Of the early nature papers which Mr. Burroughs wrote for the New York
"Leader," and which were grouped under the general title, "From the
Back Country," there were five or six in number, of two or three columns
each. One on "Butter-Making," of which I will quote the opening passage,
fairly makes the mouth water:--
With green grass comes golden butter. With the bobolinks and the
swallows, with singing groves, and musical winds, with June,--ah, yes!
with tender, succulent, gorgeous June,--all things are blessed. The
dairyman's heart rejoices, and the butter tray with its virgin treasure
becomes a sight to behold. There lie the rich masses, fold upon fold,
leaf upon leaf, fresh, sweet, and odorous, just as the ladle of the
dairymaid dipped it from the churn, sweating great drops of buttermilk,
and looking like some rare and precious ore. The cool spring water is
the only clarifier needed to remove all dross and impurities and bring
out all the virtues and beauties of this cream-evolved element. How firm
and bright it becomes, how delicious the odor it emits! what vegetarian
ever found it in his heart, or his palate either, to repudiate butter?
The essence of clover and grass and dandelions and beechen woods is
here. How wonderful the chemistry that from elements so common and near
at hand produces a result so beautiful and useful! Eureka! Is not this
the alchemy that turns into gold the commonest substances? How can
transformation be more perfect?
During the years of this early essay-writing, Mr. Burroughs was teaching
country schools in the fall and winter, and working on the home farm
in summer; at the same time he was reading serious books and preparing
himself for whatever was in store for him. He read medicine for only
three months, in the fall of 1862, and then resumed teaching. His first
magazine article about the birds was written in the summer or fall of
1863, and appeared in the "Atlantic" in the spring of 1885. He learned
from a friend to whom Mr. Sanborn had written that the article had
pleased Emerson.
It was in 1864, while in the Currency Bureau in Washington, that he
wrote the essays which make up his first nature book, "Wake-Robin." His
first book, however, was not a nature book, but was "Walt Whitman as
Poet and Person." It was published in 1867, preceding "Wake-Robin" by
four years. It has long been out of print, and is less known than his
extended, riper work, "Whitman, A. Study," written in 1896.
A record of the early writings of Mr. Burroughs would not be complete
without considering also his ventures into the field of poetry. In the
summer of 1860 he wrote and printed his first verses (with the exception
of some still earlier ones written in 1856 to the sweetheart who became
his wife), which were addressed to his friend and comrade E. M. Allen,
subsequently the husband of Elizabeth Akers, the author of "Backward,
turn backward, O Time, in your flight." The lines to E. M. A. were
printed in the "Saturday Press." Because they are the first of our
author's verses to appear in print, I quote them here:--