i

CHARLES

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

THE RAMBLES
OF AN IDLER

BY

CHARLES CONRAD ABBOTT, M. D.,

Author of " Days Out of Doors" " Out-
ings at Odd Times," etc.

Happy is he who remains a free lance in

the world of facts.
He alone shall never want for thoughts.

LONDON

STANLEY PAUL & CO.

CLIFFORD'S INN, TEMPLE BAR, E. C.

All rights reserved
Printed in U. S. A.

JUNIUS S. MORGAN

AN AUTUMN WALK AFIELD, SOME YEARS AGO, MADE
MEMORABLE BY YOU, AND WHICH LED TO MANY A
LONGER WALK SINCE, MAKES FIT THAT, WITH YOUR
PERMISSION, I DEDICATE TO YOU THESE DESULTORY
RECORDS OF DAYS OUT OF DOORS, IN WHICH YOU HAVE
TAKEN SO LIVELY AN INTEREST.

C C. A.

"47186

PKEFACE

Speak the word ' ' idleness ' ' as harshly as you
may, still it falls softly on the ear. Whisper
"work" in your most dulcet tones and still it is
harsh.

Idleness has its merit, therefore, but what of
its significance! Its persistently claimed pur-
port has heen preached down so vigorously, that
he is over-bold who would invite it to look up.
It is true, nevertheless, that the average man
labors that he may not labor. He looks to an
earned idleness as his just reward. Why, in-
deed, should he not?

It is a favorite, but not demonstrable doc-
trine, that idleness once attained, mischief
follows. If so, one might well ask the value,
to its possessor, of an average life. Then, too,
why does the poet hold that it is

Sweetest to dream, on easeful earth reclined,
Far in some forest's ancient idleness,
Under the shadow of its bossy boles,

Beyond the world's pursuit and Care's access.
And hear the wild feet of the elfin wind,
Dancing and prancing in mad caprioles.
V

The Rambles of an Idler

I venture to speak, in the following pages, of
that idleness which leads us not merely to touch
the hem of Nature's garment, but to clasp her
hand.

Eagerness may make one clumsy in such an
attempt and, though he succeeds to a personal
satisfaction, yet, lacking grace, his "impres-
sions" had better fall back into the ranks of
the unrecorded. Good advice this, but no one
thinks of its personal application.

To wander as Nature's guest, has been my
aim ; alike in sunshine and in shadow, under the
bright blue sky and when the storm-king as-
serted his ugly strength; gathering a harvest
that does not diminish, however frequent our
call upon its store.

Such harvest contradicts, it seems to me, the
assertion often heard,

Great the effort, great the gains;
Idleness and naught remains.

Argument savors of work and I eschew it.
The days came, the days passed by, and be it
for good or evil, I am yet able and very glad

tinder the shade of melancholy boughs,
[To] lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
vi

Preface

and have no wish to look on better days, nor
regret that I have

Idled all my life away;

Played with work and worked with play!

I am often very much amused at some of the
land-owners within the range of my rambles.
I keep so far within bounds in all I do or say
that I escape being regarded as a trespasser,
but sometimes, judging from the impatient
countenances of those I meet, I am looked upon
as a fool.

The best of what some land-holders have
never actually becomes their own. They take
nominal possession and I the actual ; and when
in unguarded moments my enthusiasm leads to
audible expression, they gape and wonder at
what they hear, and, as I say, set me down for
a fool.

Let me enumerate : There is the beauty of a
particular tree — the owner never saw the tree,
perhaps; there is the mottled carpet where
grass and moss alternate, and in season dainty
flowers brighten the whole; there are the best
points from which to view a sunset — how
many only know that the sun goes down; and

vii

The Rambles of an Idler

there is the charm of a spot where the Indians
had gathered and left imperishable traces of
their one-time sojourn. I fill my pockets with
many pretty pieces and march off, head up, the
very lord of that particular speck on the broad
map of creation. The farmer-owner has his
pork and corn, but the harvest I have gathered
is beyond him. I do not ask permission; why
should II His cupidity might be aroused and
I denied entrance. So I go on my way rejoic-
ing as he goes on his. His the worry and the
work to lift the mortgage; mine the joy and the
wholesome exercise to lift the relics. Who is
the true owner of the land?

I know a brook that never fails to sing, its
home a cliff-side shaded by old trees. Eibboned
clay and glistering white sand make the walls
and floor of this enchanting spot, and many a
bird tarries long to sound its praises. The
winter sunshine lingers lovingly and the frost
but ornaments with crystals the twigs of spice-
wood and weights the unwilted ferns with
gems. He who takes a mid- winter walk finds it
an ideal inn. It is always full of good cheer.
As an acre of ground it is my neighbor's prop-
erty, but I have been its owner for many a long

viii

Preface

year. To be sure, he can pitch its beauty into
a cart and carry it off, and would, doubtless, to
make a dollar; but I carry treasure from it
every time I chance there and he is none the
poorer. I hope his legal and my ideal interests
will never conflict.

He who walks to best advantage goes to the
country empty-handed and so is free to bring
back what he finds. To reverse this order is
often walking to no purpose. To take one's
town-troubles and town-interests into the fields
to give them an airing, may do them good, but
not yourself. Go as empty-handed and empty-
headed as you can. Unload all your cares in
the house or in the street and when the open
country is reached, you are in a truly receptive
frame of mind. You have an appetite for novel
impressions. The natural replaces the artifi-
cial so completely that, on returning, you scarce-
ly know yourself, and find it hard to explain
why so many really petty annoyances incident
to town-life vex one so mightily.

It is a comfort to know that always within
reach is some nook or corner in Nature's realm
where one's real self can come to the surface;
so, when the chickadee warbles, Hear me! you

ix

The Eambles of an Idler

can whistle back to it, in the same earnest and
fraternal spirit. Thus minded, the legal nice-
ties of land-ownership will not intrude. You
go about as Nature's guest and forget that any
bull-dog may be on the look-out to defend its
owner's sordid rights. Man mars not makes
the landscape. The chances are, these crowded
latter days, that he is Nature 's enemy, not her
friend, and certainly as he has waxed mighty in
intellect, Nature holds him at arm's length with
all her power. A product of her forces but a
rebellious one that she never forgives and kills
when she can. There should be no warfare, it
is true, but there is, and in the end she con-
quers. As dust she takes him up again and
fashions something else or a new man; but if
the latter, always with the hope that he may
prove more of a success, seen from her point of
view.

But never mind man, alive or dead; let us
hear what Nature has to say. The main pur-
pose of an outing is to listen, to hear accurately,
to heed implicitly. It is ill-bred to shout in her
ears. She knows our needs, our limitations.
She will point them out in time, and he who
has been so far favored is fit for any company.

x

Preface

By permission kindly granted by the publish-
ers, the "Fresh' on the Ma'sh," "I go a-May-
ing," "An Alpine Morning " and "IjDden: Past
and Present," originally appearing in "Lippin-
cott's Magazine," are here reproduced.

C. C. A.

Three Beeches: Trenton, N. J.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. IMPRESSIONS 1

II. INTERPRETATIONS . . 124

III. PERIPATETIC MEDITATIONS 152

IV. CANDOR 192

V. THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE . . . .204
VI. UNDER THE OAKS AND ELSEWHERE . . . .216

VII. FROM PILLAR TO POST 254

INDEX 301

Xlll

Lord of Myself! No cares demand

My time to troubling labor given ;

With day-dreams I go hand in hand ;

How oft for such an hour striven!
Now mine to have, to hold; to be
From carking care, an hour free.

Slave of stern circumstance no more,
The purling brook a welcome calls.
Mine now the green wood to explore,
To rest where sunlight softly falls,

Where shadows sport the oaks between,
Where Nature's hand alone is seen.

Mine to converse with happy bird,

To listen, while its song uplifts;

To outlook, trouble has not blurred

Thither my soul full eager drifts.

Lord of Myself ! Such hour as this,
Incarnate grows man's fabled bliss.

XIV

The Rambles of an Idler

CHAPTER ONE

IMPRESSIONS

It is well to make sure of every passing
thought. Later, it may prove the text of an
effective sermon. The same is true of much
that is suddenly recollected. Why the past re-
turns, let the psychologist determine. If we
can gather figs from such thistles, it is all that
need concern the most of us.

I have before me a fragment of a diary, dated
"Fourth day, Oct. 1, 1800." Here is incon-
sistency at the very outset. The language of
the Quaker and the man of the world in one
sentence. Does it mean my great-grandfather
was a Friend on First Day and otherwise,
through the week?

He starts to drive from "Abbott's Landing'1
1

The Rambles of an Idler

on Crosswicks Creek to Maurice Eiver, a long
journey through "the Pines." He does not
record a single interesting fact. Who cares if
the wagon did break down? How very differ-
ently I would have kept that record of a long
ride! Would I? The environment of the cur-
rent moment is the impelling force, and what
has happened, happened necessarily. To go
counter to the normal inclination is to fail. My
great-grandfather was concerned with his own
affairs and how was he to know he would have
an inquisitive great-grandson!

This sounds more reasonable than it really
is. There are people to come as well as people
now who are going and we who still live are
not sufficiently inclined to leave some perma-
nent traces of ourselves behind us. Did we do
so, truth would more highly color history.
There is now too much inference based upon a
few facts. I can fancy my great-grandfather
on his way to Maurice Eiver, but how much
better, could I see him, thanks to vivid descrip-
tion. But, do not find fault with our forbears
and be indifferent to posterity. We are too
prone to think what we have done or seen or
heard is of no importance, and so to record it is

2

Impressions

useless. It is always the other man who ought
to do this ; — and the other man thinks the
same. He is not more capable as you suppose.
A universal wrong impression goes the rounds
and the result is ignorance where useful knowl-
edge might have been. Did we know the past
more correctly, we could the better enjoy the
present and take care of the future.

There lie two ways to every end,
A better and a worse;

and the better one is not to leave too much to
the imaginations of those who will follow us.

Could I, from body free, in shadow lurk,
Methinks a useful lesson I could learn;

Seeing my better self in love with work,

From idle day-dreams, in disgust, would turn;

Toiling in earnest, such a picture make,

Would love my task for the appearance' sake.

Just as every old town has one or more old
streets, so there are peculiarly old places that
escape for a long time the disastrous effects of
the march of improvement. In the old town
nearest by, there is a business centre — Infer-
no 's gate, and a residential section — a long

3

The Rambles of an Idler

way off from Paradise regained. The former
is too like rotten fruit; the latter too like that
which is green. Neither is to my liking, so I
pass them by. Good, matured fruit, such as de-
lights me, I found in a back street, an old thor-
oughfare but little travelled now. Too far
from business, thinks the merchant and the land
is not sought for warehouses. Nobody that is
anybody lives here, comments the newly-mar-
ried woman and she passes it by. Happy side
street 1 Fortunate, truly, in the neglect shown
it. . It rejoices, in its calm, dignified way, in
an old house; one with oak beams and honest
walls, with a fire-place instead of a stove-pipe
hole ; a house with an odor of antiquity, which
is vastly preferable to the odor of sanctity; and
here lives David Pickup, dealer in Old Furni-
ture.

It was by mere chance that I passed that way,
a happy impulse due to the fact that here I had
played full fifty years ago. The old occupant
of the house has long been gone. David is a
comparatively new comer. I was struck by the
name stenciled on the little sign above the door.
Such a name ! and that too coupled with such a
business. I was so far interested that I made

4

Impressions

excuse to enter the little shop and this initial
visit has led to many since.

My trips to town now have a rational pur-
pose. I go directly to Pickup's, that I may get
deeper into the country. Here more than any
other place that I know of, centre the relics of
more than one century. The shop is the Para-
dise of old tables, sideboards, desks and chairs.
Here, their wrongs are righted at last and they
are given new leases of life as rewards of merit.

Banished for fancied uselessness or ill-looks
— "out of style " as silliness declares — to gar-
ret or cellar, or put to plain uses that tried all
its strength, this uncomplaining furniture is
recognized at last at its original and still true
value and a wiser owner restores it to its place
of honor.

David Pickup himself is old in all things save
in years. He loves his work, and his knowl-
edge of furniture, its history, method of manu-
facture, and materials used, is far more exten-
sive than that of many writers on the subject.
How like a professor before his class, would he
pick up a piece of wood, dust it with his shirt
sleeve and call attention to the beauty of the
grain. "There is mahogany worth having";

The Eambles of an Idler

"here is real bird's-eye maple "; or "cherry
trees are not old enough now to have wood like
this, red as blood;7' or "here's cedar that is
cedar, not faded yet and sweet smelling. "
More or less of all this would he say in a most
impressive manner; and less often, he would
lay down his saw or plane and seating himself
in a chair I have long coveted, throw his arms
back to support his head and exclaim with great
animation,

"Wood, like wine, improves with age, if
properly cared for and what strange stories
these old things could tell, desk or chair, that
is, if they could only — ," then glancing at the
little clock, he would start up, saying, "Phew!
I've no time to waste."

David Pickup is not an extraordinary man,
but his remarks are always timely and that is
being next door to a philosopher. He is not
original, but then, the world has not had a
brand new set of ideas in a thousand years, and
as far back as that plagiarism was not uncom-
mon. David makes excellent use of the old set
phrases ; better use than does the crowd as you
meet it. At least, he never speaks an unneces-
sary word and when my visit ends, I find I can

6

Impressions

carry home his conversation as easily as I can
recall, if I desire, the aromatic atmosphere of
his shop. These visits are, indeed, like going
back and seeing what once was, and was for the
better too, instead of hearing or reading his-
tory. To be your own great-grandfather for
an hour and face solid wood instead of veneer,
is an experience worth the trouble that it costs.
I was not the only casual visitor. More than
one old man of the neighborhood had found
David's shop, and when, one dreary November
afternoon, I heard mention of the recent high
water in the Assunpink Creek, I recalled and
recounted, as best I could, the story I had heard
of a flood of long ago, as told at the cross-
road's corner near my home.

Along the north wall of the smithy ran a low
seat giving comfortable room to four people.
It was far enough away to avoid the sparks
from the anvil and, having a sunny, southern
outlook, was the chosen spot where four old
men of the village were wont to gather every
bright winter day. Job Stillcreep was the dean
of this little faculty, in whose keeping were the
traditions of the neighborhood, — a long-settled

7

The Rambles of an Idler

one, yet never having sufficient vigor to outgrow
the primitive conditions of its Colonial days.

The winter was drawing to a close, and the
current topic of all was the signs of spring.
As it usually happened, in whatever was dis-
cussed, Job was not in agreement with his hear-
ers. Whatever they suggested as surely in-
dicative of the season's end he vigorously criti-
cised, not that there was no basis for such a
view, but because he had not hit upon it in ad-
vance of others. To-day it was another matter
altogether, and one where agreement might be
looked for, but Job was not even now in an
acquiescent mood.

"I never know'd a higher fresh' on the ma'sh
than this last one," remarked Benjamin Good-
wheat, "an' it beats all creation where sech a
lot o ' water comes from. ' '

"Then you didn't see the fresh' o' '41," re-
plied Job. "I was nineteen that winter, and
what with duckin' and mus'-rattin', didn't do
much loafin'. The spring afore I follered
fishin' above Perriwig Bar, but oP man Biles
was too contrary when the shad didn't run well,
and sort o' laid it on us boys for not workin'
the net right. I kicked an' we had it hot, an'

8

Impressions

a'ter a tongue-la shin' he gave me I got out. It
wasn't what I wanted. His da'ter Nance drew
me more'n the pay I was gettin' an' he know'd
it; so he gave me to understand I needn't keep
loafin' round. But I did see Nance more'n
once, an' she didn't side with the ol' man. I
kep' up heart an' worked on the farms 'round
till fall came an' saved every penny I got.
'Long late in the summer I laid 'em out for a
good gun an' fixin's an' turned to huntin'.
Hides was a good price and Sammy Quicksall
took all the ducks I shot at a fair figger.
Things went on purty well till about Christmas,
when I got restless-like for Nance and couldn't
f oiler any thin' fur thinkin' o' her. You know
how lads is when they get this way real bad,
and that was me fur sure.

"I tho't it over, and says I, 'I'll go see the
ol' man and make up if I can.' I went over
from Duck Island to his house, but he seen me
a-comin' and comes out, warnin'-like, and or-
ders me off. He 'lowed he'd all his hands en-
gaged. I said I was sorry, but up and square
told him that wasn't what I came fur, but to
keep steady comp 'ny with Nance. Says I, ' I 've
a bit laid up, and can work steady as a farm

9

The Rambles of an Idler

hand all summer and f oiler gunnin' and trap-
pin' fall and winter.' He wouldn't listen. I
kep' a- j a win' and all the time edgin' towards
the house. I seen Nance standin' in the door,
lookin' sort o' smilin' like, and that kep' up my
courage more'n the ol' man's gab kep' me down.

"Gettin' near enough, I says, 'Who do you
favor, Nance?'

"She up and says, 'You, Job, 'cause you're
fair and square and Daddy's no reason to go
ag'in' you.'

"You never saw a madder man than ol' man
Biles.

" 'I ain't goin' ag'in' you, Daddy,' says
Nance, 'but I can't help my favorin' Job. You
know he's as good as any young feller 'round,
and nobody's got nothin' ag'in' him.'

"I wanted to up and kiss the gal right there,
but just held off a bit.

" 'Get out o' here !' hollers the ol' man to me.
'Go in the house!' he hollers to Nance.

' ' ' Not much, ' says I. ' I 'm in the public road
jus' at present and committin' no breach o' the
peace. But by the eternal racket/ says I, 'if
you're rough with Nance in my hearin', either
with your hand or your tongue, there'll be

10

Impressions

trouble in the road or off o' it, as it happens
where you be.'

" 'I'll get a warrant out fur ye fur threat-
ening' says the ol' man.

"Now, warrants is a nuisance. They're apt
to interfere with your plans, so I sings out,
'Good-by, Nance!' and got out. She waves a
bit o' ribbon and then said somethin' I didn't
catch, but I 'lowed it was all sweety words, and
so went away cheerful.

"It took me a couple o' weeks to get settled
like. I couldn't plan nothin', seein' Nance was
out o' reach. I'd a notion fur a house on the
Island, but Nance might like one on the Manor
shore. I got all upsot, and says I, 'I'll see
Nance, spite o' the ol' man.'

"That very day it started in a-rainin'. The
wind got 'round to the s'uth'ard and snow and
ice melted all in no time. Thinks I, 'There'll
be a fresh'.' Then I tho't o' Nance. The ol'
man's house was too close to the river shore
for safety, anyhow. More 'n once the water had
lapped over the front step, and in '39 it was on
the first floor. There was no crossin' the river
in a boat, so I went up to the bridge and walked
down on the Manor side. The water kep'

11

The Rambles of an Idler

a-comin' up and up, and I know'd trouble was
a-brewin' for the folks in the low lands. Talk
about streaks o' luck! 'Fore I reached Biles 's
I seen a strange boat with oars in it comin*
down stream lodged in some bresh. I know'd
it was from up the river, so I'd a right to take
possession, an' you bet, I did. 'If,' says I, 'if
the ol' man's ugly, I'm here to watch out for
Nance, if he won't have 'sistance from me.' I
had to wade to get the boat and was wet
through, then and there, an' shakin' with cold,
but that wasn't nothin'. 'It was all for Nance,'
says I, and I work'd 'long the edge of the water
like till I got to the big net-frame, and then I
hollered.

" 'Who be ye?' hollered the ol' man back.

" 'Me, Job,' says I, and then Nance show'd
at the winder. She was teary-like 'round the
eyes, it sort o' seemed to me, tho', course, I
couldn't see her real plain that far away.

" '(Mn' to stay in there?' I hollered, not
goin' up to the house.

" 'You can give your help where it's wanted,'
hollered the ol' man, and slammed the door.

"That there settled it for me. '01' man or
no oP man, Nance ain't goin' to be drowned, if

12

Impressions

he means to be,' says I, and rowed up as near
as I could get.

" 'Don't you come no furder,' hollers the oP
man.

"I didn't holler back, but pulls ashore and
goes 'round the blind side o ' the house. Nance
know'd if she didn't a-see me, and luck had it
ag'in, for the ol' man kep' his eye on the river.
When I got back o' the house I made a motion
to come out, and Nance opened a little winder
and waved her hand. Wake snakes! but my
heart giv' a thump, and I know'd then I was in
for biziness. I crep' up along the garden fence
and got real close. She saw and said, softly-
like, she couldn't clim' thro', an' Daddy would
ketch her if she opened the back door.

" ' Ketch or no ketch,' says I, 'an' I'll tend
to Daddy,' says I, and fust I know'd, she was
out o' doors and I grabb'd her. 'Fore the ol'
man saw she was in the boat, and thar he came
a-hollerin'. You never saw a madder man than
the ol' man was. He hollered, 'Gome back!'
but she knew it was for her life she was runnin',
an' we put out into the river.

"It was fool-work, sure enough, but I was
only a fool of a chunk then, and tho't only o'

13

The Eambles of an Idler

Nance and nothin' o' nothin' else, A young
feller in love, you know, ain't apt to be over-
burdened with common sense. Fust, I know'd
we was in swifter water than I could tackle.
The way we rush'd 'long was a caution, an' all
there was to do was to keep out o' the way o'
logs and bresh-wood; but no use, a tree came
quicker 'n we were goin', an' we got fetched up
in the branches. The tree took a roll like in a
minute, and sort o' lifted the boat out o' the
water, an' there we sat, ridin' in a way that
was goin' f aster 'n pleasant. If the tree took
another roll, we were goners, that was plain,
an' I up an' says so.

" ' Job,' says Nance, 'if it's God's will, so be
it. If we can't live together, we can die to-
gether, an' that's better'n livin' apart.'

"Didn't I feel queer-like! That woman sit-
tin' there like one in a pictur jus' made me grit
me teeth, grip me oars, an' wait. I kep' one
eye on the water and one on her, and 'fore I
know'd it the tree giv' a lurch, an' the boat,
'stead o' upsettin', was free ag'in. Didn't I
pull for the Jersey shore then, an ' Nance didn 't
look like herself, but more'n ever like a pictur.
It was gettin' dark like, and the Bordentown

14

Impressions

lights begin to show out shiny. I pull'd till
'most my arms giv ' out and then got into where
it was easier rowing but we was tangled up with
rubbish in the mouth o' the creek an' there we
stuck, movin' slowly out into the ma'sh. Logs,
trees, housel-goods, sech a mess, an' all there
was to do was to drift. Nance got sort' o'
shiverin' but said nothin', but I heard her teeth
chatterin' and I took off my coat and put it over
her.

"She was cryin' like too, but I says nothin'.
I seen a chance to get clear, I tho 't , an' I pushed
and poked with the oars and sort o' got out of
the worst of it and a bit nearer the shore.
Then I hollered. Folks had seen us. We was
still out o' reach for a time, but gettin' nearer,
and soon a feller flung a rope and, pullin' on it,
we got near enough to step over logs and get
ashore; but it wasn't easy. Nance was that
weak she had to be held up like, and once down
we went clean up to our necks. It was nip and
tuck then, but a man got out to us and we car-
ried Nance, a dead weight, to the shore at last.
Women folks took her into the house, so they
could look after her, and I give out for once.
I was nigh about as near gone as Nance was,

15

The Rambles of an Idler

but a swig o' rum sort o' sot me up, an' that was
the last swig ever passed my mouth. "

"Passed it outside ?" asked Benjamin, inter-
rupting Job for the first time.

"No, inside, an' here I be, eighty-one an'
what the minister calls a livin' monniment to
lettin' rum alone. T~~

"As I was savin', I was over the wust of it
an' sot by the stove to dry off. But I did
more'n that. I fell asleep an' slep' an' slep'
till it was way on in the nex' day. When I
woke I was lyin' on a settee by the stove, an'
the fust I said was, ' How's Nance?'

"The men 'round said no thin' an' a woman
was a-cryin'. Says I, 'What is it? You're
boun' to tell me.' But they says, 'Keep still,
Job, aa' don't let her hear you.'

"Says I, 'Then she's livin',' an' I sort o' fell
asleep ag'in. But not for long. I heered a
scream an ' was on my pins in a second. I made
for the room she was in, and sech a sight ! She
was white as a snowbank an' wild-like 'round
the eyes. Says I, 'Nance, be ye right ag'in?'

"She only says, 'Job,' and fell right back'ard.
Then I got settled like an' felt I was Job Still-
creep, sound and hearty. I never left Nance

16

Impressions

more'n a minute or two all that day, an' the
Doctor said she was mending an' she did. See-
in' me set her right, for she'd a notion I was
drowned. It didn't take long to come 'round,
an' we both were up an' ready to be doin', only
she was baby-like and took hold o' cheers and
tables sort o' when she moved around. We
was in good hands, an' says I, ' Nance, now
you're 'round ag'in, I'll go look up your
Daddy.'

"She gives a jump at that an' up an' give me
a smack I can hear the noise of yit. The
women 'round sort o' laughed, an' Nance got
red an' says, 'He's airnt it, if ever a man did.'

" 'Them words is worth go in' it all over ag'in
for', says I, an' I went out with the fellers to
see the sights. The water was down a good
bit, an' I borrow 'd a skiff an' was for goin'
over to the ol' man's, but they said it was no
use. His house was gone down the river an'
no one had heard o' him. 'Keep it from
Nance,' says I, an' I went just the same. It
was a tough pull, but I got there. The ol' man
was a-walkin' up and down where the house
used to be, an' when he seen me, about a hun-
dred yards off he stopped a bit and then up

17

The Eambles of an Idler

with a gun an' levelled it. I dropped into the
boat as he blazed away, an* the shot rattled
'round but didn't hit me. I let the boat drift,
peepin' over the gunnel. He loaded ag'in and
fired, but I was too far off, an' then I seen two
men a-runnin' an' they swung their arms 'round
an' held him an' drug him away. I went back,
sort o' worried-like, an' up an' told Nance all
about it.

1 ' Says she, 'We'll go over there together,'
says she, an' sech a look in her eyes I never
seen afore. She wouldn't take no from no one.

' * ' Are you a-f eared, Job 1 ' says she.

"Says I, 'No,' an' we went. There was no-
body 'bout when we got there, an' we didn't
know rightly jus' where to go, but soon we saw
the ol' man a-comin'. He'd slipped away from
the folks as was a-keepin' an eye on him, an'
Nance and me stood there together. He was
gone clean daft. There was no look o' sense
in his eyes, an' he wouldn't say nothin'.

" 'Daddy,' says Nance, 'don't you know
me?'

" 'No,' says he, and then he looked wild at
me, an' Nance begin a-cryin' and callin', 'Dad-
dy', 'Daddy.'

18

Impressions

"I hollered 'Help,' half-fearin' trouble, and
the men came a'ter the ol' man a-runnin'.

"Says I, 'Go for the minister if he be in
reaching' an' they look'd at me, wonderin', but
one of 'em went off. We four what was left
stood there a-waitin', an' it seemed as if the
day'd be gone 'fore t'other one come back, but
he show'd up as the sun was a-settin' an' the
minister with him.

" 'Be it you're willin', Nance and me '11 get
married,' says I. 'It's best for the ol' man an'
us too, I'm thinkin'.'

" 'Really,' says the minister, 'but this is most
unusual, and really I must — '

"I cut him short. 'This is no place for
preachin', nor time neither. It's marryin' I'm
in for, an' ask Nance if she's agreed to it.'

' ' The minister looked sort o ' kerflummixt, but
says he, stammerin' like, 'Miss Biles, is it your
wish, under these remarkable circumstances?'

"She up an' says 'Yes,' and lookin' at her
daddy says, ' Daddy, don 't you say so ? '

"The ol' man didn't say no thin', but kep'
a-lookin' sort o' wild like.

" 'I'll take care of 'em both,' says I, 'an' it
might as well be here as anywhere, an' the

19

The Rambles of an Idler

sooner the better.' The long an' short of it is,
the minister married me and Nance, with them
two men to witness it, an* he give us his blessin'
an* I giv' him a dollar. Then we stood there a
minute, feelin' foolish like, I s'pose, not knowin'
what to say, when the oP man holler 'd, nat'ral
like, * Nance, don't leave me!'

" Nance sprung on his neck like a cat on a
sparrer an' most knocked him over.

"The light come back in the ol' man's eyes
an' he shook like a leaf in the winter-time. He
held out his hand an' I took it, an' then, some-
how, everything look'd brighter, an' Nance cried
an' laughed till I tho't she would go crazy.
The ol' man cross 'd the river with us an' we
went to where me an' Nance had been stay in ?.

"We soon got to work ag'in where the
ol' man's house had stood, an' put up a bigger
an' better one, an' did well that spring a-fishin',
and then I settled down an' staid there till two
year ago, when Nance * crossed over,' as the
minister said at the funeral, an' I'll soon f oiler
an' hope I'll see her on t'other side. That was
a fresh' on the ma'sh, in '41, sech as I never
seen afore nor since."

20

Impressions

Walking has ever been a favorite theme with
the essayist, and many a philosopher, too, has
given it such attention that in these days when
originality seems exhausted and literary deca-
dence to have taken firm hold of the intellectual
world, whoever refers to the subject should be
careful that what he may say as his very own
thought proves not to be a crippled echo of an-
cient eloquence. His only excuse will be that
an echo may have value. If we cry out and the
echo is heard, we may get a reply as promptly
as if the original utterance fell upon the ear.
Whether or not it proves an oft-told tale, I
would speak of walking.

The peripatetic can point to Aristotle and no
one can refer to a higher authority for aught he
does; and the peripatetic who has Nature for
companion is likely to prove the equal, in life's
tug of war, of any automobile citizen who be-
lieves that haste is the chief end of man. Be-
cause we associate life with motion and absence
of it with death, the former is not necessarily in
proportion to activity. Crystals are now said
to be alive, yet we cannot see them move.
Comets, on the other hand, are dead, yet for-

21

The Rambles of an Idler

ever in motion. As in so much that concerns
mankind, there is a happy medium. It can be
set down as a rule that the walking man thinks,
and as he thinks, so does he walk. This is
Nature's law, not man's. The contemplative,
the angry and the frightened man are readily
distinguished by their walk.

The fact that the definition of "walking," as
set forth in the various dictionaries, has to do
with locomotion, does not set aside the far more
important fact that we need not walk a great
distance to become far-traveled. It all depends
on what our interest centers. A wayside pool
of insignificant dimensions might keep one stir-
ring for a dozen years. Nature deals in riddles
as well as in plain print.

But, is this walking!

It is breathing the fresh air. It is having
moss or grass to tread upon. It is standing
more than sitting. It is motion more than rest.
It is the best of all the good things Nature
offers. You may call it not walking, but, if so,
it is a splendid substitute and the happy result
is that we gradually cease to be strangers in a
strange land; for until we know the world in
which we live, we are simply tolerated guests.

22

Impressions

When knowledge replaces ignorance we are less
guests and more companions. If we cultivated
earth-knowledge as we do artificiality, and
spent with weeds and rocks the time that is
given to vain speculation concerning the un-
knowable, Dame Nature and "Homo sapiens"
would be better friends. Man has been on the
earth for many thousands of years, but has not
yet reached to the years of discretion concern-
ing this planet.

When we think of the pebble that obstructs
our step as but an obstacle to easy going, and
toss it contemptuously aside, we are not walk-
ing to good purposes; but if the pebble com-
mands our attention, if we see it as a fragment
of a great bed of rock, if we see that it has been
rounded by water action, rolling for ages in
the bed of a stream, then we are walking, and
the mere movement of the lower limbs is the
least part of it. Walking calls for our head as
well as our heels.

I remember that when a child and sent upon
an errand, I was told not to loiter. But I did.
I learned to loiter a,s I learned to walk, and re-
joice now that parental instruction was not fol-

23

The Rambles of an Idler

lowed to the letter. I remember finding, half
a century ago, a great cluster of butterflies on
a little bush, and I stayed and played with them
until it began to grow dark. The errand was
quite forgotten, and of course there was a grand
commotion at home, but what of it? I was only
learning to walk. I remember, later, walking
farther and farther into a dense swamp until
the sun was near to setting and then finding
myself out of it, but in strange fields. I had
wandered wherever interest pointed and had no
thought of fatigue or fear, and was fresher
when found than were those who were search-
ing for me. Such methods of learning to walk
may be open to objections, but no others are as
effective. If eyes and ears do not play their
part, the little the legs do goes for nothing.

Walking calls also for the exercise of mem-
ory. The earlier walk recalled will throw light
on the later one. The inexplicable of yester-
day, seen under disadvantage, is plain to-day
when the conditions are more favorable. The
unfamiliar chirp that we heard may be a more
elaborate song the day following and what was
then a vexing mystery is now a pleasing fact.

24

Impressions

The bird in full song and in full view, we recog-
nize when as a chirping imp in the shadows it
only piqued our curiosity. We are never sure
of some small plants until we see them in
bloom, and the day of their flowering follows
that of being in leaf. We always need two
walks and often more to make sure of any fact.
We need to walk day after day to learn the pre-
ordained method of Nature and the earlier out-
ings must not be blanks to us when the climax
of the season is finally reached.

We look for exertion to be rewarded and all
know that fortune earned is better appreciated
than wealth without effort. The best inheri-
tance is a desire to succeed. The silver spoon
that accompanies a birth may overweigh the
infant. The walk that is most successful is
that which better equips us for another like
undertaking. Walks should be a series of ex-
ertions, with a reward awaiting them at their
close. The fact takes hold when we face it, but
not always when we merely hear or read about
it. We may read all the natural histories ever
written, and then, going out of doors, continu-
ously be asking ourselves, What is this that I
see!

25

The Rambles of an Idler

And this going out of doors must be as Na-
ture intended, on foot. We must walk, not ride,
across the plain and wade the brooks and thread
the tangled wildwood that lie between us and
the mountain. We are then equipped to realize
the whole purport of the rising ground, and
when at last we reach its base we must proceed
step by step, yet climbing ever higher and
higher, and by this means secure that alertness
of all our senses which is called for when, at the
summit, the world lies spread before us, in order
to get not only an intelligent but a comprehen-
sive view of it.

This I conceive to be walking in its entirety,
and is far removed from mere exercising of
ambulatory muscles. The latter may be a rem-
edy for rheumatism, but never for ignorance.
The advocate of muscular pedestrianism might
with perfect consistency rest his head on the
ground and let his heels wave in the air as the
most important part of him.

To admit the logic of the "unco guid," to
be wool-gathering, rather than forever occu-
pied with the stern facts of life, is to go astray,
but I contend it is a sin worth sinning. It is
but a brief and blameless existence in an ideal

26

Impressions

world, one where fruit is all sweet, flowers all
fair, the weather a succession of Maydays,
where all wrong is righted and pain unknown.
All this, at least, I find is the substantial un-
substantiality of a winter-day walk and wool-
gathering.

It is significant that we can speak of walking
in winter in a confident manner. When the
south wind tempers the icy breath of the north,
I go a- walking and a-wool-gathering by the way.
I have a clear' vision of what was replacing
everything which is. Every blot upon the land-
scape fades. A bird's song now is the reviving
echo of dead music. When the earth was
younger, I fancy it must have been fairer. It
matters nothing that this may be false. What
I now see is very real, though it does not exist.
One gets outside of himself when wool-gather-
ing and is not to be measured by a common-
place standard.

This winter day: there never was another
more perfect. I have the crested tit for my
authority. Its song may not have changed
since June, but it sings now for its own enter-
tainment and not for its mate. Perhaps it, too,
is wool-gathering and is now not the master, but

27

The Rambles of an Idler

the slave, of thought. Surely, very suggestive
of meditation is its song to-day. Howsoever
this may be, its music moves me. I am as re-
sponsive as the vane to the passing breeze. A
few, clear, fife-like notes escape the tangle of a
vine-clad nook and the keen air trembles as if
the wind had whispered. They bring to mind
the magic of May, of spring-tide life and all
that filled life's goblet to the brim. An empty
glass now and overturned, yet who, when it was
held aloft, thought he could drain it? Youth
laughs at Father Time.

Now, almost mute the sparrows in the field,
but still I hear their fragments of a song.
Wherein can lie the pleasure of a vain regret?
Vain to review the past, as they seem doing.
Vain to shout in ears that do not hear. I smile
now to think of that perfect world which that
untaught youth beheld; but the crested tit, so
earnestly it sings, seems not to mourn over
joys it has tasted. It rejoices in the recollec-
tion thereof; so it may be better, after all, to be
wool-gathering than overly serious. It is well
occasionally to play the fool. Wisdom should
not be allowed to drain the under-current of

28

Impressions

humor. Eemain flexible enough to laugh.
Knowledge should not become a dead weight.

The fitful sunshine seeks the whistling bird.
The glint of sunbeams stirs its responsive pulse
and a yet livelier song comes up the glen. I,
too, am stirred. A sun-lit summer moment has
returned. The woods are lovelier than they
were anon, the water sparkles where it has been
dull. The bird's song is a voice silent long
years — a cloud passes, the tit murmurs but a
single note. The past is past, indeed ; the pres-
ent faces me as a grim fact. Life plays many
a prank upon our peace of mind,

The birds are not always with us in winter
and peopling such vacuous days is a dangerous
pastime. We cannot choose our companions
and how often more the unwelcome than the
welcome guests. Regret, the aftermath of ill-
born thought, fills the vast charnel-house of
days gone by. The breeze that stirs the few,
dry, rotting leaves remaining tells us that sum-
mer has been, but are we the wiser! What
might we not have learned: how little knowl-
edge has been added to our store. We recall
the pricking of the thorns, with all the attend-
ant pain and sorrow, but have no roses to show.

29

The Rambles of an Idler

Ever the old story, more reason to lament than
to exult.

But, preaching to the winds ! Either I hear
winter's little yellow tree-toad or Tune is rumi-
nating in a muttering way. One or the other,
and I, too, "chew the cud of sweet and bitter
fancy, " for these are the perfected days of
winter and both meditation and exertion are
called for. Labor is set to music and we can
both sing its praises and practice its precepts.
I am standing now on the sunny side of an old
tree wondering what next to do.

Old trees — do they wool-gather ?

Three or more hundred years ago this way-
side chestnut was a trail-side tree. Does it
think now of those who passed when it wore a
greener crown and does it deign to notice the
toiling, overanxious crowd that daily passes!
As all that is left of a one-time forest, the tree
alone concerns me. Why? To-day, like the
poor, we have always with us, but it is not al-
ways that we have the past. Here lies the
charm of a wool-gathering stroll. This tercen-
tenarian chestnut has a word only for those
who look backward; and the trail, the Indian,

30

Impressions

and the wild beasts of the boundless woods are
pictured to the mind. The tamed, stale, flat and
unprofitable actual outlook utterly fades away.
I, for one, verily see the past brought back
again. The highway is no longer the throbbing
artery of ceaseless trade. I tread upon moss,
not the bare earth, and then, rested, walk as in
a dream. It is now the old " bridle-stye " that
the early Quakers knew. Soon I reach the
nearest village, a colonial hamlet that has known
no serious change since its natal day. It crys-
tallized at a creek-side point on the old trail and
to-day is and for almost a century and a half
has been resting from the arduous labor of a
week's excitement when, in 1756, an Indian pow-
wow occurred about its oldest oak and twenty-
two years later a little muttering of revolution-
ary thunder startled it again. Then it was that
the door of progress was shut upon it and never
from behind it has been heard one word of pro-
test. Now, the world must knock with empha-
sis if it would be heard, and all too likely timid
folk would merely peep through Venetian blinds
in response and ponder over the desirability of
further notice. Such was my wool-gathering
as I passed by and reached the great tree that

31

The Rambles of an Idler

ante-dates all else, save the Indian trail hard by,
now the very type of a village street.

Does this old oak wool-gather?

Here, amid rolling fields stands an old oak,
the sole, remaining witness of a half millennium
of change ; perhaps of a longer time. Happily,
it is immediately surrounded by the meeting-
house yard and that this should be encroached
upon is unthinkable. What a grand thing if
more old trees were equally safe. To rever-
ence an old oak is ennobling. Every man is the
better for it. This great tree stands for very
much so far as every contemplative rambler is
concerned and doubtless for much more for it-
self. We say frequently of a relic: If it could
but speak! Herein this aged oak differs from
an old house or old furniture ; it can speak. It
is not a poet's whim that there are tongues in
trees. This oak is Nature's spokesman, too,
and her only historian.

Standing now by the massive trunk of this
great Crosswicks oak^ I wonder what secrets
are hidden in its heart. This is not so idle
as crying for the moon. Trees are not as
sphinx-like as the Sphinx. The passing breeze

32

Impressions

stirs the few, crisp, frost-bitten leaves to life.
Their rustling is not remote from words. The
oak is talking or I am wool-gathering. It is a
distinction without a difference. Oaks of ear-
lier centuries are reminiscential. It was so to-
day. It was all about the sprouted acorn that
escaped its myriad foes; of a sapling among
giants that became a giant among saplings;
then from self to its surroundings, to the Indian
who long since passed away and the colonist
that came; and after that the day of the sov-
ereign people of an unkinged country and all
that it has cost since to reach the present. All
this and a vigorous tree still.

Herein the oak is happier than the man. It
has grown great without great effort. All that
man does but opens the door to more that must
be done and men so often die early, old beyond
their years.

A winter-day walk need not be a walk in vain ;
not, at least, if the wool gathered by the way-
side proves worth the gathering.

No hand outreaching from another world has
ever beckoned me to follow it and find myself a
stranger in a strange land. I have never heard

33

The Eambles of an Idler

an unfamiliar voice but clearly belonged to this
substantial world and whose words had aught
to do with other than life's realities. In brief,
nothing of the nature of a ghost has ever come
within the bounds of my experience. Prosaic
fact has ever been my portion. Yet, had I
chosen, ghosts might often have held me in
bondage.

While cobwebs, dew and moonlight are com-
mon phenomena separately, they are sometimes
so cunningly combined that not one remains it-
self, and associated they play ugly tricks upon
us, in spite of all we can do. Some among
us have seen the pastures glisten at sun-
rise, where webs, like fairy, napkins, were
spread upon the grass. Then we were given
over to admiration and of course were brave.
But stitch together a few of these and hang
them on a tree, where the moonbeams will find
them, and then the familiar woodpath leads to
regions of doubt, if not despair. At such a
time, unless we are brave far beyond ordinary
mortals, we shall think of ghosts and pause if
not retrace our steps. Many a veracious man
has sworn he has seen a ghost with far less
reason for so doing; but let an owl hoot and it

34

Impressions

will seem to be an earth-born voice ; even the big
bullfrog will not be recognized. Every voice
of the night will center about the cobweb — no,
the ghost.

That calm, common sense which is our pride,
the judgment we boast of when we encounter
difficulties, the logic which we learned at school,
all that goes to the making of a man, vanishes
into thin air, is scattered by the whispered
breath of fear, when cobwebs wave in the moon-
light. It is strange that we are seldom satis-
fied with the simple fact and are so prone to
invest the actual with fanciful conditions.
"Nothing if not marvelous" is a popular
motto. It is all very true that a straight line is
the shortest distance between two points, but
because this is true the straight line is not in
favor. It reduces life to too simple an equa-
tion. We must be forever travelling around
Eobin Hood's barn to be satisfied. No one
thinks of walking straight through it, even if
the doors are wide open. Spiders may spin
their silk; that is nothing. Moisture may con-
dense to dewdrops ; that is less. The moon may
shine as it never shone before; who cares?

35

The Rambles of an Idler

These three simple facts are too commonplace
for us, and Nature altogether too prosaic for
our mystery-loving souls. The earth is not for
our feet; we must tread on air. We weary of
the homely beauty of simplicity; we must see
ghosts. The real ceases to satisfy, we crave
the unreal, the unsubstantial, the feverish lie
rather than cool-headed truth.

Cobwebs and consistency make a rare com-
bination for a winter night's meditation. We
claim to be consistent and resent any hint that
we are lacking in this virtue. Nothing if not
practical is our boast. We glory in the conclu-
sions of the truly learned, yet, if it chance to be
dark and a clammy thread of gossamer crosses
our face, we stop as if struck with a rod of iron.
That single, delicate thread, the tiniest twig
will break, is a cable of vast strength our nerves
tug against in vain. We feel for the moment
as if Fate had decreed the end of our career.
All the while, we know it is gossamer, but lose
faith in our knowledge. Very consistent when
not even a fool is deceived, but shut out the light
of day and every pygmy is a malicious giant.
It is as difficult to be consistent as to be candid,
and little the credit, if we succeed.

36

Impressions

A cobweb can deflect our course as surely as
rocks turn aside the current of a brook.

Not all gossamer is spider-web. We love the
flimsy so well that we readily take to dainty
nothingness and half our lives dally with un-
restrained thought, the gossamer of idleness,
that weaves a chain about us which we could
break if we would, but never do. We hold,
whether logically or not, that the gossamer of
our own begetting deserves better treatment.
We nurse it carefully, we humor its whims, we
become its willing slave, and all the while the
world is waiting for us to do our proper work.
What an immense showing would it make if we
did half we might do. Instead, the world too*
often has reason to wonder why we ever were,
so trivial the impression made by us. A good
epitaph for many a head-stone : l ' Enslaved by
gossamer/'

If it be true that "he is a freeman whom the
truth makes free," then the naturalist is fortu-
nate in escaping from bondage, for the cobwebs
that are everywhere have a significance of their
own that it behooves us to consider. Nature
meets with no accidents and leaves nothing ly-

37

The Rambles of an Idler

ing about, having no purpose. Cobwebs are
not rubbish and tell their own pretty story to
the patient listener. Whoever is willing to
trace their history is abundantly rewarded.
They lead us into the presence of spiders, and
these, in turn, are not as uncanny as is generally
supposed, even if first cousins to scorpions.
Our interest should not dimmish because some
of them will bite, but increase because of their
skill as engineers, for many a suspension bridge
was built by them before man thought to span
our rivers with a wire cable. Then, not all cob-
webs are airy threads strung from chance pillar
to post. They are sometimes hinges to neat
doors that guard subterranean homes, and
again are cords that bind together sticks ar-
ranged in cob-house fashion; but more notice-
able than all is the closely woven fabric that is
spread out temptingly as a pleasant play-ground
for the foolish fly, but is not so desirable as it
looks, for the insect 's feet stick fast, and the
weaver of the web knows he has a victim.
Every web has a purpose distinctively its own,
and how readily we enter the broad field of
speculation when we come to consider the cause
behind it all, that of specific differentiation ; for

38

Impressions

there are spiders and spiders and it is always
easy to gather a dozen or more that vary
greatly in size, shape and color. They are
everywhere, too, and not an unknown factor
of a midwinter day. Some even live in the
water, carrying a supply of air to their webby
nests beneath the surface. How easy to specu-
late how all this came about and yet, not yet are
we advanced to the point of positive knowledge.
But above all these dreary details stands out
the one great fact that among the least conspic-
uous of objects in Nature there often lies a
wealth of beauty, wholly unsuspected. It is
not ' ' how much more beauty God has made than
human eyes can see," as Ruskin puts it, but
how much more than we are willing to take the
trouble to see.

Cobwebs! Mention them and we have a
vague impression of dust-accumulating threads,
if they be in a house, or, if out of doors, they
are but evidence that horrid spiders are about.
But down on your knees and examine one more
closely than ever before and then cease to brag
of human skill in lace-making. Man is but an
imitator and often a clumsy one at that. It

39

The Rambles of an Idler

does not take a magnifying glass to prove it.
It is well to be self-centred. Bacon declares
"it is a poor centre of a man's actions, him-
self, " but only by selfishness are we sure of
self-development and thus man can make the
most of himself ; and his nearness to excellence
improves his neighbor, for we all profit by the
examples s-et before us. We are more imita-
tive and less original than we think, and yet fail
terribly in the line of closer observation of what
the world outside of humanity is doing in so
far as being profited by what we see. Every-
where the world is teeming with valuable sug-
gestions. Not a beast or bird or spider but can
give us a useful hint, yet we turn our backs
or see with vision so oblique we had better not
see at all. We make much of the silk the
spider spins, but not to any purpose. Folk-lore
rhymes concerning weather are our nearest ap-
proach to wisdom so far as cobwebs are con-
cerned. How we pride ourselves on what we
are, yet scarce a man but has cobwebs in his
skull. Thought, light as gossamer, flits through
the brain and we smile approvingly and call it
wisdom. Perish the thought that we may be
mistaken !

40

Impressions

The glittering dew-drops, whether on cob-
webs or on the grass, continually recall an Al-
pine morning when the world sparkled as it has
not done since. I made prompt record of it at
the time, fearing some minor detail might es-
cape.

By so much as the thickness of a pane of
glass we may be kept hopelessly far from the
actuality of Nature. He whom we pass by un-
heeded is but a man to us? but when we stop
and shake his hand and, eye meeting eye,
say, ' i I am glad to have met you, ' ' we are face
to face with a friend. So is it when we are out-
of-doors. It is not enough to walk the length
of any beaten path or make a short cut across
untrodden fields. Nature is there, it is true,
but not as a friend, — as a stranger. We can
never stand as far aloof from Nature as she
forever stands aloof from us. We think too
highly of ourselves and too lightly of that upon
which we are irremediably dependent; hence
the widespread ignorance which matters nothing
to Nature, but everything to ourselves. The
seasons come and go; winter's austerity and
summer 's genial ways are not solely for man's
welfare. They were the way of the world be-

41

The Rambles of an Idler

fore man appeared and will continue long after
man has vanished.

Humility befits us, and never more so than
when we venture to determine what of the day
just ushered in; what of such an Alpine morn-
ing as this, when frost encrystals every leafless
bough, and every withered blade of grass glit-
ters as if heavy with diamonds. We know
what it means in a plain, prosaic way — that the
moisture has congealed, that the brook is ice-
bound, and that the drifting sands of summer
are now firm as any rock ; but this is really not
enough to know. We soon learn, if we so de-
sire, that we are not the only living creatures
abroad on such a day. We have company, for
there is reason to believe that even crystals are
not inanimate. It was an absurdity, not long
ago, to speak of "living crystals"; not so now.
The researches of physicists have added a new
chapter to the "fairy-tales of Science." But
Tennyson here had better be misquoted that no
mistake arise. Eather the "long results" of
Science and the rest of it all, the fairy-tales of
Time.

Perhaps we are not as good as our grand-
fathers, but we know more, and would extend

42

Impressions

our horizon still further if we did not so per-
sistently simply take a walk, but instead boldly
plunge into the fields, ready to greet whatsoever
we meet in the spirit of fellowship. Man is not
so infinitely high and wild life so infinitely low
that the chasm cannot be bridged. Deny ratio-
cinative power to the nimble hawk and hold that
the frightened snow-birds are impelled only
by blind instincts : what matters it 1 They are
companionable if we so will it, and that of itself
makes glorious an Alpine morning. We think
only of the cold when we are too lazy to think
of anything else. Visions of the fireside will
cease to pursue when we have the faith of the
birds and keep warm after their fashion, ac-
cepting the conditions as we find them and,
ceasing to be refined equatorial savages, be-
come sensible Eskimos.

No laboratory or museum is so complete a
microcosm that the macrocosm can be safely
ignored. The specialist amid his glass' jars
may sneer at the unmethodical rambler, but
whose is the wider horizon? Carcasses may
keep intact in formaline or alcohol, and learned
labels smack of profound knowledge, but where
is that subtle something which came into being

43

The Rambles of an Idler

with the body and which gave it that blessed
charm which enraptures the lover of the out-
door world? Perhaps it counts for less than
bone or muscle ; but let it remain an open ques-
tion that he who loves the living creature may
have some ground for being its champion.

An Alpine morning. The microscope may
trace no movement in these omnipresent crys-
tals now, but they glow with color, are flushed
with warmth. The sunbeams make merry with
their many faces. The fields are not suffused
with light, but rainbow dust. It is a fairy
world into which I have rudely thrust my awk-
ward self. But living crystals alone may not
suffice. We who crave companionship on so
mighty a scale call for nearer kin, and not in
vain. I would that the mystery of a bird might
be forever solved. No one, I dare aver, has
seen until today, in these fields, those living
buntings of the north, the white and mottled
"Snow Flakes" of New England.

It would be comforting to have someone tell
us how these birds of another zoologic zone
knew that conditions to their tastes here
awaited them. The explanations, to date, do
not explain. They fill the void with words in-

44

Impressions

stead of facts, and we are still left to wonder
whether these arctic buntings fled before a
storm or journeyed with it and can do no more.
Such rare visitors and the movements of our
proper door-yard birds have given rise to many
a " weather-proverb, " and there it rests. The
truth is yet afar off, but our interest never
ceases. Suggestions have their brief day and
are relegated to oblivion, or are kept alive by
the charlatans who delude the masses.

These irregular appearances of certain birds
have nothing to do with migration, which has
been scientifically studied and, in great meas-
ure, explained; but rather with that sudden
coming and going of all birds with which we are
familiar. That the weather has its influence on
animal life is evident to all, but foreknowledge
and its concomitant, foretelling, are not unlikely
peculiarly human attributes. On the other
hand, birds can scarcely be denied intimations
of approaching changes, or a forefeeling that
influences their movements. That atmospheric
condition which makes an aneroid possible and
sends the mercury up and down its thirty
odd inches of tubing may well play upon a
bird's feathers. The result is noticed and the

45

The Rambles of an Idler

cause ignored, and upon the former has been
founded the "saying" which had its value in
the eyes of our ancestors.

It is strange that, days like these, prosy
thoughts should intrude upon us. Such crys-
talline outlook should give rise to crystalline
thought. Should! but poets are not common-
place creatures, present on all occasions. The
glowing spirit of a cloudless day, the wheat
sifted from the tares, the gold from the dross,
the soul from the body — not all this can help
the plain man who yearns for that beyond his
reach and so is cursed, not blessed. Let these
snow-buntings play the poet's part.

Theirs is no machine-like method of entering
upon any scene before them. The snow, the
ice, the crackling twigs as they rattled in the
breeze, were really nothing to stare at, as I was
staring. These birds were one with every sight
and sound, living fruit of the perfected win-
ter. Their white feathers glistened as veri-
table flakes falling among the trees. They twit-
tered, too, in tune with the rattling of the brittle
ice : one with Nature, as birds ever are, and in
nothing alien, as man in all things is. As well
separate the bits of a mosaic as take these bunt-

46

Impressions

ings from the scene. Not they alone, but snow,
frost, blue sky and rosy light, were a whole
that nothing could surpass, and how vain the
hope that one may tell its story! Words ever
fail us when we need them most.

Nothing could have been more suggestive of
freedom than each one of these birds, yet, as it
proved, there was a bond among them that not
one disregarded. Their happiness was in asso-
ciation. A sharp alarm-note sounded, and as
one they rose into the air and were gone. A
strange feeling of loneliness came over me.
Crystals are relations of too remote degree —
beautiful, indeed, but we lack the skill to inter-
pret their message. Not so the bird. Our
heart goes out to it, notwithstanding never a
truer line was written than this :

" There is no more exquisite poetry in the
world than that which lies in certain depart-
ments of science, and there is nothing more po-
etic in science than a garden of these frail,
strange, exquisite ice-plants, composed only of
frozen dew, arranging itself in leaf and flower
forms and glittering like burnished and frosted
silver in the sunlight of an Alpine morning. ' '

47

The Rambles of an Idler

"A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and
that which hath wings shall tell the matter."

There is a good deal in a name, so much, in-
deed, that we cannot free ourselves of its influ-
ence. I found ice this morning long after sun-
rise, and looking miles and miles away, over
upland and meadow, saw not a single green
thing. The bleakness of December everywhere
prevailed, but not with the same feelings as I
would have then did I look out upon the world.
It was April first, and that day and date pre-
sents its claims in no uncertain way. Not all it
stands for can be held back. I waited but a
moment to have the mystery cleared. There
was a clattering in the treetops ; a flock of pur-
ple grakles had brought the message of the
month — a bird of the air had carried the voice
. . . that which hath wings had told the mat-
ter.

It seems positively cruel to awake, at times,
to the fact that our impulsive explanations are
whimsical. Even these noisy grakles were pos-
itively musical while I fancied them bearing a
message from April to the expectant earth.
But if we are brought rudely to face the fact
that they were merely singing after their fash-

48

Impressions

ion, we can, at least, logically conclude that
they were expressing their satisfaction because
March winds were no longer blowing, and this,
in a way, is a message from April to them, and
indirectly to myself; so my first impression
was not very wrong. As in many another
case, we can approach the truth, but never quite
reach it. All that a bird's song signifies we do
not know, although books have been written on
this single subject.

Even if silent, which is rarely the case, a flock
of purple grakles, or "crow blackbirds " as they
are generally called, means a great deal to the
rambler. The sky has long been only an empty
space, but these birds fill most acceptably the
aching void that lias been vexing us. To-day,
as I looked and listened, I dropped from the
contemplation of music to mathematics, and
man can take no longer leap. The number of
birds in the flock roused my curiosity, but their
restlessness made even a crude estimate im-
practicable. When I thought I had them all in
the field of vision, a hundred or more would be
added. It is safe to say that there were more
than a thousand. Think of that, and every bird
chattering his loudest. How like a crowded

49

The Rambles of an Idler

parlor ! Yet how unlike, for there was meaning
in what the birds uttered. Is it not written, "A
bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that
which hath wings shall tell the matter!"

What matter? What can it be now but the
message from April ? What would she have us
know! He is bold, indeed, who would attempt
to interpret what the wild bird says, but that he
is Spring's messenger, there can be little doubt.
Mankind has presumed to interpret every phase
of Nature until not to do so becomes painful to
him. This presumption is, of course, closely
akin to sin, but deprive us of our pleasant pec-
cadilloes, and there is very little left. I took
the blackbirds' message as a marching order,
and forthwith hurried to the meadows.

The little crepitating frogs were rattling and
" peep ing " until the air positively trembled, and
the deeper toned voice of the leopard frog was
not readily detected; yet had the former, pres-
ent in myriads, been silent, the croaking of
larger frogs would, by virtue of the volume of
sound, have attracted instant attention. We
marvel at the volume of sound, but would be

50

Impressions

more astonished could we realize the numberless
throats from which it issued. It is hard to re-
alize what a million means, but I honestly be-
lieve that number not too great to include the
frogs on the meadows. "A bird of the air
shall carry the voice, " it is true, but would the
"disabused epicurean" who wrote our text have
omitted the frogs had he heard them? They
have not wings, but they "tell the matter."
Tell it in so emphatic a manner that we forget
the surroundings, for every foot of sod now is
thick with the grave marks of an earlier year.
All that I hear comes to where life was, not is;
but the message is that life shall come again.
Not a withered weed here but shall be replaced
by a flower. Every frog now, as anon every
blackbird did, asserts that better things are near
at hand. To-day the burden of their song, It is
to be — and very soon, no less cheerily they will
shout, It is! Such a carrying of the voice ; such
a telling of the matter, is sufficient to keep the
rambler long out of doors. The wreckage of
winter no longer offends the eye. As we see
the beauty of a structure before the scaffolding
is cleared away, so through the dead grass we
detect the coming greenness. Where the mes-

51

The Rambles of an Idler

sage of April falls upon deaf ears there should
our pity go.

Farther afield I heard the bluebirds warbling
the same glad tidings in their inimitable way.
For years their song has been to me inexpres-
sibly sad, as if yearning for that which is irre-
coverable ; but not so to-day. They were bub-
bling over with joy. It was the song of years
ago, before the days of their persecution set in.
Nor was it only a few stragglers that were sing-
ing, but a flock. Since the blizzard of 1888 I
have not seen half so many altogether. Here
were fully a hundred bluebirds, each the em-
bodiment of happiness, and, as I presumed,
bearing the message of April ; not to me, I ad-
mit, but to the trees that towered above me and
to the ground beneath my feet. There is no
potentiality in a bird's song, but who can rid
himself of the idea? It is too pleasing. a fancy
rudely to be brushed aside. As well accept a
stone for bread as deal only in bare facts and
ignore fancy. It is said there are people who
have no imagination. Thank goodness! they
but seldom cross my path.

Other voices were enlisted in fair April's
cause as noon drew nigh, until I found no skulk-

52

Impressions

ing bird. It was a day of universal rejoicing,
a veritable jubilee. I said this, aloud, and the
red wings took up the thought expressed, and
surely a bird never spoke our language more
plainly than these epauletted soldiers of the
marsh — jubilee, jubilee.

I lingered until the westering sun turned my
thoughts homeward, and, though the way was
long and the path winding, I thought nothing
of all this. Bird music is too tonic to permit
weariness to creep in. Every mile was worth
what it cost, considering the song at the end of
it ; and not a mile, nor a fraction thereof, with-
out its attendant concourse of sweet sounds.
The thrill of reviving activities was felt in the
earth; a tremor could be fancied as affecting
every gnarly old oak along the hill. Had rocks
moved, I could hardly have been surprised.
The message of April had been received; the
summons was about to be obeyed cheerfully.

Let him who doubts look and listen for him-
self. He was neither blind nor deaf who said :
" A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that
which hath wings shall tell the matter." Alas!
how many are deaf to every message, so deep-
rooted is self-sufficiency.

53

The Rambles of an Idler

I feel that I am lifted to the level of life's
significance when the rose-breasted grosbeak
sings. Cheerfulness, earnestness and the in-
wardness of labor are voiced by it above all
other birds. That song alone is a message from
one who has eliminated doubt from the earth's
problems and bids us go forth and possess the
land. I am urged, when I hear it, to serious
undertakings, — to transplanting oaks rather
than idly dropping seeds that transient flowers
may bloom.

May-day can be as commonplace a date as
any other of the series making the round year.
We make much of many a holiday of our own
appointment and practically nothing of this
one, set apart by Nature herself as a time to
rejoice, yet no occurrence concerning man is
fuller of significance to the natural world. Man
— Nature; they are far apart. Which the
greater it matters not, but he is wiser than his
brother if on this auspicious day he flees from
the entanglements of civilization and turns sav-
age; gets again as near Nature as he can, and
asks every bird and tree and flower to be his
boon companion. There is many a word in our
common speech of which we know but half the

54

Impressions

meaning ; happiness is one of them. Go a-May-
ing and see if I am not right.

Those who dedicated our fifth month to Ma'ia,
the mother of Mercury, knew Nature well and
appreciated the fitness of things ; but I suspect
the chroniclers are wrong and that she, herself,
chose it as peculiarly her own and gave to it
her name. Truth, for once, is of little moment,
and I prefer my own fancy to the declared fact
of another.

This is May first. Yearly reincarnated, she
was present when, in an absolutely cloudless
sky, the sun rose. The thrush, robin and wren
knew the date as one set apart from the routine
of the year, but they gave place to the gros-
beak. He was May's chosen trumpeter to-day.
The day, the hour, the outlook, are spiritual
now and voice themselves in the song of a bird.
May-day calls for no Quaker-like simplicity.
Secretly we all love pomp, and so fancy the
songs of May-day birds the announcement of
our coming, as though we were really the lords
of Creation. We can go a-Maying backward,
as when we have anticipated all we look for;
or go forward, all expectancy, disregarding
past or future, accepting the passing moment as

55

The Rambles of an Idler

the only gift of the gods. I prefer the latter.

There were dandelions in the dead grass be-
fore the winter was over, and all through April
there was green grass where the sunshine long-
est lingered ; there were singing birds to break
the monotony of March; and yet to-day we
have the impression of a swift transition from
grave to gay, from shade to sunshine, from
silence to music, from neutral tint to brilliancy
of color. Not true, indeed, but let us be no
stickler for the naked fact. It is hard to believe
fancy has no right in the world.

Suffice it that this is May first, and let us see
the world in a May-day spirit. Here are a
blue sky and snow-white clouds seemingly sus-
pended from it. The distant horizon is a less
broken line than it was yesterday; the leaves
grew in the night and straightened it. Buds
are blossoms. The old gray world is now a new
green one, and the rejuvenation is not Nature's
only, but ours also. Coincidence only, a,s the
dry-as-dust remarks, but who cares, seeing it is
a happy one?

There must be wildness in the air and we
must feel it. The scream of the hawk, heard,
as it is, above all other sounds, is as the voice

56

Impressions

of Nature when she asserts herself. We listen,
then, not because we elect to do so, but because
of the demand made upon us. It is Nature's
authoritative tone, that none but a fool would
attempt to disregard.

In what consists this wildness? it may be
asked. In everything. May is not a savage,
but she is wild. She is a child of Nature, and
only such are free from all we would forget
when we go a-Maying. When May arrives, the
long-housed mortal must get out of himself as
well as his house to find himself at home. She
exacts that her guests be as wild as herself.
True, she bade the rose-breast be her trumpeter,
but she demands also a choral announcement,
and it is ever at her bidding. Never a mute
May day. There is life enough and abundant
sociability in the babbling brook and murmur-
ing tree-tops. When there is anything lacking
out-of-doors, it is in ourselves.

Here is, I think, that which sets the month of
May apart from all other times of the year;
we forget the truth and feel as young and fresh
as the expanding leaves. The dust of age is
wiped away, and the glitter of youth, once ours,
is seemingly again in possession. The cheery

57

The Rambles of an Idler

whistle of the cardinal, for example, is a re-
juvenating sound. It not only falls upon the
ear, but fills us from top to toe with music. We
are thrilled. We heed as well as hear it and
respond. It is as natural to shout our gladness
on a bright May morning as it is to remark sol-
emnly upon the weather during other times and
seasons. We repeat the messages of the birds
and find scant charm even in our own conceits.
One with Nature on a May day is a full measure
of delight. It is easy to forget that we are of
many millions of people, if these many millions
will kindly keep out of sight and hearing.

0 Solitude, where are thy charms'?

Where 1 Here, in these old woods.

"But when these woods are silent, what
then?"

Silence is a rare occurrence in the woods or
out of them. If there is not breeze enough to
stir the fresh, green leaves on the trees, there
is pretty sure to be a mouse to stir the dead
leaves on the ground. Somewhere a shrill
voice is shouting all the time, and if we hear
nothing of what immediately surrounds us, the
voice in the distance will reach us even if but as

58

Impressions

the ghost of an echo. Silence is as easily broken
as are promises. We have but to listen to our
own breathing to fill our ears. Silence is a por-
tentous word, standing theoretically for a stern
fact, but theoretically only. Practically it is
only a relative condition and a marvellously
happy one. Silence, Solitude, Self! — as pleas-
ing a combination as our wills can conjure up.
These obtaining, we can do as we please, or,
choosing inaction, think as we please. No bet-
ter time than this to sift the chatter of the last
crowd we mingled with, and perhaps gather a
grain of gold from the infinitude of chaff. This
triple condition is a better one out-of-doors, as
in these woods, than in any house. The house
is ever a museum of distracting objects. Books,
pictures, chairs and tables lead us from our
natural to our artificial selves, but not so out-
of-doors. Trees, birds, flowers, water, earth,
sky — nothing in these runs counter to whole-
some natural thoughts. We blend with all
about us ; not out of place, but accurately fitted,
as Nature purposed, in that marvellous mosaic
we call Creation.

Silence is a condition so largely of our imag-
ination that it need never be seriously consid-

59

The Rambles of an Idler

ered. Its rarity gives it a genuine interest,
and it is never so long-lived as to become mo-
notonous. I think, if I were in an absolutely
silent cell, the singing of the birds would come
to me at will, and I could laugh at walls how-
ever stoutly built. Now I have no need to deal
with theory or put in practice any fancied con-
dition. Nature is ever voluble in May. The
moments between the songs of thrush and gros-
beak, wren and oriole, chewink and chat, few
and far apart, are filled by chanticleer in my
neighbor's barnyard.

What is often felt to be silence and spoken of
as such is but the rhythmic pulse of Nature, that
rapidly intermitting hum of life which cease-
lessly wells up from the warm earth. Night or
day the teeming millions of the marshes, the
meadow brook, and dark, damp tangles in the
upland woods keep theoretical, perhaps myth-
ical, silence forever in the background. Did
we live the year round wholly out-of-doors, I
think we would forget the very word silence.
If we make a bogy of this same silence, we
should not complain if it frighten us.

The restless rose-breast has returned, and
why heed the non-existent? I have wandered

60

Impressions

through the books on birds in hope of finding
justice done this perfect performer of our
woodland choir, but find nothing approaching
it. The rose-breasted grosbeak sees the world
more sanely than does the thrush. It has no
patience with the nonsense of the catbird or the
chat. Poet and musician, it gives its thoughts
a worthy setting, and never frets us with a jar-
ring note. To be glad with its degree of glad-
ness is an ideality of life, — for us an unattain-
able goal, but an excellent one to keep before
us. Ever aiming at the inaccessible, we keep,
at least, in the one path, a straight one, and
singleness of purpose is excellent, if that pur-
pose be worthy. I forget more of all that I
would forget when listening tc the rose-breasted
grosbeak than when I hear the song of any
other bird. Nor need one wonder why. It is
an exultation over perfect happiness attained.
All else that is heard is not without a trace of
melancholy or doubt. This alone is the out-
pouring of a merry heart, yet weighty with wise
thought withal.

This day our journey never need be long.
An old apple-tree is an appropriate goal. When
we have fathomed what trunk, branches, leaves,

61

The Rambles of an Idler

blossoms, and their attendant bees and birds
stand for, and can tell our less observant
brother what May-day means, when the hum of
insects and songs of warblers fill the air, then
we do not need a day out-of-doors ; but I have
never met with such a man. Indifference is not
evidence of a lack of need. Not all the lectures,
sermons, books and museums in the land can
take Nature's place. To be with her daily is
the greatest of our blessings, but this cannot
always be. To catch merely hap-hazard glances
is but to learn what we are losing. If, at best,
we must choose an occasional day, never omit
this magical date. As I have done and am do-
ing— go a-Maying.

That which keeps me wholesomely alive, as I
wander to-day, is color — blue, pink, yellow, red,
and white. May blossoms are everywhere.
Violets, azaleas, buttercups, columbines, and
wildflowers, all intensely in earnest, gazing sky-
ward boldly, expectant of May's assuring
smile. They clearly enter into the spirit of the
day and shame us for our half-heartedness.
The idols of Artificiality are something more
than wood and stone ; they have cast a veritable
spell over us. Sound, also, keeps me whole-

62

Impressions

somely alive. Not alone the singing of the
forty different birds that I have seen, but the
undertone or thrill of earth's renewed activity.
Insects in the grass, frogs in the water, the
breeze that toys with the baby leaves, these are
the constant sounds that are unheeded and un-
heard if our thoughts continually revert to the
town, but speafc in no uncertain way if we have
ears to hear and a will to heed their message.
May hath pithy speech, yet plain. No vague in-
timations are hers, but all is of clear intent.

Innocent as the blossom, joyous as the bird,
earnest as earth's manifold activities, this is
she who wishes only that they who ramble
abroad this day may be like unto her and so
remain.

What more detestable than wet days in May?
What ought to be, is not. What is, ought not
to be. Let the rain come in the night, if it
must, and then make way for sunshine. Such
is the thought of the average healthy man.

Now that a recent May has passed into his-
tory, I am inclined to take back all that I have
ever said in favor of the month. Like the cor-

63

The Eambles of an Idler

responding month of the preceding year, it has
been more a series of disappointments than of
realizations. I write these words without mis-
givings, and although, when the east wind was
most cruel, the wood-thrush sang in that ex-
alted strain that lifts us to a higher sphere.
This song of the wood-thrush is evidence of
near approach, in one direction, to perfection
and it is well so to be entertained by it that we
are blind to how short we fall of attainment in
others.

One May, I recall, had but little to boast of,
and another, later, had less. Eighteen rainy
or cloudy or foggy days is an excess of pluvial
and allied conditions that would figure well in
Patagonian or Labradorian outings, but out of
place in Nature's remnant of Elysium, New
Jersey.

And yet, — the signal of a sober second
thought — the catalogued phenomena of the
month has no missing pages, nor breaks hi its
columns. The trees grew their leaves, plants
produced their flowers and the birds returned.
Search where we might, nothing was lacking
and yet we could not accept the offering as
May ; that is, as poets picture her. The trouble

64

Impressions

is, these imaginative folk have so warped our
minds that we look for more than we can rea-
sonably expect to find. There is a pane of glass
in one of my windows that has a twist in it,
which lifts every little bush from the ground
and makes of it a long, slender Lombardy pop-
lar. It is so with the poetry that we have relied
on for our ideas of May. Every bush a tall
tree ; every blossom, a bouquet, and, worse than
all, every hour flooded with sunshine. We have
had our faith undermined and tempers spoiled
by teaching that later we have to unlearn.
There is no one that does not rebel when it is
stormy or cold in May. The man who professes
to b^ content and preaches patience is to be
watched.

The statistics of the Weather Bureau are
saner than the effusions of the Spring poet.
The return of the seasons, and what they are,
we know by name rather than by nature, and
should expect nothing. In every twelve months
there is a round of changes, but no very or-
derly procession. The seasons may have a
path but they do not keep in it; so too, the
months have their allotted phenomena but they
lack method in handling them.

65

The Eambles of an Idler

Expect nothing and so be rich in prepared-
ness. Set your picnic for the first fair day and
specify no date. Learn that dependence on the
weather is like trusting to luck, a sure way to
be miserable. That you may become better ac-
quainted with facts, why not, at least once in
your life, picnic in the rain? Perhaps the birds
will not sing, but pass the day with them,
whether they do or not. Misery loves company.

An ideal day is one that is suggestive. We
must see something about which to think, later.
The harvest of an out-door day should be food
for thought. Not all gray skies are akin to
wet blankets, for sunshine does not reveal all
the earth's secrets. How Nature affects us
when she frowns is no matter ; but we are con-
cerned with her scowling effects upon wild life.

Clear or cloudy, accept no day as typical.
Cloudiness and fog are not depressing. It is
only the wind that the birds detest. The cat-
bird is really musical now, almost an equal of
the thrasher, but not so persistent. Its tend-
ency to fret never so far overcomes as not to
permit finishing a pleasing song.

Today I saw a pretty sight. Leaves all drip-
ping, and the cat-bird, perched upon a twig,

66

Impressions

sent down a shower of glittering drops, and
dived in time to pass through it. Then, with
great spreading of wings, the bird shook off the
drops that clung to it and sang or laughed — at
least I thought at the time that it laughed.

I thought ! We describe what we witness in
accordance with the way we enter into the scene.
It is possible to see only motion and all
that suggests association of incidents can be
cried down as coincidence. True, and equally
so, that every community, however small, has
its dunce. If there were no pleasure derived
from interpretation, better stay away from Na-
ture 's activities. It is vain to question her.
She is close-mouthed and we should never for-
get that she would move on in her own mysteri-
ous way just the same, if there never were a
man in all the world. Evolution merely hap-
pened in the direction of humanity. To Na-
ture, we are of no more importance than so
many cat-birds. If we were not of some impor-
tance to ourselves, we should be of none at all.

One little bird was very insistent, this morn-
ing, saying, It is, it is, it is, it is! I too admit
"it is," but does my "it" and the bird's stand
for the same thing? If the bird feared I should

67

The Eambles of an Idler

forget it was May, the fear was groundless. I
shall not forget. May days are all matters of
joy except when I am forced to go to town.
The scattered shade trees there make me home-
sick.

A puff of wind shook the drops of water from
the leaves and these falling on the spreading
skunk cabbage beneath, made a great clatter.
I looked sharply about me, thinking some animal
was running by.

It is beautifully clear to-day, and if a year
ago, in all the fog and damp, there was so much
to see and hear, how much more now, when a
blue sky and abundant sunshine give the cue to
general rejoicing.

A pretty view to take of the subject, but as
unwise as possible. To-day, there was the
frostiness of winter, a suggestion of January
came back to us and I could not find even
where the birds were hiding, every one kept so
close.

I expected little on a former May day and
saw and heard much. I supposed there would
be much to see, when I started out this time, and
I neither saw nor heard anything. Wild life

68

Impressions

judges for itself as to the weather, and to set up
our standards for its guidance is to publish
our own foolishness. We forget this potent
fact too often.

At noon, on a recent May day, the warbling
vireo and its red-eyed cousin were heard about
the house, and in vain, to get rid of them, did
I go farther and farther afield. Both have
querulous, tiresome songs, that become posi-
tively exasperating, when we wish to listen to
the less pronounced notes of other birds.
There is nothing suggestive in their monot-
onous reiteration, unless we look upon each
utterance as the death-knell of an insect, and
we need not add this to our many reminders of
Death's activity. The clock struck the hour,
but a moment ago. An hour has just passed
away, and by so much we passed with it. Give
us livelier birds ; one like the chat that amuses,
the thrush that soothes, the lark that exhil-
arates, or even the crow that leads me, at least,
to pleasing retrospection. I shun the red-eyed
vireo before the summer is gone, for it becomes
ere then like the mumble of senile dementia.

If I am completely happy when crossing a
69

The Rambles of an Idler

quiet mill-pond, in a row-boat, at a snail's pace,
why should I be envious of those who cross the
Atlantic in an * ' ocean greyhound ? ' '

Fixing our own goal, if we reach it, satisfies ;
I know not why we should concern ourselves
about those people who are more ambitious.
We hear much of a high aim, but if one nearer
the earth delight us, why raise our gun? It is
hitting the bull 's eye that gives us the pleasure,
not the lower or higher setting of the target.

Simple tastes and a humble occupation are
full worthy of our regard, if we are at peace
with ourselves the while. Envy works more
mischief than all other of men's weaknesses.
Content is the key-note of a life's success. I
know that there are those who look down on me
and sneer, but I am not disturbed. I look up at
them and laugh.

While it was yet uncertain what the day was
to be, so pale the light that flushed the eastern
sky, a red-start suddenly appeared, as if a pas-
senger on the latest puff of wind, and never a
moment resting, began that zig-zagging among
the tree-tops that will not end till the close of
summer. This bird is a "warbler," but its

70

Impressions

note suggests unoiled machinery; a grating
sound; a squeak. All these interruptions of
the silence, in a way, are welcome. They are
assurances that Spring is really here. Last au-
tumn and winter were good, but now it is Spring
and something better, and soon summer, best of
all. Best? Perhaps it is, but is there not a
wiser view, that of accepting each season so
cheerfully that it is perfect while it lasts'? It
would be better to drop our choice of seasons.
These May days are perfect ones of their kind,
but let each day, month, season, as it passes,
suffice us.

May, magnificently arrayed and superbly at-
tended, we can think of only as a sovereign — a
gentle queen. So, at least, she has often been;
but sometimes she is a sobbing, sorrowful
queen, copious tears falling nearly every day.

To-day I measured this year's growth of a
young ash. It is twenty-two inches taller than
six weeks ago; and a young beech has a new
growth at the end of every limb, but is four
inches shorter than the ash. If we sowed the
seeds of trees in youth, we could walk in a for-
est before old age appeared.

71

The Rambles of an Idler

In a dead limb of a linden tree, near the
kitchen door, about thirty feet from the ground,
a pair of flickers — golden-winged woodpeckers
— have their nest. I think it was dug out in a
single night, for the white chips, like great snow-
flakes, covered the ground early one morning
and no one appeared to have seen or heard the
birds while at work.

These woodpeckers are not at all shy, but
properly circumspect. They are nothing for
the rattle of pots and kettles beneath them. So
long as the latter keep to the ground, the flickers
will enter no protest. The fact is, and it is
true of all birds, that it is not always noise and
bustle that frighten, but the kind of disturb-
ance. They are quick to discover if any activ-
ity on man's part has to do with man's affairs
or is directed towards themselves. These door-
yard flickers were circumspect for a few days
and now they are tame.

The house-wrens still nearer by may have
given them assurance that all was well, but this
is very doubtful. They are too far apart, struc-
turally, to associate, and intellectually very un-
equal. What queer birds are these wrens! I
could pick out a dozen excellent nesting sites for

72

Impressions

them, but not one is occupied. Instead, one
pair of these birds have chosen a tomato-can
turned upside down over a stake. Great skill
has been exercised to secure the nest, as there
is little room, the stake being large, and, to
make bad matters worse, the can sways a good
deal whenever the wind blows. Until some ob-
server secures a wren's point of view and ex-
plains it all, such nesting sites must remain
evidences of a wren's lack of wit, from our
point of view. I would much like to read a nat-
ural history of man written by a wren, or, in-
deed, any creature not a man. It would have
one quality not always found in men's books,
now-a-days, originality.

We occasionally hear an unfamiliar note and
usually wonder what bird uttered it. We for-
get that most of our small animals also can be
noisy on occasion. I once followed up a boy
who was tending cows in the meadow, thinking
I was on the track of some rare visitor to these
parts. As he told me, he was "tryin' to shape
a tune to some po'try he'd made up." Since
then I keep in mind the possible sources of
sounds I hear other than birds. Only recently,

73

The Rambles of an Idler

in a green-brier tangle, I heard a shrill cry that
puzzled me. Before I had forgotten it, chance
solved the mystery. My dog ran down a weasel
in the grass and wounded it. When I came up,
it gave the loud, shrill cry that when previously
heard I could not identify. In this case, it was
distinctly a cry of distress, but is it always that?
Cram mentions a weasel "uttering a sharp
chirp like the alarm notes of certain species of
warblers," but the sound I heard was a shrill
che-ee-ep! twice or thrice repeated.

Recently, in a single ramble along the hill-
side, my companion and I found one nest each
of a yellow-breasted chat, a cardinal grosbeak
and a summer warbler. There was no attempt
at concealment in any one instance. If a cow
had nibbled off a few leaves, the nest would
have been exposed even more, and such an oc-
currence is quite possible. There were thickets
near by, no animal could have gotten through
so as to reach the nest, yet these were not made
use of, but instead a bush on the edge of wide
open spaces. It looked much like trusting to
luck, which is closely akin to being very foolish,
if not really the same thing.

74

Impressions

A fall in temperature of sixteen degrees
caused marked changes in existing conditions.
Four really warm days sufficed to set June's
machinery in motion. The month was in run-
ning order and all animate nature accepted the
conditions thankfully. Only those people who
have de-naturalized themselves complained of
the heat. Then a cool wave from Montana and
all was confusion. The effect in town, I was
told, was to start the senseless question: Are
our seasons changing? In the country, the re-
sult was to silence a great deal of noisy life and
put a quietus on a vast deal of activity.

Some time ago, in autumn, I cut from a bush
and hung in the hall a large pear-shaped nest of
the hornet. It held intact for a time, and when
it became too shabby to be presentable, was re-
moved to the side of the house, where it soon
became an object of interest to hornets and
house-wrens. The former explored its inner
recesses continually; not, as it proved, to re-
occupy the nest, but to carry away available bits
for a new nest under construction elsewhere.
This, at least, was the apparent solution of the
matter, for no hornet ever tarried longer than

75

The Eambles of an Idler

to reduce to pulp some of the old nest. Cap-
turing several of these ill-tempered creatures, I
failed to find any of the nest material about
them, so I may be mistaken, but in the course of
two weeks the interior of the nest was a good
deal broken down.

For some days before the hornets ceased their
visits, a wren came and my initial thought was
that the bird, too, was after nesting material,
but this was not the case. The place was now
admirably adapted for a roosting-spot, and a
day-time-resting-place as well; for male wrens,
it would seem, occasionally get tired and appre-
ciate a quiet corner where they can take up a
•thread of thought instead of forever tugging at
the line of duty. This very reasonable view of
life is disputed, however, and discussion more
emphatic than polite sometimes occurs. It all
would be very amusing were it not top-heavy
with weighty suggestion.

Nature, unaffected by man's activities, is al-
ways near, and great areas of it often closer at
hand than we suspect. An acre is but a mere
dot on the map of many a farm, but let that
same acre be a bit of woods or marsh, and at

76

Impressions

night it seems a boundless wilderness. Try
walking through and through it, this way and
that, where there are no paths, and let an owl
hoot in your ears and you will then know what
I mean far better than words can tell.

It so happened I was in the immediate valley
of Crosswicks Creek long after sunset, yester-
night. The tide was well run out and long, low
banks of mud were exposed. On these the
night-herons were stalking or standing, sentinel-
like, and back on higher ground the toads were
bellowing. Black clouds obscured the sky but
left wide star-dotted spaces between them.
There was no sight nor sound of man. Again
it was the weird, wild country of the Indian or
before his time. The mastodon might have
sounded his shrill, trumpet-like cry and I would
not have been disturbed. The wolf might have
howled or the cougar screamed, but only fear
would have been aroused. As it was, the fishes
leaping above the surface of the out-flowing
waters, the splash of the turtles sliding from a
projecting stump or floating log, the warning
cry of the muskrat and possibly that of the
mink, forcibly reminded me that I was far from
being alone.

77

The Eambles of an Idler

Night more frequently than day recalls the
past, particularly such a night as this, and it
was natural, on returning home, to take up
Kalm's Travels in North America. More than
once he was within three or four miles of where
I had just been and he described in detail what
he saw in 1748-49. Coming from the marshes
late at night directly to his book, it was like a
new world just from the press-. As I read, it
was the good old colonial time again, and I had
seen and saw, book in hand, what were the fa-
miliar daily sights of my ancestors.

The sunny side of those days may not be
made plain in the histories we read, but that
there was such a side we all believe, though
not more so than to-day. Surely there was a
freshness and novelty then that is lacking now.
One certain advantage of such experience as
mine last night is that no element of deception
creeps in. It is the same creek and the same
sky above it that Kalm saw. If not the same
trees, they are trees of the same kind that grow
in the adjacent meadow; and then, toads, minks,
muskrats and night-herons have not changed
their language. Their message to Kalm in
1748 and to me one hundred and fifty-three

78

Impressions

years later is identical. Here in the marsh
there is no " antique " furniture palmed off
upon us, made a year ago, by some cunning
artisan.

A good old Quaker lady in her kindly un-
grammatical way was wont to say to me when-
ever I expressed a determination to take a noc-
turnal outing, " Thee '11 surely get the chills,"
but the warning was never heeded. A possible
shaking should not frighten us off. It is worth
the risk, considering there is still an abundance
of quinine. The serious part of it all is after
the outing, when the story of it is to be told.
The tamest thing in the world is a description.

There are so many strange sounds heard at
night that only a visit to the woods or fields or
a marsh such as that I have been wandering
over can give us an adequate idea of the abun-
dance of wild life still remaining and holding
its own against ceaseless persecution. We re-
alize now how many creatures, both furred and
feathered, effectually conceal themselves during
the day.

These were the sounds I recognized as I stood
alone on the sobbing marsh, for the mud at this
time — at low tide — is constantly sobbing, or

79

The Rambles of an Idler

perhaps, more correctly, blubbering. I heard
the night-heron and the great bittern, the yel-
low-breasted chat and a field-sparrow — this
bird singing in its sleep — marsh-wrens, an owl,
frogs, crickets, and, I think, the chattering of a
flying-squirreL These at once and the bewil-
derment resulting from the attempt at identifi-
cation probably dulled my ears to many another
sound. As deep bass to all those lighter notes
was the chorus of innumerable toads that at
times drowned the childish trebles of more airy
creatures.

It is easy enough to enumerate, but no trick
of words will make animal life stand out on a
printed page. Here are a few names ; the crea-
tures are still in the marsh.

Through the three hottest hours of the day,
the indigo bird sings without a break. It does
not even seek the shade of a leaf. Are we to
learn some valuable lesson from this fact or is
the bird demented?

Because we gather a great deal of valuable
knowledge through observation of the out-door
world, it does not follow that all animals are
wisdom personified. Interrupted evolution re-

80

Impressions

suited in a foolish creature now and then and
I think the indigo bird is one of them.

During these Graduate days, advice is in the
air thicker than ever gossamer floated in the
early morning. Excellent, in its way, some of
it, but the inclination to swathe it in feverish
rhetoric and to exalt the orator until the dis-
tance between the adviser and the advised is
immeasurable overcomes discretion at times.
To tell the class that has now finished its train-
ing for the great struggle, never to take a rest
is nonsense ; but clothe this same idea in an ora-
torical outburst, flowery similes and other tricks
of speech, and the class and its friends applaud
vigorously, and, very wisely, forget, the next
day, all the speaker said.

Hamlet was set up, I notice, before a bench-
row of graduates, as a failure and Fortinbras
lauded to the skies. The former decried as a
dreamer, the latter praised as a man of deeds ;
but all the world has heard of Hamlet and who
but a beggarly few remember Fortinbras?
The one, dreamer though he may have been,
goes with us and delights us, wherever we may
be; but no sooner does the curtain touch the

81

The Eambles of an Idler

stage's floor than Fortinbras is so completely
forgotten that we can only with difficulty recall
his name.

Too much is said of this endless struggle for
success, too often ecstatic to the touch and
ashes to the taste. The positive curse of all
this flourish of rhetorical trumpets is the set-
ting up, not of high ideals, but of ideals at a
preposterous elevation. It is shouted abroad
at this season: Goad your ambition and reach
to the unattainable. So far, bad. All too sel-
dom is it advised: Curb your ambition and be
content with moderation. Youth is set to run
at a mad, killing pace and, prematurely grown
old, has nothing in the end to show for a prod-
igal waste of energy. Statistics will bear this
out. Why aim to be a comet that outshines all
the stars? Comets are but transitory affairs.
The fixed planets and the myriad stars serenely
shining have a better time of it. Better to be
happy in a modest way than miserable under
the load of vast undertakings.

A later June day was that of General Nest
Delivery among the robins. Young birds were
everywhere and the old ones were in a state of

82

Impressions

perturbation beyond description. They were
simply an annoyance when I endeavored to
make note of the released nestlings. These I
classed, at the time, as climbers and flutterers,
and interest centred on the former, as their
success in clambering about trees and in tangles
of green brier was quite marked. I saw noth-
ing that could be called a mishap, but the flut-
terers often came to the ground and had endless
difficulties in getting off it. They failed to
judge of position and fell short or over-flew the
perch they strove to reach. One young bird,
having no faith in his wings, had marked scan-
sorial skill, and I think more than once used his
beak as a third means of support; that is, it
climbed with its feet, balanced itself with its
wings and pulled itself up by holding to a twig
with its beak. So, at least, it appeared to me,
but I will not be positive.

All the while the parent birds kept up an in-
cessant chatter. The young appeared not to
pay any attention to it and so it was, to me, a
waste of energy; and should it not, theoret-
ically, be dangerous? Such a commotion at-
tracted my attention and so it should have
called hither hawks, owls, crows, weasels and

83

The Eambles of an Idler

cats. All these are fond of young birds as
food, and could have feasted to their stomachs'
content, but I saw not one. I, surely, did not
keep them away, concealed 9S I was by the foli-
age of bush and brier.

I wondered, too, if the parent birds could rec-
ognize their own young from others of the same
age. To-day, four nests were vacated at the
same time and the young, a dozen or more,
were wandering in the same trees. I could see
no difference in them, but then, I did not see
with a parent's eyes.

One summer the sink-hole in my field was full
of green-herons. A year later they came in
force but left very early, except a single pair.
Now but two pairs are there, yet to my eyes
there is no change in the spot. I think this
shows how hopeless it is to determine, from our
standpoint, the true inwardness of birds' do-
ings. We are constantly misjudging our hu-
man neighbors, and if we cannot stand in their
shoes, how much more improbable that our con-
jectures as to the birds should be correct.
"Why, too, this present summer, should the red-
eyed vireos have forsaken us? Surely there is

84

Impressions

food enough for them, as the flycatchers and
red-starts can testify.

On the eighth of the month, a man came to
the " Three Beeches " to hear the Carolina
wren. It is the one bird I would have promised
a sight of, without hesitation. That day none
were seen or heard, and none since, until to-
day, the fourteenth. Comment is unnecessary.

I am ^sensible, this quiet afternoon, of a pres-
ence that distinctly influences me, although I
am, outwardly, quite alone. I think I never
come to this grand old oak but I have the same
feeling. It is an oak worthy of a long walk to
see. Still, all unmindful of the sad changes
going on about it, it looks out upon the world
with all the majesty of kingship in its noblest
sense. An oak, a forest monarch when the In-
dian filed along the narrow trail that is still to
be traced near it; a witness to the struggles of
the colonists while there was yet an unbroken
wilderness about them; and still marking the
changes that the restless energy of man brings
to pass. It is a long look backward from the
electric railway to the Indian 's trail, yet the life
of this old oak more than encompasses it alL

85

The Rambles of an Idler

Sitting as I do, I see no trace of recent
change and hear no rumble of the passing cars.
The quiet of an earlier century pervades, and
in a delightful, day-dreamy mood myself, I feel
that I have most pleasant company. Here
dwells a hamadryad that has a power to charm.
There is no disturbing element. Not a harsh
sound nor distressful confusion plagues me.
The actualities have drifted until all is vague.
Dreaming, I am yet awake, and sight, sound,
smell, alike aid my senses in their airy flight.
The hamadryad is so far real that I enjoy her
company. She whispers of pleasant things
only, recalling the happy past until it is real
again and promising of the future such good
things that the delight of anticipation will over-
bear the probable shock of promise broken. I
would that every oak was blessed with such an
attendant. Hamadryad, indeed! Whim of a
poet? No, not this one. She is more real,
more honest than half the friends we meet. As
the devotee approaches the shrine, I came here
as I have often done before and never was re-
buffed. Here is the only altar I have ever
faced. The work-a-day world may scoff at
hamadryads. Let it be joined to its fleshly idols

86

Impressions

and find comfort. This oak stands for some-
thing greater than the crowd. There is here a
balm for the smarting soul, that neither pealing
organ or men's words can impart. Trouble
fades as a dream when the hamadryad whispers
and the trembling leaves repeat her soothing
words.

Although the sky was overcast and the low-
lying fog, condensing, rolled in great drops of
water from every leaf to the ground, there was
promise of a pleasant day and that the passing
shower, like the brief sobbing of a child, would
soon be followed by sunny smiles.

At Four A. M. I was up and about and heard
not the concert only, but that preliminary tun-
ing up that precedes it. Here, without doubt,
the robin is choir-master. His, it was, to sound
the first note as the light gained foothold and
the outlook merged from chaos to order. His
to be the leader — but Caution cries, halt ! "Was
the robin thus recognized? Is not each one of
the several species of birds wholly independent
of and indifferent to the others? We speak of
the morning " concert " because it describes the
effect of united voices upon us, but do birds

87

The Rambles of an Idler

take the same view of it? Did the thrush and
the wood-pewee wait for the robin to give the
signal? If so, why did they only, and not the
song-sparrow, cardinal and rose-breast join in
at the same moment? It is useless to conjec-
ture. It is mere assumption that consideration
of another's song ever entered a bird's head,
but here is what happened, —

The robin heard the whispering dawn
And knew that dreary night was gone;
Then told the good news far and near,
Shouted aloud that all might hear,

" In sleep no longer drown your voice ;
Come, comrades, one and all, rejoice.

" Come, gentle thrush, thy hymn repeat,
With sweetest chord the morning greet; —
Thou, jaunty red-bird, warble well
Thy notes that breathe such potent spell;
Welcome the quick, in-coming day,
In thy persuasive, winning way."

From hillside-slope to river's shore,
The meadows deep in brilliant bloom,
Bid shadow vex them now no more;
Aside they cast their night-long gloom;

The chains that bound the world were broke

88

Impressions

The moment that the robin spoke;
No thorns beset, nor frosts defy '
When blessed June is passing by.

Brilliant indeed are the meadows in June.
We can use no milder term and do them justice.
The botanist can readily appreciate this, when
I tell him that at one glance can be seen and
from a few acres can be gathered in abundance,
Phlox, Oenothera, Thalictrum, Pen>stemon, Eri-
geron, 7m, Senecio, Lysimachia and Cynthia.
Grouping these, we have a mass of yellow, or-
ange, pink, purple and ivory white that one
must see to appreciate. Well might Shelley ex-
claim in despair, in description of another kind :
" Words are ineffectual . . . Most words
are so — No help!" He is surely rash who
would attempt to describe a typical June morn-
ing, and meadows, for miles, one glowing mass
of color. They mock our senses, not appeal to
them in a way we can compass. As is the gib-
bering of apes to the speech of man, so is our
best effort in sounding their praise to what
their merit calls for. The saving grace of our
words is that perchance others may see what we
have seen.

89

The Rambles of an Idler

It is not strange that as the month passes we
often find ourselves in a profoundly medi-
tative mood. I remember, as a little child, how
eagerly I watched the preparations for the
promised cakes for which I longed, and oh, how
distant seemed the time when the dough was in
the oven. July, August, September; these are
the days when Nature is in the oven and the
rambler must wait from now — the end of June
— until October, before the feast is ready.

July, August, September! I know nothing
so fitting to say of them as that in ninety days
it will be October.

THE CAT-BIRD

A singing bird, an oak tree's shade and grass
That yet unwilted greens the gentle slope,
The leisured clouds that loiter as they pass,
To care a stranger and un-plagued by hope;

Grant, kindly Fate, like blessing; not deny;

All else, how little worth, in mid-July.

The fervent fields aglow with summer heat,
The steaming marshes reeking in their mist,
Languid, the rippling river's pulses beat
Where tide and meadow-shore have heartless kissed;
They woo me not to wander hence, for I
Find all that tempts me, here, in mid-July.

90

Impressions

Here, with the singing bird and in the shade
Where yet the violet retains its youth,
Where moss, I fancy, for my limbs, was laid,
Here sings to me the ever-welcome truth,

" No thought of haste as pass the hours by —
Life a long day-dream, now, in mid-July."

'Twas but a weary cat-bird sought its ease,
In quest of comfort all too seldom found;
Lulled by the murmur of the passing breeze,
Sought the cool, leafy shade above the ground
And cast a glance of pity from on high
Upon the toiling world of mid-July.

Then a brief message, slowly reaching earth,
Few whispered words, yet freighted well with cheer, -
" 'Twas not ill-fortune frowned upon thy birth,
Since thou hast wit enough to seek me here;

For greater blessing do not hope to try;

Cool and content; what more, in mid- July?"

Poet
" Is that a worthy thought for man or bird ? "

Cat-bird
" The only thought, my friend, I ever heard."

Poet

"No higher aim throughout this life for thee?
Come, honest cat-bird, tell the truth to me."
91

The Rambles of an Idler

Cat-bird

"What good, at last, is man's philosophy?
Better fat worms, or berries rich and red,
Than the vain problems that perplex your head.
Though, like prowling cat, I mew;
As flitting bat when falls the dew;
To myself, forever true

And cheer with song as clever
As any ever sung by you,

Full earnest your endeavor.
What if storm goes raging by?
Does it dim my sparkling eye?
Head at rest beneath my wing,
For the moment cease to sing,
Waiting, knowing, time will bring
Clearer skies and then I hie,
Though it be in mid-July,
To the happy feeding ground;
Food in plenty always found.

Take a lesson, then, from me,
Life is easy, would you see
The wit of my philosophy,

To Nature, blessed, who belong;
With her army, millions strong,
Hold not idleness is wrong.
Freed from worry, join the throng,
Swell the universal song,

Birds and blossoms, field and tree,

Freedom and Simplicity."

92

Impressions

Poet

11 Honest cat-bird, can it be,
All is thine and naught for me?
Blessings only for the t bird,
Favors scant for human herd?

Whence my shelter from the blast,
Raging storms that night-long last?
Whence my loaf and needed drink,
Nature gives them, do you think?
Wherewithal shall I be clothed?
Nakedness is rightly loathed.

Did I cease from daily toil,
Cease my weary hands to soil,
Cease my weary brain to use,
Nature would her gifts refuse;
Life is far from liberty,
If, cat-bird, you a man would be."

Cat-bird

" Slave of customs that unmake,
Customs sapping half your strength;
Canst no hint from Nature take?
Wilt not wander any length
From the beaten path so deep,
You seldom o'er its edges peep?

Ever bird, without a care,
Would I be, as free as air;
Shelter, food and clothing fine,
With no thought of whence, are mine,
And the beauties of the world
Without effort are unfurled.

93

The Rambles of an Idler

All you gain, ambitious man,
Enters nothing in my plan.
Free to come, to go, to see;
Oh ! ever blessed liberty.
Heaven mine, un-reached by Hell,
My simple song is, ' All is well/ "

Sage or simple be the thought,
Nonsense all the cat-bird taught,
Yet it pleased my willing ear
The cat-bird's earnest song to hear.

How gladly would its methods try;
Day-long on these mosses lie;
Wander to some far-off glade;
Rest within a cooler shade;
Borne by breezes passing by,
These seething days of mid-July.

"Fool to think it!" say you, friend?
Where does all our labor tend?
Toil and sweat from youth to age,
No thought of ease the heart engage;
Then full rudely thrust aside,
For another, opened wide,
The door, the moment that you die
And look upon eternity;
Loiters in the house you build,
Gathers from the fields you tilled
All the harvest — this the way
Burdened mortals get their pay.

94

Impressions

Fool, I may be; be it so,
Yet while free to come and go,
This the silliness I teach,
This the gospel moved to preach,
Better, cat-bird, ten to one,
Than harvesting in July's sun.

Why pursue the fruitless theme?

Mid-summer now and I would dream.

Dream that happiness was mine,

Dream ambition's height was reached,

Dream that toil I could resign,

Dream that all the cat-bird preached

Was, at last, a world-wide truth,

And I again an aimless youth;

That life was living without care,
With singing cat-birds, everywhere.

Recently I chanced to pass by the three
beeches as the sun was setting. Their massive
trunks and far up-reaching branches impressed
me, as they always do, and I stood for a mo-
ment reverentially, as one might in a great
cathedral. A solitary thrush, not far off, sang
in its own sweetly meditative way, suggesting
the cathedral's organist dreaming over the
keys. The prevailing subdued light did not ob-
scure the outlook. It was instead so far pene-
trative that the more distant trees and thick-set

95

The Rambles of an Idler

shrubbery stood boldly out, but it did command
all things to silence, save that lonely thrush.

My thoughts were quickly attuned to the de-
lightful strains I heard. It was a season of
meditation such as, I think, the one-time
Friends enjoyed at Meeting, when their House
stood in a spacious yard aloof from life's activ-
ities. Vexing problems of life disappear at
such a time; there is neither a remembering
of trouble nor undue eagerness born of vain
hope; content prevails and a willingness to re-
main completely passive, awaiting in fullest
confidence the decree of fate. Into such a sun-
set light there comes no fear. Life is luxury,
but to leave it then and there, no shock to us.
It is, for the time, so near an approach to beat-
itude that death would seem but swift transition
to where such blissfulness prevails forever.

Then, without warning, came a wondrous
change. A rift in the leaden clouds let the red
sunbeams through. Swift as the lightning, all
nature was astir. The lonely thrush was
roused to vigorous song and every warbler,
quiet until now, joined in the chorus. All again
was action; life was busy, full of aim and am-
bition; the old story of struggle, victory and
* 96

Impressions

defeat, life for the few and death for the many,
was being retold. I hurried to a leafier glen
where yet a gray light lingered. It was more
in accord with what attracts me. There are
many trains of thought so pleasant, I never
tire of thinking, hut they wisely shun the red
light. That is the signal of war and I am a
lover of peace.

The attics of old houses have been pretty well
ransacked — in imagination usually — but cellars
have been overlooked. Now, as a matter of
fact, cellars in old days were something more
than square holes in the ground and meant more
in household economy than now. They were
divided into rooms and the milk-cellar, the pro-
vision cellar and the general cellar each had its
peculiar and deep significance to the colonial
housewife. Modern methods have done away
with all this and to-day, the cellars of the few
old houses that remain are more often recep-
tacles for rubbish than aught else. So much
the worse for the health of the household: so
much the better for the lover of such old scraps
as have escaped destruction. At least, I the-
orized in some such way.

97

The Rambles of an Idler

The oldest cellar I have recently explored
was dug in 1708 and it is as empty as the head
of the man who owns it. The next in order was
dug in 1737-38 and is a dark cavernous retreat
that chills the explorer immediately on enter-
ing it, so cold, clammy and musty is the air, or
rather the dimly visible darkness that replaces
normal atmosphere. Air or not, it is thick and
so spidery that I recoiled at every forward step
as the sheet-like webs touched me, and then, the
muffled sounds were so suggestive of rats, bats
and lurking vermin that had tunnelled under
the thick walls from the outside world. On a
summer day, it is hard to believe that such a
place should be in the midst of light and gaiety.
Here, Erebus, son of Chaos and brother of Nox,
might feel at ease and take a mid-day nap in
comfort, but no sane mortal is likely to follow
in his footsteps. I go, not as a lover of dark-
ness, but in a limited way, from a sense of duty,
which is man's most disagreeable position in
life. I am told I ought to explore that partic-
ular cellar and submit, assuming the role of ex-
plorer, much in the present fashion of that ilk,
with modern improvements and taking care not
to get nearer the real facts than comfort war-

98

Impressions

rants. I am an ideal explorer, eager for un-
limited glory and careful that no danger is run
in acquiring it.

The anticipatory vision of rare furnishings,
of pewter platters and brass candlesticks, of
Canton china or a cow-skin trunk stuffed with
pre-revolutionary documents; all the improba-
bilities are ranged in a long panoramic way.
Enthusiasm is at flood-tide. The all-powerful
arm, against which darkness struggled in vain,
is a lantern, and mine is of the most approved
pattern; but like the modern repeating rifle, it
is possible to fail us at a critical moment, and
the marshalled hosts of Pluto prevail against
it. In a cellar, obstacles are excellent strate-
gists and when the field appears open and
marching unobstructed, the unexpected hap-
pens. It is no unusual experience of a life-time
to have a lantern smashed and is the usual out-
come of invading a colonial cellar. In this case
I had taken but few steps when the feeble rays
that merely accentuated the gloom, met an im-
placable foe. The glass that armored the flame
was shattered ; the flame itself succumbed and I,
like Lord Ullin, "was left lamenting. "

Helplessness is never pleasant. It magnifies
99

The Eambles of an Idler

the evil designs of all that surrounds us and
transforms friends to foes; but helplessness in
the black colonial cellar is an exaggeration be-
yond language. We would delight in overhear-
ing some people we know, when in such a fix.
The mind flounders and has no use for common
words. It is drowning, without the loss of
breath and worse, not a movement is possible
without collision. The implacable walls and
immovable beams are loosened. One can stand
rigid as a statue, so he thinks, but every beam
proves a battering ram. Crouching is the only
chance to escape annihilation and so, following
what might be a solitary ray of light, as great
a fool as myself to enter here, I sought the
outer world.

Doubtless colonial treasure galore, I left be-
hind me, but there it may remain. Better to
read what others have imagined of the good old
days than seek for subterranean tangible evi-
dences thereof ; at least, it is wiser to wait until
the house that covers it is removed and the
blessed sunshine is your constant companion.

The recent excessive rainfalls covering many
days have had such effect upon the forest trees

100

Impressions

that many of them have an abundance of new
leaves. The delicate light green and yellowish
or golden green on the elms, beeches and oaks
have all the effect of inflorescence and the
woods as seen from my hill-top yard are beauti-
ful beyond the ordinary leafiness of mid-sum-
mer. If mankind, more generally, would take
a hint from this occasional phenomenon and
deck themselves anew with the cheerfulness of
youth, there would be brighter sunshine, in and
out of doors.

Of far more importance to me than my neigh-
bors is to learn the effect, if any, of this new
foliage upon the birds. I cannot positively as-
sociate it with them as cause and effect, so far
as their general activity and cheerfulness are
concerned, for there is the question of coinci-
dence; but this is the banner year for birds, so
far as my records, since 1874, show. Never
have there been so many individuals and all the
nesting species have been represented. To-
day, July 22d, when ordinarily we must not
expect much singing of birds, there is not a
moment of silence. As I write — it is now
mid-forenoon — not only the wrens, but the
cardinal, song-sparrow, thrush, cat-bird, wood-

101

The Eambles of an Idler

peewee and a white-eyed vireo are as vocal as
ever in May; and now the question arises,
whether or not the excessive moisture has not
kept up the food supply and so the birds have
their spring-tide vigor maintained. The sum-
mer, thus far, has not been an average one.
Vegetation and bird-life have wandered from
their time-worn paths. What the inter-rela-
tion, if any, let him who is curious, determine
for himself.

Now that the trolley railway has cut my fields
in twain, there has been opened up a new high-
way for birds, many kinds delighting in the
poles, wires and the extended outlook. The
more commonly noticed species are the robin,
king-bird, indigo finch and blue-bird. They all
sing or chatter constantly, and their united
voices suggest the child's common exclamation
over novelty: " Isn't this fun!" The cars
passing at brief intervals do not disturb them
much. They simply change their positions and
continue their chattering as if never inter-
rupted. It is comforting to know that the
many changes of these recent years have not
had the effect of driving away our birds.
Again, the blessed blue-birds are a fixed fea-

102

Impressions

ture. They were so some years ago, until their
home, or headquarters, where they nested reg-
ularly and roosted nightly, was destroyed.
They were as firmly established as poultry in
the yard, or the English sparrows. It required
no persistent observation to see them, daily;
not more than to see the sky. Perhaps it will
be so again. It is five months since they have
come back. No sooner were the wires strung,
than the birds accepted the situation. Drifting
on the wandering gusts of March, they found
here a haven of rest and since then, not for a
day, have they forsaken it. Where these blue
birds nested, I do not know, but many young
birds appeared in due season. Electricity has
done much for us of late, but nothing better, to
my mind, than re-establishing the blue-birds.

Hot weather sounds are usually heard singly
but, to-day, following so closely, there was no
intervening moment of silence, were the cicada,
the great crested fly-catcher, the cuckoo and the
indigo bird. The first and last are the hottest
sounds I know of. They mean summer to me
as nothing else does. The fervent heat that
sets the air over the fields all a,-trembling ; the

103

The Eambles of an Idler

leaves that hang listlessly, pointing earthward ;
the grass that crackles under foot; the folded
flowers awaiting the freshness of twilight — all
these come to the front when I hear the cicada,
our "harvest fly," but not a fly of our harvest-
time. They come after the grain is cut and the
days have shortened by a full half hour. Like
the leaf-cricket and the katy-did, cicadas are in
place and accepted as a part of Nature's meth-
ods, but the indigo bird causes some surprise.
It is a tropical bird in appearance and likewise
in its tastes. When the mercury is above one
hundred in the open fields, it sings its loudest.
It rejoices when men sulk and seek the shade,
and is apt to be quiet on a rainy day. Myself
in the shade, I watched one for exactly one
hour. It left its perch only as a car passed and
returned to it. In that time it sang without
ceasing, except when on the wing. Truly, a
hot-weather bird and from my point of view, a
foolish one.

A little later, thistle finches drifted by.
Pretty birds and yet a neighbor could see no
more in them than that they were ' ' the color of
cup-custards. " The curving twitter of their
wavy flight is a hot-weather sound, but is com-

104

Impressions

monly heard in winter also, when it seems quite
in place. Theirs is an all-the-year-round song,
but wa.s of the heat, to-day, an intimate part
and parcel.

Stepping aside but a few paces, I reached the
brook with its overhanging willows, maples,
wild cherry and an endless tangle of grape and
green brier. Here there was, I think, a differ-
ence of twenty degrees in temperature. It was
like entering an ice-house and what a delight to
hear a tree-toad grumbling about the weather.
I have been told that it was asking for rain and
scolding because of too much of it; and again,
that whichever way the wind blows, it always
grumbles; but I accept none of these state-
ments. I believe it to be grunting its satisfac-
tion over its peculiar lot in life. Our common
hop-toad has been sagely commented upon and
been called a philosophical creature, but the
tree-toad, comfortably settled in a damp nook
of an old apple tree, has solved the problem of
existence without vexation. His, it is, to con-
template the busy toilers that surround him and
not wear out or rust out in so doing. There is
the turtle in the mud of the meadow and the fish
that dreamily floats where the cool spring water

105

The Rambles of an Idler

enters the creek; there are mole-crickets in the
damp earth and the woodchuck in his deep bur-
row; all these are fairly fixed as to comfort,
this warm weather, but all are liable to inter-
ruption, all require to exert themselves upon
occasion; but with the tree-toad, it is one long
day-dream, varied only with visions equally
long at night. A tree-toad is an instance of
embodied contemplation, of thought with a
body that merely serves to anchor it.

Happily, no degree of enthusiasm as to Na-
ture stifles strictly human attributes. A walk
in midsummer to be complete should have a
happy ending. Its poetry should project itself
into the prose of home-coming ; but how best to
accomplish this is an open question. My choice
is to pass unobserved into the cellar and eat a
fair-sized wedge of blackberry pie. It must
be done dexterously. No one must know of
what we are doing, and above all not one drop
of tell-tale juice must be in evidence. It is a
difficult feat. There are few experts but I hold
myself one of them, and yet it seldom happens
that a curious expression is not noticed on
others' faces as I re-appear. Life is less seri-

106

Impressions

ous in the days of blackberry pie. To antici-
pate it, when amid-fields, however hot the day,
is, of itself, refreshing.

Hearing its shrill call as I lingered under the
oaks, I thought of other days when the Carolina
wren is a more prominent feature of my hill-
side slope. Now, in July, its varied notes are
tiresome, but later the exodus of the summer 's
songsters would be a serious matter if there
were no birds to take their places and for a
season, silence reigned where music had been
the foremost feature of the day. Happily, with
the passing of the thrush, there comes to mind
the necessity of greater sociability on the part
of this Carolina wren and our regrets that the
rose-breast and oriole have left us are softened
by the earnest comforter which whistles with
startling emphasis: Why heed it? Why heed
if?

It is well put. The wren offers to lead us
into still pleasant places. Our summer friends
will come again, but while away, it is not dis-
loyalty to make new ones. Our wren is a bird
of all the year, but never seen or heard to so
great an advantage as when, to men's eyes, the

107

The Rambles of an Idler

outlook is dreariest. Never the day so dismal
that there is no redeeming feature. The voice
of a bird above the roar of the tempest bears a
weightier message than many a cherished pro-
verb. Nature does not waste words with us.
There is abundant reason for so doing when
the Carolina wren sends this cheerful query
ringing through the woods: Why heed it?
Why heed it? Though the impenetrable clouds
droop earthward until upland and meadow are
covered as with a pall; though there be but
dripping branches and sodden grass, and the
air chilling, as we breathe it, until we shudder
and long for the cheerful glow of the fire-side,
why heed it? Destruction is not being dealt
out to us. The world is worth a visit, even at
such a time, or why the unsheltered wren so
cheerful? The meaning of its words will be
made plain, if we walk yet a little farther into
the fields. There still remain, even in Febru-
ary, a red berry and a green leaf.

I interpret the wren's enthusiasm to thank-
fulness that trifles remain, and a word here as
to Nature's trifles. Are we so very wise that a
single leaf can be overlooked or a red berry be
disregarded? Tell me, first, why any leaf is

108

Impressions

still green and how this berry has escaped de-
struction? To grow wildly ecstatic over a
summer landscape is not evidence of erudition
equal to its comprehension. The flood-tide of
Nature's activities may well bewilder us, but
not so the trifle of a frost-defying bit of sod,
with a green leaf, or even a blossom. The
wren that discovers this has cause for rejoic-
ing, and if the elements are rude and Winter
blusters in his surliest mood, that bird is blessed
who from its heart can shout, Why heed it? why
Heed it?

I have braved many a winter storm that I
might hear some bird of the season. Encour-
aged by the good-natured bantering of this
wren, I have not heeded the discomforts of keen
winds or driving snow, but sought those shel-
tered nooks where I knew the birds had gath-
ered, and never have they turned their backs
upon me. When Nature's guest, I am happy.

"He knows what's what!" remarked my
companion. ' ' Does he ? — indeed ! " I exclaimed,
with mock astonishment, adding*: "Then he's
the greatest curiosity on earth ! ' '

I have learned to be careful how I pin my
109

The Rambles of an Idler

faith on the extraordinarily learned; for, oc-
casionally, it has proved that, like the unco'
good, they fail us when we least expect it. This
feeling has no reference to learning or good-
ness per se; but the fallibility of humanity
must never be a forgotten factor. Knowledge
in excess of our own magnifies its possessor;
and we measure his strength by the exagger-
ated outlines of this supposed giant. But,
when the hour of test comes, and, eager to
profit by reason of his superior knowledge, we
are all expectation, how grievously disappointed
we may find ourselves at its close — if not long
before the interview is ended !

Geologists are given to coming this way, at
times, and, with a majestic sweep of the hand
and piercing glance of the eye, tell us, in terms
too clear to be misconstrued, what we already
know; or else inform us, with scarcely less em-
phasis, what we know to be not true. It may be
easy to read the riddle of the rocks ; but here we
have only sand and gravel, and of the floods
and local cataclysms that arranged and re-ar-
ranged it all, and the intervening periods of
quiescence when the sun baked the mud, and,
again reduced it to sand and water, perhaps

110

Impressions

giving weeds a chance to grow, we know very
little.

One prominently outstanding fact is that at-
tempted histories, as yet, are continually con-
tradicted, as we see new exposures of the vari-
ous deposits. They are to be accepted as of no
greater value than that of being suggestive.
We can gather useful hints from the literature
of the subject, but little else. Yet, not an au-
thor but has laid down the * 'facts" as a judge
does the law — that thus-and-so was the se-
quence of events from the fierce arctic condi-
tions of the glacial period to the present day.
This is not too strong a statement; for each
geologist, as he comes, contradicts his predeces-
sor, leaving the poor layman, as he grows older,
to find only confusion steadily worse con-
founded. Can it be, as in some other occupa-
tions in this life, geologists are at their best
when not discussing geological subjects!

By actual count, taking notes of what was
said in the field at the time, in their presence,
I find that eleven men have expressed sixteen
opinions — five of them strongly inclined to
their favorite explanation, but adding: "Or. it

might have been that "

111

The Eambles of an Idler

Fatal words ! Yes : "It might have been"—
that Nature pursued the plan that she does to-
day, and these things that are such a puzzle are
susceptible of a simple explanation. It might
ha,ve been that the cold weather became Spring-
like, and the raging torrent became an ordinary
freshet, and sand instead of rocks came down
the valley, and, when there was not enough
water to fill this valley to the brim, it flowed
at a lower level, until, as at this writing, we can
almost cross the river, dry-shod, jumping a lit-
tle, here-and-there. The simplest explanation
is the best in the long run for laymen ; and this
plunging of the earth's surface into ocean's
depths and uplifting it to the mountain's top is
too much of a tax upon the non-scientific mind.
It is, at best, a bold assumption, to print which
gets the bewildered geologist out of an ugly fix.

However, there is something very attractive
in the geologist's "it might have been." It af-
fords, as naught else can, a graceful back-door
through which to disappear as theories become
untenable. Since the glacial period was first
discussed, this back-door has never been locked.
When it is, the layman can accept statements
with confidence — but not until then. When

112

Impressions

the back-door is locked; when geologists cease
to contradict;

When, open-eyed, we see, from Heaven's height

The earth where long we groped in darkness drear,

Then and there only, banished is the night;

Suggestion vague turned to conception clear !

Geologists are not the only queer people we
meet. There is a pseudo- scientific clique that
appropriates the title of * ' archaeologist, " and
asks us to believe a great deal more than the
meagre facts warrant. These men all know
what's what when specimens are produced, and
spin marvelous yarns concerning every odd
shape of worked stone. The jagged edge of a
chipped stone is always a saw ; and the iron in
any stone implement, reddening, by oxidation
its surface, is always a blood-stain. The sim-
plest scratches on a clay bowl are claimed to
be of marvelous significance. The question
arises: Would the old-time Indians recognize
themselves could they read the papers read at
archaeological conventions ?

There is always something impressive in see-
ing objects that are very old. To hold even so
simple a thing as an arrow-point and consider

113

The Eambles of an Idler

its certain history, its Indian origin, its evident
purpose, and what might have been its career
ages ago, always arouses in us a degree of in-
terest that is pleasurable ; and this increases as
evidence of antiquity is brought before us.
Yet, the enthusiasm of the archaeologist, lead-
ing to endless extravagances and fantastic the-
ory, is persistently contradictory the moment
the maximum degree of antiquity is mentioned.
When man first appeared on the American con-
tinent, possibly we may never know; but that
evidence which makes his antiquity a geological
question is abundant and no less unmistakable
than the traces supposedly indicative of his
subsequent career. If geologists are timid,
archaeologists are overbold ; and the lack of in-
formation from the former and the clack of the
latter leave us ignorant where we would be
wise, and doubtful if either really knows
"what's what" even when he sees it.

The botanist and entomologist are the only
specialists we have met, of late, who speak un-
hesitatingly. Flowers and butterflies, trees
and the beetles that bore into them, are unmis-
takable. We know an oak or an elm, when we
see them; and their respective insect-foes are

114

Impressions

readily recognized. This is a comfort greater
than the uninitiated suspect. Specialists who
are afraid to speak, and keep the "back-door"
ever open, are the greatest bores on earth. It
is a trifle discouraging to find ourselves, at this
late day, still in the dark concerning the com-
moner forms of life. The man who knows
what's what, and will throw light over it all,
has not yet appeared upon the scene. However
diligently we study and finally convince our-
selves that we are right, there is always a spe-
cialist crossing our path and assuring us we are
wrong; and another in his tracks, agreeing only
that the poor layman is wrong, but placing his
error on a different basis.

If happiness depended upon the exactitude of
our knowledge, then, indeed, would we be mis-
erable !

During the past year I removed each morn-
ing from a calendar the slip of paper bearing
the previous day's date, and upon which was
a quotation. At the year's close I had read
365 brief selections from a modern author's
works, and was forced to the unwelcome con-
clusion that fully three hundred of the whole

115

The Eambles of an Idler

were echoes of writers who had lived and died
anywhere from five thousand years to a century
ago. In short, I had been treated not so much
to the author's "works" as to his stealings —
or, more politely, his unconscious appropria-
tion of others' thoughts.

The above is not an extravagant statement.
Early in January it occurred to me that the
quotations for each day had a familiar ring,
and I was surprised to find how our modern
author suffered when put to the test of heart-
less parallels.

That the same idea should arise, even when
men and manners have radically changed, need
not excite surprise. The ocean or a mountain
range, a shipwreck or a more commonplace inci-
dent, may similarly impress two or more wit-
nesses who recount it ; but the ear-mark of orig-
inality will, in each case, be there. Mere sim-
ilarity of thought is not to be mistaken for the
blundering reproduction of a master's words,
or the careless adaptation of a familiar
thought. The brief comment on a passing oc-
currence, a flash of wit, or a description in a
few words of a sunset or the sea, born in the
brain of greatness, stands for all time as the

116

Impressions

perfection of word-painting. To change its
setting is to mar its beauty.

From whom Job and Jeremiah, Solomon and
the author of ' ' Ecclesiastes " quoted — if they
did quote — probably no one will ever know;
but later literati have quoted them, and they
have, in turn, been quoted, with such changes in
each case as gave the latest version the appear-
ance of a new-born thought. The original ver-
sion and the latest may be widely different in
form; but there is — unfortunately for most
claimants to originality — an unbroken series
of versions in literature, from dun antiquity
until to-day.

A large proportion of the good things now
offered are cunningly adapted appropriations,
and he appears to be the most successful " au-
thor " who most skillfully conceals the sources
of his material. The reason is not hard to find.
The literary man is too much concerned with
books and too little with the fountain-head of
inspiration — Nature.

Books that are the outgrowth of older books
may have their place, and poems that tell the
same story greater poets have already told
may please the reader; but is it quite fair to

117

The Rambles of an Idler

the memory of the truly great of other ages
that the truth should be suppressed? The fact
is indisputable that the century just closed
has given the world but very little originality.
If this blessed quality is exhausted, then let
the fact be candidly admitted; and, instead of
new "authors," let us have new "adapters."
New versions of old stories printed as such will
be so far welcome as possibly to warrant their
publication; but let us not hail as an origin-
ator one who has no originality. However
smooth the prose or liquid the verse, correct the
rhyme and accurate the metre, if the idea
clothed in a new suit of words is an old idea,
let it be so heralded.

If this severe but just measure is applied by
the historian to the writers of the past century,
those truly original are quickly named. Per-
haps, we have had a million books in the last
one hundred years, but, have we had a thousand
genuinely-new ideas? Have we had a hun-
dred?

Place modern literature in another light, and
see how far it has added new words or phrases
to our speech. For long we have had Homeric,
Virgilic, and Aristotelian; Dantesque, Shakes-

118

Impressions

pearean, and Darwinian. Probably, a few
more names might properly be used to mark an
epoch. Here, in America, we have Emerson-
ian. These are words necessity has coined.
They were called for because originality had
asserted itself. Only with them can we make
ourselves readily intelligible.

The world has not been lazy in science; and
we are fairly stunned by the magnificent
achievements made in endless directions. The
triumphs of engineering skill in building cities
and bridging rivers, and the grand results of
biological research, leaving the mind no longer
groveling in ignorance as to the problems of
life's origin and destiny, are sufficient to show
what has been done in other phases of human
activity; but nothing in like exultant strain
can be said of literature. It is, at best — save
here and there, a sadly-lonely page — an echo
of an echo that, repeated and re-repeated, has
come down, century after century. It has only
been necessary to tell an old story, with trifling
change, to gain the world's plaudits, and be
called an "author."

If this be recognized as a valid criticism, and
an honest desire for originality be created,

119

The Rambles of an Idler

whither must the aspiring writer go? Surely,
not to the library. Hindrances only will be
there. A new book — new in every sense —
should be conceived, if not written, where books
are never seen, but wherever the stern realities
of life are all-absorbing — amid bustling activ-
ity and the fiercer struggles for bare existence ;
or in green fields, where Nature holds sway and
is never idle; or on a mountain-top, where
freshest breezes blow ; or deep down in the val-
ley, .where trickling waters are wearing away
the rocks; anywhere that books are not, the
breath of life may enter into an honest thought
— an actually-new creation !

What constitutes a new idea is as evident as
the fraud of old ones set-up as new is patent.
It is something not previously thought — a
new combination of familiar facts giving in
their association a strictly novel impression.
Such ideas occasionally burst upon the world
in the past century, and are to be remembered
with its notable meteors and comets.

As the race of writers is likely not to grow
less, the effort for their betterment should be
very earnest ; but whether such effort will ever
be made is problematical. Unfortunately,

120

Impressions

those who read are not sufficiently exacting.
It is an open question whether originality is as
much desired as it should be.

This is a grave charge against our intellect-
ual status; but it would seem as if the setting-
forth of matter in a manner even suggestive
of originality is banned by the majority of
critics. The greater the earnestness of an au-
thor, the greater his condemnation. The mod-
ern reader does not wish to be forced to think.
Familiar with certain conditions, his mind is
gently stirred to mild activity as the leaves of
the last new book are turned. It is exertion
enough to smile at the wit that lost its fresh-
ness a thousand years ago; but an outburst of
novelty would command close attention, a knit-
ting of the eyebrows, a sharp exclamation of
dissent, or applause more vigorous than an ap-
proving nod. No — no ! That would never do !
Ease of mind or of body is too delightful to
be disturbed. Cling, rather, to the inappli-
cable proverbs of Solomon than have the mem-
ory taxed with new ones better fitted to our
own day.

Judging from the undoubted skill of many of
our most prominent writers, the power to pro-

121

The Rambles of an Idler

duce novelty has not heen lacking, but allowed
to lie dormant; or fear has entered the mind,
and really-new creations have been shunned
because of a vague feeling — or, perhaps, an
unmistakable one — that the public might not
approve. And this same public must be con-
sidered.

Such impressions and such argument are
fatal drawbacks to aspiring authorship. Its
message should go forth to the world, whether
it likes it or not. Of all bugbears, the public
takes the lead; and consideration of a bugbear
is fatal to a literary career. So large an entity
as the public has no fixed opinion. "Vox pop-
uli" is nothing but noise. This public is con-
tinually falling to pieces because of its lack of
cohesion; and the detached masses are readily
kicked about by the cunning, and finally licked
into respectable shape by the conscientious.
No author should expect to reach the millions,
but hundreds scattered through them; and they,
it may be, will carry the message — surely will,
if it be a worthy one — to their fellows.

The author who clothes in fitting words one
great thought is nobler than he who re-clothes a
hundred familiar and, often, out- worn ideas !

122

Impressions

Diluted Homer, Virgil, Horace, those , ;

Who framed a worthy song; who sang like men —
A weak solution of majestic prose

And mightier verse from Shakespeare's magic pen
Faint echo of the songs that poets writ

When Byron flashed like meteor in the sky —
The ghastly relic of a noble wit —

Such modern poetry is, alas! And why?

Is there no story wortk the telling left?

Must rhythm never leave the time-worn rut?
Are we of novel thought and deed bereft,

No unsealed mountain from our outlook jut,
O'er which to clamber, giving view unthought

Of this wide world? Or, is all commonplace?
To a dead level human action brought,

Outworn, old Earth; exhausted time and space?

123

CHAPTER TWO

INTERPRETATIONS

A crow was flying against the wind, crossing
the flooded meadows and nearing the bluff
whereon I stood. As I am not a crow, I am ig-
norant of its purpose, and being human —
which is synonymous with being inquisitive —
I wonder where the bird is going and on what
errand, I have said, i i I wonder, ' ' but I do not.
I assume to know and say to myself, "It is in
search of its breakfast. " The time of day sug-
gests it, and I assume the truth of the assump-
tion. It is just sunrise and a flood of glitter-
ing light almost shuts from view the flood of
waters beneath it. Content with supposed
knowledge, I go a step farther and determine
what the crow will find to eat, and having thus
solved the entire corvine problem, I turn my at-
tention to more cheerful matters.

Is this not the way that Nature is generally
124

Interpretations

interpreted and if so, the question arises, How
far have we wandered from the facts f

While yet the crow was in sight, a Carolina
wren rushed from nowhere into visible space.
It came to view, like a flash of lightning, but
unlike the flash, remained. All this of its own
volition, is my assumption, but other causes may
have operated. We assume the bird to be a
free-agent — no such condition ever existed —
and theorize accordingly. Tarrying on a bare
twig, the wren sings Mer-ri-lee, over and over
again. No other wren replies; no birds of
other species pay attention ; we conclude that it
is singing for its own satisfaction. Do we
know? Is a word of what I have written, in
any sense, correct interpretation? Yet, con-
scious of our inability to fathom the impulse of
a passing bird, if we weave no net to cast
over every crow and wren we meet, the interest
in such interviews would vanish. It was only a
crow and a wren at this early hour, but they
filled the landscape as completely as a flock of
either might have done. Every mesh of the
net I had woven was a pleasing thought, and
casting it about the birds, I was also entangled.
Irresponsible thought, not a soulless realiza-

125

The Rambles of an Idler

tion of truth, possessed me. It is often so, and
we place too high a value on such idle thinking.
It ever poses as something it is not.

The crow swerved from the straight line of
its flight and circled over the water; the wren
never ceased its singing. Why? If we are
moved continually to ask questions, a very little
will shut from view the world as a whole, and
if long puzzled by a minor detail, what of
Earth's entirety? The naturalist goes forth in
confidence to explain away obscurities, to let
light into the dark places, to bring all things
easily within our grasp. Does he? Few in-
deed are the interpretations to which the whole
world assents. Who has proved that the wren
is singing for its own entertainment? Why is
the crow circling above the flooded meadow?
Is not my "breakfast" theory all moonshine?
A library is ten thousand assertions and twice
ten thousand contradictions.

We must not take Nature or our views of it
too seriously. They are excellent in their
proper place and a source of sorrow out of it.
To interpret what we see is a mighty task, un-
der which Titanic shoulders bend, but to
weave a few fancies fits the passing day and

126

Interpretations

the average mortal. Philosophers are few and
far between. We can look at them as we do
mountains in the distance. They fill a place in
our outlook but we need not mope because they
are inaccessible. Be king in the kingdom of
your own mind, and not attempting the impos-
sible, happiness is assured.

I looked upon the crow and the wren as my
friends, but they looked on me as an enemy.
To disabuse them of a wrong impression was
not possible, so I was at every disadvantage. I
hailed them as comrades and they shouted
back, "You lie!" A nice condition of affairs,
truly, but what was I to do? Go home and
mope ? No ; I will at least ' l make believe ' ' they
are friendly and have as good a time as pos-
sible. Go in that spirit and a pleasant and
profitable outing is assured.

Crows represent the more serious aspects of
Nature; the wren stands for Nature when she
relapses and mirth is uppermost. The misfor-
tune of the crow is that it is common. If sel-
dom in evidence every quality would shine with
unwonted lustre ; indeed, if we followed the lit-
erary naturalist, every crow would be a raven
and the commonplace caw be an ominous croak.

127

The Rambles of an Idler

Quoth the raven, ' ' Nevermore, ' ' and how weird
and uncanny is this lover of "Night's Plutonian
shore;" but caws the crow, " Evermore " and
alas ! we simply grow tired of the iteration. So
much, for indolent interpretation, but if judged
more justly, the vocabulary of the crow would
rouse as much interest as has the raven's. The
old story: more wonderful matter in the home
valley than in all the mountains beyond; but
because they are beyond, the mountains are ver-
itable treasures of all we can desire. The mys-
terious unknown enslaves us ; that which is fa-
miliar, we despise. Ever longing for the im-
practicable raven and indifferent to crows.
But honors are easy; the crows despise us and
with good reason. There is seldom a man who
is as cunning as they are.

A hundred of these fine birds have come in-
land from the river. The familiar meadows
are now an unfamiliar lake and how they chat-
ter over the new conditions! A clamor has
arisen that drowns the minor voices of the
awakening world. It is the last day of Febru-
ary and a south-east wind is blowing. Do the
crows know that it is the last day of nominal
winter? Whether they keep a record of the

128

Interpretations

years or not, they act as record-keepers for
him who loves an outing. The warm wind, the
excited birds, the softer tone in the tall pine-
tree's top; only now the velvet glove and no
suspicion of the iron hand. The crows inter-
pret the significance of the day and I take my
cue from them. An unwise interpretation and
a lowering of man to a bird's level, it is as-
serted, but the day is more attractive because
of it all. It is the part of wisdom to play the
fool upon occasion, if doing as I have done, is
to play the fool.

I love the cawing of the crow because it gives
rise to reminiscence. The cries of this bird
were a childish wonder more than half a cen-
tury ago. I strove even then to encompass
their meaning and from that day until now, and
the half century gone, I am still in the dark.
Corvine literature covers many pages. As a
whole, it reminds me of the mocker nut. There
is an almost unbreakable shell and supposedly
a kernel of the sweetest meat. As yet, only my
fingers have been cut by the jagged edges of the
broken cover. It is but a step, happily, from
the book to the bird. I say, happily, for it is
from darkness unto light. Under the open sky,

129

The Kambles of an Idler

into the fresh air, cheered by the swelling leaf-
buds, stimulated by the odor of the juicy turf
and by sight of that first fruit of the promised
spring, skunk cabbage, gorgeously arrayed.
These are the belongings, so to speak, of the
cawing of the crow. The long, dreary winter
through, the crow has hinted of them, and now
there is exultation over the hint made good.
There may be rugged winter yet for three more
weeks. The almanac promises that, but the
crows rise above such soulless mathematics and
declare it is spring now. Liars, every one of
them, but what of that? Are their feathers
black because of this grievous fault? We
would miss much if we did not occasionally de-
ceive ourselves. The Winter that is yet lying
in wait for the poor rambler can have his full
swing and welcome, when he can get it. I,
for one, will not complain, but to-day the south
wind holds him back and I will have my in-
nings. There is a suggestion of the new order
and with so slight a tool as this I will build a
castle that will last me for the passing hour.
If a day-dream is so vivid that it has all the
charm of reality, pray, what value over it, has
the reality? I am as happy as the crows about

130

Interpretations

me and that is ample for my needs and, strange
enough in this world, it reaches to the outer-
bounds of my desires. I am happy, too, be-
cause the crows are and so I hail them as my
friends. It is true, they will not interpret
aright my meaning, but this shall not cast a
shadow over my sun-bright sky.

All the while, the quick wren has been sing-
ing. Quickened unto a fuller life than any man
can lead, the wren is my leader and I fall be-
hind it so far that I am not in strict sense a
follower. Mer-ri-lee, Mer-ri-lee, Mer-ri-lee!
Three times over and never with a lack of en-
ergy, though now it has been singing for full
five minutes. That is a longer period in the
wren's calculations than twelve times five in
ours. The eye can follow when the body can--
not, and now that I force the bird to quit its
perch, it is marvellous to see what a range of
country it covers in a brief moment. From
tree to tree, down to the ground in a tangle of
smilax and up to the peak of the barn roof.
Through the cavernous old mows and out at a
knot-hole and back again to its starting point,
and all the while declaring itself to be taking
life Mer-ri-lee, Mer-ri-lee, Mer-ri-lee f

131

The Rambles of an Idler

I wonder when this strange bird stops to feed
and if it retires at an early hour after so active
a day, but to attempt to solve any problem of
wren-dom is vain. My interpretation may be
wide of the mark, but it soothes my vanity,
which is sufficient excuse for its being. I must
reach to some conclusion. Failing in that is
to go mad. Whether early to bed or not, the
wren is an early riser. Long before my own
inclinations to be abroad have shaped them-
selves, the wren is all too apt to be just outside
my window, shouting, in energetic tones, the
merits of the morning.

I confess to weariness of the flesh, at times,
and latterly, have seen paths too rugged for my
feet. The wren therefore does not appeal to
me as did the crows. They are too quick for
my sluggish pulse and all I would know of
them is beyond my interpretative power. I can
but translate their song of this morning as
Mer-ri-lee! and if I saw aright, their actions
fitted the word.

The morning wears away and I am ready to
return. There is yet much to be done, digest-
ing my impressions. Were they greater in
number, I might lose the spirit of them all. It

132

Interpretations

is far easier to see too much than too little.
The lack of mad-cap, feverish adventure has
not occurred to me. The day seemed full, and
what seems, is, in the chop-logic of an idle ram-
bler. I cannot worry over the niceties of
language and the proprieties of thought. Na-
ture is intelligible without them, or we think it
so, which equally meets our purpose. What the
crows and the wren are to Nature is one thing;
what they were to me, is quite another. I may
have misread, but that did not harm them.
They certainly misinterpreted me, but I was
not cast down. The truth would scarcely have
made the day better. Crows, wren, rambler;
all were happy. For each and all the world
was as it should be. I have never known bet-
ter birds, nor have I aspirations. Blessed are
the poor who have no rich relations. They es-
cape the pangs of the envious.

As I find it set down in the almanac, Spring
commences at 8 :16 A. M. this twenty-first day of
March, and at the proper tick of the clock, I put
my best foot forward to see what is or has been
the initial movement in Nature, but all to no
use. That magic moment was a matter of the

133

The Rambles of an Idler

sun, moon, stars, perhaps the milky way and a
vagrant comet, but not a sign on this old Earth,
which of all the bodies pitching headlong
through space alone concerns me.

It is very kind of almanac-authors to tell us
just when spring commences. I know of no
pleasanter reading in the depth of winter. If
I take down the pamphlet from its brass hook
on the mantel to see when the moon changes I
always turn also to this delightful date and let
fancy indulge in sky-larking. So doing, bright-
ens many an otherwise dull winter day.

For many a week I have been looking for-
ward, and now here among the old oaks, with
meadows before me and the distant hills but
dimly outlined, I am in the actual presence of
an instant set aside for peculiar honors. No, I
am not. It was 8 :16 A. M. five minutes ago and
the commencement of spring has passed into the
progress of the blessed season. Small progress
yet but many have been the preparations, and
these may very properly and profitably concern
us. I had already interpreted many. The lit-
tle hylodes and the hylas have been making the
air tremble over the marshes since the eleventh,
and as if that were too little to command at-

134

Interpretations

tention, robins, blue-birds, song-sparrows, the
cardinal, Carolina wren and crested tit have
not been quiet except after sunset and not al-
ways then, and an hour before sunrise every one
is up, about and tuneful. Killdee plover, too,
have been trooping over the house and whether
or not they had a message for me, I heard their
clear whistle and interpreted it as a hint to be
as wide-awake as every bird about me.

There were other birds, to say nothing of
crows, hawks and blue- jays, but let that pass.
The day's incidents are major and minor and
the former claim our attention; perhaps too
closely, for not always the loudest noise is full-
est of suggestion. The quiet remark of a
thoughtful man may be weightier than the
clamor of a thoughtless crowd. Because it is
the custom to be guarded in assertion, I sug-
gested the probability mechanically. So much
for being a slave to custom. The truth is, the
clamor of a crowd has as little import as the
steady hum of children's voices when at play.
Boys shout when they rush from school. It is
the expression of pent-up energy and addressed
to no one. I think not one boy in a hundred is
aware that he has shouted. So with the clamor

135

The Rambles of an Idler

of an excited crowd. One calm man that knows
the secret of it all can hush a multitude by a
wave of the hand. This is one of the much
talked of "eternal verities, " rarest of entities
in this world, but innumerable are the quips and
oddities that masquerade in their old clothes.

Is it safe to interpret the grand volume of
song and sound that seems to shake the earth in
some such contemptuous manner? It is not an
uncommon setting-forth of its significance, for
Nature has not always been fairly dealt with.
I liken all I now hear to the steady hum of in-
dustry when men are at work.

The world is now very busy; that out-door
world, I mean, which is blessedly non-human,
where two and two make four and sophistry is
never dreamed of. Nature's abiding-place.
Where creature looks creature in the face and
whether it is peace or war, there is no lying
about it. The permanent residence of His
Majesty, the Truth.

What I would know is what in place of an al-
manac has wild-life to guide it? Wild-life, per
force of habit of expression; superlatively ra-
tional life in fact, another of the world's "eter-
nal verities."

136

Interpretations

Neither bird nor beast is weather-wise beyond
possibility of disaster, yet I believe statistics, if
obtainable, would show they are ahead of the
lords of creation, or, more correctly speaking,
the climax of evolution. Every bird has taken
upon itself, to-day, to proclaim the opening of
spring, if I interpret them aright, but whence
their knowledge ? They have foreseen it all too
and what little can we imagine of their mental
process! It may be said that the frost is out
of the ground and the sun-warmth has been
sufficient to rouse the frogs from their lethargic
sleep, but this apparently reasonable explana-
tion falls short. The frog that slept grew while
it was sleeping and has energies now which it
had not when the initial frosts of autumn sent it
to cover. Sleep is not so near to stagnation as
has been held. It is still less like death. Every
bird, too, that weathered the winter stands in a
new light. Not one is its old self and what is
the hieroglyphic on rock or tree that it has de-
ciphered? I can read the almanac and put on a
knowing air at will, but to what authority does
the song-sparrow refer? I do not see them
scanning the freshening moss or gathering
about skunk cabbage and discussing the gold

137

The Rambles of an Idler

and bronze and purple of its anticipatory
growth. Perhaps the birds have noticed that
the daffodils are above ground but I for one am
not sure and I pin no faith on the assertions of
those who are unqualifiedly positive. I will not
deny that every frog and bird, this eventful day,
is wiser than Solomon as to weather, season and
all that is to be, but I am not. There have been
too many snow storms in April that I cannot
forget, and a snow-drift in May through which
I wallowed to pick dog- wood blossoms. Man's
memory as to the past makes him conjectural as
to the future and there it ends with him, but
every bird, this morning, poses as a prophet.
So, at least, I interpret each and all of them.
In such light they are the more companionable
and that means much. There is a vast deal of
satisfaction to be derived from ignorance or
misinterpretation, when mathematical demon-
stration is impracticable. I am not necessarily
unhappy because Nature may be making a fool
of me. I take what seems to me to be a rational
view of what is going on. We have but to
clothe with plausibility any outcome of the im-
agination and it will pass for a fact. All that
we need to remember is that the future may

138

Interpretations

strip it of its garb. This the inevitable result
of our imperfection as interpreters, and he who
is quickest to unlearn becomes at last the most
learned. It is not more necessary to acquire
facts than to unload false impressions. The
weak view that it reflects upon our intelligence
to admit that we have been misled is ever a
prominent obstacle in the pathway to a right un-
derstanding.

This is March 21st and with a full apprecia-
tion of the conditions that now are, here I find
myself at the parting of the ways. I hope for,
indeed, rather confidently believe and plan ac-
cording to what I think is before me, and all is
based upon experience. But not a bird or a
frog that gives heed to a recollection of another
year, if it has one ; yet every one of these crea-
tures is equally confident with myself as to that
which is approaching. The power that tells
them denies me the same knowledge. So far
only am I confident. This then the difference
between human and non-human life, and it is a
wide one ; but seen in another light, we are not
so far apart. I am hopeful of fair weather,
abundant sunshine and budding trees. They
are sure of it. Other possibilities never occur

139

The Eambles of an Idler

to them and, we may, all of us, be bitterly dis-
appointed. Spring commenced at 8:16 A. M.,
March 21st, it is true, but winter does not al-
ways die nor even abdicate on this same day.
It is not succession : Winter is dead ! Long live
the Spring ! but a struggle for place and power
with the immediate outcome exasperatingly in
doubt at times, however certain the ultimate re-
sult. Less than a century ago we had ice every
month in the year.

Doubt is not altogether an unknown quantity
in animal mind, but it centres on objects rather
than generalities. Snakes are always chary
about haste in this matter of sunshine usurping
the time-honored seat of frost. Perhaps some
unexpected turn of affairs resulted in the pre-
maturely turning out of the big, sleepy water
snake before me. On a mat of dry dead grass,
sheltered from the wind and in unobstructed
sunshine, it is the picture of comfort. It is
true that, of all our serpents, this is the earliest
species astir, and ready, I am told, to dine
off a sucker when the latter lumpish fish crowd
the tide-full ditches at this time of year. The
particular snake before me is so tightly coiled
that it covers scarcely more space than grand-

140

Interpretations

father's old pewter dinner plates, but I see it is
heaped up in the middle so as to form a low
cone rather than a flat coil. Shaped like a gen-
erous mince pie such as hungry boys, in late
years, attribute to indulgent grandmothers, par-
ticularly when the maternal product is wisely,
more sparingly, dealt out. Of course it will
occur to everyone that it is a long call from
snakes to pie, but herein is the teasing and yet
charm of out-door meditations. No one object
can fix our attention long, and imagination al-
ways travels in seven league boots.

I was sorry to disturb his snake-ship, but the
demands of curiosity are imperious. Prodding
the reptile gently, it slowly straightened out, but
made no protest as any summer snake would do.
As the coils relaxed, a thin covering of mud on
the scales cracked and fell away in little flakes.
Again I thought of grandmother's pie-crust and
its precious crumbs. The snake glided away
with that minimum exertion of effort that sug-
gests it has but to will to move and lo ! it is ac-
complished. This extra-early water-snake was
no "ophidian acrobat" as is one other species
common here, but showed not a trace of slug-
gishness when forced to move. It was free as

141

The Rambles of an Idler

the hirds above it and now again in the warm
mud of the ditch — out of sight, out of mind —
I turn once more to the birds. I would I could
always tell which song of the morning is the
key-note of the day. It is a matter of more im-
portance than many may believe. The pee-wee
is abroad and were its mournful note taken as
your cue, the day would be less exuberant and
enthusiasm be repressed. There are days when
the pee-wee is their best historian — languid
August days for instance, when exertion means
great labor for a slight return — but not to-day.
This is March 21st, the birthday of Action ; here,
on this particular dot on the earth 's surface, the
true New Year's day. The day of Nature's own
appointment and the real day still. Man's in-
terference results in an illogical almanac, but
the facts are unaltered. The new season is
here. The cardinal proclaimed it. It will be
crowned later, when the violets are in bloom.
The cardinal proclaimed it and the polyglot
wren took up and re-told the story with added
energy, and the blue-bird whispered the secret
in the silent woods, and the robins shouted it
abroad after the world knew all about it. I ac-
cept the whistle of the cardinal as the key-note

142

Interpretations

of the day. Joy, energy and hope are writ with
cloud-built letters across the sky. Great white
marble masses, fresh from the quarry and un-
stained, set in the clear blue that stands for
truth. See it! See it! See it! Jolly, jolly,
jolly! jolly! whistles the cardinal till all the
sleepy world is wide awake.
What a greeting on this auspici s date !

Early spring flowers bloom nowhere so pro-
fusely as on a poet's pages, but I propose this
April morning to go to the meadows — to the
part where the bluff that faces them is sheltered
from the wind. A single spring beauty, upon
which my eye falls, so pale that the thought of
color belonging to it never occurs to you, it
seems to me expresses in its name more than all
that can be said of it, however neatly shaped
and truly rhymed the stanzas. It is always
something to stand in the actual presence. Af-
terwards we can better measure the value of
the traveller's pages; aye, and the poet's also.
It sometimes happens that the full significance
of a poet's line is realized. Violets make azure
the sod until it seems a mirror reflecting the
sky ; that is, they sometimes do, but the trouble

143

T.he Rambles of an Idler

is, once having seen the statement made, we are
ever expecting such a pretty sight and never
contented with a single blossom. A better plan
is to take up kindly with a solitary flower and
consider what it stands for; seeing therein the
whole of summer and the fruits of autumn, per-
haps peering into futurity as far as the repose
of winter. This is no labor such as only the
philosopher is equal to; to exercise such fac-
ulties within humbler scope is the most worthy
purpose of an outing. Muscles can be kept lim-
ber in a gymnasium but muscles and mind coop-
erate only in the open air.

"A little child shall lead them'." Be led by
a violet and you will dance through life, trip-
ping it lightly over the roughest ground.

I read recently that a new species of violet
had been discovered some hundred miles to the
north of us, but why stand astonished over the
announcement when the blue and white and pur-
ple bloom of the door-yard has not yet appealed
to us as it should? It is wonderland wherever
we happen to be ignorant, which is the usual
condition, and a wonderful land in proportion as
our eyes are open. Whether shut or open is
our own affair.

144

Interpretations

Ask a violet any reasonable question and it
will give you an intelligible reply. If we stand
amid ten thousand, we may be lost in astonish-
ment at their numbers and forget the knowledge
the individual blossom would have imparted.
A violet in March or earlier, heralding the mil-
lions that are coming is the one chosen of its
kind to interpret for me what is their place in
Nature. It does not tell all its story. No ob-
ject does that. This is well. If there were not
still one more question to be asked, a powerful
incentive to be under the sky, instead of under a
roof, would be wanting. The big trees of trans-
continental regions and the trackless forests of
the antipodal world may excite our admiration,
but not to the extent of impatience if we are
kept at home. Even here, where it is said the
world is about worn out, there remains many a
mystery. Worn out, indeed! South Jersey
still has nearly two million acres of woodland.
There is comfort in the thought even if we
never see them.

That is a pretty story of so long ago as 1696
when Anne, a bride, just before entering her
new home, plucked a tiny flower from the sod

145

The Rambles of an Idler

and holding it up to John, said, "Heart's ease."
Tradition is silent a,s to John's reply but I do
know that forty-three years and three months
passed before the tie was broken. Heart's ease
meant much, then, in 1696, and now, in 1905, it
means much to me, a descendant of these sturdy
folk who solved the problem of life so signifi-
cantly. No wonder; they faced a new country
where novelty ruled and roused excitement to
its highest healthy pitch ; when every day meant
much and success went forward by leaps and
bounds.

A new country then, and an old country now.
Four generations, 'twixt them and myself, have
done a deal of mischief from my point of view
— have wonderfully improved matters from
others' standpoints. Now, my neighbors are
singing, "Hail! Columbia, Happy Land," while
I murmur, "Hail! Columbia, Virgin Soil!" and
think of the white woodland violet of other days
and rejoice to know there are a few trees left
that sheltered them and now are sheltering me.

These early spring days provoke to a rem-
iniscential mood. The rattle of the little frogs
in pools and the marsh, now low, now louder,

146

Interpretations

as the wind carries the sound away or bears it
toward me, is monotonous. A single, scarcely
varying hum is soothing rather than exciting.
We dream rather than think, under its in-
fluence, and the thought of those gone before is
apt to be a controlling one: Where are they
now?

With eyes as eager, sought the signs of spring,
With ears as willing, heard each note that fell

Where ardent songsters made the valleys ring
With lover-notes that cast such potent spell;

Theirs the same hopes; theirs, youth's unburdened brow;

Life's earnest purpose theirs; where are they now?

Alone, I linger where their busy feet

Pressed, in life's urgent quest, the yielding sod;
The self -same stream and leafy wood, I greet;

No path of their's I have not often trod.
Sunshine and shade; gaunt oak and beechen bough,
They knew them well as I; where are they now?

Where are they now? Give heed to happy song,
To every soothing, whispering breeze attend;

Where sunbeams woo jthem, hear the merry throng;
Proclaiming blessed hope, their voices blend.

Here in the wild wood, by the winding stream,

Their message reaches me — so doth it seem.

147

The Rambles of an Idler

There is likely to be something radically
wrong if you do not find your own thoughts
sufficient company. To alter a familiar saying,
converting it into sound sense, ' t one is company
and two's a crowd." Of course I mean to
apply this only to an educating stroll. When
the tongue is busy, the eyes are likely to take a
rest. We may see, but only blurred images, if
all the while we are discussing that which is
foreign to the place. Better, when you stand
where flowers grow, to be one with them. Let
the bird's song make a bird of you and not
merely a half-hearted listener. Whole-heart-
edness is absolutely required. Then the out-
door world is a new one, and though you may
not have gone a dozen rods from your door-
step, when you return it is as a traveller from
far distant lands.

"I love not man the less, but Nature more."
An honest thought in every rambler's breast.
Then, too, there are people and people. He
who considers his own welfare and comfort
must draw sundry distinctions.

A spring poet has no rights that editors are
bound to recognize. The spring poet takes his

148

Interpretations

life in his hand as well as his manuscript when
he sallies forth to the publisher. Common
sense commends this, if the law of the land
does not ; but editors should be held to certain
responsibilities, such as seeking the truth and
detecting error. Should be, but alas ! they are
forever giving aid and comfort to ignorance.
Newspaper ornithology is all too apt to be irre-
trievably bad and a good deal of literary orni-
thology is open to criticism. Writers speak
t^o confidently of the characteristics of one
month, ignoring the conditions of the month
before it. Eobins, blue-birds and song-spar-
rows, as familiar instances, figure quite incor-
rectly as so-called signs of spring. Theirs now
are richer songs than in January; every note
rounded and full, freighted to bursting with
the joys that possess them, but the singers of
this April day were neither absent nor mute in
mid-winter. Declining to wade through snow-
drifts or face the frosty wind to hear the mid-
winter minstrelsy, it is set down in books and
announced in newspapers that the fields are
then forsaken by the choristers of spring.

Certain stereotyped statements concerning
birds appear in village weeklies and are taken

149

The Rambles of an Idler

up approvingly by metropolitan dailies. These
statements deserve place now among cabinets
of curiosities. Our grandparents read them
believingly, and we are so far given to ancestor-
worship that we accept these dicta still because
they are time-honored. I can imagine no other
reason, for certainly they are not true. The
blue-bird, particularly, has been persistently
misrepresented. All winter long they kept faith
alive in the coming of milder days. As an in-
stance, the second after the memorable sleet
storm of February 21, 1902, was a crystalline
day. The world was in a glass case, cracked
in some places and shivered in others, but still
held together, like a vase that though broken
yet retains the beauty of its outlines. The
fierce crashing of ice-laden boughs, the pitiless
sleet of a few hours previously had driven all
animal life to such shelter as it could find.
Much of such life, we know, is always fully pre-
pared for such emergencies, but what of the
birds? Can we say positively that, fore-feeling
the storm, they fled? Certainly, if exposed to
its fury, thousands must have perished. It is
quite improbable that they rose above it and
circled in quiet space until the fury of the tem-

150

Interpretations

pest had been spent. In short, as in other fea-
tures of bird-life, it is idle to conjecture; but
this I do know, that thirty-six hours after the
storm, every bird was in its place and the ec-
static songs of our several resident species —
blue-birds, robins, the cardinal and the song-
sparrow — announced the approach of spring.
It seemed a trifle ironical, amid such arctic con-
ditions, to sing of summer, but then the birds
and ourselves see Nature from a different
standpoint. To accentuate this superlatively
wintry condition, a great flock of arctic snow-
birds glittered in the sunlight as they passed
over, alighted, not on the ground, but among
the top-most twigs of a maple, twittered glee-
fully and were gone. How happened they to
come! Was it against their will, caught by the
gale and carried southward of their chosen
field; or, riding merrily on the back of the
storm, did curiosity overcome discretion! How
easy to ask questions !

151

CHAPTER THREE

PEEIPATETIC MEDITATIONS

I can see no differences between twenty-two
and sixty- two, but alas! I can feel them. As
of old, I am all eagerness, these early summer
days, to rush out of doors, as the sun rises, and
I invariably walk out rather deliberately. I
can hear the birds, as I did in years gone by,
but I cannot follow them through brake and
brier. If there is no bridge over the wide
ditch, I must stay on this side of it.

Somewhere among the books, but as hard to
locate as a derelict at sea, is an essay on the art
of growing old gracefully. I remember it by
title only. Probably it teemed with excellent
advice, but I cannot see how any one can grow
old good-naturedly. Growing old is dying by
inches, and how one can smile over loss of agil-
ity is beyond my comprehension. When I can-
not leap over a narrow ditch, I do not exclaim,
"What a pretty brook !" but mutter something

152

Peripatetic Meditations

like " Confound you!" By so doing I feel that
I defend my dignity.

But if I cannot run as I used to, I can walk,
and, stumping away with a stout staff, get over
enough ground to gather food for thought.
Consolation here, and age needs lots of it.

What can be more delightful than to have an
outburst of enthusiasm on your part met with
freezing indifference by your audience? To
see "who cares?" written so plainly on every
countenance that each becomes a "speaking"
one is, I say, delightful. Not at first, for the
effect is quite the opposite, but a moment later
when the reaction sets in and you learn, never
to forget, that no one can have an audience
equal to himself.

Poor Solitude ! you have been much maligned.
Here I am, quite alone, in the old woods and
yet seldom in a city's streets have I been in
more of a crowd. I am equal to listening to
all I have to say and to all that Nature has to
say to me. That surely is sufficient. More
would prove "wasteful and ridiculous excess."

We forget too readily. This is the third day
of the fifth month and the seventy-first since

153

The Rambles of an Idler

that memorable sleet storm which dealt destruc-
tion with such an unsparing hand. In our
enthusiasm over May-day blossom and the
thrush's song at sunrise, we overlook the for-
lorn, leafless limbs of many a noble tree and
note nothing of Nature's methods of restora-
tion.

Little as we might have expected it, Nature
is already beneficently busy. Branches that
were hurled to the frozen ground are now partly
buried in the turf and trailing vines are cover-
ing them. The ugly scars will be hidden and
the world all green again. Close study of Na-
ture's methods may lead us to better some of
our own. She is a safer guide than those per-
verse people who have turned their backs upon
her. But rejoice as we may, that the ruin
caused by the storm is being made good, the
cloud cannot be ignored because of its silver
lining. The stately crown of oak and beech
and elm is torn and tattered now. The battle
raged fiercely, and little escaped its fury. The
evidence of conflict is still everywhere. Were
I young, I might count the years and mark the
gradual restoration of these familiar trees. As
it is, the trees I have known I shall never know

154

Peripatetic Meditations

again. Wrecks and ruins that delight the poet
and novelist have no proper place from my
point of view. They blur the landscape; are
blots on the fair face of Nature. They teach
us much valuable truth, I am told, but I do not
feel the need of it as yet. These are merry
[May days, not pitiless December ones, weighted
with wise saws.; and living myself, I am in love
with life.

But when these woods are dark, what then ?

Darkness has its disadvantages, it is true,
but it is the same world whether bathed in light
or wrapped in gloom. We really make the dif-
ference that we find and wrongly ascribe it to
one of Nature's unamiable moods. Strike a
match and not a tree will be found walking
away nor the grass disappearing. Star-light is
not sun-light, I admit, but the difference is in
degree and not in kind. There is danger in
darkness, but this is minimized by the exercise
of care. It is no such hardship as people think
to feel our way instead of forging straight
ahead as we do during the day. If we felt our
way, when we can see as well as feel, it would
often be better for us. Light makes us over-
confident at times and we grow impatient over

155

The Rambles of an Idler

the very suggestion of caution. If the high-
mightiness of the average man were not shocked
occasionally, sanity would become as rare as
visible comets.

Certainly in some and possibly in all locali-
ties, there is one danger in darkness; that of
meeting a man. It is an indisputable fact that
man, the highest order of animal, is sometimes
the lowest, and a blot upon Creation's face.
Escaping, then, the machinations of some man
gone wrong, these woods — all woods, indeed —
though the night be dark as Erebus, are not
without their charm.

The toad has been accounted a philosopher
and it is much more that than a noodle. It is
neither ugly nor venomous, as has been writ,
and the precious jewel in its head is wit. When
men have the patience to study the despised
things on earth they lose a goodly portion of
their self-conceit. If this poor batrachian had
been better understood in other days it would
not now have to bear the unjust burden of orig-
inating the despicable word " toady." The
toad itself toadies to nothing. It is as inde-
pendent as a black snake, and if not as swift, as

156

Peripatetic Meditations

graceful, as pitiless, it holds itself as no less
an honorable denizen of the earth.

That toads are philosophical is evidenced by
their selecting homes and remaining therein
and not leading a vagabond existence. Ditfg-
enes in his tub was not more contented than are
toads in their habitations, from which they hop,
upon occasion, and being methodical when
abroad, they demonstrate their claim to com-
mon sense.

I hear the toads now, though it is early in the
day, as they are often heard at night, when they
do not, I maintain, make night hideous. We,
not the toads, are out of tune, so far as Nature
is concerned, to think amiss when they are
ringing the praises of the darkened world. The
toad sees at night that to which we should not
be blind. The last glimmer of light faded from
the west and how much taller and more stately
is every tree, now that it is dimly outlined on
the blue-black sky. The twinkling stars seen
through the branches are the trees * fiery fruits.
Black trees, black leaves, and glowing fiery
fruit. This is something worth a long walk at
night.

Making no mention of the tiresome owls,
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The Rambles of an Idler

there are other birds awake to which it matters
little what is the hour by the clock. Light or
dark, they are equally wide awake and that
weird Quok! we hear in the "wee sma' hours"
is the cry of one such bird, the night heron.
They are abundant here and so too is the little
green, the great blue, and both the greater and
less bittern. It is well nigh useless to peer into
the sky when we hear the strange cries they
utter. Unless they cross the face of the full
moon, you will almost never see them. Such,
at least, has been my experience. Quok! Quok!
and the sound, the darkness, the momentary
silence following the fading out of the land-
marks, all these make for us a new world, but
not one to be dreaded.

I cannot account for that disposition in man
to invest what they call ' l strange ' ' sounds with
all manner of uncanny attributes. A heron is
as harmless as a caged canary, and yet because
its cry, Quok, is harsh, guttural, startling, a
sound that commands attention immediately,
those who hear it for the first time imagine end-
less absurdities, and if they never believed in
ghosts before, lean to a belief in that direction
now. Call the cry of the heron all the ugly

158

Peripatetic Meditations

names you choose, it is really music. It aptly
tells the story of 'the night. It belongs to dark-
ness, to the shadowy side of Nature, just as the
robin's whistle heralds the rising sun.

Why do they wander throughout all the
night f Turning night into day for a given pur-
pose is readily understood among ourselves. It
is a necessity due to the demands of business,
a strictly utilitarian condition. Is wandering
'twixt the clouds and tree-tops a matter of ne-
cessity or choice? The latter, from my point
of view. Before midnight, every heron has
sumptuously dined and the later wandering
must needs be a grateful relaxation from long
standing in the marshes. , I have seen scores of
herons of several species, crossing and re-cross-
ing the meadows and at times circling above
them, as late as two A. M. There seemed no
necessity for so doing, so we put it down as a
matter of choice.

Perhaps when our air-ships are common as
wagons, we too may wander over the earth and
shout down to less favored mortals who are
still toiling on the globe's surface, or trying to
drown their sorrow in sleep. Though often
abroad by day, these birds are well called night-

159

The Eambles of an Idler

herons. So too are the others of their family.
Whether green, blue, white or mottled brown,
they are all given to nocturnal sport, noisy and
demonstrative.

There is much preaching throughout the land,
but the safest school for good manners, good
morals and a common-sense view of the world
we live in is out-of-doors. Compared with the
conditions civilization has brought about, the
out-door world never suffers. Candor, a word
merely with men, is the keynote of every wild
creature, however humble, that we meet, and
this is refreshing, enough so, it seems to me, t'o
take us oftener into tbe woods.

The tirade against dirt so constantly heard
is probably the most tiresome item of the stock
in trade of housekeepers' communications,
Poor dirt! Pulverized rock, tried by frost,
purified by fire, washed by the rain and dried
by the innocent sunshine, and yet more roundly
abused than anything else in Nature. Thank
Goodness, I love the dirt! Love to walk on it,
to play in it; yes, to burrow waist-deep in it
and, emerging into the light of day, feel that I

160

Peripatetic Meditations

am not an unfit object for the blessed sun to see.
Better still, I am duly thankful that I am com-
paratively free from the restraints of those
habitations where a speck of dirt is held in as
great horror as a crime. Some superlatively
particular people, did they know it, are super-
latively stupid. Wisdom does not brighten
their eyes, as lightning plays upon the moun-
tain 's brow. Well, I had rather have the marks
of my collie's muddy paws upon me than the
reddening of squeezed fingers following the
grip of senseless formality. Dust that smarts
the eyes, tickles the nostrils and soils the pages
of our treasured books is an abomination, but
such "dirt" is far removed from the honest
earth into which I love to delve and which the
while tells a truthful and most fascinating tale.

It threatens to rain. Just what threatens is
not a matter of importance. "It" is a con-
venient intangibility upon which we can hang
all sorts of theoretical conditions. What is of
importance is the fact that the sky is overcast,
and the sunlight so dimmed there are no shad-
ows. Never was better evidence adduced that
May days can be delightful, yet without direct

161

The Rambles of an Idler

sunlight. It is a dark day but not a dismal one.
There is much in Nature that defies language.
A correct description is alike beyond the mathe-
matician and the poet. An approach to it is
all one can accomplish. The writer can but
outline ; the reader must fill in for himself. As
an instance, the air we breathe, when it threat-
ens to rain, is not just the same as in ordinary
weather. It is equally acceptable to the lungs
but we appreciate a difference while inhaling
it. We can speak of electricity, ozone, oxygen,
but we must breathe that subtle something then
abroad to know what it all means. At such a
time, too, there is not so bright a light as when
the sun shines, yet the horizon is more distinct
and intervening objects stand out as not be-
fore. An apparent contradiction, so far as
mere words go, but it is true, nevertheless.
No bird sings more loudly than when the sun
shines, yet we can hear each note, just before
the rain, more distinctly than in fair weather.
Words, mere words, again ! The ring of every
bird's note, the odor of every blossom, the effect
on the eye of the peculiar light; in brief, the
comprehensive impression of all surrounding
us laughs at language.

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Peripatetic Meditations

Nature deals directly with us and some of her
gifts are beyond human power to transmit. No
page can be printed which can do more than
urge the reader to seek for himself. Take the
world only on hearsay and you are a stranger
in it for the term of your natural life.

I do not know when the mill-pond was estab-
lished. It was certainly as long ago as the
closing decade of the eighteenth century. It is
sufficient for my purpose that it has been a pond
since I first passed this way, and that was long
before I was allowed to come alone. Every
man has his individual "long ago" when the
world meant so much that failed us as the years
rolled by. A country mill-pond, a boy fishing,
sunshine, song-birds, perhaps a boat — a pic-
ture, this, of an Elysian field that age can see
only when blinded to the facts. But this is a
May day. Fit for meditation and not for mel-
ancholy. The latter, if it shows itself at such
a time, is a mis-fit. May melancholy ! As well
speak of a righteous sinner!

Here I am, but not as I have often been be-
fore, walking on the dry bed of the old mill-
pond. The past is not always so hopelessly

163

The Rambles of an Idler

irrecoverable as we think. The valley that now
is is the valley that once was, the one Nature
fashioned with sloping bank, level meadow, a
bit of resisting clay capped with button-bushes,
and a spring brook, so reckless it did not look
where it was going and faced all the points of
the compass before settling upon some one of
them. Happy brook, surely, for in all these
years it was hidden it lost not the secret of its
youth and sparkles to-day as if no shadow had
ever fallen upon it. A happy brook with white
pebbles strewn throughout its way and the sil-
very minnow and checkered darter flashing in
the ripple as they did when my forbears, as lit-
tle boys and girls, played hereabout.

Only the garrets of our oldest houses retain
a colonial atmosphere nowadays, but I found it
here this morning, out of doors, in a winding,
narrow valley, that has been drowned a century
and more, but with the breath of life again in its
lungs, and trembling with the same exuberance
of joy as it did before man marred what Na-
ture made. Fresh green leaves, the incompar-
able yellow-green of early May; warblers by
scores that dropped in upon the scene before
the sun rose, the exultant rose-breast and the

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Peripatetic Meditations

reminiscent thrush, rollicking cat-bird and
ghostly chat. Then too, the bluet and violet,
star of Bethlehem and dandelion, purple lung-
wort and pink azalea ; color, color everywhere !
Music, color and Time turned back to the youth-
ful years of the lonely rambler. A man turned
boy and in a colonial setting. Not my poor self,
merely, in the dry bed of a departed mill-pond.

No aquatic plants have raised their expectant
heads above the sun-baked mud and turned back
to Mother Earth, wondering what had hap-
pened. At least, I could find no evidence of
this, but in their stead, germinated seeds carried
hither by the March winds and April gales.
These are not vigorous growths, but relieve the
monotony of barren, brown ground, and in time
would flourish. Nature soon obliterates all
traces of man's interference when she has a free
hand, but the new dam and re-erected mill will
be finished ere long and then the water lily and
spatter-dock, pickerel weed and milfoil will
reign supreme.

It is the meadow now, however, not only of
early Colonial days but of the Indian, and I have
been wondering if any traces of their handiwork
still remain. My search therefor was fruit-

165

The Eambles of an Idler

less. It requires but a thin film of mud to con-
ceal archaeological prizes effectually, so my fail-
ure was but negative evidence; all of which
should be remembered and unfortunate conclu-
sions would be avoided. What I did find was a
pewter button. It might have belonged to the
coat of the first miller. It is not always safe to
say, even to one's self, ''it might have been."
Innocent words in themselves, but how they can
play hob with the facts ! They can distort our
mental visions until the world turns upside down
and we never suspect how we are fooled. When
you find pewter buttons label them as such and
until you find the coat from which they came, do
not venture to comment. Excellent advice ; but
how prosy becomes the day's walk when you
cannot indulge your imagination. Do not but-
tons prove that there were coats, just as the
foot-print before me proves a man has recently
passed by? All my life a snapper up of uncon-
sidered trifles, I venture to speak with a trifle of
confidence. There is, however, one really safe
line of thought when discarded odds and ends
are gathered up. Buttons, for instance, are like
Indian flint arrow-points, almost meaningless of
themselves. We can think of a coat when we

166

Peripatetic Meditations

find a button and so too of an arrow when we
find its head, and just as the arrow indicates a
bow and this in turn a man to use it, so the but-
ton leads to the coat and a man to wear it. So
far safely; but this pleasant May sunshine
makes me venturesome and I go a step farther
and say to myself, perhaps this button belonged
to the coat of the man who built the mill. When
we say " perhaps, " we are always safe. The
word is a breastwork through which no critic
can shoot. At all events, there was a miller, once
upon a time — blessed words these, once upon a
time — and tradition has it, he was a man of
many parts ; — miller, sawyer, cabinet-maker and
cordwainer. His grandson, whom I remember,
was a sawyer only and all his talk was of tim-
ber. He bore much resemblance to a gnarly oak
and his words crackled like dead leaves in win-
ter. If his faults were many, he had a few vir-
tues and these, like oaks among brambles, over-
shadowed the undergrowth of his make-up. He
was proud of his grandfather and in justifica-
tion of his own inferiority, asserted that the
world had ' 'tamed down" since the old man's
day, and so had he.

Soon, as I said, there is to be a new mill-pond,
167

The Rambles of an Idler

a new dam, a new mill, and all I can hope for is
that the falling water will sing the old song that
helped to while away many a summer afternoon.
The same song, that nothing can improve, over
and over, high and low, gentle and fierce, sooth-
ing in summer, pitilessly harsh in winter and,
though for more than a century it has kept si-
lence at arm's length, never wearisome. A tonic
sound, like the whole souled whistle of a cardinal
grosbeak, which restores what is lost, which
rebuilds what has fallen.

The shadows lengthen as I wander on. The
light fades from beneath the cedars, and the
thrush, moved by the stillness of the sunset
hour, sings his marvellous song. One by one
the glittering stars appear. Another of these
blessed May days, passed into history.

If we could see ourselves as seen by others,
would we do so? Is not opinion of self perched
upon so high a pinnacle that it overlooks all else
in the universe? Men will cease to talk about
themselves only when the Heavens fall. They
do not deal in facts so much as their personal
relation thereto, and it is the former only that
concerns the average listener. There are ex-

168

Peripatetic Meditations

ceptions, and these prove the rule perhaps, but
more effectively demonstrate that all could free
themselves of the pernicious tendency, if they
would. I listened once to a thrilling narration
of the upsetting of a boat and what followed,
and did not suspect that the narrator was the
hero of the story. I learned that later, by acci-
dent.

It may be merciful that those who are lack-
ing do not suspect their limitations. He is
really a wise man, who, being a fool, knows it,
and a brave man, if he freely admits it ; other-
wise, he is a fool indeed.

"If this were sound reasoning, all would turn
to suicide and the race disappear" — is the com-
ment of one who is not afar off.

Again, perhaps ; but if people would stick to
facts and not their relation thereto, I still main-
tain, the world would be happier.

Nature loves the number, three. She trini-
tates in more ways than one. Morning, noon
and night. It rains for three days. It is hot,
hotter, hottest in summer and cold, colder, cold-
est in winter. The seasons each are three
months long and with the wild strawberry, it is

169

The Rambles of an Idler

three weeks 'twixt blossom and fruit. Wild
strawberries ! A poem in two words that no ex-
ploitation of stanzas could improve. A little
prose, however, may do no harm.

I know a bank whereon this berry grows and
with it purple crane's bill, wind-flowers, butter-
cups and bluets. To-day, too, the white sepals
of the dog-wood still show and not all of the
pink azalea has faded. Jack-in-the-pulpit holds
forth to the oven-bird scratching among dead
leaves and red-starts flash among the old oaks'
branches above me. I rested for a time on a
cushion of rich green moss and plucked red ber-
ries ; plucked and ate, while I heard the strain-
ing snorts of freight engines, the rumble of traf-
fic on the high-way, the steady hum of the town
borne hither by the breeze. The world is very
busy and let us hope, happy; happy as I was
there, alone with the trees, flowers, birds and
fruit; as happy with those few berries as the
man of business clutching the profits of hard-
driven bargains. The strawberry does not
ripen that I may eat, but Nature was in a gen-
erous mood to-day, and had enough for her pur-
poses and mine. I could eat and be merry, with
a clear conscience.

170

Peripatetic Meditations

Even when May has to face clouds, fog, driz-
zle or beating rain, her gladness shows through
her tears and the rambler laughs at her plight
more than he sympathizes with her. woe. If all
that follow in her train are not disturbed, why
should we be cast down? The chilly east wind
might have been more considerate and staid on
the ocean, I felt, at first; but the birds seemed
not to mind it and sang as usual. Swallows, that
yesterday filled with life the empty space above,
now gathered on the wires of the electric rail-
way; but they twittered contentedly accepting
the chill day with becoming cheerfulness. One
good thing happened. The north-bound war-
blers were induced to stop over for a time, and
when I saw to-day the fire-fronted Blackbur-
nian, the matter of foul weather was absolutely
forgotten.

Their song was an earnest invitation to re-
main afield. See, see, see, see! I did see a
great deal for a dreary day. Saw that wild life
took things philosophically. The rain was
needed and perhaps they knew it. Psychology :
says otherwise and limits animal intelligence to
mere rudiments. Perhaps. I should like to
have birds ' eyes in my head for half a day and

171

The Rambles of an Idler

see the world as they do. There were warblers
everywhere and if the slaughter of insects bore
proportion to their activity, the ranks of flies
and larvae were surely much depleted. As so
often happens, their united voices reached to the
dignity of song. Few species will remain. In
June, the redstart, summer warbler, Maryland
yellow-throat and black and white creeper will
£e all that one is likely to see in a day's ramble,
but they are sufficient to brighten any outlook.
The oven-bird, too, will be here, but it seems
more like a little thrush. One word about its
song. It was said some years ago that the notes
of this bird were best represented by the word
"teacher," uttered five times with a steadily
rising inflection. This assertion implies that
the accent is on the first syllable, and that the
sound of E is prominent, followed by the roll of
an R. Possibly so in the northern woods, but I
have been listening to one of these birds for sev-
eral days, as I have listened to others for forty
years past, watching it closely and taking my
observations early and late, in clear weather
and when the air was laden with moisture, and
can say confidently that the word "teacher"
bears no resemblance whatever to the oven-

172

Peripatetic Meditations

bird's song. The notes of the Jersey bird are
distinctly sibilant, the accent very marked and
invariably on the second syllable, and the two
words "it is," four times expressed, each time
with added emphasis, are accurately descrip-
tive. The bird might well be called the Insist-
ent Accentor.

As we watch this common bird of the woods,
seeing it under all circumstances, the impres-
sion arises that it is a creature of strong convic-
tions and an earnest upholder of squatter sover-
eignty rights. It is self-reliant and moves with
the dignity of a lord of the manor. Its " song"
is not akin to the warble of a blue-bird or the
clarion call of an oriole, but suggests to man, at
least, a distinctly positive expression of some
conclusion reached; an insistence that some-
thing is.

All other birds silent for the moment, the
dead leaves no longer crackling under our feet,
we pause for an instant, thinking we have seen
a movement of an object on a dead limb near by.
We wait and watch. Presently, a little bunch
of brown feathers trips along the branch, takes
on more definite shape, stops a moment as ff
suspicious of us, regains its confidence, recalls

173

The Rambles of an Idler

its thought of a moment ago and then the still
woods ring with an emphatic "It is, It is, IT is,
IT IS!"

Fiddle-heads are fuzzy, bright brown and
shapely as a bishop's crosier; — some without
the crook and green. In every stage of ad-
vancement toward completion and the reason is
evident. A matter wholly of the temperature
of earth and air; for I find many a nook where
it stays cold as charity all through the month,
and yet the fern is plucky enough to hold on and
in June will make the spot luxuriant as a trop-
ical jungle. Where ferns flourish, the world is
pretty enough for the most exacting creature, —
fit for humming birds and the summer warbler ;
yet to-day a stolid rough-backed terrapin crept
over the mud and seemingly paid no heed to the
beautiful foliage waving gracefully over him.
It was, from a human standpoint, an example of
the sublime and the ridiculous. Turtles are
well enough in their way, but sometimes they
may be in the way. This rough-back crawled to
a higher point and surveyed the world from a
hillock of dry sand. It surely never saw a fairer
landscape, but chelonian utility was perhaps its

174

Peripatetic Meditations

only thought. It evidently failed to find things
as it wished, so turned about and hid itself in
the soft mud. I have known people to play tur-
tle in this fashion. Although a May day, the
air is too cool, the sky too cloudy, the breeze too
fresh, and so after a sniff from their doorway,
they turn about and wallow in the dust and
stuffiness of their houses. As if May days
were every days and life without end.

Whichever way I turn I find an Indian has
preceded me. Try as I may, I can leave no en-
during trace, and yet little the Indian did that
there is not a record of remaining. It is easy
to fill my pockets with relics of these almost for-
gotten people, but not so readily can I picture
.them as they were. The world then was Na-
ture's world and they were Nature's people.
They wrought their commonest utensils in
stone; we, in wood. They lived a purposeful
life — to do otherwise was to court death ; we too
often lead a meaningless one. Else, why have
coined the word l ' artificial ? " Here are three
arrow-points, one each of jaspar, quartz and
slate, but the shafts have perished with the bow,
and the archer's bones are dust. How many of

175

The Eambles of an Idler

us leave so much as an arrow-point behind? I
have nothing about me as imperishable as these
dexterously chipped stones. What a joy it
would be to put on record an imperishable
thought !

As I stoop to pick from the newly ploughed
soil another arrowpoint, fancy gains the mas-
tery and the field disappears. The forest is re-
stored; deer lurk in its shadows and the hun-
ter's moccasined feet silently press the dead
leaves where I would have noisily trod. Now, if
I chance upon a mouse or see a squirrel on yon-
der fence, I am fortunate. The thoughts that
such a change has wrought, are vexing. A
cloud appears in the blue sky.

We are too apt to be discontented and grow
morose even, if we dwell too much upon the ir-
revocable past. Had it been the climax of the
world's purpose, it would have remained so.
Evolution stopped with the appearance of man,
but the Indian is only a phase of human pro-
gress, The aim of the universe is towards still
better things and we are better employed with
the present than forever brooding over the past.
Some people speak of the "good" old times as
if the present were irretrievably bad. Well

176

Peripatetic Meditations

enough to give a passing thought to the Indian
that was, but not such fixed attention that the
present is lost sight of. Now, with what is, is
none too trifling for our strength. Let us solve
the problem set before us as did the Indian that
which confronted him in past ages. The har-
vest that I yearly gather from this one-time
home of another race is better for me than the
venison and berries that were cooked over the
coals which still blacken the ground where I
stand. It is enough to know that the Indian
once possessed the land and that now I have
taken his place. Nature expects other results
from me. What is expected? That I would
know. When the Indian I meet in the realm of
shades, it will be time enough to compare notes.

It is a pleasing thought that water can run
rapidly, yet without noise ; swift, sure and silent.
Not so with ourselves. There is a great bustle
attending our least efforts. We are apt to com-
mand attention more by the noise we make than
the good we effect.

Across the ploughed field is a long line of
button-bushes and these border a lively little
creek. Where I reached it, the stream has

177

The Eambles of an Idler

broadened to a shallow pond, its bed checkered
with squares of white sand and green, waving
milfoil, and a narrow channel divides the space,
which looks like a black hand. It hides effec-
tually all it contains. The contrast between the
bare sandy spots and those covered with vegeta-
tion is very marked. In the former are several
beautiful banded sunfish that are as conspic-
uous, with their ebony and silver markings, as
many of the tropical fish. With fins somewhat
depressed, they move leisurely about but, spying
prey, at once they hold themselves erect and
dart at objects which I cannot detect. I can
judge of what they are doing only by their ac-
tions and this is usually a safe thing to do.
People do not run unless in a hurry, nor are they
given to flinging their fists into the face of the
wind ; so these sunfish dart about when there is
something to overtake and float lazily when
there is nothing else to do. We can see our-
selves in any school of fish. It is for some pur-
poses an excellent school to go to before the day
of our enslavement to self-conceit arrives.

With these black and silvery-sided ones are
others, somewhat larger, rich brown in color and
thickly spotted with richest, royal purple.

178

Peripatetic Meditations

They too make a fine show when they turn a lit-
tle to one side or the other, but if directly be-
neath us, they are, like all fishes, but dark
streaks in the water. Evidently their color was
not meant to please the idle rambler that hap-
pens this way. In all probability the world was
far more beautiful before man saw it, than it
has been since. Man came upon the scene after
everything was old and much was ruined. He
is now a good deal like the creator of a museum
of archaeology, a caretaker of the antiques time
has spared to us. If these pretty fish are not
pleased, looking at each other, why such a dis-
play of color? These are long days but not long
enough for those who begin asking questions.
The sunlight reaching to the white sand is at-
tractive to the fish, and they gather about it,
but they are never incautious. The shadow of
my broad-rimmed hat, as I moved, fell upon
them and when I looked again, not a fish was to
be seen. Probably they had the thought of a
heron or a king-fisher and took no chances.
They indulged no curiosity to-day, surely, but
fled from the vaguest hint of danger.

Not all summer's leafy bowers are on dry
land. Submerged plant-life luxuriates here,

179

The Rambles of an Idler

graceful beyond description. Only our ferns
are comparable to it. Fishes have their forests
but to explore them is unduly adventurous. I
never was equal to diving. Not only adven-
turous but dangerous. Savage creatures lurk
in the darkest recesses of these rank aquatic
growths. The snapping turtle, for example.

In place of attempting a personal exploration,
I sent a stout stick as my representative — a
crooked one, perhaps, more appropriate — into
the milfoil, bladder-wort and yellow pond-lily,
the leaves of which last named plant are very
beautiful when submerged and quickly turn to
green slime when removed from the water.
The steady current soon set the disturbed plants
aright, but the hidden fishes were more seriously
disturbed. Out skurried many of them and be-
sides the sun-fish, there came a full-grown, grim,
black pirate perch. Evidently disliking the
light of day, it moved about petulantly and soon
found shelter under a root that projected from
the sand. There, when quiet was restored, it
held itself in one position by the slightest pos-
sible fin movement. Such of these fishes as I
have kept in an aquarium were distinctly noc-
turnal in habit, during the day remaining in the

180

Peripatetic Meditations

darkest corners or under a stone arch in the
tank. When, occasionally, I completely shut
out the light, they became active immediately
and searched for food. Suddenly letting in the
light again, they quickly returned to their posts.
This simple experiment, always with the same
result, led me to conclude that pirate perches
are nocturnal. That was long ago and for
years I have not seen one of these fishes. That
which I routed from the weeds to-day, told the
same story. They are carnivorous and glut-
tons, even for fishes. I have often known them
to swallow a minnow, head and shoulders, and
patiently await the process of digestion before
clearing their jaws of the projecting body of
their victim. I saw a pirate perch, in an
aquarium, take secure hold of an angle-worm,
and while two or more inches of the body were
lashing wildly about the "pirate's" head, the
fish chased a small minnow until it cornered it.
Of course it escaped, but not quite unscathed.
The " pirate V one idea is a fuR stomach, that
is, if fish have ideas, as we ordinarily use the
word. It is an open question. Certainly some
fishes seem to have other means of enjoyment.
Many of them play, if ever a kitten does.

181

The Rambles of an Idler

The house-wrens are now here and nest-build-
ing is over. There are no sticks to be carried
and no more quarreling over their availability.
Life has become one endless round of song,
varied by lively chatter and spiced with an oc-
casional dash of acrimonious debate. When the
pair came — I presume they are the same birds —
to the cozy corner in my north-side porch, they
found the English sparrows in possession. That
was April 23d. Of course there was a fight.
Nothing like argument, but at once a deal of
vituperation, and, on the wrens' part, determi-
nation that became desperation. Possession is
nine points of the law, and this was the spar-
rows'. I was forced to come to the wrens' aid.
This I did by closing the entrance to the nesting-
place and making a new and smaller one. The
sparrows were now at a disadvantage, and held
out for three days only, standing guard, and
preventing the wrens going where they could
not go. Then they gave up. What appeared a
purposeless labor on the part of the wrens was
that they removed twig by twig all that the spar-
rows had gathered to complete a nest, and then,
having cleaned house, which proved no very
easy matter to them, they took back about as

182

Peripatetic Meditations

much material and some of it, I know, was that
which they had removed.

As I have sometimes seen, I did not, in this
case, note the wrens and sparrows actually
come to blows. It was a war of words and no one
could have heard it and not have been convinced
that birds' vocal powers have a wider range
than the utterance of musical sounds. If it is
possible to interpret what we hear and see in
other creatures than ourselves, then there was
talking as well as expletive, to and fro, 'twixt
wren and sparrow.

A stormy day, at last, an indoor day, and I
have opened a book for the first time in a month.
I soon tired of it. My recollections of recent
out-door rambles were too vivid and the con-
trast 'twixt book and memory too great and to
the former's disadvantage. Why not be enter-
tained with indoor thoughts of our own think-
ing?

In modern houses we are too far from the
storm. We may not wish to feel it, but I pro-
test against shutting out all sight and sound of
it. The shelter of an open shed is my ideal of
a refuge. I love to hear the rain upon the roof.

183

The Rambles of an Idler

Though every drop was big and round, and
there were millions of them, a satisfied wood
peewee perched on a poorly protected twig and
caught many a draggled insect that ventured
abroad. What a fitting song was that of the
bird, blending so admirably with the sighing of
the wind and the creaking of the elm-tree
branches. Pee-ah-wee! Pee-ah! Perhaps the
bird found pleasure in his melancholy; I have
known people to do so. I found mine in antici-
pating the general refreshing of Nature, re-
membering what a rain means after weeks of
dry weather. Much will happen in a single
night, after the storm passes. Many a plant
will wait for moisture, if it waits all summer. I
shall look for green growths confidently where
now it is but bare sand. Every drop of this
blessed rain is a fairy's wand and has illimita-
ble transmuting power. If one's thought of
rain is only to keep out of it, much is lost. It is
not one of Nature 's holidays and the world idle,
and the rambler is unwise who makes a holiday
of it and hides behind a door. Rainy day ram-
bles are among our choicest experiences, but it
takes a man of some courage to face a driving
northeaster.

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Peripatetic Meditations

Men of common sense have a hard time of it
in this world, the earth is so full of people
lacking it; but this is not the only vexatious
condition that is met. Before the perversity of
inanimate objects that of the semi-idiot pales
to utter insignificance. I am not to be convinced
by the mere telling that a hammer does not dis-
criminate between my fingers and a nail and
hits the former maliciously and lets the nail's
head go unscathed. Madam's pin cushion is
peculiar and pins and needless make it a point
to point outwardly and finger ends are notor-
iously blind. Buttons and button holes, collars
and collar buttons, I know, and hooks and eyes,
I am told, are perpetually at odds, and when
their differences are set at naught by man or
woman, they vent their spite by parting com-
pany when their close association is most de-
sired. Who has not known the recalcitrant stud
which rolls to that precise point where it knows
the human heel will be most impatiently plant-
ed? Never the living creature breathed that
could not be provoking upon occasion, but how
trivial, after all, is its perversity when com-
pared with such familiar objects as chairs
where you least expect them and half-opened

185

The Rambles of an Idler

doors in darkened rooms and ill-placed bric-a
brae!

"I didn't know it was there!" exclaimed a
friend, recently, as he sent a bit of glassware to
the floor; "why didn't it get out of my way?"
Sure enough, why didn't it? If crystals be
alive, as it is said, why not cut-glass and egg-
shell china and all the fragile tribe of art pro-
duction? It is an old way of thinking which
should be discarded, — that the fault when acci-
dent occurs is all our own. There is nothing we
prize that is really not our enemy and forever
on the alert to take advantage of us. With what
a joyful splash goes the extra drop of ink to
mar the paper when timidity attempts a love
letter. It is enough to make one suspicious. That
drop of ink was as malicious as it was black.
Neither youth nor pen had any control over it.
It leapt into mischief in spite of them. There
may be much that is illogical, but nothing truly
remarkable in idolatry. The mind in Nature's
children, not weighted down with learning, sees
with keener vision than is true of ourselves and
the foxy animation of inanimateness is very
evident to them.

186

Peripatetic Meditations

What, now, of out-of-doors ? Is there nothing
but serenity under the bright blue sky? Let us
see. I hold no tree is so happy as that with
the stump of a dead branch projecting where
it is surest to be in the way. He who loves to
climb well knows how often it happens that de-
scending from a tree-top, we give an eager
jump at last, glad to reach the ground. We
leap into space — and halt there. With what
solid satisfaction that stump, all innocence in
appearance, stops us in mid-air, and we dangle
until some important portion of an important
garment yields and we find ourselves sprawling
on the ground, released, it is true, but oh, so
ragged!

It is not conducive to good humor, when ang-
ling and reasonable anticipation is at its height,
to be teased by hope-inspiring nibbles, and then
apparently rewarded by a vigorous tug at the
line, to haul in exultantly, hand over hand, and
as the fish appears, a splendid catch — to have
the line break. How very suddenly the green
world turns blue.

Whether cotton, hemp or silk, that line was
once alive ; product of plant or worm, it matters

187

The Rambles of an Idler

not. Accidents are too common to be .explained
as accidents. It is more rational to conclude
that the world is so full of life that it perme-
ates every stick and stone and even every prod-
uct of man's handiwork. Outwardly dead as
the proverbial door-nail, but perversity re-
mains. It is surely not to be questioned that
never a tack escaped from its paper case or
proper place in the carpet but for very joy
stood on its head and fiendishly anticipated the
world's contact with its other end.

Time would not suffice to write the history of
a world, the perversity of which is its sole omni-
present feature, but its victims find some relief
in occasional expostulation. It would be hard
indeed if there was not salve for every wound.
This is not so much an attempt at an essay as a
victim 's cry, which he would have prove a warn-
ing, were it not that this is but a word in the
dictionary. Our own perversity enters a pro-
test here. No man holds he has need of knowl-
edge got so easily.

A century ago, a slippery, slime-coated, ser-
pent-simulating snag in Cross wicks Creek held
my grandfather's boat for four long hours.

188

Peripatetic Meditations

Only the tide could help, it seemed, and it took
its own time about it. Now, time and tide wait
for no man, but we have sometimes to wait for
them. They know how helpless we are, in spite
of all our boasting, and with them perversity
makes its headquarters. Time and tide: I too
have had to do with them and grown old in vain
contention. That same snag of 1804 still flour-
ishes, and not long ago, at low tide, hid itself
so cunningly that I was entrapped, but I did not
play the part of waiting as grandfather did. I
attempted to wade ashore ; and if snags are per-
verse, what of mud ? The Cross wicks mud is all
suctorial discs. I could scarcely move. To take
a step was impossible. My grandfather was
wise in his day. The snag held the boat, but the
boat held him. I let the snag have my boat and
the mud had me.

"If you had had but patience, " I was told, on
reaching home, "there would have been less
trouble. "

This is as near to a solution of the vexatious
problem as we are likely ever to come. Have
patience. With it, perversity may be shorn of
some of its virulence. The end of life's journey
may be reached with both body and soul intact

189

The Rambles of an Idler

in spite of the persistent malevolence of the
inanimate world.

There is no hour like that of sunrise after a
three days' storm. The pent-up energies are
all set free. Nature rejoices now with a vim
that bewilders. Nothing is still. The morning
breeze reaches the lowest blade of grass. The
human brain needs all its joints well oiled at
such a time. Thinking can be too slow a process
when Nature hustles. A hundred birds about
you and all shouting at once demand more than
the brain can accomplish. To-day, only the
clouds were leisurely paced. They would not
be hurried, though the heavens fell. The eagle
that darted among them moved them not.

It is exhilarating at first, but wearying soon,
not to know which way to turn. To-day, at sun-
rise, was the ornithological high tide of the year.
An opportunity to consider birds in general ; to
consider any one in particular was impossible.
Each endeavored to out-sing his neighbor. Not
one chirped, all shouted. There was no ob-
structing dust or moisture in the air, nor en-
vious wind to carry off the sound. It was on
my part a breathing of music, and with it that

190

Peripatetic Meditations

subtle scent of leaf and flower when all is quick-
ened with the thrill of life and death a thing for-
gotten.

Earth's renaissance, and why not ours? Let
us feel young again, if we cannot he so. There
are yet days to come in this blessed month, and
while they last I purpose laughing at my aches
and pains.

191

CHAPTER FOUR

CANDOR

i

Recently a lady remarked to me, "Let me tell
you candidly that I never thought of such a
thing. " I was forced to admit that I was mis-
taken and both of us were lying. There was no
other way of settling a rather trivial matter, as
-society is now constituted, and we each pri-
vately congratulated ourselves at being freed
from an embarrassing circumstance. The
adopted method of the world was followed to a
nicety and now, thinking it over, I wonder why
the word " candor " is not dropped from our
language. Why, indeed, tax our memory with
a word that, while having a meaning, is never
put to any practical use?

We daily hear, when strangers are intro-
duced, "I am very happy to have met you,"
when such a desirable phase of mind is impos-
sible. A stranger is an unknown quantity in
our lives. We can give him or her no rational

192

Candor

consideration until subsequent and often fre-
quent interviews demonstrate the desirability
of acquaintance, and yet, without hesitation, we
assure the new comer into our lives that the
chance meeting has caused us happiness. If so,
happiness must be a very cheap commodity.
We pretend to be confident, on the instant, that
an added blessing is ours, and it is mere pre-
tense. We may mean that we hope the meeting
will prove productive of mutual satisfaction in
the future, and yet we do not dare to say so.
What, pray, of that quality known as candor?

It is suggested that to go into details when a
matter is of no particular importance would be
a waste of time, and this, of itself, excuses every
little slip and petty frivolity of speech in polite
society.

A waste of time? I take it that time with
candor eliminated is not worth the value usually
put upon it.

1 ' A matter of opinion, ' ' suggests a critic.

"And what is not?" I ask. "As one that
rebels, I do not mean to be silenced by those
that subscribe to slavery. Though I turn every
friend to a foe I will say what I think. ' '

"Then you're a fool," remarks the critic.
193

The Eambles of an Idler

"So be it."

But really, there is no good reason why we
should not try walking in difficult paths. The
exercise is good for us, even if the attempt to
reach a goal is a failure. Pope suggests, "be
candid when you can, ' ' thus intimating there are
times and circumstances when and where we
cannot be. Recognizing such, why not avoid
them?

"This is lack of candor/' asserts the critic.

"Who, then, is not a liar?"

Here, too, is another phase of the matter, and
a false view, I take it.

Give me the avow'd, the erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet — perhaps may turn his blow;
But of all plagues, Good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
I pray Thee, save me from the Candid Friend.

But a moment ago my candid friend called me
a fool, but he is none the less my friend because
of that. It may be after all that he is right,
and, whether right or wrong, cannot affect the
final issue. His candor is his attraction. If he
was otherwise, he would be insipid ; as salt that
has lost its savor. His candor spurs me on to
attempt the discovery of the truth, whether a

194

Candor

fool or not. This adds a zest to life, so great a
one that I hope to die in ignorance.

Truth must be sacrificed for politeness' sake.
As the world goes, this cannot be questioned,
but why language should be distorted and words
used in a way not warranted by the dictionary,
is not plain. It is strange that our real selves
cannot be shown to others without offense. Can-
dor— the dazzling whiteness of absolute honesty
— which should be a desirable quality, is for-
ever kept in the background. To let it come to
the forefront is not to gain friends but to make
enemies. To insure success we must be polite,
diplomatic, vague, insincere; to be popular we
must call black white, and in sober truth lie
continually that no hitch occur in the smooth
running of the world. We must play a part,
evade the actualities and give to others a pleas-
ing impression, though a radically false one.
Little wonder, then, that long ago the words of
our mouths and the thoughts of our hearts
should have been looked upon as having naught
to do with each other, and the conclusion
reached by some hard-headed, brutal Dutchman
that while speech might be silver, silence was

195

The Eambles of an Idler

golden, or speech being human, silence was cer-
tainly divine. Candor is social suicide. Thus
is constituted society, in the common accepta-
tion of that term.

Beyond its pale, there is found a saving rem-
nant of this admirable trait, from which excel-
lent lessons may be learned. To meet with sim-
ple folk who mean what they say is like passing
from a stuffy parlor to the pure out-door air.
It may shock, like intense cold, but not perni-
ciously; rather an exhilaration that results in
no baleful reaction. Wholesome truth, like
wholesome food, builds us up as surely as un-
wholesome insincerity tears us down. Build up
bricks with mud instead of mortar and the struc-
ture falls. Still farther away from society's
sacred bounds, the wild life in the woods says
what it means, as "when the snapping turtle go-
eth about with murder in its heart and murder
in its eye as well. Only a fool will be deceived
by it, and is this not to the turtle's honor? The
rattlesnake gives fair warning before it strikes.
It is an honest snake, not a sneak, and we can-
not say as much of all people whom we meet.
It is scarcely asking too much to treat the in-
ferior world with fairness.

196

Candor

In my daily rambles I find abundant evidence
of this delightful condition, to use a popular
example of accepted method of distorting lan-
guage. If others do not, it is because they meas-
ure the out-door world by drawing-room stand-
ards, and so frequently is this done that many
a misinterpretation of what a bird or beast does
or means has very often been given us. The
hissing of snakes, harsh chirping of birds, and
snarls of the wild wood's furry folk are candid
expressions of these various creatures' opinions
and not necessarily uncomplimentary because
vigorously uttered. Wild life knows nothing of
white lies. It simply says what it feels, and is
willing to accept all consequences. If you enter
its domain in a friendly way and not on mischief
bent, you will not be berated, but asked only
that the golden rule be obeyed. Not long ago, in
the white light of a full moon, I came suddenly
face to face with a jovial, roving owl. It stared
at me for a moment, clicked its bill, chattered
a few syllables, crisp as the breaking of thin
ice, and left its perch abruptly. The true inter-
pretation was : "I doubt your motive in being
here." It acted accordingly. Here was can-
dor. But if I am suddenly confronted by a

197

The Rambles of an Idler

human being and at the time not wishing to be
disturbed, and, saying so in plain words, turn
away, then it is rudeness, and pitilessly con-
demned. It is very inconvenient, to say the
least, and I prefer the owl's standard. My only
treasure is my time, but the world sees fit to
lay claim to it, it appears, and I must not de-
mur. At least, I will have so much candor as
to express my opinion.

Such a view of the world into which we find
ourselves thrust without being consulted is not
of necessity inimicable to friendship. As all
work and no play is destructive to man's best
interests, so isolation from humanity or abso-
lute distrust of it would be fatal to any really
valuable outcome of a life. We need friends as
surely as we need food, but a true friend should
not be disturbed by candor. There should be
such understanding between congenial persons
that an honest expression of opinion will not
prove a shock to him who hears it. If there is
not this, then the friendship is certain to be one
of form, not fact, and, like many an apple in
my orchard, as I learn to my sorrow, hollow, if
not rotten, at the core.

198

Candor

I am told that those are most successful so-
cially who are most cunning at deception; that
they only have troops of friends and always
keep them. They are welcome to the posses-
sion. It is too great a tax upon time and
temper to be forever struggling to conceal the
truth. I prefer the owl that I met the other
night to the man who owns the woodland tract
wherein I met it. Candor is far older than hu-
manity, and the race has not gained by persis-
tently ignoring its existence. If we are per-
mitted to be candid with ourselves, it should not
be amiss to be equally so with others.

Akin to the lack of candor is that misuse of
language which carries us away by ringing in
our ears high- sounding phrases, and, because
the ear is seduced, allowing our sober second-
thought to be equally wronged. This effect of
words upon our sense of hearing is one worthy
of close attention. Music is not confined to the
melody that wells up from tuneful throats or
responds to the skill of those who have gained
mastery over sound-producing instruments.
Words may be so spoken, if arranged in cunning
order, that the ear is charmed. We are made
captive by rhythm and accent — by accurately-

199

The Eambles of an Idler

measured lines and rhyme: taken, indeed, so
completely captive that judgment suspends its
function, and we are led on, as it were, blind-
folded. We are carried away; we dance to
whatever measure cunning whistles, and are so
happy as puppets in another's care that we
shudder at the thought, if it arises, at a return
to personal responsibility. The often-quoted

Lives of great men all remind us,
We may make our lives sublime

is an excellent example of what is meant; for
let a beam of light fall clear and direct upon
these lines, developing and defining all that is
in them, and their true value will be accurately
discerned.

Lives of great men do not remind us of any-
thing beyond the fact that these men were great.
No eager student and devoted follower of any
great figure in history ever became, so to speak,
a reincarnation of that man. All greatness is
necessarily unique in its day, and must neces-
sarily remain so. We can make our own lives
sublime just so far as there is innate sublimity,
providing we have the courage to bring it out —
all of which has naught to do with familiarity

200

Candor

with another's story, but comes through influ-
ences over which we have no control. Great-
ness is as much a fruit of its time, irrespective
of the past, as apples, good, bad, or indifferent,
are the product of an orchard.

Study of the difficulties that beset the path of
greatness, when they did beset it, and how they
were overcome, may serve to teach us how we
may get over obstacles that block our progress,
or seem to do so ; but this does not necessarily
lead to sublimity of life. To pull through at all
is the measure. of success that is the lot of most
of us ; and ambition, unchecked, is as dangerous
as fire, which may warm us to a more healthful
activity, but in which the power and disposi-
tion to consume are always present, and the
world hears only of the scanty few who escape
— the little handful upon whom Fortune smiled.

General literature does not require, and
poetry should not depend upon, license. Figu-
rative expression is too liable to be miscon-
strued to warrant its use, except in the rarest
cases, when befogging the purport is reduced
to a minimum; and the author who has not
a presentable idea, couched in proper terms or
enough basis of thought to warrant a plain

201

The Rambles of an Idler

statement lacks the best of reasons for attempt-
ing authorship.

It may be objected that, given a direct asser-
tion, there may be more than one view of its
significance; and the advocate of each view
will use all the power of language to defend his
own conclusion. How, then, it is asked, is the
layman to decide when the doctors disagree!
Our only hope lies in the honesty of the doctors ;
and this honesty is exercised only by the use,
and not the misuse, of language — by admitting
the weakness of one's own arguments, as well
as their strength, and not misquoting an ad-
versary or the assertion, itself, under discus-
sion. Words, with their meaning, should be the
debater's stock-in-trade — not words merely.
Ehetorical flourish, sophomorical display, and
lexicographic hysteria may convince for a time ;
but the convincement is quite likely to be that a
palpable lie is the plain, unvarnished truth.
Many a writer thinks he has gained a victory if
he has gained a few followers ; but, is it honor-
able victory when the means used was verbal
jugglery?

There is no disposition to decry elegance of
diction. Fine raiment fits the form of Truth

202

Candor

with telling effect ; her beauty is increased by it ;
but cunning, likewise, has learned the art of
decorating a lie until it, too, is lovely to look
upon. The curse of it is the difficulty to distin-
guish between them. The unthinking crowd
cannot; so much the more does it behoove hon-
esty to deal only with plainness of speech — to
call the proverbial spade a spade. Literature
that is literature — the recorded thought that is
to remain long after the thinker has passed
away — by so doing, will not suffer.

203

CHAPTER FIVE

THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE

I know nothing more delightful than to meet
with disaster. Only then do we discover our
real selves. The easy-going man knows little
more than his own name. I do not refer to
battle, murder and to sudden death, as the Pray-
er Book has it, but the coming to grief of life's
minor details. Carefully laid plans, for in-
stance, however elaborate, if they meet with
no obstacles, are apt to lead to disappointment.
This is the lesson we should learn from the ex-
periences of others, but the searchlight of fore-
thought is not often pointed in the right direc-
tion. He is a truly wonderful man who does
not except himself from all restraining condi-
tions. " All men think all men mortal but them-
selves. ' '

Acquisition is just beyond our fingers' ends.
We must reach upward or outward, stand upon

204

The Excellence of Misfortune

tip-toe or lean far forward, and then success
crowns the effort. This is the exertion the world
demands, and, though we count it a misfortune
not to possess without effort, it is really a
blessing. Let ingenuity die and courage lan-
guish, and we might better die with it than con-
tinue on earth. Our presence ceases to be of
advantage to others. We all love to be lazy, I
admit, but this is because degeneracy has set
in, or development has not progressed; and in-
dolence should not be confounded with the
healthy reaction following the intoxication of
success. There is a time to rest from our la-
bors, but many labor only as an excuse for rest-
ing. Dreamland is the nearest foreign shore,
and the stream of travel flows always in that
direction. We incline to be lazy when the spur
of ambition is dulled. We do not feel its prick-
ing and gradually lose knowledge of ourselves.
To meet with disaster is the only efficient cure.
Our first effort a success, we are too prone
to be content therewith and disinclined to make
a second. As if the sapling oak was so pleased
with its first acorn, it willingly remained a bar-
ren tree thereafter. Such things are not known
in Nature, but man, with a mistaken view of Na-

205

The Rambles of an Idler

ture's methods, assumes to he something supe-
rior to her. He sets his individual opinion
against the matured wisdom of the ages and
errs in proportion to the inflexibility of his con-
clusions. The drone is a common ideal at life's
outset. The worker is looked down upon. But to
which belongs the honey! The drone invariably
claims a share, but his argument has never
proved valid. The worker is not such because
the required labor is light and every flower
offers honey. If this were true, labor would be
only active indolence. It is failure that rouses
the inborn energies, self asserts itself, pride is
awakened, the real bee knows its strength, and
labor is rewarded when the choice flowers are
found. Moments of actual joy are worth a life-
time of theoretical pleasure. As to Nature, we
receive nothing from her for the mere asking.
Where man lives on the banana, he does no more
than breathe. He is as soulless as the fruit
upon which he feeds. To plant, to guard the
growing crop, to reap, — these are the stimulat-
ing efforts that develop and make us conquerors
at last. We are free to choose, but no one
dwells in a palace who only dreams of marble.
That hungry man who sprawled beneath the

206

The Excellence of Misfortune \

tree did not have an apple fall into his mouth.
His brother, who climbed among the branches,
went away filled. Did the opposite prove true,
the world would not advance ; and he who labor-
iously climbs, seemingly in vain, will reach the
fairest fruit, at last.

Better than this, the wrong tree must often
be climbed over. Our efforts must gain us only
bitter fruit, at first. How else can we know of
that which is sweeter? The world is an aggre-
gation of comparative excellence.. If our dis-
comfort satisfied, comfort would be unsuspect-
ed. If we knew all things, there would be no
effort; omniscience would reduce us to an aim-
less hulk. Life is a struggle to attain and ob-
tain. Our goal is a direction, not a fixed point
in space.

Defeat, disaster, destruction, despair, a
gloomy procession of ill-boding words, the four
walls of a chamber of horrors ; but what of de-
cision, determination, development, delight?
We are free to choose. The effective sermon
can come only from outside ourselves. We are
children of Nature, and back to her we must
turn when the path taken has proved to be the
wrong one. The platitudes of brother man irri-

207

The Rambles of an Idler

tate more than educate. Back to Nature and
start aright. There would be no going astray,
if we remembered her teachings. Ignorance of
Nature is more fatal than ignorance of man or
his teachings. The oak depends upon the soil
wherein it is rooted. We pull ourselves up by
the roots and, teetering hither and yon, bewail
our fate when a puff of wind overturns us.

Back to Nature and sink self to its proper
level. There are vines that start at the root of
crooked trees and have endless twistings and
turnings to follow. That rebellion should be a
foremost thought seems natural from our point
of view, but it is not. The vine counts the ad-
vantage of a crooked path. The outlook is more
varied, the experience more complex, but the
open world at the tree- top is reached at last.
Success that comes too early rests on weak
shoulders. They bend early and age is decrepit
in advance of its years.

Disaster and despair, our common fate and
greatest weakness, are commonly associated in
the mind, but not logically. No road is so bar-
ren that we learn nothing as we pass along.
When we turn back, the facts we have gathered
better fit us for the proper path. Our spent

208

The Excellence of Misfortune

energy was not for a bauble. To despair is to
call Mother Earth a fraud. Why should any
one despair?

A thousand things are hidden still
And not a hundred known.

There is enough to do to keep happily busy
during your remaining, rightly directed years.
There is no firmer foundation than a blunder;
no more hopeful remark than, "I see where I
made a mistake." No other sight has such edu-
cational value. We can build on it and feel
safe; but not all the superstructures of callow
confidence have withstood Time's buffetings.

"I am struck," writes Thoreau, "by the fact
that the more slowly trees grow at first, the
sounder they are at the core, and I think the
same is true of human beings. We do not wish
to see children precocious, making great strides
in their early years, like sprouts producing a
soft and perishable timber; but better if they
expand slowly at first, as if contending with
difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected.
Such trees continue and expand with nearly
equal rapidity to an extreme old age."

The world owes no man a living. He is only
209

The Rambles of an Idler

free to get it, if lie can. How best to do so, is
the momentous question. I hold that the surest
road to success is that beset with obstacles. I
do not find that wild life, as we call it, is readily
discouraged, and it is never in any sense free
and easy. Man's enemies are many, but Na-
ture 's humbler children have legions of implac-
able foes. Man, at times, can walk in perfect
peace; not so, at any time, can beast, bird, or
butterfly.

Did the mouse not fear the weasel, and the
weasel not stop to- listen when it heard my foot-
steps; did the squirrel not crouch when the
hawk hovered above it, and the hawk scream
when plagued by passing crows, I do not know
why I should walk in the fields. I am not anx-
ious to witness a tragedy, but I am filled with
excitement when the exercise of ingenuity is
shown and an obstacle successfully removed or
avoided. Give the world at large an easy time,
and I hope to get out of it. There is nothing
so monotonous as inactive life.

"So, then, because thou art lukewarm, and
neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my
mouth. "

I remember recently meeting with a superb
210

The Excellence of Misfortune

snake. There was not a plate of its armor
that did not shine, and as I drew near, it raised
a threatening front. What, indeed, was I, to
obstruct its path! But I did obstruct it. It
essayed to pass me, but I checked its progress
with my cane and sent it spinning through the
air. It approached again, but cautiously, and I
made ready with my cane to catch it once more.
Not so. It saw my " made-ready " attitude and
studied it cleverly. It made a feint to pass me
on the left, and when off my guard, for an in-
stant, darted by on my right.

Our Indians, so it is said, credited black-
snakes with greater intelligence or cunning than
the other species found about here, and I am
ready to believe it. I ask no better evidence
of the creature's mentality than this snake of-
fered; but the point I here raise is, that my
rough usage was not looked upon as disastrous
or even discouraging. It was merely an inti-
mation to try a new method with eyes more
widely opened, and the newer method led to
success.

I have seen pike leap over the cork-line of a
net, and once saw one burrow under the lead-
line. To turn back, in either case, would have

211

The Eambles of an Idler

been safer, but the obstacle was met, and how
far insuperable was a matter to be tested. The
idea of discouragement has not yet taken a
strong hold of even the lower forms of life. An-
ecdotes are endless as to the ingenuity of ani-
mals. They encounter as many difficulties as
does man and in all probability overcome a
far greater proportion. It is based on the as-
sumption that I have argued long on the impor-
tance of studying the habits of animals that we
may the better meet the exigencies of our own
lives. Natural history is as trustworthy a guide
as human history. The former is logical, and
a long array of facts ; but the latter is a record
of blunders more than of great accomplish-
ments, and so changeful is the world, the past
has but little applicability to the present. This
is not true of natural history. It started on
right lines and has not wandered far from the
desired direction. The long journey from pro-
toplasm to man was one with little loss of time
or energy through uncertainty of purpose or
vague wandering in a trackless desert ; but since
the goal of manhood has been reached, the floun-
dering nearly equals the well-directed purpose,
if we read history aright.

212

The Excellence of Misfortune

We can well afford to look backward, to go to
the ant, consider her ways and be wise.

The mistakes of a lifetime are fewer among
the lower forms of life than among ourselves.
Theirs is greater singleness of purpose and so
proportionately less risk of erroneous judg-
ment; but mistakes do occur, difficulties con-
front and barriers are found set up against
them. Disappointment doubtless ensues, but
not despair. The brain is quickened by the test
to which it is put, not rendered sluggish by de-
spondency. Experimentation on our part shows
this to be true. Interfere with a bird while the
nest is being built, and we have one of two re-
sults; the structure is completed to conform to
the altered surroundings, or a new site is cho-
sen; the purpose of nest-building is not aban-
doned. The ' ' try, try again, ' ' that is dolorously
chanted in the nursery, often to the child's dis-
gust, is not needed in the nurseries of Nature.
To repeat the effort is a matter of course. That
life is labor is recognized by wild life at the
outset of each individual's career and accepted
cheerfully. We cannot always say as much for
ourselves.

Throughout our summers we have several
213

The Rambles of an Idler

representatives of a family of birds known as
the tyrant flycatchers. They are not musical,
nor brightly plumaged, nor noticeable because
of size or by their numbers; but greater- than
all these features of bird-life, they have one
merit, indomitable pluck. Long before Biche-
lieu petulantly exclaimed there was no such
word as "fail," these flycatchers knew the fact
and cheerfully accepted its significance. The
flycatcher's life depends upon capturing fleet-
winged insects in mid-air. There is equal ad-
vantage, and success by no means crowns every
effort of the bird. I have often seen the pur-
suer and pursued darting frantically here and
there, speeding like lightning, skyward and
earthward, and when the chase seemed at an
end, safety came to the insect and the baffled
bird returned, panting and exhausted, to its
perch.

A moment's rest is all it asks. There is no
seductive thought that life 's lines are drawn too
tight. The single aim is to capture living in-
sects, and again the bird sights its prey. Again
the rapid wings are in motion, again the skillful
turning and twisting and at length, success, on
the bird 's part, is secure.

214

The Excellence of Misfortune

Compare this with the familiar, "Oh, I've
tried and given it up. ' '

I doubt if ever a fish-hawk hungered long be-
cause robbed by a bald eagle. It has faith in its
resources, although they fail it at times. The
eagle's back may be turned, next time, and
chance has a value which is worth reckoning
with; its own wings may be a match for the
eagle in the next contest. At least, the bird is
so far encouraged as to try again, and a fair
measure of success is shown by the fact that
fish-hawks hold their own against the race of
eagles.

Nature, wherever we turn, tells the same
story. Nowhere is permitted unobstructed
progress, uniform success. This would mean
stagnation. Think of the ocean without its
waves. To stand long on its shores, gazing at
monotony, would drive us mad. The haps are
delights, but the world's mishaps, as we call
them, test our strength. How else should we
know that we are strong! Our good fortune
bears a distinct relationship to our misfortune.
Success that rests on the ruins of our failures
stands upon a firm foundation.

215

CHAPTEB SIX

UNDER THE OAKS AND ELSEWHERE

Under the oaks ! Words these that may mean
much or little. It depends nothing upon the
trees; everything upon the person. He who
seeks the shade of venerable oaks goes to a
choice sanctuary. Under the oaks of the home
hillside, I replace the English colonists and like-
wise the Indian who preceded him. These, in-
deed, are venerable oaks ! A century counts for
little, considering the age of many into whose
branches I peer as I lie on the moss that man-
tles their wide-spreading, twisted roots.

The oaks here stand for the eternal rocks. In
the range of my ordinary rambles I know of
not one that is dead. They are the representa-
tive features of our fixedness. Gone, and my
little world would crumble. The beeches com-
mand my admiration, the tall birches in their
tattered coats are entertaining; so, too, the

216

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

elms, maples, persimmons, gums and spreading
chestnuts; all admirable, all eminently worthy
of consideration, but only the oaks inspire awe.
Mankind, these later years, is disposed to stand
aloof from awe-inspiring objects. They are in-
comprehensible and confusing to little brains
and have grown distasteful to big ones. Eever-
ential fear has lost its hold. The contemplative
element of the mind is now an inconspicuous
one, probably because " strained from its fair
use." None but quieting thoughts should come
when near an oak. No vexing problem or base-
less fear should rob us of comfort when the
tree's sheltering arms are extended over us.
The whispering of the sun-resisting leaves
should soothe us. Their message is Peace, but
our ears are not always attuned to hear it. Ar-
tificiality has crowded appreciation of Nature
so close to the wall, it is as thin as a shadow.
Given opportunity to assert itself occasionally
it has not sufficient strength to reach to sub-
stantial benefit. I think I have known where
an old oak had no significance. I know I have
known where the undergrowing grass and flow-
ers, the birds and bright blue sky, have con-
veyed no meaning.

217

The Rambles of an Idler

Not a day in the year but an oak tree means
more than one can realize. It is never enough
to murmur its name and pass it by as you
might some casual acquaintance. You can nod
all day to an oak, but how often does the oak
nod to you? When we have more oak trees, if
in my time, I shall look for the millenium to
peep over the hills and happiness overspread
the valleys. Never a day but an oak tree is a
preacher and a teacher of a worthy kind: in
June, when the tree's leafy crown is in the full
freshness of its glory ; — in December, when its
gaunt arms are still bravely extended, defying
the storms that gather about it.

An oak tree in June tells a long story, but
never is a word of it one too many. The eye
and the ear are reinvigorated by each new inci-
dent, and there is no surfeiting. We are in a
state of blissful expectancy from dawn to dark
and keenly alert to the still stranger stories that
are told in the moonlight. A day under the oaks
is never too long; a moonlit night is all too
swift of pace.

. An oak tree is a home as well as a temporary
shelter, for all life; a woodside inn for weary
travelers. The migrating hosts of birds, in

218

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

their season, survey the country from many an
oak tree's top. When the leaves are mere
babies, — pink, yellow and fuzzy, and the level
rays of the rising sun add to their beauty, have
a host of Canadian warblers wander through
the tree-top's twiggy maze, as I saw them re-
cently, and one picture of the round year is
complete. This, in May. When the bare
branches of the same old oak are lined against
a pitiless, cold sky, let them be suddenly flooded
with the ruddy light of the setting sun and at
the same moment have a goodly company of
waxwings as suddenly appear, lisp a few sylla-
bles and vanish, and another story is told.
This, in December.

Elsewhere, at certain seasons, the rambler's
pathway may not lead to Elysium. The outlook
may be depressing and visions of the fireside
dim the scant merit of the out-door world.
Never so, under the oaks. They are ever suffi-
cient. They make the accessories of summer
luxuries, such as they are, no hardship to fore-
go. Many a year has passed since I learned
this, and to-day, for the ten thousandth time,
the Carolina wren announced it in his masterful

219

The Rambles of an Idler

way as I rested in the shade of this blissful Ar-
cady.

Eurek — Eurek — Eureka! whistled the bird, a
veritable Prince Polyglot, custodian of the
charms of this ancient wood. He never asks a
holiday. Summer and winter alike, he bids dull
care begone, and if the rambler is willing, ini-
tiates him into the fold that know the "sylvan
secrets," and, knowing, see and hear what be-
fore had not been recognized.

0, many mooded Master Bird!
Long since, the day when first I heard
Thy wisdom shouted down the glen,
Where, hidden from the gaze of men,
Thou hadst thy home, Inspiring Wren ;
And now, with burden of my years
No path so bright, but dimmed by tears;
Yet know the merit of thy thought,
Not vainly here, content is sought.

Still, while I linger yet on earth,
Cheer each new day as it has birth ;
And, as in years long gone, may we
As friend with friend, together see,
These blessed oaks, this Arcady.
Whene'er I trace each charmed spot,
Be thou my guide, Prince Polyglot.

220

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

In a recent geological report it is stated that
the largest white oak in New Jersey is nearly
twenty-five feet in circumference, and its spread
of branches more than one hundred feet. I re-
member an oak much larger, but size is not
everything from a wise rambler's point of view.
Much smaller trees will meet his needs, but they
must be oaks. "We can meet with people any-
where, but mere humanity does not suffice. We
demand congeniality. To grasp my meaning
better, try the trees as you find them, — maples,
ashes, cedars, and then halt in a grove of oaks.
Possibly the former will please, but surely the
latter will wholly satisfy. That the Druids held
the oak tree sacred is a myth, but one too pretty
to brush aside. There is a sweet reasonableness
in many a pagan rite.

I am continually told that oaks are not plant-
ed because of so slow a growth. It is not a valid
reason. Not so long ago I planted the acorn
that is now an oak tree, in the shade of which I
find comfort. The planting of an oak is the
performance of work that lasts; yet how few
are planted! We are too busy with soft wood
that perishes before our eyes.

Trees are ever something more than Nature's
221 ^

The Eambles of an Idler

most forceful expression of vegetation. Boot,
trunk and branches constitute the tree in that
literal sense loved by laziness, but what do they
stand for 1 They are healthy products of crea-
tive force. They honestly fill the purpose of
their being; creator and created on an equality.
All of that purpose is yet to be determined ; but
why such endless variety? Here we can wisely
speculate, for speculation in this direction leads
to the upturning of many a minor fact.

I am sitting now in the shade of a chestnut-
leaved oak, lacking little of four feet in diam-
eter and with a spread of branches of about
eighty feet. A single glance tells me that the
tree is something more than so much wood. Its
story is in three chapters, roots, trunk and
branches, and these we cannot dissociate from
their immediate or even remote surroundings.
No form of terrestrial life shuns a tree, and in
South America there is a fish that climbs them.
Here, at home, if life does not take up its abode
in a tree, it is ever on it or under it. The bur-
rowed earth tells certainly of more than one
animal that is at home among the twisted roots.
I can see one hollow that has harbored a squir-
rel if it does not now, and then how these crea-

222

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

tures go bounding through its branches, and,
leaping in the air, clutch at the nearest twig.
Always within one of falling, yet never touch-
ing the earth. That this old oak lives not whol-
ly to itself is not its least merit. The rambler
has no idle time if he keeps up with the proces-
sion, of which this tree is the parade-ground.
At the foot of an oak tree is a poor place to be
alone. To indulge in solitude it is better to
wander through the city's busy streets.

When we know what an oak tree means to all
those forms of life that gather about it, we shall
know what it stands for in the scheme of crea-
tion, and not until then.

The fact that we always speak of a " sober"
brown or a ' ' dull ' ' brown is enough to condemn
the color. The witchery of pink blossoms when
spring was here and the gay colors of summer
were so captivating that now it is vexatious to
find the landscape mono-tinted and dull brown
at that. Brown is near akin to funereal blackj
and we condemn both colors as not compatible
with cheerfulness. So, I find, wags the world,
hopelessly ignorant in the possession of half a
fact. What of a nut-brown November day?

223

The Rambles of an Idler

The gloss on the chestnut redeems the color
and gladdens the eye, and thoughts of decay do
not go with the blanched shellbarks that fall
with force upon the sunbaked sod and roll into
crisp grass covers that try my patience. When
greed is uppermost, the precise tint of the treas-
ure means nothing. A November day, in the
meadows, under shellbark hickories, or in some
remote upland field, under a spreading chestnut
tree, offers, hour for hour, more objects for ad-
miration than half the days since June. The
crumbs from the table but vaguely hint of the
feast, but this is not fairly applied to Nature's
board. There is no interim when it is bare.
The wayfarer can find one dish, if not a dozen,
and his digestion is the gainer. A November
day is not an empty one, if we only make a col-
lection of acorns. How many neighbors have
you who can name the oaks by their fruits I

The demand for endless variety is not indica-
tive of immeasurable capacity to assimilate it.
He who knows that a single grain of sand is a
fragment of quartz and was once a part of a
vein of glassy rock, and how it came to be what
it was and is, is wiser than are those tiresome
utilitarians who crowd the highways and cry

224

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

sand ! sand ! all the day, as if they would sell it
by the ton.

Waiting for a moment until another shellbark
dropped, a blue-jay perched upon a bare twig
and sang after its fashion. It was a short series
of discordant notes; collectively, a harsh, rat-
tling, corvine call, and yet it blended well with
the gnarly branches and shaggy bark. Cbarse,
but honest to the core. There was nothing for
mere appearance's sake, such as gluts you in
modern assemblages of men. The blue-jay is a
bird murderer, but he does not care a whit who
knows it. There is no stabbing in the back
about him, and now that the spared nestlings
of summer are all on the wing, and there is no
lack of them, we forget the foul deeds, as we
thought them, that so sorely vexed us in June,
and take the jay for what he is to-day. No
summer sky was ever a finer blue than is his
plumage, and no jauntier crest ever reared its
defiance. To whom does he call, I wonder, as
he cries loudly, again and again, and then, hear-
ing no answer at all, whips the idle air with
impatient wings and is gone. The gentle sum-
mer shower, when every rain-drop falls as if
saying, "By your leave, " is all very well in its

225

The Rambles of an Idler

way, and so, too, the summer warblers, with
their endless hilling and cooing and languid
love songs; but it cloys at last. Even if the
lightning strikes near, the thunder gust is wel-
comed by a healthy man and the rasping cry
and gruff, stringent intensity of purpose of a
blue-jay find a welcome. Energy, not lassitude,
is now uppermost, and better in November a
blue-jay, fretful and in its way profane, than
the amiable blue-bird, never of the earth,
earthy.

While a single tree may profitably fill our day,
it is well to keep on the move and hear more
than one story ; but never move for mere loco-
motion 's sake; that is the practice of fools. A
sloping bluff, which once hemmed in the river,
is now a respectable woodland tract, boasting
many an old tree, and not the rudest blasts of
November gales rob it of all its interest. The
summer birds have gone, but other birds have
come ; and, better than birds, now, are the squir-
rels and mice, and a stray opossum and the
dreaded skunk. A glimpse of any of these, even
the mice, is exhilarating.

A line in the poem of creation is a white-
footed mouse breakfasting on apple seeds.

226

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

Some larger creature, probably, carried the ap-
ple to the woods. Be this as it may, the fruit
and the mouse are now together, and a day's
ramble is not likely to bring me face to face with
anything prettier. There is no means of meas-
uring the sparkle of a mouse's eye, but it al-
ways seems brighter than that of a squirrel, and
every act of the creature is evidence of intelli-
gence. Now is the day of their bush nests,
which are birds' nests roofed and refitted for
winter use. They vary a good deal, and why,
if the creatures are mere machines, as is so
persistently claimed? The funniest argument
that I heard lately in favor of a mouse being
witless was that they are so easily, trapped.
As if the average lord of creation were not
caught more than once in his lifetime.

An interesting feature in the natural history
of these mice, — and it applies to most of our
small mammals, — is the fact that at times they
are extremely abundant and then suddenly they
all disappear. I cannot determine whether
they are carried off by a plague or migrate.
Certainly I do not find them dead, and yet fail
to discover them migrating. The short-tailed
meadow mouse shifts from point to point and

227

The Rambles of an Idler

squirrels formerly crossed the river in vast
numbers; but the ways of mammals in Indian
days are not their ways to-day. Of course this
will be disputed, but disputation is as idle as
the cawing of a crow ; in fact, the latter has usu-
ally more significance. No bird opens its mouth
with so little a purpose as only to hear itself
speak. In this matter of numbers the small
mammals vary in a more marked degree than
do the migratory birds. I have known a season,
now and then, when I could not find a single
bush nest of the white-footed mouse, and a year
later they were very common. Even the chip-
munks vary a great deal in this respect. I have
known them to be very abundant up to the time
of taking to their winter quarters, and the com-
ing spring not one reappeared. Did they die,
carried off by some plague among them; were
.they killed by weasels, or during the first warm
days of the new year did they slink off to an-
other neighborhood ? I should be glad to know.
A year ago our common rabbit was almost a
nuisance up to mid-September, and then there
was none. The hunters, who all summer ex-
pected much sport, were sadly disappointed. If
a quickly fatal disease broke out among them,

228

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

why were none found dead? If they migrated,
how did their movements escape detection?
There is something yet to learn concerning the
commonest forms of wild life, and the supposed
purposes of many a creature may prove some
day not to be the real ones.

Nature of a bright November day may be
subdued, but not to the point of melancholy.
The brown rushes in the marsh may not excite
us to exuberant joy as they were sure to do
when green in summer; but we contemplate
them with interest, though they hint of death;
and the chirp of the autumn bird is never a com-
plaint that the heyday of blossom and bright
flowers is over for a season. The bird is still
thankful that something remains, as I find abun-
dant satisfaction now in counting the heap of
nuts that I have gathered. The bloom of every
nut tree was a thing of beauty, but more so, I
think, is the matured fruit to-day. Nor is this
all. When the storms of winter make the night
dreary, before the bright fire on the andirons
it needs but one of these nuts to call up the
dreamy landscape, when the meadows were
filled with a golden haze and our more quiet
thoughts were still of sunshine and content.

229

The Bambles of an Idler

If a thought of approaching winter intrudes
at all it is when, on our homeward stretch, we
hear the feeble song of mole-crickets still un-
subdued by frost. A vain protest this, that
frost should come at all, and a trace of sorrow
overshadows us. Or, it may be, a solitary katy-
did struggles desperately to assert once more
that the mythical "Katy" really "did," but
gets no further than the name. I was amused,
yet genuinely sorry, to hear again and again an
ineffectual Ka — Ka and then silence that was
really sad. The few survivors of October's
" killing " frosts, as they are called, have, in-
deed, a hard time of it, but never are they so
conspicuous as really to mar the remaining
glories of a clear, nut-brown November day.

He trode the implanted forest floor, whereon.
The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone.

I, too, tread the forest floor to-day, but not
as did he to whom Emerson refers. I can no-
where walk in one direction without reaching
the scarred surface of the earth, where the plow
and spade nave obliterated Nature's handiwork.
Thankful for the little that remains, I walk in
circles about a few old trees, looking up at the

230

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

peaceful sky, never more beautiful than in the
mellow light of this December day, or keeping
my eyes close to the mottled, mossy ground
between the rugged trunks of the old trees.

It is a relief to face the real creation. It
clarifies thought to look at virgin soil. Go from
a lumber yard to a grove, and you will know
what I mean. A forest floor to-day I find more
welcome than a paved street or the tiled hall of
my neighbor 's stately mansion. The ' ' raw ma-
terials," as the merchant calls them, and holds
them, attract me, but not after they are reduced
to the conditions demanded by our imperious
civilization. It is all a wonderful story, as when
a tree to-day is pulp to-morrow, and a news-
paper the day after. We should all glory in
such a triumph of human ingenuity, and the
world scorns all who cannot keep up with its
progress. So be it ; but I am very glad to spend
an ideal winter "day in the woods ; to tread, as I
am now doing, a trifling remnant of a forest
floor; to go back to "the good old days" when
Nature was not interfered with by the hand of
man.

When where I stand was first a forest floor
it is not possible to say. That the higher ground

231

The Rambles of an Idler

beyond hemmed in a wide expanse of water, the
river broadening to a lake, is the conclusion
of the geologist, and is not open to discussion.
Later the waters receded as the climate became
milder and the glacial period passed into pre-
history, and now between upland and meadow
we have a strip of woodland. It has never been
disturbed, except as Nature works changes in
the land. Trees have grown, died and decayed,
and others came promptly to replace them.
This, the simple story for ten thousand years
or more, and so it comes where I now stand
there is a forest floor. The impressions of the
massive feet of the mastodon, the moose and
the reindeer were long since obliterated by those
of the elk, the deer and the bear. The cougar
gave way to the lynx, and now there are but
minks, muskrats, opossums, skunks, squirrels
and mice. A sad gradation from the sublime to
the commonplace, but, happily, it is the same
old forest floor.

December now, "and the leaves have fallen.
The " all-seeing " sun shines upon the ground,
but there is no unobstructed glare such as at
noonday rests upon the fields. The interlaced
branches of the oaks cast many a shadow, and

232

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

few are the rays that are not shut off hy the
spreading crowns of the beeches. There is lit-
tle grass, but much moss, and this so gray that
it suggests old age. There are few annual
growths, and these not always conspicuous.
The wind spitefully heaps the dead leaves over
many a blossom. Bluets and claytonia in
spring, asters and goldenrods in autumn — these
come and go in their seasons, but there is al-
ways the gray moss, that yields softly to my
step, like tufted carpet. There is no jarring,
no noise, save when dry twigs are snapped. I
can pass from tree to tree as silently and swift-
ly as an Indian, disturbing nothing, distracting
no bird in the branches overhead and scarcely
noticed by the mice in their runways that cross
my path. To be here is a delight at all times,
and as pleasant now in December as when the
world was all astir. This is a hazy, meditative
day, and the forest floor tells its story more
plainly than it could have done above the songs
of summer birds. The facts are now laid bare.
Here and for miles around the bedrock is deep
down in the earth, and we have only sand and
pebbles, with an occasional bowlder of preten-
tious size ; but few are the trees that because of

233

The Kambles of an Idler

a sandy foundation have found themselves seri-
ously shaken. The surface is stable. Not all
sand is forever shifting. There is no evidence
of change except of minor extent, as an occa-
sional landslide of a few yards. The roots of
the oaks have defied the wind and rain. The
soil is poor, as soils are considered by the ag-
riculturist. Neither grain nor vegetables would
grow here, even with abundant sunshine and
moisture to urge them on ; but trees have grown
and are now in full vigor. Some of the oaks
were acorns more than two centuries ago.
There is surely some hidden source of fertility
that sustains the forest, and barred by the
shadows of its leafless branches is that floor
which to-day is so inviting. Moss bears the re-
lation to grass that age bears to youth, or as
sober contemplation to the passing idle thought.
Moss is as dignified as any aged oak. They are
congenial friends, seldom apart. What the tree
is to the landscape, so is the moss to the ground
upon which we tread.

But there is more upon the ground than moss.
Looking yet closer about me and recalling very
distinctly what I have seen at other times, I
find much that should be mentioned. The acorns

234

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

that fell a year ago and escaped squirrels, mice
and worms, are now pretty stems, half a foot
high, and with two broad leaves. In spots hun-
dreds of these hide the moss, and, pigmies as
they are, make a bold front and stand ready to
possess the land. Elsewhere I see little, low
bush huckleberries, very pretty in their blos-
soming days; and nearby is spicewood, beauti-
ful when its golden bloom sparkles through the
April woods, fragrant at all times, and still
partly in leaf. It is a shrub to remember when
you brush its twigs aside, and, bruising its
leaves, find your hands scented with the refined
essence of long summer days ; an odor equal to
conjuring up all the glory of the past.

Where now there are but crushed and with-
ered leaves I see as distinctly as ever the cypri-
pediums, their strange, mottled purple blooms
brightening the gray moss about them. Rattle-
snake plantain, too, and rattlesnake weed more
abundant and quite as pretty. Very barren, so
it is said, is this mossy forest floor. I have
heard this said by more than one person while
they stood in the shadows of the old oaks and
had all this royal bloom and shrubbery about
them. Surely stout timber is a goodly growth,

235

The Rambles of an Idler

and an orchid that gives rise to a pleasant
thought is not to be despised. I doubt if a field
of corn is the climax of the earth's ambition.

Much besides moss is here, really, but the lat-
ter is everywhere rather conspicuous. True
greatness is never overawed by the clamor of
the insensate crowd, and so with the moss upon
the forest floor. The mature fruit of a century
stands for more than the quick growth of a sea-
son. It has a seigniorial right no upstart can
successfully dispute. Better a handful of moss
than a cart-load of weed.

In the minds of many, all that I have said
will not suffice to . drive away the impression
that a forest floor is monotonous. Accepting my
facts, if not my philosophy, they will ask,
"What next?" I fear this eagerness for
abundant novelty is not always indicative of
vast assimilative power. All that a forest floor
stands for is not realized in a moment. It
should stimulate thought rather than please the
eye; but this is too prosaic a view for the on-
rushing sightseer — seldom a seer in any other
sense. However, if variety must be had, here
it is in the damp earth, where the waters of a
struggling spring have vainly tried to form a

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Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

little pool. There are not a dozen drops of open
water, but dampness only, yet it is worthy the
rambler's closest attention. It means a few
ferns, by way of variety, and, though small,
they have been pretty and are attractive still.
They have a leathery feel, and the vigor of early
May has departed, but they are ferns and all
that these growths signify. If we truly love a
plant, even its picture will command attention.
Here are only faded, leathery ferns, but who has
yet to learn that beneath a wrinkled skin there
is abundance of life? Too pronounced fresh-
ness is occasionally open to adverse criticism.

Given vegetation, moisture and alternate
light and shade, animal life without stint will
crowd the spot. The dry moss seemed deserted
as I looked over it. A lazy spider, shining coal
black ants and inert beetles were all that I could
find in the way of animal life, but about the
ferns and in the moist earth were many and
widely varied forms. A frog, a salamander
and a baby turtle had gathered here, and a chat-
tering blue jay directly overhead seemed to be
scolding because I kept it from coming to drink.
A less cautious chickadee came quite within my
reach and a squirrel scampered by, barking

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The Rambles of an Idler

spitefully. I had trespassed upon the common
domain of the wild life of the woods, and was
reminded that man is never one with the crea-
tures whose company he would keep. This
common domain was a damp spot only, yet
treasured by the creatures that here slaked
their thirst. How they found enough water to
drink I cannot imagine. So far as I could de-
termine, here was dampness merely; but, then,
I see only with my own eyes, which doubtless
would be thought a pitifully poor way of ob-
serving Nature by every beast, bird and creep-
ing thing that lives in, on and above this forest
floor.

If it were possible to follow the same path,
at the same time of day and tarry for a few
hours at the same spot ; if this were possible for
a year, in shade and sunshine, under clear skies
and cloudy, summer and winter, then and then
only would we have a clear conception of what
a trifling bit of commonplace country really
is. Then, I believe, the comedy and tragedy of
each day as it passes, might be recorded as it
should, clarity of thought following contact with
Nature.

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Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

To take the same walk daily is not a monot-
onous, dull round as when we hurry from house
to office and return. We need but to try to
prove this, as when I took the same path for
five successive days in early spring. In the
brook I saw minnows with gorgeously tinted
fins, and their brilliant color brightened the
outlook whichever way I turned.

Where swarms of minnows show their little heads

Staying their waving bodies 'gainst the streams,

To taste the luxury of sunny beams

Tempered with coolness. How they ever wrestle

With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle

Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand !

If you but scantily hold out the hand,

That very instant one will not remain;

But turn your eye — and they are there again.

See them as Keats here describes ; this needs
no cunning of a trained eye and the subsequent
vexations of the day will be softened to a more
endurable degree.

The second day, the bridge pee-wee was
perched upon a bare branch of a horn-beam ov-
erhanging the brook and its simple song called
back a teeming past as well as foretold the
wealth of a coming summer. Other birds

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T.he Kambles of an Idler

proved near, early violets starred the frosty
earth, hut during all that followed, the pee-wee
of that early morning hour was not forgotten.

The third day, a weasel stood upright in my
path, stared fiercely at me and then disap-
peared. I looked in vain for its hiding-place or
for some evidence of what it had been doing
where I saw it. As well attempt to trace the
lightning after the flash has vanished; yet I
could for the time think of nothing but the
creature of which I had only a glimpse and re-
call every petty adventure in past years
wherein a weasel figured. Even the chirping of
birds had an animal-like squeal and imagina-
tion came near getting the upper hand for a lit-
tle while. It was by no means strange that
the only few wild animals we have left were in
my thoughts, while I looked across the wide
marsh, where I knew were minks, musk-rats
and meadow-mice. A trifle may change the
current of our thoughts for a whole day.

The fourth day, the earliest green leaves and
swelling buds and golden spice-wood bloom
commanded my attention and I thought of the
long winter when the trees were bare and how
the cheerless outlook depressed at times and

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Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

moved me to turn a,way until the brave crested
tit called me to my senses. It would be better
for us, could the fact always be remembered
that there is no better medicine for winter-
weariness than the trifling green of an early
April day.

The fifth morning, I found a dew-spangled
spider web, so substantially woven that it dis-
tinctly resisted my finger as I pressed against
it. It was a large, apron-like platform gently
leading to the spider's den and the creature
herself, though in full view, was very incon-
spicuous. Her neutral tints blended with the
surroundings in most skillful way, her legs ap-
pearing to be so many bits of dead grass, and
her body, a withered leaf. The web glittered
in the sun, for countless minute dew-drops were
scattered over it. Evidently the spider was
still waiting for her breakfast or there would
have been evidence of commotion. Insect life,
evidently, must be active again, yet 1 had not
noticed any fly or beetle. This web, beautiful
in itself, was not forgotten all that day. Until
the goal was reached, it held my thoughts, as
when flies struggle hopelessly in its mazy toils.

Almost a month passed before I was again
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The Eambles of an Idler

that way. The chain of events had not been
broken, but of the thirty links of that month, I
had only five. Enough to show how much I
had lost, if nothing more. But five days afield
ought to prove something more than the record
of so many trivial facts. What of their signif-
icance? It is a sorry ending of a ramble if
we can recall only the fact that we were out of
doors. All the meaning of an occurrence is not
apparent at the moment it took place. Usually
but little of it is realized. The incentive to
seek adventure is the subsequent conversion of
the event into subject matter for thought. Only
thus is Nature made clear and man methodical.
The impression of a fact is of as much value
as the fact itself, and it is not enough merely
to state it. Facts need something stronger
than a bold statement to make them clear to
another. A fact, without an opinion, will call
for no opinion on the recipient's part. It is
ever the narrator's attitude towards the fact
that stimulates a reader and leads him to put
himself in the author's place. Were this never
true, a book about Nature would be a waste of
ink and paper. It is true, we are not concerned
with the merchant so much as with the quality

242

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

of his wares, but the wares of an author are
not so separable. The author makes or un-
makes the facts he gathers. Freed from his at-
titude towards them, from his enthusiasm and
impressions, they remain as nuggets of gold
awaiting the artist's skill to give them come-
liness. Eliminate the personal equation and
Nature in a book is paralleled by Nature in a
museum. Specimen facts are very like speci-
men stuffed-birds or minerals in a case.

Pope, in his earliest version of the Essay on
Man, has the line:

A mighty maze of walks without a plan.

That is what the earth is apt to be, but the
fault is our own. Walking without the art of
walking is much like a corpse as compared to
a living body. Whether mechanical or not, is
the question, and if not mechanical, but spiritual
to the extent of discerning the purpose of that
which is seen, then we do not walk in vain.

To enshroud in mystery is often but to wrap
yourself in ignorance. Call a thing mysterious
and there is no incentive to investigate its true
character. It is the common way of excusing

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The Eambles of an Idler

lazines We do not feel called upon to solve
knotty problems or to attempt the impossible, as
so much becomes when we deepen the mystery
that surrounds the outlook. It never occurs to
us that all this is but a process of our own mind.
We ascribe to Nature what does not belong to
her and simply render ourselves more and more
helpless a,s we stand gazing vacantly at what
transpires before us. The ascription of mys-
tery is a cunning device of lazy humanity.

The sense of ownership is a pleasant one ; the
impression of the superiority of our posses-
sions is not belittling. It is fortunate that the
even greater luxuriance of your neighbor's
fields is not apparent to you, for where envy
enters, peace of mind departs. Only feel that
you are particularly blessed and it is a fact
that you are reasonably fortunate. In short,
treasure your trifles as though they were unique
gems, for it is only through such intensity of
interest that positive value becomes apparent.
Distance should not always be allowed to lend
enchantment to the view. The battle of the
ants that Thoreau witnessed was a,s tragical as
any massacre of innocents or any war between

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Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

nations, and occurring near home, of more im-
portance. I have never found the world empty
where the traveller remarked contemptuously
that all was tame. Per contra, some of the
most superficial people I have ever met have
been the farthest travelled. They had never
seen the real countries they had crossed. Their
desert of Sahara and my sand-dune in the field
corner differed only in size. The real differ-
ence they never suspected.

As I walked by the creek-side this morning I
saw a pike dart like lightning from the lily pads
and I knew there was one minnow less in the lit-
tle school wandering up stream. Looking
across the meadow, I saw a hawk carrying off
a mouse, and later, in the dusty wood-road, met
with a wasp that dragged along a huge worm,
many times larger than itself. I looked in vain
for the comic side of Nature hereabouts. All
was serious, and to keep light-hearted I had to
overlook the actual conditions. I could have
witnessed tragedy all day and even been a par-
ticipant in more than one fray, had I chosen.
It may be very tame here at home, but disturb
a nest of yellow- jackets and there is excitement

245

The Rambles of an Idler

and danger equal to facing the average wild
beast. I do not underrate the desirability of
travel or of adventure in some far-off land, but
while content at home have no longing for wan-
dering beyond nightly reach of my den. Let
the Antipodians glory in their Antipodes.
Some trifling bits of wildness are all I have, but
while I have them, let me believe they are still
genuinely wild and the old oaks not yet deserted
by the good god, Pan.

Expectation, based upon hearsay, has usually
a sad ending. Fancy has only un-real colors on
her palette and paints a livelier rainbow than
Nature allows. So, it is well to curb our en-
thusiasm when recounting our experience, lest
our friend think we have found a real diamond
which, in truth, is but paste. But, if we disap-
points others, as surely others disappoint us
and the honors are easy. I have been induced
to travel far to see that which failed to interest
me and have brought others to some out of the
way nook in which I delighted, only to vex them
sorely over their loss of time. It is far better
to keep your discoveries to yourself and save
being laughed at for retaining a child's enthu-

246

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

siasm over little nothings. It has taken some
time to be convinced of this, but now I am firm
in the belief; and because the world at large
cares nothing for some meadow ditch or name-
less upland brook, I do not propose to abate one
jot my enthusiasm for what I find, even here
where nobody comes and all is tame.

Over the range of my rambles I found the
marks of the coming and going of destructive
men for more than two centuries, until almost
nothing was left, as Nature would have it.
Then, the place was forsaken of men, and while
their backs were turned, Nature repaired the
mischief and beckoned to me to come on.
Strange to relate, there seems to be a good
deal to occupy one where the traveller had pro-
claimed that all was tame. Where bigness only
counts, we are more apt to be excited than sat-
isfied. Fever heat is exhausting, not exhilarat-
ing and the re-action to commonplace condi-
tions too great a change: it proves a shock.
We do not need the element of danger or in-
tense excitement to make life enjoyable. As
well claim the necessity of alcohol to aid diges-
tion. The acorn still sprouts in the way it
always did and not a minnow in the brook but

247

The Rambles of an Idler

swims according to the rules laid down for the
huge fishes of the sea. We may drive off all
our bears, but there will be a raccoon in some
hollow tree. Beavers are long gone, but there
is the musk-rat. There never was a neighbor-
hood that did not contain one real, live hunter
who could make his living. The later, cheaper
edition tells the same story as the first, with its
abundant, full-page illustrations. Even here,
where all is tame, there are mud and water and
weeds just as Indians found them when they
wandered about, and such as the Dutch and the
Swedes and the English saw when they went up
into the land and took possession thereof.
Here, I regret, even from my own point of view,
all is tame, but compare it with brick pave-
ments.

If all is tame in a long settled country, please
always to remember it is even tamer when peo-
ple are about. Visit a trim woods when noisy
with a picnic and go afterwards alone to the
same place and you will know what I mean. A
tree, a bird and a cloud-flecked sky to yourself
half-way meets with your demand for wildness,
but you will never find a trace of it even in
the country, remote from town when a bab-

248

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

ble of men's voices drowns the babble of a
brook.

Where all is not tame, the wildness is too pro-
nounced to conceal itself; but here, where all
is apparently shorn of its savage or natural
state, the greater tax upon our cunning to dis-
cover the little that is left. The plowshare
never invades the very edge of the brook's bank,
so there is a little strip of earth that is left in
peace and the water that ripples by the sunken
root of an old tree, runs in the same twisted
channel as water found perhaps several cen-
turies ago. Here then is a chance for profitable
idling. Turn a little brook inside out and you
have built a museum. Surely, sufficient unto
each day is the wildness thereof.

As the sun was setting yesterday, the sand at
the water's edge was as smooth as the paper
upon which I am now writing. There was not
a line or a dot upon it. Now, twelve hours
later, it is covered with foot-prints of several
kinds and yet we speak of this spot as one
where all is tame. It would puzzle the most
practical hunter to trace back to its lair each of
the creatures that came here in the night and it

249

The Eambles of an Idler

would have been excitement, instruction and
keen pleasure enough to have witnessed what so
lately happened at this most commonplace
spot. Go to distant lands, if you will, to outwit
great beasts, but all the while a young rat un-
der your door-step, is outwitting you. Adven-
ture is at its best when human and brute wit
have a battle royal. Bullets and bigness may
prove very tame — mere butchery generally, for
hunter and game are seldom equally matched;
but armed only with dexterity and such other
gifts as Nature has vouchsafed you, try your
hand at capturing a chipmunk as it darts along
an old rail fence, and the chances are, if you
are candid, that you will entertain some whole-
some thoughts before the adventure is over.

Lead your coveted game into a trap and you
have cause for gratulation, but look out that you
are not led into one. I have never seen greener
grass than that mantling a quick-sand.

My interest is ever aroused by foot-prints,
especially such as crowd every little mud-bank,
like the one about which I so often linger, and
have lingered, these many years, yet have not
learned all they have to tell. Foot-prints are

250

Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

as suggestive of poetry as the transient thrush
is of a summer song; yet we are apt to pass
them by as mere chance markings of the im-
pressionable soil, and proceed in thought to
other and less weighty matters. Let us give
over for the present contemplation of " foot-
prints in the sands of Time ' ' and consider those
in a narrow strip of mud. To decipher them,
is no easy task. The hunter may know the
tracks of the game he seeks but here have
passed small deer quite beneath his notice ; and
let it ever be borne in mind by him who loves
an outing that where everything is tame, the
interest decreases with the size of the foot-
prints. Persecuted game and persecuting gurf-
ners are alike unattractive. The one has lost
through fear all its naturalness, the other his
better elements of humanity, so we will dismiss
them for the present.

The foot-prints before me now are in such be-
wildering confusion that to report them all is
impossible, but here is the impress of a large
turtle's foot and clearly a tail mark besides.
Crossing its trail, a meadow mouse has hurried
by. Beyond, a little way, a small snake has
crawled ashore and in its course, partly rubbed

251

The Rambles of an Idler

out the footprints of a spotted sand-piper. The
green heron and purple grakles have been here
and little curved lines, diminutive crescents in
orderly array, of pairs, suggest that a mud-min-
now rested at this place on its fins, before the
tide ran out. Still smaller markings are a mat-
ter of doubt, but many aquatic bugs and spiders
run lightly over the shining mud and leave faint
traces of their wanderings. At least one frog
has been squatting here and left a body print,
and if I had not seen that a shapeless depres-
sion was made by a grasshopper while still
floundering in the mud, it would have puzzled
the most clever paleontologist to decipher it,
had it been fossilized. Five or six representa-
tives of the great divisions of life have passed
to and fro in the night, and now, not long after,
I see but a single sparrow, hear a crow in the
distance, and observe no other evidence of ani-
mal life. Here, truly, not only is all tame, but
almost lifeless, judging from the present out-
look; but what a different story is told by the
footprints in the mud, the narrow strip of bare
earth hemming in a little meadow brook.

Having taken the initial step of determining
what forms of life have been here, there is an-

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Under the Oaks and Elsewhere

other to be taken, but with extreme caution.
This is, to determine the purpose of the crea-
tures that have passed to and fro. Usually,
there is nothing to guide us in this investiga-
tion, for if any struggle has occurred, the mud
is simply so beaten down that all traces of what
really happened are destroyed. We pass from
the acquirement of a fact to the realm of con-
jecture, yet we know tragedy is constantly oc-
curring. It is the search for food that prompts
an animal to move from point to point, and why
we see so little evidence of struggle is because
each creature knows its enemies and is ever on
the alert to escape. To kill and not be killed is
the burden of the single song sung by all crea-
tion.

Probably tragedy is writ large wherever
there is great confusion of footprints, but occa-
sionally there is a hint at comedy. Play, as
we see it in children, is common to other than
human life. Why should not meadow mice
dance by the light of the moon? Chipmunks
play "tag" and blue-jays are graceful in a
minuet.

253

CHAPTER SEVEN

FROM PILLAR TO POST

The strange fancy for saints' days! He or
she is a poor saint who is not entitled to all the
year, and, if really worthy of remembrance, to
be held in admiration at all seasons. I know
not whether any saint is peculiarly honored to-
day or not. My calendar, with its trifle of ad-
vice, says May 9th, and suggests going out of
doors.

I note, while standing by the door-yard elm,
that the warbling rose-breast, from his lofty
perch, tells the whole story of this month of
May. There are few men that do not need an
exemplar and I am thankful not to be an excep-
tion. This paragon of song-birds gives me the
hint. All I need to be happy is to whistle as I
go. Not to disturb the silence by blowing
through pursed lips, but letting the heart beat
to a merry tune. Many can please themselves
and not vex others, by thinking their music. As

254

From Pillar to Post

I walk, the wild birds shall be my spokesmen.
Never a saint lived that equals them.

There is an exasperating clique in the world
that delights in telling you to laugh at ill-luck
and continue trying. Close inspection of their
own careers usually shows that they have had
no ill-luck worth mentioning, and, worse yet,
have accomplished next to nothing, but set up
an appearance of grand success by the aid of
gold that they did not earn. He who is heaviest
gilt is ever readiest to give advice.

What is called "ill-luck" is the insurmount-
able wall that confronts us when we start in
life in the wrong direction. Success OT good
luck is wholly due to facing right at the outset.
How to discover the proper direction in the be-
ginning of a career is the most valuable knowl-
edge the world can possess, and, it may be
added, regretfully, does not possess. It would
do away with unhappiness, would open the eyes
to every quicksand, and there would be not an
obstacle in a path unprovided for before it was
reached. There would be an end to preaching;
life's complexity would become simplicity;
there would be a new world, that ideal one

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The Eambles of an Idler

which has figured in philosophic heads but never
materialized, and probably never will. Why,
then, not take this earth as we find it, as the
birds are doing this splendid morning, and be-
lieve that life is labor, fortune fickle, and noth-
ing worse can follow when our round of days
is at its end? This is a comforting thought, and
if it had only occurred to remote ancestors, a
little nearer Elysium would be our present-day
condition.

"The virtue of adversity is fortitude/' said
Bacon ; but who wants to be brave on an empty
stomach? Adversity robs life of its sweetness,
its juiciness; it converts it into the squeezed
rind of a lemon and, when thus reduced, why
should it put on an air of consequence and
exhibit fortitude? Does this "virtue" smooth
the wrinkled skin, fill the veins again with sap,
make the body comely in appearance and some-
thing again to be desired? Not a bit of it. It
merely keeps the coals of consciousness alive so
that they accentuate misery and prolong an
undesirable existence. If life is constant battle,
as some one has said, it is certainly not worth
living.

256

From Pillar to Post

I find, where I walk, a rusty pan among the
dead leaves and a vesper mouse has made a
snug home of it. It suggests that the art of
much comfort from little is better than sup-
posititious ease from much. He really does not
enjoy Nature who demands it in excess, and
must have oceans and mountains, and spurns
the modest hills and wood-girt ponds that are
round about him.

When the tide turns, as it so surely will, what
a sorry spectacle presents itself ! We are hope-
lessly miserable because our riches have taken
to flight; for the time, priding ourselves upon
our independence, but proving sadly dependent
after all. Nothing of all this is seen here on
this hillside. The blue sky and snow-white
clouds are emblems of peace. The fresh green
leaves are even merry, as the sunlight seeks
them out. They flutter, not in fear, but with
delight, and what a hymning of Nature's maj-
esty when thrush and oriole, robin and bobo-
link, give way to the joy within them, and every
breeze is laden alike with music and the breath
of flowers. It is well not to be envious, but
other forms of life have much to commend
them.

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The Rambles of an Idler

I have known those who had the merit of
being great in their littleness. What they did,
they did well. A community made up of such
men is as useful as congregated geniuses. Any
one of these may set a complicated work in
motion, but earnest, though less gifted, men are
needed to keep it from going astray or stopping
for want of trivial attentions. Because there is
nothing extraordinary about the most of us is
no reason for thinking little of ourselves, and,
above all, for being envious of those who have
accomplished wonders. That place is honorable
always, the outcome of which is the result of
honest endeavor. The fruit of effort in a small
way is not always small. Tender vines bring
forth big pumpkins.

Men are to be judged not alone by the com-
pany they keep. There are other evidences of
whether a man is as Nature proposed or as
misguided artificiality makes him. Take a look
into the house in which he lives. I have always
thought that the inconsequential carelessness of
trifles out of place give a home-like appearance
to a human habitation that spick-and-span or-
der can never do. The healthy man lives not

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From Pillar to Post

as if merely a machine ; so why should his place
of abode look like a museum with its treasures
in fixed and unvarying positions ? As the pinch
of salt at a feast, so a dash of carelessness adds
to the piquancy of a life.

Universality of assent is not evidence of
truth. Once upon a time it was universally
conceded that the earth was flat. So, to-day, we
have it dinned into our ears that woe betides
the hindmost in the race, and to be up and doing
is the paramount evidence of excellence and the
only way of making reward a certainty. Start
men on the subject and their speech runs into
sermons, lectures and dire prediction. It is all
very discouraging. The idea of rational enjoy-
ment must be postponed until we are overbur-
dened with acquisitions and our proper selves
stiff-jointed and dried until there is no response
to the invitation of Nature to be, not up and
doing, but out and enjoying. Youth is too often
a vaguely remembered dream before manhood
has had time to assume authority. To-day the
single aim of life is to get : no longer is it the
art of living.

Hare and tortoise: an old story, but never
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The Eambles of an Idler

outgrown. It is more applicable to-day than
when j33sop told it. It happens that an occa-
sional hare reaches the goal, but everywhere lie
the rotting carcasses of failure. The plodding
tortoise picks his way over them.

A great city is a necessity, and so, too, are
the great guns in a fort. Neither are to be
played with. The village need not hide its face
because, once a day, the stage-coach still stops
at the post-office. Yet a little farther : the farm
need not be jealous of the village. Its individ-
uality rests on a broader base. He is as much
a success in the better meaning of the word who
tills his fields as is the master of a town lot. It
is true many a man is but a speck on his farm
and the least missed of all objects when he
leaves it ; but the farm is not at fault. Nature
turns us out in the rough and it rests with our-
selves how we are finished. There is no divinity
except in ourselves to shape our ends. The
field and wood and meadow can overwhelm us
or we can tap the well-head of their secrets and
be crowned their master. The chances are in
our favor. Nature is not jealous of our efforts.
At times she looks kindly upon them. In the

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Prom Pillar to Post

country we have freedom to work our will.
Who can say as much of city-life !

It is a matter of taste whether we choose the
city or the country, and happily we are free to
choose; but why the city assumes superiority
and presumes to dictate is a problem yet un-
solved.

This is a perfect afternoon. The earth rests
content with what has been accomplished, and
the rank growths that for months struggled to
conceal the scarred meadows have succeeded,
and now rest, crowned with purple and gold.
There are the vervain, dodder, scarlet lobelia,
eupatorium, mallow, cone flower, sunflower,
bidens and sneeze weed, an almost endless
series of stately blooms that now give dignity
to the matured season, yet not one awes the
myriad forms of life that here find their home;
for since the glacial floods retired and the
blessed sunshine warmed the turf, there has
been an endless struggle between plants, as well
as animals, to maintain a roothold and a foot-
hold here. This beautiful meadow is one of
Nature's garden spots, and this is a perfect
afternoon.

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The Eambles of an Idler

Nature does not demand silent adoration.
Grand as is the outlook in all respects, no crea-
ture is awed to the point of silence, nor is there
blank astonishment because of the magnificence.
It is no transient phenomenon. The greater the
brilliancy of a sunset sky the more quickly it
fades; but here is equally lavish display of
color, which is not evanescent. It is here to be
enjoyed, and stays long enough to color our
thoughts, to teach us, if we are willing to be
taught.

From every foot of ground rises that rhyth-
mic stridulation of the mole-crickets, which,
heard from all sides, is as the meadows breath-
ing. I look to see if the sod does not rise and
fall as the pulsing sound swells loudly or almost
dies away.

Difficult as it is to define and hopeless to de-
scribe adequately, an unmistakable presence
pervades the meadows now. This vast sheet of
color and accompanying volume of sound unite
to exert a controlling influence over all life with-
in its bounds. We, too, feel this influence, if in
a proper frame of mind.

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The crow wanders from the leafy wilderness
of the tree-tops, circling in mid-air as if without
a purpose, and only hurries away when vicious-
ly attacked by a king bird. The redwings, that
have recently gathered, come from many an
upland swamp, leisurely seeking the tide-
washed marsh, and exert themselves no more
than feeding calls for. The uncertain robins
still question whether it is time to give up their
summer habits, but finally unite their forces,
and, as an ill-formed troop, go bungling along
over hill and dale. The bobolink of springtide
days is here again, but, in the sober guise of a
reed bird, utters only a single note, not so much
an eloquent lament on the passing of summer
as it is a voicing of August's meditative days.
I know it, above many another, as a bird-note
that leads to retrospection on my part; sober,
sad retrospection formerly, but not so now. I
no longer wish that summer lasted through all
the months. I follow now the example set by
the blue birds that throng the air. Whatever
the time of year theirs is a hopeful song. A
change continuous from grave to gay, but no
such dark foreboding as from life to death.
August now, and nearing the end of summer,

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The Eambles of an Idler

but neither the month nor the season calls for
a funeral hymn. It is only wise to say ' l Good-
bye, " expecting a quick return. With the eye
of faith we can detect a ray of light in all the
thick darkness we meet. Looking backward, it
was but yesterday that it was August, as it now
is, and why, looking forward, should it be a
longer time before it comes again? This is a
perfect afternoon, and if the last of such for
the passing season, it is not a long waiting, and
never an idle, objectless one until August comes
again. Nature is a long series of events crowd-
ing each other, not as single beads on an inter-
minably long string. A perfect afternoon, typi-
cal August, with activity everywhere, but not
that nervous hurrying to and fro of early sum-
mer. Leisured activity, rather; the studied
movement of age, not the rash impetuosity of
youth. We see, in June, more than we can com-
prehend. In August we comprehend more than
we actually see. Facts so crowded we fail to
detect their significance, in early summer; sig-
nificance and fewer facts, now. June — August.
It is and it has been. June, the present; Au-
gust, the past tense of summer. Eecall the sea-
son in mid-winter and see how true this is.

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Had we never heard the songs of birds in
May, songs anticipating the triumph of love,
or listened to the songs of June, the grand
chorus of love triumphant, we should find no
lack of merit in the quiet melodies of an August
afternoon; but Memory holds us to the past
with the grip of an iron hand. We hear, but
not without keen recollection, of an earlier
song. This is sobering, but not to the point of
sadness. We are not cast down, but walk at a
slower gait. We contrast all we see and hear
with all seen and heard. It may not be what
we wish, but there is no escape.

The meadows this afternoon were less of the
earth, earthy, than usual. It was dreamland
rather, and, walking thereon, I was less a ram-
bler than a dreamer, and as such I reached the
wooded slope that hems in the meadows. The
shade was refreshing, but not so the absolute
silence. Not even a leaf on the aspens trem-
bled. The oaks and the beeches were motion-
less, fixed as the very earth itself. I became
impatient. Life was very real again. The
heavy hand of sober August thoughts was too
hard to be borne, and to see a bright red leaf

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The Rambles of an Idler

of a gum tree falling slowly to the ground was
a relief. Was it the signal for a coming
change, I wondered? Whether that or not,
straightway I heard the sharp chirping of a
thrush.

It was not the lively note of early summer, a
response to its mate or a warning cry to its
nestlings, but a fretful, labored attempt to give
utterance to disquieting thoughts. This chirp
at other times is the prelude to a song, but
would it prove so to-day? I listened long
enough to become thoroughly doubtful and im-
patient. The influence of August does not quite
subdue the "old Adam" that is in us. I could
have thrown a stone at that irritating thrush.
Even its chirp w'as but illy uttered more than
once, but then after a suggestive pause I heard
a few sweet notes.

How quickly came a vision of June days!
Sunrise, when all the world was merry at the
thought of day ; sunset, when all the world was
glad to rest from the long hours of merriment
gone mad. A few sweet notes only, and I was
young again. Now would come once more the

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whole-souled summer song, I was certain, and
listened eagerly, peering into the thicket before
me. But no, there were but those few notes;
not loud, not exuberant, but full of depressing
suggestion. Summer was past, as the thrush
saw the world about it. The bird knew full well
the meaning of that colored leaf, of the wilder-
ness of yellow bloom that canopied the brook,
of the purple veil thrown over half the waste-
land. It felt, too, the trifling trace of chill that
came with the evening breeze. The happy days
were over. If it sang at all, it would be to drive
away dull care; whistling to keep up its cour-
age until it, too, left its home and all the happi-
ness of a short-lived summer.

Farewell, the greenwood tree,

This shady dell;
This home, so dear to me,

Farewell, farewell.

Then, briefly, the thrush was roused by its
thoughts to a somewhat livelier mood, and the
song of June was sung as in other days; yet
not quite the same. I could not be deaf to a
trace of sadness running through it all. There
was now left no fresh, green leaf, nor even one

267

The Eambles of an Idler

glittering dew-drop, nor violet on the still
green, sunny slope; why should the bird re-
joice? The song shortened to a few brief notes,
a meditative strain eloquent with thoughts of
happier days. Then, silence. I had heard the
thrush's last song.

I am always active when there is work to do :
I run away from it; yet it is intimated that I
am lazy. Not only is this activity on my part,
but it is speedy. Not unwise haste, either. I
protest against being adversely criticized.

Long ago I gave up serious undertakings.
When I was through, as I supposed, I always
found there was something yet to do. There
was no exception, and I did not propose to bat-
tle with a law of Nature. I resigned activity of
my own initiative and ever since have been an
advocate of ease.

We contemplate the ideals that unwittingly
arise in our minds. I think no one says to him-
self, "I will be a model," but, "I will model
myself after" — such an one. It is so much
easier to follow than to lead. It taxes both
mind and body less. Whom I copy is nothing
to others, but I do copy. He was nothing if

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not original, I thought. I know better now.
He was but the fruit of observation and read-
ing, as was everybody before him and since.
Adam copied the animals and learned many a
lesson from the trees ; otherwise he would have
proved a flat failure. Absolute originality is
only an ideal. I follow in footsteps that pressed
the sod a century ago, and sometimes, as my
reward, fancy I echo him who has been gone
so long. I find myself stopping, looking wise
and feeling really happy, as though perchance
I had a worthy thought.

It is not altogether true that, being finite, we
can have no conception of the infinite. It is
readily understandable that there is no limit
to space. There may be a limit to the number
of celestial bodies, but no boundary to the space
they occupy. Of whatever point some one
should say, ' ' This is the limit of space, ' ' there,
it must be admitted, is an outside as well as an
inside of the boundary. In human affairs it is
the same story on a ridiculously small scale;
everywhere stand the suggestive outposts
marking what is before, not what is behind,
them.

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The Rambles of an Idler

I love to live on these outermost bounds of
habitable earth. The interior everywhere soon
grows commonplace, but there is freshness and
novelty as we wander from the centre to the
circumference. There is more to see. People
are all well enough in their way, but, as a strug-
gling crowd of strangers in a town, the most
tiresome objects in the world; while life, as I
view it, is comfortably near to Nature at the
outposts. We can see farther ahead, there,
than we dare venture, but the desire to explore,
ever uppermost, has chance for exercise. So,
to-day, had I been in town, I would have heard
the street-cars rattle ; as it was, out of it, at an
outpost, for the town can be seen by looking
backwards, I have Bob White whistling at my
elbow, and thrushes, finches and warblers all
a-tune, with the twittering swallows to fill in
the chinks when bird-song fails.

"In this pleasing . . . wood-life . . .
let me record day by day my honest thought
without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot
doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I
mean it not and see it not. My book should
smell of pines and resound with the hum of

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insects." It is never safe to quote Emerson.
All that follows suffers so much. Too like a
jewel that has fallen into the mud; but, pre-
sumptuous as it may seem, I had thought his
thought and crudely set it down before I had
met it in " Self -Reliance."

How is one's book to be made to smell of
pines? No treatise on literature sets forth the
secret. I know that years ago I sent an essay
on a brook to an editor and he suggested that I
must have seen a brook after a protracted
drought, for what I said of it was dry as dust.
I have no exalted opinion of editorial omnisci-
ence, but probably in this case he was right. A
sworn-off, bibulous husband took a glass of beer
now and then, during his wife's absence, but the
secret indulgence was discovered. She smelt it
in the ink, when he wrote her a letter. We are
too sober when we record what we have seen
and heard. The intoxication of the passing
moment should be riotous within us when we
record not what we have witnessed but what we
are now seeing; our eyes not on the paper, but
the object. Let the pen or pencil take care of
itself, and if held by the fingers of genuine
merit, they will do so. The eye and the ear

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The Rambles of an Idler

have so much that is spiritual to concern them,
the mechanical device of writing should not en-
croach upon their time when out of doors. Let
the fingers limp over the note-book as best they
can. Time enough later to interpret your hiero-
glyphics. In such a way, perhaps, a tree-smell-
ing book can be made. Memory is treacherous.
She can plan our discomfiture in short order.

If we cannot bring back the dead, we can re-
call the past, even a past of which we pre-
viously had never heard. Here I stand on the
slope of gently rising ground, looking *up and
down a valley of incomparable grace. Below
me, only a short distance off, ripples a little
brook. The shallow water spreads like a sheet
of glass over a floor of pebbles. It is a live
brook, and to-day sings the pretty song it sang
two hundred years ago ; sings it to me as it did
to the Indians for centuries. The mellow sun-
shine and October's scarlet leaves do the best
they can to hide the ugly scars that come from
man's assault upon Nature, for this valley of
to-day was yesterday a prosaic mill-pond. Ill-
luck for its owner, but good luck for me, that
the dam is gone and the blessed sun again sees

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earth which for two centuries has been
drowned. The corpse cannot be revivified, but
Nature does what she can. The sun dries the
sodden mass of mud; the autumn leaves clothe
its nakedness. And so it is, I can stand where
my forbears stood in the dawn of colonial days
and see what they saw. The dead are still
dead, but the dead past returns to me.

Who shall say when the waters of this little
brook began to babble 1 This small stream, hid-
den by trees that no man ever saw, may have
been seeking an outlet to the river, when life
that long since outgrew its usefulness wandered
along it and slaked its thirst in silent, unsunned
pools. Nature can take us by the hand and lead
us backward as well as forward, if she will, and
so she did, to-day. I saw this trifling wrinkle
in the world's face, a wooded valley, tortuous,
long and deep, and as Nature would have it,
save the mud-plastered stretch that should have
been green. Man's necessities work havoc with
Nature's purposes. She accepts the change for
a time, but occasionally shows her resentment,
as when the storm washed away the dam. She
had accepted it here and the pond was very
pretty, but I could never forget that it was a

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The Eambles of an Idler

pond. It contradicted the outlook, as if water
was running uphill. "How pretty !" exclaims
the casual passer-by. How grand the valley
with its brook, is my impression. A slab of
polished wood is very attractive, I admit, but I
love better the tree as it stands. I have a few
friends, and trust I appreciate them; but I
should not care to have a piece of one of them,
however skillfully preserved, standing about as
bric-a-brac. A submerged section of a valley
is not to be preferred to the handiwork of Na-
ture. What Nature herself submerges is beau-
tiful and fitting, but mill-ponds and Nature are
ever at war, and I march, as a private, in the
latter 's company.

The empty mill-pond sets one to thinking. It
would do so, whatever the conditions of the day,
but now it is superb Indian summer and a col-
ored landscape is more intoxicating than one
uniformly green. Not all browns are dingy and
suggestive of decay. Now, there is no dull pro-
cession of sober thought, no serious occupation
with life's imperious problems, but all is merri-
ment, laughter, song. The sun shines on us
with approving smile ; there is invigorating, not
depressing, warmth, and wandering warblers

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seeking the Southern woods, tarry in a con-
tented way as if the goal of their journey had
been reached. No leaf, to-day, falls like a clod,
but floats like a fairy in the golden air and
touches earth at last, so lightly, that we look
for it to rise again and seek its one-time sum-
mer home in the tree-top. Nature herself is a
poet beyond compare these dreamy days. Why
should I call to mind any of life's realities?
The grinning crew are awaiting me when I face
the world again, while here is not the world but
the valley of a dead past, and I can walk and
think of what I will, even to imagining myself
an English settler, a subject of Queen Anne ; —
anything at all but the plagues of my existence,
the grim fact that this is 190- and not two cen-
turies ago.

Nature loves to spin us around in a sudden
fashion that is startling but wholesome, if not
pleasant; and out of the airy realm of fancy
face us toward a stern fact. It was so with me
to-day. I saw a large portion of a tree encased
in clay. Not silicified, but woody enough to
burn, when dry, and yet it has been in this bed
of clay for, who can tell, how many centuries.
If the clay is cretaceous, a cautious geologist

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The Rambles of an Idler

will say for more than a million years ! How
easy to write these words: how difficult to get
any real conception of what they mean! This
prostrate tree-trunk did not grow alone ; it was
one of many; of a forest that flourished before
men were, and when the lord of creation was a
gigantic lizard. "The dust we tread upon was
once alive.'7 No one questions this, but how
few consider what one-time living worlds are
beneath us all the while ! A forest full of liz-
ards, and streams with sharks, and shallow
bays with creatures grim beyond words. We
do not let our minds out when we pick up a
fossil ; do not conjure up a picture of its day,
its habitat and surroundings ; its associates and
the daily routine of its existence. I have heard
the remark: Who cares for what happened a
million years ago? The fool, forever rooting
in the filth of the present, hoping to smell out a
dollar, does not, that is certain.

An empty mill-pond, ay ! and an empty head
who sees nothing in it but space that should be
filled with water. The world is nowhere empty.
The void we deplore is really 'twixt our scalp
and eye-balls, when we chatter in such fashion.
The whole story of this empty mill-pond will

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never be told. Life is too short. Its opening
chapter deals with time so distant we cannot
conceive it, and not a day has since been lost.
Nature's diary is no petty note-book. Man fig-
ures no more largely in it than a rock or a tree.

Again an autumn day to be remembered.
Some small words are to many a large thought
like the trigger to the gun; speak the one or
pull the other and great results follow. An
autumn day ! He must be stolid indeed who is
not moved by the mere mention of it. A day,
this, that comes all too seldom; a mellow day,
like to a perfected apple, as fair to the touch
as to the taste; and thus it happened, in my
walk, that I was stayed by the ruins of an old
spring-house. It is rare good luck to have an
autumnal and atavic day in one. This is what
remains of a spring-house my great-grand-
father built. Who lined the spring with peb-
bles, whether red man or white, I do not know,
but Indians knew these sparkling waters well.
The ashes of their camp-fires are not yet scat-
tered to the winds. Potsherds are still abun-
dant in the surrounding soil. But these people
have had their day and may joy go with them ;

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The Kambles of an Idler

I am concerned with those who followed. They
were fine days, I fancy, when folk lived just a
little nearer Nature. The cool butter and the
sweet milk that came from the spring-house,
where never a breath of summer entered, were
better, I am sure, than the frozen fat and for-
maldehyded milk of to-day. Artificiality has
its place, and ice in summer is a blessing; but
there is no need to pity those who had a spring-
house near the kitchen. Food then was whole-
some, and no question concerning it could arise.
Looking over an old letter, I find a descrip-
tion of a home-coming dinner. Served now,
some people might rebel. No fancy foreign
dishes, nor even ice-cream ; but there was whole-
some beef, fresh-killed chicken, home-grown
vegetables with all the sweetness Nature had
packed into them, sugar-preserved fruit and
syllabub; and what needed to be cool was
brought straight from the spring-house with
the coolness of a bubbling spring and an un-
tainted atmosphere about it. How could our
forbears have done without modern conven-
iences? is often asked. Well, they did, but that
which fore-ran what we now have met every real
need. Our grandfathers never went hungry,

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From Pillar to Post

and did not know, as we do, about loss of appe-
tite. Nearer to Nature : that is the whole secret.

Sitting on the trunk of a prostrate tree, an
old chestnut that once shaded half this pretty
spot, I recalled this day, a century ago. Some
of the nearby trees were then standing. The
outlook has suffered no serious change. Even
the stone-paved pathway from the kitchen door
is not yet gone. The heavy air dulls the sounds
of the busy to-day and the more leisured yes-
terday of 1804 comes back, for leisure entered
largely into existence then. Not idleness, but
unperturbed occupation. Those were days of
healthy, not fevered, activity; and, I notice,
they built their houses and bridges of stone, and
they still stand. Those were days of oak, not
hemlock, and the spring-house before me would
not be a ruin, had not man deliberately de-
stroyed it in part.

Deliberate days, then. Here is an extract
from an old letter: "How extremely disap-
pointed were we this morning in not receiving
a letter. So anxious were we to hear. Mother
arose very early and went up to Trenton to
breakfast. We were informed the packet from
the Springs was to be in last night. We have

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The Rambles of an Idler

concluded it was not neglect of thine in not
writing, but that of the postmaster in not send-
ing any letters to Newark before the mail there
closed, which we hear is often the case." Post-
masters took the world easy then, even if it did
disturb others somewhat, on rare occasions.
What a rumpus is kicked up, now, if a letter is
delayed! Surely we do things better in these
advanced days. No one gets up before break-
fast to get a letter. It is left at his door. All
true, but here is another letter, from which I
extract: " There was wild confusion in the
middle of the night on fourth day last, the dogs
barking furiously, and then we had Washington
— not the General — shouting like mad. We
were all quickly astir, and father and brother
John were out, half-clad, in response to Wash-
ington's call for help. I got there, too, some-
how, and such a sight ! A wild-cat had squeezed
its way into the spring-house and the dog kept
it from escaping. Such a sight, I say, but fun-
niest of all, Washington had put one foot en-
tirely through a milk pan, and, it being pretty
dark, he was kicking at it with his free foot as
frantically as if the cat itself was fastened to
his leg. Poor Nero suffered from the beast's

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From Pillar to Post

claws, and father thinks he should be killed,
but we all say No, and are nursing him by turns.
He is a queer-looking dog, in bandages, but very
patient, and I am sure quite understands what
it all means. I came near forgetting to say that
the cat escaped and we are afraid now to go,
after dark, over to neighbor Pearson's."

A wildcat in the spring-house ! Here we are
getting close to Nature, and who can say that
country-life since then has not suffered! We
have refrigerators now, it is true, and Tabby
puts her nose in, it may be, if the door is left
ajar, but a wildcat in the spring-house ! We of
to-day are all too late. We missed much by not
reaching the earth earlier.

Here is an extract from still another letter,
written ninety years ago : ' ' Jane came rushing
into the kitchen, a little after dark, quite out of
breath and declaring between gasps that she
had seen a ghost. Father laughed and said he
would like to see it, but Jane would not go out,
so father and I went to the spot as she directed
us. I tell thee beforehand I never want to see a
real live ghost. What father and I saw was
quite sufficient. The moon was shining through
the misty air and a great white object moved to

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The Rambles of an Idler

and fro directly across the narrow path between
the great oaks near the stile. I confess to shud-
dering when I saw it, and father did not walk
bravely, to say the least. Then we came to a
stand when a great owl hooted. I wanted to
turn back, but father said No, and yet did not
move forward. What would have happened I
do not know, but just then the moon shone out
more brightly and we saw that it was a great
cobweb covered with dew. Then father chuckled
to himself and we came back to the house. I
am glad it proved no ' stubborn unlaid ghost,'
as Milton has it, but I fear Jane can never be
convinced."

It is never a serious task to find a Garden of
Eden. Only our unreasonableness blinds us
when the search is made. No flaming swords
warn us to keep away from Earth's prettiest
spots, and if Adam had a nobler tree than my
meadow hickory under which to nest, or a fairer
outlook than the long line of wooded bluff con-
fronting me, then he had more than he could
appropriate. There was no richer green then
than Nature now provides, nor any more grace-
ful or intricate an arrangement of bloom and

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foliage. The line of beauty is older than the
world. Doubtless there was more beauty in
Adam's garden than in my own, but not greater
beauty. We have perfection at hand when we
can discover no blemish, and so, this blessed
October day, the meadow is a Garden of Eden,
and I have no regret that the site of the older
one has been long forgotten. The cursing of
the grounds beyond its confines was local, not
circumambient. Were there better things here,
man would have to be better to enjoy them. My
meadow hickory meets all my needs ; within the
range of its refreshing shade the world is
Edenic, I am not troubled because Adam lost
his garden. That was so long ago, regret no
longer dims the sunshine of the soul ; and here
I have a garden that calls for no improvement.
Content transfigures the desert.

It is not within the range of descriptive pow-
er to make plain to another all that goes to the
making of a perfect day. What, indeed, is a
"perfect day"? The Eskimo would curse
roundly at many such as we consider nonpareil.
The tropic islander pictures Sheol as a land of
ice. Where, I would ask, is the imperfection of
any day? The cyclone is an ugly thing to meet

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The Eambles of an Idler

if we are unprepared; tempests and tornadoes
are not children's playthings, but they have
their points of interest to a healthy man. Na-
ture is something more than " sweet sixteen/'
and man should be above forever dangling
about this pretty but not thought-stimulating
phase of creation.

There is no lack of the Edenic in the world,
and the flaming sword that guarded sacred
places has long been sheathed ; but there is lack
of ability to discover them. Thorns and this-
tles are as easily handled as gossamer or feath-
ers if we have acquired the art, and it is not
the fault of thistles or thorns if we remain ig-
norant. We are forever protesting against the
consequences of our own ignorance, but it would
be well to remember that thorns and thistles
have been longer on -the earth than man, as the
rocks testify; and to assert that their purpose
is to render our lives miserable is the climax
of silliness. I do not know why the truth should
be forever suppressed and our vision distorted
by the whims of ignorance.

That is a perfect day when we can meet it on
equal terms, and that man's condition ap-
proaches to ideal health and strength when the

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From Pillar to Post

beauty of the day's purpose is made plain to
him who faces Nature in her most exaggerated
moods. The driving rain, the sullen blast, the
crashing of branches yielding to the storm, are
too full of meaning to be ignored, yet personal
comfort usually controls and we are blind to
all that happens about us. Huddled in our
dens, we scarcely peep out of the holes until
some confiding thrush announces that the skies
are clear. Every day is perfect of its kind, and
those people are lacking who are equal to only
one sort of day. We can have our Eden any-
where, and we are not to be despoiled unless we
elect to permit it. Demonstrate your unfitness,
and the penalty of violating the laws of com-
mon-sense will be your portion. Perhaps Adam
deserved to be turned out, — it is an open ques-
tion,— but he need not have been plagued with
thorns and thistles had he been what man is
capable of being.

The advantage of the Eden of to-day is that
all restrictions on our curiosity are removed.
"We can taste of every fruit and are urged to
do so. Our limitations of knowledge are due to
our laziness. We are treated more fairly than
Adam the first.

285

The Rambles of an Idler

I well remember one hot August day when
all the world seemed bathed in molten brass, a
day suggestive of cosmical catastrophe, of sail-
ing in the wake of a consuming planet, when a
universal shooting up of flames would not sur-
prise us; and here, at such a time, I found a
cool, sweet spot where the shaded brook laughed
as it hurried towards the outside world. It was
a trifle of the temperate clime enclosed by the
tropics. I found it, tarried, and was happy.
Moral: Look for an Eden wherever you are,
and the chances are you will find it. It is only
a hopeless quest when you are persistently un-
reasonable, and reject ice when it is not as hard
as flint, or scorn a quartz crystal because it is
not a diamond. Paste can be very pretty, al-
though but paste. Put it to no severer test than
the eye brings to bear upon it, and the sense of
vision will be pleased. Everywhere the world
is graded from diamonds to paste, and why re-
ject the latter and be miserable? Paste has its
part to play, and had better be allowed to play
it well than for us to rebel because it is not a
diamond. As if the hillock should hide itself
because there is a mountain in the distance.

Eden is bounded only by the limits of the
286

From Pillar to Post

sphere. Adam lacked wisdom so far as not to
consider fully the advantage at hand before
seeking greater ones beyond his reach. Con-
tent our weapon, we may laugh at flaming
swords. Eden is ours if we elect to move for-
ward and possess it.

If all was good and fair we met,
This earth had been the Paradise.

I should keenly regret this sentiment being
accepted universally as good philosophy. I do
not think it is philosophical at all. What is not
good a,s we view it is so because we view it
wrongly. The fault is in ourselves. What is
truly ugly! Our imperfect vision makes many
a straight line crooked, and twists to unseemly
angles the curve of beauty. All ugliness is in
ourselves. I love the earth too dearly to hear
it maligned.

If all were good, goodness would cease to be.
It is a comparative condition, and rational en-
joyment consists in appreciating that what is
might be less, as we would have it. Had we no
recollection of sour, unripe fruit, we would lose
the delight of eating fruit that is perfect. Just
in proportion as we take the affairs of life as

287

The Eambles of an Idler

matters of course, do we cease to realize their
goodness.

This is equally true of what we see. Nothing
is easier than to defend ugliness successfully.
Let me bring this home in a painfully direct
way. Does loveliness depart as the cruel years
hurry by? Where is that charming face which
captured the heart when youth was at the helm?
Time has writ wrinkles where the brow was
once as polished marble, but does the lover
cease to be a lover because of it? Has the
charm fled? Does the word "ugly" even enter
into the mind ? Such things have been, I admit,
but the imperfection of man in such a case is
abnormal. All else is perfect or marvel ously
near it. Man alone is yet in a formative stage,
and this is his sole excuse for the ugliness that
is in him and found nowhere else. Falling
short of what he ought to be, he cries out
"ugly" at whatever he fails to realize in its full
significance. "Ugly" is but the echo of man's
deficiency.

The rotting carcass fills us with disgust. All
our senses are sickened when we face such an
object ; but let chemistry come to our aid, and,
while we may still be desirous of avoiding the

288

From Pillar to Post

process, what transpires is the very essence of
poetry, the reincarnation of what now cumbers
the ground. A rotting carcass ! How the very
mention of it moves us to shudder ! But in due
time that body will reappear as the vigorous
tree, the beautiful flower, the green grass; no
longer an entity, but its parent dust mingled
with the dust of the earth, the mother of all
things, that now gives it a new birth, as beau-
tiful as before. Consider the purpose, also the
ultimate result. The painter's palette wearies
the eye ; the tubes with their pigments that are
slowly vomited forth are ^adly repelling to a
sensitive soul : be patient. That same soul will
be enraptured when the canvas is ready for his
eye.

A certain Dr. John Lightfoot, very learned in
his day, so it is said, decided and announced
that Eden and the rest of the world were cre-
ated B.C. 4004, October 23, at nine A.M. This
then, is the five thousand nine hundred and
ninth anniversary, and nowhere can it be bet-
ter celebrated than at the foot of the meadow
hickory. Why! Because I am satisfied. I am
celebrating the day. For music, I have the
songs of many birds ; for applause, the cawing

289

The Rambles of an Idler

of crows; as to speech-making, that is my af-
fair. To my neighbor this date has no special
significance, which is fortunate, for there is
nothing in this world that is not ruined by a
crowd, not even an anniversary.

Better, on such a day as this, to be audience
than actor. There is something in the air sug-
gestive of a holiday. The regular course of
affairs appears to have been set aside. Birds
whistle with the animation of children at a pic-
nic. It is not a day to listen to anyone who
discourses on physics or mentions ozone. If
one man can bring himself to believe this is the
day and date of creation, why should not an
other play the fool and keep up the farce?

Seated at the foot of this old hickory, I call
the place Eden because at this moment the sky
is blue. This alone is cause for thankfulness.
There are masses of white clouds anchored in
the east, castles, hills, meadows, and strange
shapes of an airy world, white as new-fallen
snow and tinged with pink, — a picture that can
never tire, fancy weaving a new story of it all
when next we look. 'Twixt cloudland and the
earth sail, in wide-reaching circles, red-tailed
hawks. Birds, these, prosy enough, nearer at

290

From Pillar to Post

hand, but each a stanza, now, in the poem : Oc-
tober. Still nearer, the bluebird, telling over
the joys of long summer days or carrying the
message of the frosty air, making merry over
the past, finding nothing but happiness in the
present. The song of the bluebird straightens
many a crooked line as we listen. All the snakes
in the meadow may hiss at once, but the blue-
bird's voice will be heard above them. By so
much my Eden of to-day is in advance of the
Eden of old.

The tall growths of the weedy marsh are
stately still. They have grown gray, and many
a seared blossom is a sad reminder of departed
strength, but the dignity of age remains. The
reed, the mallow, and the rank wild rice have
the art of growing old gracefully, something
too often neglected among mankind. Clustered
in the marsh, they were but the homes of sum-
mer birds when I last saw them, but now they
invite to individual inspection and stand the
test of my exacting mood. The marsh-wrens
have departed and the king-rail and little bit-
tern no longer skulk in the weedy wilderness,
but I have no feeling as of one wandering
through a deserted house. The guests are gone,

291

The Rambles of an Idler

but the host remains. Though bent with the
weight of days, many a proud plant is excellent
company. Suggestive friends are as desirable
as communicative ones. Who has not known
the latter to say too much? The marsh is not
"open" only for a season. The summer guests
are gone, but as noble a company of autumn
friends have come or are coming. How, then,
can all things Edenic be ever wanting? My
friends, the birds, are never absent long. Sit-
ting by the marsh, I join with the plants and
play the part of host. Though its leaves are
falling, the noble hickory is no less a tree, and
brown meadows are as firm and upholding as
when grass was green. Birds are singing, too.
The lark, the redwing, and the crested tit an-
nounce the goodness of all they see, but no-
where do we find evidence of a world begun.
All points to maturity. The present Eden never
flashed into being in October.

Hidden from the truth-telling out-door world
by walls of musty tomes, I fancy I can see the
learned Dr. Lightfoot delving industriously for
the fact that in grotesque shape finally made
him ridiculous. Let us turn from so sad a sight
and have the meadows again before us. Such

292

From Pillar to Post

an outlook neyer leads us astray. Eden in Oc-
tober, but not a new-born one. An autumnal
Elysium here, now, this twenty-third of Octo-
ber, but no trace of the beginning of such glory
remains. The forest with its crimson banners
is a retreating, not an advancing host. What
was promised has been accomplished, and this
is the theme to-day of all rejoicing. If there be
Edens and Edens, not a single one, that being
long lost, then grade them as to character only,
for their value is the same. There is that Eden
created every bright May morning : there is the
Eden of an October day.

Paradise was not for a brief space and never
to return. The world is a series of short-lived
creations. Paradise is daily lost, perhaps ; but,
if you so desire, it is also, daily, Paradise re-
gained.

Shall I call thee Bird

Or but a wandering voice?

The echo is seldom as distinct as the original
sound and not every October day is even sug-
gestive of summer. At its best, the month is
something more than imitative. It has charac-
teristics all its own. Quiet enthusiasm, so at-

293

The Kambles of an Idler

tractive to those not young, finds fitting hours
in the tempered sunshine. Life is less a mys-
tery. The frost has cleared the air and we see
more clearly what the round year means. The
yellow leaves point hackward, and thought, in
October, is prone to travel in that direction.
Nature's activity is on the wane. Few are the
singing birds, but many the wandering voices
in the air. Whatever the time of year, there is
a marked difference between forenoon and aft-
ernoon. It needs no knowledge of the sun's
position to tell the hour. Meridian passed,
there is that lessening of activities so sugges-
tive of Nature taking a post-prandial nap. I
speak only of clear, sun-lit days, when the few
cloud-masses, drifting overhead, pass by un-
heeded.

This is a perfect day. There is no speck or
flaw upon it. He who would search for a blem-
ish is not worthy of the dregs of earth. There
is gossamer now, but no cobwebs. The grass
glistens; the dead leaves are not dingy, and
what beauty they have is not concealed. What-
ever is, is best of its kind. It is now October,
not May. A ripe day, not a green, maturing

294

From Pillar to Post

one. We have had our roses; now it is the
ruddy cheek of the apple. A fair exchange,
and we do not return empty handed from a
ramble. I remember the beautiful blossom of
the oak and am equally pleased with the pol-
ished acorn. I recall the frail flowers that
could be only looked upon, but many a berry
and seed pod now can be handled safely. The
sense of touch is gratified. In May we discover
beauty; in October we carry it home triumph-
antly.

Mid-afternoon now, and all things idle. Even
the lithe branches of the weeping willow move
only in their dreams. The passing breeze dis-
turbs nothing in its path. Quiet prevails ; not
one distracting sound reaches me, yet there is
not absolute silence. As when a long-forgotten
song comes back to us, and another day is pic-
tured in the mind, I hear a few, faint, uncon-
nected notes, a fragment of springtide music.
I look in vain for the bird that utters it. Every
tree and bush beneath it is alike deserted. I
hear a wandering voice.

As deftly as the skilled musician touches the
keys of the piano or draws the bow across the

295

The Rambles of an Idler

respondent strings, this wandering voice plays
upon the heart and opens up the fullness of our
lives. The ecstatic minstrelsy of May thrilled
youth to the pitch of madness. It was a joy to
live in the heyday of the year 's energy, but not
less so now. Sadness finds no welcome. A
wandering voice replaces the singing bird, but
the change is not to be regretted. We can pic-
ture in the October landscape all the roses of
June and be blind, the while, to their investing
thorns.

Life is to be measured by its results and not
by the energy expended. So with the year. The
hurried procession of sestival bloom; the trees
and shrubs and annual upstart weeds with end-
less intricate patterns of green leaves; the
grand chorus of the struggle for supremacy, if
not existence — the bewildering tumult of the
year in its youthful days; of all this we can
think now, discussing each separate merit at
leisure, and live over again such moments as we
choose. It is the fitting employment of sucli an
afternoon as this; thought's harvest hour.

The sudden appearance, momentary stay and
abrupt departure of single migrating birds is a

296

From Pillar to Post

feature of an October afternoon that is full to
the very brim with delightful significance. We
find such birds set down in the text books as
"stragglers/' thus giving as mean an impres-
sion as possible, and, worse than that, an incor-
rect one. Late autumn migrants warrant no
such conclusion as their being victims of some
mishap. They fly with vigor, hold themselves
erect and scan the prospect proud as Lucifer,
and, better than all else, whistle a few bars of
a merry tune, or warble in lower strain, as their
mood directs. Such are these scattered birds
when within the range of vision ; when not, then
the no less suggestive wandering voices in the
air.

Assuming that we have been diligent until
now and studied Nature since our year's out-
ings commenced, we can now contemplate her
as a whole and put by analysis until spring
comes again. It is well to make such a change
at the proper time. He misses much who can
see a diamond only as a form of carbon. The
sparkle of the crystal is lost, and our lives need
the diamond's play of light and color as much
as the body needs food. Sunshine resting on
an autumn leaf should not be profaned by math-

297

The Eambles of an Idler

ematical calculations. Life is weighted with
plain prose and to spare ; grant us, at least, the
poetry of one October day.

Within the range of my rambles there are
few abrupt changes. I cannot recall any at
present. October is not something new, sepa-
rate and apart, but the summer's afterthought.
The last Turk's-cap lily had not fallen before
golden rod brightened the dingy weeds along
the roadside ; that was in August, and now crim-
son leaves still cling to the maples, and scarlet
creeper glows wherever it has found support
for its sinuous, tangled growth. Color contin-
ues, and what does it matter that it is not the
bloom of youth, but the hectic flush prophetic
of decay! October is better fitted for consid-
ering color, per se, rather than its chemistry.
The same is true of what we hear. Specific
identification is too serious a subject to be
undertaken now. It signifies nothing what
bird sings or chirps. We hear a sound that
shapes a day dream merely ; the bird is forgot-
ten ; we dally only with a wandering voice.

So pass the idle hours of an October after-
noon. Idle, yet full of significance; so ful] that

298

From Pillar to Post

we think faster than when confronted by May's
marshalling of facts. The spiritual element
that is a reality and demonstrable, stands so
prominently in the foreground that the founda-
tion and material fabric are but dimly seen.
This is the subtle charm that makes October
memorable. It is hard, indeed, to be otherwise
than materialistic early in the year; it is more
difficult not to be spiritual in autumn. The bird
that sang so charmingly in May was, neverthe-
less, of the earth, earthy ; not so to-day the wan-
dering voice I hear.

The fading light and lengthening shadows
mark a change that brings us back to all things
as they are. The hum of a million insects fills
the air. Activity replaces idleness. The rocks
are no longer softened by the golden haze, but
are rugged, hard and cold again. The breeze
freshens ; the falling leaves are hurried to the
ground. The change is complete; the world is
again to be considered as a fact and not con-
templated as a fancy.

The air hints of frost. A white mist, slowly
rising from the marsh, loosens the hillocks from

299

The Rambles of an Idler

their moorings, and now they are as islands
dotting the surface of a new-born lake. The
owl is astir; the bat flits silently above the
gloom. Activity increases. The cricket grows
noisier as night draws near. Again, it is the
busy world. Again, it is the old struggle for
gain, rather than the enjoyment of it. But why
care ? As I retrace my steps, following the old,
familiar path, above the rustling of crisp
leaves, above the roar of endless hosts of insect
life, I hear a wandering voice.

300

INDEX

Abbott's Landing, 1

Accentor, Insistent, 67, 172

Accidents, 188

Acorns, 234

Adversity, virtue of, 256

^Esop, quoted, 260

Age, advance of, 152

Almanacs, 130, 133

Angling, 187

Animal Intelligence, 171, 176

Animals, enemies of, 210

Antipodes, dwellers at, 246

Apples, 198, 227

Apple-tree, 61

Archaeologists, 113

Aristotle, 4

Arrow-points, 113, 166, 175

Artificiality, 62

Assunpink Creek, 7

Aster, 233

Atlantic Ocean, 70

Atmosphere, " colonial," 164

Attics, 97, 164

Authors, originality of, 116

Authorship, 122

Azalea, pink, 62, 165, 170

Bacon, quoted, 256
Bats, 98
Bear, 248
Beaver, 248
Beeches, 95, 154, 233

" Three," 85
Bidens, 261

Birds, since 1874, 149
" quarrels among, 183
songs of in winter, 149
young, enemies of, 83

Bittern, great, 80
little, 251

Blackberry pie, 106

Bladderwort, 180

Blizzard of 1888, 52

Blue-bird, 52, 102, 135, 142,
149, 151, 226, 271, 263

Bluet, 165, 170, 233

Blue- jay, 135, 225, 237

Bobolink, 263

Bobwhite, 270

Books, modern, 117

Botanists, 114

Bowlders, 233

Bugbears, 122

Bugs, aquatic, 252

Buttercup, 62, 170

Button-bush, 177

Buttons, old, 166

Cabbage, skunk, 68, 130
Calendars, 115, 254
Camp-fires, Indian, 277
Candlesticks, Colonial, 99
Candor, 160, 192
Canton, China, 99
Cardinal, 101, 135, 142, 151
Catbird, 66, 90, 101, 165
Cedar, 6
Cellars, 97

301

Index

Chat, 69, 165
Cherry, wild, 105

wood, 6
Chestnut, 217
Chickadee, viii, 237
Chipmunk, 250, 253
Cicada, 103
Clamor of Crowds, 136
Claytonia, 233
Clouds, 290
Cobwebs, 34
Colonial dinner, 278
Colonists, English, 216
Columbine, 62
Comets, 4, 82
Common sense, 185
Cone flower, 261
Cram, W. E., quoted, 74
Crane's bill, 170
Creeper, blacK and white, 172
Cretaceous clay, 275
Cricket, black, 300

leaf, 104

mole, 106

Crosswicks Creek, 188
Crow-blackbirds, 49
Crows, 124, 127, 135, 252, 263
Crystals, 4

life of, 42
Cuckoo, 108
Cynthia, 89
Cypripediums, 235

Dandelion, 56, 165
Darkness, disadvantages of,

155

Dewdrops, 268
Dirt, real nature of, 160
Dodder, 261
Dogwood, 139
Druids, 221
Dutch settlers, early, 248

Eagle, bald, 215

Ecclesiastes, 117

Eden: Past and Present, 282

Electricity, 162

Elm, 114, 184, 217

" insect foes of, 154
Elysian field, 163
Emerson, quoted, 230, 271
Entomologists, 114
Erebus, 156
Erigeron, 89
Eskimos, 43, 283
Eupatorium, 261

Ferns, 174
Fiddle-heads, 174
Finch, thistle, 104
Fish-hawk, 215
Fish, tree-climbing, 222
Fishes, diurnal, 181

intelligence of, 181
" nocturnal, 181
Flies, 241
Floods, glacial, 261
Flycatcher, great — crested,

103

Flycatchers, 214
Foot-prints, 249
Forest floor, 231
Forerunners, our, 147
Fortinbras, 81
Fossil wood, 275
" Freshet of '41," 8
Frogs, 80, 137, 146, 237
Frost, 299
Furnishings, household, old,

99
Furniture, old, 4

302

Garden of Eden, 282
Geologists, timidity of, 110

Index

Golden rod, 233
Gossamer, 37
Grakles, purple, 49, 252
Grape, 105
Grasshopper, 252
Green-brier, 105
Grosbeak, rose-breasted, 54

60, 164, 254
Gum tree, 217, 266

Hamadryad, 86
Hamlet, 81
Hare, 259

Hawk, scream of, 57
Hawks, 135, 245
Heart's Ease, 146
Heron, green, 84

" night, 80, 158
Hickory, 290
Hornbeam, 239
Hornet, nest of, 75
Huckleberries, 235
Humming birds, 174
Hyla, 134
Hylodes, 134

Idea, new, what constitutes,

120

Idleness, v
Ill-luck, 255
Inanimate objects, perversity

of, 185
Indians, 30, 113, 165, 175, 211,

216, 233, 248, 272, 277
Indian summer, 274

" relics, 165, 175
Indigo finch, 102
Iris, 89

Jack-in-the-pulpit, 170
Jeremiah, 117
Job, 117

303

Kalm, Peter, quoted, 78
Katy-did, 104, 230
Keats, quoted, 239
King-bird, 102, 263
King-fisher, 179

Leaves, second growth of, 101
Letters, old, quoted, 279
Library, defined, 126
Lightfoot, Dr. John, quoted,

289

Lily, pond, yellow, 180
" turk's cap, 298
" water, 165, 245
Linden, 72
Literature, 202

Aristotelian, 118
Emersonian, 118
Dantesque, 118
" Darwinian, 118

Homeric, 118
modern, 118
Shakespearean,

118

Virgilic, 118
Lobelia, scarlet, 261
Lungwort, purple, 165
Lysimachia, 89

Mallow, 261

Man, enemies of, 210

Maple, 105, 217

March 21, significance of, 142

Mastodon, 232

Maurice River, 2

Mayday, 55, 163

May, wet days in, 63

Meditations, peripatetic, 152

Meeting house, Friends', 96

Memory, grip of, 265

" treachery of, 272
Milfoil, 165, 180

Index

Mink, 240

Minnows, 239

Misfortune, excellence of, 204

Montana, 75

Moose, 232

Morning, an Alpine, 41

Moss, 234, 236

Mouse, field, 176, 210
" meadow, 240, 251
" white-footed, 226
" vesper, 257

Muskrat, 240, 248

Nature, 153

" number three in, 169
" source of inspiration,

117
" views of, 126

Natural history, trustworthi-
ness of, 212

New Jersey, 64

Night's Plutonian shore, 128

November, nut-brown, 223

Oak, chestnut-leaved, 222
" Crosswicks', 32
" insect foes of, 154
" white, great size of, 221

Oaks, Under the, 216

Opossum, 226

Oenothera, 89

Originality, an ideal, 269

Oriole, 257

Ornithology, newspaper, 149

Oven-bird, song of, 172

Owls, 80, 157, 197

Ownership, sense of, 244

Oxygen, 162

Ozone, 162

Pan, 246
Paradise, 4, 293

304

Peewee, wood, 102, 184

Penstemon, 89

Perch, pirate, 181

Persimmon, 217

Pewter plates, 141

Phlox, 89

Pickerel weed, 165

Pike, 211, 245

Plantain, rattlesnake, 235

Plant-life, submerged, 179

Plants, aquatic, 165

Plover, killdee, 135

Pluto, 99

Pope, Alexander, quoted, 243

Poplar, Lombardy, 65

Potsherds, 277

Prayer Book quoted, 204

Pumpkins, 258

Quakers, 31
Queen Anne, 275

Rabbits, disease among, 228
Raccoon, 248
Rail, king, 291
Rain, 161

" -bow, 246
Rattlesnake weed, 235
Rats, 98
Raven, 128
Redstart, 170, 172
Redwing, 53, 263
Reed-bird, 203
Reindeer, 232
Rice, wild, 291
Richelieu, 214

Robins, 102, 135, 142, 149, 151
Rocks, riddle of the, 110
Rose-breasted grosbeak, 54, 60,

164, 254
Rushes, 229

Index

Sahara, desert of, 245
Saints' Days, 254
Salamanders, 237
Sandpiper, 252
Self-reliance, 271
Senecio, 89
Shellbark, 225
Shelley, quoted, 89
Shelter, 183
Sheol, 283
SkunK, 226
Sleep, 137
Snake, black, 156

" water, 141
Snakes, 140, 251
Sneeze- weed, 261
" Snow-flakes," 44
Solitude, its merits, 58, 153
Solomon, 117, 121
Sparrow, English, 103, 182
field, 80
song, 101, 135, 149,

151

Sparrows, 28, 252
Spatter-dock, 165
Spice wood, 235, 240
Spiders, 252

Spring, commencement of, 133
flowers of, 143

" poets, 148
Squirrel, flying, 80
Squirrels, 176, 228, 237
Star of Bethlehem, 165
Strawberry, wild, 169
Sunfish, banded, 178

" common, 178
Sunflower, 261
Sunrise, 190
Swallows, 171
Swedes, 248

Terrapin, rough-backed, 174

Thalictrum, 89

Thoughts, company of one's,

148

Thoreau, quoted, 209, 244
Thrush, 61, 69, 95, 101, 165,

267

Tit, crested, 27, 135
Toad, tree, 105
Toads, intelligence of, 157
Tortoise, 259
Trees, growth of, 71

" old, 30
Truth, 136

" sacrifice of, 195
Turtle, snapping, 180
Turtles, 105, 174, 237

Violet, white, 146
Violets, 62, 143, 268
Vireo, red-eyed, 69

" warbling, 69

" white-eyed, 102
Voice, a wandering, 293

Temperature, fall of, 76

Walking, 4

Warbler, Blackburnian, 171

Canadian, 219
" summer, 172
Warblers, 164, 172, 226
Weasel, 210, 240

voice of, 74
Weather bureau, statistics of,

65

Weather wisdom, 137
Web, spider, 241
Wildlife, truthful, 197

" and weather, 69
Willows, 105
Windflower, 170
Winter, end of, 130
" wreckage of, 154

305

Index

Woodpecker, golden- winged, Wren, marsh, 80, 291

72 Wrens, 101
Wren, Carolina, 107, 125, 127,

131, 135, 142, 219 Yellow- jackets, 245
Wren, house, 72, 75, 182 " -throat, Maryland, 172

306

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STANLEY PAUL'S
COLONIAL LIBRARY.

£|pl^to ^•fuj< 5M* (JL jKlt \ fc • ^..-v.,.,,

* Not for sale in Australasia. ** Not for sale in Canada.

NEW NOVELS BY POPULAR AUTHORS.

'

A series of copyright novels by eminent authors for
circulation in India and the British Colonies only, pub-
lished, as far as possible, simultaneously with their
appearance in England. Each volume issued in cloth,
gilt, also in paper covers.

Kindly write to STANLEY PAUL & Co., CLIFFORD'S

INN, LONDON, ENGLAND, for their complete Descriptive

Catalogue.

The Stage Door. ARTHUR APPLIN.

Christian Murderers. WINIFRED GRAHAM.

The Fiance of Mdlle. Saint Maur. VICTOR CHER

BULIEZ.

An Actress's Husband. GERTRUDE WARDEN.
Brother Officers. HORACE WYNDHAM.
Serle's Secret. FLORENCE WARDEN.
Pretty Fanny's Way. R. MURRAY GILCHRIST.
Mrs. Whiston's House Party. THOMAS COBB.

STANLEY PAUL'S NEWEST NOVELS.

Love, the Thief. HELEN MATHERS.

The Trickster. G. B. BURGIN.

Did She do Right ? A. J. MACDONNELL.

The City of the Golden Gate. E. EVERETT-GREEN.

The Gay Paradines. MRS. STEPHEN BATSON.

The Ghost Pirates. WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON.

An Adventure in Exile.** RICHARD DUFFY.

The Flame Dancer.** F. A. MATHEWS.

The Dream — and the Woman. TOM GALLON.

The Bottom of the Well.** FREDK. UPHAM ADAMS.

The Leveller.** ALEXANDER MCARTHUR.

In Calvert's Valley.** M. PRESCOTT MONTAGUE.

The Vortex., FRED WHISHAW.

Gay Lawless. HELEN MATHERS.

Priests of Progress. G. COLMORE.

The Adventures of a Pretty Woman. FLORENCE
WARDEN.

A Bishop's Plight. DONALD THANE.
Stolen Honey. ADA AND DUDLEY JAMES.
Shoes of Gold. HAMILTON DRUMMOND.
The Secret Terror. " BRENDA."
Go-Heiresses. E. EVERETT- GREEN.
Heartbreak Hill.** HERMAN K. VIEL£.
Banzai !*** " PARABELLUM "
Troubled Waters. HEADON HILL.
The Broken Snare.** LUDWIG LEWISOHN.
Strange Fire. CHRISTOPHER MAUGHAN.
The Chippendales.** ROBERT GRANT.
A New Novel. WINIFRED CRISPE.
Tropical Tales. DOLF WYLLARDE.
Rose of Dauphiny. PHILIP L. STEVENSON.
A New Novel. A. WILSON -BARRETT.

Modern Artists. CHRISTIAN BRINTON.

350 pp. Go Half-Tone tinted Illustrations, 4 Coloured Plates,
and a Photogravure. 4to. 255. net.

The Dauphines of France. FRANK HAMEL.

Author of " Famous French Salons," etc. With 16 Full-page
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. Gilt top. i6s. net.

The Artistic Side of Photography. A. J. ANDERSON.

With 24 Half-Tone and other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 125. 6d.
net.

The Romance of Fra Filippo Lippi. A. J. ANDERSON.

Photogravure Frontispiece and 16 Illustrations. Demy 8vo.
IDS. 6d. net.

Prehistoric Proverbs.

With Water- Coloured Drawings by LAWSON WOOD. IDS. 6d. net.

The Samaritans. JAMES H. MONTGOMERY.

Demy 8vo. los. 6d. net.

Political Annals of Canada. A. P. COCKBURN.

Demy 8vo. los. 6d. net.

Douglas* Encyclopaedia.

Fully illustrated. Demy 410. IDS. net.

The Appreciation of the Drama. CHARLES & CARO-
LINE A. CAFFIN. Crown 8vo. Illustrated. 75. 6d. net

Quantities, Taking Off, Abstracting and Billing.

GEORGE STEPHKNSON, Author of "Estimating, Repairs," etc.
Demy 8vo. Cloth, gilt. With Drawings to scale. 75. 6d. net.

Wall Paper Decoration. ARTHUR SEYMOUR JENNINGS.
4to. 75, 6d. net.

Our National Songs. ALFRED H. MILES.

With Pianoforte Accompaniments. Full music size. Crown 8vo.
Cloth, gilt edges. 6s.

A Child's Guide to Pictures. CHARLES H. CAFFIN.

Crown 8vo. 55. net.

A Child's Guide to Mythology. HELEN A, CLARKE.

Crown 8vo. 53. net.

The Rambles of an Idler. CHARLES C. ABBOTT.

Crown 8vo. 58. net.

4

The A B C of Collecting. J. H. YOXALL, M.P.

Crown 8vo. Fully illustrated. 55. net.

The A B C of Collecting Old English China.

J. F. BLACKER. Crown 8vo. About 150 line and half-tone Illus-
trations. 55. net.

The A B C of Collecting Old Pottery. J. F. BLACKER.

Crown 8vo. About 400 Illustrations. 55. net.

A Book of Brave Boys. ALFRED H. MILES.

Illustrated. Large Crown 8vo. Gilt edges. 55.

A Book of Brave Girls. ALFRED H. MILES.

Illustrated. Large Crown 8vo. Gilt edges. 55.

The Boy's Book. E. KEBLE CHATTERTON.

Illustrated. Large Crown 8vo. 55.

In the Teeth of Adventure. ALFRED H. MILES.
Illustrated. Large Crown 8vo. Gilt edges. 53.

The Library of Elocution.

392 pp. Large folio. Cloth. 55.

Coloured Designs for Wall and Ceiling Decoration.

Edited by ARTHUR SEYMOUR JENNINGS. Port folio. 45. net.

Woman in Music. GEORGE P. UPTON.

Crown 8vo. Cloth, gilt. 35. 6d. net. (Also in Persian Yapp.
55. net.)

The Practical Arts of Graining and Marbling. JAMES

PETRIE. In 12 parts. 35. 6d. net each.

The Aldine Reciter.

4to. Cloth. 550 pp. 35. 6d. net.

Practical Gilding, Bronzing and Lacquering. FREDK.

SCOTT-MITCHELL. 175 pp. Crown 8vo. 35. net.

Practical Stencil Work. FRKDK. SCOTT- MITCHELL.

172 pp. Crown 8vo. 35. net.

Practical Church Decoration. ARTHUR Louis DUTHIE.

176 pp. Crown 8vo. 35. net.

Decorators* Symbols, Emblems and Devices. GUY

CADOGAN ROTHERY. 119 Original Designs. Crown 8vo. 35. net.

Specifications for Decorators' Work. FREDK. SCOTT-
MITCHELL. Crown 8vo. 35. net.

The Painter's and Builders' Pocket Book.

(New Edition). PETER MATTHEWS. 35. net.

Saxon's Development of Physical Power.

Fully illustrated. Cloth, gilt. 35. net.

The Little Adventures of Miss Kitty Tipsy Toe.

Louis MORGAN SILL. Illustrated, as. 6d. net.

Billicks. A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK.
Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.

Home Occupation for Boys and Girb. BERTHA
JOHNSTON. Small 8vo. Cloth. 2s. net.

How to Train Children. EMMA CHURCHMAN HEWITT.

Small 8vo. Cloth, as. net.

Your Health ! (A Book of Bright Toasts).

Compiled by IDELLA PHELPS, with Coloured Illustrations on each
page by HELEN ALDEN KNIPE. i8mo. 2s. net.

Phases, Mazes and Crazes of Love (As the title indi-
cates). Compiled by MINNA THOMAS ANTRIM, with Coloured
Illustrations on each page by CLARA ELSENA PECK. i8mo. 2s. net.

The Diners-out Vade Mecum, or after Dinner
Toasts and Speeches. ALFRED H. MILES.
Fcap. 8vo. is. 6d. net

Arnold's Handbook of House Painting, Decorating,
Varnishing, Graining, etc. HERBERT ARNOLD.
Crown 8vo. Cloth, is. 6d. net.

Ballads of Brave Women.

By various Authors. Edited by ALFRED H. MILES. Crown 8vo.
Cloth, is. 6d net; Paper, is. net. (Paste grain, gilt, 35. net.
Persian Yapp, gilt, 45. net.)

Drawing-Room Dualogues, Playlets, Monologues, etc.

By various Authors. Edited by ALFRED H. MILES. Crown 8vo.
Cloth, gilt, is. 6d. net; Paper, is. net (also in Leather Bindings,
as above).

6

STANLEY PAUL'S
NEW SERIES OF READABLE FICTION.

Clolli, 2s. net. Paper is. net. Illustrated Covers.

The Widow, to say nothing of the Man. HELEN

ROWLAND. Illustrated. Third Edition.
The Spell of the Jungle. ALICE PERRIN.
A Ten Pound Penalty. H. NOEL WILLIAMS.
Priests of Progress. G. COLMORE.
The Sins of Society. CECIL RALEIGH. (Vol. I. of the

"Drury Lane Novels.")
The Marriages of Mayfair. E. KEBLE CHATTERTON.

(Vol. II. of the " Drury Lane Novels.")
A Professional Rider. Mrs. EDWARD KENNARD.
Gay Lawless. HELEN MATHERS.
Thoroughbred. FRANCIS DODSWORTH.
The Devil in London. GEO. R. SIMS.
The Unspeakable Scot. T. W. H. CROSLAND.
Lovely Woman. T. W. H. CROSLAND.
Brother Rogue and Brother Saint. TOM GALLON.
The Death Gamble. GEO. R. SIMS.

The Shilling Music Series.

Edited by At, FRED H. MILLS. Each with Pianoforte Accom-
paniments. Full Music Size. is. net each.

1. FORTY ENGLISH SONGS. 5. FAVOURITE BONGS FOR THE

2. FIFTY SCOTCH SONGS. CONTRALTO YOICB.

3. THIRTY-SIX ENGLISH SONGS 8. SONGS OF THE QUEEN'S NAVEE.

AND BALLADS. 7. FAVOURITE BONGS FOR THE

I. FIFTY IRISH AND WELSH SONGS. TENOR VOICE.

Ideal Cookery. LILIAN CLARKE. (loth Edition.)

8vo. Boards, 6d. net.

Punctuation Simplified. T. BRIDGES. (22nd Thousand).
Medium 8vo. 6d. net.

STANLEY PAUL'S NEW RECITERS.

EDITED BY ALFRED H. MILES.
The Up-to-Date Reciter.

Hall Caine, Conan Doyle, and others. 410. 96 pp. 6d. net.
Cloth, is. net.

The First Favourite Reciter.

By well-known Authors. 4to. 6d. net. Cloth, is. net

The Modern Reciter.

1 12 pp. Paper, 6d. net.

The Scotch Reciter.

128 pp. Paper, 6d. net.

The English Reciter. PART I.

128 pp. Paper, 6d. net.

The English Reciter. PART II.

128 pp. Paper, 6d. net.

The American Reciter.

128 pp. Paper, 6d. net.

The Shakespeare Reciter.

128 pp. Paper, 6d. net.

The A 1 Reciter Series.

(Over half-a-million copies already sold.) By various Authors.
Edited by ALFRED H. MILES. Each in large folio, paper cover,
well printed. Price 6d. each.

1. THE A 1 RECITER.

2. THE A 1 SPEAKER.

3. THE A 1 BOOK OF RECITATIONS.

i. THE A 1 ELOCUTIONIST.

6. THE A 1 READER.

6. THE A 1 BOOK OF READINGS.

French Gardening Without Capital.

E. KENNEDY ANTON. In Medium 8vo. Cloth, gd. net; Paper,
3d. net.

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