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THE WORKS OF E. P. ROE
VOLUME ONE
NATURE'S SERIAL STORY
[Illustration: UNDER THE MISTLETOE]
PREFACE
"I am getting very tired," said a hard brain-worker to me once. "Life is
beginning to drag and lose its zest." This is an experience that can
scarcely happen to one who has fallen in love with Nature, or become
deeply interested in any of her almost infinite manifestations. Mr. and
Mrs. Clifford of my story are not wholly the creations of fancy. The aged
man sketched in the following pages was as truly interested in his garden
and fruit-trees after he had passed his fourscore years as any enthusiastic
horticulturist in his prime, and the invalid, whose memory dwells in my
heart, found a solace in flowers which no words of mine have exaggerated.
If this book tends to bring others into sympathy with Nature, one of its
chief missions will be fulfilled.
A love for the soil and all the pursuits of outdoor life is one of the
most healthful signs in a people. Our broad and diversified land affords
abundant opportunity for the gratification of every rural taste, and
those who form such tastes will never complain that life is losing its
zest. Other pleasures pall with time and are satiated. We outgrow them.
But every spring is a new revelation, every summer a fresh, original
chapter of experience, and every autumn a fruition of hopes as well as of
seeds and buds. Nothing can conduce more to happiness and prosperity than
multitudes of rural homes. In such abodes you will not find Socialists,
Nihilists, and other hare-brained reformers who seek to improve the world
by ignoring nature and common-sense. Possession of the soil makes a man
conservative, while he, at the same time, is conserved.
The culture of the land is no longer plodding, ox-like drudgery, nor is
the farm a place of humdrum, brainless routine. Science offers her aid on
every hand, and beauty, in numberless forms, is ever present to those who
have eyes and hearts capable of recognizing it. The farmer has a literature
of his own, which every year is growing in proportions and value. He also
has time for the best literature of the world. It is his own fault if he
remains akin to the clod he turns. Is it not more manly to co-work with
Nature for a livelihood than to eke out a pallid, pitiful existence behind
a counter, usurping some woman's place?
Nature is a good mother, after all, in our latitude. She does not coddle
and over-indulge her children, but rewards their love abundantly,
invigorates them if they dwell in her presence, and develops mind and
muscle, heart and soul, if they obey her laws and seek to know her well.
Although infinitely rich, she has not the short-sighted folly of those
parents who seek to place everything in the hand of a child without cost.
On the contrary, she says, "See what you may win, what you may attain."
Every crop is a prize to knowledge, skill, industry. Every flower is a
beautiful mystery which may be solved in part; every tree is stored
sunshine for the hearth, shelter from the storm, a thing of beauty while
it lives, and of varied use when its life is taken. In animals, birds,
insects, and vegetation we are surrounded by diversified life, and our
life grows richer, more healthful and complete, as we enter into their
life and comprehend it. The clouds above us are not mere reservoirs of
water for prosaic use. In their light, shade, and exquisite coloring they
are ever a reproach to the blindness of coarse and earthy minds.
The love of Nature is something that may be developed in every heart, and
it is a love that rarely fails to purify and exalt. To many she is a
cold, indifferent beauty. They see, but do not know and appreciate her,
and she passes on her way as if they were nothing to her. But when wooed
patiently and lovingly, she stops to smile, caress, and entertain with
exhaustless diversion.
In this simple home story I have talked, perhaps, like a garrulous lover
who must speak of his mistress, even though his words weary others. I
console myself, however, with the thought that my text has proved the
prosaic root and stem which have given being to the exquisite flowers of
art that adorn these pages. In Mr. Gibson and Mr. Dielman I have had
ideal associates in the work. They have poured light on a landscape that
would otherwise be dull and gray.
My characters may seem shadows to others, but they have become real, or
were real, to me. I meet them still in walks and drives where in fancy I
had placed them before. I would not have to go very far to find types of
the children introduced, but the lovers, and the majority of the others,
began as shadows in the background of imagination, and took form and
substance with time. Dr. Marvin, however, is a reality and a most valued
friend, who has assisted me greatly in my work. Any one who has the
good-fortune to meet Dr. E. A. Mearns, surgeon in the regular army, can
scarcely fail to recognize in him the genial sportsman for whom the birds
were "always in season." There are others to whom I am indebted, like
John Burroughs, Thoreau, Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, true lovers and
interpreters of Nature. Those living stand near her queenly presence;
those who have passed on are doubtless nearer still.
CONTENTS
I. A COUNTRY HOME
II. AMY WINFIELD
III. A COUNTRY FIRESIDE
IV. GUNNING BY MOONLIGHT
V. CHRISTMAS EVE AND MORNING
VI. NATURE'S HALF-KNOWN SECRETS
VII. NEIGHBORS DROP IN
VIII. EAGLES
IX. SLEIGHING IN THE HIGHLANDS
X. A WINTER THUNDER-STORM
XI. NATURE UNDER GLASS
XII. A MOUNTAINEER'S HOVEL
XIII. ALMOST A TRAGEDY
XIV. HINTS OF SPRING
XV. NATURE'S BUILDING MATERIALS
XVI. GOSSIP ABOUT BIRD NEIGHBORS
XVII. FISHING THROUGH THE ICE
XVIII. PLANNING AND OPENING THE CAMPAIGN
XIX. WINTER'S EXIT
XX. A ROYAL CAPTIVE
XXI. SPRING'S HARBINGERS
XXII. FIRST TIMES
XXIII. REGRETS AND DUCK-SHOOTING
XXIV. APRIL
XXV. EASTER
XXVI. VERY MOODY
XXVII. SHAD-FISHING BY PROXY
XXVIII. MAY AND GIRLHOOD
XXIX. NATURE'S WORKSHOP
XXX. SPRING-TIME PASSION
XXXI. JUNE AND HONEY-BEES
XXXII. BURT BECOMES RATIONAL
XXXIII. WEBB'S ROSES AND ROMANCE
XXXIV. A SHAM BATTLE AT WEST POINT
XXXV. CHASED BY A THUNDER-SHOWER
XXXVI. THE RESCUE OF A HOME
XXXVII. A MIDNIGHT TEMPEST
XXXVIII. THE TWO LOVERS
XXXIX. BURT'S ADVENTURE
XL. MISS HARGROVE
XLI. A FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS
XLII. CAMPING OUT
XLIII. AN OLD TENEMENT
XLIV. "BUT HE RISKED HIS LIFE?"
XLV. SUMMER'S WEEPING FAREWELL
XLVI. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
XLVII. DISQUIET WITHIN AND WITHOUT
XLVIII. IDLEWILD
XLIX. ECHOES OF A PAST STORM
L. IMPULSES OF THE HEART
LI. WEBB'S FATEFUL EXPEDITION
LII. BURT'S SORE DILEMMA
LIII. BURT'S RESOLVE
LIV. A GENTLE EXORCIST
LV. BURT TELLS HIS LOVE AGAIN
LVI. WEBB'S FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER
LVII. OCTOBER HUES AND HARVESTS
LVIII. THE MOONLIGHT OMEN
LIX. THE ROSE REVEALS ITS HEART
LX. CHRISTMAS LIGHTS AND SHADOWS
NATURE'S SERIAL STORY
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
TO MY WIFE
NATURE'S SERIAL STORY
CHAPTER I
A COUNTRY HOME
How much it means--what possibilities it suggests! The one I shall
describe was built not far from half a century ago, and the lapsing years
have only made it more homelike. It has long ceased to be a new object--an
innovation--and has become a part of the landscape, like the trees
that have grown up around it. Originally painted brown, with the flight
of time it has taken a grayish tinge, as if in sympathy with its venerable
proprietor. It stands back from the roadway, and in summer has an air of
modest seclusion. Elms, maples, and shrubbery give to the passer-by but
chance glimpses of the wide veranda, which is indicated, rather than
revealed, beyond the thickly clustering vines.
It is now late December, and in contrast with its leafy retirement the
old homestead stands out with a sharp distinctness in the white landscape;
and yet its sober hue harmonizes with the dark boles of the trees, and
suggests that, like them, it is a natural growth of the soil, and quite
as capable of clothing itself with foliage in the coming spring. This in
a sense will be true when the greenery and blossoms of the wistaria,
honeysuckle, and grape-vines appear, for their fibres and tendrils have
clung to the old house so long that they may well be deemed an inseparable
part of it. Even now it seems that the warmth, light, and comfort within
are the sustaining influences which will carry them through, the coming
days of frost and storm. A tall pine-tree towers above the northern gable
of the dwelling, and it is ever sighing and moaning to itself, as if it
possessed some unhappy family secret which it can neither reveal nor
forget. On the hither side of its shade a carriage-drive curves toward an
ancient horse-block, with many a lichen growing on the under side of the
weather-beaten planks and supports. From this platform, where guests have
been alighting for a generation or more, the drive passes to an
old-fashioned carriage-house, in which are the great family sleigh and a
light and gayly painted cutter, revealing that the home is not devoid of
the young life to which winter's most exhilarating pastime is so dear. A
quaint corn-crib is near, its mossy posts capped with inverted tin pans
much corroded by rust. These prevent prowling rats and mice from climbing
up among the golden treasures. Still further beyond are the gray old barn
and stables, facing the south. Near their doors on the sunny side of the
ample yard stand half a dozen ruminating cows, with possibly, between
their wide-branching horns, a dim consciousness of the fields, now so
white and cold, from which were cropped, in the long-past summer, far
juicier morsels than now fall to their lot. Even into their sheltered
nook the sun, far down in the south, throws but cold and watery gleams
from a steel-colored sky, and as the northern blast eddies around the
sheltering buildings the poor creatures shiver, and when their morning
airing is over are glad to return to their warm, straw-littered stalls.
Even the gallant and champion cock of the yard is chilled. With one foot
drawn up into his fluffy feathers he stands motionless in the midst of
his disconsolate harem with his eye fixed vacantly on the forbidding
outlook. His dames appear neither to miss nor to invite his attentions,
and their eyes, usually so bright and alert, often film in weary
discontent. Nature, however, is oblivious to all the dumb protests of the
barnyard, and the cold steadily strengthens.
Away on every side stretch the angular fields, outlined by fences that
are often but white, continuous mounds, and also marked by trees and
shrubs that, in their earlier life, ran the gantlet of the bush-hook.
Here and there the stones of the higher and more abrupt walls crop out,
while the board and rail fences appear strangely dwarfed by the snow that
has fallen and drifted around them. The groves and wood-crowned hills
still further away look as drearily uninviting as roofless dwellings with
icy hearthstones and smokeless chimneys. Towering above all, on the
right, is Storm King mountain, its granite rocks and precipices showing
darkly here and there, as if its huge white mantle were old and ragged
indeed. One might well shiver at the lonely, desolate wastes lying beyond
it, grim hills and early-shadowed valleys, where the half-starved fox
prowls, and watches for unwary rabbits venturing from their coverts to
nibble the frozen twigs. The river, which above the Highlands broadens
out into Newburgh Bay, has become a snowy plain, devoid, on this bitter
day, of every sign of life. The Beacon hills, on the further side, frown
forbiddingly through the intervening northern gale, sweeping southward
into the mountain gorge.
On a day like this the most ardent lover of Nature could scarcely fail to
shrink from her cold, pallid face and colder breath. Our return to the
home, whose ruddy firelight is seen through the frosted window-panes,
will be all the more welcome because we have been shivering so long
without. The grace of hospitality has been a characteristic of the master
of the house for over half a century, and therefore the reader need not
fear to enter, especially at this Christmas-time, when the world, as if
to make amends for the churlish welcome it gave to its Divine Guest, for
whom no better place was found than a stable, now throws open the door
and heart in kindly feeling and unselfish impulses.
We propose to make a long visit at this old-fashioned homestead. We shall
become the close friends of its inmates, and share in their family life;
they will introduce us to some of their neighbors, and take us on many
breezy drives and pleasant excursions, with which it is their custom to
relieve their busy life; we shall take part in their rural labors, and
learn from them the secret of obtaining from nature that which nourishes
both soul and body; they will admit us to their confidence, and give us
glimpses of that mystery of mysteries, the human heart; and we shall
learn how the ceaseless story of life, with its hopes and fears, its joys
and sorrows, repeats itself in the quiet seclusion of a country home as
truly as in the turmoil of the city. Nor would our visit be complete did
we not witness among the ripened fruits of conjugal affection the bud and
blossom of that immortal flower which first opened in Eden, and which
ever springs unbidden from the heart when the conditions that give it
life and sustenance are present.
The hallway of this central scene of our story is wide, and extends to a
small piazza in the rear. The front half of this family thoroughfare,
partitioned off by sliding-doors, can thus be made into a roomy apartment.
Its breezy coolness causes it to be a favorite resort on sultry days, but
now it is forsaken, except that a great heater, with its ample rotundity
and glowing heart, suggests to the visitor that it stands there as a
representative of the host until he shall appear. Some portraits, a fine
old engraving, a map of the county, and some sprays of evergreen
intermingled with red berries, take away all bareness from the walls,
while in a corner near the door stands a rack, formed in part by the
branching antlers of a stag, on which hang fur caps and collars, warm
wraps and coats, all suggesting abundant means of robbing winter of its
rigor. On hooks above the sliding-doors are suspended a modern rifle and
a double-barrelled shot-gun, and above these is a firelock musket that
did good service in the Revolution.
The doors opening into the rear hall were pushed back, revealing a broad
stairway, leading with an abrupt turn and a landing to the upper chambers.
A cheerful apartment on the left of this hall was the abode of an invalid,
whose life for many years disease had vainly sought to darken. There were
lines of suffering on her thin, white face, and her hair, once black, was
silvered; but it would seem that, in the dark, lustrous eyes of the patient
woman, courage and hope had been kindled, rather than quenched, by pain.
She was now reclining on a sofa, which had been wheeled near to a wood-fire
glowing on the hearth of a large Franklin stove; and her dreamy, absent
expression often gave place to one of passing interest as her husband,
sitting opposite, read from his paper an item of news--some echo from the
busy, troubled world, that seemed so remote from their seclusion and
peaceful age. The venerable man appeared, however, as if he might still do
his share in keeping the world busy, and also in banishing its evils.
Although time had whitened his locks, it had touched kindly his stalwart
frame, while his square jaw and strong features indicated a character that
had met life's vicissitudes as a man should meet them. His native strength
and force, however, were like the beautiful region in which he dwelt--once
wild and rugged indeed, but now softened and humanized by generations of
culture. Even his spectacles could not obscure the friendly and benevolent
expression of his large blue eyes. It was evident that he looked at the
world, as mirrored before him in the daily journal, with neither cynicism
nor mere curiosity, but with a heart in sympathy with all the influences
that were making it better.
The sound of a bell caused the old man to rise and assist his wife to her
feet; then, with an affectionate manner, tinged with a fine courtesy of
the old school, he supported her to the dining-room, placed her in a
cushioned chair on his right, at the head of the table, and drew a
footstool to her feet. There was a gentleness and solicitude in his
bearing which indicated that her weakness was more potent than strength
would have been in maintaining her ascendency!
Meanwhile the rest of the family flocked in with an alacrity which proved
either that the bitter cold had sharpened their appetites, or that the
old-fashioned one-o'clock dinner was a cheerful break in the monotony of
the day. There was a middle-aged man, who was evidently the strong stay and
staff on which the old people leaned. His wife was the housekeeper of the
family, and she was emphatically the "house-mother," as the Germans phrase
it. Every line of her good, but rather care-worn, face bespoke an anxious
solicitude about everybody and everything except herself. It was apparent
that she had inherited not a little of the "Martha" spirit, and "was
careful about many things;" but her slight tendency to worry saved others a
world of worriment, for she was the household providence, and her
numberless little anxieties led to so much prevention of evil that there
was not much left to cure. Such was her untiring attention that her
thoughtless, growing children seemed cared for by the silent forces of
nature. Their clothes came to them like the leaves on the trees, and her
deft fingers added little ornaments that cost the wearers no more thought
than did the blossoms of spring to the unconscious plants of the garden.
She was as essential to her husband as the oxygen in the air, and he knew
it, although demonstrating his knowledge rather quietly, perhaps. But she
understood him, and enjoyed a little secret exultation over the strong
man's almost ludicrous helplessness and desolation when her occasional
absences suspended for a brief time their conjugal partnership. She
surrounded the old people with a perpetual Indian-summer haze of
kindliness, which banished all hard, bleak outlines from their late
autumnal life. In brief, she was what God and nature designed woman to
be--the gracious, pervading spirit, that filled the roomy house with
comfort and rest. Sitting near were her eldest son and pride, a lad about
thirteen years of age, and a girl who, when a baby, had looked so like a
boy that her father had called her "Johnnie," a sobriquet which still clung
to her. Close to the mother's side was a little embodiment of vitality,
mischief, and frolic, in the form of a four-year-old boy, the dear torment
of the whole house.
There remain but two others to be mentioned, and the Clifford family will
be complete, as constituted at present. The first was the youngest son of
the aged man at the head of the table. He had inherited his father's
features, but there was a dash of recklessness blended with the manifest
frankness of his expression, and in his blue eyes there was little trace of
shrewd calculation or forethought. Even during the quiet midday meal they
flashed with an irrepressible mirthfulness, and not one at the table
escaped his aggressive nonsense. His brother, two or three years his
senior, was of a very different type, and seemed somewhat overshadowed by
the other's brilliancy. He had his mother's dark eyes, but they were deep
and grave, and he appeared reserved and silent, even in the home circle.
His bronzed features were almost rugged in their strength, but a heavy
mustache gave a touch of something like manly beauty to his rather sombre
face. You felt instinctively that he was one who would take life
seriously--perhaps a little too seriously--and that, whether it brought him
joy or sorrow, he would admit the world but charily to his confidence.
Burtis, the youngest brother, had gone through college after a sort of
neck-or-nothing fashion, and had been destined for one of the learned
professions; but, while his natural ability had enabled him to run the
gantlet of examinations, he had evinced such an unconquerable dislike for
restraint and plodding study that he had been welcomed back to the paternal
acres, which were broad enough for them all. Mr. Clifford, by various
means, had acquired considerable property in his day, and was not at all
disappointed that his sons should prefer the primal calling to any other,
since it was within his power to establish them well when they were ready
for a separate domestic life. It must be admitted, however, that thus far
the rural tastes of Burtis were chiefly for free out-of-door life, with its
accessories of rod, gun, and horses. But Leonard, the eldest, and Webb, the
second in years, were true children of the soil, in the better sense of the
term. Their country home had been so replete with interest from earliest
memory that they had taken root there like the trees which their father had
planted. Leonard was a practical farmer, content, in a measure, to follow
the traditions of the elders. Webb, on the other hand, was disposed to look
past the outward aspects of Nature to her hidden moods and motives, and to
take all possible advantage of his discoveries. The farm was to him a
laboratory, and, with something of the spirit of the old alchemists, he
read, studied, and brooded over the problem of producing the largest
results at the least cost. He was by no means deficient in imagination, or
even in appreciation of the beautiful side of nature, when his thoughts
were directed to this phase of the outer world; but his imagination had
become materialistic, and led only to an eager quest after the obscure laws
of cause and effect, which might enable him to accomplish what to his
plodding neighbors would seem almost miraculous. He understood that the
forces with which he was dealing were wellnigh infinite; and it was his
delight to study them, to combine them, and make them his servants. It was
his theory that the energy in nature was like a vast motive power, over
which man could throw the belt of his skill and knowledge, and so produce
results commensurate with the force of which he availed himself. There was,
therefore, an unfailing zest in his work, and the majority of his labors
had the character of experiments, which, nevertheless, were so guided by
experience that they were rarely futile or unremunerative. On themes that
accorded with his tastes and pursuits he would often talk earnestly and
well, but his silence and preoccupation at other times proved that it is
not best to be dominated by one idea, even though it be a large one.