_Westbury had advised against wheat_
But if our venture in pig culture had not been an entire success, our
agriculture gave better promise. Our rye and grass seed had come up
abundantly, and by November the fields, viewed from a little distance,
were a mass of vivid green. There is something approaching a thrill in
seeing the seed of your own sowing actually break ground and spring up
and wax strong with promise. You seem somehow to have had a hand in the
ancient miracle of life.
Our rye had such a sturdy look that I said it was pretty sure to turn
out something fancy in the way of grain, and that we could probably sell
it as "seed" rye, which always brought a better price than the regular
crop. Then, as the idea expanded, I said that with our few acres we
could cultivate intensively and raise seed crops entirely. That would be
something really aristocratic in the farming line. We would begin with
seed rye and wheat, of which latter grain I had put in a modest sowing.
Next year we would go in for seed potatoes, oats, corn, and the like. We
could have a neat sign on the stone wall in front, announcing our line
of goods. Very likely buyers would come from a considerable distance for
them--I had myself driven seven miles with Westbury for the seed rye. A
business like that would grow. We could go in for new varieties of
things, and in time set up a shipping-station, with a packing-house and
a bookkeeper. No doubt Henderson and Hiram Sibley and Ferry and those
other seed magnates had begun in some such modest way.
I don't think Elizabeth responded entirely to this particular
enthusiasm, and I could see that she was doubtful about the sign in
front, but on a winy, windless November day, warmed by a mellow sun, all
things seem possible, and she graciously admitted that one never could
tell--that stranger things had happened. Then we came to our small
wheat-field, and the new seed enthusiasm received a slight check.
Westbury had advised against wheat. He said it did not do well in that
section. This, I had insisted, must be a superstition, and I had gone to
considerable expense to have the ground properly prepared, and to obtain
the best seed.
The result, as it appeared now, was not promising. Here and there a
spindling blade had come through, and some of those seemed about to turn
into grass. I do not know why wheat acts like that in Connecticut. I did
not follow up the scientific phases of the case, but I confided to
Elizabeth that perhaps, after all, we would not announce "Seed Wheat"
on the neat sign planned for the outer wall.
Late October winds had changed the aspect of our world. Our woods were
no longer deep, vast, and mysterious. We could see straight through them
and read their most hidden secrets. We discovered one day, what we had
never suspected, that at one place our brook turned and came back almost
to the road. All that summer it had supped silently through that brushy
corner which for some reason we had never penetrated. We discovered,
too, a little to one side of our former excursions, a rocky acclivity, a
place of pretty hemlock-trees and seclusion--a spot for a summer tent.
There were not many mushrooms any more, but we gathered gay red berries
for decoration, bunches of late fern, sprays of bittersweet; we raked
over the leaves for nuts, and sometimes found bits of spicy wintergreen
or checkerberry, the kind that always flavored old-fashioned lozenges
which our grandmothers bought in little rolls for a penny, on the way to
school. You may guess that this was pleasant play to us who for ten
years had known only city or suburban life at this season, and not the
least pleasant part of it was the quiet noise the leaves made as we
strode through them, the _fruis-sas-se-ar_, as the French of the
Provence call it, and the word as they speak it conveys the sound.
Astride a stick horse, of which on our new back porch she kept a full
stable, the Joy went racing this way and that, kicking high the loose
brown drift of summer, stirred to a sort of ecstasy by its pleasant
noise and the spicy autumn air.
The November woods had fewer voices than those of the earlier season,
but there was more visible life. Many of the birds remained, and they
could no longer hide so easily. A hawk or an owl on a bare bough was
sharply outlined. Rabbits darted among the trees, or stood erect,
staring at us with questioning eyes. Squirrels scampering over the limbs
gave exhibitions of acrobatic skill. There were two kinds of
squirrels--the fat gray ones, of which there were not many, and the
venomous little red ones, of which there seemed an overproduction. They
were cute little wretches, but we did not care for them. They were
pugnacious pirates; they robbed their unmilitant gray relative and
chased him from the premises. Earlier in the season they had thrown down
quantities of green nuts to be wasted, and we were told they robbed
birds' nests, not only of their eggs, but of their young. Those red
rovers had no food value, or they would have been fewer. They were a
mere furry skin drawn over a bunch of wires and strings, and not worth a
charge of powder.
V
_Deer--wild deer--on our own farm!_
Animal life is still plentiful in New England--far more so than in the
newer states of the Middle West. With the decrease of population in many
districts the wild things have wandered back to their old haunts. They
are not very persistently hunted, and some of them, like the deer, are
protected. Now and again in our walks we saw a fox, wary and
silent-footed, and often on sharp nights, on the hill above the house,
one barked anxiously at the moon. At least that is the poetic form,
though I really think he was barking for the same reason that I often
sing when others of the family are not present. The others claim they do
not care for it--I often wonder why. I suppose that fox's family was the
same way, so he went out there alone in a dark, safe place to enjoy his
music unrestrained. Yet no place seems entirely safe when one wants to
sing, and I fear something happened to that fox, for by and by we did
not hear him any more. Very likely one of his relatives crept up on him
with a brick. We were sorry, for we had learned to like his music--it
gave us a wild, primeval feeling.
I think there were no wolves or bears in our immediate neighborhood,
though there came reports of them, now and then--exaggerated, I dare
say--from adjoining ridges. The nearest thing we had to bears were some
very fat and friendly woodchucks, who at a little distance, sitting on
their haunches, looked very much like small grizzlies. They dug their
holes a few yards from the house and sometimes came quite to the back
door, probably intending to call, but when we approached them their
courage failed and they went "galumphing" back to their houses. There
they would sit up for a moment, staring at us, then, if we approached
suddenly, would dive to lower recesses. I explained to the Joy that they
most likely had cozy little houses down there, with chairs and tables
and a nice stove to cook their food things on. She was sure it was all
true, except about the stove, which seemed doubtful, because no smoke
ever came from their chimneys.
Most of the animals were friendly to us, and I think made our house a
sort of center. I remember one pleasant Sunday afternoon, when we were
sitting outside, we noticed simultaneously two woodchucks playing in the
field just across the road; a red squirrel pursuing a gray one along our
stone wall, almost within arm's-reach; a blue heron among the willows by
the brook, probably prospecting for trout; some bob-whites running along
by the roadside; while in the woods just beyond a partridge was drumming
up further recruits for the exhibition.
The deer did not call as soon as the others. They were reserved and
aristocratic and would seem to have looked us over a good while before
they accepted us. We frequently saw their tracks, and hoped for one of
the glimpses reported by our neighbors.
It came one morning, very early. A cow in an adjoining field was making
an unusual sound. Elizabeth looked out and beckoned me to the window.
There they were, at last! two reddish-tan, shy creatures--a doe and a
half-grown fawn--stepping mincingly down to the brook to drink. We could
have hugged ourselves with the delight of it--deer--wild deer--on our
own farm, drinking from our own brook, here in this old, old land!
I wonder if they heard us, or perhaps sensed us. Or they may not have
liked the noise of greeting, or protest, made by the neighbor's cow.
Whatever the reason, they suddenly threw up their heads, seemed to look
straight at us, turned lightly, and simply floated away. What I mean by
that is that their movement was not like that of any other animal, or
like a bird's--it suggested thistledown. They drifted over the stone
wall and clumps of bushes without haste and seemingly without weight. It
was as if we had seen phantoms of the dawn.
We saw them often, after that. Sometimes at evening they grazed in our
lower meadow. Once, three of them in full daylight crossed the upland
just above the house. They were not fifty yards away, moving
deliberately, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
We felt the honor of it--they had admitted us to their charmed circle.
[Illustration]