as we drifted down the stream. Two of the fairest bore the names of
nymphs. One was called after Leucothoë, "the white goddess," and its
curved racemes of tiny white bells hanging over the water were worthy
emblems of that pure queen who leaped into the sea with her babe in her
arms to escape from the frenzy of Athamas. The other was named for
Andromeda; and the great Linnæus, who gave the name, thus describes his
thought in giving it: "_Andromeda polifolia_ was now in its highest
beauty, decorating the marshy grounds in a most agreeable manner. The
flowers are quite blood-red before they expand, but when full-grown the
corolla is of a flesh-colour. As I contemplated it, I could not help
thinking of Andromeda as described by the poets; and the more I
meditated upon their descriptions, the more applicable they seemed to
the little plant before me. Andromeda is represented by them as a
virgin of most exquisite and unrivalled charms.... This plant is always
fixed on some little turfy hillock in the midst of the swamps, as
Andromeda herself was chained to the rock in the sea, which bathed her
feet as the fresh water does the roots of the plant. Dragons and
venomous serpents surrounded her, as toads and other reptiles frequent
the abode of her vegetable resembler. As the distressed virgin cast
down her face through excessive affliction, so does this rosy coloured
flower hang its head.... At length comes Perseus in the shape of
summer, dries up the surrounding water and destroys the monsters."
But more lovely than any of the shrubs along the river was that small
tree known as the sweet bay or the swamp laurel. Of course it is not a
laurel at all, but a magnolia (_Magnolia glauca_), and its glistening
leaves, dark green above, silvery beneath, are set around the large,
solitary flowers at the ends of the branches, like backgrounds of
malachite, to bring out the perfection of a blossom carved in fresh
ivory. What creamy petals are these, so thick, so tenderly curved
around the cone-like heart of the flower's fertility! They are warm
within, so that your finger can feel the soft glow in the centre of the
blossoms. But it is not for you to penetrate into the secret of their
love mystery. Leave that to the downy bee, the soft-winged moth, the
flying beetle, who, seeking their own pleasure, carry the
life-bestowing pollen from flower to flower. Your heavy hand would
bruise the soft flesh and discolor its purity. Be content to feast your
eyes upon its beauty, and breathe its wonderful fragrance, floating on
the air like the breath of love in the south and wild summer.
About the middle of the afternoon, after passing through miles of
enchanted forest, unbroken by sign of human habitation, we
"Came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon."
Low-rolling ridges of gravel, clothed with pine and oak, came down
along the river. The bank on the right rose higher, and, at a sharp
angle in the stream, lifted itself into a bluff-like point. Opposite
was the serpentine course of the Dead River, coiling through an open
marsh-meadow. Below the junction of the two streams our own river
flowed swiftly, through a straight reach, to the mouth of the still
lagoon where Mare Run came in.
Here we made our second camp, on the point, among the pines and the
hollies. For here, at last, we were in the heart of the region of
laurels, which we had come to see. All along the river we had found
some of them, just beginning to open their flowers, here and there. But
above and below the mouth of the Dead River the banks and ridges, under
the high shadow of the pines, were crowded with shining clumps of the
_Kalmia latifolia_, and something in the soil and exposure, or perhaps
even the single day of warm sunshine that had passed since we began our
voyage, had brought them already into the young flood of bloom.
I have seen the flame azaleas at their bright hour of consummation in
the hill country of central Georgia--lakes of tranquil and splendid
fire spreading far away through the rough-barked colonnades of the
pineries. I have seen the thickets of great rhododendrons on the
mountains of Pennsylvania in coronation week, when the magic of June
covered their rich robes of darkest green with countless sceptres,
crowns, and globes of white bloom divinely tinged with rose: superb,
opulent, imperial flowers. I have seen the Magnolia Gardens near
Charleston when their Arabian Nights' dream of colour was unfolding
beneath the dark cypresses and moss-bannered live-oaks. I have seen the
tulip and hyacinth beds of Holland rolled like a gorgeous carpet on the
meadows beneath the feet of Spring; and the royal gardens of Kew in the
month when the rose is queen of all the flowers; but never have I seen
an efflorescence more lovely, more satisfying to the eye, than that of
the high laurel along the shores of the unknown little river in South
Jersey.
Cool, pure, and virginal in their beauty, the innumerable clusters of
pink and white blossoms thronged the avenues of the pine woods, and
ranged themselves along the hillsides and sloping banks, and trooped
down by cape and promontory to reflect their young loveliness in the
flowing stream. It was as if some quiet and shadowy region of solitude
had been suddenly invaded by companies of maidens attired for a holiday
and joyously confident of their simple charms. The dim woodland was
illumined with the blush of conscious pleasure.
Seen at a distance the flower clusters look like big hemispheres of
flushed snow. But examine them closely and you see that each of the
rounded umbels is compounded of many separate blossoms--shallow,
half-translucent cups poised on slender stems of pale green. The cup is
white, tinted more or less deeply with rose-pink, the colour brightest
along the rim and on the outside. The edge is scalloped into five
points, and on the outer surface there are ten tiny projections around
the middle of the cup. Looking within, you find that each of these is a
little red hollow made to receive the crimson tip of a curving anther,
cunningly bent like a spring, so that the least touch may loosen it and
scatter the pollen. There is no flower in the world more exquisitely
fashioned than this. It is the emblem of a rustic maid in the sweet
prime of her morning.
We were well content with our day's voyage and our parting camp on the
river. We had done no harm; no accident had befallen us; we had seen
many lovely things and heard music from warbler and vireo, thrush and
wren, all day long. Even now a wood thrush closed his last descant in
flute-like notes across the river. Night began silently to weave her
dusky veil upon the vast loom of the forest. The pink glow had gone
from the flower-masses around us; whitely they glimmered through the
deepening shadows, and stood like gentle ghosts against the dark.
To-morrow we must paddle down to the village where the railroad crosses
the river, and hurry back to civilization and work. But to-night we
were still very far off; and we should sleep at the foot of a
pine-tree, beneath the stars, among the virgin laurels.
LITTLE RED TOM
* *
* My Uncle Peter was much interested in the war which broke out, not long
ago, among the professional nature-writers. He said that it was a civil
war, and therefore a philosopher was bound to be regardful of it,
because a civil war always involved subtle problems of psychology. He
also said that it was a most uncivil war, and that the picturesque
violence of the language employed on both sides was intrinsically
noteworthy to a philologist, and therefore he felt obliged to follow it
with care. When the Chief Magistrate of his native country took a hand
in it, my Uncle Peter claimed that it had become a subject of national
importance and that no true patriot could be indifferent to it. Finally
he admitted, in a moment of confidence, that the real reason for his
interest was the fact that so many of his friends were engaged in the
strife, on both sides, and were being badly pummeled; and that he would
like to take some part in it himself. I asked him what part. He
answered that he proposed to himself the part of peace-maker. I pointed
out that this part is usually the most perilous and painful. He said
that this should not deter him from doing his duty, and he added that
he thought he could do it in such a way that no one could tell that he
was doing it. A week later he brought me the following paper, which he
called
THE TRAGEDY OF LITTLE RED TOM:
_A Contribution to the Fight About Nature-Books._
He was the youngest of the family, a late-comer at the feast of
life. Yet the rose-garlands on the table were not faded when he
arrived, and the welcome that he received was not colder, indeed it
was probably several degrees warmer, because he was so tardy, so
young, so tiny.
There was room for him in the household circle; joyous affection
and merry murmurs of contentment greeted his coming. His older
brothers never breathed a word of jealousy or unkindness toward
him. He grew peacefully under the shelter of mother-love; and it
would have been difficult to foresee, in the rosy promise of his
youth, the crimson tragedy in which his life ended.
How dull, how insensible to such things, most men and women are!
They go on their way, busily and happily, doing their work, seeking
their daily food, enjoying their human pleasures, and never
troubling themselves about the hidden and inarticulate sorrows of
the universe. The hunter hunts, and the fisher fishes, with
inconsiderate glee. A man kills a troublesome insect, he eats a
juicy berry or a succulent oyster, without thinking of what his
victims must feel.
But there are some tender and sensitive souls who are too fine for
these callous joys. They no longer imagine that human emotions are
confined to man. They reflect that every plant and every animal is
doomed to die in some way which the average man would regard as
distinctly unpleasant. To them the sight of a chicken-house is full
of sorrowful suggestion, and a walk through a vegetable garden is
like a funeral procession. They meditate upon the tragic side of
all existence; and to them there will be nothing strange in this
story of the tragedy of Little Red Tom.
You have guessed that he was called "red" on account of his colour.
It was a family trait. All his brothers had it; and strange to say
they were proud of it.
Most people are so foolish that they speak with ridicule, or even
with contempt of this colour, when it is personally evolved. Have
you ever asked yourself why it is that the cold world alludes
derisively to a "red-headed boy," or a "red-headed girl"? The
language is different when the locks are of another hue. Then it is
a "black-haired boy," or a "golden-haired girl." Is not the very
word "red-headed," with its implied slur upon an innocent and
gorgeous colour, an unconscious evidence of the unreasonable
prejudice and hard insensibility of the human race?
Not so the family of Tom. The redder they grew the happier they
were, and the more pride their mother took in them. But she herself
was green. And so was little Tom, like all his brothers, when he
made his first appearance in the world--green--very green.
Nestled against his mother's side, sheltered by her embracing arms,
safe and happy in the quietude of her maternal care, he must have
looked out upon the passing show with wonder and pleasure, while
she instilled into him the lessons of wisdom and the warnings of
destiny.
"Grow, my little one," we can imagine her saying to him, in her
mysterious wordless language, "your first duty is to grow. Look at
your brothers, how big and round and fat they are! I can hardly
lift them. They did what I told them, and see what they have
become. All by growing! Simple process! Even a babe can understand
it. Grow, my Tommykin, grow! But don't try to grow red; first, you
must grow big."
It is quite sure, and evident to every imaginative observer of
nature, that Tommy's mother _must_ have told him something like
this, for this is precisely what he did--obedient, docile, clever
little creature! How else could he have learned it, if she had not
taught him? Who can trace the subtle avenues by which intelligence
is communicated from the old to the young, the treasured lore of
the ages handed down from one generation to another? But when we
see the result, when the little one begins to do what its parents
and grandparents have done, is it not evident that the teaching
must have been given, though in some way beyond our ken? If Tommy's
mother had not taught him, there is at least an even chance that he
would have tried to grow red before he grew big. But he laid her
lesson to heart, and day by day, week by week, his rotundity
expanded, while his verdancy remained.
It was a very beautiful life that they lived in the garden; and if
the thoughts and feelings that unfolded there could be known,
perhaps they would seem even more wonderful than the things which
the old German gardener cultivated. Away at one end were the beds
of old-fashioned flowers: hollyhocks and phlox and stocks,
coreopsis and calliopsis, calendula and campanula, fox-gloves and
monks-hoods and lady-slippers. At the other end were the
strawberry-bed and the asparagus-bed. In between, there were long
rows of all kinds of vegetables and small fruits and fragrant
herbs.
Who can tell what ideas and emotions were stirring in those placid
companies of leguminous comrades? What aspirations toward a loftier
life in the climbing beans? What high spirits in the corn? What
light and airy dreams on the asparagus-bed? What philosophy among
the sage? Imagine what great schemes were hatching among the
egg-plants, and what hot feelings stung the peppers when the
raspberries crowded them!
Tommy, from his central place in the garden must have felt the
agitation of this mimic world around him. Many a time, no doubt, he
was tempted to give himself up to one or another of the contiguous
influences, and throw himself into the social tide for "one
glorious hour of crowded life." But his mother always held him
back.
"No, my Tommykin, stay with me. It is not for you to climb a pole
like a bean or wave in the wind like an asparagus stalk, or rasp
your neighbours like a raspberry. Be modest, be natural, be true to
yourself. Stay with me and grow fat."
When the sunshine of the long July days flooded the garden,
glistening on the silken leaves of the corn, wilting the
potato-blossoms, unfolding the bright yellow flowers of the okra
and the melon, Tom would fain have pushed himself out into the full
tide of light and heat. But his mother bent tenderly over him.
"Not yet, my child; it is not time for you to bear the heat of the
day. A little shade is good for you. Let me cover you. It is too
soon for you to be sunburned."
When the plumping afternoon showers came down, refreshing leaf and
root of every plant, Tom shrank from the precipitate inundation.
"Mother, I'm all wet. I want to come in out of the rain."
But the mother knew what was good for him. So she held him out
bravely while the streaming drops washed him; and she taught him
how to draw in the moisture which she gathered for his nourishment.
In late August a change began to come over his complexion. His
verdant brilliancy was "sicklied o'er with a pale cast of thought,"
whitish, yellowish, nondescript. A foolish human mother would have
been alarmed and would have hurried to the medicine closet for a
remedy for biliousness. Not so Tom's wise parent. She knew that the
time had come for him to grow red. She let him have his own way now
about being out in the sunshine. She even thrust him gently forth
into the full light, withdrawing the shelter that she had cast
around him. Slowly, gradually, but surely the bright crimson hue
spread over him, until the illumination was complete, and the
mother felt that he was the most beautiful of her children--not the
largest, but round and plump and firm and glowing red as a ruby.
Then the mother-heart knew that the perils of life were near at
hand for Little Red Tom. Many of his brothers had already been torn
from her by the cruel hand of fate and had disappeared into the
unknown.
"Where have they gone to?" wondered Tom. But his mother could not
tell him. All that she could do was to warn him of the unseen
dangers that surrounded him, and prepare him to meet them.
"Listen, my child, and do as I tell you. When you hear a step on
the garden path, that means danger; and when a thing with wings
flies around me and comes near to you, that means danger too. But I
will teach you how to avoid it. I will give you three signs.
"The first sign is a rustling noise that I will make when a bird
comes near to you. That means _droop_. Let yourself down behind the
wire netting that I lean on, and then the bird will be afraid to
come close enough to peck at you. The second sign is a trembling
that you will feel in my arms when the gardener comes along the
walk. That means _snuggle_. Hide yourself as close to me as you
can. The third sign--well, I will tell you the third sign to-morrow
evening, for now I am tired."
In the early morning of a bright September day, while the dew was
still heavy on the leaves and the grass, and the gossamer cobwebs
glistened with little diamonds, a hungry robin flew into the
garden, and Tom heard the signal "_Droop!_" So he let himself down
behind the woven wire, and the robin put his head on one side and
looked at Tom greedily, and flew on to find a breakfast elsewhere.
A little before noon, when the sun was shining broadly and the
silken tassels of the corn were shrivelling up into make-believe
tobacco for bad little boys to smoke, there was a heavy step on the
garden walk, and Tom felt the signal "_Snuggle!_" Then he hugged as
close as he could to his mother's side, and the gardener with his
sharp knife cut off all Tom's surviving brothers and put them into
a box full of vegetables. But he did not see Tom, hidden close and
safe.
How glad the mother must have been, and how much Tom must have
loved her as he remembered all her wise lessons! It was a long
beautiful afternoon that they spent together, filled with pleasant
reminiscences, touched by no shadow of gloom, no dream of parting.
A golden afternoon--the last!
Just before sunset, a fair creature, clothed in white, came into
the garden. She moved for a while among the flowers, her yellow
hair gleaming in the low rays of the sun, her eyes bluer than
forget-me-nots. Who could think that such a creature could be cruel
or heartless? Who could dream that she would pursue her pleasure at
the cost of pain to the innocent? Who could imagine that she would
take life to feed her own?
Gently and daintily she came down the garden walk, past the
raspberry patch, past the tall rows of corn, past the egg-plants
and the peppers, with steps so light that the ground hardly felt
them, with bright eyes glancing from side to side--yes, with all
these, and also with a remorseless purpose in her heart and a
basket half full of cut flowers on her arm.
No signal to _droop_ or _snuggle_ came to Tom. The third
signal--ah, that he had not yet learned! So he basked his rosy
sides in the sunlight as the lovely apparition drew near to him.
She looked at him with delight. She put out her delicate hand to
embrace him. Then, without a tremor, she tore him ruthlessly from
his mother's grasp, from the home that he loved, and dropped him
into her basket.
"Oh, you little red beauty!" she cried. "You are just what I wanted
to fill up my tomato salad."
That night, as she sat at supper, with her father and mother and
brother and sisters, she was smiling and serene, for the table was
well furnished, and the feast was merry. There was white bread that
had been ground from thousands of innocent blades of wheat, once
waving in the sunlight, and a juicy fish that had been lured and
unwillingly drawn from the crystal waters. There was a brace of
grouse that had been snatched away from their feeding-grounds among
the spicy berries in the woods. And there was poor Little Red Tom,
in the centre of the salad, surrounded by crisp lettuce leaves and
dressed to the queen's taste.
Are there not some who would have shed tears at that sight, and
lamented even while they ate? But do you suppose the young girl was
one of that kind? Do you imagine that she thought she had played a
part in a tragedy? Not a bit of it. She was simply grateful that
her salad was so good, and glad that the others liked it.
* * * * *
_Moral_
_Reader, if you would not be like this young girl, you must read
and believe_----[1]
[1] Note: I regret to state that my Uncle Peter's manuscript
broke off at this point.
SILVERHORNS
The railway station of Bathurst, New Brunswick, did not look
particularly merry at two o'clock of a late September morning. There
was an easterly haar driving in from the _Baie des Chaleurs_ and the
darkness was so saturated with chilly moisture that an honest downpour
of rain would have been a relief. Two or three depressed and somnolent
travellers yawned in the waiting-room, which smelled horribly of smoky
lamps. The telegraph instrument in the ticket-office clicked
spasmodically for a minute, and then relapsed into a gloomy silence.
The imperturbable station-master was tipped back against the wall in a
wooden armchair, with his feet on the table, and his mind sunk in an
old Christmas number of _The Cowboy Magazine_. The express-agent, in
the baggage-room, was going over his last week's way-bills and accounts
by the light of a lantern, trying to locate an error, and sighing
profanely to himself as he failed to find it. A wooden trunk tied with
rope, a couple of dingy canvas bags, a long box marked "Fresh Fish!
Rush!" and two large leather portmanteaus with brass fittings were
piled on the luggage-truck at the far end of the platform; and beside
the door of the waiting-room, sheltered by the overhanging eaves, was a
neat travelling bag, with a gun-case and a rod-case leaning against the
wall. The wet rails glittered dimly northward and southward away into
the night. A few blurred lights glimmered from the village across the
bridge.
Dudley Hemenway had observed all these features of the landscape with
silent dissatisfaction, as he smoked steadily up and down the platform,
waiting for the Maritime Express. It is usually irritating to arrive at
the station on time for a train on the Intercolonial Railway. The
arrangement is seldom mutual; and sometimes yesterday's train does not
come along until to-morrow afternoon. Moreover, Hemenway was inwardly
discontented with the fact that he was coming out of the woods instead
of going in. "Coming out" always made him a little unhappy, whether his
expedition had been successful or not. He did not like the thought that
it was all over; and he had the very bad habit, at such times, of
looking ahead and computing the slowly lessening number of chances that
were left to him.
"Sixty odd years--I may live to be that old and keep my shooting
sight," he said to himself. "That would give me a couple of dozen more
camping trips. It's a short allowance. I wonder if any of them will be
more lucky than this one. This makes the seventh year I've tried to get
a moose; and the odd trick has gone against me every time."
He tossed away the end of his cigar, which made a little trail of
sparks as it rolled along the sopping platform, and turned to look in
through the window of the ticket-office. Something in the agent's
attitude of literary absorption aggravated him. He went round to the
door and opened it.
"Don't you know or care when this train is coming?"
"Nope," said the man placidly.
"Well, when? What's the matter with her? When is she due?"
"Doo twenty minits ago," said the man. "Forty minits late down to
Noocastle. Git here quatter to three, ef nothin' more happens."
"But what has happened already? What's wrong with the beastly old road,
anyhow?"
"Freight-car skipped the track," said the man "up to Charlo. Everythin'
hung up an' kinder goin' slow till they git the line clear. Dunno
nothin' more."
With this conclusive statement the agent seemed to disclaim all
responsibility for the future of impatient travellers, and dropped his
mind back into the magazine again. Hemenway lit another cigar and went
into the baggage-room to smoke with the expressman. It was nearly three
o'clock when they heard the far-off shriek of the whistle sounding up
from the south; then, after an interval, the puffing of the engine on
the up-grade; then the faint ringing of the rails, the increasing
clatter of the train, and the blazing headlight of the locomotive swept
slowly through the darkness, past the platform. The engineer was
leaning on one arm, with his head out of the cab-window, and as he
passed he nodded and waved his hand to Hemenway. The conductor also
nodded and hurried into the ticket-office, where the tick-tack of a
conversation by telegraph was soon under way. The black porter of the
Pullman car was looking out from the vestibule, and when he saw
Hemenway his sleepy face broadened into a grin reminiscent of many
generous tips.
"Howdy, Mr. Hennigray," he cried; "glad to see yo' ag'in, sah! I got
yo' section alright, sah! Lemme take yo' things, sah! Train gwine to
stop hy'eh fo' some time yet, I reckon."
"Well, Charles," said Hemenway, "you take my things and put them in the
car. Careful with that gun now! The Lord only knows how much time this
train's going to lose. I'm going ahead to see the engineer."