It is Sunday morning, and the mists are beginning to roll away and the
summer sun of August just beginning to smile once more upon a world of
beauty and of love, after the ugly days during the latter part of the
week. The cattle are lowing to the north and to the south, and the
shadows of the clouds are floating o'er the meadows less swiftly. The
mountain peaks are clearing up after their cloud-baths. When I reached
the Lodge in the early morning, I found John Burroughs preparing
breakfast, and I brought the water and the wood and stirred the malted
wheat while he prepared some other foods.
After the meal was over, I read the papers and walked around in
neighboring meadows, while Mr. Burroughs went down to the home farm for
a pail of milk. The flickers were playing in the corner of the pasture
to the south, and the goldfinches seemed to be feeding their young in
the large apple trees across the road, but I never found a nest. To the
west I saw an indigo bird flitting about some shrubbery by the stone
fence, which attracted me that way. I thought perhaps something had
disturbed the birds' nest, but I looked in vain for some vindication of
my suspicion.
By this time, Mr. Burroughs had returned and all were ready to begin our
climb to the summit of the Old Clump, the mountain most beloved of all
by the naturalist, and the one about which he speaks oftenest. His
father's farm extends far up the southeast side of this mountain and, of
course, he played on and about it when he was a young boy. The face of
this mountain doubtless made inroads on his character, and stimulated
him to a love of nature. For on the summit of it, he sits or rolls and
dreams of former--and he almost thinks better--days.
Here on the summit of this mountain is where Mr. Burroughs wrote,
"Mid-summer in the Catskills," August, 1905, which is possibly the best
poem he ever wrote, with the exception "Waiting." Just as we had left
the Lodge, we came to a tree under which was a large boulder. The
naturalist mounted this boulder and sat for a moment sighing: "How many
times, I have played upon this rock when I was a boy. I remember mother
used to look this way when she did not find us about the house." Below
this boulder, two of the small boys in the party found a vesper
sparrow's nest, in which we all became interested, but in order to get
back to dinner we must be away and up the mountain. To go straight up
the side of the Clump would have been a hard climb, so we went angling
across toward the east, and after passing the boys' sleeping place in
the trees, we turned back to the north and west, following the old
pathway that leads from the Burroughs farm to the mountain top. Not far
had we followed this path before we came to a spring flowing with cool,
clear water, and nestled in the side of the mountain. Here we all
quenched our thirst, Mr. Burroughs taking the lead. "Many times have I
quenched my thirst here at this spring," he said. "The Naiads have
welcomed me here for more than sixty years, and still they guard this
sacred fountain for me. Narcissus meets me here every summer with
refreshing beauty after my hard pull up the mountain. I still join the
great god Pan in making love to the wood nymphs hereabouts. O, there are
so many ways of getting happiness in these places." Imagine how
delightful it was to hear the voice of John Burroughs as he told these
stories of his love for these his native scenes! There was every
indication that he was experiencing much happiness as he recalled his
first walks up the mountain and of his first sight of that spring.
The mountain woods were beautifully decked with flowers everywhere, the
_antenaria_ perhaps taking the lead so far as numbers go. This was
particularly plentiful about the top of the mountain. Soon we were on
the highest peak from which we could see the many neighboring peaks in
all directions, and the blue folds of the ridges, layer upon layer for
many miles to the south and east. What a fine view-point! The
exhilaration of the mountain air, how much it means after a long hard
climb! Down in the valley are markings of the farms with the long
straight stone fences, so delicate and so finely drawn! The panoramic
view of the valleys present the colorings and fine markings of maps on
the pages of a book, but much more beautiful, and in these parts more
perfect. The liquid depths of air and long vistas are a feast to the
eyes.
I was anxious to know where Mr. Burroughs was nestled on this lofty peak
when he wrote the poem of which mention has been made, and asked him to
point out the place when we reached it. "It is over near the northeast
edge of the summit, and we shall soon be there." As we pushed our way
between two large boulders where, Mr. Burroughs told us it had long been
the custom for young men to kiss their girls as they helped them through
there, and of the many he, himself, had kissed there, we came to a large
open grassy spot. Here the naturalist sat down and rolled over in the
grass, indicating that he had at last reached home. About twenty paces
off toward the eastern edge of the mountain top, was a large flat rock,
almost as level as a table top, just beneath which was a fine growth of
large trees, the tops of which were a little above the table of stone.
"Here," he said, "is where I began writing 'Midsummer in the
Catskills'."
The poem begins as follows:
"The strident hum of sickle bar,
Like giant insect heard afar,
Is on the air again;
I see the mower where he rides
Above the level grassy tides
That flood the meadow plain."
"I remember," he says, "on that day I saw, in the field toward the Betsy
Bouton place, the cradlers walking through the fields of grain, and it
made a deep impression on me."
"The cradlers twain with right good will,
Leave golden lines across the hill,
Beneath the mid-day sun.
The cattle dream 'neath leafy tent
Or chew the cud of sweet content
Knee-deep in pond or run."
We could see the cattle in the nether pasture on the old Burroughs' home
place, and my mind was full of the above lines which I had committed to
memory when they were first printed.
"The dome of day o'erbrims with sound
From humming wings on errands bound
Above the sleeping fields."
What a picture of bees in the upper air freighting honey from field to
hive and storing it away for the winter supply! The two following
stanzas perhaps interpret the beauty of the situation better than any
other part of the poem:
"Poised and full is summer's tide
Brimming all the horizon wide,
In varied verdure dressed;
Its viewless currents surge and beat
In airy billows at my feet
Here on the mountain crest.
"Through pearly depths I see the farms,
Where sweating forms and bronzed arms
Reap in the land's increase;
In ripe repose the forests stand
And veiled heights on every hand
Swim in a sea of peace."
The truth of these lines lay out before us. There lay the grain in the
fields where the cradlers had reaped in the land's increase. There stood
the veiled heights on every side which John Burroughs named beginning on
the right: Table mountain, Slide mountain, Double Top mountain and
Graham. From the front of Woodchuck Lodge he had already named for us
Bald Mountain, Hack's Flats, Schutle's and the one we were now on. Truly
they were all veiled heights as we viewed them from the summit of the
Old Clump.
As I loitered about among the boulders on the mountain I became much
interested in the names cut in the large boulders of people who had
lived in the Burroughs community, and seeing that Mr. Burroughs himself
was also interested in them, I began to ask him about them, and I copied
many of them in my note book. Nothing pleased the Naturalist better than
to tell of the people who used to be his neighbors, and I think he
remembered them all. As we looked out again across the valley, his eyes
got a glimpse of the old Betsy Bouton place, and he recalled that she
was a widow who had one daughter and two sons. "These were the laziest
human beings I ever saw,--these boys. They would sit up by the fire and
mumble, while the mother brought in the wood and the water, and cooked
the meals, and the daughter would do the milking. Nothing could the
mother get out of them, but to sit around the open fire and grumble at
their hard lot, and that they had so much to do. She used to have a hard
time getting them up and ready for school."
From here we could see the vicinity of the little red school house where
John Burroughs had gone to school sixty years before, and he told of his
experience with Jay Gould. Jay paid him for writing an essay, and he
paid Jay eighty cents for a grammar and an algebra. "These were my
first grammar and algebra, and I paid for them with the money I had
earned selling sugar from my individual boiling pan in the sugar bush. I
shall tell you about it and show you where I boiled the sugar, as we go
down that way."
[Illustration: UNDER THE OLD GRAY LEDGE]
He enjoyed telling of one certain student--a schoolmate of his who had
long curly hair. "His hair was as curly as you ever saw and turned under
at the bottom. O, how I longed to have my hair look like his did! I
thought it was the prettiest hair I ever saw grow."
Our descent from the mountain top was easy. We followed the path to the
right coming down, and the decline was a little more gradual. The upper
Burroughs pasture extended almost half-way up the mountain side. It was
separated from the lower pasture by a stone wall. I never saw so many
stones and small boulders in one place as I saw in this lower pasture.
The ground was almost covered. There was certainly a much larger crop of
these than of grass. Here I thought Deucalion and Pyrrha must have
failed to convert stones into people, but continued throwing, even to
the tiring of Jupiter's patience. Rolling them down the long steep hill
afforded some fine sport for us. Mr. Burroughs told of a very
interesting incident in his early life. "I remember," he said, "when I
was a young chap I used to roll stones down this hill very often. One
day I got a large, round boulder high up the mountain side and turned
it loose with a good push. Those bars down there had just been finished
by father and had cost him considerable work and worry. The stone was
heavy and was almost a disc, and had gathered considerable momentum as
it neared the base of the hill, and ran directly into the bars and
literally knocked them to pieces. Perhaps I could not have remembered
the incident so well if this had been all, but as a further reminder,
father gave me a pretty severe lashing. I remember how out of patience
he was at my carelessness."
Passing through these bars we went through the sugar maple bush, that
had longer than he could remember, supplied the family with syrup and
sugar. The old vat and the furnace were there and the shell of a house
to ward off the cold winds of April,
"While smoking Dick doth boil the sap."