Cornell Mniversity Library

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND
THE GIFT OF

Henry W. Saae

189i ”*

Cornell University Libra

‘Tinian

Cornell University

Library

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022149847

Riverside Cpition

THE WRITINGS OF
JOHN BURROUGHS
VOLUME II

-

Chis dition is limited to One Chougany Acts

fi

THE WRITINGS OF |, ae
JOHN BURROUGHS,

Ribergune Edition

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO

WINTER SUNSHINE

BY

JOHN BURROUGHS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Che Viverside Press, Cambridge

1895

ye

Copyright, 1875, 1895,
By JOHN BURROUGHS.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. 8. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

PREFATORY

Tue only part of my book I wish to preface is
the last part, — the foreign sketches, — and it is not
much matter about these, since, if they do not con-
tain their own proof, I shall not attempt to supply
it here.

I have been told that De Lolme, who wrote a no-
table book on the English Constitution, said that
after he had been in England a few weeks, he fully
made up his mind to write a book on that country ;
after he had lived there a year, he still thought of
writing a book, but was not so certain about it, but
that after a residence of ten years he abandoned his
first design altogether. Instead of furnishing an ar-
gument against writing out one’s first impressions of
a country, I think the experience of the Frenchman
shows the importance of doing it at once. The sen-
sations of the first day are what we want, — the first
flush of the traveler’s thought and feeling, before
his perception and sensibilities become cloyed or
blunted, or before he in any way becomes a part of
that which he would observe and describe. Then
the American in England is just enough at home to
enable him to discriminate subtle shades and differ-

vi PREFATORY

ences at first sight which might escape a traveler of
another and antagonistic race. He has brought with
him, but little modified or impaired, his whole in-
heritance of English ideas and predilections, and
much of what he sees affects him like a memory.
It is his own past, his ante-natal life, and his long-
buried ancestors look through his eyes and perceive
with his sense.

I have attempted only the surface, and to express
my own first day’s uncloyed and unalloyed satisfac-
tion. Of course I have put these things through my
own processes and given them my own coloring (as
who would not), and if other travelers do not find
what I did, it is no fault of mine; or if the “ Brit
ishers ”’ do not deserve all the pleasant things I say
of them, why then so much the worse for them.

In fact, if it shall appear that I have treated this
part in the same spirit that I have the themes in the
other chapters, reporting only such things as im-
pressed me and stuck to me and tasted good, I shall
be satisfied.

Esorus-on-Hupson, November, 1875.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. Winter SuNsHINE . ‘ . F ‘ 1

II. Toe EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD . a 23

Ill. Tue SNow-WaALKERS a ‘i i * , 41

IV. Tue Fox . ‘ z é F e f . 67

Vv. A Marcu CHRonIcie ¥ z . ‘ . » 85

VI. Autumn TIDEs 5 “ F ; ‘i ‘ 97

VII. Tur Aprie . ‘ . é ‘ ‘ a - 1183
VIII. Aw Ocroprer ABROAD:

1. Mellow England. ; * ‘ é « 181

ut. English Characteristics . é : - 170

ur. A Glimpse of France ‘ . : r - 185

iv. From London to New York e i i 204

INDEX . i é . . , . ‘ ‘i . 237

The frontispiece and vignette were etched by W. H. W. Bick-
nell.

WINTER SUNSHINE

I
WINTER SUNSHINE

A® American resident in England is reported as

saying that the English have an atmosphere
but no climate. The reverse of this remark would
apply pretty accurately to our own case. We cer-
tainly have a climate, a two-edged one that cuts
both ways, threatening us with sun-stroke on the
one hand and with frost-stroke on the other; but
we have no atmosphere to speak of in New York
and New England, except now and then during the
dog-days, or the fitful and uncertain Indian Sum-
mer. An atmosphere, the quality of tone and mel-
lowness in the near distance, is the product of a
more humid climate. Hence, as we go south from
New York, the atmospheric effects become more
rich and varied, until on reaching the Potomac you
find an atmosphere as well as a climate. The lat-
ter is still on the vehement American scale, full of
sharp and violent changes and contrasts, baking and
blistering in summer, and nipping and blighting in
winter, but the spaces are not so purged and bare;

2 WINTER SUNSHINE

the horizon wall does not so often have the appear-
ance of having just been washed and scrubbed down.
There is more depth and visibility to the open air,
a stronger infusion of the Indian Summer element
throughout the year, than is found farther north.
The days are softer and more brooding, and the
nights more enchanting. It is here that Walt
Whitman saw the full moon
“Pour down Night’s nimbus floods,”
as any one may see her, during her full, from Octo-
ber to May. ‘There is more haze and vapor in the
atmosphere during that period, and every particle
seems to collect and hold the pure radiance until
the world swims with the lunar outpouring. Is
not the full moon always on the side of fair weather ?
I think it is Sir William Herschel who says her
influence tends to dispel the clouds. Certain it is
her beauty is seldom lost or even veiled in this
southern or semi-southern clime.
It is here also the poet speaks of the
“Floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous,
Indolent sinking sun, burning, expanding the air,”’
a description that would not apply with the same
force farther north, where the air seems thinner and
less capable of absorbing and holding the sunlight,
Indeed, the opulence and splendor of our climate,
at least the climate of our Atlantic seaboard, cannot
be fully appreciated by the dweller north of the
thirty-ninth parallel. It seemed as if I had never
seen but a second-rate article of sunlight or moon-
light until I had taken up my abode in the National

WINTER SUNSHINE 3

Capital. It may be, perhaps, because we have such
splendid specimens of both at that period of the year
when one values such things highest, namely, in
the fall and winter and early spring. Sunlight is
good any time, but a bright, evenly tempered day
is certainly more engrossing to the attention in
winter than in summer, and such days seem the
tule, and not the exception, in the Washington
winter. The deep snows keep to the north, the
heavy rains to the south, leaving a blue space cen-
tral over the border States. And there is not one
of the winter months but wears this blue zone as
a girdle.

I am not thinking especially of the Indian Sum-
mer, that charming but uncertain second youth of
the New England year, but of regularly recurring
lucid intervals in the weather system of the Virginia
fall and winter, when the best our climate is capable
of stands revealed, — southern days with northern
blood in their veins, exhilarating, elastic, full of
action, the hyperborean oxygen of the North tem-
pered by the dazzling sun of the South, a little bit-
ter in winter to all travelers but the pedestrian, —
to him sweet and warming, —but in autumn a
vintage that intoxicates all lovers of the open air.

It is impossible not to dilate and expand under
such skies. One breathes deeply and steps proudly,
and if he have any of the eagle nature in him it
comes to the surface then. There is a sense of
altitude about these dazzling November and Decem-
ber days, of mountain tops and pure ether. The

4 WINTER SUNSHINE

earth in passing through the fire of summer seems
to have lost all its dross, and life all its impedi-
ments.

But what does not the dweller in the National
Capital endure in reaching these days! Think of
the agonies of the heated term, the ragings of the
dog-star, the purgatory of heat and dust, of baking,
blistering pavements, of cracked and powdered
fields, of dead, stifling night air, from which every
tonic and antiseptic quality seems eliminated, leav-
ing a residuum of sultry malaria and all-diffusing
privy and sewer gases, that lasts from the first of
July to near the middle of September! But when
October is reached, the memory of these things is
afar off, and the glory of the days is a perpetual
surprise.

I sally out in the morning with the ostensible
purpose of gathering chestnuts, or autumn leaves,
or persimmons, or exploring some run or branch.
It is, say, the last of October or the first of Novem-
ber. The air is not balmy, but tart and pungent,
like the flavor of the red-cheeked apples by the
roadside. In the sky not a cloud, not a speck; a
vast dome of blue ether lightly suspended above the
world. The woods are heaped with color like a
painter’s palette, — great splashes of red and orange
and gold. The ponds and streams bear upon their
bosoms leaves of all tints, from the deep maroon of
the oak to the pale yellow of the chestnut. In the
glens and nooks it is so still that the chirp of a
solitary cricket is noticeable. ‘The red berries of

WINTER SUNSHINE 5

the dogwood and spice-bush and other shrubs shine
in the sun like rubies and coral. The crows fly
high above the earth, as they do only on such days,
forms of ebony floating across the azure, and the
buzzards look like kingly birds, sailing round and
round.

Or it may be later in the season, well into De-
cember. The days are equally bright, but a little
more rugged. The mornings are ushered in by an
immense spectrum thrown upon the eastern sky.
A broad bar of red and orange lies along the low
horizon, surmounted by an expanse of color in
which green struggles with yellow and blue with
green half the way to the zenith. By and by the
red and orange spread upward and grow dim, the
spectrum fades, and the sky becomes suffused with
yellow white light, and in a moment the fiery scin-
tillations of the sun begin to break across the Mary-
land hills. Then before long the mists and vapors
uprise like the breath of a giant army, and for an
hour or two one is reminded of a November morn-
ing in England. But by mid-forenoon the only
trace of the obscurity that remains is a slight haze,
and the day is indeed a summons and a challenge
to come forth. If the October days were a cordial
like the sub-acids of fruit, these are a tonic like the
wine of iron. Drink deep, or be careful how you
taste this December vintage. The first sip may
chill, but a full draught warms and invigorates.
No loitering by the brooks or in the woods now,
but spirited, rugged walking along the public high-

6 WINTER SUNSHINE

way. The sunbeams are welcome now. They seem
like pure electricity, —like friendly and recuperating
lightning. Are we led to think electricity abounds
only in summer when we see in the storm-clouds, as
it were, the veins and ore-beds of it? JI imagine it
is equally abundant in winter, and more equable
and better tempered. Who ever breasted a snow-
storm without being excited and exhilarated, as if
this meteor had come charged with latent aurore of
the North, as doubtless it has? It is like being
pelted with sparks from a battery. Behold the
frostwork on the pane, —the wild, fantastic lim-
nings and etchings! can there be any doubt but this
subtle agent has been here? Where is it not? It
is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake,
the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This
crisp winter air is full of it. When I come in at
night after an all-day tramp I am charged like a
Leyden jar; my hair crackles and snaps beneath the
comb like a cat’s back, and a strange, new glow
diffuses itself through my system.

It is a spur that one feels at this season more
than at any other. How nimbly you step forth!
The woods roar, the waters shine, and the hills
look invitingly near. You do not miss the flowers
and the songsters, or wish the trees or the fields
any different, or heavens any nearer. Every object
pleases. A rail fence, running athwart the hills,
now in sunshine and now in shadow, — how the eye
lingers upon it! Or the straight, light-gray trunks
of the trees, where the woods have recently been

WINTER SUNSHINE 7

laid open by a road or a clearing, — how curious they
look, and as if surprised in undress! Next year
they will begin to shoot out branches and make
themselves a screen. Or the farm scenes, —the
winter barnyards littered with husks and straw, the
rough-coated horses, the cattle sunning themselves
or walking down to the spring to drink, the domes-
tic fowls moving about, — there is a touch of sweet,
homely life in these things that the winter sun
enhances and brings out. Every sign of life is
welcome at this season. I love to hear dogs bark,
hens cackle, and boys shout; one has no privacy
with Nature now, and does not wish to seek her in
nooks and hidden ways. She is not at home if he
goes there; her house is shut up and her hearth
cold; only the sun and sky, and perchance the
waters, wear the old look, and to-day we will make
love to them, and they shall abundantly return it.
Even the crows and the buzzards draw the eye
fondly. The National Capital is a great’ place for
buzzards, and I make the remark in no double or
allegorical sense either, for the buzzards I mean are
black and harmless as doves, though perhaps hardly
dovelike in their tastes. My vulture is also a bird
of leisure, and sails through the ether on long flex-
ible pinions, as if that was the one delight of his
life. Some birds have wings, others have “ pinions,”
The buzzard enjoys this latter distinction. There
is something in the sound of the word that suggests
that easy, dignified, undulatory movement. He
does not propel himself along by sheer force of

8 WINTER SUNSHINE

muscle, after the plebeian fashion of the crow for
instance, but progresses by a kind of royal indirec-
tion that puzzles the eye. Even on a windy winter
day he rides the vast aerial billows as placidly as
ever, rising and falling as he comes up toward you,
carving his way through the resisting currents by a
slight oscillation to the right and left, but never
once beating the air openly.

This superabundance of wing power is very un-
equally distributed among the feathered races, the
hawks and vultures having by far the greater share
of it. They cannot command the most speed, but
their apparatus seems the most delicate and consum-
mate. Apparently a fine play of muscle, a subtle
shifting of the power along the outstretched wings,
a perpetual loss and a perpetual recovery of the
equipoise, sustains them and bears them along.
With them flying is a luxury, a fine art, not merely
a quicker and safer means of transit from one point
to another, but a gift so free and spontaneous that
work becomes leisure and movement rest. They
are not so much going somewhere, from this perch
to that, as they are abandoning themselves to the
mere pleasure of riding upon the air.

And it is beneath such grace and high-bred leis-
ure that Nature hides in her creatures the occupation
of scavenger and carrion-eater!

But the worst thing about the buzzard is his
silence. The crow caws, the hawk screams, the
eagle barks, but the buzzard says not a word. So
far as I have observed, he has no vocal powers what-

WINTER SUNSHINE 9

ever. Nature dare not trust him to speak. In his
case she preserves a discreet silence.

The crow may not have the sweet voice which
the fox in his flattery attributed to him, but he has
a good, strong, native speech nevertheless. How
much character there is in it! How much thrift
and independence! Of course his plumage is firm,
his color decided, his wit quick. He understands
you at once and tells you so; so does the hawk by
his scornful, defiant whir-r-r-r-r. Hardy, happy
outlaws, the crows, how I love them! Alert, social,
republican, always able to look out for themselves,
not afraid of the cold and the snow, fishing when
flesh is scarce, and stealing when other resources
fail, the crow is a character I would not willingly /
miss from the landscape. I love to see his track in
the snow or the mud, and his graceful pedestrianism
about the brown fields.

He is no interloper, but has the air and manner
of being thoroughly at home, and in rightful posses-
sion of the land. He is no sentimentalist like some
of the plaining, disconsolate song-birds, but appar-
ently is always in good health and good spirits.
No matter who is sick, or dejected, or unsatisfied,
or what the weather is, or what the price of corn,
the crow is well and finds life sweet. He is the
dusky embodiment of worldly wisdom and prudence.
Then he is one of Nature’s self-appointed constables
and greatly magnifies his office. He would fain
arrest every hawk or owl or grimalkin that ventures
abroad. I have known a posse of them to beset the

10 WINTER SUNSHINE

fox and cry “Thief!” till Reynard hid himself for
shame. Do J say the fox flattered the crow when
he told him he had a sweet voice? Yet one of the
most musical sounds in nature proceeds from the
crow. All the crow tribe, from the blue jay up, are
capable of certain low ventriloquial notes that have
peculiar cadence and charm. I often hear the crow
indulging in his in winter, and am reminded of the
sound of the dulcimer. The bird stretches up and
exerts himself like a cock in the act of crowing and
gives forth a peculiarly clear, vitreous sound that is
sure to arrest and reward your attention. This is
no doubt the song the fox begged to be favored
with, as in delivering it the crow must inevitably
let drop the piece of meat.

The crow in his purity, I believe, is seen and
heard only in the North. Before you reach the
Potomac there is an infusion of a weaker element,
the fish crow, whose helpless feminine call contrasts
strongly with the hearty masculine caw of the origi-
nal Simon.

In passing from crows to colored men, I hope I
am not guilty of any disrespect toward the latter.
In my walks about Washington, both winter and
summer, colored men are about the only pedestrians
I meet; and I meet them everywhere, in the fields
and in the woods and in the public road, swinging
along with that peculiar, rambling, elastic gait, tak-
ing advantage of the short cuts and threading the
country with paths and byways. I doubt if the
colored man can compete with his white brother as

WINTER SUNSHINE 11

a walker; his foot is too flat and the calves of his
legs too small, but he is certainly the most pic-
turesque traveler to be seen on the road. He bends
his knees more than the white man, and oscillates
more to and fro, or from side to side. The imagi-
nary line which his head describes is full of deep
and long undulations. Even the boys and young
men sway as if bearing a burden.

Along the fences and by the woods I come upon
their snares, dead-falls, and rude box-traps. The
freedman is a successful trapper and hunter, and
has by nature an insight into these things. I fre-
quently see him in market or on his way thither
with a tame ’possum clinging timidly to his shoul-
ders, or a young coon or fox led by a chain. In-
deed, the colored man behaves precisely like the
rude unsophisticated peasant that he is, and there
is fully as much virtue in him, using the word in
its true sense, as in the white peasant; indeed,
much more than in the poor whites who grew up
by his side; while there is often a benignity and a
depth of human experience and sympathy about
some of these dark faces that comes home to one
like the best one sees in art of reads in books.

One touch of nature makes all the world akin,
and there is certainly a touch of nature about the
colored man; indeed, I had almost said, of Anglo-
Saxon nature. They have the quaintness and home-
liness of the simple English stock. I seem to see
my grandfather and grandmother in the ways and
doings of these old “uncles” and “aunties;” in-

12 WINTER SUNSHINE

deed, the lesson comes nearer home than even that,
for I seem to see myself in them, and, what is more,
I see that they see themselves in me, and that
neither party has much to boast of.

The negro is a plastic human creature, and is
thoroughly domesticated and thoroughly anglicized.
The same cannot be said of the Indian for instance,
between us and whom there can never exist any
fellowship, any community of feeling or interest;
or is there any doubt but the Chinaman will always
remain to us the same impenetrable mystery he has
been from the first ?

But there is no mystery about the negro, and he
touches the Anglo-Saxon at more points than the
latter is always willing to own, taking as kindly
and naturally to all his customs and usages, yea, to
all his prejudices and superstitions, as if to the
manor born. ‘The colored population in very many
respects occupies the same position as that occupied
by our rural populations a generation or two ago,
seeing signs and wonders, haunted by the fear of
ghosts and hobgoblins, believing in witchcraft,
charms, the evil eye, etc. In religious matters,
also, they are on the same level, and about the only
genuine shouting Methodists that remain are to be
found in the colored churches. Indeed, I fear the
negro tries to ignore or forget himself as far as pos-
sible, and that he would deem it felicity enough to
play second fiddle to the white man all his days.
He liked his master, but he likes the Yankee bet-
ter, not because he regards him as his deliverer, but

WINTER SUNSHINE 13

mainly because the two-handed thrift of the North-
erner, his varied and wonderful ability, completely
captivates the imagination of the black man, just
learning to shift for himself.

How far he has caught or is capable of being
imbued with the Yankee spirit of enterprise and
industry, remains to be seen. In some things he
has already shown himself an apt scholar. I no-
tice, for instance, he is about as industrious an
office-seeker as the most patriotic among us, and
that he learns with amazing ease and rapidity all
the arts and wiles of the politicians. He is versed
in parades, mass meetings, caucuses, and will soon
shine on the stump. I observe, also, that he is not
far behind us in the observance of the fashions, and
that he is as good a church-goer, theatre-goer, and
pleasure-seeker generally, as his means will allow.

As a bootblack or newsboy, he is an adept in all
the tricks of the trade; and as a fast young man
about town among his kind, he is worthy his white
prototype: the swagger, the impertinent look, the
coarse remark, the loud laugh, are all in the best
style. As a lounger and starer also, on the street
corners of a Sunday afternoon, he has taken his
degree.

On the other hand, I know cases among our col-
ored brethren, plenty of them, of conscientious and
well-directed effort and industry in the worthiest
fields, in agriculture, in trade, in the mechanic arts,
that show the colored man has in him all the best
rudiments of a citizen of the States.

14 WINTER SUNSHINE

Lest my winter sunshine appear to have too
many dark rays in it, — buzzards, crows, and colored
men, —I hasten to add the brown and neutral tints,
and may be a red ray can be extracted from some
of these hard, smooth, sharp-gritted roads that radi-
ate from the National Capital. Leading out of
Washington there are several good roads that invite
the pedestrian. There is the road that leads west
or northwest from Georgetown, the Tenallytown
road, the very sight of which, on a sharp, lustrous
winter Sunday, makes the feet tingle. Where it
‘euts through a hill or high knoll, it is so red it
fairly glows in the sunlight. Ill warrant you will
kindle, and your own color will mount, if you resign
yourself to it. It will conduct you to the wild and
rocky scenery of the upper Potomac, to Great Falls,
and on to Harper’s Ferry, if your courage holds
out. Then there is the road that leads north over
Meridian Hill, across Piny Branch, and on through
the wood of Crystal Springs to Fort Stevens, and
so into Maryland. This is the proper route for an
excursion in the spring to gather wild flowers, or in
the fall for a nutting expedition, as it lays open
some noble woods and a great variety of charming
scenery; or for a musing moonlight saunter, say in
December, when the Enchantress has folded and
folded the world in her web, it is by all means the
course to take. Your staff rings on the hard
ground; the road, a misty white belt, gleams and
vanishes before you; the woods are cavernous and
still; the fields lie in a lunar trance, and you will

WINTER SUNSHINE 15

yourself return fairly mesmerized by the beauty of
the scene.

Or you can bend your steps eastward over the
Eastern Branch, up Good Hope Hill, and on till
you strike the Marlborough pike, as a trio of us did
that cold February Sunday we walked from Wash-
ington to Pumpkintown and back.

A short sketch of this pilgrimage is a fair sample
of these winter walks,

The delight I experienced in making this new
acquisition to my geography was of itself sufficient
to atone for any aches or weariness I may have felt.
The mere fact that one may walk from Washington
to Pumpkintown was a discovery I had been all
these years in making. I had walked to Sligo, and
to the Northwest Branch, and had made the Falls
of the Potomac in a circuitous route of ten miles,
coming suddenly upon the river in one of its wildest
passes; but I little dreamed all the while that there,
in a wrinkle (or shall I say furrow?) of the Mary-
land hills, almost visible from the outlook of the
bronze squaw on the dome of the Capitol, and just
around the head of Oxen Run, lay Pumpkintown.

The day was cold but the sun was bright, and
the foot took hold of those hard, dry, gritty Mary-
land roads with the keenest relish. How the leaves
of the laurel glistened! The distant oak woods
suggested gray-blue smoke, while the recesses of the
pines looked like the lair of Night. Beyond the
District limits we struck the Marlborough pike,
which, round and hard and white, held squarely to

16 WINTER SUNSHINE

the east and was visible a mile ahead. Its friction
brought up the temperature amazingly and spurred
the pedestrians into their best time. As I trudged
along, Thoreau’s lines came naturally to mind: —
“When the spring stirs my blood
With the instinct of travel,

I can get enough gravel
On the old Marlborough road.’

Cold as the day was (many degrees below freez-
ing), I heard and saw bluebirds, and as we passed
along every sheltered tangle and overgrown field or
lane swarmed with snowbirds and sparrows, — the
latter mainly Canada or tree sparrows, with a sprink-
ling of the song, and, maybe, one or two other
varieties. The birds are all social and gregarious
in winter, and seem drawn together by common in-
stinct. Where you find one, you will not only find
others of the same kind, but also several different
kinds. The regular winter residents go in little
bands, like a well-organized pioneer corps, — the
jays and woodpeckers in advance, doing the heavier
work; the nuthatches next, more lightly armed;
and the creepers and kinglets, with their slender
beaks and microscopic eyes, last of all.?

Now and then, among the gray and brown tints,
there was a dash of scarlet, — the cardinal grosbeak,
whose presence was sufficient to enliven any scene.
In the leafless trees, as a ray of sunshine fell upon
him, he was visible a long way off, glowing like a

1 It seems to me this is a borrowed observation, but I do not
know whom to credit it to.

WINTER SUNSHINE 17

crimson spar, — the only bit of color in the whole
landscape.

Maryland is here rather a level, unpicturesque
country, —the gaze of the traveler bounded, at no
great distance, by oak woods, with here and there
a dark line of pine. We saw few travelers, passed
a ragged squad or two of colored boys and girls, and
met some colored women on their way to or from
church, perhaps. Never ask a colored person — at
least the crude, rustic specimens—any question
that involves a memory of names, or any arbitrary
signs; you will rarely get a satisfactory answer. If
you could speak to them in their own dialect, or
touch the right spring in their minds, you would,
no doubt, get the desired information. They are as
local in their notions and habits as the animals, and
go on much the same principles, as no doubt we all
do, more or less. I saw a colored boy come into
a public office one day, and ask to see a man with
red hair; the name was utterly gone from him.
The man had red whiskers, which was as near as he
had come to the mark. Ask your washerwoman
what street she lives on, or where such a one has
moved to, and the chances are that she cannot tell
you, except that it is a “right smart distance” this
way or that, or near Mr. So-and-so, or by such and
such a place, describing some local feature. I love
to amuse myself, when walking through the market,
by asking the old aunties, and the young aunties,
too, the names of their various “yarbs.” It seems
as if they must trip on the simplest names. Blood-

18 WINTER SUNSHINE

root they generally call “grubroot;” trailing ar-
butus goes by the names of “troling” arbutus,
“training arbuty-flower,” and ground “ivory;” in
Virginia they call woodchucks “moonacks.”

On entering Pumpkintown —a cluster of five or
six small, whitewashed blockhouses, toeing squarely
on the highway —the only inhabitant we saw was
a small boy, who was as frank and simple as if he
had lived on pumpkins and marrow squashes all his
days.

Half a mile farther on, we turned to the right
into a characteristic Southern road, —a way entirely
unkempt, and wandering free as the wind; now
fading out into a broad field; now contracting into
a narrow track between hedges; anon roaming with
delightful abandon through swamps and woods, ask-
ing no leave and keeping no bounds. About two
o’clock we stopped in an opening in a pine wood
and ate our lunch. We had the good fortune to
hit upon a charming place. A wood-chopper had
been there, and let in the sunlight full and strong;
and the white chips, the newly-piled wood, and the
mounds of green boughs, were welcome features,
and helped also to keep off the wind that would
creep through under the pines. The ground was
soft and dry, with a carpet an inch thick of pine-
needles, and with a fire, less for warmth than to
make the picture complete, we ate our bread and
beans with the keenest satisfaction, and with a rel-
ish that only the open air can give.

A fire, of course, —an encampment in the woods

WINTER SUNSHINE 19

at this season without a fire would be like leaving
Hamlet out of the play. A smoke is your stand-
ard, your flag; it defines and locates your camp at
once; you are an interloper until you have made a
fire; then you take possession; then the trees and
rocks seem to look upon you more kindly, and you
look more kindly upon them. As one opens his
budget, so he opens his heart by a fire. Already
something has gone out from you, and comes back
as a faint reminiscence and home feeling in the air
and place. One looks out upon the crow or the
buzzard that sails by as from his own fireside. It
is not I that am a wanderer and a stranger now;
it is the crow and the buzzard. The chickadees
were silent at first, but now they approach by little
journeys, as if to make our acquaintance. The
nuthatches, also, cry “Yank! yank!” in no inhos-
pitable tones; and those purple finches there in
the cedars, — are they not stealing our berries?
How one lingers about a fire under such circum-
stances, loath to leave it, poking up the sticks,
throwing in the burnt ends, adding another branch
and yet another, and looking back as he turns to
go to catch one more glimpse of the smoke going
up through the trees! I reckon it is some remnant
of the primitive man, which we all carry about with
us. He has not yet forgotten his wild, free life,
his arboreal habitations, and the sweet-bitter times
he had in those long-gone ages. With me, he
wakes up directly at the smell of smoke, of burning
branches in the open air; and all his old love of

20 WINTER SUNSHINE

fire and dependence upon it, in the camp or the
cave, comes freshly to mind.

On resuming our march, we filed off along a
charming wood-path, — a regular little tunnel through
the dense pines, carpeted with silence, and allowing
us to look nearly the whole length of it through its
soft green twilight out into the open sunshine of
the fields beyond. A pine wood in Maryland or in
Virginia is quite a different thing from a pine wood
in Maine or Minnesota, —the difference, in fact,
between yellow pine and white. The former, as it
grows hereabout, is short and scrubby, with branches
nearly to the ground, and looks like the dwindling
remnant of a greater race.

Beyond the woods, the path led us by a colored
man’s habitation, —a little, low frame house, on a
knoll, surrounded by the quaint devices and rude
makeshifts of these quaint and rude people. A
few poles stuck in the ground, clapboarded with
cedar-boughs and cornstalks, and supporting a roof
of the same, gave shelter to a rickety one-horse
wagon and some farm implements. Wear this there
was a large, compact tent, made entirely of corn-
stalks, with, for door, a bundle of the same, in the
dry, warm, nest-like interior of which the husking
of the corn crop seemed to have taken place. A
few rods farther on, we passed through another
humble dooryard, musical with dogs and dusky
with children. We crossed here the outlying fields
of a large, thrifty, well-kept-looking farm with a
showy, highly ornamental frame house in the centre.

WINTER SUNSHINE 21

There was even a park with deer, and among the
gayly painted outbuildings I noticed a fancy dove-
cote, with an immense flock of doves circling above
it; some whiskey-dealer from the city, we were told,
trying to take the poison out of his money by agri-
culture.

We next passed through some woods, when we
emerged into a broad, sunlit, fertile-looking valley,
called Oxen Run. We stooped down and drank of
its clear white-pebbled stream, in the veritable spot,
I suspect, where the oxen do. There were clouds
of birds here on the warm slopes, with the usual
sprinkling along the bushy margin of the stream of
scarlet grosbeaks. The valley of Oxen Run has
many good-looking farms, with old picturesque
houses, and loose rambling barns, such as artists
loye to put into pictures.

But it is a little awkward to go east. It always
seems left-handed. I think this is the feeling of
all walkers, and that Thoreau’s experience in this
respect was not singular. The great magnet is the
sun, and we follow him. I notice that people lost
in the woods work to the westward. When one
comes out of his house and asks himself, “Which
way shall I walk?” and looks up and down and
around for a sign or a token, does he not nine times
out of ten turn to the west? Me inclines this way
as surely as the willow wand bends toward the
water. There is something more genial and friendly
in this direction.

Occasionally in winter I experience a southern

22 WINTER SUNSHINE

inclination, and cross Long Bridge and rendezvous
for the day in some old earthwork on the Virginia
hills. The roads are not so inviting in this direc-
tion, but the line of old forts with rabbits burrowing
in the bomb-proofs, and a magazine, or officers’
quarters turned into a cow stable by colored squat-
ters, form an interesting feature. But, whichever
way I go, I am glad Icame. All roads lead up to
the Jerusalem the walker seeks. There is every-
where the vigorous and masculine winter air, and
the impalpable sustenance the mind draws from all
natural forms.

II

THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road.
Wart WHITMAN.

CCASIONALLY on the sidewalk, amid the
dapper, swiftly-moving, high-heeled boots and
gaiters, I catch a glimpse of the naked human foot.
Nimbly it scuffs along, the toes spread, the sides
flatten, the heel protrudes; it grasps the curbing,
or bends to the form of the uneven surfaces, —a
thing sensuous and alive, that seems to take cogni-
zance of whatever it touches or passes. How primi-
tive and uncivil it looks in such company, —a real
barbarian in the parlor! We are so unused to the
human anatomy, to simple, unadorned nature, that
it looks a little repulsive; but it is beautiful for all
that. Though it be a black foot and an unwashed
foot, it shall be exalted. It is a thing of life amid
leather, a free spirit amid cramped, a wild bird
amid caged, an athlete amid consumptives. It is
the symbol of my order, the Order of Walkers“
That unhampered, vitally playing piece of anatomy
is the type of the pedestrian, man returned to first
principles, in direct contact and intercourse with
the earth and the elements, his faculties unsheathed,

7

24 WINTER SUNSHINE

his mind plastic, his body toughened, his heart
light, his soul dilated; while those cramped and
distorted members in the calf and kid are the unfor-
tunate wretches doomed to carriages and cushions.

I am not going to advocate the disuse of boots
and shoes, or the abandoning of the improved modes
of travel; but I am going to brag as lustily as I can
on behalf of the pedestrian, and show how all the
shining angels second and accompany the man who
goes afoot, while all the dark spirits are ever look-
ing out for a chance to ride.

When I see the discomforts that able-bodied
American men will put up with rather than go a
mile or half a mile on foot, the abuses they will
tolerate and encourage, crowding the street car on
a little fall in the temperature or the appearance of
an inch or two of snow, packing up to overflowing,
dangling to the straps, treading on each other’s
toes, breathing each other’s breaths, crushing the
women and children, hanging by tooth and nail to
a square inch of the platform, imperiling their limbs
and killing the horses, —JI think the commonest
tramp in the street has good reason to felicitate
himself on his rare privilege of going afoot. f Tne
deed, a race that neglects or despises this primitive
gift, that fears the touch of the soil, that has no
footpaths, no community of ownership in the land
which they imply, that warns off the walker as a
trespasser, that knows no way but the highway,
the carriage-way, that forgets the stile, the foot-
bridge, that even ignores the rights of the pedes-

THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD 25

trian in the public road, providing no escape for
him but in the ditch or up the bank, is in a fair
way to far more serious degeneracy.
Shakespeare makes the chief qualification of the
walker a merry heart: —
“Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a;

A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.”’

The human body is a steed that goes freest and
longest under a light rider, and the lightest of all
riders is a cheerful heart. Your sad, or morose, or
embittered, or preoccupied heart settles heavily into
the saddle, and the poor beast, the body, breaks
down the first mile. Indeed, the heaviest thing in
the world is a heavy heart. Next to that, the most
burdensome to the walker is a heart not in perfect
sympathy and accord with the body, —a reluctant
or unwilling heart. The horse and rider must not
only both be willing to go the same way, but the
rider must lead the way and infuse his own light-
ness and eagerness into the steed. Herein is no
doubt our trouble, and one reason of the decay of
the noble art in this country. We are unwilling
walkers. We are not innocent and simple-hearted
enough to enjoy a walk. We have fallen from that
state of grace which capacity to enjoy a walk im-
plies. It cannot be said that as a people we are so
positively sad, or morose, or melancholic as that we
are vacant of that sportiveness and surplusage of
animal spirits that characterized our ancestors, and

26 WINTER SUNSHINE

that springs from full and harmonious life, —a
sound heart in accord with a sound body. ,A man
must invest himself near at hand and in common
things, and be content with a steady and moderate
return, if he would know the blessedness of a cheer-
ful heart and the sweetness of a walk over the round
earth, This is a lesson the American has yet to
learn, — capability of amusement on a low key. He
expects rapid and extraordinary returns. He would
make the very elemental laws pay usury. He has
nothing to invest in a walk; it is too slow, too
cheap. We crave the astonishing, the exciting, the
far away, and do not know the highways of the gods
when we see them, — always a sign of the decay of
the faith and simplicity of man.

If I say to my neighbor, ‘Come with me, I have
great wonders to show you,” he pricks up his ears
and comes forthwith; but when I take him on the
hills under the full blaze of the sun, or along the
country road, our footsteps lighted by the moon and
stars, and say to him, “Behold, these are the won-
ders, these are the circuits of the gods, this we now
tread is a morning star,” he feels defrauded, and as
if I had played him a trick. And yet nothing less
than dilatation and enthusiasm like this is the badge
of the master walker.

If we are not sad, we are careworn, hurried, dis-
contented, mortgaging the present for the promise
of the future. If we take a walk, it is as we
take a prescription, with about the same relish and
with about the same purpose; and the more the

THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD 27

fatigue the greater our faith in the virtue of the
medicine.

Of these gleesome saunters over the hills in
spring, or those sallies of the body in winter, those
excursions into space when the foot strikes fire at
every step, when the air tastes like a new and finer
mixture, when we accumulate force and gladness as
we go along, when the sight of objects by the road-
side and of the fields and woods pleases more than
pictures or than all the art in the world, — those
ten or twelve mile dashes that are but the wit and
effluence of the corporeal powers, —of such diver-
sion and open road entertainment, I say, most of us
know very little.

I notice with astonishment that at our fashionable
watering-places nobody walks; that, of all those vast
crowds of health-seekers and lovers of country air,
you can never catch one in the fields or woods, or
guilty of trudging along the country road with dust
on his shoes and sun-tan on his hands and face.
The sole amusement seems to be to eat and dress
and sit about the hotels and glare at each other.
The men look bored, the women look tired, and all
seem to sigh, “O Lord! what shall we do to be
happy and not be vulgar?” Quite different from
our British cousins across the water, who have
plenty of amusement and hilarity, spending most
of the time at their watering-places in the open
air, strolling, picnicking, boating, climbing, briskly
walking, apparently with little fear of sun-tan or of
compromising their “ gentility.”

28 WINTER SUNSHINE

It is indeed astonishing with what ease and hilar-
ity the English walk. To an American it seems a
kind of infatuation. When Dickens was in this
country, I imagine the aspirants to the honor of a
walk with him were not numerous. In a pedestrian
tour of England by an American, I read that, ‘after
breakfast with the Independent minister, he walked
with us for six miles out of town upon our road.
Three little boys and girls, the youngest six years
old, also accompanied us. They were romping and
rambling about all the while, and their morning
walk must have been as much as fifteen miles; but
they thought nothing of it, and when we parted
were apparently as fresh as when they started, and
very loath to return.”

I fear, also, the American is becoming disquali-
fied for the manly art of walking by a falling off in
the size of his foot. He cherishes and cultivates
this part of his anatomy, and apparently thinks his
taste and good breeding are to be inferred from its
diminutive size. A small, trim foot, well booted
or gaitered, is the national vanity. How we stare
at the big feet of foreigners, and wonder what may
be the price of leather in those countries, and where
all the aristocratic blood is, that these plebeian ex-
tremities so predominate! If we were admitted to
the confidences of the shoemaker to Her Majesty or
to His Royal Highness, no doubt we would modify
our views upon this latter point, for a truly large
and royal nature is never stunted in the extremities;
a little foot never yet supported a great character.

THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD 29

It is said that Englishmen when they first come
to this country are for some time under the impres-
sion that American women all have deformed feet,
they are so coy of them and so studiously careful to
keep them hid. That there is an astonishing differ-
ence between the women of the two countries in
this respect, every traveler can testify; and that
there is a difference equally astonishing between the
pedestrian habits and capabilities of the rival sisters,
is also certain.

The English pedestrian, no doubt, has the advan-
tage of us in the matter of climate; for, notwith-
standing the traditional gloom and moroseness of
English skies, they have in that country none of
those relaxing, sinking, enervating days, of which
we have so many here, and which seem especially
trying to the female constitution, — days which
withdraw all support from the back and loins, and
render walking of all things burdensome. Theirs is
a climate of which it has been said that “‘it invites
men abroad more days in the year and more hours
in the day than that of any other country.”

Then their land is threaded with paths which
invite the walker, and which are scarcely less im-
portant than the highways. I heard of a surly
nobleman near London who took it into his head
to close a footpath that passed through his estate
near his house, and open another one a little farther
off. The pedestrians objected; the matter got into
the courts, and after protracted litigation the aristo-
crat was beaten. The path could not be closed or

80 WINTER SUNSHINE

moved. The memory of man ran not to the time
when there was not a footpath there, and every
pedestrian should have the right of way there still.

I remember the pleasure I had in the path that
connects Stratford-on-Avon with Shottery, Shake-
speare’s path when he went courting Anne Hatha-
way. By the king’s highway the distance is some
farther, so there is a well-worn path along the hedge-
rows and through the meadows and turnip patches,
The traveler in it has the privilege of crossing the
railroad track, an unusual privilege in England, and
one denied to the lord in his carriage, who must
either go over or under it. (It is a privilege, is it
not, to be allowed the forbidden, even if it be the
privilege of being run over by the engine?) In
strolling over the South Downs, too, I was delighted
to find that where the hill was steepest some bene-
factor of the order of walkers had made notches in
the sward, so that the foot could bite the better and
firmer; the path became a kind of stairway, which
I have no doubt the plowman respected.

When you see an English country church with-
drawn, secluded, out of the reach of wheels, stand-
ing amid grassy graves and surrounded by noble
trees, approached by paths and shaded lanes, you
appreciate more than ever this beautiful habit of
the people. Only a race that knows how to use its
feet, and holds footpaths sacred, could put such a
charm of privacy and humility into such a structure.
I think I should be tempted to go to church myself
if I saw all my neighbors starting off across the

THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD 31

fields or along paths that led to such charmed spots,
and was sure | would not be jostled or run over by
the rival chariots of the worshipers at the temple
doors. I think this is what ails our religion; humil-
ity and devoutness of heart leave one-when he lays
by his walking shoes and walking clothes, and sets
out for church drawn by something.

Indeed, I think it would be tantamount to an
astonishing revival of religion if the people would
all walk to church on Sunday and walk home again.
Think how the stones would preach to them by the
wayside; how their benumbed minds would warm
up beneath the friction of the gravel; how their
vain and foolish thoughts, their desponding thoughts,
their besetting demons of one kind and another,
would drop behind them, unable to keep up or to
endure the fresh air! They would walk away from
their ennut, their worldly cares, their uncharitable-
ness, their pride of dress; for these devils always
want to ride, while the simple virtues are never so
happy as when on foot. Let us walk by all means;
but if we will ride, get an ass.

Then the English claim that they are a more
hearty and robust people than we are. It is certain
they are a plainer people, have plainer tastes, dress
plainer, build plainer, speak plainer, keep closer to
facts, wear broader shoes and coarser clothes, place
a lower estimate on themselves, etc., —all of which
traits favor pedestrian habits. The English grandee
is not confined to his carriage; but if the American
aristocrat leaves his, he is ruined. Oh the weari-

32 WINTER SUNSHINE

ness, the emptiness, the plotting, the seeking rest
and finding none, that goes by in the carriages!
while your pedestrian is always cheerful, alert, re-
freshed, with his heart in his hand and his hand
free to all. He looks down upon nobody; he is on
the common level. His pores are all open, his cir-
culation is active, his digestion good. His heart is
not cold, nor his faculties asleep. He is the only
real traveler; he alone tastes the “gay, fresh senti-
ment of the road.” He is not isolated, but one with
things, with the farms and industries on either
hand. ‘The vital, universal currents play through
him. He knows the ground is alive; he feels the
pulses of the wind, and reads the mute language of
things. His sympathies are all aroused; his senses
are continually reporting messages to his mind.
Wind, frost, rain, heat, cold, are something to him.
He is not merely a spectator of the panorama of
nature, but a participator in it. He experiences
the country he passes through, — tastes it, feels it,
absorbs it; the traveler in his fine carriage sees it
merely. This gives the fresh charm to that class
of books that may be called “Views Afoot,” and to
the narratives of hunters, naturalists, exploring par-
ties, etc. The walker does not need a large terri-
tory. When you get into a railway car you want
a continent, the man in his carriage requires a town-
ship; but a walker like Thoreau finds as much and
more along the shores of Walden Pond. The for-
mer, as it were, has merely time to glance at the
headings of the chapters, while the latter need not

THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD 33

miss a line, and Thoreau reads between the lines.
Then the walker has the privilege of the fields, the
woods, the hills, the byways. The apples by the
roadside are for him, and the berries, and the spring
of water, and the friendly shelter; and if the weather
is cold, he eats the frost grapes and the persimmons,
or even the white-meated turnip, snatched from the
field he passed through, with incredible relish.

Afoot and in the open road, one has a fair start
in life at last. There is no hindrance now. Let
him put his best foot forward. He is on the broad-
est human plane. This is on the level of all the
great laws and heroic deeds. From this platform
he is eligible to any good fortune. He was sighing
for the golden age; let him walk to it. Every step
brings him nearer. The youth of the world is but
a few days’ journey distant. Indeed, I know per-
sons who think they have walked back to that fresh
aforetime of a single bright Sunday in autumn or
early spring. Before noon they felt its airs upon
their cheeks, and by nightfall, on the banks of some
quiet stream, or along some path in the wood, or on
some hilltop, aver they have heard the voices and
felt the wonder and the mystery that so enchanted
the early races of men.

I think if I could walk through a country I
should not only see many things and have adven-
tures that I should otherwise miss, but that I should
come into relations with that country at first hand,
and with the men and women in it, in a way that
would afford the deepest satisfaction. Hence I envy

34 WINTER SUNSHINE

the good fortune of all walkers, and feel like join-
ing myself to every tramp that comes along. JI am
jealous of the clergyman I read about the other day
who footed it from Edinburgh to London, as poor
Effie Deans did, carrying her shoes in her hand most
of the way, and over the ground that rugged Ben
Jonson strode, larking it to Scotland, so long ago.
I read with longing of the pedestrian feats of college
youths, so gay and light-hearted, with their coarse
shoes on their feet and their knapsacks on their
backs. It would have been a good draught of the
rugged cup to have walked with Wilson the orni-
thologist, deserted by his companions, from Niagara
to Philadelphia through the snows of winter. I
almost wish that I had been born to the career of a
German mechanic, that I might have had that de-
licious adventurous year of wandering over my coun-
try before I settled down to work. I think how
much richer and firmer-grained life would be to me
if I could journey afoot through Florida and Texas,
or follow the windings of the Platte or the Yellow-
stone, or stroll through Oregon, or browse for a sea-
son about Canada./” In the bright inspiring days of
autumn I only want the time and the companion to
walk back to the natal spot, the family nest, across
two States and into the mountains of a third.
What adventures we would have by the way, what
hard pulls, what prospects from hills, what specta-
cles we would behold of night and day, what pas-
sages with dogs, what glances, what peeps into win-
dows, what characters we should fall in with, and

THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD 35

how seasoned and hardy we should arrive at our
destination! ra

For compariion I should want a veteran of the
war! Those marches put something into him I
like. Even at this distance his mettle is but little
softened. As soon as he gets warmed up it all
comes back to him. He catches your step and away
you go, a gay, adventurous, half-predatory couple.
How quickly he falls into the old ways of jest and
anecdote and song! You may have known him for
years without having heard him hum an air, or more
than casually revert to the subject of his experience
during the war. You have even questioned and
cross-questioned him without firing the train you
wished. But get him out on a vacation tramp, and
you can walk it all out of him. By the camp-fire at
night, or swinging along the streams by day, song,
anecdote, adventure, come to the surface, and you
wonder how your companion has kept silent so long.

It is another proof of how walking brings out the
true character of aman. The devil never yet asked
his victims to take a walk with him. You will not
be long in finding your companion out. All dis-
guises will fall away from him. As his pores open
his character is laid bare. His deepest and most
private self will come to the top. It matters little
whom you ride with, so he be not a pickpocket; for
both of you will, very likely, settle down closer and
firmer in your reserve, shaken down like a measure
of corn by the jolting as the journey proceeds.“ But
walking is a more vital copartnership; the relation

36 WINTER SUNSHINE

is a closer and more sympathetic one, and you do
not feel like walking ten paces with a stranger with-
out speaking to him.

Hence the fastidiousness of the professional walker
in choosing or admitting a companion, and hence
the truth of a remark of Emerson that you will gen-
erally fare better to take your dog than to invite
your neighbor. Your cur-dog is a true pedestrian,
and your neighbor is very likely a small politician.
The dog enters thoroughly into the spirit of the
enterprise; he is not indifferent or preoccupied; he
is constantly sniffing adventure, laps at every spring,
looks upon every field and wood as a new world to
be explored, is ever on some fresh trail, knows some-
thing important will happen a little farther on, gazes
with the true wonder-seeing eyes, whatever the spot
or whatever the road finds it good to be there, —in
short, is just that happy, delicious, excursive vaga-
bond that touches one at so many points, and whose
human prototype in a companion robs miles and
leagues of half their power to fatigue. /

Persons who find themselves spent in a short
walk to the market or the post-office, or to do a
little shopping, wonder how it is that their pedes-
trian friends can compass so many weary miles and
not fall down from sheer exhaustion; ignorant of
the fact that the walker is a kind of projectile that
drops far or near according to the expansive force
of the motive that set it in motion, and that it is
easy enough to regulate the charge according to the
distance to be traversed. If I am loaded to carry

THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD 37

only one mile and am compelled to walk three, I
generally feel more fatigue than if I had walked six
under the proper impetus of preadjusted resolution.
In other words, the will or corporeal mainspring,
whatever it be, is capable of being wound up to
different degrees of tension, so that one may walk
all day nearly as easy as half that time if he is pre-
pared beforehand. He knows his task, and he
measures and distributes his powers accordingly. It
is for this reason that an unknown road is aways a
long road. We cannot cast the mental eye along it
and see the end from the beginning. We are fight-
ing in the dark, and cannot take the measure of our
foe. Every step must be preordained and provided
for in the mind. Hence also the fact that to van-
quish one mile in the woods seems equal to compass-
ing three in the open country. The furlongs are
ambushed, and we magnify them.

Then, again, how annoying to be told it is only
five miles to the next place when it is really eight
or ten! We fall short nearly half the distance, and
are compelled to urge and roll the spent ball the
rest of the way. In such a case walking degener-
ates from a fine art to a mechanic art; we walk
merely; to get over the ground becomes the one
serious and engrossing thought; whereas success in
walking is not to let your right foot know what
your left foot doeth. Your heart must furnish such
music that in keeping time to it your feet will carry
you around the globe without knowing it. The
walker I would describe takes no note of distance;

38 WINTER SUNSHINE

his walk is a sally, a donmot, an unspoken jeu
d’esprit ; the ground is his butt, his provocation ;
it furnishes him the resistance his body craves; he
rebounds upon it, he glances off and returns again,
and uses it gayly as his tool.

I do not think I exaggerate the importance or the
charms of pedestrianism, or our need as a people to
cultivate the art. I think it would tend to soften
the national manners, to teach us the meaning of
leisure, to acquaint us with the charms of the open
air, to strengthen and foster the tie between the
race and the land. No one else looks out upon the
world so kindly and charitably as the pedestrian;
no one else gives and takes so much from the coun-
try he passes through. Next to the laborer in the
fields, the walker holds the closest relation to the
soil; and he holds a closer and more vital relation
to nature because he is freer and his mind more at
leisure.

Man takes root at his feet, and at best he is no
more than a potted plant in his house or carriage
till he has established communication with the soil
by the loving and magnetic touch of his soles to it.
Then the tie of association is born; then spring
those invisible fibres and rootlets through which
character comes to smack of the soil, and which
make a man kindred to the spot of earth he inhabits.

The roads and paths you have walked along in
summer and winter weather, the fields and hills
which you have looked upon in lightness and glad-
ness of heart, where fresh thoughts have come into

THE EXHILARATIONS OF THE ROAD 39

your mind, or some noble prospect has opened be-
fore you, and especially the quiet ways where you
have walked in sweet converse with your friend,
pausing under the trees, drinking at the spring, —
henceforth they are not the same; a new charm is
added; those thoughts spring there perennial, your
friend walks there forever.

We have produced some good walkers and saun-
terers, and some noted climbers; but as a staple
recreation, as a daily practice, the mass of the peo-
ple dislike and despise walking. Thoreau said he
was a good horse, but a poor roadster. I chant the
virtues of the roadster as well. I sing of the sweet-
ness of gravel, good sharp quartz-grit. It is the
proper condiment for the sterner seasons, and many
a human gizzard would be cured of half its ills by
a suitable daily allowance of it. I think Thoreau
himself would have profited immensely by it. His
diet was too exclusively vegetable. A man cannot
live on grass alone. If one has been a lotus-eater
all summer, he must turn gravel-eater in the fall
and winter. Those who have tried it know that
gravel possesses an equal though an opposite charm.
It spurs to action. The foot tastes it and hence-
forth rests not. The joy of moving and surmount-
ing, of attrition and progression, the thirst for
space, for miles and leagues of distance, for sights
and prospects, to cross mountains and thread rivers,
and defy frost, heat, snow, danger, difficulties,
seizes it; and from that day forth its possessor is
enrolled in the noble army of walkers.

Til

THE SNOW-—WALKERS

: | | E who marvels at the beauty of the world in

summer will find equal cause for wonder and
admiration in winter. It is true the pomp and the
pageantry are swept away, but the essential elements
remain, — the day and the night, the mountain and
the valley, the elemental play and succession and
the perpetual presence of the infinite sky. In win-
ter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the
moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens
wear a look of a more exalted simplicity. Summer
is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and
human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments,
and fosters inquiry and the art impulse. Winter is
of a more heroic cast, and addresses the intellect.
The severe studies and disciplines come easier in
winter. One imposes larger tasks upon himself,
and is less tolerant of his own weaknesses.

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is
more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer.
I should say winter had given the bone and sinew
to Literature, summer the tissues and blood. i

The simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The
return of nature, after such a career of splendor and

42 WINTER SUNSHINE

prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not
lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the
philosopher coming back from the banquet and the
wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread.

And then this beautiful masquerade of the ele-
ments, — the novel disguises our nearest friends put
on! Here is another rain and another dew, water
that will not flow, nor spill, nor receive the taint of
an unclean vessel. And if we see truly, the same
old beneficence and willingness to serve lurk be-
neath all.

Look up at the miracle of the falling snow, —
the air a dizzy maze of whirling, eddying flakes,
noiselessly transforming the world, the exquisite
crystals dropping in ditch and gutter, and disguising
in the same suit of spotless livery all objects upon
which they fall. How novel and fine the first
drifts! The old, dilapidated fence is suddenly set
off with the most fantastic ruffles, scalloped and
fluted after an unheard-of fashion! Looking down
a long line of decrepit stone wall, in the trimming
of which the wind had fairly run riot, I saw, as for
the first time, what a severe yet master artist old
Winter is. Ah, a severe artist! How stern the
woods look, dark and cold and as rigid against the
horizon as iron!

All life and action upon the snow have an added
emphasis and significance. Livery expression is un-
derscored. Summer has few finer pictures than this
winter one of the farmer foddering his cattle from
a stack upon the clean snow, —the movement, the

THE SNOW-WALKERS 43

sharply-defined figures, the great green flakes of
hay, the long file of patient cows, the advance just
arriving and pressing eagerly for the choicest mor-
sels, and the bounty and providence it suggests.
Or the chopper in the woods, —the prostrate tree,
the white new chips scattered about, his easy tri-
umph over the cold, coat hanging to a limb, and
the clear, sharp ring of his axe. The woods are
rigid and tense, keyed up by the frost, and resound
like a stringed instrument. Or/the road-breakers,
sallying forth with oxen and sleds in the still, white
world, the day after the storm, to restore the lost
track and demolish the beleaguering drifts.“

All sounds are sharper in winter; the air trans-
mits better. At night I hear more distincly the
steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it
is a sort of complacent purr, as the breezes stroke
down its sides; but in winter always the same low,
sullen growl.

A severe artist! No longer the canvas and the
pigments, but the marble and the chisel. When
the nights are calm and the moon full, I go out to
gaze upon the wonderful purity of the moonlight
and the snow. The air is full of latent fire, and
the cold warms me— after a different fashion from
that of the kitchen stove. The world lies about me
in a “trance of snow.” The clouds are pearly and
iridescent, and seem the farthest possible remove
from the condition of a storm, —the ghosts of
clouds, the indwelling beauty freed from all dross.
I see the hills, bulging with great drifts, lift them-

44 WINTER SUNSHINE

selves up cold and white against the sky, the black
lines of fences here and there obliterated by the
depth of the snow. Presently a fox barks away up
next the mountain, and I imagine I can almost see
him sitting there, in his furs, upon the illuminated
surface, and looking down in my direction, As I
listen, one answers him from behind the woods in
the valley. What a wild winter sound, wild and
weird, up among the ghostly hills! Since the wolf
has ceased to howl upon these mountains, and the
panther to scream, there is nothing to be compared
with it. So wild! I get up in the middle of the
night to hear it. It is refreshing to the ear, and
one delights to know that such wild creatures are
among us. At this season Nature makes the most
of every throb of life that can withstand her sever-
ity. How heartily she indorses this fox! ‘In what
bold relief stand out the lives of all walkers of the
snow! The snow is a great tell-tale, and blabs as
effectually as it obliterates. I go into the woods,
and know all that has happened. I cross the fields,
and if only a mouse has visited his neighbor the
fact is chronicled.

The red fox is the only species that abounds in
my locality; the little gray fox seems to prefer a
more rocky and precipitous country, and a less rigor-
ous climate; the cross fox is occasionally seen, and
there are traditions of the silver gray among the
oldest hunters. But the red fox is the sportsman’s
prize, and the only fur-bearer worthy of note in
these mountains.t I go out in the morning, after

1 A spur of the Catskills.

THE SNOW—WALKERS 45

a fresh fall of snow, and see at all points where he
has crossed the road. Here he has leisurely passed
within rifle-range of the house, evidently reconnoi-
tring the premises with an eye to the hen-roost.
(Chat clear, sharp track, —there is no mistaking it
for the clumsy footprint of a little dog. All his
wildness and agility are photographed in it. Here
he has taken fright, or suddenly recollected an en-
gagement, and in long, graceful leaps, barely touch-
ing the fence, has gone careering up the hill as fleet
as the wind.

The wild, buoyant creature, how beautiful he is!
I had often seen his dead carcass, and at a distance
had witnessed the hounds drive him across the upper
fields; but the thrill and excitement of meeting him
in his wild freedom in the woods were unknown to
me till, one cold winter day, drawn thither by the
baying of a hound, I stood near the summit of the
mountain, waiting a renewal of the sound, that I
might determine the course of the dog and choose
my position, —stimulated by the ambition of all
young Nimrods to bag some notable game. Long
I waited, and patiently, till, chilled and benumbed,
I was about to turn back, when, hearing a slight
noise, I looked up and beheld a most superb fox,
loping along with inimitable grace and ease, evi-
dently disturbed, but not pursued by the hound,
and so absorbed in his private meditations that he
failed to see me, though I stood transfixed with
amazement and admiration, not ten yards distant.
I took his measure at a glance, —a large male, with

46 WINTER SUNSHINE

dark legs, and massive tail tipped with white, —a
most magnificent creature; but so astonished and
fascinated was I by this sudden appearance and
matchless beauty, that not till I had caught the last
’ glimpse of him, as he disappeared over a knoll, did
I awake to my duty as a sportsman, and realize
what an opportunity to distinguish myself I had
unconsciously let slip. I clutched my gun, half
angrily, as if it was to blame, and went home out
of humor with myself and all fox-kind. But I
have since thought better of the experience, and
concluded that I bagged the game after all, the best
part of it, and fleeced Reynard of something more
valuable than his fur, without his knowledge.

This is thoroughly a winter sound, —this voice
of the hound upon the mountain, — and one that is
music to many ears. The long trumpet-like bay,
heard for a mile or more, — now faintly back to the
deep recesses of the mountain, — now distinct, but
still faint, as the hound comes over some prominent
point and the wind favors, —anon entirely lost in
the gully, —then breaking out again much nearer,
and growing more and more pronounced as the dog
approaches, till, when he comes around the brow of
the mountain, directly above you, the barking is
loud and sharp. On he goes along the northern
spur, his voice rising and sinking as the wind and
lay of the ground modify it, till lost to hearing.

The fox usually keeps half a mile ahead, regulat-
ing his speed by that of the hound, occasionally
pausing a moment to divert himself with a mouse,

THE SNOW-WALKERS 47

or to contemplate the landscape, or to listen for his
pursuer. If the hound press him too closely, he
leads off from mountain to mountain, and so gen-
erally escapes the hunter; but if the pursuit be
slow, he plays about some ridge or peak, and falls
a prey, though not an easy one, to the experienced
sportsman.

A most spirited and exciting chase occurs when the
farm-dog gets close upon one in the open field, as
sometimes happens in the early morning. The fox
relies so confidently upon his superior speed, that I
imagine he half tempts the dog to the race. But if
the dog be a smart one, and their course lies down
hill, over smooth ground, Reynard must put his
best foot forward, and then sometimes suffer the
ignominy of being run over by his pursuer, who,
however, is quite unable to pick him up, owing to
the speed. But when they mount the hill, or enter
the woods, the superior nimbleness and agility of the
fox tell at once, and he easily leaves the dog far in
his rear. For a cur less than his own size he mani-
fests little fear, especially if the two meet alone,
remote from the house. In such cases, I have seen
first one turn tail, then the other.

A novel spectacle often occurs in summer, when
the female has young. You are rambling on the
mountain, accompanied by your dog, when you are
startled by that wild, half-threatening squall, and
in a moment perceive your dog, with inverted tail,
and shame and confusion in his looks, sneaking
toward you, the old fox but a few rods in his rear.

48 WINTER SUNSHINE

You speak to him sharply, when he bristles up,
turns about, and, barking, starts off vigorously, as
if to wipe out the dishonor; but in a moment comes
sneaking back more abashed than ever, and owns
himself unworthy to be called a dog. The fox fairly
shames him out of the woods. The secret of the
matter is her sex, though her conduct, for the honor
of the fox be it said, seems to be prompted only by
solicitude for the safety of her young.

One of the most notable features of the fox is his
large and massive tail. Seen running on the snow
at a distance, his tail is quite as conspicuous as his
body; and, so far from appearing a burden, seems
to contribute to his lightness and buoyancy. It
softens the outline of his movements, and repeats or
continues to the eye the ease and poise of his car-
riage. But, pursued by the hound on a wet, thawy
day, it often becomes so heavy and bedraggled as to
prove a serious inconvenience, and compels him to
take refuge in his den. He is very loath to do this;
both his pride and the traditions of his race stimu-
late him to run it out, and win by fair superiority
of wind and speed; and only a wound or a heavy
and moppish tail will drive him to avoid the issue
in this manner.

To learn his surpassing shrewdness and cunning,
attempt to take him with a trap. Rogue that he
is, he always suspects some trick, and one must be
more of a fox than he is himself to overreach him.
At first sight it would appear easy enough. With
apparent indifference he crosses your path, or walks

THE SNOW-—WALKERS 49

in your footsteps in the field, or travels along the
beaten highway, or lingers in the vicinity of stacks
and remote barns. Carry the carcass of a pig, or a
fowl, or a dog, to a distant field in midwinter, and
in a few nights his tracks cover the snow about it.
The inexperienced country youth, misled by this
seeming carelessness of Reynard, suddenly conceives
a project to enrich himself with fur, and wonders
that the idea has not occurred to him before, and to
others. I knew a youthful yeoman of this kind,
who imagined he had found a mine of wealth on
discovering on a remote side-hill, between two woods,
a dead porker, upon which it appeared all the foxes
of the neighborhood had nightly banqueted. The
clouds were burdened with snow; and as the first
flakes commenced to eddy down, he set out, trap
and broom in hand, already counting over in imagi-
nation the silver quarters he would receive for his
first fox-skin. With the utmost care, and with a
palpitating heart, he removed enough of the trodden
snow to allow the trap to sink below the surface.
Then, carefully sifting the light element over it
and sweeping his tracks full, he quickly withdrew,
laughing exultingly over the little surprise he had
prepared for the cunning rogue. The elements con-
spired to aid him, and the falling snow rapidly oblit-
erated all vestiges of his work. The next morning
at dawn he was on his way to bring in his fur.
The snow had done its work effectually, and, he
believed, had kept his secret well. Arrived in sight
of the locality, he strained his vision to make out

\
50 WINTER SUNSHINE

his prize lodged against the fence at the foot of the
hill. Approaching nearer, the surface was unbroken,
and doubt usurped the place of certainty in his
mind. A slight mound marked the site of the
porker, but there was no footprint near it. Look-
ing up the hill, he saw where Reynard had walked
leisurely down toward his wonted bacon till within
a few yards of it, when he had wheeled, and with
prodigious strides disappeared in the woods. The
young trapper saw at a glance what a comment this
was upon his skill in the art, and, indignantly ex-
huming the iron, he walked home with it, the stream
of silver quarters suddenly setting in another direc-
tion.

The successful trapper commences in the fall, or
before the first deep snow. In a field not too re-
mote, with an old axe he cuts a small place, say
ten inches by fourteen, in the frozen ground, and
removes the earth to the depth of three or four
inches, then fills the cavity with dry ashes, in
which are placed bits of roasted cheese. Reynard
is very suspicious at first, and gives the place a
wide berth. It looks like design, and he will see
how the thing behaves before he approaches too
near. But the cheese is savory and the cold severe.
He ventures a little closer every night, until he
can reach and pick a piece from the surface. Em-
boldened by success, like other mortals, he pres-
ently digs freely among the ashes, and, finding a
fresh supply of the delectable morsels every night,
is soon thrown off his guard and his suspicions quite

THE SNOW-WALKERS 51

lulled. After a week of baiting in this manner,
and on the eve of a light fall of snow, the trapper
carefully conceals his trap in the bed, first smoking
it thoroughly with hemlock boughs to kill or neu-
tralize all smell of the iron. If the weather favors
and the proper precautions have been taken, he
may succeed, though the chances are still greatly
against him.

Reynard is usually caught very lightly, seldom
more than the ends of his toes being between the
jaws. He sometimes works so cautiously as to
spring the trap without injury even to his toes, or
may remove the cheese night after night without
even springing it. JI knew an old trapper who, on
finding himself outwitted in this manner, tied a bit
of cheese to the pan, and next morning had poor
Reynard by the jaw. The trap is not fastened, but
only incumbered with a clog, and is all the more
sure in its hold by yielding to every effort of the
animal to extricate himself.

When Reynard sees his captor approaching, he
would fain drop into a mouse-hole to render himself
invisible. He crouches to the ground and remains
perfectly motionless until he perceives himself dis-
covered, when he makes one desperate and final
effort to escape, but ceases all struggling as you
come up, and behaves in a manner that stamps him
a very timid warrior, — cowering to the earth with
a mingled look of shame, guilt, and abject fear. A
young farmer told me of tracing one with his trap
to the border of a wood, where he discovered the

52 WINTER SUNSHINE

cunning rogue trying to hide by embracing a small
tree. Most animals, when taken in a trap, show
fight; but Reynard has more faith in the nimble-
ness of his feet than in the terror of his teeth.
Entering the woods, the number and variety of
the tracks contrast strongly with the rigid, frozen
aspect of things. Warm jets of life still shoot and
play amid this snowy desolation. Fox-tracks are
far less numerous than in the fields; but those of
hares, skunks, partridges, squirrels, and mice abound.
The mice tracks are very pretty, and look like a
sort of fantastic stitching on the coverlid of the
snow. One is curious to know what brings these
tiny creatures from their retreats; they do not seem
to be in quest of food, but rather to be traveling
about for pleasure or sociability, though always going
post-haste, and linking stump with stump and tree
with tree by fine, hurried strides. That is when
they travel openly; but they have hidden passages
and winding galleries under the snow, which un-
doubtedly are their main avenues of communication.
Here and there these passages rise so near the sur-
face as to be covered by only a frail arch of snow,
and a slight ridge betrays their course to the eye,
I know him well. He is known to the farmer as
the “deer mouse,” to the naturalist as the white-
footed mouse, —a very beautiful creature, nocturnal
in his habits, with large ears, and large, fine eyes,
full of a wild, harmless look. He is daintily
marked, with white feet and a white belly. When
disturbed by day he is very easily captured, having

THE SNOW—-WALKERS 53

none of the cunning or viciousness of the common
Old World mouse.

It is he who, high in the hollow trunk of some
tree, lays by a store of beechnuts for winter use.
Every nut is carefully shelled, and the cavity that
serves as storehouse lined with grass and leaves.
The wood-chopper frequently squanders this precious
store. I have seen half a peck taken from one
tree, as clean and white as if put up by the most
delicate hands, —as they were: How long it must
have taken the little creature to collect this quan-
tity, to hull them one by one, and convey them
up to his fifth-story chamber! He is not confined
to the woods, but is quite as common in the fields,
particularly in the fall, amid the corn and potatoes.
When routed by the plow, I have seen the old one
take flight with half a dozen young hanging to her
teats, and with such reckless speed that some of the
young would lose their hold and fly off amid the
weeds. Taking refuge in a stump with the rest of
her family, the anxious mother would presently
come back and hunt up the missing ones.

The snow-walkers are mostly night-walkers also,
and the record they leave upon the snow is the main
clew one has to their life and doings. The hare is
nocturnal in its habits, and though a very lively
creature at night, with regular courses and run-ways
through the wood, is entirely quiet by day. Timid
as he is, he makes little effort to conceal himself,
usually squatting beside a log, stump, or tree, and
seeming to avoid rocks and ledges where he might

54 WINTER SUNSHINE

be partially housed from the cold and the snow, but
where also—and this consideration undoubtedly
determines his choice —he would be more apt to
fall a prey to his enemies. In this, as well as in
many other respects, he differs from the rabbit
proper: he never burrows in the ground, or takes
refuge in a den or hole, when pursued. If caught
in the open fields, he is much confused and easily
overtaken by the dog; but in the woods, he leaves
him at a bound. In summer, when first disturbed,
he beats the ground violently with his feet, by
which means he would express to you his surprise
or displeasure; it is a dumb way he has of scolding.
After leaping a few yards, he pauses an instant, as
if to determine the degree of danger, and then hur-
ries away with a much lighter tread.

His feet are like great pads, and his track has
little of the sharp, articulated expression of Rey-
nard’s, or of animals that climb or dig. Yet it is
very pretty like all the rest, and tells its own tale.
There is nothing bold or vicious or vulpine in it,
and his timid, harmless character is published at
every leap. He abounds in dense woods, preferring
localities filled with a small undergrowth of beech
and birch, upon the bark of which he feeds. Nature
is rather partial to him, and matches his extreme
local habits and character with a suit that corre-
sponds with his surroundings, — reddish gray in
summer and white in winter.

The sharp-rayed track of the partridge adds an-
other figure to this fantastic embroidery upon the

THE SNOW-—WALKERS 55

winter snow. Her course is a clear, strong line,
sometimes quite wayward, but generally very direct,
steering for the densest, most impenetrable places,
—leading you over logs and through brush, alert
and expectant, till, suddenly, she bursts up a few
yards from you, and goes humming through the
trees, —the complete triumph of endurance and
vigor. Hardy native bird, may your tracks never
be fewer, or your visits to the birch-tree less fre-
quent!

The squirrel tracks— sharp, nervous, and wiry
—have their histories also. But who ever saw
squirrels in winter? The naturalists say they are
mostly torpid; yet evidently that little pocket-faced
depredator, the chipmunk, was not carrying buck-
wheat for so many days to his hole for nothing:
was he anticipating a state of torpidity, or providing
against the demands of a very active appetite? Red
and gray squirrels are more or less active all winter,
though very shy, and, I am inclined to think, par-
tially nocturnal in their habits. Here a gray one
has just passed, —came down that tree and went
up this; there he dug for a beechnut, and left the
burr on the snow. How did he know where to dig?
During an unusually severe winter I have known
him to make long journeys to a barn, in a remote
field, where wheat was stored. How did he know
there was wheat there? In attempting to return,
the adventurous creature was frequently run down
and caught in the deep snow.

His home is in the trunk of some old birch or

56 WINTER SUNSHINE

maple, with an entrance far up amid the branches.
In the spring he builds himself a summer-house of
small leafy twigs in the top of a neighboring beech,
where the young are reared and much of the time
passed. But the safer retreat in the maple is not
abandoned, and both old and young resort thither
in the fall, or when danger threatens. Whether
this temporary residence amid the branches is for
elegance or pleasure, or for sanitary reasons or do-
mestic convenience, the naturalist has forgotten to
mention.

The elegant creature, so cleanly in its habits, so
graceful in its carriage, so nimble and daring in its
movements, excites feelings of admiration akin to
those awakened by the birds and the fairer forms of
nature. His passage through the trees is almost a
flight. Indeed, the flying squirrel has little or no
advantage over him, and in speed and nimbleness
cannot compare with him at all. If he miss his
footing and fall, he is sure to catch on the next
branch; if the connection be broken, he leaps reck-
lessly for the nearest spray or limb, and secures his
hold, even if it be by the aid of his teeth.

His career of frolic and festivity begins in the
fall, after the birds have left us and the holiday
spirit of nature has commenced to subside. How
absorbing the pastime of the sportsman who goes
to the woods in the still October morning in quest
of him! You step lightly across the threshold of
the forest, and sit down upon the first log or rock
to await the signals. It is so still that the ear sud-

THE SNOW—WALKERS 57

denly seems to have acquired new powers, and there
is no movement to confuse the eye. Presently you
hear the rustling of a branch, and see it sway or
spring as the squirrel leaps from or to it; or else
you hear a disturbance in the dry leaves, and mark
one running upon the ground. He has probably
seen the intruder, and, not liking his stealthy move-
ments, desires to avoid a nearer acquaintance. Now
he mounts a stump to see if the way is clear, then
pauses a moment at the foot of a tree to take his
bearings, his tail, as he skims along, undulating be-
hind him, and adding to the easy grace and dignity
of his movements. Or else you are first advised of
his proximity by the dropping of a false nut, or the
fragments of the shucks rattling upon the leaves.
Or, again, after contemplating you a while unob-
served, and making up his mind that you are not
dangerous, he strikes an attitude on a branch, and
commences to quack and bark, with an accompany-
ing movement of his tail. Late in the afternoon,
when the same stillness reigns, the same scenes are
repeated. There is a black variety, quite rare, but
mating freely with the gray, from which he seems
to be distinguished only in color.

The track of the red squirrel may be known by
its smaller size. He is more common and less dig-
nified than the gray, and oftener guilty of petty lar-
ceny about the barns and grain-fields. He is most
abundant in old barkpeelings, and low, dilapidated
hemlocks, from which he makes excursions to the
fields and orchards, spinning along the tops of the

58 WINTER SUNSHINE

fences, which afford not only convenient lines of
communication, but a safe retreat if danger threat-
ens. He loves to linger about the orchard; and,
sitting upright on the topmost stone in the wall, or
on the tallest stake in the fence, chipping up an
apple for the seeds, his tail conforming to the curve
of his back, his paws shifting and turning the apple,
he is a pretty sight, and his bright, pert appearance
atones for all the mischief he does. At home, in
the woods, he is the most frolicsome and loquacious.
The appearance of anything unusual, if, after con-
templating it a moment, he concludes it not dan-
gerous, excites his unbounded mirth and ridicule,
and he snickers and chatters, hardly able to contain
himself; now darting up the trunk of a tree and
squealing in derision, then hopping into position
on a limb and dancing to the music of his own
cackle, and all for your special benefit.

There is something very human in this apparent
mirth and mockery of the squirrels. It seems to
be a sort of ironical laughter, and implies self-con-
scious pride and exultation in the laughter. ‘‘ What
a ridiculous thing you are, to be sure!” he seems to
say; “how clumsy and awkward, and what a poor
show for a tail! Look at me, look at me!” —and
he capers about in his best style. Again, he would.
seem to tease you and provoke your attention; then
suddenly assumes a tone of good-natured, childlike
defiance and derision. That pretty little imp, the
chipmunk, will sit on the stone above his den and
defy you, as plainly as if he said so, to catch him

THE SNOW-WALKERS 59

before he can get into his hole if youcan. You
hurl a stone at him, and “No you didn’t!” comes
up from the depth of his retreat.

In February another track appears upon the
snow, slender and delicate, about a third larger than
that of the gray squirrel, indicating no haste or
speed, but, on the contrary, denoting the most im-
perturbable ease and leisure, the footprints so close
together that the trail appears like a chain of curi-
ously carved links., Sir Mephitis mephitica, or,
in plain English, the skunk, has woke up from his
six weeks’ nap, and come out into society again.
He is a nocturnal traveler, very bold and impudent,
coming quite up to the barn and outbuildings, and
sometimes taking up his quarters for the season un-
der the haymow. There is no such word as hurry
in his dictionary, as you may see by his path upon
the snow. He has a very sneaking, insinuating
way, and goes creeping about the fields and woods,
never once in a perceptible degree altering his gait,
and, if a fence crosses his course, steers for a break
or opening to avoid climbing. He is too indolent
even to dig his own hole, but appropriates that of
a woodchuck, or hunts out a crevice in the rocks,
from which he extends his rambling in all direc-
tions, preferring damp, thawy weather. He has
very little discretion or cunning, and holds a trap
in utter contempt, stepping into it as soon as beside
it, relying implicitly for defense against all forms of
danger upon the unsavory punishment he is capable
of inflicting. He is quite indifferent to both man

60 WINTER SUNSHINE

and beast, and will not hurry himself to get out of
the way of either. Walking through the summer
fields at twilight, I have come near stepping upon
him, and was much the more disturbed of the two.
When attacked in the open fields he confounds the
plans of his enemies by the unheard-of tactics of
exposing his rear rather than his front. ‘Come if
you dare,” he says, and his attitude makes even
the farm-dog pause. After a few encounters of
this kind, and if you entertain the usual hostility
towards him, your mode of attack will speedily re-
solve itself into moving about him in a circle, the
radius of which will be the exact distance at which
you can hurl a stone with accuracy and effect.

He has a secret to keep and knows it, and is
careful not to betray himself until he can do so with
the most telling effect. I have known him to pre-
serve his serenity even when caught in a steel trap,
and look the very picture of injured innocence,
manceuvring carefully and deliberately to extricate
his foot from the grasp of the naughty jaws. Do
not by any means take pity on him, and lend a
helping hand!

How pretty his face and head! How fine and
delicate his teeth, like a weasel’s or cat’s! When
about a third grown, he looks so well that one coy-
ets him fora pet. He is quite precocious, however,
and capable, even at this tender age, of making a
very strong appeal to your sense of smell.

No animal is more cleanly in its habits than he.
He is not an awkward boy who cuts his own face

THE SNOW-WALKERS 61

with his whip; and neither his flesh nor his fur
hints the weapon with which he is armed. The
most silent creature known to me, he makes no
sound, so far as I have observed, save a diffuse,
impatient noise, like that produced by beating your
hand with a whisk-broom, when the farm-dog has
discovered his retreat in the stone fence. He
renders himself obnoxious to the farmer by his par-
tiality for hens’ eggs and young poultry. Heisa
confirmed epicure, and at plundering hen-roosts an
expert. Not the full-grown fowls are his victims,
but the youngest and most tender. At night Mother
Hen receives under her maternal wings a dozen
newly hatched chickens, and with much pride and
satisfaction feels them all safely tucked away in her
feathers. In the morning she is walking about dis-
consolately, attended by only two or three of all
that pretty brood. What has happened? Where
are they gone? That pickpocket, Sir Mephitis,
could solve the mystery. Quietly has he approached,
under cover of darkness, and one by one relieved
her of her precious charge. Look closely and you
will see their little yellow legs and beaks, or part
of a mangled form, lying about on the ground. Or,
before the hen has hatched, he may find her out,
and, by the same sleight of hand, remove every egg,
leaving only the empty blood-stained shells to wit-
ness against him. The birds, especially the ground-
builders, suffer in like manner from his plundering
propensities.

=-«"he secretion upon which he relies for defense,

62 WINTER SUNSHINE

and which is the chief source of his unpopularity,
while it affords good reasons against cultivating him
as a pet, and mars his attractiveness as game, is by
no means the greatest indignity that can be offered
to anose. It is a rank, living smell, and has none
of the sickening qualities of disease or putrefaction.
Indeed, I think a good smeller will enjoy its most
refined intensity. It approaches the sublime, and
makes the nose tingle. Itis tonic and bracing, and,
I can readily believe, has rare medicinal qualities.
I do not recommend its use as eyewater, though an
old farmer assures me it has undoubted virtues when
thus applied. Hearing, one night, a disturbance
among his hens, he rushed suddenly out to catch
the thief, when Sir Mephitis, taken by surprise, and
no doubt much annoyed at being interrupted, dis-
charged the vials of his wrath full in the farmer’s
face, and with such admirable effect that, for a few
moments, he was completely blinded, and powerless
to revenge himself upon the rogue, who embraced
the opportunity to make good his escape; but he
declared that afterwards his eyes felt as if purged
by fire, and his sight was much clearer. “

(In March that brief summary of a bear, the rac-
coon, comes out of his den in the ledges, and leaves
his sharp digitigrade track upon the snow, — travel-
ing not unfrequently in pairs, —a lean, hungry
couple, bent on pillage and plunder. They have
an unenviable time of it, — feasting in the summer
and fall, hibernating in winter, and starving in
spring. In April I have found the young of tas

THE SNOW-WALKERS 63

previous year creeping about the fields, so reduced
by starvation as to be quite helpless, and offering
no resistance to my taking them up by the tail and
carrying them home.

The old ones also become very much emaciated,
and come boldly up to the barn or other outbuild-
ings in quest of food. I remember, one morning in
early spring, of hearing old Cuff, the farm-dog, bark-
ing vociferously before it was yet light. When we
got up we discovered him, at the foot of an ash-tree
standing about thirty rods from the house, looking
up at some gray object in the leafless branches, and
by his manners and his voice evincing great impa-
tience that we were so tardy in coming to his assist-
ance. Arrived on the spot, we saw in the tree a
coon of unusual size. One bold climber proposed
to go up and shake him down. This was what old
Cuff wanted, and he fairly bounded with delight as
he saw his young master shinning up the tree.
Approaching within eight or ten feet of the coon,
he seized the branch to which it clung and shook
long and fiercely. But the coon was in no danger
of losing its hold, and, when the climber paused to
renew his hold, it turned toward him with a growl,
and showed very clearly a purpose to advance to the
attack. This caused his pursuer to descend to the
ground again with all speed. When the coon was
finally brought down with a gun, he fought the dog,
which was a large, powerful animal, with great fury,
returning bite for bite for some moments; and after
a quarter of an hour had elapsed and his unequal

64 WINTER SUNSHINE

antagonist had shaken him as a terrier does a rat,
making his teeth meet through the small of his
back, the coon still showed fight.

They are very tenacious of life, and like the
badger will always whip a dog of their own size and
weight. A woodchuck can bite severely, having
teeth that cut like chisels, but a coon has agility
and power of limb as well.

They are only considered game in the fall, or
towards the close of summer, when they become fat
and their flesh sweet. At this time, cooning in the
remote interior is a famous pastime. As this animal
is entirely nocturnal in its habits, it is hunted only
at night. A piece of corn on some remote side-hill
near the mountain, or between two pieces of woods,
is most apt to be frequented by them. While the
corn is yet green they pull the ears down like hogs,
and, tearing open the sheathing of husks, eat the
tender, succulent kernels, bruising and destroying
much more than they devour. Sometimes their
ravages are a matter of serious concern to the farmer.
But every such neighborhood has its coon-dog, and
the boys and young men dearly love the sport.
The party sets out about eight or nine o’clock of a
dark, moonless night, and stealthily approach the
cornfield. The dog knows his business, and when
he is put into a patch of corn and told to “hunt them
up” he makes a thorough search, and will not be
misled by any other scent. You hear him rattling
through the corn, hither and yon, with great speed.
The coons prick up their ears, and leave on the

THE SNOW—WALKERS 65

opposite side of the field. In the stillness you may
sometimes hear a single stone rattle on the wall as
they hurry toward the woods. If the dog finds
nothing he comes back to his master in a short time,
and says in his dumb way, ‘No coon there.” But
if he strikes a trail you presently hear a louder rat-
tling on the stone wall, and then a hurried bark as
he enters the woods, followed in a few minutes by
loud and repeated barking as he reaches the foot of
the tree in which the coon has taken refuge. Then
follows a pellmell rush of the cooning party up the
hill, into the woods, through the brush and the
darkness, falling over prostrate trees, pitching into
gullies and hollows, losing hats and tearing clothes,
till finally, guided by the baying of the faithful dog,
the tree is reached. The first thing now in order
is to kindle a fire, and, if its light reveals the coon,
to shoot him; if not, to fell the tree with an axe.
If this happens to be too great a sacrifice of timber
and of strength, to sit down at the foot of the tree
till morning.

But with March our interest in these phases of
animal life, which winter has so emphasized and
brought out, begins to decline. Vague rumors are
afloat in the air of a great and coming change. We
are eager for Winter to be gone, since he, too, is
fugitive and cannot keep his place. Invisible hands
deface his icy statuary; his chisel has lost its cun-
ning. The drifts, so pure and exquisite, are now
earth-stained and weather-worn, —the flutes and
scallops, and fine, firm lines, all gone; and what

66 WINTER SUNSHINE

was a grace and an ornament to the hills is now a
disfiguration. Like worn and unwashed linen ap-
pear the remains of that spotless robe with which
he clothed the world as his bride.

But he will not abdicate without a struggle. Day
after day he rallies his scattered forces, and night
after night pitches his white tents on the hills, and
would fain regain his lost ground; but the young
prince in every encounter prevails. Slowly and
reluctantly the gray old hero retreats up the moun-
tain, till finally the south rain comes in earnest, and
in a night he is dead.

IV
THE FOX

HAVE already spoken of the fox at some
length, but it will take a chapter by itself to do
half justice to his portrait.

He furnishes, perhaps, the only instance that can
be cited of a fur-bearing animal that not only holds
its own, but that actually increases in the face of
the means that are used for its extermination. The
beaver, for instance, was gone before the earliest
settlers could get a sight of him; and even the mink
and marten are now only rarely seen, or not seen at
all, in places where they were once abundant.

But the fox has survived civilization, and in
some localities is no doubt more abundant now than
in the time of the Revolution. For half a century
at least he has been almost the only prize, in the
way of fur, that was to be found on our mountains,
and he has been hunted and trapped and waylaid,
sought for as game and pursued in enmity, taken by
fair means and by foul, and yet there seems not the
slightest danger of the species becoming extinct.

One would think that a single hound in a neigh-
borhood, filling the mountains with his bayings, and
leaving no nook or byway of them unexplored, was

68 WINTER SUNSHINE

enough to drive and scare every fox from the coun-
try. But not so. Indeed, I am almost tempted to
say, the more hounds, the more foxes.

I recently spent a summer month in a mountain-
ous district in the State of New York, where, from
its earliest settlement, the red fox has been the
standing prize for skill in the use of the trap and
gun. At the house where I was stopping were two
foxhounds, and a neighbor half a mile distant had
a third. There were many others in the township,
and in season they were well employed, too; but
the three spoken of, attended by their owners, held
high carnival on the mountains in the immediate
vicinity. And many were the foxes that, winter
after winter, fell before them, twenty-five having
been shot, the season before my visit, on one small
range alone. And yet the foxes were apparently
never more abundant than they were that summer,
and never bolder, coming at night within a few rods
of the house, and of the unchained alert hounds,
and making havoc among the poultry.

One morning a large, fat goose was found minus
her head and otherwise mangled. Both hounds had
disappeared, and, as they did not come back till near
night, it was inferred that they had cut short Rey-
nard’s repast, and given him a good chase into the
bargain. But next night he was back again, and
this time got safely off with the goose. A couple
of nights after he must have come with recruits, for
next morning three large goslings were reported
missing. The silly geese now got it through their

THE FOX 69

noddles that there was danger about, and every
night thereafter came close up to the house to
roost.

A brood of turkeys, the old one tied to a tree a
few rods to the rear of the house, were the next
objects of attack. The predaceous rascal came, as
usual, in the latter half of the night. I happened
to be awake, and heard the helpless turkey cry
“Quit,” “quit,” with great emphasis. Another
sleeper, on the floor above me, who, it seems, had
been sleeping with one ear awake for several nights
in apprehension for the safety of his turkeys, heard
the sound also, and instantly divined its cause. I
heard the window open and a voice summon the
dogs. A loud bellow was the response, which
caused Reynard to take himself off ina hurry. A
moment more, and the mother turkey would have
shared the fate of the geese. There she lay at the
end of her tether, with extended wings, bitten and
rumpled. The young ones roosted in a row on the
fence near by, and had taken flight on the first
alarm.

Turkeys, retaining many of their wild instincts,
are less easily captured by the fox than any other
of our domestic fowls. On the slightest show of
danger they take to wing, and it is not unusual, in
the locality of which I speak, to find them in the
morning perched in the most unwonted places, as on
the peak of the barn or hay-shed, or on the tops of
the apple-trees, their tails spread and their manners
showing much excitement. Perchance one turkey

70 WINTER SUNSHINE

is minus her tail, the fox having succeeded in get-
ting only a mouthful of quills.

As the brood grows and their wings develop, they
wander far from the house in quest of grasshoppers.
At such times they are all watchfulness and suspi-
cion. Crossing the fields one day, attended by a
dog that much resembled a fox, I came suddenly
upon a brood about one third grown, which were
feeding in a pasture just beyond a wood. It so
happened that they caught sight of the dog without
seeing me, when instantly, with the celerity of wild
game, they launched into the air, and, while the
old one perched upon a treetop, as if to keep an
eye on the supposed enemy, the young went sailing
over the trees toward home.

The two hounds above referred to, accompanied
by a cur-dog, whose business it was to mind the
farm, but who took as much delight in running away
from prosy duty as if he had been a schoolboy,
would frequently steal off and have a good hunt all
by themselves, just for the fun of the thing, I sup-
pose. JI more than half suspect that it was as a
kind of taunt or retaliation, that Reynard came and
took the geese from under their very noses. One
morning they went off and stayed till the afternoon
of the next day; they ran the fox all day and all
night, the hounds baying at every jump, the cur-
dog silent and tenacious. When the trio returned
they came dragging themselves along, stiff, foot-
sore, gaunt, and hungry. For a day or two after-
ward they lay about the kennels, seeming to dread

THE FOX 71

nothing so much as the having to move. The
stolen hunt was their “spree,” their “bender,” and
of course they must take time to get over it.

Some old hunters think the fox enjoys the chase
as much as the hound, especially when the latter
runs slow, as the best hounds do. The fox will
wait for the hound, will sit down and listen, or play
about, crossing and recrossing and doubling upon
his track, as if enjoying a mischievous consciousness
of the perplexity he would presently cause his pur-
suer. It is evident, however, that the fox does not
always have his share of the fun: before a swift
dog, or in a deep snow, or on a wet day when his
tail gets heavy, he must put his best foot forward.
As a last resort he “holes up.” Sometimes he
resorts to numerous devices to mislead and escape
the dog altogether. He will walk in the bed of a
small creek, or on a rail-fence. I heard of an in-
stance of a fox, hard and long pressed, that took to
a rail-fence, and, after walking some distance, made
a leap to one side to a hollow stump, in the cavity
of which he snugly stowed himself. The ruse suc-
ceeded, and the dogs lost the trail; but the hunter,
coming up, passed by chance near the stump, when
out bounded the fox, his cunning availing him less
than he deserved. On another occasion the fox
took to the public road, and stepped with great care
and precision into a sleigh-track. The hard, pol-
ished snow took no imprint of the light foot, and
the scent was no doubt less than it would have been
on a rougher surface. Maybe, also, the rogue had

72 WINTER SUNSHINE

considered the chances of another sleigh coming
along, before the hound, and obliterating the trail
entirely.

Audubon relates of a certain fox, which, when
started by the hounds, always managed to elude
them at a certain point. Finally the hunter con-
cealed himself in the locality, to discover, if possi-
ble, the trick. Presently along came the fox, and,
making a leap to one side, ran up the trunk of a
fallen tree which had lodged some feet from the
ground, and concealed himself in the top. In a
few minutes the hounds came up, and in their eager-
ness passed some distance beyond the point, and
then went still farther, looking for the lost trail.
Then the fox hastened down, and, taking his back-
track, fooled the dogs completely.

I was told of a silver-gray fox in northern New
York, which, when pursued by the hounds, would
run till it had hunted up another fox, or the fresh
trail of one, when it would so manceuvre that the
hound would invariably be switched off on the sec-
ond track.

In cold, dry weather the fox will sometimes
elude the hound, at least delay him much, by tak-
ing to a bare, plowed field. The hard dry earth
seems not to retain a particle of the scent, and the
hound gives a loud, long, peculiar bark, to signify
he has trouble. It is now his turn to show his wit,
which he often does by passing completely around
the field, and resuming the trail again where it
crosses the fence or a strip of snow.

THE FOX 73

The fact that any dry, hard surface is unfavorable
to the hound, suggests, in a measure, the explana-
tion of the wonderful faculty that all dogs in a
degree possess i om an animal by the scent of
the foot alone. id you ever think why a dog’s
nose is always wet? THxamine the nose of a fox-
hound, for instance; how very moist and sensitive!
Cause this moisture to dry up, and the dog would
be as powerless to track an animal as you are! The
nose of the cat, you may observe, is but a little
moist, and, as you know, her sense of smell is far
inferior to that of the dog. Moisten your own nos-
trils and lips, and this sense is plainly sharpened. /
The sweat of a dog’s nose, therefore, is no doubt a
vital element in its power, and, without taking a
very long logical stride, we may infer how a damp,
rough surface aids him in tracking game.

A fox hunt in this country is, of course, quite a
different thing from what it is in England, where
all the squires and noblemen of a borough, superbly
mounted, go riding over the country, guided by the
yelling hounds, till the fox is literally run down
and murdered. Here the hunter prefers a rough,
mountainous country, and, as probably most persons
know, takes advantage of the disposition of the fox,
when pursued by the hound, to play or circle around
a ridge or bold point, and, taking his stand near the
run-way shoots him down.

I recently had the pleasure of a turn with some
experienced hunters. As we ascended the ridge
toward the mountain, keeping in our ears the uncer-

74 WINTER SUNSHINE

tain baying of the hounds as they slowly unraveled
an old trail, my companions pointed out to me the
different run-ways, —a gap in the fence here, a rock
just below the brow of the hill there, that tree yon-
der near the corner of the woods, or the end of that
stone wall looking down the side-hill, or command-
ing a cow path, or the outlet of a wood-road. A
half wild apple orchard near a cross road was pointed
out as an invariable run-way, where the fox turned
toward the mountain again, after having been driven
down the ridge. There appeared to be no reason
why the foxes should habitually pass any particular
point, yet the hunters told me that year after year
they took about the same turns, each generation of
foxes running through the upper corner of that
field, or crossing the valley near yonder stone wall,
when pursued by the dog. It seems the fox when
he finds himself followed is perpetually tempted to
turn in his course, to deflect from a right line, as ,
a person would undoubtedly be under similar cir-
cumstances. If he is on this side of the ridge,
when he hears the dog break around on his trail he
speedily crosses to the other side; if he is in the
fields he takes again to the woods; if in the valley
he hastens to the high land, and evidently enjoys
running along the ridge and listening to the dogs,
slowly tracing out his course in the fields below.
At such times he appears to have but one sense,
hearing, and that reverted toward his pursuers. He
is constantly pausing, looking back and listening,
and will almost run over the hunter if he stands
still, even though not at all concealed.

THE FOX 75

Animals of this class depend far less upon their
sight than upon their hearing and sense of smell.
Neither: the fox nor the dog is capable of much dis-
crimination with the eye; they seem to see things
only in the mass; but with the nose they can ana-
lyze and define, and get at the most subtle shades
of difference. The fox will not read a man from a
stump or a rock, unless he gets his scent, and the
dog does not know his master in a crowd until he
has smelled him.

On the occasion to which I refer, it was not many
minutes after the dogs entered the woods on the
side of the mountain before they gave out sharp
and eager, and we knew at once that the fox was
started. We were then near a point that had been
designated as a sure run-way, and hastened to get
into position with all speed. For my part I was so
taken with the music of the hounds, as it swelled up
over the ridge, that I quite forgot the game. I saw
one of my companions leveling his gun, and, looking
a few rods to the right, saw the fox coming right
on to us. I had barely time to note the silly and
abashed expression that came over him as he saw us
in his path, when he was cut down as by a flash of
lightning. The rogue did not appear frightened,
but ashamed and out of countenance, as one does
when some trick has been played upon him, or when
detected in some mischief.

Late in the afternoon, as we were passing through
a piece of woods in the valley below, another fox,
the third that day, broke from his cover in an old

76 WINTER SUNSHINE

treetop, under our very noses, and drew the fire of
three of our party, myself among the number, but,
thanks to the interposing trees and limbs, escaped
unhurt. Then the dogs took up the trail and there
was lively music again. The fox steered through
the fields direct for the ridge where we had passed
up in the morning. We knew he would take a turn
here and then point for the mountain, and two of
us, with the hope of cutting him off by the old
orchard, through which we were again assured he
would surely pass, made a precipitous rush for that
point. It was nearly half a mile distant, most of
the way up a steep side-hill, and if the fox took the
circuit indicated he would probably be there in
twelve or fifteen minutes. Running up an angle of
45° seems quite easy work for a four-footed beast
like a dog or fox, but to a two-legged animal like a
man it is very heavy and awkward. Before I got
half way up there seemed to be a vacuum all about
me, so labored was my breathing, and when I
reached the summit my head swam and my knees
were about giving out; but pressing on, I had barely
time to reach a point in the road abreast of the
orchard, when I heard the hounds, and, looking
under the trees, saw the fox, leaping high above the
weeds and grass, coming straight toward me. He
evidently had not got over the first scare, which our
haphazard fusillade had given him, and was making
unusually quick time. I was armed with a rifle,
and said to myself now was the time to win the
laurels I had coveted. ‘For half a day previous I

THE FOX 77

had been practicing on a pumpkin which a patient
youth had rolled down a hill for me, and had im-
proved my shot considerably. Now a yellow pump-
kin was coming which was not a pumpkin, and for
the first time during the day opportunity favored
me. I expected the fox to cross the road a few
yards below me, but just then I heard him whisk
through the grass, and he bounded upon the fence
a few yards above. He seemed to cringe as he saw
his old enemy, and to depress his fur to half his
former dimensions. Three bounds and he had
cleared the road, when my bullet tore up the sod
beside him, but to this hour I do not know whether |
I looked at the fox without seeing my gun, or
whether I did sight him across its barrel. I only
know that I did not distinguish myself in the use
of the rifle on that occasion, and went home to
wreak my revenge upon another pumpkin; but
without much improvement of my skill, for, a few
days after, another fox ran under my very nose with
perfect impunity. There is something so fascinat-
ing in the sudden appearance of the fox that the
eye is quite mastered, and, unless the instinct of the
sportsman is very strong and quick, the prey will
slip through his grasp.

A still hunt rarely brings you in sight of a fox,
as his ears are much sharper than yours, and his
tread much lighter. But if the fox is mousing in
the fields, and you discover him before he does
you, you may, the wind favoring, call him within
a few paces of you. Secrete yourself behind the

78 WINTER SUNSHINE

fence, or some other object, and squeak as nearly
like a mouse as possible. Reynard will hear the
sound at an incredible distance. Pricking up his
ears, he gets the direction, and comes trotting
along as unsuspiciously as can be. I have never
had an opportunity to try the experiment, but I
know perfectly reliable persons who have. One
man, in the pasture getting his cows, called a fox
which was too busy mousing to get the first sight,
till it jumped upon the wall just over where he
sat secreted. Giving a loud whoop and jumping
up at the same time, the fox came as near being
frightened out of his skin as I suspect a fox ever
was.

In trapping for the fox, you get perhaps about as
much “fun” and as little fur as in any trapping
amusement you can engage in. The one feeling
that ever seems present to the mind of Reynard is
suspicion. He does not need experience to teach
him, but seems to know from the jump that there is
such a thing as a trap, and that a trap has a way of
grasping a fox’s paw that is more frank than friendly.
Cornered in a hole or den, a trap can be set so that
the poor creature has the desperate alternative of
being caught or starve. He is generally caught,
though not till he has braved hunger for a good
many days.

But to know all his cunning and shrewdness, bait
him in the field, or set your trap by some carcass
where he is wont to come. In some cases he will
uncover the trap, and leave the marks of his con-

THE FOX 79

tempt for it in a way you cannot mistake, or else
he will not approach within a rod of it. Occasion-
ally, however, he finds in a trapper more than his
match, and is fairly caught. When this happens,
the trap, which must be of the finest make, is never
touched with the bare hand, but, after being thor-
oughly smoked and greased, is set in a bed of dry
ashes or chaff in a remote field, where the fox has
been emboldened to dig for several successive nights
for morsels of toasted cheese.

A light fall of snow aids the trapper’s art and
conspires to Reynard’s ruin. But how lightly he
is caught, when caught at all! barely the end of his
toes, or at most a spike through the middle of his
foot. I once saw a large painting of a fox strug-
gling with a trap which held him by the hind leg,
above the gambrel-joint! A painting alongside of
it represented a peasant driving an ox-team from
the off-side! A fox would be as likely to be caught
above the gambrel-joint as a farmer would to drive
his team from the off-side. J knew one that was
caught by the tip of the lower jaw. He came
nightly, and took the morsel of cheese from the pan
of the trap without springing it. A piece was then
secured to the pan by a thread, with the result as
above stated.

I have never been able to see clearly why the
mother fox generally selects a burrow or hole in the
open field in which to have her young, except it be,
as some hunters maintain, for better security. The
young foxes are wont to come out on a warm day,

80 WINTER SUNSHINE

and play like puppies in front of the den. The
view being unobstructed on all sides by trees or
bushes, in the cover of which danger might ap-
proach, they are less liable to surprise and capture.
On the slightest sound they disappear in the hole.
Those who have watched the gambols of the young
foxes speak of them as very amusing, even more
arch and playful than those of kittens, while a spirit
profoundly wise and cunning seems to look out of
their young eyes. The parent fox can never be
caught in the den with them, but is hovering near
the woods, which are always at hand, and by her
warning cry or bark telling them when to be on
their guard. She usually has at least three dens,
at no great distance apart, and moves stealthily in
the night with her charge from one to the other, so
as to mislead her enemies. Many a party of boys,
and of men, too, discovering the whereabouts of a
litter, have gone with shovels and picks, and, after
digging away vigorously for several hours, have
found only an empty hole for their pains. The old
fox, finding her secret had been found out, had
waited for darkness, in the cover of which to trans-
fer her household to new quarters; or else some old
fox-hunter, jealous of the preservation of his game,
and getting word of the intended destruction of the
litter, had gone at dusk the night before, and made
some disturbance about the den, perhaps flashed
some powder in its mouth,—a hint which the
shrewd animal knew how to interpret.

The more scientific aspects of the question may

THE FOX 81

not be without interest to some of my readers.
The fox belongs to the great order of flesh-eating
animals called Carnivora, and of the family called
Canide, or dogs. The wolf is a kind of wild dog,
and the fox is a kind of wolf. Foxes, unlike wolves,
however, never go in packs or companies, but hunt
singly. The fox has a kind of bark, which suggests
the dog, as have all the members of this family.
The kinship is further shown by the fact that dur-
ing certain periods, for the most part in the sum-
mer, the dog cannot be made to attack or even pur-
sue the female fox, but will run from her in the
most shamefaced manner, which he will not do in
the case of any other animal except a wolf. Many
of the ways and manners of the fox, when tamed,
are also like the dog’s. I once saw a young red
fox exposed for sale in the market in Washington.
A colored man had him, and said he had caught him
out in Virginia. He led him by a small chain, as
he would a puppy, and the innocent young rascal
would lie on his side and bask and sleep in the sun-
shine, amid all the noise and chaffering around him,
precisely like a dog. He was about the size of a
full-grown cat, and there was a bewitching beauty
about him that I could hardly resist. On another
occasion, I saw a gray fox, about two thirds grown,
playing with a dog, about the same size, and by
nothing in the manners of either could you tell
which was the dog and which was the fox.

Some naturalists think there are but two perma-
nent species of the fox in the United States, namely,

82 WINTER SUNSHINE

the gray fox and the red fox, though there are five
or six varieties. The gray fox, which is much
smaller and less valuable than the red, is the South-
ern species, and is said to be rarely found north of
Maryland, though in certain rocky localities along
the Hudson they are common.

In the Southern States this fox is often hunted
in the English fashion, namely, on horseback, the
riders tearing through the country in pursuit till the
animal is run down and caught. This is the only
fox that will tree. When too closely pressed, in-
stead of taking to a den or hole, it climbs beyond
the reach of the dogs in some small tree.

The red fox is the Northern species, and is rarely
found farther south than the mountainous districts
of Virginia. In the Arctic regions he gives place
to the Arctic fox, which most of the season is white.

The prairie fox, the cross fox, and the black or
silver-gray fox, seem only varieties of the red fox,
as the black squirrel breeds from the gray, and the
black woodchuck is found with. the brown. There
is little to distinguish them from the red, except
the color, though the prairie fox is said to be the
larger of the two.

The cross fox is dark brown on its muzzle and
extremities, with a cross of red and black on its
shoulders and breast, which peculiarity of coloring,
and not any trait in its character, gives it its name.
They are very rare, and few hunters have ever seen
one. The American Fur Company used to obtain
annually from fifty to one hundred skins. The

THE FOX 83

skins formerly sold for twenty-five dollars, though
I believe they now bring only about five dollars.

The black or silver-gray fox is the rarest of all,
and its skin the most valuable. The Indians used
to estimate it equal to forty beaver skins. The
great fur companies seldom collect in a single season
more than four or five skins at any one post. Most
of those of the American Fur Company come from
the head-waters of the Mississippi. One of the
younger Audubons shot one in northern New York.
The fox had been seen and fired at many times by
the hunters of the neighborhood, and had come to
have the reputation of leading a charmed life, and
of being invulnerable to anything but a silver bul-
let. But Audubon brought her down (for it was
a female) on the second trial. She had a litter of
young in the vicinity, which he also dug out, and
found the nest to hold three black and four red
ones, which fact settled the question with him that
black and red often have the same parentage, and
are in truth the same species.

The color of this fox, in a point-blank view, is
black, but viewed at an angle it is a dark silver-
gray, whence has arisen the notion that the black
and the silver-gray are distinct varieties. The tip
of the tail is always white.

In almost every neighborhood there are traditions
of this fox, and it is the dream of young sportsmen;
but I have yet to meet the person who has seen
one. I should go well to the north, into the British
Possessions, if I were bent on obtaining a specimen,

84 WINTER SUNSHINE

One more item from the books. From the fact
that in the bone caves in this country skulls of the
gray fox are found, but none of the red, it is in-
ferred by some naturalists that the red fox is a
descendant from the European species, which it
resembles in form but surpasses in beauty, and its
appearance on this continent comparatively of re-
cent date.

Vv

A MARCH CHRONICLE

ON THE POTOMAC

MAS 1.—The first day of spring and the

first spring day! I felt the change the mo-
ment I put my head out of doors in the morning.
A fitful, gusty south wind was blowing, though the
sky was clear. But the sunlight was not the same.
There was an interfusion of a new element. Not
ten days since there had been a day just as bright,
—even brighter and warmer, —a clear, crystalline
day of February, with nothing vernal in it; but
this day was opaline; there was a film, a sentiment
in it, a nearer approach to life. Then there was
that fresh, indescribable odor, a breath from the
Gulf, or from Florida and the Carolinas, —a subtle,
persuasive influence that thrilled the sense. Lvery
root and rootlet under ground must have felt it;
the buds of the soft maple and silver poplar felt
it, and swelled perceptibly during the day. The
robins knew it, and were here that morning; so
were the crow blackbirds. The shad must have
known it, down deep in their marine retreats, and
leaped and sported about the mouths of the rivers,

86 WINTER SUNSHINE

ready to dart up them if the genial influence con-
tinued. ‘The bees in the hive also, or in the old
tree in the woods, no doubt awoke to new life; and
the hibernating animals, the bears and woodchucks,
rolled up in their subterranean dens, —I imagine
the warmth reached even them, and quickened their
sluggish circulation.

Then in the afternoon there was the smell of
smoke, — the first spring fires in the open air. The
Virginia farmer is raking together the rubbish in his
garden, or in the field he is preparing for the plow,
and burning it up. In imagination I am there to
help him. I see the children playing about, de-
lighted with the sport and the resumption of work;
the smoke goes up through the shining haze; the
farmhouse door stands open, and lets in the after-
noon sun; the cow lows for her calf, or hides it in
the woods; and in the morning the geese, sporting
in the spring sun, answer the call of the wild flock
steering northward above them.

As I stroll through the market I see the signs
here. That old colored woman has brought spring
in her basket in those great green flakes of moss,
with arbutus showing the pink; and her old man
is just in good time with his fruit-trees and goose-
berry bushes. Various bulbs and roots are also
being brought out and offered, and the onions are
sprouting on the stands. I see bunches of robins
and cedar-birds also, —so much melody and beauty
cut off from the supply going north. The fish mar-
ket is beginning to be bright with perch and bass,

A MARCH CHRONICLE 87

and with shad from the Southern rivers, and wild
ducks are taking the place of prairie hens and quails.

In the Carolinas, no doubt, the fruit-trees are in
bloom, and the rice land is being prepared for the
seed, In the mountains of Virginia and in Ohio
they are making maple sugar; in Kentucky and
Tennessee they are sowing oats; in Illinois they
are, perchance, husking the corn which has remained
on the stalk in the field all winter. Wild geese
and ducks are streaming across the sky from the
lower Mississippi toward the great lakes, pausing a
while on the prairies, or alighting in the great corn-
fields, making the air resound with the noise of
their wings upon the stalks and dry shucks as they
resume their journey. About this time, or a little
later, in the still spring morning, the prairie hens
or prairie cocks set up that low, musical cooing or
crowing that defies the ear to trace or locate. The
air is filled with that soft, mysterious undertone;
and, save that a bird is seen here and there flitting
low over the ground, the sportsman walks for hours
without coming any nearer the source of the elusive
sound,

All over a certain belt of the country the rivers
and streams are roily, and chafe their banks. There
is a movement of the soils. The capacity of the
water to take up and hold in solution the salt and
earths seemed never so great before. The frost has
relinquished its hold, and turned everything over to
the water. Mud is the mother now; and out of it
creep the frogs, the turtles, the crawfish.

88 WINTER SUNSHINE

In the North how goes the season? The winter
is perchance just breaking up. The old frost king
is just striking, or preparing to strike, his tents.
The ice is going out of the rivers, and the first
steamboat on the Hudson is picking its way through
the blue lanes and channels. The white gulls are
making excursions up from the bay, to see what the
prospects are. In the lumber countries, along the
upper Kennebec and Penobscot, and along the north-
ern Hudson, starters are at work with their pikes
and hooks starting out the pine logs on the first
spring freshet. All winter, through the deep snows,
they have been hauling them to the bank of the
stream, or placing them where the tide would reach
them. Now, in countless numbers, beaten and
bruised, the trunks of the noble trees come, borne
by the angry flood. The snow that furnishes the
smooth bed over which they were drawn, now melted,
furnishes the power that carries them down to the
mills. On the Delaware the raftsmen are at work
running out their rafts. Floating islands of logs
and lumber go down the swollen stream, bending
over the dams, shooting through the rapids, and
bringing up at last in Philadelphia or beyond.

In the inland farming districts what are the signs?
Few and faint, but very suggestive. The sun has
power to melt the snow; and in the meadows all
the knolls are bare, and the sheep are gnawing them
industriously. The drifts on the side-hills also
begin to have a worn and dirty look, and, where
they cross the highway, to become soft, letting the

A MARCH CHRONICLE 89

teams in up to their bellies. The oxen labor and
grunt, or patiently wait for the shovel to release
them; but the spirited horse leaps and flounders,
and is determined not to give up. In the woods
the snow is melted around the trees, and the burrs
and pieces of bark have absorbed the heat till they
have sunk half way through to the ground. The
snow is melting on the under side; the frost is going
out of the ground: now comes the trial of your
foundations.

About the farm buildings there awakens the old
familiar chorus, the bleating of calves and lambs,
and the answering bass of their distressed mothers;
while the hens are cackling in the hay-loft, and the
geese are noisy in the spring run. But the most
delightful of all farm work, or of all rural occupa-
tions, is at hand, namely, sugar-making. In New
York and northern New England the beginning of
this season varies from the first to the middle of
March, sometimes even holding off till April. The
moment the contest between the sun and frost fairly
begins, sugar weather begins; and the more even
the contest, the more the sweet. JI do not know
what the philosophy of it is, but it seems a kind of
see-saw, as if the sun drew the sap up and the
frost drew it down; and an excess of either stops
the flow. Before the sun has got power to unlock
the frost, there is no sap; and after the frost has
lost its power to lock wp again the work of the sun,
there is no sap. But when it freezes soundly at
night, with a bright, warm sun next day, wind in

90 WINTER SUNSHINE

the west, and no signs of a storm, the veins of the
maples fairly thrill. Pierce the bark anywhere, and
out gushes the clear, sweet liquid. But let the
wind change to the south and blow moist and warm,
destroying that crispness of the air, and the flow
slackens at once, unless there be a deep snow in the
woods to counteract or neutralize the warmth, in
which case the run may continue till the rain sets
in. The rough-coated old trees, —one would not
think they could scent a change so quickly through
that wrapper of dead, dry bark an inch or more
thick. I have to wait till I put my head out of
doors, and feel the air on my bare cheek, and sniff
it with my nose; but their nerves of taste and smell
are no doubt under ground, imbedded in the moist-
ure, and if there is anything that responds quickly
to atmospheric changes it is water. Do not the
fish, think you, down deep in the streams, feel
every wind that blows, whether it be hot or cold?
Do not the frogs and newts and turtles under the
mud feel the warmth, though the water still seems
like ice? As the springs begin to rise in advance
of the rain, so the intelligence of every change seems
to travel ahead under ground and forewarn things.
A “sap-run” seldom lasts more than two or
three days. By that time there is a change in the
weather, perhaps a rainstorm, which takes the frost
nearly all out of the ground. ‘Then, before there
can be another run, the trees must be wound up
again, the storm must have a white tail, and “come
off” cold. Presently the sun rises clear again, and

A MARCH CHRONICLE 91

cuts the snow or softens the hard-frozen ground
with his beams, and the trees take a fresh start.
The boys go through the wood, emptying out the
buckets or the pans, and reclaiming those that have
blown away, and the delightful work is resumed.
But the first run, like first love, is always the best,
always the fullest, always the sweetest; while there
is a purity and delicacy of flavor about the sugar
that far surpasses any subsequent yield.

Trees differ much in the quantity as well as in
the quality of sap produced in a given season. In-
deed, in a bush or orchard of fifty or one hundred
trees, as wide a difference may be observed in this
respect as among that number of cows in regard to
the milk they yield. I have in my mind now a
“sugar-bush” nestled in the lap of a spur of the
Catskills, every tree of which is known to me, and
assumes a distinct individuality in my thought. I
know the look and quality of the whole two hun-
dred; and when on my annual visit to the old home-
stead I find one has perished, or fallen before the
axe, I feel a personal loss. They are all veterans,
and have yielded up their life’s blood for the profit
of two or three generations. They stand in little
groups or couples. One stands at the head of a
spring run, and lifts a large dry branch high above
the woods, where hawks and crows love to alight.
Half a dozen are climbing a little hill; while others
stand far out in the field, as if they had come out
to get the sun. A file of five or six worthies sentry
the woods on the northwest, and confront a steep

92 WINTER SUNSHINE

side-hill where sheep and cattle graze. An equal
number crowd up to the line on the east; and their
gray, stately trunks are seen across meadows or
fields of grain. Then there is a pair of Siamese
twins, with heavy, bushy tops; while in the forks
of a wood-road stand the two brothers, with their
arms around each other’s neck, and their bodies in
gentle contact for a distance of thirty feet.

One immense maple, known as the “old-cream-
pan-tree,” stands, or did stand, quite alone among
a thick growth of birches and beeches. But it kept
its end up, and did the work of two or three ordi-
nary trees, as its name denotes. Next to it the
best milcher in the lot was a shaggy-barked tree in
the edge of the field, that must have been badly
crushed or broken when it was little, for it had an
ugly crook near the ground, and seemed to struggle
all the way up to get in an upright attitude, but
never quite succeeded; yet it could outrun all its
neighbors nevertheless. The poorest tree in the lot
was a short-bodied, heavy-topped tree that stood in
the edge of a spring-run. It seldom produced half
a gallon of sap during the whole season; but this
half gallon was very sweet, — three or four times as
sweet as the ordinary article. In the production of
sap, top seems far less important than body. It is
not length of limb that wins in this race, but length
of trunk. <A heavy, bushy-topped tree in the open
field, for instance, will not, according to my obser-
vation, compare with a tall, long-trunked tree in
the woods, that has but a small top. Young, thrifty,

A MARCH CHRONICLE 93

thin-skinned trees start up with great spirit, indeed,
fairly on a run; but they do not hold out, and their
blood is very diluted. Cattle are very fond of sap;
so are sheep, and will drink enough to kill them.
The honey-bees get here their first sweet, and the
earliest bug takes up his permanent abode on the
“spile.” The squirrels also come timidly down
the trees, and sip the sweet flow; and occasionally
an ugly lizard, just out of its winter quarters and in
quest of novelties, creeps up into the pan or bucket.

/ Soft maple makes a very fine white sugar, superior
in quality, but far less in quantity.

I think any person who has tried it will agree
with me about the charm of sugar-making, though
he have no tooth for the sweet itself. It is enough
that it is the first spring work, and takes one to the
woods. ‘The robins are just arriving, and their
merry calls ring through the glades. The squirrels
are now venturing out, and the woodpeckers and
nuthatches run briskly up the trees. The crow
begins to caw, with his accustomed heartiness and
assurance; and one sees the white rump and golden
shafts of the high-hole as he flits about the open
woods. Next week, or the week after, it may be
time to begin plowing, and other sober work about
the farm; but this week we will picnic among the
maples, and our camp-fire shall be an incense to
spring. Ah, I am there now! I see the woods
flooded with sunlight; I smell the dry leaves, and
the mould under them just quickened by the warmth;
the long-trunked maples in their gray, rough liveries

94 WINTER SUNSHINE

stand thickly about; I see the brimming pans and
buckets, always on the sunny side of the trees, and
hear the musical dropping of the sap; the “ boiling-
place,” with its delightful camp features, is just be-
yond the first line, with its great arch looking to the
southwest. The sound of its axe rings through the
woods. Its huge kettles or broad pans boil and
foam; and I ask no other delight than to watch and
tend them all day, to dip the sap from the great
casks into them, and to replenish the fire with the
newly-cut birch and beech wood. A slight breeze
is blowing from the west; I catch the glint here
and there in the afternoon sun of the little rills and
creeks coursing down the sides of the hills; the
awakening sounds about the farm and the woods
reach my ear; and every rustle or movement of the
air or on the earth seems like a pulse of returning
life in nature. I sympathize with that verdant
Hibernian who liked sugar-making so well that he
thought he should follow it the whole year. I
should at least be tempted to follow the season up
the mountains, camping this week on one terrace,
next week on one farther up, keeping just on the
hem of Winter’s garment, and just in advance of
the swelling buds, until my smoke went up through
the last growth of maple that surrounds the summit.

Maple sugar is peculiarly an American product,
the discovery of it dating back into the early history
of New England. The first settlers usually caught
the sap in rude troughs, and boiled it down in ket-
tles slung to a pole by a chain, the fire being built

A MARCH CHRONICLE 95

around them. The first step in the way of improve-
ment was to use tin pans instead of troughs, and a
large stone arch in which the kettles or caldrons
were set with the fire beneath them. But of late
years, as the question of fuel has become a more im-
portant one, greater improvements have been made.
The arch has given place to an immense stove de-
signed for that special purpose; and the kettles to
broad, shallow, sheet-iron pans, the object being to
economize all the heat, and to obtain the greatest
possible extent of evaporating surface.

March 15,—From the first to the middle of
March the season made steady progresss. There
were no checks, no drawbacks. Warm, copious
rains from the south and southwest, followed by
days of unbroken sunshine. In the moist places —
and what places are not moist at this season ?— the
sod buzzed like a hive. The absorption and filtra-
tion among the network of roots was an audible
process.

The clod fairly sang. How the trees responded
also! The silver poplars were masses of soft gray
bloom, and the willows down toward the river
seemed to have slipped off their old bark and on
their new in a single night. The soft maples, too,
when massed in the distance, their tops deeply dyed
in a bright maroon color, — how fair they looked!

The 15th of the month was “one of those charmed
days when the genius of God doth flow.” The
wind died away by mid-forenoon, and the day set-
tled down so softly and lovingly upon the earth,

96 WINTER SUNSHINE

touching everything, filling everything. The sky
visibly came down. You could see it among the
trees and between the hills. The sun poured him-
self into the earth as into a cup, and the atmosphere
fairly swam with warmth and light. In the after-
noon I walked out over the country roads north of
the city. Innumerable columns of smoke were going
up all around the horizon from burning brush and
weeds, fields being purified by fire. The farmers
were hauling out manure; and I am free to confess,
the odor of it, with its associations of the farm and
the stable, of cattle and horses, was good in my nos-
trils. In the woods the liverleaf and arbutus had
just opened doubtingly ; and in the little pools great
masses of frogs’ spawn, with a milky tinge, were
deposited. The youth who accompanied me brought
some of it home in his handkerchief, to see it hatch
in a goblet.

The month came in like a lamb, and went out
like a lamb, setting at naught the old adage. The
white fleecy clouds lay here and there, as if at rest,
on the blue sky. The fields were a perfect emerald;
and the lawns, with the new gold of the first dan-
delions sprinkled about, were lush with grass. In
the parks and groves there was a faint mist of foli-
age, except among the willows, where there was not
only a mist, but a perfect fountain-fall of green. In
the distance the river looked blue; the spring fresh-
ets at last over; and the ground settled, and the
jocund season steps forth into April with a bright
and confident look.

VI
AUTUMN TIDES

diese season is always a little behind the sun in

our climate, just as the tide is always a little
behind the moon. According to the calendar, the
summer ought to culminate about the 21st of June,
but in reality it is some weeks later; June is a
maiden month all through. It is not high noon in
nature till about the first or second week in July.
When the chestnut-tree blooms, the meridian of the
year is reached. By the first of August it is fairly
one o’clock. The lustre of the season begins to
dim, the foliage of the trees and woods to tarnish,
the plumage of the birds to fade, and their songs to
cease. The hints of approaching fall are on every
hand. How suggestive this thistle-down, for in-
stance, which, as I sit by the open window, comes
in and brushes softly across my hand! The first
snowflake tells of winter not more plainly than this
driving down heralds the approach of fall. Come
here, my fairy, and tell me whence you come and
whither you go? What brings you to port here,
you gossamer ship sailing the great sea? How ex-
quisitely frail and delicate! One of the lightest
things in nature; so light that in the closed room

98 WINTER SUNSHINE

here it will hardly rest in my open palm. A feather
is a clod beside it. Only a spider’s web will hold
it; coarser objects have no power over it. Caught
in the upper currents of the air and rising above the
clouds, it might sail perpetually. Indeed, one fan-
cies it might almost traverse the interstellar ether
and drive against the stars. And every thistle-head
by the roadside holds hundreds of these sky rovers,
— imprisoned Ariels unable to set themselves free.
Their liberation may be by the shock of the wind,
or the rude contact of cattle, but it is oftener the
work of the goldfinch with its complaining brood.
The seed of the thistle is the proper food of this
bird, and in obtaining it myriads of these winged
creatures are scattered to the breeze. Each one is
fraught with a seed which it exists to sow, but its
wild careering and soaring does not fairly begin till
its burden is dropped, and its spheral form is com-
plete. The seeds of many plants and trees are dis-
seminated through the agency of birds; but the
thistle furnishes its own birds, — flocks of them,
with wings more ethereal and tireless than were
ever given to mortal creature. From the pains
Nature thus takes to sow the thistle broadcast over
the land, it might be expected to be one of the most
troublesome and abundant of weeds. But such is
not the case; the more pernicious and baffling
weeds, like snapdragon or blind nettles, being more
local and restricted in their habits, and unable to
fly at all.

In the fall, the battles of the spring are fought

AUTUMN TIDES 99

over again, beginning at the other or little end of
the series. There is the same advance and retreat,
with many feints and alarms, between the contend-
ing forces, that was witnessed in April and May.
The spring comes like a tide running against a
strong wind; it is ever beaten back, but ever gain-
ing ground, with now and then a mad “push upon
the land” as if to overcome its antagonist at one
plow. The cold from the north encroaches upon us
in about the same fashion. In September or early
in October it usually makes a big stride forward and
blackens all the more delicate plants, and hastens
the “mortal ripening” of the foliage of the trees,
but it is presently beaten back again and the genial
warmth repossesses the land. Before long, how-
ever, the cold returns to the charge with augmented
forces and gains much ground.

The course of the seasons never does run smooth,
owing to the unequal distribution of land and water,
mountain, wood, and plain.

f An equilibrium, however, is usually reached in
our climate in October, sometimes the most marked
in November, forming the delicious Indian summer;
a truce is declared, and both forces, heat and cold,
meet and mingle in friendly converse on the field.
In the earlier season, this poise of the temperature,
this slack-water in nature, comes in May and June;
but the October calm is most marked. Day after
day, and sometimes week after week, you cannot tell
which way the current is setting. Indeed, there is
no current, but the season seems to drift a little this

100 WINTER SUNSHINE

way or a little that, just as the breeze happens to
freshen a little in one quarter or the other. The
fall of ’74 was the most remarkable in this respect
I remember ever to have seen. The equilibrium of
the season lasted from the middle of October till
near December, with scarcely a break. There were
six weeks of Indian summer, all gold by day, and,
when the moon came, all silver by night. The
river was so smooth at times as to be almost invisi-
ble, and in its place was the indefinite continuation
of the opposite shore down toward the nether world.
One seemed to be in an enchanted land, and to
breathe all day the atmosphere of fable and romance.
Not a smoke, but a kind of shining nimbus filled all
the spaces. The vessels would drift by as if in mid-
air with all their sails set. The gypsy blood in
one, as Lowell calls it, could hardly stay between
four walls and see such days go by. Living in
tents, in groves and on the hills, seemed the only
natural life. #

Late in December we had glimpses of the same
weather, —the earth had not yet passed all the
golden isles. On the 27th of that month, I find I
made this entry in my note-book: “A soft, hazy
day, the year asleep and dreaming of the Indian
summer again. Not a breath of air and not a rip-
ple on the river. The sunshine is hot as it falls
across my table.”

But what a terrible winter followed! what a sav-
age chief the fair Indian maiden gave birth to!

A This halcyon period of our autumn will always in

AUTUMN TIDES 101

some way be associated with the Indian. It is red
and yellow and dusky like him. ‘The smoke of his
camp-fire seems again in the air. The memory of
him pervades the woods. His plumes and mocca-
sins and blanket of skins form just the costume the
season demands. It was doubtless his chosen pe-
riod. The gods smiled upon him then if ever.
The time of the chase, the season of the buck and
the doe, and of the ripening of all forest fruits; the
time when all men ‘are incipient hunters, when the
first frosts have given pungency to the air, when to
be abroad on the hills or in the woods is a delight
that both old and young feel, — if the red aborigine
ever had his summer of fullness and contentment,
it must have been at this season, and it fitly bears
his name. /

In how many respects fall imitates or parodies
the spring! It is indeed, in some of its features, a
sort of second youth of the year. Things emerge
and become conspicuous again. The trees attract
all eyes as in May. The birds come forth from
their summer privacy and parody their spring reun-
ions and rivalries; some of them sing a little after
a silence of months. The robins, bluebirds, meadow-
larks, sparrows, crows, all sport, and call, and be-
have in a manner suggestive of spring. The cock
grouse drums in the woods as he did in April and
May. ‘The pigeons reappear, and the wild geese
and ducks. The witch-hazel blooms. The trout
spawns. The streams are again full, The air is
humid, and the moisture rises in the ground. Na-

102 WINTER SUNSHINE

ture is breaking camp, as in spring she was going
into camp. ‘The spring yearning and restlessness
is represented in one by the increased desire to
travel.

f Spring is the inspiration, fall the expiration.
Both seasons have their equinoxes, both their filmy,
hazy air, their ruddy forest tints, their cold rains,
their drenching fogs, their mystic moons; both have
the same solar light and warmth, the same rays of
the sun; yet, after all, how different the feelings
which they inspire! One is the morning, the other
the evening; one is youth, the other is age.

The difference is not merely in us; there is a
subtle difference in the air, and in the influences
that emanate upon us from the dumb forms of
nature. All the senses report a difference. The
sun seems to have burned out. One recalls the
notion of Herodotus that he is grown feeble, and
retreats to the south because he can no longer face
the cold and the storms from the north. There is
a growing potency about his beams in spring, a wan-
ing splendor about them in fall. One is the kindling
fire, the other the subsiding flame.

It is rarely that an artist succeeds in painting
unmistakably the difference between sunrise and
sunset; and it is equally a trial of his skill to put
upon canvas the difference between early spring and
late fall, say between April and November. It
was long ago observed that the shadows are more
opaque in the morning than in the evening; the
struggle between the light and the darkness more

’

fy

AUTUMN TIDES 103

marked, the gloom more solid, the contrasts more
sharp, etc. The rays of the morning sun chisel out
and cut down the shadows in a way those of the
setting sun do not. Then the sunlight is whiter
and newer in the morning, —not so yellow and dif-
fused. A difference akin to this is true of the two
seasons I am speaking of. The spring is the morn-
ing sunlight, clear and determined; the autumn, the
afternoon rays, pensive, lessening, golden.

Does not the human frame yield to and sympa-
thize with the seasons? Are there not more births
in the spring and: more deaths in the fall? In the
spring one vegetates; his thoughts turn to sap; an-
other kind of activity seizes him; he makes new
wood which does not harden till past midsummer.
For my part, I find all literary work irksome from
April to August; my sympathies run in other chan-
nels; the grass grows where meditation walked.
As fall approaches, the currents mount to the head
again. But my thoughts do not ripen well till

> after there has been a frost. The burrs will not
4,open much before that. A man’s thinking, I take

it, is a kind of combustion, as is the ripening of
fruits and leaves, and he wants plenty of oxygen in
the air.

Then the earth seems to have become a positive
magnet in the fall; the forge and anvil of the sun
have had their effect. In the spring it is negative
to all intellectual conditions, and drains one of his
lightning. , :

To-day,’ October 21st, I found the air in the

104 WINTER SUNSHINE

bushy fields and lanes under the woods loaded with
the perfume of the witch-hazel, —a sweetish, sick-
ening odor. With the blooming of this bush, Na-
ture says, “Positively the last.” It isa kind of
birth in death, of spring in fall, that impresses one
as a little uncanny. All trees and shrubs form
their flower-buds in the fall, and keep the secret
till spring. How comes the witch-hazel to be the
one exception, and to celebrate its floral nuptials on
the funeral day of its foliage? No doubt it will
be found that the spirit of some lovelorn squaw has
passed into this bush, and that this is why it blooms
in the Indian summer rather than in the white
man’s spring.

But it makes the floral series of the woods com-
plete. Between it and the shad-blow of earliest
spring lies the mountain of bloom; the latter at the
base on one side, this at the base on the other, with
the chestnut blossoms at the top in midsummer.

A peculiar feature of our fall may sometimes be
seen of a clear afternoon late in the season. Look-
ing athwart the fields under the sinking sun, the
ground appears covered with a shining veil of gos-
samer. A fairy net, invisible at midday and which
the position of the sun now reveals, rests upon the
stubble and upon the spears of grass, covering acres
in extent, —the work of innumerable little spi-
ders. The cattle walk through it, but do not seem
to break it. Perhaps a fly would make his mark
upon it. At the same time, stretching from the
tops of the trees, or from the top of a stake in the

AUTUMN TIDES 105

fence, and leading off toward the sky, may be seen
the cables of the flying spider, —a fairy bridge from
the visible to the invisible. Occasionally seen
against a deep mass of shadow, and perhaps enlarged
by clinging particles of dust, they show quite plainly
and sag down like a stretched rope, or sway and
undulate like a hawser in the tide.

They recall a verse of our rugged poet, Walt
Whitman: —

“A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where, in a little promontory, it stood isolated:
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament out of itself ;
Ever unreeling them — ever tirelessly spreading them.

“ And you, O my soul, where you stand,

Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, —

Seeking the spheres to connect them;

Till the bridge you will need be formed — till the ductile anchor
hold ;

Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my
soul.”

To return a little, September may be described
as the month of tall weeds. Where they have been
suffered to stand, along fences, by roadsides, and
in forgotten corners, — red-root, pig-weed, rag-weed,
vervain, goldenrod, burdock, elecampane, thistles,
teasels, nettles, asters, etc., —how they lift them-
selves up as if not afraid to be seen now! They
are all outlaws; every man’s hand is against them;
yet how surely they hold their own! They love
the roadside, because here they are comparatively
safe; and ragged and dusty, like the common

106 WINTER SUNSHINE

tramps that they are, they form one of the charac-
teristic features of early fall.

I have often noticed in what haste certain weeds
are at times to produce their seeds. Red-root will
grow three or four feet high when it has the whole
season before it; but let it get a late start, let it
come up in August, and it scarcely gets above the
ground before it heads out, and apparently goes to
work with all its might and main to mature its
seed. In the growth of most plants or weeds,
April and May represent their root, June and July
their stalk, and August and September their flower
and seed. Hence, when the stalk months are stricken
out, as in the present case, there is only time for a
shallow root and a foreshortened head. I think
most weeds that get a late start show this curtail-
ment of stalk, and this solicitude to reproduce them-
selves. But Ihave not observed that any of the
cereals are so worldly wise. They have not had to
think and shift for themselves as the weeds have.
It does indeed look like a kind of forethought in the
red-root. It is killed by the first frost, and hence
knows the danger of delay.

How rich in color, before the big show of the
tree foliage has commenced, our roadsides are in
places in early autumn, —rich to the eye that goes
hurriedly by and does not look too closely, — with
the profusion of goldenrod and blue and purple
asters dashed in upon here and there with the crim-
son leaves of the dwarf sumac; and at intervals,
rising out of the fence corner or crowning a ledge

AUTUMN TIDES 107

of rocks, the dark green of the cedars with the still
fire of the woodbine at its heart. I wonder if the
waysides of other lands present any analogous spec-
tacles at this season.

Then, when the maples have burst out into color,
showing like great bonfires along the hills, there is
indeed a feast for the eye. A maple before your
windows in October, when the sun shines upon it,
will make up for a good deal of the light it has
excluded; it fills the room with a soft golden glow.

Thoreau, I believe, was the first to remark upon
the individuality of trees of the same species with
respect to their foliage,——-some maples ripening
their leaves early and some late, and some being of
one tint and some of another; and, moreover, that
each tree held to the same characteristics, year after
year. There is, indeed, as great a variety among the
maples as among the trees of an apple orchard; some
are harvest apples, some are fall apples, and some
are winter apples, each with a tint of its own.
Those late ripeners are the winter varieties, — the
Rhode Island greenings or swaars of their kind.
The red maple is the early astrachan. Then comes
the red-streak, the yellow-sweet, and others. There
are windfalls among them, too, as among the apples,
and one side or hemisphere of the leaf is usually
brighter than the other.

The ash has been less noticed for its autumnal
foliage than it deserves. The richest shades of
plum-color to be seen — becoming by and by, or in
certain lights, a deep maroon —are afforded by this

108 WINTER SUNSHINE

tree. Then at a distance there seems to be sort of
bloom on it, as upon the grape or plum. Amida
grove of yellow maple, it makes a most pleasing
contrast.

By mid-October, most of the Rip Van Winkles
among our brute creatures have lain down for their
winter nap. The toads and turtles have buried
themselves in the earth. The woodchuck is in his
hibernaculum, the skunk in his, the mole in his;
and the black bear has his selected, and will go in
when the snow comes. He does not like the looks
of his big tracks in the snow. ‘They publish his
goings and comings too plainly. The coon retires
about the same time. The provident wood-mice
and the chipmunk are laying by a winter supply of
nuts or grain, the former usually in decayed trees,
the latter in the ground. I have observed that any
unusual disturbance in the woods, near where the
chipmunk has his den, will cause him to shift his
quarters. One October, for many successive days,
I saw one carrying into his hole buckwheat which
he had stolen from a near field. The hole was only
a few rods from where we were getting out stone,
and as our work progressed, and the racket and up-
roar increased, the chipmunk became alarmed. He
ceased carrying in, and after much hesitating and
darting about, and some prolonged absences, he
began to carry out; he had determined to move; if
the mountain fell, he, at least, would be away in
time. So, by mouthfuls or cheekfuls, the grain
was transferred to a new place. He did not make

AUTUMN TIDES 109

a “bee” to get it done, but carried it all himself,
occupying several days, and making a trip about
every ten minutes.

The red and gray squirrels do not lay by winter
stores; their cheeks are made without pockets, and
whatever they transport is carried in the teeth.
They are more or less active all winter, but October
and November are their festal months. Invade
some butternut or hickory-nut grove on a frosty
October morning, and hear the red squirrel beat the
“juba” on a horizontal branch. It is a most lively
jig, what the boys call a “regular break-down,”
interspersed with squeals and snickers and derisive
laughter. The most noticeable peculiarity about the
vocal part of it is the fact that it is a kind of duet.
In other words, by some ventriloquial tricks, he ap-
pears to accompany himself, as if his voice split up,
a part forming a low guttural sound, and a part a
(shrill nasal sound.
~The distant bark of the more wary gray squirrel
may be heard about the same time. There is a
teasing and ironical tone in it also, but the gray
squirrel is not the Puck the red is.

Insects also go into winter-quarters by or before
this time; the bumble-bee, hornet, and wasp. But
here only royalty escapes; the queen-mother alone
foresees the night of winter coming and the morning
of spring beyond. The rest of the tribe try gypsy-
ing for a while, but perish in the first frosts. The
present October I surprised the queen of the yellow-
jackets in the woods looking out a suitable retreat.

110 WINTER SUNSHINE

The royal dame was house-hunting, and, on being
disturbed by my inquisitive poking among the
leaves, she got up and flew away with a slow, deep
hum. Her body was unusually distended, whether
with fat or eggs Iam unable to say. In Septem-
ber I took down the nest of the black hornet and
found several large queens in it, but the workers
had all gone. The queens were evidently weather-
ing the first frosts and storms here, and waiting for
the Indian summer to go forth and seek a permanent
winter abode. If the covers could be taken off the
fields and woods at this season, how many interest-
ing facts of natural history would be revealed! — the
crickets, ants, bees, reptiles, animals, and, for aught
I know, the spiders and flies asleep or getting ready
to sleep in their winter dormitories; the fires of life
banked up, and burning just enough to keep the
spark over till spring.

The fish all run down the stream in the fall ex-
cept the trout; it runs up or stays up and spawns
in November, the male becoming as brilliantly tinted
as the deepest-dyed maple leaf. I have often won-
dered why the trout spawns in the fall, instead of
in the spring like other fish. Is it not because a
full supply of clear spring water can be counted on
at that season more than at any other? The brooks
are not so liable to be suddenly muddied by heavy
showers, and defiled with the washings of the roads
and fields, as they are in spring and summer. The
artificial breeder finds that absolute purity of water

AUTUMN TIDES 111

is necessary to hatch the spawn; also that shade and
a low temperature are indispensable.

Our Northern November day itself is like spring
water. It is melted frost, dissolved snow. There
is a chill in it and an exhilaration also. The fore-
noon is all morning and the afternoon all evening.
The shadows seem to come forth and to revenge
themselves upon the day. The sunlight is diluted
with darkness. The colors fade from the landscape,
and only the sheen of the river lights up the gray
and brown distance.

VII

THE APPLE

Lo! sweetened with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in silent autumn night.

TENNYSON.

OT a little of the sunshine of our Northern
winters is surely wrapped up in the apple.
How could we winter over without it! How is life
sweetened by its mild acids! A cellar well filled with
apples is more valuable than a chamber filled with
flax and wool. So much sound, ruddy life to draw
upon, to strike one’s roots down into, as it were.
Especially to those whose soil of life is inclined
to be a little clayey and heavy, is the apple a win-
ter necessity. It is the natural antidote of most of
the ills the flesh is heir to. Full of vegetable acids
and aromatics, qualities which act as refrigerants
and antiseptics, what an enemy it is to jaundice,
indigestion, torpidity of liver, ete.! It is a gentle
spur and tonic to the whole biliary system. Then
I have read that it has been found by analysis to
contain more phosphorus than any other vegetable.
This makes it the proper food of the scholar and
the sedentary man; it feeds his brain and it stimu-

114 WINTER SUNSHINE

lates his liver. Neither is this all. Beside its
hygienic properties, the apple is full of sugar and
mucilage, which make it highly nutritious. It is
said “the operators of Cornwall, England, consider
ripe apples nearly as nourishing as bread, and far
more so than potatoes. In the year 1801 — which
was a year of much scarcity —apples, instead of
being converted into cider, were sold to the poor,
and the laborers asserted that they could ‘ stand their
work’ on baked apples without meat; whereas a
potato diet required either meat or some other sub-
stantial nutriment. The French and Germans use
apples extensively ; so do the inhabitants of all Eu-
ropean nations. The laborers depend upon them as
an article of food, and frequently make a dinner of
sliced apples and bread.”

Yet the English apple is a tame and insipid affair,
compared with the intense, sun-colored, and sun-
steeped fruit our orchards yield. The English have
no sweet apple, I am told, the saccharine element
apparently being less abundant in vegetable nature
in that sour and chilly climate than in our own.

It is well known that the European maple yields
no sugar, while both our birch and hickory have
sweet in their veins. Perhaps this fact accounts for
our excessive love of sweets, which may be said to
be a national trait.

The Russian apple has a lovely complexion,
smooth and transparent, but the Cossack is not yet
all eliminated from it. The only one I have seen
— the Duchess of Oldenburg — is as beautiful as a

THE APPLE 115

Tartar princess, with a distracting odor, but it is
the least bit puckery to the taste.

The best thing I know about Chili is, not its
guano beds, but this fact which I learn from Dar-
win’s “Voyage,” namely, that the apple thrives well
there. Darwin saw a town there so completely
buried in a wood of apple-trees, that its streets were
merely paths in an orchard. The tree, indeed,
thrives so well, that large branches cut off in the
spring and planted two or three feet deep in the
ground send out roots and develop into fine, full-
bearing trees by the third year. The people know
the value of the apple, too. ‘They make cider and
wine of it, and then from the refuse a white and
finely flavored spirit; then, by another process, a
sweet treacle is obtained, called honey. The chil-
dren and pigs ate little or no other food. He does
not add that the people are healthy and temperate,
but I have no doubt they are. We knew the apple
had many virtues, but these Chilians have really
opened a deep beneath a deep. We had found out
the cider and the spirits, but who guessed the wine
and the honey, except it were the bees? There is
a variety in our orchards called the winesap, a
doubly liquid name that suggests what might be
done with this fruit.

The apple is the commonest and yet the most
varied and beautiful of fruits. A dish of them is
as becoming to the centre-table in winter as was the
vase of flowers in the summer, — a bouquet of spitz-
zenburgs and greenings and northern spies. A

116 WINTER SUNSHINE

rose when it blooms, the apple is a rose when it
ripens. It pleases every sense to which it can be
addressed, the touch, the smell, the sight, the taste;
and when it falls, in the still October days, it pleases
the ear. It is a call to a banquet, it is a signal
that the feast is ready. The bough would fain hold
it, but it can now assert its independence; it can
now live a life of its own.

Daily the stem relaxes its hold, till finally it lets
go completely and down comes the painted sphere
with a mellow thump to the earth, toward which it
has been nodding so long. It bounds away to seek
its bed, to hide under a leaf, or in a tuft of grass.
It will now take time to meditate and ripen! What
delicious thoughts it has there nestled with its fel-
lows under the fence, turning acid into sugar, and
sugar into wine!

How pleasing to the touch! I love to stroke its
polished rondure with my hand, to carry it in my
pocket on my tramp over the winter hills, or through
the early spring woods. You are company, you
ted-cheeked spitz, or you salmon-fleshed greening!
I toy with you; press your face to mine, toss you
in the air, roll you on the ground, see you shine
out where you lie amid the moss and dry leaves and
sticks. You are so alive! You glow like a ruddy
flower. You look so animated I almost expect to
see you move! I postpone the eating of you, you
are so beautiful! How compact; how exquisitely
tinted! Stained by the sun and varnished against
the rains. An independent vegetable existence,

THE APPLE 117

alive and vascular as my own flesh; capable of being
wounded, bleeding, wasting away, or almost repair-
ing damages!

How they resist the cold! holding out almost as
long as the red cheeks of the boys do. A frost that
destroys the potatoes and other roots only makes
the apple more crisp and vigorous; they peep out
from the chance November snows unscathed. When
I see the fruit-vender on the street corner stamping
his feet and beating his hands to keep them warm,
and his naked apples lying exposed to the blasts, I
wonder if they do not ache, too, to clap their hands
and enliven their circulation. But they can stand
it nearly as long as the vender can.

Noble common fruit, best friend of man and most
loved by him, following him, like his dog or his
cow, whetever he goes! His homestead is not
planted till you are planted, your roots intertwine
with his; thriving best where he thrives best, lov-
ing the limestone and the frost, the plow and the
pruning-knife: you are indeed suggestive of hardy,
cheerful industry, and a healthy life in the open air.
Temperate, chaste fruit! you mean neither luxury
nor sloth, neither satiety nor indolence, neither
enervating heats nor the frigid zones. Uncloying
fruit, — fruit whose best sauce is the open air, whose
finest flavors only he whose taste is sharpened by
brisk work or walking knows; winter fruit, when
the fire of life burns brightest; fruit always a little
hyperborean, leaning toward the cold; bracing, sub-
acid, active fruit! I think you must come from the

118 WINTER SUNSHINE

north, you are so frank and honest, so sturdy and
appetizing. You are stocky and homely like the
northern races. Your quality is Saxon. Surely
the fiery and impetuous south is not akin to thee.
Not spices or olives, or the sumptuous liquid fruits,
but the grass, the snow, the grains, the coolness, is
akin to thee. I think if I could subsist on you,
or the like of you, I should never have an intem-
perate or ignoble thought, never be feverish or
despondent. So far as I could absorb or transmute
your quality, I should be cheerful, continent, equi-
table, sweet-blooded, long-lived, and should shed
warmth and contentment around.

Is there any other fruit that has so much facial
expression as the apple? What boy does not more
than half believe they can see with that single eye
of theirs? Do they not look and nod to him from
the bough? The swaar has one look, the rambo
another, the spy another. The youth recognizes
the seek-no-further, buried beneath a dozen other
varieties, the moment he catches a glance of its eye,
or the bonny-cheeked Newtown pippin, or the gentle
but sharp-nosed gillyflower. He goes to the great
bin in the cellar, and sinks his shafts here and there
in the garnered wealth of the orchards, mining for
his favorites, sometimes coming plump upon them,
sometimes catching a glimpse of them to the right
or left, or uncovering them as keystones in an arch
made up of many varieties.

In the dark he can usually tell them by the sense
of touch. There is not only the size and shape,

THE APPLE 119

but there is the texture and polish. Some apples
are coarse-grained and some are fine; some are thin-
skinned and some are thick. One variety is quick
and vigorous beneath the touch, another gentle and
yielding. The pinnock has a thick skin with a
spongy lining; a bruise in it becomes like a piece of
cork. The tallow apple has an unctuous feel, as its
name suggests. It sheds water like a duck. What
apple is that with a fat curved stem that blends
so prettily with its own flesh,—the wine apple?
Some varieties impress me as masculine, — weather-
stained, freckled, lasting, and rugged; others are
indeed lady apples, fair, delicate, shining, mild-
flavored, white-meated, like the egg-drop and lady-
finger. The practiced hand knows each kind by the
touch.

“Do you remember the apple hole in the garden or
back of the house, Ben Bolt? In the fall, after the
bins in the cellar had been well stocked, we exca-
vated a circular pit in the warm mellow earth, and,
covering the bottom with clean rye straw, emptied
in basketful after basketful of hardy choice varieties,
till there was a tent-shaped mound several feet high
of shining variegated fruit. Then, wrapping it about
with a thick layer of long rye straw, and tucking it
up snug and warm, the mound was covered with a
thin coating of earth, a flat stone on the top holding
down the straw. As winter set in, another coating
of earth was put upon it, with perhaps an overcoat
of coarse dry stable manure, and the precious pile
was left in silence and darkness till spring~~No

120 WINTER SUNSHINE

marmot, hibernating under ground in his nest of
leaves and dry grass, more cosy and warm. No
frost, no wet, but fragrant privacy and quiet. Then
how the earth tempers and flavors the apples! It
draws out all the acrid unripe qualities, and infuses
into them a subtle refreshing taste of the soil. Some
varieties perish, but the ranker, hardier kinds, like
the northern spy, the greening, or the black apple,
or the russet, or the pinnock, how they ripen and
grow in grace, how the green becomes gold, and the
bitter becomes sweet!

As the supply in the bins and barrels gets low
and spring approaches, the buried treasures in the
garden are remembered. With spade and axe we go
out and penetrate through the snow and frozen earth
till the inner dressing of straw is laid bare. It is
not quite as clear and bright as when we placed it
there last fall, but the fruit beneath, which the hand
soon exposes, is just as bright and far more luscious.
Then, as day after day you resort to the hole, and,
removing the straw and earth from the opening,
thrust your arm into the fragrant pit, you have a
better chance than ever before to become acquainted
with your favorites by the sense of touch. How
you feel for them, reaching to the right and left!
Now you have got a Talman sweet; you imagine
you can feel that single meridian line that divides it
into two hemispheres. Now a greening fills your
hand; you feel its fine quality beneath its rough
coat. Now you have hooked a swaar, you recognize
its full face; now a Vandevere or a King rolls down

THE APPLE 121

from the apex above and you bag it at once. When
you were a schoolboy you stowed these away in
your pockets, and ate them along the road and at
recess, and again at noontime; and they, in a mea-
sure, corrected the effects of the cake and pie with

which your indulgent mother filled your lunch-_

basket.

The boy is indeed the true apple-eater, and is not |

to be questioned how he came by the fruit with
which his pockets are filled. It belongs to him, and
he may steal it if it cannot be had in any other way.
His own juicy flesh craves the juicy flesh of the
apple. Sap draws sap. His fruit-eating has little
reference to the state of his appetite. Whether he
be full of meat or empty of meat, he wants the apple
just the same. Before meal or after meal it never
comes amiss. The farm-boy munches apples all day
long. He has nests of them in the haymow, mel-
lowing, to which he makes frequent visits. Some-
times old Brindle, having access through the open
door, smells them out and makes short work of
them.

Pi In some countries the custom remains of placing
a rosy apple in the hand of the dead, that they may
find it when they enter paradise. In northern my-
thology the giants eat apples to keep off old age.

The apple is indeed the fruit of youth. As we

grow old we crave apples less. Jt is an ominous
sign. When you are ashamed to be seen eating
them on the street; when you can carry them in your
pocket and your hand not constantly find its way to

122 WINTER SUNSHINE

them; when your neighbor has apples and you
have none, and you make no nocturnal visits to his
orchard; when your lunch-basket is without them,
and you can pass a winter’s night by the fireside
with no thought of the fruit at your elbow, — then
be assured you are no longer a boy, either in heart
or in years.

The genuine apple-eater comforts himself with an
apple in their season, as others with a pipe or cigar.
When he has nothing else to do, or is bored, he eats
an apple. While he is waiting for the train he
eats an apple, sometimes several of them. When
he takes a walk he arms himself with apples. His
traveling bag is full of apples. He offers an apple
to his companion, and takes one himself. They are
his chief solace when on the road. He sows their
seed all along the route. He tosses the core from
the car window and from the top of the stage-coach.
He would, in time, make the land one vast orchard.
He dispenses with a knife. He prefers that his
teeth shall have the first taste. Then he knows the
best flavor is immediately beneath the skin, and that
in a pared apple this is lost. If you will stew the
apple, he says, instead of baking it, by all means
leave the skin on. It improves the color and vastly
heightens the flavor of the dish.

The apple is a masculine fruit; hence women are
poor apple-eaters. It belongs to the open air, and
requires an open-air taste and relish.

I instantly sympathized with that clergyman I
read of, who, on pulling out his pocket-handkerchief

THE APPLE 123

in the midst of his discourse, pulled out two boun-
cing apples with it that went rolling across the pul-
pit floor and down the pulpit stairs. These apples
were, no doubt, to be eaten after the sermon, on his
way home, or to his next appointment. They would
take the taste of it out of his mouth. Then, would
a minister be apt to grow tiresome with two big
apples in his coat-tail pockets? Would he not nat-
urally hasten along to “lastly” and the big apples?
If they were the dominie apples, and it was April
or May, ‘he certainly would.

How the early settlers prized the apple! When
their trees broke down or were split asunder by the
storms, the neighbors turned out, the divided tree
was put together again and fastened with iron bolts.
In some of the oldest orchards one may still occa-
sionally see a large dilapidated tree with the rusty
iron bolt yet visible. Poor, sour fruit, too, but
sweet in those early pioneer days. My grandfa-
ther, who was one of these heroes of the stump, used
every fall to make a journey of forty miles for a few
apples, which he brought home in a bag on horse-
back. He frequently started from home by two or
three o’clock in the morning, and at one time both
himself and his horse were much frightened by the
screaming of panthers in a narrow pass in the moun-
tains through which the road led.

Emerson, I believe, has spoken of the apple as
the social fruit of New England. Indeed, what a
promoter or abettor of social intercourse among our
rural population the apple has been, the company

124 WINTER SUNSHINE

growing more merry and unrestrained as soon as the
basket of apples was passed round! ‘When the
cider followed, the introduction and good under-
standing were complete. Then those rural gatherings
that enlivened the autumn in the country, known
as ‘“‘apple-cuts,” now, alas! nearly obsolete, where
so many things were cut and dried besides apples!
The larger and more loaded the orchard, the more
frequently the invitations went round and the higher
the social and convivial spirit ran. Ours is emi-
nently a country of the orchard. Horace Greeley
said he had seen no land in which the orchard
formed such a prominent feature in the rural and
agricultural districts. Nearly every farmhouse in
the Eastern and Northern States has its setting or
its background of apple-trees, which generally date
back to the first settlement of the farm. Indeed,
the orchard, more than almost any other thing, tends
to soften and humanize the country, and give the
place of which it is an adjunct a settled, domestic
look. The apple-tree takes the rawness and wild-
ness off any scene. On the top of a mountain, or
in remote pastures, it sheds the sentiment of home.
It never loses its domestic air, or lapses into a wild
state. And in planting a homestead, or in choosing
a building site for the new house, what a help it is
to have a few old, maternal apple-trees near by, —
regular old grandmothers, who have seen trouble,
who have been sad and glad through so many win-
ters and summers, who have blossomed till the air
about them is sweeter than elsewhere, and borne

THE APPLE 125

fruit till the grass beneath them has become thick and
soft from human contact, and who have nourished
robins and finches in their branches till they have a
tender, brooding look! The ground, the turf, the
atmosphere of an old orchard, seem several stages
nearer to man than that of the adjoining field, as if
the trees had given back to the soil more than they
had taken from it; as if they had tempered the ele-
ments, and attracted all the genial and beneficent
influences in the landscape around.

An apple orchard is sure to bear you several
crops beside the apple. There is the crop of sweet
and tender reminiscences, dating from childhood
and spanning the seasons from May to October, and
making the orchard a sort of outlying part of the
household. You have played there as a child,
mused there as a youth or lover, strolled there as
a thoughtful, sad-eyed man. Your father, perhaps,
planted the trees, or reared them from the seed, and
you yourself have pruned and grafted them, and
worked among them, till every separate tree has a
peculiar history and meaning in your mind. Then
there is the never-failing crop of birds, —robins,
goldfinches, kingbirds, cedar-birds, hairbirds, ori-
oles, starlings, —all nesting and breeding in its
branches, and fitly described by Wilson Flagg as
“Birds of the Garden and Orchard.” Whether the
pippin and sweet bough bear or not, the ‘ punctual
birds” can always be depended on. Indeed, there
are few better places to study ornithology than in
the orchard. Besides its regular occupants, many of

126 WINTER SUNSHINE

the birds of the deeper forest find occasion to visit
it during the season. The cuckoo comes for the
tent-caterpillar, the jay for frozen apples, the ruffed
grouse for buds, the crow foraging for birds’ eggs,
the woodpecker and chickadees for their food, and
the high-hole for ants. The redbird comes, too, if
only to see what a friendly covert its branches form ;
and the wood thrush now and then comes out of the
grove near by, and nests alongside of its cousin, the
robin. The smaller hawks know that this is a
most likely spot for their prey, and in spring the
shy northern warblers may be studied as they pause
to feed on the fine insects amid its branches. The
mice love to dwell here also, and hither come from
the near woods the squirrel and the rabbit. The
latter will put his head through the boy’s slipper-
noose any time for a taste of the sweet apple, and
the red squirrel and chipmunk esteem its seeds a
great rarity.

All the domestic animals love the apple, but none
so much so as the cow. The taste of it wakes her
up as few other things do, and bars and fences must
be well looked after. No need to assort them or
pick out the ripe ones for her. An apple is an
apple, and there is no best about it. I heard of a
quick-witted old cow that learned to shake them
down from the tree. While rubbing herself she
had observed that an apple sometimes fell. This
stimulated her to rub a little harder, when more
apples fell. She then took the hint and rubbed her
shoulder with such vigor that the farmer had to

THE APPLE 127

check her, and keep an eye on her to save his
fruit.

But the cow is the friend of the apple. How
many trees she has planted about the farm, in the
edge of the woods, and in remote fields and pas-
tures! The wild apples, celebrated by Thoreau, are
mostly of her planting. She browses them down,
to be sure, but they are hers, and why should she
not?

What an individuality the apple-tree has, each
variety being nearly as marked by its form as by its
fruit. What a vigorous grower, for instance, is the
Ribston pippin, an English apple, — wide-branching
like the oak; its large ridgy fruit, in late fall or
early winter, is one of my favorites. Or the thick
and more pendent top of the bellflower, with its
equally rich, sprightly, wneloying fruit.

Sweet apples are perhaps the most nutritious,
and when baked are a feast of themselves. With a
tree of the Jersey sweet or of the Talman sweet in
bearing, no man’s table need be devoid of luxuries
and one of the most wholesome of all desserts. Or
the red astrachan, an August apple, — what a gap may
be filled in the culinary department of a household
at this season by a single tree of this fruit! And
what a feast is its shining crimson coat to the eye
before its snow-white flesh has reached the tongue!
But the apple of apples for the household is the
spitzenburg. In this casket Pomona has put her
highest flavors. It can stand the ordeal of cooking,
and still remain a spitz. I recently saw a barrel of

128 WINTER SUNSHINE

these apples from the orchard of a fruit-grower in
the northern part of New York, who has devoted
especial attention to this variety. They were per-
fect gems. Not large,— that had not been the aim,
—but small, fair, uniform, and red to the core.
How intense, how spicy and aromatic!

But all the excellences of the apple are not con-
fined to the cultivated fruit. Occasionally a seed-
ling springs up about the farm that produces fruit
of rare beauty and worth. In sections peculiarly
adapted to the apple, like a certain belt along the
Hudson River, I have noticed that most of the wild,
unbidden trees bear good, edible fruit. In cold and
ungenial districts the seedlings are mostly sour and
crabbed, but in more favorable soils they are oftener
mild and sweet. I know wild apples that ripen in
August, and that do not need, if it could be had,
Thoreau’s sauce of sharp, November air to be eaten
with. At the foot of a hill near me, and striking
its roots deep in the shale, is a giant specimen of
native tree that bears an apple that has about the
clearest, waxiest, most transparent complexion I ever
saw. It is of good size, and the color of a tea rose.
Its quality is best appreciated in the kitchen. I
know another seedling of excellent quality, and so
remarkable for its firmness and density that it is
known on the farm where it grows as the “heavy
apple.”

I have alluded to Thoreau, to whom all lovers of
the apple and its tree are under obligation. His
chapter on Wild Apples is a most delicious piece of

THE APPLE 129

writing. It has a “tang and smack” like the fruit
it celebrates, and is dashed and streaked with color
in the same manner. It has the hue and perfume
of the crab, and the richness and raciness of the
pippin. But Thoreau loved other apples than the
wild sorts, and was obliged to confess that his favor-
ites could not be eaten indoors. Late in Novem-
ber he found a blue-pearmain tree growing within
the edge of a swamp, almost as good as wild. “You
would not suppose,” he says, “that there was any
fruit left there on the first survey, but you must look
according to system. Those which lie exposed are
quite brown and rotten now, or perchance a few still
show one blooming cheek here and there amid the
wet leaves. Nevertheless, with experienced eyes I
explore amid the bare alders, and the huckleberry
bushes, and the withered sedge, and in the crevices
of the rocks, which are full of leaves, and pry under
the fallen and decaying ferns which, with apple and
alder leaves, thickly strew the ground. For I know
that they lie concealed, fallen into hollows long
since, and covered up by the leaves of the tree itself,
—a proper kind of packing. From these lurking
places, anywhere within the circumference of the
tree, I draw forth the fruit all wet and glossy,
maybe nibbled by rabbits and hollowed out by
crickets, and perhaps with a leaf or two cemented
to it (as Curzon an old manuscript from a monas-
tery’s mouldy cellar), but still with a rich bloom on
it, and at least as ripe and well kept, if not better
than those in barrels, more crisp and lively than

130 WINTER SUNSHINE

they. If these resources fail to yield anything,
I have learned to look between the bases of the
suckers which spring thickly from some horizontal
limb, for now and then one lodges there, or in the
very midst of an alder-clump, where they are covered
by leaves, safe from cows which may have smelled
them out. If I am sharp-set,— for I do not refuse
the blue-pearmain,—TI fill my pockets on each side;
and as I retrace my steps in the frosty eve, being
perhaps four or five miles from home, I eat one first
from this side, and then from that, to keep my
balance.”

VIII

AN OCTOBER ABROAD
I

MELLOW ENGLAND

J WILL say at the outset, as I believe some one

else has said on a like occasion, that in this
narrative I shall probably describe myself more than
the objects I look upon. The facts and particulars
of the case have already been set down in the guide-
books and in innumerable books of travel. I shall
only attempt to give an account of the pleasure and
satisfaction I had in coming face to face with things
in the mother country, seeing them as I did with
kindred and sympathizing eyes.

The ocean was a dread fascination to me,— a world
whose dominion I had never entered; but I proved
‘to be such a wretched sailor that I am obliged to
confess, Hibernian fashion, that the happiest mo-
ment I spent upon the sea was when I set my foot
upon the land.

It is a wide and fearful gulf that separates the
two worlds. The landsman can know little of the
wildness, savageness, and mercilessness of nature till
he has been upon the sea. It is as if he had taken a

182 WINTER SUNSHINE

leap off into the interstellar spaces. In voyaging to
Mars or Jupiter, he might cross such a desert,—
might confront such awful purity and coldness, An
astronomic solitariness and remoteness encompass the
sea. The earth and all remembrance of it is blotted
out; there is no hint of it anywhere. This is not
water, this cold, blue-black, vitreous liquid. It sug-
gests, not life, but death. Indeed, the regions of
everlasting ice and snow are not more cold and in-
human than is the sea.

Almost the only thing about my first sea voyage
that I remember with pleasure is the circumstance
of the little birds that, during the first few days out,
took refuge on the steamer. The first afternoon,
just as we were losing sight of land, a delicate little
wood-bird, the black and white creeping warbler, —
having lost its reckoning in making perhaps its first
southern voyage, —came aboard. It was much fa-
tigued, and had a disheartened, demoralized look.
After an hour or two it disappeared, having, I fear,
a hard pull to reach the land in the face of the wind
that was blowing, if indeed it reached it at all.

The next day, just at night, I observed a small
hawk sailing about conveniently near the vessel,
but with a very lofty, independent mien, as if he
had just happened that way on his travels, and was
only lingering to take a good view of us. It was
amusing to observe his coolness and haughty uncon-
cern in that sad plight he was in; by nothing in his
manner betraying that he was several hundred miles
at sea, and did not know how he was going to get

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 133

back to land. But presently I noticed he found it
not inconsistent with his dignity to alight on the
rigging under friendly cover of the tops’l, where I
saw his feathers rudely ruffled by the wind, till
darkness set in. If the sailors did not disturb him
during the night, he certainly needed all his fortitude
in the morning to put a cheerful face on his situa-
tion.

The third day, when we were perhaps off Nova
Scotia or Newfoundland, the American pipit or tit-
lark, from the far north, a brown bird about the size
of a sparrow, dropped upon the deck of the ship, so
nearly exhausted that one of the sailors was on the
point of covering it with his hat. It stayed about
the vessel nearly all day, flitting from point to
point, or hopping along a few feet in front of the
promenaders, and prying into every crack and crev-
ice for food. Time after time I saw it start off with
a reassuring chirp, as if determined to seek the land;
but before it had got many rods from the ship its
heart would seem to fail it, and, after circling about
for a few moments, back it would come, more dis-
couraged than ever.

These little waifs from the shore! I gazed upon
them with a strange, sad interest. They were
friends in distress ; but the sea-birds, skimming along
indifferent to us, or darting in and out among those
watery hills, I seemed to look upon as my natural
enemies. They were the nurslings and favorites of
the sea, and I had no sympathy with them.

No doubt the number of our land-birds that

184 WINTER SUNSHINE

actually perish in the sea during their autumn mi-
gration, being carried far out of their course by
the prevailing westerly winds of this season, is very
great. Occasionally one makes the passage to Great
Britain by following the ships, and finding them at
convenient distances along the route; and I have
been told that over fifty different species of our more
common birds, such as robins, starlings, grosbeaks,
thrushes, etc., have been found in Ireland, having,
of course, crossed in this way. What numbers of
these little navigators of the air are misled and
wrecked, during those dark and stormy nights, on
the lighthouses alone that line the Atlantic coast?
Is it Celia Thaxter who tells of having picked up
her apron full of sparrows, warblers, flycatchers, etc.,
at the foot of the lighthouse on the Isles of Shoals,
one morning after a storm, the ground being still
strewn with birds of all kinds that had dashed them-
selves against the beacon, bewildered and fascinated
by its tremendous light?

If a land-bird perishes at sea, a sea-bird is equally
cast away upon the land; and I have known the
sooty tern, with its almost omnipotent wing, to fall
down, utterly famished and exhausted, two hundred
miles from salt water.

But my interest in these things did not last be-
yond the third day. About this time we entered
what the sailors call the “devil’s hole,” and a very
respectably-sized hole it is, extending from the banks
of Newfoundland to Ireland, and in all seasons and
weathers it seems to be well stirred up.

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 135

Amidst the tossing and rolling, the groaning of
penitent travelers, and the laboring of the vessel as
she climbed those dark unstable mountains, my
mind reverted feebly to Huxley’s statement, that the
bottom of this sea, for over a thousand miles, pre-
sents to the eye of science a vast chalk plain, over
which one might drive as over a floor, and I tried
to solace myself by dwelling upon the spectacle of a
solitary traveler whipping up his steed across it.
The imaginary rattle of his wagon was like the
sound of lutes and harps, and I would rather have
clung to his axletree than been rocked in the best
berth in the ship.

LAND

On the tenth day, about four o’clock in the after-
noon, we sighted Ireland. The ship came up from
behind the horizon, where for so many days she had
been buffeting with the winds and the waves, but
had never lost the clew, bearing straight as an arrow
for the mark. I think, if she had been aimed at a
fair-sized artillery target, she would have crossed
the ocean and struck the bull’s-eye.

In Ireland, instead of an emerald isle rising out
of the sea, I beheld a succession of cold, purplish
mountains, stretching along the northeastern horizon,
but I am bound to say that no tints of bloom or ver-
dure were ever half so welcome to me as were those
dark, heather-clad ranges. It is a feeling which a
man can have but once in his life, when he first sets
eyes upon a foreign land; and in my case, to this

136 WINTER SUNSHINE

feeling was added the delightful thought that the
“devil’s hole” would soon be cleared and my long
fast over.

Presently, after the darkness had set in, signal
rockets were let off from the stern of the vessel,
writing their burning messages upon the night; and
when answering rockets rose slowly up far ahead, I
suppose we all felt that the voyage was essentially
done, and no doubt a message flashed back under
the ocean that the Scotia had arrived.

The sight of the land had been such medicine to
me that I could now hold up my head and walk
about, and so went down for the first time and took
a look at the engines, —those twin monsters that
had not stopped once, or apparently varied their
stroke at all, since leaving Sandy Hook; I felt like
patting their enormous cranks and shafts with my
hand,— then at the coal bunks, vast cavernous re-
cesses in the belly of the ship, like the chambers of
the original mine in the mountains, and saw the
men and firemen at work in a sort of purgatory of
heat and dust. When it is remembered that one of
these ocean steamers consumes about one hundred
tons of coal per day, it is easy to imagine what a
burden the coal for a voyage alone must be, and one
is not at all disposed to laugh at Dr. Lardner, who
proved so convincingly that no steamship could ever
cross the ocean, because it could not carry coal enough
to enable it to make the passage.

On the morrow, a calm lustrous day, we steamed
at our leisure up the Channel and across the Irish

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 137

Sea, the coast of Wales, and her groups of lofty
mountains, in full view nearly all day. The moun-
tains were in profile like the Catskills viewed from
the Hudson below, only it was evident there were
no trees or shrubbery upon them, and their summits,
on this last day of September, were white with the
snow.
ASHORE

The first day or half day ashore is, of course, the
most novel and exciting; but who, as Mr. Higgin-
son says, can describe his sensations and emotions
this first half day? It is a page of travel that has
not yet been written. Paradoxical as it may seem,
one generally comes out of pickle much fresher than
he went in. The sea has given him an enormous
appetite for the land. Every one of his senses is
like a hungry wolf clamorous to be fed. For my
part, I had suddenly emerged from a condition bor-
dering on «that of the hibernating animals —a con-
dition in which I had neither eaten, nor slept, nor
thought, nor moved, when I could help it —into
not only a full, but a keen and joyous, possession of
my health and faculties. It was almost a metamor-
phosis. JI was no longer the clod I had been, but a
bird exulting in the earth and air, and in the liberty
of motion. Then to remember it was a new earth
and a new sky that I was beholding,— that it was
England, the old mother at last, no longer a faith
or a fable, but an actual fact there before my eyes
and under my feet,— why should I not exult? Go
to! I will be indulged. These trees, those fields,

138 WINTER SUNSHINE

that bird darting along the hedge-rows, those men
and boys picking blackberries in October, those Eng-
lish flowers by the roadside (stop the carriage while
I leap out and pluck them), the homely, domestic
looks of things, those houses, those queer vehicles,
those thick-coated horses, those big-footed, coarsely-
clad, clear-skinned men and women, this massive,
homely, compact architecture,—let me have a good
look, for this is my first hour in England, and I am
drunk with the joy of seeing! This house-fly even,
let me inspect it;1 and that swallow skimming along
so familiarly,—is he the same I saw trying to cling
to the sails of the vessel the third day out? or is
the swallow the swallow the world over? This grass
I certainly have seen before, and this red and white
clover, but this daisy and dandelion are not the
same; and I have come three thousand miles to see
the mullein cultivated in a garden, and christened
the velvet plant.

As we sped through the land, the heart of Eng-
land, toward London, I thought my eyes would
never get their fill of the landscape, and that I
would lose them out of my head by their eagerness
to catch every object as we rushed along! How
they reveled, how they followed the birds and the
game, how they glanced ahead on the track — that
marvelous track!—or shot off over the fields and
downs, finding their delight in the streams, the
roads, the bridges, the splendid breeds of cattle and

1 The English house-fly actually seemed coarser and more
hairy than ours.

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 139

sheep in the fields, the superb husbandry, the rich
mellow soil, the drainage, the hedges,—in the in-
conspicuousness of any given feature, and the mel-
low tone and homely sincerity of all; now dwelling
fondly upon the groups of neatly modeled stacks,
then upon the field occupations, the gathering of
turnips and cabbages, or the digging of potatoes, —
how I longed to turn up the historic soil, into which
had passed the sweat and virtue of so many genera-
tions, with my own spade, —then upon the quaint,
old, thatched houses, or the cluster of tiled roofs,
then catching at a church spire across a meadow
(and it is all meadow), or at the remains of tower or
wall overrun with ivy.

Here, something almost human looks out at you
from the landscape; Nature here has been so long
under the dominion of man, has been taken up and
laid down by him so many times, worked over and
over with his hands, fed and fattened by his toil
and industry, and, on the whole, has proved herself
so willing and tractable, that she has taken on some-
thing of his image, and seems to radiate his pres-
ence. She is completely domesticated, and no doubt
loves the titivation of the harrow and plow. The
fields look half conscious; and if ever the cattle
have “great and tranquil thoughts,” as Emerson
suggests they do, it must be when lying upon these
lawns and meadows. I noticed that the trees, the
oaks and elms, looked like fruit-trees, or as if they
had felt the humanizing influences of so many gen-
erations of men, and were betaking themselves from

140 WINTER SUNSHINE

the woods to the orchard. The game is more than
half tame, and one could easily understand that it
had a keeper.

But the look of those fields and parks went
straight to my heart. It is not merely that they
were so smooth and cultivated, but that they were
so benign and maternal, so redolent of cattle and
sheep and of patient, homely farm labor. One gets
only here and there a glimpse of such in this coun-
try. I-see occasionally about our farms a patch of
an acre or half acre upon which has settled this at-
mosphere of ripe and loving husbandry; a choice
bit of meadow about the barn or orchard, or near
the house, which has had some special fattening,
perhaps been the site of some former garden, or barn,
or homestead, or which has had the wash of some
building, where the feet of children have played for
generations, and the flocks and herds have been fed
in winter, and where they love to lie and ruminate
at night, —a piece of sward thick and smooth, and
full of warmth and nutriment, where the grass is
greenest and freshest in spring, and the hay finest
and thickest in summer.

This is the character of the whole of England that
I saw. I had been told I should see a garden, but
I did not know before to what an extent the earth
could become a living repository of the virtues of so
many generations of gardeners. The tendency to
run to weeds and wild growths seems to have been
utterly eradicated from the soil; and if anything
were to spring up spontaneously, I think it would
be cabbage and turnips, or grass and grain.

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 141

And yet, to American eyes, the country seems
quite uninhabited, there are so few dwellings and
so few people. Such a landscape at home would be
dotted all over with thrifty farmhouses, each with
its group of painted outbuildings, and along every
road and highway would be seen the well-to-do turn-
outs of the independent freeholders. But in Eng-
land the dwellings of the poor people, the farmers,
are so humble and inconspicuous and are really so
far apart, and the halls and the country-seats of the
aristocracy are so hidden in the midst of vast estates,
that the landscape seems almost deserted, and it is
not till you see the towns and great cities that you
can understand where so vast a population keeps
itself.

Another thing that would be quite sure to strike
my eye on this my first ride across British soil, and
on all subsequent rides, was the enormous number
of birds and fowls of various kinds that swarmed in
the air or covered the ground. It was truly amaz-
ing. It seemed as if the feathered life of a whole
continent must have been concentrated on this island.
Indeed, I doubt if a sweeping together of all the
birds of the United States into any two of the
largest States would people the earth and air more
fully. There appeared to be a plover, a crow, a
rook, a blackbird, and a sparrow to every square
yard of ground. They know the value of birds in
Britain, — that they are the friends, not the enemies,
of the farmer. It must be the paradise of crows
and rooks. It did me good to see them so much at

142 WINTER SUNSHINE

home about the fields andeven in the towns. I was
glad also to see that the British crow was not a
stranger to me, and that he differed from his bro-
ther on the American side of the Atlantic only in
being less alert and cautious, having less use for
these qualities.

Now and then the train would start up some more
tempting game. <A brace or two of partridges or a
covey of quails would settle down in the stubble, or
a cock pheasant drop head and tail and slide into
the copse. Rabbits also would scamper back from
the borders of the fields into the thickets or peep
slyly out, making my sportsman’s fingers tingle.

I have no doubt I should be a notorious poacher
in England. How could an American see so much
game and not wish to exterminate it entirely as he
does at home? But sporting is an expensive luxury
here. In the first place a man pays a heavy tax on
his gun, nearly or quite half its value; then he has
to have a license to hunt, for which he pays smartly ;
then permission from the owner of the land upon
which he wishes to hunt, so that the game is hedged
about by a triple safeguard.

An American, also, will be at once struck with
the look of greater substantiality and completeness
in everything he sees here. No temporizing, no
makeshifts, no evidence of hurry, or failure, or
contract work; no wood and little paint, but plenty
of iron and brick and stone. This people have
taken plenty of time, and have built broad and
deep, and placed the cap-stone on, All this I had

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 1438

been told, but it pleased me so in the seeing that I
must tell it again. It is worth a voyage across the
Atlantic to see the bridges alone. I believe I had
seen little other than wooden bridges before, and in
England I saw not one such, but everywhere solid
arches of masonry, that were refreshing and reas-
suring to behold. Even the lanes and byways
about the farm, I noticed, crossed the little creeks
with a span upon which an elephant would not hesi-
tate to tread, or artillery trains to pass. There is no
form so pleasing to look upon as the arch, or that
affords so much food and suggestion to the mind.
It seems to stimulate the volition, the will-power,
and for my part I cannot look upon a noble span
without a feeling of envy, for I know the hearts
of heroes are thus keyed and fortified. The arch is
the symbol of strength and activity, and of rectitude.

In Europe I took a new lease of this feeling, this
partiality for the span, and had daily opportunities
to indulge and confirm it. In London I had im-
mense satisfaction in observing the bridges there, and
in walking over them, firm as the geological strata
and asenduring. London Bridge, Waterloo Bridge,
Blackfriars, etc., clearing the river in a few gigantic
leaps, like things of life and motion, — to pass over
one of these bridges, or to sail under it, awakens
the emotion of the sublime. I think the moral value
of such a bridge as the Waterloo must be inesti-
mable. It seems to me the British Empire itself is
stronger for such a bridge, and that all public and
private virtues are stronger. In Paris, too, those

144 WINTER SUNSHINE

superb monuments over the Seine, —I think they
alone ought to inspire the citizens with a love of
permanence, and help hold them to stricter notions
of law and dependence. No doubt kings and tyrants
know the value of these things, and as yet they cer-
tainly have the monopoly of them.

LONDON

I am too good a countryman to feel much at home
in cities, and usually value them only as conven-
iences, but for London I conceived quite an affec-
tion; perhaps because it is so much like a natural
formation itself, and strikes less loudly, or perhaps
sharply, upon the senses than our great cities do.
It is a forest of brick and stone of the most stupen-
dous dimensions, and one traverses it in the same
adventurous kind of way that he does woods and
mountains. The maze and tangle of streets is some-
thing fearful, and any generalization of them a step
not to be hastily taken. My experience heretofore
had been that cities generally were fractions that
could be greatly reduced, but London I found I
could not simplify, and every morning for weeks,
when I came out of my hotel, it was a question
whether my course lay in this direction or in
squarely the opposite. It has no unit of structure,
but is a vast aggregation of streets and houses, or in
fact of towns and cities, which have to be mastered
in detail. JI tried the third or fourth day to get a
bird’s-eye view from the top of St. Paul’s, but saw
through the rifts in the smoke only a waste, —

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 145

literally a waste of red tiles and chimney pots. The
confusion and desolation were complete.

But I finally mastered the city, in a measure, by
the aid of a shilling map, which I carried with me
wherever I went, and upon which when I was lost
I would hunt myself up, thus making in the end
a very suggestive and entertaining map. Indeed,
every inch of this piece of colored paper is alive to
me. If I did not make the map itself, I at least
verified it, which is nearly as good, and the verifi-
cation, on street corner by day and under lamp or
by shop window at night, was often a matter of so
much concern that I doubt if the original surveyor
himself put more heart into certain parts of his work
than I did in the proof of them.

London has less metropolitan splendor than New
York, and less of the full-blown pride of the shop-
man. Its stores are not nearly so big, and it has
no signboards that contain over one thousand feet of
lumber; neither did I see any names painted on the
gable ends of the buildings that the man in the moon
could read without his opera-glass. I went out one
day to look up one of the great publishing houses,
and passed it and repassed it several times trying to
find the sign. Finally, having made sure of the
building, I found the name of the firm cut into the
door jamb.

London seems to have been built and peopled by
countrymen, who have preserved all the rural rem-
iniscences possible. All its great streets or avenues
are called roads, as King’s Road, City Road, Edge-

146 WINTER SUNSHINE

ware Road, Tottenham Court Road, etc., with in-
numerable lesser roads. Then there are lanes and
walks, and such rural names among the streets as
Long Acre, Snowhill, Poultry, Bush-lane, Hill-road,
Hounsditch, etc., and not one grand street or im-
perial avenue.

My visit fell at a most favorable juncture as to
weather, there being but few rainy days and but
little fog. I had imagined that they had barely
enough fair weather in London, at any season, to
keep alive the tradition of sunshine and of blue sky,
but the October days I spent there were not so very
far behind what we have at home at this season.
London often puts on a nightcap of smoke and fog,
which it pulls down over its ears pretty close at
times; and the sun has a habit of lying abed very
late in the morning, which all the people imitate;
but I remember some very pleasant weather there,
and some bright moonlight nights.

I saw but one full-blown characteristic London
fog. I was in the National Gallery one day, trying
to make up my mind about Turner, when this chim-
ney-pot meteor came down. It was like a great
yellow dog taking possession of the world. The:
light faded from the room, the pictures ran together
in confused masses of shadow on the walls, and in
the street only a dim yellowish twilight prevailed,
through which faintly twinkled the lights in the
shop windows. Vehicles came slowly out of the
dirty obscurity on one side and plunged into it on
the other. Waterloo Bridge gave one or two leaps

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 147

and disappeared, and the Nelson Column in Tra-
falgar Square was obliterated for half its length.
Travel was impeded, boats stopped on the river,
trains stood still on the track, and for an hour and a
half London lay buried beneath this sickening erup-
tion. I say eruption, because a London fog is only
a London smoke tempered by a moist atmosphere.
It is called “fog” by courtesy, but lampblack is its
chief ingredient. It is not wet like our fogs, but
quite dry, and makes the eyes smart and the nose
tingle. Whenever the sun can be seen through it,
his face is red and dirty; seen through a dona fide
fog, his face is clean and white. English coal — or
“coals” as they say here—in burning gives out
an enormous quantity of thick, yellowish smoke,
which is at no time absorbed or dissipated as it
would be in our hard, dry atmosphere, and which
at certain times is not absorbed at all, but falls down
swollen and augmented by the prevailing moisture.
The atmosphere of the whole island is more or less
impregnated with smoke, even on the fairest days,
and it becomes more and more dense as you approach
the great towns. Yet this compound of smut, fog,
and common air is an elixir of youth; and this is
one of the surprises of London, to see amid so much
soot and dinginess such fresh, blooming complexions,
and in general such a fine physical tone and full-
bloodedness among the people,—such as one has
come to associate only with the best air and the
purest, wholesomest country influences. What the
secret of it may be, I am at a loss to know, unless

148 WINTER SUNSHINE

it is that the moist atmosphere does not dry up the
blood as our air does, and that the carbon and creo-
sote have some rare antiseptic and preservative quali-
ties, as doubtless they have, that are efficacious in
the human physiology. It is no doubt true, also,
that the people do not tan in this climate, as in
ours, and that the delicate flesh tints show more on
that account.

I speak thus of these things with reference to our
standards at home, because I found that these stand-
ards were ever present in my mind, and that I was
unconsciously applying them to whatever I saw and
wherever J went, and often, as I shall have occasion
to show, to their discredit.

Climate is a great matter, and no doubt many of
the differences between the English stock at home
and its offshoot in our country are traceable to this
source. Our climate is more heady and less sto-
machic than the English; sharpens the wit, but
dries up the fluids and viscera; favors an irregular,
nervous energy, but exhausts the animal spirits. It
is, perhaps, on this account that I have felt since
my return how much easier it is to be a dyspep-
tic here than in Great Britain. One’s appetite is
keener and more ravenous, and the temptation to
bolt one’s food greater. The American is not so
hearty an eater as the Englishman, but the forces of
his body are constantly leaving his stomach in the
lurch, and running off into his hands and feet and
head. His eyes are bigger than his belly, but an
Englishman’s belly is a deal larger than his eyes,

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 149

and the number of plum puddings and amount of
Welsh rarebit he devours annually would send the
best of us to his grave in half that time. We have
not enough constitutional inertia and stolidity; our
climate gives us no rest, but goads us day and night;
and the consequent wear and tear of life is no doubt
greater in this country than in any other on the
globe. We are playing the game more rapidly, and
I fear less thoroughly and sincerely, than the mother
country.

The more uniform good health of English women
is thought to be a matter of exercise in the open
air, as walking, riding, etc., but the prime reason
is mainly a climatic one, uniform habits of exercise
being more easily kept up in that climate than in
this, and being less exhaustive, one day with another.
You can walk there every day in the year without
much discomfort, and the stimulus is about the
same. Here it is too hot in summer and too cold
in winter, or else it keys you up too tight one day
and unstrings you the next; all fire and motion in
the morning, and all listlessness and ennui in the
afternoon; a spur one hour and a sedative the next.

A watch will not keep as steady time here as in
Britain, and the human clock-work is more liable to
get out of repair for the same reason. Our women,
especially, break down prematurely, and the decay
of maternity in this country is no doubt greater than
in any of the oldest civilized communities. One rea-
son, doubtless, is that our women are the greatest
slaves of fashion in the whole world, and, in follow-

f

150 WINTER SUNSHINE

ing the whims of that famous courtesan, have the
most fickle and destructive climate to contend with.

English women all have good-sized feet, and
Englishmen, too, and wear large, comfortable shoes.
This was a noticeable feature at once; coarse, loose-
fitting clothes of both sexes, and large boots and
shoes with low heels. They evidently knew the
use of their feet, and had none of the French, or
American, or Chinese fastidiousness about this part
of their anatomy. I notice that, when a family be-
gins to run out, it turns out its toes, drops off at
the heel, shortens its jaw, and dotes on small feet
and hands.

Another promoter of health in England is woolen
clothes, which are worn the year round, the summer
driving people into no such extremities as here.
And the good, honest woolen stuffs of one kind and
another that fill the shops attest the need and the
taste that prevails. They had a garment when I was
in London called the Ulster overcoat, —a coarse,
shaggy, bungling coat, with a skirt nearly reaching
to the feet, very ugly, tried by the fashion plates,
but very comfortable, and quite the fashion. This
very sensible garment has since become well known
in America.

The Americans in London were put out with the
tailors, and could rarely get suited, on account of
the loose cutting and the want of “style.” But
“style” is the hiatus that threatens to swallow us
all one of these days. About the only monstrosity
I saw in the British man’s dress was the stove-pipe

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 151

hat, which everybody wears. At first I feared it
might be a police regulation, or a requirement of the
British Constitution, for I seemed to be about the
only man in the kingdom with a soft hat on, and I
had noticed that before leaving the steamer every
man brought out from its hiding-place one of these
polished brain-squeezers. Even the boys wear them,
—youths of nine and ten years with little stove-
pipe hats on; and at Eton School I saw black swarms
of them: even the boys in the field were playing
football in stove-pipe hats.

What we call beauty in woman is so much a mat-
ter of youth and health that the average of female
beauty in London is, I believe, higher than in this
country. English women are comely and good-
looking. It is an extremely fresh and pleasant face
that you see everywhere, — softer, less clearly and
sharply cut than the typical female face in this coun-
try,—less spirituelle, less perfect in form, but
stronger and sweeter. There is more blood, and
heart, and substance back of it. The American
race of the present generation is doubtless the most
shapely, both in face and figure, that has yet ap-
peared. American children are far less crude, and
lumpy, and awkward-looking than the European
children. One generation in this country suffices
vastly to improve the looks of the offspring of the
Trish or German or Norwegian emigrant. There is
surely something in our climate or conditions that
speedily refines and sharpens—-and, shall I add,
~ hardens? the human features. The face loses

152 WINTER SUNSHINE

something, but it comes into shape; and of such
beauty as is the product of this tendency we can
undoubtedly show more, especially in our women,
than the parent stock in Europe; while American
schoolgirls, I believe, have the most bewitching
beauty in the world.

The English plainness of speech is observable
even in the signs or notices along the streets. In-
stead of “Lodging,” “Lodging,” as with us, one
sees “Beds,” “Beds,” which has a very homely
sound; and in place of “gentlemen’s” this, that, or
the other, about public places, the word ‘‘men’s” is
used.

I suppose, if it was not for the bond of a written
language and perpetual intercourse, the two nations
would not be able to understand each other in the
course of a hundred years, the inflection and accent-
uation is so different. I recently heard an Eng-
lish lady say, referring to the American speech, that
she could hardly believe her own language could be
spoken so strangely.

ARCHITECTURE

One sees right away that the English are a home
people, a domestic people; and he does not need to
go into their houses or homes to find this out. It
is in the air and in the general aspect of things.
Everywhere you see the virtue and quality that we
ascribe to home-made articles. It seems as if things
had been made by hand, and with care and affection,
as they have been. The land of caste and kings,

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 153

there is yet less glitter and display than in this
country, less publicity, and, of course, less rivalry
and emulation also, for which we pay very dearly.
You have got to where the word homely preserves
its true signification, and is no longer a term of dis-
paragement, but expressive of a cardinal virtue.

I liked the English habit of naming their houses;
it shows the importance they attach to their homes.
All about the suburbs of London and in the outly-
ing villages I noticed nearly every house and cottage
had some appropriate designation, as Terrace House,
Oaktree House, Ivy Cottage, or some Villa, etc.,
usually cut into the stone gate-post, and this name
is put on the address of the letters. How much
better to be known by your name than by your
number! I believe the same custom prevails in the
country, and is common to the middle classes as
well as to the aristocracy. It is a good feature.
A house or a farm with an appropriate name, which
everybody recognizes, must have an added value and
importance.

Modern English houses are less showy than ours,
and have more weight and permanence,—no flat
roofs and no painted outside shutters. Indeed, that
pride of American country people, and that abomi-
nation in the landscape, a white house with green
blinds, I did not see a specimen of in England.
They do not aim to make their houses conspicuous,
but the contrary. They make a large, yellowish
brick that has a pleasing effect in the wall. Then
a very short space of time in that climate suffices to

154 WINTER SUNSHINE

take off the effect of newness, and give a mellow,
sober hue to the building. Another advantage of
the climate is that it permits outside plastering.
Thus almost any stone may be imitated, and the
work endure for ages; while our sudden changes,
and extremes of heat and cold, of dampness and dry-
ness, will cause the best work of this kind to peel
off in a few years.

Then this people have better taste in building
than we have, perhaps because they have the no-
blest samples and specimens of architecture con-
stantly before them,— those old feudal castles and
royal residences, for instance. I was astonished to
see how homely and good they looked, how little
they challenged admiration, and how much they
emulated rocks and trees. They were surely built
in a simpler and more poetic age than this. It was
like meeting some plain, natural nobleman after
contact with one of the bedizened, artificial sort.
The Tower of London, for instance, is as pleasing
to the eye, has the same fitness and harmony, as a
hut in the woods; and I should think an artist
might have the same pleasure in copying it into his
picture as he would in copying a pioneer’s log cabin.
So with Windsor Castle, which has the beauty of a
ledge of rocks, and crowns the hill like a vast natu-
ral formation. The warm, simple interior, too, of
these castles and palaces, the honest oak without
paint or varnish, the rich wood carvings, the ripe hu-
man tone and atmosphere, — how it all contrasts, for
instance, with the showy, gilded, cast-iron interior

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 155

of our commercial or political palaces, where every-
thing that smacks of life or nature is studiously ex-
cluded under the necessity of making the building
fire-proof.

I was not less pleased with the higher ornamental
architecture, —the old churches and cathedrals, —
which appealed to me in a way architecture had
never before done. In fact, I found that I had
never seen architecture before,—a building with
genius and power in it, and that one could look at
with the eye of the imagination. Not mechanics
merely, but poets, had wrought and planned here,
and the granite was tender with human qualities.
The plants and weeds growing in the niches and
hollows of the walls, the rooks and martins and
jackdaws inhabiting the towers and breeding about
the eaves, are but types of the feelings and emotions
of the human heart that flit and hover over these old
piles, and find affectionate lodgment in them. ;

Time, of course, has done a great deal for this
old architecture. Nature has taken it lovingly to
herself, has set her seal upon it, and adopted it into
her system. Just the foil which beauty — espe-
cially the erystallic beauty of architecture — needs
has been given by this hazy, mellowing atmosphere.
As the grace and suggestiveness of all objects are
enhanced by a fall of snow, —forest, fence, hive,
shed, knoll, rock, tree, all being laid under the
same white enchantment, —so time has wrought in
softening and toning down this old religious archi-
tecture, and bringing it into harmony with nature.

156 WINTER SUNSHINE

Our climate has a much keener edge, both of
frost and fire, and touches nothing so gently or crea-
tively; yet time would, no doubt, do much for our
architecture, if we would give it a chance, — for that
apotheosis of prose, the National Capitol at Washing-
ton, upon which, I notice, a returned traveler bases
our claim to be considered “ahead” of the Old
World, even in architecture; but the reigning gods
interfere, and each spring or fall give the building
a clean shirt in the shape of a coat of white paint.
In like manner, other public buildings never become
acclimated, but are annually scoured with soap and
sand, the national passion for the brightness of new-
ness interfering to defeat any benison which the
gods might be disposed to pronounce upon them.
Spotlessness, I know, is not a characteristic of our
politics, though it is said that whitewashing is,
which may account for this ceaseless paint-pot reno-
vation of our public buildings. In a world lit only
by the moon, our Capitol would be a paragon of
beauty, and the spring whitewashing could also be
endured; but under our blazing sun and merciless
sky it parches the vision, and makes it turn with
a feeling of relief to rocks and trees, or to some
weather-stained, dilapidated shed or hovel.

How winningly and picturesquely in comparison
the old architecture of London addresses itself to
the eye,— St. Paul’s Cathedral, for instance, with its
vast blotches and stains, as if it had been dipped in
some black Lethe of oblivion, and then left to be
restored by the rains and the elements! This black

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 157

Lethe is the London smoke and fog, which has left
a dark deposit over all the building, except the up-
per and more exposed parts, where the original sil-
very whiteness of the stone shows through, the effect
of the whole thus being like one of those graphic
Rembrandt photographs or carbons, the prominences
in a strong light, and the rest in deepest shadow. I
was never tired of looking at this noble building,
and of going out of my way to walk around it; but
IT am at a loss to know whether the pleasure I had
in it arose from my love of nature, or from a suscep-
tibility to art for which I had never given myself
credit. Perhaps from both, for I seemed to behold
Art turning toward and reverently acknowledging Na-
ture,— indeed, in a manner already become Nature.

I believe the critics of such things find plenty of
fault with St. Paul’s; and even I could see that its
bigness was a little prosy, that it suggested the his-
toric rather than the poetic muse, etc.; yet, for all
that, I could never look at it without a profound
emotion. Viewed coolly and critically, it might seem
like a vast specimen of Episcopalianism in architec-
ture. Miltonic in its grandeur and proportions, and
Miltonic in its prosiness and mongrel classicism also,
yet its power and effectiveness. are unmistakable.
The beholder has no vantage-ground from which to
view it, or take in its total effect, on account of its
being so closely beset. by such a mob of shops and
buildings; yet the glimpses he does get here and
there through the opening made by some street,
when passing in its vicinity, are very striking and

158 WINTER SUNSHINE

suggestive i the thin veil of smoke, which is here as
constant and uniform as the atmosphere itself, wrap-
ping it about with the enchantment of time and dis-
tance.

The interior I found even more impressive than
the exterior, perhaps because I was unprepared for
it. I had become used to imposing exteriors at
home, and did not reflect that in a structure like this
I should see an interior also, and that here alone
the soul of the building would be fully revealed. It
was Miltonic in the best sense; it was like the might-
iest organ music put into form. Such depths, such
solemn vastness, such gulfs and abysses of architec-
tural space, the rich, mellow light, the haze outside
becoming a mysterious, hallowing presence within,
quite mastered me, and I sat down upon a seat, feel-
ing my first genuine cathedral intoxication. As it
was really an intoxication, a sense of majesty and
power quite overwhelming in my then uncloyed con-
dition, I speak of it the more freely. My compan-
ions rushed about as if each one had had a search-
warrant in his pocket; but I was content to uncover
my head and drop into a seat, and busy my mind
with some simple object near at hand, while the
sublimity that soared about me stole into my soul
and possessed it. My sensation was like that im-
parted by suddenly reaching a great altitude: there
was a sort of relaxation of the muscles, followed by
a sense of physical weakness; and after half an hour
or so I felt compelled to go out into the open air,
and leave till another day the final survey of the

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 159

building. Next day I came back, but there can be
only one first time, and I could not again surprise
myself with the same feeling of wonder and intoxi-
cation. But St. Paul’s will bear many visits. I
came again and again, and never grew tired of it.
Crossing its threshold was entering another world,
where the silence and solitude were so profound and
overpowering that the noise of the streets outside,
or of the stream of visitors, or of the workmen en-
gaged on the statuary, made no impression. They
were all belittled, lost, like the humming of flies,
Even the afternoon services, the chanting, and the
tremendous organ, were no interruption, and left
me just as much alone as ever. They only served
to set off the silence, to fathom its depth.

The dome of St. Paul’s is the original of our
dome at Washington; but externally I think ours
is the more graceful of the two, though the effect
inside is tame and flat in comparison. This is
owing partly to the lesser size and height, and partly
to our hard, transparent atmosphere, which lends no
charm or illusion, but mainly to the stupid, unim-
aginative plan of it. Our dome shuts down like an
inverted iron pot; there is no vista, no outlook, no
relation, and hence no proportion. You open a
door and are in a circular pen, and can look in only
one direction,— up. If the iron pot were slashed
through here and there, or if it rested on a row of
tall columns or piers, and was shown to be a legiti-
mate part of the building, it would not appear the
exhausted receiver it does now.

160 WINTER SUNSHINE

The dome of St. Paul’s is the culmination of the
whole interior of the building. Rising over the
central area, it seems to gather up the power and
majesty of the nave, the aisles, the transepts, the
choir, and give them expression and expansion in
its lofty firmament.

Then those colossal piers, forty feet broad some
of them, and nearly one hundred feet high,— they
easily eclipsed what I had recently seen in a mine,
and which I at the time imagined shamed all the
architecture of the world,— where the mountain was
upheld over a vast space by massive piers left by
the miners, with a ceiling unrolled over your head,
and apparently descending upon you, that looked
like a petrified thunder-cloud.

The view from the upper gallery, or top of the
dome, looking down inside, is most impressive. The
| public are not admitted to this gallery, for fear, the
\keeper told me, it would become the scene of sui-

cides; people unable to withstand the terrible fas-
cination would leap into the yawning gulf. But,
with the privilege usually accorded to Americans, I
stepped down into the narrow circle, and, leaning
over the balustrade, coolly looked the horrible temp-
tation in the face.

On the whole, St. Paul’s is so vast and imposing
that one wonders what occasion or what ceremony
can rise to the importance of not being utterly
dwarfed within its walls. The annual gathering of
the charity children, ten or twelve thousand in
number, must make a ripple or two upon its soli-

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 161

tude, or an exhibition like the thanksgiving of the
Queen, when sixteen or eighteen thousand persons
were assembled beneath its roof. But one cannot
forget that it is, for the most part, a great toy,—a
mammoth shell, whose bigness bears no proportion
to the living (if, indeed, it is living), indwelling
necessity. It is a tenement so large that the tenant
looks cold and forlorn, and in danger of being lost
within it.

No such objection can be made to Westminster
Abbey, which is a mellow, picturesque old place,
the interior arrangement and architecture of which
affects one like some ancient, dilapidated forest.
Even the sunlight streaming through the dim win-
dows, and falling athwart the misty air, was like
the sunlight of a long-gone age. The very atmos-
phere was pensive, and filled the tall spaces like a
memory and a dream. I sat down and listened to
the choral service and to the organ, which blended
perfectly with the spirit and sentiment of the place.

ON THE SOUTH DOWNS

One of my best days in England was spent amid
the singing of skylarks on the South Down Hills,
near an old town at the mouth of the Little Ouse,
where I paused on my way to France. The pros-
pect of hearing one or two of the classical birds of
the Old World had not been the least of the attrac-
tions of my visit, though I knew the chances were
against me so late in the season, and I have to thank
my good genius for guiding me to the right place at

162 WINTER SUNSHINE

the right time. To get out of London was delight
enough, and then to find myself quite unexpectedly
on these soft rolling hills, of a mild October day,
in full sight of the sea, with the larks pouring out
their gladness overhead, was to me good fortune
indeed.

The South Downs form a very remarkable feature
of this part of England, and are totally unlike any
other landscape I ever saw. I believe it is Huxley
who applies to them the epithet of muttony, which
they certainly deserve, for they are like the backs of
immense sheep, smooth, and round, and fat, —so
smooth, indeed, that the eye can hardly find a place
to take hold of, not a tree, or bush, or fence, or
house, or rock, or stone, or other object, for miles
and miles, save here and there a group of straw-
capped stacks, or a flock of sheep crawling slowly
over them, attended by a shepherd and dog, and
the only lines visible those which bound the squares
where different crops had been gathered. The soil
was rich and mellow, like a garden, — hills of chalk
with a pellicle of black loam.

These hills stretch a great distance along the
coast, and are cut squarely off by the sea, presenting
on this side a chain of white chalk cliffs suggesting
the old Latin name of this land, Albion.

Before I had got fifty yards from the station I
began to hear the larks, and being unprepared for
them I was a little puzzled at first, but was not long
in discovering what luck I was in. The song disap-
pointed me at first, being less sweet and melodious

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 163

than I had expected to hear; indeed, I thought it a
little sharp and harsh, —a little stubbly, — but in
other respects, in strength and gladness and conti-
nuity, it was wonderful. And the more I heard
it the better I liked it, until I would gladly have
given any of my songsters at home for a bird that
could shower down such notes, even in autumn.
Up, up, went the bird, describing a large easy spiral
till he attained an altitude of three or four hundred
feet, when, spread out against the sky for a space
of ten or fifteen minutes or more, he poured out
his delight, filling all the vault with sound. The
song is of the sparrow kind, and, in its best parts,
perpetually suggested the notes of our vesper spar-
row; but the wonder of it is its copiousness and
sustained strength. There is no theme, no begin-
ning, middle, or end, like most of our best bird-
songs, but a perfect swarm of notes pouring out like
bees from a hive, and resembling each other nearly
as closely, and only ceasing as the bird nears the
earth again. We have many more melodious song-
sters; the bobolink in the meadows for instance, the
vesper sparrow in the pastures, the purple finch in
the groves, the winter wren, or any of the thrushes
in the woods, or the wood-wagtail, whose air song
is of a similar character to that of the skylark’s, and
is even more rapid and ringing, and is delivered in
nearly the same manner; but our birds all stop
when the skylark has only just begun. Away he
goes on quivering wing, inflating his throat fuller
and fuller, mounting and mounting, and turning to

164 WINTER SUNSHINE

all points of the compass as if to embrace the whole
landscape in his song, the notes still raining upon
you, as distinct as ever, after you have left him far
behind. You feel that you need be in no hurry to
observe the song lest the bird finish; you walk along,
your mind reverts to other things, you examine the
grass and weeds, or search for a curious stone, still
there goes the bird; you sit down and study the
landscape, or send your thoughts out toward France
or Spain, or across the sea to your own land, and
yet, when you get them back, there is that song
above you, almost as unceasing as the light of a star.
This strain indeed suggests some rare pyrotechnic
display, musical sounds being substituted for the
many-colored sparks and lights. And yet I will
add, what perhaps the best readers do not need to
be told, that neither the lark-song, nor any other
bird-song in the open air and under the sky, is as
noticeable a feature as my description of it might
imply, or as the poets would have us believe; and
that most persons, not especially interested in birds
or their notes, and intent upon the general beauty
of the landscape, would probably pass it by unre-
marked.

I suspect that it is a little higher flight than the
facts will bear out when the writers make the birds
go out of sight into the sky. I could easily follow
them on this occasion, though, if I took my eye
away for a moment, it was very difficult to get it
back again. I had to search for them as the astron-
omer searches for a star. Jt may be that in the

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 165

spring, when the atmosphere is less clear and the
heart of the bird full of a more mad and reckless
love, that the climax is not reached until the eye
loses sight of the singer.

Several attempts have been made to introduce the
lark into this country, but for some reason or other
the experiment has never succeeded. The birds have
been liberated in Virginia and on Long Island, but
do not seem to have ever been heard of afterwards.
I see no reason why they should not thrive any-
where along our Atlantic seaboard, and J think the
question of introducing them worthy of more thor-
ough and serious attention than has yet been given
it, for the lark is really an institution; and as he
sings long after the other birds are silent, —as if
he had perpetual spring in his heart, —he would be
a great acquisition to our fields and meadows, It
may be that he cannot stand the extremes of our
climate, though the English sparrow thrives well
enough. The Smithsonian Institution has received
specimens of the skylark from Alaska, where, no
doubt, they find a climate more like the English.

They have another prominent singer in England,
namely, the robin,— the original robin redbreast, —
a slight, quick, active bird with an orange front and
an olive back, and a bright, musical warble that I
caught by every garden, lane, and hedge-row. It
suggests our bluebird, and has similar habits and
manners, though it is a much better musician.

The European bird that corresponds to our robin
is the blackbird, of which Tennyson sings: —

166 WINTER SUNSHINE

“O Blackbird, sing me something well ;
While all the neighbors shoot thee round
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground
Where thou may’st warble, eat, and dwell.”’

It quite startled me to see such a resemblance, —
to see, indeed, a black robin. In size, form, flight,
manners, note, call, there is hardly an appreciable
difference. The bird starts up with the same flirt
of the wings, and calls out in the same jocund, salu-
tatory way, as he hastens off. The nest, of coarse
mortar in the fork of a tree, or in an outbuilding,
or in the side of a wall, is also the same.

The bird I wished most to hear, namely, the
nightingale, had already departed on its southern
journey. I saw one in the Zodlogical Gardens in
London, and took a good look at him. He struck
me as bearing a close resemblance to our hermit
thrush, with something in his manners that sug-
gested the water-thrush also. Carlyle said he first
recognized its song from the description of it in
“Wilhelm Meister,” and that it was a “sudden
burst,” which is like the song of our water-thrush.

I have little doubt our songsters excel in melody,
while the European birds excel in profuseness and
volubility. I heard many bright, animated notes
and many harsh ones, but few that were melodious.
This fact did not harmonize with the general drift
of the rest of my observations, for one of the first
things that strikes an American in Europe is the
mellowness and rich tone of things. The European
is softer-voiced than the American and milder-man-
nered, but the bird voices seem an exception to this
rule,

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 167

PARKS

While in London I had much pleasure in strolling
through the great parks, Hyde Park, Regent’s Park,
St. James Park, Victoria Park, etc., and in making
Sunday excursions to Richmond Park or Hampden
Court Parks, or the great parks at Windsor Castle.
The magnitude of all these parks was something I
was entirely unprepared for, and their freedom also;
one could roam where he pleased. Not once did I
see a signboard, ‘‘Keep off the grass,” or go here or
go there. There was grass enough, and one could
launch out in every direction without fear of tres-
passing on forbidden ground. One gets used, at
least I do, to such petty parks at home, and walks
amid them so cautiously and circumspectly, every
shrub and tree and grass plat saying “Hands off,”
that it is a new sensation to enter a city pleasure
ground like Hyde Park, —a vast natural landscape,
nearly two miles long and a mile wide, with broad,
rolling plains, with herds of sheep grazing, and for-
ests and lakes, and all as free as the air. We have
some quite sizable parks and reservations in Wash-
ington, and the citizen has the right of way over
their tortuous gravel walks, but he puts his foot
upon the grass at the risk of being insolently hailed
by the local police. I have even been called to
order for reclining upon a seat under a tree in the
Smithsonian grounds. I must sit upright as in
church. But in Hyde Park or Regent’s Park I
could not only walk upon the grass, but lie upon

168 WINTER SUNSHINE

it, or roll upon it, or play “one catch all” with
children, boys, dogs, or sheep upon it; and I took
my revenge for once for being so long confined to
gravel walks, and gave the grass an opportunity to
grow under my foot whenever I entered one of these
parks.

This free-and-easy rural character of the London
parks is quite in keeping with the tone and atmos-
phere of the great metropolis itself, which in so
many respects has a country homeliness and sincer-
ity, and shows the essentially bucolic taste of the
people; contrasting in this respect with the parks
and gardens of Paris, which show as unmistakably
the citizen and the taste for art and the beauty of
design and ornamentation. Hyde Park seems to
me the perfection of a city pleasure ground of this
kind, because it is so free and so thoroughly a piece
of the country, and so exempt from any petty artis-
tic displays.

In walking over Richmond Park I found I had
quite a day’s work before me, as it was like travers-
ing a township; while the great park at Windsor
Castle, being upwards of fifty miles around, might
well make the boldest pedestrian hesitate. My first
excursion was to Hampden Court, an old royal resi-
dence, where I spent a delicious October day wan-
dering through Bushy Park, and looking with covet-
ous, though admiring eyes upon the vast herds of
deer that dotted the plains, or gave way before me
as I entered the woods. There seemed literally to
be many thousands of these beautiful animals in this

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 169

park, and the loud, hankering sounds of the bucks,
as they pursued or circled around the does, was a
new sound to my ears. The rabbits and pheasants
also were objects of the liveliest interest to me, and
I found that after all a good shot at them with
the eye, especially when I could credit myself with
alertness or stealthiness, was satisfaction enough.

I thought it worthy of note that, though these
great parks in and about London were so free, and
apparently without any police regulations whatever,
yet I never saw prowling about them any of those
vicious, ruffianly-looking characters that generally
infest the neighborhood of our great cities, especially
of a Sunday. There were troops of boys, but they
were astonishingly quiet and innoxious, very unlike
American boys, white or black, a band of whom
making excursions into the country are always a
band of outlaws. Rwuffianism with us is no doubt
much more brazen and pronounced, not merely be-
cause the law is lax, but because such is the genius
of the people.

170 WINTER SUNSHINE

I

ENGLISH CHARACTERISTICS

Eneianp is a mellow country, and the English
people are a mellow people. They have hung
on the tree of nations a long time, and will, no
doubt, hang as much longer; for windfalls, I reckon,
are not the order in this island. We are pitched
several degrees higher in this country. By con-
trast, things here are loud, sharp, and garish. Our
geography is loud; the manners of the people are
loud; our climate is loud, very loud, so dry and
sharp, and full of violent changes and contrasts;
and our goings-out and comings-in as a nation are
anything but silent. Do we not occasionally give
the door an extra slam just for effect?

In England everything is on a lower key, slower,
steadier, gentler. Life is, no doubt, as full, or
fuller, in its material forms and measures, but less
violent and aggressive. The buffers the English
have between their cars to break the shock are
typical of much one sees there.

All sounds are softer in England; the surface of
things is less hard. The eye of day and the face of
Nature are less bright. Everything has a mellow,
subdued cast. There is no abruptness in the land-

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 171

scape, no sharp and violent contrasts, no brilliant
and striking tints in the foliage. A soft, pale yel-
low is all one sees in the way of tints along the
borders of the autumn woods. English apples (very
small and inferior, by the way) are not so highly
colored as ours. ‘The blackberries, just ripening in
October, are less pungent and acid; and the garden
vegetables, such as cabbage, celery, cauliflower, beet,
and other root crops, are less rank and fibrous; and
I am very sure that the meats also are tenderer and
sweeter. There can be no doubt about the superi-
ority of mutton; and the tender and succulent grass,
and the moist and agreeable climate, must tell upon
the beef also.

English coal is all soft coal, and the stone is soft
stone. The foundations of the hills are chalk in-
stead of granite. The stone with which most of
the old churches and cathedrals are built would not
endure in our climate half a century; but in Britain
the tooth of Time is much blunter, and the hunger
of the old man less ravenous, and the ancient archi-
tecture stands half a millennium, or until it is
slowly worn away by the gentle attrition of the
wind and rain.

At Chester, the old Roman wall that surrounds
the town, built in the first century and repaired in the
ninth, is still standing without a break or a swerve,
though in some places the outer face of the wall
is worn through. The Cathedral, and St. John’s
Church, in the same town, present to the beholder
outlines as jagged and broken as rocks and cliffs;

172 WINTER SUNSHINE

and yet it is only chip by chip, or grain by grain,
that ruin approaches. The timber also lasts an in-
credibly long time. Beneath one of the arched
ways, in the Chester wall above referred to, I saw
timbers that must have been in place five or six
hundred years. The beams in the old houses, also
fully exposed to the weather, seem incapable of de-
cay; those dating from Shakespeare’s time being
apparently as firm as ever.

I noticed that the characteristic aspect of the
clouds in England was different from ours, — soft,
fleecy, vapory, indistinguishable, — never the firm,
compact, sharply-defined, deeply-dyed masses and
fragments so common in our own sky. It rains
easily but slowly. The average rainfall of London
is less than that of New York, and yet it doubtless
rains ten days in the former to one in the latter.
Storms accompanied with thunder are rare; while
the crashing, wrenching, explosive thunder-gusts so
common with us, deluging the earth and convulsing
the heavens, are seldom known.

In keeping with this elemental control and mod-
eration, I found the character and manners of the
people gentler and sweeter than I had been led to
believe they were. No loudness, brazenness, im-
pertinence; no oaths, no swaggering, no leering at
women, no irreverence, no flippancy, no bullying,
no insolence of porters or clerks or conductors, no
importunity of bootblacks or newsboys, no omniv-
orousness of hackmen, — at least, comparatively
none, — all of which an American is apt to notice,

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 173

and I hope appreciate. In London the bootblack
salutes you with a respectful bow and touches his
cap, and would no more think of pursuing you or
answering your refusal than he would of jumping
into the Thames. ‘The same is true of the news-
boys. If they were to scream and bellow in Lon-
don as they do in New York or Washington, they
would be suppressed by the police, as they ought to
be. The vender of papers stands at the corner of
the street, with his goods in his arms, and a large
placard spread out at his feet, giving in big letters
the principal news-headings.

Street-cries of all kinds are less noticeable, less
ageressive, than in this country, and the manners
of the shopmen make you feel you are conferring a
benefit instead of receiving one. Even their loco-
motives are less noisy than ours, having a shrill,
infantile whistle that contrasts strongly with the
loud, demoniac yell that makes a residence near a
railway or depot, in this country, so unbearable.
The trains themselves move with wonderful smooth-
ness and celerity, making a mere fraction of the
racket made by our flying palaces as they go sway-
ing and jolting over our hasty, ill-ballasted roads.

It is characteristic of the English prudence and
plain dealing, that they put so little on the cars and
so much on the road, while the reverse process is
equally characteristic of American enterprise. Our
railway system no doubt has certain advantages, or
rather conveniences, over the English, but, for my
part, I had rather ride smoothly, swiftly, and safely

174 WINTER SUNSHINE

in a luggage van than be jerked and jolted to de-
struction in the velvet and veneering of our palace
cars. Upholster the road first, and let us ride on
bare boards until a cushion can be afforded; not
till after the bridges are of granite and iron, and
the rails of steel, do we want this more than aristo-
cratic splendor and luxury of palace and drawing-
room cars. To me there is no more marked sign of
the essential vulgarity of the national manners than
these princely cars and beggarly, clap-trap roads.
It is like a man wearing a ruffled and jeweled shirt-
front, but too poor to afford a shirt itself.

I have said the English are a sweet and mellow
people. There is, indeed, a charm about these an-
cestral races that goes to the heart. And herein
was one of the profoundest surprises of my visit,
namely, that, in coming from the New World to the
Old, from a people the most recently out of the
woods of any, to one of the ripest and venerablest
of the European nationalities, I should find a race
more simple, youthful, and less sophisticated than
the one I had left behind me. Yet this was my
impression. We have lost immensely in some
things, and what we have gained is not yet so obvi-
ous or so definable. We have lost in reverence, in
homeliness, in heart and conscience, —in virtue,
using the word in its proper sense. To some, the
difference which I note may appear a difference in
favor of the greater ’cuteness, wideawakeness, and
enterprise of the American, but is simply a differ-
ence expressive of our greater forwardness, We are

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 175

a forward people, and the god we worship is Smart-
ness./ In one of the worst tendencies of the age,
namely, an impudent, superficial, journalistic intel-
lectuality and glibness, America, in her polite and
literary circles, no doubt leads all other ple ad
English books and newspapers show more homely
veracity, more singleness of purpose, in short more
character, than ours. The great charm of such a
man as Darwin, for instance, is his simple manli-
ness and transparent good faith, and the absence in
him of that finical, self-complacent smartness which
is the bane of our literature.

The poet Clough thought the New England man
more simple than the man of Old England. Haw-
thorne, on the other hand, seemed reluctant to ad-
mit that the English were a “‘franker and simpler
people, from peer to peasant,” than we are; and that
they had not yet wandered so far from that “ healthful
and primitive simplicity in which man was created ”
as have their descendants in America. My own
impression accords with Hawthorne’s. We are a
more alert and curious people, but not so simple, —
not so easily angered, nor so easily amused. We
have partaken more largely of the fruit of the for-
bidden tree. The English have more of the stay-
at-home virtues, which, on the other hand, they
no doubt pay pretty well for by their more insular
tendencies.

The youths and maidens seemed more simple, with
their softer and less intellectual faces. When I re-
turned from Paris, the only person in the second-class

176 WINTER SUNSHINE

compartments of the car with me, for a long distance,
was an English youth eighteen or twenty years old,
returning home to London after an absence of nearly
a year, which he had spent as waiter in a Parisian
hotel. He.was born in London and had spent nearly
his whole life there, where his mother, a widow,
then lived. He talked very freely with me, and
told me his troubles, and plans, and hopes, as if
we had long known each other. What especially
struck me in the youth was a kind of sweetness and
innocence — perhaps what some would call “green-
ness”? — that at home I had associated only with
country boys, and not even with them latterly.
The smartness and knowingness and a certain hard-
ness or keenness of our city youths, — there was no
trace of it at all in this young Cockney. But he
liked American travelers better than those from his
own country. They were more friendly and com-
municative, — were not so afraid to speak to “a
fellow,” and at the hotel were more easily pleased.
The American is certainly not the grumbler the
Englishman is; he is more cosmopolitan and concil-
iatory. The Englishman will not adapt himself to
his surroundings; he is not the least bit an imitative
animal; he will be nothing but an Englishman, and
is out of place —an anomaly — in any country but
his own. To understand him, you must see him at
home in the British island where he grew, where
he belongs, where he has expressed himself and jus-
tified himself, and his interior, unconscious charac-
teristics are revealed. There he is quite a different

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 177

creature from what he is abroad. There he is
“sweet,” but he sours the moment he steps off the
island. In this country he is too generally arro-
gant, fault-finding, and supercilious. The very
traits of loudness, sharpness, and unleavenedness,
which I complain of in our national manners, he
very frequently exemplifies in an exaggerated form.

The Scotch or German element no doubt fuses
and mixes with ours much more readily than the
purely- British.

The traveler feels the past in England as of
course he cannot feel it here; and, along with im-
pressions of the present, one gets the flavor and in-
fluence of earlier, simpler times, which, no doubt, is
a potent charm, and one source of the “rose-color”
which some readers have found in my sketches, as
the absence of it is one cause of the raw, acrid, un-
lovely character of much there is in this country.
If the English are the old wine, we are the new.
We are not yet thoroughly leavened as a people, nor
have we more than begun to transmute and human-
ize our surroundings; and, as the digestive and as-
similative powers of the American are clearly less
than those of the Englishman, to say nothing of our
harsher, more violent climate, I have no idea that
ours can ever become the mellow land that Brit-
ain is,

As for the charge of brutality that is often brought
against the English, and which is so successfully
depicted by Dickens and Thackeray, there is doubt-
less good ground for it, though I actually saw very

178 WINTER SUNSHINE

little of it during five weeks’ residence in London,
and I poked about into all the dens and corners I
could find, and perambulated the streets at nearly
all hours of the night and day. Yet I am persuaded
there is a kind of brutality among the lower orders
in England that does not exist in the same measure
in this country,—an ignorant animal coarseness, an
insensibility, which gives rise to wife-beating and
kindred offenses. But the brutality of ignorance
and. stolidity is not the worst form of the evil. It
is good material to make something better of. It
is an excess and not a perversion. It is not man
fallen, but man undeveloped. Beware, rather, that
refined, subsidized brutality; that thin, depleted,
moral consciousness ; or that contemptuous, cankerous,
euphemistic brutality, of which, I believe, we can
show vastly more samples than Great Britain. / In-
deed, I believe, for the most part, that the brutality
of the English people is only the excess and plethora
of that healthful, muscular robustness and full-blood-
edness for which the nation has always been famous,
and which it should prize beyond almost anything
else. But for our brutality, our recklessness of life
and property, the brazen ruffianism in our great
cities, the hellish greed and robbery and plunder in
high places, I should have to look a long time to
find so plausible an excuse.

[But I notice with pleasure that English travelers
are beginning to find more to admire than to con-
demn in this country, and that they accredit us
with some virtues they do not find at home in the

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 179

same measure. ‘They are charmed with the inde-
pendence, the self-respect, the good-nature, and the
obliging dispositions shown by the mass of our
people; while American travelers seem to be more
and more ready to acknowledge the charm and the
substantial qualities of the mother country. It is a
good omen. One principal source of the pleasure
which each takes in the other is no doubt to be found
in the novelty of the impressions. It is like a
change of cookery. ‘The flavor of the dish is fresh
and uncloying to each. The English probably tire
of their own snobbishness and flunkeyism, and we
of our own smartness and puppyism. After the
American has got done bragging about his independ-
ence, and his “free and equal” prerogatives, he
begins to see how these things run into impertinence
and forwardness; and the Englishman, in visiting
us, escapes from his social bonds and prejudices, to
see for a moment how absurd they all are. ]

A London crowd I thought the most normal and
unsophisticated I had ever seen, with the least ad-
mixture of rowdyism and ruffianism. No doubt it
is there, but this scum is not upon the surface, as
with us. I went about very freely in the hundred
and one places of amusement where the average
working classes assemble, with their wives and daugh-
ters and sweethearts, and smoke villainous cigars
and drink ale and stout. There was to me some-
thing notably fresh and canny about them, as if they
had only yesterday ceased to be shepherds and shep-
herdesses. They certainly were less developed in

180 WINTER SUNSHINE

certain directions, or shall I say depraved, than
similar crowds in our great cities. They are easily
pleased, and laugh at the simple and childlike, but
there is little that hints of an impure taste, or of
abnormal appetites. I often smiled at the tameness
and simplicity of the amusements, but my sense of
fitness, or proportion, or decency was never once
outraged. They always stop short of a certain point,
—the point where wit degenerates into mockery,
and liberty into license: nature is never put to
shame, and will commonly bear much more. Espe-
cially to the American sense did their humorous and
comic strokes, their negro-minstrelsy and attempts
at Yankee comedy, seem in a minor key. There
was not enough irreverence and slang and coarse rib-
aldry, in the whole evening’s entertainment, to have
seasoned one line of some of our most popular comic
poetry. But the music, and the gymnastic, acro-
batic, and other feats, were of a very high order.
And I will say here that the characteristic flavor of
the humor and fun-making of the average English
people, as it impressed my sense, is what one gets in
Sterne,— very human and stomachie, and entirely
free from the contempt and superciliousness of most
current writers. I did not get one whiff of Dickens
anywhere. No doubt it is there in some form or
other, but it is not patent, or even appreciable, to
the sense of such an observer as I am.

I was not less pleased by the simple good-will
and bonhomie that pervaded the crowd. There is
in all these gatherings an indiscriminate mingling of

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 181

the sexes, a mingling without jar or noise or rude-
ness of any kind, and marked by a mutual respect
on all sides that is novel and refreshing. Indeed,
so uniform is the courtesy, and so human and con-
siderate the interest, that I was often at a loss to
discriminate the wife or the sister from the mistress
or the acquaintance of the hour, and had many
times to check my American curiosity and cold,
criticising stare. For it was curious to see young
men and women from the lowest social strata meet
and mingle in a public hall without lewdness or
badinage, but even with gentleness and considera-
tion. The truth is, however, that the class of
women known as victims of the social evil do not
sink within many degrees as low in Europe as they
do in this country, either in their own opinion or
in that of the public; and there can be but little
doubt that gatherings of the kind referred to, if per-
mitted in our great cities, would be tenfold more
scandalous and disgraceful than they are in London
or Paris. There is something so reckless and des-
perate in the career of man or woman in this coun-
try, when they begin to go down, that the only feel-
ing they too often excite is one of loathsomeness
and disgust. The lowest depth must be reached,
and it is reached quickly. But in London the
same characters seem to keep a sweet side from cor-
ruption to the last, and you will see good manners
everywhere.

We boast of our deference to woman, but, if the
Old World made her a tool, we are fast making her

182 WINTER SUNSHINE .

a toy; and the latter is the more hopeless condition,
But among the better classes in England I am con-
vinced that woman is regarded more as a sister and
an equal than in this country, and is less subject
to insult, and to leering, brutal comment, there than
here. We are her slave or her tyrant; so seldom
her brother and friend. I thought it a significant
fact that I found no place of amusement set apart
for the men; where one sex went the other went;
what was sauce for the gander was sauce for the
goose; and the spirit that prevailed was soft and
human accordingly. The hotels had no “ ladies’ en-
trance,” but all passed in and out the same door,
and met and mingled commonly in the same room,
and the place was as much for one as for the other.
It was no more a masculine monopoly than it was a
feminine. Indeed, in the country towns and vil-
lages the character of the inns is unmistakably given
by woman; hence the sweet, domestic atmosphere
that pervades and fills them is balm to the spirit.
Even the larger hotels of Liverpool and London
have a private, cosy, home character that is most de-
lightful. On entering them, instead of finding your-
self in a sort of public thoroughfare or political cau-
cus, amid crowds of men talking and smoking and
spitting, with stalls on either side where cigars and
tobacco and books and papers are sold, you perceive
you are in something like a larger hall of a private
house, with perhaps a parlor and coffee-room on one
side, and the office, and smoking-room, and stair-
way on the other. You may leave your coat and

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 183

hat on the rack in the hall, and stand your umbrella
there also, with full assurance that you will find
them there when you want them, if it be the next
morning or the next week. Instead of that petty
tyrant the hotel clerk, a young woman sits in the
office with her sewing or other needlework, and qui-
etly receives you. She gives you your number on
a card, rings for a chambermaid to show you to your
room, and directs your luggage to be sent up; and
there is something in the look of things, and the way
they are done, that goes to the right spot at once.

At the hotel in London where I stopped, the
daughters of the landlord, three fresh, comely young
women, did the duties of the office; and their pres-
ence, so quiet and domestic, gave the prevailing hue
and tone to the whole house. I wonder how long
a young woman could preserve her self-respect and
sensiblity in such a position in New York or Wash-
ington ?

The English regard us as a wonderfully patient
people, and there can be no doubt but we put up
with abuses unknown elsewhere. If we have no
big tyrant, we have ten thousand little ones, who
tread upon our toes at every turn. The tyranny
of corporations, and of public servants of one kind
and another, as the ticket-man, the railroad conduc-
tor, or even of the country stage-driver, seem to be
features peculiar to American democracy. In Eng-
land the traveler is never snubbed, or made to feel
that it is by somebody’s sufferance that he is al-
lowed aboard or to pass on his way.

184 WINTER SUNSHINE

If you get into an omnibus or a railroad or tram-
way carriage in London, you are sure of a seat. Not
another person can get aboard after the seats are all
full. Or, if you enter a public hall, you know you
will not be required to stand up unless you pay the
standing-up price. There is everywhere that system,
and order, and fair dealing, which all men love.
The science of living has been reduced to a fine
point. You pay a sixpence and get a sixpence
worth of whatever you buy. ‘There are all grades
and prices, and the robbery and extortion so current
at home appear to be unknown.

I am not contending for the superiority of every-
thing English, but would not disguise from myself
or my readers the fact of the greater humanity and
consideration that prevail in the mother country.
Things here are yet in the green, but I trust there
is no good reason to doubt that our fruit will mel-
low and ripen in time like the rest.

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 185

Tir

A GLIMPSE OF FRANCE

In coming over to France, I noticed that the
chalk-hills, which were stopped so abruptly by
the sea on the British side of the Channel, began
again on the French side, only they had lost their
smooth, pastoral character, and were more broken
and rocky, and that they continued all the way to
Paris, walling in the Seine, and giving the prevail-
ing tone and hue to the country, — scrape away the
green and brown epidermis of the hills anywhere,
and out shine their white framework, —and that
Paris itself was built of stone evidently quarried
from this formation,—a light, cream-colored stone,
so soft that rifle-bullets bury themselves in it nearly
their own depth, thus pitting some of the more ex-
posed fronts during the recent strife in a very notice-
able manner, and which, in building, is put up in
the rough, all the carving, sculpturing, and finishing
being done after the blocks are in position in the
wall.

Disregarding the counsel of friends, I braved the
Channel at one of its wider points, taking the vixen
by the waist instead of by the neck, and found her
as placid as a lake, as I did also on my return a
week later.

186 WINTER SUNSHINE

It was a bright October morning as we steamed
into the little harbor at Dieppe, and the first scene
that met my eye was, I suppose, a characteristic
one,— four or five old men and women towing a
vessel into a dock. They bent beneath the rope
that passed from shoulder to shoulder, and tugged
away doggedly at it, the women apparently more
than able to do their part. There is no equalizer
of the sexes like poverty and misery, and then it
very often happens that the gray mare proves the
better horse. Throughout the agricultural regions,
as we passed along, the men apparently all wore
petticoats; at least, the petticoats were the most ac-
tive and prominent in the field occupations. Their
wearers were digging potatoes, pulling beets, follow-
ing the harrow (in one instance a thorn-bush drawn
by a cow), and stirring the wet, new-mown grass. I
believe the pantaloons were doing the mowing. But
I looked in vain for any Maud Mullers in the mead-
ows, and have concluded that these can only be
found in New England hay-fields!’ And herein is
one of the first surprises that awaits one on visiting
the Old World countries,— the absence of graceful,
girlish figures, and bright girlish faces, among the
peasantry or rural population. In France I certainly
expected to see female beauty everywhere, but did
not get one gleam all that sunny day till I got to
Paris. Is it a plant that only flourishes in cities
on this side of the Atlantic, or do all the pretty
girls, as soon as they are grown, pack their trunks,
and leave for the gay metropolis?

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 187

At Dieppe I first saw the wooden shoe, and heard
its dry, senseless clatter upon the pavement. How
suggestive of the cramped and inflexible conditions
with which human nature has borne so long in these
lands!

A small paved square near the wharf was the
scene of an early market, and afforded my first
glimpse of the neatness and good taste that char-
acterize nearly everything in France. Twenty or
thirty peasant women, coarse and masculine, but
very tidy, with their snow-white caps and short
petticoats, and perhaps half as many men, were
chattering and chaffering over little heaps of fresh
country produce. The onions and potatoes and
cauliflowers, etc., were prettily arranged on the
clean pavement, or on white linen cloths, and the
scene was altogether animated and agreeable.

La belle France is the woman’s country clearly,
and it seems a mistake or an anomaly that woman
is not at the top and leading in all departments,
compelling the other sex to play second fiddle, as
she so frequently has done for a brief time in iso-
lated cases in the past; not that the man is effemi-
nate, but that the woman seems so nearly his match
and equal, and even so often proves his superior.
In no other nation, during times of popular excite-
ment and insurrection or revolution, do women
emerge so conspicuously, often in the front ranks,
the most furious and ungovernable of any. I think
even a female conscription might be advisable in the
present condition of France, if I may judge of her

188 WINTER SUNSHINE

soldiers from the specimens I saw. Small, spirit-
less, inferior-looking men all of them. They were
like Number Three mackerel or the last run of shad,
as doubtless they were, —the last pickings and re-
siftings of the population.

I don’t know how far it may be a national cus-
tom, but I observed that the women of the humbler
classes, in meeting or parting with friends at the
stations, saluted each other on both cheeks, never
upon the mouth, as our dear creatures do, and I
commended their good taste, though I certainly ap-
prove the American custom, too.

Among the male population I was struck with
the frequent recurrence of the Louis Napoleon type
of face. ‘Has this man,” I said, “succeeded in im-
pressing himself even upon the physiognomy of the
people? Has he taken such a hold of their imagi-
nations that they have grown to look like him?”
The guard that took our train down to Paris might
easily play the double to the ex-emperor; and many
times in Paris and among different classes I saw the
same countenance.

Coming from England, the traveling seems very
slow in this part of France, taking eight or nine
hours to go from Dieppe to Paris, with an hour’s
delay at Rouen. The valley of the Seine, which
the road follows or skirts more than half the way,
is very winding, with immense flats or plains shut
in by a wall of steep, uniform hills, and, in the
progress of the journey, is from time to time laid
open to the traveler in a way that is full of novelty

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 189

and surprise. The day was bright and lovely, and
I found my eyes running riot the same as they had
done during my first ride on British soil. The con-
trast between the two countries is quite marked,
France in this region being much more broken and
picturesque, with some waste or sterile land, —a
thing I did not see at all in England. Had I
awoke from a long sleep just before reaching Paris,
I should have guessed I was riding through Mary-
land, and should soon see the dome of the Capitol
at Washington rising above the trees. So much
wild and bushy or barren and half-cultivated land,
almost under the walls of the French capital, was a
surprise.

Then there are few or none of those immense
home-parks which one sees in England, the land
being mostly held by a great number of small
proprietors, and cultivated in strips, or long, narrow
parallelograms, making the landscape look like
many-colored patchwork. Everywhere along the
Seine, stretching over the flats, or tilted up against
the sides of the hills, in some places seeming almost
to stand on end, were these acre or half-acre rectan-
gular farms, without any dividing lines or fences,
and of a great variety of shades and colors, accord-
ing to the crop and the tillage.

I was glad to see my old friend, the beech-tree,
all along the route. His bole wore the same gray
and patched appearance it does at home, and no
doubt Thoreau would have found his instep even
fairer; for the beech on this side of the Atlantic is a

190 WINTER SUNSHINE

more fluent and graceful tree than the American spe-
cies, resembling, in its branchings and general form,
our elm, though never developing such an immense
green dome as our elm when standing alone, and I
saw no European tree that does. The European elm
is not unlike our beech in form and outline.

Going from London to Paris is, in some respects,
like getting out of the chimney on to the housetop,
—the latter city is, by contrast, so light and airy,
and so American in its roominess. I had come to
Paris for: my dessert after my feast of London
joints, and I suspect I was a little dainty in that
most dainty of cities. In fact, I had become quite
sated with sight-seeing, and the prospect of having
to go on and “do” the rest of Europe after the usual
manner of tourists, and as my companions did, would
have been quite appalling. Said companions steered
off like a pack of foxhounds in full blast. The
game they were in quest of led them a wild chase
up the Rhine, off through Germany and Italy, tak-
ing a turn back through Switzerland, giving them
no rest, and apparently eluding them at last. I had
felt obliged to cut loose from them at the outset, my
capacity to digest kingdoms and empires at short
notice being far below that of the average of my
countrymen. My interest and delight had been too
intense at the outset; I had partaken too heartily of
the first courses; and now, where other travelers be-
gin to warm to the subject, and to have the keenest
relish, I began to wish the whole thing well through
with. So that Paris was no paradise to one Ameri-

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 191

can at least. Yet the mere change of air and sky,
and the escape from that sooty, all-pervasive, chim-
ney-flue smell of London, was so sudden and com-
plete, that the first hour of Paris was like a refresh-
ing bath, and gave rise to satisfaction in which
every pore of the skin participated. My room at
the hotel was a gem of neatness and order, and the
bed a marvel of art, comfort, and ease, three feet
deep at least.

Then the uniform imperial grace and éclat of the
city was a new experience. Here was the city of
cities, the capital of taste and fashion, the pride and
flower of a great race and a great history, the city
of kings and emperors, and of a people which, after
all, loves kings and emperors, and will not long,
I fear, be happy without them, —a gregarious, ur-
bane people, a people of genius and destiny, whose
God is Art and whose devil is Communism. Lon-
don has long ago outgrown itself, has spread, and
multiplied, and accumulated, without a correspond-
ing inward expansion and unification; but in Paris
they have pulled down and built larger, and the
spirit of centralization has had full play. Hence
the French capital is superb, but soon grows monoto-
nous. See one street and boulevard, and you have
seen it all. It has the unity and consecutiveness
of a thing deliberately planned and built to order,
from beginning to end. Its stone is all from one
quarry, and its designs all the work of one architect.
London has infinite variety, and quaintness, and
picturesqueness, and is of all possible shades of din-

192 WINTER SUNSHINE

giness and weather-stains. It shows its age, shows
the work of innumerable generations, and is more
an aggregation, a conglomeration, than Paris is.
Paris shows the citizen, and is modern and demo-
cratic in its uniformity. On the whole, I liked
London best, because I am so much of a country-
man, I suppose, and affect so little the metropolitan
spirit. In London there are a few grand things to
be seen, and the pulse of the great city itself is like
the throb of the ocean; but in Paris, owing either
to my jaded senses or some other cause, I saw
nothing that was grand, but enough that was beauti-
ful and pleasing. The more pretentious and elabo-
rate specimens of architecture, like the Palace of the
Tuileries or the Palais Royal, are truly superb,
but they as truly do not touch that deeper chord
whose awakening we call the emotion of the sublime.

But the fitness and good taste everywhere dis-
played in the French capital may well offset any
considerations of this kind, and cannot fail to be
refreshing to a traveler of any other land, —in the
dress and manners of the people, in the shops and
bazaars and show-windows, in the markets, the
equipages, the furniture, the hotels. It is entirely
a new sensation to an American to look into a Pari-
sian theatre, and see the acting and hear the music.
The chances are that, for the first time, he sees the
interior of a theatre that does not have a hard,
business-like, matter-of-fact air. The auditors look
comfortable and cosy, and quite at home, and do
not, shoulder to shoulder and in solid lines, make a

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 193

dead set at the play and the music. The theatre
has warm hangings, warm colors, cosy boxes and
stalls, and is in no sense the public, away-from-
home place we are so familiar with in this country.
Again, one might know it was Paris by the charac-
ter of the prints and pictures in the shop windows;
they are so clever as art, one becomes reprehensi-
bly indifferent to their license. Whatever sins the
French may be guilty of, they never sin against art
and good taste (except when in the frenzy of revo-
lution), and, if Propriety is sometimes obliged to
cry out “For shame!” in the French capital, she
must do so with ill-concealed admiration, like a
fond mother chiding with word and gesture while
she approves with tone and look. It is a foolish
charge, often made, that the French make vice at-
tractive: they make it provocative of laughter; the
spark of wit is always evolved, and what is a better
antidote to this kind of poison than mirth?

They carry their wit even into their cwisine.
Every dish set before you at the table is a picture,
and tickles your eye before it does your palate.
When I ordered fried eggs, they were brought on a
snow-white napkin, which was artistically folded
upon a piece of ornamented tissue-paper that covered
a china plate; if I asked for cold ham, it came in
flakes, arrayed like great rose-leaves, with a green
sprig or two of parsley dropped upon it, and sur-
rounded by a border of calves-foot jelly, like a set-
ting of crystals. The bread revealed new quali-
ties in the wheat, it was so sweet and nutty; and

194 WINTER SUNSHINE

the fried potatoes, with which your beefsteak comes
snowed under, are the very flower of the culinary
art, and I believe impossible in any other country.

Even the ruins are in excellent taste, and are by
far the best-behaved ruins I ever saw for so’ recent
ones. I came near passing some of the most noted,
during my first walk, without observing them. The
main walls were all standing, and the fronts were
as imposing as ever. No litter or rubbish, no
charred timbers or blackened walls; only vacant
windows and wrecked interiors, which do not very
much mar the general outside effect.

My first genuine surprise was the morning after
my arrival, which, according to my reckoning, was
Sunday; and when I heard the usual week-day
sounds, and, sallying forth, saw the usual week-day
occupations going on, — painters painting, glaziers
glazing, masons on their scaffolds, etc., and heavy
drays and market-wagons going through the streets,
and many shops and bazaars open, —I must have
presented to a scrutinizing beholder the air and
manner of a man in a dream, so absorbed was I in
running over the events of the week to find where
the mistake had occurred, where I had failed to turn
a leaf, or else had turned over two leaves for one.
But each day had a distinct record, and every count
resulted the same. It must be Sunday. Then it
all dawned upon me that this was Paris, and that
the Parisians did not have the reputation of being
very strict Sabbatarians.

The French give a touch of art to whatever they

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 195

do. Even the drivers of drays and carts and
trucks about the streets are not content with a plain,
matter-of-fact whip, as an English or American
laborer would be, but it must be a finely-modeled
stalk, with a long, tapering lash tipped with the best
silk snapper. Always the inevitable snapper. I
doubt if there is a whip in Paris without a snapper.
Here is where the fine art, the rhetoric of driving,
comes in. This converts a vulgar, prosy “gad”
into a delicate instrument, to be wielded with pride
and skill, and never to be literally applied to the
backs of the animals, but to be launched to the right
and left into the air with a professional flourish, and
a sharp, ringing report. Crack! crack! crack! all
day long go these ten thousand whips, like the
boys’ Fourth of July fusillade. It was invariably
the first sound I heard when I opened my eyes in
the morning, and generally the last one at night.
Occasionally some belated drayman would come hur-
tying along just as I was going to sleep, or some
early bird before I was fully awake in the morning,
and let off in rapid succession, in front of my hotel,
a volley from the tip of his lash that would make
the street echo again, and that might well have been
the envy of any ring-master that ever trod the tan-
bark. Now and then, during my ramblings, I
would suddenly hear some master-whip, perhaps
that of an old omnibus-driver, that would crack like
a rifle, and, as it passed along, all the lesser whips,
all the amateur snappers, would strike up with a
jealous and envious emulation, making every foot-

196 WINTER SUNSHINE

passenger wink, and one (myself) at least almost to
shade his eyes from the imaginary missiles.

I record this fact because it ‘‘ points a moral and
adorns a ‘ tail.’ The French always give this extra
touch. Everything has its silk snapper. Are not
the literary whips of Paris famous for their rhetori-
cal tips and the sting there is in them? What
French writer ever goaded his adversary with the
belly of his lash, like the Germans and English,
when he could blister him with its silken end, and
the percussion of wit be heard at every stroke?

In the shops, and windows, and public halls,
etc., this passion takes the form of mirrors, — mir-
rors, mirrors everywhere, on the walls, in the pan-
els, in the cases, on the pillars, extending, multi-
plying, opening up vistas this way and that, and
converting the smallest shop, with a solitary girl
and a solitary customer, into an immense enchanted
bazaar, across whose endless counters customers lean
and pretty girls display goods. The French are
always before the looking-glass, even when they eat
and drink. I never went into a restaurant without
seeing four or five fac-similes of myself approaching
from as many different directions, giving the order
to the waiter and sitting down at the table. Hence
I always had plenty of company at dinner, though
we were none of us very social, and I was the only
one who entered or passed out at the door. The
show-windows are the greatest cheat. What an
expanse, how crowded, and how brilliant! You
see, for instance, an immense array of jewelry, and

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 197

pause to have a look. You begin at the end near-
est you, and, after gazing a moment, take a step to
tun your eye along the dazzling display, when,
presto! the trays of watches and diamonds vanish
in a twinkling, and you find yourself looking into
the door, or your delighted eyes suddenly bring up
against a brick wall, disenchanted so quickly that
you almost stagger.

I went into a popular music and dancing hall one «
night, and found myself in a perfect enchantment
of mirrors. Not an inch of wall was anywhere
visible. I was suddenly caught up into the seventh
heaven of looking-glasses, from which I came down
with a shock the moment I emerged into the street
again. I observed that this mirror contagion had
broken out in spots in London, and, in the narrow
and crowded condition of the shops there, even this
illusory enlargement would be a relief. It might
not improve the air, or add to the available storage
capacity of the establishment, but it would certainly
give a wider range to the eye.

The American no sooner sets foot on the soil of
France than he perceives he has entered a nation
of drinkers as he has left a nation of eaters. Men
do not live by bread here, but by wine. Drink,
drink, drink everywhere, — along all the boulevards,
and streets, and quays, and byways; in the restau-
rants and under awnings, and seated on the open
sidewalk; social and convivial wine-bibbing, — not
hastily and in large quantities, but leisurely and
reposingly, and with much conversation and enjoy-
ment,

198 WINTER SUNSHINE

Drink, drink, drink, and, with equal frequency
and nearly as much openness, the reverse or diuretic
side of the fact. (How our self-consciousness would
writhe! We should all turn to stone!) Indeed,
the ceaseless deglutition of mankind in this part of
the world is only equaled by the answering and
enormous activity of the human male kidneys. This
latter was too astonishing and too public a fact to
go unmentioned. At Dieppe, by the reeking tubs
standing about, I suspected some local distemper;
but when I got to Paris, and saw how fully and
openly the wants of the male citizen in this respect
were recognized by the sanitary and municipal regu-
lations, and that the urinals were thicker than the
lamp-posts, I concluded it must be a national trait,
and at once abandoned the theory that had begun to
take possession of my mind, namely, that diabetes
was no doubt the cause of the decadence of France.
Yet I suspect it is no more a peculiarity of French
manners than of European manners generally, and
in its light I relished immensely the history of a
well-known statue which stands in a public square
in one of the German cities. The statue commemo-
rates the unblushing audacity of a peasant going to
market with a goose under each arm, who ignored
even the presence of the king, and it is at certain
times dressed up and made the centre of holiday
festivities. It is a public fountain, and its living
streams of water make it one of the most appropri-
ate and suggestive monuments in Europe. I would
only suggest that they canonize the Little Man,

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 199

and that the Parisians recognize a tutelar deity in
the goddess Urea, who should have an appropriate
monument somewhere in the Place de la Concorde !

One of the loveliest features of Paris is the Seine.
I was never tired of walking along its course. Its
granite embankments; its numberless superb bridges,
throwing their graceful spans across it; its clear,
limpid water; its paved bed; the women washing;
the lively little boats; and the many noble build-
ings that look down upon it, — make it the most
charming citizen-river I ever beheld. Rivers gen-
erally get badly soiled when they come to the city,
like some other rural travelers; but the Seine is as
pure as a meadow-brook wherever I saw it, though
I dare say it does not escape without some contami-
nation. I believe it receives the sewerage discharges
farther down, and is no doubt turbid and pitchy
enough there, like its brother, the Thames, which
comes into London with the sky and the clouds in
its bosom, and leaves it reeking with filth and
slime.

After I had tired of the city, I took a day to
visit St. Cloud, and refresh myself by a glimpse of
the imperial park there, and a little of Nature’s
privacy, if such could be had, which proved to be
the case, for a more agreeable day I have rarely
passed. The park, toward which I at once made
my way, is an immense natural forest, sweeping up
over gentle hills from the banks of the Seine, and
brought into order and perspective by a system of
carriageways and avenues, which radiate from nu-

200 WINTER SUNSHINE

merous centres like the boulevards of Paris. At
these centres were fountains and statues, with sun-
light falling upon them; and, looking along the cool,
dusky avenues, as they opened, this way and that,
upon these marble tableaux, the effect was very
striking, and was not at all marred to my eye by
the neglect into which the place had evidently
fallen. The woods were just mellowing into Octo-
ber; the large, shining horse-chestnuts dropped at
my feet as I walked along; the jay screamed over
the trees; and occasionally a red squirrel — larger
and softer-looking than ours, not so sleek, nor so
noisy and vivacious — skipped among the branches.
Soldiers passed, here and there, to and from some
encampment on the farther side of the park; and,
hidden from view somewhere in the forest-glades,
a band of buglers filled the woods with wild musi-
cal strains.

English royal parks and pleasure grounds are
quite different. There the prevailing character is
pastoral,— immense stretches of lawn, dotted with
the royal oak, and alive with deer. But the French-
man loves forests evidently, and nearly all his pleas-
ure grounds about Paris are immense woods. The
Bois de Boulogne, the forests of Vincennes, of St.
Germain, of Bondy, and I don’t know how many
others, are near at hand, and are much prized.
What the animus of this love may be is not so
clear. It cannot be a love of solitude, for the
French are characteristically a social and gregarious
people. It cannot be the English poetical or Words-

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 201

worthian feeling for Nature, because French liter-
ature does not show this sense or this kind of
perception. I am inclined to think the forest is
congenial to their love of form and their sharp per-
ceptions, but more especially to that kind of fear and
wildness which they at times exhibit; for civilization
has not quenched the primitive ardor and fierceness
of the Frenchman yet, and it is to be hoped it never
may. He is still more than half a wild man, and,
if turned loose in the woods, I think would develop,
in tooth and nail, and in all the savage, brute in-
stincts, more rapidly than the men of any other
race, except possibly the Slavic. Have not his de-
scendants in this country —the Canadian French —
turned and lived with the Indians, and taken to
wild, savage customs with more relish and genius
than have any other people? How hairy and vehe-
ment and pantomimic he is! How his eyes glance
from under his heavy brows! His type among the
animals is the wolf, and one readily recalls how
largely the wolf figures in the traditions and legends
and folk-lore of Continental Europe, and how closely
his remains are associated with those of man in the
bone-caves of the geologists. He has not stalked
through their forests and fascinated their imagina-
tions so long for nothing. The she-wolf suckled
other founders beside those of Rome. Especially
when I read of the adventures of Russian and Polish
exiles in Siberia — men of aristocratic lineage wan-
dering amid snow and arctic cold, sleeping in rocks
or in hollow trees, and holding their own, empty-

202 WINTER SUNSHINE

handed, against hunger and frost and their fiercer
brute embodiments—do I recognize a hardihood
and a ferity whose wet-nurse, ages back, may well
have been this gray slut of the woods.

It is this fierce, untamable core that gives the
point and the splendid audacity to French literature
and art, — its vehemence and impatience of restraint.
It is the salt of their speech, the nitre of their wit.
When morbid, it gives that rabid and epileptic ten-
dency which sometimes shows itself in Victor Hugo.
In this great writer, however, it more frequently
takes the form of an aboriginal fierceness and hun-
ger that glares and bristles, and is insatiable and
omnivorous,

And how many times has Paris, that boudoir of
beauty and fashion, proved to be a wolf’s lair,
swarming with jaws athirst for human throats! —
the lust for blood and the greed for plunder, sleep-
ing, biding their time, never extinguished.

I do not contemn it. To the natural historian
it is good. It is a return to first principles again
after so much art, and culture, and lying, and chau-
vinisme, and shows these old civilizations in no
danger of becoming effete yet. It is like the hell
of fire beneath our feet, which the geologists tell
us is the life of the globe. Were it not for it,
who would not at times despair of the French char-
acter? As long as this fiery core remains, I shall
believe France capable of recovering from any disaster
to her arms. The “mortal ripening” of the nation
is stayed,

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 203

The English and Germans, on the other hand, are
saved by great breadth and heartiness, and a consti-
tutional tendency to coarseness of fibre which art
and civilization abate very little. What is to save
us in this country, I wonder, who have not the
French regnancy and fire, nor the Teutonic hearti-
ness and vis inertiew, and who are already in danger
of refining or attenuating into a high-heeled, short-
jawed, genteel race, with more brains than stomach,
and more address than character ?

204 WINTER SUNSHINE

IV
FROM LONDON TO NEW YORK

I wap imagined that the next best thing to see-
ing England would be to see Scotland; but, as
this latter pleasure was denied me, certainly the
next best thing was seeing Scotland’s greatest son.
Carlyle has been so constantly and perhaps justly
represented as a stormy and wrathful person, brewing
bitter denunciation for America and Americans, that
I cannot forbear to mention the sweet and genial
mood in which we found him, —a gentle and affec-
tionate grandfather, with his delicious Scotch brogue
and rich, melodious talk, overflowing with reminis-
cences of his earlier life, of Scott awd Goethe and
Edinburgh, and other men and places he had known.
Learning I was especially interested in birds, he
discoursed of the lark and nightingale and mavis,
framing his remarks about them in some episode of
his personal experience, and investing their songs
with the double charm of his description and his
adventure.

“Tt is only geese who get plucked there,” said
my companion after we had left, —a man who had
known Carlyle intimately for many years; “silly
persons who have no veneration for the great man,
and come to convert him or change his convictions

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 205

upon subjects to which he has devoted a lifetime
of profound thought and meditation. With such
persons he has no patience.”

Carlyle had just returned from Scotland, where
he had spent the summer. ‘The Scotch hills and
mountains, he said, had an ancient, mournful look,
as if the weight of immeasurable time had settled
down upon them. Their look was in Ossian, — his
spirit reflected theirs; and as I gazed upon the ven-
erable man before me, and noted his homely and
rugged yet profound and melancholy expression, I
knew that their look was upon him also, and that a
greater than Ossian had been nursed amid those lonely
hills. Few men in literature have felt the burden
of the world, the weight of the inexorable conscience,
as has Carlyle, or drawn such fresh inspiration from
that source. However we may differ from him
(and almost in self-defense one must differ from a
man of such intense and overweening personality),
it must yet be admitted that he habitually speaks out
of that primitive silence and solitude in which only
the heroic soul dwells. Certainly not in contempo-
rary British literature is there another writer whose
bowstring has such a twang.

I left London in the early part of November, and
turned my face westward, going leisurely through
England and Wales, and stringing upon my thread
a few of the famous places, as Oxford, Stratford,
Warwick, Birmingham, Chester, and taking a last
look of the benign land. The weather was fair; I
was yoked to no companion, and was apparently the

206 WINTER SUNSHINE

only tourist on that route. The field occupations
drew my eye as usual. They were very simple, and
consisted mainly of the gathering of root crops. I
saw no building of fences, or of houses or barns,
and no draining or improving of any kind worth
mentioning, these things having all been done long
ago. Speaking of barns reminds me that I do not
remember to have seen a building of this kind while
in England, much less a group or cluster of them as
at home; hay and grain being always stacked, and
the mildness of the climate rendering a protection
of this kind unnecessary for the cattle and sheep.
In contrast, America may be called the country of
barns and outbuildings: —

“Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns,’’
as Walt Whitman apostrophizes the Union.

I missed also many familiar features in the au-
tumn fields, — those given to our landscape by In-
dian corn, for instance, the tent-like stouts, the
shucks, the rustling blades, the ripe pumpkins
strewing the field; for, notwithstanding England is
such a garden, our corn does not flourish there. I
saw no buckwheat either, the red stubble and little
squat figures of the upright sheaves of which are so
noticeable in our farming districts at this season.
Neither did I see any gathering of apples, or orchards
from which to gather them. “As sure as there are
apples in Herefordshire” seems to be a proverb in
England; yet it is very certain that the orchard is not
the institution anywhere in Britain that it is in this
country, or so prominent a feature in the landscape.

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 207

The native apples are inferior in size and quality,
and are sold by the pound. Pears were more abun-
dant at the fruit stands, and were of superior excel-
lence and very cheap.

I hope it will not be set down to any egotism of
my own, but rather to the effect upon an ardent
pilgrim of the associations of the place and its re-
nown in literature, that all my experience at Strat-
ford seems worthy of recording, and to be invested
with a sort of poetical interest, —even the fact that
I walked up from the station with a handsome
young countrywoman who had chanced to occupy a
seat in the same compartment of the car with me
from Warwick, and who, learning the nature of my
visit, volunteered to show me the Red Horse Inn,
as her course led her that way. We walked mostly
in the middle of the street, with our umbrellas
hoisted, for it was raining slightly, while a boy
whom we found lying in wait for such a chance
trudged along in advance of us with my luggage.

At the Red Horse the pilgrim is in no danger of
having the charm and the poetical atmosphere with
which he has surrounded himself dispelled, but
rather enhanced and deepened, especially if he has
the luck I had, to find few other guests, and to fall
into the hands of one of those simple, strawberry-
like English housemaids, who gives him a cosy,
snug little parlor all to himself, as was the luck of
Irving also; who answers his every summons, and
looks into his eyes with the simplicity and direct-
ness of a child; who could step from no page but

208 WINTER SUNSHINE

that of Scott or the divine William himself; who
puts the “coals” on your grate with her own hands,
and, when you ask for a lunch, spreads the cloth on
one end of the table while you sit reading or writing
at the other, and places before you a whole haunch
of delicious cold mutton, with bread and home-brewed
ale, and requests you to help yourself; who, when
bedtime arrives, lights you up to a clean, sweet
chamber, with a high-canopied bed hung with snow-
white curtains; who calls you in the morning, and
makes ready your breakfast while you sit with your
feet on the fender before the blazing grate; and to
whom you pay your reckoning on leaving, having
escaped entirely all the barrenness and publicity of
hotel life, and had all the privacy and quiet of
home without any of its cares or interruptions.
And this, let me say here, is the great charm of the
characteristic English inn; it has a domestic, home-
like air. “Taking mine ease at mine inn” has a
real significance in England. You can take your
ease and more; you can take real solid comfort. In
the first place, there is no barroom, and conse-
quently no loafers or pimps, or fumes of tobacco or
whiskey; then there is no landlord or proprietor or
hotel clerk to lord it over you. The host, if there
is such a person, has a way of keeping himself in
the background, or absolutely out of sight, that is
entirely admirable. You are monarch of all you
survey. You are not made to feel that it is in
some one else’s house you are stopping, and that you
must court the master for his favor. It is your

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 209

house, you are the master, and you have only to
enjoy your own.

In the gray, misty afternoon, I walked out over
the Avon, like all English streams full to its grassy
brim, and its current betrayed only by a floating
leaf or feather, and along English fields and roads,
and noted the familiar sights and sounds and smells
of autumn. ‘The spire of the church where Shake-
speare lies buried shot up stately and tall from the
banks of the Avon, a little removed from the vil-
lage; and the church itself, more like a cathedral
in size and beauty, was also visible above the trees.
Thitherward I soon bent my steps, and while I was
lingering among the graves,’ reading the names and
dates so many centuries old, and surveying the gray
and weather-worn exterior of the church, the slow
tolling of the bell announced a funeral. Upon such
a stage, and amid such surroundings, with all this
past for a background, the shadowy figure of the
peerless bard towering over all, the incident of the
moment had a strange interest to me, and I looked
about for the funeral cortége. Presently a group of
three or four figures appeared at the head of the
avenue of limes, the foremost of them a woman,
bearing an infant’s coffin under her arm, wrapped
in a white sheet. The clerk and sexton, with their
robes on, went out to meet them, and conducted
them into the church, where the service proper to

1 In England the church always stands in the midst of the
graveyard, and hence can be approached only on foot. People,
it seems, never go to church in carriages or wagons, but on foot,
along paths and lanes.

210 WINTER SUNSHINE

such occasions was read, after which the coffin was
taken out as it was brought in, and lowered into the
grave. It was the smallest funeral I ever saw, and
my efforts to play the part of a sympathizing public
by hovering in the background, I fear, was only an
intrusion after all.

Having loitered to my heart’s content amid the
stillness of the old church, and paced to and fro
above the illustrious dead, I set out, with the sun
about an hour high, to see the house of Anne Hatha-
way at Shottery, shunning the highway and follow-
ing a path that followed hedge-rows, crossed mead-
ows and pastures, skirted turnip fields and cabbage
patches, to a quaint gathering of low thatched houses,
—a little village of farmers and laborers, about a
mile from Stratford. At the gate in front of the
house a boy was hitching a little gray donkey, al-
most hidden beneath two immense panniers filled
with coarse hay.

““Whose house is this?” inquired I, not being
quite able to make out the name.

“Hann’ Ataway’s ’ouse,” said he.

So I took a good look at Anne’s house, —a
homely, human-looking habitation, with its old oak
beams and thatched roof, —but did not go in, as
Mrs. Baker, who was eying me from the door, evi-
dently hoped I would, but chose rather to walk past
it and up the slight rise of ground beyond, where I
paused and looked out over the fields, just lit up
by the setting sun. Returning, I stepped into the
Shakespeare Tavern, a little, homely wayside place

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 211

on a street, or more like a path, apart from the
main road, and the good dame brought me some
“home-brewed,” which I drank sitting by a rude
table on a rude bench in a small, low room, with a
stone floor and an immense chimney. The coals
burned cheerily, and the crane and hooks in the
fireplace called up visions of my earliest childhood.
Apparently the house and the surroundings, and
the atmosphere of the place and the ways of the
people, were what they were three hundred years
ago. It was all sweet and good, and I enjoyed it
hugely, and was much refreshed.

Crossing the fields in the gloaming, I came up
with some children, each with a tin bucket of milk,
threading their way toward Stratford. The little
girl, a child ten years old, having a larger bucket
than the rest, was obliged to set down her burden
every few rods and rest; so I lent her a helping
hand. I thought her prattle, in that broad but
musical patois, and along these old hedge-rows, the
most delicious I ever heard. She said they came
to Shottery for milk because it was much better
than they got at Stratford. In America they had
a cow of their own. Had she lived in America,
then? ‘Oh, yes, four years,” and the stream of her
talk was fuller at once. But I hardly recognized
even the name of my own country in her innocent
prattle; it seemed like a land of fable, —all had a
remote mythological air, and I pressed my inquiries
as if I was hearing of this strange land for the first
time. She had an uncle still living in the “States

212 WINTER SUNSHINE

of Hoio,” but exactly where her father had lived
was not so clear. In The States somewhere, and in
“QOgden’s Valley.” There was a lake there that
had salt in it, and not far off was the sea. ‘In
America,” she said, and she gave such a sweet and
novel twang to her words, ‘twe had a cow of our
own, and two horses and a wagon and a dog.”
“Yes,” joined in her little brother, “and nice
chickens and a goose.” “But,” continued the sis-
ter, “‘we owns none o’ them here. In America
’most everybody owned their houses, and we could
a’ owned a house if we had stayid.”

“What made you leave America?” I inquired.

“?Cause me father wanted to see his friends.”

“Did your mother want to come back?”

“No, me mother wanted to stay in America.”

“Ts food as plenty here, —do you have as much
to eat as in The States?”

“Oh, yes, and more. The first year we were in
America we could not get enough to eat.”

“But you do not get meat very often here, do
you?”

“Quite often,’ — not so confidently,

“How often?”

“Well, sometimes we has pig’s liver in the week
time, and we allers has meat of a Sunday; we likes
meat.”

Here we emerged from the fields into the high-
way, and the happy children went their way and
I mine.

In the evening, as I was strolling about the town,

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 213

a poor, crippled, half-witted fellow came jerking
himself across the street after me and offered him-
self as a guide.

“I’m the feller what showed Artemus Ward
around when he was here. You’ve heerd on me,
I expect? Not? Why, he characterized me in
‘Punch,’ he did. He asked me if Shakespeare
took all the wit out of Stratford? And this is
what I said to him: ‘No, he left some for me.’ ”

But not wishing to be guided just then, I bought
the poor fellow off with a few pence, and kept on
my way.

Stratford is a quiet old place, and seems mainly
the abode of simple common folk. One sees no
marked signs of either poverty or riches. It is sit-
uated in a beautiful expanse of rich, rolling farming
country, but bears little resemblance to a rural town
in America: not a tree, not a spear of grass; the
houses packed close together and crowded up on the
street, the older ones presenting their gables and
showing their structure of oak beams. English oak
seems incapable of decay even when exposed to the
weather, while indoors it takes three or four centu-
ries to give it its best polish and hue.

I took my last view of Stratford quite early of a
bright Sunday morning, when the ground was white
with a dense hoar-frost. The great church, as I
approached it, loomed up under the sun through a
bank of blue mist. The Avon was like glass, with
little wraiths of vapor clinging here and there to its
surface. Two white swans stood on its banks in

214 WINTER SUNSHINE

front of the church, and, without regarding the
mirror that so drew my eye, preened their plumage;
while, farther up, a piebald cow reached down for
some grass under the brink where the frost had not
settled, and a piebald cow in the river reached up
for the same morsel. Rooks and crows and jack-
daws were noisy in the trees overhead and about
the church spire. I stood a long while musing
upon the scene.

At the birthplace of the poet, the keeper, an
elderly woman, shivered with cold as she showed
me about. The primitive, home-made appearance
of things, the stone floor much worn and broken,
the rude oak beams and doors, the leaden sash with
the little window-panes scratched full of names,
among others that of Walter Scott, the great chim-
neys where quite a family could literally sit in the
chimney corner, etc., were what I expected to see,
and looked very human and good. It is impossible
to associate anything but sterling qualities and sim-
ple, healthful characters with these early English
birthplaces. They are nests built with faithfulness
and affection, and through them one seems to get
a glimpse of devouter, sturdier times.

From Stratford I went back to Warwick, thence
to Birmingham, thence to Shrewsbury, thence to
Chester, the old Roman camp, thence to Holyhead,
being intent on getting a glimpse of Wales and the
Welsh, and maybe taking a tramp up Snowdon or
some of his congeners, for my legs literally ached
for a mountain climb, a certain set of muscles being

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 215

so long unused. In the course of my journeyings,
I tried each class or compartment of the cars, first,
second, and third, and found but little choice. The
difference is simply in the upholstering, and, if you
are provided with a good shawl or wrap-up, you
need not be particular about that. In the first, the
floor is carpeted and the seats substantially uphol-
stered, usually in blue woolen cloth; in the second,
the seat alone is cushioned; and in the third, you
sit on a bare bench. But all classes go by the same
train, and often in the same car, or carriage, as they
say here. In the first class, travel the real and the
shoddy nobility and Americans; in the second, com-
mercial and professional men; and in the third, the
same, with such of the peasantry and humbler
classes as travel by rail. The only annoyance I ex-
perienced in the third class arose from the freedom
with which the smokers, always largely in the ma-
jority, indulged in their favorite pastime. (I per-
ceive there is one advantage in being a smoker: you
are never at a loss for something to do, — you can
smoke. )

At Chester I stopped overnight, selecting my
hotel for its name, the “Green Dragon.” It was
Sunday night, and the only street scene my rambles
afforded was quite a large gathering of persons on
a corner, listening, apparently with indifference or
curiosity, to an ignorant, hot-headed street preacher.
“Now I am going to tell you something you will
not like to hear, —something that will make you
angry. I know it will, It is this: I expect to go

216 WINTER SUNSHINE

to heaven. I am perfectly confident I shall go there.
I know you do not like that.” But why his hear-
ers should not like that did not appear. For my
part, I thought, for the good of all concerned, the
sooner he went the better.

In the morning, I mounted the wall in front of
the cathedral, and, with a very lively feeling of
wonder and astonishment, walked completely around
the town on top of it, a distance of about two miles.
The wall, being in places as high as the houses,
afforded some interesting views into attics, cham-
bers, back yards, etc. I envied the citizens such a
delightful promenade ground, full of variety and in-
terest. Just the right distance, too, for a brisk turn
to get up an appetite, or a leisurely stroll to tone
down a dinner; while as a place for chance meetings
of happy lovers, or to get away from one’s compan-
ions if the flame must burn in secret and in silence,
it is unsurpassed. I occasionally met or passed other
pedestrians, but noticed that it required a brisk pace
to lessen the distance between myself and an attrac-
tive girlish figure a few hundred feet in advance of
me. The railroad cuts across one corner of the town,
piercing the walls with two very carefully con-
structed archways. Indeed, the people are very
choice of the wall, and one sees posted notices of
the city authorities offering a reward for any one
detected in injuring it. It has stood now some
seven or eight centuries, and from appearances is
good for one or twomore. There are several towers
on the wall, from one of which some English king,

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 217

over two hundred years ago, witnessed the defeat of
his army on Rowton Moor. But when I was there,
though the sun was shining, the atmosphere was so
loaded with smoke that I could not catch even a
glimpse of the moor where the battle took place.
There is a gateway through the wall on each of the
four sides, and this slender and beautiful but black-
ened and worn span, as if to afford a transit from
the chamber windows on one side of the street to
those of the other, is the first glimpse the traveler
gets of the wall. The gates beneath the arches have
entirely disappeared. The ancient and carved oak
fronts of the buildings on the main street, and the
inclosed sidewalk that ran through the second stories
of the shops and stores, were not less strange and
novel tome. The sidewalk was like a gentle up-
heaval in its swervings and undulations, or like a
walk through the woods, the oaken posts and braces
on the outside answering for the trees, and the pros-
pect ahead for the vista.

The ride along the coast of Wales was crowded
with novelty and interest,— the sea on one side and
the mountains on the other, —the latter bleak and
heathery in the foreground, but cloud-capped and
snow-white in the distance. The afternoon was
dark and lowering, and just before entering Conway
we had a very striking view. A turn in the road
suddenly brought us to where we looked through
a black framework of heathery hills, and beheld
Snowdon and his chiefs apparently with the full
rigors of winter upon them. It was so satisfying

218 WINTER SUNSHINE

that I lost at once my desire to tramp up them. I
barely had time to turn from the mountains to
get a view of Conway Castle, one of the largest
and most impressive ruins I saw. The train cuts
close to the great round tower, and plunges through
the wall of gray, shelving stone into the bluff be-
yond, giving the traveler only time to glance and
marvel.

About the only glimpse I got of the Welsh char-
acter was on this route. At one of the stations,
Abergele I think, a fresh, blooming young woman
got into our compartment, occupied by myself and
two commercial travelers (bag-men, or, as we say,
“drummers ”), and, before she could take her seat,
was complimented by one of them on her good
looks. Feeling in a measure responsible for the
honor and good-breeding of the compartment, I
could hardly conceal my embarrassment; but the
young Abergeless herself did not seem to take it
amiss, and, when presently the jolly bag-man ad-
dressed his conversation to her, replied beseemingly
and good-naturedly. As she arose to leave the car
at her destination, a few stations beyond, he said
“he thought it a pity that such a sweet, pretty girl
should leave us so soon,” and seizing her hand the
audacious rascal actually solicited a kiss. I ex-
pected this would be the one drop too much, and
that we should have a scene, and began to regard
myself in the light of an avenger of an insulted
Welsh beauty, when my heroine paused, and I be-
lieve actually deliberated whether or not to comply

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 219

before two spectators! Certain it is that she yielded
the highwayman her hand, and, bidding him a gentle
good-night in Welsh, smilingly and blushingly left
the car. “Ah,” said the villain, “these Welsh
girls are capital; I know them like a book, and have
had many a lark with them.”

At Holyhead I got another glimpse of the Welsh.
I had booked for Dublin, and having several hours
on my hands of a dark, threatening night before the
departure of the steamer, I sallied out in the old
town tilted up against the side of the hill, in the
most adventurous spirit I could summon up, thread-
ing my way through the dark, deserted streets,
pausing for a moment in front of a small house with
closed doors and closely-shuttered windows, where I
heard suppressed voices, the monotonous scraping of
a fiddle, and a lively shuffling of feet, and passing
on finally entered, drawn by the musical strains, a
quaint old place, where a blind harper, seated in the
corner of a rude kind of coffee and sitting room, was
playing on a harp. I liked the atmosphere of the
place, so primitive and wholesome, and was quite
willing to have my attention drawn off from the
increasing storm without, and from the bitter cup
which I knew the Irish sea was preparing for me.
The harper presently struck up a livelier strain,
when two Welsh girls, who were chatting before
the grate, one of them as dumpy as a bag of meal
and the other slender and tall, stepped into the
middle of the floor and began to dance to the deli-
cious music, a Welsh mechanic and myself drink-

220 WINTER SUNSHINE

ing our ale and looking on approvingly. After a
while the pleasant, modest-looking bar-maid, whom
I had seen behind the beer-levers as I entered, came
in, and, after looking on for a moment, was per-
suaded to lay down her sewing and join in the
dance. ‘Then there came in a sandy-haired Welsh-
man, who could speak and understand only his
native dialect, and finding his neighbors affiliating
with an Englishman, as he supposed, and trying to
speak the hateful tongue, proceeded to berate them
sharply (for it appears the Welsh are still jealous of
the English); but when they explained to him that
I was not an Englishman, but an American, and
had already twice stood the beer all around (at an
outlay of sixpence), he subsided into a sulky silence,
and regarded me intently.

About eleven o’clock a policeman paused at the
door, and intimated that it was time the house was
shut up and the music stopped, and to outward
appearances his friendly warning was complied with;
but the harp still discoursed in a minor key, and a
light tripping and shuffling of responsive feet might
occasionally have been heard for an hour later.
‘When I arose to go, it was with a feeling of regret
that I could not see more of this simple and social
people, with whom I at once felt that “touch of
nature” which “makes the whole world kin,” and
my leave-taking was warm and hearty accordingly.

Through the wind and the darkness I threaded
my way to the wharf, and in less than two hours
afterward was a most penitent voyager, and fitfully

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 221

joining in that doleful gastriloquial chorus that so
often goes up from the cabins of those Channel
steamers,

I hardly know why I went to Ireland, except it
was to indulge the few drops of Irish blood in my
veins, and maybe also with a view to shorten my
sea voyage by a day. I also felt a desire to see one
or two literary men there, and in this sense my
journey was eminently gratifying; but so far from
shortening my voyage by a day, it lengthened it by
three days, that being the time it took me to re-
cover from the effects of it; and as to the tie of
blood, I think it must nearly all have run out, for
I felt but few congenital throbs while in Ireland.

The Englishman at home is a much more lovable
animal than the Englishman abroad, but Pat in Ire-
land is even more of a pig than in this country.
Indeed, the squalor and poverty, and cold, skinny
wretchedness one sees in Ireland, and (what freezes
our sympathies) the groveling, swiny shiftlessness
that pervades these hovels, no traveler can be pre-
pared for. It is the bare prose of misery, the un-
heroic of tragedy. There is not one redeeming or
mitigating feature.

Railway traveling in Ireland is not so rapid or so
cheap as in England. Neither are the hotels as
good or as clean, or the fields so well kept, or the
look of the country so thrifty and peaceful. The
dissatisfaction of the people is in the very air. Ire-
land looks sour and sad. She looks old, too, as do
all those countries beyond seas,—old in a way that

222 WINTER SUNSHINE

the American is a stranger to. It is not the age of
nature, the unshaken permanence of the hills through
long periods of time, but the weight of human years
and human sorrows, as if the earth sympathized
with man and took on his attributes and infirmi-
ties.

I did not go much about Dublin, and the most
characteristic thing I saw there were those queer,
uncomfortable dog-carts, —a sort of Irish bull on
wheels, with the driver on one side balancing the
passenger on the other, and the luggage occupying
the seat of safety between. It comes the nearest to
riding on horseback, and on a side-saddle at that,
of any vehicle-traveling I ever did.

I stopped part of a day at Mallow, an old town
on the Blackwater, in one of the most fertile agri-
cultural districts of Ireland. The situation is fine,
and an American naturally expects to see a charm-
ing rural town, planted with trees and filled with
clean, comfortable homes; but he finds instead a
wretched place, smitten with a plague of filth and
mud, and offering but one object upon which the
eye can dwell with pleasure, and that is the ruins
of an old castle, ‘Mallow Castle over Blackwater,”
which dates back to the time of Queen Elizabeth.
It stands amid noble trees on the banks of the river,
and its walls, some of them thirty or forty feet
high, are completely overrun with ivy. The Black-
water, a rapid, amber-colored stream, is spanned at
this point by a superb granite bridge.

And I will say here that anything like a rural

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 223

town in our sense,— a town with trees and grass and
large spaces about the houses, gardens, yards, shrub-
bery, coolness, fragrance, etc., — seems unknown in
England or Ireland. The towns and villages are
all remnants of feudal times, and seem to have been
built with an eye to safety and compactness, or else
men were more social, and loved to get closer to-
gether, then than now. Perhaps the damp, chilly
climate made them draw nearer together, At any
rate, the country towns are little cities; or rather
it is as if another London had been cut up in little
and big pieces and distributed over the land.

In the afternoon, to take the kinks out of my legs,
and quicken, if possible, my circulation a little,
which since the passage over the Channel had felt
as if it was thick and green, I walked rapidly to
the top of the Kockmeledown Mountains, getting a
good view of Irish fields and roads and fences as I
went up, and a very wide and extensive view of the
country after I had reached the summit, and im-
proving the atmosphere of my physical tenement
amazingly. These mountains have no trees or
bushes or other growth than a harsh prickly heather,
about a foot high, which begins exactly at the foot
of the mountain. You are walking on smooth, fine
meadow land, when you leap a fence and there is
the heather. On the highest point of this mountain,
and on the highest point of all the mountains around,
was a low stone mound, which I was puzzled to
know the meaning of. Standing there, the country
rolled away beneath me under a cold, gray Novem-

224 WINTER SUNSHINE

ber sky, and, as was the case with the English land-
scape, looked singularly desolate, — the desolation of
a dearth of human homes, industrial centres, fami-
lies, workers, and owners of the soil. Few roads,
scarce ever a vehicle, no barns, no groups of bright,
well-ordered buildings, indeed no farms and neigh-
borhoods and schoolhouses, but a wide spread of
rich, highly cultivated country, with here and there,
visible to close scrutiny, small gray stone houses with
thatched roofs, the abodes of poverty and wretched-
ness, A recent English writer says the first thing
that struck him in American landscape-painting was
the absence of man and the domestic animals from
the pictures, and the preponderance of rude, wild
nature; and his first view of this country seems to
have made the same impression. But it is certainly
true that the traveler through any of our older
States will see ten houses, rural habitations, to one
in England or Ireland, though, as a matter of course,
nature here looks much less domesticated, and much
less expressive of human occupancy and contact.
The Old World people have clung to the soil closer
and more lovingly than we do. The ground has
been more precious. They have had none to waste,
and have made the most of every inch of it. Wher-
ever they have touched they have taken root and
thriven as best they could. Then the American is
more cosmopolitan and less domestic. He is not
so local in his feelings and attachments. He does
not bestow himself upon the earth or upon his home
as his ancestors did. He feathers his nest very

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 225

little. Why should he? He may migrate to-mor-
row and build another. He is like the passenger
pigeon that lays its eggs and rears its young upon
a little platform of bare twigs. Our poverty and
nakedness is in this respect, I think, beyond dis-
pute. There is nothing nest-like about our homes,
either in their interiors or exteriors. Even wealth
and taste and foreign aids rarely attain that cosy,
mellowing atmosphere that pervades not only the
lowly birthplaces but the halls and manor houses of
older lands. And what do our farms represent but
so much real estate, so much cash value?

Only where man loves the soil, and nestles to it
closely and long, will it take on this beneficent and
human look which foreign travelers miss in our
landscape; and only where homes are built with
fondness and emotion, and in obedience to the
social, paternal, and domestic instincts, will they
hold the charm and radiate and be warm with the
feeling I have described.

And, while I am upon the subject, I will add that
European cities differ from ours in this same par-
ticular. They have a homelier character, — more
the air of dwelling-places, the abodes of men drawn
together for other purposes than traffic. People ac-
tually live in them, and find life sweet and festal.
But what does our greatest city, New York, express
besides commerce or politics, or what other reason
has it for its existence? This is, of course, in a
measure the result of the modern worldly and prac-
tical business spirit which more and more animates

226 WINTER SUNSHINE

all nations, and which led Carlyle to say of his own
countrymen that they were becoming daily more
“flat, stupid, and mammonish.” Yet I am per-
suaded that in our case it is traceable also to the
leanness and depletion of our social and convivial
instincts, and to the fact that the material cares of
life are more serious and engrossing with us than
with any other people.

I spent part of a day at Cork, wandering about
the town, threading my way through the back
streets and alleys, and seeing life reduced to fewer
makeshifts than I had ever before dreamed of. I
went through, or rather skirted, a kind of second-
hand market, where the most sorry and dilapidated
articles of clothing and household utensils were
offered for sale, and where the cobblers were cob-
bling up old shoes that would hardly hold together.
Then the wretched old women one sees, without
any sprinkling of young ones,— youth and age alike
bloomless and unlovely.

In a meadow on the hills that encompass the city,
I found the American dandelion in bloom, and some
large red clover, and started up some skylarks as I
might start up the field sparrows in our own up-
lying fields.

Is the magpie a Celt and a Catholic? I saw not
one in England, but plenty of them in France, and
again when I reached Ireland.

At Queenstown I awaited the steamer from Liver-
pool, and about nine o’clock in the morning was
delighted to see her long black form moving up the

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 227

bay. She came to anchor about a mile or two out,
and a little tug was in readiness to take us off. A
score or more of emigrants, each with a bag and
box, had been waiting all the morning at the wharf.
When the time of embarkation arrived, the agent
stepped aboard the tug and called out their names
one by one, when Bridget and Catherine and Patrick
and Michael, and the rest, came aboard, received
their tickets, and passed “forward,” with a half-
frightened, half-bewildered look. But not much
emotion was displayed until the boat began to move
off, when the tears fell freely, and they continued
to fall faster and faster, and the sobs to come thicker
and thicker, until, as the faces of friends began to
fade on the wharf, both men and women burst out
into a loud, unrestrained bawl. This sudden dem-
onstration of grief seemed to frighten the children
and smaller fry, who up to this time had been very
jovial; but now, suspecting something was wrong,
they all broke out in a most pitiful chorus, forming
an anti-climax to the wail of their parents that was
quite amusing, and that seemed to have its effect
upon the “children of a larger growth,” for they
instantly hushed their lamentations and turned their
attention toward the great steamer. There was a
rugged but bewildered old granny among them, on
her way to join her daughter somewhere in the in-
terior of New York, who seemed to regard me with
a kindred eye, and toward whom, I confess, I felt
some family affinity. Before we had got half way to
the vessel, the dear old creature missed a sheet from

228 WINTER SUNSHINE

her precious bundle of worldly effects, and very
confidentially told me that her suspicions pointed
to the stoker, a bristling, sooty “wild Irishman.”
The stoker resented the insinuation, and I overheard
him berating the old lady in Irish so sharply and
threateningly (I had no doubt of his guilt) that she
was quite frightened, and ready to retract the charge
to hush the man up. She seemed to think her
troubles had just begun. If they behaved thus to
her on the little tug, what would they not do on
board the great black steamer itself? So when she
got separated from her luggage in getting aboard the
vessel, her excitement was great, and I met her fol-
lowing about the man whom she had accused of filch-
ing her bed linen, as if he must have the clew to
the lost bed itself. Her face brightened when she
saw me, and, giving me a terribly hard wink and a
most expressive nudge, said she wished I would keep
near her a little. This I did, and soon had the
pleasure of leaving her happy and reassured beside
her box and bundle.

The passage home, though a rough one, was cheer-
fully and patiently borne. I found a compound
motion,— the motion of a screw steamer, a roll and
a plunge —less trying to my head than the simple
rocking or pitching of the side-wheeled Scotia.
One motion was in a measure a foil to the other.
My brain, acted upon by two forces, was compelled
to take the hypothenuse, and I think the concussion
was considerably diminished thereby. The vessel
was forever trembling upon the verge of immense

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 229

watery chasms that opened now under her port
bows, now under her starboard, and that almost
made one catch for his breath as he looked into
them; yet the noble ship had a way of skirting
them or striding across them that was quite wonder-
ful. Only five days was I compelled to “hole up”
in my stateroom, hibernating, weathering the final
tude shock of the Atlantic. Part of this time I
was capable of feeling a languid interest in the os-
cillations of my coat suspended from a hook in
the door. Back and forth, back and forth, all day
long, vibrated this black pendulum, at long intervals
touching the sides of the room, indicating great
lateral or diagonal motion of the ship. The great
waves, I observed, go in packs like wolves. Now
one would pounce upon her, then another, then an-
other, in quick succession, making the ship strain
every nerve to shake them off. Then she would
glide along quietly for some minutes, and my coat
would register but a few degrees in its imaginary
arc, when another band of the careering demons
would cross our path and harass us as before. Some-
times they would pound and thump on the sides of
the vessel like immense sledge-hammers, beginning
away up toward the bows and quickly running down
her whole length, jarring, raking, and venting their
wrath in a very audible manner; or a wave would
rake along the side with a sharp, ringing, metallic
sound, ‘like a huge spear-point seeking a vulnerable
place; or some hard-backed monster would rise up
from the deep and grate and bump the whole length

230 WINTER SUNSHINE

of the keel, forcibly suggesting hidden rocks and
consequent wreck and ruin.

Then it seems there is always some biggest wave
to be met with somewhere on the voyage,— a mon-
ster billow that engulfs disabled vessels, and some-
times carries away parts of the rigging of the stanch-
est. This big wave struck us the third day out
about midnight, and nearly threw us all out of our
berths, and careened the ship over so far that it
seemed to take her last pound of strength to right
herself up again. There was a slamming of doors,
a tush of crockery, and a screaming of women, heard
above the general din and confusion, while the steer-
age passengers thought their last hour had come.
The vessel before us encountered this giant wave
during a storm in mid-ocean, and was completely
buried beneath it; one of the officers was swept over-
board, the engines suddenly stopped, and there was
a terrible moment during which it seemed uncertain
whether the vessel would shake off the sea or go to
the bottom.

Besides observing the oscillations of my coat, I
had at times a stupid satisfaction in seeing my two
new London trunks belabor each other about my
stateroom floor. Nearly every day they would break
from their fastenings under my berth and start on
a wild race for the opposite side of the room.
Naturally enough, the little trunk would always
get the start of the big one, but the big one fol-
lowed close, and sometimes caught the little one in
a very uncomfortable manner. Once a knife and

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 231

fork and a breakfast plate slipped off the sofa and
joined in the race; but, if not distanced, they got
sadly the worst of it, especially the plate. But
the carpet had the most reason to complain. Two
or three turns sufficed to loosen it from the floor,
when, shoved to one side, the two trunks took
turns in butting it. I used to allow this sport to
go on till it grew monotonous, when I would alter-
nately shout and ring until “Robert” appeared and
restored order.

The condition of certain picture-frames and vases
and other frail articles among my effects, when I
reached home, called to mind not very pleasantly
this trunken frolic.

It is impossible not to sympathize with the ship
in her struggles with the waves. You are lying
there wedged into your berth, and she seems in-
deed a thing of life and conscious power. She is
built entirely of iron, is 500 feet long, and, besides
other freight, carries 2,500 tons of railroad iron,
which lies down there flat in her bottom, a dead,
indigestible weight, so unlike a cargo in bulk, yet
she is a quickened spirit for all that, You feel
every wave that strikes her; you feel the sea bear-
ing her down; she has run her nose into one of
those huge swells, and a solid blue wall of water
tons in weight comes over her bows and floods her
forward deck; she braces herself, every rod and rivet
and timber seems to lend its support; you almost
expect to see the wooden walls of your room grow
rigid with muscular contraction; she trembles from

232 WINTER SUNSHINE

stem to stern, she recovers, she breaks the gripe of
her antagonist, and, rising up, shakes the sea from
her with a kind of gleeful wrath; I hear the tor-
rents of water rush along the lower decks, and, find-
ing a means of escape, pour back into the sea, glad
to get away on any terms, and I say, “Noble ship!
you are indeed a god!”

I wanted to see a first-class storm at sea, and per-
haps ought to be satisfied with the heavy blow or
hurricane we had when off Sable Island, but I con-
fess I was not, though, by the lying-to of the vessel
and the frequent soundings, it was evident there
was danger about. A dense fog uprose, which did
not drift like a land fog, but was as immovable as
iron; it was like a spell, a misty enchantment; and
out of this fog came the wind, a steady, booming
blast, that smote the ship over on her side and held
her there, and howled in the rigging like a chorus of
fiends. The waves did not know which way to
flee; they were heaped up and then scattered in a
twinkling. I thought of the terrible line of one of
our poets: —

“The spasm of the sky and the shatter of the sea.”
The sea looked wrinkled and old and oh, so pitiless!
I had stood long before Turner’s “Shipwreck” in
the National Gallery in London, and this sea re-
called his, and I appreciated more than ever the
artist’s great powers.

These storms, it appears, are rotary in their wild
dance and promenade up and down the seas. “Look
the wind squarely in the teeth,” said an ex-sea-

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 233

captain among the passengers, “and eight points
to the right in the northern hemisphere will be
the centre of the storm, and eight points to the
left in the southern hemisphere.” I remembered
that, in Victor Hugo’s terrible dynamics, storms re-
volved in the other direction in the northern hem-
isphere, or followed the hands of a watch, while
south of the equator they no doubt have ways
equally original.

Late in the afternoon the storm abated, the fog
was suddenly laid, and, looking toward the setting
sun, I saw him athwart the wildest, most desolate
scene in which it was ever my fortune to behold the
face of that god. The sea was terribly agitated, and
the endless succession of leaping, frothing waves
between me and the glowing west formed a picture
I shall not soon forget.

I think the excuse that is often made in behalf
of American literature, namely, that our people are
too busy with other things yet, and will show the
proper aptitude in this field, too, as soon as leisure
is afforded, is fully justified by events of daily occur-
rence. Throw a number of them together without
anything else to do, and they at once communicate
to each other the itch of authorship. Confine them
on board an ocean steamer, and by the third or
fourth day a large number of them will break out
all over with a sort of literary rash that nothing
will assuage but some newspaper or journalistic en-
terprise which will give the poems and essays and
jokes with which they are surcharged a chance to

234 WINTER SUNSHINE

be seen and heard of men. I doubt if the like ever
occurs among travelers of any other nationality.
Englishmen or Frenchmen or Germans want some-
thing more warm and human, if less “refined;”
but the average American, when in company, likes
nothing so well as an opportunity to show the na-
tional trait of “smartness.” There is not a bit of
danger that we shall ever relapse into barbarism
while so much latent literature lies at the bottom of
our daily cares and avocations, and is sure to come
to the surface the moment the latter are suspended
or annulled! ‘

While abreast of New England, and I don’t
know how many miles at sea, as I turned in my
deck promenade, I distinctly scented the land,—a
subtle, delicious odor of farms and homesteads,
warm and human, that floated on the wild sea air,
a promise and a token. The broad red line that
had been slowly creeping across our chart for so
many weary days, indicating the path of the ship,
had now completely bridged the chasm, and had got
a good purchase down under the southern coast of
New England, and according to the reckoning we
ought to have made Sandy Hook that night; but
though the position of the vessel was no doubt
theoretically all right, yet practically she proved
to be much farther out at sea, for all that afternoon
and night she held steadily on her course, and not
till next morning did the coast of Long Island, like
a thin, broken cloud just defined on the horizon,
come into view. But before many hours we had

AN OCTOBER ABROAD 235

passed the Hook, and were moving slowly up the
bay in the midday splendor of the powerful and
dazzling light of the New World sun, And how
good things looked to me after even so brief an
absence! —the brilliancy, the roominess, the deep
transparent blue of the sky, the clear, sharp out-
lines, the metropolitan splendor of New York, and
especially of Broadway; and as I walked up that
great thoroughfare, and noted the familiar physiog-
nomy and the native nonchalance and independence,
I experienced the delight that only the returned
traveler can feel,—the instant preference of one’s
own country and countrymen over all the rest of the
world.

INDEX

Apple, the, as medicine and food,
113, 114, 127, 128; in England,
114, 171, 207 ; in Russia, 114; in
Chili, 115; pleasing to all the
senses, 115, 116; resisting the
cold, 117; the friend of man, 117,
118 ; individuality of different va-
rieties, 118, 119; stored under
ground, 119, 120; the boy’s fond-
ness for, 121; the genuine apple-
eater, 122, 123; prized by the
early settlers, 123; a social fruit,
123-125; fondness of wild and
domestic animals for, 126, 127;
the cow and the wild apple, 127 ;
individuality in the trees, 127;
wild apples and Thoreau, 128-
130. See Orchard, apple.

Arbutus, trailing, 18, 96.

Architecture, of English houses,
152-154 ; of English castles, 154;
of English churches and cathe-
drals, 155-161; in America, 156.

Ash, autumn foliage of, 107.

Asters, 105, 106.

Atmosphere, in England and Amer-
ica, 1, 2.

Autumn, in Washington, 3-5; ap-
proach of, 97 ; advance of, 98, 99 ;
Indian summer period of, 99-101 ;
a parody of spring, 101, 102;
contrasted with spring, 102, 103 ;
the last flower of, 104; the gos-
samer of, 104, 105; weeds of,
105, 106; foliage of, 106, 107,
171; animal life in, 108-110.

Avon, the, 209, 213.

Bass, 87. F
Bear, black (Ursus americanus),
108.

Beauty, female, 151, 152, 186.

Beaver (Castor fiber), 67.

Beech, European, 189.

Bees. See Bumblebee and Honey-
bee.

Birds, winter bands of, 16; as sow-

ers of seed, 98; in autumn, 101;
of the orchard, 125, 126; land-
birds at sea, 132-134; sea-birds,
133, 184; abundance in England,
141, 142; songs of European and
American, 166.

Blackbird, crow, or purple grackle
(Quiscalus quiscula), 85.

Blackbird, European, its resem-
blance to the American robin,
165, 166; in poetry, 166; notes
of, 166; nest of, 166.

Blood-root, 17, 18.

Bluebird (Sialia sialis), 16, 101.

Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus),
song of, 163.

Bonfires, 86.

et the, his fondness for apples,

Boys, English and American, 169.

Bridges, in Europe, 143, 144.

Bumblebee, 109,

Burdock, 105.

Buzzard, or turkey vulture (Cathar-
tes qura),5; manner of flight, 7,
8; silence of, 8, 9; 19.

Cardinal. See Grosbeak, cardinal.

Carlyle, Thomas, 166; a call on,
204, 205; greatness of, 205.

Cars, street, 24.

Cat, the, nose of, 73.

Cathedrals in England, 165-161.
See Churches.

Catskills, 44.

Cattle, 93. See Cows and Oxen.

Cedar, red, 106.

Cedar-bird, or cedar waxwing (Am-
pelis cedrorum), 86, 125.

Cheaters England, 171, 172, 215-

217.
Chickadee (Parus atricapillus), 19,
126.

Children, English, a conversation
with, 211, 212.

Chili, the apple in, 115.

Chipmunk (Zamias striatus), 55,

238

68; shifting his quarters, 108,
126

Churches in England, 155, 209. See
Cathedrals.

Cities, homely character of Euro-
pean, 225.

Climate, its effect on body and
mind, 148, 149.

Conway, Wales, 217, 218.

Coon. See Raccoon.

Cork, Ireland, 226.

Cows, 86; their fondness for ap-
ples, 126 ; planters of apples, 127.
See Cattle.

Creeper, brown (Certhia familiaris
americana), 16.

Cricket, 4.

Crow, American (Corvus ameri-
canus), 5, 7; characteristics of,
9; 19, 101, 126; notes of, 8-10, 93.

Crow, carrion, 141.

Crow, fish (Corvus ossifragus),
notes of, 10.

Cuckoo, 126.

Dandelion, 226.

Darwin, Charles, 115, 175.

Deer, in English parks, 168.

Dieppe, 186, 187, 198.

Dog, the, a true pedestrian, 36;
and coon, 63-65; and turkey, 70;
nose of, 73; smell, sight, and
hearing of, 74,75. See Hound.

Dog, farm, fox and, 47, 48, 70;
adventure with a coon, 63.

Dogwood, 5.

Ducks, wild, 101.

Eagle, 8.

Elecampane, 105.

Electricity in winter, 6.

Elm, European, 190.

BuereeDy Ralph Waldo, 36, 123,

Emigrants, Irish, 227, 228.

England, atmosphere and climate
in, 1; walking in, 29-31; the ap-
ple of, 114, 171, 207; the first
day in, 137-139; human quality
of the landscape in, 169, 140, 224;
uninhabited appearance of the
country in, 141, 224; abundance
of birds and game in, 141, 142;
substantiality of the architecture
of, 143, 145; the bridges of, 143 ;
climate of, 148, 149, 172; dwell-
ing-houses in, 152-154, 224, 225;
castles in, 154; church architec-
ture in, 155-161 ; a mellow coun-
try, 170-174; subdued appear-

INDEX

ance of things in, 170, 174;
building-stone in, 171, 172; rail-
ways in, 173,174, 215; woman in,
181-183; hotels and inns in, 182,
183, 207-209, 211; system, order,
and fair dealing in, 183, 184; ab-
sence of barns in, 206 ; field occu-
pations in, 206; rural towns of,
223. See London.

English, the, health and physical
development of, 148-151; cloth-
ing of, 150, 151; their plainness
of speech, 152; their accent, 152;
a mellow people, 170, 172-174;
manners of, 172, 173, 181; sim-
plicity of, 174-177; at home and
abroad, 176, 177; brutality of,
177, 178; traveling in America,
178, 179; in crowds, 179-181;
breadth and heartiness of, 203.

Finch, purple (Carpodacus pur-
pureus), 19; song of, 163.

Fire, the camp, 18, 19. See Bon-
fires.

Flagg, Wilson, 125.

Flicker. See High-hole.

Foot, the human, 23, 28, 29.

Footpaths, in England, 29, 30.

Fox, Arctic (Vulpes lagopus), 82.

Fox, cross (Vulpes vulpes, var. de-
cussatus), 44, 82.

Fox, gray (Urocyon cinereo-argen-
tatus), 44, 81-83.

Fox, prairie, 82.

Fox, red (Vulpes vulpes, var. ful-
vus), bark of, 44, 81; tracks of,
45 ; meeting a, 45, 46 ; and hound,
46, 47, 68-76; and farm-dog, 47,
48, 70; female and young, 47, 48,
79, 80; tail of, 48; cunning of,
48-50, 71, 78; trapping, 49-52, 78,
79; abundance of, 67, 68; in the
poultry-yard, 68, 69; a hunt with
hounds, 73-77; senses of smell,
sight, and hearing, 74, 75; still-
ueenes 77, 78; relationships of,

Fox, silver-gray or black (Vulpes
vulpes, var. argentatus), 44, 72,
3

, 83.

France, the chalk hills of, 185;
peasant women of, 186, 187; the
woinan’s country, 187; the army
of, 188; appearance of the coun-
try, 188, 189; sanitary arrange-
ments in, 198 See Paris.

French, the, peasant women, 186,
187; the Louis Napoleon type,
188; good taste of, 192-194; cui-

INDEX

sine of, 193; their touches of art,
194-196 ; always before the look-
ing- glass, 196, 197; a nation of
drinkers, 197, 198; their love of
forests, 200, 201 ; primitive ardor
and fierceness of, 201, 202.

Frogs, spawn of, 96.

Funeral, a, 209, 210.

Girl, a Welsh, 218, 219.

Goldenrod, 105, 106.

Goldfinch, American (Spinus tris-
tis), 98, 1

Goose, meet: 68, 86, 89.

Goose, wild o” Canada (Branta
canadensis), 86, 87, 101

Gossamer, 104, 105.

Grackle, purple. See Blackbird,
crow.

Grosbeak, cardinal, or cardinal (Car-
dinalis cardinalis), 16.

Grouse, ruffed. See Partridge.

Gulls, 88.

Hairbird, or chipping
(Spizella socialis), 125.

Hare, Northern (Lepus americanus
var. virginianus), tracks of, 52,
53; habits of, 53, 54.

Hawks, 8, 126, 132)

Yawthorne, Nathaniel, 175.

Hepatica, or liver-leaf, 96.

High-hole, or flicker
auratus), 93, 126.

Holyhead, 219, 220.

Honey-bee, 86, 93.

Hornet, 109.

Hornet, black, 110.

Hotels in England, 182, 183. See

Inns.
Hound, 45; baying of, 46, 70; and
fox, 67 76; nose of, 73.
House-fly, the English, 138.
Hugo, Victor, 202, 233.

sparrow

(Colaptes

Indian summer, 99-101.

Inns in England, 182, 207-209, 211,
See Hotels.

Treland, American birds in, 134;
first sight of, 135, 186 ; misery in,
221 ; jaunting-cars of, 222; rural
towns of, 222, 223; the landscape
in, 223, "904; emigrants leaving,
227, 228, .

Trish, the, shiftlessness and misery
of, ’o01.

Trishwoman, an emigrating, 227,

228,

Jackdaw, 214.

239

Jaunting-car, the Irish, 222.

Jay, blue (Cyanocitta’ cristata), 16,
126; notes of, 10.

Jay, European, 200.

Junco, slate-colored.
bird.

See Snow-

Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), 126.

Kinglets, 16.

Kockmeledown Mountains, 223,

Lark. See Skylark.

Liver-leaf. See Hepatica.

Lizard, 93.

Logging, 88.

London, bridges in, 143; a natural
formation, 144-146; the fog of,
146-148, 157; the tailor of, 50;
female beauty i in, 151; the Tower
of, 154; parks in, 167- 169; street-
cries in, 173; among the poor in,
178-181 ; hotels of, 182, 183; con-
trasted with Paris, 191, 192.

Magpie, 226.

Mallow, Ireland, 222.

Maple, soft, 85, 93, 95.

Maple, sugar, 89-94.

Maples, autumn foliage of, 107.
ie pine (Mustela americana),

Maryland, a winter walk in, 15-21.
Meadowlark (Sturnelia magna), 101.
Mice, wood, 108.

Mink (Putorius vison), 67.

Mirrors in Paris, 196, 197.

Mole, common (Sealops aquaticus),

Moonlight on the snow, 43, 44

Mouse, white-footed or jaeer (Calo-
mys “umericanus), 52, 5:

Mullein, 188.

Napoleon, Louis, 188.

Negro, the, 10-13, 17.

Negro’s house, a, 20.

Nettle, blind, 98.

Nettles, 105.

Nightingale, 166; song of, 166.
North Mountain, 43.

November day, a, 110, 111.
Nuthatches, 16, 93; notes of, 19.

Ocean, the, crossing, 131-135, 228-
235.

Orchard, the apple, 124-126.
Oriole, Baltimore (Icterus galbula),
1

25.
Oriole, orchard. See Starling,
orchard.

Oven-bird. See Wood-wagtail.

240

Oxen, 89. See Cattle.
Oxen Run, 21.

Paris, bridges in, 144; parks of, 168,
199, 200 ; first impressions of, 190,
191; contrasted with London, 191,
192; the good taste of, 192-194;
theatres of, 192, 193; Sunday in,
194; whip-snappers in, 195, 196;
mirrors in, 196, 197. See France.

Parks, in London, 167-169, 200; in
Paris, 168, 199, 200.

Partridge, or ruffed grouse (Bonasa
umbellus), tracks of, 52, 54, 55;
126 ; drumming of, 101.

Partridge, European, 142.

Perch, 86.

Pheasant, 142, 169.

Pigeon, passenger (Ectopistes mi-
gratorius), 101.

Pigweed, 105.

Pine, yellow, 20.

Pipit, American, or titlark (Anthus
pensilvanicus), at sea, 133.

Plover, English, 141.

Poplar, silver, 85, 95.

Prairie hen (Tympanuchus amert-
canus), 87.

Pumpkintown, a walk to, 15-21.

Quail, European, 142,
Queenstown, 226-228.

Rabbit, English, 142, 169.
oe gray (Lepus sylvaticus),
126.

Raccoon, or coon (Procyon lotor),
tracks of, 62; in spring, 62, 63;
hunting with a dog, 63-65 ; 108.

Ragweed, 105.

Railways, in England, 173, 174, 215 ;
in America, 173, 174.

Red-root, 105, 106.

Robin, American (Merula migra-
toria), 85, 86, 93, 101, 125, 126;
notes of, 93.

Robin redbreast, 165; song of, 165.

Rook, 141.

St. Cloud, 199, 200.

St, Paul’s Cathedral, 156, 161.

Sea. See Ocean.

Seeds sown by birds, 98.

Seine, valley of the, 188, 189; beauty
of the, 199.

September, weeds in, 105.

Shad, 85, 87.

Shakespeare, quotations from, 25,
30; birthplace of, 214,

Sheep, 93.

INDEX

Shottery, 210, 211.

Skunk (Mephitis mephitica), tracks
of, 52, 59; habits of, 59-62; 108,
Skylark, on the South Downs, 161-
164; attempts to introduce it into
the United States, 165, 226; song

of, 162-165.

Snapdragon, 98.

Snow, beauty of, 42, 43; tracks in,
44, 45, 49, 50, 52-55, 57, 59, 62,
65; melting of, 88, 89.

Snowbird, or slate-colored junco
(Junco hyemalis), 16.

South Downs, the, 30; a day on,
161-164.

Sparrow, chipping. See Hairbird.

aren song (Melospiza fasciata),

6.

Sparrow, tree or Canada (Spizella
monticola), 16.

Sparrow, vesper (Podceles gra-
mineus), song of, 163.

Spice-bush, 5.

Spiders, 104, 105.

Spring, the beginning of, 85-89, 95,
96; fall in some respects a parody
of, 101, 102; contrasted with fall,
102, 103.

Squirrel, black (Sciurus carolinensis,
var. leucotis), 57, 82.

Squirrel, European, 200. |

Squirrel, flying (Sciuropterus vo-
tans), 56.

Squirrel, gray (Sciurus carolinen-
sis, var. leucotis), tracks of, 55;
habits of, 55-57, 82, 109.

Squirrel, red (Sciurus hudsonicus),
tracks of, 55, 57; activity in win-
ter, 55 ; habits of, 57, 58 ; snicker-
ing of, 109, 126.

Squirrels, 93, 126,

Starling, orchard, or orchard oriole
(Icterus spwrius), 125,

Steamships, ocean, 135, 136, 228-235.

Stratford-on-Avon, 30; a visit to,
207-214,

Sugar-making, 87, 89-95.

Sumac, dwarf, 106.

Summer, Indian. See Indian sum-
mer.

Sunlight, in Washington, 2, 3; in
morning and afternoon, 102, 103.

Swallow, English, 138.

Teasels, 105.

Tennyson, Alfred, quotations from,
113, 166.

Tern, sooty (Sterna fuliginosa),

Thaxter, Celia, 134.

INDEX

Thistle-down, 97, 98,

Thistles, 98, 105.

Thoreau, Henry David, quotations
from, 16, 129, 130; 21,32, 39, 107;
and wild apples, 127-130.

Ns wood (Turdus mustelinus),

Thrushes, 163.

Titlark. See Pipit, American.

Toad, 108.

Tower of London, the, 154.

Tracks in the snow, 44, 45, 49, 50,
52-55, 57, 59, 62, 65.

Trout, brook, 101; spawning time
of, 110,

Turkey, domestic, 69, 70.

Turner, J. M. W., 233.

Turtles, 108.

Vervain, 105.
Vulture, turkey. See Buzzard.

Wales, the mountains of, 137, 217,
218 ; a visit to, 217-220.

Walking, in America, 23-29; in
England, 29-31; religion and, 30,
31 ; delights of, 31-24; companions
in, 34-36; an impetus necessary
in, 36, 37; importance of cultivat-
ing the art in America, 38, 39; on
gravel roads, 39.

Walks, about Washington, 14-22.

Warbler, black and white creeping
(Mniotilta varia), at sea, 132.

Warblers, 126.

241

Washington, sunlight in, 2,3; fall
and winter in, 3-7; summer in,
4; buzzards in, 7-9 ; the negro in,
10-13 ; walks about, 14-22; March
in, 85-87, 95, 96; the Capitol at,
156, 159 ; parks in, 167.

Wasp, 109.

Waxwing, cedar. See Cedar-bird,

Weeds, in September, 105; in haste
to produce their seeds, 106.

Welsh, the, glimpses of, 218-220.

Westminster Abbey, 161.

Whip-snappers in Paris, 195, 196.

Whitman, Walt, quotations from, 2,
105, 206.

Wilson, Alexander, 34.

Windsor Castle, 154,

Winter, in Washington, 8, 5-7; elec-
tricity in, 6; walks in, 14-22;
beauty of the world in, 41-43;
abdication of, 65, 66.

Witch-hazel, 101, 104.

Woman, in England and America,
181-183; in France, 186, 187; in
Ireland, 226,

Woodbine, 106.

Woodchuck (Arcfomys monaz), 18,
82, 86, 108.

Woodpeckers, 16, 93, 126.

Wood-wagtail, or oven-bird (Seiurus

aurocapillus), song of, 163.

Wren, winter (Troglodytes hiema-

lis), song of, 163,

Yellow-jackets, 109, 110,