morning, when I paid my friends a parting call. The father bird,
forgetful of his own good example of the day before, and mindless of all
the proprieties of such a farewell occasion, slipped incontinently from
the eggs just as I was removing the cover from my pen-box. Well, he
missed the last opportunity he was likely ever to have of breakfasting
from a human finger. So ignorant are birds, no less than men, of the day
of their visitation! Before I could get away,--while I was yet within
two yards of the nest,--the other bird hastened to occupy the vacant
place. _She_ knew what was due to so considerate and well-tried a
friend, if her partner did not. The little darling! As soon as she was
well in position I stepped to her side, opened my treasures, and gave
her, one by one, twenty-six insects (all I had), which she took with
avidity, reaching forward again and again to anticipate my motions.
Then I stole a last look at the four pretty eggs, having almost to force
her from the nest for that purpose, bade her good-by, and came away,
sorry enough to leave her; forecasting, as I could not help doing, the
slight probability of finding her again on my return, and picturing to
myself all the sweet, motherly ways she would be certain to develop as
soon as the little ones were hatched.
Within an hour I was speeding toward the Green Mountains. There, in
those ancient Vermont forests, I saw and heard other solitary vireos,
but none that treated me as my Melrose pair had done. Noble and gentle
spirits! though I were to live a hundred years, I should never see their
like again.
The remainder of the story is, unhappily, soon told. I was absent a
fortnight, and on getting back went at once to the sacred oak. Alas!
there was nothing but a severed branch to show where the vireos' nest
had hung. The cut looked recent; I was thankful for that. Perhaps the
"collector," whoever he was, had been kind enough to wait till the
owners of the house were done with it, before he carried it away. Let
us hope so, at all events, for the peace of his own soul, as well as for
the sake of the birds.
AN OLD ROAD.
Methinks here one may, without much molestation, be thinking
what he is, whence he came, what he has done, and to what the
King has called him.--BUNYAN.
I fall in with persons, now and then, who profess to care nothing for a
path when walking in the woods. They do not choose to travel in other
people's footsteps,--nay, nor even in their own,--but count it their
mission to lay out a new road every time they go afield. They are
welcome to their freak. My own genius for adventure is less highly
developed; and, to be frank, I have never learned to look upon
affectation and whim as synonymous with originality. In my eyes, it is
nothing against a hill that other men have climbed it before me; and if
their feet have worn a trail, so much the better. I not only reach the
summit more easily, but have company on the way,--company none the less
to my mind, perhaps, for being silent and invisible. It is well enough
to strike into the trackless forest once in a while; to wander you know
not whither, and come out you know not where; to lie down in a strange
place, and for an hour imagine yourself the explorer of a new continent:
but if the mind be awake (as, alas, too often it is not), you may walk
where you will, in never so well known a corner, and you will see new
things, and think new thoughts, and return to your house a new man,
which, I venture to believe, is after all the main consideration.
Indeed, if your stirring abroad is to be more than mere muscular
exercise, you will find a positive advantage in making use of some
well-worn and familiar path. The feet will follow it mechanically, and
so the mind--that is, the walker himself--will be left undistracted.
That, to my thinking, is the real tour of discovery wherein one keeps to
the beaten road, looks at the customary sights, but brings home a new
idea.
There are inward moods, as well as outward conditions, in which an old,
half-disused, bush-bordered road becomes the saunterer's paradise. I
have several such in my eye at this moment, but especially one, in
which my feet, years ago, grew to feel at home. It is an almost ideal
loitering place, or would be, if only it were somewhat longer. How many
hundreds of times have I traveled it, spring and summer, autumn and
winter! As I go over it now, the days of my youth come back to me,
clothed all of them in that soft, benignant light which nothing but
distance can bestow, whether upon hills or days. This gracious effect is
heightened, no doubt, by the fact that for a good while past my visits
to the place have been only occasional. Memory and imagination are true
yoke-fellows, and between them are always preparing some new pleasure
for us, as often as we allow them opportunity. The other day, for
instance, as I came to the top of the hill just beyond the river, I
turned suddenly to the right, looking for an old pear-tree. I had not
thought of it for years, and the more I have since tried to recall its
appearance and exact whereabouts, the less confident have I grown that
it ever had any material existence; but somehow, just at that moment my
mouth seemed to recollect it; and in general I have come to put faith
in such involuntary and, if I may say so, sensible joggings of the
memory. I wonder whether the tree ever was there--or anywhere. At all
events, the thought of it gave me for the moment a pleasure more real
than any taste in the mouth, were it never so sweet. Thank fortune,
imaginative delights are as far as possible from being imaginary.
The river just mentioned runs under the road, and, as will readily be
inferred, is one of its foremost attractions. I speak of it as a "river"
with some misgivings. It is a rather large brook, or a very small river;
but a man who has never been able to leap across it has perhaps no right
to deny it the more honorable appellation. Its source is a spacious and
beautiful sheet of water, which heretofore has been known as a "pond,"
but which I should be glad to believe would hereafter be put upon the
maps as Lake Wessagusset. This brook or river, call it whichever you
please, goes meandering through the township in a northeasterly
direction, turning the wheels of half a dozen mills, more or less, on
its way; a sluggish stream, too lazy to work, you would think; passing
much of its time in flat, grassy meadows, where it idles along as if it
realized that the end of its course was near, and felt in no haste to
lose itself in the salt sea. Out of this stream I pulled goodly numbers
of perch, pickerel, shiners, flatfish, and hornpouts, while I was still
careless-hearted enough ("Heaven lies about us in our infancy") to enjoy
this very amiable and semi-religious form of "sport;" and as the river
intersects at least seven roads that came within my boyish beat, I must
have crossed it thousands of times; in addition to which I have spent
days in paddling and bathing in it. Altogether, it is one of my most
familiar friends; and--what one cannot say of all familiar friends--I do
not remember that it ever served me the slightest ill-turn. It passes
under the road of which I am now discoursing, in a double channel (the
bridge being supported midway by a stone wall), and then broadens out
into an artificial shallow, through which travelers may drive if they
will, to let their horses drink out of the stream. First and last, I
have improved many a shining hour on this bridge, leaning industriously
over the railing. I can see the rocky bed at this moment,--yes, and the
very shape and position of some of the stones, as I saw them thirty
years ago; especially of one, on which we used to balance ourselves to
dip up the water or to peer under the bridge. In those days, if we
essayed to be uncommonly adventurous, we waded through this low and
somewhat dark passage; a gruesome proceeding, as we were compelled to
stoop a little, short as we were, to save our heads, while the road, to
our imagination, seemed in momentary danger of caving in upon us.
Courage, like all other human virtues, is but a relative attribute.
Possibly the heroic deeds upon which in our grown-up estate we plume
ourselves are not greatly more meritorious or wonderful than were some
of the childish ventures at the recollection of which we now condescend
to feel amused.
On the surface of the brook flourished two kinds of insects, whose
manner of life we never tired of watching. One sort had long,
wide-spreading legs, and by us were known as "skaters," from their
movements (to this day, I blush to confess, I have no other name for
them); the others were flat, shining, orbicular or oblong, lead-colored
bugs,--"lucky bugs" I have heard them called,--and lay flat upon the
water, as if quite without limbs; but they darted over the brook, and
even against the current, with noticeable activity, and doubtless were
well supplied with paddles. Once in a while we saw a fish here, but only
on rare occasions. The great unfailing attraction of the place, then as
now, was the flowing water, forever spending and never spent. The
insects lived upon it; apparently they had no power to leave it for an
instant; but they were not carried away by it. Happy creatures! We,
alas, sporting upon the river of time, can neither dive below the
surface nor mount into the ether, and, unlike the insects ("lucky bugs,"
indeed!), we have no option but to move with the tide. We have less
liberty than the green flags, even, which grow in scattered tufts in the
bed of the brook; whose leaves point forever down stream, like so many
index fingers, as if they said, "Yes, yes, that is the way to the sea;
that way we all must go;" while for themselves, nevertheless, they
manage to hold on by their roots, victorious even while professing to
yield.
To my mind the river is alive. Reason about it as I will, I never can
make it otherwise. I could sooner believe in water nymphs than in many
existences which are commonly treated as much more certain matters of
fact. I _could_ believe in them, I say; but in reality I do not. My
communings are not with any haunter of the river, but with the living
soul of the river itself. It lags under the vine-covered alders, hastens
through the bridge, then slips carelessly down a little descent, where
it breaks into singing, then into a mill-pond and out again, and so on
and on, through one experience after another; and all the time it is not
dead water, but a river, a thing of life and motion. After all, it is
not for me to say what is alive and what dead. As yet, indeed, I do not
so much as know what life is. In certain moods, in what I fondly call my
better moments, I feel measurably sure of being alive myself; but even
on that point, for aught I can tell, the brook may entertain some
private doubts.
Just beyond the bridge is an ancient apple orchard. This was already
falling into decay when I was a boy, and the many years that have
elapsed since then have nearly completed its demolition; although I dare
say the present generation of school-boys still find it worth while to
clamber over the wall, as they journey back and forth. Probably it will
be no surprise to the owner of the place if I tell him that before I was
twelve years old I knew the taste of all his apples. In fact, the
orchard was so sequestered, so remote from any house,--especially from
its proprietor's,--that it hardly seemed a sin to rob it. It was not so
much an orchard as a bit of woodland; and besides, we never shook the
trees, but only helped ourselves to windfalls; and it must be a severe
moralist who calls _that_ stealing. Why should the fruit drop off, if
not to be picked up? In my time, at all events, such appropriations were
never accounted robbery, though the providential absence of the owner
was unquestionably a thing to be thankful for. He would never begrudge
us the apples, of course, for he was rich and presumably generous; but
it was quite as well for him to be somewhere else while we were
gathering up these favors which the winds of heaven had shaken down for
our benefit. There is something of the special pleader in most of us, it
is to be feared, whether young or old. If we are put to it, we can draw
a very fine distinction (in our own favor), no matter how obtuse we may
seem on ordinary occasions.
Remembering how voracious and undiscriminating my juvenile appetite was,
I cannot help wondering that I am still alive,--a feeling which I doubt
not is shared by many a man who, like myself, had a country bringing-up.
We must have been born with something more than a spark of life, else it
would certainly have been smothered long ago by the fuel so recklessly
heaped upon it. But we lived out-of-doors, took abundant exercise, were
not studious overmuch (as all boys and girls are charged with being
nowadays), and had little to worry about, which may go far to explain
the mystery.
It provokes a smile to reckon up the many places along this old road
that are indissolubly connected in my mind with the question of
something to eat. At the foot of the orchard just now spoken of, for
example, is a dilapidated stone wall, between it and the river. Over
this, as well as over the bushes beside it, straggled a small wild
grape-vine, bearing every year a scanty crop of white grapes. These, to
our unsophisticated palates, were delicious, if only they got ripe. That
was the rub; and as a rule we gathered our share of them (which was all
there were) while they were yet several stages short of that desirable
consummation, not deeming it prudent to leave them longer, lest some
hungrier soul should get the start of us. Graping, as we called it, was
one of our regular autumn industries, and there were few vines within
the circle of our perambulations which did not feel our fingers tugging
at them at least once a year. Some of them hung well over the river;
others took refuge in the tops of trees; but by hook or by crook, we
usually got the better of such perversities. No doubt the fruit was all
bad enough; but some of it was sweeter (or less sour) than other.
Perhaps the best vine was one that covered a certain superannuated
apple-tree, half a mile west of our river-side orchard, before
mentioned. Here I might have been seen by the hour, eagerly yet
cautiously venturing out upon the decayed and doubtful limbs, in quest
of this or that peculiarly tempting bunch. These grapes were purple (how
well some things are remembered!), and were sweeter then than Isabellas
or Catawbas are now. Such is the degeneracy of vines in these modern
days!
Altogether more important than the grapes were the huckleberries, for
which, also, we four times out of five took this same famous by-road.
Speaking roughly, I may say that we depended upon seven pastures for our
supplies, and were accustomed to visit them in something like regular
order. It is kindly provided that huckleberry bushes have an
exceptionally strong tendency to vary. We possessed no theories upon the
subject, and knew nothing of disputed questions about species and
varieties; but we were not without a good degree of practical
information. Here was a bunch of bushes, for instance, covered with
black, shiny, pear-shaped berries, very numerous, but very small. They
would do moderately well in default of better. Another patch, perhaps
but a few rods removed, bore large globular berries, less glossy than
the others, but still black. These, as we expressed it, "filled up" much
faster than the others, though not nearly so "thick." Blue berries (not
blueberries, but blue huckleberries) were common enough, and we knew one
small cluster of plants, the fruit of which was white, a variety that I
have since found noted by Doctor Gray as very rare. Unhappily, this
freak made so little impression upon me as a boy that while I am clear
as to the fact, and feel sure of the pasture, I have no distinct
recollection of the exact spot where the eccentric bushes grew. I should
like to know whether they still persist. Gray's Manual, by the way,
makes no mention of the blue varieties, but lays it down succinctly that
the fruit of _Gaylussacia resinosa_ is black.
The difference we cared most about, however, related not to color,
shape, or size, but to the time of ripening. Diversity of habit in this
regard was indeed a great piece of good fortune, not to be rightly
appreciated without horrible imaginings of how short the season of berry
pies and puddings would be if all the berries matured at once. You may
be sure we never forgot where the early sorts were to be found, and
where the late. What hours upon hours we spent in the broiling sun,
picking into some half-pint vessel, and emptying that into a larger
receptacle, safely stowed away under some cedar-tree or barberry bush.
How proud we were of our heaped-up pails! How carefully we discarded
from the top every half-ripe or otherwise imperfect specimen! (So early
do well-taught Yankee children develop one qualification for the
diaconate.) The sun had certain minor errands to look after, we might
have admitted, even in those midsummer days, but his principal business
was to ripen huckleberries. So it seemed then. And now--well, men are
but children still, and for them, too, their own little round is the
centre of the world.
All these pastures had names, of course, well understood by us children,
though I am not sure how generally they would have been recognized by
the townspeople. The first in order was River Pasture, the owner of
which turned his cattle into it, and every few years mowed the bushes,
with the result that the berries, whenever there were any, were
uncommonly large and handsome. Not far beyond this (the entrance was
through a "pair of bars," beside a spreading white oak) was Millstone
Pasture. This was a large, straggling place, half pasture, half wood,
full of nooks and corners, with by-paths running hither and thither, and
named after two large bowlders, which lay one on top of the other. We
used to clamber upon these to eat our luncheon, thinking within
ourselves, meanwhile, that the Indians must have been men of prodigious
strength. At that time, though I scarcely know how to own it, glacial
action was a thing by us unheard of. We are wiser now,--on that point,
at any rate. Two of the other pastures were called respectively after
the railroad and a big pine-tree (there _was_ a big pine-tree in W----
once, for I myself have seen the stump), while the remainder took their
names from their owners, real or reputed; and as some of these
appellations were rather disrespectfully abbreviated, it may be as well
to omit setting them down in print.
To all these places we resorted a little later in the season for
blackberries, and later still for barberries. In one or two of them we
set snares, also, but without materially lessening the quantity of game.
The rabbits, especially, always helped themselves to the bait, and left
us the noose. At this distance of time I do not begrudge them their good
fortune. I hope they are all alive yet, including the youngster that we
once caught in our hands and brought home, and then, in a fit of
contrition, carried back again to its native heath.
All in all, the berries that we prized most, perhaps, were those that
came first, and were at the same time least abundant. Yankee children
will understand at once that I mean the checkerberries, or, as we were
more accustomed to call them, the boxberries. The very first mild days
in March, if the snow happened to be mostly gone, saw us on this same
old road bound for one of the places where we thought ourselves most
likely to find a few (possibly a pint or two, but more probably a
handful or two) of these humble but spicy fruits. Not that the plants
were not plentiful enough in all directions, but it was only in certain
spots (or rather in very uncertain spots, since these were continually
shifting) that they were ever in good bearing condition. We came after a
while to understand that the best crops were produced for two or three
years after the cutting off of the wood in suitable localities. Letting
in the sunlight seems to have the effect of starting into sudden
fruitfulness this hardy, persistent little plant, although I never could
discover that it thrived better for growing permanently in an open,
sunny field. Perhaps it requires an unexpected change of condition, a
providential nudge, as it were, to jog it into activity, like some
poets. Whatever the explanation, we used now and then in recent
clearings (and nowhere else) to find the ground fairly red with berries.
Those were red-letter days in our calendar. How handsome such a patch
of rose-color was (though we made haste to despoil it), circling an old
stump or a bowlder! The berries were pleasant to the eye and good for
food; but after all, their principal attractiveness lay in the fact that
they came right upon the heels of winter. They were the first-fruits of
the new year (ripened the year before, to be sure), and to our thinking
were fit to be offered upon any altar, no matter how sacred.
I have called the subject of my loving meditations a by-road. Formerly
it was the main thoroughfare between two villages, but shortly after my
acquaintance with it began a new and more direct one was laid out. Yet
the old road, half deserted as it is, has not altogether escaped the
ruthless hand of the improver. Within my time it has been widened
throughout, and in one place a new section has been built to cut off a
curve. Fortunately, however, the discarded portion still remains, well
grown up to grass, and closely encroached upon by willows, alders,
sumachs, barberries, dogwoods, smilax, clethra, azalea, button-bush,
birches, and what not, yet still passable even for carriages, and more
inviting than ever to lazy pedestrians like myself. On this cast-off
section is a cosy, grassy nook, shaded by a cluster of red cedars. This
was one of our favorite way-stations on summer noons. It gives me a
comfortable, restful feeling to look into it even now, as if my weary
limbs had reminiscences of their own connected with the place.
Right at this point stands an ancient russet-apple tree, which seems no
older and brings forth no smaller apples now than it did when I first
knew it. How natural it looks in every knot and branch! Strange, too,
that it should be so, since I do not recall its ever contributing the
first mouthful to my pleasures as a schoolboy gastronomer. In those
times I judged a tree solely by the New Testament standard, very
literally interpreted,--"By their fruits ye shall know them." Now I have
other tests, and can value an old acquaintance of this kind for its
picturesqueness, though its apples be bitter as wormwood.
I am making too much of the food question, and will therefore say
nothing of strawberries, raspberries, thimbleberries, cranberries
(which last were delicious, as we took them out of their icy ovens in
the spring), pig-nuts, hazel-nuts, acorns, and the rest. Yet I will not
pass by a small clump of dangleberry bushes (a September luxury not
common in our neighborhood) and a lofty pear-tree. The latter, in truth,
hardly belongs under this head; for though it bore superabundant crops
of pears, not even a child was ever known to eat one. We called them
iron pears, perhaps because nothing but the hottest fire could be
expected to reduce them to a condition of softness. My mouth is all in a
pucker at the mere thought of the rusty-green bullets. It did seem a
pity they should be so outrageously hard, so absolutely untoothsome; for
the tree, as I say, was a big one and provokingly prolific, and,
moreover, stood squarely upon the roadside. What a godsend we should
have found it, had its fruit been a few degrees less stony! Such
incongruities and disappointments go far to convince me that the
creation is indeed, as some theologians have taught, under a curse.