GOING "A-CHESTNUTTING."
The bright days of summer were a short-lived joy at Poganuc. One
hardly had time to say "How beautiful!" before it was past. By
September came the frosty nights that turned the hills into rainbow
colors and ushered in autumn with her gorgeous robes of golden-rod
and purple asters. There was still the best of sport for the
children, however; for the frost ripened the shag-bark walnuts and
opened the chestnut burrs, and the glossy brown chestnuts dropped
down among the rustling yellow leaves and the beds of fringed blue
gentians.
One peculiarity of the Puritan New England _régime_ is worthy of
special notice, and that is the generosity and liberality of its
dealing in respect to the spontaneous growths of the soil. The
chestnuts, the hickory-nuts, the butternuts--no matter upon whose
land they grew--were free to whoever would gather them. The girls and
boys roamed at pleasure through the woods and picked, unmolested,
wherever they could find the most abundant harvest. In like
manner the wild fruits--grapes, strawberries, huckleberries, and
cranberries--were for many years free to the earliest comer. This
is the more to be remarked in a community where life was peculiarly
characterized by minute economy, where everything had its carefully
ascertained money-value. Every board, nail, brad, every drop of
paint, every shingle, in house or barn, was counted and estimated.
In making bargains and conducting domestic economies, there was
the minutest consideration of the money-value of time, labor and
provision. And yet their rigidly parsimonious habit of life presented
this one remarkable exception, of certain quite valuable spontaneous
growths left unguarded and unappropriated.
Our Fathers came to New England from a country where the poor man
was everywhere shut out from the bounties of nature by game-laws and
severe restrictions. Though his children might be dying of hunger he
could not catch a fish, or shoot a bird, or snare the wild game of
the forest, without liability to arrest as a criminal; he could not
gather the wild fruits of the earth without danger of being held a
trespasser, and risking fine and imprisonment. When the Fathers took
possession of the New England forest it was in the merciful spirit of
the Mosaic law, which commanded that something should always be left
to be gathered by the poor. From the beginning of the New England
life till now there have been poor people, widows and fatherless
children, who have eked out their scanty living by the sale of the
fruits and nuts which the custom of the country allowed them freely
to gather on other people's land.
Within the past fifty years, while this country has been filling up
with foreigners of a different day and training, these old customs
have been passing away. Various fruits and nuts, once held free,
are now appropriated by the holders of the soil and made subject to
restriction and cultivation.
In the day we speak of, however, all the forest hills around Poganuc
were a free nut-orchard, and one of the chief festive occasions of
the year, in the family at the Parsonage, was the autumn gathering of
nuts, when Dr. Cushing took the matter in hand and gave his mind to
it.
On the present occasion, having just finished four sermons which
completely cleared up and reconciled all the difficulties between
the doctrines of free agency and the divine decrees, the Doctor was
naturally in good spirits. He declared to his wife, "There! my dear,
_that_ subject is disposed of. I never before succeeded in really
clearing it up; but now the matter is done for all time." Having thus
wound up the sun and moon, and arranged the courses of the stars in
celestial regions, the Doctor was as alert and light-hearted as any
boy, in his preparations for the day's enterprise.
"Boys," he said, "we'll drive over to Poganuc Ledge; up there are
those big chestnuts that grow right out of the rock; there's no
likelihood of anybody's getting them--but I noticed the other day
they were hanging full."
"Oh, father, those trees are awful to climb."
"Of course they are. I won't let you boys try to climb them--mind
that; but I'll go up myself and shake them, and you pick up
underneath."
No Highland follower ever gloried more in the physical prowess of
his chief than the boys in that of their father. Was there a tree
he could not climb--a chestnut, or walnut, or butternut, however
exalted in fastnesses of the rock, that he could not shake down? They
were certain there was not. The boys rushed hither and thither, with
Spring barking at their heels, leaving open doors and shouting orders
to each other concerning the various pails and baskets necessary to
contain their future harvest. Mrs. Cushing became alarmed for the
stability of her household arrangements.
"Now, father, _please_ don't take all my baskets this time," pleaded
she, "just let me arrange----"
"Well, my dear, have it all your own way; only be sure to provide
things enough."
"Well, surely, they can all pick in pails or cups, and then they can
be emptied into a bag," said Mrs. Cushing. "You won't get more than a
bushel, certainly."
"Oh yes, we shall--three or four bushels," said Will, triumphantly.
"There's no end of what we shall get when father goes," said Bob.
"Why, you've no idea how he rattles 'em down."
Meanwhile Mrs. Cushing and Nabby were packing a hamper with
bread-and-butter, and tea-rusks, and unlimited ginger-bread, and
doughnuts crisp and brown, and savory ham, and a bottle of cream,
and coffee all ready for boiling in the pot, and tea-cups and
spoons--everything, in short, ready for a gipsy encampment, while the
parson's horse stood meekly absorbing an extra ration of oats in that
contemplative attitude which becomes habitual to good family horses,
especially of the ministerial profession. Mrs. Cushing and the
Doctor, with Nabby and Dolly, and the hamper and baskets, formed the
load of the light wagon, while Will and Bob were both mounted upon
"the colt"--a scrawny, ewe-necked beast, who had long outgrown this
youthful designation. The boys, however, had means best known to
themselves of rousing his energies and keeping him ahead of the wagon
in a convulsive canter, greatly to the amusement of Nabby and Dolly.
Our readers would be happy could they follow the party along the
hard, stony roads, up the winding mountain-paths, where the trees,
flushing in purple, crimson and gold, seemed to shed light on their
paths; where beds of fringed gentian seemed, as the sunlight struck
them, to glow like so many sapphires, and every leaf of every plant
seemed to be passing from the green of summer into some quaint new
tint of autumnal splendor. Here and there groups of pines or tall
hemlocks, with their heavy background of solemn green, threw out the
flamboyant tracery of the forest in startling distinctness. Here and
there, as they passed a bit of low land, the swamp maples seemed
really to burn like crimson flames, and the clumps of black alder,
with their vivid scarlet berries, exalted the effect of color to the
very highest and most daring result. No artist ever has ventured to
put on canvas the exact copy of the picture that nature paints for us
every year in the autumn months. There are things the Almighty Artist
can do that no earthly imitator can more than hopelessly admire.
As to Dolly, she was like a bird held in a leash, full of
exclamations and longings, now to pick "those leaves," and then to
gather "those gentians," or to get "those lovely red berries;" but
was forced to resign herself to be carried by.
"They would all fade before the day is through," said her mother;
"wait till we come home at night, and then, if you're not too tired,
you may gather them." Dolly sighed and resigned herself to wait.
We shall not tell the joys of the day: how the Doctor climbed the
trees victoriously, how the brown, glossy chestnuts flew down in
showers as he shook the limbs, and how fast they were gathered by
busy fingers below. Not merely chestnuts, but walnuts, and a splendid
butternut tree, that grew in the high cleft of a rocky ledge, all
were made to yield up their treasures till the bags were swelled to a
most auspicious size.
Then came the nooning, when the boys delighted in making a roaring
hot fire, and the coffee was put on to boil, and Nabby spread the
table-cloth and unpacked the hamper on a broad, flat rock around
which a white foam of moss formed a soft, elastic seat.
[Illustration: CHESTNUTTING.
"_How the Doctor climbed the trees victoriously, how the brown,
glossy chestnuts flew down in showers.... And Nabby unpacked the
hamper on a broad, flat rock._"--p. 226.]
The Doctor was most entertaining, and related stories of the fishing
and hunting excursions of his youth, of the trout he had caught and
the ducks he had shot. The boys listened with ears of emulation,
and Dolly sighed to think she never was to be a man and do all these
fine things that her brothers were going to do.
But in the midst of all came Abel Moss, a hard-visaged farmer from
one of the upland farms, who, seeing the minister's wagon go by, had
come to express his mind to him concerning a portion of his last
Sunday's sermon; and the Doctor, who but a moment before had thought
only of trout and wild ducks, sat down by the side of Abel on a
fragment of rock and began explaining to him the difference between
the laws of matter and the laws of mind in moral government, and the
difference between divine sovereignty as applied to matter and to
mind.
The children wandered off during the discussion, which lasted some
time; but when the western sunbeams, sloping through the tree-trunks,
warned them that it was time to return, the Doctor's wagon might have
been seen coming down the rough slope of the mountain.
"There, my dear, I've set Moss right," he said. "There was a block in
his wheels that I've taken out. I think he'll go all straight now.
Moss has a good head; when he once sees a thing, he does see it,--and
I think I've clinched the nail with him to-day."