Tresumpscott Pond lies three miles eastward from our river, set deep
between the folds of wooded and rocky hills, and the woods frame it
close.
You climb the rise of a long slow-mounting hill which at its southern
extremity breaks sharply down in granite ledges, mostly pine-covered,
and there right below you lies this little lonely, perfectly guarded
lake. There is only one opening in the woods, a farm which slopes down
to the shore in two wide fields, with a low rambling farmhouse. There is
no other roof in sight.
The pond is about a mile long and half as wide. It has the attributes of
a big lake, in little; deep bays up which loons nest, and wooded
headlands, ending in smooth abrupt rocks which enclose small curved
beaches of white sand, as firm and fine as sea sand. The western bay
ends in a river of swamp, and all along the north side the wood screens
a broken wall of fern-grown cliffs, with quantities of columbines among
their crannies. The long slope above the woods is a sheep pasture,
partly under pines and partly open, with ledge and cinquefoil-covered
boulders cropping out in the close turf, and tall mulleins standing all
about like candlesticks.
The whole locality is rich in treasures, and here on the north side of
the pond is a stretch of mossy glades and openings in the underwood
which are covered with the fairy elegance of maiden-hair fern, the
delicate black stems standing out against the rocks and moss. They grow
under cool rich woods, with pink Lady's Slippers scattered in clumps
among them.
The farm at Tresumpscott is an ample one, and Jacob Damren, who farms
it, comes of fine stock, and is a big, hearty figure of a man. The Pond
was his father's before him. His wife is a plain little woman, always
clean and trim in fresh cotton print. They say her habitual sadness is
because she has never liked the Pond. She was town-bred, and finds it
utterly lonely, while to Jacob it holds everything that earth can give.
The land is very fertile and they prospered till well past middle life,
when Jacob met with an accident that was hard to bear. A neglected cut
on his thumb became infected, and soon there was swelling and pain in
the whole hand. No one did the right thing, no one knew what to do
beyond the old-fashioned farm treatments, and after a week of fever the
arm had to go. They said it was only his wife's despairing weeping which
brought him at last to consent to amputation. At first he begged to be
allowed to die sooner than face life again thus maimed.
He met the blow, once it fell, in a steady manly way, and now has come
well out from under its shadow. A month ago I saw him out with his horse
and drag, getting out stumps, and he was managing this troublesome
business successfully. He smiled a patient, slow smile, as we came up.
"This comes kind of awkward for a one-armed man!" he called out, but
spoke cheerily, and seemed delighted at the way he was achieving his
stumping.
They have had other troubles. A son who lived at home and shared the
farm, married a shallow, heartless girl, who left him, and so broke his
heart and his whole hold on life that he could not bear the place
without her, and has led a wandering, broken sort of existence since.
Their other boy, though, is a good son indeed. He is part owner in a
small cooperage and he drives over from week to week, puts in solid help
on the farm, and brings his wife and babies to make cheerful Sundays for
the old people.
Jacob and his wife love animals. The last time I was over there the
cosset lamb came into the kitchen to ask for milk. Mrs. Damren was
caressing two new red calves as if they were kittens, while Flora,
Jacob's foxhound, and her two velvet-skinned, soft-eyed puppies played
round them.
We drive over to the pond from time to time for swamp treasures of
different kinds. Jacob has a tumble-down, lichen-covered boathouse where
water-pewees and white-bellied swallows nest, in which he keeps a few of
the worst boats in the world (with ash oars shaped like flattened poles
and heavy as lead), and lets them out to people who come for pickerel or
water-lilies. The whole western end of the pond is a laughing expanse of
water-lilies and yellow Beaver Lilies, with the bright yellow
butterfly-shaped blossoms of bladderwort in among them. Beyond these you
come to a mixture of floating islands, tussocks, intricate channels of
black water, and stretches of shaking cotton grass, which in June and
July hide a host of slim-stemmed rose-colored swamp orchids, _Arethusa_,
_calopogon_, and _pogonia_. You pole and shove your boat between the
floating islands, submerging orchids and cotton-grasses alike in the
black peat water, and beyond them reach the parti-colored velvet of the
peat bog itself.
Balsam fir grows here, sweet rush and sweet gale, and quantities of
Labrador Tea, with shining dark leaves (of which Thoreau made tea when
camping on Chesuncook) and masses of delicate-stamened white flowers,
which give out a warm resinous sweetness. All around there is the
general bog fragrance of sphagnum and water-lilies, and the woodsy
perfume of the rose-colored orchids.
Farther in shore, among the balsam firs, the growth dwindles to a
general velvety richness of gem-like green and crimson mosses,
blueberries, and cranberries and huckleberries, the large handsome
maroon-crimson flowers of the Pitcher-Plant, and the little
bright-yellow-flowered Sundew, getting its nourishment from the insects
caught in its sticky crimson filaments.
The pond is alive all summer with butterflies and birds. We spent a day
there in June, and tried to follow a pair of Carolina rails, which ran
and hid among the cotton-grasses, and ran again, and suddenly vanished
as completely as if they had melted in air. We put up a bittern, but did
not find her nest. Scores of red-wing black-birds had nested in the
clustered bushes of the floating islands. We laid our oars down on the
shaking cotton grass as a sort of bridge and worked our way from island
to island, while a perfect cloud of birds chuckled and wheeled round us,
uttering their guttural warning cries and their fresh "Hock-a-lees!" We
looked into three red-wings' nests, and one king-bird's, all with eggs.
The red-wing's eggs were pale blue, scratched and blotched with black as
if by a child playing with ink and pen, while the king-bird's were a
beautiful cream-color, marked in a circle round the large end with rich
brown blotches.
As we went on to gather Pitcher-Plants and Sundew, we saw an eagle
fishing over the lonely little lake; saw, too, a thing I have never seen
before or since, for he caught a fish so big it pulled him under. He
vanished out of sight completely, came up with a great flap, and, making
heavy work of it, and flying so low he almost touched the water, he made
off and gained the woods with his prize.
Besides our orchids and pitcher-plants (we washed the pitchers clear of
insects, and drank from them), we had come for stickle-backs, which are
found in the clear shallows by one of the small beaches. We had a net,
and glass jars. They are such quick darting creatures that it is hard to
get them. They are the liveliest of all pets for an aquarium, and
prosper very fairly in captivity.
Early in the morning, when we first reached the pond, the bobolinks were
rising and singing all over the lower water meadows, and the mists were
turning to silver in the early sunlight. When we came up from the bog in
the late afternoon the bobolinks were silent, but a mother sand-peep
wheeled and cried about the field, afraid that we would find her
chickens.
We cooled our hands and faces in the clear water and washed off the
black peat mold, and went up to the farm. Mrs. Damren had fresh
gingerbread for us, and creamy milk, and we sat round a table with a
cheerful red cloth. The room was very homelike, with a good deal of dark
wood, and bright pots and pans. A shot-gun and a rifle hung over the
mantel, the guns poor Jacob will never use again. His hunting dog sat
close to his chair.
The wife's sorrowful eyes turned always to her husband, but seemed at
the same time to try to guard his empty sleeve from our glances. He,
with a larger patience, was unconscious of it.
They told us a good thing; that two lads, sons of a minister in a
neighboring town, have built a little camp in Jacob's woods. They come
over often to spend the night, and sometimes stay a week, and are great
company. They come to Jacob for milk, butter, and eggs, and often spend
the evening. The week before they had shot two coons, and they are busy
mounting them, under his directions.
Jacob's face has a great peace in it, that of a man who has given
everything in him to the place he lives in, and held nothing back. His
beautiful, lonely little holding of wood and field and lake is better,
for the work he has put into it, than when his father left it to him. He
has cleared more fields, enriched the land, and drained the lower
meadows. His son will have it after him. I have seldom seen a place
which seemed more entirely home.
Jacob had cut the hay in his upper meadow early (he has to take his
son's or a neighbor's help when he can get it), and it was already piled
in sweet-smelling haycocks as we drove by, but the water meadows, where
the purple fringed orchids and loosestrife grow in among the grasses,
were still uncut. It was dusk, and the fireflies were out. Thousands of
them flashed their soft radiance low over the perfumed meadow, and the
fragrance of sweet rush and of the open water came to us from the lake.