"When buckets shine 'gainst maple trees
And drop by drop the sap doth flow,
When days are warm, but nights do freeze,
And deep in woods lie drifts of snow,
When cattle low and fret in stall,
Then morning brings the phoebe's call,
'Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe'."
As we came down to the roadway that leads from the old farm to Woodchuck
Lodge, Mr. Burroughs pointed out to us a junco's nest just outside the
road. This nest had afforded him much pleasure during his present stay
up at Roxbury, as he saw it two or four times a day, as he passed by on
his way to his brother's home for milk. On the crest of the hill between
the two houses--the old home and Woodchuck Lodge--I stopped and looked
for several moments at the place of the naturalist's birth, and at the
farm, with all the beautiful meadows and pastures, for I knew that I
would not see them again soon. When it was told me that all these
meadows and woods and stone walls, look now as they did sixty and more
years ago, I could understand how a country lad, born and reared among
such scenes, could grow into a great naturalist. I could now enjoy and
understand some of the qualities of his literary productions. The
country was a new one to me and altogether unlike any I had seen, but
having tasted of it through the medium of good literature, I was
prepared to make the best of my opportunity to study it. What
particularly impressed me, and what was so different from the scenes of
my childhood, was the buckwheat fields dotting the meadows here and
yonder, and the long straight stone fences marking the meadows and
hillsides. "These walls were built by a generation of men that had
ginger," Mr. Burroughs said, "a quality so much lacking these days."
No words could express the happiness that had come to me during the week
that I was rambling through the Catskills. While going down through the
meadow in front of Woodchuck Lodge, on my way to the railroad station, I
seemed to be flooded with memories of a happy experience. These memories
still haunt me and may they continue to do so even unto the end of time.
I had learned better than I ever knew, that "this brown, sun-tanned,
sin-stained earth is a sister to the morning and the evening star," and
that it has more of beauty and love written on it than has ever been
read by all the poets in the distant ages past; that there are still
left volumes for the interpreter. I had taken a little journey in the
divine ship as it sailed over the divine sea. I had heard one talk of
the moral of the solar system,--of its harmony, its balance, its
compensation, and I thought that there is no deeper lesson to be
learned.