The Wilderness around Puddleford.--The Rivers and the
Forests--Suggestions of Old Times.--Footprints of the
Jesuits.--Vine-covered Mounds.--Visit to the Forest.--The
Early Frost.--The Forest Clock.--The Woodland Harvest.--The
Last Flowers.--Nature sowing her Seed.--The Squirrel in the
Hickory.--Pigeons, their Ways and their Haunts.--The
Butterflies and the Bullfrog.--Nature and her Sermons.--Her
Temple still open, but the High-priest gone.
Puddleford was a mere spot in the wilderness. Its region abounded with
patches of improved land, and patches partly improved, and fields of stumps
that the pioneer had just passed over with his axe. The great sweep of land
around it, however, was a wilderness--not a thicket--not a dense mass of
timber, nor a swamp--but a rolling plain of upland prairie, and
heavily-wooded flats along the rivers; and it extended no one knew where,
and was covered with lakes and rivers that shone, and roared, and babbled,
day and night, through the great solitude. The surface of the upland was as
smooth and shaven as an English park. No undergrowth obstructed the eye,
and the outline of a deer might be discerned two miles distant. Trees upon
the distant ground-swells, amid their quivering shadows, appeared to be
riding upon waves. In this gigantic park, which overreached degrees of
longitude, flowers of every form and hue budded, blossomed, faded, and
died, from May until November. The prairies were so many blooming seas; and
when the soft south-west stirred up their depths, they shed a gorgeous
light, as if they were breathing out rainbow colors.
The rivers that watered this waste were large, and flowed from still deeper
solitudes towards the great lakes. The sun, as ancient as they, rose and
set upon them now as it did centuries ago. The forests upon their banks
sprang up, flourished, waxed old, and died; and still the river ran, and
new forests rose upon the ruins of the old, and the glory of the new stood
implanted in the grave of the old. The bison, moose, and bear drank from
the sources of these rivers, driven upward by the noise of civilization.
But they had an interest to me beyond all this: they were the inlets to
Christian missionaries more than a century ago. It was up these streams
that the French Jesuit,[C] with his eye aloft, and the cross erect, paddled
his solitary canoe among the aborigines. Here he built his camp-fire
beneath the stars, and told his rosary in the awful presence of his
God--how awful, indeed, in such a spot, at such a time! We can almost see
the venerable man, and hear the dip of his oar; the water-fowl scream,
scared, and dive along before him, and the Indian stands upon the bank in
his presence, like a monument in wonder.
The footprints of the Jesuits are still found upon the bluffs of these
rivers. Mounds, which were thrown by them into square and circular forms,
now roofless and silent, and matted all over with vines, still bear
witness to their devotion. Yet how little is thought of them now! Because
the Jesuits did not till the earth, and sow, and reap, and swell the
commerce of the world: but didn't they sow? They sowed the seeds of
everlasting life among the simple children of the forest; and _they_ have
sown from age to age since, and many an Indian still offers the prayer
which was taught his forefathers so long ago.
Such, reader, were the woods around Puddleford, and such the associations.
I was in the habit of going down into their depths, and scraping
acquaintance with the inhabitants. It was a relief to me. I sometimes even
went so far as to set myself up as a sportsman. I made a special visit,
just after the first frost, for the purpose of spying out the game. The
morning was still and bright, and the dash of a distant rivulet, which I
could step across, filled the "long drawn aisles" with its echoes. I had
been down often during the summer, but every object looked strangely
different now. The first frost had given Nature a shock--a kind of palsy;
she looked serene, almost sad. Its inmates had gadded about during the
summer in a very reckless way; they looked more sober after the first
frost--more thoughtful--more anxious about something.
It was late in September, and yet "the storms of the wild Equinox, with all
its wet," had not come. It was due and over-due. Amid the more hardy
foliage the first frost had drawn his brush in the most delicate way
possible--a mere tinge, and no more--a kind of autumnal hint. There was one
limb of an oak just changing, and the balance of the tree stood up as
bravely and defiant as ever; the soft maple was completely dipped--it
blazed; the aspen trembled and glowed; the hickory was only touched, and
still hesitated about her full suit of yellow; while the dog-wood and spice
bush had entirely given up the ghost.
It was just after the first frost, so I went down to the banks of the
rivulet that had so long been singing its woodland psalm. It came from away
off somewhere, and strayed, and dove over precipices, and spread into
miniature lakes; but, where I stood, it tumbled through a gorge with green,
sloping banks. As I gazed, the sun waxed higher and warmer. Day wore its
way up the gorge, and literally struck a sisterhood of frosted sumachs, and
they turned blood-red; I thought I saw them shift their summer dress.
Near by, a vine circled a tree, and swung out from its top. I had noticed
it many times before during the season. It was then hung with large-mouthed
flowers, which opened with the morning. Was it a summer chime of bells that
tolled the sunlight into the temple?--the forest clock, that opened and
shut the hours? The bells were broken now; the first frost had cracked
them. I saw a bird, dressed in blue, run up the vine, and hitch along in a
very deliberate way, and peer into this bell and into that, as if he
wondered why they did not spread; but this might have been an odd fancy of
mine.
The first frost seemed to have passed through the tree-tops that rolled
over the gorge in a hurry. The prominent points of the foliage were tufted
with russet, but its hollows and dells were as green as ever.
The woodland harvest was nigh--the Creator's own harvest, sown and reaped
without the aid of man. The pawpaw began to shed its fruit; mandrakes stood
up all over the forest, like umbrellas loaded with apples of gold; the
wild cucumber was bending under its own weight; the bark of the hickory and
beech nut was broken, and the fruit peeped out; acorns were loosening in
their cups; the grape was purple and fragrant, and ready to gush with
richness; and away down below me I noticed a crabbed, sour-looking plum
tree, holding on to the hill-side with all its energy, and covered with its
rosy-cheeked children.
A few flowers yet lingered on the upland, breathing their last. The pink,
violet, lupine, and a thousand nameless ones, had shed and buried their
seeds long before; but the flaming, cardinal-fringed gentian, the yellow
moccasin, and troops of lilies, still crowded the swales and watercourses,
braving out the first frost. Insects were singing a melancholy dirge around
me; a bee droned past in great haste, with a consequential hum; the year
was passing and dying, like a vibration over the earth.
The air was filled with winged seeds, sailing away off here and away off
there, and going I do not know where. The wild cotton burst its pod, and
furred out at a great rate; a large company of thistle balloons rolled up
lazily into the sky, and went out of sight (to the stars, probably),
directed by some invisible hand to the place of their destination. Birds
were picking and carrying clusters of grapes and s'coke far and wide. How
beautifully Nature sows her solemn wastes! The winds and the birds are her
husbandmen, and the work goes on with a song.
There was a bustle in a hickory--a black squirrel was flirting about, and
making an examination of the crop. He had come early into the
harvest-field. He ran up and down the branches, nipped the nuts, jumped
upon his haunches, thought a while, chattered to himself, and said--or I
thought he said--"Little too soon"--"Little too soon"--"Come again"--"Come
again." At a distance, a male partridge, with his tail curved like a fan,
and his feathers erect, was blustering and strutting around with great
pomp, as consequential as a Broadway fop--a rabbit, crouched in a heap, sat
off timidly under an upturned root, eating a pawpaw--a lonely snipe came
tetering up the rivulet--a robin lit upon a scoke-bush, picked a berry or
two, whistled, took a kind of last look, and departed; a little bird, as
rich as sunset, next startled me with a stream of fire, which he wove
through the green foliage, as if he were tying it up with a blazing cord; a
sanctimonious crow floated in circles in the air, and screamed very
savagely to things below him, like a preacher in a passion; and I heard
turkeys clucking and calling to each other in every direction.
Suddenly, a flock of pigeons broke the few bars of light that were
struggling down, and wheeled to a dry limb, at a respectful distance; they
ranged themselves in rows like platoons of soldiers, and bowed forwards and
sideways, in a very polite, diplomatic way. A few words passed between
them--(pigeons don't talk much)--exchanging, no doubt, opinions of me and
my whereabouts. By and by, one spread his wings and fluttered to the
ground, and began feeding--then another, and another, until the whole flock
descended, except three sentinels, who remained posted to watch and guard.
I knew them well. There was a "roost" in a tamarack swamp, some miles
distant. Not long before, I had visited their noisy metropolis. It was at
the close of day, and its evergreen canopy was half-dipped in light. I
recollected what hosts came thronging in, on all sides, roaring like a
tempest, and how they piled themselves upon the top of each other upon the
boughs like swarming bees--and how all night the trees bent and cracked
with the crowded population, who seemed continually treading upon each
other's toes, and tumbling each other's beds--and how, when the day dawned,
they all dissolved, and winged their way to the plains, and the troubled
city was as silent as fallen Babylon.
I like the pigeon. He has a business-way, and a way of minding his own
business. He is always doing something. Who ever saw a pigeon trifle or
frolic, or put on airs? He is the clipper of the skies' air-line. Eight
hundred miles a day, few stoppages, and no bursting of boilers. He is a
practical bird--no such dreamy, twilight sort of a thing as the
whippoorwill, who is forever complaining about nothing, like a miserable
rhymester--whir--whir--whir. "Ah! you are going. Pay my respects to the
alligators among the rice swamps of Florida," said I, "when you see them
next winter."
The pigeons were started by the bay of hounds. By their voice, the hounds
had probably been on the chase during most of the night--(it was a weary
voice and almost painful)--and I soon discovered that they were
approaching. Soon a drove of deer, led forward by a noble buck, carrying
antlers like tree-branches, came crashing by, leaped the ravine, and were
soon followed by their pursuers, and I watched them afar over the plain
until they were lost. I knew the dogs. They belonged to Venison Styles. But
where was Venison? I could see the old hunter, in my imagination, standing
away off on some "run-way," listening to the strife around him, and
watching for his victims.
Perhaps you know, and perhaps you _don't_ know, reader, that deer, at
certain seasons of the year, have "run-ways"--that they have great
_high_ways--thoroughfares that follow mountains, thread morasses, cross
lakes and streams, up and down which they travel. I cannot say who first
laid them out. It may be they can tell. If I ever find out, I will let you
know.
I was next overhauled by a fleet of white butterflies, who came winding
down the brook in a very loitering sort of a way. They anchored in front of
me, near the water's edge, and amused themselves by opening and shutting
their huge sails--huge for butterflies. Their wings were all bedropped with
gold, and powdered with silver dust. Then another fleet, arrayed in
chocolate velvet, came up the stream. They were large and showy. _Their_
chocolate wings were ribbed with lines of blue and green; and a few plain,
yellow plebeians followed on after, train-bearers, probably, to their
lordly superiors. What brush touched those rich and delicate wings? What
alchemist wrought those magical colors? Who put on those gorgeous uniforms?
Were they equipped for the beauty and glory of the world, or their own? For
what purpose was this winged mystery sent upon the earth? Just here a large
frog, who had been sitting on a stone near the water, wrapped up to his
eyes in his green surtout, looking as taciturn and gloomy as the Pope, went
down with a "jug-a-ro," and spoiled my reflections.
It was just after the first frost, and the wasps were hard at work,
preparing, or repairing their mansions for winter. The mason-wasp, as he is
called, was digging up the mud, which he carried to a hollow log, where he
lived. He was "plastering up a little." The "paper-wasp" was gathering wild
cotton and flax, and manufacturing it, for his palace that hung, half
furnished, swinging in a tree like a top. Strange that man should have so
long remained without the secret of making paper--when the wasp had made
and hung it up high before his eyes, for so many thousand years!
Thus, reader, the great wilderness was alive--and away down the chain of
animated being, beyond the reach of the eye or ear, there was life--busy
life--all links in a great chain held and electrified by the hand of the
Almighty.
What sermons there were all around me--Nature preaching through her works!
What cathedral like this, with its living pillars--its dome of sun, and
moon, and stars? Morn swings back its portals with light and song, and
evening gently closes them again amid her deepening shadows--and the
worship and work goes on like the swell of an anthem; but the great
high-priest that worshipped at its altars, and burnt incense to the spirit
that pervades this solitude, where is he? Where are his fires now? The
temple still stands, and the anthem is still heard, but the worshippers are
gone "Lo! the poor Indian."
FOOTNOTES:
[C] Father Hennepin and others.