Doubtless many a sportsman has bethought him that his Thanksgiving
turkey will have a finer flavor if the feast is prefaced by a few hours
in the woods, with dog and gun. Meaner fare than this day of bounty
furnishes forth is made delicious by such an appetizer, and the
Thanksgiving feast will be none the worse for it.
What can be sweeter than the wholesome fragrance of the fallen leaves?
What more invigorating than the breath of the two seasons that we catch:
here in the northward shade of a wooded hill the nipping air of winter,
there where the southern slope meets the sun the genial warmth of an
October day. Here one's footsteps crunch sharply the frozen herbage and
the ice-bearded border of a spring's overflow; there splash in thawed
pools and rustle softly among the dead leaves.
The flowers are gone, but they were not brighter than the winter berries
and bittersweet that glow around one. The deciduous leaves are fallen
and withered, but they were not more beautiful than the delicate tracery
of their forsaken branches, and the steadfast foliage of the evergreens
was never brighter. The song-birds are singing in southern woods, but
chickadee, nuthatch, and woodpecker are chatty and companionable and
keep the woods in heart with a stir of life.
Then from overhead or underfoot a ruffed grouse booms away into the gray
haze of branches, and one hears the whirr and crash of his headlong
flight long after he is lost to sight, perchance long after the echo of
a futile shot has died away. Far off one hears the intermittent
discharge of rifles where the shooters are burning powder for their
Thanksgiving turkey, and faintly from far away comes the melancholy
music of a hound. Then nearer and clearer, then a rustle of velvet-clad
feet, and lo, reynard himself, the wildest spirit of the woods,
materializes out of the russet indistinctness and flashes past, with
every sense alert. Then the hound goes by, and footstep, voice, and echo
sink into silence. For silence it is, though the silver tinkle of the
brook is in it, and the stir of the last leaf shivering forsaken on its
bough.
In such quietude one may hold heartfelt thanksgiving, feasting full upon
a crust and a draught from the icy rivulet, and leave rich viands and
costly wines for the thankless surfeiting of poorer men.