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Cornell University Library
FISKE ENDOWMENT FUND
THE BEQUEST OF
Willard Fiske
LIBRARIAN OF THE UNIVERSITY 1868-1883
1905
Cornell University Library
QL 676.A13 1894
is in a tree-to;
wun | iii
mann
Cornell University
Library
The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.
http:/Awww.archive.org/details/cu31924001124399
TRAVELS IN
A TREE-TOP
RAVELS IN
|| /By CHARLES
‘dil € CONRAD
ABBOTT
PHILADELPHIA & LON-
DON: J.B.LIPPINCOTT
COMPANY.
Copyricut, 1894,
BY
J. B. Liprincorr Company.
Printeo ey J. & Lippincott Company, PHILADELPHIA.
ConTENTS
Travels in a Tree-top . 2... 1 6s
A Hunt for the Pyxie . 2.
The Coming of the Birds... 1...
The Building of the Nest... ...
Corn-stalk Fiddles... . . Bip se tee
Op the Greek ges as a ee
4 Winter-Nights Outing. . 2... .
Wild Lifein Water... 1. ws.
An Old-fashioned Garden... ...
An Indian Trail 2... ee wee
AA Day's Digg sho ge ae ee ww
DINE a a a
Footprints... ew ae ad ie! ete
Bees and Buckwheat... 2...
Dead Leaves. 2... 2. we ee we
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
4n Old-fashioned Garden . . Frontispiece
The Chesapeake Oak. . . . «. «22
The Old Drawbridge, Crosswick's Creek 116
The Campfire . . « « «© « . 187
CHAPTER FIRST
TRAVELS IN A TREE-TOP
OWA PEARLY mist shut out the river,
\ Al the meadows, and every field for
hZ2X2D9|| miles. I could not deteét the ripple
of the outgoing tide, and the heartiest songster
sent no cheerful cry above the wide-spreading
and low-lying cloud ; but above all this silent,
desolate, and seemingly deserted outlook there
was a wealth of sunshine and a canopy of
deep-blue sky. Here and there, as islands in
a boundless sea, were the leafy tops of a few
tall trees, and these, I fancied, were tempting
regions to explore. Travels in a tree-top—
surely, here we have a bit of novelty in this
worn-out world.
Unless wholly wedded to the town, it is not
cheering to think of the surrounding country
as worn out. It is but little more than two
centuries since the home-seeking folk of other
lands came here to trick or trade with the
9
10 Travels in a Tree-top
Indians, wild as the untamed world wherein
they dwelt ; and now we look almost in vain
for country as Nature fashioned it. Man may
make of a desert a pleasant place, but he also
unmakes the forest and bares the wooded hills
until as naked and desolate as the fire-swept
ruins of his own construction. It is but a
matter of a few thousand cart-loads of the hill
moved to one side, and the swamp that the
farmer dreads because it yields no dollars is ob-
literated. He has never considered its wealth
of suggestiveness. ‘—
is giving direétions.
Surprise has often been expressed that the
common chipping sparrow can so neatly
curl a long horse-hair into the lining of its
g*
go The Building of the Nest
little nest. It cannot be explained, perhaps,
but we have at least a clue to it. One end of
the hair is snugly tucked in among stouter
materials, and then,—I ask the question only,
—as the bird coils it about the sides of the
nest with its beak, does it break or dent it, or
is there some chemical effect produced by
the bird’s saliva? ‘The hairs do not appear
to be merely dry-curled, for in that case
they would unrol]l when taken from the nest,
and such as I have tried, when just placed in
position, retained the coiled condition when
removed, But old hair, curled by long ex-
posure to the air and moisture, is often used,
and this is far more traétable. When we
come to examine woven nests, such as the
Baltimore oriole and the red-eyed vireo, as
well as some other small birds, build, there is
offered a great deal more to study, for how
they accomplish what they do, with their
only tools their feet and beak, is not wholly
known. That the tropical tailor-bird should
run a thread through a leaf and so bring the
edges together and make a conical-shaped bag,
is not so very strange. It is little more than
the piercing of the leaf and then putting the
thread through the hole. This is ingenious
The Building of the Nest 91
but not wonderful, because not difficult; but
let us consider a Baltimore oriole and his
nest. The latter is often suspended from a
very slender elm or willow twig, and the bird
has a hard time to hold on while at work.
One experienced old oriole has for years built
in the elm near my door, and occasionally I
have caught a glimpse of him. I will not be
positive, but believe that his first move is to
find a good stout string, and this he ties to the
twig. J use the word “tie” because I have
found in many cases a capitally-tied knot, but
how the bird, or birds, could accomplish
this I cannot imagine. Both feet and beak,
I suppose, are brought into play, but how?
To get some insight into the matter, I once
tied a very long string to the end of a thread
that the oriole had secured at one end and
left dangling. This interference caused some
commotion, but the bird was not outwitted.
It caught the long string by its loose end and
wrapped it over and over various twigs, and
soon had a curious open-work bag that served
its purpose admirably. The lining of soft,
fluffy stuffs was soon added. This brought up
the question as to whether the bird ever ties
short pieces together and so makes a more
g2 The Building of the Nest
secure cable that gives strength to the fin-
ished nest. In examining nests, I have seen
such knots as might have been tied by the
birds, but there was no way to prove it.
That they do wrap a string several times
about a twig and then tie it, just as a boy ties
his fishing-line to a pole, is certain. With
my field-glass I have followed the bird far
enough to be sure of this. When at work,
the bird, from necessity, is in a reversed po-
sition,—that is, tail up and headdown. This
has an obvious advantage, in that the builder
can see what is going on beneath him, and
shows, too, how near the ground the nest will
come when finished; but it sometimes hap-
pens that he gets so absorbed in his work
that a person can approach quite near, but I
never knew him to become entangled in the
loose ends that hang about him.
The oriole at times offers us a wonder-
ful example of ingenuity. It occasionally
happens that too slight a twig is selected,
and when the nest is finished, or, later, when
the young are nearly grown, the struéture
hangs down too low for safety or sways too
violently when the parent birds alight on it.
This isa difficulty the bird has to contend with,
The Building of the Nest 93
and he has been known to remedy it by attach-
ing a cord to the sustaining twigs and tying
them to a higher limb of the tree, thus
securing the necessary stability.
Amore familiar evidence of the intelligence
of birds is when the vireos are disturbed by
the presence of a cow-bird’s egg in their
nest. To get rid of it, they often build a
new floor to the nest, and so leave the offend-
ing egg to spoil. But there is displayed here
an error of judgment that I am surprised to
find. .The birds that take this trouble cer-
tainly could throw the egg out, and, I should
think, preserve their own eggs, which in-
variably are left to decay when a new struat-
ure is reared above the old. I believe even
three-storied vireos’ nests have been found.
There is one common swallow that is
found well-nigh everywhere, which burrows
into the sand; and when we think of it, it
seems strange that so aerial a bird should
build so gloomy an abode for the nesting
season. This bank swallow, as it is called,
seleéts a suitable bluff, facing water, and,
with closed beak, turns round and round
with its head to the ground, thus boring
a hole big enough to crawl into. It turns
94 The Building of the Nest
into a gimlet for the time, and uses its beak
as the point of the tool. This is odd work
for a bird that almost lives in the air; and
then think, too, of sitting in a dark cave,
sometimes six feet long, until the eggs are
hatched. On the other hand, the barn swal-
low makes a nest where there is plenty of
light and air, and is a mason rather than a
carpenter or miner. The mud he uses is
not mere earth and water, but is made more
adherent by a trace of secretion from the
bird’s mouth ; at least, my experiments lead
me to think so. To build such a nest would
be slow work did not the two birds work
together and carry their little loads of mortar
with great rapidity. They waste no time,
and use only good materials, for I have
noticed them, when building, go to a quite
distant spot for the mud when a pool was
direétly outside of the barn in which they
were building. To all appearance the nest
is of sun-dried mud, but the material has cer-
tainly undergone a kind of puddling first that
makes it more adherent, bit to bit, and the
whole to the rafter or side of the building.
Again, these swallows have the knack of
carrying a little water on the feathers of
The Building of the Nest 95
their breasts, I think, and give the structure
a shower-like wetting from time to time.
At last the structure “sets” and is practically
permanent.
There are birds that build no nests, like
the kill-deer plover and the woodcock, and
yet they exercise a faculty of equal value in-
telle€tually ; for to be able to locate a spot
that will be in the least degree exposed to
danger is a power of no mean grade. The
kill-deer will place its eggs on sloping ground,
but somehow the heaviest dashes of rain do
not wash out that particular spot. There
are sand-pipers that lay their eggs on a bit
of dead grass, just out of reach of the highest
tides. As we look at such ests, we con-
clude that the birds trust a great deal to good
luck ; but, as a matter of faét, the destruction
of eggs when in no nests, or next to none, is
very small, Why, on the other hand, wood
peckers should go to such an infinity of trouble
to whittle a nest in the firm tissue of a living
tree, when a natural hollow would serve as
well, is a problem past finding out. I have
even seen a woodpecker make a new nest in
a tree which already contained one in every
respect as good.
g6 The Building of the Nest
Going back to the fields and thickets, it
will be seen that birds, as a rule, desire that
their nests should be inconspicuous, and their
efforts are always largely in this direction in
the construction. The foliage of the tree or
bush is considered, and when not direétly
concealed by this, the nest is made to look
marvellously like a natural produétion of the
vegetable world, as the beautiful nest of our
wood pee-wee or the humming-bird shows.
These nests are then not merely the homes
of young birds, but are places of defence
against a host of enemies. The parent birds
have no simple task set before them that can
be gone through with mechanically year after
year. Every season new problems arise, if
their favorite haunts suffer change, and every
year the birds prove equal to their solution.
CHAPTER FIFTH
CORN-STALK FIDDLES
T is a merit of our climate that at no time
of the year are we, as children, shut out
from healthy out-door pleasure. There are
shady nooks along our creeks and rivers and
delightful old mill-ponds wherein we may
bathe in midsummer, and there are acres of
glassy ice over which to skate in midwinter.
Spring and autumn are too full of fun to par-
ticularize, the average day being available for
scores of methods whereby to make life a
treasure beyond compare, spending it, to the
mind of a boy, in that most rational way,
having sport. Ido not know why we always
played marbles at one time of the year and
flew our kites at another: this is for the
folk-lore clubs to fathom. Suffice it, that
there has been for centuries a time for every
out-door amusement as fixed as the phases of
the moon. So much for the sport common
z g 9 97
98 Corn-stalk Fiddles
to all boys. And now a word concerning an
old-time musical instrument that may be now
quite out of date,—the corn-stalk fiddle.
This very primitive musical instrument is
associated with the dreamy Indian-summer
days of late November. Then it discoursed
delicious music, but at other times it would
have been “¢ out of tune and harsh.” Did the
Indians give the secret to the children of our
colonial forefathers? It would be a pleasing
thought whenever the toy comes to mind, as
the mere suggestion is a pleasant fancy.
The husking over, the corn-stalks carted
and stored in a huge rick by the barn-yard,
the apples gathered, the winter wood cut, and
then the long quiet, with almost nothing to do.
Such was the routine when I was a boy, and
if the uncertain, dreamy days would only
come, there was sure to be a short round of
pleasure wherein the fiddle figured more
prominently than all else.
Tt was no small part of the fun to see Billy
make a fiddle ; it was such a curious combi-
nation of mummery and skill. Having whet-
ted his keen, old-fashioned Barlow knife on
the toe of his boot, he would flourish it above
his head with a whoop as though he was
Corn-stalk Fiddles 99
looking for an enemy instead of a corn-stalk.
Finding one that was glossy and long enough
between the joints, he would press it gently
between his lips, trying the several se¢tions,
and then selecting the longest and most glossy
one. So much of the proceeding was for our
benefit, as the cunning old fellow well knew
that it added to his importance in our eyes.
What followed was skill. Having cut off
the stalk above and below the ring-like joints,
he had now a convenient piece about eight or
ten inches in length. ‘This he warmed by
rubbing it violently with the palm of his
hand, and then placing the point of the knife
as near the joint as pratticable, he drew it
quickly down to the next joint or lower end.
It must be a straight incision, and Billy sel-
dom failed to make it so. A parallel one
was then made, not more than one-sixteenth
of an inch distant. A space of twice this
width was left, and two or three more strings
were made in the same manner. These were
freed of the pith adhering to their under sides,
and held up by little wooden « bridges,” one
at each end. The bow was similarly fash-
ioned, but was made of a more slender seétion
of corn-stalk and had but two strings.
100 Corn-stalk Fiddles
It was indeed surprising how available this
crude production proved as a musical instru-
ment. Youth and the environment counted
for a great deal, of course, and my Quaker
surroundings forbidding music, it wasa sweeter
joy because a stolen one.
I can picture days of forty years ago as
distinétly as though a matter of the present.
My cousin and myself, with Black Billy,
would often steal away and carry with us
one of the smaller barn doors. This we
would place in a sunny nook on the south
side of the stalk-rick, and while the fiddle
was being made, would part with our jackets
that we might dance the better. Billy was
soon ready, and with what a joyful grin,
rolling of his huge black eyes, and vigorous
contortion of the whole body would our
faithful friend draw from the corn-stalk every
note of many a quaint old tune! And how
we danced! For many a year after the old
door showed the nail-marks of our heavily-
heeled shoes where we had brought them
down with avigor that often roused the energy
of old Billy, until he, too, would stand up and
execute a marvellous pas seu/, Then, tired
out, we would rest in niches in the stalk-rick,
Corn-stalk Fiddles 101
and Billy would play such familiar airs as had
penetrated even into the quiet of Quaker-
dom. It was no mere imitation of the music,
but the thing itself; and it would be an hour
or more before the fiddle’s strings had lost
their tension, the silicious covering had worn
away, and the sweet sounds ceased.
Almost the last of my November after-
noons passed in this way had a somewhat
dramatic ending. The fiddle was one of
more than ordinary excellence. In the
height of our fun I spied the brim of my
grandfather’s hat extending an inch or two
around the corner. I gave no sign, but
danced more vigorously than ever, and as
the music and dancing became more fast and
furious the crown of his stiff hat appeared,
and then my grandfather’s face. His coun-
tenance was a study. Whether to give the
alarm and run or to remain was the decision
of an instant. I gave no sign, but kept one
eyeonhim. “Faster !”’ I cried to Billy, and,
to my complete astonishment, the hat moved
rapidly up and down. Grandfather was
keeping time! <¢ Faster!” I cried again, and
the music was now a shrieking medley, and
the broad-brimmed hat vibrated wonderfully
g*
102 Corn-stalk Fiddles
fast. It was too much. I gave a wild yell
and darted off. Circling the barn and stalk-
rick, I entered the front yard with a flushed
but innocent face, and met grandpa. He,
too, had an innocent, far-away look, but his
hat was resting on the back of his head and
his cheeks were streaming with perspiration,
and, best of all, he did not seem to know it.
«« Grandpa,” I asked at the supper-table
that evening, ‘‘does thee know why it is that
savage races are so given to dancing ?”
«« Charles,” he replied, gravely, and noth-
ing more was said.
CHAPTER SIXTH
THE OLD KITCHEN DOOR
Ts white porch, with its high roof and
two severely plain pillars to support it;
the heavy door, with its ponderous knocker ;
the straggling sweetbrier at one side; the
forlorn yellow rose between the parlor win-
dows; the grass that was too cold to wel-
come a dandelion; the low box hedge, and
one huge box bush that never sheltered a
bird’s nest; all these were in front to
solemnly greet that terror of my early days,
—company.
To me these front-door features all meant,
and still mean, restraint; but how different
the world that lingered about the old farm-
house kitchen door! There was no cold
formality there, but freedom,—the healthy
freedom of old clothes, an old hat; ay,
even the luxury of an open-throated shirt
was allowed.
103
104 The Old Kitchen Door
After a tramp over the meadows, after a
day’s fishing, after the round of the rabbit-
traps in winter, what joy to enter the kitchen
door. and breathe in the deleétable odor of
hot gingerbread! There were appetites in
those days.
I do not understand the mechanism of a
modern kitchen: it looks to me like a small
machine-shop ; but the old farm kitchen was
a simple affair, and the intricacies and mys-
tery lay wholly in the dishes evolved. It
is said of my grandmother that a whiff of
her sponge-cake brought the humming-birds
about. I do know there was a crackly crust
upon it which it is useless now to try to imi-
tate.
But the door itself—we have none such
now. It was a double door in two ways.
Tt was made of narrow strips of oak, oblique
on one side and straight on the other, and
so studded with nails that the whole affair
was almost half metal. It was cut in two,
having an upper and a lower seftion. The
huge wooden latch was hard and smooth as
ivory. At night the door was fastened by
a hickory bar, which, when I grew strong
enough to lift it, was my favorite hobby-horse.
The Old Kitchen Door 105
The heavy oak sill was worn in the mid-
dle until its upper surface was beautifully
curved, and to keep the rain out, when the
wind was south, a canvas sand-bag was rolled
against it. A stormy-day amusement was to
pull this away on the sly, and sail tiny paper
boats in the puddle that soon formed on the
kitchen floor. There was mischief in those
days.
Kitchens and food are of course insepara-
bly conneéted, and what hunting-ground for
boys equal to the closets where the cakes
were kept? Ido not know that the matter
was ever openly discussed, but as I look back
it seems as if it was an understood thing
that, when our cunning succeeded in outwit-
ting auntie, we could help ourselves to jum-
bles. Once I became a hero in this line of
discovery, and we had a picnic behind the
lilacs; but, alas! only too soon we were
pleading for essence of peppermint. Over-
eating is possible, even in our teens.
Recent raids in modern kitchen precinéts
are never successful. Of late I always put
my hand in the wrong crock, and find pickles
where I sought preserves. I never fail,
now, to take a slice of a reserved cake, or
106 The Old Kitchen Door
to quarter the pie intended for the next
meal, Age brings no experience in such
matters. It is a case where we advance back-
ward,
Of the almost endless phases of life cen-
tring about the kitchen door there is one
which stands out so prominently that it is
hard to realize the older a€tor is now dead
and that of the young on-lookers few are
left. Soon after the dinner-horn was sounded
the farm hands gathered at the pump, which
stood just outside the door, and then in solemn
procession filed into the kitchen for the noon-
day meal. All this was prosy enough, but
the hour’s nooning after it,—then there was
fun indeed.
Scipio—* Zip,” for short—was not ill-
natured, but then who loves too much teas-
ing? An old chestnut burr in the grass
where he was apt to lie had made him sus-
picious of me, and I had to be extra cautious.
Once I nearly oversteppéd the mark. Zip
had his own place for a quiet nap, and, when
stretched upon the grass under the big linden,
preferred not to be disturbed. Now it oc-
curred to me to be very funny. I whittled
a cork to the shape of a spider, added mon-
The Old Kitchen Door 107
strous legs, and with glue fastened a dense
coating of chicken-down over all.
It was a fearful spider.
I suspended the sham inseét from a limb
of the tree so that it would hang direétly over
Zip’s face as he lay on the ground, and by
a black thread that could not be seen I could
draw it up or let it down at pleasure. It
was well out of sight when Zip fell asleep,
and then I slowly lowered the monster until
it tickled his nose. It was promptly brushed
aside. ‘This was repeated several times, and
then the old man awoke. The huge spider
was just touching his nose, and one glance
was enough. Witha bound and a yell he was
up and off, in his headlong flight overturn-
ing the thoughtless cause of his terror. I
was the more injured of the two, but never
dared in after-years to ask Zip if he was
afraid of spiders.
And all these years the front door never
changed. It may have been opened daily
for aught I know, but I can remember noth-
ing of its history.
Stay! As befitting such an occurrence, it
was open once, as I remember, when there
was a wedding at the house; but of that
108 The Old Kitchen Door
wedding I recall only the preparations in the
kitchen for the feast that followed; and,
alas! it has been opened again and again for
funerals.
Why, indeed, should the front door be
remembered? It added no sunshine to the
child’s short summer; but around the corner,
whether dreary winter’s storm or the fiercest
heat of August fell upon it, the kitchen door
was the entrance to a veritable elysium.
CHAPTER SEVENTH
UP THE CREEK
PCHERE is greater merit in the little word
“up” than in “down.” If, when in
a place new to me, I am asked to go “ up the
creek,” my heart leaps, but there is less en-
thusiasm when it is suggested to go down the
stream. One seems to mean going into the
country, the other into the town. All this
is illogical, of course, but what of that?
The facts of a case like this have not the
value of my idle fancies. After all, there is
a peculiar merit in going up-stream. It is
something to be going c-eper and deeper into
the heart of the country. It is akin to get-
ting at the foundations of things.
In the case of smal] inland streams, gen-
erally, the mouth is a commonplace affair.
The features that charm shrink from the
fateful spot, and we are put in a condition
of anticipation at the start which, happily,
10 109
110 Up the Creek
proves one of abundant realization at the
finish.
A certain midsummer Saturday was not
an idea} one tor an outing, but with most ex-
cellent company I ventured up the creek. It
was my friend’s suggestion, so I was free from
responsibility. Having promised nothing, I
could in no wise be justly held accountable.
Vain thought! Direétly I suffered in their
estimation because, at mere beck and nod,
polliwogs were not forthcoming and fishes
refused to swim into my hand. What strange
things we fancy of our neighbors! Because
I love the wild life about me, one young
friend thought me a magician who could
command the whole creek’s fauna by mere
word of mouth. It proved an empty day
in one respect, animal life scarcely showing
itself. To offer explanations was of no avail,
and one of the little company recast her
opinions. Perhaps she even entertains some
doubt as to my having ever seen a bird or
fish or the coveted polliwog.
It is one thing to be able to give the name
and touch upon the habits of some captured
creature, and quite another to command its
immediate presence when we enter its haunts.
Up the Creek 111
This always should, and probably never
will, be remembered.
But what of the creek, the one-time Big-
Bird Creek of the Delaware Indians? With
ill-timed strokes we pulled our languid oars,
and passed many a tree, jutting meadow, or
abandoned wharf worthy of more than a
moment’s contemplation. But, lured by the
treasure still beyond our reach, we went on
and on, until the trickling waters of a hill-
side spring proved too much for us, and, turn-
ing our prow landward, we stopped to rest.
Among old trees that afforded grateful
shade, a spring that bubbled from an aged
chestnut’s wrinkled roots, a bit of babbling
brook that too soon reached the creek and
was lost, and, beyond all, wide-spreading
meadows, boundless from our point of view
—what more need one ask? ‘To our credit,
be it said, we were satisfied, except, perhaps,
that here, as all along our course, polliwogs
were perverse. Birds, however, consider-
ately came and went, and even the shy cuckoo
deigned to reply when we imitated his dolo-
rous clucking. A cardinal grosbeak, too,
drew near and whistled a welcome, and once
eyed us with much interest as we sat lunching
112 Up the Creek
onthe grass. Whatdid hethink of us? Eat-
ing, with him, is so different a matter, and per-
haps he could give usa few useful hints. The
trite remark, ‘‘ Fingers came before forks,”
has a significance in the woods, if not in the
town. While eating we listened, and I heard
the voices of nine different birds. Some
merely chirped in passing, it is true, but the
marsh-wrens in the cat-tail thicket just across
the creek were not silent for a moment.
Here in the valley of the Delaware, as I re-
cently found them on the shores of Chesa-
peake Bay, the wrens are quite noéturnal, and
I would have been glad to have heard them
sing in the moonlight again; for our enthu-
siasm would have been strengthened by a few
such glimpses of the night side of Nature.
No bird is so welcome to a mid-day camp
as the white-eyed vireo, and we were fortu-
nate in having one with us while we tarried
at the spring. Not even ninety degrees in
the shade has any effect upon him, and this
unflagging energy reacts upon the listener.
We could at least be so far alive as to give
him our attention. Mid-day heat, however,
does affe€t many a song-bird, and now that
nesting is well-nigh over, the open woods
Up the Creek 113
are deserted for hidden cool retreats, where
the songster takes its ease, as we, far from
town, are taking ours. There is much in
common between birds and men.
How, as we lingered over our glasses,
counting the lemon-seeds embedded in sugar,
we would have enjoyed a wood-thrush’s
splendid song or a rose-breasted grosbeak’s
matchless melody! but the ¢o-whee of the
pipilo scratching among dead leaves, the
plaint of an inquisitive cat-bird threading
the briers, the whir of a humming-bird
vainly seeking flowers,—these did not pass
for nothing; and yet there was comparative
silence that suggested a sleeping rather than
a wakeful, active world.
Here let me give him who loves an outing
a useful hint: be not so anxious for what may
be that you overlook that which is spread be-
fore you. More than once to-day our dis-
cussion of the “silence” of a midsummer
noontide drowned the voices of singing-birds
near by.
How often it has been intimated to us that
“€two’s company and three’s a crowd”! but
to really see and hear what transpires in the
haunts of wild life, ove is company and two’s
A 10%
114 Up the Creek
acrowd. We cannot heed Nature and fel-
low-man at the same moment; and as to the
comparative value of their communications,
each must judge for himself.
Certainly the human voice is a sound which
animals are slow to appreciate. How often
have I stood in silence before birds and small
animals and they have shown no fear! A
movement of my arms would put them on
guard, perhaps ; but a word spoken, and away
they sped. Not a bird, I have noticed, is
startled by the bellow of a bull or the neigh
of a horse, and yet my own voice filled them
with fear. Even snakes that knew me well
and paid no attention to my movements were
startled at words loudly spoken. It is a bit
humiliating to think that in the estimation of
many a wild animal our bark is worse than
our bite.
A midsummer noontide has surely some
merit, and when I failed to find fish, frog, or
salamander for my young friend, it became
necessary to point to some feature of the spot
that made it worth a visit. To my discom-
fiture, I could find nothing. Trees have been
talked of overmuch, and there were no wild
flowers. The August bloom gave, as yet, only
Up the Creek 115
a hint of what was coming. I had hit upon
a most unlucky interim during which no man
should go upon a picnic. In despair and
empty-handed, we took to our boat and started
up the creek. It was a fortunate move, for
straightway the waters offered that which I
had vainly sought for on shore. Here were
flowers in abundance. The pickerel-weed
was in bloom, the dull-yellow blossoms of the
spatterdock dotted the muddy shores, bind-
weed here and there offered a single flower as
we passed by, and never was golden-dodder
more luxuriant. Still, it is always a little dis-
appointing when Flora has the world to her-
self, and while we were afloat it was left to
a few crows and a single heron to prove that
she had not quite undisputed sway.
Up the creek with many a turn and twist,
and now on a grassy knoll we land again,
where a wonderful spring pours a great
volume of sparkling water into the creek.
Here at last we have an objeét lesson that
should bear fruit when we recall the day.
Not a cupful of this clear cold water could
we catch but contained a few grains of sand,
and for so many centuries has this carrying of
sand grains been in progress that now a great
116 Up the Creek
ridge has choked the channel where once
rode ships at anchor. An obscure back-
country creek now, but less than two cen-
turies ago the scene of busy industry. Per-
haps no one is now living who saw the last sail
that whitened the landscape. Pages of old
ledgers, a bit of diary, and old deeds tell us
something of the place; but the grassy knoll
itself gives no hint of the fact that upon it
once stood awarehouse. Yet a busy place it
was in early colonial times, and now utterly
neglected.
It is difficult to realize how very unsub-
stantial is much of man’s work. As we sat
upon the grassy slope, watching the out-
going tide as it rippled and broke in a long
line of sparkling bubbles, I rebuilt, for the
moment, the projecting wharf, of which but
a single log remains, and had the quaint
shallops of pre-Revolutionary time riding at
anchor. ‘There were heard, in faét, the cry
of a heron and the wild scream of a hawk ;
but these, in fancy, were the hum of human
voices and the tramp of busy feet.
The scattered stones that just peeped above
the grass were not chance bowlders rolled
from the hill near by, but the door-step and
Up the Creek 117
foundation of the one-time warehouse. ‘The
days of buying, selling, and getting gain came
back, in fancy, and I was more the sturdy
colonist than the effeminate descendant. But
has the present no merit? We had the,
summer breeze that came freighted with the
odors gathered from the forest and the stream,
and there were thrushes rejoicing in our hear-
ing that the hill-sides were again as Nature
made them. It meant much to us to tarry
in the shade of venerable trees spared by
the merchants that once collected here,
whose names are now utterly forgotten.
Stay! there are two reminders of ancient
glory. A beech that overhangs the brook
has its bark well scarred, and, now beyond
decipherment, there are initials of many
prominent naturalists of Philadelphia. A
few rods up-stream is another beech that has
remained unchanged. On it can be seen the
initials T. A. C., 1819; those of the cele-
brated paleontologist, Conrad, born near here
in 1803.
The shadows lengthen; the cooler hours
of eventide draw on; the languid thrushes
are again abroad; music fills the air. We are
homeward bound and hurrying down-stream.
118 Up the Creek
Our minds are not so receptive as when we
started. How shrunken to a few rods is
every mile! Trees, flowers, and birds are
scarcely heeded; but the good gathered as
we went up the creek we bring away, and,
once again in the dusty village street, we
realize that we have but to turn our back
upon the town to find the world a piéture.
CHAPTER EIGHTH
4A WINTER-NIGHT’S
OUTING
OT long since I was asked—and not
for the first time—if I could date the
beginning of my taste for natural history pur.
suits or give any incident that appeared to
mark a turning-point in my career.
It did not seem possible to do this, on first
consideration; but a recent living over of days
gone by recalled an incident which happened
before I was eleven years old, and, as it was
almost my first regular outing that smacked of
adventure, it is probable that it impressed me
more forcibly than any earlier or, indeed, later
events.
Heavy and long-continued rains had re-
sulted in a freshet, and then three bitter cold
days had converted a wide reach of mead-
ows into a frozen lake. Happier conditions
119
120 A Winter-Night’s Outing
could not have occurred in the small boy’s
estimation, and, with boundless anticipation,
we went skating.
After smooth ice, the foremost requirement
is abundant room, and this we had. There
was more than a square mile for each of us.
The day had been perfeét and the approach-
ing night was such as Lowell so aptly de-
scribes, ‘all silence and all glisten.””
As the sun was setting we started a roar-
ing fire in a sheltered nook, and securely
fastening our skates without getting at all
chilled, started off. Then the fun com-
menced. We often wandered more than a
mile away, and it was not until the fire was
reduced to a bed of glowing coals that we
returned to our starting-point.
Here a great surprise awaited us. The
heat had drawn from the wooded hill-side
near by many a meadow-mouse that, moved by
the warmth or by curiosity, ventured as near
as it dared. ‘These mice were equally sur-
prised at seeing us, and scampered off, but, it
seemed to me, with some show of reluétance,
as if a chance to warm themselves so thor-
oughly should not be missed.
We freshened the fire a little and fell back
A Winter-Night’s Outing 121
a few paces, but stood near enough to see if
the mice would return. This they did ina
few minutes, and, to our unbounded surprise
and amusement, more than one sat up on its
haunches like a squirrel, They seemed to
be so many diminutive human beings about a
camp-fire.
It was a sight to give rise to a pretty fairy
tale, and possibly our Indians built up theirs
on just such incidents. ‘These mice were, to
all appearances, there to enjoy the warmth.
There was little running to and fro, no squeak-
ing, not a trace of unusual excitement, and,
although it was so cold, we agreed to wait
as long as the mice saw fit to stay.
This resolution, however, could not hold.
We were getting chilled, and so had to draw
near. As we did this, there was a faint
squeaking which all noticed, and we concluded
that sentinels had been placed to warn the
congregated mice of our approach.
The spirit of adventure was now upon us,
and our skates were but the means to other
ends than mere sport. What, we thought,
of the gloomy nooks and corners where
thickets stood well above the ice? We had
shunned these heretofere, but without open
F Ir
122 A Winter-Night’s Outing
admission that we had any fear concerning
them. Then, too, the gloomy gullies in the
hill-side came to mind. Should we skate
into such darkness and startle the wild life
there?
The suggestion was made, and not one
dared say he was afraid.
We thought of the fun in chasing a coon
or skunk over the ice, and bravely we ven-
tured, feeling our way where we knew the
ice was thin and rough.
Ata bend in the little brook, where a large
cedar made the spot more dark and forbidding,
we paused a moment, not knowing just how
to proceed.
The next minute we had no time for
thought. A loud scream held us almost spell-
bound, and then, with one dash, we sought
the open meadows.
Once there, we breathed a little freer.
We could see the fast-fading light of the
fire, and at last could flee in a known direc-
tion if pursued. Should we hurry home?
We debated this for some time, but were
more fearful of being laughed at than of
facing any real danger, and therefore con-
cluded, with proper caution, to return.
A Winter-Night’s Outing 123
Keeping close together, we entered the
ravine again, stopped near the entrance and
kindled a fire, and then, by its light, pro-
ceeded farther. It was a familiar spot, but
not without strange features as we now
saw it.
Again we were startled by the same wild
cry, but for a moment only. A barn owl, I
think it was, sailed by, glaring at us, as we
imagined, and sought the open meadows.
We turned and followed, though why, it
would be hard to say. The owl flew slowly
and we skated furiously, trying to keep it di-
reétly overhead. Now we were brave even
to foolhardiness, and sped away over the ice,
indifferent to the direétion taken. To this
day I have credited that owl with a keen sense
of humor.
On we went, over the meadows to where
the swift but shallow creek flowed by,
and then, when too late, we knew where
we were. ‘The ice bent beneath us, then
cracked, and in an instant we were through
it, our feet well in the mud and the water
about our necks. Just how we got out I
never knew, but we did, and the one dry
match among us was a veritable treasure.
124 A Winter-Night’s Outing
It did not go out at the critical moment, but
started ablaze the few twigs we hastily
gathered, and so saved us from freezing. As
we dried our clothes and warmed our be-
numbed bodies, I, for one, vowed never
again to chase an owl on skates, but to go at
it more soberly. From that eventful night
the country has been attractive by reason of
its wild life. It was there I became—if
indeed I ever have become—a naturalist.
CHAPTER NINTH
WILD LIFE IN WATER
ae f lea antelope has less reason to fear the
lion than has the minnow to dread
the pike. We think of timid antelopes and
roaring lions, but the former has good use of
its limbs, and so a fighting chance for its life;
but the minnows have little advantage in the
struggle for existence, and none at all when
the predatory fishes are in pursuit of them.”
This was written in a note-book more than
thirty years ago, and I let it stand as evidence
of how easy it is to be in error in matters of
natural history.
When I went to school there was but one
teacher of the five that knew anything about
such matters, and he had the old-time views.
Then a fish was a mere machine so far as in-
telligence was concerned. We were told of
the cunning of foxes and the instinét of ants
and bees, but never a word of fishes.
11* 125
126 Wild Life in Water
The truth is, I might very properly speak
of wild «* wit” in the water instead of « life,”
for there can be not the shadow of a doubt
but that many of our fishes are really cunning.
We need but watch them carefully to be
readily convinced of this. How else could
they escape danger ?
The pretty peacock minnows throng the
grassy beach at high tide, playing with their
fellows in water just deep enough to cover
them, and are, when here, very tame and
careless. They even get stranded upon the
airy side of floating leaves, and enjoy the ex-
citement. They realize, it would seem, that
where they are no pike can rush down upon
them, no snake work its way unseen among
them, no turtle crawl into their playground ;
but as the tide goes out and these minnows
are forced nearer to the river’s channel, they
lose their carelessness and are suspicious of
all about them.
To call this instinétive fear and result of
heredity sounds well; but the naturalist is
brought nearer to the wild life about him
when he credits them simply with common
sense. ‘The charm of watching such ‘small
deer’ vanishes if we lean too much on the
Wild Life in Water 127
learned and scientific solutions of the com-
parative psychologist, and possibly, too, we
wander further from the truth. All I posi-
tively know is, that when danger really exists
the minnows are aware of it; when it is ab-
sent they throw off the burden of this care,
and life for a few hours is a matter of pure
enjoyment.
Brief mention should be made of the pro-
te€tive character of the coloring of certain
fishes. If such are fortunate enough to be
protectively colored, there is little to be said ;
but are they conscious of this? Does a fish
that is green or mottled green and gray keep
closely to the weeds, knowing that it is safer
there than when in open water or where the
bottom is covered with white sand and peb-
bles? This may bea rather startling question,
but there is warrant for the asking. Float
half a day over the shallows of any broad
pond or stream, study with care and without
preconception the fishes where they live, and
you will ask yourself not only this question,
but many a stranger one. If fish are fools,
how is it that the angler has so generally to
tax his ingenuity to outwitthem? Howclosely
Nature must be copied to deceive a trout!
128 Wild Life in Water
Having said so much of small fishes, what
now of the larger ones that prey upon them?
A pike, for instance? Probably many more
people have studied how to catch a pike than
have considered it scientifically. It is tire-
some, perhaps, but if a student of natural his-
tory really desires to know what a fish a€tually
is, he must watch it for hours, being himself
unseen,
At one time there were several large pike
in my lotus pond. Under the huge floating
leaves of this splendid plant they took refuge,
and it was difficult to catch even a glimpse
of them. At the same time the schools of
minnows seemed to enjoy the sunlight and
sported in the open water. More than once,
however, I saw a pike rush out from its
cover, and finally learned that it systematically
lay in wait for the minnows; and I believe
I am justified in adding that the minnows
knew that danger lurked under the lotus
leaves.
The situation was not so hap-hazard a one
as might appear at first glance, and hours of
patient watching convinced me that there was
a decided exercising of ingenuity on the part
of both the pike and the minnows; the for-
Wild Life in Water 129
mer ever on the lookout for a viétim, the
latter watchful of an ever-present danger.
Day long it was a tragedy where brute force
counted for little and cunning for a great
deal.
Another very common fish in my pond
was likewise very suggestive in connection
with the subje&t of animal intelligence. I
refer to the common “ sunny,” or “* pumpkin-
seed.” A shallow sand-nest had been scooped
near shore and the precious eggs deposited.
A school of silvery-finned minnows had dis-
covered them, and the parent fish was severely
taxed in her efforts to proteét them.
So long as this school of minnows re-
mained together, the sunfish, by fierce rushes,
kept them back; but soon the former—was
it accident or design ?—divided their forces,
and as the parent fish darted at one assaulting
party, the other behind it made a successful
raid upon the nest. This continued for some
time, and the sunfish was getting quite weary,
when, as if a sudden thought struck it, its
tactics changed, and it swam round and round
in a circle and sent a shower of sand out into
the space beyond the nest. This effe€tually
dazed the minnows.
i
130 «Wild Life in Water
Little incidents like this are forever oc-
curring and effectually set aside the once
prevalent idea that fish are mere living ma-
chines. Look a pike in the eye and you
will deteé&t something very different from
mere instin¢tive timidity.
But fish are not the only creatures that live
in the water ; there are one snake and several
species of turtles, and frogs, mollusks, and
inseéts innumerable. These are too apt to
be associated with the land, and, except the
two latter forms, are usually thought of as
taking to the water as a place of refuge, but
really living inthe openair. This is a great
mistake. There is a lively world beneath
the surface of the water, and the tragedy of
life is played to the very end, with here and
there a pretty comedy that wards off the
blues when we look too long and see nothing
but the destruction of one creature that an-
other may live.
Here is an example of cunning or wit in a
water-snake. A friend of mine was recently
sitting on the bank of a little brook, when
his attention was called to a commotion
almost at his feet. Looking down, he saw a
snake holding its head above the water, and
Wild Life in Water 131
in its mouth struggled a small sunfish. Now,
what was the snake’s purpose? It knew very
well that the fish would drown in the air, and
not until it was dead could it be swallowed
with that deliberation a snake loves. The
creature was cunning enough to kill by easy
means prey that would otherwise be diffi-
cult to overcome, for while crosswise in the
snake’s mouth it could not be swallowed,
and if put down for an instant the chances
of its recapture would be slight.
To suppose that a turtle, as you watch it
crawling over the mud, has any sense of
humor in its horny head seems absurd; yet
naturalists have recorded their being seen at
play, and certainly they can readily be tamed
toa remarkable degree. Their intelligence,
however, shows prominently only in the
degree of cunning exhibited when they are
in search of food. The huge snapper “ lies
in wait,” and truly this is a most sugges-
tive and comprehensive phrase. I believe,
too, that this fierce turtle buries surplus food,
and so gives further evidence of intelleétual
activity.
To realize what wild life in the water
really is it must be observed where Nature
132 Wild Life in Water
has placed it. It is perhaps not so much set
forth by exceptional incidents that the student
happens to witness as by that general appear-
ance of common sense which is so unmistaka-
bly stamped upon even the most common-
place movements. Writers upon animal
intelligence do not need to be constantly on
the lookout for special exhibitions of cunning
in order to substantiate the claims they make
in favor of life’s lower forms. It is plainly
enough to be seen if we will but patiently
watch whensoever these creatures come and
wheresoever they go and the manner of their
going and coming.
Do not be so intent upon watching for the
marvellous that ordinary incidents are not
seen. In studying wild life everywhere,
and perhaps more particularly in the water,
to be rightly informed we must see the aver-
age individual amid commonplace surround-
ings. Doing this, we are not misinformed
nor led to form too high an opinion. It is
as in the study of humanity. We must not
familiarize ourselves with the mountebank,
but with man.
CHAPTER TENTH
AN OLD-FASHIONED
GARDEN
lise world at large is a most intricate
machine, and parts viewed separately
give no hint of their importance to what
appear quite independent objects. Man may
dissociate without destroying, but, when he
does so, his constant attention must then take
the place of the aéts that Nature designed
other conditions of life should perform.
The isolated plant, for instance, is destroyed
by insects unless we protec it by a glass
covering or a poison-bath: Nature gave it to
the birds to protect the plant, and in so
doing find food for themselves. This law
of interdependence is made very plain in the
case of a modern garden or the trim lawns
of a large city, and in less degree applies
to towns and villages. The caterpillar
12 133
134 An Old-fashioned Garden
nuisance that requires the collaring of shade-
trees with cotton-wool to proteét their foli-
age illustrates this; and what an example is
a modern garden filled to overflowing with
exotic plants! An all-important feature is
wanting,—birds; for, except English spar-
rows, we have none, and these are worse
than useless.
It was not always so, and the cause of the
deplorable change is not hard to find. When-
ever we chance, in our wanderings, to come
upon some long-neglected corner of colonial
times, there we will find the bloom and birds
together. I have said “ neglected;” not
quite that, for there was bloom, and the
birds are excellent gardeners.
Let me particularize. My garden is a
commonplace affair, with the single innova-
tion of a tub sunk in the ground to accom-
modate a lotus,—so commonplace, indeed,
that no passer-by would notice it; and yet
during a single summer afternoon I have
seen within its boundaries fifteen species of
birds. At that hottest hour of the midsum-
mer day, two p.m., while looking at the
huge pink blossoms of the classic lotus, my
attention was called to a quick movement
An Old-fashioned Garden 135
on the ground, as ifa rat ran by. It proved
to be an oven-bird, that curious combination
of thrush and sand-piper, and yet neither,
but a true warbler. It peered into every
nook and corner of the shrubbery, poised on
the edge of the sunken lotus-tub, caught a
wriggling worm that came to the surface of
the water, then teetered along the fence and
was gone. Soon it returned, and came and
went until dark, as much at home as ever in
the deep recesses of unfrequented woods.
As the sun went down, the bird sang once
with all the spring-tide ardor, and brought
swiftly back to me-many a long summer’s
day ramble in the country. It is something
to be miles away from home while sitting on
your own door-step.
Twice a song-sparrow came, bathed in
the lotus-tub, and, when not foraging in the
weedy corners, sang its old-fashioned song,
now so seldom heard within town limits.
The bird gave me two valuable hints as to
garden management. Water is a necessity
to birds as well as to any other form of life,
and shelter is something more than a mere
attraction. Was it not because the birds
happened to be provided with them to-day
136 An Old-fashioned Garden
that I had, as I have had the summer long,
more birds than my neighbors ?
How seldom do we see the coral honey-
suckle, and how generally the trumpet-creeper
has given place to exotic vines of far more
striking bloom, but, as will appear, of less
utility! If the old-time vines that I have
mentioned bore less showy flowers, they had
at least the merit of attraéting humming-
birds, that so grandly rounded out our com-
plement of summer birds. These feathered
fairies are not difficult to see, even though so
small, and, if so inclined, we can always
study them to great advantage. They be-
come quite tame, and in the old-fashioned
gardens were always a prominent feature by
reason of their numbers. They are not
forever on the wing, and when preening
their feathers let the sunshine fall upon them,
and we have emeralds and rubies that cost
nothing, but are none the less valuable be-
cause of this. In changing the botanical
features of our yards we have had but one
thought, gorgeous flowers; but was it wise
to give no heed to the loss of birds as the
result? I fancy there are many who would
turn with delight from formal clusters of
An Old-fashioned Garden 137
unfamiliar shrubs, however showy, to a
gooseberry hedge or a lilac thicket with
song-sparrows and a cat-bird hidden in its
shade. We have been unwise in this too
radical change. We have abolished bird-
music in our eagerness for color, gaining a
little, but losing more. We have paid too
dear, not for a whistle, but for its loss. But
it is not too late. Carry a little of the home
forest to our yards, and birds will follow it.
And let me here wander to an allied matter,
that of the recently-established Arbor Day.
What I have just said recalls it.
To merely transplant a tree, move it from
one spot to another, where perhaps it is less
likely to remain for any length of time than
where it previously stood, is, it seems to me,
the very acme of folly. The chances are
many that the soil is less suitable, and so
growth will be retarded, and the world is
therefore not one whit the better off. There
is far too much tree-planting of this kind
on Arbor Day. In many an instance a plot
of ground has been replanted year after
year. I fancy we will have to reach more
nearly to the stage of tree appreciation before
Arbor Day will be a pre-eminent success.
12*
138 An Old-fashioned Garden
Can we not, indeed, accommodate ourselves
a little more to the trees growing where Na-
ture planted them? I know a village well,
where the houses are placed to accommodate
the trees that stood there when the spot was
a wilderness. The main street is a little
crooked, but what a noble street it is! I
recall, as I write these lines, many a Friends’
meeting-house, and one country school,
where splendid oaks are standing near by,
and to those who gather daily or weekly
here, whether children or grown people,
the trees are no less dear than the buildings
beside them. ‘The wanderer who revisits
the scenes of his childhood looks first at the
trees and then at the houses. Tree-wor-
ship, we are told, was once very prevalent,
and it is not to be regretted that in a modi-
fied form it still remains with us.
As a practical matter, let me here throw
out the suggestion that he will be doing most
excellent work who saves a tree each year.
This is a celebration that needs no special
day set forth by legislative enactment. How
often I have heard farmers remark, ‘‘ It was
a mistake to cut those trees down’! Of course
it was. In nine cases out of ten the value
An Old-fashioned Garden 139
of the trees felled proves less than was ex-
pected, and quickly follows the realization of
the fa&t that when standing their full value
was not appreciated. Think of cutting down
trees that stand singly or in little groups in
the middle of fields because it is a trouble to
plant around them, or for the reason that
they shade the crops too much! What of
the crop of comfort such trees yield to both
man and beast when these fields are past-
ures? ‘But there is no money in shade-
trees.” I cannot repress my disgust when
I hear this, and I have heard it often. Is
there genuine manhood in those who feel
this way towards the one great ornament of
our landscape?
It is not—more’s the pity—within the
power of every one to plant a tree, but those
who cannot need not stand idly by on Arbor
Day. Here is an instance where half a loaf
is better than no bread. Many a one can
plant a shrub. How often there is an un-
sightly corner, even in the smallest enclosure,
where a tall tree would be a serious obstruc-
tion, whereon can be grown a thrifty bush,
one that will be a constant source of pleasure
because of its symmetry and bright foliage,
140 An Old-fashioned Garden
and for atime doubly attractive because of
its splendid blossoming! We know too little
of the many beautiful flowering shrubs that
are scattered through every woodland, which
are greatly improved by a little care in culti-
vation, and which will bear transplanting.
We overlook them often, when seen grow-
ing in the forest, because they are small,
irregular, and often sparse of bloom, But
remember, in the woods there is a fierce
struggle for existence, and when this is over-
come the full beauty of the shrub’s stature
becomes an accomplished faét.
Here is a short list of common shrubs,
every one of which is hardy, beautiful in
itself, and can be had without other cost or
labor than a walk in the country, for I do
not suppose any land-owner would refuse a
‘** weed,” as they generally call these humble
plants. The spicewood (Lindera benzoin),
which bears bright golden flowers before the
leaves appear; the shad-bush (Amelanchier
canadensis), with a wealth of snowy blossoms,
which are increased in number and size by a
little attention, as judicious trimming; and
the ‘* bush” of the wild-wood can be made
to grow to a beautiful miniature tree. The
An Old-fashioned Garden 141
well-known pinxter flower (Azalea nudi-
caule) is improved by cultivation, and can be
made to grow “stocky” and thick-set, in-
stead of scragged, as we usually find it. Its
bright pink blossoms make a’ grand show-
ing in May. There is a little wild plum
(Prunus spinosa) which only asks to be
given a chance and then will rival the famous
deutzias in profusion of bloom, and after-
wards remains a sturdy tree-like shrub, with
dark-green foliage that is always attractive.
This, too, blooms before the foliage is de-
veloped, and hints of spring as surely as the
robin’s song. A larger but no less handsome
bush is the white flowering thorn (Crataegus
crus-galli), and there are wild spireas that
should not be overlooked, and two white flow-
ering shrubs that delight all who see them in
bloom, the deer-berry (Vaccinium stamineum),
and the “ false-teeth” (Leucothoe racemosa).
All these are spring flowers. And now a
word about an August bloomer, the sweet
pepper-bush (Clethra alnifolia). This is
easily grown and is a charming plant.
It happens, too, that a place can be found
for a hardy climber, and as beautiful as the
coral honeysuckles of our grandmother’s days
142 An Old-fashioned Garden
is the climbing bittersweet (Ce/astrus scan-
dens). The plant itself is attractive. Its
vigorous growth soon covers the support
provided for it, and in autumn and through-
out the winter its golden and crimson fruit
hangs in thick-set clusters upon every branch.
Considering how frequently near the house
there are unsightly objets, and how depress-
ing it is to be forever looking upon ugliness,
it is strange that the abundant means for
beautifying waste places are so persistently
neglected. With one or more of the plants
I have named, an eyesore may be changed to
a source of pleasure, and it was Beecher, I
think, who said, «* A piece of color is as use-
ful as a piece of bread.” He never spoke
more truly.
And what of the old-time arbors, with the
straggling grape-vine, and perhaps a rude
wren-box perched at the entrance? Is there
better shade than the grape-vine offers, a
sweeter odor than its bloom affords, or more
charming music than the song of the restless
house-wren? Certainly there have been no
improvements upon these features of the old-
time garden: yet how seldom do we see
them now! We must travel far, too, to
An Old-fashioned Garden 143
find a martin-box. As a matter of fact,
the bluebird, wren, and martin might, if we
chose, be restored to the very hearts of our
largest towns. People have no more terror
for them than for the English sparrow, and
they can all hold out against these piratical
aliens, if we would consider their few and
simple needs. The wrens need but nesting-
boxes with an entrance through which the
shoulders of a sparrow cannot pass; and the
~ bluebirds and martins require only that their
houses be closed during the winter and very
early spring, or until they have returned from
their winter-quarters. This is easily done,
and when the birds are ready to occupy the
accommodations provided for them they will
take possession and successfully hold the forts
against all intruders. This is not a fancy
merely, suggested as the basis of experimen-
tation, but is the result of the experience
of several people in widely-separated locali-
ties. I vividly recall visiting at a house in a
large town, where purple martins for more
than fifty years had occupied boxes placed
upon the eaves of a one-story kitchen.
While stress is laid upon the importance
of regaining the presence in town of these
144 An Old-fashioned Garden
birds, it must not be supposed that they are
all that are available. There are scores of
wild birds, known only to the ornithologist,
that can be “cultivated” as readily as the
wild shrubbery that under startling names
figures in many a florist’s catalogue. Give
them a foothold, and they will come to stay.
Orioles, thrushes, vireos, fly-catchers, are
not unreasonably afraid of man, and would
quickly acquire confidence if they were war-
ranted in so doing. How long would a
scarlet tanager or a cardinal grosbeak remain
unmolested if it appeared in any city street?
Here is the whole matter in a nutshell: the
birds are not averse to coming, but the people
will not letthem. This is the more strange,
when we remember that hundreds of dollars
were spent to accommodate the pestiferous
imported sparrow, that is and always must
be a positive curse. Hundreds for sparrows,
and not one cent for a bluebird! While the
mischief can never be undone, it can be held
in check, if we will but take the trouble,
and this is a mere matter of town-garden
rearrangement ; and why, indeed, not treat
our ears to music as well as our eyes to color
and our palates to sweetness? Plant here
An Old-fashioned Garden 145
and there a bush that will yield you a crop
of birds. That this may not be thought
merely a whim of my own, let me quote from
the weather record of Dr. John Conrad, who
for forty years was the apothecary of the
Pennsylvania Hospital, in Philadelphia. This
institution, bear in mind, is in the heart of
the city, not in its outskirts. Under date of
March 23, 1862, he records, ** Crocus and
show-drop came into bloom last week and
are now fully out.” Again, he says, “¢ Orioles
arrived on April 8, after the fruit-trees burst
into bloom.” Here we have a migratory
bird in the city three weeks earlie: than its
usual appearance in the country, but I do not
think the doctor was mistaken. I have posi-
tive knowledge of the fact that he was a good
local ornithologist. Under date of June,
1866, Conrad writes, “‘ A very pleasant June.
Fine bright weather, and only one week too
warm for comfort. The roses bloomed well
(except the moss-rose) and for the most part
opened better than usual. The garden full
of birds, and inseéts less abundant than usual.
Many blackbirds reared their young in our
trees, and as many as sixteen or twenty have
been counted on the lawn at one time. Cat-
G k 13
146 An Old-fashioned Garden
birds, orioles, thrushes, wrens, vireos, robins,
etc., abound and make our old hospital joyous
with their sweet songs.”
During the summer of 1892 I was twice
in the hospital grounds, with which I was
very familiar during my uncle’s—Dr. Con-
rad’s—lifetime, and I heard only English
sparrows, although I saw two or three native
birds. It was a sad change. Think of
being able to speak of your garden as * full
of birds,”—as ‘joyous with their sweet
songs.” This, not long ago, could truthfully
be done. Will it ever be possible to do so
again?
CHAPTER ELEVENTH
AN INDIAN TRAIL
[4 was a strange coincidence. A farmer
living near by employed an Indian from
the school at Carlisle, and now that the work
of the summer was over, this taciturn youth
walked daily over a hill to a school-house
more than a mile away, and the path leading
to it was an Indian trail.
Not long since I met the lad on this very
path returning from school, and when he
passed I stood by an old oak and watched
him until lost among the trees, walking where
centuries ago his people had walked when
going from the mountain village and rock
shelters along an inland creek to the distant
town by the river.
As you looked about from the old oak there
was no public road or house in sight; nothing
but trees and bushes, huge rocks, and one
curious jutting ledge that tradition holds is a
147
148 An Indian Trail
veritable relic of prehistoric time,—a place
where council fires were lit and midnight
meetings held.
Whether tradition is true or not, the place
was a fitting one whereat to tarry and fall
a-thinking. Happy, indeed, could the old
oak have spoken.
Many a public road of recent date has been
built on the line of an old trail, as many
a town and even city have replaced Indian
villages; but take the long-settled regions
generally, the ancient landmarks are all gone,
and a stray potsherd or flint arrow-point in
the fields is all that is left to recall the days
of the dusky aborigines.
Only in the rough, rocky, irreclaimable
hills are we likely now to be successful, if
such traces as a trail are sought for.
It was so here. Bald-top Hill is of little
use to the white man except for the firewood
that grows upon its sides and the scattered
game that still linger in its thickets. As
seen from the nearest road, not far off, there
is nothing now to suggest that an Indian ever
clambered about it. ‘The undergrowth hides
every trace of the surface ; but after the leaves
drop and a light snow has fallen, a curious
An Indian Trail 149
white line can be traced from the base of
the summit; this is the old trail.
It is a narrow path, but for so long a
time had it been used by the Indians that,
when once pointed out, it can still be fol-
lowed without difficulty. It leads now from
one little intervale to another: from farmer
A to farmer B; but originally it was part
of their long highway leading from Phila-
delphia to Easton, perhaps. It matters not.
Enough to know that then, as now, there
were towns almost wherever there was land
fit for dwellings, and paths that led from one
to the other. It is clear that the Indians
knew the whole country well. The routes
they finally chose resulted from long experi-
ence, and were as direé as the nature of the
ground made possible.
The study of trails opens up to us a broader
view of ancient Indian life than we are apt
to entertain.
We find the sites of villages on the banks
of the rivers’ and larger inflowing streams ;
travel by canoes was universal. No locality
was so favorable as the open valley, and here
the greater number of Indians doubtless
dwelt. But the river and its fertile shores
13*
150 An Indian Trail
could not yield all that this people needed:
they had to draw from the resources of the
hills behind them. They soon marked the
whole region with a net-work of trails leading
to the various points whence they drew the
necessities of life. The conditions of the
present day are laid down on essentially the
same lines as then.
An Indian town was not a temporary tent
site, or mere cluster of wigwams, here to-day
and miles away to-morrow; nor did these
people depend solely upon the chase. Be-
side the trail over which I recently passed
was a great clearing that had been an orchard.
We can yet find many a barren spot that is
rightly known to the people of to-day as
an Indian field. So persistently were their
cornfields cropped that at last the soil was
absolutely exhausted, and has not yet re-
covered its fertility.
There was systematic bartering, too, as the
red pipe-stone or catlinite from Minnesota
and obsidian from the more distant North-
west, found on the Atlantic coast, as well as
ocean shells picked up in the far interior, all
testify. There was also periodical journey-
ing in autumn from inland to the sea-coast to
An Indian Trail 15
gather supplies of oysters, clams, and other
‘sea food,” which were dried by smoking
and then “strung as beads and carried as
great coils of rope” back to the hills to be
consumed during the winter.
Many small colonies, too, passed the win-
ters on the coast in the shelter of the great
Pine forests that extended to the very ocean
beach. It was no hap-hazard threading of a
wilderness to reach these distant points. The
paths were well defined, well used. For how
long we can only conjecture, but the vast ac-
cumulations of shells on the coast, often now
beneath the water, point to a time so distant
that the country wore a different aspect from
what it now does ; a time when the land rose
far higher above the tide and extended sea-
ward where now the ocean rolls resistlessly.
Returning inland, let us trace another of
these old-time paths from the river-shore
whereon the Indians had long dwelt, over
hill and dale until we reach a valley hemmed
in by low, rolling hills.
It is a pretty spot still, although marred by
the white man’s work; but why was it the
goal of many a weary journey?
Here is found the coveted jasper, varied in
152 An Indian Trail
hue as autumn leaves or a summer sunset.
The quick eye of some wandering hunter, it
may be, found a chance fragment, and, look-
ing closer, saw that the ground on which he
stood was filled with it; or a freshet may
have washed the soil from an outcropping of
the mineral. Who can tell? It must suffice
to know that the discovery was made in
time, and a new industry arose. No other
material so admirably met the Indian’s need
for arrow-points, for the blades of spears, for
knives, drills, scrapers, and the whole range
of tools and weapons in daily use.
So it came that mining camps were estab-
lished. To this day, in these lonely hills,
we can trace out the great pits the Indians
dug, find the tools with which they toiled,
and even the ashes of their camp-fires, where
they slept by night. So deeply did the
Indian work the land wheresoever he toiled
that even the paths that led from the mines
to the distant village have not been wholly
blotted out.
The story of the jasper mines has yet to
be told, and it may be long before the full
details are learned concerning the various
processes through which the mineral passed
An Indian Trail 169
before it came into use as a finished produé.
Much vain speculation has been indulged in ;
the fancied method of reducing a thick blade
to a thin one has been elaborately described,
although never carried out by any human
being; in short, the impossible has been
boldly asserted as a fa€t beyond question.
The Indian’s history can be read but in
small part from the handiwork that he has
left behind.
One phase of it, in the valley of the Dela-
ware, is more clearly told than all else,—the
advance from a primitive to a more cultured
status. There were centuries during which
jasper was known only as river-pebbles, and
its discovery in abundance had an influence
upon Indians akin to that upon Europe’s
stone-age people when they discovered the
ase of metals. At least here in the valley of
the Delaware this is true.
It is vain to ask for the beginning of man’s
career in this region ; what we find but hints
at it. But he came when there were no
trails over the hills, no path but the icy river’s
edge; only as the centuries rolled by was the
country developed to the extent of knowing
every nook and corner of the land, and high-
154 An Indian Trail
ways and by-ways became common, like the
roads that now reach out in every direétion.
A “trail,” then, has a wealth of meaning,
and those who made it were no “ mere say-
ages,” as we so glibly speak of the Indians,
thanks to the average school-books.
The haughty Delawares had fields and or-
chards; they had permanent towns; they
mined such minerals as were valuable to
them ; they had weapons of many patterns ;
they were jewellers in a crude way, and fin-
ished many a stone ornament in a manner that
still excites admiration. They were travellers
and tradesmen as well as hunters and warriors.
Although my day’s search for relics of these
people had yielded but a few arrow-points,
potsherds, and a stone axe, when I saw the
Indian on his way from school, walking in the
very path his people had made long centuries
ago, the story of their ancient sojourn here
came vividly to mind in the dim light of an au-
tumn afternoon, when a golden mist wrapped
the hills and veiled the valleys beyond, and I
had a glimpse of pre-Columbian America.
CHAPTER TWELFTH
4A PRE-COLUMBIAN
DINNER
A PONDEROUS geologist, with weighty
tread and weightier manner, brought
his foot down upon the unoffending sod and
declared, ‘‘ These meadows are sinking at a
rapid rate; something over two feet a cen-
tury.” We all knew it, but Sir Oracle had
spoken, and we little dogs did not dare to bark.
Not long after I returned alone to these ill-
fated meadows and began a leisurely, all-day
ramble. They were very beautiful. There
was a wealth of purple and of white boneset
and iron-weed of royal dye. Sunflower and
primrose gilded the hidden brooks, and every
knoll was banked with rose-pink centaury.
Nor was this all. Feathery reeds towered
above the marsh, and every pond was em-
purpled with pontederia and starred with
155
156 A Pre-Columbian Dinner
lilies. Afar off, acres of nut-brown sedge
made fitting background for those meadow
tracts that were still green, while close at
hand, more beautiful than all, were struggling
growths held down by the golden-dodder’s
net that overspread them.
It does not need trees or rank shrubbery to
make a wilderness. This low-lying traét to-
day, with but a summer’s growth above it, is
as wild and lonely as are the Western plains.
Lonely, that is, as man thinks, but not for-
saken. The wily mink, the pert weasel, the
musk-rat, and the meadow-mouse ramble in
safety through it. The great blue heron, its
stately cousin, the snowy egret, and the dainty
least bittern find it a congenial home.
The fiery dragon-fly darts and lazy butter-
flies drift across the blooming waste; bees
buzz angrily as you approach ; basking snakes
bid you defiance. Verily, this is wild life’s
domain and man is out of place.
It was not always so. The land is sink-
ing, and what now of that older time when
it was far above its present level,—a high,
dry, upland traét, along which flowed a clear
and rapid stream? The tell-tale arrow-point
is our guide, and wherever the sod is broken
A Pre-Columbian Dinner 157
we have an inkling of Indian history. The
soil, as we dig a little deeper, is almost black
with charcoal-dust, and it is evident that
centuries ago the Indians were content to
dwell here, and well they might be. Even
in colonial days the place had merit, and es-
caped not the eager eyes of Penn’s grasping
followers. It was meadow then, and not
fitted for his house, but the white man built
his barn above the ruins of his dusky prede-
cessor’s home. All trace of human habita-
tion is now gone, but the words of the ge-
ologist kept ringing in my ears, and of late
I have been digging. It is a little strange
that so few traces of the white man are found
as compared with relics of the Indian. From
the barn that once stood here and was long
ago destroyed by a flood one might expect to
find at least a rusty nail.
The ground held nothing telling of a re-
cent past, but was eloquent of the long ago.
Dull indeed must be the imagination that
cannot recall what has been here brought
to light by the aid of such an implement
as the spade. Not only were the bow and
spear proved to be the common weapons
of the time, but there were in even greater
14
158 A Pre-Columbian Dinner
abundance, and of many patterns, knives to
flay the game. It is not enough to merely
glance at a trimmed flake of flint or care-
fully-chipped splinter of argillite, and say to
yourself, «A knife.” Their great variety
has a significance that should not be over-
looked. The same implement could not
be put to every use for which a knife was
needed ; hence the range in size from several
inches to tiny flakes that will likely remain a
puzzle as to their purpose.
Besides home produéts, articles are found
that have come from a long distance, and
no class of objeéts is more suggestive than
those that prove the widely-extended system
of barter that prevailed at one time among
the Indians of North America. There are
shells and shell ornaments found in Wis-
consin which must have been taken there
from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico;
catlinite’ or red pipe-stone ornaments and
pipes found in New Jersey that could only
have come from Minnesota. Shell beads are
often found in graves in the Mississippi Valley
that were brought from the Pacific coast, and
the late Dr. Leidy has described a shell bead,
concerning which he states that it is the Conus
A Pre-Columbian Dinner 159
ternatus, a shell which belongs to the west
coast of Central America. This was found,
with other Indian relics, in Hartman’s Cave,
near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. ‘Two small
arrow-points found in New Jersey a year or
more ago proved to be made of obsidian.
These specimens could only have come from
the far South-west or from Oregon, and the
probabilities are in favor of the latter locality.
It is not unlikely that objects like the above
should find their way inland to the Great
Lakes, and so across the continent and down
the Atlantic coast. On the other hand,
arrow-points could have had so little intrinsic
value in the eyes of an Indian that we are
naturally surprised that they should have
been found so far from their place of origin.
Obsidian has occurred but very rarely east
of the Alleghanies, so far as I am aware.
In the Sharples collection, at West Chester,
Pennsylvania, is a single specimen, reported
to have been found near that place, and a few
traces have since been discovered in the up-
lands immediately adjoining these Delaware
meadows, and really there is no reason to
suppose that objects of value should not have
passed quite across the continent, or been
160 A Pre-Columbian Dinner
carried from Mexico to Canada. There were
no vast areas absolutely uninhabited and across
which no Indian ever ventured.
It has been suggested that, as iron was
manufactured in the valley of the Delaware
as early as 1728, the supposed obsidian
arrow-points are really made of slag from the
furnaces, but a close examination of the speci-
mens proves, it is claimed, this not to have
been the case, and at this comparatively late
date the making of stone arrow-points had
probably ceased. Just when, however, the
use of the bow as a weapon was discarded
has not been determined, but fire-arms were
certainly common in 1728 and earlier.
A careful study, too, of copper imple-
ments, which are comparatively rare, seems
to point to the conclusion that very few were
made of the native copper found in New
Jersey, Maryland, and elsewhere along the
Atlantic coast, but that they were made in
the Lake Superior region and thence grad-
ually dispersed over the Eastern States. The
large copper spear from Betterton, Maryland,
recently found, and another from New Jersey,
bear a striking resemblance to the spear-heads
from the North-west, where unquestionably
A Pre-Columbian Dinner 161
the most expert of aboriginal coppersmiths
lived. Of course, the many small beads of
this metal occasionally found in Indian graves
in the Delaware Valley might have been made
of copper found near by, but large masses are
very seldom met with.
Speaking of copper beads recalls the faét
that a necklace comprising more than one
hundred was recently found on the site of
an old Dutch trader’s house, on an island in
the Delaware. They were of Indian manu-
facture, and had been in the fur trader’s pos-
session, if we may judge from the faét that
they were found with hundreds of other
relics that betokened not merely European,
but Dutch occupation of the spot. This
trader got into trouble and doubtless de-
served his summary taking off.
It is not “‘a most absurd untruth,” as was
stated not long ago in the Critic in a review
of a New York history, that the Indians were
“a people of taste and industry, and in morals
quite the peers of their Dutch neighbors.”
They had just as keen a sense of right and
wrong. There never was a handful of colo-
nists in North America whose whole history
their descendants would care to have known.
14*
162 A Pre-Columbian Dinner
The truth is, we know very little of the
Indian prior to European contaét. Carpet-
knight archzologists and kid-gloved explorers
crowd the pages of periodical literature, it
is true, but we are little, if any, the wiser.
It is supposed, and is even asserted, that
the Indian knew nothing of forks; but that
he plunged his fingers into the boiling pot or
held in his bare hands the steaming joints of
bear or venison is quite improbable. Now,
the archzologist talks glibly of bone awls
whenever a sharpened splinter of bone is
presented him, as if such instruments were
only intended to perforate leather. They
doubtless had other uses, and I am sure that
more than one splitand sharpened bone which
has been found would have served excellently
well as a one-tined fork wherewith to lift from
the pot a bit of meat. Whether or not such
forks were in use, there were wooden spoons,
as a bit of the bowl and a mere splinter of the
handle serve to show. Kalm tells us that they
used the laurel for making this utensil, but I
fancied my fragment was hickory. Potsherds
everywhere spoke of the Indians’ feasting,
and it is now known that, besides bowls and
shallow dishes of ordinary sizes, they also
A Pre-Columbian Dinner 163
had vessels of several gallons’ capacity. All
these are broken now, but, happily, fragments
of the same dish are often found together,
and so we can reconstrué them.
But what did the Indians eat? Quaint old
Gabriel Thomas, writing about 1696, tells
us that “they live chiefly on Maze or Indian
Corn rosted in the Ashes, sometimes beaten
boyl’d with Water, called Homine. They
have cakes, not unpleasant; also Beans and
Pease, which nourish much, but the Woods
and Rivers afford them their provision ; they
eat morning and evening, their Seats and
Tables on the ground.”
In a great measure this same story of The
Indians’ food supply was told by the scattered
bits found mingled with the ashes of an ancient
hearth. Such fireplaces or cooking sites were
simple in construction, but none the less
readily recognized as to their purpose. A few
flat pebbles had been brought from the bed of
the river near by, and a small paved area some
two feet square was placed upon or very near
the surface of the ground. Upon this the
fire was built, and in time a thick bed of
ashes accumulated. Just how they cooked
can only be conjectured, but the discovery of
164 A Pre-Columbian Dinner
very thick clay vessels and great quantities
of fire-cracked quartzite pebbles leads to the
conclusion that water was brought to the
boiling-point by heating the stones to a red
heat and dropping them into the vessel hold-
ing the water. ‘Thomas, as we have seen,
says corn was “ boyl’d with Water.” Meat
also was, I think, prepared in the same man-
ner. Their pottery probably was poorly
able to stand this harsh treatment, which
would explain the presence of such vast quan-
tities of fragments of clay vessels. Traces of
vegetable food are now very rarely found. A
few burnt nuts, a grain or two of corn, and,
in one instance, what appeared to be a charred
crab-apple, complete the list of what, as yet,
have been picked from the mingled earth and
ashes. ‘This is not surprising, and what we
know of vegetable food in use among the
Delaware Indians is almost wholly derived
from those early writers who were present
at their feasts. Kalm mentions the roots of
the golden-club, arrow-leaf, and ground-nut,
besides various berries and nuts. It is well
known that extensive orchards were planted
by these people. It may be added that, in
all probability, the tubers of that noble plant,
A Pre-Columbian Dinner 165
the lotus, were used as food. Not about
these meadows, but elsewhere in New Jersey,
this plant has been growing luxuriantly since
Indian times.
Turning now to the consideration of what
animal food they consumed, one can speak
with absolute certainty. It is clear that the
Delawares were meat-eaters. It needs but
little digging on any village site to prove this,
and from a single fireplace deep down in the
stiff soil of this sinking meadow have been
taken bones of the elk, deer, bear, beaver,
raccoon, musk-rat, and gray squirrel. Of
these, the remains of deer were largely in ex-
cess, and as this holds good of every village
site I have examined, doubtless the Indians
depended more largely upon this animal than
upon all the others. Of the list, only the
elk is extinét in the Delaware Valley, and
it was probably rare even at the time of the
European settlement of the country, except
in the mountain regions. If individual tastes
varied as they do among us, we have certainly
sufficient variety here to have met every fancy.
With a food supply as varied as this, an
ordinary meal or an extraordinary feast can
readily be recalled, so far as its essential feat-
166 A Pre-Columbian Dinner
ures are concerned. It is now September,
and, save where the ground has been ruthlessly
uptorn, everywhere is a wealth of early au-
tumn bloom. A soothing quiet rests upon the
scene, bidding us to retrospective thought.
Not a bit of stone, of pottery, or of burned
and blackened fragment of bone but stands
out in the mellow sunshine as the feature of
a long-forgotten feast. As I dreamily gaze
upon the gatherings of half a day, I seem to
see the ancient folk that once dwelt in this
neglected spot; seem to be a guest at a pre-
Columbian dinner in New Jersey.
CHAPTER THIRTEENTH
A DAY’S DIGGING
AS long ago as November, 1679, two
Dutchmen, Jasper Dankers and Peter
Sluyter, worked their way laboriously across
New Jersey from Manhattan Island, and
reached South River, as the Delaware was
then called, at least by the Hollanders. They
were all agog to see the falls at the head of
tide-water, and spent a miserable night in a
rickety shanty, which was cold as Greenland,
except in the fireplace, and there they roasted.
All this was not calculated to put them in ex-
cellent humor, and so the next day, when they
stood on the river-bank and saw only a trivial
rapid where they had expected a second Ni-
agara, their disgust knew no bounds. ‘These
travel-tired Dutchmen quickly departed, row-
ing a small boat down-stream, and growling
whenever the tide turned and they had to row
against it.
167
168 A Day’s Digging
When they reached Burlington, they re.
corded of an island nearly in front of the
village, that it “‘ formerly belonged to the
Dutch Governor, who had made it a pleasure
ground or garden, built good houses upon it,
and sowed and planted it. He also dyked
and cultivated a large piece of meadow or
marsh.” The English held it at the time of
their visit, and it was occupied by ‘some
Quakers,” as the authors quoted called them.
One of these Dutch houses, built in part
of yellow bricks, and with a red tiled roof,
I found traces of years ago, and ever since
have been poking about the spot, for the very
excellent reasons that it is a pretty one, a se-
cluded one, and as full of natural history
attraétions now as it was of human interest
when a Dutch beer-garden.
Had no one who saw the place in its palmy
days left a record concerning the beer, I
could, at this late day, have given testimony
that if there was no beer, there were beer
mugs, and schnapps bottles, and wineglasses,
for I have been digging again and found them
all; and then the pipes and pipe-stems! I
have a pile of over five hundred. The
Dutch travellers were correét as to the place
A Day’s Digging 169
having been a pleasure-garden. It certainly
was, and probably the very first on the Dela-
ware River. But there was “ pleasure,” too,
on the main shore, for the men who referred
to the island stayed one night in Burlington,
and, the next day being Sunday, attended
Quaker meeting, and wrote afterwards,
«« What they uttered was mostly in one tone
and the same thing, and so it continued until
we were tired out and went away.” Doubt-
less they were prejudiced, and so nothing
suited them, not even what they found to
drink, for they said, «* We tasted here, for the
first time, peach brandy or spirits, which was
very good, but would have been better if
more carefully made.” They did not like
the English, evidently, for the next day they
went to Takanij (Tacony), a village of Swedes
and Finns, and there drank their fill of * very
good beer” brewed by these people, and ex-
pressed themselves as much pleased to find
that, because they had come toa new country,
they had not left behind them their old
customs.
The house that once stood where now
is but a reach of abandoned and wasting
meadow was erected in 1668 or possibly
H 15
170 A Day’s Digging
alittle earlier. Its nearest neighbor was across
a narrow creek, and a portion of the old
building is said to be still standing. Armed
with the few faéts that are on record, it is easy
to picture the place as it was in the days of
the Dutch, and it was vastly prettier then than
itisnow. The public of to-day are not inter-
ested in a useless marsh, particularly when
there is better ground about it in abundance,
and whoever wanders to such uncanny places
is quite sure to be left severely alone. This
was my experience, and, being undisturbed, I
enjoyed the more my resurrective work. I
could enthuse, without being laughed at, over
what to others was but meaningless rubbish,
and I found very much that, to me, possessed
greater interest than usual, because of a min-
gling of late Indian and early European objects.
With a handful of glass, porcelain, and amber
beads were more than one hundred of cop-
per; the former from Venice, the latter the
handiwork of a Delaware Indian. With a
white clay pipe, made in Holland in the
seventeenth century, was found a rude brown
clay one, made here in the river valley.
Mingled with fragments of blue and white
Delft plates, bowls, and platters, were sun-
A Day’s Digging 171
dried mud dishes made by women hereabouts
during, who can say how many centuries?
How completely history and pre-history
here overlapped! We know pretty much
everything about Dutchmen, but how much
do we really know of the native American?
After nearly thirty years’ digging, he has been
traced from the days of the great glaciers to
the beginnings of American history ; but we
cannot say how long a time that comprises.
The winter of 1892-1893 was, so far as
appearances went, a return to glacial times.
Ice was piled up fifty feet in height, and
the water turned from the old channel of the
river. The cutting of another one opened
up new territory for the relic hunter when
the ice was gone and the stream had returned
to its old bed. Many an Indian wigwam
site that had been covered deep with soil
was again warmed by the springtide sun, and
those were rare days when, from the ashes of
forgotten camps, I raked the broken weapons
and rude dishes that the red men had dis-
carded. It was reading history at first hands,
without other commentary than your own.
The ice-scored gravel-beds told even an older
story; but no one day’s digging was so full
172 A Day’s Digging
of meaning, or brought me so closely in touch
with the past, as when I uncovered what
remained of the old Dutch trader’s house ;
traced the boundaries of the one-time pleas-
ure-garden, hearing in the songs of birds the
clinking of glasses, and then, in fancy, adding
to the now deserted landscape the fur-laden
canoes of the Indians who once gathered here
to exchange for the coveted gaudy beads the
skins of the many animals which at that time
roamed the forests.
CHAPTER FOURTEENTH
DRIFTING
MA an early start if you wish an
eventful outing. Why know the world
only when the day is middle-aged or old?
A wise German has said, “‘ The morning
hour has gold in its mouth.” For many a
rod after leaving the wharf the river still
«« smoked,” and the scanty glimpses between
the rolling clouds of mist spurred the im-
agination. There was nothing certain be-
yond the gunwales. The pale-yellow color
of the water near at hand and the deep-green
and even black of that in the distance had
no daytime suggestiveness. It was not yet
the familiar river with its noonday glitter
of blue and silver.
It is not strange that the initial adventure to
which the above-mentioned conditions natu-
rally gave rise occurred while this state of un-
certainty continued. Very soon I ranupona
15* 173
174 Drifting
snag. To strike such an object in mid-river
was rather startling. Was I not in or near the
channel? Steamboats come puffing and plow-
ing here and sailing craft pass up and down,
so my only care had been to avoid them ; but
now there came in my path the twisted trunk
of an old forest tree and held me fast. All
the while the mist rose and fell, giving no
inkling of my whereabouts. In the dim,
misty light what a strange sea-monster this
resurrected tree-trunk seemed to be! Its
thick green coat of silky threads lay closely
as the shining fur of the otter, a mane of
eel-grass floated on the water, the gnarly
growths where branches once had been
glistened as huge eyes, and broken limbs
were horns that threatened quick destruction.
There was motion, too. Slowly it rose above
the water and then as slowly sunk from view.
Could it be possible that some long-necked
saurian of the Jersey marls had come to life?
Nonsense ; and yet so real did it seem that
I was ready for the river-horse to rise
‘« from the waves beneath,
And grin through the grate of his spiky teeth.”’
With such an uncanny keeper, I was held a
Drifting 175
prisoner. At last I struck it with an oar to
beat it back, and rocked the frail boat until
I feared plunging into the deep water and
deeper mud beneath. Deep water? It sud-
denly occurred to me to try its depth, and
the truth was plain. I was far from the
channel, and might with safety have waded
to the shore. As usual, I had rashly jumped
at conclusions. The mouth of an inflowing
creek was near at hand, and this sunken tree,
a relic of some forgotten freshet, had been
lying here in the mud for several years.
The tide lifted and let fall the trunk, but the
root-mass was still strongly embedded. I
knew the spot of old, and now, fearing
nothing, was rational again.
Such sunken trees, however, are well cal-
culated to alarm the unthinking. It is said
of one yet lying in the mud of Crosswicks
Creek, that it rose so quickly once as to over-
turn a boat. This is not improbable. That
occurrence, if true, happened a century ago,
and the same tree has since badly fright-
ened more than one old farmer. I am told
this of one of them who had anchored his
boat here one frosty Oftober morning and
commenced fishing. While half asleep, or
176 Drifting
but half sober, the tree slowly raised up and
tilted the boat so that its occupant felt com-
pelled to swim. His view of the offending
monster was much like my own fevered vision
of to-day. He not only swam ashore, but ran
a mile over a soft marsh. ‘To him the sea-
serpent was a reality, although he saw it in
the creek.
It is of interest to note that among the
early settlers of this region, for at least three
generations, the impression was prevalent
that there might be some monster lurking in
the deep holes of the creek or in the river.
The last of the old hunters and fishermen of
this region, who had spent all his life in a boat
or prowling along shore, was ever talking of a
‘king tortle” that for forty years had defied
all his efforts to capture it. ‘‘ Mostly, it
only shows its top shell, but I have seen it
fair and square, head and legs, and I don’t
know as I care to get very close, neither.”
This was his unvaried remark whenever I
broached the subjeét. To have suggested that
it was a sunken log, or in some other way
tried to explain the matter, would only
have brought about his ill will. I once at-
tempted it, very cautiously, but he effectually
Drifting 177
shut me up by remarking, «« When this here
creek runs dry and you can walk over its
bottom, you'll larn a thing or two that ain’t
down in your books yet, and ain’t goin’ to
be.” The old man was right. I do not
believe in ‘‘ king tortles,” but there certainly
is “¢a thing or two” not yet in the books,
Stay! How big do our snappers grow? Is
the father of them all still hiding in the
channel of Crosswicks Creek ?
A description in an old manuscript journal,
of the general aspect of the country as seen
from the river, bears upon this subject of
strange wild beasts and monsters of the deep,
as well as on that of sunken trees that en-
dangered passing shallops.
«« As we pass up the river,” this observant
writer records, ‘we are so shut in by the
great trees that grow even to the edge of the
water, that what may lye in the interior is
not to be known. ‘That there be fertile
land, the Indians tell us, but their narrow
paths are toilsome to travel and there are
none [of these people] now that seem will-
ing to guide us. As we approached ffarns-
worth’s the channel was often very close to
the shore, and at one time we were held by
178 Drifting
the great trees that overhung the bank and
by one that had been fallen a long time and
was now lodged in the water. As I looked
towards the shore, I exclaimed, ‘ Here we
are indeed in a great wilderness, What
strangeness is concealed in this boundless
wood? what wonder may at any time issue
from it, or fierce monster not be lurking in
the waters beneath us? Through the day
the cries of both birds and beasts were heard,
but not always. It was often so strangely
quiet that we were more affected thereby
than by the sounds that at times issued forth.
At night there was great howling, as we
were told, of wolves, and the hooting of
owls, and often there plunged into the stream
wild stags that swam near to our boat. But
greater than all else, to our discomfort, were
the great sunken trunks of trees that were
across the channel, where the water was of
no great depth.”
What a change! and would that this old
traveller could revisit the Delaware to-day.
My boat is free again and the mists are gone.
Through the trees are sifted the level sun-
beams. There is at least a chance now to
compare notes. The forest is now a field,
Drifting 179
the trackless marsh a meadow; wild life is
largely a thing of the past; silence, both dav
and night, replaces sound. No, not that;
but only the minor sounds are left. There
are still the cry of the fish-hawk and the sweet
song of the thrush. No stags now swim the
river, but there remain the mink and the
musk-rat. It has not been long since I saw
4 migration of meadow-mice, and at night, I
am sure, many an animal dares to breast the
stream, a mile wide though it be. Too
cunning to expose itself by day, it risks its
life at night ; and how tragic the result when,
early at the journey’s end, it is seized by a
lurking foe; dragged down, it may be, by a
snake or a turtle!
The world is just as full of tragedy as ever,
and, let us hope, as full of comedy. In a
bit of yonder marsh, above which bends the
tall wild rice, there is daily enaéted scene
after scene as full of import as those which
caused the very forest to tremble when the
wolf and panther quarrelled over the elk or
deer that had fallen.
It has been insisted upon that a goal-less
journey is necessarily a waste of time. If
on foot, we must keep forever on the go; if
180 Drifting
in a boat, we must keep bending to the oars.
It is this miserable fallacy that makes so many
an out-door man and woman lose more than
half of that for which they went into the
fields. Who cares if you did see a chippy at
every turn and flushed a bittern at the edge
of the marsh? If you had been there before
them, and these birds did the walking, you
would have gone home the wiser. It is not
the mere fact that there are birds that con-
cerns us, but what are they doing? why are
they doing it? This the town-pent people
are ever anxious to know, and the faéts cannot
be gathered if you are forever on the move.
Suppose I rush across the river and back,
what have I seen? The bottom of the boat.
I came to see the river and the sky above,
and if this is of no interest to the reader, let
him turn the leaf.
Does every storm follow the track of the
sun? As the sun rose there were clouds
in the east and south and a haziness over
the western sky. Had I asked a farmer as
to the weather probabilities, he would have
looked everywhere but due north. Why
does he always ignore that quarter? There
may be great banks of cloud there, but they
Drifting 181
gofornothing. <** Sou-east” and “ sou-west”’
are forever rung in your ears, but never a word
of the north. Sometimes I have thought it
may be for this reason that about half the
time the farmer is all wrong, and the heaviest
rains come when he is most sure that the day
will be clear.
Looking upward, for the sky was clear in
that dire€tion now, I saw that there were birds
so far above me that they appeared as mere
specks. Very black when first seen, but oc-
casionally they flashed as stars seen by day
from the bottom of a well. They could not
be followed, except one that swept swiftly
earthward, and the spreading tail and curve
of wings told me it was a fish-hawk. What
a glorious outlook from its ever-changing
point of view! From its height, it could
have seen the mountains and the ocean, and
the long reach of river valley as well. If the
mists obscure it all, why should a bird linger
in the upper air? The prosy matter of food-
getting has nothing to do with it. While in
camp on Chesapeake Bay, I noticed that the
fish-hawks were not always fishing, and often
the air rang with their strange cries while
soaring so far overhead as to be plainly seen
16
182 Drifting
only witha field-glass. Every movement sug-
gested freedom from care as they romped in
the fields of space. It is not strange that
they scream, or laugh, shall we say? when
speeding along at such rate and in no danger
of collision. If I mistake not, the cry of
exultation is coincident with the downward
swoop, and I thought of old-time yelling
when dashing down a snow-ciad hill-side ;
but how sober was the work of dragging the
sled up-hill! The hawks, I thought, were
silent when upward bound. If so, there is
something akin to humanity in the hawk
nature.
T have called the cry of the fish-hawk a
«‘ laugh,” but, from a human stand-point, do
birds laugh? It is extremely doubtful, though
I recall] a pet sparrow-hawk that was given
to playing tricks, as I called them, and the
whole family believed that this bird actually
laughed. Muggins, as we named him, had a
fancy for pouncing upon the top of my head
and, leaning forward, snapping his beak in my
face. Once an old uncle came into the room
and was treated in this fashion. Never having
seen the bird before, he was greatly aston-
ished, and indignant beyond measure when
Drifting 183
the hawk, being rudely brushed off, carried
away his wig. Now the bird was no less
astonished than the man, and when he saw
the wig dangling from his claws he gave a
loud cackle, unlike anything we had ever
heard before, and which was, I imagine,
more an expression of amusement than of
surprise. I think this, because afterwards I
often played the game of wig with him, to
the bird’s delight, and he always ‘ laughed”
as he carried off the prize. On the contrary,
the unsuccessful attempt to remove natural
hair elicited no such expression, but some-
times a squeal of disgust.
In the Speéator of October 1, 1892, page
444, I find a most thoughtful article, entitled
«© The Animal Sense of Humor,” and I quote
as follows: «« The power of laughter is pecu-
liar to man, and the sense of humor may be
said, generally speaking, to be also his special
property.” Again, “We never saw the
slightest approach to amusement in one animal
at the mistakes of another, though dogs, so far
as we can venture to interpret their thoughts,
do really feel amusement at the mistakes of
men.” Possibly the author is right, but do
not cats show a sense of humor at the rough-
184 Drifting
and-tumble gambols of their kittens? Is not
the sly cuff on the ear that sends a kitten
sprawling indicative of a sense of fun on the
part of tabby? Our author says, ‘so far as
we can venture to interpret their thoughts.”
«« Ay, there’s the rub.” No one can tell how
far it is safe to venture, but I go a great deal
beyond my neighbors. Our author con-
cludes, “*In animals, as in man, humor is
the result of civilization, and not as we under-
stand it, a natural and spontaneous develop-
ment.”’ I cannot subscribe to this. I know
little of domestic animals, but have got the
idea of an animal’s sense of humor from wild
life, and confirmed it by what I have seen
of cats and dogs.
While I have been drifting, and using my
eyes and ears instead of legs and arms, as is
advocated, the clouds, too, have been creep-
ing this way, and, while the morning is yet
fresh, it is certainly going to rain. Had I
consulted the barometer, I would have known
this; but then, knowing it, might I not have
stayed at home? Why not enjoy part of a
day? That the rain will soon be here does
not diminish one’s pleasure, unless there is a
fear of getting wet, and this is all too com-
Drifting 185
mon. I hope that it does not mean that you
have but one suit of clothes.
The approaching rain, the increasing
cloudiness, the shut-in appearance, made the
river exceedingly attractive. With the down-
dropping clouds dropped down the birds,
and the swallows now skimmed the water as
they had been skimming the sky. The fish-
hawks departed, but a host of land-birds
crossed the stream, as if comparing the shelter
afforded by the cedars on one side and pines
on the other. These birds chattered as they
flew by, and turned their heads up- and down-
stream, as if curious as to all that might be
going on. Suddenly the water ceased to be
rippled, and far down-stream a cloud appeared
to have reached the river. It was the rain.
It seemed to march very slowly, and every
drop made a dimple on the river’s breast.
Then I could hear the on-coming host, the
sound having a distinét bell-like tinkle as each
drop touched the surface and disappeared.
A curious effect, too, was produced by the
wind or the varying density of the cloud
above, in that the drops were very near to-
gether where I happened to be, and much
farther apart and larger some distance beyond
16*
186 Drifting
the boat. I could of course make no meas-
urements, but appearances suggested that in
the middle of the river the drops were less
numerous in the proportion of one to five.
Does it usually rain harder over land than
over water? Heretofore I had seen the rain
upon the river while on shore, and was now
very glad to have been caught adrift, so as to
observe it from a new point of view. It
was a beautiful sight, well worth the thorough
wetting that I got and which drove me home
soon after with pleasant thoughts of my goal-
less journey.
CHAPTER FIFTEENTH
FOOTPRINTS
WHILE the camp-fire was smoking, for
the wood was green and I was willing
that my companion should worry over it, I
strolled up the long, sandy beach with no par-
ticular objeét in mind and quite ready to meet
and parley with any creature that I overtook.
I saw only evidences of what had been there,
or what I supposed had been. There were
tracks that I took to be those of herons, and
others that suggested a raccoon in search of
crayfish. Here and there a mouse had hur-
ried by. What lively times had been kept up
at low tide within sight of the tent door! and
yet we knew nothing of it. But these tracks
were not well defined, and therefore why
not misinterpreted? I have not suggested all
the possibilities of the case Here my
meditations were checked by the call to
breakfast, but I took up the subject again as I
187
188 Footprints
walked alone in the woods, for I was but
the companion of a worker, not one myself.
It occurred to me that when we read of
hunters, or perhaps have followed a trapper
in his rounds, we have been led to think that
footprints are animal autography that the
initiated can read without hesitation. To
distinguish the track of a rabbit from that of
a raccoon is readily done, and we can go
much further, and determine whether the
animal was walking or running, made a leap
here or squatted there ; but can we go to any
length, and decipher every impress an animal
may have made in passing over the sand or
mud? I think not. I have seen a twig sent
spinning a long distance up the beach at low
tide, making a line of equidistant marks that
were extremely life-like in appearance. A
cloud of dead leaves have so dotted an ex-
panse of mud that a gunner insisted there
had been a flock of plover there a few mo-
ments before he arrived. All depends, or
very much does, on the condition of the sur-
face marked. If very soft and yielding, the
plainest bird-tracks may be distorted, and a
mere dot, on the other hand, may have its
outline so broken as to appear as though made
Footprints 189
by a bird or mammal. Still, tracks are a
safe guide in the long run, and, whether
our opinion as to them be correct or not, the
rambler finds something worth seeing, and
he goes on anything but a wild-goose chase
who sometimes finds himself mistaken. It
is well to check our confidence occasionally
and realize the limits of our power.
Opportunity afforded while in camp, and
I made a short study of footprints. With
a field-glass I noted many birds, and then
going to the spot, examined the impressions
their feet had made. A night-heron did not
come down flatly upon its feet with outspread
toes, and so the tracks were quite different
from the impressions made when the bird
walked. Crows, I noticed, both hopped
and walked, and the marks were very dif-
ferent, the former being broad and ill-defined
in comparison with the traces of the same
bird’s stately tread. Had the bird not been
seen, any one would have supposed two creat-
ures had been keeping close company, or that
some one individual had passed by in the
very path of another. The purple grakle
and red-winged blackbird made tracks too
much alike to be distinguished, yet these
190 Footprints
birds have not the same size or shape of foot.
A water-snake came up over the mud and
left a line of marks upon the sand that could
not be recognized as that of any animal, ex-
cept it might bea faint resemblance to the trail
of a mussel, I chased a dozen crayfish over
a mud flat, and their backward and sidewise
leapings caused an old gunner to say there
had been plover about. A blue-winged teal
made a long double line of dents in the sand
before it rose clear of the beach, and these
were very like many a footprint I had pre-
viously seen. What, then, must we think of
the fossil footprints of which so much has
been written? As different species, a long
series of these impressions in the rock have
been described and given high-sounding titles.
I am not entitled to an opinion, but have
doubts, nevertheless, of the wisdom of con-
sidering every slightly different form as made
by a different creature. I have given my
reasons, and will only add another instance,
one of greater significance than all as bear-
ing upon the question. I startled a slum-
bering jumping-mouse last summer and it
bounded across the smooth sand bared by the
outgoing tide. Its track then was one made
Footprints Ig!
by its body rather than the extremities, and
a curious dent in the river-shore’s smooth
surface it was; but before taking again to the
woods it walked in its peculiar way, and the
little footprints were quite distinét and un-
mistakably those of a small mammal. Had
the two sets of markings been preserved in
a slab of sandstone, no ichnologist would
have recognized the truth, but probably would
have said, ‘* Here is a case where some leap-
ing creature has overtaken a small rodent and
devoured it.””
Difficult as fossil footprints may be to de-
cipher, they call up with wonderful distin@-
ness the long ago of other geologic ages. It
is hard to realize that the stone of which our
houses are built once formed the tide-washed
shore of a primeval river or the bed of a lake
or ocean gone long before man came upon
the scene.
But. the footprints of to-day concern me
more. Looking over the side of the boat, I
saw several mussels moving slowly along and
making a deep, crooked groove in the ripple-
marked sand, ‘ streaking the ground with
sinuous trace,” as Milton puts it; and the
school of blunt-headed minnows made little
192 Footprints
dents in the sand wherever the water was shal-
low, when they turned suddenly and darted
off-shore. ‘This sand seemed very unstable,
and a little agitation of the water caused
many a mark to be wiped out; and yet we
find great slabs of ripple-marked and foot-
marked sandstone. I picked up such a piece
not long ago on which were rain-drop marks.
This is the story of a million years ago; but
who ever found Indian moccasin-marks not
two centuries old? The footprints that
could tell us many a wonderful story are all
gone and the tale of a rain-drop remains.
This is a bit aggravating. Here where we
have pitched our camp, or very near it, was
a Swedish village in 1650 and later, and for
two days I have been hunting for evidence
of the faét,—some bit of broken crockery,
rusty nail, glass, pewter spoon, anything,—
but in vain. History records the village, and
correctly, without a doubt, but there are no
footprints here, nor other trace to show that
a white man ever saw the place until our tent
was pitched upon the beach.
Towards evening I had occasion to renew
my youth,—in other words, “run on an
errand,” as my mother put it,—and going half
Footprints 193
a mile through the woods, I came to a nar-
row but well-worn path. This was so akin
to my footprint thoughts of the morning that I
gladly followed it instead of making a short
cut. It was fortunate, for the path led di-
re€tly to where I wished to go, and our theo-
retical geography, as usual, was terribly out
of joint. As it was, on the edge of an old
village I found a very old man in a very old
house. His memory as to the earlier half of
the century was excellent, and he gave me
the desired information and more. I spoke
of the path through the woods, and he
chuckled to himself.
ce Through the woodses, eh? Well, when
I made the path, goin’ and comin’ through
the brush that wasn’t shoulder-high, there was
no trees then. ‘That was more’n forty years
ago.”
“©No, John, ’twa’n’t,” piped a weak voice
from the interior of the little cottage;
“twa’n’t mor’n ue
«* Laws, man, don’t mind her. She dis-
putes the almanac, and every winter gets in
New Year’s ahead of Christmas.”
I did not stop to argue the matter, but
hurried campward, glad that, if I could find
1 n 17
194 Footprints
no footprints of human interest and historic,
I at least had followed a path made forty
years ago,—a path that had been worn among
bushes and now led through a forest. It was
indeed suggestive. By the camp-fire that
night I vowed to plant a forest where now
there was but a thicket, and in my dreams
I walked through a noble wood.
Think how much might be done to beau-
tify the world, and how little is accom.
plished.
CHAPTER SIXTEENTH
BEES AND BUCKWHEAT
6 Boe great storm of yesterday cleared the
air as well as cleaned the beaches, and
the river was fresh and sparkling as though
the tempest had added new life, so that the
listless midsummery water was now as cham-
pagne, “ with beaded bubbles winking at the
brim.” The air was heavy with sweetness
and with song, the fields and meadows painted
as the rose. The buckwheat was in bloom,
and a million bees were humming. The
pasture was gay with pink gerardia, or re-
flected the summer sky where the day-flower
blossomed. There was no commingling of
these late flowers. Each had its own acre,
exercised squatter sovereignty, and allowed
no trespassing. ‘The only evidence of man’s
interference, except the buckwheat-field, was
a dilapidated worm-fence, and this is one of
several instances where beauty increases hand
195
196 Bees and Buckwheat
in hand with decay. The older such a fence,
the better; when merely a support for Vir-
ginia creeper or the rank trumpet-vine, it is
worthy the rambler’s regard. Wild life long
ago learned what a safe snug-harbor such
ruined fences offer. It puzzles even a mink
to thread their mazes, and the shy rabbit that
has its ‘* form” in a brier-hidden hollow of
the crooked line feels that it is safe.
There are traces of these old fences of
which no record remains, placed perhaps by
the very earliest settler in a traét that he had
cleared and which has since gone back to an
almost primitive state. In an old woodland
I once traced a fence by the long line of cy-
pripediums in bloom, which were thriving in
the mould of decayed fence-rails, a pretty if
not permanent monument to departed worth.
A word more of these old fences in winter.
When the snow beats across the field, it stops
here and gracefully curves above it, arching
the rails and vines until all is hidden, unless
it be some lonely projeéting stake, by which
alone it communicates with the outside world.
I rashly attempted once to go across-lots over
a new country, and made a discovery. The
snow-bound fence was but a drift, I thought,
Bees and Buckwheat 197
but it proved to be far different. The thick
mat of hardy growths had kept back the snow,
which was but a roof and did not wholly ex-
clude the light. For some distance I could
dimly make out the various growths, and each
little cedar stood up as a sentinel. A loud
word sounded and resounded as if I had spo-
ken in an empty room or shouted in a long
tunnel. The coldest day in the year could
not inconvenience any creature that took
shelter here, and I found later that life, both
furred and feathered, knew the old fence far
better than I did.
But this is the last day but one of August,
and so nominally the end of summer. Only
nominally, for these flowery meadows and
sweet-scented fields contradi€t the almanac.
This quiet nook in the Delaware meadows
offers no intimation of autumn until October,
and late in the month at that. The bees and
buckwheat will see to this, or seem to, which
is just as much to the purpose. To-day along
the old worm-fence are many kingbirds, and,
although mute, they are not moping. There
is too much inseét life astir for that. With
them are orioles and bluebirds, the whole
making a loose flock of perhaps a hundred
17*
198 Bees and Buckwheat
birds. The bluebirds are singing, but in a
half-hearted, melancholy way, reminding me
of an old man who spent his time when over
ninety in humming “ Auld Lang Syne.” Be-
fore the buckwheat has lost its freshness these
birds will all be gone, but at what time the
bluebirds part company with the others I do
not know. ‘They certainly do not regularly
migrate, as do the others. There was a colony
of them that lived for years in and about my
barn, and one was as sure to see them in
January as in June. No English sparrows
could have been more permanently fixed.
When the buckwheat is ripe and the fields
and meadows are brown, there will be other
birds to take their place. Tree-sparrows from
Canada and white-throats from New England
will make these same fields merry with music,
and the tangle about the old fence will ring
with gladness. But it is August still, and why
anticipate? High overhead there are black
specks in the air, and we can mark their course,
as they pass, by the bell-like chink-chink that
comes floating earthward. It is one of the
sounds that recall the past rather than refer
tothe present. The reed-bird of to-day was
a bobolink last May. His roundelay that told
Bees and Buckwheat 199
then of a long summer to come is now but a
single note of regret that the promised summer
is a thing of the past. It is the Alpha and
Omega of the year’s song-tide. Not that we
have no other songs when the reed-bird has
flown to the Carolina rice-fields. While I
write, a song-sparrow is reciting reminis-
cences of last May, and there will be ringing
rounds of bird-rejoicing from November to
April. Still, the initial thought holds good :
bobolink in May, and only a reed-bird in
August; the beginning and the end; the her-
ald of Summer’s birth and her chief mourner ;
Alpha and Omega.
Where the brook that drains the meadow
finds its way, the little rail-birds have con-
gregated. Many spent their summer along
the Musketaquid, where Thoreau spent his
best days, but they bring no message from
New England. They very seldom speak
above a whisper. Not so the king-rail. He
chatters as he threads the marsh and dodges
the great blue harrier that sweeps above the
cat-tail grasses and has to be content with a
sparrow or a mouse.
These late August days are too often over-
full, arid one sees and hears too much,—so
200 ~=Bees and Buckwheat
very much that it is hard to give proper heed
to any one of the many sights and sounds.
But how much harder to turn your back upon
it! All too soon the sun sinks into the golden
clouds of the western sky.
That was a happy day when the buckwheat
was threshed in the field, on a cool, clear,
crisp Oétober morning. The thumping of
the flails on the temporary floor put the world
in good humor. No bird within hearing but
sang to its time-keeping. Even the crows
cawed more methodically, and squirrels
barked at the same instant that the flail sent
a shower of brown kernels dancing in the
air. ‘The quails came near, as if impatient
for the grains eyes less sharp than theirs would
fail to find. It was something at such a time
to lie in the gathering heap of straw and join
in the work so far as to look on. That isa
boy’s privilege which we seldom are anxious
to outgrow. A nooning at such a time meant
a fire to warm the dinner, and the scanty time
allowed was none too short for the threshers
to indulge in weather prognostications. This .
is as much a habit as eating, and to forego it *
would be as unnatural as to forego the taking
of food. As the threshers ate, they scanned
Bees and Buckwheat 201
the surroundings, and not a tree, bush, or
wilted weed .but was held to bear evidence
that thé coming winter would be “ open” or
“hard,” as the oldest man present saw fit to
prediét. No one disputed him, and no one
remembered a week later what he had said,
so the old man’s reputation was safe.
The buckwheat threshed, the rest is all a
matter of plain prose. Stay! In the coming
Indian summer there was always a bee-hunt.
The old man whom we saw in the buckwheat-
field in O€tober was our dependence for wild
honey, which we fancied was better than that
from the hives. He always went alone,
carrying a wooden pail and a long, slender
oaken staff. How he found the bee-trees so
readily was a question much discussed. ‘* He
smells it,” some one suggested ; ** He hears
’em a-buzzin’,” others remarked. Knowing
when he was going, I once followed on the
sly and solved the mystery. He went with-
out hesitation or turning of the head to a
hollow beech, and straightway commenced
operations. I did not stay to witness this, but
came away recalling many a Sunday after-
noon’s stroll with him in these same woods.
What he had seen in August he had remem-
202 Bees and Buckwheat
bered in December, and, wise man that he
was, said nothing meanwhile. Why, indeed,
should he throw aside the opportunity to pose
as one having superior knowledge, when
others were so persistent in asserting it of
him? There is that much vanity in all men.
But a year later his superior knowledge
failed him. I had found the same tree in my
solitary rambles, and was there ahead of him.
Still, I never enjoyed my triumph. I felt
very far from complimented when he re-
marked, as an excuse for his failure, that “