreamy -trill of the tree frogs sounds from the perfumed dusk, a lullaby of -the world primeval that sang the first man to sleep in some safe -refuge in the deep woods. From the distant marsh the mingled voices -of innumerable hylas ring a chorus of fairy sleighbells that rises -and falls as the wind of evening drifts by. Nowhere in the world, I -believe, can one hear such hyla choruses as he gets in May evenings -from marshy pools among the New Hampshire hills. Coming from a -distance the hypnotic insistence of the sound has a soothing, -sleepy quality that lulls to rest. To seek its source and stand by -the very border of the pool is to find it a frightful uproar that -shrills in the ears and rings through the head till the deafened -hearer is driven to the upland again. - -On the lake margin in the failing light it came to me as a sleepy -drone of tiny bells, as if goblin sleighing parties were coursing -gayly in the night on the white May snow of petals beneath the bird -cherry trees. It and the dreamy trilling of the tree frogs were -but a background for the voices of night birds that sounded now -that those of the day birds had passed. High in air floated the -nasal “peent, peent,” of whirling nighthawks. Out of the velvet -dusk across the glimmering water I heard a bittern working his -old-fashioned pump, wheezily. “Cahugunkagunk, cahugunkagunk,” he -burbled, the weirdest bird voice of any that comes from marsh or -mountain, yet in the peacefulness of the place sounding neither -lonely nor uncouth. I fancy him, too, with his long beak pointed -to the heights, worshiping the mountain peak in his own tongue. -Whip-poor-wills mourned gently one to another across the water as a -token that the night had really come and the last glow faded from -the lone summit now so immeasurably withdrawn into the sky among -the stars. - -A yellow-billed cuckoo called from the thicket, then, indignant -at receiving no answer, sprung his rattle and waited. Roused -out of his first slumber a white-throat gave a faint “tseep” of -surprise, then trembled into music for a moment and went to sleep -again. “Hap--pi--ness, hap-pi-ness, happiness,” he sang, the notes -slipping away into infinite distance and blending with the perfect -quiet of the night and the sky. It was the very spirit of the place -speaking and reminding me again of the gentle writer who sang so -clearly of the peace and beauty of the Chocorua woods and who now -sleeps, after singing. - - - - -INDEX - - - A - - Achilles, 156, 157 - - Adam, 117 - - Alcott, 99, 100, 102 - - -- Louisa, 101 - - Alder, white, 68 - - Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 30 - - Allen, Ethan, 171 - - Amesbury, 129 - - Anemone nemorosa, 143 - - Angle-wing, 56 - - Antietam, 193 - - Apple, Baldwin, 6 - - -- russet, 115 - - -- wild, 127 - - Appledore, 44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 52, 56, 59 - - Arbutus, trailing, 94, 138, 140, 141, 142, 146, 199 - - Arcady, 37 - - Argynnis, 67 - - -- cybele, 39 - - Asclepias cornuti, 37 - - -- tuberosa, 38 - - Assabet, 101 - - Asters, 37, 49, 86, 107, 113 - - Astræa, 150 - - Atlantis, 45 - - Azalea, 9 - - - B - - Babylonian kings, 187 - - Bayberry, 9, 25, 46, 52, 81, 88 - - Bee, bumble, 25, 41 - - -- honey, 57 - - Beech, 21, 177, 200 - - “Bemis Place, the,” 35 - - Bilbao, 119 - - Billington, 139 - - -- sea, 139 - - Birch, 27, 69, 128, 200 - - -- black, 2 - - -- white, 21 - - -- yellow, 27, 171 - - Birds - Bittern, 210 - Blackbird, 32, 36, 140 - Blackpoll, 207 - Bluebird, 169 - “Bob white,” 13 - Cedar wax-wing, 127 - Chewink, 23 - Creeper, black and white, 207 - Crow, 126 - Cuckoo, yellow-billed, 198, 211 - Duck, 63 - Finch, purple, 194 - Flycatcher, great-crested, 14 - -- olive-sided, 55 - Grosbeak, 194 - Gull, 56 - -- herring, 129, 130 - Hawk, fish, 131 - -- night, 210 - Heron, great blue, 57 - -- little green, 71 - Jay, 126, 200 - -- blue, 205 - Kingbird, 56 - Kingfisher, 70, 71 - Maryland yellow-throat, 52, 201, 202, 204 - Mourning Dove, 13 - Nuthatch, white-breasted, 171 - Oven-bird, 203, 204, 205 - Owl, 200 - “Peabody bird,” 199 - Quail, 13 - Robin, 2, 3, 55, 127, 139, 193, 194 - Sandpipers, 56, 70 - Skylark, 2 - Snipe, Wilson’s, 131 - Sparrow, song, 52, 55, 140, 169, 203, 206 - -- white-throated, 199, 211 - Swallow, 7 - -- barn, 5, 6, 53 - -- tree, 53, 54 - Tanager, 194 - Thrush, 193, 194 - -- hermit, 208 - -- water, 203 - -- wood, 195, 196, 208 - Vireo, 21 - -- red-eyed, 205, 206 - -- warbling, 194 - Warblers, 194, 199 - -- Canadian, 206, 207 - -- parula, 200, 202 - -- wood, 86 - Whip-poor-will, 197, 210 - - Black Mount, 2, 3, 4, 13 - - Blackberries, 47, 81 - - “Blobs,” 142 - - Blueberries, 4, 81 - - -- low-bush blacks, 4 - - -- pale blue, 4 - - Blue flag, 22, 47 - - Blue Hill, 32, 33 - - Bluets, 152 - - Bolles, Frank, 197, 200, 207, 208 - - Boston Light, 76 - - Bouncing-Bet, 89 - - Bradford, William, 75, 76, 105, 137, 138, 139, 146, 147 - - Bulkeley, Rev. Peter, 77 - - Burial Hill, 105, 137, 138, 139, 147 - - Buttercup, 146, 186 - - -- bulbous, 153 - - Butterflies, - Angle-wing, 56 - Argynnis, 67 - -- cybele, 39 - Baltimore, 41 - Cabbage, 56 - Colias, 27 - Colias philodice, 40 - Fritillary, great spangled, 39 - Grapta interrogationis, 144 - Hesperiidæ, 144 - Hunters, 56, 144 - Lycæna pseudargiolus, 144 - Monarch, 39, 56 - Mourning cloak, 143, 146 - Papilio turnus, 38 - Pyrameis huntera, 144 - Sulphur, 40 - Vanessa antiopa, 143 - - - C - - Cabbage butterfly, 56 - - Cadiz, 119 - - Caltha palustris, 142 - - Camaguay, 111 - - Cape Cod, 75, 145 - - Cape of Good Hope, 148 - - Caraway, 43 - - Cardamine pratensis, 142 - - Carrageen, 54 - - Cedar, 11, 127, 128 - - Cedar berries, 127 - - Cedar, red, 9, 25, 37 - - Cedar wax-wing, 127 - - Ceylon, 63, 148 - - Charter Street, 148 - - Checkerberries, 140, 141 - - Chelone glabra, 41 - - Cherry-bird, 208, 210 - - Cherry, wild, 46, 50, 81, 83 - - Chestnut, 68 - - “Cheviot Hills, The,” 33 - - Chewink, 23 - - Chicory, 1 - - China Sea, 148 - - Chipmunks, 107 - - Chocorua, 3, 201, 206, 207, 208, 209 - - Chocorua, Lake, 197, 203, 208 - - -- mountain, 197, 208 - - -- woods, 198, 211 - - Chokeberry, 50 - - Cicada, 207 - - Cineraria maritima, 84 - - Cinquefoil, 51 - - Civil war, 185, 186, 189 - - Clark’s Island, 135 - - Clematis, 47, 48, 107, 113 - - Clethra, 62, 66 - - Clover, white, 58 - - Colias, 27 - - -- philodice, 40 - - Concord, 63, 65, 71, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99 - - -- Bridge, 91 - - Confederate, 191 - - Convolvulus, 111 - - Coreopsis, 44 - - Corydon, 37 - - Country brook, 26, 27, 28 - - Cowslip, 142 - - Crabs, 55 - - Cranberry, 51 - - Cranberry bog, 12, 140 - - Cranes-bill, 47 - - Creeper, black and white, 207 - - Cress, bitter, 142 - - Crow, 126 - - Cruciferæ, 56 - - Cuckoo, yellow-billed, 198, 211 - - Custom House, 150 - - - D - - Daisy, 186 - - -- ox-eye, 23 - - Dandelions, 51, 152 - - Dandelions, fall, 109 - - Deerfield River, 164, 181 - - Derby, Elias, 150, 158, 159 - - Derby Street, 148 - - Dexter, “Lord” Timothy, 124 - - Dickens, 123 - - Dreadnaught, 120 - - Duck, 63 - - Dummerston, 177 - - Dunkirk, 119 - - Dusty-miller, 84 - - - E - - Elder, 46, 50 - - Emerson, 90, 97, 99, 100, 102 - - Eos, 61 - - Epigæa, 140, 141 - - Eric the Red, 143 - - Essex Institute, 150, 161 - - Eve, 52 - - Everlasting, 192 - - - F - - Ferns - Cinnamon, 22, 109 - Hay-scented, 22 - Interrupted, 22 - Lady, 22 - Maidenhair, 95 - Royal, 22, 109 - - Finch, purple, 194 - - Firefly, 31 - - Florida Keys, 145 - - Flycatcher, great-crested, 14 - - -- olive-sided, 55 - - “Flying Dutchman, The,” 120, 148 - - Forget-me-not, 22 - - Fox, 107 - - Fragaria, 153 - - Free Press, 123 - - Fritillary, great-spangled, 39 - - Frog, tree, 209 - - - G - - Gallows Hill, 149, 151, 153 - - Garrison, William Lloyd, 123 - - Gaultheria, 141 - - Genista, 154 - - Geraniums, red, 44, 58, 59 - - Gerardia, 68 - - -- flava, 41 - - -- golden, 40, 41 - - -- tenuifolia, 67 - - Gettysburg, 193 - - Ghettos, 150 - - Goldenrod, 27, 49, 86, 107 - - -- seaside, 128, 130 - - Gosnold, 76 - - Grand Army, 186 - - Grand Turk, The, 150, 158, 159 - - Granite, 49 - - Grant, 195 - - Grape, fox, 111 - - Grapta, interrogationis, 144 - - Gratiola aurea, 70 - - Greenbrier, 8, 81, 111 - - Greenbush, 106 - - Green Harbor, 2, 3, 7, 10, 12 - - Grimes, C. S., 165, 173, 178 - - Grosbeak, 194 - - Guadeloupe, 119 - - Gulf Stream, 64 - - Gulistan, 188 - - Gull, 56 - - -- herring, 129, 130 - - Gurnet, 136, 145, 147 - - - H - - Habenaria fimbriata, 36 - - -- psycodes, 35, 38 - - Hard-hack, 153 - - Harold, 94 - - Harraden, Jonathan, 156, 157 - - Hastings, 94 - - Hathorn, Judge, 150 - - Hawk, fish, 131 - - Hawk, night, 210 - - Hawthorn, 142 - - Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 98, 102, 149, 150, 151, 160, 162 - - Haystack mountain, 164, 165, 172, 182 - - Hedge-hyssop, 68, 70 - - Hemlock, 16, 21, 172, 201 - - Hepatica, 95 - - Heron, great blue, 57 - - -- little green, 71 - - Herring, 128, 130 - - Hesperiidæ, 144 - - Hildreth, Richard, 124 - - Holly berries, 127 - - Hollyhock, 19 - - “Home Sweet Home,” 117 - - Homer, 138 - - Hoosac Tunnel, 181 - - Huckleberry, 4, 50, 88, 128 - - -- low-bush, black, 46 - - Hunter’s butterfly, 56, 144 - - Hyla, 52, 209 - - - I - - Immortelles, 192 - - Indians, 32, 85 - - Indian pipe, 42 - - Ireland, 119 - - Isles of Shoals, 44, 49 - - Ivy, 107 - - -- poison, 110 - - - J - - Jamshid, 188 - - Jay, 126, 200 - - -- blue, 205 - - Jewel Weed, 22 - - Job’s Hill, 23, 24 - - Jones, Paul, 155 - - Joppa, 125 - - -- flats, 122 - - Juniper, 25, 69 - - - K - - Kathan farm, 177 - - Kelp, 55, 57 - - Kenoza lake, 24 - - Khan, Genghis, 188 - - Kingbird, 56 - - Kingfisher, 69, 70, 71 - - - L - - Ladies’ Tresses, 86 - - Launcelot, 144 - - “Legend of Ara-Cœli,” 34 - - Lichen, 9, 108, 184, 185 - - -- reindeer, 10 - - Lilac, 17, 29, 186, 187, 188, 189 - - Liliputian, 85 - - Lily, pond, 32, 42 - - -- water, 82 - - Lincoln, 63 - - Liverpool packet, 120 - - London pride, 19 - - Long Point, 75, 76, 77 - - Lotos, 101 - - Love-in-a-mist, 44 - - Lycæna pseudargiolus, 144 - - - M - - Madeira, 119 - - Magnolia, 162 - - Maidenhair fern, 95 - - Manomet, 136, 143, 145, 147 - - -- head, 135 - - -- heights, 146 - - Maple, 21, 68, 128, 140, 164, 165, 171 - - -- sap, 179 - - -- sugar, 164, 171, 180, 182 - - Marigold, 44 - - -- marsh, 142 - - Marjoram, 19 - - Marshfield, 1, 3, 6, 14 - - Maryland yellow-throat, 52, 201, 202, 204 - - Massachusetts bay, 105 - - Mayflower, the, 10, 76, 94, 95, 105, 135, 136, 142, 147 - - Mayflower, 139, 141, 142, 143, 146, 147 - - Meadow Sweet, 67 - - Memorial Day, 184, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191, 192, 195 - - Merrimac, 15, 20, 27 - - Miantowonah, 32, 42 - - Mica, 49 - - Milkweed, 37, 39, 40, 41 - - Mint, wild, 20 - - Minute Man, 91, 92, 93, 99 - - Mirror, New York, 105 - - Mogg Megone, 16 - - Monarch butterfly, 39, 56 - - Monotropa uniflora, 42 - - Morning glory, 49 - - Mourning cloak butterfly, 143, 146 - - Mourning dove, 13 - - Mussels, 54 - - - N - - Naples, 145 - - Naples, bay of, 145 - - Newbury, 118 - - Newburyport, 118, 119, 121, 123, 125, 129 - - Nuthatch, white-breasted, 171 - - - O - - Oak, 68, 140 - - Oak, red, 21, 99 - - -- white, 21 - - Octavia, Miss, 132 - - Odysseus, 160 - - Odyssey, 160 - - Old Curiosity Shop, 123 - - “Old Oaken Bucket, The,” 104, 114, 117 - - Omar, 188 - - Orchid, 38 - - -- larger, fringed, 36 - - -- small purple-fringed, 36 - - Oriole, 162 - - Oven-bird, 203, 204, 205 - - Owl, 200 - - - P - - Papilio turnus, 38 - - Parsnip, wild, 49 - - Parula, 200, 202 - - Paugus, 203 - - Peabody, 150 - - Peabody Academy of Science, 161 - - “Peabody Bird,” 199 - - Peabody, Joseph, 158 - - Peaked Hill Bar, 87 - - Peregrine, 3 - - Persepolis, 187 - - Persia, 187, 188 - - “Pickles for the Knowing Ones,” 123 - - Pierpont, John, 123, 124, 132 - - Pilgrim, 37, 75, 77, 82, 87, 89, 105, 137, 142, 144, 146, 147 - - -- cemetery, 3, 6, 12 - - -- children, 1, 141 - - -- descendants, 3 - - -- mothers, 78 - - -- scouts, 80 - - -- shrines, 78 - - -- warriors, 81 - - Pine, 16, 21, 68, 129, 191 - - -- pitch, 85 - - Pink, 44 - - -- clove, 34 - - Pipsissewa, 42 - - Plantain, 51 - - Plum, beach, 81, 88, 128 - - Plum Island, 132, 133 - - Plymouth, 2, 94, 135, 138, 142, 143 - - -- bay, 10, 145 - - -- colony, 105, 137 - - Plymouth rock, 105 - - Ponkapoag, 31, 33, 34, 35 - - -- brook, 35 - - -- pond, 31, 32, 42 - - Poplar, silver-leafed, 88 - - Poppies, 19, 44, 58 - - -- shirley, 49 - - Port au Prince, 119 - - Port Hudson, 193 - - Potentilla, 152, 153 - - Provincetown, 76, 77, 80, 87, 136 - - “Prynne, Hester,” 160 - - Puritan, 89, 154 - - Pyrameis huntera, 144 - - Pyrola, 42, 140 - - - Q - - Quail, 13 - - Quartz, 49 - - Queenstown, 120 - - - R - - Race Point, 75, 76, 78, 80 - - Rajah (ship), 150 - - Raspberry, 46 - - Revolution, the, 186, 189 - - Robin, 2, 3, 55, 127, 139, 193, 194 - - Rock weed, 53, 54, 57 - - Rose, damask, 34 - - -- wild, 9, 11, 24, 25, 26, 50, 58, 81, 113, 187 - - Royal Society, philosophical transactions of, 166 - - Rubaiyat, 188 - - Rudbeckias, 23 - - Rush, bog, 51 - - - S - - Sadi, 188 - - Sagittaria, 36 - - Sahara, 82 - - Salem, 148, 149, 150, 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 162, 166 - - Sandpipers, 56, 70 - - Sandwich Range, 204 - - Sandy Hook, 120 - - Sassafras, 9, 69 - - Saxifraga virginiensis, 143 - - Saxifrage, 43, 191, 192 - - Scarlet Letter, 122, 149, 161 - - Senegambia, 148 - - Shadbush, 46, 50 - - Sinbad the Sailor, 136 - - Skylark, 2 - - Sleepy Hollow, 99 - - Smelt, 128, 130 - - Smilacina, 186, 189, 190, 192 - - Smilax, 111, 190 - - -- rotundifolia, 81 - - -- wild, 81 - - Smith, Capt. John, 33, 76 - - Snake, green, 52 - - Snipe, Wilson’s, 141 - - Sparrow, song, 52, 55, 140, 169, 203, 206 - - -- white-throated, 199, 211 - - Spiranthes, gracilis, 86 - - Spofford, Harriet Prescott, 124, 129 - - Spruce, 172 - - Standish, Myles, 78, 85, 89 - - Steeplebush, 24, 25 - - Stevenson, 161 - - St. John’s-wort, 47, 58 - - St. Martins, 119 - - Strawberry, 4 - - -- wild, 152 - - Sudbury, 101 - - Sumac, 9, 27, 50, 58 - - -- staghorn, 8, 26, 46 - - Surinam, 119, 148 - - Swallow, 7 - - -- barn, 5, 6, 53 - - -- tree, 53, 54 - - Sweet-fern, 25, 81 - - Sweet william, 19 - - - T - - Tambourine bird, 23 - - Tamerlane, 188 - - Tanager, 194 - - Thaxter, Celia, 49 - - -- --, garden of, 44, 58 - - -- --, grave of, 58 - - Third Cliff, 112 - - Thistle, 25 - - Thoreau, 60, 65, 66, 67, 69, 73, 74, 98, 99, 100 - - Thoroughwort, 67, 68 - - Thrush, 193, 194 - - -- water, 203 - - -- wood, 195, 196, 208 - - Toad-flax, 47 - - “Tocsin, the,” 133 - - Town Brook, 138 - - Trillium, painted, 201 - - -- purple, 201 - - Troy, 97, 138 - - Truro, 86 - - -- North, 77, 78, 79, 85 - - Turtle-head, 41 - - - U - - Ulysses, 160 - - Usnea moss, 200 - - - V - - Vanessa antiopa, 143 - - Violet, 153, 186, 190, 192 - - -- wood, 201 - - Vireo, 21 - - -- red-eyed, 205, 206 - - -- warbling, 191 - - Virginia creeper, 47 - - Vishnu, 96 - - - W - - Walden, 60, 62, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71 - - Wapping Old Stairs, 122 - - Warbler, 194 - - -- Canadian, 206 - - -- wood, 86 - - Warsaw, 150 - - Water plantain, 37 - - Water striders, 21 - - Webster, Daniel, 2, 3, 6, 12 - - -- farm, 3 - - -- path, 10 - - -- place, 4 - - -- well house, 7 - - West, Ebenezer, 158 - - Whin, 154 - - Whip-poor-will, 197, 210 - - White Mountains, 45 - - White, Peregrine, 1, 3, 6, 12 - - -- --, mother of, 10 - - Whitefield, 123 - - Whittier, 17, 20, 23, 24, 28, 123 - - Whittier birthplace, 18 - - -- fireplace, 15 - - Whittier’s mother, 16 - - “Wild boat of the Atlantic, the,” 120 - - Willow, 88, 140 - - Wilmington, 164, 175 - - Wind flower, 143 - - Winslow, 12 - - Witch Hazel, 113 - - Woad-waxen, 154 - - Woodbine, 107, 110, 111 - - Woodchuck, 12, 107 - - Woodworth, Samuel, 104, 106, 110, 114, 115 - - - Y - - Yarrow, 25, 47, 48, 49 - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE - - Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been - corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within - the text and consultation of external sources. - - Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, - and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. - - Pg ix: ‘The Birds of Chocorua’ replaced by ‘Birds of Chocorua’. - Pg 118: ‘In the heydey’ replaced by ‘In the heyday’. - Pg 213: ‘Azalia,’ replaced by ‘Azalea,’. - Pg 213: ‘Beech, 21, 177, 280’ replaced by ‘Beech, 21, 177, 200’. - Pg 213: ‘Bilboa,’ replaced by ‘Bilbao,’. - Pg 214: ‘Cardamine praetensis,’ replaced by ‘Cardamine pratensis,’. - Pg 216: ‘Gualaloupe,’ replaced by ‘Guadeloupe,’. - Pg 217: ‘Odyssy,’ replaced by ‘Odyssey,’. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY PILGRIMAGES OF A -NATURALIST *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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