A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO SEE THIS SPRING
Out of the multitude of sights, which twelve sights this spring shall
I urge you to see? Why the twelve, of course, that I always look for
most eagerly. And the first of these, I think, is the bluebird.
I
“Have you seen a bluebird yet?” some friend will ask me, as March
comes on. Or it will be, “I have seen my first bluebird!” as if seeing
a first bluebird were something very wonderful and important. And so
it is; for the sight of the first March bluebird is the last sight of
winter and the first sight of spring. The brown of the fertile earth
is on its breast, the blue of the summer sky is on its back, and in
its voice is the clearest, sweetest of all invitations to come out of
doors.
Where has he spent the winter? Look it up. What has brought him back
so early? Guess at it. What does he say as he calls to you? Listen.
What has John Burroughs written about him? Look it up and read.
II
You must see the skunk-cabbage abloom in the swamp. You need not pick
it and carry it home for the table--just see it. But be sure you see
it. Get down and open the big purple-streaked spathe, as it spears the
cold mud, and look at the “spadix” covered with its tiny but perfect
flowers. Now wait a minute. The woods are still bare; ice may still be
found on the northern slopes, while here before you, like a wedge
splitting the frozen soil, like a spear cleaving through the earth
from the other, the summer, side of the world, is this broad blade of
life letting up almost the first cluster of the new spring’s flowers.
Wait a moment longer and you may hear your first bumblebee, as he
comes humming at the door of the cabbage for a taste of new honey and
pollen.
III
Among the other early signs of spring, you should see a flock of
red-winged blackbirds! And what a sight they are upon a snow-covered
field! For often after their return it will snow again, when the
brilliant, shining birds in black with their red epaulets make one of
the most striking sights of the season.
IV
Another bird event that you should witness is the arrival of the
migrating warblers. You will be out one of these early May days when
there will be a stirring of small birds in the bushes at your side, in
the tall trees over your head--everywhere! It is the warblers. You are
in the tide of the tiny migrants--yellow warblers, pine warblers,
myrtle warblers, black-throated green warblers--some of them on their
way from South America to Labrador. You must be in the woods and see
them as they come.
V
You should see the “spice-bush” (wild allspice or fever-bush or
Benjamin-bush) in bloom in the damp March woods. And, besides that,
you should see with your own eyes under some deep, dark forest trees
the blue hepatica and on some bushy hillside the pink arbutus. (For
fear I forget to tell you in the chapter of things to do, let me now
say that you should take a day this spring and go “may-flowering.”)
VI
There are four nests that you should see this spring: a hummingbird’s
nest, saddled upon the horizontal limb of some fruit or forest tree,
and looking more like a wart on the limb than a nest; secondly, the
nest, eggs rather, of a turtle buried in the soft sand along the
margin of a pond or out in some cultivated field; thirdly, the nest of
a sun-fish (pumpkin-seed) in the shallow water close up along the
sandy shore of the pond; and fourthly, the nest of the red squirrel,
made of fine stripped cedar bark, away up in the top of some tall pine
tree! I mean by this that there are many other interesting
nest-builders besides the birds. Of all the difficult nests to find,
the hummingbird’s is the most difficult. When you find one, please
write to me about it.
VII
You should see a “spring peeper,” the tiny Pickering’s frog--_if you
can_. The marsh and the meadows will be vocal with them, but one of
the hardest things that you will try to do this spring will be to see
the shrill little piper, as he plays his bagpipe in the rushes at your
very feet. But hunt until you do see him. It will sharpen your eyes
and steady your patience for finding other things.
VIII
You should see the sun come up on a May morning. The dawn is always a
wonderful sight, but never at other times attended with quite the
glory, with quite the music, with quite the sweet fragrance, with
quite the wonder of a morning in May. Don’t fail to see it. Don’t fail
to rise with it. You will feel as if you had wings--something better
even than wings.
IX
You should see a farmer ploughing in a large field--the long straight
furrows of brown earth; the blackbirds following behind after worms;
the rip of the ploughshare; the roll of the soil from the smooth
mould-board--the wealth of it all. For in just such fields is the
wealth of the world, and the health of it, too. Don’t miss the sight
of the ploughing.
X
Go again to the field, three weeks later, and see it all green with
sprouting corn, or oats, or one of a score of crops. Then--but in “The
Fall of the Year” I ask you to go once more and see that field all
covered with shocks of ripened corn, shocks that are pitched up and
down its long rows of corn-butts like a vast village of Indian tepees,
each tepee full of golden corn.
XI
You should see, hanging from a hole in some old apple tree, a long
thin snake-skin! It is the latch-string of the great crested
flycatcher. Now why does this bird always use a snake-skin in his
nest? and why does he usually leave it hanging loose outside the hole?
Questions, these, for you to think about. And if you will look sharp,
you will see in even the commonest things questions enough to keep you
thinking as long as you live.
XII
You should see a dandelion. A dandelion? Yes, a dandelion, “fringing
the dusty road with harmless gold.” But that almost requires four
eyes--two to see the dandelion and two more to see the gold--the two
eyes in your head, and the two in your imagination. Do you really know
how to see anything? Most persons have eyes, but only a few really
see. This is because they cannot look hard and steadily at anything.
The first great help to real seeing is to go into the woods knowing
what you hope to see--seeing it in your eye, as we say, before you see
it in the out-of-doors. No one would ever see a tree-toad on a mossy
tree or a whip-poor-will among the fallen leaves who did not have
tree-toads and whip-poor-wills in mind. Then, secondly, look at the
thing _hard_ until you see in it something peculiar, something
different from anything like it that you ever saw before. Don’t dream
in the woods; don’t expect the flowers to tell you their names or the
wild things to come up and ask you to wait while they perform for
you.