convenient station, drops into the mud, and is ready to lecture, or
so I fancy it, before any of the unio women’s clubs on the world as he
has seen it. Not until then does the unio, and then only if he is a
margaritifera, begin to accumulate pearls.
By what mystery of sunlight and shallow water the unio has acquired
the lucent green and gold of the epidermis of his outer shell I do not
know, any more than I know what pigments paint or what naiad fingers
hold the brush that paints the gold in the heart or the pinky green in
the outer sepals of the water-lily. The two find their sustenance in
the same mud.
But even if I could tell this I might well pause in wonder over the
beauty of the inner shell of this pulseless creature of the ooze.
Perhaps the golchidium, darting back and forth beneath the ripples of
the surface during its days of travel, catches the radiant blue of the
sky, the rosy flush of dawn, and the glory of the rainbow all shivered
together in exultant light to make the nacre of the inner surface of
its growing shell. For nowhere else in nature may we find such softness
of coloring holding such gleams of azure and of fire. The opal beside
it is garish and crude. Mother-of-pearl we call it, for out of the same
source is born the gem which may be worth the price of a king’s ransom.
The unio is the good girl of the fairy tale, for from its lips fall
pearls that confound the divers of the Orient. Not from Ceylon nor Sulu
nor the Straits of Sunda nor the Gulf of California have come such
pearls of bewildering color and fascinating shapes as have been taken
from the river mussels of our American streams. For all I know the
shallows of my pond may hold a necklace of such value that its fellow
has never yet circled the throat of a queen. If so I hope no one will
ever find it out, for an ebb tide such as this comes only once in a
score or so of years, and when the next one is here I want still to
find the beach beautiful with the green and gold and mother-of-pearl of
the unios.
HOW THE RAIN CAME
HOW THE RAIN CAME
The _Spiranthes gracilis_ is commonly called ladies’ tresses, which is
a very polite name for it, for nothing can be more beautiful than the
tresses of ladies. It is like its name in that it is beautiful, but not
otherwise, for it is a flower not of tresses, but of fine eyelashes
of pearl set in a spiral on jade. The rain this morning dropped
transparent, colorless pearl tears on the tips of these eyelashes, and
as they twinkled toward shy smiles the tears ran down the spiral to be
eagerly kissed away by the small grasses that always cling about the
feet of the spiranthes in mute adoration.
Near by slender varieties of gerardia held up rosy cups to drink these
clear pearls, finding in them a medicine that shall cure all ills.
In the rain the fountain of youth wells up in the cup of every flower
that waits in the soft pasture grasses and the grasses themselves drink
eagerly. The cedars deck themselves in these clear pearls, wearing
garments fringed with them and ropes and necklaces without number, and
letting their prim propriety be so softened that they are no longer
firm and erect but take on curves of soft roundness that should go with
pearl-embroidered garments.
Yesterday there was in all the pasture people a certain puritanical
sternness of demeanor, a set holding fast to the narrowing good of
life, a tightening of the muscles that are weary with a long strain but
may not for the good of the soul loose their firm grip, for yesterday
the pasture was dry and hard with the leanness of the long summer
drought.
To-day has come the first of the fall rains and these puritans are
stern and set no longer, but relax into swaying curves of lissome
beauty that entrance you. It is as if, after coming as you thought to a
Sunday service of the old Calvinists, you found it transformed into a
grange picnic of wood nymphs.
The pines indeed, which always stretch out their arms in Sabbath-like
benediction, seem asking a pious blessing on all these, their pasture
children; and they fold their slim leaves together like hands in a
soft prayer of thankfulness. But the soft rain cuddles them as well,
and before they know it they are decked with the clear pearls as for a
bridal and their plumes nod in reverence, yet are so beautiful in gems
and there is such a soft grace in their curves--they that stood so
grim and sombre before--that each tree seems like some bounteous and
beautiful woman, arrayed for wedding festivities, who yet bows a moment
at a sanctuary in prayer, even as she joins the guests.
The rain had been long coming. A solitary quail predicted it; the first
I have heard since the severe cold and deep snows of three winters in
succession not long ago. I had thought every quail smothered in the
white depths or frozen by the bitter cold. Three years is a long time
not to hear a quail whistle, and this I believe to be no survivor of
the old stock, but one that has worked up from Southern fields where
the snows were less deadly during those rigid winters.
It is pretty hard to tell whether a quail is simply announcing his own
name for all who care to hear, or making a weather prediction. Jotham,
one of the farmer’s men who knows all, says it is simple enough. In
an announcement he says, “Bob, Bob White.” The weather prediction is
different. Then he says, “Wet, more wet.” All you have to do is listen.
This is like Jotham’s grandmother’s recipe for making soap. You
collected potash from the hearth, added water in an iron kettle, and
boiled till a certain thickness was reached. You would know this point
by placing an egg on the surface, and if the concoction was right the
egg would either sink or swim, the old lady was blessed if she could
remember which. This is a way that successful oracles have. That one at
Delphos did it.
So, when my lone quail sat on a rock in the pasture, tipped his head
back a little, swelled his white throat and whistled, round and clear,
I went out to meet him, scanning the sky meanwhile for a change of
weather. The sky of the day before had been like a brass bowl shut
down over the gasping land. Shrubs of the upland hung their leaves
piteously, the tougher herbs wilted, and the tenderer ones dried up and
died.
[Illustration: My lone quail sat on a rock in the pasture, tipped his
head back a little, swelled his white throat, and whistled]
On such days when the long summer drought has wreaked its worst, when
the parched pasture lies on its back, open-mouthed, gasping for water,
when even the pond which has given so freely for the refreshment of
the pasture people has shrunk back upon itself till a rod-wide rim of
gravel and rough stones forbids them to come down and drink, I love
to go down to the water’s edge and marvel at the hedge hyssop. All
along the shore the summer drought forbids the water weeds to grow.
This rod-wide space is not for them. The flood of the winter and spring
denies other land plants a roothold; yet, just when you think the shore
is to be bare and barren for always, troops forth the hedge hyssop and
clothes it with verdure, lighted with a golden smile.
The common name of the plant seems to me to express ingenuity rather
than purpose. It has nothing to do with hedges and is not a hyssop,
which is a garden plant belonging with thyme and lavender and other
sweet herbs beloved of old ladies in kerchief caps and figured gowns.
The hedge hyssop is none of these. Nine months of the twelve it bides
its time under water. During the other three it glows in golden
contentment on the sandy stretches left bare by this yearly receding
tide, climbing along the rocky shore and filling every crevice, lifting
its yellow cups to the glare of the brazen sky and distilling subtle
perfume to the antennæ of the little low-flying insects that are its
friends. Yet if its common name means little, that given it by the
botanists fits. _Gratiola aurea_ may well mean a plant that is golden
grace or a golden benediction, as you choose to take the Latin.
The day before, then, I had no heart for the upland pasture, but
Jotham’s reading of the quail had been the right one, for yesterday the
brazen look was all blown out of the sky by the south wind. It did not
leave it clear blue, for that would have meant cooler and still dry,
but put into it a pallor that seemed to well up from all the horizon
round. It was not the pallor of clouds, for there was not even a
cumulus thunder head in sight, but the pallor that comes with the wind
that has a storm behind it, yet is to blow itself out before the storm
arrives.
The cuckoo, flitting jerkily from one thicket to the next, noted this
pallor from the corner of his eye and thenceforth through the day
croaked to himself as he went his caterpillar-hunting rounds. “Clackity
clack; tut, tut; cow, cow, cow,” he clucked musically, which is his way
of saying, “Oh dear, it is going to rain and the caterpillars will be
all soggy.” Jotham says the early settlers out here in the Dorchester
backwoods taught the cuckoo to work for them, but that he was so lazy
that their descendants, getting better help, gave it up, and that the
cuckoo soon forgot all he knew about farm work except calling the cows.
Every bluejay is a born tease, and in the late August drought goes
about crying “Rain, rain,” because he knows there will be no rain.
He does it merely to fool the pasture people and then chuckle in his
phonograph twang over their misery when no rain comes.
Yesterday when he smelt the south wind and saw that sky pallor he
stopped calling “Rain, rain,” for he knew it was coming. Instead he
fluttered round and round the pasture, ducking in among the boughs
of the pines and ejaculating, as if he were surprised to find it so,
“Clear, clear.” I fancy all the wild creatures of wood and pasture
know the signs better than I do and could announce the rain if they
would long before I know that it is coming. All the outdoor world was
sure of it yesterday. With the very first show of that paleness in the
sky--or was it something in the touch of the wind?--the drooping plants
lifted their leaves to be ready for it. I could smell it in the falling
of the wind at sunset; they seemed to smell it in mid-forenoon while
yet the wind was rising.
On such days looking across the pond toward wind and sun there is a
peculiar blink in the light reflected from the surface of the waves
which you do not see if fair weather is ahead of you. The pale sky
seems to reflect blackly in the water. Down to leeward the shore
poplars stand silvery white, a quivering, flashing silver under the
lash of the wind. The swamp maples lose their green and turn pale and
the willows lighten up in color.
It is the turning of the leaves in the wind. You may say that they
would turn in any wind and show their lighter under sides, and this
is true, yet there is a difference in the appearance when it is a
rain-bringing wind. I cannot tell you why this should be, but the
difference is there. It may be that a moist wind relaxes the tension of
the petioles more than a dry one and thus lets the leaf lie flatter,
giving a little different look to the tree as a whole. The weather-wise
older people grew up on the land instead of within walls and they were
wont to say, “The leaves are turning in the wind and it is going to
rain.” Like the pasture people they knew.
By nightfall the weather bureau suspected something but was not quite
sure what. They hung out the “possible rain” flag, and all the crows
in the pinewood, congregating now in bigger and bigger flocks,
practising, I take it, for their labor-day parade, went into fits of
laughter. “Haw, haw, haw!” they shouted, and whirled up into the sky
and took a look about and dashed down again, convulsed. “Haw, haw, haw!
Possible rain; here’s the sky just ready to spill out a twenty-four
hour soaker!”
The wind went down with the sun, and the willow and maple leaves were
green again for a little before they faded into the growing purple of
the dusk, but with every faint sigh of the failing breeze the poplars
loomed white again with a radiant ghostliness which seemed to people
the rustling dusk with softly phosphorescent spooks. You will see these
other-world visitors to the pond shore only on such a night when the
wind is right.
There was no glow of rich color in the sky at sunset. Instead the dusk
hung violet gray draperies all about the horizon,--curtains that veiled
but did not hide the evening stars, shutting them almost out near the
horizon and leaving them comparatively clear at the zenith. In such
dusk stars do not twinkle, they blink, and that is a sign of rain which
all the pasture people that have eyes know well.
Those that have ears and no eyes may know what sort of a night it is
as well, for there is some quality in such an atmosphere which makes
sounds carry far. The rap of a paddle on a canoe seat a mile away up
the pond sounds right in your ear. A train roaring through the wood
three miles distant seems so near that you involuntarily look around
lest it be coming behind and run over you. On such nights speak low
if you do not wish the whole world to hear, for the air all about you
is a wireless telephone receiver tuned to your pitch. Those gray rain
curtains which the dusk has hung all about the horizon have made the
whole world a whispering gallery.
Sometime in the night the wind dies. It passes away so peacefully that
no mirror held to its lips would note that last sigh. But the stars
have known it all the evening, and that is why their eyes blinked so.
It was to keep back the tears. Then the stars vanish and the night is
dark indeed.
Scents carry far on such a night, not only those of the pasture world,
which are pleasant, but those of the more distant town, which sometimes
are not. The air is not only telephonic but telefumic. The distant
leather factory sends out a faint but characteristic odor by which
you might hunt it across country for a lustrum of miles. The sooty
emanation from my neighbors’ chimneys is pungent in my nostrils, though
their houses are a mile away. I think I can tell which is which, for
the fireplace smell differs from that of the furnace, as does that of
the parlor stove from the range. Agreeably these are forgotten, for
something has crushed sassafras leaves over on the pasture knoll and
the fine fragrance comes to drive away thoughts of the others.
As the night was gray, which foretells rain, so the morning breaks
crimson, which announces it. No bird heralds this dawn, no chirping
insect sends its voice questing through its shades. The sky hardly
lightens up; it is rather that the darkness turns red. Nor does the
light come from the sky when it does come. It wells up from the earth
instead, for when the crimson is gone the sky is still black with
shadows, while the pasture grows distinct in a gray outline wherein is
no color.
A stillness of expectation broods all things,--a stillness so intense
that the first rain-drop sounds like a pistol-shot as it strikes a
leaf near you. Then there is a volley and further silence for a brief
space, followed by a crepitation all about you. Those first heavy drops
have been followed by lighter ones, and this crepitation merges into a
steady drumming, which becomes a low roar to your ears made sensitive
by silence and faint sounds. The first of the fall rains has come, and
the summer suffering of the pasture people is at an end.
INDEX
INDEX
A
Adder, flat-head, 128, 129
Admiral, white, 71, 72, 75, 78, 81
Alder, 5, 15, 40, 52, 82, 94, 108, 111, 112, 118, 140, 141, 158
black, 139
white, 35
Alice-in-Wonderland, 88
Ambergris, 40
Angle-worm, 94, 105, 106, 186
Ant, 158
Antiopa vanessa, 166
Aphids, 115
Arabian days, 81
Arabian Nights, 61, 79, 88
Arethusa, 83
Azalia, 4, 6, 33
B
Bagdad, Caliph of, 76
Baptist, 53
Barberry, 32
Basilarchia astyanax, 71, 77, 79, 87
Basilarchia disippus, 161
Bass, rock, 96
Bayberry, 8, 33, 45
Bee, 85, 86, 137, 155, 156, 157, 158
bumble, 137
Beetles, 161
Berkshire hills, 135
Birch, 5, 8, 28, 29, 30, 93
Bittern, 142, 143
Blackberry, 56
high-bush, 33
Blackbird, 143
Bladderwort, 64
Blueberry, high-bush, 50, 51
Bluebird, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 192
Blue Hill, 135, 140, 202, 203
Blue Hill Reservation, 80, 136
Bluejay, 226
Bobolink, 189
Brake, 43
Bream, 211
Bullhead, 101
Bulrush, 136, 138
Bunting, indigo, 189
Butterfly, angle-wing, 158
Anosia plexippus, 160, 165
Antiopa vanessa, 166
fritillaries, 159
meadow-brown, 158
monarch, 160, 161, 162, 171
mourning-cloak, 166
pearl crescent, 158
white admiral, 71, 72, 75, 78, 81
Button bush, 41, 140
C
California, Gulf of, 213
Calvinists, 219
Camberwell beauty, 166
Carnations, 156
Cassandra, 52, 205
Cassius, 155
Catbird, 10, 14, 20, 21, 22, 23, 190, 191, 192
Caterpillar, 43
Cedar, 4, 5, 6, 15, 27, 29, 139, 140, 141, 202, 204, 205, 218
Ceylon, 213
Chewink, 14
Clams, fresh-water, 95, 196
Clethra, 4, 35, 153, 155, 156
Compositæ, 41
Coot, 183
Corydalus cornutus, 125
Cranberries, 139
Crow, 14, 18, 19, 20, 185, 187, 196, 197, 228
Cuckoo, 27, 225
D
Daisy, 41
Delphos, 221
Demoiselles, 120, 121, 122, 124, 126, 127
Dionaea, 206
Dorchester backwoods, 225
Dragon, 128, 129
Dragon-flies, 56, 95, 120, 121, 122, 123
Drosera, 206
Duck, wood, 144, 145, 146, 149, 150
E
Eel, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 127
Eden, 127
Elm, 51
F
Fern, 40, 112, 119
cinnamon, 112, 113
ostrich-plume, 118
rock, 118, 119
Fern seed, 111, 113, 116, 119
Field mouse, 113
Finches, 10
Flag, sweet, 117
Flagroot, 111
Flappers, 144
Flea, 56
Floating-heart, 133, 135
Florida, 191
Fly-catcher, great crested, 86, 87, 88
Flicker, 177
Fountain head, 81
Fox, 6, 9, 13
Franklin Field, 142
Frog, 57, 59, 61, 66, 186
green, 42
Rana virescens, 186
G
Gall, 115
Genie, 76, 88
Gentian, 134
Gerardia, 217
Goblin, water, 119, 120, 122, 125
Golchidium, 211, 212
Goldthread, 15
Grape, fox, 44, 45, 46
wild, 5
Grass, fresh-water eel, 136
marsh, 138, 139, 141
tape, 136
Gratiola aurea, 224
Greenbrier, 15
H
Habenaria, 86
Hardhack, 92, 205
Hasheesh, 130
Hawk, 10
Helgramite worm, 124, 125
Hepatica, 74
Heron, 197
night, 140
Hickory, 9, 116
Holmes, Sherlock, 150
Horn-pout, 101, 102, 103, 104, 122, 127, 211
Horse brier, 15
Houghton’s pond, 80
Huckleberry, 28, 29, 205
low-bush black, 34
Humming-bird, ruby-throated, 163
Hyla, 66
Hyssop, hedge, 223
I
Incas, 163
J
Jasmine, Mexican, 163
Joe Pye weed, 141
Jotham, 221, 224
Judas, 167
June beetle, 59
K
“Kiver,” 96, 97
L
Labrador, 80
Ladies’ tresses, 217
Laurel, sheep, 205
Lepomis gibbosus, 96
Leprechaun, 78
Lilacs, 190
Lily, dog, 136
water, 134, 136, 137, 139, 212
Lily-of-the-valley, 74
Lucky bug, 53, 54, 63
M
Malachite, 207
Maple, 9, 51, 52, 62, 82, 92, 94, 116, 141, 227, 229
Meadow-sweet, 205
Memorial Day, 50
Merlin, 37, 39
Metropolitan Park Commission, 142
Milkweed, 157, 158, 159, 160
“Minister,” 101
Minnow, 103
Mocking-bird, 21
Monarch butterfly, 160, 161, 162, 171
Monitor, 54
Moss, sphagnum, 15, 80, 83, 88, 142
Moth, 155
luna, 65
Mourning-cloak butterfly, 166
Murray, “Adirondack,” 148
Muskrat, 43, 111, 142, 143, 199, 200
Myrica, 34
N
Night heron, 140
Nymphæa, 139
Nymphs, 120, 122
O
Oak, 5, 8, 9, 92
scrub, 15, 190
Orchis, purple-fringed, 86
Oven bird, 16, 17, 23
Owl, 10
P
Pan, 45
Panama, 163
Papilio asterias, 169
Partridge, 6, 37
Partridge berry, 74
Perch, yellow, 92, 99, 100, 102, 103, 127
Pickerel, 51, 211
Pickerel weed, 136, 137, 138, 139
Pine, 9, 15, 16, 28, 60, 73, 74, 77, 88, 112, 154, 219, 228
Pipsissewa, 74
Plymouth Rock, 202
Polypody, 124
Ponkapoag pond, 133, 135
Poplars, 227, 229
Pumpkin seed, 96
Pyrola, 74
Q
Quail, 220, 222
R
Rana virescens, 186
Raspberry, 5
Robin, 10, 13, 189
Rocket, sweet, 162, 163
Rose, wild, 4, 8, 52, 205
S
Santo Domingo, 191
Sassafras, 5, 232
Sedges, 56, 60
Skipper, 63
Skunk, 198
Skunk-cabbage, 40
Snake, water, 126, 127
Sparrow, chipping, 12, 178
English, 176, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183
song, 13
Sphagnum moss, 15, 80, 83, 88, 142
Spiræa, 52
Spiranthes gracilis, 217
Squirrel, 197, 198
gray, 62, 63
red, 6
Standish, Myles, 135, 202
Stephanotis, 163
St. John’s-wort, marsh, 206
Strawberries, wild, 33
Stumpy Cove, 201, 202
Submarine, 54
Sulu, 213
Sunda, straits of, 213
Sunfish, 92, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 103, 126, 127
Sweet-fern, 8, 33, 35, 45, 154, 205
Sweet-gale, 34, 45, 52
T
Tanager, scarlet, 188
Terrapin, 84, 85, 88
Texas, 158
Thoroughwort, 141
Thrasher, 14
Thrush, 10, 20, 30, 31, 35
brown, 21, 28
wood, 11, 12, 17
Toad, 66, 129
Torpedo boat, 54, 99
Trout, 82, 84, 96, 122
Turtle, spotted, 83, 84, 85, 88
U
Ulysses, 64
Unio, 196, 199, 209, 210
Unio margaritifera, 195, 209, 14
Unionidæ, 207
Utricularia, 64
V
Venus’s fly-trap, 206
Viceroy butterfly, 161
Vireo, 119
W
Walden pond, 80
Warblers, 10, 14
Wasps, 161
Watercress, 82, 83, 86
Water shield, 136
Water-strider, 55
Watson, Doctor, 150
Whip-poor-will, 30, 31, 35
Wild rose, 4, 8, 52, 205
Willows, 92, 94, 98, 227, 229
Witch, 114, 125
Witch-caps, 115
Witch-hazel, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 124, 125, 129
Woodbine, 4
Woodchuck, 9
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.