Half a mile from home, at the farther edge of the woods, where the land
was highest, a great pine-tree stood, the last of its generation.
Whether it was left for a boundary mark, or for what reason, no one
could say; the woodchoppers who had felled its mates were dead and gone
long ago, and a whole forest of sturdy trees, pines and oaks and maples,
had grown again. But the stately head of this old pine towered above
them all and made a landmark for sea and shore miles and miles away.
Sylvia knew it well. She had always believed that whoever climbed to the
top of it could see the ocean; and the little girl had often laid her
hand on the great rough trunk and looked up wistfully at those dark
boughs that the wind always stirred, no matter how hot and still the air
might be below. Now she thought of the tree with a new excitement, for
why, if one climbed it at break of day, could not one see all the world,
and easily discover whence the white heron flew, and mark the place, and
find the hidden nest?
What a spirit of adventure, what wild ambition! What fancied triumph and
delight and glory for the later morning when she could make known the
secret! It was almost too real and too great for the childish heart to
bear.
All night the door of the little house stood open, and the whippoorwills
came and sang upon the very step. The young sportsman and his old
hostess were sound asleep, but Sylvia’s great design kept her broad
awake and watching. She forgot to think of sleep. The short summer night
seemed as long as the winter darkness, and at last when the
whippoorwills ceased, and she was afraid the morning would after all
come too soon, she stole out of the house and followed the pasture path
through the woods, hastening toward the open ground beyond, listening
with a sense of comfort and companionship to the drowsy twitter of a
half-awakened bird, whose perch she had jarred in passing. Alas, if the
great wave of human interest which flooded for the first time this dull
little life should sweep away the satisfactions of an existence heart to
heart with nature and the dumb life of the forest!
There was the huge tree asleep yet in the paling moonlight, and small
and hopeful Sylvia began with utmost bravery to mount to the top of it,
with tingling, eager blood coursing the channels of her whole frame,
with her bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held like bird’s claws
to the monstrous ladder reaching up, up, almost to the sky itself. First
she must mount the white oak tree that grew alongside, where she was
almost lost among the dark branches and the green leaves heavy and wet
with dew; a bird fluttered off its nest, and a red squirrel ran to and
fro and scolded pettishly at the harmless housebreaker. Sylvia felt her
way easily. She had often climbed there, and knew that higher still one
of the oak’s upper branches chafed against the pine trunk, just where
its lower boughs were set close together. There, when she made the
dangerous pass from one tree to the other, the great enterprise would
really begin.
She crept out along the swaying oak limb at last, and took the daring
step across into the old pine-tree. The way was harder than she thought;
she must reach far and hold fast, the sharp dry twigs caught and held
her and scratched her like angry talons, the pitch made her thin little
fingers clumsy and stiff as she went round and round the tree’s great
stem, higher and higher upward. The sparrows and robins in the woods
below were beginning to wake and twitter to the dawn, yet it seemed much
lighter there aloft in the pine-tree, and the child knew that she must
hurry if her project were to be of any use.
The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as she went up, and to reach
farther and farther upward. It was like a great main-mast to the
voyaging earth; it must truly have been amazed that morning through all
its ponderous frame as it felt this determined spark of human spirit
creeping and climbing from higher branch to branch. Who knows how
steadily the least twigs held themselves to advantage this light, weak
creature on her way! The old pine must have loved his new dependent.
More than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and even the sweet-voiced
thrushes, was the brave, beating heart of the solitary gray-eyed child.
And the tree stood still and held away the winds that June morning while
the dawn grew bright in the east.
Sylvia’s face was like a pale star, if one had seen it from the ground,
when the last thorny bough was past, and she stood trembling and tired
but wholly triumphant, high in the tree-top. Yes, there was the sea with
the dawning sun making a golden dazzle over it, and toward that glorious
east flew two hawks with slow-moving pinions. How low they looked in the
air from that height when before one had only seen them far up, and dark
against the blue sky. Their gray feathers were as soft as moths; they
seemed only a little way from the tree, and Sylvia felt as if she too
could go flying away among the clouds. Westward, the woodlands and farms
reached miles and miles into the distance; here and there were church
steeples, and white villages; truly it was a vast and awesome world.
The birds sang louder and louder. At last the sun came up bewilderingly
bright. Sylvia could see the white sails of ships out at sea, and the
clouds that were purple and rose-colored and yellow at first began to
fade away. Where was the white heron’s nest in the sea of green
branches, and was this wonderful sight and pageant of the world the only
reward for having climbed to such a giddy height? Now look down again,
Sylvia, where the green marsh is set among the shining birches and dark
hemlocks; there where you saw the white heron once you will see him
again; look, look! a white spot of him like a single floating feather
comes up from the dead hemlock and grows larger, and rises, and comes
close at last, and goes by the landmark pine with steady sweep of wing
and outstretched slender neck and crested head. And wait! wait! do not
move a foot or a finger, little girl, do not send an arrow of light and
consciousness from your two eager eyes, for the heron has perched on a
pine bough not far beyond yours, and cries back to his mate on the nest,
and plumes his feathers for the new day!
The child gives a long sigh a minute later when a company of shouting
cat-birds comes also to the tree, and vexed by their fluttering and
lawlessness the solemn heron goes away. She knows his secret now, the
wild, light, slender bird that floats and wavers, and goes back like an
arrow presently to his home in the green world beneath. Then Sylvia,
well satisfied, makes her perilous way down again, not daring to look
far below the branch she stands on, ready to cry sometimes because her
fingers ache and her lamed feet slip. Wondering over and over again what
the stranger would say to her, and what he would think when she told him
how to find his way straight to the heron’s nest.
“Sylvy, Sylvy!” called the busy old grandmother again and again, but
nobody answered, and the small husk bed was empty, and Sylvia had
disappeared.
The guest waked from a dream, and remembering his day’s pleasure hurried
to dress himself that it might sooner begin. He was sure from the way
the shy little girl looked once or twice yesterday that she had at least
seen the white heron, and now she must really be persuaded to tell. Here
she comes now, paler than ever, and her worn old frock is torn and
tattered, and smeared with pine pitch. The grandmother and the sportsman
stand in the door together and question her, and the splendid moment has
come to speak of the dead hemlock-tree by the green marsh.
But Sylvia does not speak after all, though the old grandmother
fretfully rebukes her, and the young man’s kind appealing eyes are
looking straight in her own. He can make them rich with money; he has
promised it, and they are poor now. He is so well worth making happy,
and he waits to hear the story she can tell.
No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids her and
makes her dumb? Has she been nine years growing, and now, when the great
world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it
aside for a bird’s sake? The murmur of the pine’s green branches is in
her ears, she remembers how the white heron came flying through the
golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and
Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron’s secret and give its
life away.
Dear loyalty, that suffered a sharp pang as the guest went away
disappointed later in the day, that could have served and followed him
and loved him as a dog loves! Many a night Sylvia heard the echo of his
whistle haunting the pasture path as she came home with the loitering
cow. She forgot even her sorrow at the sharp report of his gun and the
piteous sight of thrushes and sparrows dropping silent to the ground,
their songs hushed and their pretty feathers stained and wet with blood.
Were the birds better friends than their hunter might have been,—who can
tell? Whatever treasures were lost to her, woodlands and summer-time,
remember! Bring your gifts and graces and tell your secrets to this
lonely country child!