GRINDSTONE BROOK--FOREST SOUNDS--A FUNNY TREE, COVERED WITH SNOW
FLAKES.
We crossed over towards a deep bay on the west shore, to where a
stream comes cascading down the rocks, and leaping into the lake, as
if rejoicing at finding a resting-place in its quiet bosom. The spot
where this stream enters, is in the deep shadow of the old forest
trees that reach their leafy arms far out from the ledges on which
they grow, forming an arch above, and shutting out the sunlight. Here
the trout congregate, to enjoy the cool water that comes down from the
hills above. We approached it carefully, and Smith, by way of
experiment, cast his fly across the current where the stream enters
the lake. It was seized by a beautiful fish weighing, perhaps, two
pounds. We did not need him, for the place where we proposed to pitch
our tents for the night would afford us all the fish required, and
after lifting him into the boat with the landing-net and releasing
the hook from his jaw, we returned him to the lake again.
Two miles from the head of the lake, on the east side, is a deep bay
at the head of which enters a little brook that comes creeping along
for a mile among the tangled roots of ancient hemlocks and spruce,
singing gaily among the loose stones, sometimes disappearing entirely
beneath bridges of moss, and sometimes sparkling in the sunlight, on
its way to the lake. This little stream we found swarming with
speckled trout of the size of minnows, and at its mouth the large
trout congregated. As we rounded one of the points that shut out the
view of this bay from the lake, we saw two deer feeding quietly upon
the lily pads along the shore, some quarter of a mile from us. We
dropped quietly back behind the point, where Smith and one of the
boatmen prepared to take a shot at them. Martin took his seat in the
stern with his paddle, and Smith lay stretched at length along the
bottom of the boat upon boughs prepared for the occasion, with his
rifle resting upon the forward end of the boat. It was broad daylight,
and to paddle up within shooting distance of a deer under such
circumstances, in plain view of an animal the most wary, is a delicate
job, but it may be done. I have more than once been thus paddled
within thirty yards of a deer while feeding in the water. The wind
must be blowing from the deer to the hunter, or the scent will alarm
the animal, and he will go snorting and bounding away.
Smith and Martin passed silently out into the bay, and moved slowly
towards where the deer were feeding. The boat in which we sat was
permitted to float out to a position from which we could see the
sportsmen as they approached the game. Slowly but steadily they moved,
the paddle remaining in the water, sculling the little craft along as
if it were a log drifting in the water. The deer occasionally raised
their heads, looking all around, evidently regarding the boat as a
harmless thing floating in from the lake. After gazing thus about them
they stooped their heads again, and went on feeding, as if no danger
were near them. The hunters drifted within seventy or eighty yards of
the game, when a column of white smoke shot suddenly up from the bow
of the boat, and the report of Smith's rifle rang out sharp and clear
over the lake. We saw where the ball struck the water just beyond the
deer, passing directly under its belly, possibly high enough to graze
its body. At the flash and report of the rifle, the animal leaped high
into the air, bounded in affright this way and that for a moment, and
then straightened itself for the woods. We heard his snort as he went
crashing up the hillside.
Reader, should you ever drift out to this beautiful lake, you will
find on the ridge just above where Bog River comes tumbling, and
roaring, and foaming over the rocks into the lake, the charred remains
of a campfire, built against a great log that was once the trunk of a
tall forest tree. If you should visit it within a year or two, you
will perhaps notice some forked stakes standing a few feet from the
place of the fire, and a bed of withered and dry boughs (now fresh
and green). Well, our tents were stretched over those stakes, those
boughs were our bed, and those charred chunks are the remains of our
campfire, that sent a sepulchral light among the forest trees around.
The sounds that come upon the ear during the night in a far off place
like this, are peculiar. The old owl hoots mournfully, the frogs
bellow hoarsely along the reedy shore, while the tree toads are
quavering from among the branches of the scrubby trees that grow along
the rocky banks; the whippoorwill pipes shrilly in the forest depths;
the breeze murmurs among the foliage of the tall old pines, while the
everlasting roar of the waters, as they go tumbling down the rocks, is
always heard. However diversified these sounds may be, they all invite
to repose. They fall soothingly upon the ear, and though all are
distinctly heard, yet strange as it may seem, there is a strong
impression upon the mind of the deep silence pervading the forest.
This impression is doubtless occasioned by the utter dissimilarity
between the voices one hears in the day, from those which fall upon
the ear in the night time. The former are all joyous and happy, full
of gladness and merriment, full of life and animation; the latter
solemn, deep, profound, lulling to the senses; not sorrowful nor sad,
yet still such as form a calm and quiet lullaby, under the influence
of which one glides away into slumber, and sleeps quietly until dawn.
Then the voice of gladness breaks so tumultuously on the ear, that he
must be a sluggard indeed who can resist their wakening influences.
How beautifully the sun went down behind the hills, lighting up the
western sky, and the fleecy clouds floating in the heavens with a
blaze of glory, throwing a mantle of silver over the tall ranges and
mountain peaks that loomed up in solemn grandeur away in the east; and
how stilly, silently the stars came out from the depths above, and how
brightly and truthfully they were given back from away down in depths
beneath the placid waters. We had taken half a dozen beautiful trout
from the foot of the falls where the current shoots out into the lake.
We had eaten them too, and were sitting in front of our tents smoking
our evening pipes.
"Spalding," said the Doctor, "How I wish our little boys were out here
with us. How they would enjoy themselves among these lakes and rivers.
It is a hard lot that the children of our cities have in life. They
struggle up to man and womanhood against fearful odds, and the wonder
is, that they do not perish in their infancy; that they are not
blasted, as the blossoms are, when the cold east wind sweeps over
the earth."
"You are right, my friend," replied Spalding. "I should like to have
our little boys, and girls too, for that matter, with us for a few
days out here on these lakes. It would be a lifetime to them,
measuring time by the enjoyment it would afford them. Still their city
habits might make them tire of this freedom in a week. You and I enjoy
it longer, because it brings back old memories and relieves us from
the toils of business and the restraints of conventional life. You
are right too in saying that the lot of our city children is a hard
one. To live imprisoned between long rows of brick walls, breathing an
atmosphere charged with the exhalations of ten thousand cooking
stoves, the dust of forges and the smoke of furnaces, machine shops,
gas works, filthy streets, and the thousand other manufactories of
villainous smells; where the summer air has no freshness, no forest
odors, or sweetness gathered from fields of grain, the meadows, or the
pastures. To tramp only on stone sidewalks. To know nothing of the
pleasant paths beneath the spreading branches of old primeval trees;
no soft grass for their little feet to press; never to wander along
the streams or the little brooks; to be strangers always to the
beautiful things spread out everywhere in the country in the summer
time. I always feel sad when I see the pale faces of the little
children of the great cities, and marvel how so many of them grow up
to be men and women. It is a hard lot to be cooped up in the city,
vegitating, as it were, in the shade, where there is no grass for
their little feet to press, no fences to climb, or fields to ramble
over, or brooks to wade, or running water on which to float chips, and
wherein to watch the little chubs and shiners dancing and playing
about, or fresh pure air to breathe, or birds to listen to. It is a
thousand pities that the cities could not be emptied every summer of
their little people into the free and open country, where they could
run about, and sport and play, and have free range and plenty of
elbow-room. It would make them so much healthier and happier, so much
more cheerful; their voices of gladness would ring out so much more
joyously in the morning, and their songs be so much more sweet
at night."
I remember an anecdote told me of a little child, born in the great
metropolis, who had never, until her fifth summer, been outside of the
paved streets of New York. Her mother had friends residing in one of
the up-river towns, owning a beautiful farm overlooking the Hudson,
and in early May she paid them a visit, taking her little daughter
with her. Mary, of course, was delighted. Like a bird freed from its
cage, she flew about here, there, everywhere, in-doors and out, among
the chickens and the pigs, the turkeys and the lambs, enjoying to the
full the thousand new things that her eyes rested upon all around her,
and her young spirits in wild commotion under the bracing influences
of the country air. "Mother! mother!" she exclaimed, as she came
dashing into the parlor, her beautiful curls floating wildly over her
shoulders, and her bright eyes wide open with wonder; "Mother I
mother! come out here, quick! and see this funny tree, all covered
over with snow-flakes, and how sweet it smells all around it." It was
a plum tree in full blossom. That little child had never seen the
beautiful spring blossoms on the fruit trees.
"I have no children of my own," remarked Smith, "and, therefore, may
not be regarded as the best authority in regard to the manner of
treating, or rearing children; but I have often wondered at the very
great mistakes people sometimes make in regard to them. There are
parents who mean no wrong, and yet who make no scruple of deceiving
them in reply to their simple questionings, forgetting, or regardless
of the fact, that a false answer to their innocent inquiries put in
good faith, and in the earnest pursuit of truth, may plant an error in
their minds, which may take years of experience, and often a painful
amount of ridicule to eradicate. I knew a little boy years ago, a
thoughtful, philosophic child, who speculated in his simplicity upon
what he saw, as great philosophers do, in their wisdom, upon the
various phenomena of Nature. His father, had a great barn, above
which, as was the fashion long ago, perched upon a staff, a few feet
above the ridgepole, was a weather-cock, fashioned out of a piece of
board in the shape of a rooster. 'Father,' said the little boy, one
day, 'what makes that rooster always point his head one way when the
cold wind blows, and the other way when it is warm and pleasant?' 'He
always looks towards the place where the wind comes from,' replied the
father; 'when he gets too warm, and the sun is too hot for him, he
turns his tail to the south, and the north wind is sure to come down,
cold and chill, to cool him off.' 'Does he call the cold wind, father,
and will it come when he looks, that way?' was the next inquiry.
'Certainly,' replied his father, carelessly. That was a wrong and a
foolish answer.
"That little boy, relying in his simple faith upon the wisdom and
truthfulness of his father, believed for a long time, that the
weathercock on the top of the barn, could bring the cold north, or
the warm south wind, by turning upon its perch. He was cured of his
error only by being laughed at for his simplicity. Parents should
never deceive their children by a careless or a wrong answer to the
simple questions put to them by these little searchers after
knowledge."
"I remember," said the doctor, "and it is one of the earliest
incidents which my recollection has treasured, that I was out one
evening in autumn, with a boy older than myself, gathering hazel nuts.
The sun had sunk behind the hills, and the shadows of twilight were
gathering in the valley. It was a beautiful and calm evening, the
solemn stillness of which, was only broken by the 'tza! tza!' of
thousands of katydids among the bushes. I asked my companion what it
was that made the noise I heard, and he, supposing that I referred to
sounds that came up occasionally from the lake, after listening for a
moment, answered that it was made by the wild geese. In my simplicity
I believed it, and it was not until I caught, the next season, a
katydid while it was in the act of singing, that I discovered that the
music among the hazel bushes was not made by the wild geese."
"I never respect a man or woman," said Spalding, "whose heart does not
warm towards little children, who takes no pleasure nor interest in
their society, who has no patience to listen to their simple thoughts
expressed in their simple way. 'Mother,' said a little child of four
or five years of age, one evening when the summer air was warm, and
the skies were bright above, as she sat beside her mother, on a bench
beneath the spreading branches of the tall old elms in front of the
house; 'mother, what makes the stars come out, only after the dark has
come down, and why don't the moon go up into the sky like the sun in
the day time?' I listened anxiously for the reply. I knew the kind
heart of that mother, how truthful it was, and how earnest and pure in
its affection for its gentle and only darling. 'Sit here upon my lap,
Mary,' said the mother, 'and I will try and explain it all so that you
will understand it.' And she told the little child how God made the
sun to rule the day, and the moon and the stars to rule the night; how
that the stars were always in the sky, but how the superior brightness
of the sun put them out in the day time; how the stars, that twinkled
like little rush-lights in the heavens, were great worlds, a thousand
times larger than this earth, made and placed away up in the sky, by
the same great and good God who made the world we live in. Little Mary
was silent and attentive to the simple lecture, until it was finished,
and then asked, so simply and confidingly, that I could not help
smiling to think that the mind of childhood should be running upon a
subject, and seeking a solution of the same question which has puzzled
the profoundest philosophers through all time: 'Mother,' said the
little one, 'are there people in the moon and in the stars, them great
worlds that look to us so like candles in the sky?' 'That question, my
child,' said the mother, 'I cannot answer.' 'I believe,' said the
child, that there _are_ people in the moon, and in all the stars.'
'Why?' asked her mother. 'Because I don't believe God would make such
big and beautiful worlds without making people to live in them.' What
more has the profoundest philosopher who ever lived said, to prove
that those mighty worlds which are seen in the heavens at night, that
are scattered all through the universe of God, rolling forever on
their everlasting rounds, are peopled by living, moving,
sentient beings?"