PLYMOUTH MAYFLOWERS
The first day on which one might hope for mayflowers came to
Plymouth in late April. The day before a bitter northeaster had
swept through the town, a gale like the December one in which the
Pilgrim's shallop first weathered Manomet head and with broken
mast limped in under the lee of Clark's Island. No promise of May
had been in this wild storm that keened the dead on Burial Hill,
yet this day that followed was to be better than a promise. It was
May itself, come a few days ahead of the calendar, so changeful is
April in Pilgrim land. This gale, ashamed of itself, ceased its
outcry in the darkness of full night and the chill of a white
frost followed on all the land.
In the darkest hour of this night, I saw a thin point of light
rise out of the mystery of the sea far to the eastward, the tiny
sail of the shallop of the old moon, blown landward by little
winds of dawn, making port on the shore of "hither Manomet." In
the velvety blackness of this ultimate hour of night the slender
sail curved sweetly backward toward the sea, and the shallop
seemed drawn to the land by a lodestone, as was the ship of
Sindbad the Sailor, and when it magically climbed the dark
headland and sailed away into the sky above, it drew out of the
sea behind it the first light of glorious morning. From Manomet
head to the Gurnet the horizon showed a level sea line of palest
garnet that deepened, moment by moment, till the coming sun arched
it with rose and bounded from it, a flattened globule of ruby
fire. I like to think that the path of gold with which the sun
glorified the stippled steel of the sea was the very one by which
the first Mayflower came in from Provincetown, the sails nobly set
and the ship pressing onward to that memorable anchorage within
the protecting white arm of the sandspit.
I like to think that the sweet curve of the old moon's slender
sail sways in by Manomet each month in loving remembrance of that
other shallop that so magically won by the roar of the breakers on
the dark point and brought the simple record of faith and courage
for our loving remembrance. But whether these things are so or not
I know that the very first rays of the morning sun pass in level
neglect over the bay and the town to lay a wreath of light on the
brow of Burial Hill and touch with celestial gold the simple
granite shaft that stands over the grave of William Bradford,
historian of Plymouth Colony and writer of the first American
book. Such is the unfailing ceremony of sunrise in Plymouth, and
such it has been since the first Pilgrim was laid to rest on the
hill which lifts its head above the roofs and spires to the free
winds of the world.
Plymouth is fortunate in this hill. It bears the very presence of
its founders above the enterprise and ferment of a modern town
which grows rapidly toward city conditions, a hill which is set
upon a city and cannot be hid. Factories and city blocks and all
the wonders of steam and electrical contrivance which would have
astounded and amazed Bradford and his fellows are common in
Plymouth today as they are common to all cities and towns of a
vast country, yet the graves of the simple pioneers rise above
them as the story of their lives transcends in interest that of
all others that have come after them. The book that Bradford
wrote, as the tales that Homer told, will last as long as books
are read. Plymouth may pass, as Troy did, but the story of its
heroes will remain. Bradford's book, which was our first, may
well, at the end of time, be rated our greatest.
The trailing arbutus is peculiarly the flower of Plymouth. Not
that it grows there alone, indeed within easy reach of the landing
place of the Pilgrims it is not easy now to find it. Once, no
doubt, it blossomed about the feet of the pioneers, sending up its
fragrance to them as they trod sturdily along their first street
and through their new found fields that first spring after their
arrival. My, but their hearts must have been homesick for the
English May they had left behind! and in memory of the pink and
white of the hawthorn hedges they called this pink and white
flower which peered from the oval-leaved vines trailed about their
feet, mayflower. It surely must have grown on the slopes of Burial
Hill, down toward Town Brook, but now one will look in vain for it
there. I found my first blossom of the year by following the brook
up to its headwaters in Billington Sea. The brook itself is
greatly changed since Bradford's day. Its waters are now held back
by dams where it winds through the sand hills and one mill after
another sits by the side of the ponds thus formed. Yet the "sea"
itself must be much the same in itself and its surroundings as it
was in Billington's time. Nor do I wholly believe the legend which
has it that Billington thought it was a sea in very truth. It is
too obviously a pond to have deceived even this unsophisticated
wanderer. It covers but little over three hundred acres including
its islands and winding coves.
*****
I think, rather, its name was given in good natured derision of
Billington and his idea of the importance of his discovery, a form
of quaint humor not unknown in the descendants to the Pilgrims of
this day. Yet the waters of the little winding pond are as clear
as those of the sea which breaks on the rocks of Manomet or the
Gurnet, and the hilly shores, close set with deciduous growth, are
almost as wild as they were then. The robins that greeted the dawn
on Burial Hill sang here at midday, blackbirds chorused, and song
sparrows sent forth their tinkling songs from the shrubby growths.
Plymouth woods, here at least, are a monotony of oaks. Yet here
and there in the low places a maple has become a burning bush of
ruby flame, and along the bog edges the willows are in the full
glory of their yellow plumes. The richest massed coloring one can
see in the region today, though, is that of the cranberry bogs.
Looking away from the sun the thick-set vines are a level floor of
rich maroon, not a level color but a background showing the brush
marks of a master painter's hand. Toward the sun this color
lightens and silvers to tiny jewel points where the light glances
from glossy leaf tips. The later spring growth will fleck the bogs
with greens, but the maroon background will still be there.
[Illustration: Leyden Street To-day from Burial Hill]
The arbutus does not trail in all spots beneath the oaks, even in
this secluded wilderness. Sometimes one thinks he sees broad
stretches green with its rounded leaves only to find last year's
checkerberries grinning coral red at him, instead of the soft pink
tints and spicy odor of the Epigaea blooms. Sometimes the pyrola
simulates it and cracks the gloss on its leaves with a wan
wintergreen smile at the success of the deception. But after a
little the eye learns to discriminate in winter greens and to know
the outline of the arbutus leaf and its grouping from that of the
others. Then success in the hunt should come rapidly. After all
Epigaea and Gaultheria are vines closely allied, and it is no
wonder that there is a family resemblance. The checkerberry's
spicy flavor permeates leaves, stem and fruit. That of the arbutus
seems more volatile and ethereal. It concentrates in the blossom
and lifts from that to course the air invisibly an aromatic
fragrance that the little winds of the woods sometimes carry far
to those who love it, over hill and dale. Given a day of bright
sun and slow moving soft air and one may easily hunt the Plymouth
mayflower by scent. Even after the grouped leaves are surely
sighted the flowers are still to be found. The winds of winter
have strewn the ground deep with oak leaves and half buried the
vines in them for safety from the cold. Out from among these the
blossoms seem to peer shyly, like sweet little Pilgrim children,
ready to draw back behind their mother's aprons if they do not
like the appearance of the coming stranger. Perhaps they do
withdraw at discretion, and this is very likely why some people
who come from far to hunt find many mayflowers, while others get
few or none.
Just as the Mayflower in which the Pilgrims sailed to Plymouth
seems to have been but one of many English ships of that name, so
the trailing arbutus is not the only flower to be called mayflower
in New England. The mayflower of the English fields and hedgerows
was preeminently the hawthorn, known often just as "the may." But
there is a species of bitter cress in England with showy flowers,
Cardamine pratensis, which is also called mayflower and the name
is given to the yellow bloom of the marsh marigold, Caltha
palustria, often known, less lovingly, as "blobs." The Caltha is
common to both Europe and America and, though it is often
hereabout known by the nickname of "cowslip" which the early
English settlers seem to have given it, I do not hear it called
mayflower. In localities where the arbutus is not common the name
mayflower is here most commonly given to the pink and white
Anemone nemorosa, the wind flower of the meadow margins and low
woods, and to the rock saxifrage, Saxifraga virginiensis, both of
which are among the earliest blossoms of the month.
None can visit Plymouth without wishing to climb the bold
promontory of "hither Manomet." The legend has it that Eric the
Red, the Viking who explored New England shores centuries before
the first Englishman heard of them, made this his burial hill and
that somewhere beneath its forests his bones lie to this day. I
sought long for mayflowers on the seaward slopes and in the rough
gullies of these "highlands of Plymouth," I did not find them
there.
On the landward slopes, gentler and less windswept, down toward
the "sweet waters" that flow from inland to the sea, you may with
patient search find many. But the heights shall reward you, if not
with mayflowers with greater and more lasting joys. The woods of
Manomet were full of butterflies. Splendid specimens of Vanessa
antiopa danced together by twos and threes in every sunny glade,
the gold edging of bright raiment showing beneath their "mourning
cloaks" of rich seal brown. Here in the rich sunshine Launcelot
might well have said:
Myself beheld three spirits, mad with joy,
Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower.
Here Grapta interrogationis carried his ever present question mark
from one dry leaf to another asking always that unanswerable
"why?" Here Pyrameis huntera, well named the hunter's butterfly,
flashed red through the woodland, scouting silently and becoming
invisible in ambush as a hunter should. Here a tiny fleck of sky,
the spirit bluebird of the spring which the entomologists have
woefully named Lycaema pseudargiolus, fluttered along the ground
as if a new born flower tried quivering flight, and brown
Hesperiidae, "bedouins of the pathless air," buzzed in vanishing
eccentricity. But it was not for these that I lingered long on the
seaward crest. There below me lay the bay that the exploring
Pilgrims entered at such hazard, that but the day before had been
blotted out with a freezing storm and gray with snow, now smiling
in unforgettable beauty at my feet, bringing irresistibly to mind
the one who sang,
My soul today is far away,
Sailing the blue Vesuvian bay.
[Illustration: Birds of the Plymouth Woods, Wise and Otherwise]
At Naples indeed could be no softer, fairer skies than this June
day of late April brought to Plymouth Bay and spread over the
waters that nestled within the curve of that splendid young moon
of white sand that sweeps from Manomet to the tip of the sandspit,
with the Gurnet far to the right and Plymouth's white houses
rising in the middle distance. It lacked only the cone of Vesuvius
smoking beyond to make the memory complete.
Nor has the Bay of Naples bluer waters than those that danced
below me. Some stray current of the Gulf Stream must have curled
about the tip of Cape Cod and spread its wonder bloom over them.
Here were the same exquisite soft blues, shoaling into tender
green, that I have seen among the Florida keys. Surely it was like
a transformation scene. The day before the torn sea wild with wind
and the dun clouds of a northeast gale hiding the distance with a
mystery of dread, a wind that beat the forest with snow and
chilled to the marrow; and this day the warmth of an Italian
spring and the blue Vesuvian Bay.
*****
The Pilgrims had their seasons of storm and stress, but there came
to them too halcyon days like this when the mayflower bloomed in
all the woodland about them, the mourning cloak butterflies danced
with joy down the sunny glades, and the bay spread its wonderful
blue beneath their feet in the delicious promise of June. Nor is
it any wonder that in spite of hardships and disaster manifold
they yet found heart to write home that it was a fayere lande and
bountiful.
But for all the lure of Plymouth woods with their fragrance of
trailing arbutus, from all the grandeur of the wide outlook from
Manomet Heights, the hearts of all who come to Plymouth must lead
them back to the resting place of the fathers on the brow of the
little hill in the midst of the town. There where the grass was
not yet green and the buttercups that will later shine in gold
have put forth but the tiniest beginnings of their fuzzy,
three-parted leaves, I watched the sun sink, big and red in a golden
mist, over a land of whose coming material greatness Bradford and
his fellow Pilgrims could have had no inkling. Seaward the tropic
bloom of the water was all gone, and there as the sun passed I saw
the cool steel of the bay catch the last rays in little dimples of
silver light. Manomet withdrew, blue and mysterious in the haze of
nightfall. Out over the Gurnet, beyond, the sky caught purples
from the colors in the west, and there, dropping below the horizon
line, east northeast toward England, I saw a sail vanish in the
soft haze as if it might be the first Mayflower, sailing away from
the heavy-hearted Pilgrims, toward England and home. The sun's
last ray touched it with a fleck of rose as it passed, a rose-like
that which tipped the petals of the mayflowers that I held in my
hand, mayflowers that sent tip to me in the coolness of the
gathering April night a fragrance as aromatic and beloved as is
the memory of the lives of the Pilgrims that slept all about me on
the brow of Burial Hill. Bradford wrote gravely and simply the
chronicles of these, and no more, yet the fervent faith and sturdy
love for fair play, unquenchable in the hearts of these men,
breathes from every page, a fragrance that shall go forth on the
winds of the world forevermore.