little corner, or the corner has been built around it, if you choose--a
“gray” rock we would call it in common parlance, but it is a gray
composed of a checkered multitude of tints, colors which upon a rock, it
would seem, were hardly worth an appreciative glance; but only let them
be exhibited upon a fold of Lyons silk or Jouvin kid glove, and dignify
them by the compliments of “ashes of roses,” or “London smoke,” and how
eagerly they are sought, how exquisite they become. I speak in
moderation when I say that I have often sat and counted as many as
thirty just such tints upon the surface of a small “gray” rock, each
_distinct_, and all so _refined_ and exquisite in shade. This rounded
bowlder is no exception; and with its tufted spots of jetty moss, and
outcroppings of glistening quartz, its rounded, spreading blots of
greenish lichens, and mottled groundwork, it may well defy the craft of
the most skilled palette. And when these grays are contrasted with
tender yellow greens and browns of fading ferns, such as fringe the
borders of the one before me, with a background of scarlet whortleberry
bushes and deep-green sprays of blackberry clustering about the
loosening bark of a crumbling stump, with its shelving growth of fungus
hiding among its brown debris, one may well pause and wonder which to
choose, or where a single touch is wanting in the perfect unity and
harmony of either.
[Illustration: WAIFS.]
Another jutting corner, and we confront a swaying mass of gold and
purple--that magnificent regal combination of graceful golden-rod and
asters that glorifies our autumn from September to the falling leaf.
There are a number of species of golden-rod, varying as much in their
intensity of color as in their time of bloom. The earliest appear in the
heart of summer, in wood and meadow; while others, larger and more
stately, lift up in their midst their plumy, undeveloped tips, and wait
until their predecessors are old and gray ere they roll out their
wreaths of gold. For weeks the roads and by-ways have been lit up with
their brilliant glow, that parting sunset gleam that lingers with the
closing year. This splendid cluster is full six feet in height, and
towers above the highest rail, or rather where the rail ought to be, for
it is lost from sight beneath a dense fret-work of prickly smilax--and
such brilliant, polished leaves! how they glitter in the sun! almost as
though wet with dew.
And to think how those prickly canes, denuded of their leaves, are sold
upon our city thoroughfares as “Spanish rose-trees” to the unsuspecting
passer-by! Those guileless venders, too! I remember one that sought to
enrich my store of botanical knowledge by telling me they “bloomed in
winter!” and had a flower as “big as a saucer,” and “kinder like a holy
hawk!!!?” I looked him straight in the eye, but he was the picture of
innocence. “Can you tell me the botanical name,” I asked. “Oh yes,” he
glibly replied, “I think they call it the _Rubus epistaxis_.” Eheu! but
this was _too much_, and he saw it, and with a wink of his foxy eye and
a shrewd grin, he whispered along the palm of his hand, “Got to git a
livin’ _somehow_, boss; now _don’t_ give me away.” “Here you are, lady,
Spanish roses, lady, fresh from the steamer.” I never see a thicket of
green-brier without thinking of its “winter blossom;” and, by-the-way,
did you ever notice a thicket of this shrub, what a defiant, arbitrary
tyrant it is--shutting out the very life-breath and light of day from
its encumbered victims, monopolizing everything within its power, and
even reaching out for more with searching tips in mid-air, and a couple
of greedy tendrils at every leaf? And did you ever notice along the road
that delicious whiff that comes to you every now and then, that pungent
breath of the sweet-fern? We get it now; the air is laden with it from
the dark-green beds across the road. The sweet-fern, as I remember it,
was the simpler’s panacea and the small boy’s joy--an aromatic shrub,
whose inhaled fumes, together with its corn-silk rival, seem destined by
an all-wise Providence as a preparatory tonic to the more ambitious
fumigation of after-years. Many a time have I sat upon this bank and
tried to imagine in my domestic product the racy flavor of the famed
Havana!
Between old Aunt Huldy, with her mania for the simples, and the demand
of the village boys, I wonder there is any of it left. But Aunt Huldy
has long since died; all her “yarbs,” and “yarrer tea,” and “paowerful
gud stimmilants” could not give her the lease of eternal earthly life
which she said lurked in the “everlastin’ flaowers;” and after she had
reached the age of one hundred and three, her tansy decoctions and
boneset potions ceased in their efficacy--the feeble pulse grew feebler,
and one winter’s eve, sitting in her rocker by her kettle and andirons,
she fell into a deep sleep, from which she never awoke. Aunt Huldy was
as strange and eccentric a character as one rarely meets in the walks of
life. Some said she was crazy; others said she was a witch; but
whatever she may have been, this aged dame was picturesque with her bent
figure, her long white hair and scarlet hood. And who shall describe the
ancient withered face that looked out from the shadow of that hood, the
small gray eyes and heavy white eyebrows, the toothless jaws and
receding lips, and massive chin that made its appalling ascent across
the face? But I cannot describe that face: think of how a witch should
look, and old Huldy’s features will rise up before you. She knew every
herb that grew, but her great stand-by was “sweet-fern:” she smoked it,
she chewed it, she drank it, and even wore a little bag of it around her
neck, “to charm away the rheumatiz.”
[Illustration: IN THE CORNFIELD.]
Since her time, however, the sweet-fern has had a chance to recuperate,
and, as far as we can see along the road, the banks are covered with it;
and there’s a clump of teazles in its midst! I wonder if that old
carding-mill still stands. You also, perhaps, will wonder what relation
can exist between the two, that should make my thoughts jump half a
mile at the sight of a roadside weed. But that old woollen-mill offered
a premium on the extermination of one weed at least, for all the teasels
of the neighborhood were required to keep its cloth brushes in thorough
repair; but I fear its buzzing wheels are silent, for in olden times no
such splendid clump as this could have remained to go to seed upon the
highway. This old mill lies right upon our path, only a short walk down
the road beyond. It nestles among a bower of willows in a picturesque
ravine known as the “Devil’s Hollow”--an umbrageous, rocky glen, by far
too cool and comfortable a place to justify the name it bears.
Following the road, we now descend into a long, low stretch, hedged in
between two tall banks of alder, overtopped with interwoven tangles of
clematis, with its cloudy autumn clusters--that graceful vine which,
like the dandelion, is even more beautiful in death than in the fulness
of its bloom. And so, indeed, are nearly all those plants whose final
state is thus endowed by nature with feathery wings to lift them from
the earth.
When has this swamp milk-weed by the roadside looked so fair as now,
with its bursting pods and silky seeds--those little waifs thrown out
upon the world with every passing breeze. How tenderly they seem to
cling to the little cosy home where they have been so snugly cradled and
protected; and see how they sail away, two or three together, loth to
part, until some rude gust shall separate them forever.
And here’s the great spiny thistle, too, that armed highwayman with
florid face and pompon in his cap. But he has had his day, and now we
see him old and seedy; his spears are broken, and his silvery gray hairs
are floating everywhere and glistening in the sun.
Now we leave the alders, and another roadside mosaic of rich color opens
up before us, where the old half-wall fence, with its overtopping rails,
is luminous with a crimson glow of ampelopsis. It covers all the stones
for yards and yards; it swings from every jutting rail; it clambers up
the tree trunks and envelops them in fire, and hangs its waving fringe
from all the branches.
Above the wall, like an encampment of thatched wigwams, the corn-shocks
lift their heads; a prospecting colony encamped among a field rich with
outcroppings of gold--a wealth of great round nuggets all in sight. And
were we to tear away that thatch, we might see where they have stowed
away their accumulated grains of wealth. We hear their rustling
whispers: “Hush! hush!” they seem to say to each other as we approach;
but their wariness is gratuitous, for a tell-tale vine is creeping away
upon the fence near-by, and has stopped to rest its golden burden on the
summit of the wall, half hiding among the scarlet creepers.
Here yellow brakes abound, spreading their broad, triangular fronds on
every side amid the brilliant berries of wild-rose, and pink leaves of
blueberry. And here are thickets of black-alder, where every twig is
studded with scarlet beads, that cling so close that even winter’s
bluster cannot shake them off. No matter where we look in these October
days, nature is burning itself away in a blaze of color that dazzles the
eyes; and now we approach its very crowning touch.
I wish every one might see this gorgeous combination of oak and maples;
see it and go no farther, for a further search were fruitless in finding
its equal. It is the pride of the entire community; towns-people and
visitors ride from miles around to see its final flush--a magnificent
climax in the way of concentration of vivid color, in which nature seems
to have grouped with distinct purpose and design, producing a piece of
natural landscape-gardening such as no art could have approached. The
background is a massive precipice of rock towering to the height of
eighty feet, itself a perfect medley of tone.
The group is composed of eight maples, each a distinct contrast of pure
color. In their midst a superb large oak presents one massive breadth of
deep purple green; and spreading up one side like a flood of yellow
light, a rock-maple lifts its splendid array of foliage. These two trees
concentrate the effect, and the others are arranged around them like
colors on a palette: one is a flaming scarlet, another beside it is
always a rich green, even to the falling leaf--with only a single
branch, that every year, even as early as August, persists in turning to
a peculiar salmon pink; another, a red-maple, is so deep a red as to
appear almost maroon, and its branches intermingle with the pale-pink
verdure of another growing by its side. There is one that combines every
intermediate color, from deep crimson to the palest saffron; while its
neighbor flutters in the wind with every leaf a brilliant butterfly of
pure green, with spots and splashes of deep carmine.
This whole assemblage of color fairly blazes in the landscape, and even
from the top of Mount Pisgah, a half a mile away, it looks like a
glowing coal dropped down upon a bed of smouldering ashes in the valley;
for the surrounding meadow is thick-set with great gray rocks and
crimson viburnum, as though it had caught fire from the flaming trees.
What other country can boast the glory of a tree which, taken all in
all, can hold its own beside our lovely maple? From the time when first
it hangs its silken tassels to the awakening spring breeze until its
autumn fire has burned away its leaves, it presents an everchanging
phase that lends a distinct expression to American landscape. It affords
us grateful shade in summer; and with its trickling bounty in the spring
we can all unite in a hearty toast, “A health to the glorious maple.”
[Illustration: THE ROAD TO THE MILL.]
But there is another tree which should not be forgotten, and if once
seen in a New England autumn landscape there is little danger of its
escaping from the memory. Of course, I refer to the pepperidge, or
tupelo, that nondescript among trees; for who ever saw two
pepperidge-trees alike? They seem to scorn a reputation for symmetry, or
even the idea of establishing among themselves the recognition of a type
of character. Novelty or grotesqueness is their only aim, and they hit
the bull’s-eye every time. There is one I have in mind that has always
been a perfect curiosity. Its height is fully seventy feet, and its
crown is as flat as though cut off with a mammoth pair of
pruning-shears. The central trunk runs straight up to the summit, from
which it squirms off into six or seven snake-like branches, that dip
downward and writhe among the other limbs, all falling in the same
direction. One gets the impression, on looking at it, that originally
it might have been a respectable-looking tree, but that in some rude
storm in its early days it had been struck by lightning, torn up by the
roots, and afterward had taken root at the top. The tupelo, whenever
seen, is always one of our most picturesque trees, and a never-failing
source of surprise, twisting and turning into some unheard-of shape, and
seeming always to say, “There! beat that if you can!” Near the coast it
assumes the form of a crazy Italian pine, with spindling trunk and
massive head of foliage. Sometimes it divides in the middle, like an
hour-glass, and again mimics a fir-tree in caricature; but he who would
keep track of the acrobatic capers of the tupelo would have his hands
full. Whatever its shape, however, its brilliant, glossy crimson foliage
forms one of the most striking features of our October landscape.
But I believe we were on the road to that carding-mill. We had almost
forgotten it; and now, as we look ahead, we see the old lumber-shed that
marks the upper ledge of Devil’s Hollow. From this old shed a
trout-brook plunges through a series of rocky terraces, now winding
among prostrate moss-grown trunks, now gurgling through the bare roots
of great white birches, or spreading in a swift, glassy sheet as it
pours across some broad shelving rock, and plunges from its edge in a
filmy water-fall. It roars pent up in narrow cañons, and out again it
swirls in a smooth basin worn in the solid rock. At almost every rod or
two along its precipitous course there is a mill somewhere hid among the
trees--queer, quaint little mills, some built up on high stone walls,
others fed with trickling flumes which span from rock to rock,
supporting on every beam a rounded cushion of velvety green moss, and
hanging a fringe of ferns from almost every crevice. And one there is in
ruins, fallen from its lofty perch, and piled in chaos in the stream.
There are saw-mills, and shook-mills, and carding-mills, seven
altogether in this one descent of about three hundred feet. The water
enters the ravine as pure as crystal; but in its wild booming through
race-ways, dams, and water-wheels, it gradually assumes a rich sienna
hue from the _débris_ of sawdust everywhere along its course. The
interior of the ravine is musical with the trebles of the falling water
and the accompaniment of the rumbling mills. Tiny rainbows gleam beneath
the water-falls, and swarms of glistening bubbles and little islands of
saffron-colored foam float away upon the dark-brown eddies.
At last we reach the carding-mill, which is the lowest of them all--in
every sense, it seems, for it is as I had feared: the flume is but a
pile of brown and mouldy timbers in the bed of the stream, and the old
box-wheel has rotted and fallen from its spokes, almost obscured beneath
a rank growth of weeds. No sound of buzzing teasels, no rumbling of the
water-wheel, no happy carder singing at his work: _nothing_--but a
couple of boys, kneeling in a corner, sucking cider through a straw.
Yes, the old mill has fallen from grace; but what else might one expect
from a mill in “Devil’s Hollow,” where all its neighbors are engaged in
making hogshead staves, and the very water has turned to ruddy wine?
[Illustration: THE CIDER MILL.]
The carding-machine is gone, and has given place to a rustic
cider-press. A temporary undershot-wheel has been rigged beneath the
floor, and a rude trough, patched up with sods, conducts the water from
the stream.
It is the same old cider-press we all remember, and with the same
accessories. Here are casks of all sizes waiting to be filled, and the
piles of party-colored apples spilled upon the floor from the farmers’
wagons that every now and then back up to the open door. There is the
same rustic harangue on leading agricultural topics, among which we hear
a variety of opinions about that imaginary “line storm.”
“Seems to gi’n the slip this year,” remarks one old long-limbed settler
with a slope-roofed straw hat, “’n’ I don’t know zactly what to _make_
on’t; but I ain’t so sartin nuther”--he now takes a wise observation of
a small patch of blue sky through the trees overhead. “I cal’late we’ll
git a leetle tetch on’t yit.”
“Likenuff, likenuff,” responds another, with a squeaky voice; “the ar’s
gittin’ ruther dampish, ’n’ my woman hez got the rheumatiz ag’in. She
kin alluz tell when we’re goin’ to git a spell o’ weather; it’s sure to
fetch her all along her spine. But I lay _most_ store on them ar pesky
tree-tuds. I heern um singin’ like all possessed ez I wuz comin’ through
the woods yender; ’n’ it’s a sartin sign o’ rain when them ar critters
gits agoin’, you kin depend on’t.”
And now we hear all about the pumpkin and the corn crop, the potato
yield, and the regular list of other subjects so dear to the rural
heart.
In a corner by themselves we see the pile of “vinegar nubbins”--a tanned
and soft variety of apple--in all stages of variegation. The “hopper”
receives the shovelfuls of fruit for the crushing “smasher,” which again
supplies the straw-laid press. We hear the creaking turn of the lever
screw, the yielding of the timbers, and a fresh burst of the trickling
beverage flowing from the surrounding trough into the great wooden tub
below. Here, too, is the swarm of eager urchins, with heads together,
like a troop of flies around a grain of sugar. Ah! what unalloyed bliss
is reflected from their countenances as they absorb the amber nectar
through the intermediate straw--that golden link that I have missed for
many a year!
Outside upon the logs the refuse “pumice-cheese” has brought together
all the yellow-jackets and late butterflies of the neighborhood--butterflies
so tipsy that you can pick them up between your fingers. I never went so
far with the yellow-jackets, for they have a hotter temper, and don’t
like to be fooled with. Black hornets, too, are here, and they find a
feast spread at their very door; for overhead, upon the beech, they
have hung their paper house, like a gray balloon caught among the
branches.
[Illustration: “THE LINE STORM.”]
Now we hear a chatter and a scratching on the roof, where a pair of
lively squirrels hold a game of tag; and ascending the rickety stairs
into the loft above, we find the floor strewn with hickory-nuts, with
neat round holes cut through on either side, and numberless shaggy
butternuts, too, with daylight let into their recesses also. The boards
and beams are covered with cobweb trimmings, laden with wool-dust; and
as we approach a pile of rusty iron near the murky window, we hear a
scraping of sharp claws, the dropping of a nut between the rafters, and
now a wild scampering on the roof overhead. Before we have fairly
recovered from our surprise, we notice a sudden darkening of a hole in
the shingles close by, where, still and motionless, two inquisitive
black eyes look down at us. We have intruded upon private property, for
this is the home of the squirrels. No one can dispute their title, for
these little squatters have occupied the premises and held the fort for
nearly twenty years.
They, too, have found forage close at hand, from the nut-grove upon the
hill-side yonder--a yellow bank of foliage of clustered hickories and
beeches, and rounded domes of chestnuts--a grove whose every rock and
bush is my old-time friend; where there are “sermons in stones,” and
every tree speaks volumes.
Here is the low thicket of weeds and hazel-bushes where we always
flushed that flock of quail, or started up some lively white-tailed hare
that jumped away among the quivering brakes and golden-rod. Here are
soft beds of rich green moss, studded with scarlet berries of
winter-green and partridge-vine. Now we come upon a creeping mat of
princess-pine, and here among the leaves we had almost stepped upon a
spreading chestnut-burr--that same burr I have so often seen before,
that same fuzzy, open palm holding out its tempting bait to lure the
eagerness of youth; an eagerness which always invested a neighbor’s
chestnuts with a peculiar charm too tempting to resist; “take one,” it
seems to say, as it did in years ago; and its hedge of thorny prickles
truly typifies the dangers which surrounded such an undertaking, for
these trees belong to Deacon Turney, and he prizes them as though their
yellow autumn leaves were so much gold. He guards them with an eagle’s
eye, and he gathers all their harvest; no single nut is ever known to
sprout in Turney’s woods if _he_ knows it.
This pointed reminder among the leaves fairly pricks my conscience as I
recall the many October escapades in which it formed the chief
attraction. I remember one occasion in particular, for it is indelibly
impressed on my memory, and it was on this very spot. A party of
adventurous lads, myself among the number, were out for a glorious
holiday. Each had his canvas bag across his shoulder, and we stole along
the stone wall yonder, and entered the woods beneath that group of
chestnuts. Two of us acted as outposts on picket guard; and another,
young Teddy Shoopegg by name, the best climber in the village, did the
shaking. He prided himself on being able to “shin up any tree in the
caounty,” and after he had once got up among those chestnut-trees we
stood from under, and in a very short space of time no single burr was
left among their branches. There were five busy pairs of hands beneath
those trees, I can tell you, for each one of us fully realized the
necessity of making the most of his time, not knowing how soon the
warning cry from our outposts might put us all to headlong flight; for
the alarm, “Turney’s coming!” was enough to lift the hair of any boy in
town.
[Illustration: A POINTED REMINDER.]
But luck seemed to favor us on that day; we “cleaned out” six big
chestnut-trees, and then turned our attention to the hickories. There
was a splendid tall shagbark close by, with branches fairly loaded with
the white nuts in their open shucks. They were all ready to drop, and
when the shaking once commenced, the nuts came down like a shower of
hail, bounding from the rocks, rattling among the dry leaves, and
keeping up a clatter all around. We scrambled on all fours, and gathered
them by quarts and quarts. There was no need of poking over the leaves
for them, the ground was covered with them in plain sight. While busily
engaged, we noticed an ominous lull among the branches overhead.
“’Sst! ’sst!” whispered Shoopegg up above; “I see old Turney on his
white horse daown the road yender.”
“Coming this way?” also in a whisper, from below.
“I dunno yit, but I jest guess you’d better be gittin’ reddy to leg it,
fer he’s hitchin’ his old nag ’t the side o’ the road. _Yis_, sir, I
bleeve he’s a-cummin’. Shoopegg, you’d better be gittin’ aout o’ this,”
and he commenced to drop hap-hazard from his lofty perch. In a moment,
however, he seemed to change his mind, and paused, once more upon the
watch. “Say, fellers,” he again broke in, as we were preparing for a
retreat, “he’s gone off to’rd the cedars; he ain’t cummin’ this way at
_all_.” So he again ascended into the tree-top, and finished his shaking
in peace, and we our picking also. There was still another tree, with
elegant large nuts, that we had all concluded to “finish up on.” It
would not do to leave it. They were the largest and thinnest-shelled
nuts in town, and there were over a bushel in sight on the branch tips.
Shoopegg was up among them in two minutes, and they were showered down
in torrents as before. And what splendid, perfect nuts they were! We
bagged them with eager hands, picked the ground all clean, and, with
jolly chuckles at our luck, were just about thinking of starting for
home with our well-rounded sacks, when a change came over the spirit of
our dreams. There was a suspicious noise in the shrubbery near by, and
in a moment more we heard our doom.
“Jest yeu look _ee_ah, yeu boys!” exclaimed a high-pitched voice from
the neighboring shrubbery, accompanied by the form of Deacon Turney,
approaching at a brisk pace, hardly thirty feet away. “Don’t yeu think
yeu’ve got jest abaout _enuff_ o’ them nuts?”