Outings At Odd Times

And may not these mutually supporting vines have struck the fancy of some Indian poet? In the wigwams of these people, who but two centuries ago peopled these meadows and the surrounding hills, may not many a pretty tale have been told of these same despised carrion-flowers? Dyer states, in his charming Folk-Lore of Plants, how, “in the Servian folk-song, there grows out of the youth’s body a green fir, out of the maiden’s a red rose, which entwine together.” I should not wonder at learning that so too the Indian believed that from the bodies of braves, who had fallen together, fighting for the same cause, had sprung these intertwining vines that cling now so firmly to each other. Why, indeed, should not the tragedy of Tristram and Ysonde have been re-enacted on the Delaware meadows?

But, though despised by man, this vigorous plant has hosts of other friends. The summer long, scores of bugs, butterflies, and beetles crowd about. Whether when in leaf only, or later when in bloom, or in autumn, when laden with its wealth of blue-black berries, it is never quite alone, and many of its attendants are fully as curious as the plant itself. One or more minute beetles prefer it to all other plants, yet not because of the peculiar odor. At least, the same creatures do not crowd decaying flesh. On the other hand, the dainty flies that linger about the ruddy phlox, the blue iris, and purple pentstemon tarry likewise about the carrion-flower and find it a pleasant place, if one may judge by the length of time they stay.

I was somewhat surprised to find this to be the case, as I looked for a repetition on a small scale of what is recorded of those strange plants, the Rafflesiaceæ found in the tropics. Forbes, in his Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago, records that once he “nearly trampled on a fine, new species of that curious family…; it smelt powerfully of putrid flesh, and was infested with a crowd of flies, which followed me all the way as I carried it home, and was besides overrun with ants.”

So far my own observation. What say others?

Let us turn, however, to a more savory subject. Undeterred by possible whiffs of sickening scent, I followed the example of my friend the meadow-mouse, and crept into the largest smilax wigwam I could find. It was sufficiently roomy for all my needs, and shed the sun’s rays better than it would have done the drops of a summer shower. The east wind brought the rank odor of the marshes, and more fitfully the tinkling notes of the marsh-wrens that now crowd the rank growths of typha; but sweeter songs soon rang out near by, as the nervous Maryland yellow-throat, thinking me gone, perched within arm’s length and sang with all its energy. The power of that wee creature’s voice was absolutely startling. We seldom realize how far off many a bird may be, when we hear it sing; often looking immediately about us when a strange note falls upon our ears. Certainly this yellow-throat’s utterance might have been distinctly heard a quarter of a mile away. Such shrill whistling is no child’s play, either. Every feather of the bird was rumpled, the tail slightly spread, the wings partly uplifted, and the body swayed up and down as the notes, seven of them, were screeched – I can think of no more expressive word. It was not musical; and yet this bird has long been ranked, to my mind, as one of our most pleasing songsters. It needs a few rods’ distance however, to smooth away the rough edges.

But the great point gained in the day’s outing was to find that even the carrion-flower could be put to such good use. It makes a capital observatory, wherein and wherefrom to study the life of the open meadows. To these Nature-built shelters you are always welcome; the latch-string is always hanging out, and if perchance you do not share its single room with many a creature that loves the shade at noontide, and, so while away many an hour in choicest company, you may lie at its open door and watch the strange procession that forever passes by. It may be a mink, a mouse, or a musk-rat may hurry by, bound on some errand that piques your curiosity. A lazy turtle may waddle to your den and gaze in blank astonishment at you; and, better than all else, the pretty garter snakes will come and go, salute you with a graceful darting of their forked tongues and then pass on, perhaps to tell their neighbor what strange sights they have seen. And as the day draws to a close, what myriad songs rise from every blade of grass! Hosts of unseen musicians pipe to the passing breeze; and crickets everywhere chirp so shrilly that the house about me trembles.

The day is done; but the night brings no end of novelty. The moping herons are no longer stupid; the blinking owls are all activity. Afar off the whip-poor-will calls – who knows why? – and the marsh-owl protests, as well it may, at such unseemly clatter. How quickly into a new world has the familiar meadow grown! Through the half-naked beam and rafters of my leafy tent I watch the night-prowling birds go hurrying by, and follow their shadows as the weird bats flit before me, for the moon has risen, and in its pallid light every familiar tree and shrub and all the night-loving wild-life of the meadows is wrapped in uncanny garbs. It is fitting now that a filmy mist should rise as a curtain and shut out the view. “He is none of us,” seems to shout every creature in my ear, and, taking the hint, I pick my way homeward through the dripping grass.

A Wayside Brook

It is not that I may indulge in mock heroics that I champion the so-called waste-places, but out of pure love for the merits of even the least of Nature’s work. A single cedar casts sufficient shade for me, and, resting full length on a bed of yarrow, I have, at once the breath of the tropics and the aroma of the Spice Islands wherewith to while away these July days. From such a spot there is pleasure too in watching the shifting scenes of the sunlit world beyond – a pleasure greater than peering into the depths of a dark, monotonous swamp or pathless wood. But if this is simplifying matters beyond reasonable limits, then let us to a wayside brook, and to the shade and spiciness add the music of rippling waters. Surely this should suffice the idle saunterer at midsummer. When it is ninety in the shade, it is wiser to watch the minnows in a brook than to battle with pickerel in the mill-pond. Nor should such contemplation be too trivial for one’s fancy. Even little fishes have their ups and downs, although everything goes swimmingly with them. As has been said somewhere, if my memory plays me no tricks, the fish-world is diversified by other occurrences than feeding or going to feed others. In other words, they have impressions, vague though they may be, of the world about them, and existence is something more than —

“A cold, sweet, silver life, wrapped in round waves,Quickened with touches of transporting fear.”

The brook need not be deep nor wide, and may wander through many a rod of dusty fields, scarcely covering the pebbles that bestrew its bed, and yet contain fishes. I have often been surprised to find many small minnows in brooks that were scarcely more than damp, except here and there a spring-hole, or pool, about the roots of a tree. Such places are noble hunting-grounds if the rambler is an enthusiastic naturalist, and many a chapter might be written concerning our smallest fishes. Except to very few, they are wholly unknown.

On the bank of a little wayside brook I tarried for half a day recently, with minnows, birds, and dragon-flies to keep me company, and what a royal time we had! At first the fish were shy, and took refuge under flat pebbles but I coaxed them forth at last by tossing crumbs before them. At ease, so far as I was concerned, they commenced their beautiful game of chasing sunbeams, the largest stone in the stream being the base from which they ceaselessly darted to and fro. The flashing of the fishes’ silvery sides, the darting rays of sunlight, the sparkle of the great bubbles that danced on every ripple, proved a very carnival of light and color, the soul of which was this company of fun-loving minnows. In saying this, I intend to convey all the meaning that such a phrase comprehends – in other words, to ascribe to these small fishes a pronounced degree of intelligence.

Their life proved not without its shadows, however, as very often their merriment was changed to terror in a twinkling. It happened that a gorgeous dragon-fly came with a sudden onset to the little brook and filled these fish with fear while it hovered above them. I leave it to others to say why the minnows should have been afraid. Has any person ever seen a dragon-fly catch a fish?

Prof. Seeley, writing of a European cyprinoid, remarks, “Probably every person who has ever looked into a small stream has been surprised by the singular way in which minnows constantly arrange themselves in circles like the petals of a flower, with their heads nearly meeting in the center, and tails diverging at equal distances.” I looked for this, but our Jersey minnows were not so methodically inclined, and all kept their heads in one direction, up-stream, until at a certain point, when, as if on signal given, they would, right about face, and dart down-stream for a yard or two, re-form, and as a company make their way to the dispersing point, a thin slab of stone that barred their further passage.

So, in this most unpromising spot I found no end of entertainment, and, except in midsummer, would not have tired of any single feature; but study, even studies a-field, are irksome in July, and I forgot the minnows as my eyes fell upon a large slab of stone near where I was lying. It was one of four broad stepping-stones that nearly two centuries ago were placed here. Then, there flowed, through a thick woods, a broad stream, and near here the first house was built. Upon these stones had stepped the grave elders and loitered the light-hearted children of three generations; and now not a trace of house, garden, barn, woods, or pasture remains. Everything has given way to more pretentious structures, broader fields, and painfully angular highways. The one-time winding lane, shaded by noble oaks, is now not even to be traced across the fields; and, instead thereof, a narrow sunny strip of yellow sand leads to the public road. “What an improvement!” once remarked a neighbor, when the change was made. What an improvement, indeed! where once was beauty, one finds, save this little remnant of a creek, an endless array of fields, with scarcely a tree along the division fences. Doubtless, could the brook have been obliterated, the work would have been undertaken. As it is, the narrow strip is all that Nature can call her own, and so, whatever of her charms can find a place, here she sets them down; and so here a rambler may be happy, or fairly content at least, if he does not raise his eyes continually to scan the horizon. I, for one, on the half-loaf principle, accept the wayside brooks with thankfulness, and now after long years have found that in many an essential feature they do not suffer so greatly as one might suppose when compared with Nature’s more pretentious waterways. Let Nature, on however small a scale, have the upper hand, and at such a spot the rambler can afford to tarry. But perhaps I am partial, for this was my playground, forty years ago; still, I would say —

Let not the wayside dells go unregarded;Why ever longing for the hills or sea?Who loves earth’s modest gifts is well rewarded,And hears the wood-thrush sing as cheerilyAs when by mountain brooks it trills its lay,To soothe the dying moments of the day.Here, where no busy toilers ever rest,Where but the wayside weeds reach from the sod,I love to be the merry cricket’s guest,And find, though all is mean, no soulless clod;The bubbling spring, the mossy pebbles near,The stunted beech, they all are justly dear.Like-minded birds – so I am not alone —Linger as lovingly around the spot,Whose subtle charm such mighty spell has thrown,That wander where I will, ’tis ne’er forgot;Here, child and bird learned first to love the sky,The tree, the spring, the grass whereon I lie.When timid Spring warms with her smile the way,With all-impatient steps I hasten here;No bloom so bright in all the bowers of May,As the pale violets that cluster near:Bright grow the skies, nor troubling shadows fall;Childhood returns, when joy encompassed all.

Wayside Trees

Who that has ever walked in the country has not blessed the farmer who planted, or early settler who spared, the wayside trees? The average country road, especially in the poorer farming districts, is something deplorable. Only too often, even when shady and otherwise attractive, there lies only the choice of wallowing through sand, stumbling over rocks, or tripping over briers that would shame the Gordian knot for close entanglement.

It is unreasonable to expect well-worn paths, far from the town’s limits, unless Nature has provided them: but something a little better than the remote highways, as they now are, might certainly be had. Is there not sufficient tax collected in every township to secure this? Probably the farmer who never walks to the village, and finds the wagon-way fairly passable, may insist that the pedestrian can pick his way, however rough the ground. True, but this does not dissipate the pedestrian’s just claims. A man that must walk, because too poor to ride, is none the less worthy of consideration, and may well grumble if his right of way is blocked. Of course, man must take the world as he finds it, and alter it if he can; and such an alteration is practicable where good roads or foot-paths can not be, in the planting and preservation of wayside trees.

Such was the current of my thoughts when I met, recently, the overseer of a highway resting, at noon, from his labors. To him, and for him, a little speech was made; and what was the reply? “Too many shade-trees will encourage the tramps”! So he who loves to wander out of town must take the dusty highways as they are, and sigh for pleasant shade he can not enter. To plant a wayside tree, to have a country byway beautiful, must not be thought of – it will encourage the tramps!

Now, it so happens that, near where I live, a chestnut-tree was spared, two centuries ago, probably because it was too crooked for fence-rails. Certainly for no praiseworthy motive was it allowed to stand; but it does, and so to-day it casts a shadow in which half a regiment might gather. Not strangely at all, every man, woman, and child in the neighborhood loves the old tree, and points to it with pride. Were it struck by lightning, it would have a public funeral. And yet I have not found that any of my neighbors, except those very near the town, have planted even a single wayside tree. On the contrary, a noble row of catalpas was felled not long since for fence-posts!

A wayside tree means, to the pedestrian, something more than a mere island of shade in an ocean of sunshine. A stately tree has many lovers, and hosts of birds are sure to crowd its branches. Such a tree then becomes the Mecca whereat the rambler spends the hours of hot high noon, not only pleasurably but profitably – for I hold that a bird can not be watched for long without gain. Is it nothing, as one rests in the shade after a long tramp, to have a wood-thrush sing to him? Is it not a lesson to the weak-hearted to hear the restless red-eye’s ceaseless song? The perverse grumbler, has he a trace of reason, will, at least secretly, own that much of which he complains might be far worse, after listening to the singing of a bird perched in a wayside tree. Though shorn of so much that Nature granted to the most commonplace of lands, chaos has not quite come again. Certainly, however barren a sandy field may look, it is not yet a desert.

As any ornithologist will tell you, birds, though there be little that favors them and much that is harmful beset them everywhere, will persistently cling to a tree by the roadside; will even nest in it, although the ubiquitous small boy showers them with stones; and, more, though persecution is the order of their day, will sing as in a paradise regained, thankful that the world has even this much of untamed nature left.

If, then, in spite of themselves, farmers love what wayside trees there are, why can we not have more? Think of a leisured stroll, of a hot summer’s day, through a long avenue of leafy oaks!

Skeleton-Lifting

There are probably very few people but have seen the pretty stone arrow-heads that are found, often in abundance, after the fields have been plowed. I have often filled my pockets with them while wandering about, and, in the words of a friend, “been amazed at the numbers which are sown over the face of our country, betokening a most prolonged possession of the soil by their makers. For a hunting population is always sparse, and the collector finds only those arrow-heads which lie upon the surface.” But if their handiwork is abundant, not so their skeletons, and it is the uncanny taste of archæologists to prize the bones as well as the weapons of the Indians. Still, it is not more objectionable to carefully preserve the bones in a glass case than to scatter them with the plowshare.

Because it is well to turn aside from beaten tracks occasionally, that we may appreciate their beauty the more upon our return, and avoid the danger of having the sweets of the upland or the meadow pall, I have been indulging, of late, in archæological pursuits; been gathering relics, though the locust and wild cherry drooped with their burden of bright bloom, and the grosbeaks wooed me to the hillside. Notwithstanding this, I resolutely turned my back upon bird and blossom alike, and sought a neighbor’s field, over which waved tall and stately grain. It was proposed to give the day, but, as it proved, the night was added, to archæology.

There were weighty reasons, of course, for this intrusion upon my neighbor’s land, as no sane man without a potent incentive would dare to walk through growing grain. What moved me to so bold a deed was this: Last autumn I discovered that my farmer neighbor had two skeletons, and of one of which he neither had any use nor knowledge of its existence. When apprised of the fact, he expressed no surprise, but resolutely declined my offer to become the custodian of the superfluous bones, and even went so far as to make appropriation next to impossible. But I bided my time, and now, these bright June days, the grain kindly covers the ground and every creeping thing upon it, as it proved when a dog bounded into the field on the trail of a rabbit. I forthwith took the hint and crept upon the trail of a dead Indian. The danger of discovery – real, not fancied – gave something of zest to the work. With only a garden trowel, the earth, over a marked spot, was carefully removed, and as I had all the while to lie upon my breast while at work, the task was a painfully slow one, and I more than once wished myself away, until a few small bones were brought to light. Then all thought of discomfort vanished. Bone after bone was slowly uncovered, but all, alas! were so friable that not one could be removed with safety. In a short time the entire skeleton was laid bare, but under what strange circumstances! I had it within my grasp, but could not move it, nor indeed myself, more than to crouch in the tall grain about me. It was too like digging one’s own grave, and once, imagining an approach, I lay full length by the side of my fleshless friend. The day of my rejoicing had come, it is true, but there proved to be an overabundance of thorns with the rose. Here was the long-coveted skeleton; but within hearing, in the adjoining field, was a burly farmer, passing to and fro with his plow. Whenever he came near, the grinning skull grew pale, as though it, too, feared discovery; and so, until the dinner-horn sounded across-lots, I was held a prisoner. How anxiously did I listen for retreating steps and the rattling of the unloosened plow-chains! – welcome sounds that came at last, assuring me that the coast was clear. Then, leaving the treasure to the kindly sun that was rapidly warming it to hardness, I sped dinnerward.

The Fates were intolerably cruel that day. At sunset, when I purposed to return, innumerable obstacles loomed up, and every excuse to run away from company that had most inopportunely arrived was pooh-poohed by madam, in a most meaning manner; and it was just midnight when the open grave was reached. The full moon at that moment broke through the clouds, and a flood of pallid light filled the spot when I shook hands with the fleshless warrior and forced myself to return the ghastly grin of his angular countenance. There was something of defiance, too, in his eyeless sockets, and a ghost of resistance as he was lifted from a couch that he had occupied for some three thousand moons at least. The rattle of his disjointedness was as harsh as the language that once he spake, and while I thridded the woods and skirted, on my way home, the resounding marshes, where every frog most ominously croaked, every jostle of the warrior’s bones seemed to force a protesting syllable between his rattling teeth.

With all deference to the votaries of archæology, skeleton-lifting by moonlight is, I claim, a most uncanny pastime.

Why I prefer a Country Life

Uz Gaunt was, in the writer’s experience, the most level-headed of farmers. He once remarked, “Town folks smile at my vim and way of putting things, but I’d rather be next neighbor to Natur’ than to most of the town folks.” That remark impressed me many a year ago as a nugget of pure wisdom, and now, when on the shady side of forty, I still think it wiser than any casual remark, learned essay, or eloquent oration I have ever heard in town.

It is a sad error to suppose that a rustic is akin to a fool; and a citizen’s real worth may be measured by his manner of speaking of the country people. That a significant difference obtains can scarcely be denied, but it is not one that altogether exalts the dweller in town and degrades the farmer. Will any one pretend to say that the latter is less intelligent or refined? The simple fact is, the two classes are differently educated: the townsman largely by books, the farmer to a great extent by his surroundings; the former comes by his facts through hearsay, the latter by observation. In other words, the citizen tends to artificiality, the farmer to naturalness. The one is educated, the other acquires knowledge. Dead, weigh their brains, and which may claim the greater number of ounces?

And here let me say, in passing, that not all knowledge worth possessing has yet got into books. Is it not true that the brightest features of current literature treat of the world outside a city’s limits? What, indeed, would modern novels be without something besides brick and mortar for a background? Will the reader become enthusiastic over a story the scenes of which shift only from Brown’s parlor to Jones’s and back again?

The thrifty farmer may see nothing that attracts in the ball-room, and fail to follow the thread of the story, or be charmed by the airs of an opera; but has he not a compensation therefor in the Gothic arches of his woodland, beneath which tragedy and comedy are daily enacted? And what of the songs at sunrise, when the thrush, the grosbeak, and a host of warblers greet him at the outset of his daily toil?

Town and country are interdependent; but, considered calmly and in all its bearings, does not the former ask more of the latter, than vice versa? Has not the influx of rural vigor an incalculable value? Does it not prevent, in fact, the very destruction of the city, by checking the downward course that artificiality necessarily takes?

But, as the heading of this article indicates, I do not propose to enter into any controversy as to the relative merits of city or country life, but simply to state why I prefer the latter. And may all those to whom my reasons seem insufficient flock to the towns and become, what our country certainly needs, good citizens.

I prefer an oak-tree to a temple; grass to a brick pavement; wild flowers beneath a blue sky to exotic orchids under glass. I would walk where I do not risk being jostled, and, if I see fit to swing my arms, leap a ditch, or climb a tree, I want no gaping crowd, when I do so, to hedge me in. In short, I prefer living “next neighbor to Nature.” I am free to admit I know very little about the town. It has ever been a cheerless place to me: cold as charity in winter, hot as an oven in summer, and lacking nearly all those features that make the country well-nigh a paradise in spring and autumn. Vividly do I recall the saddest sight in my experience – that of seeing on the window-sill of a wretched tenement-house a broken flower-pot holding a single wilted buttercup, and near it was the almost fleshless face of a little child.