•

:

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

BY CHARLES CONRAD ABBOTT

THB FREEDOM OF THE FIELDS. With Fron-
tispiece by Alice Barber Stephens, and
three photogravures. Buckram, orna-
mental, $1.50

TRAVELS IN A TREE-TOP. With Frontispiece
by Alice Barber Stephens, and three photo-
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RECENT RAMBLES; Or, In Touch with Na-
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WHEN THE CENTURY WAS NEW. A novel.

i2mo. Cloth, $1.00
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BIRD-LAND ECHOES. Profusely illustrated by

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THE FREEDOM
OF THE FIELDS

From many a fact some fancy springs
To charm life's idle hours j

To frowning cliffs rare beauty clings
When decked with laughing flowers.

v

THE
FREEDOM OF
THE FIELDS BY

CHARLES C.ABBOTT

•i 1 1

JB.LIPPINCOTT CO.
PHILADELPHIA

April Day Dreams
By Alice Barber Stephens

THE
FREEDOM OF
THE FIELDS BY

CHARLES C.ABBOTT

J.B.LIPPINCOTTCQ.
PHILADELPHIA i

COPYRIGHT, 1897,

BY
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

Ml

RAMBLES, YEARS AGO, ABOUT CAMBRIDGE, CONCORD, AND
CAPE COD, AND OTHERS, WITH THE SAME COMPANION,
OVER THE HOME MEADOWS, AND UNDER THE OLD OAKS
ALONG THE HILLSIDE, ARE SO OFTEN RECALLED AND
ALWAYS WITH SUCH PLEASURE, THAT I CANNOT DO
OTHERWISE, AND BE AT PEACE WITH MYSELF, THAN

DEDICATE

TO

WALTER FAXON,

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS,
THIS SIMPLE RECORD OF MY LATER DAYS AND DOINGS.

C. C. A.

THREE BEECHES,

May 25, 1897.

PREFACE

THE author has this consolation : a
preface is the whim of the publisher,
and so no reasonable reader will look for
literary merit in this perfun&ory feature of a
book.

I have one statement to make that gives
me great satisfaction and is in place here, if
anywhere. I wrote the following pages for
my own amusement, and never for an instant
had in mind either the patience of a possible
reader or the views of any publisher as to
what a book should be. I have not adopted
a single suggestion made by critics of earlier
volumes, but gone out of my way to repeat
the offence, complained of recently, of sneer-
ing at the impudent assumption of some,
necessarily nameless. For once, I have said
my say in precisely my own fashion. Never
before has this privilege been unrestrictedly
allowed me, and not improbably there are

vii

viii Preface

those who will cry out, " So much the worse
for you."

Pages, here and there, of this volume have
seen the light of day before in periodicals,
and are here reproduced by permission. I
trust the reader will not be moved to say of
such, "And once was quite sufficient," or
feel it his duty to find serious fault with that
which confronts him for the first time.

C. C. A.

THREE BEECHES,
May 15, 1897.

CONTENTS

An April Day Dream II

The Changeful Skies 19

Passing of the Bluebird 30

In Apathetic August jp

A Foretaste of Autumn 49

Indian Summer 58

The Effects of a Drought 63

Winter-green So

The Witchery of Winter 87

Company and Solitude 97

Overdoing the Past 118

Dreaming Bob 129

Winkle: the Eel-Man 146

Windfalls 170

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 197

Index 225

ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page
April Day Dreams . . . Frontispiece

By Alice Barber Stephens

Apathetic August 40

The Witchery of Winter 88

The Overflowing Delaware . . . . 148

AN APRIL DAT DREAM

AT the foot of the hill, where the wild
winds of winter can never reach, and
a bubbling spring keeps all frost at arm's
length, there I have been accustomed to go
for many a year, not to witness any exciting
event or hear the initial concert of the coming
season, but because that airy fairy creature
Spring first touches the earth at this point.
Here we find the first of her footprints, and
always, before going up to possess the land,
she here tests her power of revivification by
kissing the heavy eyelids of the sleeping
violets. Can there be better reason for this
vernal stroll to the hill-foot ? The very faft
that the year's proper beginning is so gen-
erally associated with youth, and youth in its
most attractive guise is of itself an induce-
ment to give more heed to the season of
promise than to those of fulfilment which
follow.

ii

12 An April Day Dream

How often the lively play of spring has
been performed on this planet the geologists
have never told us, but for a good ten thou-
sand years or more there has been no re-
vision of the text, and yet there is no lack
of novelty. The quips and cranks of the
imps that follow in the train of her ethereal
mildness are always fresh. Likewise, the
loveliness of dewy violets, of golden daffo-
dils, and blushing arbutus are as dear to us as
they were to our forbears in the infancy of
the race. But we are never asked to be con-
tent with a flower. An endless array of
attractions is spread before us, but, being
blind, we cry out that the world is empty.
It is not uncommon to find men posing as
perfection and criticising that part of the
world wherein they happen to be, and a
genuine appreciation of nature detefts in
such the only blemish of an admirable out-
look. To-day, though Winter has not yet
quite relaxed his hold, there were abundant
violets; and what emerald outsparkles the
dewy mosses ? Here, at the foot of an old
oak that had sheltered many a passing Indian
from the midsummer sun, and perhaps bore
yet the scars blazed upon it by the first

An April Day Dream 13

Dutch trader that passed down the Dela-
ware ; here, in the bright April sunshine, I
had but to raise my eyes to skies of marvel-
lous beauty. Surely there is cause for joy in
a cloud-flecked sky, and who lacks company
when with budding oaks ?

Here, here ! called the ecstatic crested tit,
as if I had a thought of leaving such a pleasant
place. There are times when one can more
profitably curl up in a corner and indulge in
day-dreams than wander about; and this
nook, with its April sunshine, invited to
meditation. The mystery of the mosses,
the significance of the flowers, the change-
fulness of panoramic skies, and, back of all,
if we give up these problems in despair, the
suggestiveness of patriarchal oaks. I had no
need to be called back by that embodiment
of all birdly virtues, the crested tit, the bird
of all others that knows nothing of discour-
agement, and bids us keep in good heart un-
der the blackest skies.

All that surrounds us speaks to us, but too
often in strange tongue. Patience is an ex-
cellent interpreter, but how seldom we wel-
come it. It were worthy of the day to read
the wrinkles of the gnarly oak ; but again

14 An April Day Dream

the birds called, and I looked away. A
thrush was busy with last winter's leaves,
and chirped excitedly when it found me at
the old oak's mossy foot. It scolded, I
think, protesting that I was trespassing in
bird-land ; and well it might, for have we
not relinquished all our rights by years of per-
secution that must forever be a disgrace ?
How I wished that this early thrush would
sing ! But I knew that it was a passing vis-
itor, and not in tune. Its melody was re-
served for some far New England wood, and
I was content to recall the summer thrushes
I have known. Waving a violet wand to
bring back other days, I saw again the rudely
paved path leading to the old spring-house,
and heard again the gurgling water as it hur-
ried through the long troughs wherein were
placed the rows of milk-pans. Passing them,
the water took up a livelier strain, and sang
a sweet, sibilant song as it greeted the sun-
shine. Sparkling water is to be found every-
where,— "laughing water," as the Indians
called it; rippling currents smile in every
brook ; hurried waters rush over every ob-
strufting rock ; but nowhere since those
early days have I seen a more merry flow

An April Day Dream 15

than that of this old spring-house brook. It
was the first " wild" water I had ever seen.
Has this to do with it ? In its shallows, I
saw for the first time living fishes; on the
damp and mossy stones near its edge stood
and stared bright-barred and spotted sala-
manders, that fled in terror from my extended
hand ; there, too, squatted the pretty leopard-
frog, that leaped beyond my reach as I ap-
proached. It is not strange that I have seen
no brook since that sparkled like this one. A
full half-century has not dimmed its bright-
ness in my fancy, and the place is as I first
saw it when I close my eyes and stand be-
neath the drooping elm and stately maples
that now mark the spot, from which, save
the brook, every old-time feature has been
removed.

While basking in the April sunshine, as I
recall the old spring-house to-day, the out-
standing glory of the place was the visit of a
gentle swallow that came quite near me and
gathered at the water's edge a little pellet of
damp earth for the nest it was building.
What a marvel of beauty was that barn swal-
low to my childish eyes ! and the bird is just
as beautiful to-day. Swallows at all dm«s

16 An April Day Dream

add a charm to the landscape. They are
never so numerous as to be a blot upon the
fair field. Early comers, they herald the
more timid birds of summer, but you are all
too likely to overlook them, for they are
silent as the flowers when the thrushes are
in song. Not literally silent, — no bird is
that, — but we fail to hear their twitter when
the grosbeak's grand outburst of melody fills
the evening air. It is not strange. The
stanch friends of childhood are usually for-
gotten when we face the " great" people of
the earth ; but what, after all, are these to the
trusty folk of early and unsophisticated days ?
How few ever reach beyond the grade of
twittering swallows and yet die envious of
those who make more noise in the world
and so attract the gaping crowd ! " Poor
and content is rich," and more's the pity
that we did not place greater value on the
twittering swallows of our early spring.
Their twitter, when the chill of winter still
lingers in the air, is sweet music, and the
bird is all we ask to fill the April outlook.
Poor then it may be, as compared with the
weakh of later days, but were we not con-
tent, ay, exuberant, over a single swallow, and

An April Day Dream 17

so rich ? Poor and content is rich, and rich
enough! At least, let us not be forgetful
of the April days when the swallows, like
guardian spirits, attended upon us and filled
every path with pleasantness and peace.

But it is useless to preach : that is some-
thing long since overdone in this world;
our bodies, far more than our minds, attend
upon it. We bless the first swallows of the
season and straightway forget them when the
thrush arrives ; and more, if they dare to
twitter, to remind us of April happiness
when we would revel in the ecstasy of May,
then we curse their impudence. They do
not grieve over it. Constant swallows ; in-
constant, miserably inconstant and inconsist-
ent man !

A lively clatter, as if the birds of summer
were dancing on dead leaves, roused me from
my fancies, and I was one with the present
world again. An April shower, a tearful
smile, as some one has not inaptly called it,
passed over the woods and across the meadows,
leaving in its train glittering glories that
dimmed even the early violets.

Stand, if you will, at some commanding
point and overlook the landscape for miles

i8 An April Day Dream

and miles away; see not a single tree, but
thousands of them ; see not a single clod,
but field after field ; see the scattered ruins
of the dead year, but never a hopeful violet
at your feet, and to you it will be winter
still. In a single sunny nook I found a little
summer, heard nothing of the fretful moan-
ing of chilly winds, but music enough to
lead me in fancy to the flood-tide of mid-
summer melody. A bit of moss, scattered
violets, — faint foretastes, let me hope, of the
eternal spring.

THE CHANGEFUL SKIES

I cannot read ;

'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large,
Down in the meadow.

THOREAU.

DOWN in the meadow! — a poem of
four words that will never need ex-
planatory notes. I am down in the sense
of being nearer the level of the sea, when
there, but up, high up, in exhilaration.
Lord Bacon says that this emotion is not as
profound as joy ; but what use in such fine
distinctions ? I joy in the exhilaration that
comes from breathing the meadow air, and
let us attend to it, rather than to the mean-
ings of words, that keep our cheap champions
of erudition so busy. I went down to the
meadows to-day, that 1 might more readily
look upward, having thought before starting
how little apt are we to consider the sky
when taking an outing, and yet Shakespeare's

19

20 The Changeful Skies

" skyey influences" are more potent than we
think. I do not mean such influence as that
which leads to glancing upward in the morn-
ing, and, in the fulness of our conceit, con-
tradicting the barometer. There are men
who do this, get caught in the rain, and, de-
nying it the next day, prove themselves not
only fools, but worse. Thoreau encoun-
tered such folk even in Concord, and thought
they poisoned their immediate atmosphere.

In going out of doors, it is a little strange
that that which is most prominent is likely
to be least noticed. The truth is, the sky,
which is but a name for an appearance, is
nevertheless the most obvious of fa&s. If
not palpable as the earth beneath, it makes
itself felt, which is much the same thing so
far as the rambler is concerned ; and certainly
much is lost if we fail to respond to skyey
influences.

We think little about the sky, can roam
for hours beneath it without looking up ; and
yet it is the most assertive object in the out-
look : poets have applied to it more adjec-
tives than to any objecl: beneath. They
descant on " the witchery of the soft blue
sky," but what of the heartlessness of the

The Changeful Skies 21

steel-blue canopy, when there is not a trace
of life within sight or hearing ? The cloud-
less sky of June is not that of January.

Because there were few birds, fewer
flowers, and but little green grass where I
chanced to wander, I took the hint from
Ovid : the skies are open — let us try the
skies. So I looked long upon them as they
overhung the old meadows, old as the glacial
period, and yet how new as compared with
the sky that now looked down upon them !
To-day the sky was blue, fading to violet,
with one great white cloud that slowly
marched to intercept the sun. It was with
keen pleasure that I watched this rolled and
rounded mass of drifted snow, for such it
seemed, draw near. It did not dissolve nor
hurry in torn fragments from the fray, but
with bold front shut out the sunbeams.
What a marvellous change takes place when
the meadows are shifted from sunshine to
shade ! That short-lived shadow brought in
its train a whispering breeze, but so gently
did it pass that I fancied it was the shadow
itself that whispered.

A word here as to the imagination. If it
is kept within too close bounds, your outing

22 The Changeful Skies

is likely to prove so many miles of walking
to no purpose. It is not fair to say that
inaccuracy is sure to follow the free play of
the imagination. Our fancy need not aft as
a distorting glass, and does not, except with
the author's connivance. The greatest blun-
derers about nature have been the precise
students who occasionally find themselves
outside their closets. It is one thing, as
Bryant puts it, to

Go forth under the open sky and list
To Nature's teachings,

but another to know what to do when you
get there. My suggestion is to let your
imagination have scope as well as your ap-
preciation of the a&ual facts you meet with.
There need be no conflici in your mind, nor
any misleading statement, if you are moved
to speak.

To return : quickly again the sky was
bright and blue, and the meadows were
filled with light, — a clear, warm, penetrating
light, that was reaching the rootlets and
bulbs in the damp soil, quickening them.
The grape hyacinth had already responded,
and reflected the deepest color the April

The Changeful Skies 23

skies had offered ; and the earliest of our
larger lilies was above the grass, with the
yellow of the noonday glare in its blossoms.
These flowers show well together, repre-
senting on earth the sun and sky ; but how
seldom do we turn from them to the high
heavens ! A few flowers will hold us while
the firmament is marked by conditions which
may, at least in our lifetime, never again
occur.

There hangs in the hall a barometer that
has foretold for many years, without blun-
dering, the kind of weather that we are to
have, and it can be read with profit when
interpreting the skies. For instance, it often
happens that before the great masses of svllen
clouds, bringing the summer shower or the
day-long rain, appear above the horizon, we
are informed by it, and so can anticipate
their coming and watch their progress. This
is akin, in the pleasure it affords, to finding
a new flower or hearing the song of a rare
bird. There is less sameness in the cloud-
flecked skies than upon the earth when light
and shadow dash across the scene. I recall
one long cloud that slowly rose from half the
horizon at once and moved like a huge cur-

24 The Changeful Skies

tain overhead. The air was " light" as that
on mountain-tops, and so free from dust that
the senses of sight and hearing were unusually-
acute. The sky seemed more distant than
when free from clouds, or, as the phrase
goes, was hollow. The nearer objefts in
the outlook were more removed than usual,
as though we looked through the wrong end
of a field-glass, and yet every outline was
distindt. Sounds that we often hear without
recognizing as other than part of the general
hum of the day's a&ivity were now startling.
There was not a crow in sight, yet the
clamor of a hundred was plainly heard, and
the whistle of a cardinal redbird and the
clear call of a crested tit came from the hill-
side half a mile away. Such sounds as these,
coming from unseen creatures, added interest
to these " hollow" skies, and from them all
revelations were expefted. Much besides
rain comes from above. From my comfort-
able resting-place against a sloping willow I
saw the avant-coureurs, it might be, of the
coming storm, a long line of small black dots
that slowly altered shape and, while yet
afar off, proved to be herons, — long-necked,
long-legged, broad-winged herons, that give

The Changeful Skies 25

such a wildness to the remaining marshes
hereabouts. With a background of blue sky
they might have passed unseen, but now
each was grandly pictured against the leaden
cloud, and in the still air I fancied I could
hear the rustling of their wing-beats.

Slowly as they came they passed from
sight. When they were lost to me, I turned
hopefully to the point where they had ap-
peared, and, to my surprise, saw others.
These were not black specks, but white dots
that lengthened into lines and grew to great
white herons, following in the path of their
blue brethren. The clear air and leaden
background brought out every outline. I
could see them move their heads from side
to side, as if to view the old haunts of their
ancestors. How vividly they brought back
the days of old delight, when I was young
and the world newer than I find it now ! —
those over-full days that in many a way
might have continued but for the ignorance
of man and the vanity of woman. It is a
red-letter day of late when we can see the
white herons on the river shore ; yet I have
seen them in great numbers, and it is on
record, " the white cranes did whiten the river

26 The Changeful Skies

bank like a great snow-drift." Let heartless
fashion demand a feather, and the death-war-
rant of thousands of birds is signed. Here
and there a protesting voice may be raised,
but only to be drowned in the sneers of an
indifferent people. I once was foolish enough
to speak of the rights of a rambler to the wild
life left about us, and was met with ridicule.
" I've got to praftise on swallows to learn to
shoot quick," was my interlocutor's reply.
My summer sky must be cleared of its swal-
lows, it seems, to meet the useless skill of a
brute neighbor ! How I rejoiced when his
gun burst !

There is a world of suggestiveness in the
words just used, "my summer skies."
Therein lies ownership of a wholly satis-
factory kind. They are mine without cost,
without even the asking, and, better still,
without depriving others, — mine, yours, the
common wealth of all ; and yet few, it ap-
pears, place any value upon them. To many
they are of as little importance as the frame
of a picture; yet often they are the real
pifture and the earth is but the naked plat-
form upon which we stand to view it. It is
hard to find a fitting phrase for many a pano-

The Changeful Skies 27

ramie sky ; as the skies of early June, blue
of incomparable shade, with white clouds,
pink-edged and piled into fantastic shapes, —
great castles that are unbuilt before you can
people them with the merry elfs and fays of
the month of roses. In June we have those
bright skies that deepen when the day is done
to blue-black, and, losing their flatness, are
lifted to a hollow dome that, star-studded,
shows you at last how very far away it really
is. The skies that at noon rested on the
tree-tops that hem in the little space about us
grow immeasurably grand at midnight ; and
when from out these starlit skies we hear
strange voices, they assume a new impor-
tance, and we begin to realize better their
significance. The upper region, our sky, is
seldom lacking in animal life. Probably
hundreds of birds, in the course of a day,
pass over us, just out of sight ; and when in
the silent watches of the night we plainly
hear the voices of wanderers, a new chapter
of ornithology is opened to us. The clear-
toned call of a plover, the hoarse croak of a
raven, the chirping of many finches, the
fretful scream of an eagle, have all been
noted in a single night. We can only fol-

28 The Changeful Skies

low these birds in fancy, but the fancy will
not lead us astray. The direction in which
they are going can be determined, the prob-
able elevation of their flight-path estimated,
the guiding features of their course made
probable. -Their purpose can, of course,
only be conjeftured. It is not strange that
birds of many if not all kinds travel in the
dark, for this absence of light is but relative.
The stars of themselves are nothing to the
birds but as they are reflected in the water.
When visible in this way, they aft as finger-
posts along a river valley. Such doubtless
is the guide to much of the annual migrato-
rial flight ; and the black lines of mountains
would be readily recognized as such, while
the lights beyond would indicate those of
another valley, with its star-refle£ling river.
So comprehensive is a bird's-eye view that
migration has nothing marvellous about it.
May it not be, too, that these long journeys
are commenced in daylight, and that when
great elevation is reached the direction at the
outset can be readily maintained ? A bird
does not fly in a circle, as a man walks when
lost in the woods. When fog or excessive
cloudiness is encountered, wandering birds

The Changeful Skies 29

drop to the earth, as is shown by water-birds
being found upon our upland fields, perhaps
miles from their accustomed haunts.

Whatever the time of year, we have ex-
cellent reasons for expelling much of the
sky, and should not let our eagerness to see
the objedls there from close at hand cause us
to forget from whence they came. Do not
tell me that a bird, or a butterfly, or even an
inanimate objeft, is but a wind-tossed acci-
dent. Do I not know it ? If an objeft is
seen to come from the sky above, why not
at least endeavor to meet it in mid-air ? By
so doing, you take a step into the realms of
fancy. Such a whim deceives no one, not
even the self-ele&ed professors of bird-lore.
Some fafts without fancy are as repulsive as
birds without feathers, and the world is not
likely to suffer because of other views than
those of the painfully prosaic. Dispute this
if you will ; but now

" There is a light cloud by the moon,
'Tis passing, and 'twill pass full soon,"

and to it I would rather attend than listen to
any argument.

PASSING OF THE BLUEBIRD

IT is said that the old-time bluebird is be-
coming extinft ; that the blessed blue-
birds of our door-yards and rustic arbors are
passing away ; that the rude box nailed to
the wall is forsaken or the home of alien
sparrows ; the hollow in the old apple-tree
is unoccupied, and so with the May-day
blossoms there will no more be heard that
cheery warbling, comparable only, in its
suggestiveness, to the tuneful song sparrow
and lively chatter of the nervous wren.
Until recently these made the jolly trio that
have gladdened our gardens since Colonial
days. No more bluebirds ! Why not say
there shall be no more spring, for is it really
spring without them ?

For many years, perhaps for all this cen-
tury, there has stood a huge dead sycamore
on the river bank, and in the hollow of its
cavernous trunk bluebirds are wont to con-
30

Passing of the Bluebird 31

gregate. The tempests of winter, the floods
of spring, even the lightning's stroke, scarcely
make these trustful bluebirds afraid ; or, if
they flee at a time of great tumult, they soon
return, and there are but few days in a year
that I cannot see and hear these happy ten-
ants of a hollow tree. At one lonely spot,
alike free from man and the alien sparrow,
the bluebird is still as fixed a feature as the
blue sky ; but the tree cannot last much
longer, and then the birds will be driven to
some more remote locality. The times have
indeed changed. The bluebirds no longer
come to us, — we must go to them.

Until within a very few years, there was
a colony of bluebirds near my house, and
however the conditions of the weather af-
fefted the birds found scattered over the
country, here to-day and gone to-morrow,
those in the old hay-barrack were never far
away. I do not believe that the bluebird is
really dying out through natural causes, but
simply that they are or have been driven off.
The fatal blunder was the introduction of
the English sparrow, which never did one
particle of good, and now has become a posi-
tive curse, and one, I fear, beyond control.

32 Passing of the Bluebird

As if we had not birds enough of our own
to keep down all the worms that ever crawled
on a tree ! Why, then, did they not do it ?
it has been asked with much confidence, but a
stinging reply lies in wait for the questioner.
We would not let them. For years on years
there was absolute indifference in the matter
of bird-proteftion. For half a century a
law has been upon the statute-books with
reference to the destruction of insectivorous
birds, and probably not enough fines have
been colle&ed to pay for the printing of the
law. It is not long since that every boy
made a colle&ion of birds' eggs if he could,
and nests and eggs are openly advertised as
for sale in two-penny periodicals devoted to
the destruction of wild-life, under the catchy
title of Natural History Journals. In times
not long gone by were many ornithologists
whose influence was all for ill. The vague
hope of a new species being found led them
to slaughter the most familiar birds even by
the thousands, and, even in these more en-
lightened days, a professional bird-man has
described himself as " a slaughterer of the
innocents." It would really seem as if some
ornithologists, who should labor only for

Passing of the Bluebird 33

bird-preservation, are really the bird's worst
foes while able to colleft, and then in their
declining years shed crocodile tears over the
skins of their viftims. Then, too, we must
consider the demand for feathers for millinery
purposes. At last the enormity of this vile
fashion is beginning to touch the public con-
science, and if Audubon societies effeft half
the good at which they aim, they will prove
one of the more notable blessings of these
later days.

But let us go back to the haunts of the
bluebirds, even if deserted just now. For
the first time in over twenty years I have
failed to see and hear bluebirds in the month
of May, and yet every other species common
to the Delaware valley has been phenome-
nally abundant. Never were there so many
warblers, both summer residents and those
that were northward bound; never more
thrushes, more rose-breasted grosbeaks,
vireos, fly-catchers, and all the summer's
tuneful host, — but no bluebirds. The reason
is not difficult to determine. Every available
nesting-site, such as formerly was occupied
by a bluebird, is now in possession of the
pestiferous sparrow. Happily, they find

34 Passing of the Bluebird

their superiors at times, and learn a useful
lesson. I witnessed a combat recently be-
tween a pair of sparrows and a great crested
fly-catcher. The nest of the latter had been
tampered with, but the sparrows had cause
to regret their impudence. Not only was
their own nest destroyed, but both the
birds soundly thrashed. There was a great
commotion at the time among the birds
of the orchard, and if the varied utter-
ances of a dozen species could be translated
we should have some most interesting read-
ing. Scores of birds witnessed the battle,
and, as none were silent, I fancied the
sounds to be comments on the progress of
the fray.

The little house wrens, with whom blue-
birds are always associated in our minds,
fare better than their one-time companions.
When once in possession of their homes
they prove able to defend them successfully,
and I do not find these cheerful creatures
less abundant than formerly, though fewer
are found nesting in the immediate vicinity
of dwellings. They have been inconveni-
enced by the sparrows, but not actually
driven out of whole sedlions of the country.

Passing of the Bluebird 35

Our efforts should be redoubled to aid the
wren whenever persecuted, and this is a
simple matter. By keeping their boxes
closed, after they leave us in autumn, until
their reappearance in April, we will prevent
the sparrows from taking possession in their
absence, and boxes built for wrens should
have the entrance too small for a sparrow to
pass through it. By such simple means I
have baffled the worthless foreigner, and
have the native wrens at my door the sum-
mer through.

There being no more tame door-yard
bluebirds, I have spent the day with their
wilder brethren. In a cluster of old birches
on an island in the river I found these timid
birds dwelling in comparative security.
Their nests were in holes deserted years ago
by golden-winged woodpeckers, and no foe
but a man or a snake — often much alike —
could have reached their eggs or young.
My boat drifted to the sandy beach, and I
sat very still. The birds paid no attention
to me, and their singing was continuous. I
closed my eyes for a while, and, while listen-
ing, saw again the old arbor with its blue-
bird-box at the entrance. I heard the songs

36 Passing of the Bluebird

sung fifty years ago, and saw the people who
were then nearest to me, and now

" All, all are gone, — the old, familiar faces."

The process of extinction, inaugurated by
ignorant men, may continue to the end in
our villages and about the average farm-
house, but there are spots where its blight
cannot reach, and the literal fulfilment of
the bluebird's doom is yet afar off. There
are islands and hill-sides, deep ravines and
remote woodland tradls, that offer no attrac-
tions to the invading sparrow, and here the
bluebird can and does find a congenial home.
It is true that in years past we almost domes-
ticated it, but before that, in Indian times, it
was a bird of the woods, and so can again
become, unless our forest fires do away with
timbered trafts. The passing of the blue-
bird is no empty phrase, but the passing is
not that of out of existence, but out of reach.
It is greatly to be deplored, but there seems
to be no help for it.

And now the question arises, Are there no
other birds to take their place ? I think so.
By consideration for their welfare, by con-
tributing to their needs, by preventing their

Passing of the Bluebird 37

being molested, the warblers, pee-wees,
grosbeaks, orioles, and others will come
nearer and nearer to us. I am positive of
this, and have my own yard, open to all, as
a proof of my assertion. I am cultivating
that pretty warbler, the redstart, now, and
find the bird extremely entertaining. It
nests very near the house and shows no fear,
merely keeping out of reach. It is but one
of many kinds, and, though without a song,
it is never silent, and by reason of its ac-
tivity is usually more in evidence than many
of the larger species. Like all little birds,
redstarts are " feathered appetites," and eat-
ing from dawn to dark seems to be the sole
end of their existence ; but what does this
signify to us? The destruction of innu-
merable insects, the health of shade trees,
the perfecting of flowers. Of late these
birds have seemed to embody every bird-
world grace and typify the bird-life that is or
ought to be about us. That ought to be
about us : how much of meaning in those
few simple words ! There is not a door-
yard but should be a safe harbor for every
bird that now lives a life of doubtful ease in
the remoter thickets. The fence that sep-

38 Passing of the Bluebird

arates field from garden should be no barrier,
but many are the birds that look upon the
paling or boards as a danger line to be crossed
with the utmost caution. In far more than
half of the farms I ever visited I was com-
pelled to go to the birds, — not one of them
would come to me. They were looked
upon, if a thought was ever given to them, as
food for the cats or sport for the children, to
keep them from mischief. Can there be
greater mischief than that wrought by the
persecution and destruction of the birds that
ought to be about us ?

Though the songs of a thousand birds ring
through the leafy arches of old woods, and
many a familiar strain steals through the
open window these long summer days, there
comes with them, all too surely, a tinge of
sadness that one of the merry host is miss-
ing, and not a melancholy thrush or warbling
vireo but seems to be voicing its own sorrow
or echoing ours at the passing away of the
bluebirds of blessed memory.

IN APATHETIC AUGUST

THE air is ever full of meaning sounds,
but are our heads full of wit to interpret
them ? Can there be an unmeaning sound, —
mere noise without significance ? I think
not. It is August now, and there is a marked
lull in the flood of bird-music that for months
has overswept the fields. The dew — for the
sun has just risen — still weighs heavily upon
the grass, and there is no lively creaking yet
of the heat-defying crickets. But I press my
ear lightly to the cool ground, and there is
plainly heard the steady hum of many activ-
ities, albeit there is no name for any one
of them. The quiet earth is busy as a bee,
yet there is no sign of her labors ; none, at
least, save the low uninterrupted sound that
only those who listen most carefully can
hear. An unnoticed, all-neglefted sound,
but not unmeaning. We lack the power of
its interpretation, that is all, and fling at it

39

40 In Apathetic August

such a word as " unmeaning," as if we were
lords of creation and not creation lord of us.
Nature has little patience with mere fuss and
feathers. If there is a great noise, there is a
great cause behind it. We can publish our
own littleness by pleading inability to ex-
plain the events of a passing day, but be cau-
tious of criticism of superior power. Yet it
is as bad to underestimate our strength. We
often can do more than we think lies within
our powers. We can learn more than our
neighbors if we adopt better methods, nor
fall by the way because so many gems of
truth are in a matrix from which no human
patience can extraft them. Have we culti-
vated our patience until it has acquired the
acme of its possible growth ?

How very silent is this August morning !
yet but a slight change in position, and I
find it sound-full. Be not deceived by ap-
pearances. How deserted the woods and
meadows, hill-side and upland fields ! Are
they ? Your eyes may be more at fault than
you suspect, and while you step so firmly
forward you may really be playing blind-
man's-buff with the landscape. As I pass it
by a field sparrow rises from his feast of seeds

Apathetic August

40 In Apathetic August

.! word as " unmeaning," as if we were
lords of creation and not creation lord of us.
Nature has little patience with mere fuss and
feathers. If there is a great noise, there is a
great cause behind it. We can publish our
own littleness by pleading inability to ex-
plain the events of a passing day, but be cau-
tious of criticism of superior power. Yet it
is as bad to underestimate our strength. We
often can do more than we think lies within
our powers. We can learn more than our
neighbors if we adopt ber.tr- Is, nor

fall by the way because so many gems of
truth are in a matrix from which no human
patience can extract them. Have we culti-
vated our patience until it has acquired the
acme of its possible growth ?

How very silent is this August morning I
yet but a slight change in position, and I
find it sound-full. Be not deceived by ap-
pearances. How deserted the woods and
meadows, hill-side and upland fields I Are
they ? Your eyes may be more at fault than
you suspect, and while you step so firmly
forward you may really be playing blind-
man's-buff with the landscape. As I pass it
by a field sparrow rises from his feast of seeds

In Apathetic August 41

with leisure wing, — beats and trills in a listless
way when perched upon a proje&ing stake
of the old fence. It is August, the bird
plainly intimates by its manner, and watches
me come and go with far more indifference
than distrust. Even the activity born of fear
is out of place during the last month of
summer. The sparrow's few and feeble
notes fall into the deep rut into which all
August activities have run these many centu-
ries, and the listener, with ears as languid as
his laggard steps, hears them only with Au-
gust indifference. To think that bird music
and the rustling of leaves are now akin.
Has this sinking to a soulless level aftually
taken place ? How far are we at fault ?
This same wee sparrow caused a bounding
pulse last April. Then there was an eleftric
thrill in every trembling note that sounded
an invitation to the fields that could not be
refused; to April fields with little more
than green grass skirting the newly ploughed
ground; grass, most meagrely dotted with
violets that shrank from every breeze, and
now this same bird song rouses no emotion.
Who or what turns the current off and
leaves us as much dead as alive in August ?

42 In Apathetic August

Some malign spirit long ago undermined our
faith in the merits of the month, and no one
has had energy since to rebuild it.

The resolution to be up and doing is
very brilliant when a suggestion to others,
but how dull it becomes when a personal
application ! It borders on the heroic to
take up a burden in August, and I was no
further than thinking of the matter when
a quail whistled at my side. That clear,
ringing, fife-like " Bob-white" proved the
bell-call that rang up the curtain of my
eyes. After all, it was I that had been
asleep, and not Mother Earth taking an
August nap.

That little sparrow has a new song now.
Every note comes bounding over the weedy
grass, light-footed as an April sunbeam. The
bird has quickened its pace, and marks my
progress now with an eager eye. There is
no indifference as to how the world may
wag, and I, too, am prodded to a livelier in-
terest. "Bob-white!" rings again through
the clear air, and I am thrilled by its ear-
nestness. Then come the rustling of many
wings and sound of many voices, — a flock
of red-winged blackbirds passes overhead.

In Apathetic August 43

As it proves, life has simply been turned
into a new channel, and I have been wan-
dering up and down the dry bed of the
spring-tide river. April and August are as
far apart as the poles. These dreamy, lazy,
apathetic August days are far more so in
name than in faft ; the trouble is with our-
selves.

Following in the wake of the departing
blackbirds, I hurry, aftually hurry, to the
meadows. What though the catbirds enter
a complaint ! They must be patient at the
intrusion, even as I am — sometimes — when
dull neighbors call. There is room enough
for them and myself, but they will not think
sp. In this respeft man has a good deal of
the catbird nature. I followed the black-
birds in a general way over the pastures and
through many a tangle of fruit-laden black-
berries. It was not necessary there should
be a goal. The novelty of August activity
was a sufficient incentive. When I came to
a stand-still in the shade of an old sassafras,
I found a red-eyed vireo quite excited over
my presence, and a short search showed me
that its nest was not yet empty. The poor
bird's babies overfilled the nest, and in a few

44 In Apathetic August

days they will be gone. Not gone, I hope,
into the jaws of some prowling mink, for I
caught a glimpse of one while hunting for
the nest. Indeed, this blood-thirsty imp,
and not myself, may have been the cause of
the bird's distress. It is interesting to note
what a cover for wild-life is provided by an
unchecked growth of weeds. No tropical
jungle could be more dense than that of
sturdy growths through which I struggled as
I came here. The tall sassafras by which I
stand reaches upward from a clean grassy
knoll like the mast from the deck of a ship,
but all above me are weeds, breast-high and
pathless. No cow, even, has broken her
way through them, and where I passed is
only shown by a dark line where the dew
was brushed away. In such a tangle a mink,
or even a larger creature, finds safe quarters
through the summer. In faft, a whole regi-
ment of vermin might take refuge here and
defy detection. Perhaps, it has been thought,
such places are the slums of wild-life ; but
has wild-life any degraded and ignoble forms?
How common to find absurd impressions as
to the phases of wild-life that are uncouth in
our eyes ! Snakes, lizards, and snapping-tur-

In Apathetic August 45

ties, for instance. Their very names cause a
shudder ; but why ? The question is seldom
asked. Their deviltry is taken for granted.
But those things that we ordinarily call ugly
and shun, because hideous in our eyes and
suggestive of all that is to be avoided for
peace of mind if not for safety of the body,
really possess little if anything of the feat-
ures our ignorance attributes to them.
Omitting to see the fitness to their surround-
ings of the creatures in question, we are
ignorant, and must remain so, of much of
which, had we better knowledge of it, would
afford us endless pleasure. An imprisoned
snapper in a restaurant-window rouses no
interest, and may excite disgust, as it clum-
sily moves to and fro in hopes of finding a
path to liberty. But meet this creature in
the marsh and attempt to dispute its passage,
you will then be forced to admire its bravery,
and it will dawn upon you how admirably
does its brown shell, with adhering bits of
mud and weeds, blend with the beaten paths
of its nightly rambles ; or, if you are stand-
ing by open water and should see this same
turtle lift its head above the surface, and you
have a good look at its brilliant but devilish

46 In Apathetic August

eyes, or see it with open jaws in which is
struggling a writhing, squealing, slippery black
catfish, you will realize that marsh, mud,
weeds, dark pools of stagnant water, snap-
pers, snakes, catfish, and scuttle-bugs are an
admirably blended whole. As separate entU
ties you may pass them by unheeded, but not
when associated and Nature is the artist that
has drawn the pidlure.

I have long preached no other do£lrine
than that of an apathetic August, but it is all
a myth. Would that other preachers would
be as honest in their convictions, though
they be as changeable as weather-cocks.
There is no real cessation of aflivity. Life
has merely retired from the outskirts of crea-
tion, and bids us plunge into the interior if
we would still be spectators. Looking out
from the knoll — for I still lingered in the
shade of the old sassafras — there was literally
nothing to be seen above or about the weeds
except great bronze and green dragon-flies.
But if these were there, other forms of life
must also have been present. Dragon-flies
do not feed on flowery sweets. Butterflies,
too, tossed themselves ecstatically about, and
clicked their pretty wings when angry ; but

In Apathetic August 47

not all the insefts of a summer day ever filled
a landscape with life. Something more sub-
stantial for the earlier courses of a rambler's
feast of sight-seeing is called for, — some bird
or beast that can fill a weightier part. I had
seen a brown mink, but his was too brief a
stay ; but what was needed came in all-suffi-
cient fulness when a troop of great blue
herons settled near by. I shouted and ges-
ticulated until they flew again. Their star-
tled antics in the air are always such an
improvement over their indifferent pose
when standing on the ground. These birds
are too dignified for my fancy. They, too,
forcibly remind me of a class of men that I
never meet but I endeavor to disconcert
them. To upset dignity is a delightful pas-
time, especially when this dignity is an ill-
fitting assumption, as is so generally the case.
Therefore it is I am moved to throw stones
at standing herons, that I may watch them
gradually disentangle their wings and legs in
the upper air. But, when settled down to
steady, purposeful flight, these birds add a
splendid feature to the meadow landscape.
A little more vim on our part; a few miles
more of tramping ; earlier hours and a deal

48 In Apathetic August

more faith that we have not been deserted,
and full to overflowing will prove every one
of these miscalled and much-maligned apa-
thetic August days.

A FORETASTE OF AUfUMN

TO the docile eye a meadow spring can
furnish a tide of discourse* I chanced
upon a sloping bank to-day, brilliant as a
garden tilled with care. Nature at times is
a fantastic florist. Yellow, red, and white
blooms were profusely scattered in the rank
grass, yet free of all rough, weedy character.
The bees hummed no less happily because
positive wilderness was lacking, and the
cricket's cheery chirping rang out as gladly
as where the tangled briers hid what remained
of a long-negle£ted fence. Here I might
have gathered strawberries a month ago, and
raspberries later, for this spot had once been
a garden, I am more than sure ; there still
is a trace of a boxwood hedge. The canes
of the raspberries were richly colored, and
would have warmed the landscape had it not
been an August day. They sprawled over
the ground and looked like gigantic purple
4 49

50 A Foretaste of Autumn

spiders with their long, limp legs at rest ; or
like the after-scene of a great battle among
such creatures, their brilliant purple legs,
victors and vanquished alike, in a hopeless
tangle. I have often noticed a scarcely
defined purple cloud along the horizon, — in-
deed, it is seldom absent on sunny days, —
but here were the richest tones of the royal
color near at hand.

But I was not on a color hunt, nor yet de-
sirous of much bird music ; neither did the
shade of sturdy oaks woo me. Nothing that
suggested even active thoughts could induce
me to turn from my pathless, aimless wan-
dering. August now, and the fittest time for
day-dreams, for chasing idle nothings in a
languid way, for loitering where my last step
led me, and, turning to the object nearest at
hand, I plucked the bloom from a bush yar-
row, and revelled in its pungent, fancy-stir-
ring odor.

Curled at the foot of a beech, where only
greenest moss and silky grasses grow, I held
the yarrow blossoms to my nose until my
lungs were filled with the subtle odor that
revived all my waning energies. It is not a
summer scent that recalls June roses or the

A Foretaste of Autumn 51

blossoms of fruit-trees. It is heavy, rich,
penetrating; a nut-like, oily, autumn odor
that charges the landscape ; a transporting
perfume that blots out the present and pic~l-
ures the future without its blemishes ; gives
us the spirit of autumn and veils its frost-
scarred body. The bloom of the yarrow is
as potent as the fruit of the fabled lotus.

Has not the landscape changed ? It is
August, and the first day of it, too, and yet,
with yarrow blossoms in my hand, I do not
see so much of summer as I did. The tow-
ering shellbarks that like sentinels stand out
upon the meadows, the hill-side walnuts, the
wayside chestnut, and even the shy hazel-
bushes hidden along the wild brook's weedy
bank, — all these must be ladened with ripened
fruit, I fancy. It is crisp October, with its
painted leaves, to-day, not August; such is
the magic of the yarrow bloom.

Is it all fancy ? What I did not see before
is plainly set before me now. There on that
gnarly sour-gum tree, scattered all over it,
from topmost twig to its lowest trailing
branches, are bright crimson leaves. That
surely is a sign of autumn. No frost-ripened
foliage, later, will shine with greater glory,

52 A Foretaste of Autumn

and beyond, where the rank weeds have held
their own against the cropping cows that
have tramped through them all summer, is
that wealth of dull gold, the trailing dodder,
a gilded web of a gigantic spider, — the one
with purple legs, perhaps, that we saw not
far off this very day. This, too, is an au-
tumnal plant in its suggestions : its color like
the leaves of oaks and beeches when the cool
nights come. So much in this world is what
it suggests rather than what it really is !
With what horror would we look upon the
world if it was merely fafts jumbled and
tumbled together like a load of bricks dumped
from the cart. I have in mind such an un-
fortunate who is zealously digging for what
he supposes is never upon the surface. Never
a pebble but is a pebble only to him and not
a water-worn fragment of a great rock forma-
tion. And what, after all, are these naked
fads to him who cannot use them ? My
friend has hedged himself in with fafts. He
has built a stone wall about him that his
ignorance cannot stray, and in such a funny
predicament he poses as an apostle of wis-
dom. No fafts without fancy, if you please.
They will do to dash out your brains with,

A Foretaste of Autumn 53

but rather let death come uninvited, and
every faft remain clothed and in its right
mind of fanciful interpretation. It is a safe
course, for no healthy fancy ever yet proved
seriously mistaken ; but what of many a
dealer in naked fadts ?

How true this is of birds ! There are
anatomists who map the wrinkles on a bird's
bones, measure their eggs, and write learned
essays on browny-white and whitey-brown,
who are all impatience when an amateur
speaks of a living bird. The professionals
are never mistaken, oh, no ! but they only tell
us half the truth. They are content with
their soulless anatomy, and let them ; but the
despised amateur has another mission, and
long before the crack o* doom, if not now,
will be held in higher esteem than many an
over-presumptuous, self-elected, carping pro-
fessor of avian anatomy.

The almanac gives me no concern when I
flourish yarrow-blooms about me. My nose
is on duty, not my eyes, to-day, and why
have this much-negle£led sense of smell if
we put it to no better use than as a guide to
lead us from unpleasant places ? How few
people detect the subtle odors distilled by

54 A Foretaste of Autumn

nature in every field and forest, by the wide
river or its skirting meadows ! Yet these
odors are full of significance the student can-
not afford to overlook. They are many and
marked and full of meaning. If I were
blind, I think I could make many a clever
guess as to the date and, perhaps, the time
of day. Much is lost if we are sensitive
only to the malodorous waves of tainted air
that at times cross our paths as fleeting
shadows dim the bright light of day.

I take my fill again of the fragrance of
yarrow, and in doing so anticipate the coming
autumn. Much of the prosy side of life is
given over to anticipation. Why not some
of its pleasanter phases ? There is little real
attractiveness in an August day. It is the
old age of summer, and not a very vigorous,
cheerful old age either. Did I look straight
before me and see nothing but a green land-
scape bathed in dreamy sunshine, I should
grow as stolid as these huge trunks about me
are sturdy and unmoved. The yarrow sug-
gests the changes that are coming; as if
Autumn in advance had stored her sweetness
in this wayside weed, and so it is autumn to
all my senses. The eye and nose have led

A Foretaste of Autumn 55

me until now, and now my ears catch faint,
far-off sounds, as if I heard in the distance
Autumn's light footsteps. Mere fancy counts
for nothing now. It is not one sound sug-
gesting another, but the real thing. The
thrushes of the early morning have long
been silent, the catbirds are not complaining,
the wood peewee is even too busy just now
to sing, and so it would be silent here were
there not noisy nuthatches overhead. They
are climbing over the rough bark, and as
they peep into the innumerable crannies
they are chattering incessantly. This is a
wholesome autumn sound, heard often when
its only accompaniment is the dropping of
dead leaves ; and yet this August day it over-
tops all other sounds save the rapid rush of
water over the pebbles and boulders in the
bed of the brook. We must close our eyes
to realize the full significance of these autumn
notes of resident birds. The landscape must
rest on our memory, and not upon the retina.
That querulous refrain belongs to drearier
days than these, even to November and its
fogs and pitiless rains. It is an all-pervading
sound then, and fits well with the surround-
ings, and the August sunshine to-day does

56 A Foretaste of Autumn

not shut off the fog and rain when I close
my eyes and listen to the nuthatches over-
head. But other, birds pass by, birds that
have learned all the merits of my lifelong
haunts and keep me company throughout the
year. There in the near-by thicket is that
never-failing source of cheerfulness, the Caro-
lina wren. When the world wore its most
deserted, worn-out look, last winter, this
wren came every morning and sang a new
soul into the wasting skeletons of every
weed. The bare twigs trembled with the
joy of a new-found faith, that spring would
surely come again and clothe them anew with
bright green leaves. When early summer's
tuneful host fills the warm air with melody,
we are all too apt to forget the brave winter
birds ; but, happily, they do not forget them-
selves. It was so to-day. The wren found
the world too quiet for its fancy and awoke
the sleepy echoes. It sounded a challenge to
all drowsiness and banished noontide naps
from the hill-side. Like the odor of the
yarrow, it called up other days, another sea-
son with its wealth of fruits, and how the
nuts and apples of Odlober fell about me as
I listened to its wonderful song, the same

A Foretaste of Autumn 57

that I have heard these many years, when
the thrushes have departed and not a warbler
is left of the nesting host that thronged the
blossoming orchard.

However sultry the midsummer day, a
whiff of yarrow carries us forward to the
coming coolness of September mornings.
However quiet the midsummer moon, let
but a single note fall from a winter songster,
and frosty Oftober is spread about us. In
short, if we have not smothered our fancy
in our rage for fafts, be summer what it may,
it never conceals from those who know
where to look the secret of conjuring up at
will delightful, reviving, faith-sustaining fore-
tastes of autumn.

INDIAN SUMMER

OSSAMER and old gold ; brown leaves,
V-T bleached grasses, and gray twigs ; green
pines, that now look black in the distance,
and frost-defying mosses ; such are the salient
features of this bright November day. I am
in a new country and at every step am met
by strangers, but I know their cousins that
are dwellers with-me on the home hill-side.
To feel that I am a stranger robs the world
of half its beauty. I cannot rid myself of
the repressing thought ; but, if a stranger to-
day, I am fortunately alone, and that com-
pensates for much ; alone to-day in a wild-
wood road, and it is now Indian summer.

It is a long, narrow roadway, with a deep
ditch on each side and no special side path
for the pedestrian. It is assumed by the
travelling community that two vehicles never
meet, and the man on foot who meets a
wagon must jump into the thicket that hems
58

Indian Summer 59

him in or be run over. So it seemed, at
least, until the unexpe&ed wagon did appear,
when I found the problem might be solved
by climbing over, but I preferred jumping,
the ditch, and did so. The teamster, as he
passed, hailed me with " What you lost ?"
and set me down as a liar when I told him
" Nothing." No one could be in such a
place without an errand, so he thought, and
I had no gun to suggest the hunter. But I
had an errand, and before the day was done
found I had lost much in not having come to
this wildwood road years ago.

Thoreau has said, " Nature gets thumbed
like an old spelling-book," but by how many ?
Carry fringed gentian to town, and by the
gaping crowd you will be thought to have
plucked it from some garden enclosure or
found a hothouse door unlocked. I am sur-
prised at Thoreau's remark the more because
my path has so seldom led me among these
asserted familiars of the out-door world. On
the contrary, how all-prevalent is ignorance
and unusual is earth-knowledge ! To be of
the earth earthy is beyond question pre-
eminently desirable, and yet how generally
we study to keep clear of it, lest the black

60 Indian Summer

soil may spot our clothing, or, sinking deeper,
stain the immaculate whiteness of our igno-
rance. Nature is like a spelling-book, as
Thoreau has suggested, but put our spelling-
book in the hands of a Hottentot and what
does he find ? We are too generally Hot-
tentots in this regard ; adepts at misinterpre-
tation, or, fearing a lurking devil in every
shadow, huddle in the glaring light and dis-
tort every straight line and rob of beauty
every one with a graceful curve. The pages
of nature's spelling-book may be smeared,
rumpled, and dog's-eared, — too often they
are, — but how often are they seriously stud-
ied ? We hold it upside down, or study the
title-page and turn away, posing as philoso-
phers. It is well to dig, but all the bones
in a quarry will not make a naturalist of you
if they are merely bones, and the mind's eye
cannot see them reclothed in the flesh. This
is thumbing the book and never learning to
spell even a-b, ab. So far Thoreau was
right. But this is Indian summer and no
time to preach or grumble, but to meditate.
This golden renaissance will teach you a
great deal upon one condition : you must be
passive and let the knowledge come to you.

Indian Summer 61

Indian summer is timid. Her efforts to re-
clothe the earth with gladness are not free
from doubt. Every ray of reviving sunshine
is on the alert lest it be attacked by lurking
north winds. Few birds in November sing
with a May-day confidence, but they do sing,
and this passing hour I have seen seventeen
different species of birds, and, except in two
cases, several individuals of each species, and
not for one second has there been silence.
At least the crows were to be heard, and
what a hearty, whole-souled chatter theirs is !
The subject under discussion by them is sel-
dom to be determined, but now they are
scolding at a hawk that has sailed by, and it
heeds them but little. A mere dip of the
wing and this master of flight is above or
below its tormentors, or, with a quick move-
ment of both wings, it rushes far beyond the
crows, and now is heard a wild, triumphant
cry that thrills me to the very finger-tips.
But not all the world's life is now in the
upper air. There are birds as much at
home in the bushes as are hawks in the
clouds, and I turn to them at their invitation,
but as quickly bid them adieu when sounds
that smack of novelty fill the air. The genial

62 Indian Summer

sunshine has warmed the quiet waters by the
wood road, and all the chill has left the
broad patches of gray-green sphagnum, and
now the chorus of a hundred frogs recalls the
like warm days of early April when I wan-
der to the meadows. I can scarcely deteft
these frogs, however closely I look. They
still cling suspiciously close to mother earth,
but from their doubting throats rises a thanks-
giving that floats away like a misty cloud
and dies in the silence of the upper air.
Again and again I hear it, and then the
trembling leafless twigs and rattle of frost-
defying leaves gives warning that the sun-
shine has met its old enemy, the wind, and
the frogs sink back to their hidden homes.

Were it not for floating masses of thick,
white clouds that shut out the warmth for
the moment there would be even more contin-
uous sound these late autumn days. Every-
thing seems to depend upon it. I have often
noticed how quickly a bird will cease to
sing the moment it is in the shade and how
promptly it resumed its song when the bright
sun-rays fell upon it. It is really, I think, a
matter of warmth rather than the amount of
light, but during uniformly cloudy days there

Indian Summer 63

is less disposition to sing than when the
weather is bright. In short, take the year
through, it is a matter of silence in shadows
and melody in the sunlit air. While still
lingering by the wayside pool and watching
a slight ripple on the still surface, a turtle
popped its head above the water and gazed
about in every direction. I made no motion
and so passed for a stick, one of the many
hundreds about me. What it thought of the
outlook is a matter of doubt in my mind, but
following so soon after the chorus of re-
awakened frogs, it doubtless wondered what
all that noise was about, and looked at the
world with its own eyes, to determine the
truth of the matter. Perhaps it set the frogs
down as liars, for the turtle quickly disap-
peared, and, though I waited long, saw it
no more.

It was a short-long journey that I went to-
day— short as the crow flies ; long if meas-
ured by its wealth of suggestiveness. This
swamp, that I would covered thousands of
acres, is but a matter of a few hundred, and
these will soon be drained, deforested, and
despoiled of all its nature-given glory. It is
an idle fancy to suppose it foreknows its

64 Indian Summer

doom, but so lavish was k of all its beauties
it seemed as if hopeful that its brave showing
would prove effectual to its preservation.
Bright color is not solely a feature of summer
or of early autumn leaves ; I found it in this
solitary swamp, where every leaf had fallen.
Bitter-sweet, fruit laden and so fiery red that
the air seemed to glow with heat about it.
The summer long this plant had been an un-
pretending vine, that mingled its green leaves
with the common crowd of rank weeds, and
gave no hint of its superiority. In the fast
and furious struggle for supremacy while the
warm days of feverish sunshine lasted, it
was content to slowly build for the future,
and not then and there exhaust itself in
merely overtopping its neighbors, and what
of the sequel ? Now, in these glorious mid-
November days, these bird-full, musical days
of misty sunshine and rejuvenating warmth,
the vine, that had so long been overlooked,
is the chief glory of the roadside.

fHE EFFECT'S OF A
DROUGHT

FROM July 6 to Oftober 31, 1895, both
inclusive, a period of one hundred and
eighteen days, there were but seven during
which brief showers occurred, no one ex-
ceeding one-tenth of an inch of rain ; and
there were four days when there was pro-
longed, heavy precipitation, not exceeding
in any instance seven-tenths of an inch ; and
three days, or parts of twenty-four consecu-
tive hours, when fog condensed and a drizzle,
or " Scotch mist," prevailed.

The more prolonged rains occurring Sep-
tember 26 and Oftober 13 caused little
brooks, that had been dry for several weeks,
to "run" for forty-eight hours, but there
was no freshening of the weeds or grass on
either upland or meadow. About our door-
yards and along the headlands, even where
shaded by rank weed-growths and the fences,
s 65

66 The Effects of a Drought

the ordinary grass was brittle, brown, and
resting flat upon the earth. Before the be-
ginning of September the landscape had a
scorched appearance, this applying also to
the foliage of several species of deciduous
trees. By this time, too, the last trace of
surface moisture had disappeared from the
ordinarily wet or " mucky" meadows.

During this time, even at its close, I did
not notice any appreciable diminution of the
volume of water flowing from the hill-side
and meadow-surface springs, although 1
learned that many wells had partly or wholly
failed. But, in all cases save one that I ex-
amined, the water did not pass over its usual
course and join ordinarily permanent brooks,
and through them reach the river. The
extremely dry ground immediately about
the springs absorbed the entire outflow at
greater or less distances from their sources.
Of course, near the springs there was the
usual luxuriance of aquatic and semi-aquatic
vegetation, and, what is of interest to the
Zoologist, an abnormal abundance or over-
crowding of animal life in these oasitic
areas.

The continued presence of animal life de-

The Effects of a Drought 67

pends upon the food-supply. It is equally
evident that no form of animal life can sur-
vive for any protra&ed period an absence of
moisture. During the prevalence of the
drought heavy dews doubtless afforded a suf-
ficiently copious morning draught to slake
the thirst for a period of twenty-four hours,
and so met the needs of small mammals, as
mice and shrews, and birds, like sparrows,
but ordinarily these same creatures drink
much oftener than once a day. But this
briefly moist condition of the dawn and early
morning hours was not of itself sufficient to
keep the wide range of animal life in health
or comfort, and the result was a migratory
movement from the drier uplands to the
moister meadows ; a noticeable depletion of
the fields and overcrowding of the marshes.
This was not suddenly brought about, but
rather gradual, and would not probably have
been noticed except by one daily upon the
scene. The parched vegetation had, of
course, its effect upon seed-eating birds, but
probably a more marked one upon insect life.
Certainly the inseft-eating birds left their old
haunts to a great extent and were found in
unusual abundance along the two creeks that

68 The Effects of a Drought

divide the meadows into three great trails ;
and it was noticeable during the evening that
bats and night-hawks were more abundant
over the meadows than the fields. Mice and
hares certainly were unusually scarce in the
uplands. Here, it should be remembered,
no observations were practicable that gave
positive results. No census could be taken
of the life in the two localities, and every
statement is one of general impressions
gained by almost daily visits to the more im-
portant points. One unquestionable facl: was
ascertained : there was an unusual abundance
of life of every kind in the lowlands, and a
quiet, desolate condition of the fields above,
wholly different from what obtains in ordi-
nary summers. As the weeks rolled by, the
smaller meadow streams failed entirely, and
hundreds of acres of land, usually more or less
wet the year through, became as dry, parched,
and desert-like as the sandiest field in the
higher ground. Aquatic and semi-aquatic
plants withered and died. The rose mallow
failed to bloom, arrow-leaf wilted, and the
pickerel weeds were soon as brown as sedges.
This condition necessitated a second migra-
tory movement of many forms of life, but

The Effects of a Drought 69

was fatal to others. Such creatures as took
refuge in pools found when too late their
means of escape cut off and perished. Small
minnows, young salamanders, and even
aquatic insefts gradually succumbed, and
their dried remains were found resting upon
the parched mud, which became quite hard,
sustaining an ordinary foot-press without re-
taining any mark thereof. Lifting the mum-
mified remains from their resting-place, there
were found impressions of each, distinct in
almost every feature. It was instructive as
showing how fossils are formed, and further
so, in indicating how animals not associated
in life become accumulated in small areas.
In one such dried-up pool I found a mouse,
a star-nosed mole, and remains of many earth-
worms, as well as fish, batrachians, and in-
sefts. Just why the mouse and mole should
have remained there and died can only be
surmised. But, to return to the uplands : a
more striking instance of the effedls of the
drought was to be seen in a small stream
known as Pond Run. This is fed by scat-
tered springs ; is a stream of perhaps an
average depth of six inches and a width of
two or three feet. Sudden dashes of rain

70 The Effects of a Drought

swell the volume of waters, but this accession
is as rapidly run off. In ordinary summers
the volume is reduced to considerably below
the estimated average measurements, but the
stream has seldom before been known to be
absolutely dry throughout its course. For a
period of five weeks the water from the
springs along its valley were insufficient to
give it running water, and in many cases
there was no perceptible moisture at the
fountain-heads. As the water gradually dis-
appeared, that portion of the stream's fauna
dependent wholly upon moisture — as fish,
turtles, and batrachians — collected in the
pools, particularly those beneath bridges, and
there, by overcrowding, soon poisoned the
water, to which no fresh supply was being
added. It might be asked why these ani-
mals, except the fish, did not seek other and
healthier localities, but the reason is plain.
Everywhere about them was an arid region
exposed to a tropical temperature into which
they did not dare to venture. Again, while
lingering in the pest-holes into which they
had gathered, they had gradually undermined
their strength and were too weak to travel
when, if ever, it occurred to them to do so.

The Effects of a Drought 71

And now back to the meadows. The last
general migratory movement was to the tide-
water flats, and here, of course, the moisture
and vegetation were unaffected, and I have
never seen so crowded a condition as that in
which were many of the streams that were
never quite dry at even the lowest stage of
the tide. The carnivorous fishes waxed fat,
for there was an available minnow ever in
front of every pike, perch, and bass ; and
the grasshoppers, driven to the creek banks,
where alone there was green herbage, were
continually leaping into the stream, and were
snapped up before they could reach the op-
posite shore. There was here, however,
not such an accession of batrachian life, frogs
in particular, as might have been expected,
and I failed to notice any undue number of
the mud minnow (Umbra limf). This fact
led me to make a few examinations of the
parched or semi-desiccated areas. I found
in two locations, that I had never before
known to become dry, that frogs, of three
species, and the mud minnow had buried
themselves where there still remained moist-
ure, but with a crust of dry earth above it.
These frogs and fish were like hibernating

72 The Effects of a Drought

animals when exhumed, — i.e., soundly asleep,
rather than dead, and all slowly revived when
placed in clear, cool water. I estimated that
they had been in their cramped quarters for
at least three weeks. Two weeks later, I
hunted for others, but failed to find them ;
but the day after the first prolonged rain I
found the mud minnows in their usual abun-
dance in this same brook, which now had
about one-half its ordinary flow of water,
and the frogs were dozing on the banks and
leaping into the stream as unconcernedly as
if nothing unusual had occurred.

Possibly the above simple narration of
certain fa£ts may seem to be of no special
interest or importance, but there were two
features of it that do not appear to have been
treated of in general natural histories : the
self-inhumation of the fish and frogs and the
wonderful promptness of the return of life
to the temporarily depopulated areas. It
does not seem unreasonable to suggest that as
long as these inhumed animals could retain
the.ir moisture they could preserve their
lives. Both the frogs and this one fish can
withstand prolonged deprivation of food. I
have tried the cruel experiment in one in-

The Effects of a Drought 73

stance, and a mud minnow had no food for
seven weeks, and had only lost two-fifths of
its weight when it died. As this is a period
longer than the duration of any drought on
record, when fish-sustaining streams were
aftually dry, it goes to show that this species
is better prepared than any other to accom-
modate itself to certain geological changes
when they come about. Curiously enough,
the mud minnow looks more like a fossil
than an ordinary brook minnow, is the sole
representative of its genus, and is the only
species of fresh-water fish found in both
Europe and America.

While the drought destroyed much life, it
more largely deported it, and I have, in
many years of wandering about my home,
seen nothing more positively wonderful than
the promptness with which every nook and
corner was repopulated when the autumn
rains came. Vegetal as well as animal life
responded at once. The fish were promptly
in the brooks, the aquatic salamanders under
the flat stones, and the frogs in their places ;
and on many an afternoon of sunny October
days I heard their croaking, as if thankful
for the return of the old-time conditions.

74 The Effects of a Drought

During the summer of 1896, there was a
more abundant precipitation during the
months of June and July, and the area de-
scribed in the foregoing pages was not so
soon affefted by lack of water ; but the an-
nual drought, though delayed, came at last,
and I was, of course, curious to note its
effefts and compare notes with the preceding
summer. Herein I was disappointed, for, to
all appearances, there had been going on an-
ticipatory movements on the part of the same
forms of life observed in 1895; and before
the upland brooks and swamps were dry, and
only the margins of springs were constantly
wet, all animal life had sought the tide- water
areas, where the evil effe&s of drought could
not reach them. I found no fish entrapped
in pools without outlets, or a single sleeping,
mud-encased frog or minnow. The general
aspect, zoologically, of many an upland trail
was that of an "azoic" desert, suggesting
that no living creature had ever been here ;
and, truly, there is no more melancholy sight
than the dry bed of a brook which for ten
months of the year is the scene of aftive life
in endless forms. I had rather wander
among skeletons in an opened graveyard

The Effects of a Drought 75

than take my outing in the track of a de-
serted watercourse. Nothing was gained
by the comparison of the conditions of the
one summer with the other, for it is beyond
belief that the life that was discommoded by
the drought really anticipated it. I suppose
the change was more gradual than in 1895,
and no form of life was caught napping. I
should have made daily observations for more,
than a month, walking ten miles every morn-
ing and evening, and I did nothing of the-
kind ; and it is only by unremitting effort
and an abundance of early morning courage
that really valuable observations can be made.
A leisurely outlook, at your convenience,
may be very pleasant, but do not generalize
upon what you see under such circumstances.
To return to our subject : if the phenom-
enon of a drought became an established con-
dition, a migratorial movement from upland
to meadow would soon become established ;
just as every year there is a transitionary flight
of sparrows of several species from the upland
fields to the low-lying meadows. This is, I
suppose, a question among themselves of food-
supply, the crop of seeds failing in the fields
first because there they are earlier to ripen.

76 The Effects of a Drought

There was, however, one feature of the
past summer that had peculiar interest. For
eight days in August (5-12) we had the
hottest " spell" ever known. The thermo-
metric readings have been higher in other
years, but this is not everything : all the con-
ditions are to be considered, the hygrometric
especially, and in this instance it can be
safely said that no record exists of continued
heat when wild-life was so generally affefted
and the weather, as a whole, so nearly that
of the equatorial tropics. As a whole, the
effect of the heat, as I observed it, was a
stupefying one. It produced a languor that
while withstood by such wild animals as
rabbits, mice, and chipmunks, made them
inert and much more easily outstripped in a
race. This was notably so in the case of the
jumping, the short-tailed meadow, and the
white-footed mouse ; not one of which, it
may be said, is akin to the typical house
mouse. In several instances, the land tor-
toise, though it was sheltered by dead leaves
and in the shady woods, was very noticeably
indisposed to move about. In the range of
my rambles there was a marked period of
rest, as we may call it, from 10 A.M. to 4

The Effects of a Drought 77

P.M., that recalled the prolonged mid-harvest
noonings of the farmer's help ; but, besides
this, the heated term in question really affefted
wild-life throughout the night as well. Cer-
tainly there was a marked difference in the
activity of all furred creatures. The differ-
ence in temperature between noon and mid-
night did not always rouse even the flying-
squirrels to their wonted no&urnal activities.
If the temperature of those August days was
prolonged to sixty or ninety days, and of
regular occurrence, migration or aestivation
would be brought about, — more probably the
latter. Something akin to it can be traced,
if our investigations are thorough, even now.
Whatever may be its cause, the drought ap-
pears to have become an established con-
dition, but varying as to time, of each sum-
mer. It is more marked now than a century
ago, and the question arises, Is it the initial
step towards a change of climate, to a wet
and dry season, rather than the present dual
condition of warm and cold ?

A single entertaining incident relieved the
scene of desolation, — for these strong terms
are certainly applicable to a region affe&ed
by even this less prolonged drought of 1896.

78 The Effects of a Drought

I found a philosophical toad, housed in a
very unique fashion. Crows had pecked a
hole in an early maturing watermelon and
then turned it over in order that the seeds
might fall out or gravitate to the opening, as
the pulp of the melon slowly decayed. This
is an old trick of these birds that is so in-
genious that I am more than ever their friend
in spite of the mischief done. A few melons
less, but does the entertainment afforded by
the birds go for nothing ? When I made the
discovery there was little more than the
wrinkled rind left, draped inside with an
abundance of very red paper. The toad — a
very old one from appearance — had taken up
his abode in the melon, and to see him sitting
at the door of his home, contemplating the
drying up of creation, was extremely funny.
Everybody that I brought to the spot had
something to say about Diogenes and his tub,
and I gave up all intention of writing on this
subjeft. Diogenes was in everybody's mouth,
even to high-school girl graduates of the cur-
rent summer. That toad led to more display
of classical knowledge than I had previously
discovered in the conversation of my friends.
I considered the toad from a purely zoologi-

The Effects of a Drought 79

cal stand-point. The creature was in truth
a philosopher. The sweet edges of the
opening in the melon attracted inse&s, and
so the toad had food, shelter, and a safe re-
treat from the scorching temperature so asso-
ciated that no physical exertion was required
to meet all life's demands.

JTINfER-GREEN

THE woods in winter are as thick with
short sermons as ever in June they
are obscured by green leaves. The mercury
fell to zero in the night and the ground is as
a rock, yet I found an unfaded, thrifty plant
that made no sign of discouragement and
looked up as confidently as violets in May.
Winter-green ; and when so much is in the
name itself, why say more ? A thrifty growth
that defies the frost and adds its mite to
the cheerfulness about it, whatever the con-
ditions. How much winter-green breaks
through our habitual crustiness !

Seen from afar, perhaps the old woods
looked dreary ; but who ever fathomed the
merit and merriment beyond a wrinkled face
until circumstances led us to break through
the restraining frown? To him who is a
stranger to them, the woods in winter are
forbidding. Advances cannot come from
80

Winter-green 81

them. Have they ever come from you ? I
went into the woods this morning with a
light heart because every old oak was a life-
long companion, and the glinting sunshine
was their smiles, and not mere glitter of the
sun beyond. We lose in part our grip upon
enjoyment when we cease to make believe,
child-fashion. Seeing the winter-green, I
fancied it was spring ; and then came mosses
and greenbrier and the chatter of a squirrel.
What, then, did it matter where the mercury
went ? It might disappear without affefting
these pleasant February foretastes of what is
near at hand. There was not a forbidding
feature within sight; and while I dallied
with the thread-like mosses clinging to the
trees there came by that delightful songster
of the round year, a Carolina wren. There
was never weather so foul but this bird has
a pleasant word to speak of it. It came, it
sang, it conquered. There was neither cold,
nor gloom, nor evidence of more cheerful
days in time past, when the wren, perched
upon a bending branch of spicewood, uttered
all the happiness of its unchanging heart.
That song could have held back the darkness.
Had it, too, found the winter-green ? Stay !

6

82 Winter-green

Can it be possible that I heard the creaking
of a rusty sign-board, and this Carolina wren
was born of my inner consciousness? Such
a suggestion came recently from an ornitholo-
gist ! What if the scales were to drop from
my eyes, only to find that here in my home,
on these old meadows, there never was a bird,
and the region was in its primeval, azoic con-
dition ? How the fellow would rejoice ! As
for me, I am glad that the ornithologist's
soulless birds, mere bones and feathers, keep
away.

I followed a narrow wood-path that led
me into the very depths of the forest ; but
green leaves were still about me, and now I
heard a chatter as if some hidden friend were
laughing at me, and the blue-jay and golden-
winged woodpecker were near at hand and
questioning me rather than I them. They,
too, laughed at this zero weather, and the
woodpecker tapped on the hollow branch of
a primeval oak ; tapped and rattled with all
his might, and then turned to me as if for
applause. Then away to still more remote
recesses in the wood, laughing all the while.
I remembered the winter-green, and laughed,
too. For a while, as I stood there, the woods

Winter-green 83

were silent. I had a vivid impression for
the moment that it was really winter and in-
tensely cold. If I had suffered it would
have been my own fault wholly, for he who
truly loves an outing can keep all ugliness in
the background. It requires no magician's
wand. I looked again for winter-green and
found it, and there, too, was the bush-nest
of white-footed mice. I startled them from
their snug retreat and gave chase, and, after
a brisk dash through the underbrush, came
off captor. Now, it is well at times to be as.
savage as ever was palaeolithic man, who lived
ages ago on this very spot, but stop this side
of murder. Follow the game as closely, as
persistently, as the hound follows the fox,
but, at the final moment, offer the hand of
fellowship rather than the fangs of destruc-
tion. The former merely ends the chapter,
with sweeter ones to follow ; the latter ends
a tragedy of but one aft, and leaves the sur-
vivor unworthy of himself. I carried the
captive mouse back to his home, but held
him awhile before setting him down at his
own door. What a gain it would have been
could I have translated the glitter of his
black eyes ! Was it fear or rage ? I judge

84 Winter-green

the former, for the poor thing trembled, and
when I set it down it ran, not into its house,
but to a prostrate log, and disappeared under
dead leaves. I certainly had not gained its
confidence, and when I come this way again
it will not be caught napping. No matter
how gently I move, it will never believe I
did not intend it harm. Its first impressions,
like our own, are stamped with indelible ink
that will shine through the varnish of all
subsequent experiences. Perhaps I dulled
the winter-green for the day of that one
mouse, but I had brightened my own. No
incident, however trifling, should be lost
upon us, and my pulses were thrilled with a
healthier joy than the hunter had experi-
enced, who had passed me by, laden with
furs from his traps. The recent flood had
worked destruction to the muskrats, and not
a mink or raccoon or opossum but had fled
from the drowned meadows. They were
hiding in these woods, so the trapper told
me, but I had not seen them. Not one of
them but is more cunning than a mouse, but
I do not know that they could have taught
me any more had I met them in my path.
They have not greater significance because

Winter-green 85

of their size, and are too apt to rouse the
savage instinct that was the only impulse of
primitive man. But I kept more upon the
alert when again alone, and thought every
scratch of the ground was the footprint of
an animal. Not a bunch of leaves but moved
as might a wildcat or a skulking coon. I
had ceased to ramble and turned hunter, but
the merriest of all our winter birds recalled
me to my better senses. The crested tit
whistled here! here! and looking up I saw
green leaves upon the climbing smilax, and
looking down, winter-green was waving
above fresh mosses that had not been fingered
by the blighting frost. There was not a
feature of the thick woods but wore a smile ;
and that strange bird, by its magic, conjured
up every songster within hearing, and jays,
cardinals, kinglets, and chickadees came to
the very tree upon which he perched. The
old oak was an aviary, and what gladness
rang through the old woods, which are said
to be deserted and dreary even unto desola-
tion in winter ! Did I carry winter-green
into the town, I would be told it came from
a hot-house. Well, it did not come from
the death-like regions of your supposition, a

86 Winter-green

lifeless wood in winter. I never saw such a
place. With the mercury at zero, there was
still abundant life, abundant winter-green,
abundant incident about which to ponder, as
I pass down the long, varying line of days
that make my changeful years.

?HE WITCHERY OF WINTER

" TF a walk in winter is not simply stum-
1 bling over the graves of a dead sum-
mer's darlings, what, pray, is it ?" In some
such way ran the remark of a man who had
seen our winters only from car-windows or
those of his house on the city's street. It
is not strange that he held such an opinion.
Not even a sleigh-ride affords a fair view of
the world in winter. We must be free to
move if we would be free to see, and only
when on foot and we have the freedom of
the fields as well as of the highways can we
know what winter really means, and by win-
ter I mean weather that requires us to make
war upon the wood-pile. Winter is the
crystallization of a summer. A fixedness
and quiet now replace the flowing river and
music of the many birds that sang through-
out its valley. Now are the days of slender
shadows that streak the dull gray ground or
87

88 The Witchery of Winter

send narrow lines of darkness over the un-
trodden snow. The shades of leafy summer
are shrunken. There are dimly lighted
nooks where cedars cluster and crannies that
are well defended by the frozen ferns, but
light is all-pervading, in a general sense, and
how wide open alike are the fields and forest !
The opened door is an invitation to enter,
but how slow are we to accept the invitation
of winter, when the leafy curtains are with-
drawn and the world more than ever open to
inspection ! Are we to be forever afraid to
look through the bare twigs to the sky above,
lest we see the new moon barred by a branch
and so tremble for our luck? The naked
beam and rafter of Nature's temple are not
desolate as the ruins of man's handiwork, for
we know that their covering will be renewed
in due season. Trees, indeed, in their un-
dress uniform are none the less natural and
forever retain their individuality. The
wrinkles of their bark are their autographs,
and we should learn to read them.

But what is winter to me ? The brook,
the leafless trees, the frozen grass, and all
hungry life, whether bird or beast, protest,
but I find no reason to complain. My

The Witchery of Winter

The Witchery of Winter

scad narrow lines of darkness over the un-
^n snow. The shades of leafy summer
are shrunken. There are dimly lighted
nooks where cedars cluster and crannies that
are well defended by the frozen ferns, but
light is all-pervading, in a general sense, and
how wide open alike are the fields and forest !
The opened door is an invitation to enter,
but how slow are we to accept the invitation
of winter, when the leafy curtains are with-
drawn and the world more than ever open to
inspection ! Are we to be forever afraid to
look through the bare twigs to the sky above,
lest we see the new moon barred by a branch
and so tremble for our luck? The naked
beam and rafter of Nature's temple are not
desolate as the ruins of man's handiwork, for
we know that their covering will be renewed
in due season. Trees, indeed, in their un-
dress uniform are none the less natural and
forever retain their individuality. The
wrinkles of their bark are their autog
and we should learn to read them.

But what is winter to me ? Th« brook,
the leafless trees, the frozen grass, ana all
hungry life, whether otest,

but I find n«tudraisv>.i(;<*&ttro sA'V din. My

The Witchery of Winter 89

needs are never many, and I have no sense
of want when " fun in feathers," the
crested tit, bears me company. We met
this morning at the three beeches, and wan-
dered together down the wood road to the
edge of the meadow. I have been walking
here for so many years there is danger of
repetition if I mention to-day ; but no,
Nature is never a repetition. The fault lies
with ourselves if this is apparently true.
Nature cares nothing for us, and we must
force her to smile if we would be at all
favored. The wind has other errands than
to whistle for our amusement ; no storm
ever passed by on the other side because of
our presence. All that we learn comes from
our own efforts ; we must wrest Nature's
secrets from her ; she neither invites us nor
volunteers any information. Every day has
its own history, and the friends of yester-
day are often more companionable to-day.
Certainly my jolly, crested tit has gained
since first we met, and now is nearer per-
feftion than ever before. I am sure of this,
and yet much may be due to a clearer insight
as to what a bird really is. Is my compan-
ion bird ever convinced I have no weapon

go The Witchery of Winter

about me? Tame as he is, he never de-
stroys the bridges behind him. I cannot
quite gain his confidence. I fancy if some
of us could see ourselves as birds see us,
with what a sense of degradation would we
be overwhelmed ! Seldom is it that we are
not greeted, by every bird we meet, as a
red-handed murderer. An exception to-
day, however, for this jolly tit was socially
inclined. He peeped over his shoulder as I
drew near ; called out to me as I was about
to pass by, and so we exchanged "good-
mornings" as friend to friend. It is difficult
to decide whether man or bird was really
the leader, we kept so near together as we
passed to the end of our woodland journey.

It needs but some such incident as this to
give us insight as to winter's real character.
There can come no impression of death or
desolation when, as we pass, we have birds
hailing us from every tree-top, and is it not
significant that our smallest bird, save one,
braves our severest weather ? Yet we muffle
ourselves in endless wraps and rush frantically
from shelter to shelter when the mercury
ranges low, as if the frost of a midwinter
day was as fatal as some devouring flame.

The Witchery of Winter 91

There is a pretty outlook at the edge of
the woods, and never more attractive than
when the snow lightly covers the grass, and
every tall rush and sedge and berry-laden
bush stands forth in greater beauty because
of the glistening background ; and here, red
as our brightest berry, the cardinal shone
on the bare twigs as the gayest midsummer
blossom. Now here is wealth sufficient for
any rambler's needs, and greater would prove
an embarrassment. There can be too many
birds at one time, as witness the warblers on
May-day. You are easily lost in a crowd,
but what is more charming than a quiet chat
with a friend ? My crested tit had left me,
but here was the kinglet still, and now a
sprightly cardinal had come. He, too, is
most excellent company, but how seldom
disposed to be confiding ! The safety of a
thicket must ever be at hand and never an
instant that his eyes are not upon you. It
is very humiliating, but though our meetings
are always marred in this way, there is still
abundant pleasure in them. To-day the
cardinal whistled a wild note that ought to
have waked the echoes in the sleepy hills, —
a clear, fife-like call, as if it would rouse the

92 The Witchery of Winter

slumbering trees and make the grass green
again ; but the cardinal's magic reached me
only, and I forgot that it was winter.

There is a livelier thrill to every pulse-
beat when saluted in such hearty fashion.
We are of one mind, this cardinal and I,
and agree that winter needs to be better un-
derstood. Here at my feet is a frozen and
forlorn fern, but it is green still, if it no
longer waves gracefully as a feather in the
passing breeze ; accept it for what it recalls
to-day, and be not forever fretful because
summer could not stay and protect it. Every
crisp, brown leaf that has fallen from the
oaks has its own story to tell. Have you
listened yet to know how charming it really
is? Here among them, too, are acorns in
endless numbers, — large and small ones ;
brown, green, and mottled ones. Here,
where squirrels have been feasting in the
cheerful warmth of winter sunshine, I, too,
can find comfort, even playing with acorn-
cups for an hour, and so again a child.
There is no cause for discontent in a winter
that merely sports with the tip of your nose
or stiffens your ears. Are you going to
retreat at such an assault, and, showing a

The Witchery of Winter 93

white flag, hurry to the fireside? Such
winter days ought to bring out one's true
self, and just so far as the weather is hearty
be the same. Meet it half-way, and what
we should fear of it will never come to pass.
Winter finds us such easy prey that it reaches
the heart. Summer there, and you are well
armed. Neither the winter of each return-
ing year nor the stealthy winter of age can,
thus armed, ever claim you captive. But let
Nature preach; it is not man's forte. No
sermon fits the sunshine of a clear December
day other than one of its own reading ; and
the frozen meadow can speak direftly to
you, and will, if you are disposed to listen.
There will be no waste of words, no rhe-
torical flourishes, but a plain exposition of
what is transpiring, and why. It is not
always that we ask intelligent questions, and
Nature is quite certain to resent the inquisi-
tiveness of idle curiosity. The mystery of
Nature is only the lack of our ability to
comprehend her. Much of what is imputed
to Nature as a mysterious quality is really a
lack of brains on our own part.

The frozen meadow was beautiful, but I
lingered in the woods. There is a feeling

94 The Witchery of Winter

of companionship when among old trees that
is less pronounced among the weeds and
grass ; a circle of the eleft in one case, the
common crowd in the other; but this is
unkind to the honest weeds in the meadow.
But I was not alone with the trees. I
startled deer-mice that leaped in a bewil-
dered way from their bird-nest homes, and
what a tumult in a decayed log when I sent
a great puff of smoke through the many
tunnellings of the rotten tree-trunk now
occupied by fat, lazy meadow mice ! — those
that have the long runways in the grass and
burrows besides, deep into the ground, into
which they precipitately flee when too close
pressed. It is only of recent date that I
have found these creatures entertaining.

They have hitherto been stupid and I
have often passed them by without a second
glance, but a touch of frost wakens them to a
livelier pace, and then, as it was to-day, they
are worthy game for the fun-loving rambler.
When these mice sit up, with a berry in
their forepaws, and look inquiringly about
as you draw near, they have as much char-
after as any squirrel, and are very like the
marmots of the far West in their general

The Witchery of Winter 95

appearance, though infinitely smaller. Mice
that make merry on the frozen grass and can
squeak defiance to the prowling hawk are
no mean feature of a winter outlook.

And the hawk itself, — a pale-blue harrier
that with matchless grace swept the weed-
tops, — what a feature to any landscape ! I
had been thinking well of the poor mice
that fled in terror from me and made much
of them for the time, but how quickly for-
gotten were they in the presence of a hawk !
It is not strange, but is it wise to be thus
easily led from the lesser to the greater
objeft? Rid yourself of preconceptions,
and study both hawk and mouse without
prejudice, and is there greater nobility in
the feathers than in the fur? Is the com-
manding murderer more to be commended
and admired and copied than the murdered
mouse ? If closely questioned we say " no" •
to the bystanders, and yet we are as well
aware as are our hearers that we are lying.
In spite of all good intentions, we are for-
ever following and applauding the tyrant in
his feathers and forgetting the toiling mice inj
their furs. So, to-day ; so, yesterday ; so it
will always be; and the injustice of it flour-

96 The Witchery of Winter

ishes as the weeds that we are ever scotching
and never kill.

The summer's heat and the summer's
shade are gone, but the solid earth remains.
The footprints of a ramble of long ago are
still to be traced along this woodland path,
and I stand in these again. The trees, the
shrubbery, the hill-side and meadow, the
winding creek and resistless river, are all still
here, — changed, yet the same. Nor do I
alone represent the life of this charmed spot.
There are birds about me, — birds that whis-
per glad tidings as they chirp near by ; birds
that pipe a merry strain whenever the bare
twigs rattle ; birds that scream their delight
from cloud-land. In all that I see and hear
there is no trace of the fault-finder's peevish
moan. All is hearty ; all is cheerful. The
world is accepted as it is, and it is no vain
conceit to speak with confidence of the
witchery of winter.

COMPANY AND SOLIfUDE
I.

"COMPANY."

WHEN I was a child, there was no
word in our language more ex-
pressive to me of all that was mildly terri-
ble than " company." It meant unreason-
able restraint, and the necessity of spotless
clothing, a painfully stiff collar, and clean
hands, — everything, in fa£l, that a small boy
of average health and spirits naturally de-
tests. Then, too, there was the showing
off of infantile accomplishments, and a gen-
eral disarrangement of every childish idea of
comfort. I learned at five to detest " com-
pany," and at fifty I have not outgrown the
impressions then acquired. I do not like
company. Not that I am afraid of strangers,
nor that, being a householder, I am inhospi-
7 97

98 Company and Solitude

table ; but " company" — well, I am at a loss
to express my real meaning. I remember
an old neighbor, an uncouth creature, a con-
temporary of my grandfather, who was ac-
customed to declare that a brief call was a
" vis," to spend the day, a visit, and to stay
overnight, a visitation. This may not have
been original with him, but it was a pithy
way of putting the matter, and has been my
law and gospel on this subject ever since.

Of what earthly use is " company" ? You
probably see your neighbors once a week,
meeting them on the public highways, and
if you nod pleasantly, and speak a word or
two of the weather and of the health of the
family, has not everything been done that
necessities require or formality can reason-
ably demand ? If you have business or need
information that others can give you, go and
ask of them. Be brief, but to the point, and,
leaving with what is desired, carry away also
their blessing. To go to another's house,
to request of its inmates, one or all, to sit
for half an hour or longer and listen to your
platitudes, and, coming away, lie to them
about a pleasant call, is intolerable. Yet
there are thousands who do this daily. Why

Company and Solitude 99

should I leave my occupation, be it loafing
even, and give my attention to some man or
woman who is thoughtless enough to " call" ?
The actuating motive never appears. Much
is spoken and nothing said. I receive no
worthy thought to profit by or increase the
probability of a beatific eternity. The famil-
iar well-gnawed bones of doctrine fall from
the devil's table. Usually I am forced to
breathe, at such a time, a gossip-poisoned
atmosphere. This " call" is another's idea
of civility, and I am compelled, it appears,
to be a vi&im of his or her whim. If I
refuse, as I have done point-blank, to present
myself, I am called a boor and all manner of
ugly names. Well, is it not better to be
called black as night, and know that you have
the whiteness of mid-day in your heart, than
to be called civil, while you are cursing the
thoughtlessness of the company that has
called ? That is my view of the matter.

The world professes to hold in righteous
indignation a hypocrite ; but how are we to
escape hypocrisy if we become the slaves
of company ? It has often been said that the
set phrases of formal social customs are un-
derstood by everybody and no harm is done.

ioo Company and Solitude

Perhaps so, but I am concerned more with
the harm I do myself than with that I cause
to others. If I have one possession above
another that I value, it is my time, my living,
my concerns with myself; and there is no
surplusage to be bestowed upon formalities
that bring neither pleasure nor profit and do
not redound to my credit in any way in
which the subject can be looked at. I insist
that there is nothing churlish in this view.
I have not those in mind whom I call my
friends, but the average caller, the " com-
pany" that is dying — but, alas, never dies — to
know what your most secret thoughts have
been that day, so that he or she may an-
nounce them to some other vidlim of his or
her calling list. This is not evidence that I
am averse to a lively chat over the fence
with my next-door neighbor, nor that I do
not love to discuss old times with a former
playmate when we meet. All such occur-
rences— and they have an added charm when
happening by chance — are delightful and of
quite another chara&er : they are as honest,
outspoken, and hearty as that sweetest music
in the world, the laughter of childhood.
The frankness of a pleasant meeting is as

Company and Solitude 101

refreshing and soul-satisfying as the formali-
ties of " company" are arid and degrading.

We had company to-day. I was asked
for, — as if one viftim were not sufficient, —
and, as often happens, declaring I would not
appear, appeared. Luckily my memory was
in working order, and I put it to a severe
test. Now, an hour after the plague had
ceased to trouble by its presence, the soft,
sibilant, loud whisperings remain. The
company took just fifty minutes to inform
me that I was looking well ; that I was
looking extremely well ; that I never looked
better. Pleasant sounds, doubtless, are such
words to those who are really ill, notwith-
standing their inapplicability ; but I am in
ordinary health. I was also told that the
weather had been unpleasant, very unpleas-
ant, positively disagreeable ; and, as I had
not been house-bound for a month, this was
scarcely complimentary to my powers of
observation. All the while, I never opened
my lips, unmoved by madam's black looks,
which I interpreted aright. The company
were persistent, and attacked me from an-
other quarter : Did I think we should have
pleasant weather soon? I remained silent

1O2 Company and Solitude

for a moment, and was about to reply, when
another question was put : Will there be a
pleasant summer ? This was somewhat stag-
gering. How was I to know the chara&er
of the coming season ? I smiled, hypocriti-
cally of course, and replied that I hoped for
pleasant weather in the next world, but did
not dare to prophesy as to this. The fools
tittered. I supposed I had scored a success
at meeting formal company, and was heaving
an inaudible sigh of relief, when the guests
rose to depart; but it seems that my part
was not well done, and madam scolded me
for rudeness. I am convinced, now, that I
cannot become a successful formalist, and I
understand that our callers agree with this.
They call me a boor and other significant
names ; but then, out of the parlor I am
abundantly happy, and doubtless my days
will not be shortened by my lack of appre-
ciation of their valueless inanities.

Is it, seriously speaking, necessary for one
to part company with a bird or a flower, to
leave the open air for a stuffy room and miss
music and beauty, that a caller may have
opportunity to assure you that two and two
make four ? Even if the caller has knowl-

Company and Solitude 103

edge — his alone, it may be — that he is will-
ing to impart, how is he to know that I will
value it ? It may be that I am wrong, — that
such a course, if general, would check the
world's progress ; but I am not convinced.
Who, indeed, are those that have furthered
progress so far, — the chattering gad-about,
the caller, our " company," or those who
value their time and are not willing to sit
idly by and be talked at by anybody and
everybody who happens to call ?

An honest meeting of man with man is
usually an accidental one. Often, seeing
them approach, for the lane is long and
straight, I have hastened to the hill-side, to
be rid of the obnoxious callers. Here, if in
summer, I let the songs of thrushes entertain
me, or, in winter, listen to the titmouse, that
is always cheerful, or watch the long lines
of roostward-flying crows. I have never yet
wearied of this, or found such conditions to
lose their suggestiveness. When to-day's
company had gone and madam's lefture was
ended, I hurried to the farm's most unfre-
quented corner and rested at the mossy stile,
over which so few pass these later years, for
the once well-worn foot-path is now torn

104 Company and Solitude

yearly by the plough. While I tarried, I
was hailed by a hearty man who lives close
to nature.

"Have you heard the eagles scream to-
day ?" he asked.

" No," I replied : " are there any about ?"

" Do you think I would ask you what I
did, if it was an impossible thing ?" he re-
plied, with a trace of anger in his voice.

I was deservedly snubbed. Here was a
man who knew every nook and corner of the
land, every tree, bush, flowering plant, beast,
and bird; and to think that I should have
expressed a doubt of his sincerity ! That
trifling " company" had been too much for
me. I looked my regrets, and the old man
read my eyes.

" Yes," he said, in his usual earnest man-
ner, " there was a grand pair of eagles here
at sunrise, and they screamed until the hill-
side trembled with their rage. They soared
until out of sight, and then came swooping
down until the tree-tops were moved by
their wings, and all the time one or the other
screamed till you would have thought their
throats would crack. Not another bird along
the hill-side opened its bill. It was as still

Company and Solitude 105

as winter, till they were gone, miles down
the river ; and then what a chatter the crows
set up ! You might have thought they had
driven the eagles off and were crowing over
their viftory."

This is such knowledge as I am ever ready
to receive. I am always on the lookout for
eagles, and my friend has been more fortu-
nate than I. His wealth he is ready to di-
vide, seeing it does not diminish by so doing.
I am the gainer, yet he is not a loser. Such
meetings make me thankful I am not alone in
the world. But what had I to offer as an
equivalent ? He had given me also of his
time, which I knew was held at its full value
by him, and was I to receive this as a gift ?
I was humbled by the thought that I had not
power to make adequate return, and would
at least have admitted as much ; but my friend
could read me as he did the wild world about
him, and said, as he turned to leave me, " You
are glad to know that I have seen eagles to-
day, and I am glad to be able to tell you."

His recompense was the knowledge of
having been of use to another. I had not
thought of that. Such people have no time
to call ; for them, there are no moments to

106 Company and Solitude

be spent in formulating phrases that are
empty; but meeting you while on their
way, as here at the stile, they bless you with
weighty words and leave you wiser than be-
fore. We cannot " keep" such company ;
it is vouchsafed to no one as an e very-day
feature of his life ; but it may sparkle through
his years, here and there, like flakes of gold
in quartz.

I have argued in this strain for years, find-
ing no one to agree ; yet every year strengthens
my conclusions. Of course, folks will not
cease to " call" until the crack of doom, and
many will be on their way to their neighbors
when they hear it. They hold themselves
as philanthropic people, but I would that
every one was to a greater extent misan-
thropic rather. Speaking for myself, it is a
positive pleasure, whenever I think of it,
that I grew up a savage. The plain, modest,
and compact flower of misanthropy has been
too long neglecled. Plant it where it will
be most often seen, and let its blossoms in-
fluence our lives to a greater symmetry.

Company and Solitude 107

II.

SOLITUDE.

" Distrust mankind : with your own heart confer,
And dread even there to find a flatterer.'*

" The foremost object in my experience
has always been the ninth letter of the alpha-
bet," I remarked.

" Then you are a crabbed creature,
wrapped up in yourself," my companion
replied.

" For once you have told the truth ; now
leave me, please."

What would this room be if there were
others in it? Merely a very plain, bare-
walled affair; a shelter, for it is raining
now, and but little else. But luckily I am
alone, and through the distorting panes of
greenish glass, through which the light of
sunrise in an earlier century penetrated, I
look out upon a pretty world. I am alone,
and the crowd about me hampers every
movement; but did so much as a single
human being open the door, and I should be

lo8 Company and Solitude

alone in quite another sense. In what men
call solitude I have all my friends about me ;
when in man's presence, all too often, I am
literally alone.

I fancy that all work of value or even of
idle interest to the world is done in secret.
We can praise or blame, admire or detest a
crowded street ; but what we wish others to
know must come to us and be recorded when
the crowded street is a mere matter of mem-
ory. The ghosts of the dead centuries can
peep over my shoulders and peer from every
corner of this little room without disconcert-
ing me, but let some mortal in the flesh open
the door and my thoughts are as far off as
these same ghosts that but a moment ago
were grinning at me and I grinning back at
them.

It is safe to love a ghost. Though there
is a delightful individuality discernible, still
they are much like the clay in the potter's
hands : we can shape them within reason-
able bounds. Exhilarating thought, too ; I
have not yet met a ghost that was not a
gentleman. Of ghosts of the other sex I
know nothing, having never seen one. The
former are familiar, they are of easy man-

Company and Solitude 109

ners, a little roguish at times, and a bit in-
quisitive, yet never that terror of the flesh,
obtrusive. Intuition never deserts the ghost.
It reads your thoughts before it enters your
presence, and knows to the second when to
come and go. These jolly creatures are my
best friends, and how can any one be alone
when such company is ever at hand, asking
no other condition than that your fleshly
brethren shall keep in the background? I
have accepted their terms, and so, while I
love myself above all others in the worldly
sense, and to all appearances am concerned
with my own thoughts only, and my own
whims and their gratification, yet my troop
of friends — unseen by others' eyes — are
always actually at hand or within the reach
of an unworded wish.

Is this not a fitting condition ? What
can be more ghost-like than an unspoken
thought? It is not the less a faft because
unseen and unheard. It may not travel to
my neighbor and prod his brain to an addi-
tional activity, but how quickly it flies to
the surrounding outlook and beckons to me
a dozen or a hundred ghosts and bids them
attend upon me ! This makes a monarch of

no Company and Solitude

a thoughtful man. See to it that you are
a merry monarch, and your happiness is
assured.

There is no one beside myself in this
small room, and we are given to selecting
the most prominent objects when in search
of subject-matter for book or essay, and both
would often be the better were the minor
matters more in evidence. The hero, how-
ever great, must have ground to stand upon ;
but this is often forgotten, and characters
come and go in the printed pages as if such
a little matter as the world at large was of
no importance whatever. But to-night I
am alone, and choose myself in preference
to others, if I find anything to say. I do
not objeft. That ninth letter of the alpha-
bet always appealed very strongly to me.
It is like a cherished personal possession,
and whatever may be my occupation at the
time, or wherever I happen to be, this same
blessed / is the most prominent feature of
place or circumstance. Whether or not any-
thing to your I am everything to myself.
The ninth letter and the writer are nearer
than twins, — we are one, — and never was
there a closer relationship or one that was

Company and Solitude ill

unruptured by disagreement or marred by
misunderstanding. Whatever the limits of
my knowledge, I know myself. What the
world is, what life is, can only be judged by
me through my senses. What you tell me
really means nothing. I see with my eyes,
hear with my ears, touch with my hands, and
distinguish odors with my nose. Your ex-
periences can be nothing to me, except as I
compare your report of them with my own
impressions. As you may say of yourself,
I say of mine : wherever I am, there is the
centre of the world ; and when I am alone, I
am the only man in existence. If another's
proximity is not made known to my senses,
how may I know that you are still on the
earth ? Your world may pass away and mine
remain. What your world is it does not
concern me to know; but my world does
fill all my thought, and, projecting myself
therein, am filled with its direft impressions
upon my senses, myself, — that entity which
is most forcibly expressed by a simple let-
ter, I. «

There would be less jangling in this world fj
if individuals were given to placing more [
emphasis upon their own expressions, by ,

112 Company and Solitude

continually reminding the hearer that it is
himself who speaks, and speaks only for
himself. I think, I believe, I know ; good,
wholesome expressions, these, that lead to no
misconceptions. But it is claimed that exces-
sive egotism is tiresome, is inelegant, is evi-
dence of limited intellectuality. Well, it is
honesty, it is truthfulness, it is the operation
of your own mind, boundless or limited. We
were better off, as prehistoric folk, when
selfishness was a more marked feature of
humanity. The mischief of egotism that
has been claimed arises from misconception
of self, the incurable malady of feeble minds ;
of such as the law gives freedom at twenty-
one, but which are truly infantile at three-
score and ten. Have you encountered no
such minds? Do not speak hastily. An
affirmative answer is an admission that you
are blind.

To do ourselves justice, to fit us to our
niche, so that no vacant space shows about
us, we must be busy with ourselves, and de-
mand K> be excused when weaklings call for
a division of our strength. I did not invite
myself to this world. He would be a fool
who should do that, if it were possible ; but

Company and Solitude 113

here I am. The fa£l of the entity's presence
is incontrovertible, and what does it mean ?
I do not know. I do not care. No reason
for existence ever became apparent, but in
time the I within me comes to the fore and
overshadows all other fa&s, and, concerned
with it, I struggle to keep my footing on a
slippery earth, and, doing so, the thought
continually wells up, What of this earth
about me ? Its multiplicity of details is be-
wildering, ofttimes exasperating, and my own
Ego has learned to shun the complex and
seek the simple, to avoid the formal and clasp
hands with the true. There is nothing pe-
culiar in this, but the same end is sought by
different routes or methods. Nobody really
likes the shams of this world, and yet how
much ground is planted in the undesirable
crop ! How came such things into exist-
ence ? The ever-growing complexity of the
problem of human life has much to do with
it, I suppose ; perhaps all to do with it.
The wandering away from a wholesome to a
feverish condition of affairs, from the near-
ness of nature to proximity with the unnatu-
ral, has led to distortion, if not of body, of
mind, and the asymmetrical growth resulted

114 Company and Solitude

finally in the few being served by the many ;
the idle becoming the lords of the busy ; the
rich, the tyrants of the poor. There are
upturnings at times and healthful readjust-
ments. So ugly as all this appears, it might
be worse ; but the sham, the unreal, the ab-
solutely false, these pass too often for the
real, the beautiful, and the true, and the
world does not seem aware that it is hum-
bugged. The indifferent individual — the in-
fant of mature years, so to speak — accepts
pinchbeck for gold, rhinestones for diamonds,
asking only for glitter, and indifferent to the
source. The fools, unfortunates through
Nature's design or indifference, can, and not
infrequently, successfully pose as the favor-
ites of Erudition, and, stealing others' labors,
be credited with learning which they do not
possess and awarded honors to which they
are not entitled. The individual that by
chance catches the expressions of those in
distant lands and repeats them here as the
outcomings of his own brain is all too com-
mon. This is a diseased condition that has
found a nidus in the overcrowded centres of
the world. We have heard much of degen-
eration of late, and a great hue and cry against

Company and Solitude 115

the suggestion, but the world in some re-
spefts is worse, not better, than it appears,
and many an individual with a goodly ap-
pearance is thoroughly rotten at the core.

" Who cares what you think, or say, or
are ?" my neighbor asks.

" I do," I reply : " it is I who is talking
to myself." If you care to hear, listen ; if
not, turn a deaf ear. I am not intruding
upon your notice, nor desire to figure in your
life even as a shadow crosses your sunshine
and is gone. The truth is, you intruded.
You broke the silence by your uncalled-for
question. You asked me to speak, and, as
usual, have only myself about which to
converse. But while you tarry, let us be
neighborly for a moment, and not, like wan-
dering atoms in emptied space, kick each
other into different directions. However
wrapped up in one's self, we can be of mu-
tual advantage. You can profit by my blun-
ders ; I, by yours.

The storm increases in violence as night
draws on apace, and I have now no ghosts to
cheer me nor desire to call them up. Even
they have sought shelter; and more than
ever it is a fitting time to take down " Wai-

n6 Company and Solitude

den" and read the fifth chapter. Thoreau
was in the highest sense an egotist, and so,
necessarily, a lover of solitude. This is not
taking a pessimistic view concerning ourselves
or others. Our limitations call for isolation
that we may do ourselves justice, far more
frequently than our supposed needs call for
company ; and unless there is solitude at
command and full confidence in our strength,
we leave the world as we found it, so far as
our presence in it is concerned. Why we
should care to have it otherwise is the most
strange of all problems that vex our sojourn.
It is a serious matter, making life less en-
durable, to be plagued with ambition. Why
I sit on a torturing four-legged chair at my
desk when there is an easy rocker front of
the andirons is not solvable : it is simply a
faft, and an extremely disagreeable one at
that. But existence becomes less serious if
we can take pleasure in solitude and toy with
the puzzles that Nature dangles in front of
our faces. Such hours of existence gild a
gloomy world ; but how few, like Thoreau,
can extract the sweets of a quiet evening and
be honestly glad that they are living ! Some
of his distinguished critics could not, or

Company and Solitude 117

there would not be such wide-spread mis-
conception of the man. To most of us he
was, and will always be, an enigma, and the
more so, in that petty spite on the part of
greatness strove to misrepresent him. In
face of such conditions do we " knock our-
selves down," as a writer recently said in
pointing out the arrogance of one critic who
presumed too much when he essayed to com-
ment on such a subject. Even a professional
critic can get beyond his depth, and Lowell
got far beyond his, and, worse than mere
failure, he seems to have forgotten an earlier
essay full of praise, and in the later screed
failed to conceal the true animus that moved
him. But all is well : Thoreau, the lover
of solitude, the sane egotist, fills our lives
more and more, and leads us to a better con-
ception of the world about us.

OVERDOING THE PAST

ARE we not overdoing history and neg-
lefting the present moment? Peri-
odical literature is overflowing with dilu-
tions, more or less weak, of the elaborate
biographies of great men. There is no time
allowed us to consider the living present
because of the claims of a dead past. We
have ceaselessly rung in our ears the wonder-
ful doings of this or that hero : how he, being
successful, saved his country ; how he, being
defeated, the occurrence of continental disas-
ter was prevented. This is all rank rubbish.
The world is too powerful for any one man
to absolutely control any important portion
of it. Even the present Czar has his limita-
tions. It is mere assumption to say that
England would have crushed this country had
the Revolution failed. We are taught to
despise the Tories of 1776, but their argu-
ments were worth listening to, and the loy-
118

Overdoing the Past 119

alist that doubted the loud-mouthed patriot-
ism of Sam Adams was not wholly a fool.
England, later, would not have disappeared
from the map of Europe had Napoleon
gained Waterloo. There is no man living
who can prove that the world was the gainer
by the a&ual results of the world's great
contests. It is not impossible that we might
have gained more had the opposite occurred.
It is a matter of speculation only. What
our forbears did, if delayed, might have been
better done by their descendants ; and what
they failed to do, believing it a terrible
calamity, has never resulted in the direful
conditions they predicted. The world works
on in a pretty even way, though millions of
fretful creatures hurry to and fro as if its
weight were on their shoulders. What the
man of to-day exults over we may deplore
to-morrow, and that condition of affairs over
which he grieves to-day we may look upon
to-morrow as a blessing. We overrate the
importance of individualities ; we underrate
the world in its entirety. We can draw
endless conclusions from the lessons of the
past, but we cannot truthfully proclaim any
one of them as a demonstration. We can

120 Overdoing the Past

amuse ourselves with peering into the future,
as the belated traveller peers into the darkness
before him, but we cannot speak with accu-
racy as to what we see.

To return to current literature. Should
we not concern ourselves more with what is
daily transpiring, and less with what has been
or might have been ?

Is not the importance of history overdrawn
when it is held up so closely to our faces that
we cannot see what a bright world there is
behind it ? Does it not begoggle our eyes so
that the Present is robbed of its beauty ?
The value of history is unquestionable, but
its overvaluation is a greater misfortune than
that our yesterdays should forever be utter
blanks in our lives. Then, too, the manner
of these historical presentments is open to
criticism. Their authors are too given to
distort a fa£t for the sake of rhetorical flourish,
and every pifture of their favorites — with-
out one single exception — is painted in the
most glowing colors. Their heroes verge
on the angelic, and yet not one of them but
was somewhere, somehow, at some time,
miserably weak. The human frame is no fit
cage for an angelic spirit, and the historical

Overdoing the Past 121

essayists of to-day, that hint at such things
as of the past, force Candor to exclaim,
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to
lying !

The correction of all this is the art of
appreciation of our immediate surroundings,
and an avoidance, as of a pestilence, of de-
pressing retrospeftion. As it is the atmos-
phere that is now entering our »lungs that
gives us life, so let it be the sights and sounds
and deeds of the passing moment that give
us joy. It is the rose on the bush this bright
morning and the song of the wild bird that
sounds across the fields, that bid me pause
to look and listen. Two centuries ago my
people saw and heard the same flowers and
birds, bat does such a thought really add to
the present pleasure ? If you permit your-
self to drift with the backward current of
retrospection, that moment you become blind
and deaf, or catch but a fleeting glimpse of
some poor ghost, or hear perchance the faint-
est echo of some dead song. Why press your
ear to the ground to fancy you deteft the
footfalls of preceding greatness ? What mat-
ters it whether Washington's boots creaked
or not ? Is there not more in the tramp of

122 Overdoing the Past

the millions who are battling as nobly to-
day ? It is not belittling the heroes of other
days — and it matters nothing if it is — to
claim for the present equally heroic men.
The condition may not arise to bring them
to the fore, but who shall say that they do
not exist and merely wait the trumpet call
of opportunity ? Never a hero fell, but an
equal was ready to replace him. What is a
hero ? A man equal to the hour's emer-
gency, and how many emergencies have not
been met? No such pernicious twaddle
finds its way to the printed page as the
idolatrous laudation of those who have been
borne to high places by circumstances they
could not control, and gazed upon by all
mankind ; idolatrous, and therefore degrading
so far as it leads to the belief that among
ourselves there is no such greatness ; that the
glory of humanity waxed in this or that hero
and has since been waning.

" I cannot agree," says a friend. " It is
the function of the daily press to devote
itself to the man of the moment. But, for
heaven's sake, let us get a little respite from
these ' actualities' when we pick up the illus-
trated monthly magazines ! For my part, I

Overdoing the Past 123

should like to have George Washington's life
retold in each of the magazines in turn, and
then retold again when the last of them had
printed it. The value of keeping Napoleon
always in evidence were perhaps less obvious.
Still, in those aspe&s of his character in
which he was not an example, he was a tre-
mendous warning. The day has not yet
come when we can afford to let Washington
sleep, or fail to profit by a study of Napo-
leon's rise to dictatorship." And, again, he
says, "It does not appear whether or no
Abraham Lincoln is one of your betes noires.
There has been rather more about him in the
magazines than about Washington or Bona-
parte. To be sure, he has been dead only a
third of a century ; but he is not one of those
' who are striving at this time to make our
lives better worth the living.' Doubtless,
though, his example is more potent for good
than that of any living man. I should like
to know what great and good man of to-day
the magazines have neglefted, after all ?"

I do not see that I am squelched by
Brother Quill. My claim is that biography
should be written for the benefit of the
young just as much if not more than for the

124 Overdoing the Past

delegation of the old. Nothing can im-
prove or affect the latter ; and to make little
gods of the dead is hurtful, because the living
youth knows his own limitations and despairs
becoming as good, say, as George Washing-
ton, whereas it really requires but little effort
to be quite as good and even considerably
better. Mere eulogy and parade of transcen-
dent virtue which the individual discussed
did not possess is rubbish. Much of the
current magazine matter is a sort of goody-
goody biography that is not even pleasant
reading, and surely not profitable because
untrue, — that is, the facts are so stated as to
give a wrong impression. What we want is
applied biography, not a mere record of a
man's sayings and doings ; a selection thereof,
with their application to the present day and
its needs. Essays on characters are better
than detailed records of the lives of Tom,
Dick, and Harry.

My critic hopes to silence me by naming
Lincoln. Is it not peculiarly true of him
that we need a guide to the study of his
career, and so make practicable the applica-
tion of the secret of his success to our times?
But does the ponderous picture-book, with a

Overdoing the Past 125

portrait on every page, and even portraits of
those whose back-yards joined the rear gar-
den-lots of his first cousins, aid us any ? I
admit that his example is still potent, though
he has been dead for thirty years, but it is
because there are thousands living who dis-
tinctly remember him. Will his biographies,
rewritten a century hence, as we now have
George Washington doled out to us, help the
young reader of one hundred years to come ?
Not a bit of it. It behooves us to consider
our own steps more than the footprints of
those who have gone on before. Give me
the passing moment, not the dead past, and,
too, let us think just a little less of the prob-
lematical future ; it, if anything, is wholly
fitted to take care of itself.

Another of my critics says, " If there are
any Washingtons or Lincolns about now,
they keep themselves exceedingly close."
They certainly do, and why ? Because there
is not enough interest taken in the present to
make them show forth what they really are.
Now, this critic, like the other, is an editor,
and so supposedly infallible ; but I doubt if
either will deny that there are not men for
the hour, whatever the character of that

126 Overdoing the Past

hour. The existent conditions produce the
men required for them, and when the de-
mand is for heroes, heroes will stand forth.
In the humdrum conditions of the present
merely money-getting days, of what earthly
use would a Washington or a Lincoln be ?
If they applied their talents to the present,
as they did to the conditions of their times,
they would inevitably take the fatal step from
the sublime to the ridiculous.

But this is base ingratitude, some one,
having the Revolution in mind, cries out.
These men fought and bled for our liberties.
Let us think a moment. Is this charge of
ingratitude as serious as it sounds ? How do
we know the heroes of other days did any-
thing of the kind ? They have left no record
of great concerns as to their great-grandchil-
dren. They did concern themselves with
their children, for the latter were then very
much in evidence ; but here is an ugly faft
that confronts those that talk of ingratitude.
Never a hero but was concerned more about
his own neck than about the necks of those
to come after him. The men of troublous
times, in years gone by, had their own im-
mediate interests, and were necessarily moved

Overdoing the Past 127

by personal considerations. In a certain
sense they were selfish. What they felt
called upon to do required courage, but it
was nothing reckless. They were shrewd.
They afted upon the outcome of calm con-
sideration, choosing what they believed to be
the lesser of two evils ; and it is sad to think
that had not success attended our favorites,
few of them all would be remembered from
year to year.

Much as we know, we have yet far more
to learn, and this condition of ignorance,
which dates from the appearance of man upon
the earth, will remain until the last human
being in the world stands wondering what is
before him. This prosy faft binds us very
closely to the present. We have, or ought
to have, enough to do with the demands that
each day makes upon us ; and what leisure is
permitted us is most wisely spent in the
study of what our contemporaries are doing.
If they are outreaching us in any endeavor,
we need greater energy and have less time to
dream ; if they are outspeeding us, what do
our own limbs need to give them equal
agility ? We need the gold being dug to-day
more than the speculations of archseologists

128 Overdoing the Past

concerning prehistoric miners. The pearls
that are concealed in the river mussels to-day
are worth more than mere knowledge of the
caves of Golconda.

The past can claim, with reason, grateful
remembrance on our part, but to continually
dream over it, and worry even that we cannot
unmake some of it, is worse than folly. It
can afford us little aid, the world's conditions
change so rapidly and radically, and he who,
whether by afts or by suggestion, by example
or the writing of a book, leads us to be up
and doing, not prone and dreaming, does the
world a service. Such a one becomes the
successful general of a battle of farther-reach-
ing consequence than he wots of. Whether
heroes or the humblest of all humble folk, it
is well to be up and doing, — caring less for
the past and concerned more with the pres-
ent. Make history, not idly worship that
which has been made by others. Be not
mere hero-worshippers, but content to know
that, while we cannot all be heroes, no life
is so lowly placed that it may not be heroic.

DREAMING BOB

I.

" One misty, moisty morning,

When cloudy was the weather,
I met an old man
All clad in leather."

Mother Goose.

rT^HERE is often so little of real interest
JL connected with the present that it is a
genuine pleasure to meet with a person who
can carry us back to times that had or seem to
have had charms that now are lacking. We
have lost all the links that bound us to the
past century, and the first decade of the
present one does not to so great a degree
suggest " ye good old times." Nevertheless,
it was before coal was used as fuel, or steam
as a motive power, and electricity was little
more than a name. So ran my thoughts as I
approached the old man who was walking to

129

130 Dreaming Bob

and fro over a wet and weedy pasture and
occasionally thrusting a long staff vigorously
into the mud.

He was so promising a specimen for inter-
viewing that I immediately led off with a
question which I hoped would lead to a pro-
longed conversation.

" What are you looking for ? a pot of
gold ?" I asked.

" Tortles."

" What kind of turtles ? land or water ?"
I asked, not feeling disposed to be snubbed,
although that seemed to be the old man's
purpose.

"Mud," he growled, even more impa-
tiently than before.

" Are mud turtles good to eat ?" I asked.

" No, nor to look at," he replied.

" Then what do you want with them ?"
I asked, without showing a trace of annoy-
ance.

The old man now looked up, and, after
staring at me for at least a minute, said,
" Young man, do you own this ma'sh ?"

" I do," I replied, with a smile.

" Do you want me to go off?" he asked.

" Certainly not," I replied.

Dreaming Bob 131

" Then will you please let me alone ?" he
asked, still staring intently at me.

" Oh, yes, if you wish it ; but I saw you
were a stranger and an old man, and I like
to talk to old people," I replied.

" Why ?" he asked, in reply to my last
words, with a slight change of tone indica-
tive of a trace of amiability.

"Because they usually tell me of days
long gone by, and of customs now almost
forgotten," I told him, adding, " Old people,
whether they do or not, seem to know more
than men of my own age, and do know more
of old times, of course."

" Umph !" grunted the old man, and then
repeated the half-smothered ejaculation sev-
eral times, looking, as he did so, towards the
three huge beeches that towered above the
other trees on the wooded hill-side near by.
" I'm not as old as them beeches," he finally
remarked.

" No, I should say not," I replied.

" Then why don't you go talk to them ?
I heard a man say once « there's tongues in
trees.' "

I was a good deal taken aback. The old
man was getting the best of me, but my

*

132 Dreaming Bob

interest in him was growing, and I did not
feel like beating a retreat. Still, I could not
find anything to say, and I stood before him
feeling very much like a child before a
stranger. Meanwhile he continued probing
for turtles, but eying me at the same time, I
fancied. At last I hit upon one more ques-
tion, and rather timidly asked, " Do you live
near by ?"

" Dog-town," he muttered.

" As far as that ?" I asked, with some
surprise.

"Just that far; and, if I must talk, in-
stead of tortlin', why, let's go to the hill-
foot and sit down."

" All right." And, with this brief reply,
I followed the old man to where a tree-
trunk lay upon the ground, and there we sat
down.

" Yes, young man," he commenced, " I
am a stranger in these parts, and yet I
ain't."

" How's that ?" I asked.

" I was born back in what's called ' Dog-
town' in '20, and moved off when not
more'n a baby, but not 'fore I had a notion
o' what the place was like. It's been rough-

Dreaming Bob 133

and-tumble ever since, and now I've drifted
back. It's all changed but just round there,
and folks ain't yet grudged me my shanty."

" Do you live alone ?" I asked.

" Say, please, young man, don't question
too close. Do I live alone ? ' Alone :'
that's a word that means too much for me.
I don't like to hear it. Yes, I live by my-
self," said the old man, in a voice quite dif-
ferent from his brief words when on the
meadow.

Before I could find anything to say, he
continued, " I drifted back to these parts,
and there's just one thing I want to do 'fore
I slip up "

" Slip up ?" I repeated after him, in a way
that showed I had not caught his meaning.

" Slip up, yes ; die, I mean," he said,
somewhat impatiently.

" Oh !" I exclaimed, adding, " Go on :
I won't interrupt again."

" Daddy hid what he had somewhere in
the woods, and never let on to me, 'cause I
was too small, and just after mammy died he
slipped up, a tree he was a-cuttin* fallin* on
him. Bein' alone, some folks took me, and
I kind o' lost all notion of what went on

134 Dreaming Bob

when I had a home, till years and years
slipped round, and then somehow it all come
back to me, sudden-like ; but Pd been a fool
all the time, spendin* one day what I earnt
the day 'fore, and it was hard work to get
anywhere near these parts. I got to seein'
in dreams just where daddy put what he had,
but what I see now round here ain't what it
used to be."

" Not around Dog-town ?" I asked.

" Yes, it's sort o' the same round there,
but the big timber's gone, and I can't place
my dreamin' just as I want to. That dream
ain't no common one. It's just a-goin' back
to when I was that little feller as toddled
about after daddy when he was workin'
about home."

" Tell me how the place looks in your
dream. Perhaps I can help you out?" I
asked.

"How can you?" asked the old man,
giving a sudden start, and facing me.

" I know the history of these parts pretty
well, and have some old deeds and docu-
ments that might throw light on the sub-
ject," I replied, with much earnestness.

" Old deeds and dockiments : them's the

Dreaming Bob 135

tools lawyers use to chisel folks out o' what
they've got. They're no use," he remarked,
with much disappointment in his voice and
manner.

" They're not always that bad, either
documents or lawyers," I suggested. " But
come, what sort of a place was it ?"

" You see," he continued, as if not in-
tending to give me a direft reply or one at
all, " I never saw the real spot to know it,
and daddy never told, and p'r'aps he hadn't
nothin', but that was my notion, and the
spot was like this that I see in my dream.
There was a big chestnut, and a squatty-
like black oak, and an ash-tree kind o' bent
over, and the ground sort o* high and mossy-
like between 'em. I go there every night
o' my life in my dream, and just as I find
the thing "

"What thing?" I asked.

"It's chest-like, only black, and brass
nails in the lid," he explained.

" Where was your father's house ? Just
where did it stand ?" I asked.

" That's just the trouble. I got nothin'
to go by, and only sort o' guess it stood
where the big clay-pits now is. I've squatted

136 Dreaming Bob

near as I could get, in an old shanty, and go
pokin' round when folks ain't too near to get
curious ; and, by thunder !" exclaimed the
old man, with great energy, " I'm a fool to
give it all away, just because you pestered me
out on the ma'sh."

" I can keep a secret, sir," I remarked,
with some show of dignity.

" 'Course you can, but can and will ain't
twin brothers by a jugful, young man. You
can keep it, but are you goin' to ?" he asked,
with a show of incredulity.

" Yes," I said, " I'm going to."

" Well, I can't call 'em back, and if I've
thro wed the fat in the fire it's my own
fault," he remarked, rather sorrowfully.

" But you haven't," I assured him, adding,
" I said I would keep your secret. Did the
people digging clay ever find a chest, or
haven't you asked ?"

" If they did, they never let on, for I
sort o* questioned round when I was lookin'
at 'em dig," he replied.

" Can you find any trace of the trees you
see in your dreams?" I asked.

" Only one big chestnut stump, but the
ground ain't right round it," he replied.

Dreaming Bob 137

" Did you dig round there ?" I asked.

" Only a little ; and I say the ground ain't
right. It's no use, and I guess the dream's
devil's work just to fool me. Seems a pity
he can't let me alone on airth, seein' he's
got a mortgage on me due when I slip up."

"Don't get discouraged yet a bit," I
replied : " go on looking for turtles, and to-
morrow I'll come see you."

" What for ?" he asked, with a strange
look, as if he was both glad and sorry.

" Because I'd like the fun of looking for
the chest you dream about, and I'll look
over some documents in the mean time and
see when the big woods were cut off, and so
on. I'll come about noon, and we'll talk it
over again." I said this in a way to show
that I meant it, and hoped he would cheer
up a little, for I was now thoroughly inter-
ested, even if the old man was slightly de-
mented, which I did not think.

"And I'll go back to my shanty and
dream it all over again, and that's what it'll
all amount to," he said, shaking his head.

Leaving the old man to resume his turtle-
hunting, I went home, with no other thoughts
than of what I had been told, and all that

138 Dreaming Bob

evening I recalled the old man's words, while
looking over the early deeds that had passed
from hand to hand, covering the swamp-land
about Dog-town.

II.

It is not strange that I dreamed that
night of the old man, — dreamed I was the
old man himself and hunting in the woods
for " daddy's chest." I pushed through the
painted meadow, breast-high in weeds, —
boneset, iron-weed, and dodder, — all in
bloom, and every ditch I leaped over was
marked by plumes of lizard's tail or clustered
rose-mallow. Never was meadow so beau-
tiful ; but I could not linger there. Ever
ahead the crested tit was calling, " Here,
here," and I was forced to follow. Then
the brush-land, now a sombre forest, was
reached, and on through the pathless woods
I sped, walking by no natural means, but
hurried as if shod in seven-league boots,
and stopping suddenly where there grew a
great chestnut, an oak, and a bended ash-
tree. I looked about for the old man, but
he was not there. Instead, a brilliant cardi-
nal flashed across the open, chased by a hun-

Dreaming Bob 139

dred sparrows. Then a black hawk darted
by, followed by scolding crows, and disap-
peared. It was like an engine and coal-cars
rushing into a tunnel ; and all the while the
crested tit that had charmed me called from
overhead, " Here, here." After all, the old
man was not demented, and I had found his
" daddy's chest." Then 1 awoke.

At the promised time I appeared at the
door of the old man's shanty, and found him
waiting. What a place for a man to live !
Except that he had a fire, there was almost
nothing in the hut that we call the necessa-
ries of life ; but the old man gave me no
opportunity to scan his surroundings closely.
He came out of the door-way, where he had
been standing as I approached, and motioned
to a bench under the single tree that shaded
the spot.

" I've had a different dream, and want to
tell all about it, for now I know it's no use
to start a-huntin*. I was first in a ma'sh
that looked like a flower-garden, and then in
a big woods, and a little bird kept hollerin',
'Here,' and I follered till I dropt on a
bit of mossy ground. There was the same
trees, but a lot of birds kept goin' by, and

140 Dreaming Bob

they seemed to holler, « Fool/ and I woke
up all cold and shiverin'. It's no use. You
seem sort o' sent to bring me to my senses or
knock me clean out o' 'em, and it ain't much
matter which, seein' I'm about used up."

" I don't agree with you, old man ; but
first let me ask you your name," I said, in
reply to his pathetic speech.

" My real name ? No ; but where I lived
longest it was ' Dreamin' Bob,' 'cause I used
to say I was goin' to be rich when my dream
come true." And for the first time the old
man smiled as he spoke.

« Well, I'll call you Robert, then," I re-
plied. " And let me tell you, I had almost
the same dream, last night, that you did."

" You did ?" And the old man looked
very sceptical as he spoke.

" I did, and I think when I was a little
boy I saw those trees in the woods. If
you're in the notion now, we'll start on a
hunt, for I'm a believer now in 'daddy's
chest.'" And I looked very serious as I
spoke, to give him greater confidence in
what I said.

" Whether you're tryin* to make game of
me or not, I'll go 'long," the old man said ;

Dreaming Bob 141

" but I don't go thinkin' you can help me
out. What about you're old dockiments you
were talkin* of? Did they help you out
any ?"

" You made fun of 'em, and of deeds and
lawyers and so on, but I know who you are,"
I replied.

" Who ?" he asked, stopping suddenly and
facing me.

" Bartholomew Quiggle, son of old Aunt
Betsy that kept cakes and beer in her day,
when this was a stage road," I said, with a
steady look into the old man's face.

" Bartholomew Quiggle. It's the first
time in many a long year since I heard it,

'cept when I said it to myself. Barthol

but I'm too old to think about it now.
Let's find the chest, and then it'll be time
to talk it over." The old man moved for-
ward.

For the first time since I met him on the
meadows did it occur to me I might be
making a fool of myself. I was interested
from the start, and had made an effort to
identify the old man, which had proved an
easy task, but that I should be influenced by
a dream was absurd. Had not what he had

142 Dreaming Bob

told me been enough to bring about such a
dream ? Even " Dreamin' Bob" was losing
faith in dreams after many years, and now I
took it up with his former enthusiasm. It
was absurd, and here I was, his guide, of
my own volition, and not knowing in what
direction to go. I hesitated, and he noticed
it.

" What's the matter ?" he asked : " gettin'
out o' the notion a'ready, when you was so
full of it?"

" Let's look over the ground you've been
examining," I suggested, not knowing what
to say.

" It couldn't 'a* been far from the house,
and it stood close on the road, you know,"
he replied, and this was a clue, if we
could only locate the house. No document
of mine helped me here ; I could only
guess ; and so we moved on, taking what I
thought was a probable course. We were
soon in a traft of sprout-land, and the
stumps of the original timber growth had
quite disappeared. Here and there, though,
was a variation in the level surface of the
ground, — a slight elevation, and moss-cov-
ered or bright green with a mat of fine

Dreaming Bob 143

grass that showed the ground was there
particularly fertile. All such places we ex-
amined with some care, but to have dug into
any one would have been absurd. Every
such spot was counted out because of its
position with reference to the public road.
At last we came to where pine woods had
been, a little island of pines once in a sea of
white oaks.

"Stop," cried the old man, who was a
little distance off; " there's been pines here,
and somehow But my head's all mud-
dled." And he stood by a stout sapling and
leaned heavily against it.

" You've been walking too fast," I sug-
gested.

" No, I ain't ; but that dream's botherin*
me, and I feel sort o' queer," he said, with a
trembling voice that frightened me. " I'm
tough enough, seein' what I've gone through
in my day. Don't you worry : it's the
dream. I sort o' feel as if it was comin'
true."

"We will rest awhile, anyhow," I said,
" and have a bite of lunch." And I pulled
a small package from my pocket. The old
man evidently expe&ed me to produce a

144 Dreaming Bob

whiskey-flask, but I did not, and with a
slight show of disappointment he accepted
the solid food I offered.

While we were eating, we heard voices
near by, and I made a motion to keep quiet,
to which he silently assented. Two men
passed near us, but without discovering our
whereabouts. When within hearing one
was talking earnestly, narrating a recent ad-
venture. " My dog treed something," he
said, "and I couldn't call him off, so I left my
work and went over. The cur was diggin' a
hole where there'd been a big tree standin*
once, and I went up to see what he'd got.
He'd struck a root, I thought, but, lookin*
down, I saw a piece of board and an iron on
it ; and, lookin' closer, it showed it was a
box that had been buried."

" No !" exclaimed his companion, stopping
in the path and looking at his friend.

" You bet ; and I tackled the job quick,
seein' some one might come and git it out.
It was all rusty and rotten and filled with a
mess o' stuff I couldn't make out, and a big
double handful of money."

" Gold ?" said the other man, interrupting
the narrator.

Dreaming Bob 145

"Gold! Well, I guess not. It was
nothin' but pennies and a few things they
told me used to be called fips and shillin's.
It didn't amount to five dollars all told,
except what I got extra on some of the old
pennies."

While these men were talking, the old
man did not move a muscle, but his face was
the pifture of despair. I wished myself a
hundred miles away. The finder of the
treasure and his friend moved on, and when
we could no longer hear their footsteps I
turned to the old man and said, " Well,
what shall we do ?"

" I'm goin* back to my shanty, and you
needn't come. I'm much obliged to you all
the same." He turned and left me without
saying even " good-by."

I did not follow him, much as I wished to
do so, and I tried in vain to turn my thoughts
into other channels than those concerning
him.

That night Dreaming Bob, otherwise
Bartholomew Quiggle, died.

WINKLE: THE EEL-MAN

I.

DOES the place make the people ? Cer-
tainly the mountaineer differs from
the dweller on a plain, and those who have
spent their days 'long shore are distinguish-
able from either. Who has failed to notice
that the country boy who leaves home for
the town becomes " citified" and in all ways
unlike his home-staying brother ? Certainly
the place has much to do with it, — as much
as the mould decides the shape of the mass
of clay the potter places within it. Heredity,
too, afts an important part. There was a
Job Perriwinkle, servant, among the arrivals
in West Jersey two centuries ago, and the
Perriwinkles remained such for succeeding
generations : the last of them just a little
above that condition. These things con-
sidered, it is not strange that " Winkle," as
146

Winkle: the Eel-Man 147

every one knew him, should have been a
product of Poverty Cross.

A word here as to this strange place. It
is where two old long-abandoned bridle-
paths interse&ed, near the middle of an
irredeemable traft, — one where Nature had
tossed aside all the rubbish, after fashioning
a goodly land. Originally it was known as
Poverty Cross-roads, as one old deed attests ;
but recently the interest in folk-lore and local
history has brought to the front the champion
of this strange explanation : that the name
is derived from the facl: that a missionary
set up a station here, and, failing to make
one convert, called the place Poverty Cross.
This is how much local history is " made."
But what better can be expedled? This
place, and much of its surroundings for
many a mile, offers no foothold for ambition.
Those who remain are content with little,
even intellectually, and were charmed re-
cently by a pickwickian lecture on the
" Oneness of Unity and Differences of the
Diametrically Opposite," even speaking of
it, months after, as a '* learned discourse."

But let us back to Winkle, the nearest to a
savage of them all, and so worthiest of con-

148 Winkle: the Eel-Man

sideration. I will not attempt to describe
him. The truth would not be accepted, and
I will not spoil a good story by using false
colors. I can only hope that his strange
physique will shine through what I shall
tell about him.

I have said that the last of the Perri-
winkles had a glimmer of higher aims than
servitude, and while yet a lad had acquired
such freedom as he wished, becoming a self-
sustaining trapper, fowler, and fisherman.
It was as the last that he pre-eminently ex-
celled. He alone, of all the men who lived
and loafed near the creek, knew Crosswicks
Creek thoroughly. It seemed as if he must
have felt with his hands or feet, or both, the
whole bed of the stream, from the river,
where it ended, up to the first mill-dam, a
distance of about eight miles. On one oc-
casion, when with Winkle, I remember he
stopped his boat suddenly, and, thrusting an
oar to the bottom, showed me how deep was
the water at this point, — it was low tide at
the time, — and remarked, " Cur'us, but, lad,
there's a walnut-stump down there that's
three feet across. Once a time the creek ran
over yander," and he pointed to a long row

The Overflowing Delaware

148 vie: the Eel-Man

I will not attempt to
.ic truth would not be accepted, tad
1 will not spoil a good story by using
colors. I can only hope that his strange
physique will shine through what I shall
tell about him.

I have said that the last of the Perri-
winkles had a glimmer of higher aims than
servitude, and while yet a lad had acquired
such freedom as he wished, becoming a self-
sustaining trapper, fowl.ir, and fisherman.
It was as the last that he pr y ex-

celled. He alone, of all the men who lived
and loafed near the creek, knew Crop.-
Creek thoroughly. It seemed as if he must
have felt with his hands or feet, or both, the
whole bed of the stream, from the riyer,
where it ended, up to the first mill-dam, a
distance of about eight miles. On one oc-
casion, when with Winkle, I remember he
stopped his boat suddenly, and, thrusting an
oar to the bottom, showed me how dei
the water at this point, — it was
the time, — and remarked, " C
there's a walnut-stir

three feet across. Once a tin :k ran

over yander," and he pointed to a long row

Winkle: the Eel-Man 149

of sassafras-trees that divided a long level
reach of dry pasture meadow from a wider
area that was lower and marshy. " If you
stand," he continued, "at the end of the
trees, you'll see a dip in the land, and that's
the old creek-bed. It was in Injun times, o*
course."

" How came you ever to notice this," I
asked, "and find out about the walnut-
stump ?"

" Umph ! Well, lad, I'm not a fisherman
fur nothin'. There's nets been broke in that
stump, and many a hook is stickin' in it now.
Why, boy, it don't take long to dive down
and see what's what ; and can't you see how
land lays when you walk over it ?" he replied,
with an over-abundance of contempt in both
tone and manner.

" Not always," I replied.

" Can't ? Then your eyes ain't o* much
account. If a thing's right afore you and
you can't see it, then what's the good o*
having' eyes?" Cutting his speech short,
he gave me a searching glance that explained
a great deal of what was passing in his mind.
He had taken me up as an apt pupil and now
was disposed to set me down as a dullard.

150 Winkle: the Eel-Man

This had been an earlier experience, and a
later one, too, of mine. I was more sorry
than surprised. It were foolish to attempt to
attain to Winkle's excellencies in their pecu-
liar lines.

This strange man did not have ordinary
human eyes. The four senses of touch,
hearing, smell, and sight had been so devel-
oped by constant use that he had brought
them to the perfe&ion that characterizes
such wild animals as are forced to depend on
them for their food and safety. The physi-
ologist may laugh at this, and say it is im-
possible, but I long ago learned to laugh at
the doftors. All that I have written was
true of Winkle. He was too extraordinary
a character to be described. The charge
of exaggeration would surely follow ; and
yet it is unwise to stand in awe of critics.
Not one of them ever saw the man. I knew
him well, and he has been heard to say I
was the only friend he ever had. I have
said that he could not be described, but let
me try. He was tall and slim, and his head
was like his body, so that it pointed him off
something like a clumsily-sharpened lead-
pencil. His arms were snake-like, and, as a

Winkle: the Eel-Man 151

neighbor once said, " his legs are nothin* but
a string o* knees." He could bend in half a
dozen directions at once, and when walking
along the highway he swayed to and fro as
if more than half intoxicated ; but in a nar-
row, twisting forest-path he glided swiftly,
silently, and ghost-like, making no overhang-
ing branch bend by the pressure of his hands
or body. He wormed his way between ob-
stacles that check the progress of ordinary
mortals, and it was a hopeless task for any
one to attempt to follow him with the same
speed and grace. He climbed a tree as a
blacksnake darts over a brush-heap or glides
along the top rail of an old worm-fence.
Stretching along a slender branch, Winkle
could reach to outlying points towards which
no nest-robbing boy would dare to venture.
Perhaps in all this he has had his equals. It
was in the water that Winkle was at home.
Then he always reminded me of a seal. His
movements were very similar, for his arms
were not prominent when he swam. The
propelling force was derived wholly by leg-
motion. The ignorant folk who knew him
said that water did not wet him, which was
not quite true, but never had a hair ever grown

152 Winkle: the Eel-Man

on Winkle's body, and his skin was oily to
the touch, or, on land, like newly-made and
flexible parchment. To be in the water, he
always claimed, limbered him up, while too
long tarrying on land caused him to wrinkle
and crack like a dead leaf. This, his own
way of putting it, tells truthfully the whole
story. His clothing was of the simplest
kind, and eight months of each year he was
barefoot.

It was an English gardener and poacher,
who came to these parts when Winkle was
in his prime, who gave him, with my aid,
the name of the " eel-man." One morning
I met Jimmie on the public road, and he
assured me that " this veek 'as been a veek
of ewents. Th* old woman has brown crit-
ters in her throat, and I've seen a man as
swims like a heel."

II.

"Winkle," I said one morning, as I
stood by the door of his quaint cabin, —
" Winkle, did you ever hear of the wreck
of the Betsy Ann ?"

" Wrack o' who ?" he asked, with abun-
dant surprise in his tones. " Wrack o' who ?

Winkle: the Eel-Man 153

I've heard o' more'n one woman bein*
wracked by takin* up too quick with the
fust to come along, but who's Betsy Ann ?"

" Come, old man," I said in an earnest
way, to command his attention; "I mean
just what I say. Didn't your folks ever tell
you about the sloop, Betsy Ann, that got
wrecked off the mouth of Barge Creek ?"

" No ; nor yours neither, I guess. Why,
lad, there ain't room enough at the mouth o*
Barge for anythin' bigger'n a skiff to get
swamped. You've got things mixed, lad,"
Winkle replied, with earnestness quite equal
to my own. In fa6t, my question was an
intimation that I had superior knowledge of
the creek's history, if not of the stream itself,
and this he was quite unwilling to allow.
After a lengthy pause, which I did not inter-
rupt, he continued, " You'll be laughed at
some time if you ain't kerful about keepin*
stones straight. This creek here ain't the
'Lantic Ocean, and shipwracks sound bet-
ter when you talk about the sea-shore.
Guess your Betsy Ann was only a hay-scow
and medder-grass the cargo," and Winkle
chuckled to himself at the thought of
having squelched me.

154 Winkle: the Eel-Man

I was not unprepared for this, and let him
have his fill of enjoyment at my expense
before I spoke again ; then I remarked, in a
quiet way that showed how sure I felt of
what I was saying, " It was a long time
ago ; long before you were born ; more than
one hundred years ago. A great wind came
up suddenly, just as the boat got inside the
creek, and sent her over on her side and
wedged her between trees growing on the
bank, and stove a hole in her stern, so that
she had her cargo spoiled. They didn't
get a great deal out of her, and when she
was hauled off she sank. One account says
she was burning when she sank. Anyhow,
the hulk lay there in the channel and rotted
away, I suppose. Let's go see if we can
find any signs of her this late day."

My long speech ended, Winkle looked me
very searchingly in the eyes in a way that
makes it impossible to hold anything back,
if you happen to be telling him only half a
truth. Then he stared at the clouds and
towards the creek and at times hummed to
himself, but not a word for me. I waited,
knowing he was thinking of all he knew of
that part of the creek. Suddenly his whole

Winkle: the Eel-Man 155

manner changed. His eyes sparkled like
coals of fire, and he said, with unusual in-
terest, even enthusiasm, " Yes, I'll go ; but
how did you hear all this ?"

" It is down in an old commonplace book
I have. The Betsy Ann belonged to my
great grandfather," I replied, with some evi-
dence of pride in my manner of speaking,
for I knew he could not doubt my authority
for all that I had told him.

" Umph !" grunted Winkle ; but just how
to construe that frequent ejaculation of the
man I never learned.

I was ready, then and there, to go, and
Winkle was never unprepared. He had
always boasted of being free as a bird and
had made his boast good, which showed his
superiority over some men I have met. We
were soon aboard this strange man's trim
little boat, and its owner's semi-aquatic
nature seemed to animate the vessel. It
more than merely floated. It swam like a
wary diver, just skimming the surface ; yet
we were a heavy load for so light a craft,
but Winkle's wrist was as true a machine as
ever was turned out by an engine-builder.
His sculling was marvellous. Familiar points,

156 Winkle: the Eel-Man

like the Swan Island flood-gates and Hickory-
Meadow and the tall poplars were passed in
quick succession, and then we went through
the crooked water-way of the wild Willow
bend, where Nature has never been dis-
turbed,— swiftly, it seemed, as might a fright-
ened fish. It was a splendid ride, but too
short. All too soon for me, we were at rest
where the stream forms a wide bay and the
waters of Barge Creek come pouring into it
with every outgoing tide.

Before I could realize what Winkle was
about he had disappeared. He had left the
boat so quietly it was not moved from an
even keel, nor was there any commotion in
the water. Fancy a water-snake gliding
over the gunwales and you have the fash-
ion of Winkle's movements accurately de-
scribed.

For me, of course, there was nothing to
do but sit quietly in the boat and await his
return and report of what he had found.
Winkle was now groping in the water and
mud as might an eel in search of food. How
he could determine anything was a mystery.
Might he not be something of a humbug,
after all? I sometimes asked myself this;

Winkle: the Eel-Man 157

but, then, he had never been proved such.
Suddenly my thoughts were cut short by the
recollection of his prolonged absence. I
felt worried for a moment and then fright-
ened. Had he stuck in the mud and
drowned? I looked over the side of the
boat but could see no distance into the
water, and I scanned every inch of the near-
by shores. I have good eyes. If he were
playing some game, I knew that he could
not hide from me. Had he disturbed the
dock or wild-rice growing at the water's
edge, I should have detefted it. It is a
small objeft that can elude my search. Cer-
tainly, I concluded, an accident has hap-
pened. I was really frightened, and, as
fright always makes fools of us, made a des-
perate effort to collecl: myself. In time, the
absurdity of calling to Winkle occurred to
me; and as useless would it have been to
call for help, for I was far from any habita-
tion. Worse than all, I did not dare to dive,
being no swimmer, and Winkle must be
dead anyhow, so long a time had elapsed
since his disappearance. I waited fully ten
minutes to wholly collecl: myself, and I saw,
then, that all that was left to me was to

158 Winkle: the Eel-Man

report his death and institute a search for
his body.

What a ride was that back to Winkle's
cabin ! I felt hurried and yet could make
no headway. There was but one oar in the
boat, and I could not scull except in an awk-
ward way. To paddle was infinitely slow,
and the water often too deep to use the oar
as a pole. The tide, too, was against me.
How sombre the world looked ! The sun
was red ; the leaves dingy ; the waters black.
I had brought Winkle to his death, and to
announce the tidings thereof was an un-
pleasant anticipation. I must, nevertheless,
sound an alarm, and, be the outcome what
it might, would be a prominent figure in a
most gruesome affair. The creek seemed to
lengthen as I worked my way up-stream.
Every snag at Willow Bend held me fast,
and the tall poplars cast such black shadows
across the channel that they seemed effe&ual
barriers to my progress. I paddled, poled,
and lamely sculled until at last his cabin was
in sight, and then my strength failed me.
The spot no longer had any attraction for
me, and yet I could look only in the one
dire&ion; stared so intently and so long

Winkle: the Eel-Man 159

that at last I saw Winkle's ghost sitting in
the door-way. I knew now that I had un-
dergone too great excitement and was likely
to be ill. Nothing was natural. A strange
idea now took possession of me. Had I
too been drowned, and was it but the ghost
of myself that was now coming back to the
cabin ; phantom to meet phantom and there
fight ? I felt, at least, in a defiant mood, and
struggled with the oar, for the waters were
now tenacious as pitch, and, in spite of all
my efforts, the boat stood still. For the
moment I did not realize that I was in a
thick mat of weeds. This was my first
step towards a sane view of the situation,
and then I strained my eyes to better see
the ghost, praying the while that it might
prove some trick of light and shade. With
the strength born of desperation I made a
final effort and brought the boat to the land-
ing. It came in violent contact with the
stake to which it was tied when not in use,
and the noise of the collision caused Winkle's
ghost to move. I stood and stared, and
Winkle, in the flesh, looked up, and I met
again that searching gaze of his I knew so
well. How I left the boat and reached the

160 Winkle: the Eel-Man

cabin, but a few steps away, I do not know.
I was too excited still to realize anything
altogether rationally, and but dimly remem-
ber my question, " What does this all
mean ?"

Winkle turned slowly towards me as I
spoke, and while his reply was forthcoming
I slowly regained composure. " It means
that you're right," he finally said in a peculiar
way that showed he too was much excited,
though otherwise undemonstrative.

" Then why didn't you tell me, and how
did you get here ?" I asked, with some show
of indignation.

" How ?" he exclaimed, as if surprised
at my questions ; " why, swum, o' course.
Didn't I show a-top o' the water ?"

" No ; you sneaked off so as to frighten
me out of my wits," I replied, with no
abatement of my annoyance at the trick he
had played me.

"Did, lad? Well, I didn't mean to,"
Winkle said in most aggravating tones, as if
all that had happened was of no consequence
nor in any way unusual. " I s'posed I was
a-top o' the water somewhere up-stream and
didn't think to call back fur you to come on.

Winkle: the Eel-Man 161

It's quicker swimmin* than scullin' a boat
with you in it."

Was this fellow human? I felt a little
queer in his presence for the first time in
my life. English Jimmie was right : Winkle
could swim " like a heel," and he had. I
was angry, now that I was myself again, and
yet too much interested to spoil all by losing
my temper. I affefted to laugh at the whole
matter and allow Winkle to tell his story in
his own time and way. This, after some
minutes had elapsed, he did.

" I slipped down to the bottom and crawled
along the sides where the pebbles jine the
muddy slopes, but I couldn't see nothin*
that oughtn't 'a' been there. Just mud on
the slopes and stones where the tide keeps
a-washin'. Then I popped up for a bit o*
wind, and went down along the Barge Creek
shores, and there wasn't no difference. I
kep' comin' up for a puff o' air and down
again, and then I made out a hump in the
creek channel and a deep hole where the
water swashed round like a mill-race. I
had to show up often 'fore I could get at
the place, and then I found it was all a
hump o' hard clay; but I made out a bit

162 Winkle: the Eel-Man

o* iron stickin' out. It broke off short-like
when I took hold. I kep' bobbin* up and
down, so I don't see how you come to miss
me; and when I was gettin* pretty well
played out I jerked at a bit more o* the old
iron, and it sort o* broke away in a big
lump, and I grabbed at somethin* shinin1
that looked like a shiny fish, but wasn't
swimminMike. The water was clear enough
to make out a little, and I seen what I had
was money."

Winkle stopped abruptly at this point and
commenced wildly staring at the sky. Then
he glanced at me, as if endeavoring to solve
some weighty problem that concerned me
more than himself. I did not interrupt him.
He must have his own way ; and it was but a
minute or two before his sanity returned and
he continued, " Somehow I was sort o* broke
up when I found money there and didn't take
in where I was, and, grabbin' that piece like
a vise, I just made fur the cabin and forgot
you had gone along; and that's the hull
story," and Winkle gave me one of his
searching glances, and said, in a lower and
persuasive tone, as if in much doubt as to
my decision, " There's this, lad, I'd like to

Winkle: the Eel-Man 163

say. You don't need the money much as I
do, and if there's more in that mud-bank,
why, let me have it fur the gettin'," and
saying this he handed me a still rather bright
Mexican half-dollar.

Two thoughts came to my mind at the
same moment. The coin did not appear as
if it had been lying in the mud for more
than a century ; and, again, why should
money have been left on the Betsy Ann ?
Perhaps Winkle was playing a joke on me,
and soon I would be the laughing-stock of
the country-side. But, then, I recalled that
these were only suspicions, and probably
unjust. I could verify nothing of all I
thought; but, putting little faith in what
people say, as we meet them from day to
day, I naturally included this fish-like hu-
man, Winkle, though there was some reason
for thinking him more honest than his neigh-
bors. He might be all that, and yet not alto-
gether true. But as I continued to handle
the half-dollar better thoughts came to me,
and I promised all he wished. Any dollars
left in the wreck of the Betsy Ann he was
quite welcome to. They were as much his as
mine anyhow, and I certainly would not dive

164 Winkle: the Eel-Man

for any of them myself, nor tell any one
what was now a secret between us.

Winkle's countenance brightened at my
words. He seemed like an excited child
over a new toy, and commenced, I fancied,
to build castles in the air. I tried to draw
from him further details as to the day, but
he would not say more, and at last, rather
reluctantly, I left him sitting in his cabin
door- way.

III.

Winkle soon became, in more ways than
one, a changed man. He was less about the
creek and more frequently seen at the tavern.
It was evident that he had found more than
the single half-dollar he had shown me, or
did he make constant visits to the wreck and
gather a coin or two each time ? There was
evidently something back of the little that I
knew, and I could learn nothing, of late, from
questioning him. " Yes, he had been to
the wrack since that day," but beyond this
he would not go. To solve the mystery,
if possible, I went to the wreck one morn-
ing, and, approaching it very quietly, I no-
ticed a slight but constant agitation of the

Winkle: the Eel-Man 165

rank reed growth just inshore from where
the wreck was lying. It may only be a
stray cow, or dog digging for musk-rats, I
thought, but I strongly suspected it was
Winkle. But why was he inshore and not
under the water? I determined that my
little woodcraft should stand me well in
hand. I would surprise Winkle, although I
knew I was pitted against a man that could
not readily be deceived. Now was my
chance to show him, if it was Winkle, that
I had been an apt scholar. Very slowly
drawing back, I noiselessly hid my boat in
thick-set button-bushes on the creek-bank,
and, creeping to a clump of trees, climbed
up into one until I could get a bird's-eye
view of the surroundings. It never occurred
to me he could look up at a tree as easily as
I could look down from it. As I supposed,
I plainly recognized the man who was steadily
Digging in the stiff soil that is now just a
little above high tide. I saw at a glance the
whole truth. One end of the vessel reached
out into the present creek channel and the
rest of it was buried in the steep, stiff mud-
bank of the stream. Satisfied of this, I
clambered down from my perch and began

i66 Winkle: the Eel-Man

creeping cautiously towards Winkle, but it
was evident at a glance that, however near I
might get to him, there would still be inter-
cepting weeds, and, while I might lie con-
cealed, I could see nothing of what the man
was doing. While revolving all this in my
mind, as I was creeping on all-fours through
bulrushes and tear-thumb grass, I was startled
by Winkle loudly calling out, " Say, lad,
what's the good o* holdin' back ? I saw you
up the tree and heard your boat long 'fore I
saw it."

Had this man eyes in the back of his
head ? I never thought before to look ; and
what ears ! Yet as I noticed now, they
presented no unusual appearance. Pride in
my woodcraft was, of course, all gone. I
stepped boldly up, but, as I knew, with a
flushed face. Winkle laughed, after his
fashion, and showed me all that he had been
doing. The Betsy Ann had been partly
burned before she sank, and the wreck was, as
I had supposed, lying with the stern inshore.
The little that remained of the cabin was
now exposed, and in it Winkle had evidently
found some treasure, but how much he would
not say. This was to be his last visit, he

Winkle: the Eel-Man 167

said, as there was nothing more to uncover.
All that had been lost, years ago, that could
be found he felt sure he had got. " A little
fur me old age," he put it. I did not stay
long. The heat and mosquitoes robbed the
place of all romance, and, as Winkle was
about through with his work when I got
there, we left the wreck of the Betsy Ann
together. " It's all owin* to you," was
Winkle's one remark, as we turned our
backs upon the spot. I could not keep very
near him, row as I might. His little boat
fairly flew over the water, and in the tangled
water-way of Willow Bend I lost sight of
him altogether. I looked about for several
minutes, but saw nothing of the man or boat.
He could not have returned to the wreck
without passing me, unless both man and boat
went under the surface of the water. I had
no inclination to return, and I knew that, if
Winkle wished to elude me, to search for
him was useless ; so I slowly rowed my boat
to his landing, and, tying my boat, took pos-
session of the cabin. It was too ancient and
fish-like for a summer day, and I walked to
the spring near by, and there, curled up on the
moss, awaiting his return, and reading the

i68 Winkle: the Eel-Man

meanwhile. As usual, I fell asleep, and was
roused an hour later by Winkle giving me a
hearty shake. In an instant I was on my
feet; but what a change had come over
Winkle ! His old, odd ways were gone ;
the charm of his unique manner and even
appearance was a thing of the past. He was
now merely a bundle of irritated nerves that
excessive stimulation was steadily breaking
down. I foresaw his end was near, but did
not venture to ask any questions or offer any
advice. I knew that to preach temperance
would only provoke wrath. I was genuinely
sorry for him, but helpless so far as check-
ing his downfall was concerned. I could
only stand aside and let him go his own
pace.

And the end came. Two days later, I
was summoned, before daylight, to his cabin.
He had been found, by chance, by a passing
fisherman. As the first rays of the rising
sun glinted through the trees I entered the
shanty, and there found Winkle, dead, lying
on his face. His arms were outstretched,
and in one hand he held a canvas shot-bag
partly filled with coin, and in the other was
a rusty nail. What the latter meant was

Winkle: the Eel-Man 169

puzzling at first, but, when the light was
stronger, I saw that the man, now dead, had
scratched upon the floor, in unmistakable
manner, these letters :

A;

!-» Vs

I have had somewhat to do with hiero-
glyphics and traced the significance of Indian
messages scratched upon slabs of stone, but
here was something new. My free transla-
tion ran : C. Abbott : bis own / or, in still
plainer language, Winkle meant me to have
what money he had left. I sought no one's
advice, but afted as probate judge, executor,
and legatee. No harm was done. After
Winkle was buried there was nothing left.

WINDFALLS

" Too long, too long we kept the level plain,

The tilled, tamed fields, the bending orchard

bough !
The byre, the barn, the threshing-floor, the

plough

Too long have been our theme and our refrain !
Enough, my brothers, of this Doric strain."

NOT a bit of it ! As yet there has been
but the twanging of the fiddle-strings,
and the performance has not yet commenced.
" You forget Thoreau," perhaps the
quoted authoress remarks.

I forget nothing. Simplicity has not yet
had a worthy song in her honor. These
humble themes are not beneath the notice
of sound common sense. Laurel gathered
from the mountain's brow is no greener
than that growing lower down the rocky
slopes. Grant the grandeur of the mighty
sea, but who has gathered all the treasures
170

Windfalls 171

of a mill-pond. The little clump of trees
near my chamber window is forest enough
for a lifetime. Every one of the two hun-
dred trees has fifty branches, and here are
hidden ten thousand marvels that are yet to
be made plain. The modest plateau that
rises but seventy feet above the river is
sufficient of a " cliff upreared in liquid
air" when its modest tree-growth attracts
the birds and shelters many a beast that
startles the unthinking traveller who passes
in the night. Here, too, in such common-
place surroundings have been generations of
jolly good men and women, brave as lions
and gentle as lambs, — a great deal better
every healthy way than most of the world's
heroes and fame-crowned beauties. Perhaps
it is the frost in the air of this bright
October morning that has benumbed my
wit. I am not sure at what the authoress
I have quoted is driving, so I will take
myself to the orchard, seeking the fruit
of " the bending orchard bough," as I had
planned, and indulge in simple pleasures.
Give me plain substantiality in all things.
A hickory staff is better reliance than many
a gold-headed cane. The bow of the archer

172 Windfalls

was ruined by too elaborate carving. My
rough, stout walking-stick helps me in many
ways, for it is long and light, and I like to
probe the tangles before I tread on them,
and many a four-footed creature has bounded
away at my prodding that I might not
otherwise have seen. A basket is an abomi-
nation, a bag or bundle the climax of hor-
rors, but a well-chosen stick is a worthy
companion that clogs neither my steps nor
thinking.

The best orchard, to my taste, within easy
reach is the oldest ; now so very old its his-
tory is forgotten. Every trunk is hollow,
every branch lichen coated. Dilapidated as
is every one of the ninety-odd trees, the
days of their fruition is not yet over. Sap
crowds up their wrinkled trunks and stirs
the crooked branches to flowering every
April, just as it did in the heyday of their
youthful vigor almost a century ago; and
much of the fruit kindly matures though the
farmer does not attempt to stay the ravages
of insefts beyond protecting the birds that
come and go and live the summer long happy
lives wandering up and down the orchard's
long, leafy aisles. There is still, as there

Windfalls 173

will be while a tree is standing, the annual
gathering of the autumn fruit, the carting to
the cider-press, and then the desertion of the
place by all men but myself, to whom its
generous owner has made over the right to
the windfalls, first satisfying himself that
there are none ; and verily, few are the
apples that escape his searching eyes. I
count it excellent good luck if there are
one or two, at most, to each tree. Indeed,
did he think I ever found as many as a hun-
dred apples his agreement would be recalled
until at least nine-tenths of them were
gathered. " I never saw nothin* so small ;
it was only worth • thank'ee' " is this man's
motto. What an eye the needle must have
that he can crawl through ! He is so stingy
that I have since early childhood tried my
best to get ahead of him, and usually I do.
Just how is quite another matter.

Just now I am not concerned with my
neighbor, but his belongings. His orchard
to-day is of more profit to me than to him,
and in the long run I gather goodlier fruit
from it than has ever been carted to his bins.
His cider-press yields me many an enjoyable
hour every autumn that he would like to

174 Windfalls

exchange for his anxious moments when
vinegar is down in price and he deeper
down in spirits. I have a profound regard
for the old cider-mill. It is a quaint struc-
ture, with a primitive atmosphere about it
that dissolves the present and transmutes the
crude fafts of the moment to delightful day-
dreams. There is music, too, in the hum
of bees and angry buzzing of wasps that so
love to sip the lingering sweets of drying
heaps of pomace. When there is nobody
about, — press, orchard, and old vinegar-sheds
all deserted, — then I find them crowded.
Here, if anywhere, you can call back the
quaint characters that were one time the busy
men of the neighborhood.

October now ; it is natural to stop at the
cider-press when passing by and test, with
a rye straw, the most recently filled barrels.
Luckily for me, the owner cannot charge for
an unmeasurable quantity, and my assurance
that the quality was good was his only recom-
pense. The cider, as such, was not ready
for market, and its owner had not yet turned
his attention to the pump.

A little later the flicker's rattling cry and
the shrill chirp of a suspicious robin greeted

Windfalls 175

me as I crept through the rails of the old
fence and stood in the shade of the nearest
tree, a wine-sap that had borne most excel-
lent fruit in its day. I did not scan the half-
leafless branches, but looked into the hollow
of the trunk, where, a year ago, I had placed
a convenient hickory club, that had brought
down for me many a stray apple. Drawing
out the club I disturbed a pretty white-footed
mouse. What strange impulses we have ! I
threw the club after the retreating mouse and
barely missed it. How persistently the savage
lingers in us ! I have found that a very large
proportion of our wild-life is associated with
hollow trees, and particularly with hollow
apple-trees. This is quite readily accounted
for. The orchard is, for much of the time,
a well-stored magazine, with no locks guard-
ing the supplies. The fruit attra&s the in-
se&s ; these attraft birds ; these, in turn, draw
the carnivorous mammals. Again, an orchard
is not as frequently entered as the fields or
even pastures. The rows of trees become a
new forest, and afford, when they are grown
as old as these, safe and snug harbors for nearly
every form of terrestrial life. Even such
large creatures as the raccoon and opossum

176 Windfalls

are sometimes here at home ; the skunk,
mink, and weasel find it a convenient if not
congenial spot, the skunk being enough of a
climber to reach the entrance to a hollow
if the trunk of the tree was not perfectly
straight up and down ; and how seldom this
occurs, or, more correctly perhaps, how
frequently the other or leaning position is
found. I never saw an orchard where all
the tree-trunks were perpendicular, and I re-
call several trees that were but little removed
from a horizontal position. Mice naturally
abound, the apple-seeds affording abundance
of food, and bats will take their diurnal sleep
in a hollow trunk as comfortably as in a barn
or the attic of the farm-house. Indeed, un-
less the farmer keeps very alert dogs that are
disposed to hunting, the old orchard will
prove excellent hunting-ground for the natu-
ralist interested in fur-bearing animals.

The ornithology of an orchard is, as
might be expected, that of the neighbor-
hood. There are no birds averse to clus-
tered apple-trees, and very many find it the
only attractive feature of the farm. This is
true all the year round, and never do snow-
birds and tree-sparrows, in winter, seem

Windfalls 177

more at home than among bare apple-
boughs. In spring the conditions all favor
the congregating here of migratory warblers.
No other trees attract so much insert-life,
and this alone is the food of these north-
bound birds. Misled by text-books and the
common names of many species, I have
looked in vain for certain warblers among
pine-trees, in swamps, and forests of decidu-
ous trees of many species, and finally found
them in the orchard ; but I have not found
that this holds good as to orchards of other
fruit. Neither peach- nor pear-trees, be
there dozens or hundreds, seem particularly
attractive to birds of any species. How this
may be in fruit-growing distri&s elsewhere I
have not been able to learn, but my own note-
book, referring to a locality carefully studied
in Maryland, shows that but two per cent,
of all the nests I found were in an orchard
of about five thousand trees. In the case of
summer birds and of those that remain
throughout the year, our resident species, it
is found that no other locality suits them
equally well. The ornithology of an old
apple-tree would make a very interesting
book. I will not give the list of birds I

178 Windfalls

have found nesting in and on one such tree.
It would not be prudent ; but I would like
to compare it with the memoranda made by
some open-eyed observer.

This day, cool and crisp as frost can make
it, there are many small sparrows in the
brown grasses between the trees, and many
a chickadee, downy woodpecker, creeper,
and nuthatch busy overhead. Perhaps a
very precise person would say there was the
sound of unceasing activity instead of music,
but the effeft of these birds' voices was not
so commonplace as that, but in every way
agreeable, and not suggestive of the rattle
and clamor of a crowded city street. The
highways of the bird-world were filled, but
the busy crowd was more like that of con-
tented laborers whistling while they worked.
It is cheering to note the happy manner of
our winter birds. Not one regrets that it is
the dreary time of the year, and certainly the
orchard is now an ideal hunting-ground.
No storm is so violent but the shelter
afforded by the hollow trees proves equal to
all demands, and that such shelter is accept-
able to birds I have proved by examination
during the prevalence of both rain and snow.

Windfalls 179

The hollows occupied by owls or any animal
other than a mouse would be avoided, but
there is usually room enough for all. I was
glad to see and hear the song-sparrows. In
a corner of the orchard there has long been
a heap of rubbish. Trifling windfalls from
the door-yard pines, woody weeds that per-
sisted in springing up where only modest
grass should grow, and the thousand and one
odds and ends that should have been burned
were gathered here, and everybody has been
too busy or too lazy to apply a match. The
growing heap has been an eyesore for years,
but to-day it was almost pretty. The song-
sparrows were in possession, and were as
tuneful as in the early April days, when they
took time by the forelock and squatted here,
knowing that a nest in such a tangle was
comparatively safe. To-day the brush-heap
is positively pretty : the dead twigs in admi-
rable disorder captivating the eye, because
the home of sparrows whose songs ever
captivate the ear. For an hour these birds
declared their happiness from their chosen
home, and while they sang I listened. Then
the shadow, but that only, of a sharp-shinned
hawk fell upon them, and I took a few forward

i8o Windfalls

steps and sought my favorite tree in the
orchard, — preferred not for its fruit, but its
general patriarchal appearance and glorious
show of strength, a seek-no-farther. Sug-
gestive name ! I sat here, where I could
look far off in every direction, and dreamed of
the windfalls of other days and gave no heed
to possible fruit hidden from the sharp eyes
of the orchard's miserly owner. I confined
my thoughts to apples, for that phrase, " the
windfalls of other days," is but a hollow
mockery to me when given any wider appli-
cation.

Are our apples as good as those that
ripened and made glad the whiskey-warmed
hearts of our sedate Quaker grandfathers ?
I think I would recognize to-day the flavor
of a golden pippin in its prime, a belle fleur
that was perfect, or the incomparable rich-
ness of a winter pearmain or a genuine sheep-
nose. The gnarly, stunted, distorted, taste-
less fruit that I now gather from centenarian
trees has only the charm that imagination
calls up. There is excellent fruit to be
gathered in our young orchards, but has it
not lost the full flavor of old-time favorites ?
We have a variety of opinions on the subjeft.

Windfalls 181

Perhaps my own taste has changed, but
apples nowadays seem to me insipid, and I
would rather munch the sour, stunted yield
of this old orchard, and indulge in a day-
dream, than eat the choicest of the polished
prize fruit exhibited at the county fair.

It has sometimes, but very seldom, hap-
pened that the summer's sun warms the pro-
jecting cheek of some stray apple until it
acquires the richness of old-time prosperous
days, and when such rare specimens come to
hand there come with them visions of other
years when insipid fruit was the exception,
not the rule. The last winter pearmain
that I tasted was one of these. Grandpa's
strange dumpling and his look of astonish-
ment became as vivid as on the day of the
occurrence of the incident. Auntie was busy
making dumplings for dinner, and when her
back was turned I slipped my painted rubber
ball — it was decorated with a grinning face in
gaudy colors — into a mass of dough, and it
was duly put in its net-work bag and placed
with other dumplings in the pot, and auntie
was none the wiser. It was not to be dis-
tinguished from the others when it came
upon the table, and how I wondered who

l82 Windfalls

would get it ! The anxious moments dragged
wearily along, and then, as luck would have
it, because of the plump appearance of that
particular dumpling, auntie placed it before
her father. He was busily engaged in a bit
of argument at the time, and, without looking
at his plate, covered it with syrup and then
pressed it with his fork. It did not yield
as a dumpling should, and, pressing it still
harder, it rolled from under his hand and
bounded across the table. " Well !" ex-
claimed grandpa. I didn't look up. " Good-
ness !" said auntie, in a startled way ; but I
had to raise my eyes, and I caught just a
glimpse of my rubber ball, from which the
dough had peeled, and that grinning face
was staring at auntie. Her later exclama-
tions and grandpa's tut't tut were too much.
I left my dumpling untasted, nor looked
back until well hidden in the hill-side woods.
There has been but little chilly weather
as yet, but enough to change the greenery
of summer to less cheerful tints, for the
asters and golden-rod do not quite replace
the brightness of unaltered foliage. As
often before, I notice how frost kills in an
artistic way, and not in the fashion of the

Windfalls 183

great leveller Death. The former leaves
no taint of corruption behind it. These
dead weeds to-day are pleasant companions.
It is something to be surrounded by cheerful
corpses, seeing we have so many uncheerful,
living ones of our own kind to deal with
every day. I prefer dried weeds, broken,
brown and prostrate, to semi-defunft nonen-
tities in human shape.

Searching the rough ground beneath several
trees, I found an apple at last ; a wrinkled,
wasp-stung, sour, tasteless apple, and its
general appearance, I do not know why,
recalled Humphrey Fagan, the gleaner. He
was a boy of six when the battle of Trenton
was fought, and knew more about it than
some of those that have had a good deal to
say of the affair ; but then, he was old Hum-
phrey Fagan, the gleaner, and what did he
know? What did he not know in certain
directions ? He was the only man in the
neighborhood to whom the term " gleaner"
was ever applied. This phase of peasant
life was never represented before nor since
about here. Everybody else was a farmer
or a farm-hand, except the few too lazy to
be anything. The idea of gleaning never

184 Windfalls

occurred to any one but Humphrey. He
had heard, perhaps, of the far better con-
ditions that prevailed in Europe, and, cheer-
fully accepting poverty, lived a jollier life
on what he was permitted to glean from the
fields — every one of which he knew as no
one else did — than did nine-tenths of the
owners of these broad acres. He lived to
be ninety, and at peace with himself. When
I knew him he was so bent that his spine
formed a considerable are of a circle, and so
brought his face towards the ground and not
very far from it. I have never seen any
other man or woman so nearly " bent
double," to use an inaccurate phrase ; and
of course his gleaning days were over, but
not his days of usefulness and independence.
His knowledge of gardening was encyclo-
pedic, and to the end he supported himself by
caring for such enclosures. Never a weed grew
where Humphrey attended. The children
thought he used his huge hooked nose as a hoe,
and we teased him a little on this score; but he
was our stanchest friend, and many the quaint
story he told when taking his nooning, and
many the old pewter button, shoe-buckle, or
copper coin and other colonial trifle he gave us.

Windfalls 185

" I was a boy o' six," he has told me twenty
times, " when they fit with the British up in
town, and mother shut me and my brother
up in the cellar. We didn't want to miss
the fun and didn't know o' no danger.
Brother raised the big cellar-door just a
little, to peep out, when the fellers came
runnin' down the street, and one of 'em
slept on the door and sent me and brother
back on the wood-pile. I thought I was in
the middle o' the fight," and then old Hum-
phrey would laugh in his queer way — like
a hen cackles — and almost straighten him-
self. "A'ter a bit we took another peep,
and, the racket bein' furder off, we slunk out
and legged it to foller the noise. Mammy
saw and hollered, but we kep' a-runnin', and
seen lots o' red-coats; and everybody kep'
hollerin' to come back, but we was bound to
see the fun, and we did ;" and again the hen-
cackle laugh would set us off, a good deal
more than his story. Just as he recalled his
boyish adventure, I recall his account of it,
and how very near seems the adlual occur-
rence ! To have talked with one who wit-
nessed the surrender of Colonel Rahl, and so
figured in history, is a pleasanter recollection

186 Windfalls

than the dry-as-dust pages that were to be
memorized at school, — pages that made no im-
pression, save a misty recolle&ion of twaddle
about men who were supposed to have never
had equals before nor since. Humphrey Fa-
gan had another story that roused him to in-
finite aftion when he told it, and doubtless the
pain resulting from gesticulating and twisting
his distorted body prevented its frequent rep-
etition. It was necessary to hint in a quiet
way for some time, and await his pleasure.
Anything like a demand was certain to be met
with refusal. We could always tell when
the story was coming. There were certain
movements of the body and a clearing of the
throat indicating that his story was to be
told, — one in which his manner went further
than the matter. We would move back, if
there happened to be several children gath-
ered to hear him, that he might have abun-
dant room for the vigorous swing of his cane.
We almost fancied that he was in reality
the king of the Pine Robbers. Much rub-
bish, by the way, has been written about the
Tories. Everything they did was devsilish ;
not an aft of the Continental soldiers but
was righteous. A few, of course, were ras-

Windfalls 187

cals ; but were the patriots all saints ? At all
events, Apollo Woodward was loyal to the
king, and had as good a right to prefer Corn-
wallis to Washington as his neighbors had to
think otherwise. But the story : Woodward
and his black horse and Timothy Pagan with
his wall-eyed sorrel were the only characters.
" D'ye know, boys, what I see in the town
that day was nothin* to the ride Tolly Wood-
ward and Tim Fagan took one winter night.
They know'd aforehand what was goin' to
be after the scrimmage at the bridge, and
slunk out o* the village towards Pond Run, and
then made for Princeton way on horseback.
When in the saddle there was nothin' could
stop 'em. They rid through the woods at a
dead run where none could 'a* follered, and
when they got to Stony Brook, Tim gave his
horse a kickin' on the ribs to go over at a
jump. The old wall-eyed sorrel did, but
landed with a stake clean through its breast,
and Tim went on till his head landed on a
stone and his neck broke. 'Polly Woodward
went on without knowin' what had happened,
it was that dark. He turned when he missed
Tim, and lost time in lookin', and when the
light favored a bit it was too late to be in

188 Windfalls

them parts, and he took to the woods. There
was some as might see him 'fore he come up
with the British. And what's more," — here
old Humphrey's manner changed and he
lowered his voice, as if there was danger
still in telling his story, — " what's more, he
was home in time to turn up at Crosswicks
askin' for news, innercent-like, when word
came o' the battle o' Princeton ;" and, in a
still more mysterious way, continued, " they
do say that hoss o' his'n never tired, and his
feet didn't touch the ground when goin'
through the woods, but was carried by
spooks till there was good footin' ag'in.
You see," and we children felt a strange
importance in being the recipients of the
opinion ; " you see, if things had V gone
straight, Washin'ton wouldn't 'a' played his
little game, and things might 'a' been differ-
ent." Is it strange that, as children, we
were sorry that " things didn't go differ-
ent," and the Tories, in time, become the
rulers of the land ? Apollo Woodward
was a hero in our minds before we had
heard of the Revolutionary generals. They
came later, and not in a way to eclipse our
earlier favorites. I have heard old Hum-

Windfalls 189

phrey say that " Tolly Woodward would 'a*
been a big 'un among 'em if the British had
got the best of it, for he wasn't a man like
the common run of 'em ;" and then he would
give his head a mournful shake, his eyes lose
their lustre, and the man would wilt like
grass before the fire, and become the strange,
quiet gleaner again, who lived all his life on
the little his neighbors left behind them.
Very taciturn now, except with children,
yet a great talker when a young man, so re-
port goes. Perhaps he had told too much
in early days, for his old mother remarked
on one occasion, " Yer tongue's big enough
to scoop out all yer wits at once." It is a
pity he had not been carefully interviewed ;
but as it was his tales gained no credence,
and are nearly all forgotten now. This
often happens. The jewels slip through our
fingers and we are happy with empty caskets.
Humphrey Pagan died, as I always put it,
decently and in order. He was weeding
radishes in my neighbor's garden when
Death plucked him as a weed that had long
enough encumbered this prosy corner of the
earth.

In the distance I see the west end of a

Windfalls

brick dwelling, and, as the light of the after-
noon sun falls upon it, the letters I. P. stand
boldly out, — Isaac Pearson. He, too, was a
lively Tory that gave the patriots no end of
trouble. Those stirring Revolutionary times
brought some strange men to the surface, and
the journals of the Tories would prove in-
stru&ive reading now that the bitterness of
the conflict has died out. It is possible to
look calmly on the whole affair, now that
more than a century has elapsed and To-
ries have lost their blackness. But who
cares for the under dog in any fight ? is the
common exclamation when its claims are
set forth. True, nobody does during the
heat of conflict ; but, then, who should care
for the clamor of a crowd ? Not one man
in a thousand is able to calmly think, nor
more than one in a million who is fit to gov-
ern. The Tories had logic in abundance on
their side, but lacked numbers to enforce
it. They did not lack in brains. I have
Apollo Woodward's autograph before me
as I write these words. It is a John Han-
cock specimen of chirography, and shows,
if handwriting means anything, that he was
a leader among men. We are still taught

Windfalls 191

that these Tories were bad men, cruel, and
all that ; but, then, you may remember that
Somebody who is everywhere is not as black
as he is painted, and the same of the loyal
subje&s of King George. They had as
much at stake as their neighbors, and no
one can doubt their bravery. For myself, I
rejoice in the Tory blood that tingles to my
finger-tips when I think of a certain old
uncle, four generations back.

But let us to more cheerful matters. The
wind is gently stirring the topmost leaves,
but all the under branches are at rest. The
faint rustling of these favored leaves is a
pleasant sound, for wind is a great deal more
than mere atmosphere in motion. That is
quite enough when the motion kills and
destroys, but I have naught to do with the
pranks of a tempest or devilishness of a tor-
nado. I am thankful to have lived beyond
their reach, or to have lived, thus far, where
mischief is the least that any wind has ac-
complished. All else that it can do it has
done abundantly. I recall one sunny early
autumn day, when with balm, boneset, pen-
nyroyal, and spicewood distilling odors that
told of every phase of the youth of the

1 92 Windfalls

year's old age, I listened to the steady hum
of unseen crickets that did not intermit;
a steady, unbroken sound, as if earth was
winding herself up for another year's aftiv-
ity. Then, suddenly, there was neither
scent nor sound. A noisy silence filled the
air, — the wind was blowing. Wind is the
great silencer, and yet is itself impotent
when unheard. That morning it was the
first blast of the autumn wind that plucks
the dying leaf, but brings a singing bird to
take its place. Leaves now will soon be a
feature of the past, — shadowy figures that
memory but dreamily recalls, — but in their
place are hundreds of cheerful sparrows from
the northern woods. This is a compensa-
tion worth considering ; and there is little
logic in moaning over the sad, sighing, pro-
phetic autumn wind. What if it does hint
of winter and the fierce wind that then
seems to be rejoicing over the victory of
darkness over light, of death over life, of
desolation over prosperity. So we hear of
it, and what better proof of the world's
ignorance of what winter really is. Winter
is the flood-tide of intellectuality ; and the
brain-power that has moved and will move

Windfalls 193

the world, and give to it the perfeft fruit of
man's ingenuity, dwells in those northern
climes where there is a long, bright, health-
giving, thought-inspiring winter.

There would be little satisfaction in eat-
ing a windfall apple were it not for its
suggestiveness. I never came into this
orchard for food. I had long since starved
had this been necessary. But to day-dream
is my errand. I was ever cautioned when a
child about eating cheese at night, lest I
should see my grandmother. I never eat the
begrudged sour apples of my miserly neigh-
bor but I do see my grandfather, and I am
right glad of it. An old orchard is the en-
trance gate to the fields of retrospection, and
there is much joy in fondly calling back
" the good old times" that you know only
through report. The comparisons between
a long-dead yesterday and the present mo-
ment afford endless entertainment, but do
not spoil the sport with the rot of hero
worship. Do not believe that all the great
people are dead. There are others quite
their equal awaiting their opportunity. Alas !
this may never come. But how unwise to
discard the old ways and objecis because of

1Q4 Windfalls

their age ! Hold fast that which is good,
even though it was old before the pyramids
were built.

I love to loiter : to do so, in spite of the
dictionary, is not to be lazy nor idle nor
careless necessarily. When I expressed this
opinion, it was claimed that I did not loiter
when out of doors, but sauntered. I turned
back to the dictionary and think still that I do
loiter, and I love to do so. It is not strange.
I never was sent on that childish horror, an
errand, that " don't loiter" was rung in my
ears. I always did and always shall. Haste
and method are well enough for youth and
men of science, but let me go my own gait,
and I will talk all day to blooming thistles, if
I choose ; or write my name in dust, for the
first chance breeze to obliterate. What a
silent, slow, but sure undertaker is the dust !
There is not a withered weed or blasted
grass-blade but dust finds for it a covering.
We in time are to return to dust, but the lat-
ter meets us more than half-way. It is forever
on the lookout for the cessation of some ac-
tivity, and falls upon it slowly, silently, but
sure. I never took a quick step in this old
orchard, — the surroundings do not permit of

Windfalls 195

it, — and look long at the windfalls, often,
before I stoop to gather them. It is pre-
eminently a loitering place, and yet where
we can never be quite inaftive. If the trees
do not appeal to me, as is sometimes the
case, the birds in the branches will surely do
so ; or, if they are gone, then the weeds that
have not been crushed beyond recognition.
There is always an aggressive feature that
attacks your eye or ear or nose, — an assertive
something that holds you back, and you not
only loiter, but tarry longer than you in-
tended. This is the peculiar merit of an
orchard ; it is a happy combination of both
field and forest. The hermit of Notting-
ham recorded in his journal, " If I must
ever leave these woods, must go again into
the open country, then let my cottage be in
an orchard. Nowhere else do the birds
find such congenial homes, as if man, for
once, had brought about an improvement
over nature. The robin that sang in father's
orchard sang as never its kind has done
since."

I have long had very much the same
fancy. There is a charm in the shade of
long rows of apple-trees that is recognized

1 96 Windfalls

at once, but defies the senses just so far that
you cannot analyze it nor describe it in
detail, even though you come with such a
purpose ; and not, as is my custom, to loiter,
to idly while away the passing hour, to
indulge in a day-dream over windfalls and
reluctantly depart.

MY NEIGHBOR'S WOOD-SHED

THE good old-fashioned folk of the last
century built for their children as
well as for themselves, and framed their
buildings, as they did their lives, in such
manner as should withstand the ordinary
buffetings of relentless time. This applies
to other stru&ures than their houses, and
the oak of many a wood-shed is as firm to-
day as the rafters and joists of the colonial
dwelling on the same premises. It is so at
my neighbor's. There still stands the old
wood-shed that his great-grandfather built,
and I am envious. The idiotic demands for
improvement and modernization caused mine
to be demolished, and now, when longing for
a lungful of old-time atmosphere, I take me
to this neighbor's shed and breathe in the
subtle odors of the scattered chips, — breathe
in strength with the oak and, in fancy, the
music of many birds with the odor of birch

197

198 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

and sassafras chips of the trees that came
from the meadows where, in April, the
spring arrivals of our many birds are sure to
congregate.

Somehow I never think of the really sad
facl: that this shed is the forest's charnel-
house, and a fit place wherein to drop more
honest tears than fall at most funerals. Is it
because my neighbor is felling his forest and
not mine ? Probably ; and, as we all know,
Death's ravages among our neighbors excite
our curiosity more than our grief. We are
more apt to be inquisitive as to the details
of the physical collapse than of the spiritual,
• — but I am no preacher.

How easy to build a tree from but a single
chip ! to see the round of the seasons at a
single glance when the restored tree stands
out before us ! Even the lid of my old desk —
that was split, sawed, smoothed, and shaped
just one hundred and thirty-seven years ago
— quits the corner of my little room and be-
comes again a stately walnut, on the bluff of
old Crosswicks, the instant that I will it !
And what tales of wild adventure in colonial
days float vaguely in the mists of day-dreams
such as this ? The paw of a puma may have

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 199

pressed where now my hand rests, and the
knife of an Indian made the deep gash that
the skill of the joiner has cunningly con-
cealed.

Here is a piece of bark with a neatly cut
hole in it, the work of a woodpecker ; and
here another chip, that has been channelled
by a carpenter bee. Nothing but chips to
be cast into the fire, yet written all over
with unread history ; chips to be trampled
into the earth by my garrulous neighbors,
who often gather in force at the wood-shed
and chatter until the very air is thick with
platitudes.

But this shed is something more than a
shelter for firewood : it is a rich mine for him
who is zoologically inclined. It is a great
place for walking-sticks. I do not mean peri-
patetic firewood, but those green and brown
twigs that are generously legged and look
like animated splinters when in motion.
Curious insects, these, whose homes are not
here but among the oaks of the hill-side, yet
there I see them but seldom ; here, quite
often. The last I found was full four
inches long and of a beautiful bright-green
color. If was cunning, and foiled my at-

20O My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

tempts to capture it quite cleverly. Do they
make a noise of any kind ? Folk-lore and
superstition have heaped their whimseys on
the poor insecVs head, but, fortunately for
it, the creature is shunned rather than perse-
cuted. Riley says the walking-stick works
destruction among oaks, but those about here
have not shown much loss of twigs or foliage.
As is apt to be the case, the folk-lore is mere
silliness, and so a fit plaything for scientific
triflers ; but why the name " spider-killer"
should be common I have never learned.
Can it arise from the faft of the insecVs
appearance being somewhat similar to that
of the praying mantis of the Southern
States ? Occasionally one of these walking-
sticks takes a step too far and has a foot in
the web of a spider. Then there is a com-
motion, and I am always a delighted spefta-
tor. We cannot altogether escape the ef-
fects of a non-human origin. More or less
of the blood-thirsty tendencies of our ter-
tiary-era ancestry will crop out on occasion.
The walking-stick is very apt to be pretty
well broken up before he gets out of the
way, and sometimes is hopelessly disabled.
Of course there are hornets and wasps in

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 201

the wood-shed, but they are always too busy
to concern themselves with you, unless you
provoke the assault. There are only two
classes of people who meddle with wasps, —
fools and entomologists. We beg pardon of
the latter for this unavoidable association.
One of these hornets is busy all summer in
building long rows of clay cells, and into
each is placed, so to-day's search disclosed, a
pretty pink-and-yellow spider. I do not
pose here as an entomologist, but the other
thing. I got stung. The clay cells were
built with a good deal of skill and quite
quickly, but the supply of clay came from
one spot near by, and so no time was lost ;
but no time was lost either in finding a
spider, a round, fat, pink-and-yellow one.
I followed the wasp, as best I could, and
traced it to a weedy corner back of the barn,
but no sign of any such spider was visible to
me. There were dozens of other species,
and some were large and ugly enough to
stay my near approach. I hurried back to
the shed and found the hornet just closing
the cell on such a one as I could not find.
Others of these ill-natured insefts built paper
nests, and at times buzzed their impatience

2O2 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

when a hat or cane was brushed too near
their homes ; and frequently a black-and-
white, noisy fellow came searching for house-
flies, and would depart, when a capture was
made, with a buzz that sounded like the
"loud hum of satisfaction," as the news-
papers have it, when a dull speaker has the
luck to be momentarily brilliant. All these
stinging inse&s are busy, however hot the
day, and their earnestness makes them enter-
taining. They seem to be concentrations
of the day's fierce heat, and more like winged
flames than winged flies. It is warming to
look at their empty nests on a winter day, if
we recall the August sunshine and parched
fields of the past summer. It is down in the
books that wasps and hornets occasionally
disfigure the walls of dwellings by placing
their nests thereon. They are not so ugly ;
they will bear examination, and this is more
than can be said of many a mantel ornament.
The red admiral and painted beauty but-
terflies are fond of the chips that clutter the
floor of the wood-shed, though every one in
summer is dry and dusty. They have no
choice apparently, unless it be for the clean,
white inner side of a chip. Is this that they

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 203

may show themselves to greater advantage,
or because such surfaces are warmer than the
rough and darkly colored pieces of bark ? It
is hard to say, but temperature should hardly
enter into the question when it is over ninety
in the shade. The large yellow swallow-
tailed butterfly is a frequent visitor, and also
a big blue-black fellow that makes a grand
display when the sun shines on his wings ;
but these come and go as if by mere chance.
It is the smaller species that find the place
fitted to their needs and stay while the sun
shines dire&ly in the shed. In midwinter
the dingy mourning-cloak butterfly finds the
place as attractive as its native woods, and
remains there for many minutes at a time.
In other words, they are not so restless.
Are they attracted by the odor of the chips ?
for some of them are fresh and sappy. It
seems strange that they should leave the wild
woods for civilization, a display of bad taste
on their part ; but I always greet them with
a hearty welcome. There is positive nov-
elty about butterflies in winter, and this is
even more marked when the inseft comes
dancing down a winter sunbeam and enters a
prosy wood-shed. If some one of my neigh-

204 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

bors happens to be present and sees it, there is
sure to be some idle remark about the butter-
fly being a sign of something. These plain
folk would have everything be nothing of
itself, but a sign of something else ; except,
of course, that their twaddle is a sign of
their own silliness. I was delighted one
winter morning to have the fool of the
neighborhood, its single downright idiot, put
in an appearance just as Farmer Hayfork
finished a long discourse on sure signs of an
open winter. We were all tired, for he was
one who measured his value by the length of
his speeches, and never thought of the nerves
of his hearers. " Had he been a preacher,"
it was once remarked, " there would never
have been a congregation." The idiot ap-
peared in the nick of time. Hayfork had
just finished, when the fool blurted out,
" Folks can say what they blame please, but
you can't tell nothin' about nothin*." Every-
body laughed but Hayfork, who suddenly
remembered he had something to do.

As it is my neighbor's wood-shed, I could
not keep these people away, and it was not
often that I found it available for meditation
or the excellent company that I occasionally

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 205

met, — many a bird, butterfly, spider, centi-
pede, or wasp. I never could tell just why
it was, but a sunny day in winter or a rainy
day in summer draws the odd chara&ers of
the neighborhood to this shed as tainted
meat draws flies. It is the more difficult to
explain because the tavern is not far off, and
the owner of the shed has never been known
to offer even a sample of his vinegar. He
was not averse to company, on off days, or
when there was nothing to do, but he has
been heard to remark anent the presence of
friends, " providin* it don't cost nothinV

It was at my neighbor's wood-shed that I
first met Winkle, " the eel-man," and, hear-
ing such strange stories about him, I culti-
vated his acquaintance and held his friend-
ship till he died. He certainly was an odd
fish, but after a while you had the impression
that he needed only education to make a man
of mark. One day in summer it was told
in my hearing that Winkle saw a sturgeon
in Crosswicks Creek, and, having at hand
no spear or other means of catching it, he
made a bold dive and got a grip that the
sturgeon could not loosen, and man and fish
went dashing down-stream, nearly to the

206 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

river, when they landed on a sand-bar and
Winkle came off viftor. How far fiftion
was mingled with fa& in this story was of no
importance. It showed Winkle to be a real
fisherman, and I sought him on all occasions
in preference to the solid folk of the farm-
houses that stuck to their fields like leeches,
sucking them dry.

For a time the school-teacher came on
Saturday mornings, and was covertly disliked
from the first because he monopolized the
conversation. This conceited fellow would
swing round the corner as if the world was
too small for him and expefted all present to
hold their breath while he remained with
them. Then he harangued. Woe to him
who dared to interrupt ! Was it not the
school-master who was speaking? I soon
wearied of the snob and demurred to many
of his statements, and insisted when he had
gone that it smacks of servility to accept a
diftum because an individual has been giving
forth opinions with an authoritative ring.
Because a man snorts like a petty tyrant are
we to swallow his decisions willy-nilly ?
The sluggish wits of my neighbors were
finally aroused. They could remember noth-

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 207

ing of all that he said, from week to week,
beyond his broken promises. The school
committee were not quite fools, but how
silly they felt when the truth dawned upon
them that this wordy teacher was a rank
fraud. For such things to flourish, even in
town, is not uncommon. Glare and tinsel
catch the gaping crowd, but not forever.
Gilt will not bear the handling of pure gold.
There is a flush of common sense that illu-
mines the intelleftual night of the masses, as
the aurora drives the blackness of darkness
from the northern sky. Unfortunately, it is
so short-lived a light. This school-master
had his little day, but could not remain on
his petty throne for all time, as he wished.
He had little intrinsic value, and the fiat of
the committee could not keep him at parity
with truth. When the change came there
was a general sigh of relief, but no one spoke :
all felt how they had helped to hold up the
hands of the humbug. How very seldom
are we really brave. How well are we
aware that one of the unexplained yet very
common human phenomena is conceit of so
rank a type as to be a perpetual stench in the
nostrils of decency, and yet it is long tol-

208 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

crated by the average intelligence of a com-
munity and retained in places calling for
erudition.

When this fellow was gone the atmos-
phere of the wood-shed cleared considerably
and was sweeter. How much more accept-
able was the innocent ignorance of the native
than the empty declamations of a bumptious
chatterbox.

But there were many days when the wood-
shed was deserted, — bright, sunny, winter
days, when the farmer folk were busy and
the trapper was in the marsh and the fisher-
man with his little nets beneath the ice kept
guard over them lest the big pike should
give him the slip. The children, too, were
all at school, and the wood-chopper off with
his ox-team and axe to the far woods. It
was sweet at such times to be alone. Here
was a most excellent chance to welcome
timid day-dreams and hear in every distant,
muffled, droning sound the voices of the long
departed — music from far away. What a
sweet sound is the tinkle of drops of water
when the snow on the roof is melting !
Drip, drip, drip ! And my thoughts are all
atune to the glad sound. So, too, my mo-

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 209

ments pass, pass, pass, and the bare faft that
I have added to my store of knowledge this
hour is that I am older than when I entered
the shed ; but this is no serious matter. Is
there not such a thing as knowing too much ?
True or not, I covet certain pleasures more
than a brand-new faft, as I proved to myself
to-day, when I lived over again the good old
times of early youth and had converse with
the sturdy folk that made this world brighter
to my young eyes than it has ever been
since I have wandered without their guidance.
Such an hour as this is worth walking miles
to spend, if so be your nearest neighbor's
wood-shed is so far away.

Covered as is every cord-wood stick with
suggestiveness from bark to innermost splin-
ter, there is less to be conjured up by one of
them than by the odd bits of old furniture
that occasionally are brought to the wood-
shed to be reduced to kindling. What a
train of thought can be touched off by the
leg of an old table, the arm of a chair, or
the claw-foot of a bureau ! To discard
old furniture is much like throwing away a
badge of respectability. Even though past
all usefulness, its bones should be sacred.

2io My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

Better turn the lid of an old desk into a
bracket or wall-pocket than reduce it to
ashes. But let it be your own people's
furniture. Better admit that you had no
grandmother than palm off some stranger's
rocking-chair as an heirloom. The real
heir may turn up some day and his presence
lead to your confusion. The same little
spinning-wheel has bolstered a bogus ances-
tral toss of the head in more than one parlor
in the last decade, and what a row was
there when I announced that the successive
owners were gilded nobodies ! I barely
escaped the assassination that perhaps my
foolhardiness deserved. I know whereof I
speak when I say that the oldest grand-
father's clock, according to its owner's ac-
count, was lying as ore in the bowels of the
earth and as a walnut-tree grew in the forest
not fifty years ago. I happen to hold the
documents that reveal that boastful man's
ancestral history. To take an interest in
one's family history is well enough, but
beware of the pride that it engenders if you
can go back a few centuries. It creates
envy, too, and many a heart-burning in
others who cannot trace their forebears, as

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 211

well as leads them to mild sinning of a
harmless kind. A little lying and a good
dinner has got more than one gentle dame
into the coterie " Colonial."

But the shed was not given over wholly to
wood, a few people, and many bugs. What
would scarcely be expe&ed, it was the favor-
ite hunting-ground of many a hungry bird.
I mentioned this one morning, and my au-
dience, a stupid lout, remarked at once,
" Chickens, you mean," and then laughed,
as if he or I had said something funny. I
did not offer to explain to him, but won-
dered, in silence, if it could be true that this
man of some sixty years had never seen the
winter wren that occasionally came darting
through a knot-hole and chirped merrily as
it hunted for insefts in the shed's innumer-
able nooks and crannies. If true, then better
be a winter wren than such a stolid speci-
men of humanity. Perhaps it is better to
look only upon the bright side of the shield,
but there is a dull side, nevertheless, although
we may never see it. There are and always
have been men in this old neighborhood
who, while within the pale of sanity, are
scarcely more intellectual than the horses

212 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

with which they toil. •' Bat they can talk,"
remarks some one. " So can horses," I
reply. Probably I have said too much.
This is dangerous ground whereon to tread,
for I never saw a fool without a fist and with
wit enough to use it, and yet had that winter
wren perched upon the knee of this man he
would have brushed it off as he would a wasp
from his face and given the incident no fur-
ther thought ; perhaps not seen the differ-
ence between bird and insedl. I am not
exaggerating. There are scores of just such
men as this one scattered over the country.
I asked one once to kill for me two pairs of
squabs. He bit their heads off. They are
men that rouse to real enthusiasm when there
is butchering to be done, and when unusual
circumstances, as a funeral, force them to a
church or formal gathering, sleep throughout
the proceedings. They are carted, like pro-
duce, to market, to the polling-place, and
given slips of paper to place in a box, and
are then carted back again, excellent citizens
and bright examples of the damnable heresy
of universal suffrage. These men are, in
fa&, savages with the savage's more danger-
ous instinfts held in check. Such are never

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 213

observers in any other than a degraded sense.
They can dig out a woodchuck or cut down
a tree to catch the coon in its branches, and
they judge of game by but two expressions,
— " lean as a snake" and " fat as a hog."
When their prey is the former their disap-
pointment gives way to cruelty ; when the
latter, the animality of gluttony obliterates
all else. The good Quaker farmers — all
dead now — who used to own all these lands
said of these men, whom they hired at very
low wages, '« They are men and brothers ;"
but I noticed that every Quaker of them all
struggled quite ineffectually to conceal his
disgust at the thought of such relationship.
The phrase fell very glibly from their lips
when they spoke in meeting, but not a word
of it came from a greater depth than the
mouth. But this bold assumption of sin-
cerity is common everywhere. It was no
peculiarity of this commonplace corner.
Words that have much sound and have at
times been weighty with significance rattle
now like pebbles between our teeth, are
spoken as mechanically as our breathing is
involuntary. As everywhere else, so here
at Thee-thou cross-roads, an earnest man has

214 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

occasionally appeared, but his was a thorny
path. A new idea was as sure to disturb the
sacred routine of eventless life as a tornado
cuts a path in the forest, and Quakers are
opposed to violence. But mankind, intelli-
gent or otherwise, is never as entertaining as
bird-kind, which is never stupid. There
was more fire in the beady black eyes of my
friend, the winter wren, than could be gath-
ered from the optics of a whole congrega-
tion.

When I have been lounging here in the
wood-shed, alone in a certain sense, — for
real solitude increases with the number of
the loungers, — I have seen this wee brown
bird come swiftly as a sunbeam through a
knot hole into the shed, and, perching on the
chopping-block, survey the surroundings and
myself more particularly. Did I mean mis-
chief, was the evident tenor of its thoughts,
and by my absolute quiescence I assured it,
as best I could, that I did not. There was
no sudden interchange of thought between
us, but when an understanding was reached
the purposes of the wren were carried out
without further regard to myself. This it
was I did not like. It is a great shock to

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 215

human pride to be overlooked. I think I
could have sympathy for the man who mur-
dered because unjustly and persistently ig-
nored. It is harder to bear than any physi-
cal pain, and to crown all this miserable
business, so frequent everywhere, it is gen-
erally the genuine worth that has it to bear
at the hands of the upstart whom luck has
favored. I coaxed my wren to meet me
half-way, but my soft words buttered for it
no parsnips. Then I made a more substan-
tial advance by offering food, and, when I
humbled myself to be the bearer of its cup
and trencher, then it came within the pale of
sociability, and I slowly gained its confidence,
but arm-length confidence only, and never as
much as contadl with my finger-tips.

It is the wren, however, that is the im-
portant feature of the place, and my person-
ality need not be further set forth to public
gaze. The wren came and went without
let or hinderance, and wherever it chanced to
tarry there was gladness, except possibly in
the breasts of half-awakened spiders that
even in midwinter seemed to be vaguely
conscious of what was going on about them.
Do they hybernate with a few of their eyes

216 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

open ? I once saw, it was in summer, a
huge gray spider show effectual fight and the
wren — the little house-wren — apparently
suffered from the poison of the enraged
arachnid's bite ; but such an occurrence is
doubtless quite unusual. But all this hunting
for food was quite commonplace in compar-
ison to the exhibition of the bird's scanso-
rial ability. To people with poor eyesight
the bird would certainly be taken for a
mouse, and I do not think the latter ever
ran where the wren could not follow.
There will always be in a wood-shed, as
elsewhere, some inaccessible nook that sooner
or later attrafts attention and arouses a deep
desire to investigate. More than once I
noticed it while loitering at my neighbor's.
The poor bird sometimes found that neither
wings nor legs were available, and the little
fellow's annoyance became supreme. The
effort to poise like a humming-bird before a
flower was a flat failure, — though I have seen
a crow accomplish this difficult feat success-
fully,— and then it was, as if to soothe its
irritation, the bird would break forth in a
series of sweet notes that was something
more than a faint echo of the marvellous

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 217

song of summer-tide. To be baffled is never
pleasant, and to a wren of any species it is
intolerable. They, of all birds, demand
their own way in all things, and when foiled
are not models of patience, even though they
sing at such a time.

Wrens, like ourselves, have their full share
of troubles, and the btte noir of this wood-
shed visitor was my neighbor's cat. Gri-
malkin never appeared to drop in with no
special purpose in view, or merely, if in
winter, for the sake of the warmth and
shelter. These were always to be had be-
hind the kitchen stove. There was one
chance in a thousand of surprising that wren,
and this one remote possibility was a power-
ful incentive. An occurrence like this would
be such a pleasant break in the monotony of
feline existence that the very thought was
inspiring. On the other hand, the wren
was not moved by fear when the cat ap-
peared, but by intense indignation. There
might be room enough in the world for cats
and wrens, but not in a wood-shed. The
cry was immediately set up of war to the
knife, and, like many another noisy conflict,
ended in one of words only. The wren

218 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

protested at the intrusion, and followed this
with the boldest of passes at grimalkin's
face, yet always stopped short just out of
reach, or, making an attack from the rear,
sped like a flash of light over the cat's head
and so near it that puss shook her ears and
looked the daggers that she would like to
have used. Her sharp claws came and went
in her velvety paws, but were of no avail as
weapons of offence, and the occasional leap
after the retreating bird fell far short of the
intended viftim. The wren's dexterity and
the cat's continued failure begat a confidence
in the former's dauntless breast that never in
turn led to carelessness, while early in the
game grimalkin became discouraged and re-
tired to think it all over when again in her
accustomed place behind the kitchen stove.
Then also the ordinary chirp, for which we
can suggest no special significance, became a
song-like utterance that was readily inter-
preted. Our winter birds, as we see them
out in the fields or along the narrow cow-
paths leading through the meadows, may not
be entertaining at all times, and but a lan-
guid interest, at best, is aroused even when
they sing, but there is an infectious earnest-

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 219

ness in the pretty ways of the wood-shed-
haunting winter wren to which the spectator
is certain to respond unless as sluggish as
some of the strange people I have met.
• There were other birds that occasionally
made visits, but not one of them attracted
the wren's attention, though the novelty of
the surroundings always excited their volu-
bility. The nuthatches, the tree-creeper,
golden-crowned kinglet, the ever-delightful
chickadee, the jaunty crested tit, and blue
snowbirds all came in the days following
a deep snow. They came, they saw, but
it was not so certain what they conquered.
Not one of these, however, was so frequent
a visitor as that prince of winter song-birds,
the Carolina wren. It was never at a loss
for a song and, if we consider chirping
equivalent to talking, as I have always done,
for something to say. And what an inspir-
iting utterance is its song ! The air fairly
trembled when it rang out in the clear, cold
air, and I have often fancied that even the
sleepy cows in the barn-yard looked up with
pleasure. Did the song recall the sweet
grasses in the June meadows when every
thrush was cheering its nesting mate and all

220 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

the bird-world was thankful for the early
summer? How little is needed to start an
endless train of thought, and what would this
world be without its unfailing suggestive-
ness ? Fafts are poor things when they lie
about us as so many soulless clods giving no
hint of whence or whither.

Here let me add what I wrote a year ago,
when lingering alone in the old wood-shed,
elaborating a few notes that I jotted down
that day and days before when wandering
aimlessly about, or, as is more in accordance
with winter customs, cuttin* 'cross lots for
the dear old shelter.

Memory and imagination serve me so well,
it does not seem possible that forty years have
passed since old Miles Overfield fashioned a
little willow whistle, and, gathering a group
of boys about him, held them spell-bound by
the skill with which he executed *' Money
Musk," " Irish Washerwoman," and " Na-
poleon crossing the Alps," and, as a grand
wind-up, that sweet old tune, the " Merry
Swiss Boy." I have said " a group of boys."
There were seven of us then — but two
now. Time has destroyed or witnessed the
destruction of much that made the world

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 221

beautiful in our eyes, but the old tunes re-
main, and there can never cling to more
recent and elaborate compositions that qual-
ity of endearment which is the firmly fixed
feature of the old tunes I have mentioned.
They whispered to us the secret of music's
charm, and we shall never forget the thrill
of their confidences. Combine those same
sweet sounds as you will, and bring with
them the choicest of a poet's thoughts, it
will not appeal to us like the cruder sweet-
ness that fell upon the untutored- ears of
boyhood.

There was no lack of bird-music this
morning. A warm sun after a snow-storm
always brings the minstrels to the front, and
they practise, if not elaborately perform, at
such a time. It is a strange impression, that
has been crystallized by print, that birds do
not sing except at nesting-time. As well
say they do not eat. I defy any one to in-
dicate a note missing from a robin's song
that I heard yesterday. It was snowing at
the time, but not even this disturbed the
bird. Its throat was full of sound that
trickled out with as much sweetness on the
bare twigs as though the air was heavy with

222 My Neighbor's Wood-Shed

the odor of apple-blossoms. Purple finches
put enough melody in their lisping chirps to
warm the north side of the old oaks, and
what the Carolina wren thought of the
weather could be heard half a mile across
the meadows. Winter that chills a bird's
heart does not wander this far from the
Arftic Circle. So much for midwinter min-
strelsy in general, and a word now of that
merriest of them all, the dear old song-
sparrow. Since the country was settled he
has been the chief singer of the garden, the
leader of the choir that gathered in the door-
yards of old-time farms, the associate of the
wren and bluebird, chippy and the peewee,
— all sweet singers in their simple way, but
fitful and fair-weather birds, that must needs
have summer to keep them in humor; but
the song-sparrow is unfaltering. If the
gooseberry hedge is not sufficient shelter,
it seeks the cedars or the quaint old box-
bush that stands like a fossilized sentinel by
the front door. " What is a little frost," it
asks, " that my comrades make such a fuss ?"
There is plenty and to spare of sunshine, if
not just here, down on the hill-side, and the
wind does not creep around every corner.

My Neighbor's Wood-Shed 223

I have learned to take my winter outings as
the song-sparrow takes his, and we have
good times together, and then, beyond all
else, he still sings the same old song that I
heard when the world beyond the garden
walls was all a mystery.

Lilacs, syringa, cocorus, a Missouri cur-
rant-bush, peonies, poppies, clove -pinks,
Johnny-jump-ups, a patch of ribbon-grass,
a gooseberry hedge, grape-arbor with blue-
bird-box at entrance, and plenty of song-
sparrows. Arrange them as you choose,
that makes little difference, but of such ma-
terial was formed the old-fashioned garden,
and there never has been any improvement
upon it. Evolution exhausted itself in that
direction in colonial times. I only knew
Quakers in my earliest days, but were these
folk not over-fanciful in declaring that the
bird sang tbee, tbee, tbee, tbee — tbee, tbee,
tbou, tbou? I have heard other and more
descriptive words used, but it is folly to
attempt an imitation of song by phrases.
The quail says Bob White, and all the rest
of bird utterances are matters only of their
own language.

Every spot, however limited, has its own

224 ^7 Neighbor's Wood-Shed

atmosphere. The air of the meadow and
of the upland, of the mountains and sea-
shore, are the same, yet how unlike ! Within
the range of my rambles the sand all sum-
mer drinks in the sunshine and gives it back
in generous volume during the coldest win-
ter days. Here we have what my neigh-
bors call a " soft" air, — one tempered by the
wealth of odors from a varied vegetation.
The trailing arbutus, sweet-scented vernal-
grass, June roses, the magnolia of the
swamps, new-mown hay, blooming grape,
yarrow and the many mints, and the rich
aroma of the ripened nuts, — all these and
many more leave a trace behind them, and
I fancy that I recognize each, in turn, when
the first frosty winds of winter rattle the
loose shingles overhead and whistle through
the seamy walls of my neighbor's wood-
shed.

THE END.

INDEX

A. Acorns, 92.

Adams, Samuel, 119.

Apple-trees, irregular growth of, 177.

April, 13, 172.

Arbutus, 12, 224.

Arrow-leaf, 68.

y&£, 138.

Aster, 182.

Audubon Society, purpose of, 33.

August, 39, 202.

B. Bacon, Lord, quoted, 19.

lfar££ Cr«£, 154.
.Btfw, 71.

Batrachians destroyed by drought, 70.
.ffatt, 68.

Bee, carpenter, 199.
.£«**, 50, 52.
Bees, 49, 174.
Belle fieur, 180.
£«rjy yf«», 152.
15 225

226 Index

Sire h , odor oft 197.
Birds, migration of, 28.

'wanton destruction of, 32.
Bitter-sweet, 64.
Black-berries , 43.
Blackbirds, red-winged, 42.
Bluebird, 30, 223.
Bob-white, 42, 223.
Boneset, 138.
Boxwood, 49.

Bryant, W. C., quoted, 22.
Butterfly, 29.

mourning cloak, 203.

painted beauty, 202.

re*/ admiral, 202.

swallow-tailed, 203.
Butterflies, 46.

C. Cardinal, 24, 91, 139.

Catbirds, 43, 55.
Chestnut, 51, 138.
Chickadee, 178, 219.
Chipmunk, 76.
Clove-pinks, 223.
Cocorus, 223.
Company, 97.

Concord, Massachusetts, 20.
Cor nw alii s, 187.
Creeper, 178.
Crickets, 39, 192.
Crosswich Creek, 148, 198, 205.

Index 227

Crow, a4, 61,78, '°3» I39-

, Il8.

D. Daffodils, I a.

Delaware River, 13, 33.

Diogenes, 78.

Dodder, 52, 138.

Dragon-jlies, 46.

Drought, effects of, 65.

Dutch fur-traders of Delaware Valley, 13.

Earthworm, 69.

F. Fagan, Humphrey, 183.

Ferns, 88, 9*-
Finches, ^^.
Fishes, 15, 70-
Flicker, 174.
Fly-catchers, 33.

Fog1, ^«/ o/, o» migrating birds, 2,8.
Frog, leopard, 15.
Fngt,6»,?i.
Furniture, old, 209.

G. Gentian, fringed, 59.

Georgius tertius, 191.
Ghosts, 1 08.
Golden-rod, 1 8 a.
Gooseberry, 223.

228 Index

Grape, 224.

arbor , 223.

hyacinth^ 22.
Grasshoppers , 71.

sweet-scented vernal, 224.
Grosbeak, rose-breasted, 33, 37.
G«w, io«r, crimson leaves of, 51.

H. Hancock, John, 190.
H*r«, 68.
Harrier, 95.
ffow/i, £/<!<:/&, 1 39.
Hawks, 61.
/fay, netu-mo'wn, 214-
Hazel-nut, 51.
Heron, great blue, 24, 47

white, 25.

Hickory Meadow, 156.
Hornets, 2OO.
Hyacinth, grape, 22.

I. Indian, 12, 14.

summer, 58.
Iron-weed, 138.

J. 7*y, *to, 82.

Johnny-jump-ups, 223.

K. Kinglet, 91.

golden-crowned, 219.

Index 229

L. Laurel, 170.

Lilacs, 223.
Lincoln, A., 123.
Lizards, 44.
Lizards tall, 138.
Loitering, delights of, 194.

M. Magnolia, 224.

Mallow, rose, 68, 138.
Mantis, praying^ 200.
Mice, deer, 94.

meadow, 94.

w»7</, 67, 76.
M/«*, 44, 47, 176.
Minnow, mud, 71.
Minnows, 69, 71.
M/»r, 224.
Missouri currant, 223.
Mole, star-nosed, 69.
Mc««, 58, 81, 85.
Mouse, jumping, 76.

meadow, 69, 76.

white-footed, 76, 83, 94, 175.
Music, old-fashioned, 220.

N. Napoleon, 119, 123.

Night-hawk, 68.
Nottingham, hermit of, 195.
Nuthatches, 55, 178, 219.

230

Index

O., Oak, odor of, 197.

Oaks, 13, 52, 138, 143.

October, 171.

Orchards attractive to animal life, 175.

Orioles, 37.

0i//</, quoted, 21.

01D/J, 179.

P. Part, overdoing the, 1 1 8.

Pearmain apple, 180.
Pearson, Isaac, 190.
Pebbles, significance of, 52.
Pee-iuee, 37.

woorf, 55.
Peonies, 223.
PcnrA, 71.

Perrivoinkle, Job, 146.
P/cferc/ -zww^, 68.

P/&, 71-

P/«e robbers, 1 8 6.

P/8M, 143.

Pippin, golden, 180.
Plover, 27.
PoH^/ 22«», 69.
Petfitf, 223.
Poverty Cross, 147.
Princeton, Neiv Jersey, 187.
18.

Q. ^aa/7, 223

Index 231

R. Rabbit*, 76.

Rahl, Colonel, 185.
Raspberries, 49.
Raven, 27.
Redbird, 24.
Redstart, 37.

Revolution, American, 119.
Ribbon-grass, 223.
lb'/ey, C. f., y«ott</, 200.
Robin, 174, 221.
224.

S. Salamanders, 15, 69.

Sassafras, 43, 45, 149-

o</or q/", 198.

Seek-no-farther apple, 181.
Shellbarks, 51.
Shrews, 67.
5^«»)i, 176.

s*0K o/, 54.
35, 44.

Snowbirds, 219.
Solitude, 107.
Sparrow, English, 31.
40.

3°. >79f "3-
Sparrows, 178, 192.
Sphagnum, 62.
Spicewood, 8 1 .
5/>/<fcri, 50, 52, 201.
Spring, signs of, n.

232 Index

Squirrel, 8 1.

Strawberries , 49.
Sturgeon, 205.
Summery Indian, 58.
Swallow, barn, 15.
Swallows, 1 6, a 6.
Swan Island, 157.
Sycamore, 30.
Syringa, 223.

T. Thoreau, H. D., quoted, 20, 59, 1 1 6.

14, 33, 55, 103.

13, 24, 85, 89, 103, 138, 219.
Toad, 78.
Tortoise, land, 76.
Tree-creeper, 219.

Trenton (New Jersey), battle of, 183.
Turtle, 6^, 70.

snapping, 44.
Turtles, 130.

V. Violet^ II, 14, 17, 80.

Vireo, red-eyed, 43.
J7«w, 33.

W. Walking-sticks, 199.
Walnuts, 51.
Walnut-tree, 148.
Warblers, 37.
Washington, 125, 187.

Index 233

Wasps, 174, aoo.
Waterloo •, 119.
Weasel, 176.
West Jersey, 146.
Willow Bend, 156.
Windfalls, 170.
Wine-sap, 175.
Winter-green, 80.
Woodchuck, 213.
Woodpecker, doiuny, 178.

golden-winged, 35, 82.
Woodward, Apollo, 187.
^r<r«, Carolina, 56, 8l, 21

Ao««, 30, 34.

•winter, 211, 214.

Y. r*rrow, 50, 53, 57, 224.

ELECTKOTYPED AND PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY,
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.