Many of our friends seem to be taking automobile trips during the summer
months--very rapid trips, since, as they explain, "it strains the
machine to go too slowly, you know." Jonathan and I wanted to take a
trip too, and we looked about us on the old farm for a conveyance. The
closest scrutiny failed to discover an automobile, but there were other
vehicles--there was the old sleigh in the back of the woodshed, where
the hens loved to steal nests, and the old surrey, shabby but willing,
and the business wagon, still shabbier but no less willing; there were
the two lumber wagons, one rather more lumbering than the other; and
there were also various farming vehicles whose names and uses I have
never fathomed, with knives and long raking arrangements, very
uncomfortable to step over when hunting in the dark corners of the barns
for hens' nests or new kittens.
Moreover, there was Kit, the old bay mare, also shabby but willing. That
is, willing "within reason," although it must be admitted that Kit's
ideas of what was reasonable were distinctly conservative. The chief
practical difference between Kit and an automobile, considered as a
motive power, was that it did not strain Kit in the least to go slowly.
This we considered an advantage, slow-going being what we particularly
wished, and we decided that Kit would do.
For our conveyance we chose the business wagon--a plain box body, with a
seat across and room behind for a trunk; but in addition Jonathan put in
a shallow box under the seat, nailed to cleats on the bottom of the
wagon so that it would not shift and rain would run under it. In this we
put the things we needed by the roadside--the camping-kit,
drinking-cups, bait-boxes, camera, and so on. Then we stowed our trout
rods and baskets, and one morning in June we started.
Our plan was to drive and fish through the day, cook our own noon meal,
and put up at night wherever we could be taken in, avoiding cities and
villages as far as possible. Beyond that we had no plan. Indeed, this
was the best of it all, that we did not have to get anywhere in
particular at any particular time. We did not decide on one day where we
would go the next; we did not even decide in the morning where we would
go in the afternoon. If we found a brook where the trout bit, and there
was no inhospitable "poster" warning us away, we said, "Let's stay! who
cares whether we get on or not?" And we tied Kit to a tree, took out our
rods and baskets, and followed the brook. If noon found us still
fishing, we came back to the wagon, fed Kit, got out our camping-outfit,
and cooked our fish for luncheon. It did not take long. I collected
kindling and firewood while Jonathan was laying a few big stones for a
fireplace shaped like a squared letter "C," open towards the wind and
big enough to hold our frying-pan. Then we started the fire, and while
it was settling into shape Jonathan dressed the fish and cut a long
stick to fit into the hollow handle of the frying-pan, and I had time to
slice bits of pork and set out the rest of the luncheon--bread and
butter, milk if we happened to have passed a dairy farm, a pineapple or
oranges if we happened to have met a peddler, strawberries if we had
chanced upon one of the sandy spots where the wild ones grow so thickly.
Then the pan was set over, the pork was laid in, and soon the little
fish were curling up their tails in the fragrant smoke. If they were big
and needed long cooking, I had time to toast bread or biscuit in the
embers underneath for an added luxury, and when all was ready we sat
down in supreme contentment. And we never forgot to give Kit a lump of
sugar, or some clover tops, that she might share in the picnic. But
every now and then she would turn and regard us with eyes that expressed
many things, but chiefly wonder at the queerness of folks who could
prefer not to go back to their own stable to eat. When luncheon was
over, the dishes washed in the brook, and the wagon repacked, we ambled
on, leaving our little fireplace, with its blackened stones and its
heart of gray ashes.
No one who has never tried such an aimless life can realize its charm
and its restfulness. Most of us spend our days catching trains, and
running to the telephone, and meeting engagements. Even our pleasures
are seldom emancipated from these requirements; they are dependent on
boats and trolley cars and trains, they are measured out in hours and
minutes, and we snatch them running, as the Israelites did their water.
But this trip of ours was bounded only by the circle of the week, and
conditioned only by the limitations of Kit. No one could telephone to
us, even at night, because no one knew where we were to be. As for
trains, we never once saw one. Now and then we heard one whistle, so far
away that it merely emphasized its own remoteness, and a few times we
were compelled to cross over or under a track--a very little track, and
single at that; beyond this our connection with the symbol of Hurry did
not go.
The limitations of Kit were indeed definite and insurmountable. While
her speed on a level was most moderate, uphill it was actually glacial,
and going downhill it was little better. For Kit had come from the level
West, and being, as we have said, conservative, she could never reach
any real understanding of hills. She was willing and conscientious, but
prudent, and although she went downhill when she was requested to, she
did it very much as an old lady might go down a precipice--she let
herself down, half sitting, with occasional gentle groans, rocking from
side to side like a boat in a chop sea. Now all New England is
practically either uphill or downhill, and, if we had been in any haste,
these characteristics of Kit might have annoyed us; but inasmuch as we
did not care where we went or when we got there, what difference did it
make? In fact, it was rather a relief to be thus firmly bound to
sobriety.
In one respect we could not be absolutely irresponsible, however. We
found it advisable to seek out our night's lodging while it was yet
light enough for the farmer's wife to look us over and see that we were
respectable. Our first night out we failed to realize this, and we paid
for it by being forced to put up at a commonplace village inn, instead
of a farmhouse. After that we managed to begin our search for a hostess
about milking-time, and we had little further trouble. Indeed, one of
the pleasures of the week was the hospitality we received; and our
opinion of the New England farmer, his wife and his children, grew
higher as the days passed. Courteous hospitality, or, if hospitality had
to be withheld, courteous regret, was the rule. Twice, when one house
could not take us in, they telephoned--for the telephone is everywhere
now--about the neighborhood among friends until they found a lodging for
us. And pleasant lodgings they always proved.
One exception there was. We drew up one afternoon by a well-kept little
house with a good English name on the post-box, and, as usual, I held
the reins while Jonathan went up to the side door to make inquiries.
After he had started up the path I saw, from my vantage-point, the lady
of the farm returning from her "garden patch," and my heart went out in
pity to Jonathan. If I could have called him back I would have done so,
merely on the testimony of the lady's gait and figure. I had never fully
realized how expressive these could be. Her hips, her shoulders, the set
of her head, the way she planted her feet on the uneven flagging-stones
of the path, each heavy line and each sodden motion, bespoke
inhospitality, intolerance, impenetrable disapproval of everything
unfamiliar. I watched Jonathan turn back from the door at the sound of
her steps, and in the short colloquy that followed, though I could hear
nothing, I could see those hips and shoulders settling themselves yet
more decisively, while Jonathan's attitude grew more studiously
courteous. But when he had lifted his hat again and turned from that
monument of immobile unpleasantness I saw his face relax into lines,
partly of amusement, partly of chagrin; and as he took his seat beside
me and drove on, he murmured snatches of quotation--"No; couldn't
possibly," "No; don't know anybody that could," "No; never did such a
thing," "No; the people in the next house've just had a funeral; sure
_they_ couldn't"; and finally he broke into a chuckle as he quoted,
"Well, there _is_ some folks about two mile down might mebbe take ye;
they does sometimes harbor peddlers 'n' such like." Jonathan was hardly
willing to try again so near by; he regarded the whole neighborhood as
tainted. Yet it was little more than two miles beyond, on that same
afternoon, that we found lodgings with the most delightful, the most
hospitable friends of all--for friends they became, taking us into
their circle as if we belonged to it by right of birth, coddling us as
one ought never to expect to be coddled save by one's own mother or
grandmother.
Ostensibly, our drive was a trout-fishing trip, and part of the fun
certainly was the fishing. Not that we caught so many. If we had
seriously wished to make a score, we might better have stayed at home
and fished in our own haunts, where we knew every pool and just how and
when to fish it. But it was interesting to explore new brooks, and as we
never failed to get enough trout for at least one meal a day, what more
could we wish? And such brooks! New England is surely the land of
beautiful brooks. They are all lovely--the meadow brooks, gliding
silently beneath the deep-tufted grasses, where the trout live in shadow
even at noonday, and their speckled flanks are dark like the pools they
lie in; the pasture brooks, whose clear water is always golden from the
yellow sand and pebbles and leaves it ripples over, and the trout are
silvery and pale-spotted; the brooks of the deep woods, where the foam
of rapids and the spray of noisy little waterfalls alternate with the
stillness of rock-bound, hemlock-shadowed pools. All the brooks we
followed, whether with good luck or with bad, I remember with delight.
No, all except one. But I do not blame the brook.
It happened in this way: One Monday morning, after an abstemious Sunday,
the zeal of Jonathan brought us forth at dawn--in fact, a little before
dawn. I had consented, because, although my zeal compared to Jonathan's
is as a flapping hen compared to a soaring eagle, yet I reflected that I
should enjoy the sunrise and the early bird-songs. We emerged,
therefore, in the dusk of young morning, and I had my first reward in a
lovely view of meadows half-veiled in silvery mist, where the brook
wound, and upland pastures of pale gray-green against ridges of shadowy
woods. But I was not prepared for the sensation produced by the actual
plunge into those same meadows. I say plunge advisedly. I shiver yet as
I recall the icy chill of that dew-drenched grass. It was worse than
wading a brook, because there was no reaction. Jonathan, however, did
not seem depressed by it, so I followed his eager steps without remark.
We reached the brook, we put our rods together, and baited. "Crawl,
now," admonished Jonathan; "they're shy fellows in those open pools." We
crawled, dropped in, and waited. My teeth were chattering, my lips felt
blue, but I would not be beaten by a little wet grass. After a few
casts, Jonathan murmured, "That's funny," and moved cautiously on to the
next pool. Then he tried swift water, then little rapids. I proceeded in
chilly meekness, glad of a chance at a little exercise now and then when
we had to climb around rocks or over a stone wall. Occasionally I
straightened up and gazed out over the meadows--those clammy
meadows--and up toward the high woods, brightening into the deep greens
of daylight. The east was all rose and primrose, but I found myself
unable to think of the sun as an aesthetic feature; I longed for its
good, honest heat. A stove, or a hot soapstone, would have done as well.
After a quarter of a mile of this I ventured a remark--"Jonathan, you
have often told me of the delights of dawn fishing." Jonathan was
extricating his line from an alder bush, and did not answer. I could not
resist adding, "I _think_ you said that the trout--bit--at dawn."
Continued silence warned me that I had said enough, and I tactfully
changed the subject: "What I am sorry for is the birds' nests up in
those fields. How do the eggs ever hatch--in ice water! And how do the
strawberries ever ripen, in cold storage every night--ugh! Let's go back
and get some hot coffee and go to bed!"
And that is my one experience with dawn fishing. But Jonathan, reacting
from the experience with the temper of the true enthusiast, still
maintains that trout do bite at dawn. Perhaps they do. But for me, no
more early-dewy meadows, except to look at.
Those hours of dawn fishing were the hardest work I did during the week.
A lazy week, in truth, and an irresponsible one. Every one who can
should snatch such a week and see what it does for him. In some ways it
was better than camping, because camping, unless you have guides, is
undoubtedly hard work, especially if you keep moving--work that one
would never grudge, yet hard work nevertheless. The omitting of the
night camp cut out practically all the work and made it more
comfortable for the horse, while our noon camps made us independent all
day, and gave us that sense of being at home outdoors that one never
gets if one has to run to cover for every meal.
And, curiously enough, the spots that seem homelike to me, as I linger
in memory among the scenes of that week, are not the places where we
spent the nights, pleasant though they were, but rather the spots where
we built our little fireplaces. Each was for an hour our
hearth-fire,--our own,--and I do not forget them,--some beside the open
road, one on a ridge where the sun slants across as it goes down among
purpling hills; one in the deep woods, by a little trout brook, where
the sound of running water never ceases; one in an open grove by the
river we love best, where a tiny brook with brown pools full of the
shadowy trout empties its cold waters into the big, warm current.
Perhaps no one else may notice them, but they are there, waiting for us,
if haply we may pass that way again. And if we do, we shall surely pause
and give them greeting.