This song is more appropriate to the summer. There is more of fullness
and beauty in it, more of the quality of the woodthrush's songs, for
which it is often mistaken.
* * * * *
From a tiny hawthorne bush, no higher than a collie's back, a field
sparrow flies nervously to a low limb of a hickory tree and begs that
her nest be not disturbed. It is neatly placed in the middle of the
bush about a foot from the ground, made of medium grasses and rootlets
and lined with finer grasses and horsehair. The three bluish-white
eggs with rufous markings at the larger end are the field-sparrow's
own. Into a nest found a month ago, at the foot of a yarrow stalk, the
cowbird had sneaked three speckled eggs, leaving only one of the
pretty eggs of the field-sparrow. At that time the cowbirds were to be
seen everywhere; they chattered every morning in the trees, and the
females left their unwelcome eggs in nearly every nest. One little
red-eyed vireo's nest had five cowbirds' eggs,--none of her own. But
the birds which are building now are generally safe from the
parasite. Only rarely is a cowbird's egg found after the middle of
July. No cowbirds have been seen since the first week of the month,
save the young one on the stump, which the field-sparrow was feeding
this morning. They disappear early, seeking seclusion for the
moulting. When they emerge from their hiding places they form into
flocks, spending their days in the grain-fields and near the rivers
where the food is most abundant and easy to procure. At nightfall they
congregate, like the red-winged blackbirds, in the sand-bar willows on
the river islands.
* * * * *
Daintily flitting from one branch to another, the redstart weaves
threads of reddish gold and black, like strands of night and noon,
among the old trees. He has wandered over through the woods from the
creek, where his mate built a cup-like nest in a crotch toward the top
of a slender white oak. Busy always, he stays but a few moments and
then passes on as silently as a July zephyr. The halting voice of the
preacher, the red-eyed vireo, comes out of the thicket; then, from an
oak overhead, where a little twig is trembling, the softer voice of
the warbling vireo queries: "Can't you see it's best to sing and work
like me?", with the emphasis on the "me."
Blue-jays loiter down the old road, making short flights from tree to
tree, moving in the one plane and with slowly beating wings; only
rarely do they fold their wings and dip. Redheads and flickers, like
the other woodpeckers, have a slightly dipping flight. They open and
close their wings in quick succession, not slowly like the
goldfinches; consequently their dips are not so pronounced. The line
of their flight is a ripple rather than a billow.
Chickadee and his family come chattering through the pasture. They had
a felt-lined nest in a fence-post during the warm days of June; now
they find life easy and sweet--sweet as the two notes mingled with
their chatter. Upside down they cling to the swaying twigs, romping,
disheveled bird-children, full of fun and song-talk. It is nothing to
them that the cruel winds and deep snows of winter will be here all
too soon. Summer days are long and joyous, life stretches out before
them; why waste its hours with frets and fears about the future?
Another round of merry chatter and away they flit. Scarcely have they
gone until a blood-red streak shoots down from the elm tree to the
grass. It is the scarlet tanager. For the last half-hour his loud
notes, tied together in twos, have been ringing from an ash tree in
the pasture, near the spreading oak where the mother sat so closely
during June. Though the nesting season is over he will sing for some
weeks yet.
So they come and go through the happy golden hours; now the nasal
notes of the nuthatch or the "pleek" of a downy woodpecker in the
pasture, followed by the twittering tones of the chimney-swifts
zigzagging across the sea of blue above, like busy tugboats darting
from side to side of a harbor. Crows string over the woods close to
the tops of the trees, watching with piercing eyes for lone and
hapless fledglings. A cuckoo droops from a tall wild cherry tree on
one side of the road to a tangle of wild grape on the other; he peers
out and gives his rain-crow call. So is the warp of the summer woven
of bird-flight and threaded through with song.
* * * * *
When evening comes the sun's last smiles reach far into the timber and
linger lovingly on the boles of the trees with a tender beauty.
Wood-flowers face the vanishing light and hold it until the scalloped
edges of the oak leaves etched against the sky have been blurred by
the gathering darkness. Long streams of cinnabar and orange flare up
in the western sky. Salmon-colored clouds float into sight, grow gray
and gradually melt away. In the dusky depths of the woods the thrush
sings his thrilling, largo appassionato, requiem to the dying day. In
this part of the thicket the catbirds congregate, but over yonder the
brown thrashers are calling to each other. The "skirl" of the
nighthawk ceases; but away through the woods, down at the creek, the
whippoorwill begins her oft-repeated trinity of notes. A hoot owl
calls from a near-by tree. The pungent smoke of the wood-fire is
sweeter than incense. Venus hangs like a silver lamp in the northwest.
She, too, disappears, but to the east Mars--it is the time of his
opposition--shines in splendor straight down the old road, seemingly
brought very near by the telescopic effect of the dark trees on either
side. Sister stars look down in limpid beauty from a cloudless sky.
All sounds have ceased. A fortnight hence the air will be vibrant with
the calls of the katydids and the grasshoppers, but now the silence is
supreme. It is good for man sometimes to be alone in the silence of
the night--to pass out from the world of little things, temporary
affairs, conditional duties, into the larger life of nature. There may
be some feeling of chagrin at the thought how easily man passes out of
the world and how readily and quickly he is forgotten; but this is of
small moment compared with the sense of self reliance, of sturdy
independence, which belongs to the out-of-doors. By the light of the
stars the non-essentials of life are seen in their true proportions.
There are so many things which have only a commercial value, and even
that is uncertain. Why strive for them or worry about them? In nature
there is a noble indifference to everything save the attainment of
the ideal. Flattery aids not an inch to the growth of a tendril, blame
does not take one tint from the sky. In nature is the joy of living,
of infinite, eternal life. Her eternity is now, today, this hour. Each
of her creatures seeks the largest, fullest, best life possible under
given conditions. The wild raspberries on which the catbirds were
feeding today would have been just as fine had there been no catbird
to eat them or human eye to admire them. Had there been no human ear
to delight, the song of the woodthrush would have been just as sweet.
The choke-cherries crimsoning in the summer sun, the clusters of the
nuts swelling among the leaves of the hickory will strive to attain
perfection, whether or no there are human hands to gather them. They
live in beauty, simplicity and serenity, all-sufficient in themselves
to achieve their ends.
* * * * *
Let me live by the old road among the flowers and the trees, the same
old road year after year, yet new with the light of each morning.
Shirking not my share of the world's work, let me gather comfort from
the cool grasses and the restful shade of the old road, hope and
courage from the ever-recurring miracle of the morning and the
springtime, inspiration to strive nobly toward a high ideal of
perfection. They are talking of improving the old road. They will
build pavements on either side, and a trim park in the middle, where
strange shrubs from other states will fight for life with the tall,
rank weeds which always tag the heels of civilization. Then let me
live farther out,--always just beyond the last lamp on the outbound
road, like Omar Khayyam in his strip of herbage, where there are no
improvements, no conventionalities, where life is as large as the
world and where the sweet sanities and intimacies of nature are as
fresh and abundant as the dew of the morning. Rather than the
pavements, let me see the holes of the tiger-beetles in the dirt of
the road, the funnels of the spiders leading down to the roots of the
grass and their cobwebs spread like ladies' veils, each holding dozens
of round raindrops from the morning shower, as a veil might hold a
handful of gleaming jewels. Let me still take note of the coming of
the months by the new flower faces which greet me, each taking
their proper place in the pageant of the year. Old memories of friends
and faces, old joys and hopes and loves flash and fade among the
shrubs and the flowers--here we found the orchis, there we gathered
the gentians, under this oak the friend now sleeping spoke simply of
his faith and hope in a future, sweeter summer, when budding thoughts
and aspirations should blossom into fadeless beauty and highest ideals
be attained. Let me watch the same birds building the same shapely
homes in the old familiar bushes and listen to the old sweet songs,
changeless through the years. If the big thistle is rooted out, where
shall the lark sparrow build her nest? If the dirt road is paved, how
shall the yellow-hammers have their sand-baths in the evening, while
the half grown rabbits frisk around them? Sweet the hours spent in
living along the old road--let my life be simpler, that I may spend
more time in living and less in getting a living. There are so many
things deemed essential that really are not necessary at all. One hour
of new thought is better than them all. Let the days be long enough
for the zest and joy of work, for the companionship of loved ones and
friends, for a little time loafing along the old road when the day's
work is done. Let me hear the sibilant sounds of the thrashers as they
settle to sleep in the thicket. Give me the fragrance of the milkweed
at evening. Let me see the sunset glow on the trunks of the trees, the
ruby tints lingering on the boulder brought down by the glaciers long
ago; the little bats that weave their way beneath the darkening arches
of the leafy roof, while the fire-flies are lighting their lamps in
the nave of the sylvan sanctuary. When the afterglow has faded and the
blur of night has come, give me the old, childlike faith and assurance
that tomorrow's sun shall rise again, and that by-and-by, in the same
sweet way, there shall break the first bright beams of Earth's Eternal
Easter morning.
[Illustration: "THE FRAGRANCE OF THE MILKWEED AT EVENING" (p. 54)]