Spring at the West.--"Sugar Days."--Performances of the
Cattle.--April.--Advent of the Blue-Jays and the Crows.--The
Bluebirds, Phebes, and Robins.--April and its Inspiring
Days.--The Frogs and their Concerts.--Gophers, Squirrels,
Ants; Swallows, Brown-Threshers, and Blackbirds.--The
Swallows, the Martins, and the Advent of May.
Spring opens in the western wilds with great pomp and beauty. After our
winter had passed, accompanied with few out-door amusements, how inspiring
were her first footsteps! February slowly gave way to March, the sun each
day rolled higher and higher, and the heavens grew bluer and bluer. Then
came the still, clear, cold nights, when the stars flashed like diamonds,
and the still, warm days, that flooded the lakes and streams. Here and
there a bird would appear--one of the more hardy sort--a kind of courier,
that had been sent out by his fellows, lonely, like the dove from the ark,
to spy out the land, and report its condition. These couriers, who I
supposed were birds that were with us the preceding year, rummaged around
the woods, like a family who had just returned to a long deserted mansion.
They flew from tree to tree, eyed the knot-holes, examined everything,
shivered a few nights on a snowy limb, and then hurried back to make their
report. The outside birds who were thus represented, and who were so
anxious to "come on," were like a press at the theatre, before the hour
had arrived to hoist the curtain.
These March days were "sugar days." Puddleford was, of course, in
confusion; men, women, and children turned out with kettles and pans, into
the "bush;" and one would have supposed, from the clouds of smoke that
rolled over the tops of the trees, that a tribe of gypsies had camped
there. The girls, dressed in linsey-woolsey, were boisterous; the boys,
uproarious; and a whole army of dogs, full of the spirit of the occasion,
stormed around, barking at every deer track, and tore all the rotten logs
in pieces. Then came a long, warm, still rain--and the frogs shouted to
each other their melancholy music--and the grass and the roots that were
soaking in the marshes sent out their sweetness--the bud began to swell on
the willow--the geese gathered in a procession, with some pompous gander at
its head, and marched to the river--and the barn-yard fowls climbed up into
trees, on top of the sheds and stacks, and cackled, and crowed, and
clucked, and chatted together, like so many guests at a party.
The cattle congregated, and wandered away off to an open plain, and went
through certain exercises, the significance of which was known only to
themselves. One old cow of mine, whose reputation was good, and whose
frosty bones had scarcely moved during the winter, and who was present at
this celebration, suddenly wheeled out of the ranks, rolled her tail over
her back, put herself on a circuitous canter, cutting as many capers as a
French dancing-master, and brought up, at last, with a bellowing blast that
was quite terrific.
At a distance stood another of the herd, frothing at the mouth, lashing
herself with her tail, and throwing clouds of sand on high with her fore
feet. Away, in another quarter, were a couple of very thoughtful looking
animals, fencing with their horns. Every little while some good or evil
spirit would take possession of them, and the whole company would fling
their tails aloft, and with a great noise go off in a stampede that made
the ground tremble.
As April approached, or rather the reflected light from her distant wheels,
the voice of the birds changed into a mellower tone. The blue-jay, whose
harsh scream had so long grated on my ear, grew softer, and he blew once in
a while one of his spring pipes (for he is a great imitator, and has many),
which, after all, sounded rather husky and winter-like. His heart grew
warmer, too. He would sit on a dry tree close to the eaves of my house, and
peer through the windows, to see what was going on inside, jump down, and
bow himself up on the door-steps, to remind us, in the best way he could,
of the sunshine outside.
Soon the crows began to sweep solemnly through the air with their caw! caw!
They sailed round and round, now lighting on some tree, now on the ground,
then away they went into the heavens again. They seemed to be taking a very
thorough examination of the premises, making out the lines of occupation,
and acquiring a new possession of the same, for the use of themselves and
those they represented. Sometimes a body of them, lazily winging their way
over my house, and looking down from their height upon my diminutive form,
would shower upon my head ten thousand _Ca's!_ as if in utter contempt of
both me and mine. I occasionally fired a shot at them, and the only answer
I got was a quick "_Ca-Ca!_"--as much as to say, "Try it again! Try it
again? Who cares?"
Then came the bluebird. I threw up my window amid the latter days of March,
one sunshiny morning, and there she sat on a maple, blowing her flute.
Banks of snow were scattered here and there, but the ground smelled moist
and spring-like. Where did that little piece of melody come from? Where was
she the day before? Her song was a little poem about south-west winds, and
violets, and running brooks--perhaps she was a preacher, sent out by the
daisies to herald their coming--perhaps her song was only a prayer--for she
went round from place to place, on this tree and that, in her little
cathedral, as priests do in theirs, and erected her altar, and made her
offering. She had a great deal to say, and a great many persons and things
to deliver her message to; for in a little while she went, rising and
falling as though she were riding billows of air, to the roof of my
neighbor's house, where she sang the same song again; and after thus
spending an hour or two about the neighborhood, she crossed the river, and
dashed into the woods.
On the next morning the bluebird came again, and brought a phebe with him,
and the two sang a kind of duet for my benefit. Their harmony was
perfect--for "there is no discord in nature." On the following day, at
dawn, before the sun arose, I heard the robin rolling off her mellow notes.
I looked out and saw a little flock running along on the ground, and
picking at the fresh earth, evidently for the purpose of determining its
condition. This same flock, I am sure, remained upon my premises during the
summer, and had, in fact, possession of them for many years previous. For
they appeared every day or two, and grew more and more inquisitive, and
examined more closely. A couple finally took possession of this tree, and a
couple of that. They commenced "cleaning house." They flitted about from
limb to limb, balanced themselves on the dry twigs, as if trying their
strength and elasticity, ran themselves away down into the joints, and
dissected the crotches, picked up and cast away the dead moss and leaves,
and made as much bustle and stir as a woman on May-day.
As I was watching a couple of them one day, while they were busy at work,
they seemed quite annoyed at my presence. They flirted off from the tree to
a fence near by, with a mellow cry--saying, plainly enough, as they bobbed
around, "What! what!" "Any-thing-wrong? Any-thing-wrong?"
"Please-go-away--ha-ha-please-go-away."
Some four weeks later, these birds began to build. They went sailing
through the air with the timbers of their castle in their mouths. This
timber was selected with great care. Straw after straw, and sprig after
sprig, was picked up and cast away before the right one was found. They
remained with me during their stay north, and returned each succeeding year
to the same tree, until the woods all about me were felled, when they
deserted me for other quarters.
April shone out at last. Away down in the wild meadows the cowslip pushed
up its green head into the sunshine, and along the warm hill-sides the
wind-flowers were strewn. How they came there, I cannot tell. The day
before it was all bleak, and chilly, and flowerless there. They must have
been scattered by the morning rays of light. A melting bank of snow
frowned down upon them, close by. Soon the shade-tree sent out its blossoms
of lilac, and the dog-wood burst into a pile of snow. The hard, gray,
leafless trees stood up sternly around these first daughters of spring,
arrayed in their garments of pomp, and looked, as well as inanimate things
can look, jealous and uneasy. All over the aisles of the forest lay
enormous trunks of trees, like columns about an unfinished temple, thickly
coated with a heavy green moss; and there was a smell of bark, and swelling
twigs, and struggling roots--such a smell as only the early spring days
give out--as though the earth and the forest were just gaping and
stretching with a decayed last year's breath, before rousing up to the
duties of this.
Then the rivulets began to get into tune. The one that ran tumbling through
the woods seemed to be in a very great hurry, and shot around its islands
of moss and promontories of tree-roots with great zeal. It had unwound from
its reel of light and moisture a green ribbon, that lay along its shores
miles and miles away in the wilderness; and the birds slyly bathed
themselves in its waters; and now and then a small fish came rushing down
with the speed of an arrow, just returning from his winter quarters to the
river, probably to enter his name upon the great piscatorial roll
preparatory to summer service.
In a basin, just below a little fall of this brook, two or three wood-ducks
were ploughing round and round. These wood-ducks are hermits, and secrete
themselves in ponds and watery thickets, where silence and shadows prevail.
On one of these mornings, ruminating on its banks, sat Venison Styles, his
gun resting on the ground, apparently in a profound study. I looked at the
old hunter a long time, and his figure was as fixed and immovable as if he
were a part of the landscape, and had grown there like the trees about him.
What can the old man be dreaming about? thought I. Perhaps he already hears
the approaching footsteps of dancing May, her head crowned with flowers,
and the music of the thousand birds that supported her train. It was
already spring--summer--in his soul. He was thinking of the sports of the
coming year, and the light and pomp of the seasons passed before his
imagination like the gorgeous pictures of a panorama.
These April days were inspiring. Occasionally a bleak squall of rain or
snow obscured the sky, and silenced the music of Nature; but the heavens
looked bluer, and the birds sang more lustily, after it passed away. In the
latter part of the month the ground became settled, and the frogs, towards
evening, and sometimes during the moist, smoky afternoons, sent up their
melancholy wailing from the wide wastes of marsh that stretched themselves
through the woods and along the river banks. Some of these marshes were ten
miles long, and two or three broad; and such a concert of voices as
congregated there was never equalled by anything else. I had, and still
have, notions of my own about these vocalists. I am sure that they sang
under discipline and system--that they performed on different kinds of
instruments. Some of them seemed to be blowing a flageolet; others drew
their bows across their violins; some played the fife; while here and there
might be heard grum twangs, like the twanging of bass-viol strings. He who
listened long and closely might detect delicate vibrations of almost every
tone in art or nature. Sometimes their voices sounded like the dying echoes
of ten thousand bells, all of a different key, yet the tangled melody was
an entanglement of chords and discords, and it rolled away, and expired in
waves of pure harmony; again, it was like a choir of human voices
performing an anthem. I thought I could hear syllables, too--the
articulation of words--something like a psalm. Then the words and sounds
appeared to change, and, by the aid of the imagination, one would have
supposed that the whole community were shouting--delivering political
harangues--or that its members had got on a "bust," and were rattling off
all kinds of nonsense in a drunken frolic.
April brought with it, too, flying showers and warm sunshine. The grass
began to wake up, and scent the air with its sweetness. Along the
watercourses the willows unfolded their leaves; the buds swelled in the
forests; and the tree-tops were touched with a light shade of brown, and
then a shade of green, which grew deeper and deeper each day. Large flocks
of pigeons darkened the air, all moving from south to north,--from whence,
or to where, I could not tell. A company would sometimes "hold up" for an
hour or two, to "feed and rest," like a caravan at an oasis; but they soon
took their wings again, and pursued their journey.
The tenants of the ground burst their tombs, and came up for duty. The
gopher, and squirrel, and the ant went to work. I noticed a large community
of ants who had commenced building a city. Their last year's metropolis was
destroyed, and they were compelled to begin from the foundation; and such a
stir and bustle was never exceeded. Hundreds of laborers were in the work
up to their eyes. Here was one fellow with a grain of sand in his mouth--a
rock to him, I suppose--climbing over twigs and dead grass, standing
sometimes perpendicular with his load, and not unfrequently falling over
backwards, yet struggling away, surmounting all obstacles, until he finally
reached the place of deposit. Then there was a class of miners who shot up
from their holes, dropped their speck of dirt, wheeled, and shot back
again. Trains of them were continually ascending and descending. There was
still another class--"blooded characters," most likely--possibly
overseers--who did not do any work, but ran around from point to point, as
if inspecting the rest, and giving to them directions. Once in a while a
couple of workmen would run a-foul of each other, and get into a quarrel--a
clinch--a fight--and the "tussle" lasted until they were parted. This
colony, I will say, erected a large mound of earth in a very few
weeks--gigantic to them as an Egyptian pyramid is to us--in which they
lived and labored during the season.
Finally, the swallows, and brown-threshers, and blackbirds, and martins
came--not all in a body, but straggling along. The blackbirds appeared
first, and might be seen flying about from tree to tree, and fence to
fence, near by the upturned furrows that the ploughman had left behind him.
Such a saucy troop of pirates as they were! Flocks of them sat about in the
oaks, showering a host of epithets upon the said ploughman; then a dozen or
more darted down, staggered over the ground, picked up a worm, and dashed
away into the oaks again. They scolded, and fretted, and coaxed, and
threatened, and nettled about like a belle of sixteen. Some of them were
dressed in a suit of glossy black, with a neckcloth of shifting green;
others wore red epaulets on their wings; and a flock of them, darting
through the air, had the appearance of braided streams of fire, or
interlaced rainbows. Towards evening they all went down among the alders
and willows by the river, and had a long chat among themselves. They bowed,
and twitched, and stretched down one wing, and then the other; lit upon the
little twigs, and see-sawed as they sung, and did many other things. They
were evidently erecting themselves into some kind of a government for the
year--holding a caucus--perhaps an election--deposing an old monarch, or
elevating a new; for it was easy to hear them say what they would do, and
what they wouldn't--that is, easy for one who has studied the blackbird
language--and sometimes an awful threat might be detected, mixed with a
great many wheedling words and gracious postures.
The brown-threshers came next, and they were just as full of chatter and
life as they were the year before. Birds never grow old, it seems to me,
nor have I ever been able to determine when or where they die. The hunter
kills but a very few, and those few of a certain kind. What becomes of the
rest? They breed every spring in great numbers; but how, when, and where do
they die? We do not find dead birds in the woods; at any rate, very few.
Yes, the brown threshers were as young as ever. They looked very shabby and
mussed when I last saw them in the fall; but now their brown clothes shone
as cleanly as a Quaker-girl's shawl. They took up Nature's music-book, and
rattled off all the songs, and glees, and anthems in it--very often making
a medley of it, mixing the notes of the birds that were chanting around
all together--and they often closed the performance with an original strain
of their own, composed on the spot.
When the swallows and the martins came, I knew that spring was fully
established. They appeared suddenly during the night; for when the May sun
arose, they were twittering and wheeling through the air, shooting up and
plunging down in a kind of delicious rapture. Their music was set on the
staff of blue skies, south-west winds, and flowers. There was not a note of
winter in it. The woods, and streams, and fields seemed to have been
waiting for their melody, for all Nature went to work, and was soon clad in
beauty, and light, and song.