When the wild plums ripen in the thicket by the creek and the grapes
are purpling in the kisses of the sun; when even the sunlight itself
grows mellow and the landscape wears a dreamy haze, colored like the
bloom on a plum, as if the year, too, had reached perfect ripeness;
then it is mid-September and Iowa begins a season of loveliness which
shall hardly be excelled anywhere on earth.
Young birds imitate the spring songs of their parents in a faint,
wistful, reminiscent way, some of those hatched early in the year
rising almost to full song, as in the case of the meadow larks whose
music rings through the meadows and makes the balmy afternoons seem
like those of early May. The wild strawberry blossoms again; the
violet and some of the other spring flowers. But the signs of the
passing of the summer are everywhere in evidence. Dense, white morning
mists--the September mists--lie in the valleys and yield but slowly
to the shafts of the rising sun. Flocks of feathered voyagers are
shaping their course toward the south. Gold and crimson leaves grow
more numerous along the lanes and in the woods. Antares, Altair and
Vega, with the summer constellations, are passing farther towards the
west, while before bedtime Fomalhaut may be seen at the mouth of the
Southern Fish in the southeast and the creamy white Capella is leading
up Auriga in the northeast. Between them, just over the eastern rim of
the world, appear the Pleiades, their "sweet influences" in keeping
with the season. The summer is passing, but not in sadness. Some of
the greatest of its glories are reserved for these last days.
* * * * *
Now the cicada, forgetting to give his winding salute at sundown, has
almost dropped out of the insect orchestra and the katydid, too, is
heard less often. The rest of the screeching musicians vary the volume
and the speed of their music in approximate ratio to the temperature.
In the warm evening they saw and rub away at presto time as if they
were determined to get to the end of the selection before the curtain
goes up for the moonlight scene; but they slacken to moderato when the
nights grow cooler, slower, always slower, and fainter as the chill
air creeps through the woods. When the north wind filters coldly
through the trees their music thins and dims till it sounds pathetic
as the tick of a tall clock in a lonely house at night. But it warms
up again with the sunshine next day, keeping time and tune with the
varying moods of the final days of the summer. When a dreamy, hazy day
is followed by a mellow night and little patches of white moonlight
lie dreaming beneath the trees, the crickets have a lullaby that comes
in rhythmic beats, as if they watched the moonlight breathe and rocked
the world to sleep.
* * * * *
Comforting and soothing as the touch of a loved hand on a fevered brow
come the first cooling breezes of September after the fierce white
heat of August. Sweeter than music is the sound of the wind, as it
passes through the woods, welcomed by millions of waving branches and
dancing leaves. It brings the call of the quail, the scream of the
jay, the bark of the squirrel, the crack of the hunter's gun, the
first notes of the returning bluebirds, the clean, keen scent of the
earth after rain, the courage and joy of life, motion, action. Seen
from the top of a cliff the acres of foliage spread out in the creek
valley beneath has a motion suggesting the waves of the sea, now
flowing in green billows before the wind, now whipped into spray at
the shore of the creek where the willows show the white sides of their
leaves.
In the fields the far-flung banners of the corn take on ripening tints
and begin to rustle drily in the breeze. Golden ears, wrapped in
tobacco-brown silk, are pushing from tanned and purplish husks.
Newly-plowed fields were made possible by the rains which started the
grass growing in the stubble, changing the color from amber to emerald
and wrought a miracle of verdure in the pastures which August had
baked brown. Here and there the aftermath of red clover has developed
a field of new blossoms,--a little lake of pink where sunshine plays
with shadow and sturdy humble bees spend the days in ecstasy.
* * * * *
Summer puts on her last bright robes for the final floral review
before she is borne by the birds down the valley to set up her court
in the southland. Tall and soldierly, this last gay army of the
flowers passes in review before her. Blazing stars in pink and purple,
tall and picturesque, with long rows of brilliant buttons; regiments
of asters in blue and white and purple; rattle-snake root with big and
quaintly slashed leaves and hundreds of tassels in delicate shades of
lilac, purple and white; swamp sunflowers in dazzling yellow, camped
in millions along the creek bottom to make it more glorious than the
historical pageant of the Field of the Cloth of Gold; plumy battalions
of golden-rod, marshalled by the sun along every country lane;
companies of tall, saw-leaved sunflowers with golden petals and darker
disks, deployed along the fences and seen at their best in the
twilight when they look like friendly faces with beaming eyes; as I
write them so they march across the land and bow farewell to summer.
There is no floral spectacle in all the land so fine as this march of
the composites over the Iowa prairies and fields in September. That is
the judgment of those who have travelled and observed. In the swamps
and along the ditches the blue lobelias flourish and the companies of
blue gentians are bringing up the rear to end the floral review,
begging the summer to wait until they pass by.
The little creek near which I live rises in a little swale between two
rolling ridges of the pasture. When it leaves the pasture only a
narrow box culvert is necessary to take it across the road, but before
it reaches the river, twenty miles away, a double-spanned bridge is
required to carry the road over it. In the pasture where it rises it
fails to furnish enough water for the cattle, but half way along its
course it sometimes washes out bridges in the springtime and farther
down it often floods the lowlands. Slipping silently among the feet of
the long grasses in the meadows it is scarcely seen at first; but
by-and-by it attains the dignity of a stream, winding through meadows
and bordering orchards and grain-fields. Now the willows begin to
mark its course, then elms and oaks and walnuts with little thickets
of panicled dogwood and wild plum, where the wild grape and the
bittersweet display their fruit and the wild duck sometimes makes her
nest.
[Illustration: "PAUSING IN EACH DEEP POOL TO COOL AND REFRESH ITSELF"
(p. 109)]
Sometimes the creek almost sinks from sight in a bed of hot sand; it
leaves only a narrow runlet of water idling along the foot of the high
bank and pausing in each deep pool at the feet of the overhanging
trees to cool and refresh itself for its onward journey. To these
quiet pools goes the fisherman with his minnow seine and a stick. He
knows that in the water among the roots of the old tree lie shiners
and soap minnows, creek chubs and soft-shelled "crawdads," the kind
that make good bait for the black bass down in the river. He pokes
around vigorously with his stick and sends them scurrying into his
short seine. Hither also go the school-boy fishermen, with a willow
pole and one gallus apiece, seeking to entice the patriarchal chub,
the shiner and the stone-roller. From this point down, the young
anglers are strung along the banks. Some try their luck for sunfish
by the piles of loose rock and boulders, and some would tempt the
bullheads from siestas in the mud.
Above the mill-dam the water backs up to form a peaceful pond which
mirrors the trees and the rushes and cat-tails above it and sleeps
beneath the thicket of willows where the redwings flock in the
evenings. Broad leaves of the arrow-head and pickerel-weed give
shelter to the coot, bobbing her head and neck as she makes nervous
journeys through the water, sometimes scratching a long streak across
its mirror-like surface as she uses both feet and wings in her haste
to escape from the lone pedestrian. At sundown the sandhill crane may
sometimes be surprised, standing like a silhouette by the shore of a
grassy island. The awkward, wary bittern and the still more vigilant
least bittern are familiar residents here.
Below the dam the creek winds at will through a peaceful valley,
appropriating to itself an ever widening stretch from the farm lands.
Sometimes it hastens down a pebbly speedway, then slackens its pace
and wanders off from its course until suddenly it seems to grow
alarmed, whips around a bend and comes hurrying back. Sometimes its
level flood-plain is a quarter mile wide, bounded on either side by
steep timbered hills which stretch on and on down the valley until the
sky receives them in a glory of blue haze. Sometimes the creek has cut
its way straight down the face of a high rock cliff on one side, while
on the other side is a level meadow with bushy-margined ponds. In
places the water of the creek lies asleep in a dream of sunshine, but
further on it ripples and gurgles over a bouldered bed, walled in by
rocky slopes. These are kept moist by water trickling down from hidden
springs among the roots of the shrubs and vines, ferns and mosses
which soften the grim limestone into beauty of form and color.
[Illustration: "LIES ASLEEP IN A DREAM OF SUNSHINE" (p. 111)]
In the cool days of September, when walking is a fine art, I love to
accompany the lower portion of the old creek down to the river,
following the little path made by farmer boys and fishermen. The two
posts at the fence by the roadside, set just far enough apart for a
man to squeeze himself through, are the gates to a land elysian. When
I pass through them I am a thousand miles from the city with its toil
and pain, its strife and sorrow. Worldly cares drop from my back as I
stand upon the brink of this creek and watch the water spreading
itself out over the white sand. Time and distance lose their force as
factors in my life. I have found and entered the lost lands of
Theocritus. Beneath this black ash, touched here and there with the
purple wistfulness of the passing year, Pan might have sat to play his
pipes, the Cyclops might have pleaded with the graceful Galatea. This
haze which hangs over the white oak grove, for aught I know, may be
the incense from Druid fires. Along this valley Chaucer's Immortals
may have gone a pilgriming, and in this bosky wood Robin Hood may have
trained his band. The legend that from this cliff an Indian lover on
his favorite pony once leaped to the creek a hundred feet below and a
mighty funeral ceremony was held at the Indian mound a little farther
down the valley seems to be attested both by the cliff and the mound.
Before I have gone very far I am unconcernedly conscious that I
have not the slightest idea in which direction lies the nearest road
home, nor how far I have come. But I know that somewhere down the
lavender-veiled valley the creek and myself shall reach the river at
last and all will be well. There are so many beautiful things to see
on the way that I would not hasten if I could. Life and the future is
much like that.
* * * * *
There is a pleasant constancy in the companionship of a creek. It is
always at home when I call, always seems to wear a smile of welcome,
always has something new to offer in the way of entertainment. And it
is changeless through the years. If I were to return some September
afternoon after an absence of half a lifetime I should expect to see a
green heron fly up the creek when I reached this particular bend and
to find the kingfisher in his accustomed place on the bare branch of
this patriarchal oak. At the next bend, where the current has cut the
bank straight down I should look for the rows of holes made by the
little colony of bank swallows. I should steal around the sharp bend
by the old willow to see a little sandpiper on the boulder in
mid-stream as of old. On a certain high grassy knoll I should find the
woodchuck sunning himself and he would run towards his same old hole
beneath the basswood tree, just as he does today. On the swampy edge
of the stream I should find the perennial blossoms of this same
corymbed rattle-snake root and its interesting spear-shaped leaves
reflected in the water. From the dry bank just at the end of this
ledge of rock my nostrils would catch the resinous odor of the
creamy-flowered kuhnia and a more subtle aroma from the
pearly-blossomed everlasting. The horse in the pasture would again
come up and rub his nose in my hand and the cattle beneath the trees
would make the same picture as in the days of long ago. Civilization
can hardly spoil the creek. The spring freshets obliterate attempts at
road-making and the steep hills protect it from encroachment and
preserve its independence and wild beauty.
[Illustration: "CATTLE BENEATH THE TREES WOULD MAKE THE SAME PICTURE"
(p. 116)]
* * * * *
It is worth while to spend a little time with the friendly golden-rod
which spreads all over upland and lowland almost as generous as the
sunshine. To many of us one stalk of golden-rod looks much like
another, but a very little study will readily enable us to distinguish
between the different species and will add wonderfully to its interest
and charm. There is the tall, smooth stemmed golden-rod, with saw
toothed leaves, except near the base and ample pyramids of
medium-sized clusters of blossoms; this is the solidago serotina, or
late golden-rod. A similar golden-rod, but with hairy stems and
smaller flower clusters is the solidago Canadensis or Canada
golden-rod. Both these grow in the bottoms anywhere near the creek.
Along the moist clay banks the elm-leaved golden-rod shows its tall
stem with the leaves which give the plant its distinctive name,
surmounted by several threadlike spreading branches strung with little
bits of leaves and clusters of yellow blossoms at the ends, as if the
slender, curving, green branches had been dipped in gold dust. On the
same slopes may usually be found the zig-zag or broad-leaved
golden-rod, with leaves as broad as the palm of a lady's hand and
little wand-like clusters of blossoms, several of them from the axil
of each leaf. This plant is called the zig-zag golden-rod because its
stem often turns first one way and then the other, as if it hadn't
made up its mind which way to grow. Higher up on the dry rocky banks
is the gray or field golden-rod, whose small leaves are covered with
grayish down and whose rather short stem is topped by a flattish
pyramid of brilliant yellow flowers. This is one of the early
golden-rods, but it lasts well into the fall. Another handsome species
which is fairly common is the solidago rigida, or hard-leaved
golden-rod, whose leaves are thick, rough and fairly broad, the lower
ones sometimes a foot long, and whose flower clusters form a broad
flat top. Each cluster is very large, containing twenty-five or thirty
flowers if you care to pull one to pieces and count them. One stem
will have several hundred of these flower clusters and each cluster
contains twenty-five flowers on an average, a fine example of Nature's
wealth and bounty. Perhaps the most handsome species of all, here in
Iowa, is the solidago speciosa, or the showy golden-rod, which
sometimes grows five, six or seven feet high in rich soil, with a
stout, smooth stem and big, smooth leaves, the lower ones broadly oval
and sometimes from four to ten inches long and one to four inches
wide. The Missouri golden-rod is a slender and dainty species with
long, narrow leaves, their margins very rough, as you may tell by
drawing your fingers along them.
There are about eighty-five different species of golden-rod in the
United States, but the task of naming them all that grow in one
locality is not difficult for the nature-lover. The above list is
practically all that grow hereabouts. And it is so with the asters.
There are about two hundred fifty species of asters, and most of them
are found in North America. But usually a dozen or fifteen only are to
be found in the average locality. Here, among others, may be found the
beautiful aster Novae-Anglia, or New England aster with blue or
rose-colored rays and a yellow center, the blossoms fluffy and large,
often fully two inches across. In some parts of the east it is called
"Farewell to Summer," but it may usually be found in the latter part
of August. This year it was in full bloom as early as August 21.
Another beautiful aster to be found on prairies and dry banks is the
aster sericeus, or silvery aster, with silvery-white silky leaves and
large, violet blue heads, the rays sometimes two-thirds of an inch
long. One of the earliest and most common of the asters is the aster
sagittifolius, or arrow-leaved aster, with white or pale blue flowers,
and its companion, the heart-leaved aster. More beautiful is the
lovely smooth or blue aster, the aster laevis, with clasping, oblong
tapering leaves and sky-blue heads, sometimes violet, fully an inch
across. The aster multiflorus, or dense flowered aster, is bushy with
small rigid, crowded leaves, and a multitude of small heads crowded on
the spreading branches, the rays generally white like big balls of
snow. The aster salicifolius has a slender stem much branched above,
long and narrow leaves, with violet, violet-purple or rarely white
rays, and aster prenanthoides or crooked stem aster, may be told by
its zigzag stem, its oblong, saw-toothed leaves and its violet rays.
Two other beautiful species found hereabouts are the aster azureus,
which blooms from August until after frost, with a slender but stiff
and roughish stem, and many bright violet-blue flowers with short
rays; and the aster Shortii, or Short's aster, which is found on banks
and along the edges of woods and does not usually bloom until
September. It has a slender stem and thickish leaves, heart-shaped at
the base; its rays number from ten to fifteen and are usually bright
blue, sometimes violet blue.
* * * * *
September brings us the first and one of the most beautiful of the
gentians, the white gentian. We are accustomed to think of the
gentians as brilliantly blue, but the first one to adorn the waste
places where the horses could not take the mower, is this white
gentian. It is one of the plants which make a magnificent appearance
in a tall, thin-stemmed vase, in your library. You need but one and if
you chance to find a patch you may take a plant without any
compunction of conscience, for they are usually numerous. At the top
of the smooth stem are four leaves with heart-shaped bases, gradually
tapering to points at the ends. These four pale green leaves cross
each other after the manner of a St. Andrew's Cross. Just where the
four leaves are thus joined to the stem is a cluster of some six,
eight, ten or even more, large, yellowish white, or greenish white
blossoms. Perhaps at the next set of leaves, about four inches down
the stem, there will be several other blossoms, in the axils. In the
swamps and bogs the barrel-shaped blossoms of the closed gentians are
growing larger day by day and by the twentieth of the month the
fringed gentian, known only to a favored few, here in Iowa, will show
the first of its blossoms.
* * * * *
In these last days of the summer there comes a grateful sense of the
ripeness which crowns the year. Nothing in nature has hid its talent
in a napkin. Every tree and shrub and herb has something to show in
return for the privilege of having lived and worked in a world of
beauty. Catbirds on the eve of their departure for the southland are
feasting on the red and yellow wild plums, and the crab apples are
beginning to give forth a faint fragrance which will grow more
pronounced from now until October. The amber clusters of the hop are
poured in profusion over the reddening fruit of the hawthorn. Farther
on is the brook Eschol where the purple grapes are hanging. The snowy
clusters of the sweet elder, which were so beautiful in July and early
August, have developed into ample clusters of juicy berries which
bring memories of the wine that grandmother used to make. Flocks of
robins are feeding greedily on the abundant wild cherries. Thickets of
panicled dogwood are feeding stations for other migrants; already the
crimson fruit-stalks have been stripped of half their white berries.
These native fruits are so many and so varied, they make the walk a
constant delight. Each plant is a revelation. Who ever saw for the
first time the huge clusters of fruit hanging from the wild spikenard
on the face of the cliff and did not thrill with the charm of a great
discovery? Each cluster of ruby, winey berries is as large as a
hickory-nut and the clusters are aggregated upon stalks so as to
resemble huge bunches of grapes. For contrast there are the little
bunches of whitish berries on the low-growing false spikenard; they
are speckled with reddish and gray dots as if they might be cowbird's
eggs in miniature. Jack-in-the-pulpits show club-shaped bunches of
scarlet berries here and there among the grasses. On the wooded slopes
there are the white fruits of the baneberry on its quaintly-shaped red
stalks, the pretty fruit clusters of the moonseed and the smilax. The
scattered berries of the green-brier will be black in winter, but
their September hue is a bronze green of a delicate shade which
artists might envy. It will take another month to ripen the drupes of
the black-haw into their blue-black beauty; now they are green on one
side and red on the other, like a ripening apple. It's a fine
education to know just which fruits you may nibble and which you must
not eat. Red-stalked clusters of black berries hang from the vines of
the Virginia creeper among leaves just touched with the hectic flame
that tells of their passing, all too soon. At the sign of the sumac,
tall torches of garnet berries rise. Down the bank, the bittersweet
sends trailing arms jeweled with orange-colored pods just opening to
display the scarlet arils within. Crimsoning capsules give the
burning bush its name; this may well have been the bush at which Moses
was directed to take off his sandals because he was treading on holy
ground. Large, triangular membranaceous pods hang thickly from the
white-lined branches of the bladdernut. Cup-like leaves of the
honeysuckle hold bunches of scarlet berries. So on and on the creek
leads to new beauties of color and form, new delights for taste and
smell. Every plant has some excuse for its being, something of the
loveliness and fragrance of the summer stored in its fruits. There is
a lesson for the mind and the soul to be gathered with the fruit of
these shrubs and vines. Summer still works with tireless energy. She
has done with the leaf and the bud and the blossom; all her remaining
strength is being spent in filling the fruits before the night of the
white death comes.
* * * * *
Since the first of the month the little catkins have been creeping
from the twigs of the hazel, and their tender, spring-like green is
quite as interesting as the ripening bunches of nuts. These little
catkins will hang short and stiff all winter, but when the ice goes
out of the rivers and the first frog croaks in the springtime, they
will lengthen, soften and grow yellow with their abundant pollen.
Squirrels are busy among the acorns and the hickory nuts; the split
husks and shells are thickly strewn beneath the trees. Red-headed
woodpeckers are gathering acorns and pushing them behind the flaky
bark of the wild cherry for use during the late fall; sometimes a
little family of the redheads remains all winter. Chipmunks are
carrying acorns to their granaries; they dash into their holes with a
squeak as if in derision at your slow-footed manner of walking.
* * * * *
Sumac flames from the fence corners and lights up the country lanes.
It is the first of the shrubs to announce in fiery placards the coming
spectacle of the passing of the summer. Next is the Virginia
creeper,--see where it flames up the wild cherry tree, scattering
crimson leaves to the grass beneath. Once in a day's journey along the
creek one may find a small red maple. In the middle of its foliage is
a small, flame-like spot which grows larger day by day. Gradually some
of the other maples catch the color fire, first a little soft maple by
the shore of a muddy bayou, next a small sugar maple on the rocky
slope. The great spectacle does not come until October, but the
placards announcing it grow more numerous and vivid day by day.
Blackberry leaves are splashed with crimson; daily the blood-red
banner of the sumac grows larger and more striking. Walnuts and
hickories begin to lose their yellow leaves; patches of yellow appear
on the elms and the lindens; though the mass of the foliage remains
until October, many leaves flutter down daily, and it is possible to
see twice as far into the thicket as in June.
_"The wine of life keeps oozing, drop by drop;
The leaves of life keep falling, one by one."_
Flocks of grackles spend their days in the cornfields which run down
to the creek bottom and their nights amid the wild rice and the rushes
and willows in the swamp. In the timber fringes and the broad bottoms
along the creek you get glimpses of the catbird feasting on the
grapes and the wild plums; the brown thrasher and the woodthrush,
wholly silent now; the little house wren who has lost her chatter; the
vireos and the orioles, the wood pewee, the crested fly catcher and
the kingbird. They all seem to be going southward. There are a few
nests and young birds in the early part of the month--the
yellow-billed cuckoo, the Savannah sparrow, the goldfinch. But these
are exceptions to the general rule.
Little flocks of warblers flit among the tree tops and the bushy
margin of ponds near the creek will soon be alive with the myrtle
warblers--as numerous as English sparrows in a barn-yard. In the night
time you may hear the "tseep" of the warblers as they wing their way
swiftly towards the southland. Sometimes there is the tinkling sound
of the bob-o-link, also flying in the night time, and in the morning
there may be a flock of them in some meadow, leisurely getting their
breakfast after their all-night flight, chattering to each other in
the tinkling tones which are unlike any other song-talk in bird land.
The humming bird, the swallows, the purple martins, the chimney
swifts, also seem to be a-pilgriming. Gradually you become conscious
that all of them are flying southward, always down the stream and
never up. The first keen blasts up in the northland have given them a
warning and they are going steadily, happily, but for the most part
silently, on down the stream, giving rare beauty to these halcyon days
of late summer; on past the farthest point of your vision, where the
silver gray mist softens the outline of the forest-crowned headlands,
and lavender shadows hang gently across the valleys; always on and on
towards the land where all is light and life and where summer ever
abides in beauty. You look up and see flocks of cowbirds flying in the
same direction and still larger flocks of night hawks, hundreds of
them in the air at once. Like the queens on the mournful barge of the
fallen King Arthur, their mission is to escort the dying summer
floating down, always down
_"To the island valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery billows crown'd with summer sea._
You can climb to the highest cliff and look down to where the creek
valley blends with the valley of the river, standing as did Sir
Bedivere where he
_... saw
Straining his eyes, beneath an arch of hand,
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the king
Down the long water opening on the deep,
Somewhere far off, pass on, and on, and go
From less and less and vanish into light."_
The summer which has just been escorted down the valley shall come
again. You remember that even the mourners after the passing of
Arthur, when the first keen pangs of sorrow were over, took heart
again. This was the verse they carved on his tomb:
_"Hic jacet Arthurus Rex
Quondam Rex, que Futurus."_
And the soul of the summer cannot die. In many a grateful heart it
lives forever as a gentle memory of loveliness and sweetness and of
inspiration to higher and better things. Neither shall it lose its
individuality; for it has bestowed its peculiar charms, its own
enlargements of knowledge, its rare enrichments of faith and hope;
they were fuller and richer than those of any other summer. As the
senses reach farther into the science of each summer, and the mind
lifts the veil of Isis and sees a little farther into the harmony of
her purposes, so the heart draws closer to the heart of the summer and
receives a larger benediction, an essence of immortality, an ambrosial
food richer and more real than that which sustained the ancient gods.
And herein is hope for the race. It cannot be but that each summer,
with its recollections of walks and talks with parents and friends in
the summers long gone by, with its sweetest memories of life and love,
with its mighty tides of growth and splendor, its wistful dreamy skies
in these last days of its loveliness--it cannot be but that each
summer warms many a heart with the thrill divine, lifts many a life to
a plane of fairer vision and nobler purpose, instills a desire for a
life more in keeping with its own strength and cleanliness and beauty.
So does each summer help the world onward to
_"That far-off divine event
To which the whole creation moves."_