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diff --git a/42444-0.txt b/42444-0.txt index d05d9d6..80fb851 100644 --- a/42444-0.txt +++ b/42444-0.txt @@ -1,36 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Face of the Fields, by Dallas Lore Sharp - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Face of the Fields - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: March 31, 2013 [EBook #42444] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FACE OF THE FIELDS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42444 *** +--------------------------------------------+ | By Dallas Lore Sharp | @@ -4698,362 +4666,4 @@ U · S · A End of Project Gutenberg's The Face of the Fields, by Dallas Lore Sharp -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FACE OF THE FIELDS *** - -***** This file should be named 42444-0.txt or 42444-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/4/4/42444/ - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Face of the Fields - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: March 31, 2013 [EBook #42444] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FACE OF THE FIELDS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - +--------------------------------------------+ - | By Dallas Lore Sharp | - | | - | | - | THE FACE OF THE FIELDS, 12mo, $1.25, | - | _net_. Postage extra. | - | | - | THE LAY OF THE LAND, 12mo, $1.25, _net_. | - | Postage, 15 cents. | - | | - | | - | HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY | - | | - | BOSTON AND NEW YORK | - +--------------------------------------------+ - - - - - THE FACE OF THE FIELDS - - BY DALLAS LORE SHARP - - - AUTHOR OF "WILD LIFE NEAR HOME," "ROOF AND - MEADOW," AND "THE LAY OF THE LAND" - - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - The Riverside Press Cambridge - 1911 - - - COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DALLAS LORE SHARP - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - _Published March 1911_ - - - _TO MY GOOD FRIEND_ - - HINCKLEY GILBERT MITCHELL - - _HONEST SCHOLAR_ - - - - - CONTENTS - - - I. THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 1 - - II. TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ 27 - - III. THE EDGE OF NIGHT 57 - - IV. THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS 81 - - V. THE NATURE-WRITER 111 - - VI. JOHN BURROUGHS 141 - - VII. HUNTING THE SNOW 177 - - VIII. THE CLAM FARM 193 - - IX. THE COMMUTER'S THANKSGIVING 217 - - - -All but two of these papers made their first appearance in _The -Atlantic Monthly_. "The Nature-Writer" was first printed in _The -Outlook_ and "Hunting the Snow" in _The Youth's Companion_. - - - - -I - -THE FACE OF THE FIELDS - - - - -THE FACE OF THE FIELDS - - -There was a swish of wings, a flash of gray, a cry of pain, a -squawking, cowering, scattering flock of hens, a weakly fluttering -pullet, and yonder, swinging upward into the October sky, a marsh -hawk, buoyant and gleaming silvery in the sun. Over the trees he beat, -circled once, and disappeared. - -The hens were still flapping for safety in a dozen directions, but the -gray harrier had gone. A bolt of lightning could not have dropped so -unannounced, could not have vanished so completely, could scarcely -have killed so quickly. I ran to the pullet, but found her dead. The -harrier's stroke, delivered with fearful velocity, had laid head and -neck open as with a keen knife. Yet a fraction slower and he would -have missed, for the pullet caught the other claw on her wing. The -gripping talons slipped off the long quills, and the hawk swept on -without his quarry. He dared not come back for it at my feet; and so -with a single turn above the woods he was gone. - -The scurrying hens stopped to look about them. There was nothing in -the sky to see. They stood still and silent a moment. The rooster -_chucked_. Then one by one they turned back into the open pasture. A -huddled group under the hen-yard fence broke up and came out with the -others. Death had flashed among them, but had missed _them_. Fear had -come, but had gone. Within two minutes--in less time--from the fall of -the stroke, every hen in the flock was intent at her scratching, or as -intently chasing the gray grasshoppers over the pasture. - -Yet, as they scratched, the high-stepping cock would frequently cast -up his eye toward the treetops; would sound his alarum at the flight -of a robin; and if a crow came over, he would shout and dodge and -start to run. But instantly the shadow would pass, and instantly -chanticleer-- - - He loketh as it were a grim leoun, - And on his toos he rometh up and doun; - * * * * * - Thus roial, as a prince is in an halle. - -He wasn't afraid. Cautious, alert, watchful he was, but not fearful. -No shadow of dread hangs dark and ominous across the sunshine of his -pasture. Shadows come--like a flash; and like a flash they vanish -away. - -We cannot go far into the fields without sighting the hawk and the -snake, the very shapes of Death. The dread Thing, in one form or -another, moves everywhere, down every wood-path and pasture-lane, -through the black close waters of the mill-pond, out under the open of -the winter sky, night and day, and every day, the four seasons -through. I have seen the still surface of a pond break suddenly with a -swirl, and flash a hundred flecks of silver into the light, as the -minnows leap from the jaws of the pike. Then a loud rattle, a streak -of blue, a splash at the centre of the swirl, and I see the pike, -twisting and bending in the beak of the kingfisher. The killer is -killed; but at the mouth of the nest-hole in the steep sandbank, -swaying from a root in the edge of the turf above, hangs the black -snake, the third killer, and the belted kingfisher, dropping the pike, -darts off with a cry. I have been afield at times when one tragedy has -followed another in such rapid and continuous succession as to put a -whole shining, singing, blossoming world under a pall. Everything has -seemed to cower, skulk, and hide, to run as if pursued. There was no -peace, no stirring of small life, not even in the quiet of the deep -pines; for here a hawk would be nesting, or a snake would be sleeping, -or I would hear the passing of a fox, see perhaps his keen hungry face -an instant as he halted, winding me. - -Fox and snake and hawk are real, but not the absence of peace and -joy--except within my own breast. There is struggle and pain and death -in the woods, and there is fear also, but the fear does not last long; -it does not haunt and follow and terrify; it has no being, no -substance, no continuance. The shadow of the swiftest scudding cloud -is not so fleeting as this shadow in the woods, this Fear. The lowest -of the animals seem capable of feeling it; yet the very highest of -them seem incapable of dreading it; for them Fear is not of the -imagination, but of the sight, and of the passing moment. - - The present only toucheth thee! - -It does more, it throngs him--our fellow mortal of the stubble field, -the cliff, and the green sea. Into the present is lived the whole of -his life--none of it is left to a storied past, none sold to a -mortgaged future. And the whole of this life is action; and the whole -of this action is joy. The moments of fear in an animal's life are -moments of reaction, negative, vanishing. Action and joy are constant, -the joint laws of all animal life, of all nature, from the shining -stars that sing together, to the roar of a bitter northeast storm -across these wintry fields. - -We shall get little rest and healing out of nature until we have -chased this phantom Fear into the dark of the moon. It is a most -difficult drive. The pursued too often turns pursuer, and chases us -back into our burrows, where there is nothing but the dark to make us -afraid. If every time a bird cries in alarm, a mouse squeaks with -pain, or a rabbit leaps in fear from beneath our feet, we, too, leap -and run, dodging the shadow as if it were at our own heels, then we -shall never get farther toward the open fields than Chuchundra, the -muskrat, gets toward the middle of the bungalow floor. We shall always -creep around by the wall, whimpering. - -But there is no such thing as fear out of doors. There was, there will -be; you may see it for an instant on your walk to-day, or think you -see it; but there are the birds singing as before, and as before the -red squirrel, under cover of large words, is prying into your -purposes. The universal chorus of nature is never stilled. This part, -or that, may cease for a moment, for a season it may be, only to let -some other part take up the strain; as the winter's deep bass voices -take it from the soft lips of the summer, and roll it into thunder, -until the naked hills seem to rock to the measures of the song. - -So must we listen to the winter winds, to the whistle of the soaring -hawk, to the cry of the trailing hounds. - -I have had more than one hunter grip me excitedly, and with almost a -command bid me hear the music of the baying pack. There are hollow -halls in the swamps that lie to the east and north and west of me, -that catch up the cry of the fox hounds, that blend it, mellow it, -round it, and roll it, rising and falling over the meadows these -autumn nights in great globes of sound, as pure and sweet as the -pearly notes of the wood thrush rolling around their silver basin in -the summer dusk. - -It is a different kind of music when the pack breaks into the open on -the warm trail: a chorus then of individual tongues singing the -ecstasy of pursuit. My blood leaps; the natural primitive wild thing -of muscle and nerve and instinct within me slips its leash, and on -past with the pack it drives, the scent of the trail single and sweet -in its nostrils, a very fire in its blood, motion, motion, motion in -its bounding muscles, and in its being a mighty music, spheric and -immortal, a carol, chant and pæan, nature's "unjarred chime,"-- - - The fair music that all creatures made - To their great Lord, whose love their motions swayed - In perfect diapason, whilst they stood - In first obedience, and their state of good. - -But what about the fox and his share in this gloria? It is a solemn -music to him, certainly, loping wearily on ahead; but what part has he -in the chorus? No part, perhaps, unless we grimly call him its -conductor. But the point is the chorus, that it never ceases, the -hounds at this moment, not the fox, in the leading rôle. - -"But the chorus ceases for me," you say. "My heart is with the poor -fox." So is mine, and mine is with the dogs too. Many a night I have -bayed with the pack, and as often, oftener, I think, I have loped and -dodged and doubled with the fox, pitting limb against limb, lung -against lung, wit against wit, and always escaping. More than once, in -the warm moonlight of the early fall, I have led them on and on, -spurring their lagging muscles with a sight of my brush, on and on, -through the moonlit night, through the day, on into the moon again, -and on until--only the stir of my own footsteps has followed me. Then -doubling once more, creeping back a little upon my track, I have -looked at my pursuers, silent and stiff upon the trail, and, ere the -echo of their cry has died away, I have caught up the chorus and -carried it single-throated through the wheeling singing spheres. - -There is more of fact than of fancy to this. That a fox ever purposely -ran a dog to death, would be hard to prove; but that the dogs run -themselves to death in a single extended chase after a single fox is a -common occurrence here in the woods about the farm. Occasionally the -fox may be overtaken by the hounds; seldom, however, except in the -case of a very young one or of a stranger, unacquainted with the lay -of the land, driven into the rough country here by an unusual -combination of circumstances. - -I have been both fox and hound; I have run the race too often not to -know that both enjoy it at times, fox as much as hound. Some weeks ago -the dogs carried a young fox around and around the farm, hunting him -here, there, everywhere, as if in a game of hide-and-seek. An old fox -would have led them on a long coursing run across the range. It was -early fall and warm, so that at dusk the dogs were caught and taken -off the trail. The fox soon sauntered up through the mowing field -behind the barn, came out upon the bare knoll near the house, and sat -there in the moonlight yapping down at Rex and Dewy, the house dogs in -the two farms below. Rex is a Scotch collie, Dewy a dreadful mix of -dog-dregs. He had been tail-ender in the pack for a while during the -afternoon. Both dogs answered back at the young fox. But he could not -egg them on. Rex was too fat, Dewy had had enough; not so the young -fox. It had been fun. He wanted more. "Come on, Dewy!" he cried. "Come -on, Rex, play tag again. You're still 'it.'" - -I was at work with my chickens one day when the fox broke from cover -in the tall woods, struck the old wagon road along the ridge, and came -at a gallop down behind the hencoops, with five hounds not a minute -behind. They passed with a crash and were gone--up over the ridge and -down into the east swamp. Soon I noticed that the pack had broken, -deploying in every direction, beating the ground over and over. -Reynard had given them the slip, on the ridge-side, evidently, for -there were no cries from below in the swamp. - -The noon whistles blew, and leaving my work I went down to re-stake my -cow in the meadow. I had just drawn her chain-pin when down the road -through the orchard behind me came the fox, hopping high up and down, -his neck stretched, his eye peeled for poultry. Spying a white hen of -my neighbor's, he made for her, clear to the barnyard wall. Then, -hopping higher for a better view, he sighted another hen in the front -yard, skipped in gayly through the fence, seized her, loped across the -road, and away up the birch-grown hills beyond. - -The dogs had been at his very heels ten minutes before. He had fooled -them. He had done it again and again. They were even now yelping at -the end of the baffling trail behind the ridge. Let them yelp. It is a -kind and convenient habit of dogs, this yelping, one can tell so -exactly where they are. Meantime one can take a turn for one's self at -the chase, get a bite of chicken, a drink of water, a wink or two of -rest, and when the yelping gets warm again, one is quite ready to pick -up one's heels and lead the pack another merry dance. The fox is -almost a humorist. - -This is the way the races are all run off. Now and then they may end -tragically. A fox cannot reckon on the hunter with a gun. Only dogs -entered into the account when the balance in the scheme of things was -struck for the fox. But, mortal finish or no, the spirit of the chase -is neither rage nor terror, but the excitement of a matched game, the -ecstasy of pursuit for the hound, the passion of escape for the fox, -without fury or fear--except for the instant at the start and at the -finish--when it is a finish. - -This is the spirit of the chase--of the race, more truly, for it is -always a race, where the stake is not life and death, as we conceive -of life and death, but rather the joy of being. The hound cares as -little for his own life as for the life he is hunting. It is the race, -instead; it is the moment of crowded, complete, supreme existence for -him--"glory" we call it when men run it off together. Death, and the -fear of death, are inconceivable to the animal mind. Only enemies -exist in the world out of doors, only hounds, foxes, hawks--they, and -their scents, their sounds and shadows; and not fear, but readiness -only. The level of wild life, of the soul of all nature, is a great -serenity. It is seldom lowered, but often raised to a higher level, -intenser, faster, more exultant. - -The serrate pines on my horizon are not the pickets of a great pen. My -fields and swamps and ponds are not one wide battlefield, as if the -only work of my wild neighbors were bloody war, and the whole of their -existence a reign of terror. This is a universe of law and order and -marvelous balance; conditions these of life, of normal, peaceful, -joyous life. Life and not death is the law, joy and not fear is the -spirit, is the frame of all that breathes, of very matter itself. - - And ever at the loom of Birth - The Mighty Mother weaves and sings; - She weaves--fresh robes for mangled earth; - She sings--fresh hopes for desperate things. - -"For the rest," says Hathi, most unscientific of elephants, in the -most impossible of Jungle Stories, "for the rest, Fear walks up and -down the Jungle by day and by night.... And only when there is one -great Fear over all, as there is now, can we of the Jungle lay aside -our little fears and meet together in one place as we do now." - -Now, the law of the Indian Jungle is as old and as true as the sky, -and just as widespread and as all-encompassing. It is the identical -law of my New England pastures. It obtains here as it holds far away -yonder. The trouble is all with Hathi. Hathi has lived so long in a -British camp, has seen so few men but British soldiers, and has felt -so little law but British military law in India, that very naturally -Hathi gets the military law and the Jungle law mixed up. - - Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they; - But the head and the hoof of the Law, and the haunch and the hump - is--Obey! - -else one of the little fears, or the BIG FEAR, will get you! - -But this is the Law of the Camp, and as beautifully untrue of the -Jungle, and of my woods and pastures, as Hathi's account of how, -before Fear came, the First of the Tigers ate grass. Still, -Nebuchadnezzar ate grass, and he also grew eagles' feathers upon his -body. Perhaps the First of the Tigers had feathers instead of fur, -though Hathi is silent as to that, saying only that the First of the -Tigers had no stripes. It might not harm us to remember, however, that -nowadays--as was true in the days of the Sabretooth tiger (he is a -fossil)--tigers eat grass only when they feel very bad, or when they -find a bunch of catnip. The wild animals that Hathi knew are more -marvelous than the Wild Animals I Have Known, but Hathi's knowledge of -Jungle law is all stuff and nonsense. - -There is no ogre, Fear, no command, Obey, but the widest kind of a -personal permit to live--joyously, abundantly, intensely, frugally at -times, painfully at times, and always with large liberty; until, -suddenly, the time comes to Let Live, when death is almost sure to be -instant, with little pain, and less fear. - -But am I not generalizing from the single case of the fox and hounds? -or at most from two cases--the hen and the hawk? And are not these -cases far from typical? Fox and hound are unusually matched, both of -them are canines, and so closely related that the dog has been known -to let a she-fox go unharmed at the end of an exciting hunt. Suppose -the fox were a defenseless rabbit, what of fear and terror then? - -Ask any one who has shot in the rabbity fields of southern New Jersey. -The rabbit seldom runs in blind terror. He is soft-eyed, and timid, -and as gentle as a pigeon, but he is not defenseless. A nobler set of -legs was never bestowed by nature than the little cotton-tail's. They -are as wings compared with the deformities that bear up the ordinary -rabbit hound. With winged legs, protecting color, a clear map of the -country in his head,--its stumps, rail-piles, cat-brier tangles, and -narrow rabbit-roads,--with all this as a handicap, Bunny may well run -his usual cool and winning race. The balance is just as even, the -chances quite as good, and the contest as interesting, to him as to -Reynard. - -I have seen a rabbit squat close in his form and let a hound pass -yelping within a few feet of him, but as ready as a hair-trigger -should he be discovered. I have seen him leap for his life as the dog -sighted him, and bounding like a ball across the stubble, disappear in -the woods, the hound within two jumps of his flashing tail. I have -waited at the end of the wood-road for the runners to come back, down -the home-stretch, for the finish. On they go for a quarter, or perhaps -half a mile, through the woods, the baying of the hound faint and -intermittent in the distance, then quite lost. No, there it is again, -louder now. They have turned the course. I wait. - -The quiet life of the woods is undisturbed, for the voice of the hound -is only an echo, not unlike the far-off tolling of a slow-swinging -bell. The leaves stir as a wood-mouse scurries from his stump; an -acorn rattles down; then in the winding wood-road I hear the _pit-pat, -pit-pat_, of soft furry feet, and there at the bend is the rabbit. He -stops, rises high up on his haunches, and listens. He drops again upon -all fours, scratches himself behind the ear, reaches over the cart-rut -for a nip of sassafras, hops a little nearer, and throws his big ears -forward in quick alarm, for he sees me, and, as if something had -exploded under him, he kicks into the air and is off,--leaving a -pretty tangle for the dog to unravel later on, by this mighty jump to -the side. - -My children and the man were witnesses recently of an exciting, and, -for this section of Massachusetts, a novel race, which, but for them, -must certainly have ended fatally. The boys had picked up the morning -fall of chestnuts, and were coming through the wood-lot where the man -was chopping, when down the hillside toward them rushed a little -chipmunk, his teeth a-chatter with terror, for close behind him, with -the easy wavy motion of a shadow, glided a dark brown animal, which -the man took on the instant for a mink, but which must have been a -large weasel or a pine marten. When almost at the feet of the boys, -and about to be seized by the marten, the squeaking chipmunk ran up a -tree. Up glided the marten, up for twenty feet. Then the chipmunk -jumped. It was a fearfully close call. The marten did not dare to -jump, but turned and started down, when the man intercepted him with a -stick. Around and around the tree he dodged, growling and snarling and -avoiding the stick, not a bit abashed, stubbornly holding his own, -until forced to seek refuge among the branches. Meanwhile the -terrified chipmunk had recovered his nerve and sat quietly watching -the sudden turn of affairs from a near-by stump. - -I climbed into the cupola of the barn this morning, as I frequently do -throughout the winter, and brought down a dazed junco that was beating -his life out up there against the window-panes. He lay on his back in -my open hand, either feigning death or really powerless with fear. His -eyes were closed, his whole tiny body throbbing convulsively with his -throbbing heart. Taking him to the door, I turned him over and gave -him a gentle toss. Instantly his wings flashed, they zigzagged him for -a yard or two, then bore him swiftly around the corner of the house -and dropped him in the midst of his fellows, where they were feeding -upon the lawn. He shaped himself up a little and fell to picking with -the others. - -From a state of collapse the laws of his being had brought the bird -into normal behavior as quickly and completely as the collapsed rubber -ball is rounded by the laws of its being. The memory of the fright -seems to have been an impression exactly like the dent in the rubber -ball--as if it had never been. - -Yet the analogy only half holds. Memories of the most tenacious kind -the animals surely have; but little or no voluntary, unaided power to -use them. Memory is largely a mechanical, a crank process with the -animals, a kind of magic-lantern show, where the concrete slide is -necessary for the picture on the screen; else the past as the future -hangs a blank. The dog will sometimes seem to cherish a grudge; so -will the elephant. Some one injures or wrongs him, and the huge beast -harbors the memory, broods it, and waits his opportunity for revenge. -Yet the records of these cases usually show the creature to be living -with the object of his hatred--keeper or animal--and that his memory -goes no further back than the present moment, than the sight of the -enemy; memory always taking an immediate, concrete shape. - -At my railroad station I frequently see a yoke of great sleepy, -bald-faced oxen, that look as much alike as two blackbirds. Their -driver knows them apart; but as they stand there bound to one another -by the heavy bar across their foreheads, it would puzzle anybody else -to tell Buck from Berry. But not if he approach them wearing an -overcoat. At sight of me in an overcoat the off ox will snort and back -and thresh about in terror, twisting the head of his yoke-fellow, -nearly breaking his neck, and trampling him miserably. But the nigh ox -is used to it. He chews and blinks away placidly, keeps his feet the -best he can, and doesn't try to understand at all why great-coats -should so frighten his cud-chewing brother. I will drop off my coat -and go up immediately to smooth the muzzles of both oxen, blinking -sleepily while the lumber is being loaded on. - -Years ago, the driver told me, the off ox was badly frightened by a -big woolly coat, the sight or smell of which suggested to the creature -some natural enemy, a panther, perhaps, or a bear. The memory -remained, but beyond recall except in the presence of its first cause, -the great-coat. - -To us, and momentarily to the lower animals, no doubt, there is a -monstrous, a desperate aspect to nature--night and drouth and cold, -the lightning, the hurricane, the earthquake: phases of nature that to -the scientific mind are often appalling, and to the unthinking and -superstitious are usually sinister, cruel, personal, leading to much -dark talk of banshees and of the mysteries of Providence--as if there -were still necessity to justify the ways of God to man! We are -clutched by these terrors even as the junco was clutched in my goblin -hand. When the mighty fingers open, we zigzag, dazed from the danger; -but fall to planning, before the tremors of the earth have ceased, how -we can build a greater and finer city on the ruins of the old. Upon -the crumbled heap of the second Messina the third will rise, and upon -that the fourth, unless the quaking site is forever swallowed by the -sea. Terror can kill the living, but it cannot hinder them from -forgetting, or prevent them from hoping, or, for more than an instant, -stop them from doing. Such is the law of being--the law of the Jungle, -of Heaven, of my pastures, of myself, and of the little junco. The -light of the sun may burn out, motion may cease, matter vanish away, -and life come to an end; but so long as life continues it must -continue to assert itself, to obey the law of being--to multiply and -replenish the earth, and rejoice. - -Life, like Law and Matter, is all of one piece. The horse in my -stable, the robin, the toad, the beetle, the vine in my garden, the -garden itself, and I together with them all, come out of the same -divine dust; we all breathe the same divine breath; we have our beings -under the same divine law; only they do not know that the law, the -breath, and the dust are divine. If I do know, and yet can so readily -forget such knowledge, can so hardly cease from being, can so -eternally find the purpose, the hope, the joy of life within me, how -soon for them, my lowly fellow mortals, must vanish all sight of fear, -all memory of pain! And how abiding with them, how compelling, the -necessity to live! And in their unquestioning obedience what joy! - -The face of the fields is as changeful as the face of a child. Every -passing wind, every shifting cloud, every calling bird, every baying -hound, every shape, shadow, fragrance, sound, and tremor, are so many -emotions reflected there. But if time and experience and pain come, -they pass utterly away; for the face of the fields does not grow old -or wise or seamed with pain. It is always the face of a child,--asleep -in winter, awake in summer,--a face of life and health always, if we -will but see what pushes the falling leaves off, what lies in slumber -under the covers of the snow; if we will but feel the strength of the -north wind, and the wild fierce joy of the fox and hound as they -course the turning, tangling paths of the woodlands in their race with -one another against the record set by Life. - - - - -II - -TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ - - - - -TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ - - -It is one of the wonders of the world that so few books are written. -With every human being a possible book, and with many a human being -capable of becoming more books than the world could contain, is it not -amazing that the books of men are so few? And so stupid! - -I took down, recently, from the shelves of a great public library, the -four volumes of Agassiz's "Contributions to the Natural History of the -United States." I doubt if anybody but the charwoman, with her duster, -had touched those volumes for twenty-five years. They are an -excessively learned, a monumental, an epoch-making work, the fruit of -vast and heroic labors, with colored plates on stone, showing the -turtles of the United States, and their embryology. The work was -published more than half a century ago (by subscription); but it -looked old beyond its years--massive, heavy, weathered, as if dug from -the rocks. It was difficult to feel that Agassiz could have written -it--could have built it, grown it, for the laminated pile had -required for its growth the patience and painstaking care of a process -of nature, as if it were a kind of printed coral reef. Agassiz do -this? The big, human, magnetic man at work upon these pages of capital -letters, Roman figures, brackets, and parentheses in explanation of -the pages of diagrams and plates! I turned away with a sigh from the -weary learning, to read the preface. - -When a great man writes a great book he usually flings a preface after -it, and thereby saves it, sometimes, from oblivion. Whether so or not, -the best things in most books are their prefaces. It was not, however, -the quality of the preface to these great volumes that interested me, -but rather the wicked waste of durable book-material that went to its -making. Reading down through the catalogue of human names and of -thanks for help received, I came to a sentence beginning:-- - -"In New England I have myself collected largely; but I have also -received valuable contributions from the late Rev. Zadoc Thompson of -Burlington; ... from Mr. D. Henry Thoreau of Concord; ... and from Mr. -J. W. P. Jenks of Middleboro'." And then it hastens on with the -thanks in order to get to the turtles, as if turtles were the one and -only thing of real importance in all the world. - -Turtles no doubt are important, extremely important, embryologically, -as part of our genealogical tree; but they are away down among the -roots of the tree as compared with the late Rev. Zadoc Thompson of -Burlington. I happen to know nothing about the Rev. Zadoc, but to me -he looks very interesting. Indeed, any reverend gentleman of his name -and day who would catch turtles for Agassiz must have been -interesting. And as for D. Henry Thoreau, we know he was interesting. -The rarest wood-turtle in the United States was not so rare a specimen -as this gentleman of Walden Woods and Concord. We are glad even for -this line in the preface about him; glad to know that he tried, in -this untranscendental way, to serve his day and generation. If Agassiz -had only put a chapter in his turtle book about it! But this is the -material he wasted, this and more of the same human sort; for the "Mr. -J. W. P. Jenks of Middleboro'" (at the end of the quotation) was, some -years later, an old college professor of mine, who told me a few of -the particulars of his turtle contributions, particulars which Agassiz -should have found a place for in his big book. The preface, in another -paragraph, says merely that this gentleman sent turtles to Cambridge -by the thousands--brief and scanty recognition! For that is not the -only thing this gentleman did. On one occasion he sent, not turtles, -but turtle _eggs_ to Cambridge--_brought_ them, I should say; and all -there is to show for it, so far as I could discover, is a sectional -drawing of a bit of the mesoblastic layer of one of the eggs! - -Of course, Agassiz wanted to make that mesoblastic drawing, or some -other equally important drawing, and had to have the fresh turtle egg -to draw it from. He had to have it, and he got it. A great man, when -he wants a certain turtle egg, at a certain time, always gets it, for -he gets some one else to get it. I am glad he got it. But what makes -me sad and impatient is that he did not think it worth while to tell -about the getting of it, and so made merely a learned turtle book of -what might have been an exceedingly interesting human book. - -It would seem, naturally, that there could be nothing unusual or -interesting about the getting of turtle eggs when you want them. -Nothing at all, if you should chance to want the eggs as you chance to -find them. So with anything else,--good copper stock, for instance, if -you should chance to want it, and should chance to be along when they -chance to be giving it away. But if you want copper stock, say of C & -H quality, _when_ you want it, and are bound to have it, then you must -command more than a college professor's salary. And likewise, -precisely, when it is turtle eggs that you are bound to have. - -Agassiz wanted those turtle eggs when he wanted them--not a minute -over three hours from the minute they were laid. Yet even that does -not seem exacting, hardly more difficult than the getting of hen eggs -only three hours old. Just so, provided the professor could have had -his private turtle-coop in Harvard Yard; and provided he could have -made his turtles lay. But turtles will not respond, like hens, to -meat-scraps and the warm mash. The professor's problem was not to get -from a mud turtle's nest in the back yard to the table in the -laboratory; but to get from the laboratory in Cambridge to some pond -when the turtles were laying, and back to the laboratory within the -limited time. And this, in the days of Darius Green, might have called -for nice and discriminating work--as it did. - -Agassiz had been engaged for a long time upon his "Contributions." He -had brought the great work nearly to a finish. It was, indeed, -finished but for one small yet very important bit of observation: he -had carried the turtle egg through every stage of its development with -the single exception of one--the very earliest--that stage of first -cleavages, when the cell begins to segment, immediately upon its being -laid. That beginning stage had brought the "Contributions" to a halt. -To get eggs that were fresh enough to show the incubation at this -period had been impossible. - -There were several ways that Agassiz might have proceeded: he might -have got a leave of absence for the spring term, taken his laboratory -to some pond inhabited by turtles, and there camped until he should -catch the reptile digging out her nest. But there were difficulties in -all of that--as those who are college professors and naturalists -know. As this was quite out of the question, he did the easiest -thing--asked Mr. Jenks of Middleboro' to get him the eggs. Mr. Jenks -got them. Agassiz knew all about his getting of them; and I say the -strange and irritating thing is, that Agassiz did not think it worth -while to tell us about it, at least in the preface to his monumental -work. - -It was many years later that Mr. Jenks, then a gray-haired college -professor, told me how he got those eggs to Agassiz. - -"I was principal of an academy, during my younger years," he began, -"and was busy one day with my classes, when a large man suddenly -filled the doorway of the room, smiled to the four corners of the -room, and called out with a big, quick voice that he was Professor -Agassiz. - -"Of course he was. I knew it, even before he had had time to shout it -to me across the room. - -"Would I get him some turtle eggs? he called. Yes, I would. And would -I get them to Cambridge within three hours from the time they were -laid? Yes, I would. And I did. And it was worth the doing. But I did -it only once. - -"When I promised Agassiz those eggs I knew where I was going to get -them. I had got turtle eggs there before--at a particular patch of -sandy shore along a pond, a few miles distant from the academy. - -"Three hours was the limit. From my railroad station to Boston was -thirty-five miles; from the pond to the station was perhaps three or -four miles; from Boston to Cambridge we called about three miles. -Forty miles in round numbers! We figured it all out before he -returned, and got the trip down to two hours,--record time: driving -from the pond to the station; from the station by express train to -Boston; from Boston by cab to Cambridge. This left an easy hour for -accidents and delays. - -"Cab and car and carriage we reckoned into our time-table; but what we -didn't figure on was the turtle." And he paused abruptly. - -"Young man," he went on, his shaggy brows and spectacles hardly hiding -the twinkle in the eyes that were bent severely upon me, "young man, -when _you_ go after turtle eggs, take into account the turtle. No! no! -that's bad advice. Youth never reckons on the turtle--and youth seldom -ought to. Only old age does that; and old age would never have got -those turtle eggs to Agassiz. - -"It was in the early spring that Agassiz came to the academy, long -before there was any likelihood of the turtles laying. But I was eager -for the quest, and so fearful of failure, that I started out to watch -at the pond fully two weeks ahead of the time that the turtles might -be expected to lay. I remember the date clearly: it was May 14. - -"A little before dawn--along near three o'clock--I would drive over to -the pond, hitch my horse near by, settle myself quietly among some -thick cedars close to the sandy shore, and there I would wait, my -kettle of sand ready, my eye covering the whole sleeping pond. Here -among the cedars I would eat my breakfast, and then get back in good -season to open the academy for the morning session. - -"And so the watch began. - -"I soon came to know individually the dozen or more turtles that kept -to my side of the pond. Shortly after the cold mist would lift and -melt away, they would stick up their heads through the quiet water; -and as the sun slanted down over the ragged rim of treetops, the slow -things would float into the warm, lighted spots, or crawl out and -doze comfortably on the hummocks and snags. - -"What fragrant mornings those were! How fresh and new and unbreathed! -The pond odors, the woods odors, the odors of the ploughed fields--of -water-lily, and wild grape, and the dew-laid soil! I can taste them -yet, and hear them yet--the still, large sounds of the waking day--the -pickerel breaking the quiet with his swirl; the kingfisher dropping -anchor; the stir of feet and wings among the trees. And then the -thought of the great book being held up for me! Those were rare -mornings! - -"But there began to be a good many of them, for the turtles showed no -desire to lay. They sprawled in the sun, and never one came out upon -the sand as if she intended to help on the great professor's book. The -embryology of her eggs was of small concern to her; her Contribution -to the Natural History of the United States could wait. - -"And it did wait. I began my watch on the 14th of May; June 1st found -me still among the cedars, still waiting, as I had waited every -morning, Sundays and rainy days alike. June 1st was a perfect morning, -but every turtle slid out upon her log, as if egg-laying might be a -matter strictly of next year. - -"I began to grow uneasy,--not impatient yet, for a naturalist learns -his lesson of patience early, and for all his years; but I began to -fear lest, by some subtle sense, my presence might somehow be known to -the creatures; that they might have gone to some other place to lay, -while I was away at the schoolroom. - -"I watched on to the end of the first week, on to the end of the -second week in June, seeing the mists rise and vanish every morning, -and along with them vanish, more and more, the poetry of my early -morning vigil. Poetry and rheumatism cannot long dwell together in the -same clump of cedars, and I had begun to feel the rheumatism. A month -of morning mists wrapping me around had at last soaked through to my -bones. But Agassiz was waiting, and the world was waiting, for those -turtle eggs; and I would wait. It was all I could do, for there is no -use bringing a china nest-egg to a turtle; she is not open to any such -delicate suggestion. - -"Then came the mid-June Sunday morning, with dawn breaking a little -after three: a warm, wide-awake dawn, with the level mist lifted from -the level surface of the pond a full hour higher than I had seen it -any morning before. - -"This was the day. I knew it. I have heard persons say that they can -hear the grass grow; that they know by some extra sense when danger is -nigh. That we have these extra senses I fully believe, and I believe -they can be sharpened by cultivation. For a month I had been brooding -over this pond, and now I knew. I felt a stirring of the pulse of -things that the cold-hearted turtles could no more escape than could -the clods and I. - -"Leaving my horse unhitched, as if he, too, understood, I slipped -eagerly into my covert for a look at the pond. As I did so, a large -pickerel ploughed a furrow out through the spatter-docks, and in his -wake rose the head of an enormous turtle. Swinging slowly around, the -creature headed straight for the shore, and without a pause scrambled -out on the sand. - -"She was about the size of a big scoop-shovel; but that was not what -excited me, so much as her manner, and the gait at which she moved; -for there was method in it and fixed purpose. On she came, shuffling -over the sand toward the higher open fields, with a hurried, -determined see-saw that was taking her somewhere in particular, and -that was bound to get her there on time. - -"I held my breath. Had she been a dinosaurian making Mesozoic -footprints, I could not have been more fearful. For footprints in the -Mesozoic mud, or in the sands of time, were as nothing to me when -compared with fresh turtle eggs in the sands of this pond. - -"But over the strip of sand, without a stop, she paddled, and up a -narrow cow-path into the high grass along a fence. Then up the narrow -cow-path, on all fours, just like another turtle, I paddled, and into -the high wet grass along the fence. - -"I kept well within sound of her, for she moved recklessly, leaving a -trail of flattened grass a foot and a half wide. I wanted to stand -up,--and I don't believe I could have turned her back with a -rail,--but I was afraid if she saw me that she might return -indefinitely to the pond; so on I went, flat to the ground, squeezing -through the lower rails of the fence, as if the field beyond were a -melon-patch. It was nothing of the kind, only a wild, uncomfortable -pasture, full of dewberry vines, and very discouraging. They were -excessively wet vines and briery. I pulled my coat-sleeves as far over -my fists as I could get them, and with the tin pail of sand swinging -from between my teeth to avoid noise, I stumped fiercely but silently -on after the turtle. - -"She was laying her course, I thought, straight down the length of -this dreadful pasture, when, not far from the fence, she suddenly hove -to, warped herself short about, and came back, barely clearing me, at -a clip that was thrilling. I warped about, too, and in her wake bore -down across the corner of the pasture, across the powdery public road, -and on to a fence along a field of young corn. - -"I was somewhat wet by this time, but not so wet as I had been before -wallowing through the deep dry dust of the road. Hurrying up behind a -large tree by the fence, I peered down the corn-rows and saw the -turtle stop, and begin to paw about in the loose soft soil. She was -going to lay! - -"I held on to the tree and watched, as she tried this place, and that -place, and the other place--the eternally feminine!--But _the_ place, -evidently, was hard to find. What could a female turtle do with a -whole field of possible nests to choose from? Then at last she found -it, and whirling about, she backed quickly at it, and, tail first, -began to bury herself before my staring eyes. - -"Those were not the supreme moments of my life; perhaps those moments -came later that day; but those certainly were among the slowest, most -dreadfully mixed of moments that I ever experienced. They were hours -long. There she was, her shell just showing, like some old hulk in the -sand along shore. And how long would she stay there? and how should I -know if she had laid an egg? - -"I could still wait. And so I waited, when, over the freshly awakened -fields, floated four mellow strokes from the distant town clock. - -"Four o'clock! Why, there was no train until seven! No train for three -hours! The eggs would spoil! Then with a rush it came over me that -this was Sunday morning, and there was no regular seven o'clock -train,--none till after nine. - -"I think I should have fainted had not the turtle just then begun -crawling off. I was weak and dizzy; but there, there in the sand, -were the eggs! and Agassiz! and the great book! And I cleared the -fence, and the forty miles that lay between me and Cambridge, at a -single jump. He should have them, trains or no. Those eggs should go -to Agassiz by seven o'clock, if I had to gallop every mile of the way. -Forty miles! Any horse could cover it in three hours, if he had to; -and upsetting the astonished turtle, I scooped out her round white -eggs. - -"On a bed of sand in the bottom of the pail I laid them, with what -care my trembling fingers allowed; filled in between them with more -sand; so with another layer to the rim; and covering all smoothly with -more sand, I ran back for my horse. - -"That horse knew, as well as I, that the turtles had laid, and that he -was to get those eggs to Agassiz. He turned out of that field into the -road on two wheels, a thing he had not done for twenty years, doubling -me up before the dashboard, the pail of eggs miraculously lodged -between my knees. - -"I let him out. If only he could keep this pace all the way to -Cambridge! or even halfway there; and I would have time to finish the -trip on foot. I shouted him on, holding to the dasher with one hand, -the pail of eggs with the other, not daring to get off my knees, -though the bang on them, as we pounded down the wood-road, was -terrific. But nothing must happen to the eggs; they must not be -jarred, or even turned over in the sand before they came to Agassiz. - -"In order to get out on the pike it was necessary to drive back away -from Boston toward the town. We had nearly covered the distance, and -were rounding a turn from the woods into the open fields, when, ahead -of me, at the station it seemed, I heard the quick sharp whistle of a -locomotive. - -"What did it mean? Then followed the _puff, puff, puff_, of a starting -train. But what train? Which way going? And jumping to my feet for a -longer view, I pulled into a side road, that paralleled the track, and -headed hard for the station. - -"We reeled along. The station was still out of sight, but from behind -the bushes that shut it from view, rose the smoke of a moving engine. -It was perhaps a mile away, but we were approaching, head on, and -topping a little hill I swept down upon a freight train, the black -smoke pouring from the stack, as the mighty creature got itself -together for its swift run down the rails. - -"My horse was on the gallop, going with the track, and straight toward -the coming train. The sight of it almost maddened me--the bare thought -of it, on the road to Boston! On I went; on it came, a half--a quarter -of a mile between us, when suddenly my road shot out along an unfenced -field with only a level stretch of sod between me and the engine. - -"With a pull that lifted the horse from his feet, I swung him into the -field and sent him straight as an arrow for the track. That train -should carry me and my eggs to Boston! - -"The engineer pulled the rope. He saw me standing up in the rig, saw -my hat blow off, saw me wave my arms, saw the tin pail swing in my -teeth, and he jerked out a succession of sharp halts! But it was he -who should halt, not I; and on we went, the horse with a flounder -landing the carriage on top of the track. - -"The train was already grinding to a stop; but before it was near a -standstill, I had backed off the track, jumped out, and, running down -the rails with the astonished engineers gaping at me, swung aboard the -cab. - -"They offered no resistance; they hadn't had time. Nor did they have -the disposition, for I looked strange, not to say dangerous. Hatless, -dew-soaked, smeared with yellow mud, and holding, as if it were a baby -or a bomb, a little tin pail of sand. - -"'Crazy,' the fireman muttered, looking to the engineer for his cue. - -"I had been crazy, perhaps, but I was not crazy now. - -"'Throw her wide open,' I commanded. 'Wide open! These are fresh -turtle eggs for Professor Agassiz of Cambridge. He must have them -before breakfast.' - -"Then they knew I was crazy, and evidently thinking it best to humor -me, threw the throttle wide open, and away we went. - -"I kissed my hand to the horse, grazing unconcernedly in the open -field, and gave a smile to my crew. That was all I could give them, -and hold myself and the eggs together. But the smile was enough. And -they smiled through their smut at me, though one of them held fast to -his shovel, while the other kept his hand upon a big ugly wrench. -Neither of them spoke to me, but above the roar of the swaying engine -I caught enough of their broken talk to understand that they were -driving under a full head of steam, with the intention of handing me -over to the Boston police, as perhaps the safest way of disposing of -me. - -"I was only afraid that they would try it at the next station. But -that station whizzed past without a bit of slack, and the next, and -the next; when it came over me that this was the through freight, -which should have passed in the night, and was making up lost time. - -"Only the fear of the shovel and the wrench kept me from shaking hands -with both men at this discovery. But I beamed at them; and they at me. -I was enjoying it. The unwonted jar beneath my feet was wrinkling my -diaphragm with spasms of delight. And the fireman beamed at the -engineer, with a look that said, 'See the lunatic grin; he likes it!' - -"He did like it. How the iron wheels sang to me as they took the -rails! How the rushing wind in my ears sang to me! From my stand on -the fireman's side of the cab I could catch a glimpse of the track -just ahead of the engine, where the ties seemed to leap into the -throat of the mile-devouring monster. The joy of it! of seeing space -swallowed by the mile! - -"I shifted the eggs from hand to hand and thought of my horse, of -Agassiz, of the great book, of my great luck,--luck,--luck,--until the -multitudinous tongues of the thundering train were all chiming 'luck! -luck! luck!' They knew! they understood! This beast of fire and -tireless wheels was doing its best to get the eggs to Agassiz! - -"We swung out past the Blue Hills, and yonder flashed the morning sun -from the towering dome of the State House. I might have leaped from -the cab and run the rest of the way on foot, had I not caught the eye -of the engineer watching me narrowly. I was not in Boston yet, nor in -Cambridge either. I was an escaped lunatic, who had held up a train, -and forced it to carry me to Boston. - -"Perhaps I had overdone the lunacy business. Suppose these two men -should take it into their heads to turn me over to the police, whether -I would or no? I could never explain the case in time to get the eggs -to Agassiz. I looked at my watch. There were still a few minutes left, -in which I might explain to these men, who, all at once, had become my -captors. But it was too late. Nothing could avail against my actions, -my appearance, and my little pail of sand. - -"I had not thought of my appearance before. Here I was, face and -clothes caked with yellow mud, my hair wild and matted, my hat gone, -and in my full-grown hands a tiny tin pail of sand, as if I had been -digging all night with a tiny tin shovel on the shore! And thus to -appear in the decent streets of Boston of a Sunday morning! - -"I began to feel like a lunatic. The situation was serious, or might -be, and rather desperately funny at its best. I must in some way have -shown my new fears, for both men watched me more sharply. - -"Suddenly, as we were nearing the outer freight-yard, the train slowed -down and came to a stop. I was ready to jump, but I had no chance. -They had nothing to do, apparently, but to guard me. I looked at my -watch again. What time we had made! It was only six o'clock, with a -whole hour to get to Cambridge. - -"But I didn't like this delay. Five minutes--ten--went by. - -"'Gentlemen,' I began, but was cut short by an express train coming -past. We were moving again, on--into a siding; on--on to the main -track; and on with a bump and a crash and a succession of crashes, -running the length of the train; on at a turtle's pace, but on,--when -the fireman, quickly jumping for the bell-rope, left the way to the -step free, and--the chance had come! - -"I never touched the step, but landed in the soft sand at the side of -the track, and made a line for the yard fence. - -"There was no hue or cry. I glanced over my shoulder to see if they -were after me. Evidently their hands were full, and they didn't know I -had gone. - -"But I had gone; and was ready to drop over the high board-fence, when -it occurred to me that I might drop into a policeman's arms. Hanging -my pail in a splint on top of a post, I peered cautiously over--a very -wise thing to do before you jump a high board-fence. There, crossing -the open square toward the station, was a big burly fellow with a -club--looking for me. - -"I flattened for a moment, when some one in the yard yelled at me. I -preferred the policeman, and grabbing my pail I slid over to the -street. The policeman moved on past the corner of the station out of -sight. The square was free, and yonder stood a cab! - -"Time was flying now. Here was the last lap. The cabman saw me coming, -and squared away. I waved a paper dollar at him, but he only stared -the more. A dollar can cover a good deal, but I was too much for one -dollar. I pulled out another, thrust them both at him, and dodged into -the cab, calling, 'Cambridge!' - -"He would have taken me straight to the police station, had I not -said, 'Harvard College. Professor Agassiz's house! I've got eggs for -Agassiz'; and pushed another dollar up at him through the hole. - -"It was nearly half-past six. - -"'Let him go!' I ordered. 'Here's another dollar if you make Agassiz's -house in twenty minutes. Let him out. Never mind the police!' - -"He evidently knew the police, or there were few around at that time -on a Sunday morning. We went down the sleeping streets, as I had gone -down the wood-roads from the pond two hours before, but with the -rattle and crash now of a fire brigade. Whirling a corner into -Cambridge Street, we took the bridge at a gallop, the driver shouting -out something in Hibernian to a pair of waving arms and a belt and -brass buttons. - -"Across the bridge with a rattle and jolt that put the eggs in -jeopardy, and on over the cobble-stones, we went. Half-standing, to -lessen the jar, I held the pail in one hand and held myself in the -other, not daring to let go even to look at my watch. - -"But I was afraid to look at the watch. I was afraid to see how near -to seven o'clock it might be. The sweat was dropping from my nose, so -close was I running to the limit of my time. - -"Suddenly there was a lurch, and I dove forward, ramming my head into -the front of the cab, coming up with a rebound that landed me across -the small of my back on the seat, and sent half of my pail of eggs -helter-skelter over the floor. - -"We had stopped. Here was Agassiz's house; and not taking time to pick -up the scattered eggs, I tumbled out, and pounded at the door. - -"No one was astir in the house. But I would stir them. And I did. -Right in the midst of the racket the door opened. It was the maid. - -"'Agassiz,' I gasped, 'I want Professor Agassiz, quick!' And I pushed -by her into the hall. - -"'Go 'way, sir. I'll call the police. Professor Agassiz is in bed. Go -'way, sir.' - -"'Call him--Agassiz--instantly, or I'll call him myself!' - -"But I didn't; for just then a door overhead was flung open, a -white-robed figure appeared on the dim landing above, and a quick loud -voice called excitedly,-- - -"'Let him in! Let him in! I know him. He has my turtle eggs!' - -"And the apparition, slipperless, and clad in anything but an academic -gown, came sailing down the stairs. - -"The maid fled. The great man, his arms extended, laid hold of me with -both hands, and dragging me and my precious pail into his study, with -a swift, clean stroke laid open one of the eggs, as the watch in my -trembling hands ticked its way to seven--as if nothing unusual were -happening to the history of the world." - - * * * * * - -"You were in time then?" I said. - -"To the tick. There stands my copy of the great book. I am proud of -the humble part I had in it." - - - - -III - -THE EDGE OF NIGHT - - - - -THE EDGE OF NIGHT - - -Beyond the meadow, nearly half a mile away, yet in sight from my -window, stands an apple tree, the last of an ancient line that once -marked the boundary between the upper and lower pastures. For an apple -tree it is unspeakably woeful, and bent, and hoary, and grizzled, with -suckers from feet to crown. Unkempt and unesteemed, it attracts only -the cattle for its shade, and gives to them alone its gnarly, bitter -fruit. - -But that old tree is hollow, trunk and limb; and if its apples are of -Sodom, there is still no tree in the Garden of the Hesperides, none -even in my own private Eden, carefully kept as they are, that is half -as interesting--I had almost said, as useful. Among the trees of the -Lord, an apple tree that bears good Baldwins or greenings or rambos -comes first for usefulness; but when one has thirty-five of such -trees, which the town has compelled one to trim and scrape and -plaster-up and petticoat against the grewsome gypsy moth, then those -thirty-five are dull indeed, compared with the untrimmed, unscraped, -unplastered, undressed old tramp yonder on the knoll, whose heart is -still wide open to the birds and beasts--to every small traveler -passing by who needs, perforce, a home, a hiding, or a harbor. - -When I was a small boy everybody used to put up overnight at -grandfather's--for grandmother's wit and buckwheat cakes, I think, -which were known away down into Cape May County. It was so, too, with -grandfather's wisdom and brooms. The old house sat in behind a grove -of pin-oak and pine, a sheltered, sheltering spot, with a peddler's -stall in the barn, a peddler's place at the table, a peddler's bed in -the herby garret, a boundless, fathomless feather-bed, of a piece with -the house and the hospitality. There were larger houses and newer, in -the neighborhood; but no other house in all the region, not even the -tavern, two miles farther down the Pike, was half as central, or as -homelike, or as full of sweet and juicy gossip. - -The old apple tree yonder between the woods and the meadow is as -central, as hospitable, and, if animals communicate with one another, -just as full of neighborhood news as was grandfather's roof-tree. - -Did I say none but the cattle seek its shade? Go over and watch. That -old tree is no decrepit, deserted shack of a house. There is no -door-plate, there is no christened letter-box outside the front fence, -because the birds and beasts do not advertise their houses that way. -But go over, say, toward evening, and sit quietly down outside. You -will not wait long, for the doors will open that you may enter--enter -into a home of the fields, and, a little way at least, into a life of -the fields, for this old tree has a small dweller of some sort the -year round. - -If it is February or March you will be admitted by my owls. They take -possession late in winter and occupy the tree, with some curious -fellow tenants, until early summer. I can count upon these small -screech-owls by February,--the forlorn month, the seasonless, -hopeless, lifeless stretch of the year, but for its owls, its thaws, -its lengthening days, its cackling pullets, its possibility of -swallows, and its being the year's end. At least the ancients called -February the year's end, maintaining, with fine poetic sense, that the -world was begun in March; and they were nearer the beginnings of -things than we are. - -But the owls come in February, and if they are not swallows with the -spring, they, nevertheless, help winter with most seemly haste into an -early grave. Yet across the faded February meadow the old apple tree -stands empty and drear enough--until the shadows of the night begin to -fall. - -As the dusk comes down, I go to my window and watch. I cannot see him, -the grim-beaked baron with his hooked talons, his ghostly wings, his -night-seeing eyes; but I know that he has come to his window in the -turret yonder on the darkening sky, and that he watches with me. I -cannot see him swoop downward over the ditches, nor see him quarter -the meadow, beating, dangling, dropping between the flattened -tussocks; nor hear him, back on the silent shadows, slant upward again -to his turret. Mine are human eyes, human ears. Even the quick-eared -meadow-mouse did not hear. - -But I have been belated and forced to cross this wild night-land of -his; and I have _felt_ him pass--so near at times that he has stirred -my hair, by the wind, dare I say, of his mysterious wings? At other -times I have heard him. Often on the edge of night I have listened to -his quavering, querulous cry from the elm-tops below me by the meadow. -But oftener I have watched at the casement here in my castle wall. - -Away yonder on the borders of night, dim and gloomy, looms his ancient -keep. I wait. Soon on the deepened dusk spread his soft wings, out -over the meadow he sails, up over my wooded height, over my moat, to -my turret tall, as silent and unseen as the soul of a shadow, except -he drift across the face of the full round moon, or with his weird cry -cause the dreaming quiet to stir in its sleep and moan. - -Yes, yes, but one must be pretty much of a child, with most of his -childish things not yet put away, to get any such romance out of a -rotten apple tree, plus a bunch of feathers no bigger than one's two -fists. One must be pretty far removed from the real world, the live -world that swings, no longer through the heavens, but at the -distributing end of a news wire--pretty far removed to spend one's -precious time watching screech-owls. - -And so one is, indeed,--sixteen miles removed by space, one whole day -by post, one whole hour by engine and horse, one whole half-minute by -the telephone in the back hall. Lost! cut off completely! hopelessly -marooned! - -I fear so. Perhaps I must admit that the watching of owls is for babes -and sucklings, not for men with great work to do, that is, with money -to make, news to get, office to hold, and clubs to address. For babes -and sucklings, and, possibly, for those with a soul to save, yet I -hasten to avow that the watching of owls is not religion; for I -entirely agree with our Shelburne essayist when he finds, "in all this -worship of nature,"--by Traherne, Rousseau, Wordsworth, Thoreau, and -those who seek the transfigured world of the woods,--"there is a -strain of illusion which melts away at the touch of the greater -realities ... and there are evils against which its seduction is of no -avail." - -But let the illusion melt. Other worships have shown a strain of -illusion at times, and against certain evils been of small avail. And -let it be admitted that calling regularly at an old apple tree is far -short of a full man's work in the world, even when such calling falls -outside of his shop or office-hours. For there are no such hours. The -business of life allows no spare time any more. One cannot get rich -nowadays in office-hours, nor become great, nor keep telegraphically -informed, nor do his share of talking and listening. Everybody but the -plumber and paper-hanger works overtime. How the earth keeps up a -necessary amount of whirling in the old twenty-four-hour limit is more -than we can understand. But she can't keep up the pace much longer. -She must have an extra hour. And how to snatch it from the tail-end of -eternity is the burning cosmological question. - -And this is the burning question with regard to our individual -whirling--How to add time, or, what amounts to exactly the same, How -to increase the whirling. - -There have been many hopeful answers. The whirl has been vastly -accelerated. The fly-wheel of the old horse treadmill is now geared to -an electric dynamo. But it is not enough; it is not the answer. And I -despair of the answer--of the perfect whirl, the perpetual, -invisible, untimable. - -Hence the apple tree, the owls, the illusions, the lost hours--the -neglect of fortune and of soul! But then you may worship nature and -still find your way to church; you may be intensely interested in the -life of an old apple tree and still cultivate your next-door neighbor, -still earn all the fresh air and bread and books that your children -need. - -The knoll yonder may be a kind of High Place, and its old apple tree a -kind of altar for you when you had better not go to church, when your -neighbor needs to be let alone, when your children are in danger of -too much bread and of too many books--for the time when you are in -need of that something which comes only out of the quiet of the fields -at the close of day. - -"But what is it?" you ask. "Give me its formula." I cannot. Yet you -need it and will get it--something that cannot be had of the day, -something that Matthew Arnold comes very near suggesting in his -lines:-- - - The evening comes, the fields are still. - The tinkle of the thirsty rill, - Unheard all day, ascends again; - Deserted is the half-mown plain, - Silent the swaths! the ringing wain, - The mower's cry, the dog's alarms - All housed within the sleeping farms! - The business of the day is done, - The last-left haymaker is gone. - And from the thyme upon the height - And from the elder-blossom white - And pale dog-roses in the hedge, - And from the mint-plant in the sedge, - In puffs of balm the night-air blows - The perfume which the day foregoes. - -I would call it poetry, if it were poetry. And it is poetry, yet it is -a great deal more. It is poetry and owls and sour apples and toads; -for in this particular old apple dwells also a tree-toad. - -It is curious enough, as the summer dusk comes on, to see the round -face of the owl in one hole, and out of another in the broken limb -above, the flat weazened face of the tree-toad. Philosophic -countenances they are, masked with wisdom, both of them: shrewd and -penetrating that of the slit-eyed owl; contemplative and soaring in -its serene composure the countenance of the transcendental toad. Both -creatures love the dusk; both have come forth to their open doors in -order to watch the darkening; both will make off under the cover--one -for mice and frogs over the meadow, the other for slugs and insects -over the crooked, tangled limbs of the tree. - -It is strange enough to see them together, but it is stranger still to -think of them together, for it is just such prey as this little toad -that the owl has gone over the meadow to catch. - -Why does he not take the supper ready here on the shelf? There may be -reasons that we, who do not eat tree-toad, know nothing of; but I am -inclined to believe that the owl has never seen his fellow lodger in -the doorway above, though he must often have heard him piping his -gentle melancholy in the gloaming, when his skin cries for rain! - -Small wonder if they have never met! for this gray, squat, disc-toed -little monster in the hole, or flattened on the bark of the tree like -a patch of lichen, may well be one of those things which are hidden -from the sharp-eyed owl. Whatever purpose be attributed to his -peculiar shape and color,--protective, obliterative, mimicking,--it -is always a source of fresh amazement, the way this largest of our -hylas, on the moss-marked rind of an old tree, can utterly blot -himself out before your staring eyes. - -The common toads and all the frogs have enemies enough, and it would -seem from the comparative scarcity of the tree-toads that they must -have enemies, too, but I do not know who they are. The scarcity of the -tree-toads is something of a puzzle, and all the more to me, that, to -my certain knowledge, this toad has lived in the old Baldwin tree, -now, for five years. Perhaps he has been several, and not one; for who -can tell one tree-toad from another? Nobody; and for that reason I -made, some time ago, a simple experiment, in order to see how long a -tree-toad might live, unprotected, in his own natural environment. - -Upon moving into this house, about seven years ago, we found a -tree-toad living in the big hickory by the porch. For the next three -springs he reappeared, and all summer long we would find him, now on -the tree, now on the porch, often on the railing and backed tight up -against a post. Was he one or many? we asked. Then we marked him; and -for the next four years we knew that he was himself alone. How many -more years he might have lived in the hickory for us all to pet, I -should like to know; but last summer, to our great sorrow, the -gypsy-moth killers, poking in the hole, did our little friend to -death. - -He was worth many worms. - -It was interesting, it was very wonderful to me, the instinct for -home--the love for home I should like to call it--that this humble -little creature showed. A toad is an amphibian to the zoölogist; an -ugly gnome with a jeweled eye to the poet; but to the naturalist, the -lover of life for its own sake, who lives next door to his toad, who -feeds him a fly or a fat grub now and then, who tickles him to sleep -with a rose leaf, who waits as thirstily as the hilltop for him to -call the summer rain, who knows his going to sleep for the winter, his -waking up for the spring--to such an one the jeweled eye and the -amphibious habits are but the forewords of a long, marvelous -life-history. - -This small tree-toad had a home, had it in his soul, I believe, -precisely where John Howard Payne had it, and where many another of -us has it. He had it in a tree, too,--in a hickory tree, this one that -dwelt by my house; he had it in an apple tree, that one yonder across -the meadow. - - "East, west, - Hame's best," - -croaked our tree-toad in a tremulous, plaintive minor that wakened -memories in the vague twilight of more old, unhappy, far-off things -than any other voice I ever knew. - -These two tree-toads could not have been induced to trade houses, the -hickory for the apple, because a house to a toad means home, and a -home is never in the market. There are many more houses in the land -than homes. Most of us are only real-estate dealers. Many of us have -never had a home; and none of us has ever had more than one. There can -be but one--mine--and that has always been, must always be, as -imperishable as memory, and as far beyond all barter as the gates of -the sunset are beyond my horizon's picket fence of pines. - -The toad seems to feel it all, but feels it whole, not analyzed and -itemized as a memory. Here in the hickory for four years (for seven, I -am quite sure) he lived, single and alone. He would go down to the -meadow when the toads gathered there to lay their eggs, but back he -would come, without mate or companion, to his tree. Stronger than love -of kind, than love of mate, constant and dominant in his slow cold -heart is his instinct for home. - -If I go down to the orchard and bring up from the apple tree another -toad to dwell in the hole of the hickory, I shall fail. He might -remain for the day, but not throughout the night, for with the -gathering twilight there steals upon him an irresistible longing, the -_Heimweh_ which he shares with me; and guided by it, as the bee and -the pigeon and the dog are guided, he makes his sure way back to the -orchard home. - -Would he go back beyond the orchard, over the road, over the wide -meadow, over to the Baldwin tree, half a mile away, if I brought him -from there? We shall see. During the coming summer I shall mark him in -some manner, and bringing him here to the hickory, I shall then watch -the old apple tree yonder. It will be a hard, perilous journey. But -his longing will not let him rest; and guided by his mysterious sense -of direction--for this _one_ place--he will arrive, I am sure, or he -will die on the way. - -Yet I could wish there were another tree here, besides the apple, and -another toad. Suppose he never gets back? Only one toad less? A great -deal more than that. Here in the old Baldwin he has made his home for -I don't know how long, hunting over its world of branches in the -summer, sleeping down in its deep holes during the winter--down under -the chips and punk and castings, beneath the nest of the owls, it may -be; for my toad in the hickory always buried himself so, down in the -débris at the bottom of the hole, where, in a kind of cold storage, he -preserved himself until thawed out by the spring. I never pass the old -apple in the summer but that I stop to pay my respects to the toad; -nor in the winter that I do not pause and think of him asleep in -there. He is no mere toad any more. He has passed into a _genius -loci_, the Guardian Spirit of the tree, warring in the green leaf -against worm and grub and slug, and in the dry leaf hiding himself, a -heart of life, within the tree's thin ribs, as if to save the old -shell to another summer. - -A toad is a toad, and if he never got back to the tree there would be -one toad less, nothing more. If anything more, then it is on paper, -and it is cant, not toad at all. And so, I suppose, stones are stones, -trees trees, brooks brooks--not books and tongues and sermons at -all--except on paper and as cant. Surely there are many things in -writing that never had any other, any real existence, especially in -writing that deals with the out-of-doors. One should write carefully -about one's toad; fearfully, indeed, when that toad becomes one's -teacher; for teacher my toad in the old Baldwin has many a time been. - -Often in the summer dusk I have gone over to sit at his feet and learn -some of the things my college professors could not teach me. I have -not yet taken my higher degrees. I was graduated A. B. from college. -It is A. B. C. that I am working toward here at the old apple tree -with the toad. - -Seating myself comfortably at the foot of the tree, I wait; the toad -comes forth to the edge of his hole above me, settles himself -comfortably, and waits. And the lesson begins. The quiet of the summer -evening steals out with the wood-shadows and softly covers the -fields. We do not stir. An hour passes. We do not stir. Not to stir is -the lesson--one of the majors in this graduate course with the toad. - -The dusk thickens. The grasshoppers begin to strum; the owl slips out -and drifts away; a whippoorwill drops on the bare knoll near me, -clucks and shouts and shouts again, his rapid repetition a thousand -times repeated by the voices that call to one another down the long -empty aisles of the swamp; a big moth whirs about my head and is gone; -a bat flits squeaking past; a firefly blazes, but is blotted out by -the darkness, only to blaze again, and again be blotted, and so -passes, his tiny lantern flashing into a night that seems the darker -for the quick, unsteady glow. - -We do not stir. It is a hard lesson. By all my other teachers I had -been taught every manner of stirring, and this unwonted exercise of -being still takes me where my body is weakest, and it puts me -painfully out of breath in my soul. "Wisdom is the principal thing," -my other teachers would repeat, "therefore get wisdom, but keep -exceedingly busy all the time. Step lively. Life is short. There are -_only_ twenty-four hours to the day. The Devil finds mischief for -idle hands to do. Let us then be up and doing"--all of this at random -from one of their lectures on "The Simple Life, or the Pace that -Kills." - -Of course there is more or less of truth in this teaching of theirs. A -little leisure has no doubt become a dangerous thing--unless one spend -it talking or golfing or automobiling, or aëroplaning or -elephant-killing, or in some other diverting manner; otherwise one's -nerves, like pulled candy, might set and cease to quiver; or one might -even have time to think. - -"Keep going,"--I quote from another of their lectures,--"keep going; -it is the only certainty you have against knowing whither you are -going." I learned that lesson well. See me go--with half a breakfast -and the whole morning paper; with less of lunch and the 4:30 edition. -But I balance my books, snatch the evening edition, catch my car, get -into my clothes, rush out to dinner, and spend the evening lecturing -or being lectured to. I do everything but think. - -But suppose I did think? It could only disturb me--my politics, or -ethics, or religion. I had better let the editors and professors and -preachers think for me. The editorial office is such a quiet -thought-inducing place; as quiet as a boiler factory; and the thinkers -there, from editor-in-chief to the printer's devil, are so thoughtful -for the size of the circulation! And the college professors, they have -the time and the cloistered quiet needed. But they have pitiful -salaries, and enormous needs, and their social status to worry over, -and themes to correct, and a fragmentary year to contend with, and -Europe to see every summer, and-- Is it right to ask them, with all -this, to think? We will ask the preachers instead. They are set apart -among the divine and eternal things; they are dedicated to thought; -they have covenanted with their creeds to think; it is their business -to study, but, "to study to be careful and harmless." - -It may be, after all, that my politics and ethics and religion need -disturbing, as the soil about my fruit trees needs it. Is it the tree? -or is it the soil that I am trying to grow? Is it I, or my politics, -my ethics, my religion? I will go over to the toad, no matter the -cost. I will sit at his feet, where time is nothing, and the worry of -work even less. He has all time and no task; he is not obliged to -labor for a living, much less to think. My other teachers all are; -they are all professional thinkers; their thoughts are words: -editorials, lectures, sermons,--livings. I read them or listen to -them. The toad sits out the hour silent, thinking, but I know not -what, nor need to know. To think God's thoughts after Him is not so -high as to think my own after myself. Why then ask this of the toad, -and so interrupt these of mine? Instead we will sit in silence and -watch Altair burn along the shore of the sky, and overhead Arcturus, -and the rival fireflies flickering through the leaves of the apple -tree. - -The darkness has come. The toad is scarcely a blur between me and the -stars. It is a long look from him, ten feet above me, on past the -fireflies to Arcturus and the regal splendors of the Northern -Crown--as deep and as far a look as the night can give, and as only -the night can give. Against the distant stars, these ten feet between -me and the toad shrink quite away; and against the light far off -yonder near the pole, the firefly's little lamp becomes a brave but a -very lesser beacon. - -There are only twenty-four hours to the day--to the day and the night! -And how few are left to that quiet time between the light and the -dark! Ours is a hurried twilight. We quit work to sleep; we wake up to -work again. We measure the day by a clock; we measure the night by an -alarm clock. Life is all ticked off. We are murdered by the second. -What we need is a day and a night with wider margins--a dawn that -comes more slowly, and a longer lingering twilight. Life has too -little selvage; it is too often raw and raveled. Room and quiet and -verge are what we want, not more dials for time, nor more figures for -the dials. We have things enough, too, more than enough; it is space -for the things, perspective, and the right measure for the things that -we lack--a measure not one foot short of the distance between us and -the stars. - -If we get anything out of the fields worth while, it will be this -measure, this largeness, and quiet. It may be only an owl or a -tree-toad that we go forth to see, but how much more we find--things -we cannot hear by day, things long, long forgotten, things we never -thought or dreamed before. - -The day is none too short, the night none too long; but all too narrow -is the edge between. - - - - -IV - -THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS - - - - -THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS - - -The ragged quilt of snow had slipped from the shoulders of the slopes, -the gray face of the maple swamp showed a flush of warmth, and the -air, out of the south to-day, breathed life, the life of buds and -catkins, of sappy bark, oozing gum, and running water--the life of -spring; and through the faintly blending breaths, as a faster breeze -ran down the hills, I caught a new and unmistakable odor, single, -pointed, penetrating, the sign to me of an open door in the wood-lot, -to me, indeed, the Open Sesame of spring. - -"When does the spring come? And who brings it?" asks the watcher in -the woods. "To me spring begins when the catkins on the alders and the -pussy-willows begin to swell," writes Mr. Burroughs, "when the ice -breaks up on the river and the first sea-gulls come prospecting -northward." So I have written, also; written verses even to the -pussy-willow, to the bluebird, and to the hepatica, as spring's -harbingers; but never a line yet to celebrate this first forerunner of -them all, the gentle early skunk. For it is his presence, blown far -across the February snow, that always ends my New England winter and -brings the spring. Of course there are difficulties, poetically, with -the wood-pussy. I don't remember that even Whitman tried the theme. -But, perhaps, the good gray poet never met a spring skunk in the -streets of Camden. The animal is comparatively rare in the densely -populated cities of New Jersey. - -It is rare enough here in Massachusetts; at least, it used to be; -though I think, from my observations, that the skunk is quietly on the -increase in New England. I feel very sure of this as regards the -neighborhood immediate to my farm. - -This is an encouraging fact, but hard to be believed, no doubt. I, -myself, was three or four years coming to the conviction, often -fearing that this little creature, like so many others of our thinning -woods, was doomed to disappear. But that was before I turned to -keeping hens. I am writing these words as a naturalist and -nature-lover, and I am speaking also with the authority of one who -keeps hens. Though a man give his life to the study of the skunk, and -have not hens, he is nothing. You cannot say, "Go to, I will write an -essay about my skunks." There is no such anomaly as professional -nature-loving, as vocational nature-writing. You cannot go into your -woods and count your skunks. Not until you have kept hens can you -know, can you even have the will to believe, the number of skunks that -den in the dark on the purlieus of your farm. - -That your neighbors keep hens is not enough. My neighbors' hens were -from the first a stone of stumbling to me. That is a peculiarity of -next-door hens. It would have been better, I thought, if my neighbors -had had no hens. I had moved in among these half-farmer folk, and -while I found them intelligent enough, I immediately saw that their -attitude toward nature was wholly wrong. They seemed to have no -conception of the beauty of nature. Their feeling for the skunk was -typical: they hated the skunk with a perfect hatred, a hatred -implacable, illogical, and unpoetical, it seemed to me, for it was -born of their chicken-breeding. - -Here were these people in the lap of nature, babes in nature's arms, -knowing only to draw at her breasts and gurgle, or, the milk failing, -to kick and cry. Mother Nature! She was only a bottle and rubber -nipple, only turnips and hay and hens to them. Nature a mother? a -spirit? a soul? fragrance? harmony? beauty? Only when she cackled like -a hen. - -Now there is something in the cackle of a hen, a very great deal, -indeed, if it is the cackle of your own hen. But the morning stars did -not cackle together, and there is still a solemn music in the -universe, a music that is neither an anvil nor a barnyard chorus. Life -ought to mean more than turnips, more than hay, more than hens to -these rural people. It ought, and it must. I had come among them. And -what else was my coming but a divine providence, a high and holy -mission? I had been sent unto this people to preach the gospel of the -beauty of nature. And I determined that my first text should be the -skunk. - -All of this, likewise, was previous to the period of my hens. - -It was now, as I have said, my second February upon the farm, when the -telltale wind brought down this poignant message from the wood-lot. -The first spring skunk was out! I knew the very stump out of which he -had come--the stump of his winter den. Yes, and the day before, I had -actually met the creature in the woods, for he had been abroad now -something like a week. He was rooting among the exposed leaves in a -sunny dip, and I approached to within five feet of him, where I stood -watching while he grubbed in the thawing earth. Buried to the -shoulders in the leaves, he was so intent upon his labor that he got -no warning of my presence. My neighbors would have knocked him over -with a club,--would have done it eagerly, piously, as unto the Lord. -What did the Almighty make such vermin for, anyway? No one will phrase -an answer; but every one will act promptly, as by command and -revelation. - -I stood several minutes watching, before the little wood-pussy paused -and pulled out his head in order to try the wind. How shocked he was! -He had been caught off his guard, and instantly snapped himself into a -startled hump, for the whiff he got on the wind said _danger!_--and -nigh at hand! Throwing his pointed nose straight into the air, and -swinging it quickly to the four quarters, he fixed my direction, and -turning his back upon me, tumbled off in a dreadful hurry for home. - -This interesting, though somewhat tame, experience, would have worn -the complexion of an adventure for my neighbors, a bare escape,--a -ruined Sunday suit, or, at least, a lost jumper or overalls. I had -never lost so much as a roundabout in all my life. My neighbors had -had innumerable passages with this ramping beast, most of them on the -edge of the dark, and many of them verging hard upon the tragic. I had -small patience with it all. I wished the whole neighborhood were with -me, that I might take this harmless little wood-pussy up in my arms -and teach them again the first lesson of the Kingdom of Heaven, and of -this earthly Paradise, too, and incidentally put an end forever to -these tales of Sunday clothes and nights of banishment in the barn. - -As nobody was present to see, of course I did not pick the wood-pussy -up. I did not need to prove to myself the baselessness of these wild -misgivings; nor did I wish, without good cause, further to frighten -the innocent creature. I had met many a skunk before this, and nothing -of note ever had happened. Here was one, taken suddenly and unawares, -and what did he do? He merely winked and blinked vacantly at me over -the snow, trying vainly to adjust his eyes to the hard white daylight, -and then timidly made off as fast as his pathetic legs could carry -him, fetching a compass far around toward his den. - -I accompanied him, partly to see him safely home, but more to study -him on the way, for my neighbors would demand something else than -theory and poetry of my new gospel: they would require facts. Facts -they should have. - -I had been a long time coming to my mind concerning the skunk. I had -been thinking years about him; and during the previous summer (my -second here on the farm) I had made a careful study of the creature's -habits, so that even now I had in hand material of considerable bulk -and importance, showing the very great usefulness of the animal. -Indeed, I was about ready to embody my beliefs and observations in a -monograph, setting forth the need of national protection--of a -Committee of One Hundred, say, of continental scope, to look after -the preservation and further introduction of the skunk as the friend -and ally of man, as the most useful of all our insectivorous -creatures, bird or beast. - -What, may I ask, was this one of mine doing here on the edge of the -February woods? He was grubbing. He had been driven out of his winter -bed by hunger, and he had been driven out into the open snowy sunshine -by the cold, because the nights (he is nocturnal) were still so chill -that the soil would freeze at night past his ploughing. Thus it -chanced, at high noon, that I came upon him, grubbing among my soft, -wet leaves, and grubbing for nothing less than obnoxious insects! - -My heart warmed to him. He was ragged and thin, he was even weak, I -thought, by the way he staggered as he made off. It had been a hard -winter for men and for skunks, particularly hard for skunks on account -of the unbroken succession of deep snows. This skunk had been frozen -into his den, to my certain knowledge, since the last of November. - -Nature is a severe mother. The hunger of this starved creature! To be -put to bed without even the broth, and to be locked in, half awake, -for nearly three months. Poor little beastie! Perhaps he hadn't -intelligence enough to know that those gnawings within him were pain. -Perhaps our sympathy is all agley. Perhaps. But we are bound to feel -it when we watch him satisfying his pangs with the pestiferous insects -of our own wood-lot. - -I saw him safely home, and then returned to examine the long furrows -he had ploughed out among the leaves. I found nothing to show what -species of insects he had eaten, but it was enough to know that he had -been bent on bugs--gypsy-moth eggs, maybe, on the underside of some -stick or stone, where they had escaped the keen eye of the -tree-warden. We are greatly exercised over this ghastly caterpillar. -But is it entomologists, and national appropriations, and imported -parasites that we need to check the ravaging plague? These things -might help, doubtless; but I was intending to show in my monograph -that it is only skunks we need; it is the scarcity of skunks that is -the whole trouble--and the abundance of cats. - -My heart warmed, I say, as I watched my one frail skunk here by the -snowy woodside, and it thrilled as I pledged him protection, as I -acknowledged his right to the earth, his right to share life and -liberty and the pursuit of happiness with me. He could have only a -small part in my life, doubtless, but I could enter largely into his, -and we could live in amity together--in amity here on _this_ bit of -the divine earth, anyhow, if nowhere else under heaven. - -This was along in February, and I was beginning to set my hens. - -A few days later, in passing through the wood-lot, I was surprised and -delighted to see three skunks in the near vicinity of the -den,--residents evidently of the stump! "Think!" I exclaimed to -myself, "think of the wild flavor to this tame patch of woods! And the -creatures so rare, too, and beneficial! They multiply rapidly, -though," I thought, "and I ought to have a fine lot of them by fall. I -shall stock the farm with them." - -This was no momentary enthusiasm. In a book that I had published some -years before I had stoutly championed the skunk. "Like every predatory -creature," I wrote, "the skunk more than balances his debt for corn -and chickens by his destruction of obnoxious vermin. He feeds upon -insects and mice, destroying great numbers of the latter by digging -out the nests and eating the young. But we forget our debt when the -chickens disappear, no matter how few we lose. Shall we ever learn to -say, when the red-tail swoops among the pigeons, when the rabbits get -into the cabbage, when the robins rifle the cherry trees, and when the -skunk helps himself to a hen for his Thanksgiving dinner--shall we -ever learn to love and understand the fitness of things out-of-doors -enough to say, 'But then, poor beastie, thou maun live'?" - -Since writing those warm lines I had made further studies upon the -skunk, all establishing the more firmly my belief that there is a big -balance to the credit of the animal. Meantime, too, I had bought this -small farm, with a mowing field and an eight-acre wood-lot on it; with -certain liens and attachments on it, also, due to human mismanagement -and to interference with the course of Nature in the past. Into the -orchard, for instance, had come the San José scale; into the wood-lot -had crawled the gypsy-moth--human blunders! Under the sod of the -mowing land had burrowed the white grub of the June-bugs. On the whole -fourteen acres rested the black shadow of an insect plague. Nature had -been interfered with and thwarted. Man had taken things into his own -clumsy hands. It should be so no longer on these fourteen acres. I -held the deed to these, not for myself, nor for my heirs, but for -Nature. Over these few acres the winds of heaven should blow free, the -birds should sing, the flowers should grow, and through the gloaming, -unharmed and unaffrighted, the useful skunk should take his own sweet -way. - -The preceding summer had been a season remarkable for the ravages of -the June-bug. The turf in my mowing went all brown and dead suddenly -in spite of frequent rains. No cause for the trouble showed on the -surface of the field. You could start and with your hands roll up the -tough sod by the yard, as if a clean-cutting knife had been run under -it about an inch below the crowns. It peeled off under your feet in -great flakes. An examination of the soil brought to light the big fat -grubs of the June-bugs, millions of the ghastly monsters! They had -gone under the grass, eating off the roots so evenly and so -thoroughly that not a square foot of green remained in the whole -field. - -It was here that the skunk did his good work (I say "the skunk," for -there was only one on the farm that summer, I think). I would go into -the field morning after morning to count the holes he had made during -the night in his hunt for the grubs. One morning I got over a hundred -holes, all of them dug since last sundown, and each hole representing -certainly one grub, possibly more; for the skunk would hear or smell -his prey at work in the soil before attempting to dig. - -A hundred grubs for one night, by one skunk! It took me only a little -while to figure out the enormous number of grubs that a fair-sized -family of skunks would destroy in a summer. A family of skunks would -rid my farm of the pest in a single summer and make inroads on the -grubs of the entire community. - -Ah! the community! the ignorant, short-sighted, nature-hating -community! What chance had a family of skunks in this community? And -the fire of my mission burned hot within me. - -And so did my desire for more skunks. My hay crop was short, was -_nil_, in fact, for the hayfield was as barren of green as the -hen-yard. I had to have it ploughed and laid down again to grass. And -all because of this scarcity of skunks. - -Now, as the green of the springing blades began to show through the -melting snow, it was with immense satisfaction that I thought of the -three skunks under the stump. That evening I went across to my -neighbor's, the milkman's, and had a talk with him over the -desirability, the necessity indeed, of encouraging the skunks about -us. I told him a good many things about these harmless and useful -animals that, with all his farming and chicken-raising, he had never -known. - -But these rural folk are quite difficult. It is hard to teach them -anything worth while, so hopelessly surrounded are they with -things--common things. If I could only get them into a college -class-room--removed some way from hens and hoes--I might, at least, -put them into a receptive attitude. But that cannot be. Perhaps, -indeed, I demand too much of them. For, after all, it takes a -naturalist, a lover of the out-of-doors, to appreciate the beautiful -adjustments in nature. A mere farmer can hardly do it. One needs a -keen eye, but a certain aloofness of soul also, for the deeper -meaning and poetry of nature. One needs to spend a vacation, at least, -in the wilderness and solitary place, where no other human being has -ever come, and there, where the animals know man only as a brother, go -to the school of the woods and study the wild folk, one by one, until -he discovers them personally, temperamentally, all their likes and -dislikes, their little whimseys, freaks, and fancies--all of this, -there, far removed from the cankering cares of hens and chickens, for -the sake of the right attitude toward nature. - -My nearest neighbor had never been to the wilderness. He lacked -imagination, too, and a ready pen. Yet he promised not to kill my -three skunks in the stump; a rather doubtful pledge, perhaps, but at -least a beginning toward the new earth I hoped to see. - -Now it was perfectly well known to me that skunks will eat chickens if -they have to. But I had had chickens--a few hens--and had never been -bothered by skunks. I kept my hens shut up, of course, in a pen--the -only place for a hen outside of a pie. I knew, too, that skunks like -honey, that they had even tampered with my hives, reaching in at -night through the wide summer entrances and tearing out the brood -combs. But I never lost much by these depredations. What I felt more -was the destruction of the wild bees and wasps and ground-nesting -birds, by the skunks. - -But these were trifles! What were a few chickens, bees, -yellow-jackets, and even the occasional bird's-nest, against the -hay-devouring grubs of the June-bug! And as for the characteristic -odor which drifted in now and again with the evening breeze, that had -come to have a pleasant quality for me, floating down across my two -wide acres of mowing. - -February passed gently into March, and my chickens began to hatch. -Every man must raise chickens at some period of his life, and I was -starting in for my turn now. Hay had been my specialty heretofore, -making two blades grow where there had been one very thin one. But -once your two acres are laid down, and you have a stump full of -skunks, near by, against the ravages of the June-bugs, then there is -nothing for you but chickens or something, while you wait. I got Rhode -Island Reds, fancy exhibition stock,--for what is the use of chickens -if you cannot take them to the show? - -The chickens began to hatch, little downy balls of yellow, with their -pedigrees showing right through the fuzz. How the sixty of them grew! -I never lost one. And now the second batch of sitters would soon be -ready to come off. - -Then one day, at the morning count, five of one hen's brood were gone! -I counted again. I counted all the other broods. Five were gone! - -My nearest neighbor had cats, mere barn cats, as many as ten, at the -least. I had been suspicious of those cats from the first. So I got a -gun. Then more of my chickens disappeared. I could count only -forty-seven. - -I shifted the coop, wired it in, and stretched a wire net over the top -of the run. Nothing could get in, nor could a chicken get out. All the -time I was waiting for the cat. - -A few nights after the moving of the coop a big hole was dug under the -wire fence of the run, another hole under the coop, and the entire -brood of Rhode Island Reds was taken. - -Then I took the gun and cut across the pasture to my neighbor's. - -"Hard luck," he said. "It's a big skunk. Here, you take these traps, -and you'll catch him; anybody can catch a skunk." - -And I did catch him. I killed him, too, in spite of the great scarcity -of the creatures. Yet I was sorry, and, perhaps, too hasty; for -catching him near the coop was no proof. He might have wandered this -way by chance. I should have put him in a bag and carried him down to -Valley Swamp and liberated him. - -That day, while my neighbor was gone with his milk wagon, I slipped -through the back pasture and hung the two traps up on their nail in -the can-house. - -I went anxiously to the chicken-yard the next morning. All forty came -out to be counted. It must have been the skunk, I was thinking, as I -went on into the brooding-house, where six hens were still sitting. - -One of the hens was off her nest and acting queerly. Her nest was -empty! Not a chick, not a bit of shell! I lifted up the second hen in -the row, and of her thirteen eggs, only three were left. The hen next -to her had five eggs; the fourth hen had four. Forty chickens gone -(counting them before they were hatched), all in one night. - -I hitched up the horse and drove thoughtfully to the village, where I -bought six skunk-traps. - -"Goin' skunkin' some, this spring," the store man remarked, as he got -me the traps, adding, "Well, they's some on 'em. I've seen a scaac'ty -of a good many commodities, but I never yet see a scaac'ty o' skunks." - -I didn't stop to discuss the matter, being a trifle uncertain just -then as to my own mind, but hurried home with my six traps. Six, I -thought, would do to begin with, though I really had no conception of -the number of cats (or skunks) it had taken to dispose of the three -and one third dozens of eggs (at three dollars a dozen!) in a single -night. - -Early that afternoon I covered each sitting hen so that even a mouse -could not get at her, and fixing the traps, I distributed them about -the brooding-house floor; then, as evening came on, I pushed a shell -into each barrel of the gun, took a comfortable perch upon a keg in -the corner of the house, and waited. - -I had come to stay. Something was going to happen. And something did -happen, away on in the small hours of the morning, namely--one little -skunk. He walked into a trap while I was dozing. He seemed pretty -small hunting then, but he looms larger now, for I have learned -several more things about skunks than I knew when I had the talk with -my neighbor: I have learned, for one thing, that forty eggs, soon to -hatch, are just an average meal for the average half-grown skunk. - -The catching of these two thieves put an end to the depredations, and -I began again to exhibit in my dreams, when one night, while sound -asleep, I heard a frightful commotion among the hens. I did the -hundred-yard dash to the chicken-house in my unforgotten college form, -but just in time to see the skunk cross the moonlit line into the -black woods ahead of me. - -He had wrought dreadful havoc among the thoroughbreds. What -devastation a skunk, single-handed, can achieve in a pen of young -chickens beggars all description. - -I was glad that it was dead of night, that the world was home and -asleep in its bed. I wanted no sympathy. I wished only to be alone, -alone in the cool, the calm, the quiet of this serene and beautiful -midnight. Even the call of a whippoorwill in the adjoining pasture -worried me. I desired to meditate, yet clear, consecutive thinking -seemed strangely difficult. I felt like one disturbed. I was out of -harmony with this peaceful environment. Perhaps I had hurried too -hard, or I was too thinly clothed, or perhaps my feet were cold and -wet. I only know, as I stooped to untwist a long and briery runner -from about my ankle, that there was great confusion in my mind, and in -my spirit there was chaos. I felt myself going to pieces,--I, the -nature-lover! Had I not advocated the raising of a few extra hens just -for the sake of keeping the screaming hawk in air and the wild fox -astir in our scanty picnic groves? And had I not said as much for the -skunk? Why, then, at one in the morning should I, nor clothed, nor in -my right mind, be picking my barefoot way among the tangled dewberry -vines behind the barn, swearing by the tranquil stars to blow the -white-striped carcass of that skunk into ten million atoms if I had to -sit up all the next night to do it? - -One o'clock in the morning was the fiend's hour. There could be no -unusual risk in leaving the farm for a little while in the early -evening, merely to go to the bean supper over at the chapel at the -Corner. So we were dressed and ready to start, when I spied one of my -hens outside the yard, trying to get in. - -Hurrying down, I caught her, and was turning back to the barn, when I -heard a slow, faint rustling among the bushes behind the hen-house. I -listened! Something was moving cautiously through the dead leaves! -Tiptoeing softly around, I surprised a large skunk making his way -slowly toward the hen-yard fence. - -I grabbed a stone and hurled it, jumping, as I let it drive, for -another. The flying missile hit within an inch of the creature's nose, -hard upon a large flat rock over which he was crawling. The impact was -stunning, and before the old rascal could get to his groggy feet, I -had fallen upon him--literally--and done for him. - -But I was very sorry. I hope that I shall never get so excited as to -fall upon another skunk,--never! - -I was picking myself up, when I caught a low cry from the direction of -the house--half scream, half shout. It was a woman's voice, the voice -of my wife, I thought. Was something the matter? - -"Hurry!" I heard. But how could I hurry? My breath was gone, and so -were my spectacles, and other more important things besides, while all -about me poured a choking blinding smother. I fought my way out. - -"Oh, hurry!" - -I was on the jump; I was already rounding the barn, when a series of -terrified shrieks issued from the front of the house. An instant more -and I had come. But none too soon, for there stood the dear girl, -backed into a corner of the porch, her dainty robes drawn close about -her, and a skunk, a wee baby of a skunk, climbing confidently up the -steps toward her. - -"Why _are_ you so slow!" she gasped. "I've been yelling here for an -hour!--Oh! do--don't kill that little thing, but shoo it away, quick!" - -She certainly had not been yelling an hour, nor anything like it. But -there was no time for argument now, and as for shooing little skunks, -I was past that. I don't know exactly what I did say, though I am -positive that it wasn't "shoo." I was clutching a great stone, that I -had run with all the way from behind the hen-yard, and letting it -fly, I knocked the little creature into a harmless bunch of fur. - -The family went over to the bean supper and left me all alone on the -farm. But I was calm now, with a strange, cold calmness born of -extremity. Nothing more could happen to me; I was beyond further harm. -So I took up the bodies of the two creatures, and carried them, -together with some of my late clothing, over beyond the ridge for -burial. Then I returned by way of my neighbor's, where I borrowed two -sticks of blasting-powder and a big cannon fire-cracker. I had watched -my neighbor use these explosives on the stumps in a new piece of -meadow. The next morning, with an axe, a crowbar, shovel, gun, -blasting-powder, and the cannon-cracker, I started for the stump in -the wood-lot. I wished the cannon-cracker had been a keg of powder. I -could tamp a keg of powder so snugly into the hole of those skunks! - -It was a beautiful summer morning, tender with the half-light of -breaking dawn, and fresh with dew. Leaving my kit at the mouth of the -skunks' den, I sat down on the stump to wait a moment, for the -loveliness and wonder of the opening day came swift upon me. From the -top of a sapling, close by, a chewink sent his simple, earnest song -ringing down the wooded slope, and, soft as an echo, floated up from -the swampy tangle of wild grape and azalea the pure notes of a wood -thrush, mellow and globed, and almost fragrant of the thicket where -the white honeysuckle was in bloom. Voices never heard at other hours -of the day were vocal now; odors and essences that vanish with the dew -hung faint in the air; shapes and shadows and intimations of things -that slip to cover from the common light, stirred close about me. It -was very near--the gleam! the vision splendid! How close to a -revelation seems every dawn! And this early summer dawn, how near a -return of that - - time when meadow, grove, and stream, - The earth and every common sight - To me did seem - Apparelled in celestial light. - -From the crest of my ridge I looked out over the treetops far away to -the Blue Hills still slumbering in the purple west. How huge and prone -they lie! How like their own constant azure does the spirit of rest -seem to wrap them round! On their distant slopes it is never common -day, never more than dawn, for the shadows always sleep among their -hollows, and a haze of changing blues, their own peculiar beauty, -hangs, even at high noon, like a veil upon them, shrouding them with -largeness and mystery. - -A rustle in the dead leaves down the slope recalled me. I reached -instinctively for the gun, but stayed my hand. Slowly nosing his way -up the ridge, came a full-grown skunk, his tail a-drag, his head -swinging close to the ground. He was coming home to the den, coming -leisurely, contentedly, carelessly, as if he had a right to live. I -sat very still. On he came, scarcely checking himself as he winded me. -How like the dawn he seemed!--the black of night with the white of -day--the furtive dawn slipping into its den! He sniffed at the gun and -cannon-cracker, made his way over them, brushed past me, and calmly -disappeared beneath the stump. - -The chewink still sang from the top of the sapling, but the tame broad -day had come. I stayed a little while, looking off still at the -distant hills. We had sat thus, my six-year-old and I, only a few -days before, looking away at these same hills, when the little fellow, -half questioningly, half pensively asked, "Father, how can the Blue -Hills be so beautiful and have rattlesnakes?" - -I gathered up the kit, gun and cannon-cracker, and started back toward -home, turning the question of hills and snakes and skunks over and -over as I went along. Over and over the question still turns: How can -the Blue Hills be so beautiful? The case of my small wood-lot is -easier: beautiful it must ever be, but its native spirit, the untamed -spirit of the original wilderness, the free wild spirit of the -primeval forest, shall flee it, and vanish forever, with this last den -of the skunks. - - - - -V - -THE NATURE-WRITER - - - - -THE NATURE-WRITER - - -Dwelling inland, far from those of us who go down to the sea in -manuscripts, may be found the reader, no doubt, to whom the title of -this essay is not anathema, to whom the word nature still means the -real outdoors, as the word culture may still mean things other than -"sweetness and light." It is different with us. We shy at the _word_ -nature. Good, honest term, it has suffered a sea-change with us; it -has become literary. Piety suffers the same change when it becomes -professional. There has grown up about nature as a literary term a -vocabulary of cant,--nature-lover, nature-writer, nature-- Throw the -stone for me, you who are clean! Inseparably now these three travel -together, arm in arm, like Tom, Dick, and Harry--the world, the flesh, -and the devil. Name one, and the other two appear, which is sad enough -for the nature-writer, because a word is known by the company it -keeps. - -The nature-writer deserves, maybe, his dubious reputation; he is more -or less of a fraud, perhaps. And perhaps everybody else is, more or -less. I am sure of it as regards preachers and plumbers and -politicians and men who work by the day. Yet I have known a few honest -men of each of these several sorts, although I can't recall just now -the honest plumber. I have known honest nature-writers, too; there are -a number of them, simple, single-minded, and purposefully poor. I have -no mind, however, thus to pronounce upon them, dividing the sheep from -the goats, lest haply I count myself in with the wrong fold. My -desire, rather, is to see what nature-writing, pure and undefiled, may -be, and the nature-writer, what manner of writer he ought to be. - -For it is plain that the nature-writer has now evolved into a -distinct, although undescribed, literary species. His origins are not -far to seek, the course of his development not hard to trace, but very -unsatisfactory is the attempt, as yet, to classify him. We all know a -nature-book at sight, no matter how we may doubt the nature in it; we -all know that the writer of such a book must be a nature-writer; yet -this is not describing him scientifically by any means. - -Until recent years the nature-writer had been hardly more than a -variant of some long-established species--of the philosopher in -Aristotle; of the moralizer in Theobaldus; of the scholar and -biographer in Walton; of the traveler in Josselyn; of the poet in -Burns. But that was in the feudal past. Since then the land of letters -has been redistributed; the literary field, like every other field, -has been cut into intensified and highly specialized patches--the -short story for you, the muck-rake essay for me, or magazine verse, or -wild animal biography. The paragraph of outdoor description in Scott -becomes the modern nature-sketch; the "Lines to a Limping Hare" in -Burns run into a wild animal romance of about the length of "The Last -of the Mohicans"; the occasional letter of Gilbert White's grows into -an annual nature-volume, this year's being entitled "Buzz-Buzz and Old -Man Barberry; or, The Thrilling Young Ladyhood of a Better-Class -Bluebottle Fly." The story that follows is how she never would have -escaped the net of Old Man Barberry had she been a butterfly--a story -which only the modern nature-writing specialist would be capable of -handling. Nature-writing and the automobile business have developed -vastly during the last few years. - -It is Charles Kingsley, I think, who defines "a thoroughly good -naturalist" as one "who knows his own parish thoroughly," a -definition, all questions of style aside, that accurately describes -the nature-writer. He has field enough for his pen in a parish; he can -hardly know more and know it intimately enough to write about it. For -the nature-writer, while he may be more or less of a scientist, is -never mere scientist--zoölogist or botanist. Animals are not his -theme; flowers are not his theme. Nothing less than the universe is -his theme, as it pivots on him, around the distant boundaries of his -immediate neighborhood. - -His is an emotional, not an intellectual, point of view; a literary, -not a scientific, approach; which means that he is the axis of his -world, its great circumference, rather than any fact--any flower, or -star, or tortoise. Now to the scientist the tortoise is the thing: the -particular species _Thalassochelys kempi_; of the family Testudinidæ; -of the order Chelonia; of the class Reptilia; of the branch -Vertebrata. But the nature-writer never pauses over this matter to -capitalize it. His tortoise may or may not come tagged with this -string of distinguishing titles. A tortoise is a tortoise for a' that, -particularly if it should happen to be an old Sussex tortoise which -has been kept for thirty years in a yard by the nature-writer's -friend, and which "On the 1st November began to dig the ground in -order to the forming of its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just -beside a great tuft of hepaticas. - -"P. S.--In about three days after I left Sussex, the tortoise retired -into the ground under the hepatica." - -This is a bit of nature-writing by Gilbert White, of Selborne, which -sounds quite a little like science, but which you noticed was really -spoiled as science by its "tuft of hepaticas." There is no buttonhole -in science for the nosegay. And when, since the Vertebrates began, did -a scientific tortoise ever _retire_? - -One more quotation, I think, will make clear my point, namely, that -the nature-writer is not detached from himself and alone with his -fact, like the scientist, but is forever relating his tortoise to -himself. The lines just quoted were from a letter dated April 12, -1772. Eight years afterwards, in another letter, dated Selborne, April -21, 1780, and addressed to "the Hon. Daines Barrington," the good -rector writes:-- - -"DEAR SIR,--The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so -often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in -March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments by -hissing, and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles -in post-chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly -roused it that, when I turned it out on the border, it walked twice -down to the bottom of my garden." - -Not once, not three times, but _twice_ down to the bottom of the -garden! We do not question it for a moment; we simply think of the -excellent thesis material wasted here in making a mere popular page of -nature-writing. Gilbert White never got his Ph. D., if I remember, -because, I suppose, he stopped counting after the tortoise made its -second trip, and because he kept the creature among the hepaticas of -the garden, instead of on a shelf in a bottle of alcohol. Still, let -us admit, and let the college professors, who do research work upon -everything except their students, admit, that walking twice to the -bottom of a garden is not a very important discovery. But how -profoundly interesting it was to Gilbert White! And how like a passage -from the Pentateuch his record of it! Ten years he woos this tortoise -(it was fourteen that Jacob did for Rachel) and wins it--with a serene -and solemn joy. He digs it out of its winter dormitory (a hole in the -ground), packs it carefully in a box, carries it hurriedly, anxiously, -by post-chaises for eighty miles, rousing it perfectly by the end of -the journey, when, liberating it in the rectory yard, he stands back -to see what it will do; and, lo! _it walks twice to the bottom of the -garden_! - -By a thoroughly good naturalist Kingsley may have meant a thoroughly -good nature-writer, for I think he had in mind Gilbert White, who -certainly was a thoroughly good naturalist, and who certainly knew his -own parish thoroughly. In the letters from which I have quoted the -gentle rector was writing the natural history of Selborne, his parish. -But how could he write the natural history of Selborne when his -tortoise was away over in Sussex! - - A tortoise down by Sussex's brim - A Sussex tortoise was to him, - And it was nothing more-- - -nothing at all for the "Natural History of Selborne" until he had gone -after it and brought it home. - -Thus all nature-writers do with all their nature in some manner or -other, not necessarily by post-chaise for eighty miles. It is -characteristic of the nature-writer, however, to bring home his -outdoors, to domesticate his nature, to relate it all to himself. His -is a dooryard universe, his earth a flat little planet turning about a -hop-pole in his garden--a planet mapped by fields, ponds, and -cow-paths, and set in a circumfluent sea of neighbor townships, beyond -whose shores he neither goes to church, nor works out his taxes on the -road, nor votes appropriations for the schools. - -He is limited to his parish because he writes about only so much of -the world as he lives in, as touches him, as makes for him his home. -He may wander away, like Thoreau, to the Maine woods, or down along -the far-off shores of Cape Cod; but his best writing will be that -about his hut at Walden. - -It is a large love for the earth as a dwelling-place, a large faith in -the entire reasonableness of its economy, a large joy in all its -manifold life, that moves the nature-writer. He finds the earth most -marvelously good to live in--himself its very dust; a place beautiful -beyond his imagination, and interesting past his power to realize--a -mystery every way he turns. He comes into it as a settler into a new -land, to clear up so much of the wilderness as he shall need for a -home. - -Thoreau perhaps, of all our nature-writers, was the wildest wild man, -the least domestic in his attitude. He went off far into the woods, a -mile and a half from Concord village, to escape domestication, to seek -the wild in nature and to free the wild in himself. And what was his -idea of becoming a wild man but to build a cabin and clear up a piece -of ground for a bean-patch! He was solid Concord beneath his -war-paint--a thin coat of savagery smeared on to scare his friends -whenever he went to the village--a walk which he took very often. He -differed from Gilbert White as his cabin at Walden differed from the -quaint old cottage at Selborne. But cabin and cottage alike were to -dwell in; and the bachelor of the one was as much in need of a wife, -and as much in love with the earth, as the bachelor in the other. -Thoreau's "Walden" is as parochial and as domestic with its woodchuck -and beans as White's "Natural History of Selborne" with its tame -tortoise and garden. - -In none of our nature-writers, however, is this love for the earth -more manifest than in John Burroughs. It is constant and dominant in -him, an expression of his religion. He can see the earth only as the -best possible place to live in--to live _with_ rather than in or on; -for he is unlike the rector of Selborne and the wild-tame man of -Walden in that he is married and a farmer--conditions, these, to -deepen one's domesticity. Showing somewhere along every open field in -Burroughs's books is a piece of fence, and among his trees there is -always a patch of gray sloping roof. He grew up on a farm (a most -excellent place to grow up on), became a clerk, but not for long, then -got him a piece of land, built him a home out of unhewn stone, and set -him out an eighteen-acre vineyard. And ever since he has lived in his -vineyard, with the Hudson River flowing along one side of it, the -Catskills standing along another side of it, with the horizon all -around, and overhead the sky, and everywhere, through everything, the -pulse of life, the song of life, the sense of home! - -He loves the earth, for the earth is home. - -"I would gladly chant a pæan," he exclaims, "for the world as I find -it. What a mighty interesting place to live in! If I had my life to -live over again, and had my choice of celestial abodes, I am sure I -should take this planet, and I should choose these men and women for -my friends and companions. This great rolling sphere with its sky, its -stars, its sunrises and sunsets, and with its outlook into -infinity--what could be more desirable? What more satisfying? -Garlanded by the seasons, embosomed in sidereal influences, thrilling -with life, with a heart of fire and a garment of azure seas and -fruitful continents--one might ransack the heavens in vain for a -better or a more picturesque abode." - -A full-throated hymn, this, to the life that is, in the earth that is, -a hymn without taint of cant, without a single note of that fevered -desire for a land that is fairer than this, whose gates are of pearl -and whose streets are paved with gold. If there is another land, may -it be as fair as this! And a pair of bars will be gate enough, and -gravel, cinders, grass, even March mud, will do for paving; for all -that one will need there, as all that one needs here--here in New -England in March--is to have "arctics" on one's feet and an equator -about one's heart. The desire for heaven is natural enough, for how -could one help wanting more after getting through with this? But he -sins and comes short of the glory of God who would be quit of this -world for the sake of a better one. There isn't any better one. This -one is divine. And as for those dreams of heaven in old books and -monkish hymns, they cannot compare for glory and for downright -domestic possibilities with the prospect of these snow-clad Hingham -hills from my window this brilliant winter morning. - -That "this world is not my resting-place" almost any family man can -believe nowadays, but that "this world is not my home" I can't believe -at all. However poor a resting-place we make of it, however certain of -going hence upon a "longe journey," we may not find this earth -anything else than home without confessing ourselves tenants here by -preference, and liable, therefore, to pay rent throughout eternity. -The best possible use for this earth is to make a home of it, and for -this span of life, to live it like a human, earth-born being. - -Such is the _credo_ of the nature-writer. Not until it can be proved -to him that eternal day is more to his liking than the sweet -alternation of day and night, that unending rest is less monotonous -than his round of labor until the evening, that streets of gold are -softer for his feet than dirt roads with borders of grass and -dandelions, that ceaseless hallelujahs about a throne exalt the -excellency of God more than the quiet contemplation of the work of His -fingers--the moon and the stars which He has ordained--not until, I -say, it can be proved to him that God did not make this world, or, -making it, spurned it, cursed it, that heaven might seem the more -blessed--not until then will he forego his bean-patch at Walden, his -vineyard at West Park, his garden at Selborne; will he deny to his -body a house-lot on this little planet, and the range of this timed -and tidy universe to his soul. - -As between himself and nature, then, the thoroughly good nature-writer -is in love--a purely personal state; lyric, emotional, rather than -scientific, wherein the writer is not so much concerned with the facts -of nature as with his view of them, his feelings for them, as they -environ and interpret him, or as he centres and interprets them. - -Were this all, it would be a simple story of love. Unfortunately, -nature-writing has become an art, which means some one looking on, and -hence it means self-consciousness and adaptation, the writer forced to -play the difficult part of loving his theme not less, but loving his -reader more. - -For the reader, then, his test of the nature-writer will be the -extreme test of sincerity. The nature-writer (and the poet) more than -many writers is limited by decree to his experiences--not to what he -has seen or heard only, but as strictly to what he has truly felt. All -writing must be sincere. Is it that nature-writing and poetry must be -spontaneously sincere? Sincerity is the first and greatest of the -literary commandments. The second is like unto the first. Still there -is considerable difference between the inherent marketableness of a -cold thought and a warm, purely personal emotion. One has a right to -sell one's ideas, to barter one's literary inventions; one has a -right, a duty it may be, to invent inventions for sale; but one may -not, without sure damnation, make "copy" of one's emotions. In other -words, one may not invent emotions, nor observations either, for the -literary trade. The sad case with much of our nature-writing is that -it has become professional, and so insincere, not answering to genuine -observation nor to genuine emotion, but to the bid of the publisher. - -You will know the sincere nature-writer by his fidelity to fact. But, -alas! suppose I do not know the fact? To be sure. And the -nature-writer thought of that, too, and penned his solemn, pious -preface, wherein he declares that the following observations are -exactly as he personally saw them; that they are true altogether; that -he has the affidavits to prove it; and the Indians and the Eskimos to -swear the affidavits prove it. Of course you are bound to believe -after that; but you wish the preface did not make it so unnecessarily -hard. - -The sincere nature-writer, because he knows he cannot prove it, and -that you cannot prove it, and that the scientists cannot prove it, -knows that he must not be asked for proofs, that he must be above -suspicion, and so he sticks to the truth as the wife of Cæsar to her -spouse. - -Let the nature-writer only chronicle his observations as Dr. C. C. -Abbott does in "A Naturalist's Rambles about Home," or let him dream a -dream about his observations as Maeterlinck does in "The Life of the -Bee," yet is he still confined to the truth as a hermit crab to his -shell--a hard, inelastic, unchangeable, indestructible house that he -cannot adapt, but must himself be adapted to, or else abandon. -Chronicle and romance alike we want true to fact. But this particular -romance about the Bee will not thus qualify. It was not written for -beekeepers, even amateur beekeepers, for they all know more or less -about bees, and hence they would not understand the book. It was -written for those, the city-faring folk, like my market-man, who asked -me how many pounds of honey a bee would gather up in a year, and -whether I kept more than one bee in a hive. A great many persons must -have read "The Life of the Bee," but only one of them, so far as I -know, had ever kept bees, and she had just a single swarm in between -the wall of her living-room and the weather-boards outside. But she -had listened to them through the wall, and she sent me her copy of -"The Life," begging me to mark on the margins wherever the Bee of the -book was unlike her bee in the wall. She had detected a difference in -the buzz of the two bees. - -Now the two bees ought to buzz alike--one buzz, distinct and always -distinguishable from the buzz of the author. In the best -nature-writing the author is more than his matter, but he is never -identical with it; and not until we know which is which, and that the -matter is true, have we faith in the author. - -I knew a big boy once who had almost reached the footprint in -"Robinson Crusoe" (the tragedy of _almost_ reaching it!) when some one -blunderingly told him that the book was all a story, made up, not true -at all; no such island; no such Crusoe! The boy shut up the book and -put it forever from him. He wanted it true. He had thought it true, -because it had been so real. Robbed of its reality, he was unable to -make it true again. - -Most of us recover from this shock in regard to books, asking only -that they seem real. But we are eternally childish, curious, -credulous, in our thought of nature; she is so close and real to us, -and yet so shadowy, hidden, mysterious, and remote! We are eager to -listen to any tale, willing to believe anything, if only it be true. -Nay, we are willing to believe it true--we _were_, I should say, -until, like the boy with the book, we were rudely told that all this -fine writing was made up, that we have no such kindred in the wilds, -and no such wilds. Then we said in our haste, all men--who write -nature-books--are liars. - -"How much of this is real?" asked a keen and anxious reader, eyeing me -narrowly, as she pointed a steady finger at an essay of mine in the -"Atlantic." "Have you, sir, a farm and four real boys of your own, or -are they _faked_?" - -"Good heavens, madam!" I exclaimed. "Has it come to this? My boys -faked!" - -But it shows how the thoughtful and the fearful regard the literary -naturalist, and how paramount is the demand for honesty in the matter -of mere fact, to say nothing of the greater matter of expression. - -Only yesterday, in a review in the "Nation" of an animal-man book, I -read: "The best thing in the volume is the description of a fight -between a mink and a raccoon--or so it seems. Can this be because the -reader does not know the difference between a mink and a raccoon, and -does know the difference between a human being and the story-teller's -manikin?" - - This is the wandering wood, this Errour's den, - -is the feeling of the average reader--of even the "Nation's" book -reviewer--nowadays, toward nature-writing, a state of mind due to the -recent revelations of a propensity in wild-animal literature to stand -up rather than to go on all fours. - -Whatever of the Urim and of the Thummim you put into your style, -whatever of the literary lights and the perfections, see to it that -you make the facts "after their pattern, which hath been shewed thee -in the mount." - -Thou shalt not bear false witness as to the facts. - -Nor is this all. For the sad case with much nature-writing, as I have -said, is that it not only fails to answer to genuine observation, but -it also fails to answer to genuine emotion. Often as we detect the -unsound natural history, we much oftener are aware of the unsound, the -insincere, art of the author. - -Now the facts of nature, as Mr. Burroughs says, are the material of -nature literature--of _one_ kind of such literature, let me add; for, -while fabrications can be made only into lies, there may be another -kind of good nature-literature compounded wholly of fancies. Facts, to -quote Mr. Burroughs again, are the flora upon which the nature-writer -lives. "I can do nothing without them." Of course he could not. But -Chaucer could. Indeed, Chaucer could do nothing with the facts; he had -to have fancies. The truth in his story of the Cock and the Fox is a -different kind of truth from the truth about Burroughs's "Winter -Neighbors," yet no less the truth. Good nature-writing is literature, -not science, and the truth we demand first and last is a literary -truth--the fidelity of the writer to himself. He may elect to use -facts for his material; yet they are only material, and no better as -material than fancies. For it is not matter that counts last in -literature; it is manner. It is spirit that counts. It is the man. -Only honest men make literature. Writers may differ in their purpose, -as Burroughs in his purpose to guide you through the woods differs -from Chaucer's purpose to entertain you by the fire; but they are one -in their spirit of honesty. - -Chaucer pulls a long face and begins his tale of the Cock and the Fox -with a vivid and very realistic description of a widow's cottage, - - B'syde a grovë, standing in a dalë, - -as a setting, not for the poor widow and her two daughters, not at -all; but rather to stage the heroic comedy between Chauntecleer and -his favorite wife, the scarlet-eyed Pertelote. - -It is just before daybreak. They are not up yet, not off the roost, -when they get into a discussion about the significance of dreams, -Chauntecleer having had a very bad dream during the night. The dispute -waxes as it spreads out over medicine, philosophy, theology, and -psychology. Chauntecleer quotes the classics, cites famous stories, -talks Latin to her:-- - - For, also sicker as _In principio - Mulier est hominis confusio_; - -translating it for her thus:-- - - Madam, the sentence of this Latin is-- - Woman is mannës joy and all his blis, - -while she tells him he needs a pill for his liver in spite of the fact -that he wears a beard. It is fine scorn, but passing sad, following so -close upon the old English love song that Chauntecleer was wont to -wake up singing. - -It is here, at this critical juncture of the nature-story, that -Chaucer pauses to remark seriously:-- - - For thilkë tyme, as I have understondë, - Bestës and briddës couldë speke and singë. - -Certainly they could; and "speking and singing in thilkë tyme" seems -much more natural for "bestës and briddës" than many of the things -they do nowadays. - -Here, again, is Izaak Walton, as honest a man as Chaucer--a lover of -nature, a writer on angling; who knew little about angling, and less -about nature; whose facts are largely fancies; but--what of it? Walton -quotes, as a probable fact, that pickerel hatch out of the seeds of -the pickerelweed; that toads are born of fallen leaves on the bottoms -of ponds. He finds himself agreeing with Pliny "that many flies have -their birth, or being, from a dew that in the spring falls upon the -leaves of the trees"; and, quoting the divine du Bartas, he sings:-- - - So slow Boötes underneath him sees - In th' icy isles those goslings hatch'd of trees, - Whose fruitful leaves, falling into the water, - Are turn'd, they say, to living fowls soon after. - -But the "Compleat Angler" is not a scientific work on fishes, nor a -handbook on angling for anglers. It is a book for all that are lovers -of literature; for "all that are lovers of virtue; and dare trust in -his providence; and be quiet; and go a Angling." - -This is somewhat unscientific, according to our present light; but, -wonderful as it seemed to Walton, it was all perfectly natural -according to his light. His facts are faulty, yet they are the best he -had. So was his love the best he had; but that was without fault, -warm, deep, intense, sincere. - -Our knowledge of nature has so advanced since Walton's time, and our -attitude has so changed, that the facts of nature are no longer -enough for literature. We know all that our writer knows; we have seen -all that he can see. He can no longer surprise us; he can no longer -instruct us; he can no longer fool us. The day of the marvelous is -past; the day of the _cum laude_ cat and the _magna cum laude_ pup is -past, the day of the things that I alone have seen is past; and the -day of the things that I, in common with you, have honestly felt, is -come. - -There should be no suggestion in a page of nature-writing that the -author--penetrated to the heart of some howling summer camp for his -raw material; that he ever sat on his roof or walked across his back -yard in order to write a book about it. But nature-books, like other -books, are gone for that way--always and solely for the pot. Such -books are "copy" only--poor copy at that. There is nothing new in -them; for the only thing you can get by going afar for it is a -temptation to lie; and no matter from what distance you fetch a -falsehood--even from the top of the world--you cannot disguise the -true complexion of it. Take the wings of the morning and dwell in the -uttermost parts of the sea, and you will find nothing new there; -ascend into heaven or make your bed in hell for copy, as is the -fashion nowadays--But you had better look after your parish, and go -faithfully about your chores; and if you have a garden with a tortoise -in it, and you love them, and love to write about them, then write. - -Nature-writing must grow more and more human, personal, -interpretative. If I go into the wilderness and write a book about it, -it must be plain to my reader that "the writing of the book was only a -second and finer enjoyment of my holiday in the woods." If my chippy -sings, it must sing a chippy's simple song, not some gloria that only -"the careless angels know." It must not do any extraordinary thing for -me; but it may lead me to do an extraordinary thing--to have an -extraordinary thought, or suggestion, or emotion. It may mean -extraordinary things to me; things that have no existence in nature, -whose beginnings and ends are in me. I may never claim that I, because -of exceptional opportunities, or exceptional insight, or exceptional -powers of observation, have discovered these marvelous things here in -the wilds of Hingham. My pages may be anthropomorphic, human; not, -however, because I humanize my bees and toads, but because I am human, -and nature is meaningful ultimately only as it is related to me. I -must not confuse myself with nature; nor yet "struggle against fact -and law to develop and keep" my "own individuality." I must not -anthropomorphize nature; never denature nature; never follow my own -track through the woods, imagining that I am on the trail of a -better-class wolf or a two-legged bear. I must never sentimentalize -over nature again--write no more about "Buzz-Buzz and Old Man -Barberry"; write no more about wailing winds and weeping skies; for -mine is not "a poet's vision dim," but an open-eyed, scientific sight -of things as they actually are. Once I have seen them, gathered them, -if then they turn to poetry, let them turn. For so does the squash -turn to poetry when it is brought in from the field. It turns to pie; -it turns to poetry; and it still remains squash. - -Good nature-literature, like all good literature, is more lived than -written. Its immortal part hath elsewhere than the ink-pot its -beginning. The soul that rises with it, its life's star, first went -down behind a horizon of real experience, then rose from a human -heart, the source of all true feeling, of all sincere form. Good -nature-writing particularly must have a pre-literary existence as -lived reality; its writing must be only the necessary accident of its -being lived again in thought. It will be something very human, very -natural, warm, quick, irregular, imperfect, with the imperfections and -irregularities of life. And the nature-writer will be very human, too, -and so very faulty; but he will have no lack of love for nature, and -no lack of love for the truth. Whatever else he does, he will never -touch the flat, disquieting note of make-believe. He will never -invent, never pretend, never pose, never shy. He will be honest--which -is nothing unusual for birds and rocks and stars; but for human -beings, and for nature-writers very particularly, it is a state less -common, perhaps, than it ought to be. - - - - -VI - -JOHN BURROUGHS - - - - -JOHN BURROUGHS - - -John Burroughs began his literary career (and may he so end it!) by -writing an essay for the "Atlantic Monthly," as good an introduction -(and conclusion), speaking by the rhetoric, as a lifelong composition -need have. That first essay entitled "Expression," "a somewhat -Emersonian Expression," says its author, was printed in the "Atlantic" -for November, 1860, which was fifty years ago. Fifty years are not -threescore and ten; many men have lived past threescore and ten, but -not many men have written continuously for the "Atlantic" for fifty -years with eye undimmed and natural force unabated. Mr. Burroughs's -eye for the truth of nature has grown clearer during these fifty -years, and the vigor of his youth has steadied into a maturity of -strength which in some of his latest essays--"The Long Road," for -instance--lifts one and bears one down the unmeasured reaches of -geologic time, compassing the timelessness of time, its -beginninglessness, its endinglessness, as none of his earlier chapters -have done. - -Many men have written more than Mr. Burroughs. His eighteen or twenty -books, as books may be turned out, are nothing remarkable for fifty -years of work. It is not their numbers, but the books, that are -remarkable, that among them should be found "Wake-Robin," "Winter -Sunshine," "Birds and Poets," "Locusts and Wild Honey," "Pepacton," -"Fresh Fields," "Signs and Seasons," "Riverby," "Far and Near," "Ways -of Nature," and "Leaf and Tendril"; for these eleven nature-books, as -a group, stand alone and at the head of the long list of books written -about the out-of-doors since the days of the _Historia Animalium_, and -the mediæval "Fables" and "Beasteries." - -These eleven volumes are Mr. Burroughs's characteristic, his important -work. His other books are eminently worth while: there is reverent, -honest thinking in his religious essays, a creedless but an absolute -and joyous faith; there is simple and exquisite feeling in his poems; -close analysis and an unmitigatedness, wholly Whitmanesque, in his -interpretation of Whitman; and no saner, happier criticism anywhere -than in his "Literary Values." There are many other excellent critics, -however, many poets and religious writers, many other excellent -nature-writers, too; but is there any other who has written so much -upon the ways of nature as they parallel and cross the ways of men, -upon so great a variety of nature's forms and expressions, and done it -with such abiding love, with such truth and charm? - -Yet such a comparison is beyond proof, except in the least of the -literary values--mere quantity; and it may be with literature as with -merchandise: the larger the cask the greater the tare. Charm? Is not -charm that which _I_ chance to like, or _you_ chance to like? Others -have written of nature with as much love and truth as has Mr. -Burroughs, and each with his own peculiar charm: Audubon, with the -spell of wild places and the thrill of fresh wonder; Traherne, with -the ecstasy of the religious mystic; Gilbert White, with the sweetness -of the evening and the morning; Thoreau, with the heat of noonday; -Jefferies, with just a touch of twilight shadowing all his pages. We -want them severally as they are; Mr. Burroughs as he is, neither -wandering "lonely as a cloud" in search of poems, nor skulking in the -sedges along the banks of the Guaso Nyero looking for lions. We want -him at Slabsides, near his celery fields. And whatever the literary -quality of our other nature-writers, no one of them has come any -nearer than Mr. Burroughs to that difficult ideal,--a union of thought -and form, no more to be separated than the heart and the bark of a -live tree. - -Take Mr. Burroughs's work as a whole, and it is beyond dispute the -most complete, the most revealing, of all our outdoor literature. His -pages lie open like the surface of a pond, sensitive to every wind, or -calm as the sky, holding the clouds and the distant blue, and the -dragon-fly, stiff-winged and pinned to the golden knob of a -spatter-dock. - -All outdoor existence, all outdoor phenomena, are deeply interesting -to him. There is scarcely a form of outdoor life, scarcely a piece of -landscape, or natural occurrence characteristic of the Eastern States, -which has not been dealt with suggestively in his pages: the rabbit -under his porch, the paleozoic pebble along his path, the salt breeze -borne inland by the Hudson, the whirl of a snowstorm, the work of the -honeybees, the procession of the seasons over Slabsides, even the -abundant soil out of which he and his grapes grow and which, -"incorruptible and undefiled," he calls divine. - -He devotes an entire chapter to the bluebird, a chapter to the fox, -one to the apple, another to the wild strawberry. The individual, the -particular thing, is always of particular interest to him. But so is -its habitat, the whole of its environment. He sees the gem, not cut -and set in a ring, but rough in the mine, where it glitters on the -hand of nature, and glitters all the more that it is worn in the dark. -Naturally Mr. Burroughs has written much about the birds; yet he is -not an ornithologist. His theme has not been this or that, but nature -in its totality, as it is held within the circle of his horizon, as it -surrounds, supports, and quickens him. - -That nature does support and quicken the spiritual of him, no less -than the physical, is the inspiration of his writing and the final -comment it requires. Whether the universe was shaped from chaos with -man as its end, is a question of real concern to Mr. Burroughs, but of -less concern to him than the problem of shaping himself to the -universe, of living as long as he can upon a world so perfectly -adapted to life, if only one be physically and spiritually adaptable. -To take the earth as one finds it, to plant one's self in it, to plant -one's roof-tree in it, to till it, to understand it and the laws which -govern it, and the Perfection which created it, and to love it -all,--this is the heart of Mr. Burroughs's religion, the pith of his -philosophy, the conclusion of his books. - -But if a perfect place for the fit, how hard a place is this world for -the lazy, the ignorant, the stubborn, the weak, the physically and -spiritually ill! So hard that a torpid liver is almost a mortal -handicap, the stars in their courses fighting against the bilious to -defeat them, to drive them to take exercise, to a copious drinking of -water, to a knowledge of burdock and calomel--to obedience and -understanding. - -Underlying all of Mr. Burroughs's thought and feeling, framing every -one of his books, is a deep sense of the perfection of nature, the -sharing of which is physical life, the understanding of which is -spiritual life, is knowledge of God himself, in some part of His -perfection. "I cannot tell what the simple apparition of the earth and -sky mean to me; I think that at rare intervals one sees that they have -an immense spiritual meaning, altogether unspeakable, and that they -are the great helps, after all." How the world was made--its geology, -its biology--is the great question, for its answer is poetry and -religion and life itself. Mr. Burroughs is serenely sure as to who -made the world; the theological speculation as to _why_ it was made, -he answers by growing small fruits on it, living upon it, writing -about it. - -Temperamentally Mr. Burroughs is an optimist, as vocationally he is a -writer, and avocationally a vine-dresser. He plants and expects to -gather--grapes from his grape-vines, books from his book-vines, years, -satisfactions, sorrows, joys, all that is due him. - - The waters know their own and draw - The brook that springs in yonder heights; - So flows the good with equal law - Unto the soul of pure delights. - -And what is it that is due him? Everything; everything essential; as -everything essential is due the pine tree, the prairie, the very -planet. Is not this earth a star? Are not the prairie, the pine tree, -and man the dust of stars? each a part of the other? all parts of one -whole--a universe, round, rolling, without beginning, without end, -without flaw, without lack, a universe self-sustained, perfect? - - I stay my haste, I make delays, - For what avails this eager pace? - I stand amid the eternal ways, - And what is mine shall know my face. - -Mr. Burroughs came naturally by such a view of nature and its -consequent optimism. It is due partly to his having been born and -brought up on a farm where he had what was due him from the start. -Such birth and bringing-up is the natural right of every boy. To know -and to do the primitive, the elemental; to go barefoot, to drive the -cows, to fish, and to go to school with not too many books but with -"plenty of real things"--these are nominated in every boy's bond. - - Serene, I fold my hands and wait, - -is the poem of a childhood on the farm, and the poem of a manhood on -the farm, in spite of the critic who says:-- - -"We have never ceased to wonder that this friend of the birds, this -kindly interpreter of nature in all her moods, was born and brought up -on a farm; it was in that smiling country watered by the east branch -of the Delaware. No man, as a rule, knows less about the colors, -songs, and habits of birds, and is more indifferent to natural scenery -than the man born to the soil, who delves in it and breathes its -odors. Contact with it and laborious days seem to deaden his faculties -of observation and deprive him of all sympathy with nature." During -the days when the deadening might have occurred, Mr. Burroughs was -teaching school. Then he became a United States bank examiner, and -only after that returned to the country where he still lives. He is -now in his seventies, and coming full of years, and fuller and fuller -of books, as his vines are full of years, and fuller and fuller of -grapes. - -Could it be otherwise? If men and grapes are of the same divine dust, -should they not grow according to the same divine laws? Here in the -vineyard along the Hudson, Mr. Burroughs planted himself in planting -his vines, and every trellis that he set has become his own support -and stay. The very clearing of the land for his vineyard was a -preparation of himself physically and morally for a more fruitful -life. - -"Before the snow was off in March," he says in "Literary Values," "we -set to work under-draining the moist and springy places. My health and -spirits improved daily. I seemed to be under-draining my own life and -carrying off the stagnant water, as well as that of the land." And so -he was. There are other means of doing it--taking drugs, playing golf, -walking the streets; but surely the advantages and the poetry are all -in favor of the vineyard. And how much fitter a place the vineyard to -mellow and ripen life, than a city roof of tarry pebbles and tin! - -Though necessarily personal and subjective, Mr. Burroughs's writing is -entirely free from self-exploitation and confession. There are pages -scattered here and there dealing briefly and frankly with his own -natural history, but our thanks are due to Mr. Burroughs that he never -made a business of watching himself. Once he was inveigled by a -magazine editor into doing "An Egotistical Chapter," wherein we find -him as a boy of sixteen reading essays, and capable at that age of -feeding for a whole year upon Dr. Johnson! Then we find him reading -Whipple's essays, and the early outdoor papers of Higginson; and -later, at twenty-three, settling down with Emerson's essays, and -getting one of his own into the "Atlantic Monthly." - -How early his own began to come to him! - -That first essay in the "Atlantic" was followed by a number of outdoor -sketches in the New York "Leader"--written, Mr. Burroughs says, -"mainly to break the spell of Emerson's influence and get upon ground -of my own." He succeeded in both purposes; and a large and exceedingly -fertile piece of ground it proved to be, too, this which he got upon! -Already the young writer had chosen his field and his crop. The -out-of-doors has been largely his literary material, as the essay has -been largely his literary form, ever since. He has done other -things--volumes of literary studies and criticisms; but his theme from -first to last has been the Great Book of Nature, a page of which, here -and there, he has tried to read to us. - -Mr. Burroughs's work, in outdoor literature, is a distinct species, -with new and well-marked characteristics. He is the nature-writer, to -be distinguished from the naturalist in Gilbert White, the mystic in -Traherne, the philosopher in Emerson, the preacher, poet, egotist in -Thoreau, the humorist in Charles Dudley Warner. As we now know the -nature-writer we come upon him for the first time in Mr. Burroughs. -Such credit might have gone to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, had he not -been something else before he was a lover of nature--of letters first, -then of flowers, carrying his library into the fields; whereas Mr. -Burroughs brings the fields into the library. The essay whose matter -is nature, whose moral is human, whose manner is strictly literary, -belongs to Mr. Burroughs. His work is distinguished by this threefold -and _even_ emphasis. In almost every other of our early outdoor -writers either the naturalist or the moralist or the stylist holds the -pen. - -Early or late, this or that, good outdoor writing must be marked, -first, by fidelity to fact; and, secondly, by sincerity of expression. -Like qualities mark all good literature; but they are themselves the -_very_ literature of nature. When we take up a nature-book we ask (and -it was Mr. Burroughs who taught us to ask), "Is the record true? Is -the writing honest?" - -In these eleven volumes by Mr. Burroughs there are many observations, -and it is more than likely that some of them may be wrong, but it is -not possible that any of them could be mixed with observations that -Mr. Burroughs knows he never made. If Mr. Burroughs has written a line -of sham natural history, which line is it? In a preface to -"Wake-Robin," the author says his readers have sometimes complained -that they do not see the things which he sees in the woods; but I -doubt if there ever was a reader who suspected Mr. Burroughs of not -seeing the things. - -His reply to these complaints is significant, being in no manner a -defense, but an exquisite explanation, instead, of the difference -between the nature which anybody may see in the woods and the nature -that every individual writer, because he is a writer, and an -individual, must put into his book: a difference like that between the -sweet-water gathered by the bee from the flowers and the drop of -acid-stung honey deposited by the bee in the comb. The sweet-water -undergoes a chemical change in being brought to the hive, as the wild -nature undergoes a literary change--by the addition of the writer's -self to the nature, while with the sweet-water it is by the addition -of the bee. - -One must be able to walk to an editorial office and back, and all the -way walk humbly with his theme, as Mr. Burroughs ever does--not -entirely forgetful of himself, nor of me (because he has invited me -along); but I must be quiet and not disturb the fishing--if we go by -way of a trout-stream. - -True to the facts, Mr. Burroughs is a great deal more than scientific, -for he loves the things--the birds, hills, seasons--as well as the -truths about them; and true to himself, he is not by any means a -simple countryman who has never seen the city, a natural idyl, who -lisps in "Atlantic" essays, because the essays come. He is fully aware -of the thing he wants to do, and by his own confession has a due -amount of trouble shaping his raw material into finished literary -form. He is quite in another class from the authors of "The Complete -Angler" and "New England's Rarities Discovered." In Isaak Walton, to -quote Leslie Stephen, "_a happy combination of circumstances_ has -provided us with a true country idyl, fresh and racy from the soil, -not consciously constructed by the most skillful artistic hand." - -Now the skillful artistic hand is everywhere seen in Mr. Burroughs. -What writer in these days could expect happy combinations of -circumstances in sufficient numbers for eleven volumes? Albeit a stone -house, in a vineyard by the Hudson, seems a very happy combination, -indeed! - -But being an idyl, when you come to think of it, is not the result of -a happy combination of circumstances, but rather of stars--of -horoscope. You are born an idyl or you are not, and where and when you -live has nothing to do with it. - -Who would look for a true country idyl to-day in the city of -Philadelphia? Yet one came out of there yesterday, and lies here open -before me, on the table. It is a slender volume, called "With the -Birds, An Affectionate Study," by Caroline Eliza Hyde. The author is -discussing the general subject of nomenclature and animal -distribution, and says:-- - -"When the Deluge covered the then known face of the earth, the birds -were drowned with every other living thing, except those that Noah, -commanded by God, took two by two into the Ark. - -"When I reflect deeply and earnestly about the Ark, as every one -should, thoughts crowd my mind with an irresistible force." - -[And they crowd my mind, too.] - -"Noah and his family had preserved the names of the birds given them -by Adam. This is assured, for Noah sent a raven and a dove out to see -if the waters had abated, and we have birds of that name now. Nothing -was known of our part of the globe, so these birds must have remained -in the Holy Land for centuries. We do not hear of them until America -was discovered.... - -"Bats come from Sur. They are very black mouse-like birds, and -disagreeable.... The bobolink is not mentioned in the Bible, but it is -doubtless a primitive bird. The cock that crows too early in the -morning ... can hardly be classed with the song-birds. The name of the -hummingbird is not mentioned in the Bible, but as there is nothing new -under the sun, he is probably a primitive bird." - -Mr. Burroughs will agree that the hummingbird is probably a primitive -bird; and also that this is a true idyl, and that he could not write a -true idyl if he tried. No one could write like that by trying. And -what has any happy combination of circumstances to do with it? No, a -book essentially is only a personality in type, and he who would not -be frustrated of his hope to write a true idyl must himself be born a -true idyl. A fine Miltonic saying! - -Mr. Burroughs is not an idyl, but an essayist, with a love for books -only second to his love for nature; a watcher in the woods, a tiller -of the soil, a reader, critic, thinker, poet, whose chief business -these fifty years has been the interpretation of the out-of-doors. - -Upon him as interpreter and observer, his recent books, "Ways of -Nature" and "Leaf and Tendril," are an interesting comment. - -Truth does not always make good literature, not when it is stranger -than fiction, as it often is, and the writer who sticks to the truth -of nature must sometimes do it at the cost of purely literary ends. -Have I sacrificed truth to literature? asks Mr. Burroughs of his -books. Have I seen in nature the things that are there, or the -strange man-things, the "winged creeping things which have four -feet," and which were an abomination to the ancient Hebrews, but which -the readers of modern nature-writing do greedily devour--are these the -things I have seen? And for an answer he sets about a reëxamination of -all he has written, from "Wake-Robin" to "Far and Near," hoping "that -the result of the discussion or threshing will not be to make the -reader love the animals less, but rather to love the truth more." - -But the result, as embodied in "Ways of Nature" and in "Leaf and -Tendril," is quite the opposite, I fear; for these two volumes are -more scientific in tone than any of his other work; and it is the -mission, not of science, but of literature, to quicken our love for -animals, even for truth. Science only adds to the truth. Yet here, in -spite of himself, Mr. Burroughs is more the writer, more the -interpreter, than the investigator. He is constantly forgetting his -scientific thesis, as, for instance, in the account of his neighbor's -errant cow. He succeeds finally, however, in reducing her fairly well -to a mechanical piece of beef acting to vegetable stimuli upon a nerve -ganglion located somewhere in the region between her horns and her -tail. - -Now, all this is valuable, and the use made of it is laudable, but -would we not rather have the account than the cow, especially from Mr. -Burroughs? Certainly, because to us it is the _account_ that he has -come to stand for. And so, if we do not love his scientific animals -more, and his scientific findings more, we shall, I think, love all -his other books more; for we see now that, from the beginning, he has -regarded the facts of nature as the solid substance of his books, to -be kept as free from fancy and from false report, as his -interpretation of them is to be kept free from all exaggeration and -cant. - -Here, then, are eleven volumes of honest seeing, honest feeling, -honest reporting. Such honesty of itself may not make good -nature-literature, but without such honesty there can be no good -nature-literature. - -Nature-literature is not less than the truth, but more; how much more, -Mr. Burroughs himself suggests to us in a passage about his literary -habits. - -"For my part," he says, "I can never interview nature in the reporter -fashion. I must camp and tramp with her to get any good, and what I -get I absorb through my emotions rather than consciously gather -through my intellect.... An experience must lie in my mind a certain -time before I can put it upon paper--say from three to six months. If -there is anything in it, it will ripen and mellow by that time. I -rarely take any notes, and I have a very poor memory, but rely upon -the affinity of my mind for a certain order of truths or observations. -What is mine will stick to me, and what is not will drop off. We who -write about nature pick out, I suspect, only the rare moments when we -have had glimpses of her, and make much of them. Our lives are dull, -our minds crusted over with rubbish like those of other people. Then -writing about nature, or about most other subjects, is an expansive -process; we are under the law of evolution; we grow the germ into the -tree; a little original observation goes a good way." For "when you go -to nature, bring us good science or else good literature, and not a -mere inventory of what you have seen. One demonstrates, the other -interprets." - -Careful as Mr. Burroughs has been with his facts, so careful as often -to bring us excellent science, he yet has left us no inventory of the -out-of-doors. His work is literature; he is not a demonstrator, but an -interpreter, an expositor who is true to the text and true to the -whole of the context. - -Our pleasure in Mr. Burroughs as an interpreter comes as much from his -wholesome good sense, from his balance and sanity, I think, as from -the assurance of his sincerity. Free from pose and cant and deception, -he is free also from bias and strain. There is something ordinary, -normal, reasonable, companionable, about him; an even tenor to all his -ways, a deliberateness, naturalness to all his paths, as if they might -have been made originally by the cows. So they were. - -If Mr. Burroughs were to start from my door for a tramp over these -small Hingham hills he would cross the trout-brook by my neighbor's -stone bridge, and nibbling a spear of peppermint on the way, would -follow the lane and the cow-paths across the pasture. Thoreau would -pick out the deepest hole in the brook and try to swim across; he -would leap the stone walls of the lane, cut a bee-line through the -pasture, and drop, for his first look at the landscape, to the bottom -of the pit in the seam-face granite quarry. Here he would pull out his -note-book and a gnarly wild apple from his pocket, and intensely, -critically, chemically, devouring said apple, make note in the book -that the apples of Eden were flat, the apples of Sodom bitter, but -this wild, tough, wretched, impossible apple of the Hingham hills -united all ambrosial essences in its striking odor of squash-bugs. - -Mr. Burroughs takes us along with him. Thoreau comes upon us in the -woods--jumps out at us from behind some bush, with a "_Scat!_" -Burroughs brings us home in time for tea; Thoreau leaves us tangled up -in the briars. - -It won't hurt us to be jumped at now and then and told to "_scat!_" It -won't hurt us to be digged by the briars. It is good for us, otherwise -we might forget that _we_ are beneath our clothes. It is good for us -and highly diverting, but highly irritating too. - -For my part, when I take up an outdoor book I am glad if there is -quiet in it, and fragrance, and something of the saneness and -sweetness of the sky. Not that I always want sweet skies. It is -ninety-eight degrees in the shade, and three weeks since there fell a -drop of rain. I could sing like a robin for a sizzling, crackling -thunder-shower--less for the sizzling and crackling than for the -shower. Thoreau is a succession of showers--"tempests"; his pages are -sheet-lightning, electrifying, purifying, illuminating, but not -altogether conducive to peace. There is a clear sky to most of Mr. -Burroughs's pages, a rural landscape, wide, gently rolling, with -cattle standing here and there beneath the trees. - -Mr. Burroughs's natural history is entirely natural, his philosophy -entirely reasonable, his religion and ethics very much of the kind we -wish our minister and our neighbor might possess; and his manner of -writing is so unaffected that we feel we could write in such a manner -ourselves. Only we cannot. - -Since the time he can be said to have "led" a life, Mr. Burroughs has -led a literary life; that is to say, nothing has been allowed to -interfere with his writing; yet the writing has not been allowed to -interfere with a quiet successful business,--with his raising of -grapes. - -He has a study and a vineyard. - -Not many men ought to live by the pen alone. A steady diet of -inspiration and words is hard on the literary health. The writing -should be varied with some good wholesome work, actual hard work for -the hands; not so much work, perhaps, as one would find in an -eighteen-acre vineyard; yet Mr. Burroughs's eighteen acres have -certainly proved no check--rather, indeed, a stimulus--to his writing. -He seems to have gathered a volume out of every acre; and he seems to -have put a good acre into every volume. "Fresh Fields" is the name of -one of the volumes, "Leaf and Tendril" of another; but the freshness -of his fields, the leaves and the tendrils of his vineyard, enter into -them all. The grapes of the vineyard are in them also. - -Here is a growth of books out of the soil, books that have been -trimmed, trained, sprayed, and kept free from rot. Such books may not -be altogether according to the public taste; they will keep, however, -until the public acquires a better taste. Sound, ripe, fresh, early -and late, a full crop! Has the vineyard anything to do with it? - -It is not every farmer who should go to writing, nor every writer who -should go to farming; but there is a mighty waste of academic -literature, of premature, precocious, lily-handed literature, of -chicken-licken literature, because the writers do not know a spade -when they see one, would not call it a spade if they knew. Those -writers need to do less writing and more farming, more real work with -their soft hands in partnership with the elemental forces of nature, -or in comradeship with average elemental men--the only species extant -of the quality to make writing worth while. - -Mr. Burroughs has had this labor, this partnership, this comradeship. -His writing is seasoned and sane. It is ripe, and yet as fresh as -green corn with the dew in the silk. You have eaten corn on the cob -just from the stalk and steamed in its own husk? Green corn that _is_ -corn, that has all its milk and sugar and flavor, is corn on the cob, -and in the husk,--is cob and kernel and husk,--not a stripped ear that -is cooked into the kitchen air. - -Literature is too often stripped of its human husk, and cut from its -human cob: the man gone, the writer left; the substance gone, the -style left--corn that tastes as much like corn as it tastes like -puffed rice,--which tastes like nothing at all. There is the sweetness -of the husk, the flavor of the cob, the substance of the uncut corn to -Mr. Burroughs. - -There is no lack of cob and husk to Thoreau, of shell and hull, one -should say, for he is more like a green walnut than an ear of green -corn. Thoreau is very human, a whole man; but he is almost as much a -tree, and a mountain, and a pond, and a spell of weather, and a state -of morals. He is the author of "Walden," and nobody else in the world -is that; he is a lover of nature, as ardent a lover as ever eloped -with her; he is a lover of men, too, loving them with an intensity -that hates them bag and baggage; he is poetical, prophetic, -paradoxical, and utterly impossible. - -But he knew it. Born in Concord, under the transcendental stars, at a -time when Delphic sayings and philosophy, romance and poetry ran wild -in the gardens where Bouncing-Bet and Wayward Charlie now run wild, -Thoreau knew that he was touched, and that all his neighbors were -touched, and sought asylum at Walden. But Walden was not distant -enough. If Mr. Burroughs in Roxbury, New York, found it necessary to -take to the woods in order to escape from Emerson, then Thoreau should -have gone to Chicago, or to Xamiltapec. - -It is the strain, in Thoreau, that wearies us; his sweating among the -stumps and woodchucks, for a bean crop netting him eight dollars, -seventy-one and one half cents. But such beans! Beans with minds and -souls! Yet, for baking, plain beans are better than these -transcendental beans, because your transcendental beans are always -baked without pork. A family man, however, cannot contemplate that -piddling patch with any patience, even though he have a taste for -literature as real as his taste for beans. It is better to watch Mr. -Burroughs pruning his grape-vines for a crop to net him one thousand, -three hundred and twenty-five dollars, and _no_ cents, and no -half-cents. Here are eighteen acres to be cultivated, whose fruit is -to be picked, shipped, and sold in the New York markets at a profit--a -profit plainly felt in Mr. Burroughs's books. - -The most worthy qualities of good writing are those least -noticeable,--negative qualities of honesty, directness, sincerity, -euphony; noticeable only by their absence. Yet in Mr. Burroughs they -amount to a positive charm. Indeed, are not these same negative -qualities the very substance of good style? Such style as is had by a -pair of pruning-shears, as is embodied in the exquisite lines of a -flying swallow--the style that is perfect, purposeful adaptability? - -But there is more than efficiency to Mr. Burroughs's style; there are -strengths and graces existing in and for themselves. Here is a -naturalist who has studied the art of writing. "What little merit my -style has," he declares, "is the result of much study and discipline." -And whose style, if it be style at all, is not the result of much -study and discipline. Flourish, fine-writing, wordiness, obscurity, -and cant are exorcised in no other way; and as for the "limpidness, -sweetness, freshness," which Mr. Burroughs says should characterize -outdoor writing, and which do characterize his writing, how else than -by study and discipline shall they be obtained? - -Outdoor literature, no less than other types of literature, is both -form and matter; the two are mutually dependent, inseparably one; but -the writer is most faithful to the form when he is most careful of the -matter. It makes a vast difference whether his interest is absorbed by -what he has to say, or by the possible ways he may say it. If Mr. -Burroughs writes in his shirt-sleeves, as a recent critic says he -does, it is because he goes about his writing as he goes about his -vineyarding--for grapes, for thoughts, and not to see how pretty he -can make a paragraph look, or into what fantastic form he can train a -vine. The vine is lovely in itself,--if it bear fruit. - -And so is language. Take Mr. Burroughs's manner in any of its moods: -its store of single, sufficient words, for instance, especially the -homely, rugged words and idioms, and the flavor they give, is second -to the work they do; or take his use of figures--when he speaks of De -Quincey's "discursive, roundabout style, herding his thoughts as a -collie dog herds sheep,"--and unexpected, vivid, apt as they are, they -are even more effective. One is often caught up by the poetry of these -essays and borne aloft, but never on a gale of words; the lift and -sweep are genuine emotion and thought. - -As an essayist,--as a nature-writer I ought to say,--Mr. Burroughs's -literary care is perhaps nowhere so plainly seen as in the simple -architecture of his essay plans, in their balance and finish, a -quality that distinguishes him from others of the craft, and that -neither gift nor chance could so invariably supply. The common fault -of outdoor books is the catalogue--raw data, notes. There are -paragraphs of notes in Mr. Burroughs, volumes of them in Thoreau. The -average nature-writer sees not too much of nature, but knows all too -little of literary values; he sees everything, gets a meaning out of -nothing; writes it all down; and gives us what he sees, which is -precisely what everybody may see; whereas, we want also what he thinks -and feels. Some of our present writers do nothing but feel and divine -and fathom--the animal psychologists, whatever they are. The bulk of -nature-writing, however, is journalistic, done on the spot, into a -note-book, as were the journals of Thoreau--fragmentary, yet with -Thoreau often exquisite fragments--bits of old stained glass, -unleaded, and lacking unity and design. - -No such fault can be found with Mr. Burroughs. He goes pencilless -into the woods, and waits before writing until his return home, until -time has elapsed for the multitudinous details of the trip to blur and -blend, leaving only the dominant facts and impressions for his pen. -Every part of his work is of selected stock, as free from knots and -seams and sap-wood as a piece of old-growth pine. There is plan, -proportion, integrity to his essays--the naturalist living faithfully -up to a sensitive literary conscience. - -Mr. Burroughs is a good but not a great naturalist, as Audubon and -Gray were great naturalists. His claim (and Audubon's in part) upon us -is literary. He has been a watcher in the woods; has made a few -pleasant excursions into the primeval wilderness, leaving his gun at -home, and his camera, too, thank Heaven! He has broken out no new -trail, discovered no new animal, no new thing. But he has seen all the -old, uncommon things, has seen them oftener, has watched them longer, -through more seasons, than any other writer of our out-of-doors; and -though he has discovered no new thing, yet he has made discoveries, -volumes of them,--contributions largely to our stock of literature, -and to our store of love for the earth, and to our joy in living upon -it. He has turned a little of the universe into literature; has -translated a portion of the earth into human language; has restored to -us our garden here eastward in Eden--apple tree and all. - -For a real taste of fruity literature, try Mr. Burroughs's chapter on -"The Apple." Try Thoreau's, too,--if you are partial to squash-bugs. -There are chapters in Mr. Burroughs, such as "Is it going to Rain?" "A -River View," "A Snow-Storm," which seem to me as perfect, in their -way, as anything that has ever been done--single, simple, beautiful in -form, and deeply significant; the storm being a piece of fine -description, of whirling snow across a geologic landscape, distant, -and as dark as eternity; the whole wintry picture lighted and warmed -at the end by a glowing touch of human life:-- - -"We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth; it is the color of -life, while a snow-covered plain is the face of death; yet snow is but -the mark of life-giving rain; it, too, is the friend of man--the -tender, sculpturesque, immaculate, warming, fertilizing snow." - -There are many texts in these eleven volumes, many themes; and in them -all there is one real message: that this is a good world to live in; -that these are good men and women to live with; that life is good, -here and now, and altogether worth living. - - - - -VII - -HUNTING THE SNOW - - - - -HUNTING THE SNOW - - -The hunt began at the hen-yard gate, where we saw tracks in the thin, -new snow that led us up the ridge, and along its narrow back, to a -hollow stump. Here the hunt began in earnest, for not until that trail -of close, double, nail-pointed prints went under the stump were the -three small boys convinced that we were tracking a skunk and not a -cat. - -This creature had moved leisurely. That you could tell by the -closeness of the prints. Wide-apart tracks in the snow mean hurry. Now -a cat, going as slowly as this creature went, would have put down her -dainty feet almost in single line, and would have left round, -cushion-marked holes in the snow, not triangular, nail-pointed prints -like these. Cats do not venture into holes under stumps, either. - -We had bagged our first quarry! No, no! We had not pulled that wood -pussy out of his hole and put him into our game-bag. We did not want -to do that. We really carried no bag; and if we had, we should not -have put the wood pussy in it, for we were hunting tracks, not the -animals, and "bagging our quarry" meant trailing a creature to its -den, or following its track until we had discovered something it had -done, or what its business was, and why it was out. We were on the -snow for animal _facts_, not animal pelts. - -We were elated with our luck, for this stump was not five minutes by -the steep ridge path from the hen-yard. And here, standing on the -stump, we were only sixty minutes away from Boston Common by the -automobile, driving no faster than the law allows. So we were not -hunting in a wilderness, but just outside our dooryard and almost -within the borders of a great city. - -And that is the interesting fact of our morning hunt. No one but a -lover of the woods and a careful walker on the snow would believe that -here in the midst of hay-fields, in sight of the smoke of city -factories, so many of the original wild wood-folk still live and -travel their night paths undisturbed. - -Still, this is a rather rough bit of country, broken, ledgy, -boulder-strewn, which accounts for the swamps and woody hills that -alternate with small towns and cultivated fields all the way to the -Blue Hill Reservation, fifteen miles to the westward. This whole -region, this dooryard of Boston, is one of Nature's own reservations, -a preserve that she has kept for her small and humble folk, who are -just as dear to her as we are, but whom we have driven, except in such -small places as these, quite off the earth. - -Here, however, they are still at home, as this hole of the skunk's -under the stump proved. But there was more proof. As we topped the -ridge on the trail of the skunk, we crossed another trail, made up of -bunches of four prints,--two long and broad, two small and -roundish,--spaced about a yard apart. - -A hundred times, the winter before, we had tried that trail in the -hope of finding the form or the burrow of its maker, the great -Northern hare, but it crossed and turned and doubled, and always led -us into a tangle, out of which we never got a clue. - -As this was the first tracking snow of the winter, we were relieved to -see the strong prints of our cunning neighbor again, for what with -the foxes and the hunters, we were afraid it might have fared ill with -him. But here he was, with four good legs under him; and after bagging -our skunk, we returned to pick up the hare's trail, to try our luck -once more. - -We brought him in long, leisurely leaps down the ridge, out into our -mowing field, and over to the birches below the house. Here he had -capered about in the snow, had stood up on his haunches and gnawed the -bark from off a green oak sucker two and a half feet from the ground. -This, doubtless, was pretty near his length, stretched out--an -interesting item; not exact to the inch, perhaps, but close enough for -us; and much more fascinating, guessed at by such a rule, than if -measured dead, with scientific accuracy. - -Nor was this all, for up the foot-path through the birches came the -marks of two dogs. They joined the marks of the hare. And then, back -along the edge of the woods to the bushy ridge, we saw a pretty race. - -It was all in our imaginations, all done for us by those long-flinging -footprints in the snow. But we saw it all--the white hare, the -yelling hounds, nip and tuck, in a burst of speed across the open -field that left a gap in the wind behind. - -It had all come as a surprise. The hounds had climbed the hill on the -scent of a fox, and had "jumped" the hare unexpectedly. But just such -a jump of fear is what a hare's magnificent legs were intended for. - -They carried him a clear twelve feet in some of the longest leaps for -the ridge, and they carried him to safety, so far as we could read the -snow. In the medley of hare-and-hound tracks on the ridge there was no -sign of a tragedy. He had escaped again--but how and where we have -still to learn. - -We had bagged our hare,--yet still we have him to bag,--and taking up -the trail of one of the dogs, we continued our hunt. - -One of the joys of this snow-walking is having a definite road or -trail blazed for you by knowing, purposeful feet. You do not have to -blunder ahead, breaking your way into this wilderness world, trusting -luck to bring you somewhere. The wild animal or the dog goes this way, -and not that, for a reason. You are following that reason all along; -you are pack-fellow to the hound; you hunt with him. - -Here the hound had thrust his muzzle into a snow-capped pile of -slashings, had gone clear round the pile, then continued on his way. -But we stopped, for out of the pile, in a single, direct line, ran a -number of mice-prints, going and coming. A dozen white-footed mice -might have traveled that road since the day before, when the snow had -ceased falling. - -We entered the tiny road (for in this kind of hunting a mouse is as -good as a mink), and found ourselves descending the woods toward the -garden-patch below. Halfway down we came to a great red oak, into a -hole at the base of which, as into the portal of some mighty castle, -ran the road of the mice. That was the end of it. There was not a -single straying footprint beyond the tree. - -I reached in as far as my arm would go, and drew out a fistful of -pop-corn cobs. So here was part of my scanty crop! I pushed in again, -and gathered up a bunch of chestnut shells, hickory-nuts, and several -neatly rifled hazelnuts. This was story enough. There was a nest, or -family, of mice living under the slashing pile, who for some good -reason kept their stores here in the recesses of this ancient red oak. -Or was this some squirrel's barn being pilfered by the mice, as my -barn is the year round? It was not all plain. But this question, this -constant riddle of the woods,--small, indeed, in the case of the -mouse, and involving no great fate in its solution,--is part of our -constant joy in the woods. Life is always new, always strange, always -fascinating. - -It has all been studied and classified according to species. Any one -knowing the woods at all would know that these were mice-tracks, the -tracks of the white-footed mouse, even, and not the tracks of the -jumping mouse, the house mouse, or the meadow mouse. But what is the -whole small story of these prints? What purpose, intention, feeling do -they spell? What and why?--a hundred times! - -But the scientific books are dumb. Indeed, they do not consider such -questions worth answering, just as under the species _Mus_ they make -no record of the fact that - - The present only toucheth thee. - -But that is a poem. Burns discovered that--Burns, the farmer! The -woods and fields are poem-full, and it is largely because we do not -know, and never can know, just all that the tiny snow-prints of a -wood-mouse may mean, nor understand just what - - root and all, and all in all, - -the humblest flower is. - -The pop-corn cobs, however, were a known quantity, a tangible fact, -and falling in with a gray squirrel's track not far from the red oak, -we went on, our game-bag heavier, our hearts lighter at the thought -that we, by the sweat of our brow, had contributed a few ears of corn -to the comfort of this snowy winter world. - -The squirrel's track wound up and down the hillside, wove in and out -and round and round, hitting every possible tree, as if the only road -for a squirrel was one that looped and doubled and tied up every stump -and zigzagged into every tree trunk in the woods. - -But all this maze was no ordinary journey. The squirrel had not run -this coil of a road for breakfast, because when he travels, say, for -distant nuts, he goes as directly as you go to your school or office; -but he goes not by streets, but by trees, never crossing more of the -open in a single rush than the space between him and the nearest tree -that will take him on his way. - -What interested us here in the woods was the fact that a second series -of tracks just like the first, only about half as large, dogged the -larger tracks persistently, leaping tree for tree, and landing track -for track with astonishing accuracy--tracks which, had they not been -evidently those of a smaller squirrel, would have read to us most -menacingly. - -As this was the mating season for squirrels, I suggested that it might -have been a kind of Atalanta's race here in the woods. But why did so -little a squirrel want to marry one so big? They would not look well -together, was the answer of the small boys. They thought it much more -likely that Father Squirrel had been playing wood-tag with one of his -children. - -Then, suddenly, as sometimes happens in the woods, the true meaning of -the signs was literally hurled at us, for down the hill, squealing and -panting, rushed a large male gray squirrel, with a red squirrel like a -shadow, like a weasel, at his heels. - -For just an instant I thought it was a weasel, so swift and silent and -gliding were its movements, so set and cruel seemed its expression, so -sure, so inevitable its victory. - -Whether it ever caught the gray squirrel or not, and what it would -have done had it caught the big fellow, I do not know. But I have seen -the chase often--the gray squirrel put to the last extremity with -fright and fatigue, the red squirrel an avenging, inexorable fate -behind. They tore round and round us, then up over the hill, and -disappeared. - -One of the rarest prints for most snow-hunters nowadays, but one of -the commonest hereabouts, is the quick, sharp track of the fox. In the -spring particularly, when my fancy young chickens are turned out to -pasture, I have spells of fearing that the fox will never be -exterminated here in this untillable but beautiful chicken country. In -the winter, however, when I see Reynard's trail across my lawn, when I -hear the music of the baying hounds, and catch a glimpse of the -white-tipped brush swinging serenely in advance of the coming pack, I -cannot but admire the capable, cunning rascal, cannot but be glad for -him, and marvel at him, so resourceful, so superior to his almost -impossible conditions, his almost innumerable foes. - -We started across the meadow on his trail, but found it leading so -straightaway for the ledges, and so continuously blotted out by the -passing of the pack, that, striking the wallowy path of a muskrat in -the middle of the meadow, we took up the new scent to see what the -shuffling, cowering water-rat wanted from across the snow. - -A man is known by the company he keeps, by the way he wears his hat, -by the manner of his laugh; but among the wild animals nothing tells -more of character than their manner of moving. You can read animal -character as easily in the snow as you can read act and direction. - -The timidity, the indecision, the lack of purpose, the restless, -meaningless curiosity of this muskrat were evident from the first in -the loglike, the starting, stopping, returning, going-on track he had -ploughed out in the thin snow. - -He did not know where he was going or what he was going for; he knew -only that he insisted upon going back, but all the while kept going -on; that he wanted to go to the right or to the left, yet kept moving -straight ahead. - -We came to a big wallow in the snow, where, in sudden fear, he had had -a fit at the thought of something that might not have happened to him -had he stayed at home. Every foot of the trail read, "He would if he -could; but if he wouldn't, how could he?" - -We followed him on, across a dozen other trails, for it is not every -winter night that the muskrat's feet get the better of his head, and, -willy-nilly, take him abroad. Strange and fatal weakness! He goes and -cannot stop. - -Along the stone wall of the meadow we tracked him, across the -highroad, over our garden, into the orchard, up the woody hill to the -yard, back down the hill to the orchard, out into the garden, and back -toward the orchard again; and here, on a knoll just in the edge of the -scanty, skeleton shadow where the moon fell through the trees, we lost -him. - -Two mighty wings had touched the snow lightly here, and the lumbering -trail had vanished as into the air. - -Close and mysterious the silent wings hang poised indoors and out. -Laughter and tears are companions. Comedy begins, but tragedy often -ends the trail. Yet the sum of life indoors and out is peace, -gladness, and fulfillment. - - - - -VIII - -THE CLAM FARM - - - - -THE CLAM FARM: - -A CASE OF CONSERVATION - - -Our hunger for clams and their present scarcity have not been the -chief factors in the new national movement for the conservation of our -natural resources; nor are the soaring prices of pork and lumber and -wheat immediate causes, although they have served to give point and -application to the movement. Ours is still a lavishly rich country. We -have long had a greed for land, but we have not felt a pang yet of the -Old World's land-hunger. Thousands of acres, the stay for thousands of -human lives, are still lying as waste places on the very borders of -our eastern cities. There is plenty of land yet, plenty of lumber, -plenty of food, but there is a very great and growing scarcity of -clams. - -Of course the clam might vanish utterly from the earth and be -forgotten; our memory of its juicy, salty, sea-fat flavor might vanish -with it; and we, ignorant of our loss, be none the poorer. We should -live on,--the eyeless fish in the Mammoth Cave live on,--but life, -nevertheless, would not be so well worth living. For it would be -flatter, with less of wave-wet freshness and briny gusto. No -kitchen-mixed seasoning can supply the wild, natural flavors of life; -no factory-made sensations the joy of being the normal, elemental, -primitive animal that we are. - -The clam is one of the natural flavors of life, and no longer ago than -when I was a freshman was considered one of life's necessities. Part -of the ceremony of my admission to college was a clambake down the -Providence River--such a clambake as never was down any other river, -and as never shall be again down the Providence River, unless the -Rhode Island clam-diggers take up their barren flats and begin to grow -clams. - -This they will do; our new and general alarm would assure us of that, -even if the Massachusetts clam-diggers were not leading the way. But -Rhode Island already has one thriving clam farm of her own at Rumstick -Point along the Narragansett. The clam shall not perish from our tidal -flats. Gone from long reaches where once it was abundant, small and -scattering in its present scanty beds, the clam (the long-neck clam) -shall again flourish, and all of New England shall again rejoice and -be glad. - -We are beginning, as a nation, while still the years are fat with -plenty, to be troubled lest those of the future come hungry and lean. -Up to the present time our industrial ethics have been like our -evangelical religion, intensely, narrowly individualistic,--_my_ -salvation at all costs. "Dress-goods, yarns, and tops" has been our -industrial hymn and prayer. And religiously, even yet, I sing of my -own salvation:-- - - While in this region here below, - _No other good will I pursue_: - I'll bid this world of noise and show, - With all its glittering snares, adieu; - -A most un-Christian sentiment truly, and all too common in both -religion and business, yet far from representing, to-day, the guiding -spirit of either business or religion. For the growing conception of -human brotherhood is mightily expanding our narrow religious -selfishness; and the dawning revelation of industrial solidarity is -not only making men careful for the present prosperity of the ends of -the earth, but is making them concerned also for the future prosperity -of the Farther-Off. - -Priests and prophets we have had heretofore. "Woodman, woodman, spare -that tree," they have wailed. And the flying chips were the woodman's -swift response. The woodman has not heard the poet's prayer. But he is -hearing the American public's command to let the sapling alone; and he -is beginning to heed. It is a new appeal, this for the sapling; there -is sound scientific sense in it, and good business sense, too. We -shall save our forests, our watersheds, and rivers; we shall conserve -for time to come our ores and rich deposits; we shall reclaim the last -of our western deserts, adopt the most forlorn of our eastern farms; -we shall herd our whales of the Atlantic, our seals of the Pacific, -number and multiply our truant schools of mackerel that range the -waters of the sea; just as we shall restock with clams the waste, -sandy shores of the sea, shores which in the days of Massasoit were as -fruitful as Eden, but which through years of digging and no planting -have become as barren as the bloodless sands of the Sahara. - -It is a solemn saying that one will reap, in the course of time, what -one sows--even clams if one sows clams; but it is a more solemn saying -that one shall cease to reap, after a time, and for all eternity, what -one has not sown--even clams out of the exhausted flats of the New -England coast, and the sandy shores of her rivers that run brackish to -the sea. - -Hitherto we have reaped where we have not sown, and gathered where we -have not strawed. But that was during the days of our industrial -pilgrimage. Now our way no longer threads the wilderness, where manna -and quails and clams are to be had fresh for the gathering. Only -barberries, in my half-wild uplands, are to be had nowadays for the -gathering. There are still enough barberries to go round without -planting or trespassing, for the simple, serious reason that the -barberries do not carry their sugar on their bushes with them, as the -clams carry their salt. The Sugar Trust carries the barberries' sugar. -But soon or late every member of that trust shall leave his bag of -sweet outside the gate of Eden or the Tombs. Let him hasten to drop it -now, lest once inside he find no manner of fruit, for his eternal -feeding, but barberries! - -We have not sown the clam hitherto: we have only digged; so that now, -for all practical purposes, that is to say, for the old-time, -twenty-five-cent, rock-weed clambake, the native, uncultivated clam -has had its day; as the unenterprising, unbelieving clammers -themselves are beginning to see. - -The Providence River fishermen are seeking distant flats for the -matchless Providence River clams, bringing them overland from afar by -train. So, too, in Massachusetts, the distinguished Duxbury clams come -out of flats that reach all the way from the mouth of the St. Johns, -on the down-east coast, to the beds of the Chesapeake. And this, while -eight hundred acres of superb clam-lands lie barren in Duxbury town, -which might be producing yearly, for the joy of man, eighty thousand -bushels of real Duxbury clams! - -What a clambake Duxbury does not have each year! A multitude of twice -eighty thousand might sit down about the steaming stones and be -filled. The thought undoes one. And all the more, that Duxbury does -not hunger thus alone. For this is the story of fifty other towns in -Massachusetts, from Salisbury down around the Cape to Dighton--a tale -with a minus total of over two million bushels of clams, and an annual -minus of nearly two millions of dollars to the clammers. - -Nor is this the story of Massachusetts alone, nor of the tide-flats -alone. It is the story of the whole of New England, inland as well as -coast. The New England farm was cleared, worked, exhausted, and -abandoned. The farmer was as exhausted as his farm, and preferring the -hazard of new fortunes to the certain tragedy of the old, went West. -But that tale is told. The tide from New England to the West is at -slack ebb. There is still a stream flowing out into the extreme West; -rising in the Middle Western States, however, not in the East. The -present New England farmers are staying on their farms, except where -the city buyer wants an abandoned farm, and insists upon its being -abandoned at any price. So will the clammer stay on his shore acres, -for his clams shall no more run out, causing him to turn cod-fisher, -or cranberry-picker, or to make worse shift. The New England -clam-digger of to-day shall be a clam-farmer a dozen years hence; and -his exhausted acres along shore, planted, cultivated, and protected by -law, shall yield him a good living. A living for him and clams for -us; and not the long-neck clams of the Providence River and Duxbury -flats only: they shall yield also the little-neck clams and the -quahaug, the scallop, too, the oyster, and, from farther off shore, -the green-clawed lobster in abundance, and of a length the law allows. - -Our children's children may run short of coal and kerosene; but they -need never want for clams. We are going to try to save them some coal, -for there are mighty bins of it still in the earth, while here, -besides, are the peat-bogs--bunkers of fuel beyond the fires of our -imaginations to burn up. We may, who knows? save them a little -kerosene. No one has measured the capacity of the tank; it has been -tapped only here and there; the plant that manufactured it, moreover, -is still in operation, and is doubtless making more. But whether so or -not, we still may trust in future oil, for the saving spirit of our -new movement watches the pipes that carry it to our cans. There is no -brand of economy known to us at present that is more assuring than our -kerosene economy. The Standard Oil Company, begotten by Destiny, it -would seem, as distributor of oil, is not one to burn even its -paraffine candles at both ends. There was, perhaps, a wise and -beneficent Providence in its organization, that we might have five -gallons for fifty-five cents for our children's sake--a price to -preserve the precious fluid for the lamps of coming generations. - -But should the coal and kerosene give out, the clam, I say, need not. -The making of Franklin coal and Standard Oil, like the making of -perfect human character, may be a process requiring all -eternity,--longer than we can wait,--so that the present deposits may -some time fail; whereas the clam comes to perfection within a summer -or two. The coal is a dead deposit; the clam is like the herb, -yielding seed, and the fruit tree, yielding fruit after its kind, -whose seed is in itself upon the earth. All that the clam requires for -an endless and an abundant existence is planting and protection, -is--conservation. - -Except for my doubts about a real North Pole, my wrath at the -Payne-Aldrich Tariff, my dreadful fears at the vast smallness of our -navy (I have a Japanese student in a class of mine!), "and one thing -more that may not be" (which, probably, is the "woman question" or -the roundness of the "Square Deal")--except, I say, for a few of such -things, I were wholly glad that my lines have fallen unto me in these -days, when there are so many long-distant movements on foot; glad -though I can only sit at the roadside and watch the show go by. I can -applaud from the roadside. I can watch and dream. To this procession -of Conservators, however (and to the anti-tariff crowd), I shall join -myself, shall take a hand in saving things by helping to bury every -high protectionist and planting a willow sapling on his grave, or by -sowing a few "spats" in a garden of clams. For here in the opposite -direction moves another procession, an endless, countless number that -go tramping away toward the desert Future without a bag of needments -at their backs, without a staff to stay them in their hands. - -The day of the abandoned farm is past; the time of the adopted, of the -_adapted_, farm has come. We are not going to abandon anything any -more, because we are not going to work anything to death any more. We -shall not abandon even the empty coal mines hereafter, but turn them -into mushroom cellars, or to uses yet undreamed. We have found a way -to utilize the arid land of the West--a hundred and fifty thousand -acres of it at a single stroke, as President Taft turns the waters of -the Gunnison River from their ancient channel into a man-made tunnel, -and sends them spreading out - - Here and there, - Everywhere, - Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the lowlying - lanes, - And the _desert_ is meshed with a million veins,-- - -in order that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, -saying, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; -and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." - -We are utilizing these arid lands, reclaiming the desert for a garden, -with an effort of hands and a daring of soul, that fall hardly short -of the original creative work which made the world--as if the divine -fiat had been: "In our image, to have dominion; to subdue the earth; -and to finish the work we leave undone." And while we are finishing -these acres and planting them with fruit at so lavish a cost, shall we -continue stupidly and criminally to rob, despoil, and leave for dead -these eleven thousand acres of natural clam garden on the -Massachusetts coast? If a vast irrigating work is the divine in man, -by the same token are the barren mountain slopes, the polluted and -shrunken rivers, the ravished and abandoned plough-lands, and these -lifeless flats of the shore the devils in him--here where no -reclaiming is necessary, where the rain cometh down from heaven, and -twice a day the tides flow in from the hills of the sea! - -There are none of us here along the Atlantic coast who do not think -with joy of that two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-acre garden new-made -yonder in the distant West. It means more, and cheaper, and still -fairer fruit for us of the East; more musk-melons, too, we hope; but -we know that it cannot mean more clams. Yet the clam, also, is good. -Man cannot live on irrigated fruit alone. He craves clams--clams as -juicy as a Redlands Bartlett, but fresh with the salty savor of -wind-blown spray. - -And he shall have them, for the clam farm--the restocked, restored -flat of earlier times--has passed the stage of theory and experiment, -being now in operation on the New England shore, a producing and very -paying property. - -The clam farm is not strictly a new venture, however, but up to the -present it has been a failure, because, in the first place, the times -were not ripe for it; the public mind lacked the necessary education. -Even yet the state, and the local town authorities, give the -clam-farmer no protection. He can obtain the state's written grant to -plant the land to clams, but he can get no legal protection against -his neighbor's digging the clams he plants. And the farm has failed, -because, in the second place, the clam-farmer has lacked the necessary -energy and imagination. A man who for years has made his bread and -butter and rubber boots out of land belonging to everybody and to -nobody, by simply digging in it, is the last man to build a fence -about a piece of land and _work_ it. Digging is only half as hard as -"working"; besides, in promiscuous digging one is getting clams that -one's neighbor might have got, and there is something better than mere -clams in that. - -But who will plant and wait for a crop that anybody, when one's back -is turned, and, indeed, when one's back isn't turned, can harvest as -his own? Yet this the fishing laws of Massachusetts still allow. -Twenty years ago, in 1889, grants were made for clam farms in and -around the town of Essex, but no legal rights were given with the -grants. Any native of Essex, by these old barnacled laws, is free to -help himself to clams from any town flat. Of course the farm failed. - -Meantime the cry for clams has grown louder; the specialists in the -new national college of conservators have been studying the subject; -"extension courses," inter-flat conventions, and laboratory -demonstrations have been had up and down the coast; and as a result, -the clam farm in Essex, since the reissue of the grants in 1906, has -been put upon a hopeful, upon a safe and paying basis. - -It is an interesting example of education,--a local public sentiment -refined into an actual, dependable public conscience; in this case -largely through the efforts of a state's Fish and Game Commission, -whose biologists, working with the accuracy, patience, and -disinterestedness of the scientist, and with the practical good sense -of the farmer, made their trial clam gardens pay, demonstrating -convincingly that a clam-flat will respond to scientific care as -readily and as profitably as a Danvers onion-bed or the cantaloupe -fields at Rocky Ford. - -This must be the direction of the new movement for the saving of our -natural resources--this roundabout road of education. Few laws can be -enacted, fewer still enforced, without the help of an awakened public -conscience; and a public conscience, for legislative purposes, is -nothing more than a thorough understanding of the facts. As a nation, -we need a popular and a thorough education in ornithology, entomology, -forestry, and farming, and in the science and morality of corporation -rights in public lands. We want sectionally, by belts or states, a -scientific training for our specialty, as the shell-fish farmer of the -Massachusetts coast is being scientifically trained in clams. These -state biologists have brought the clam men from the ends of the shore -together; they have plotted and mapped the mollusk territory; they -have made a science of clam-culture; they have made an industry of -clam-digging; and to the clam-digger they are giving dignity and a -sense of security that make him respect himself and his neighbor's -clams--this last item being a most important change in the clam-farm -outlook. - -With so much done, the next work--framing new laws to take the place -of the old fishing laws--should be a simple matter. Such a procedure -will be slow, yet it is still the only logical and effective one. Let -the clam-digger know that he can raise clams; let New England know -that the forests on her mountains must be saved, and within a -twelvemonth the necessary bills would be passed. So with the birds, -the fish, the coal of Alaska, and every other asset of our national -wealth. The nation-wide work of this saving movement will first be -educative, even by way of scandals in the Cabinet. We shall hasten -very slowly to Congress and the legislatures with our laws. The -clam-flat is typical of all our multitudinous wealth; the clam-digger -is typical of all of us who cut, or mine, or reap, or take our -livings, in any way, directly from the hands of Nature; and the lesson -of the clam farm will apply the country over. - -We have been a nation of wasters, spoiled and made prodigal by -over-easy riches; we have demanded our inheritance all at once, spent -it, and as a result we are already beginning to want--at least for -clams. At this moment there are not enough clams to go round, so that -the market-man sticks the end of a rubber hose into his tub of dark, -salty, fresh-shucked clams, and soaks them; soaks them with fresh -water out of rusty iron pipes, soaks them, and swells them, whitens -them, bloats them, sells them--ghastly corpses, husks, that we would -fain fill our soup-bowls with; for we are hungry, and must be fed, and -there are not enough of the unsoaked clams for a bowl around. - -But there shall be. With the coming of the clam farm there shall be -clams enough, and oysters and scallops; for the whole mollusk -industry, in every flat and bar and cove of the country, shall take to -itself a new interest, and vastly larger proportions. Then shall a -measure of scallops be sold for a quarter, and two measures of clams -for a quarter, and nothing, any more, be soaked. - -For there is nothing difficult about growing clams, nothing half so -difficult and expensive as growing corn or cabbage. In fact, the clam -farm offers most remarkable opportunities, although the bid, it must -be confessed, is pretty plainly to one's love of ease and one's -willing dependence. To begin with, the clam farm is self-working, -ploughed, harrowed, rolled, and fertilized by the tides of the sea; -the farmer only sowing the seed and digging the crop. Sometimes even -the seed is sown for him by the hands of the tide; but only on those -flats that lie close to some natural breeding-bar, where the currents, -gathering up the tiny floating "spats," and carrying them swiftly on -the flood, broadcast them over the sand as the tide recedes. While -this cannot happen generally, still the clam-farmer has a second -distinct advantage in having his seed, if not actually sown for him, -at least grown, and caught for him on these natural breeding-bars, in -such quantities that he need only sweep it up and cradle it, as he -might winnow grain from a threshing floor. In Plum Island Sound there -is such a bar, where it seems that Nature, in expectation of the -coming clam farm, had arranged the soil of the bar and the tidal -currents for a natural set of clam-spats to supply the entire state -with its yearly stock of seed. - -With all of this there is little of romance about a clam farm, and -nothing at all spectacular about its financial returns. For clams are -clams, whereas cobalt and rubber and wheat, and even squabs and -ginseng roots, are different,--according to the advertisements. The -inducements of the clam farm are not sufficient to cause the -prosperous Middle-West farmer to sell out and come East, as he has -been selling out and going on to the farther West, for its larger, -cheaper farms, and bigger crops. Farming, mining, lumbering, whatever -we have had to do, in fact, directly with Nature, has been for us, -thus far, a speculation and a gamble. Earnings have been out of all -proportion to investments, excessive, abnormal. We do not earn, we -_strike_ it rich; and we have struck it rich so long in this vast rich -land, that the strike has lost its element of luck, being now the -expected thing, which, failing to happen, we sell out and move on to -the farthest West, where there is still a land of chance. But that -land is passing, and with it is passing the lucky strike. The day is -approaching when a man will pay for a western farm what he now pays -for an eastern farm--the actual market value, based upon what the -land, in expert hands, can be made yearly to yield. Values will rise -to an even, normal level; earnings will settle to the same level; and -the clam farm of the coast and the stock farm of the prairie will -yield alike--a living; and if, when that day comes, there is no more -"Promised Land" for the American, it will be because we have crossed -over, and possessed the land, and divided it among us for an -inheritance. - -When life shall mean a living, and not a dress-parade, or an -automobile, or a flying-machine, then the clam farm, with its two or -three acres of flats, will be farm enough, and its average maximum -yield, of four hundred and fifty dollars an acre, will be profits -enough. For the clammer's outfit is simple,--a small boat, two -clam-diggers, four clam-baskets, and his hip-boots, the total costing -thirty dollars. - -The old milk farm here under the hill below me, with its tumbling barn -and its ninety acres of desolation, was sold not long ago for six -thousand dollars. The milkman will make more money than the clam man, -but he will have no more. The milk farm is a larger undertaking, -calling for a larger type of man, and developing larger qualities of -soul, perhaps, than could ever be dug up with a piddling clam-hoe out -of the soft sea-fattened flats. But that is a question of men, not of -farms. We must have clams; somebody must dig clams; and matters of the -spirit all aside, reckoned simply as a small business, clam-farming -offers a sure living, a free, independent, healthful, outdoor -living--and hence an ample living--to thousands of men who may lack -the capital, or the capabilities, or, indeed, the time for the larger -undertakings. And viewed as the least part of the coming shell-fish -industry, and this in turn as a smallest part of the coming national -industry, due to our reclaiming, restocking, and conserving, and wise -leasing, the clam farm becomes a type, a promise; it becomes the shore -of a new country, a larger, richer, longer-lasting country than our -pioneer fathers found here. - -For behold the clam crop how it grows!--precisely like any other crop, -in the summer, or more exactly, from about the first of May to the -first of December; and the growth is very rapid, a seed-clam an inch -long at the May planting, developing in some localities (as in the -Essex and Ipswich rivers) into a marketable clam, three inches long by -December. This is an increase in volume of about nine hundred per -cent. The little spats, scattered broadcast over the flat, burrow -with the first tide into the sand, where with each returning tide they -open their mouths, like young birds, for their meal of diatoms brought -in by the never-failing sea. Thus they feed twice a day, with never -too much water, with never a fear of drouth, until they are grown fat -for the clammer's basket. - -If, heretofore, John Burroughs among the uncertainties of his vineyard -could sing,-- - - Serene, I fold my hands and wait,-- - -surely now the clammer in his cottage by the sea can sing, and all of -us with him,-- - - The stars come nightly to the sky; - The tidal wave comes to the sea; - Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, - Can keep my own away from me. - - - - -IX - -THE COMMUTER'S THANKSGIVING - - - - -THE COMMUTER'S THANKSGIVING - - -The cottages are closed; the summer people have gone back to the city; -only the farmers and the commuters--barnacled folk--remain as the -summer tide recedes, fixed to the rocks of winter because they have -grown fast. To live is to have two houses: a country house for the -summer, a city house for the winter; to close one, and open the other; -to change, to flit! - -How different it used to be when I was a boy--away yonder in the days -of farms and old-fashioned homes and old-time winters! Things were -prepared for, were made something of, and enjoyed in those days--the -"quiltings," the "raisings," the Thanksgivings! What getting ready -there used to be--especially for the winter! for what wasn't there to -get ready! and how much of everything to get ready there used to be! - -It began along in late October, continuing with more speed as the days -shortened and hurried us into November. It must all be done by -Thanksgiving Day--everything brought in, everything housed and -battened down tight. The gray lowering clouds, the cold snap, the -first flurry of snow, how they hastened and heartened the work! -Thanksgiving found us ready for winter, indoors and out. - -The hay-mows were full to the beams where the swallows built; the -north and west sides of the barnyard were flanked with a deep -wind-break of corn-fodder that ran on down the old worm-fence each -side of the lane in yellow zigzag walls; the big wooden pump under the -turn-o'-lane tree by the barn was bundled up and buttoned to the tip -of its dripping nose; the bees by the currant bushes were -double-hived, the strawberries mulched, the wood all split and piled, -the cellar windows packed, and the storm-doors put on. The very cows -had put on an extra coat, and turned their collars up about their -ears; the turkeys had changed their roost from the ridge-pole of the -corn-crib to the pearmain tree on the sunny side of the wagon-house; -the squirrels had finished their bulky nests in the oaks; the muskrats -of the lower pasture had completed their lodges; the whole -farm--house, barn, fields, and wood-lot--had shuffled into its -greatcoat, its muffler and muffetees, and settled comfortably down for -the winter. - -The old farmhouse was an invitation to winter. It looked its joy at -the prospect of the coming cold. Low, weather-worn, mossy-shingled, -secluded in its wayward garden of box and bleeding-hearts, sheltered -by its tall pines, grape-vined, hop-vined, clung to by creeper and -honeysuckle, it stood where the roads divided, halfway between -everywhere, unpainted, unpretentious, as much a part of the landscape -as the muskrat-lodge; and, like the lodge, roomy, warm, and -hospitable. - -Round at the back, under the wide, open shed, a door led into the -kitchen, another led into the living-room, another into the storeroom, -and two big, slanting double-doors, scoured and slippery with four -generations of sliders, covered the cavernous way into the cellar. But -they let the smell of apples up, as the garret door let the smell of -sage and thyme come down; while from the door of the storeroom, -mingling with the odor of apples and herbs, filling the whole house -and all my early memories, came the smell of broom-corn, came the -sound of grandfather's loom. - -Behind the stove in the kitchen, fresh-papered like the walls, stood -the sweet-potato box (a sweet potato must be kept dry and warm), an -ample, ten-barrel box, full of Jersey sweets that _were_ sweet,--long, -golden, syrupy potatoes, grown in the warm sandy soil of the "Jethro -Piece." Against the box stood the sea-chest, fresh with the same paper -and piled with wood. There was another such chest in the living-room -near the old fireplace, and still another in grandfather's work-room -behind the "tem-plate" stove. - -But wood and warmth and sweet smells were not all. There was music -also, the music of life, of young life and of old life--grandparents, -grandchildren (about twenty-eight of the latter). There were seven of -us alone--a girl at each end of the seven and one in the middle, which -is Heaven's own mystic number and divine arrangement. Thanksgiving -always found us all at grandfather's and brimming full of thanks. - -That, of course, was long, long ago. Things are different nowadays. -There are as many grandfathers, I suppose, as ever; but they don't -make brooms in the winter any more, and live on farms. They live in -flats. The old farm with its open acres has become a city street; the -generous old farmhouse has become a speaking-tube, kitchenette and -bath--all the "modern conveniences"; the cows have evaporated into -convenient cans of condensed "milk"; the ten-barrel box of potatoes -has changed into a convenient ten-pound bag, the wood-pile into a -convenient five-cent bundle of blocks tied up with a tarred string, -the fireplace into a convenient moss-and-flame-painted gas-log, the -seven children into one, or none, or into a convenient bull-terrier -pup. Still, we may give thanks, for convenient as life has become -to-day, it has not yet all gone to the dogs. - -It is true, however, that there might be fewer dogs and more children, -possibly; fewer flats and more farms; less canned milk (or whatever -the paste is) and more real cream. Surely we might buy less and raise -more, hire less and make more, travel less and see more, hear less and -think more. Life might be quieter for some of us; profounder, perhaps, -for others of us,--more inconvenient indeed, for all of us, and yet a -thing to be thankful for. - -It might, but most of us doubt it. It is not for the things we -possess, but only for the things we have not, for the things we are -relieved of, the things we escape,--for our conveniences,--that we are -thankful nowadays. Life is summed up with us in negations. We tally -our conveniences only, quick-detachable-tired, six-cylindered, -seventy-horse-powered conveniences. To construct eighteen-million -dollars' worth of destruction in the shape of a gunboat! to lay out a -beautiful road and then build a machine to "eat it"! to be allotted a -span of time and study how to annihilate it! O Lord, we thank Thee -that we have all the modern conveniences, from cucumbers at Christmas -to a Celestial Crêche! Heaven is such a nice, fit, convenient place -for our unborn children! God is their home. The angels take such -gentle care of them! Besides, they are not so in the way there; and, -if need be, we have the charity children and other people's children; -or we have the darling little sweet-faced bull-terrier pup. - -For myself, I have never had a little cherub-faced bull-pup, but at -this present writing I am helping to bring up our fourth baby, and I -think I see the convenience of the pup. And I am only the _father_ of -the baby at that! - -To begin with, you can buy a pup. You can send the stable-man after -it. But not a baby. Not even the doctor can fetch it. The mother must -go herself after her baby--to Heaven it may be; but she will carry it -all the way through Hell before she brings it to the earth, this earth -of sunlit fields and stormy skies, so evidently designed to make men -of babies. A long perilous journey this, across a whole social season. - -Certainly the little dog is a great convenience, and as certainly he -is a great negation,--the substitution, as with most conveniences, of -a thing for a self. - -Our birth may be a sleep and a forgetting, but life immediately after -is largely an inconvenience. That is the meaning of an infant's first -strangling wail. He is protesting against the inconvenience of -breathing. Breathing is an inconvenience; eating is an inconvenience; -sleeping is an inconvenience; praying is an inconvenience; but they -are part and parcel of life, and nothing has been done yet to relieve -the situation, except in the item of prayer. From prayer, and from a -multitude of other inconveniences, not mentioned above, that round out -life (death excepted), we have found ways of escape--by borrowing, -renting, hiring, avoiding, denying, until life, which is the sum of -all inconveniences, has been reduced to its infantile nothingness--the -protest against the personal effort of breathing which is existence. - -Not so for the Commuter. He is compelled to live. I have been -reckoning up my inconveniences: the things that I possess; the things -I have that are mine; not rented, borrowed, hired, avoided, but -claimed, performed, made, owned; that I am burdened with, responsible -for; that require my time and my hands. And I find that, for a fairly -full life there are inconveniences enough incidental to commuting. - -To begin with, there is the place of the Commuter's home. Home? Yes, -no doubt, he has a home, but where is it? Can Heaven, besides the -Commuter, find out the way there? - -You are standing with your question at the entrance of the great -terminal station as the wintry day and the city are closing, and it is -small wonder that you ask if God knows whither, over the maze of -tracks reaching out into the night, each of this commuting multitude -is going. But follow one, any one of the bundled throng--this one, -this tired, fine-faced Scotchman of fifty years whom we chanced to see -during the day selling silks behind the counter of a department store. - -It is a chill November evening, with the meagre twilight already -spent. Our Commuter has boarded a train for a nineteen-mile ride; then -an electric car for five miles more, when he gets off, under a lone -electric light, swinging amid the skeleton limbs of forest trees. We -follow him, now on foot, down a road dark with night and overhanging -pines, on past a light in a barn, and on--when a dog barks, a horse -whinnies, a lantern flares suddenly into the road and comes pattering -down at us, calling, "Father! father!" - -We stop at the gate as father and daughter enter the glowing kitchen. -A moment later we hear a cheerful voice greeting the horse, and then, -had we gone closer to the barn, we might have heard the creamy tinkle -of milk, spattering warm into the bottom of the tin pail. - -Heaven knew whither, over the reaching rails, this tired seller of -silks was going. Heaven was there awaiting him. The yard-stick was -laid down at half-past five o'clock; at half-past six by the clock the -Commuter was far away, farther than the other side of the world, in -his own small barn where they neither sell silk nor buy it, but where -they have a loft full of fragrant meadow hay, and keep a cow, and eat -their oatmeal porridge with cream. - -It is an inconvenient world, this distant, darkened, unmapped country -of the Commuter. Only God and the Commuter know how to get there, and -they alone know why they stay. But there are reasons, good and -sufficient reasons--there are inconveniences, I should say, many and -compelling inconveniences, such as wife and children, miles in, miles -out, the isolation, the chores, the bundles--loads of bundles--that -keep the Commuter commuting. Once a commuter, always a commuter, -because there is no place along the road, either way, where he can put -his bundles down. - -Bundles, and miles in, and miles out, and isolation, and children, and -chores? I will count them all. - -The bundles I have carried! And the bundles I have yet to carry! to -"tote"! to "tote"! But is it all of life to be free from bundles? How, -indeed, may one so surely know that one has a hold upon life as when -one has it done into a bundle? Life is never so tangible, never so -compact and satisfactory as while still wrapped up and tied with a -string. One's clothes, to take a single example, as one bears them -home in a box, are an anticipation and a pure joy--the very clothes -that, the next day, one wears as a matter of course, or wears with -disconcerting self-consciousness, or wears, it may be, with physical -pain. - -Here are the Commuter's weary miles. Life to everybody is a good deal -of a journey; to nobody so little of a journey, however, as to the -Commuter, for his traveling is always bringing him home. - -And as to his isolation and his chores it is just the same, because -they really have no separate existence save in the urban mind, as -hydrogen and oxygen have no separate existence save in the corked -flasks of the laboratory. These gases are found side by side nowhere -in nature. Only water is to be found free in the clouds and springs -and seas--only the union of hydrogen and oxygen, because it is part of -the being of these two elements to combine. So is it the nature of -chores and isolation to combine--into water, like hydrogen and -oxygen, into a well of water, springing up everlastingly to the -health, the contentment, and to the self-sufficiency of the Commuter. - -At the end of the Commuter's evening journey, where he lays his -bundles down, is home, which means a house, not a latch-key and -"rooms"; a house, I say, not a "floor," but a house that has -foundations and a roof, that has an outside as well as inside, that -has shape, character, personality, for the reason that the Commuter -and not a Community, lives there. Flats, tenements, "chambers," -"apartments"--what are they but public buildings, just as inns and -hospitals and baths are, where you pay for your room and ice-water, or -for your cot in the ward, as the case may be? And what are they but -unmistakable signs of a reversion to earlier tribal conditions, when -not only the cave was shared in common, but the wives and children and -the day's kill? The differences between an ancient cliff-house and a -modern flat are mere details of construction; life in the two would -have to be essentially the same, with odds, particularly as to rooms -and prospect, in favor of the cliff-dweller. - -The least of the troubles of flatting is the flat; the greatest is -the shaping of life to fit the flat, conforming, and sharing one's -personality, losing it indeed! I'll commute first! The only thing I -possess that distinguishes me from a factory shoe-last or an angel of -heaven is my personality. Shoe-lasts are known by sizes and styles, -angels by ranks; but a man is known by what he isn't, and by what he -hasn't, in common with anybody else. - -One must commute, if one would live in a house, and have a home of -one's own, and a personality of one's own, provided, of course, that -one works in New York City or in Boston or Chicago; and provided, -further, that one is as poor as one ought to be. And most city workers -are as poor as they ought to be--as poor, in other words, as I am. - -Poor! Where is the man rich enough to buy Central Park or Boston -Common? For that he must needs do who would make a city home with -anything like my dooryard and sky and quiet. A whole house, after all, -is only the beginning of a home; the rest of it is dooryard and -situation. A house is for the body; a home for body and soul; and the -soul needs as much room outside as inside the house,--needs a garden -and some domestic animal and the starry vault of the sky. - -It is better to be cramped for room within the house than without. Yet -the yard need not be large, certainly not a farm, nor a gentleman's -estate, nor fourteen acres of woodchucks, such as my own. Neither can -it be, for the Commuter, something abandoned in the remote foothills, -nor something wanton, like a brazen piece of sea-sand "at the beach." - -The yard may vary in size, but it must be of soil, clothed upon with -grass, with a bush or a tree in it, a garden, and some animal, even if -the tree has to grow in the garden and the animal has to be kept in -the tree, as with one of my neighbors, who is forced to keep his bees -in his single weeping willow, his yard not being large enough for his -house and his hive. A bee needs considerable room. - -And the soul of the Commuter needs room,--craves it,--but not mere -acres, nor plentitude of things. I have fourteen acres, and they are -too many. Eight of them are in woods and gypsy moths. Besides, at this -writing, I have one cow, one yearling heifer, one lovely calf, with -nature conspiring to get me a herd of cows; I have also ten colonies -of bees, which are more than any Commuter needs, even if they never -swarmed; nor does he need so many coming cows. - -But with only one cow, and only one colony of bees, and only one acre -of yard, still how impossibly inconvenient the life of the Commuter -is! A cow is truly an inconvenience if you care for her yourself--an -inherent, constitutional, unexceptional inconvenience are cows and -wives if you care for them yourself. A hive of bees is an -inconvenience; a house of your own is an inconvenience, and, according -to the figures of many of my business friends, an unwarranted luxury. -It is cheaper to rent, they find. "Why not keep your money in your -business, where you can turn it?" they argue. "Real estate is a poor -investment generally,--so hard to sell, when you want to, without a -sacrifice." - -It is all too true. The house, the cow, the children, are all -inconvenient. I can buy two quarts of blue Holstein milk of a milkman, -typhoid and scarlet-fever germs included, with much less inconvenience -than I can make my yellow-skinned Jersey give down her fourteen -quarts a day. I can live in a rented house with less inconvenience -than in this house of my own. I am always free to go away from a -rented house, and I am always glad to go. The joy of renting is to -move, or sublet; to be rid also of taxes and repairs. - -"Let the risers rot! It isn't my house, and if I break my neck I'll -sue for damages!" - -There is your renter, and the joy he gets in renting. - -There are advantages, certainly, in renting; your children, for -instance, can each be born in a different house, if you rent; and if -they chance to come all boys, like my own, they can grow up at the -City Athletic Association--a convenient, and more or less permanent -place, nowadays, which may answer very well their instinctive needs -for a fixed abode, for a home. There are other advantages, no doubt. -But however you reckon them, the rented house is in the end a tragedy, -as the willful renter and his homeless family is a calamity, a -disgrace, a national menace. Drinking and renting are vicious habits. -A house and a bit of land of your own are as necessary to normal -living as fresh air, food, a clear conscience, and work to do. - -If so, then the question is, Where shall one make his home? "Where -shall the scholar live?" asks Longfellow; "In solitude or in society? -In the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of -Nature beat, or in the dark gray city, where he can feel and hear the -throbbing heart of man? I make answer for him, and say, In the dark, -gray city." - -I should say so, too, and I should say it without so much oracular -solemnity. The city for the scholar. He needs books, and they do not -grow in cornfields. The pale book-worm is a city worm, and feeds on -glue and dust and faded ink. The big green tomato-worm lives in the -country. But this is not a question of where scholars should live; it -is where _men_ should live and their children. Where shall a man's -home be? Where shall he eat his supper? Where lay him down to sleep -when his day's work is done? Where find his odd job and spend his -Sunday? Where shall his children keep themselves usefully busy and -find room to play? Let the Commuter, not the scholar, make answer. - -The Commuter knows the dark gray city, knows it darker and grayer than -the scholar, for the Commuter works there, shut up in a basement, or -in an elevator, maybe, six days a week; he feels and hears the -throbbing heart of man all the day long; and when evening comes he -hurries away to the open country, where he can hear the heart of -Nature beat, where he can listen a little to the beating of his own. - -Where, then, should a man live? I will make answer only for myself, -and say, Here in Hingham, right where I am, for here on Mullein Hill -the sky is round and large, the evening and the Sunday silences are -deep, the dooryards are wide, the houses are single, and the -neighborhood ambitions are good kitchen-gardens, good gossip, fancy -chickens, and clean paint. - -There are other legitimate ambitions, and the Commuter is not without -them; but these few go far toward making home home, toward giving -point and purpose to life, and a pinch of pride. - -The ideal home depends very much, of course, on the home you had as a -child. I can think of nothing so ideally homelike as a farm,--an ideal -farm, ample, bountiful, peaceful, with the smell of apples coming up -from the cellar, and the fragrance of herbs and broom-corn haunting -storeroom and attic. - -The day is past when every man's home can be his farm, dream as every -man may of sometime having such a home; but the day has just arrived -when every man's home can be his garden and chicken-pen and dooryard, -with room and quiet and a tree. - -The day has come, for the means are at hand, when life, despite its -present centralization, can be more as it used to be--spread out, -roomier, simpler, healthier, more nearly normal, because again lived -near to the soil. It is time that every American home was built in the -open country, for there is plenty of land--land in my immediate -neighborhood for a hundred homes where children can romp, and your -neighbor's hens, too, and the inter-neighborhood peace brood -undisturbed. And such a neighborhood need not be either the howling -wilderness, where the fox still yaps, or the semi-submerged suburban -village, where every house has its Window-in-Thrums. The Commuter -cannot live in the wild country, else he must cease to commute; and as -for small-village life--I suppose it might be worse. It is not true -that man made the city, that God made the country, and that the devil -made the village in between; but it is pretty nearly true, perhaps. - -But the Commuter, it must be remembered, is a social creature, -especially the Commuter's wife, and no near kin to stumps and stars. -They may do to companion the prophetic soul, not, however, the average -Commuter, for he is common and human, and needs his own kind. Any -scheme of life that ignores this human hankering is sure to come to -grief; any benevolent plan for homesteading the city poor that would -transfer them from the garish day of the slums to the sweet solitudes -of unspoiled nature had better provide them with copies of "The -Pleasures of Melancholy" and leave them to bask on their fire-escapes. - -Though to my city friends I seem somewhat remote and incontiguous, -still I am not dissevered and dispersed from my kind, for I am only -twenty miles from Boston Common, and as I write I hear the lowing of a -neighbor's cows, and the voices of his children as they play along the -brook below, and off among the fifteen square miles of treetops that -fill my front yard, I see faint against the horizon two village -spires, two Congregational spires, once one, that divided and fell and -rose again on opposite sides of the village street. I often look away -at the spires. And I as often think of the many sweet trees that wave -between me and those tapering steeples, where they look up to worship -toward the sky, and look down to scowl across the street. - -Any lover of the city could live as far out as this. I have no quarrel -with the city as a place to work in. Cities are as necessary as -wheat-fields and as lovely, too--from twenty miles away, or from -Westminster Bridge at daybreak. The city is as a head to the body, the -nervous centre where the multitudinous sensations are organized and -directed, where the multitudinous and interrelated interests of the -round world are directed. The city is necessary; city work is -necessary; but less and less is city living necessary. - -It is less and less possible also. New York City--the length and -breadth of Manhattan--and Boston, from the Fenway in three directions -to the water-front, are as unfit for a child to grow up in as the -basement floor of a china store for a calf. There might be hay enough -on such a floor for a calf, as there is doubtless air enough on a New -York City street for a child. It is not the lack of things--not even -of air--in a city that renders life next to impossible there; it is -rather the multitude of things. City life is a three-ringed circus, -with a continuous performance, with interminable side-shows and -peanuts and pink lemonade; it is jarred and jostled and trampled and -crowded and hurried; it is overstimulated, spindling, and -premature--it is too convenient. - -You can crowd desks and pews and workbenches without much danger, but -not outlooks and personalities, not beds and doorsteps. Men will work -to advantage under a single roof; they cannot sleep to advantage so. A -man can work under almost any conditions; he can live under very few. - -Here in New England--as everywhere--the conditions of labor during the -last quarter-century have vastly changed, while the conditions of -healthful living have remained essentially as they ever were, as they -must continue to remain for the next millennium. - -Some years ago I moved into an ancient house in one of the oldest of -New England towns. Over the kitchen I found a room that had to be -entered by ladder from without. That room was full of lasts and -benches--all the kit necessary for shoe-making on a small scale. There -were other houses scattered about with other such rooms--closed as if -by death. Far from it. Yonder in the distance smoked the chimney of a -great factory. All the cobblers of these houses had gathered there to -make shoes by machine. But where did they live? and how? Here in the -old houses where their fathers lived, and as their fathers lived, -riding, however, to and from their work on the electric cars. - -I am now living in an adjoining town, where, on my drive to the -station, I pass a small hamlet of five houses grouped about a little -shop, through whose windows I can see benches, lasts, and old -stitching-machines. Shoes were once made here on a larger scale, by -more recent methods. Some one is building a boat inside now. The -shoemakers have gathered at the great factory with the shoemakers of -the neighbor town. But they continue to live in the hamlet, as they -used to, under the open sky, in their small gardens. And they need to. -The conditions of their work have quite changed; the simple, large -needs of their lives remain forever the same. - -Let a man work where he will, or must; let him live where only the -whole man can live--in a house of his own, in a yard of his own, with -something green and growing to cultivate, something alive and -responsive to take care of; and let it be out under the sky of his -birthright, in a quiet where he can hear the wind among the leaves, -and the wild geese as they _honk_ high overhead in the night to remind -him that the seasons have changed, that winter is following down their -flying wedge. - -As animals (and we are entirely animal)--we are as far under the -dominion of nature as any ragweed or woodchuck. But we are entirely -human too, and have a human need of nature, that is, a spiritual need, -which is no less real than the physical. We die by the million yearly -for lack of sunshine and pure air; and who knows how much of our moral -ill-health might be traced to our lack of contact with the healing, -rectifying soul of the woods and skies? - -A man needs to see the stars every night that the sky is clear. -Turning down his own small lamp, he should step out into the night to -see the pole star where he burns or "the Pleiads rising through the -mellow shade." - -One cannot live among the Pleiads; one cannot even see them half of -the time; and one must spend part of one's time in the mill. Yet never -to look for the Pleiads, or to know which way to look, is to spend, -not part, but all of one's time in the mill. - - The dales for shade, - The hills for breathing space, - -and life for something other than mere work! - -The Commuter is bound to see the stars nightly, as he goes down to -shut up the hens. He has the whole outdoors in his yard, with the -exception of a good fish-pond; but if he has no pond, he has, and -always will have, to save him from the round of the mill, a little -round of his own--those various endless, small, inconvenient -home-tasks, known as "chores." To fish is "to be for a space dissolved -in the flux of things, to escape the calculable, drop a line into the -mysterious realms above or below conscious thought"; to "chore" is for -a space to stem the sweeping tides of time, to outride the storms of -fate, to sail serene the sea of life--to escape the mill! - -Blessed is the man who has his mill-work to do, perfunctory, -necessitous, machine-work to do; twice blessed the man who has his -mill-work to do and who loves the doing of it; thrice blessed the man -who has it, who loves it, and who, besides, has the varied, absorbing, -self-asserting, self-imposed labors about his own barn to perform! - -There are two things in the economy of unperverted nature that it was -never intended, I think, should exist: the childless woman and the -choreless man. For what is a child but a woman with a soul? And what -is a chore? Let me quote the dictionary:-- - -"_Chore_, _char_, a small job; especially a piece of minor domestic -work, as about a house or barn; ... generally in the plural." - -A small, domestic, plural job! There are men without such a job, but -not by nature's intention; as there are women without children, and -cows without cream. - -What change and relief is this small, domestic, plural job from the -work of the shop! That work is set and goes by the clock. It is nine -hours long, and all in the large or all in the infinitesimally small, -and all alike. It may deal with millions, but seldom pays in more -than ones and twos. And too often it is only for wages; too seldom is -it for love--for one's self. - -Not so this small domestic job. It is plural and personal, to be done -for the joy of doing it. So it ought to be with these Freshmen themes -that I go on, year after year, correcting; so it ought to be with the -men's shoes that my honest neighbor goes on, year after year, vamping. -But the shoes are never all vamped. Endless vistas of unvamped shoes -stretch away before him down the working days of all his years. He -never has the joy of having finished the shoes, of having a change of -shoes. But recently he reshingled his six by eight hencoop and did a -_finished_ piece of work; he trimmed and cemented up his apple tree -and did a finished piece of work; he built a new step at the kitchen -door and did a finished piece of work. Step and tree and hencoop had -beginnings and ends, little undertakings, that will occur again, but -which, for this once, were started and completed; small, whole, -various domestic jobs, thrice halting for him the endless -procession,--the passing, the coming, the trampling of the shoes. - -And here are the teachers, preachers, writers, reformers, -politicians--men who deal, not in shoes, but in theories, ideals, -principalities, and powers, those large, expansive, balloonish -commodities that show the balloon's propensity to soar and to -explode--do they not need ballast as much as the shoemaker, bags of -plain sand in the shape of the small domestic job? - -Daring some months' stay in the city not long ago, I sent my boys to a -kindergarten. Neither the principal nor the teachers, naturally, had -any children of their own. Teachers of children and mothers' advisers -seldom have. I was forced to lead my dear lambs prematurely forth from -this Froebel fold, when the principal, looking upon them with tears, -exclaimed, "Yes, your farm is no doubt a _healthful_ place, but they -will be so without guidance! They will have no one out there to show -them how to play!" - -That dear woman is ballooning, and without a boy of her own for -ballast. Only successful mothers and doting old grandfathers (who can -still go on all fours) should be allowed to kindergarten. Who was it -but old Priam, to whom Andromache used to lead little Astyanax? - -The truth is, all of the theorizing, sermonizing, inculcating -professions ought to be made strictly avocational, strictly incidental -to some real business. Let our Presidents preach (how they love it!); -let our preachers nurse the sick, catch fish, or make tents. It is -easier for the camel, with both his humps, to squeeze through the eye -of the needle than for the professional man of any sort to perform -regularly his whole duty with sound sense and sincerity. - -But ballast is a universal human need--chores, I mean. It is my -privilege frequently to ride home in the same car with a broker's -bookkeeper. Thousands of dollars' worth of stock pass through his -hands for record every day. The "odor" of so much affluence clings to -him. He feels and thinks and talk in millions. He lives over-night, to -quote his own words, "on the end of a telephone wire." That boy makes -ten dollars a week, wears "swagger clothes," and boards with his -grandmother, who does all his washing, except the collars. What ails -him? and a million other Americans like him? Only the need to handle -something smaller, something realer than this pen of the recording -angel--the need of chores. He should have the wholesome reality of a -buck-saw twice a day; he might be saved if he could be interested in -chickens; could feed them every morning, and every evening could "pick -up the eggs." - -So might many another millionaire. When a man's business prohibits his -caring for the chickens, when his affairs become so important that he -can no longer shake down the furnace, help dress one of the children, -or tinker about the place with a hammer and saw, then that man's -business had better be put into the hands of a receiver, temporarily; -his books do not balance. - -I know of a college president who used to bind (he may still) a cold -compress about his head at times, and, lying prone upon the floor, -have two readers, one for each ear, read simultaneously to him -different theses, so great was the work he had to do, so fierce his -fight for time--time to lecture to women's clubs and to write his -epoch-making books. - -Oh, the multitude of epoch-making books! - -But as for me, I am a Commuter, and I live among a people who are -Commuters, and I have stood with them on the banks of the Ohio, -according to the suggestion of one of our wisest philosophers (Josh -Billings, I think), and, in order to see how well the world could get -on without me, I have stuck my finger into the yellow current, pulled -it out, and looked for the hole. - -The placid stream flowed on. - -So now, when the day's work is done, I turn homeward here to Mullein -Hill, and these early autumn nights I hang the lantern high in the -stable, while four shining faces gather round on upturned buckets -behind the cow. The lantern flickers, the milk foams, the stories -flow--"Bucksy" stories of the noble red-man; stories of Arthur and the -Table Round, of Guyon and Britomart, and the heroes of old; and -marvelous stories of that greatest hero of them all--their father, far -away yonder when he was a boy, when there were so many interesting -things to do, and such fun doing them! - -Now the world is so "full of a number of things"--things to do still, -but things, instead of hands, and things instead of selves, so many -things to do them with--even a _thing_ to milk with, now! But I will -continue to use my hands. - -No, I shall probably never become a great milk-contractor. I shall -probably remain only a Commuter to the end. But if I never become -anything great,--the Father of my Country, or the Father of Poetry, or -the Father of Chemistry, or the Father of the Flying Machine,--why, I -am at least the father of these four shining faces in the lantern -light; and I have, besides them, handed down from the past, a few more -of life's old-fashioned inconveniences, attended, gentle reader, with -their simple old-fashioned blessings. - - -The Riverside Press - -CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS - -U · S · A - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Face of the Fields, by Dallas Lore Sharp - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FACE OF THE FIELDS *** - -***** This file should be named 42444-8.txt or 42444-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/4/4/42444/ - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Face of the Fields - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: March 31, 2013 [EBook #42444] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FACE OF THE FIELDS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42444 ***</div> <div class="figcenter"> <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="578" alt="" /> @@ -5174,383 +5136,6 @@ The Riverside Press<br /> CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS<br /> U · S · A</p> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Face of the Fields, by Dallas Lore Sharp - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FACE OF THE FIELDS *** - -***** This file should be named 42444-h.htm or 42444-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/4/4/42444/ - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Face of the Fields - -Author: Dallas Lore Sharp - -Release Date: March 31, 2013 [EBook #42444] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FACE OF THE FIELDS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Bergquist, Matthew Wheaton and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - +--------------------------------------------+ - | By Dallas Lore Sharp | - | | - | | - | THE FACE OF THE FIELDS, 12mo, $1.25, | - | _net_. Postage extra. | - | | - | THE LAY OF THE LAND, 12mo, $1.25, _net_. | - | Postage, 15 cents. | - | | - | | - | HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY | - | | - | BOSTON AND NEW YORK | - +--------------------------------------------+ - - - - - THE FACE OF THE FIELDS - - BY DALLAS LORE SHARP - - - AUTHOR OF "WILD LIFE NEAR HOME," "ROOF AND - MEADOW," AND "THE LAY OF THE LAND" - - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - The Riverside Press Cambridge - 1911 - - - COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DALLAS LORE SHARP - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - _Published March 1911_ - - - _TO MY GOOD FRIEND_ - - HINCKLEY GILBERT MITCHELL - - _HONEST SCHOLAR_ - - - - - CONTENTS - - - I. THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 1 - - II. TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ 27 - - III. THE EDGE OF NIGHT 57 - - IV. THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS 81 - - V. THE NATURE-WRITER 111 - - VI. JOHN BURROUGHS 141 - - VII. HUNTING THE SNOW 177 - - VIII. THE CLAM FARM 193 - - IX. THE COMMUTER'S THANKSGIVING 217 - - - -All but two of these papers made their first appearance in _The -Atlantic Monthly_. "The Nature-Writer" was first printed in _The -Outlook_ and "Hunting the Snow" in _The Youth's Companion_. - - - - -I - -THE FACE OF THE FIELDS - - - - -THE FACE OF THE FIELDS - - -There was a swish of wings, a flash of gray, a cry of pain, a -squawking, cowering, scattering flock of hens, a weakly fluttering -pullet, and yonder, swinging upward into the October sky, a marsh -hawk, buoyant and gleaming silvery in the sun. Over the trees he beat, -circled once, and disappeared. - -The hens were still flapping for safety in a dozen directions, but the -gray harrier had gone. A bolt of lightning could not have dropped so -unannounced, could not have vanished so completely, could scarcely -have killed so quickly. I ran to the pullet, but found her dead. The -harrier's stroke, delivered with fearful velocity, had laid head and -neck open as with a keen knife. Yet a fraction slower and he would -have missed, for the pullet caught the other claw on her wing. The -gripping talons slipped off the long quills, and the hawk swept on -without his quarry. He dared not come back for it at my feet; and so -with a single turn above the woods he was gone. - -The scurrying hens stopped to look about them. There was nothing in -the sky to see. They stood still and silent a moment. The rooster -_chucked_. Then one by one they turned back into the open pasture. A -huddled group under the hen-yard fence broke up and came out with the -others. Death had flashed among them, but had missed _them_. Fear had -come, but had gone. Within two minutes--in less time--from the fall of -the stroke, every hen in the flock was intent at her scratching, or as -intently chasing the gray grasshoppers over the pasture. - -Yet, as they scratched, the high-stepping cock would frequently cast -up his eye toward the treetops; would sound his alarum at the flight -of a robin; and if a crow came over, he would shout and dodge and -start to run. But instantly the shadow would pass, and instantly -chanticleer-- - - He loketh as it were a grim leoun, - And on his toos he rometh up and doun; - * * * * * - Thus roial, as a prince is in an halle. - -He wasn't afraid. Cautious, alert, watchful he was, but not fearful. -No shadow of dread hangs dark and ominous across the sunshine of his -pasture. Shadows come--like a flash; and like a flash they vanish -away. - -We cannot go far into the fields without sighting the hawk and the -snake, the very shapes of Death. The dread Thing, in one form or -another, moves everywhere, down every wood-path and pasture-lane, -through the black close waters of the mill-pond, out under the open of -the winter sky, night and day, and every day, the four seasons -through. I have seen the still surface of a pond break suddenly with a -swirl, and flash a hundred flecks of silver into the light, as the -minnows leap from the jaws of the pike. Then a loud rattle, a streak -of blue, a splash at the centre of the swirl, and I see the pike, -twisting and bending in the beak of the kingfisher. The killer is -killed; but at the mouth of the nest-hole in the steep sandbank, -swaying from a root in the edge of the turf above, hangs the black -snake, the third killer, and the belted kingfisher, dropping the pike, -darts off with a cry. I have been afield at times when one tragedy has -followed another in such rapid and continuous succession as to put a -whole shining, singing, blossoming world under a pall. Everything has -seemed to cower, skulk, and hide, to run as if pursued. There was no -peace, no stirring of small life, not even in the quiet of the deep -pines; for here a hawk would be nesting, or a snake would be sleeping, -or I would hear the passing of a fox, see perhaps his keen hungry face -an instant as he halted, winding me. - -Fox and snake and hawk are real, but not the absence of peace and -joy--except within my own breast. There is struggle and pain and death -in the woods, and there is fear also, but the fear does not last long; -it does not haunt and follow and terrify; it has no being, no -substance, no continuance. The shadow of the swiftest scudding cloud -is not so fleeting as this shadow in the woods, this Fear. The lowest -of the animals seem capable of feeling it; yet the very highest of -them seem incapable of dreading it; for them Fear is not of the -imagination, but of the sight, and of the passing moment. - - The present only toucheth thee! - -It does more, it throngs him--our fellow mortal of the stubble field, -the cliff, and the green sea. Into the present is lived the whole of -his life--none of it is left to a storied past, none sold to a -mortgaged future. And the whole of this life is action; and the whole -of this action is joy. The moments of fear in an animal's life are -moments of reaction, negative, vanishing. Action and joy are constant, -the joint laws of all animal life, of all nature, from the shining -stars that sing together, to the roar of a bitter northeast storm -across these wintry fields. - -We shall get little rest and healing out of nature until we have -chased this phantom Fear into the dark of the moon. It is a most -difficult drive. The pursued too often turns pursuer, and chases us -back into our burrows, where there is nothing but the dark to make us -afraid. If every time a bird cries in alarm, a mouse squeaks with -pain, or a rabbit leaps in fear from beneath our feet, we, too, leap -and run, dodging the shadow as if it were at our own heels, then we -shall never get farther toward the open fields than Chuchundra, the -muskrat, gets toward the middle of the bungalow floor. We shall always -creep around by the wall, whimpering. - -But there is no such thing as fear out of doors. There was, there will -be; you may see it for an instant on your walk to-day, or think you -see it; but there are the birds singing as before, and as before the -red squirrel, under cover of large words, is prying into your -purposes. The universal chorus of nature is never stilled. This part, -or that, may cease for a moment, for a season it may be, only to let -some other part take up the strain; as the winter's deep bass voices -take it from the soft lips of the summer, and roll it into thunder, -until the naked hills seem to rock to the measures of the song. - -So must we listen to the winter winds, to the whistle of the soaring -hawk, to the cry of the trailing hounds. - -I have had more than one hunter grip me excitedly, and with almost a -command bid me hear the music of the baying pack. There are hollow -halls in the swamps that lie to the east and north and west of me, -that catch up the cry of the fox hounds, that blend it, mellow it, -round it, and roll it, rising and falling over the meadows these -autumn nights in great globes of sound, as pure and sweet as the -pearly notes of the wood thrush rolling around their silver basin in -the summer dusk. - -It is a different kind of music when the pack breaks into the open on -the warm trail: a chorus then of individual tongues singing the -ecstasy of pursuit. My blood leaps; the natural primitive wild thing -of muscle and nerve and instinct within me slips its leash, and on -past with the pack it drives, the scent of the trail single and sweet -in its nostrils, a very fire in its blood, motion, motion, motion in -its bounding muscles, and in its being a mighty music, spheric and -immortal, a carol, chant and paean, nature's "unjarred chime,"-- - - The fair music that all creatures made - To their great Lord, whose love their motions swayed - In perfect diapason, whilst they stood - In first obedience, and their state of good. - -But what about the fox and his share in this gloria? It is a solemn -music to him, certainly, loping wearily on ahead; but what part has he -in the chorus? No part, perhaps, unless we grimly call him its -conductor. But the point is the chorus, that it never ceases, the -hounds at this moment, not the fox, in the leading role. - -"But the chorus ceases for me," you say. "My heart is with the poor -fox." So is mine, and mine is with the dogs too. Many a night I have -bayed with the pack, and as often, oftener, I think, I have loped and -dodged and doubled with the fox, pitting limb against limb, lung -against lung, wit against wit, and always escaping. More than once, in -the warm moonlight of the early fall, I have led them on and on, -spurring their lagging muscles with a sight of my brush, on and on, -through the moonlit night, through the day, on into the moon again, -and on until--only the stir of my own footsteps has followed me. Then -doubling once more, creeping back a little upon my track, I have -looked at my pursuers, silent and stiff upon the trail, and, ere the -echo of their cry has died away, I have caught up the chorus and -carried it single-throated through the wheeling singing spheres. - -There is more of fact than of fancy to this. That a fox ever purposely -ran a dog to death, would be hard to prove; but that the dogs run -themselves to death in a single extended chase after a single fox is a -common occurrence here in the woods about the farm. Occasionally the -fox may be overtaken by the hounds; seldom, however, except in the -case of a very young one or of a stranger, unacquainted with the lay -of the land, driven into the rough country here by an unusual -combination of circumstances. - -I have been both fox and hound; I have run the race too often not to -know that both enjoy it at times, fox as much as hound. Some weeks ago -the dogs carried a young fox around and around the farm, hunting him -here, there, everywhere, as if in a game of hide-and-seek. An old fox -would have led them on a long coursing run across the range. It was -early fall and warm, so that at dusk the dogs were caught and taken -off the trail. The fox soon sauntered up through the mowing field -behind the barn, came out upon the bare knoll near the house, and sat -there in the moonlight yapping down at Rex and Dewy, the house dogs in -the two farms below. Rex is a Scotch collie, Dewy a dreadful mix of -dog-dregs. He had been tail-ender in the pack for a while during the -afternoon. Both dogs answered back at the young fox. But he could not -egg them on. Rex was too fat, Dewy had had enough; not so the young -fox. It had been fun. He wanted more. "Come on, Dewy!" he cried. "Come -on, Rex, play tag again. You're still 'it.'" - -I was at work with my chickens one day when the fox broke from cover -in the tall woods, struck the old wagon road along the ridge, and came -at a gallop down behind the hencoops, with five hounds not a minute -behind. They passed with a crash and were gone--up over the ridge and -down into the east swamp. Soon I noticed that the pack had broken, -deploying in every direction, beating the ground over and over. -Reynard had given them the slip, on the ridge-side, evidently, for -there were no cries from below in the swamp. - -The noon whistles blew, and leaving my work I went down to re-stake my -cow in the meadow. I had just drawn her chain-pin when down the road -through the orchard behind me came the fox, hopping high up and down, -his neck stretched, his eye peeled for poultry. Spying a white hen of -my neighbor's, he made for her, clear to the barnyard wall. Then, -hopping higher for a better view, he sighted another hen in the front -yard, skipped in gayly through the fence, seized her, loped across the -road, and away up the birch-grown hills beyond. - -The dogs had been at his very heels ten minutes before. He had fooled -them. He had done it again and again. They were even now yelping at -the end of the baffling trail behind the ridge. Let them yelp. It is a -kind and convenient habit of dogs, this yelping, one can tell so -exactly where they are. Meantime one can take a turn for one's self at -the chase, get a bite of chicken, a drink of water, a wink or two of -rest, and when the yelping gets warm again, one is quite ready to pick -up one's heels and lead the pack another merry dance. The fox is -almost a humorist. - -This is the way the races are all run off. Now and then they may end -tragically. A fox cannot reckon on the hunter with a gun. Only dogs -entered into the account when the balance in the scheme of things was -struck for the fox. But, mortal finish or no, the spirit of the chase -is neither rage nor terror, but the excitement of a matched game, the -ecstasy of pursuit for the hound, the passion of escape for the fox, -without fury or fear--except for the instant at the start and at the -finish--when it is a finish. - -This is the spirit of the chase--of the race, more truly, for it is -always a race, where the stake is not life and death, as we conceive -of life and death, but rather the joy of being. The hound cares as -little for his own life as for the life he is hunting. It is the race, -instead; it is the moment of crowded, complete, supreme existence for -him--"glory" we call it when men run it off together. Death, and the -fear of death, are inconceivable to the animal mind. Only enemies -exist in the world out of doors, only hounds, foxes, hawks--they, and -their scents, their sounds and shadows; and not fear, but readiness -only. The level of wild life, of the soul of all nature, is a great -serenity. It is seldom lowered, but often raised to a higher level, -intenser, faster, more exultant. - -The serrate pines on my horizon are not the pickets of a great pen. My -fields and swamps and ponds are not one wide battlefield, as if the -only work of my wild neighbors were bloody war, and the whole of their -existence a reign of terror. This is a universe of law and order and -marvelous balance; conditions these of life, of normal, peaceful, -joyous life. Life and not death is the law, joy and not fear is the -spirit, is the frame of all that breathes, of very matter itself. - - And ever at the loom of Birth - The Mighty Mother weaves and sings; - She weaves--fresh robes for mangled earth; - She sings--fresh hopes for desperate things. - -"For the rest," says Hathi, most unscientific of elephants, in the -most impossible of Jungle Stories, "for the rest, Fear walks up and -down the Jungle by day and by night.... And only when there is one -great Fear over all, as there is now, can we of the Jungle lay aside -our little fears and meet together in one place as we do now." - -Now, the law of the Indian Jungle is as old and as true as the sky, -and just as widespread and as all-encompassing. It is the identical -law of my New England pastures. It obtains here as it holds far away -yonder. The trouble is all with Hathi. Hathi has lived so long in a -British camp, has seen so few men but British soldiers, and has felt -so little law but British military law in India, that very naturally -Hathi gets the military law and the Jungle law mixed up. - - Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they; - But the head and the hoof of the Law, and the haunch and the hump - is--Obey! - -else one of the little fears, or the BIG FEAR, will get you! - -But this is the Law of the Camp, and as beautifully untrue of the -Jungle, and of my woods and pastures, as Hathi's account of how, -before Fear came, the First of the Tigers ate grass. Still, -Nebuchadnezzar ate grass, and he also grew eagles' feathers upon his -body. Perhaps the First of the Tigers had feathers instead of fur, -though Hathi is silent as to that, saying only that the First of the -Tigers had no stripes. It might not harm us to remember, however, that -nowadays--as was true in the days of the Sabretooth tiger (he is a -fossil)--tigers eat grass only when they feel very bad, or when they -find a bunch of catnip. The wild animals that Hathi knew are more -marvelous than the Wild Animals I Have Known, but Hathi's knowledge of -Jungle law is all stuff and nonsense. - -There is no ogre, Fear, no command, Obey, but the widest kind of a -personal permit to live--joyously, abundantly, intensely, frugally at -times, painfully at times, and always with large liberty; until, -suddenly, the time comes to Let Live, when death is almost sure to be -instant, with little pain, and less fear. - -But am I not generalizing from the single case of the fox and hounds? -or at most from two cases--the hen and the hawk? And are not these -cases far from typical? Fox and hound are unusually matched, both of -them are canines, and so closely related that the dog has been known -to let a she-fox go unharmed at the end of an exciting hunt. Suppose -the fox were a defenseless rabbit, what of fear and terror then? - -Ask any one who has shot in the rabbity fields of southern New Jersey. -The rabbit seldom runs in blind terror. He is soft-eyed, and timid, -and as gentle as a pigeon, but he is not defenseless. A nobler set of -legs was never bestowed by nature than the little cotton-tail's. They -are as wings compared with the deformities that bear up the ordinary -rabbit hound. With winged legs, protecting color, a clear map of the -country in his head,--its stumps, rail-piles, cat-brier tangles, and -narrow rabbit-roads,--with all this as a handicap, Bunny may well run -his usual cool and winning race. The balance is just as even, the -chances quite as good, and the contest as interesting, to him as to -Reynard. - -I have seen a rabbit squat close in his form and let a hound pass -yelping within a few feet of him, but as ready as a hair-trigger -should he be discovered. I have seen him leap for his life as the dog -sighted him, and bounding like a ball across the stubble, disappear in -the woods, the hound within two jumps of his flashing tail. I have -waited at the end of the wood-road for the runners to come back, down -the home-stretch, for the finish. On they go for a quarter, or perhaps -half a mile, through the woods, the baying of the hound faint and -intermittent in the distance, then quite lost. No, there it is again, -louder now. They have turned the course. I wait. - -The quiet life of the woods is undisturbed, for the voice of the hound -is only an echo, not unlike the far-off tolling of a slow-swinging -bell. The leaves stir as a wood-mouse scurries from his stump; an -acorn rattles down; then in the winding wood-road I hear the _pit-pat, -pit-pat_, of soft furry feet, and there at the bend is the rabbit. He -stops, rises high up on his haunches, and listens. He drops again upon -all fours, scratches himself behind the ear, reaches over the cart-rut -for a nip of sassafras, hops a little nearer, and throws his big ears -forward in quick alarm, for he sees me, and, as if something had -exploded under him, he kicks into the air and is off,--leaving a -pretty tangle for the dog to unravel later on, by this mighty jump to -the side. - -My children and the man were witnesses recently of an exciting, and, -for this section of Massachusetts, a novel race, which, but for them, -must certainly have ended fatally. The boys had picked up the morning -fall of chestnuts, and were coming through the wood-lot where the man -was chopping, when down the hillside toward them rushed a little -chipmunk, his teeth a-chatter with terror, for close behind him, with -the easy wavy motion of a shadow, glided a dark brown animal, which -the man took on the instant for a mink, but which must have been a -large weasel or a pine marten. When almost at the feet of the boys, -and about to be seized by the marten, the squeaking chipmunk ran up a -tree. Up glided the marten, up for twenty feet. Then the chipmunk -jumped. It was a fearfully close call. The marten did not dare to -jump, but turned and started down, when the man intercepted him with a -stick. Around and around the tree he dodged, growling and snarling and -avoiding the stick, not a bit abashed, stubbornly holding his own, -until forced to seek refuge among the branches. Meanwhile the -terrified chipmunk had recovered his nerve and sat quietly watching -the sudden turn of affairs from a near-by stump. - -I climbed into the cupola of the barn this morning, as I frequently do -throughout the winter, and brought down a dazed junco that was beating -his life out up there against the window-panes. He lay on his back in -my open hand, either feigning death or really powerless with fear. His -eyes were closed, his whole tiny body throbbing convulsively with his -throbbing heart. Taking him to the door, I turned him over and gave -him a gentle toss. Instantly his wings flashed, they zigzagged him for -a yard or two, then bore him swiftly around the corner of the house -and dropped him in the midst of his fellows, where they were feeding -upon the lawn. He shaped himself up a little and fell to picking with -the others. - -From a state of collapse the laws of his being had brought the bird -into normal behavior as quickly and completely as the collapsed rubber -ball is rounded by the laws of its being. The memory of the fright -seems to have been an impression exactly like the dent in the rubber -ball--as if it had never been. - -Yet the analogy only half holds. Memories of the most tenacious kind -the animals surely have; but little or no voluntary, unaided power to -use them. Memory is largely a mechanical, a crank process with the -animals, a kind of magic-lantern show, where the concrete slide is -necessary for the picture on the screen; else the past as the future -hangs a blank. The dog will sometimes seem to cherish a grudge; so -will the elephant. Some one injures or wrongs him, and the huge beast -harbors the memory, broods it, and waits his opportunity for revenge. -Yet the records of these cases usually show the creature to be living -with the object of his hatred--keeper or animal--and that his memory -goes no further back than the present moment, than the sight of the -enemy; memory always taking an immediate, concrete shape. - -At my railroad station I frequently see a yoke of great sleepy, -bald-faced oxen, that look as much alike as two blackbirds. Their -driver knows them apart; but as they stand there bound to one another -by the heavy bar across their foreheads, it would puzzle anybody else -to tell Buck from Berry. But not if he approach them wearing an -overcoat. At sight of me in an overcoat the off ox will snort and back -and thresh about in terror, twisting the head of his yoke-fellow, -nearly breaking his neck, and trampling him miserably. But the nigh ox -is used to it. He chews and blinks away placidly, keeps his feet the -best he can, and doesn't try to understand at all why great-coats -should so frighten his cud-chewing brother. I will drop off my coat -and go up immediately to smooth the muzzles of both oxen, blinking -sleepily while the lumber is being loaded on. - -Years ago, the driver told me, the off ox was badly frightened by a -big woolly coat, the sight or smell of which suggested to the creature -some natural enemy, a panther, perhaps, or a bear. The memory -remained, but beyond recall except in the presence of its first cause, -the great-coat. - -To us, and momentarily to the lower animals, no doubt, there is a -monstrous, a desperate aspect to nature--night and drouth and cold, -the lightning, the hurricane, the earthquake: phases of nature that to -the scientific mind are often appalling, and to the unthinking and -superstitious are usually sinister, cruel, personal, leading to much -dark talk of banshees and of the mysteries of Providence--as if there -were still necessity to justify the ways of God to man! We are -clutched by these terrors even as the junco was clutched in my goblin -hand. When the mighty fingers open, we zigzag, dazed from the danger; -but fall to planning, before the tremors of the earth have ceased, how -we can build a greater and finer city on the ruins of the old. Upon -the crumbled heap of the second Messina the third will rise, and upon -that the fourth, unless the quaking site is forever swallowed by the -sea. Terror can kill the living, but it cannot hinder them from -forgetting, or prevent them from hoping, or, for more than an instant, -stop them from doing. Such is the law of being--the law of the Jungle, -of Heaven, of my pastures, of myself, and of the little junco. The -light of the sun may burn out, motion may cease, matter vanish away, -and life come to an end; but so long as life continues it must -continue to assert itself, to obey the law of being--to multiply and -replenish the earth, and rejoice. - -Life, like Law and Matter, is all of one piece. The horse in my -stable, the robin, the toad, the beetle, the vine in my garden, the -garden itself, and I together with them all, come out of the same -divine dust; we all breathe the same divine breath; we have our beings -under the same divine law; only they do not know that the law, the -breath, and the dust are divine. If I do know, and yet can so readily -forget such knowledge, can so hardly cease from being, can so -eternally find the purpose, the hope, the joy of life within me, how -soon for them, my lowly fellow mortals, must vanish all sight of fear, -all memory of pain! And how abiding with them, how compelling, the -necessity to live! And in their unquestioning obedience what joy! - -The face of the fields is as changeful as the face of a child. Every -passing wind, every shifting cloud, every calling bird, every baying -hound, every shape, shadow, fragrance, sound, and tremor, are so many -emotions reflected there. But if time and experience and pain come, -they pass utterly away; for the face of the fields does not grow old -or wise or seamed with pain. It is always the face of a child,--asleep -in winter, awake in summer,--a face of life and health always, if we -will but see what pushes the falling leaves off, what lies in slumber -under the covers of the snow; if we will but feel the strength of the -north wind, and the wild fierce joy of the fox and hound as they -course the turning, tangling paths of the woodlands in their race with -one another against the record set by Life. - - - - -II - -TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ - - - - -TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ - - -It is one of the wonders of the world that so few books are written. -With every human being a possible book, and with many a human being -capable of becoming more books than the world could contain, is it not -amazing that the books of men are so few? And so stupid! - -I took down, recently, from the shelves of a great public library, the -four volumes of Agassiz's "Contributions to the Natural History of the -United States." I doubt if anybody but the charwoman, with her duster, -had touched those volumes for twenty-five years. They are an -excessively learned, a monumental, an epoch-making work, the fruit of -vast and heroic labors, with colored plates on stone, showing the -turtles of the United States, and their embryology. The work was -published more than half a century ago (by subscription); but it -looked old beyond its years--massive, heavy, weathered, as if dug from -the rocks. It was difficult to feel that Agassiz could have written -it--could have built it, grown it, for the laminated pile had -required for its growth the patience and painstaking care of a process -of nature, as if it were a kind of printed coral reef. Agassiz do -this? The big, human, magnetic man at work upon these pages of capital -letters, Roman figures, brackets, and parentheses in explanation of -the pages of diagrams and plates! I turned away with a sigh from the -weary learning, to read the preface. - -When a great man writes a great book he usually flings a preface after -it, and thereby saves it, sometimes, from oblivion. Whether so or not, -the best things in most books are their prefaces. It was not, however, -the quality of the preface to these great volumes that interested me, -but rather the wicked waste of durable book-material that went to its -making. Reading down through the catalogue of human names and of -thanks for help received, I came to a sentence beginning:-- - -"In New England I have myself collected largely; but I have also -received valuable contributions from the late Rev. Zadoc Thompson of -Burlington; ... from Mr. D. Henry Thoreau of Concord; ... and from Mr. -J. W. P. Jenks of Middleboro'." And then it hastens on with the -thanks in order to get to the turtles, as if turtles were the one and -only thing of real importance in all the world. - -Turtles no doubt are important, extremely important, embryologically, -as part of our genealogical tree; but they are away down among the -roots of the tree as compared with the late Rev. Zadoc Thompson of -Burlington. I happen to know nothing about the Rev. Zadoc, but to me -he looks very interesting. Indeed, any reverend gentleman of his name -and day who would catch turtles for Agassiz must have been -interesting. And as for D. Henry Thoreau, we know he was interesting. -The rarest wood-turtle in the United States was not so rare a specimen -as this gentleman of Walden Woods and Concord. We are glad even for -this line in the preface about him; glad to know that he tried, in -this untranscendental way, to serve his day and generation. If Agassiz -had only put a chapter in his turtle book about it! But this is the -material he wasted, this and more of the same human sort; for the "Mr. -J. W. P. Jenks of Middleboro'" (at the end of the quotation) was, some -years later, an old college professor of mine, who told me a few of -the particulars of his turtle contributions, particulars which Agassiz -should have found a place for in his big book. The preface, in another -paragraph, says merely that this gentleman sent turtles to Cambridge -by the thousands--brief and scanty recognition! For that is not the -only thing this gentleman did. On one occasion he sent, not turtles, -but turtle _eggs_ to Cambridge--_brought_ them, I should say; and all -there is to show for it, so far as I could discover, is a sectional -drawing of a bit of the mesoblastic layer of one of the eggs! - -Of course, Agassiz wanted to make that mesoblastic drawing, or some -other equally important drawing, and had to have the fresh turtle egg -to draw it from. He had to have it, and he got it. A great man, when -he wants a certain turtle egg, at a certain time, always gets it, for -he gets some one else to get it. I am glad he got it. But what makes -me sad and impatient is that he did not think it worth while to tell -about the getting of it, and so made merely a learned turtle book of -what might have been an exceedingly interesting human book. - -It would seem, naturally, that there could be nothing unusual or -interesting about the getting of turtle eggs when you want them. -Nothing at all, if you should chance to want the eggs as you chance to -find them. So with anything else,--good copper stock, for instance, if -you should chance to want it, and should chance to be along when they -chance to be giving it away. But if you want copper stock, say of C & -H quality, _when_ you want it, and are bound to have it, then you must -command more than a college professor's salary. And likewise, -precisely, when it is turtle eggs that you are bound to have. - -Agassiz wanted those turtle eggs when he wanted them--not a minute -over three hours from the minute they were laid. Yet even that does -not seem exacting, hardly more difficult than the getting of hen eggs -only three hours old. Just so, provided the professor could have had -his private turtle-coop in Harvard Yard; and provided he could have -made his turtles lay. But turtles will not respond, like hens, to -meat-scraps and the warm mash. The professor's problem was not to get -from a mud turtle's nest in the back yard to the table in the -laboratory; but to get from the laboratory in Cambridge to some pond -when the turtles were laying, and back to the laboratory within the -limited time. And this, in the days of Darius Green, might have called -for nice and discriminating work--as it did. - -Agassiz had been engaged for a long time upon his "Contributions." He -had brought the great work nearly to a finish. It was, indeed, -finished but for one small yet very important bit of observation: he -had carried the turtle egg through every stage of its development with -the single exception of one--the very earliest--that stage of first -cleavages, when the cell begins to segment, immediately upon its being -laid. That beginning stage had brought the "Contributions" to a halt. -To get eggs that were fresh enough to show the incubation at this -period had been impossible. - -There were several ways that Agassiz might have proceeded: he might -have got a leave of absence for the spring term, taken his laboratory -to some pond inhabited by turtles, and there camped until he should -catch the reptile digging out her nest. But there were difficulties in -all of that--as those who are college professors and naturalists -know. As this was quite out of the question, he did the easiest -thing--asked Mr. Jenks of Middleboro' to get him the eggs. Mr. Jenks -got them. Agassiz knew all about his getting of them; and I say the -strange and irritating thing is, that Agassiz did not think it worth -while to tell us about it, at least in the preface to his monumental -work. - -It was many years later that Mr. Jenks, then a gray-haired college -professor, told me how he got those eggs to Agassiz. - -"I was principal of an academy, during my younger years," he began, -"and was busy one day with my classes, when a large man suddenly -filled the doorway of the room, smiled to the four corners of the -room, and called out with a big, quick voice that he was Professor -Agassiz. - -"Of course he was. I knew it, even before he had had time to shout it -to me across the room. - -"Would I get him some turtle eggs? he called. Yes, I would. And would -I get them to Cambridge within three hours from the time they were -laid? Yes, I would. And I did. And it was worth the doing. But I did -it only once. - -"When I promised Agassiz those eggs I knew where I was going to get -them. I had got turtle eggs there before--at a particular patch of -sandy shore along a pond, a few miles distant from the academy. - -"Three hours was the limit. From my railroad station to Boston was -thirty-five miles; from the pond to the station was perhaps three or -four miles; from Boston to Cambridge we called about three miles. -Forty miles in round numbers! We figured it all out before he -returned, and got the trip down to two hours,--record time: driving -from the pond to the station; from the station by express train to -Boston; from Boston by cab to Cambridge. This left an easy hour for -accidents and delays. - -"Cab and car and carriage we reckoned into our time-table; but what we -didn't figure on was the turtle." And he paused abruptly. - -"Young man," he went on, his shaggy brows and spectacles hardly hiding -the twinkle in the eyes that were bent severely upon me, "young man, -when _you_ go after turtle eggs, take into account the turtle. No! no! -that's bad advice. Youth never reckons on the turtle--and youth seldom -ought to. Only old age does that; and old age would never have got -those turtle eggs to Agassiz. - -"It was in the early spring that Agassiz came to the academy, long -before there was any likelihood of the turtles laying. But I was eager -for the quest, and so fearful of failure, that I started out to watch -at the pond fully two weeks ahead of the time that the turtles might -be expected to lay. I remember the date clearly: it was May 14. - -"A little before dawn--along near three o'clock--I would drive over to -the pond, hitch my horse near by, settle myself quietly among some -thick cedars close to the sandy shore, and there I would wait, my -kettle of sand ready, my eye covering the whole sleeping pond. Here -among the cedars I would eat my breakfast, and then get back in good -season to open the academy for the morning session. - -"And so the watch began. - -"I soon came to know individually the dozen or more turtles that kept -to my side of the pond. Shortly after the cold mist would lift and -melt away, they would stick up their heads through the quiet water; -and as the sun slanted down over the ragged rim of treetops, the slow -things would float into the warm, lighted spots, or crawl out and -doze comfortably on the hummocks and snags. - -"What fragrant mornings those were! How fresh and new and unbreathed! -The pond odors, the woods odors, the odors of the ploughed fields--of -water-lily, and wild grape, and the dew-laid soil! I can taste them -yet, and hear them yet--the still, large sounds of the waking day--the -pickerel breaking the quiet with his swirl; the kingfisher dropping -anchor; the stir of feet and wings among the trees. And then the -thought of the great book being held up for me! Those were rare -mornings! - -"But there began to be a good many of them, for the turtles showed no -desire to lay. They sprawled in the sun, and never one came out upon -the sand as if she intended to help on the great professor's book. The -embryology of her eggs was of small concern to her; her Contribution -to the Natural History of the United States could wait. - -"And it did wait. I began my watch on the 14th of May; June 1st found -me still among the cedars, still waiting, as I had waited every -morning, Sundays and rainy days alike. June 1st was a perfect morning, -but every turtle slid out upon her log, as if egg-laying might be a -matter strictly of next year. - -"I began to grow uneasy,--not impatient yet, for a naturalist learns -his lesson of patience early, and for all his years; but I began to -fear lest, by some subtle sense, my presence might somehow be known to -the creatures; that they might have gone to some other place to lay, -while I was away at the schoolroom. - -"I watched on to the end of the first week, on to the end of the -second week in June, seeing the mists rise and vanish every morning, -and along with them vanish, more and more, the poetry of my early -morning vigil. Poetry and rheumatism cannot long dwell together in the -same clump of cedars, and I had begun to feel the rheumatism. A month -of morning mists wrapping me around had at last soaked through to my -bones. But Agassiz was waiting, and the world was waiting, for those -turtle eggs; and I would wait. It was all I could do, for there is no -use bringing a china nest-egg to a turtle; she is not open to any such -delicate suggestion. - -"Then came the mid-June Sunday morning, with dawn breaking a little -after three: a warm, wide-awake dawn, with the level mist lifted from -the level surface of the pond a full hour higher than I had seen it -any morning before. - -"This was the day. I knew it. I have heard persons say that they can -hear the grass grow; that they know by some extra sense when danger is -nigh. That we have these extra senses I fully believe, and I believe -they can be sharpened by cultivation. For a month I had been brooding -over this pond, and now I knew. I felt a stirring of the pulse of -things that the cold-hearted turtles could no more escape than could -the clods and I. - -"Leaving my horse unhitched, as if he, too, understood, I slipped -eagerly into my covert for a look at the pond. As I did so, a large -pickerel ploughed a furrow out through the spatter-docks, and in his -wake rose the head of an enormous turtle. Swinging slowly around, the -creature headed straight for the shore, and without a pause scrambled -out on the sand. - -"She was about the size of a big scoop-shovel; but that was not what -excited me, so much as her manner, and the gait at which she moved; -for there was method in it and fixed purpose. On she came, shuffling -over the sand toward the higher open fields, with a hurried, -determined see-saw that was taking her somewhere in particular, and -that was bound to get her there on time. - -"I held my breath. Had she been a dinosaurian making Mesozoic -footprints, I could not have been more fearful. For footprints in the -Mesozoic mud, or in the sands of time, were as nothing to me when -compared with fresh turtle eggs in the sands of this pond. - -"But over the strip of sand, without a stop, she paddled, and up a -narrow cow-path into the high grass along a fence. Then up the narrow -cow-path, on all fours, just like another turtle, I paddled, and into -the high wet grass along the fence. - -"I kept well within sound of her, for she moved recklessly, leaving a -trail of flattened grass a foot and a half wide. I wanted to stand -up,--and I don't believe I could have turned her back with a -rail,--but I was afraid if she saw me that she might return -indefinitely to the pond; so on I went, flat to the ground, squeezing -through the lower rails of the fence, as if the field beyond were a -melon-patch. It was nothing of the kind, only a wild, uncomfortable -pasture, full of dewberry vines, and very discouraging. They were -excessively wet vines and briery. I pulled my coat-sleeves as far over -my fists as I could get them, and with the tin pail of sand swinging -from between my teeth to avoid noise, I stumped fiercely but silently -on after the turtle. - -"She was laying her course, I thought, straight down the length of -this dreadful pasture, when, not far from the fence, she suddenly hove -to, warped herself short about, and came back, barely clearing me, at -a clip that was thrilling. I warped about, too, and in her wake bore -down across the corner of the pasture, across the powdery public road, -and on to a fence along a field of young corn. - -"I was somewhat wet by this time, but not so wet as I had been before -wallowing through the deep dry dust of the road. Hurrying up behind a -large tree by the fence, I peered down the corn-rows and saw the -turtle stop, and begin to paw about in the loose soft soil. She was -going to lay! - -"I held on to the tree and watched, as she tried this place, and that -place, and the other place--the eternally feminine!--But _the_ place, -evidently, was hard to find. What could a female turtle do with a -whole field of possible nests to choose from? Then at last she found -it, and whirling about, she backed quickly at it, and, tail first, -began to bury herself before my staring eyes. - -"Those were not the supreme moments of my life; perhaps those moments -came later that day; but those certainly were among the slowest, most -dreadfully mixed of moments that I ever experienced. They were hours -long. There she was, her shell just showing, like some old hulk in the -sand along shore. And how long would she stay there? and how should I -know if she had laid an egg? - -"I could still wait. And so I waited, when, over the freshly awakened -fields, floated four mellow strokes from the distant town clock. - -"Four o'clock! Why, there was no train until seven! No train for three -hours! The eggs would spoil! Then with a rush it came over me that -this was Sunday morning, and there was no regular seven o'clock -train,--none till after nine. - -"I think I should have fainted had not the turtle just then begun -crawling off. I was weak and dizzy; but there, there in the sand, -were the eggs! and Agassiz! and the great book! And I cleared the -fence, and the forty miles that lay between me and Cambridge, at a -single jump. He should have them, trains or no. Those eggs should go -to Agassiz by seven o'clock, if I had to gallop every mile of the way. -Forty miles! Any horse could cover it in three hours, if he had to; -and upsetting the astonished turtle, I scooped out her round white -eggs. - -"On a bed of sand in the bottom of the pail I laid them, with what -care my trembling fingers allowed; filled in between them with more -sand; so with another layer to the rim; and covering all smoothly with -more sand, I ran back for my horse. - -"That horse knew, as well as I, that the turtles had laid, and that he -was to get those eggs to Agassiz. He turned out of that field into the -road on two wheels, a thing he had not done for twenty years, doubling -me up before the dashboard, the pail of eggs miraculously lodged -between my knees. - -"I let him out. If only he could keep this pace all the way to -Cambridge! or even halfway there; and I would have time to finish the -trip on foot. I shouted him on, holding to the dasher with one hand, -the pail of eggs with the other, not daring to get off my knees, -though the bang on them, as we pounded down the wood-road, was -terrific. But nothing must happen to the eggs; they must not be -jarred, or even turned over in the sand before they came to Agassiz. - -"In order to get out on the pike it was necessary to drive back away -from Boston toward the town. We had nearly covered the distance, and -were rounding a turn from the woods into the open fields, when, ahead -of me, at the station it seemed, I heard the quick sharp whistle of a -locomotive. - -"What did it mean? Then followed the _puff, puff, puff_, of a starting -train. But what train? Which way going? And jumping to my feet for a -longer view, I pulled into a side road, that paralleled the track, and -headed hard for the station. - -"We reeled along. The station was still out of sight, but from behind -the bushes that shut it from view, rose the smoke of a moving engine. -It was perhaps a mile away, but we were approaching, head on, and -topping a little hill I swept down upon a freight train, the black -smoke pouring from the stack, as the mighty creature got itself -together for its swift run down the rails. - -"My horse was on the gallop, going with the track, and straight toward -the coming train. The sight of it almost maddened me--the bare thought -of it, on the road to Boston! On I went; on it came, a half--a quarter -of a mile between us, when suddenly my road shot out along an unfenced -field with only a level stretch of sod between me and the engine. - -"With a pull that lifted the horse from his feet, I swung him into the -field and sent him straight as an arrow for the track. That train -should carry me and my eggs to Boston! - -"The engineer pulled the rope. He saw me standing up in the rig, saw -my hat blow off, saw me wave my arms, saw the tin pail swing in my -teeth, and he jerked out a succession of sharp halts! But it was he -who should halt, not I; and on we went, the horse with a flounder -landing the carriage on top of the track. - -"The train was already grinding to a stop; but before it was near a -standstill, I had backed off the track, jumped out, and, running down -the rails with the astonished engineers gaping at me, swung aboard the -cab. - -"They offered no resistance; they hadn't had time. Nor did they have -the disposition, for I looked strange, not to say dangerous. Hatless, -dew-soaked, smeared with yellow mud, and holding, as if it were a baby -or a bomb, a little tin pail of sand. - -"'Crazy,' the fireman muttered, looking to the engineer for his cue. - -"I had been crazy, perhaps, but I was not crazy now. - -"'Throw her wide open,' I commanded. 'Wide open! These are fresh -turtle eggs for Professor Agassiz of Cambridge. He must have them -before breakfast.' - -"Then they knew I was crazy, and evidently thinking it best to humor -me, threw the throttle wide open, and away we went. - -"I kissed my hand to the horse, grazing unconcernedly in the open -field, and gave a smile to my crew. That was all I could give them, -and hold myself and the eggs together. But the smile was enough. And -they smiled through their smut at me, though one of them held fast to -his shovel, while the other kept his hand upon a big ugly wrench. -Neither of them spoke to me, but above the roar of the swaying engine -I caught enough of their broken talk to understand that they were -driving under a full head of steam, with the intention of handing me -over to the Boston police, as perhaps the safest way of disposing of -me. - -"I was only afraid that they would try it at the next station. But -that station whizzed past without a bit of slack, and the next, and -the next; when it came over me that this was the through freight, -which should have passed in the night, and was making up lost time. - -"Only the fear of the shovel and the wrench kept me from shaking hands -with both men at this discovery. But I beamed at them; and they at me. -I was enjoying it. The unwonted jar beneath my feet was wrinkling my -diaphragm with spasms of delight. And the fireman beamed at the -engineer, with a look that said, 'See the lunatic grin; he likes it!' - -"He did like it. How the iron wheels sang to me as they took the -rails! How the rushing wind in my ears sang to me! From my stand on -the fireman's side of the cab I could catch a glimpse of the track -just ahead of the engine, where the ties seemed to leap into the -throat of the mile-devouring monster. The joy of it! of seeing space -swallowed by the mile! - -"I shifted the eggs from hand to hand and thought of my horse, of -Agassiz, of the great book, of my great luck,--luck,--luck,--until the -multitudinous tongues of the thundering train were all chiming 'luck! -luck! luck!' They knew! they understood! This beast of fire and -tireless wheels was doing its best to get the eggs to Agassiz! - -"We swung out past the Blue Hills, and yonder flashed the morning sun -from the towering dome of the State House. I might have leaped from -the cab and run the rest of the way on foot, had I not caught the eye -of the engineer watching me narrowly. I was not in Boston yet, nor in -Cambridge either. I was an escaped lunatic, who had held up a train, -and forced it to carry me to Boston. - -"Perhaps I had overdone the lunacy business. Suppose these two men -should take it into their heads to turn me over to the police, whether -I would or no? I could never explain the case in time to get the eggs -to Agassiz. I looked at my watch. There were still a few minutes left, -in which I might explain to these men, who, all at once, had become my -captors. But it was too late. Nothing could avail against my actions, -my appearance, and my little pail of sand. - -"I had not thought of my appearance before. Here I was, face and -clothes caked with yellow mud, my hair wild and matted, my hat gone, -and in my full-grown hands a tiny tin pail of sand, as if I had been -digging all night with a tiny tin shovel on the shore! And thus to -appear in the decent streets of Boston of a Sunday morning! - -"I began to feel like a lunatic. The situation was serious, or might -be, and rather desperately funny at its best. I must in some way have -shown my new fears, for both men watched me more sharply. - -"Suddenly, as we were nearing the outer freight-yard, the train slowed -down and came to a stop. I was ready to jump, but I had no chance. -They had nothing to do, apparently, but to guard me. I looked at my -watch again. What time we had made! It was only six o'clock, with a -whole hour to get to Cambridge. - -"But I didn't like this delay. Five minutes--ten--went by. - -"'Gentlemen,' I began, but was cut short by an express train coming -past. We were moving again, on--into a siding; on--on to the main -track; and on with a bump and a crash and a succession of crashes, -running the length of the train; on at a turtle's pace, but on,--when -the fireman, quickly jumping for the bell-rope, left the way to the -step free, and--the chance had come! - -"I never touched the step, but landed in the soft sand at the side of -the track, and made a line for the yard fence. - -"There was no hue or cry. I glanced over my shoulder to see if they -were after me. Evidently their hands were full, and they didn't know I -had gone. - -"But I had gone; and was ready to drop over the high board-fence, when -it occurred to me that I might drop into a policeman's arms. Hanging -my pail in a splint on top of a post, I peered cautiously over--a very -wise thing to do before you jump a high board-fence. There, crossing -the open square toward the station, was a big burly fellow with a -club--looking for me. - -"I flattened for a moment, when some one in the yard yelled at me. I -preferred the policeman, and grabbing my pail I slid over to the -street. The policeman moved on past the corner of the station out of -sight. The square was free, and yonder stood a cab! - -"Time was flying now. Here was the last lap. The cabman saw me coming, -and squared away. I waved a paper dollar at him, but he only stared -the more. A dollar can cover a good deal, but I was too much for one -dollar. I pulled out another, thrust them both at him, and dodged into -the cab, calling, 'Cambridge!' - -"He would have taken me straight to the police station, had I not -said, 'Harvard College. Professor Agassiz's house! I've got eggs for -Agassiz'; and pushed another dollar up at him through the hole. - -"It was nearly half-past six. - -"'Let him go!' I ordered. 'Here's another dollar if you make Agassiz's -house in twenty minutes. Let him out. Never mind the police!' - -"He evidently knew the police, or there were few around at that time -on a Sunday morning. We went down the sleeping streets, as I had gone -down the wood-roads from the pond two hours before, but with the -rattle and crash now of a fire brigade. Whirling a corner into -Cambridge Street, we took the bridge at a gallop, the driver shouting -out something in Hibernian to a pair of waving arms and a belt and -brass buttons. - -"Across the bridge with a rattle and jolt that put the eggs in -jeopardy, and on over the cobble-stones, we went. Half-standing, to -lessen the jar, I held the pail in one hand and held myself in the -other, not daring to let go even to look at my watch. - -"But I was afraid to look at the watch. I was afraid to see how near -to seven o'clock it might be. The sweat was dropping from my nose, so -close was I running to the limit of my time. - -"Suddenly there was a lurch, and I dove forward, ramming my head into -the front of the cab, coming up with a rebound that landed me across -the small of my back on the seat, and sent half of my pail of eggs -helter-skelter over the floor. - -"We had stopped. Here was Agassiz's house; and not taking time to pick -up the scattered eggs, I tumbled out, and pounded at the door. - -"No one was astir in the house. But I would stir them. And I did. -Right in the midst of the racket the door opened. It was the maid. - -"'Agassiz,' I gasped, 'I want Professor Agassiz, quick!' And I pushed -by her into the hall. - -"'Go 'way, sir. I'll call the police. Professor Agassiz is in bed. Go -'way, sir.' - -"'Call him--Agassiz--instantly, or I'll call him myself!' - -"But I didn't; for just then a door overhead was flung open, a -white-robed figure appeared on the dim landing above, and a quick loud -voice called excitedly,-- - -"'Let him in! Let him in! I know him. He has my turtle eggs!' - -"And the apparition, slipperless, and clad in anything but an academic -gown, came sailing down the stairs. - -"The maid fled. The great man, his arms extended, laid hold of me with -both hands, and dragging me and my precious pail into his study, with -a swift, clean stroke laid open one of the eggs, as the watch in my -trembling hands ticked its way to seven--as if nothing unusual were -happening to the history of the world." - - * * * * * - -"You were in time then?" I said. - -"To the tick. There stands my copy of the great book. I am proud of -the humble part I had in it." - - - - -III - -THE EDGE OF NIGHT - - - - -THE EDGE OF NIGHT - - -Beyond the meadow, nearly half a mile away, yet in sight from my -window, stands an apple tree, the last of an ancient line that once -marked the boundary between the upper and lower pastures. For an apple -tree it is unspeakably woeful, and bent, and hoary, and grizzled, with -suckers from feet to crown. Unkempt and unesteemed, it attracts only -the cattle for its shade, and gives to them alone its gnarly, bitter -fruit. - -But that old tree is hollow, trunk and limb; and if its apples are of -Sodom, there is still no tree in the Garden of the Hesperides, none -even in my own private Eden, carefully kept as they are, that is half -as interesting--I had almost said, as useful. Among the trees of the -Lord, an apple tree that bears good Baldwins or greenings or rambos -comes first for usefulness; but when one has thirty-five of such -trees, which the town has compelled one to trim and scrape and -plaster-up and petticoat against the grewsome gypsy moth, then those -thirty-five are dull indeed, compared with the untrimmed, unscraped, -unplastered, undressed old tramp yonder on the knoll, whose heart is -still wide open to the birds and beasts--to every small traveler -passing by who needs, perforce, a home, a hiding, or a harbor. - -When I was a small boy everybody used to put up overnight at -grandfather's--for grandmother's wit and buckwheat cakes, I think, -which were known away down into Cape May County. It was so, too, with -grandfather's wisdom and brooms. The old house sat in behind a grove -of pin-oak and pine, a sheltered, sheltering spot, with a peddler's -stall in the barn, a peddler's place at the table, a peddler's bed in -the herby garret, a boundless, fathomless feather-bed, of a piece with -the house and the hospitality. There were larger houses and newer, in -the neighborhood; but no other house in all the region, not even the -tavern, two miles farther down the Pike, was half as central, or as -homelike, or as full of sweet and juicy gossip. - -The old apple tree yonder between the woods and the meadow is as -central, as hospitable, and, if animals communicate with one another, -just as full of neighborhood news as was grandfather's roof-tree. - -Did I say none but the cattle seek its shade? Go over and watch. That -old tree is no decrepit, deserted shack of a house. There is no -door-plate, there is no christened letter-box outside the front fence, -because the birds and beasts do not advertise their houses that way. -But go over, say, toward evening, and sit quietly down outside. You -will not wait long, for the doors will open that you may enter--enter -into a home of the fields, and, a little way at least, into a life of -the fields, for this old tree has a small dweller of some sort the -year round. - -If it is February or March you will be admitted by my owls. They take -possession late in winter and occupy the tree, with some curious -fellow tenants, until early summer. I can count upon these small -screech-owls by February,--the forlorn month, the seasonless, -hopeless, lifeless stretch of the year, but for its owls, its thaws, -its lengthening days, its cackling pullets, its possibility of -swallows, and its being the year's end. At least the ancients called -February the year's end, maintaining, with fine poetic sense, that the -world was begun in March; and they were nearer the beginnings of -things than we are. - -But the owls come in February, and if they are not swallows with the -spring, they, nevertheless, help winter with most seemly haste into an -early grave. Yet across the faded February meadow the old apple tree -stands empty and drear enough--until the shadows of the night begin to -fall. - -As the dusk comes down, I go to my window and watch. I cannot see him, -the grim-beaked baron with his hooked talons, his ghostly wings, his -night-seeing eyes; but I know that he has come to his window in the -turret yonder on the darkening sky, and that he watches with me. I -cannot see him swoop downward over the ditches, nor see him quarter -the meadow, beating, dangling, dropping between the flattened -tussocks; nor hear him, back on the silent shadows, slant upward again -to his turret. Mine are human eyes, human ears. Even the quick-eared -meadow-mouse did not hear. - -But I have been belated and forced to cross this wild night-land of -his; and I have _felt_ him pass--so near at times that he has stirred -my hair, by the wind, dare I say, of his mysterious wings? At other -times I have heard him. Often on the edge of night I have listened to -his quavering, querulous cry from the elm-tops below me by the meadow. -But oftener I have watched at the casement here in my castle wall. - -Away yonder on the borders of night, dim and gloomy, looms his ancient -keep. I wait. Soon on the deepened dusk spread his soft wings, out -over the meadow he sails, up over my wooded height, over my moat, to -my turret tall, as silent and unseen as the soul of a shadow, except -he drift across the face of the full round moon, or with his weird cry -cause the dreaming quiet to stir in its sleep and moan. - -Yes, yes, but one must be pretty much of a child, with most of his -childish things not yet put away, to get any such romance out of a -rotten apple tree, plus a bunch of feathers no bigger than one's two -fists. One must be pretty far removed from the real world, the live -world that swings, no longer through the heavens, but at the -distributing end of a news wire--pretty far removed to spend one's -precious time watching screech-owls. - -And so one is, indeed,--sixteen miles removed by space, one whole day -by post, one whole hour by engine and horse, one whole half-minute by -the telephone in the back hall. Lost! cut off completely! hopelessly -marooned! - -I fear so. Perhaps I must admit that the watching of owls is for babes -and sucklings, not for men with great work to do, that is, with money -to make, news to get, office to hold, and clubs to address. For babes -and sucklings, and, possibly, for those with a soul to save, yet I -hasten to avow that the watching of owls is not religion; for I -entirely agree with our Shelburne essayist when he finds, "in all this -worship of nature,"--by Traherne, Rousseau, Wordsworth, Thoreau, and -those who seek the transfigured world of the woods,--"there is a -strain of illusion which melts away at the touch of the greater -realities ... and there are evils against which its seduction is of no -avail." - -But let the illusion melt. Other worships have shown a strain of -illusion at times, and against certain evils been of small avail. And -let it be admitted that calling regularly at an old apple tree is far -short of a full man's work in the world, even when such calling falls -outside of his shop or office-hours. For there are no such hours. The -business of life allows no spare time any more. One cannot get rich -nowadays in office-hours, nor become great, nor keep telegraphically -informed, nor do his share of talking and listening. Everybody but the -plumber and paper-hanger works overtime. How the earth keeps up a -necessary amount of whirling in the old twenty-four-hour limit is more -than we can understand. But she can't keep up the pace much longer. -She must have an extra hour. And how to snatch it from the tail-end of -eternity is the burning cosmological question. - -And this is the burning question with regard to our individual -whirling--How to add time, or, what amounts to exactly the same, How -to increase the whirling. - -There have been many hopeful answers. The whirl has been vastly -accelerated. The fly-wheel of the old horse treadmill is now geared to -an electric dynamo. But it is not enough; it is not the answer. And I -despair of the answer--of the perfect whirl, the perpetual, -invisible, untimable. - -Hence the apple tree, the owls, the illusions, the lost hours--the -neglect of fortune and of soul! But then you may worship nature and -still find your way to church; you may be intensely interested in the -life of an old apple tree and still cultivate your next-door neighbor, -still earn all the fresh air and bread and books that your children -need. - -The knoll yonder may be a kind of High Place, and its old apple tree a -kind of altar for you when you had better not go to church, when your -neighbor needs to be let alone, when your children are in danger of -too much bread and of too many books--for the time when you are in -need of that something which comes only out of the quiet of the fields -at the close of day. - -"But what is it?" you ask. "Give me its formula." I cannot. Yet you -need it and will get it--something that cannot be had of the day, -something that Matthew Arnold comes very near suggesting in his -lines:-- - - The evening comes, the fields are still. - The tinkle of the thirsty rill, - Unheard all day, ascends again; - Deserted is the half-mown plain, - Silent the swaths! the ringing wain, - The mower's cry, the dog's alarms - All housed within the sleeping farms! - The business of the day is done, - The last-left haymaker is gone. - And from the thyme upon the height - And from the elder-blossom white - And pale dog-roses in the hedge, - And from the mint-plant in the sedge, - In puffs of balm the night-air blows - The perfume which the day foregoes. - -I would call it poetry, if it were poetry. And it is poetry, yet it is -a great deal more. It is poetry and owls and sour apples and toads; -for in this particular old apple dwells also a tree-toad. - -It is curious enough, as the summer dusk comes on, to see the round -face of the owl in one hole, and out of another in the broken limb -above, the flat weazened face of the tree-toad. Philosophic -countenances they are, masked with wisdom, both of them: shrewd and -penetrating that of the slit-eyed owl; contemplative and soaring in -its serene composure the countenance of the transcendental toad. Both -creatures love the dusk; both have come forth to their open doors in -order to watch the darkening; both will make off under the cover--one -for mice and frogs over the meadow, the other for slugs and insects -over the crooked, tangled limbs of the tree. - -It is strange enough to see them together, but it is stranger still to -think of them together, for it is just such prey as this little toad -that the owl has gone over the meadow to catch. - -Why does he not take the supper ready here on the shelf? There may be -reasons that we, who do not eat tree-toad, know nothing of; but I am -inclined to believe that the owl has never seen his fellow lodger in -the doorway above, though he must often have heard him piping his -gentle melancholy in the gloaming, when his skin cries for rain! - -Small wonder if they have never met! for this gray, squat, disc-toed -little monster in the hole, or flattened on the bark of the tree like -a patch of lichen, may well be one of those things which are hidden -from the sharp-eyed owl. Whatever purpose be attributed to his -peculiar shape and color,--protective, obliterative, mimicking,--it -is always a source of fresh amazement, the way this largest of our -hylas, on the moss-marked rind of an old tree, can utterly blot -himself out before your staring eyes. - -The common toads and all the frogs have enemies enough, and it would -seem from the comparative scarcity of the tree-toads that they must -have enemies, too, but I do not know who they are. The scarcity of the -tree-toads is something of a puzzle, and all the more to me, that, to -my certain knowledge, this toad has lived in the old Baldwin tree, -now, for five years. Perhaps he has been several, and not one; for who -can tell one tree-toad from another? Nobody; and for that reason I -made, some time ago, a simple experiment, in order to see how long a -tree-toad might live, unprotected, in his own natural environment. - -Upon moving into this house, about seven years ago, we found a -tree-toad living in the big hickory by the porch. For the next three -springs he reappeared, and all summer long we would find him, now on -the tree, now on the porch, often on the railing and backed tight up -against a post. Was he one or many? we asked. Then we marked him; and -for the next four years we knew that he was himself alone. How many -more years he might have lived in the hickory for us all to pet, I -should like to know; but last summer, to our great sorrow, the -gypsy-moth killers, poking in the hole, did our little friend to -death. - -He was worth many worms. - -It was interesting, it was very wonderful to me, the instinct for -home--the love for home I should like to call it--that this humble -little creature showed. A toad is an amphibian to the zooelogist; an -ugly gnome with a jeweled eye to the poet; but to the naturalist, the -lover of life for its own sake, who lives next door to his toad, who -feeds him a fly or a fat grub now and then, who tickles him to sleep -with a rose leaf, who waits as thirstily as the hilltop for him to -call the summer rain, who knows his going to sleep for the winter, his -waking up for the spring--to such an one the jeweled eye and the -amphibious habits are but the forewords of a long, marvelous -life-history. - -This small tree-toad had a home, had it in his soul, I believe, -precisely where John Howard Payne had it, and where many another of -us has it. He had it in a tree, too,--in a hickory tree, this one that -dwelt by my house; he had it in an apple tree, that one yonder across -the meadow. - - "East, west, - Hame's best," - -croaked our tree-toad in a tremulous, plaintive minor that wakened -memories in the vague twilight of more old, unhappy, far-off things -than any other voice I ever knew. - -These two tree-toads could not have been induced to trade houses, the -hickory for the apple, because a house to a toad means home, and a -home is never in the market. There are many more houses in the land -than homes. Most of us are only real-estate dealers. Many of us have -never had a home; and none of us has ever had more than one. There can -be but one--mine--and that has always been, must always be, as -imperishable as memory, and as far beyond all barter as the gates of -the sunset are beyond my horizon's picket fence of pines. - -The toad seems to feel it all, but feels it whole, not analyzed and -itemized as a memory. Here in the hickory for four years (for seven, I -am quite sure) he lived, single and alone. He would go down to the -meadow when the toads gathered there to lay their eggs, but back he -would come, without mate or companion, to his tree. Stronger than love -of kind, than love of mate, constant and dominant in his slow cold -heart is his instinct for home. - -If I go down to the orchard and bring up from the apple tree another -toad to dwell in the hole of the hickory, I shall fail. He might -remain for the day, but not throughout the night, for with the -gathering twilight there steals upon him an irresistible longing, the -_Heimweh_ which he shares with me; and guided by it, as the bee and -the pigeon and the dog are guided, he makes his sure way back to the -orchard home. - -Would he go back beyond the orchard, over the road, over the wide -meadow, over to the Baldwin tree, half a mile away, if I brought him -from there? We shall see. During the coming summer I shall mark him in -some manner, and bringing him here to the hickory, I shall then watch -the old apple tree yonder. It will be a hard, perilous journey. But -his longing will not let him rest; and guided by his mysterious sense -of direction--for this _one_ place--he will arrive, I am sure, or he -will die on the way. - -Yet I could wish there were another tree here, besides the apple, and -another toad. Suppose he never gets back? Only one toad less? A great -deal more than that. Here in the old Baldwin he has made his home for -I don't know how long, hunting over its world of branches in the -summer, sleeping down in its deep holes during the winter--down under -the chips and punk and castings, beneath the nest of the owls, it may -be; for my toad in the hickory always buried himself so, down in the -debris at the bottom of the hole, where, in a kind of cold storage, he -preserved himself until thawed out by the spring. I never pass the old -apple in the summer but that I stop to pay my respects to the toad; -nor in the winter that I do not pause and think of him asleep in -there. He is no mere toad any more. He has passed into a _genius -loci_, the Guardian Spirit of the tree, warring in the green leaf -against worm and grub and slug, and in the dry leaf hiding himself, a -heart of life, within the tree's thin ribs, as if to save the old -shell to another summer. - -A toad is a toad, and if he never got back to the tree there would be -one toad less, nothing more. If anything more, then it is on paper, -and it is cant, not toad at all. And so, I suppose, stones are stones, -trees trees, brooks brooks--not books and tongues and sermons at -all--except on paper and as cant. Surely there are many things in -writing that never had any other, any real existence, especially in -writing that deals with the out-of-doors. One should write carefully -about one's toad; fearfully, indeed, when that toad becomes one's -teacher; for teacher my toad in the old Baldwin has many a time been. - -Often in the summer dusk I have gone over to sit at his feet and learn -some of the things my college professors could not teach me. I have -not yet taken my higher degrees. I was graduated A. B. from college. -It is A. B. C. that I am working toward here at the old apple tree -with the toad. - -Seating myself comfortably at the foot of the tree, I wait; the toad -comes forth to the edge of his hole above me, settles himself -comfortably, and waits. And the lesson begins. The quiet of the summer -evening steals out with the wood-shadows and softly covers the -fields. We do not stir. An hour passes. We do not stir. Not to stir is -the lesson--one of the majors in this graduate course with the toad. - -The dusk thickens. The grasshoppers begin to strum; the owl slips out -and drifts away; a whippoorwill drops on the bare knoll near me, -clucks and shouts and shouts again, his rapid repetition a thousand -times repeated by the voices that call to one another down the long -empty aisles of the swamp; a big moth whirs about my head and is gone; -a bat flits squeaking past; a firefly blazes, but is blotted out by -the darkness, only to blaze again, and again be blotted, and so -passes, his tiny lantern flashing into a night that seems the darker -for the quick, unsteady glow. - -We do not stir. It is a hard lesson. By all my other teachers I had -been taught every manner of stirring, and this unwonted exercise of -being still takes me where my body is weakest, and it puts me -painfully out of breath in my soul. "Wisdom is the principal thing," -my other teachers would repeat, "therefore get wisdom, but keep -exceedingly busy all the time. Step lively. Life is short. There are -_only_ twenty-four hours to the day. The Devil finds mischief for -idle hands to do. Let us then be up and doing"--all of this at random -from one of their lectures on "The Simple Life, or the Pace that -Kills." - -Of course there is more or less of truth in this teaching of theirs. A -little leisure has no doubt become a dangerous thing--unless one spend -it talking or golfing or automobiling, or aeroplaning or -elephant-killing, or in some other diverting manner; otherwise one's -nerves, like pulled candy, might set and cease to quiver; or one might -even have time to think. - -"Keep going,"--I quote from another of their lectures,--"keep going; -it is the only certainty you have against knowing whither you are -going." I learned that lesson well. See me go--with half a breakfast -and the whole morning paper; with less of lunch and the 4:30 edition. -But I balance my books, snatch the evening edition, catch my car, get -into my clothes, rush out to dinner, and spend the evening lecturing -or being lectured to. I do everything but think. - -But suppose I did think? It could only disturb me--my politics, or -ethics, or religion. I had better let the editors and professors and -preachers think for me. The editorial office is such a quiet -thought-inducing place; as quiet as a boiler factory; and the thinkers -there, from editor-in-chief to the printer's devil, are so thoughtful -for the size of the circulation! And the college professors, they have -the time and the cloistered quiet needed. But they have pitiful -salaries, and enormous needs, and their social status to worry over, -and themes to correct, and a fragmentary year to contend with, and -Europe to see every summer, and-- Is it right to ask them, with all -this, to think? We will ask the preachers instead. They are set apart -among the divine and eternal things; they are dedicated to thought; -they have covenanted with their creeds to think; it is their business -to study, but, "to study to be careful and harmless." - -It may be, after all, that my politics and ethics and religion need -disturbing, as the soil about my fruit trees needs it. Is it the tree? -or is it the soil that I am trying to grow? Is it I, or my politics, -my ethics, my religion? I will go over to the toad, no matter the -cost. I will sit at his feet, where time is nothing, and the worry of -work even less. He has all time and no task; he is not obliged to -labor for a living, much less to think. My other teachers all are; -they are all professional thinkers; their thoughts are words: -editorials, lectures, sermons,--livings. I read them or listen to -them. The toad sits out the hour silent, thinking, but I know not -what, nor need to know. To think God's thoughts after Him is not so -high as to think my own after myself. Why then ask this of the toad, -and so interrupt these of mine? Instead we will sit in silence and -watch Altair burn along the shore of the sky, and overhead Arcturus, -and the rival fireflies flickering through the leaves of the apple -tree. - -The darkness has come. The toad is scarcely a blur between me and the -stars. It is a long look from him, ten feet above me, on past the -fireflies to Arcturus and the regal splendors of the Northern -Crown--as deep and as far a look as the night can give, and as only -the night can give. Against the distant stars, these ten feet between -me and the toad shrink quite away; and against the light far off -yonder near the pole, the firefly's little lamp becomes a brave but a -very lesser beacon. - -There are only twenty-four hours to the day--to the day and the night! -And how few are left to that quiet time between the light and the -dark! Ours is a hurried twilight. We quit work to sleep; we wake up to -work again. We measure the day by a clock; we measure the night by an -alarm clock. Life is all ticked off. We are murdered by the second. -What we need is a day and a night with wider margins--a dawn that -comes more slowly, and a longer lingering twilight. Life has too -little selvage; it is too often raw and raveled. Room and quiet and -verge are what we want, not more dials for time, nor more figures for -the dials. We have things enough, too, more than enough; it is space -for the things, perspective, and the right measure for the things that -we lack--a measure not one foot short of the distance between us and -the stars. - -If we get anything out of the fields worth while, it will be this -measure, this largeness, and quiet. It may be only an owl or a -tree-toad that we go forth to see, but how much more we find--things -we cannot hear by day, things long, long forgotten, things we never -thought or dreamed before. - -The day is none too short, the night none too long; but all too narrow -is the edge between. - - - - -IV - -THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS - - - - -THE SCARCITY OF SKUNKS - - -The ragged quilt of snow had slipped from the shoulders of the slopes, -the gray face of the maple swamp showed a flush of warmth, and the -air, out of the south to-day, breathed life, the life of buds and -catkins, of sappy bark, oozing gum, and running water--the life of -spring; and through the faintly blending breaths, as a faster breeze -ran down the hills, I caught a new and unmistakable odor, single, -pointed, penetrating, the sign to me of an open door in the wood-lot, -to me, indeed, the Open Sesame of spring. - -"When does the spring come? And who brings it?" asks the watcher in -the woods. "To me spring begins when the catkins on the alders and the -pussy-willows begin to swell," writes Mr. Burroughs, "when the ice -breaks up on the river and the first sea-gulls come prospecting -northward." So I have written, also; written verses even to the -pussy-willow, to the bluebird, and to the hepatica, as spring's -harbingers; but never a line yet to celebrate this first forerunner of -them all, the gentle early skunk. For it is his presence, blown far -across the February snow, that always ends my New England winter and -brings the spring. Of course there are difficulties, poetically, with -the wood-pussy. I don't remember that even Whitman tried the theme. -But, perhaps, the good gray poet never met a spring skunk in the -streets of Camden. The animal is comparatively rare in the densely -populated cities of New Jersey. - -It is rare enough here in Massachusetts; at least, it used to be; -though I think, from my observations, that the skunk is quietly on the -increase in New England. I feel very sure of this as regards the -neighborhood immediate to my farm. - -This is an encouraging fact, but hard to be believed, no doubt. I, -myself, was three or four years coming to the conviction, often -fearing that this little creature, like so many others of our thinning -woods, was doomed to disappear. But that was before I turned to -keeping hens. I am writing these words as a naturalist and -nature-lover, and I am speaking also with the authority of one who -keeps hens. Though a man give his life to the study of the skunk, and -have not hens, he is nothing. You cannot say, "Go to, I will write an -essay about my skunks." There is no such anomaly as professional -nature-loving, as vocational nature-writing. You cannot go into your -woods and count your skunks. Not until you have kept hens can you -know, can you even have the will to believe, the number of skunks that -den in the dark on the purlieus of your farm. - -That your neighbors keep hens is not enough. My neighbors' hens were -from the first a stone of stumbling to me. That is a peculiarity of -next-door hens. It would have been better, I thought, if my neighbors -had had no hens. I had moved in among these half-farmer folk, and -while I found them intelligent enough, I immediately saw that their -attitude toward nature was wholly wrong. They seemed to have no -conception of the beauty of nature. Their feeling for the skunk was -typical: they hated the skunk with a perfect hatred, a hatred -implacable, illogical, and unpoetical, it seemed to me, for it was -born of their chicken-breeding. - -Here were these people in the lap of nature, babes in nature's arms, -knowing only to draw at her breasts and gurgle, or, the milk failing, -to kick and cry. Mother Nature! She was only a bottle and rubber -nipple, only turnips and hay and hens to them. Nature a mother? a -spirit? a soul? fragrance? harmony? beauty? Only when she cackled like -a hen. - -Now there is something in the cackle of a hen, a very great deal, -indeed, if it is the cackle of your own hen. But the morning stars did -not cackle together, and there is still a solemn music in the -universe, a music that is neither an anvil nor a barnyard chorus. Life -ought to mean more than turnips, more than hay, more than hens to -these rural people. It ought, and it must. I had come among them. And -what else was my coming but a divine providence, a high and holy -mission? I had been sent unto this people to preach the gospel of the -beauty of nature. And I determined that my first text should be the -skunk. - -All of this, likewise, was previous to the period of my hens. - -It was now, as I have said, my second February upon the farm, when the -telltale wind brought down this poignant message from the wood-lot. -The first spring skunk was out! I knew the very stump out of which he -had come--the stump of his winter den. Yes, and the day before, I had -actually met the creature in the woods, for he had been abroad now -something like a week. He was rooting among the exposed leaves in a -sunny dip, and I approached to within five feet of him, where I stood -watching while he grubbed in the thawing earth. Buried to the -shoulders in the leaves, he was so intent upon his labor that he got -no warning of my presence. My neighbors would have knocked him over -with a club,--would have done it eagerly, piously, as unto the Lord. -What did the Almighty make such vermin for, anyway? No one will phrase -an answer; but every one will act promptly, as by command and -revelation. - -I stood several minutes watching, before the little wood-pussy paused -and pulled out his head in order to try the wind. How shocked he was! -He had been caught off his guard, and instantly snapped himself into a -startled hump, for the whiff he got on the wind said _danger!_--and -nigh at hand! Throwing his pointed nose straight into the air, and -swinging it quickly to the four quarters, he fixed my direction, and -turning his back upon me, tumbled off in a dreadful hurry for home. - -This interesting, though somewhat tame, experience, would have worn -the complexion of an adventure for my neighbors, a bare escape,--a -ruined Sunday suit, or, at least, a lost jumper or overalls. I had -never lost so much as a roundabout in all my life. My neighbors had -had innumerable passages with this ramping beast, most of them on the -edge of the dark, and many of them verging hard upon the tragic. I had -small patience with it all. I wished the whole neighborhood were with -me, that I might take this harmless little wood-pussy up in my arms -and teach them again the first lesson of the Kingdom of Heaven, and of -this earthly Paradise, too, and incidentally put an end forever to -these tales of Sunday clothes and nights of banishment in the barn. - -As nobody was present to see, of course I did not pick the wood-pussy -up. I did not need to prove to myself the baselessness of these wild -misgivings; nor did I wish, without good cause, further to frighten -the innocent creature. I had met many a skunk before this, and nothing -of note ever had happened. Here was one, taken suddenly and unawares, -and what did he do? He merely winked and blinked vacantly at me over -the snow, trying vainly to adjust his eyes to the hard white daylight, -and then timidly made off as fast as his pathetic legs could carry -him, fetching a compass far around toward his den. - -I accompanied him, partly to see him safely home, but more to study -him on the way, for my neighbors would demand something else than -theory and poetry of my new gospel: they would require facts. Facts -they should have. - -I had been a long time coming to my mind concerning the skunk. I had -been thinking years about him; and during the previous summer (my -second here on the farm) I had made a careful study of the creature's -habits, so that even now I had in hand material of considerable bulk -and importance, showing the very great usefulness of the animal. -Indeed, I was about ready to embody my beliefs and observations in a -monograph, setting forth the need of national protection--of a -Committee of One Hundred, say, of continental scope, to look after -the preservation and further introduction of the skunk as the friend -and ally of man, as the most useful of all our insectivorous -creatures, bird or beast. - -What, may I ask, was this one of mine doing here on the edge of the -February woods? He was grubbing. He had been driven out of his winter -bed by hunger, and he had been driven out into the open snowy sunshine -by the cold, because the nights (he is nocturnal) were still so chill -that the soil would freeze at night past his ploughing. Thus it -chanced, at high noon, that I came upon him, grubbing among my soft, -wet leaves, and grubbing for nothing less than obnoxious insects! - -My heart warmed to him. He was ragged and thin, he was even weak, I -thought, by the way he staggered as he made off. It had been a hard -winter for men and for skunks, particularly hard for skunks on account -of the unbroken succession of deep snows. This skunk had been frozen -into his den, to my certain knowledge, since the last of November. - -Nature is a severe mother. The hunger of this starved creature! To be -put to bed without even the broth, and to be locked in, half awake, -for nearly three months. Poor little beastie! Perhaps he hadn't -intelligence enough to know that those gnawings within him were pain. -Perhaps our sympathy is all agley. Perhaps. But we are bound to feel -it when we watch him satisfying his pangs with the pestiferous insects -of our own wood-lot. - -I saw him safely home, and then returned to examine the long furrows -he had ploughed out among the leaves. I found nothing to show what -species of insects he had eaten, but it was enough to know that he had -been bent on bugs--gypsy-moth eggs, maybe, on the underside of some -stick or stone, where they had escaped the keen eye of the -tree-warden. We are greatly exercised over this ghastly caterpillar. -But is it entomologists, and national appropriations, and imported -parasites that we need to check the ravaging plague? These things -might help, doubtless; but I was intending to show in my monograph -that it is only skunks we need; it is the scarcity of skunks that is -the whole trouble--and the abundance of cats. - -My heart warmed, I say, as I watched my one frail skunk here by the -snowy woodside, and it thrilled as I pledged him protection, as I -acknowledged his right to the earth, his right to share life and -liberty and the pursuit of happiness with me. He could have only a -small part in my life, doubtless, but I could enter largely into his, -and we could live in amity together--in amity here on _this_ bit of -the divine earth, anyhow, if nowhere else under heaven. - -This was along in February, and I was beginning to set my hens. - -A few days later, in passing through the wood-lot, I was surprised and -delighted to see three skunks in the near vicinity of the -den,--residents evidently of the stump! "Think!" I exclaimed to -myself, "think of the wild flavor to this tame patch of woods! And the -creatures so rare, too, and beneficial! They multiply rapidly, -though," I thought, "and I ought to have a fine lot of them by fall. I -shall stock the farm with them." - -This was no momentary enthusiasm. In a book that I had published some -years before I had stoutly championed the skunk. "Like every predatory -creature," I wrote, "the skunk more than balances his debt for corn -and chickens by his destruction of obnoxious vermin. He feeds upon -insects and mice, destroying great numbers of the latter by digging -out the nests and eating the young. But we forget our debt when the -chickens disappear, no matter how few we lose. Shall we ever learn to -say, when the red-tail swoops among the pigeons, when the rabbits get -into the cabbage, when the robins rifle the cherry trees, and when the -skunk helps himself to a hen for his Thanksgiving dinner--shall we -ever learn to love and understand the fitness of things out-of-doors -enough to say, 'But then, poor beastie, thou maun live'?" - -Since writing those warm lines I had made further studies upon the -skunk, all establishing the more firmly my belief that there is a big -balance to the credit of the animal. Meantime, too, I had bought this -small farm, with a mowing field and an eight-acre wood-lot on it; with -certain liens and attachments on it, also, due to human mismanagement -and to interference with the course of Nature in the past. Into the -orchard, for instance, had come the San Jose scale; into the wood-lot -had crawled the gypsy-moth--human blunders! Under the sod of the -mowing land had burrowed the white grub of the June-bugs. On the whole -fourteen acres rested the black shadow of an insect plague. Nature had -been interfered with and thwarted. Man had taken things into his own -clumsy hands. It should be so no longer on these fourteen acres. I -held the deed to these, not for myself, nor for my heirs, but for -Nature. Over these few acres the winds of heaven should blow free, the -birds should sing, the flowers should grow, and through the gloaming, -unharmed and unaffrighted, the useful skunk should take his own sweet -way. - -The preceding summer had been a season remarkable for the ravages of -the June-bug. The turf in my mowing went all brown and dead suddenly -in spite of frequent rains. No cause for the trouble showed on the -surface of the field. You could start and with your hands roll up the -tough sod by the yard, as if a clean-cutting knife had been run under -it about an inch below the crowns. It peeled off under your feet in -great flakes. An examination of the soil brought to light the big fat -grubs of the June-bugs, millions of the ghastly monsters! They had -gone under the grass, eating off the roots so evenly and so -thoroughly that not a square foot of green remained in the whole -field. - -It was here that the skunk did his good work (I say "the skunk," for -there was only one on the farm that summer, I think). I would go into -the field morning after morning to count the holes he had made during -the night in his hunt for the grubs. One morning I got over a hundred -holes, all of them dug since last sundown, and each hole representing -certainly one grub, possibly more; for the skunk would hear or smell -his prey at work in the soil before attempting to dig. - -A hundred grubs for one night, by one skunk! It took me only a little -while to figure out the enormous number of grubs that a fair-sized -family of skunks would destroy in a summer. A family of skunks would -rid my farm of the pest in a single summer and make inroads on the -grubs of the entire community. - -Ah! the community! the ignorant, short-sighted, nature-hating -community! What chance had a family of skunks in this community? And -the fire of my mission burned hot within me. - -And so did my desire for more skunks. My hay crop was short, was -_nil_, in fact, for the hayfield was as barren of green as the -hen-yard. I had to have it ploughed and laid down again to grass. And -all because of this scarcity of skunks. - -Now, as the green of the springing blades began to show through the -melting snow, it was with immense satisfaction that I thought of the -three skunks under the stump. That evening I went across to my -neighbor's, the milkman's, and had a talk with him over the -desirability, the necessity indeed, of encouraging the skunks about -us. I told him a good many things about these harmless and useful -animals that, with all his farming and chicken-raising, he had never -known. - -But these rural folk are quite difficult. It is hard to teach them -anything worth while, so hopelessly surrounded are they with -things--common things. If I could only get them into a college -class-room--removed some way from hens and hoes--I might, at least, -put them into a receptive attitude. But that cannot be. Perhaps, -indeed, I demand too much of them. For, after all, it takes a -naturalist, a lover of the out-of-doors, to appreciate the beautiful -adjustments in nature. A mere farmer can hardly do it. One needs a -keen eye, but a certain aloofness of soul also, for the deeper -meaning and poetry of nature. One needs to spend a vacation, at least, -in the wilderness and solitary place, where no other human being has -ever come, and there, where the animals know man only as a brother, go -to the school of the woods and study the wild folk, one by one, until -he discovers them personally, temperamentally, all their likes and -dislikes, their little whimseys, freaks, and fancies--all of this, -there, far removed from the cankering cares of hens and chickens, for -the sake of the right attitude toward nature. - -My nearest neighbor had never been to the wilderness. He lacked -imagination, too, and a ready pen. Yet he promised not to kill my -three skunks in the stump; a rather doubtful pledge, perhaps, but at -least a beginning toward the new earth I hoped to see. - -Now it was perfectly well known to me that skunks will eat chickens if -they have to. But I had had chickens--a few hens--and had never been -bothered by skunks. I kept my hens shut up, of course, in a pen--the -only place for a hen outside of a pie. I knew, too, that skunks like -honey, that they had even tampered with my hives, reaching in at -night through the wide summer entrances and tearing out the brood -combs. But I never lost much by these depredations. What I felt more -was the destruction of the wild bees and wasps and ground-nesting -birds, by the skunks. - -But these were trifles! What were a few chickens, bees, -yellow-jackets, and even the occasional bird's-nest, against the -hay-devouring grubs of the June-bug! And as for the characteristic -odor which drifted in now and again with the evening breeze, that had -come to have a pleasant quality for me, floating down across my two -wide acres of mowing. - -February passed gently into March, and my chickens began to hatch. -Every man must raise chickens at some period of his life, and I was -starting in for my turn now. Hay had been my specialty heretofore, -making two blades grow where there had been one very thin one. But -once your two acres are laid down, and you have a stump full of -skunks, near by, against the ravages of the June-bugs, then there is -nothing for you but chickens or something, while you wait. I got Rhode -Island Reds, fancy exhibition stock,--for what is the use of chickens -if you cannot take them to the show? - -The chickens began to hatch, little downy balls of yellow, with their -pedigrees showing right through the fuzz. How the sixty of them grew! -I never lost one. And now the second batch of sitters would soon be -ready to come off. - -Then one day, at the morning count, five of one hen's brood were gone! -I counted again. I counted all the other broods. Five were gone! - -My nearest neighbor had cats, mere barn cats, as many as ten, at the -least. I had been suspicious of those cats from the first. So I got a -gun. Then more of my chickens disappeared. I could count only -forty-seven. - -I shifted the coop, wired it in, and stretched a wire net over the top -of the run. Nothing could get in, nor could a chicken get out. All the -time I was waiting for the cat. - -A few nights after the moving of the coop a big hole was dug under the -wire fence of the run, another hole under the coop, and the entire -brood of Rhode Island Reds was taken. - -Then I took the gun and cut across the pasture to my neighbor's. - -"Hard luck," he said. "It's a big skunk. Here, you take these traps, -and you'll catch him; anybody can catch a skunk." - -And I did catch him. I killed him, too, in spite of the great scarcity -of the creatures. Yet I was sorry, and, perhaps, too hasty; for -catching him near the coop was no proof. He might have wandered this -way by chance. I should have put him in a bag and carried him down to -Valley Swamp and liberated him. - -That day, while my neighbor was gone with his milk wagon, I slipped -through the back pasture and hung the two traps up on their nail in -the can-house. - -I went anxiously to the chicken-yard the next morning. All forty came -out to be counted. It must have been the skunk, I was thinking, as I -went on into the brooding-house, where six hens were still sitting. - -One of the hens was off her nest and acting queerly. Her nest was -empty! Not a chick, not a bit of shell! I lifted up the second hen in -the row, and of her thirteen eggs, only three were left. The hen next -to her had five eggs; the fourth hen had four. Forty chickens gone -(counting them before they were hatched), all in one night. - -I hitched up the horse and drove thoughtfully to the village, where I -bought six skunk-traps. - -"Goin' skunkin' some, this spring," the store man remarked, as he got -me the traps, adding, "Well, they's some on 'em. I've seen a scaac'ty -of a good many commodities, but I never yet see a scaac'ty o' skunks." - -I didn't stop to discuss the matter, being a trifle uncertain just -then as to my own mind, but hurried home with my six traps. Six, I -thought, would do to begin with, though I really had no conception of -the number of cats (or skunks) it had taken to dispose of the three -and one third dozens of eggs (at three dollars a dozen!) in a single -night. - -Early that afternoon I covered each sitting hen so that even a mouse -could not get at her, and fixing the traps, I distributed them about -the brooding-house floor; then, as evening came on, I pushed a shell -into each barrel of the gun, took a comfortable perch upon a keg in -the corner of the house, and waited. - -I had come to stay. Something was going to happen. And something did -happen, away on in the small hours of the morning, namely--one little -skunk. He walked into a trap while I was dozing. He seemed pretty -small hunting then, but he looms larger now, for I have learned -several more things about skunks than I knew when I had the talk with -my neighbor: I have learned, for one thing, that forty eggs, soon to -hatch, are just an average meal for the average half-grown skunk. - -The catching of these two thieves put an end to the depredations, and -I began again to exhibit in my dreams, when one night, while sound -asleep, I heard a frightful commotion among the hens. I did the -hundred-yard dash to the chicken-house in my unforgotten college form, -but just in time to see the skunk cross the moonlit line into the -black woods ahead of me. - -He had wrought dreadful havoc among the thoroughbreds. What -devastation a skunk, single-handed, can achieve in a pen of young -chickens beggars all description. - -I was glad that it was dead of night, that the world was home and -asleep in its bed. I wanted no sympathy. I wished only to be alone, -alone in the cool, the calm, the quiet of this serene and beautiful -midnight. Even the call of a whippoorwill in the adjoining pasture -worried me. I desired to meditate, yet clear, consecutive thinking -seemed strangely difficult. I felt like one disturbed. I was out of -harmony with this peaceful environment. Perhaps I had hurried too -hard, or I was too thinly clothed, or perhaps my feet were cold and -wet. I only know, as I stooped to untwist a long and briery runner -from about my ankle, that there was great confusion in my mind, and in -my spirit there was chaos. I felt myself going to pieces,--I, the -nature-lover! Had I not advocated the raising of a few extra hens just -for the sake of keeping the screaming hawk in air and the wild fox -astir in our scanty picnic groves? And had I not said as much for the -skunk? Why, then, at one in the morning should I, nor clothed, nor in -my right mind, be picking my barefoot way among the tangled dewberry -vines behind the barn, swearing by the tranquil stars to blow the -white-striped carcass of that skunk into ten million atoms if I had to -sit up all the next night to do it? - -One o'clock in the morning was the fiend's hour. There could be no -unusual risk in leaving the farm for a little while in the early -evening, merely to go to the bean supper over at the chapel at the -Corner. So we were dressed and ready to start, when I spied one of my -hens outside the yard, trying to get in. - -Hurrying down, I caught her, and was turning back to the barn, when I -heard a slow, faint rustling among the bushes behind the hen-house. I -listened! Something was moving cautiously through the dead leaves! -Tiptoeing softly around, I surprised a large skunk making his way -slowly toward the hen-yard fence. - -I grabbed a stone and hurled it, jumping, as I let it drive, for -another. The flying missile hit within an inch of the creature's nose, -hard upon a large flat rock over which he was crawling. The impact was -stunning, and before the old rascal could get to his groggy feet, I -had fallen upon him--literally--and done for him. - -But I was very sorry. I hope that I shall never get so excited as to -fall upon another skunk,--never! - -I was picking myself up, when I caught a low cry from the direction of -the house--half scream, half shout. It was a woman's voice, the voice -of my wife, I thought. Was something the matter? - -"Hurry!" I heard. But how could I hurry? My breath was gone, and so -were my spectacles, and other more important things besides, while all -about me poured a choking blinding smother. I fought my way out. - -"Oh, hurry!" - -I was on the jump; I was already rounding the barn, when a series of -terrified shrieks issued from the front of the house. An instant more -and I had come. But none too soon, for there stood the dear girl, -backed into a corner of the porch, her dainty robes drawn close about -her, and a skunk, a wee baby of a skunk, climbing confidently up the -steps toward her. - -"Why _are_ you so slow!" she gasped. "I've been yelling here for an -hour!--Oh! do--don't kill that little thing, but shoo it away, quick!" - -She certainly had not been yelling an hour, nor anything like it. But -there was no time for argument now, and as for shooing little skunks, -I was past that. I don't know exactly what I did say, though I am -positive that it wasn't "shoo." I was clutching a great stone, that I -had run with all the way from behind the hen-yard, and letting it -fly, I knocked the little creature into a harmless bunch of fur. - -The family went over to the bean supper and left me all alone on the -farm. But I was calm now, with a strange, cold calmness born of -extremity. Nothing more could happen to me; I was beyond further harm. -So I took up the bodies of the two creatures, and carried them, -together with some of my late clothing, over beyond the ridge for -burial. Then I returned by way of my neighbor's, where I borrowed two -sticks of blasting-powder and a big cannon fire-cracker. I had watched -my neighbor use these explosives on the stumps in a new piece of -meadow. The next morning, with an axe, a crowbar, shovel, gun, -blasting-powder, and the cannon-cracker, I started for the stump in -the wood-lot. I wished the cannon-cracker had been a keg of powder. I -could tamp a keg of powder so snugly into the hole of those skunks! - -It was a beautiful summer morning, tender with the half-light of -breaking dawn, and fresh with dew. Leaving my kit at the mouth of the -skunks' den, I sat down on the stump to wait a moment, for the -loveliness and wonder of the opening day came swift upon me. From the -top of a sapling, close by, a chewink sent his simple, earnest song -ringing down the wooded slope, and, soft as an echo, floated up from -the swampy tangle of wild grape and azalea the pure notes of a wood -thrush, mellow and globed, and almost fragrant of the thicket where -the white honeysuckle was in bloom. Voices never heard at other hours -of the day were vocal now; odors and essences that vanish with the dew -hung faint in the air; shapes and shadows and intimations of things -that slip to cover from the common light, stirred close about me. It -was very near--the gleam! the vision splendid! How close to a -revelation seems every dawn! And this early summer dawn, how near a -return of that - - time when meadow, grove, and stream, - The earth and every common sight - To me did seem - Apparelled in celestial light. - -From the crest of my ridge I looked out over the treetops far away to -the Blue Hills still slumbering in the purple west. How huge and prone -they lie! How like their own constant azure does the spirit of rest -seem to wrap them round! On their distant slopes it is never common -day, never more than dawn, for the shadows always sleep among their -hollows, and a haze of changing blues, their own peculiar beauty, -hangs, even at high noon, like a veil upon them, shrouding them with -largeness and mystery. - -A rustle in the dead leaves down the slope recalled me. I reached -instinctively for the gun, but stayed my hand. Slowly nosing his way -up the ridge, came a full-grown skunk, his tail a-drag, his head -swinging close to the ground. He was coming home to the den, coming -leisurely, contentedly, carelessly, as if he had a right to live. I -sat very still. On he came, scarcely checking himself as he winded me. -How like the dawn he seemed!--the black of night with the white of -day--the furtive dawn slipping into its den! He sniffed at the gun and -cannon-cracker, made his way over them, brushed past me, and calmly -disappeared beneath the stump. - -The chewink still sang from the top of the sapling, but the tame broad -day had come. I stayed a little while, looking off still at the -distant hills. We had sat thus, my six-year-old and I, only a few -days before, looking away at these same hills, when the little fellow, -half questioningly, half pensively asked, "Father, how can the Blue -Hills be so beautiful and have rattlesnakes?" - -I gathered up the kit, gun and cannon-cracker, and started back toward -home, turning the question of hills and snakes and skunks over and -over as I went along. Over and over the question still turns: How can -the Blue Hills be so beautiful? The case of my small wood-lot is -easier: beautiful it must ever be, but its native spirit, the untamed -spirit of the original wilderness, the free wild spirit of the -primeval forest, shall flee it, and vanish forever, with this last den -of the skunks. - - - - -V - -THE NATURE-WRITER - - - - -THE NATURE-WRITER - - -Dwelling inland, far from those of us who go down to the sea in -manuscripts, may be found the reader, no doubt, to whom the title of -this essay is not anathema, to whom the word nature still means the -real outdoors, as the word culture may still mean things other than -"sweetness and light." It is different with us. We shy at the _word_ -nature. Good, honest term, it has suffered a sea-change with us; it -has become literary. Piety suffers the same change when it becomes -professional. There has grown up about nature as a literary term a -vocabulary of cant,--nature-lover, nature-writer, nature-- Throw the -stone for me, you who are clean! Inseparably now these three travel -together, arm in arm, like Tom, Dick, and Harry--the world, the flesh, -and the devil. Name one, and the other two appear, which is sad enough -for the nature-writer, because a word is known by the company it -keeps. - -The nature-writer deserves, maybe, his dubious reputation; he is more -or less of a fraud, perhaps. And perhaps everybody else is, more or -less. I am sure of it as regards preachers and plumbers and -politicians and men who work by the day. Yet I have known a few honest -men of each of these several sorts, although I can't recall just now -the honest plumber. I have known honest nature-writers, too; there are -a number of them, simple, single-minded, and purposefully poor. I have -no mind, however, thus to pronounce upon them, dividing the sheep from -the goats, lest haply I count myself in with the wrong fold. My -desire, rather, is to see what nature-writing, pure and undefiled, may -be, and the nature-writer, what manner of writer he ought to be. - -For it is plain that the nature-writer has now evolved into a -distinct, although undescribed, literary species. His origins are not -far to seek, the course of his development not hard to trace, but very -unsatisfactory is the attempt, as yet, to classify him. We all know a -nature-book at sight, no matter how we may doubt the nature in it; we -all know that the writer of such a book must be a nature-writer; yet -this is not describing him scientifically by any means. - -Until recent years the nature-writer had been hardly more than a -variant of some long-established species--of the philosopher in -Aristotle; of the moralizer in Theobaldus; of the scholar and -biographer in Walton; of the traveler in Josselyn; of the poet in -Burns. But that was in the feudal past. Since then the land of letters -has been redistributed; the literary field, like every other field, -has been cut into intensified and highly specialized patches--the -short story for you, the muck-rake essay for me, or magazine verse, or -wild animal biography. The paragraph of outdoor description in Scott -becomes the modern nature-sketch; the "Lines to a Limping Hare" in -Burns run into a wild animal romance of about the length of "The Last -of the Mohicans"; the occasional letter of Gilbert White's grows into -an annual nature-volume, this year's being entitled "Buzz-Buzz and Old -Man Barberry; or, The Thrilling Young Ladyhood of a Better-Class -Bluebottle Fly." The story that follows is how she never would have -escaped the net of Old Man Barberry had she been a butterfly--a story -which only the modern nature-writing specialist would be capable of -handling. Nature-writing and the automobile business have developed -vastly during the last few years. - -It is Charles Kingsley, I think, who defines "a thoroughly good -naturalist" as one "who knows his own parish thoroughly," a -definition, all questions of style aside, that accurately describes -the nature-writer. He has field enough for his pen in a parish; he can -hardly know more and know it intimately enough to write about it. For -the nature-writer, while he may be more or less of a scientist, is -never mere scientist--zooelogist or botanist. Animals are not his -theme; flowers are not his theme. Nothing less than the universe is -his theme, as it pivots on him, around the distant boundaries of his -immediate neighborhood. - -His is an emotional, not an intellectual, point of view; a literary, -not a scientific, approach; which means that he is the axis of his -world, its great circumference, rather than any fact--any flower, or -star, or tortoise. Now to the scientist the tortoise is the thing: the -particular species _Thalassochelys kempi_; of the family Testudinidae; -of the order Chelonia; of the class Reptilia; of the branch -Vertebrata. But the nature-writer never pauses over this matter to -capitalize it. His tortoise may or may not come tagged with this -string of distinguishing titles. A tortoise is a tortoise for a' that, -particularly if it should happen to be an old Sussex tortoise which -has been kept for thirty years in a yard by the nature-writer's -friend, and which "On the 1st November began to dig the ground in -order to the forming of its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just -beside a great tuft of hepaticas. - -"P. S.--In about three days after I left Sussex, the tortoise retired -into the ground under the hepatica." - -This is a bit of nature-writing by Gilbert White, of Selborne, which -sounds quite a little like science, but which you noticed was really -spoiled as science by its "tuft of hepaticas." There is no buttonhole -in science for the nosegay. And when, since the Vertebrates began, did -a scientific tortoise ever _retire_? - -One more quotation, I think, will make clear my point, namely, that -the nature-writer is not detached from himself and alone with his -fact, like the scientist, but is forever relating his tortoise to -himself. The lines just quoted were from a letter dated April 12, -1772. Eight years afterwards, in another letter, dated Selborne, April -21, 1780, and addressed to "the Hon. Daines Barrington," the good -rector writes:-- - -"DEAR SIR,--The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so -often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in -March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments by -hissing, and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles -in post-chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly -roused it that, when I turned it out on the border, it walked twice -down to the bottom of my garden." - -Not once, not three times, but _twice_ down to the bottom of the -garden! We do not question it for a moment; we simply think of the -excellent thesis material wasted here in making a mere popular page of -nature-writing. Gilbert White never got his Ph. D., if I remember, -because, I suppose, he stopped counting after the tortoise made its -second trip, and because he kept the creature among the hepaticas of -the garden, instead of on a shelf in a bottle of alcohol. Still, let -us admit, and let the college professors, who do research work upon -everything except their students, admit, that walking twice to the -bottom of a garden is not a very important discovery. But how -profoundly interesting it was to Gilbert White! And how like a passage -from the Pentateuch his record of it! Ten years he woos this tortoise -(it was fourteen that Jacob did for Rachel) and wins it--with a serene -and solemn joy. He digs it out of its winter dormitory (a hole in the -ground), packs it carefully in a box, carries it hurriedly, anxiously, -by post-chaises for eighty miles, rousing it perfectly by the end of -the journey, when, liberating it in the rectory yard, he stands back -to see what it will do; and, lo! _it walks twice to the bottom of the -garden_! - -By a thoroughly good naturalist Kingsley may have meant a thoroughly -good nature-writer, for I think he had in mind Gilbert White, who -certainly was a thoroughly good naturalist, and who certainly knew his -own parish thoroughly. In the letters from which I have quoted the -gentle rector was writing the natural history of Selborne, his parish. -But how could he write the natural history of Selborne when his -tortoise was away over in Sussex! - - A tortoise down by Sussex's brim - A Sussex tortoise was to him, - And it was nothing more-- - -nothing at all for the "Natural History of Selborne" until he had gone -after it and brought it home. - -Thus all nature-writers do with all their nature in some manner or -other, not necessarily by post-chaise for eighty miles. It is -characteristic of the nature-writer, however, to bring home his -outdoors, to domesticate his nature, to relate it all to himself. His -is a dooryard universe, his earth a flat little planet turning about a -hop-pole in his garden--a planet mapped by fields, ponds, and -cow-paths, and set in a circumfluent sea of neighbor townships, beyond -whose shores he neither goes to church, nor works out his taxes on the -road, nor votes appropriations for the schools. - -He is limited to his parish because he writes about only so much of -the world as he lives in, as touches him, as makes for him his home. -He may wander away, like Thoreau, to the Maine woods, or down along -the far-off shores of Cape Cod; but his best writing will be that -about his hut at Walden. - -It is a large love for the earth as a dwelling-place, a large faith in -the entire reasonableness of its economy, a large joy in all its -manifold life, that moves the nature-writer. He finds the earth most -marvelously good to live in--himself its very dust; a place beautiful -beyond his imagination, and interesting past his power to realize--a -mystery every way he turns. He comes into it as a settler into a new -land, to clear up so much of the wilderness as he shall need for a -home. - -Thoreau perhaps, of all our nature-writers, was the wildest wild man, -the least domestic in his attitude. He went off far into the woods, a -mile and a half from Concord village, to escape domestication, to seek -the wild in nature and to free the wild in himself. And what was his -idea of becoming a wild man but to build a cabin and clear up a piece -of ground for a bean-patch! He was solid Concord beneath his -war-paint--a thin coat of savagery smeared on to scare his friends -whenever he went to the village--a walk which he took very often. He -differed from Gilbert White as his cabin at Walden differed from the -quaint old cottage at Selborne. But cabin and cottage alike were to -dwell in; and the bachelor of the one was as much in need of a wife, -and as much in love with the earth, as the bachelor in the other. -Thoreau's "Walden" is as parochial and as domestic with its woodchuck -and beans as White's "Natural History of Selborne" with its tame -tortoise and garden. - -In none of our nature-writers, however, is this love for the earth -more manifest than in John Burroughs. It is constant and dominant in -him, an expression of his religion. He can see the earth only as the -best possible place to live in--to live _with_ rather than in or on; -for he is unlike the rector of Selborne and the wild-tame man of -Walden in that he is married and a farmer--conditions, these, to -deepen one's domesticity. Showing somewhere along every open field in -Burroughs's books is a piece of fence, and among his trees there is -always a patch of gray sloping roof. He grew up on a farm (a most -excellent place to grow up on), became a clerk, but not for long, then -got him a piece of land, built him a home out of unhewn stone, and set -him out an eighteen-acre vineyard. And ever since he has lived in his -vineyard, with the Hudson River flowing along one side of it, the -Catskills standing along another side of it, with the horizon all -around, and overhead the sky, and everywhere, through everything, the -pulse of life, the song of life, the sense of home! - -He loves the earth, for the earth is home. - -"I would gladly chant a paean," he exclaims, "for the world as I find -it. What a mighty interesting place to live in! If I had my life to -live over again, and had my choice of celestial abodes, I am sure I -should take this planet, and I should choose these men and women for -my friends and companions. This great rolling sphere with its sky, its -stars, its sunrises and sunsets, and with its outlook into -infinity--what could be more desirable? What more satisfying? -Garlanded by the seasons, embosomed in sidereal influences, thrilling -with life, with a heart of fire and a garment of azure seas and -fruitful continents--one might ransack the heavens in vain for a -better or a more picturesque abode." - -A full-throated hymn, this, to the life that is, in the earth that is, -a hymn without taint of cant, without a single note of that fevered -desire for a land that is fairer than this, whose gates are of pearl -and whose streets are paved with gold. If there is another land, may -it be as fair as this! And a pair of bars will be gate enough, and -gravel, cinders, grass, even March mud, will do for paving; for all -that one will need there, as all that one needs here--here in New -England in March--is to have "arctics" on one's feet and an equator -about one's heart. The desire for heaven is natural enough, for how -could one help wanting more after getting through with this? But he -sins and comes short of the glory of God who would be quit of this -world for the sake of a better one. There isn't any better one. This -one is divine. And as for those dreams of heaven in old books and -monkish hymns, they cannot compare for glory and for downright -domestic possibilities with the prospect of these snow-clad Hingham -hills from my window this brilliant winter morning. - -That "this world is not my resting-place" almost any family man can -believe nowadays, but that "this world is not my home" I can't believe -at all. However poor a resting-place we make of it, however certain of -going hence upon a "longe journey," we may not find this earth -anything else than home without confessing ourselves tenants here by -preference, and liable, therefore, to pay rent throughout eternity. -The best possible use for this earth is to make a home of it, and for -this span of life, to live it like a human, earth-born being. - -Such is the _credo_ of the nature-writer. Not until it can be proved -to him that eternal day is more to his liking than the sweet -alternation of day and night, that unending rest is less monotonous -than his round of labor until the evening, that streets of gold are -softer for his feet than dirt roads with borders of grass and -dandelions, that ceaseless hallelujahs about a throne exalt the -excellency of God more than the quiet contemplation of the work of His -fingers--the moon and the stars which He has ordained--not until, I -say, it can be proved to him that God did not make this world, or, -making it, spurned it, cursed it, that heaven might seem the more -blessed--not until then will he forego his bean-patch at Walden, his -vineyard at West Park, his garden at Selborne; will he deny to his -body a house-lot on this little planet, and the range of this timed -and tidy universe to his soul. - -As between himself and nature, then, the thoroughly good nature-writer -is in love--a purely personal state; lyric, emotional, rather than -scientific, wherein the writer is not so much concerned with the facts -of nature as with his view of them, his feelings for them, as they -environ and interpret him, or as he centres and interprets them. - -Were this all, it would be a simple story of love. Unfortunately, -nature-writing has become an art, which means some one looking on, and -hence it means self-consciousness and adaptation, the writer forced to -play the difficult part of loving his theme not less, but loving his -reader more. - -For the reader, then, his test of the nature-writer will be the -extreme test of sincerity. The nature-writer (and the poet) more than -many writers is limited by decree to his experiences--not to what he -has seen or heard only, but as strictly to what he has truly felt. All -writing must be sincere. Is it that nature-writing and poetry must be -spontaneously sincere? Sincerity is the first and greatest of the -literary commandments. The second is like unto the first. Still there -is considerable difference between the inherent marketableness of a -cold thought and a warm, purely personal emotion. One has a right to -sell one's ideas, to barter one's literary inventions; one has a -right, a duty it may be, to invent inventions for sale; but one may -not, without sure damnation, make "copy" of one's emotions. In other -words, one may not invent emotions, nor observations either, for the -literary trade. The sad case with much of our nature-writing is that -it has become professional, and so insincere, not answering to genuine -observation nor to genuine emotion, but to the bid of the publisher. - -You will know the sincere nature-writer by his fidelity to fact. But, -alas! suppose I do not know the fact? To be sure. And the -nature-writer thought of that, too, and penned his solemn, pious -preface, wherein he declares that the following observations are -exactly as he personally saw them; that they are true altogether; that -he has the affidavits to prove it; and the Indians and the Eskimos to -swear the affidavits prove it. Of course you are bound to believe -after that; but you wish the preface did not make it so unnecessarily -hard. - -The sincere nature-writer, because he knows he cannot prove it, and -that you cannot prove it, and that the scientists cannot prove it, -knows that he must not be asked for proofs, that he must be above -suspicion, and so he sticks to the truth as the wife of Caesar to her -spouse. - -Let the nature-writer only chronicle his observations as Dr. C. C. -Abbott does in "A Naturalist's Rambles about Home," or let him dream a -dream about his observations as Maeterlinck does in "The Life of the -Bee," yet is he still confined to the truth as a hermit crab to his -shell--a hard, inelastic, unchangeable, indestructible house that he -cannot adapt, but must himself be adapted to, or else abandon. -Chronicle and romance alike we want true to fact. But this particular -romance about the Bee will not thus qualify. It was not written for -beekeepers, even amateur beekeepers, for they all know more or less -about bees, and hence they would not understand the book. It was -written for those, the city-faring folk, like my market-man, who asked -me how many pounds of honey a bee would gather up in a year, and -whether I kept more than one bee in a hive. A great many persons must -have read "The Life of the Bee," but only one of them, so far as I -know, had ever kept bees, and she had just a single swarm in between -the wall of her living-room and the weather-boards outside. But she -had listened to them through the wall, and she sent me her copy of -"The Life," begging me to mark on the margins wherever the Bee of the -book was unlike her bee in the wall. She had detected a difference in -the buzz of the two bees. - -Now the two bees ought to buzz alike--one buzz, distinct and always -distinguishable from the buzz of the author. In the best -nature-writing the author is more than his matter, but he is never -identical with it; and not until we know which is which, and that the -matter is true, have we faith in the author. - -I knew a big boy once who had almost reached the footprint in -"Robinson Crusoe" (the tragedy of _almost_ reaching it!) when some one -blunderingly told him that the book was all a story, made up, not true -at all; no such island; no such Crusoe! The boy shut up the book and -put it forever from him. He wanted it true. He had thought it true, -because it had been so real. Robbed of its reality, he was unable to -make it true again. - -Most of us recover from this shock in regard to books, asking only -that they seem real. But we are eternally childish, curious, -credulous, in our thought of nature; she is so close and real to us, -and yet so shadowy, hidden, mysterious, and remote! We are eager to -listen to any tale, willing to believe anything, if only it be true. -Nay, we are willing to believe it true--we _were_, I should say, -until, like the boy with the book, we were rudely told that all this -fine writing was made up, that we have no such kindred in the wilds, -and no such wilds. Then we said in our haste, all men--who write -nature-books--are liars. - -"How much of this is real?" asked a keen and anxious reader, eyeing me -narrowly, as she pointed a steady finger at an essay of mine in the -"Atlantic." "Have you, sir, a farm and four real boys of your own, or -are they _faked_?" - -"Good heavens, madam!" I exclaimed. "Has it come to this? My boys -faked!" - -But it shows how the thoughtful and the fearful regard the literary -naturalist, and how paramount is the demand for honesty in the matter -of mere fact, to say nothing of the greater matter of expression. - -Only yesterday, in a review in the "Nation" of an animal-man book, I -read: "The best thing in the volume is the description of a fight -between a mink and a raccoon--or so it seems. Can this be because the -reader does not know the difference between a mink and a raccoon, and -does know the difference between a human being and the story-teller's -manikin?" - - This is the wandering wood, this Errour's den, - -is the feeling of the average reader--of even the "Nation's" book -reviewer--nowadays, toward nature-writing, a state of mind due to the -recent revelations of a propensity in wild-animal literature to stand -up rather than to go on all fours. - -Whatever of the Urim and of the Thummim you put into your style, -whatever of the literary lights and the perfections, see to it that -you make the facts "after their pattern, which hath been shewed thee -in the mount." - -Thou shalt not bear false witness as to the facts. - -Nor is this all. For the sad case with much nature-writing, as I have -said, is that it not only fails to answer to genuine observation, but -it also fails to answer to genuine emotion. Often as we detect the -unsound natural history, we much oftener are aware of the unsound, the -insincere, art of the author. - -Now the facts of nature, as Mr. Burroughs says, are the material of -nature literature--of _one_ kind of such literature, let me add; for, -while fabrications can be made only into lies, there may be another -kind of good nature-literature compounded wholly of fancies. Facts, to -quote Mr. Burroughs again, are the flora upon which the nature-writer -lives. "I can do nothing without them." Of course he could not. But -Chaucer could. Indeed, Chaucer could do nothing with the facts; he had -to have fancies. The truth in his story of the Cock and the Fox is a -different kind of truth from the truth about Burroughs's "Winter -Neighbors," yet no less the truth. Good nature-writing is literature, -not science, and the truth we demand first and last is a literary -truth--the fidelity of the writer to himself. He may elect to use -facts for his material; yet they are only material, and no better as -material than fancies. For it is not matter that counts last in -literature; it is manner. It is spirit that counts. It is the man. -Only honest men make literature. Writers may differ in their purpose, -as Burroughs in his purpose to guide you through the woods differs -from Chaucer's purpose to entertain you by the fire; but they are one -in their spirit of honesty. - -Chaucer pulls a long face and begins his tale of the Cock and the Fox -with a vivid and very realistic description of a widow's cottage, - - B'syde a grove, standing in a dale, - -as a setting, not for the poor widow and her two daughters, not at -all; but rather to stage the heroic comedy between Chauntecleer and -his favorite wife, the scarlet-eyed Pertelote. - -It is just before daybreak. They are not up yet, not off the roost, -when they get into a discussion about the significance of dreams, -Chauntecleer having had a very bad dream during the night. The dispute -waxes as it spreads out over medicine, philosophy, theology, and -psychology. Chauntecleer quotes the classics, cites famous stories, -talks Latin to her:-- - - For, also sicker as _In principio - Mulier est hominis confusio_; - -translating it for her thus:-- - - Madam, the sentence of this Latin is-- - Woman is mannes joy and all his blis, - -while she tells him he needs a pill for his liver in spite of the fact -that he wears a beard. It is fine scorn, but passing sad, following so -close upon the old English love song that Chauntecleer was wont to -wake up singing. - -It is here, at this critical juncture of the nature-story, that -Chaucer pauses to remark seriously:-- - - For thilke tyme, as I have understonde, - Bestes and briddes coulde speke and singe. - -Certainly they could; and "speking and singing in thilke tyme" seems -much more natural for "bestes and briddes" than many of the things -they do nowadays. - -Here, again, is Izaak Walton, as honest a man as Chaucer--a lover of -nature, a writer on angling; who knew little about angling, and less -about nature; whose facts are largely fancies; but--what of it? Walton -quotes, as a probable fact, that pickerel hatch out of the seeds of -the pickerelweed; that toads are born of fallen leaves on the bottoms -of ponds. He finds himself agreeing with Pliny "that many flies have -their birth, or being, from a dew that in the spring falls upon the -leaves of the trees"; and, quoting the divine du Bartas, he sings:-- - - So slow Booetes underneath him sees - In th' icy isles those goslings hatch'd of trees, - Whose fruitful leaves, falling into the water, - Are turn'd, they say, to living fowls soon after. - -But the "Compleat Angler" is not a scientific work on fishes, nor a -handbook on angling for anglers. It is a book for all that are lovers -of literature; for "all that are lovers of virtue; and dare trust in -his providence; and be quiet; and go a Angling." - -This is somewhat unscientific, according to our present light; but, -wonderful as it seemed to Walton, it was all perfectly natural -according to his light. His facts are faulty, yet they are the best he -had. So was his love the best he had; but that was without fault, -warm, deep, intense, sincere. - -Our knowledge of nature has so advanced since Walton's time, and our -attitude has so changed, that the facts of nature are no longer -enough for literature. We know all that our writer knows; we have seen -all that he can see. He can no longer surprise us; he can no longer -instruct us; he can no longer fool us. The day of the marvelous is -past; the day of the _cum laude_ cat and the _magna cum laude_ pup is -past, the day of the things that I alone have seen is past; and the -day of the things that I, in common with you, have honestly felt, is -come. - -There should be no suggestion in a page of nature-writing that the -author--penetrated to the heart of some howling summer camp for his -raw material; that he ever sat on his roof or walked across his back -yard in order to write a book about it. But nature-books, like other -books, are gone for that way--always and solely for the pot. Such -books are "copy" only--poor copy at that. There is nothing new in -them; for the only thing you can get by going afar for it is a -temptation to lie; and no matter from what distance you fetch a -falsehood--even from the top of the world--you cannot disguise the -true complexion of it. Take the wings of the morning and dwell in the -uttermost parts of the sea, and you will find nothing new there; -ascend into heaven or make your bed in hell for copy, as is the -fashion nowadays--But you had better look after your parish, and go -faithfully about your chores; and if you have a garden with a tortoise -in it, and you love them, and love to write about them, then write. - -Nature-writing must grow more and more human, personal, -interpretative. If I go into the wilderness and write a book about it, -it must be plain to my reader that "the writing of the book was only a -second and finer enjoyment of my holiday in the woods." If my chippy -sings, it must sing a chippy's simple song, not some gloria that only -"the careless angels know." It must not do any extraordinary thing for -me; but it may lead me to do an extraordinary thing--to have an -extraordinary thought, or suggestion, or emotion. It may mean -extraordinary things to me; things that have no existence in nature, -whose beginnings and ends are in me. I may never claim that I, because -of exceptional opportunities, or exceptional insight, or exceptional -powers of observation, have discovered these marvelous things here in -the wilds of Hingham. My pages may be anthropomorphic, human; not, -however, because I humanize my bees and toads, but because I am human, -and nature is meaningful ultimately only as it is related to me. I -must not confuse myself with nature; nor yet "struggle against fact -and law to develop and keep" my "own individuality." I must not -anthropomorphize nature; never denature nature; never follow my own -track through the woods, imagining that I am on the trail of a -better-class wolf or a two-legged bear. I must never sentimentalize -over nature again--write no more about "Buzz-Buzz and Old Man -Barberry"; write no more about wailing winds and weeping skies; for -mine is not "a poet's vision dim," but an open-eyed, scientific sight -of things as they actually are. Once I have seen them, gathered them, -if then they turn to poetry, let them turn. For so does the squash -turn to poetry when it is brought in from the field. It turns to pie; -it turns to poetry; and it still remains squash. - -Good nature-literature, like all good literature, is more lived than -written. Its immortal part hath elsewhere than the ink-pot its -beginning. The soul that rises with it, its life's star, first went -down behind a horizon of real experience, then rose from a human -heart, the source of all true feeling, of all sincere form. Good -nature-writing particularly must have a pre-literary existence as -lived reality; its writing must be only the necessary accident of its -being lived again in thought. It will be something very human, very -natural, warm, quick, irregular, imperfect, with the imperfections and -irregularities of life. And the nature-writer will be very human, too, -and so very faulty; but he will have no lack of love for nature, and -no lack of love for the truth. Whatever else he does, he will never -touch the flat, disquieting note of make-believe. He will never -invent, never pretend, never pose, never shy. He will be honest--which -is nothing unusual for birds and rocks and stars; but for human -beings, and for nature-writers very particularly, it is a state less -common, perhaps, than it ought to be. - - - - -VI - -JOHN BURROUGHS - - - - -JOHN BURROUGHS - - -John Burroughs began his literary career (and may he so end it!) by -writing an essay for the "Atlantic Monthly," as good an introduction -(and conclusion), speaking by the rhetoric, as a lifelong composition -need have. That first essay entitled "Expression," "a somewhat -Emersonian Expression," says its author, was printed in the "Atlantic" -for November, 1860, which was fifty years ago. Fifty years are not -threescore and ten; many men have lived past threescore and ten, but -not many men have written continuously for the "Atlantic" for fifty -years with eye undimmed and natural force unabated. Mr. Burroughs's -eye for the truth of nature has grown clearer during these fifty -years, and the vigor of his youth has steadied into a maturity of -strength which in some of his latest essays--"The Long Road," for -instance--lifts one and bears one down the unmeasured reaches of -geologic time, compassing the timelessness of time, its -beginninglessness, its endinglessness, as none of his earlier chapters -have done. - -Many men have written more than Mr. Burroughs. His eighteen or twenty -books, as books may be turned out, are nothing remarkable for fifty -years of work. It is not their numbers, but the books, that are -remarkable, that among them should be found "Wake-Robin," "Winter -Sunshine," "Birds and Poets," "Locusts and Wild Honey," "Pepacton," -"Fresh Fields," "Signs and Seasons," "Riverby," "Far and Near," "Ways -of Nature," and "Leaf and Tendril"; for these eleven nature-books, as -a group, stand alone and at the head of the long list of books written -about the out-of-doors since the days of the _Historia Animalium_, and -the mediaeval "Fables" and "Beasteries." - -These eleven volumes are Mr. Burroughs's characteristic, his important -work. His other books are eminently worth while: there is reverent, -honest thinking in his religious essays, a creedless but an absolute -and joyous faith; there is simple and exquisite feeling in his poems; -close analysis and an unmitigatedness, wholly Whitmanesque, in his -interpretation of Whitman; and no saner, happier criticism anywhere -than in his "Literary Values." There are many other excellent critics, -however, many poets and religious writers, many other excellent -nature-writers, too; but is there any other who has written so much -upon the ways of nature as they parallel and cross the ways of men, -upon so great a variety of nature's forms and expressions, and done it -with such abiding love, with such truth and charm? - -Yet such a comparison is beyond proof, except in the least of the -literary values--mere quantity; and it may be with literature as with -merchandise: the larger the cask the greater the tare. Charm? Is not -charm that which _I_ chance to like, or _you_ chance to like? Others -have written of nature with as much love and truth as has Mr. -Burroughs, and each with his own peculiar charm: Audubon, with the -spell of wild places and the thrill of fresh wonder; Traherne, with -the ecstasy of the religious mystic; Gilbert White, with the sweetness -of the evening and the morning; Thoreau, with the heat of noonday; -Jefferies, with just a touch of twilight shadowing all his pages. We -want them severally as they are; Mr. Burroughs as he is, neither -wandering "lonely as a cloud" in search of poems, nor skulking in the -sedges along the banks of the Guaso Nyero looking for lions. We want -him at Slabsides, near his celery fields. And whatever the literary -quality of our other nature-writers, no one of them has come any -nearer than Mr. Burroughs to that difficult ideal,--a union of thought -and form, no more to be separated than the heart and the bark of a -live tree. - -Take Mr. Burroughs's work as a whole, and it is beyond dispute the -most complete, the most revealing, of all our outdoor literature. His -pages lie open like the surface of a pond, sensitive to every wind, or -calm as the sky, holding the clouds and the distant blue, and the -dragon-fly, stiff-winged and pinned to the golden knob of a -spatter-dock. - -All outdoor existence, all outdoor phenomena, are deeply interesting -to him. There is scarcely a form of outdoor life, scarcely a piece of -landscape, or natural occurrence characteristic of the Eastern States, -which has not been dealt with suggestively in his pages: the rabbit -under his porch, the paleozoic pebble along his path, the salt breeze -borne inland by the Hudson, the whirl of a snowstorm, the work of the -honeybees, the procession of the seasons over Slabsides, even the -abundant soil out of which he and his grapes grow and which, -"incorruptible and undefiled," he calls divine. - -He devotes an entire chapter to the bluebird, a chapter to the fox, -one to the apple, another to the wild strawberry. The individual, the -particular thing, is always of particular interest to him. But so is -its habitat, the whole of its environment. He sees the gem, not cut -and set in a ring, but rough in the mine, where it glitters on the -hand of nature, and glitters all the more that it is worn in the dark. -Naturally Mr. Burroughs has written much about the birds; yet he is -not an ornithologist. His theme has not been this or that, but nature -in its totality, as it is held within the circle of his horizon, as it -surrounds, supports, and quickens him. - -That nature does support and quicken the spiritual of him, no less -than the physical, is the inspiration of his writing and the final -comment it requires. Whether the universe was shaped from chaos with -man as its end, is a question of real concern to Mr. Burroughs, but of -less concern to him than the problem of shaping himself to the -universe, of living as long as he can upon a world so perfectly -adapted to life, if only one be physically and spiritually adaptable. -To take the earth as one finds it, to plant one's self in it, to plant -one's roof-tree in it, to till it, to understand it and the laws which -govern it, and the Perfection which created it, and to love it -all,--this is the heart of Mr. Burroughs's religion, the pith of his -philosophy, the conclusion of his books. - -But if a perfect place for the fit, how hard a place is this world for -the lazy, the ignorant, the stubborn, the weak, the physically and -spiritually ill! So hard that a torpid liver is almost a mortal -handicap, the stars in their courses fighting against the bilious to -defeat them, to drive them to take exercise, to a copious drinking of -water, to a knowledge of burdock and calomel--to obedience and -understanding. - -Underlying all of Mr. Burroughs's thought and feeling, framing every -one of his books, is a deep sense of the perfection of nature, the -sharing of which is physical life, the understanding of which is -spiritual life, is knowledge of God himself, in some part of His -perfection. "I cannot tell what the simple apparition of the earth and -sky mean to me; I think that at rare intervals one sees that they have -an immense spiritual meaning, altogether unspeakable, and that they -are the great helps, after all." How the world was made--its geology, -its biology--is the great question, for its answer is poetry and -religion and life itself. Mr. Burroughs is serenely sure as to who -made the world; the theological speculation as to _why_ it was made, -he answers by growing small fruits on it, living upon it, writing -about it. - -Temperamentally Mr. Burroughs is an optimist, as vocationally he is a -writer, and avocationally a vine-dresser. He plants and expects to -gather--grapes from his grape-vines, books from his book-vines, years, -satisfactions, sorrows, joys, all that is due him. - - The waters know their own and draw - The brook that springs in yonder heights; - So flows the good with equal law - Unto the soul of pure delights. - -And what is it that is due him? Everything; everything essential; as -everything essential is due the pine tree, the prairie, the very -planet. Is not this earth a star? Are not the prairie, the pine tree, -and man the dust of stars? each a part of the other? all parts of one -whole--a universe, round, rolling, without beginning, without end, -without flaw, without lack, a universe self-sustained, perfect? - - I stay my haste, I make delays, - For what avails this eager pace? - I stand amid the eternal ways, - And what is mine shall know my face. - -Mr. Burroughs came naturally by such a view of nature and its -consequent optimism. It is due partly to his having been born and -brought up on a farm where he had what was due him from the start. -Such birth and bringing-up is the natural right of every boy. To know -and to do the primitive, the elemental; to go barefoot, to drive the -cows, to fish, and to go to school with not too many books but with -"plenty of real things"--these are nominated in every boy's bond. - - Serene, I fold my hands and wait, - -is the poem of a childhood on the farm, and the poem of a manhood on -the farm, in spite of the critic who says:-- - -"We have never ceased to wonder that this friend of the birds, this -kindly interpreter of nature in all her moods, was born and brought up -on a farm; it was in that smiling country watered by the east branch -of the Delaware. No man, as a rule, knows less about the colors, -songs, and habits of birds, and is more indifferent to natural scenery -than the man born to the soil, who delves in it and breathes its -odors. Contact with it and laborious days seem to deaden his faculties -of observation and deprive him of all sympathy with nature." During -the days when the deadening might have occurred, Mr. Burroughs was -teaching school. Then he became a United States bank examiner, and -only after that returned to the country where he still lives. He is -now in his seventies, and coming full of years, and fuller and fuller -of books, as his vines are full of years, and fuller and fuller of -grapes. - -Could it be otherwise? If men and grapes are of the same divine dust, -should they not grow according to the same divine laws? Here in the -vineyard along the Hudson, Mr. Burroughs planted himself in planting -his vines, and every trellis that he set has become his own support -and stay. The very clearing of the land for his vineyard was a -preparation of himself physically and morally for a more fruitful -life. - -"Before the snow was off in March," he says in "Literary Values," "we -set to work under-draining the moist and springy places. My health and -spirits improved daily. I seemed to be under-draining my own life and -carrying off the stagnant water, as well as that of the land." And so -he was. There are other means of doing it--taking drugs, playing golf, -walking the streets; but surely the advantages and the poetry are all -in favor of the vineyard. And how much fitter a place the vineyard to -mellow and ripen life, than a city roof of tarry pebbles and tin! - -Though necessarily personal and subjective, Mr. Burroughs's writing is -entirely free from self-exploitation and confession. There are pages -scattered here and there dealing briefly and frankly with his own -natural history, but our thanks are due to Mr. Burroughs that he never -made a business of watching himself. Once he was inveigled by a -magazine editor into doing "An Egotistical Chapter," wherein we find -him as a boy of sixteen reading essays, and capable at that age of -feeding for a whole year upon Dr. Johnson! Then we find him reading -Whipple's essays, and the early outdoor papers of Higginson; and -later, at twenty-three, settling down with Emerson's essays, and -getting one of his own into the "Atlantic Monthly." - -How early his own began to come to him! - -That first essay in the "Atlantic" was followed by a number of outdoor -sketches in the New York "Leader"--written, Mr. Burroughs says, -"mainly to break the spell of Emerson's influence and get upon ground -of my own." He succeeded in both purposes; and a large and exceedingly -fertile piece of ground it proved to be, too, this which he got upon! -Already the young writer had chosen his field and his crop. The -out-of-doors has been largely his literary material, as the essay has -been largely his literary form, ever since. He has done other -things--volumes of literary studies and criticisms; but his theme from -first to last has been the Great Book of Nature, a page of which, here -and there, he has tried to read to us. - -Mr. Burroughs's work, in outdoor literature, is a distinct species, -with new and well-marked characteristics. He is the nature-writer, to -be distinguished from the naturalist in Gilbert White, the mystic in -Traherne, the philosopher in Emerson, the preacher, poet, egotist in -Thoreau, the humorist in Charles Dudley Warner. As we now know the -nature-writer we come upon him for the first time in Mr. Burroughs. -Such credit might have gone to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, had he not -been something else before he was a lover of nature--of letters first, -then of flowers, carrying his library into the fields; whereas Mr. -Burroughs brings the fields into the library. The essay whose matter -is nature, whose moral is human, whose manner is strictly literary, -belongs to Mr. Burroughs. His work is distinguished by this threefold -and _even_ emphasis. In almost every other of our early outdoor -writers either the naturalist or the moralist or the stylist holds the -pen. - -Early or late, this or that, good outdoor writing must be marked, -first, by fidelity to fact; and, secondly, by sincerity of expression. -Like qualities mark all good literature; but they are themselves the -_very_ literature of nature. When we take up a nature-book we ask (and -it was Mr. Burroughs who taught us to ask), "Is the record true? Is -the writing honest?" - -In these eleven volumes by Mr. Burroughs there are many observations, -and it is more than likely that some of them may be wrong, but it is -not possible that any of them could be mixed with observations that -Mr. Burroughs knows he never made. If Mr. Burroughs has written a line -of sham natural history, which line is it? In a preface to -"Wake-Robin," the author says his readers have sometimes complained -that they do not see the things which he sees in the woods; but I -doubt if there ever was a reader who suspected Mr. Burroughs of not -seeing the things. - -His reply to these complaints is significant, being in no manner a -defense, but an exquisite explanation, instead, of the difference -between the nature which anybody may see in the woods and the nature -that every individual writer, because he is a writer, and an -individual, must put into his book: a difference like that between the -sweet-water gathered by the bee from the flowers and the drop of -acid-stung honey deposited by the bee in the comb. The sweet-water -undergoes a chemical change in being brought to the hive, as the wild -nature undergoes a literary change--by the addition of the writer's -self to the nature, while with the sweet-water it is by the addition -of the bee. - -One must be able to walk to an editorial office and back, and all the -way walk humbly with his theme, as Mr. Burroughs ever does--not -entirely forgetful of himself, nor of me (because he has invited me -along); but I must be quiet and not disturb the fishing--if we go by -way of a trout-stream. - -True to the facts, Mr. Burroughs is a great deal more than scientific, -for he loves the things--the birds, hills, seasons--as well as the -truths about them; and true to himself, he is not by any means a -simple countryman who has never seen the city, a natural idyl, who -lisps in "Atlantic" essays, because the essays come. He is fully aware -of the thing he wants to do, and by his own confession has a due -amount of trouble shaping his raw material into finished literary -form. He is quite in another class from the authors of "The Complete -Angler" and "New England's Rarities Discovered." In Isaak Walton, to -quote Leslie Stephen, "_a happy combination of circumstances_ has -provided us with a true country idyl, fresh and racy from the soil, -not consciously constructed by the most skillful artistic hand." - -Now the skillful artistic hand is everywhere seen in Mr. Burroughs. -What writer in these days could expect happy combinations of -circumstances in sufficient numbers for eleven volumes? Albeit a stone -house, in a vineyard by the Hudson, seems a very happy combination, -indeed! - -But being an idyl, when you come to think of it, is not the result of -a happy combination of circumstances, but rather of stars--of -horoscope. You are born an idyl or you are not, and where and when you -live has nothing to do with it. - -Who would look for a true country idyl to-day in the city of -Philadelphia? Yet one came out of there yesterday, and lies here open -before me, on the table. It is a slender volume, called "With the -Birds, An Affectionate Study," by Caroline Eliza Hyde. The author is -discussing the general subject of nomenclature and animal -distribution, and says:-- - -"When the Deluge covered the then known face of the earth, the birds -were drowned with every other living thing, except those that Noah, -commanded by God, took two by two into the Ark. - -"When I reflect deeply and earnestly about the Ark, as every one -should, thoughts crowd my mind with an irresistible force." - -[And they crowd my mind, too.] - -"Noah and his family had preserved the names of the birds given them -by Adam. This is assured, for Noah sent a raven and a dove out to see -if the waters had abated, and we have birds of that name now. Nothing -was known of our part of the globe, so these birds must have remained -in the Holy Land for centuries. We do not hear of them until America -was discovered.... - -"Bats come from Sur. They are very black mouse-like birds, and -disagreeable.... The bobolink is not mentioned in the Bible, but it is -doubtless a primitive bird. The cock that crows too early in the -morning ... can hardly be classed with the song-birds. The name of the -hummingbird is not mentioned in the Bible, but as there is nothing new -under the sun, he is probably a primitive bird." - -Mr. Burroughs will agree that the hummingbird is probably a primitive -bird; and also that this is a true idyl, and that he could not write a -true idyl if he tried. No one could write like that by trying. And -what has any happy combination of circumstances to do with it? No, a -book essentially is only a personality in type, and he who would not -be frustrated of his hope to write a true idyl must himself be born a -true idyl. A fine Miltonic saying! - -Mr. Burroughs is not an idyl, but an essayist, with a love for books -only second to his love for nature; a watcher in the woods, a tiller -of the soil, a reader, critic, thinker, poet, whose chief business -these fifty years has been the interpretation of the out-of-doors. - -Upon him as interpreter and observer, his recent books, "Ways of -Nature" and "Leaf and Tendril," are an interesting comment. - -Truth does not always make good literature, not when it is stranger -than fiction, as it often is, and the writer who sticks to the truth -of nature must sometimes do it at the cost of purely literary ends. -Have I sacrificed truth to literature? asks Mr. Burroughs of his -books. Have I seen in nature the things that are there, or the -strange man-things, the "winged creeping things which have four -feet," and which were an abomination to the ancient Hebrews, but which -the readers of modern nature-writing do greedily devour--are these the -things I have seen? And for an answer he sets about a reexamination of -all he has written, from "Wake-Robin" to "Far and Near," hoping "that -the result of the discussion or threshing will not be to make the -reader love the animals less, but rather to love the truth more." - -But the result, as embodied in "Ways of Nature" and in "Leaf and -Tendril," is quite the opposite, I fear; for these two volumes are -more scientific in tone than any of his other work; and it is the -mission, not of science, but of literature, to quicken our love for -animals, even for truth. Science only adds to the truth. Yet here, in -spite of himself, Mr. Burroughs is more the writer, more the -interpreter, than the investigator. He is constantly forgetting his -scientific thesis, as, for instance, in the account of his neighbor's -errant cow. He succeeds finally, however, in reducing her fairly well -to a mechanical piece of beef acting to vegetable stimuli upon a nerve -ganglion located somewhere in the region between her horns and her -tail. - -Now, all this is valuable, and the use made of it is laudable, but -would we not rather have the account than the cow, especially from Mr. -Burroughs? Certainly, because to us it is the _account_ that he has -come to stand for. And so, if we do not love his scientific animals -more, and his scientific findings more, we shall, I think, love all -his other books more; for we see now that, from the beginning, he has -regarded the facts of nature as the solid substance of his books, to -be kept as free from fancy and from false report, as his -interpretation of them is to be kept free from all exaggeration and -cant. - -Here, then, are eleven volumes of honest seeing, honest feeling, -honest reporting. Such honesty of itself may not make good -nature-literature, but without such honesty there can be no good -nature-literature. - -Nature-literature is not less than the truth, but more; how much more, -Mr. Burroughs himself suggests to us in a passage about his literary -habits. - -"For my part," he says, "I can never interview nature in the reporter -fashion. I must camp and tramp with her to get any good, and what I -get I absorb through my emotions rather than consciously gather -through my intellect.... An experience must lie in my mind a certain -time before I can put it upon paper--say from three to six months. If -there is anything in it, it will ripen and mellow by that time. I -rarely take any notes, and I have a very poor memory, but rely upon -the affinity of my mind for a certain order of truths or observations. -What is mine will stick to me, and what is not will drop off. We who -write about nature pick out, I suspect, only the rare moments when we -have had glimpses of her, and make much of them. Our lives are dull, -our minds crusted over with rubbish like those of other people. Then -writing about nature, or about most other subjects, is an expansive -process; we are under the law of evolution; we grow the germ into the -tree; a little original observation goes a good way." For "when you go -to nature, bring us good science or else good literature, and not a -mere inventory of what you have seen. One demonstrates, the other -interprets." - -Careful as Mr. Burroughs has been with his facts, so careful as often -to bring us excellent science, he yet has left us no inventory of the -out-of-doors. His work is literature; he is not a demonstrator, but an -interpreter, an expositor who is true to the text and true to the -whole of the context. - -Our pleasure in Mr. Burroughs as an interpreter comes as much from his -wholesome good sense, from his balance and sanity, I think, as from -the assurance of his sincerity. Free from pose and cant and deception, -he is free also from bias and strain. There is something ordinary, -normal, reasonable, companionable, about him; an even tenor to all his -ways, a deliberateness, naturalness to all his paths, as if they might -have been made originally by the cows. So they were. - -If Mr. Burroughs were to start from my door for a tramp over these -small Hingham hills he would cross the trout-brook by my neighbor's -stone bridge, and nibbling a spear of peppermint on the way, would -follow the lane and the cow-paths across the pasture. Thoreau would -pick out the deepest hole in the brook and try to swim across; he -would leap the stone walls of the lane, cut a bee-line through the -pasture, and drop, for his first look at the landscape, to the bottom -of the pit in the seam-face granite quarry. Here he would pull out his -note-book and a gnarly wild apple from his pocket, and intensely, -critically, chemically, devouring said apple, make note in the book -that the apples of Eden were flat, the apples of Sodom bitter, but -this wild, tough, wretched, impossible apple of the Hingham hills -united all ambrosial essences in its striking odor of squash-bugs. - -Mr. Burroughs takes us along with him. Thoreau comes upon us in the -woods--jumps out at us from behind some bush, with a "_Scat!_" -Burroughs brings us home in time for tea; Thoreau leaves us tangled up -in the briars. - -It won't hurt us to be jumped at now and then and told to "_scat!_" It -won't hurt us to be digged by the briars. It is good for us, otherwise -we might forget that _we_ are beneath our clothes. It is good for us -and highly diverting, but highly irritating too. - -For my part, when I take up an outdoor book I am glad if there is -quiet in it, and fragrance, and something of the saneness and -sweetness of the sky. Not that I always want sweet skies. It is -ninety-eight degrees in the shade, and three weeks since there fell a -drop of rain. I could sing like a robin for a sizzling, crackling -thunder-shower--less for the sizzling and crackling than for the -shower. Thoreau is a succession of showers--"tempests"; his pages are -sheet-lightning, electrifying, purifying, illuminating, but not -altogether conducive to peace. There is a clear sky to most of Mr. -Burroughs's pages, a rural landscape, wide, gently rolling, with -cattle standing here and there beneath the trees. - -Mr. Burroughs's natural history is entirely natural, his philosophy -entirely reasonable, his religion and ethics very much of the kind we -wish our minister and our neighbor might possess; and his manner of -writing is so unaffected that we feel we could write in such a manner -ourselves. Only we cannot. - -Since the time he can be said to have "led" a life, Mr. Burroughs has -led a literary life; that is to say, nothing has been allowed to -interfere with his writing; yet the writing has not been allowed to -interfere with a quiet successful business,--with his raising of -grapes. - -He has a study and a vineyard. - -Not many men ought to live by the pen alone. A steady diet of -inspiration and words is hard on the literary health. The writing -should be varied with some good wholesome work, actual hard work for -the hands; not so much work, perhaps, as one would find in an -eighteen-acre vineyard; yet Mr. Burroughs's eighteen acres have -certainly proved no check--rather, indeed, a stimulus--to his writing. -He seems to have gathered a volume out of every acre; and he seems to -have put a good acre into every volume. "Fresh Fields" is the name of -one of the volumes, "Leaf and Tendril" of another; but the freshness -of his fields, the leaves and the tendrils of his vineyard, enter into -them all. The grapes of the vineyard are in them also. - -Here is a growth of books out of the soil, books that have been -trimmed, trained, sprayed, and kept free from rot. Such books may not -be altogether according to the public taste; they will keep, however, -until the public acquires a better taste. Sound, ripe, fresh, early -and late, a full crop! Has the vineyard anything to do with it? - -It is not every farmer who should go to writing, nor every writer who -should go to farming; but there is a mighty waste of academic -literature, of premature, precocious, lily-handed literature, of -chicken-licken literature, because the writers do not know a spade -when they see one, would not call it a spade if they knew. Those -writers need to do less writing and more farming, more real work with -their soft hands in partnership with the elemental forces of nature, -or in comradeship with average elemental men--the only species extant -of the quality to make writing worth while. - -Mr. Burroughs has had this labor, this partnership, this comradeship. -His writing is seasoned and sane. It is ripe, and yet as fresh as -green corn with the dew in the silk. You have eaten corn on the cob -just from the stalk and steamed in its own husk? Green corn that _is_ -corn, that has all its milk and sugar and flavor, is corn on the cob, -and in the husk,--is cob and kernel and husk,--not a stripped ear that -is cooked into the kitchen air. - -Literature is too often stripped of its human husk, and cut from its -human cob: the man gone, the writer left; the substance gone, the -style left--corn that tastes as much like corn as it tastes like -puffed rice,--which tastes like nothing at all. There is the sweetness -of the husk, the flavor of the cob, the substance of the uncut corn to -Mr. Burroughs. - -There is no lack of cob and husk to Thoreau, of shell and hull, one -should say, for he is more like a green walnut than an ear of green -corn. Thoreau is very human, a whole man; but he is almost as much a -tree, and a mountain, and a pond, and a spell of weather, and a state -of morals. He is the author of "Walden," and nobody else in the world -is that; he is a lover of nature, as ardent a lover as ever eloped -with her; he is a lover of men, too, loving them with an intensity -that hates them bag and baggage; he is poetical, prophetic, -paradoxical, and utterly impossible. - -But he knew it. Born in Concord, under the transcendental stars, at a -time when Delphic sayings and philosophy, romance and poetry ran wild -in the gardens where Bouncing-Bet and Wayward Charlie now run wild, -Thoreau knew that he was touched, and that all his neighbors were -touched, and sought asylum at Walden. But Walden was not distant -enough. If Mr. Burroughs in Roxbury, New York, found it necessary to -take to the woods in order to escape from Emerson, then Thoreau should -have gone to Chicago, or to Xamiltapec. - -It is the strain, in Thoreau, that wearies us; his sweating among the -stumps and woodchucks, for a bean crop netting him eight dollars, -seventy-one and one half cents. But such beans! Beans with minds and -souls! Yet, for baking, plain beans are better than these -transcendental beans, because your transcendental beans are always -baked without pork. A family man, however, cannot contemplate that -piddling patch with any patience, even though he have a taste for -literature as real as his taste for beans. It is better to watch Mr. -Burroughs pruning his grape-vines for a crop to net him one thousand, -three hundred and twenty-five dollars, and _no_ cents, and no -half-cents. Here are eighteen acres to be cultivated, whose fruit is -to be picked, shipped, and sold in the New York markets at a profit--a -profit plainly felt in Mr. Burroughs's books. - -The most worthy qualities of good writing are those least -noticeable,--negative qualities of honesty, directness, sincerity, -euphony; noticeable only by their absence. Yet in Mr. Burroughs they -amount to a positive charm. Indeed, are not these same negative -qualities the very substance of good style? Such style as is had by a -pair of pruning-shears, as is embodied in the exquisite lines of a -flying swallow--the style that is perfect, purposeful adaptability? - -But there is more than efficiency to Mr. Burroughs's style; there are -strengths and graces existing in and for themselves. Here is a -naturalist who has studied the art of writing. "What little merit my -style has," he declares, "is the result of much study and discipline." -And whose style, if it be style at all, is not the result of much -study and discipline. Flourish, fine-writing, wordiness, obscurity, -and cant are exorcised in no other way; and as for the "limpidness, -sweetness, freshness," which Mr. Burroughs says should characterize -outdoor writing, and which do characterize his writing, how else than -by study and discipline shall they be obtained? - -Outdoor literature, no less than other types of literature, is both -form and matter; the two are mutually dependent, inseparably one; but -the writer is most faithful to the form when he is most careful of the -matter. It makes a vast difference whether his interest is absorbed by -what he has to say, or by the possible ways he may say it. If Mr. -Burroughs writes in his shirt-sleeves, as a recent critic says he -does, it is because he goes about his writing as he goes about his -vineyarding--for grapes, for thoughts, and not to see how pretty he -can make a paragraph look, or into what fantastic form he can train a -vine. The vine is lovely in itself,--if it bear fruit. - -And so is language. Take Mr. Burroughs's manner in any of its moods: -its store of single, sufficient words, for instance, especially the -homely, rugged words and idioms, and the flavor they give, is second -to the work they do; or take his use of figures--when he speaks of De -Quincey's "discursive, roundabout style, herding his thoughts as a -collie dog herds sheep,"--and unexpected, vivid, apt as they are, they -are even more effective. One is often caught up by the poetry of these -essays and borne aloft, but never on a gale of words; the lift and -sweep are genuine emotion and thought. - -As an essayist,--as a nature-writer I ought to say,--Mr. Burroughs's -literary care is perhaps nowhere so plainly seen as in the simple -architecture of his essay plans, in their balance and finish, a -quality that distinguishes him from others of the craft, and that -neither gift nor chance could so invariably supply. The common fault -of outdoor books is the catalogue--raw data, notes. There are -paragraphs of notes in Mr. Burroughs, volumes of them in Thoreau. The -average nature-writer sees not too much of nature, but knows all too -little of literary values; he sees everything, gets a meaning out of -nothing; writes it all down; and gives us what he sees, which is -precisely what everybody may see; whereas, we want also what he thinks -and feels. Some of our present writers do nothing but feel and divine -and fathom--the animal psychologists, whatever they are. The bulk of -nature-writing, however, is journalistic, done on the spot, into a -note-book, as were the journals of Thoreau--fragmentary, yet with -Thoreau often exquisite fragments--bits of old stained glass, -unleaded, and lacking unity and design. - -No such fault can be found with Mr. Burroughs. He goes pencilless -into the woods, and waits before writing until his return home, until -time has elapsed for the multitudinous details of the trip to blur and -blend, leaving only the dominant facts and impressions for his pen. -Every part of his work is of selected stock, as free from knots and -seams and sap-wood as a piece of old-growth pine. There is plan, -proportion, integrity to his essays--the naturalist living faithfully -up to a sensitive literary conscience. - -Mr. Burroughs is a good but not a great naturalist, as Audubon and -Gray were great naturalists. His claim (and Audubon's in part) upon us -is literary. He has been a watcher in the woods; has made a few -pleasant excursions into the primeval wilderness, leaving his gun at -home, and his camera, too, thank Heaven! He has broken out no new -trail, discovered no new animal, no new thing. But he has seen all the -old, uncommon things, has seen them oftener, has watched them longer, -through more seasons, than any other writer of our out-of-doors; and -though he has discovered no new thing, yet he has made discoveries, -volumes of them,--contributions largely to our stock of literature, -and to our store of love for the earth, and to our joy in living upon -it. He has turned a little of the universe into literature; has -translated a portion of the earth into human language; has restored to -us our garden here eastward in Eden--apple tree and all. - -For a real taste of fruity literature, try Mr. Burroughs's chapter on -"The Apple." Try Thoreau's, too,--if you are partial to squash-bugs. -There are chapters in Mr. Burroughs, such as "Is it going to Rain?" "A -River View," "A Snow-Storm," which seem to me as perfect, in their -way, as anything that has ever been done--single, simple, beautiful in -form, and deeply significant; the storm being a piece of fine -description, of whirling snow across a geologic landscape, distant, -and as dark as eternity; the whole wintry picture lighted and warmed -at the end by a glowing touch of human life:-- - -"We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth; it is the color of -life, while a snow-covered plain is the face of death; yet snow is but -the mark of life-giving rain; it, too, is the friend of man--the -tender, sculpturesque, immaculate, warming, fertilizing snow." - -There are many texts in these eleven volumes, many themes; and in them -all there is one real message: that this is a good world to live in; -that these are good men and women to live with; that life is good, -here and now, and altogether worth living. - - - - -VII - -HUNTING THE SNOW - - - - -HUNTING THE SNOW - - -The hunt began at the hen-yard gate, where we saw tracks in the thin, -new snow that led us up the ridge, and along its narrow back, to a -hollow stump. Here the hunt began in earnest, for not until that trail -of close, double, nail-pointed prints went under the stump were the -three small boys convinced that we were tracking a skunk and not a -cat. - -This creature had moved leisurely. That you could tell by the -closeness of the prints. Wide-apart tracks in the snow mean hurry. Now -a cat, going as slowly as this creature went, would have put down her -dainty feet almost in single line, and would have left round, -cushion-marked holes in the snow, not triangular, nail-pointed prints -like these. Cats do not venture into holes under stumps, either. - -We had bagged our first quarry! No, no! We had not pulled that wood -pussy out of his hole and put him into our game-bag. We did not want -to do that. We really carried no bag; and if we had, we should not -have put the wood pussy in it, for we were hunting tracks, not the -animals, and "bagging our quarry" meant trailing a creature to its -den, or following its track until we had discovered something it had -done, or what its business was, and why it was out. We were on the -snow for animal _facts_, not animal pelts. - -We were elated with our luck, for this stump was not five minutes by -the steep ridge path from the hen-yard. And here, standing on the -stump, we were only sixty minutes away from Boston Common by the -automobile, driving no faster than the law allows. So we were not -hunting in a wilderness, but just outside our dooryard and almost -within the borders of a great city. - -And that is the interesting fact of our morning hunt. No one but a -lover of the woods and a careful walker on the snow would believe that -here in the midst of hay-fields, in sight of the smoke of city -factories, so many of the original wild wood-folk still live and -travel their night paths undisturbed. - -Still, this is a rather rough bit of country, broken, ledgy, -boulder-strewn, which accounts for the swamps and woody hills that -alternate with small towns and cultivated fields all the way to the -Blue Hill Reservation, fifteen miles to the westward. This whole -region, this dooryard of Boston, is one of Nature's own reservations, -a preserve that she has kept for her small and humble folk, who are -just as dear to her as we are, but whom we have driven, except in such -small places as these, quite off the earth. - -Here, however, they are still at home, as this hole of the skunk's -under the stump proved. But there was more proof. As we topped the -ridge on the trail of the skunk, we crossed another trail, made up of -bunches of four prints,--two long and broad, two small and -roundish,--spaced about a yard apart. - -A hundred times, the winter before, we had tried that trail in the -hope of finding the form or the burrow of its maker, the great -Northern hare, but it crossed and turned and doubled, and always led -us into a tangle, out of which we never got a clue. - -As this was the first tracking snow of the winter, we were relieved to -see the strong prints of our cunning neighbor again, for what with -the foxes and the hunters, we were afraid it might have fared ill with -him. But here he was, with four good legs under him; and after bagging -our skunk, we returned to pick up the hare's trail, to try our luck -once more. - -We brought him in long, leisurely leaps down the ridge, out into our -mowing field, and over to the birches below the house. Here he had -capered about in the snow, had stood up on his haunches and gnawed the -bark from off a green oak sucker two and a half feet from the ground. -This, doubtless, was pretty near his length, stretched out--an -interesting item; not exact to the inch, perhaps, but close enough for -us; and much more fascinating, guessed at by such a rule, than if -measured dead, with scientific accuracy. - -Nor was this all, for up the foot-path through the birches came the -marks of two dogs. They joined the marks of the hare. And then, back -along the edge of the woods to the bushy ridge, we saw a pretty race. - -It was all in our imaginations, all done for us by those long-flinging -footprints in the snow. But we saw it all--the white hare, the -yelling hounds, nip and tuck, in a burst of speed across the open -field that left a gap in the wind behind. - -It had all come as a surprise. The hounds had climbed the hill on the -scent of a fox, and had "jumped" the hare unexpectedly. But just such -a jump of fear is what a hare's magnificent legs were intended for. - -They carried him a clear twelve feet in some of the longest leaps for -the ridge, and they carried him to safety, so far as we could read the -snow. In the medley of hare-and-hound tracks on the ridge there was no -sign of a tragedy. He had escaped again--but how and where we have -still to learn. - -We had bagged our hare,--yet still we have him to bag,--and taking up -the trail of one of the dogs, we continued our hunt. - -One of the joys of this snow-walking is having a definite road or -trail blazed for you by knowing, purposeful feet. You do not have to -blunder ahead, breaking your way into this wilderness world, trusting -luck to bring you somewhere. The wild animal or the dog goes this way, -and not that, for a reason. You are following that reason all along; -you are pack-fellow to the hound; you hunt with him. - -Here the hound had thrust his muzzle into a snow-capped pile of -slashings, had gone clear round the pile, then continued on his way. -But we stopped, for out of the pile, in a single, direct line, ran a -number of mice-prints, going and coming. A dozen white-footed mice -might have traveled that road since the day before, when the snow had -ceased falling. - -We entered the tiny road (for in this kind of hunting a mouse is as -good as a mink), and found ourselves descending the woods toward the -garden-patch below. Halfway down we came to a great red oak, into a -hole at the base of which, as into the portal of some mighty castle, -ran the road of the mice. That was the end of it. There was not a -single straying footprint beyond the tree. - -I reached in as far as my arm would go, and drew out a fistful of -pop-corn cobs. So here was part of my scanty crop! I pushed in again, -and gathered up a bunch of chestnut shells, hickory-nuts, and several -neatly rifled hazelnuts. This was story enough. There was a nest, or -family, of mice living under the slashing pile, who for some good -reason kept their stores here in the recesses of this ancient red oak. -Or was this some squirrel's barn being pilfered by the mice, as my -barn is the year round? It was not all plain. But this question, this -constant riddle of the woods,--small, indeed, in the case of the -mouse, and involving no great fate in its solution,--is part of our -constant joy in the woods. Life is always new, always strange, always -fascinating. - -It has all been studied and classified according to species. Any one -knowing the woods at all would know that these were mice-tracks, the -tracks of the white-footed mouse, even, and not the tracks of the -jumping mouse, the house mouse, or the meadow mouse. But what is the -whole small story of these prints? What purpose, intention, feeling do -they spell? What and why?--a hundred times! - -But the scientific books are dumb. Indeed, they do not consider such -questions worth answering, just as under the species _Mus_ they make -no record of the fact that - - The present only toucheth thee. - -But that is a poem. Burns discovered that--Burns, the farmer! The -woods and fields are poem-full, and it is largely because we do not -know, and never can know, just all that the tiny snow-prints of a -wood-mouse may mean, nor understand just what - - root and all, and all in all, - -the humblest flower is. - -The pop-corn cobs, however, were a known quantity, a tangible fact, -and falling in with a gray squirrel's track not far from the red oak, -we went on, our game-bag heavier, our hearts lighter at the thought -that we, by the sweat of our brow, had contributed a few ears of corn -to the comfort of this snowy winter world. - -The squirrel's track wound up and down the hillside, wove in and out -and round and round, hitting every possible tree, as if the only road -for a squirrel was one that looped and doubled and tied up every stump -and zigzagged into every tree trunk in the woods. - -But all this maze was no ordinary journey. The squirrel had not run -this coil of a road for breakfast, because when he travels, say, for -distant nuts, he goes as directly as you go to your school or office; -but he goes not by streets, but by trees, never crossing more of the -open in a single rush than the space between him and the nearest tree -that will take him on his way. - -What interested us here in the woods was the fact that a second series -of tracks just like the first, only about half as large, dogged the -larger tracks persistently, leaping tree for tree, and landing track -for track with astonishing accuracy--tracks which, had they not been -evidently those of a smaller squirrel, would have read to us most -menacingly. - -As this was the mating season for squirrels, I suggested that it might -have been a kind of Atalanta's race here in the woods. But why did so -little a squirrel want to marry one so big? They would not look well -together, was the answer of the small boys. They thought it much more -likely that Father Squirrel had been playing wood-tag with one of his -children. - -Then, suddenly, as sometimes happens in the woods, the true meaning of -the signs was literally hurled at us, for down the hill, squealing and -panting, rushed a large male gray squirrel, with a red squirrel like a -shadow, like a weasel, at his heels. - -For just an instant I thought it was a weasel, so swift and silent and -gliding were its movements, so set and cruel seemed its expression, so -sure, so inevitable its victory. - -Whether it ever caught the gray squirrel or not, and what it would -have done had it caught the big fellow, I do not know. But I have seen -the chase often--the gray squirrel put to the last extremity with -fright and fatigue, the red squirrel an avenging, inexorable fate -behind. They tore round and round us, then up over the hill, and -disappeared. - -One of the rarest prints for most snow-hunters nowadays, but one of -the commonest hereabouts, is the quick, sharp track of the fox. In the -spring particularly, when my fancy young chickens are turned out to -pasture, I have spells of fearing that the fox will never be -exterminated here in this untillable but beautiful chicken country. In -the winter, however, when I see Reynard's trail across my lawn, when I -hear the music of the baying hounds, and catch a glimpse of the -white-tipped brush swinging serenely in advance of the coming pack, I -cannot but admire the capable, cunning rascal, cannot but be glad for -him, and marvel at him, so resourceful, so superior to his almost -impossible conditions, his almost innumerable foes. - -We started across the meadow on his trail, but found it leading so -straightaway for the ledges, and so continuously blotted out by the -passing of the pack, that, striking the wallowy path of a muskrat in -the middle of the meadow, we took up the new scent to see what the -shuffling, cowering water-rat wanted from across the snow. - -A man is known by the company he keeps, by the way he wears his hat, -by the manner of his laugh; but among the wild animals nothing tells -more of character than their manner of moving. You can read animal -character as easily in the snow as you can read act and direction. - -The timidity, the indecision, the lack of purpose, the restless, -meaningless curiosity of this muskrat were evident from the first in -the loglike, the starting, stopping, returning, going-on track he had -ploughed out in the thin snow. - -He did not know where he was going or what he was going for; he knew -only that he insisted upon going back, but all the while kept going -on; that he wanted to go to the right or to the left, yet kept moving -straight ahead. - -We came to a big wallow in the snow, where, in sudden fear, he had had -a fit at the thought of something that might not have happened to him -had he stayed at home. Every foot of the trail read, "He would if he -could; but if he wouldn't, how could he?" - -We followed him on, across a dozen other trails, for it is not every -winter night that the muskrat's feet get the better of his head, and, -willy-nilly, take him abroad. Strange and fatal weakness! He goes and -cannot stop. - -Along the stone wall of the meadow we tracked him, across the -highroad, over our garden, into the orchard, up the woody hill to the -yard, back down the hill to the orchard, out into the garden, and back -toward the orchard again; and here, on a knoll just in the edge of the -scanty, skeleton shadow where the moon fell through the trees, we lost -him. - -Two mighty wings had touched the snow lightly here, and the lumbering -trail had vanished as into the air. - -Close and mysterious the silent wings hang poised indoors and out. -Laughter and tears are companions. Comedy begins, but tragedy often -ends the trail. Yet the sum of life indoors and out is peace, -gladness, and fulfillment. - - - - -VIII - -THE CLAM FARM - - - - -THE CLAM FARM: - -A CASE OF CONSERVATION - - -Our hunger for clams and their present scarcity have not been the -chief factors in the new national movement for the conservation of our -natural resources; nor are the soaring prices of pork and lumber and -wheat immediate causes, although they have served to give point and -application to the movement. Ours is still a lavishly rich country. We -have long had a greed for land, but we have not felt a pang yet of the -Old World's land-hunger. Thousands of acres, the stay for thousands of -human lives, are still lying as waste places on the very borders of -our eastern cities. There is plenty of land yet, plenty of lumber, -plenty of food, but there is a very great and growing scarcity of -clams. - -Of course the clam might vanish utterly from the earth and be -forgotten; our memory of its juicy, salty, sea-fat flavor might vanish -with it; and we, ignorant of our loss, be none the poorer. We should -live on,--the eyeless fish in the Mammoth Cave live on,--but life, -nevertheless, would not be so well worth living. For it would be -flatter, with less of wave-wet freshness and briny gusto. No -kitchen-mixed seasoning can supply the wild, natural flavors of life; -no factory-made sensations the joy of being the normal, elemental, -primitive animal that we are. - -The clam is one of the natural flavors of life, and no longer ago than -when I was a freshman was considered one of life's necessities. Part -of the ceremony of my admission to college was a clambake down the -Providence River--such a clambake as never was down any other river, -and as never shall be again down the Providence River, unless the -Rhode Island clam-diggers take up their barren flats and begin to grow -clams. - -This they will do; our new and general alarm would assure us of that, -even if the Massachusetts clam-diggers were not leading the way. But -Rhode Island already has one thriving clam farm of her own at Rumstick -Point along the Narragansett. The clam shall not perish from our tidal -flats. Gone from long reaches where once it was abundant, small and -scattering in its present scanty beds, the clam (the long-neck clam) -shall again flourish, and all of New England shall again rejoice and -be glad. - -We are beginning, as a nation, while still the years are fat with -plenty, to be troubled lest those of the future come hungry and lean. -Up to the present time our industrial ethics have been like our -evangelical religion, intensely, narrowly individualistic,--_my_ -salvation at all costs. "Dress-goods, yarns, and tops" has been our -industrial hymn and prayer. And religiously, even yet, I sing of my -own salvation:-- - - While in this region here below, - _No other good will I pursue_: - I'll bid this world of noise and show, - With all its glittering snares, adieu; - -A most un-Christian sentiment truly, and all too common in both -religion and business, yet far from representing, to-day, the guiding -spirit of either business or religion. For the growing conception of -human brotherhood is mightily expanding our narrow religious -selfishness; and the dawning revelation of industrial solidarity is -not only making men careful for the present prosperity of the ends of -the earth, but is making them concerned also for the future prosperity -of the Farther-Off. - -Priests and prophets we have had heretofore. "Woodman, woodman, spare -that tree," they have wailed. And the flying chips were the woodman's -swift response. The woodman has not heard the poet's prayer. But he is -hearing the American public's command to let the sapling alone; and he -is beginning to heed. It is a new appeal, this for the sapling; there -is sound scientific sense in it, and good business sense, too. We -shall save our forests, our watersheds, and rivers; we shall conserve -for time to come our ores and rich deposits; we shall reclaim the last -of our western deserts, adopt the most forlorn of our eastern farms; -we shall herd our whales of the Atlantic, our seals of the Pacific, -number and multiply our truant schools of mackerel that range the -waters of the sea; just as we shall restock with clams the waste, -sandy shores of the sea, shores which in the days of Massasoit were as -fruitful as Eden, but which through years of digging and no planting -have become as barren as the bloodless sands of the Sahara. - -It is a solemn saying that one will reap, in the course of time, what -one sows--even clams if one sows clams; but it is a more solemn saying -that one shall cease to reap, after a time, and for all eternity, what -one has not sown--even clams out of the exhausted flats of the New -England coast, and the sandy shores of her rivers that run brackish to -the sea. - -Hitherto we have reaped where we have not sown, and gathered where we -have not strawed. But that was during the days of our industrial -pilgrimage. Now our way no longer threads the wilderness, where manna -and quails and clams are to be had fresh for the gathering. Only -barberries, in my half-wild uplands, are to be had nowadays for the -gathering. There are still enough barberries to go round without -planting or trespassing, for the simple, serious reason that the -barberries do not carry their sugar on their bushes with them, as the -clams carry their salt. The Sugar Trust carries the barberries' sugar. -But soon or late every member of that trust shall leave his bag of -sweet outside the gate of Eden or the Tombs. Let him hasten to drop it -now, lest once inside he find no manner of fruit, for his eternal -feeding, but barberries! - -We have not sown the clam hitherto: we have only digged; so that now, -for all practical purposes, that is to say, for the old-time, -twenty-five-cent, rock-weed clambake, the native, uncultivated clam -has had its day; as the unenterprising, unbelieving clammers -themselves are beginning to see. - -The Providence River fishermen are seeking distant flats for the -matchless Providence River clams, bringing them overland from afar by -train. So, too, in Massachusetts, the distinguished Duxbury clams come -out of flats that reach all the way from the mouth of the St. Johns, -on the down-east coast, to the beds of the Chesapeake. And this, while -eight hundred acres of superb clam-lands lie barren in Duxbury town, -which might be producing yearly, for the joy of man, eighty thousand -bushels of real Duxbury clams! - -What a clambake Duxbury does not have each year! A multitude of twice -eighty thousand might sit down about the steaming stones and be -filled. The thought undoes one. And all the more, that Duxbury does -not hunger thus alone. For this is the story of fifty other towns in -Massachusetts, from Salisbury down around the Cape to Dighton--a tale -with a minus total of over two million bushels of clams, and an annual -minus of nearly two millions of dollars to the clammers. - -Nor is this the story of Massachusetts alone, nor of the tide-flats -alone. It is the story of the whole of New England, inland as well as -coast. The New England farm was cleared, worked, exhausted, and -abandoned. The farmer was as exhausted as his farm, and preferring the -hazard of new fortunes to the certain tragedy of the old, went West. -But that tale is told. The tide from New England to the West is at -slack ebb. There is still a stream flowing out into the extreme West; -rising in the Middle Western States, however, not in the East. The -present New England farmers are staying on their farms, except where -the city buyer wants an abandoned farm, and insists upon its being -abandoned at any price. So will the clammer stay on his shore acres, -for his clams shall no more run out, causing him to turn cod-fisher, -or cranberry-picker, or to make worse shift. The New England -clam-digger of to-day shall be a clam-farmer a dozen years hence; and -his exhausted acres along shore, planted, cultivated, and protected by -law, shall yield him a good living. A living for him and clams for -us; and not the long-neck clams of the Providence River and Duxbury -flats only: they shall yield also the little-neck clams and the -quahaug, the scallop, too, the oyster, and, from farther off shore, -the green-clawed lobster in abundance, and of a length the law allows. - -Our children's children may run short of coal and kerosene; but they -need never want for clams. We are going to try to save them some coal, -for there are mighty bins of it still in the earth, while here, -besides, are the peat-bogs--bunkers of fuel beyond the fires of our -imaginations to burn up. We may, who knows? save them a little -kerosene. No one has measured the capacity of the tank; it has been -tapped only here and there; the plant that manufactured it, moreover, -is still in operation, and is doubtless making more. But whether so or -not, we still may trust in future oil, for the saving spirit of our -new movement watches the pipes that carry it to our cans. There is no -brand of economy known to us at present that is more assuring than our -kerosene economy. The Standard Oil Company, begotten by Destiny, it -would seem, as distributor of oil, is not one to burn even its -paraffine candles at both ends. There was, perhaps, a wise and -beneficent Providence in its organization, that we might have five -gallons for fifty-five cents for our children's sake--a price to -preserve the precious fluid for the lamps of coming generations. - -But should the coal and kerosene give out, the clam, I say, need not. -The making of Franklin coal and Standard Oil, like the making of -perfect human character, may be a process requiring all -eternity,--longer than we can wait,--so that the present deposits may -some time fail; whereas the clam comes to perfection within a summer -or two. The coal is a dead deposit; the clam is like the herb, -yielding seed, and the fruit tree, yielding fruit after its kind, -whose seed is in itself upon the earth. All that the clam requires for -an endless and an abundant existence is planting and protection, -is--conservation. - -Except for my doubts about a real North Pole, my wrath at the -Payne-Aldrich Tariff, my dreadful fears at the vast smallness of our -navy (I have a Japanese student in a class of mine!), "and one thing -more that may not be" (which, probably, is the "woman question" or -the roundness of the "Square Deal")--except, I say, for a few of such -things, I were wholly glad that my lines have fallen unto me in these -days, when there are so many long-distant movements on foot; glad -though I can only sit at the roadside and watch the show go by. I can -applaud from the roadside. I can watch and dream. To this procession -of Conservators, however (and to the anti-tariff crowd), I shall join -myself, shall take a hand in saving things by helping to bury every -high protectionist and planting a willow sapling on his grave, or by -sowing a few "spats" in a garden of clams. For here in the opposite -direction moves another procession, an endless, countless number that -go tramping away toward the desert Future without a bag of needments -at their backs, without a staff to stay them in their hands. - -The day of the abandoned farm is past; the time of the adopted, of the -_adapted_, farm has come. We are not going to abandon anything any -more, because we are not going to work anything to death any more. We -shall not abandon even the empty coal mines hereafter, but turn them -into mushroom cellars, or to uses yet undreamed. We have found a way -to utilize the arid land of the West--a hundred and fifty thousand -acres of it at a single stroke, as President Taft turns the waters of -the Gunnison River from their ancient channel into a man-made tunnel, -and sends them spreading out - - Here and there, - Everywhere, - Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the lowlying - lanes, - And the _desert_ is meshed with a million veins,-- - -in order that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, -saying, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; -and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." - -We are utilizing these arid lands, reclaiming the desert for a garden, -with an effort of hands and a daring of soul, that fall hardly short -of the original creative work which made the world--as if the divine -fiat had been: "In our image, to have dominion; to subdue the earth; -and to finish the work we leave undone." And while we are finishing -these acres and planting them with fruit at so lavish a cost, shall we -continue stupidly and criminally to rob, despoil, and leave for dead -these eleven thousand acres of natural clam garden on the -Massachusetts coast? If a vast irrigating work is the divine in man, -by the same token are the barren mountain slopes, the polluted and -shrunken rivers, the ravished and abandoned plough-lands, and these -lifeless flats of the shore the devils in him--here where no -reclaiming is necessary, where the rain cometh down from heaven, and -twice a day the tides flow in from the hills of the sea! - -There are none of us here along the Atlantic coast who do not think -with joy of that two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-acre garden new-made -yonder in the distant West. It means more, and cheaper, and still -fairer fruit for us of the East; more musk-melons, too, we hope; but -we know that it cannot mean more clams. Yet the clam, also, is good. -Man cannot live on irrigated fruit alone. He craves clams--clams as -juicy as a Redlands Bartlett, but fresh with the salty savor of -wind-blown spray. - -And he shall have them, for the clam farm--the restocked, restored -flat of earlier times--has passed the stage of theory and experiment, -being now in operation on the New England shore, a producing and very -paying property. - -The clam farm is not strictly a new venture, however, but up to the -present it has been a failure, because, in the first place, the times -were not ripe for it; the public mind lacked the necessary education. -Even yet the state, and the local town authorities, give the -clam-farmer no protection. He can obtain the state's written grant to -plant the land to clams, but he can get no legal protection against -his neighbor's digging the clams he plants. And the farm has failed, -because, in the second place, the clam-farmer has lacked the necessary -energy and imagination. A man who for years has made his bread and -butter and rubber boots out of land belonging to everybody and to -nobody, by simply digging in it, is the last man to build a fence -about a piece of land and _work_ it. Digging is only half as hard as -"working"; besides, in promiscuous digging one is getting clams that -one's neighbor might have got, and there is something better than mere -clams in that. - -But who will plant and wait for a crop that anybody, when one's back -is turned, and, indeed, when one's back isn't turned, can harvest as -his own? Yet this the fishing laws of Massachusetts still allow. -Twenty years ago, in 1889, grants were made for clam farms in and -around the town of Essex, but no legal rights were given with the -grants. Any native of Essex, by these old barnacled laws, is free to -help himself to clams from any town flat. Of course the farm failed. - -Meantime the cry for clams has grown louder; the specialists in the -new national college of conservators have been studying the subject; -"extension courses," inter-flat conventions, and laboratory -demonstrations have been had up and down the coast; and as a result, -the clam farm in Essex, since the reissue of the grants in 1906, has -been put upon a hopeful, upon a safe and paying basis. - -It is an interesting example of education,--a local public sentiment -refined into an actual, dependable public conscience; in this case -largely through the efforts of a state's Fish and Game Commission, -whose biologists, working with the accuracy, patience, and -disinterestedness of the scientist, and with the practical good sense -of the farmer, made their trial clam gardens pay, demonstrating -convincingly that a clam-flat will respond to scientific care as -readily and as profitably as a Danvers onion-bed or the cantaloupe -fields at Rocky Ford. - -This must be the direction of the new movement for the saving of our -natural resources--this roundabout road of education. Few laws can be -enacted, fewer still enforced, without the help of an awakened public -conscience; and a public conscience, for legislative purposes, is -nothing more than a thorough understanding of the facts. As a nation, -we need a popular and a thorough education in ornithology, entomology, -forestry, and farming, and in the science and morality of corporation -rights in public lands. We want sectionally, by belts or states, a -scientific training for our specialty, as the shell-fish farmer of the -Massachusetts coast is being scientifically trained in clams. These -state biologists have brought the clam men from the ends of the shore -together; they have plotted and mapped the mollusk territory; they -have made a science of clam-culture; they have made an industry of -clam-digging; and to the clam-digger they are giving dignity and a -sense of security that make him respect himself and his neighbor's -clams--this last item being a most important change in the clam-farm -outlook. - -With so much done, the next work--framing new laws to take the place -of the old fishing laws--should be a simple matter. Such a procedure -will be slow, yet it is still the only logical and effective one. Let -the clam-digger know that he can raise clams; let New England know -that the forests on her mountains must be saved, and within a -twelvemonth the necessary bills would be passed. So with the birds, -the fish, the coal of Alaska, and every other asset of our national -wealth. The nation-wide work of this saving movement will first be -educative, even by way of scandals in the Cabinet. We shall hasten -very slowly to Congress and the legislatures with our laws. The -clam-flat is typical of all our multitudinous wealth; the clam-digger -is typical of all of us who cut, or mine, or reap, or take our -livings, in any way, directly from the hands of Nature; and the lesson -of the clam farm will apply the country over. - -We have been a nation of wasters, spoiled and made prodigal by -over-easy riches; we have demanded our inheritance all at once, spent -it, and as a result we are already beginning to want--at least for -clams. At this moment there are not enough clams to go round, so that -the market-man sticks the end of a rubber hose into his tub of dark, -salty, fresh-shucked clams, and soaks them; soaks them with fresh -water out of rusty iron pipes, soaks them, and swells them, whitens -them, bloats them, sells them--ghastly corpses, husks, that we would -fain fill our soup-bowls with; for we are hungry, and must be fed, and -there are not enough of the unsoaked clams for a bowl around. - -But there shall be. With the coming of the clam farm there shall be -clams enough, and oysters and scallops; for the whole mollusk -industry, in every flat and bar and cove of the country, shall take to -itself a new interest, and vastly larger proportions. Then shall a -measure of scallops be sold for a quarter, and two measures of clams -for a quarter, and nothing, any more, be soaked. - -For there is nothing difficult about growing clams, nothing half so -difficult and expensive as growing corn or cabbage. In fact, the clam -farm offers most remarkable opportunities, although the bid, it must -be confessed, is pretty plainly to one's love of ease and one's -willing dependence. To begin with, the clam farm is self-working, -ploughed, harrowed, rolled, and fertilized by the tides of the sea; -the farmer only sowing the seed and digging the crop. Sometimes even -the seed is sown for him by the hands of the tide; but only on those -flats that lie close to some natural breeding-bar, where the currents, -gathering up the tiny floating "spats," and carrying them swiftly on -the flood, broadcast them over the sand as the tide recedes. While -this cannot happen generally, still the clam-farmer has a second -distinct advantage in having his seed, if not actually sown for him, -at least grown, and caught for him on these natural breeding-bars, in -such quantities that he need only sweep it up and cradle it, as he -might winnow grain from a threshing floor. In Plum Island Sound there -is such a bar, where it seems that Nature, in expectation of the -coming clam farm, had arranged the soil of the bar and the tidal -currents for a natural set of clam-spats to supply the entire state -with its yearly stock of seed. - -With all of this there is little of romance about a clam farm, and -nothing at all spectacular about its financial returns. For clams are -clams, whereas cobalt and rubber and wheat, and even squabs and -ginseng roots, are different,--according to the advertisements. The -inducements of the clam farm are not sufficient to cause the -prosperous Middle-West farmer to sell out and come East, as he has -been selling out and going on to the farther West, for its larger, -cheaper farms, and bigger crops. Farming, mining, lumbering, whatever -we have had to do, in fact, directly with Nature, has been for us, -thus far, a speculation and a gamble. Earnings have been out of all -proportion to investments, excessive, abnormal. We do not earn, we -_strike_ it rich; and we have struck it rich so long in this vast rich -land, that the strike has lost its element of luck, being now the -expected thing, which, failing to happen, we sell out and move on to -the farthest West, where there is still a land of chance. But that -land is passing, and with it is passing the lucky strike. The day is -approaching when a man will pay for a western farm what he now pays -for an eastern farm--the actual market value, based upon what the -land, in expert hands, can be made yearly to yield. Values will rise -to an even, normal level; earnings will settle to the same level; and -the clam farm of the coast and the stock farm of the prairie will -yield alike--a living; and if, when that day comes, there is no more -"Promised Land" for the American, it will be because we have crossed -over, and possessed the land, and divided it among us for an -inheritance. - -When life shall mean a living, and not a dress-parade, or an -automobile, or a flying-machine, then the clam farm, with its two or -three acres of flats, will be farm enough, and its average maximum -yield, of four hundred and fifty dollars an acre, will be profits -enough. For the clammer's outfit is simple,--a small boat, two -clam-diggers, four clam-baskets, and his hip-boots, the total costing -thirty dollars. - -The old milk farm here under the hill below me, with its tumbling barn -and its ninety acres of desolation, was sold not long ago for six -thousand dollars. The milkman will make more money than the clam man, -but he will have no more. The milk farm is a larger undertaking, -calling for a larger type of man, and developing larger qualities of -soul, perhaps, than could ever be dug up with a piddling clam-hoe out -of the soft sea-fattened flats. But that is a question of men, not of -farms. We must have clams; somebody must dig clams; and matters of the -spirit all aside, reckoned simply as a small business, clam-farming -offers a sure living, a free, independent, healthful, outdoor -living--and hence an ample living--to thousands of men who may lack -the capital, or the capabilities, or, indeed, the time for the larger -undertakings. And viewed as the least part of the coming shell-fish -industry, and this in turn as a smallest part of the coming national -industry, due to our reclaiming, restocking, and conserving, and wise -leasing, the clam farm becomes a type, a promise; it becomes the shore -of a new country, a larger, richer, longer-lasting country than our -pioneer fathers found here. - -For behold the clam crop how it grows!--precisely like any other crop, -in the summer, or more exactly, from about the first of May to the -first of December; and the growth is very rapid, a seed-clam an inch -long at the May planting, developing in some localities (as in the -Essex and Ipswich rivers) into a marketable clam, three inches long by -December. This is an increase in volume of about nine hundred per -cent. The little spats, scattered broadcast over the flat, burrow -with the first tide into the sand, where with each returning tide they -open their mouths, like young birds, for their meal of diatoms brought -in by the never-failing sea. Thus they feed twice a day, with never -too much water, with never a fear of drouth, until they are grown fat -for the clammer's basket. - -If, heretofore, John Burroughs among the uncertainties of his vineyard -could sing,-- - - Serene, I fold my hands and wait,-- - -surely now the clammer in his cottage by the sea can sing, and all of -us with him,-- - - The stars come nightly to the sky; - The tidal wave comes to the sea; - Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, - Can keep my own away from me. - - - - -IX - -THE COMMUTER'S THANKSGIVING - - - - -THE COMMUTER'S THANKSGIVING - - -The cottages are closed; the summer people have gone back to the city; -only the farmers and the commuters--barnacled folk--remain as the -summer tide recedes, fixed to the rocks of winter because they have -grown fast. To live is to have two houses: a country house for the -summer, a city house for the winter; to close one, and open the other; -to change, to flit! - -How different it used to be when I was a boy--away yonder in the days -of farms and old-fashioned homes and old-time winters! Things were -prepared for, were made something of, and enjoyed in those days--the -"quiltings," the "raisings," the Thanksgivings! What getting ready -there used to be--especially for the winter! for what wasn't there to -get ready! and how much of everything to get ready there used to be! - -It began along in late October, continuing with more speed as the days -shortened and hurried us into November. It must all be done by -Thanksgiving Day--everything brought in, everything housed and -battened down tight. The gray lowering clouds, the cold snap, the -first flurry of snow, how they hastened and heartened the work! -Thanksgiving found us ready for winter, indoors and out. - -The hay-mows were full to the beams where the swallows built; the -north and west sides of the barnyard were flanked with a deep -wind-break of corn-fodder that ran on down the old worm-fence each -side of the lane in yellow zigzag walls; the big wooden pump under the -turn-o'-lane tree by the barn was bundled up and buttoned to the tip -of its dripping nose; the bees by the currant bushes were -double-hived, the strawberries mulched, the wood all split and piled, -the cellar windows packed, and the storm-doors put on. The very cows -had put on an extra coat, and turned their collars up about their -ears; the turkeys had changed their roost from the ridge-pole of the -corn-crib to the pearmain tree on the sunny side of the wagon-house; -the squirrels had finished their bulky nests in the oaks; the muskrats -of the lower pasture had completed their lodges; the whole -farm--house, barn, fields, and wood-lot--had shuffled into its -greatcoat, its muffler and muffetees, and settled comfortably down for -the winter. - -The old farmhouse was an invitation to winter. It looked its joy at -the prospect of the coming cold. Low, weather-worn, mossy-shingled, -secluded in its wayward garden of box and bleeding-hearts, sheltered -by its tall pines, grape-vined, hop-vined, clung to by creeper and -honeysuckle, it stood where the roads divided, halfway between -everywhere, unpainted, unpretentious, as much a part of the landscape -as the muskrat-lodge; and, like the lodge, roomy, warm, and -hospitable. - -Round at the back, under the wide, open shed, a door led into the -kitchen, another led into the living-room, another into the storeroom, -and two big, slanting double-doors, scoured and slippery with four -generations of sliders, covered the cavernous way into the cellar. But -they let the smell of apples up, as the garret door let the smell of -sage and thyme come down; while from the door of the storeroom, -mingling with the odor of apples and herbs, filling the whole house -and all my early memories, came the smell of broom-corn, came the -sound of grandfather's loom. - -Behind the stove in the kitchen, fresh-papered like the walls, stood -the sweet-potato box (a sweet potato must be kept dry and warm), an -ample, ten-barrel box, full of Jersey sweets that _were_ sweet,--long, -golden, syrupy potatoes, grown in the warm sandy soil of the "Jethro -Piece." Against the box stood the sea-chest, fresh with the same paper -and piled with wood. There was another such chest in the living-room -near the old fireplace, and still another in grandfather's work-room -behind the "tem-plate" stove. - -But wood and warmth and sweet smells were not all. There was music -also, the music of life, of young life and of old life--grandparents, -grandchildren (about twenty-eight of the latter). There were seven of -us alone--a girl at each end of the seven and one in the middle, which -is Heaven's own mystic number and divine arrangement. Thanksgiving -always found us all at grandfather's and brimming full of thanks. - -That, of course, was long, long ago. Things are different nowadays. -There are as many grandfathers, I suppose, as ever; but they don't -make brooms in the winter any more, and live on farms. They live in -flats. The old farm with its open acres has become a city street; the -generous old farmhouse has become a speaking-tube, kitchenette and -bath--all the "modern conveniences"; the cows have evaporated into -convenient cans of condensed "milk"; the ten-barrel box of potatoes -has changed into a convenient ten-pound bag, the wood-pile into a -convenient five-cent bundle of blocks tied up with a tarred string, -the fireplace into a convenient moss-and-flame-painted gas-log, the -seven children into one, or none, or into a convenient bull-terrier -pup. Still, we may give thanks, for convenient as life has become -to-day, it has not yet all gone to the dogs. - -It is true, however, that there might be fewer dogs and more children, -possibly; fewer flats and more farms; less canned milk (or whatever -the paste is) and more real cream. Surely we might buy less and raise -more, hire less and make more, travel less and see more, hear less and -think more. Life might be quieter for some of us; profounder, perhaps, -for others of us,--more inconvenient indeed, for all of us, and yet a -thing to be thankful for. - -It might, but most of us doubt it. It is not for the things we -possess, but only for the things we have not, for the things we are -relieved of, the things we escape,--for our conveniences,--that we are -thankful nowadays. Life is summed up with us in negations. We tally -our conveniences only, quick-detachable-tired, six-cylindered, -seventy-horse-powered conveniences. To construct eighteen-million -dollars' worth of destruction in the shape of a gunboat! to lay out a -beautiful road and then build a machine to "eat it"! to be allotted a -span of time and study how to annihilate it! O Lord, we thank Thee -that we have all the modern conveniences, from cucumbers at Christmas -to a Celestial Creche! Heaven is such a nice, fit, convenient place -for our unborn children! God is their home. The angels take such -gentle care of them! Besides, they are not so in the way there; and, -if need be, we have the charity children and other people's children; -or we have the darling little sweet-faced bull-terrier pup. - -For myself, I have never had a little cherub-faced bull-pup, but at -this present writing I am helping to bring up our fourth baby, and I -think I see the convenience of the pup. And I am only the _father_ of -the baby at that! - -To begin with, you can buy a pup. You can send the stable-man after -it. But not a baby. Not even the doctor can fetch it. The mother must -go herself after her baby--to Heaven it may be; but she will carry it -all the way through Hell before she brings it to the earth, this earth -of sunlit fields and stormy skies, so evidently designed to make men -of babies. A long perilous journey this, across a whole social season. - -Certainly the little dog is a great convenience, and as certainly he -is a great negation,--the substitution, as with most conveniences, of -a thing for a self. - -Our birth may be a sleep and a forgetting, but life immediately after -is largely an inconvenience. That is the meaning of an infant's first -strangling wail. He is protesting against the inconvenience of -breathing. Breathing is an inconvenience; eating is an inconvenience; -sleeping is an inconvenience; praying is an inconvenience; but they -are part and parcel of life, and nothing has been done yet to relieve -the situation, except in the item of prayer. From prayer, and from a -multitude of other inconveniences, not mentioned above, that round out -life (death excepted), we have found ways of escape--by borrowing, -renting, hiring, avoiding, denying, until life, which is the sum of -all inconveniences, has been reduced to its infantile nothingness--the -protest against the personal effort of breathing which is existence. - -Not so for the Commuter. He is compelled to live. I have been -reckoning up my inconveniences: the things that I possess; the things -I have that are mine; not rented, borrowed, hired, avoided, but -claimed, performed, made, owned; that I am burdened with, responsible -for; that require my time and my hands. And I find that, for a fairly -full life there are inconveniences enough incidental to commuting. - -To begin with, there is the place of the Commuter's home. Home? Yes, -no doubt, he has a home, but where is it? Can Heaven, besides the -Commuter, find out the way there? - -You are standing with your question at the entrance of the great -terminal station as the wintry day and the city are closing, and it is -small wonder that you ask if God knows whither, over the maze of -tracks reaching out into the night, each of this commuting multitude -is going. But follow one, any one of the bundled throng--this one, -this tired, fine-faced Scotchman of fifty years whom we chanced to see -during the day selling silks behind the counter of a department store. - -It is a chill November evening, with the meagre twilight already -spent. Our Commuter has boarded a train for a nineteen-mile ride; then -an electric car for five miles more, when he gets off, under a lone -electric light, swinging amid the skeleton limbs of forest trees. We -follow him, now on foot, down a road dark with night and overhanging -pines, on past a light in a barn, and on--when a dog barks, a horse -whinnies, a lantern flares suddenly into the road and comes pattering -down at us, calling, "Father! father!" - -We stop at the gate as father and daughter enter the glowing kitchen. -A moment later we hear a cheerful voice greeting the horse, and then, -had we gone closer to the barn, we might have heard the creamy tinkle -of milk, spattering warm into the bottom of the tin pail. - -Heaven knew whither, over the reaching rails, this tired seller of -silks was going. Heaven was there awaiting him. The yard-stick was -laid down at half-past five o'clock; at half-past six by the clock the -Commuter was far away, farther than the other side of the world, in -his own small barn where they neither sell silk nor buy it, but where -they have a loft full of fragrant meadow hay, and keep a cow, and eat -their oatmeal porridge with cream. - -It is an inconvenient world, this distant, darkened, unmapped country -of the Commuter. Only God and the Commuter know how to get there, and -they alone know why they stay. But there are reasons, good and -sufficient reasons--there are inconveniences, I should say, many and -compelling inconveniences, such as wife and children, miles in, miles -out, the isolation, the chores, the bundles--loads of bundles--that -keep the Commuter commuting. Once a commuter, always a commuter, -because there is no place along the road, either way, where he can put -his bundles down. - -Bundles, and miles in, and miles out, and isolation, and children, and -chores? I will count them all. - -The bundles I have carried! And the bundles I have yet to carry! to -"tote"! to "tote"! But is it all of life to be free from bundles? How, -indeed, may one so surely know that one has a hold upon life as when -one has it done into a bundle? Life is never so tangible, never so -compact and satisfactory as while still wrapped up and tied with a -string. One's clothes, to take a single example, as one bears them -home in a box, are an anticipation and a pure joy--the very clothes -that, the next day, one wears as a matter of course, or wears with -disconcerting self-consciousness, or wears, it may be, with physical -pain. - -Here are the Commuter's weary miles. Life to everybody is a good deal -of a journey; to nobody so little of a journey, however, as to the -Commuter, for his traveling is always bringing him home. - -And as to his isolation and his chores it is just the same, because -they really have no separate existence save in the urban mind, as -hydrogen and oxygen have no separate existence save in the corked -flasks of the laboratory. These gases are found side by side nowhere -in nature. Only water is to be found free in the clouds and springs -and seas--only the union of hydrogen and oxygen, because it is part of -the being of these two elements to combine. So is it the nature of -chores and isolation to combine--into water, like hydrogen and -oxygen, into a well of water, springing up everlastingly to the -health, the contentment, and to the self-sufficiency of the Commuter. - -At the end of the Commuter's evening journey, where he lays his -bundles down, is home, which means a house, not a latch-key and -"rooms"; a house, I say, not a "floor," but a house that has -foundations and a roof, that has an outside as well as inside, that -has shape, character, personality, for the reason that the Commuter -and not a Community, lives there. Flats, tenements, "chambers," -"apartments"--what are they but public buildings, just as inns and -hospitals and baths are, where you pay for your room and ice-water, or -for your cot in the ward, as the case may be? And what are they but -unmistakable signs of a reversion to earlier tribal conditions, when -not only the cave was shared in common, but the wives and children and -the day's kill? The differences between an ancient cliff-house and a -modern flat are mere details of construction; life in the two would -have to be essentially the same, with odds, particularly as to rooms -and prospect, in favor of the cliff-dweller. - -The least of the troubles of flatting is the flat; the greatest is -the shaping of life to fit the flat, conforming, and sharing one's -personality, losing it indeed! I'll commute first! The only thing I -possess that distinguishes me from a factory shoe-last or an angel of -heaven is my personality. Shoe-lasts are known by sizes and styles, -angels by ranks; but a man is known by what he isn't, and by what he -hasn't, in common with anybody else. - -One must commute, if one would live in a house, and have a home of -one's own, and a personality of one's own, provided, of course, that -one works in New York City or in Boston or Chicago; and provided, -further, that one is as poor as one ought to be. And most city workers -are as poor as they ought to be--as poor, in other words, as I am. - -Poor! Where is the man rich enough to buy Central Park or Boston -Common? For that he must needs do who would make a city home with -anything like my dooryard and sky and quiet. A whole house, after all, -is only the beginning of a home; the rest of it is dooryard and -situation. A house is for the body; a home for body and soul; and the -soul needs as much room outside as inside the house,--needs a garden -and some domestic animal and the starry vault of the sky. - -It is better to be cramped for room within the house than without. Yet -the yard need not be large, certainly not a farm, nor a gentleman's -estate, nor fourteen acres of woodchucks, such as my own. Neither can -it be, for the Commuter, something abandoned in the remote foothills, -nor something wanton, like a brazen piece of sea-sand "at the beach." - -The yard may vary in size, but it must be of soil, clothed upon with -grass, with a bush or a tree in it, a garden, and some animal, even if -the tree has to grow in the garden and the animal has to be kept in -the tree, as with one of my neighbors, who is forced to keep his bees -in his single weeping willow, his yard not being large enough for his -house and his hive. A bee needs considerable room. - -And the soul of the Commuter needs room,--craves it,--but not mere -acres, nor plentitude of things. I have fourteen acres, and they are -too many. Eight of them are in woods and gypsy moths. Besides, at this -writing, I have one cow, one yearling heifer, one lovely calf, with -nature conspiring to get me a herd of cows; I have also ten colonies -of bees, which are more than any Commuter needs, even if they never -swarmed; nor does he need so many coming cows. - -But with only one cow, and only one colony of bees, and only one acre -of yard, still how impossibly inconvenient the life of the Commuter -is! A cow is truly an inconvenience if you care for her yourself--an -inherent, constitutional, unexceptional inconvenience are cows and -wives if you care for them yourself. A hive of bees is an -inconvenience; a house of your own is an inconvenience, and, according -to the figures of many of my business friends, an unwarranted luxury. -It is cheaper to rent, they find. "Why not keep your money in your -business, where you can turn it?" they argue. "Real estate is a poor -investment generally,--so hard to sell, when you want to, without a -sacrifice." - -It is all too true. The house, the cow, the children, are all -inconvenient. I can buy two quarts of blue Holstein milk of a milkman, -typhoid and scarlet-fever germs included, with much less inconvenience -than I can make my yellow-skinned Jersey give down her fourteen -quarts a day. I can live in a rented house with less inconvenience -than in this house of my own. I am always free to go away from a -rented house, and I am always glad to go. The joy of renting is to -move, or sublet; to be rid also of taxes and repairs. - -"Let the risers rot! It isn't my house, and if I break my neck I'll -sue for damages!" - -There is your renter, and the joy he gets in renting. - -There are advantages, certainly, in renting; your children, for -instance, can each be born in a different house, if you rent; and if -they chance to come all boys, like my own, they can grow up at the -City Athletic Association--a convenient, and more or less permanent -place, nowadays, which may answer very well their instinctive needs -for a fixed abode, for a home. There are other advantages, no doubt. -But however you reckon them, the rented house is in the end a tragedy, -as the willful renter and his homeless family is a calamity, a -disgrace, a national menace. Drinking and renting are vicious habits. -A house and a bit of land of your own are as necessary to normal -living as fresh air, food, a clear conscience, and work to do. - -If so, then the question is, Where shall one make his home? "Where -shall the scholar live?" asks Longfellow; "In solitude or in society? -In the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of -Nature beat, or in the dark gray city, where he can feel and hear the -throbbing heart of man? I make answer for him, and say, In the dark, -gray city." - -I should say so, too, and I should say it without so much oracular -solemnity. The city for the scholar. He needs books, and they do not -grow in cornfields. The pale book-worm is a city worm, and feeds on -glue and dust and faded ink. The big green tomato-worm lives in the -country. But this is not a question of where scholars should live; it -is where _men_ should live and their children. Where shall a man's -home be? Where shall he eat his supper? Where lay him down to sleep -when his day's work is done? Where find his odd job and spend his -Sunday? Where shall his children keep themselves usefully busy and -find room to play? Let the Commuter, not the scholar, make answer. - -The Commuter knows the dark gray city, knows it darker and grayer than -the scholar, for the Commuter works there, shut up in a basement, or -in an elevator, maybe, six days a week; he feels and hears the -throbbing heart of man all the day long; and when evening comes he -hurries away to the open country, where he can hear the heart of -Nature beat, where he can listen a little to the beating of his own. - -Where, then, should a man live? I will make answer only for myself, -and say, Here in Hingham, right where I am, for here on Mullein Hill -the sky is round and large, the evening and the Sunday silences are -deep, the dooryards are wide, the houses are single, and the -neighborhood ambitions are good kitchen-gardens, good gossip, fancy -chickens, and clean paint. - -There are other legitimate ambitions, and the Commuter is not without -them; but these few go far toward making home home, toward giving -point and purpose to life, and a pinch of pride. - -The ideal home depends very much, of course, on the home you had as a -child. I can think of nothing so ideally homelike as a farm,--an ideal -farm, ample, bountiful, peaceful, with the smell of apples coming up -from the cellar, and the fragrance of herbs and broom-corn haunting -storeroom and attic. - -The day is past when every man's home can be his farm, dream as every -man may of sometime having such a home; but the day has just arrived -when every man's home can be his garden and chicken-pen and dooryard, -with room and quiet and a tree. - -The day has come, for the means are at hand, when life, despite its -present centralization, can be more as it used to be--spread out, -roomier, simpler, healthier, more nearly normal, because again lived -near to the soil. It is time that every American home was built in the -open country, for there is plenty of land--land in my immediate -neighborhood for a hundred homes where children can romp, and your -neighbor's hens, too, and the inter-neighborhood peace brood -undisturbed. And such a neighborhood need not be either the howling -wilderness, where the fox still yaps, or the semi-submerged suburban -village, where every house has its Window-in-Thrums. The Commuter -cannot live in the wild country, else he must cease to commute; and as -for small-village life--I suppose it might be worse. It is not true -that man made the city, that God made the country, and that the devil -made the village in between; but it is pretty nearly true, perhaps. - -But the Commuter, it must be remembered, is a social creature, -especially the Commuter's wife, and no near kin to stumps and stars. -They may do to companion the prophetic soul, not, however, the average -Commuter, for he is common and human, and needs his own kind. Any -scheme of life that ignores this human hankering is sure to come to -grief; any benevolent plan for homesteading the city poor that would -transfer them from the garish day of the slums to the sweet solitudes -of unspoiled nature had better provide them with copies of "The -Pleasures of Melancholy" and leave them to bask on their fire-escapes. - -Though to my city friends I seem somewhat remote and incontiguous, -still I am not dissevered and dispersed from my kind, for I am only -twenty miles from Boston Common, and as I write I hear the lowing of a -neighbor's cows, and the voices of his children as they play along the -brook below, and off among the fifteen square miles of treetops that -fill my front yard, I see faint against the horizon two village -spires, two Congregational spires, once one, that divided and fell and -rose again on opposite sides of the village street. I often look away -at the spires. And I as often think of the many sweet trees that wave -between me and those tapering steeples, where they look up to worship -toward the sky, and look down to scowl across the street. - -Any lover of the city could live as far out as this. I have no quarrel -with the city as a place to work in. Cities are as necessary as -wheat-fields and as lovely, too--from twenty miles away, or from -Westminster Bridge at daybreak. The city is as a head to the body, the -nervous centre where the multitudinous sensations are organized and -directed, where the multitudinous and interrelated interests of the -round world are directed. The city is necessary; city work is -necessary; but less and less is city living necessary. - -It is less and less possible also. New York City--the length and -breadth of Manhattan--and Boston, from the Fenway in three directions -to the water-front, are as unfit for a child to grow up in as the -basement floor of a china store for a calf. There might be hay enough -on such a floor for a calf, as there is doubtless air enough on a New -York City street for a child. It is not the lack of things--not even -of air--in a city that renders life next to impossible there; it is -rather the multitude of things. City life is a three-ringed circus, -with a continuous performance, with interminable side-shows and -peanuts and pink lemonade; it is jarred and jostled and trampled and -crowded and hurried; it is overstimulated, spindling, and -premature--it is too convenient. - -You can crowd desks and pews and workbenches without much danger, but -not outlooks and personalities, not beds and doorsteps. Men will work -to advantage under a single roof; they cannot sleep to advantage so. A -man can work under almost any conditions; he can live under very few. - -Here in New England--as everywhere--the conditions of labor during the -last quarter-century have vastly changed, while the conditions of -healthful living have remained essentially as they ever were, as they -must continue to remain for the next millennium. - -Some years ago I moved into an ancient house in one of the oldest of -New England towns. Over the kitchen I found a room that had to be -entered by ladder from without. That room was full of lasts and -benches--all the kit necessary for shoe-making on a small scale. There -were other houses scattered about with other such rooms--closed as if -by death. Far from it. Yonder in the distance smoked the chimney of a -great factory. All the cobblers of these houses had gathered there to -make shoes by machine. But where did they live? and how? Here in the -old houses where their fathers lived, and as their fathers lived, -riding, however, to and from their work on the electric cars. - -I am now living in an adjoining town, where, on my drive to the -station, I pass a small hamlet of five houses grouped about a little -shop, through whose windows I can see benches, lasts, and old -stitching-machines. Shoes were once made here on a larger scale, by -more recent methods. Some one is building a boat inside now. The -shoemakers have gathered at the great factory with the shoemakers of -the neighbor town. But they continue to live in the hamlet, as they -used to, under the open sky, in their small gardens. And they need to. -The conditions of their work have quite changed; the simple, large -needs of their lives remain forever the same. - -Let a man work where he will, or must; let him live where only the -whole man can live--in a house of his own, in a yard of his own, with -something green and growing to cultivate, something alive and -responsive to take care of; and let it be out under the sky of his -birthright, in a quiet where he can hear the wind among the leaves, -and the wild geese as they _honk_ high overhead in the night to remind -him that the seasons have changed, that winter is following down their -flying wedge. - -As animals (and we are entirely animal)--we are as far under the -dominion of nature as any ragweed or woodchuck. But we are entirely -human too, and have a human need of nature, that is, a spiritual need, -which is no less real than the physical. We die by the million yearly -for lack of sunshine and pure air; and who knows how much of our moral -ill-health might be traced to our lack of contact with the healing, -rectifying soul of the woods and skies? - -A man needs to see the stars every night that the sky is clear. -Turning down his own small lamp, he should step out into the night to -see the pole star where he burns or "the Pleiads rising through the -mellow shade." - -One cannot live among the Pleiads; one cannot even see them half of -the time; and one must spend part of one's time in the mill. Yet never -to look for the Pleiads, or to know which way to look, is to spend, -not part, but all of one's time in the mill. - - The dales for shade, - The hills for breathing space, - -and life for something other than mere work! - -The Commuter is bound to see the stars nightly, as he goes down to -shut up the hens. He has the whole outdoors in his yard, with the -exception of a good fish-pond; but if he has no pond, he has, and -always will have, to save him from the round of the mill, a little -round of his own--those various endless, small, inconvenient -home-tasks, known as "chores." To fish is "to be for a space dissolved -in the flux of things, to escape the calculable, drop a line into the -mysterious realms above or below conscious thought"; to "chore" is for -a space to stem the sweeping tides of time, to outride the storms of -fate, to sail serene the sea of life--to escape the mill! - -Blessed is the man who has his mill-work to do, perfunctory, -necessitous, machine-work to do; twice blessed the man who has his -mill-work to do and who loves the doing of it; thrice blessed the man -who has it, who loves it, and who, besides, has the varied, absorbing, -self-asserting, self-imposed labors about his own barn to perform! - -There are two things in the economy of unperverted nature that it was -never intended, I think, should exist: the childless woman and the -choreless man. For what is a child but a woman with a soul? And what -is a chore? Let me quote the dictionary:-- - -"_Chore_, _char_, a small job; especially a piece of minor domestic -work, as about a house or barn; ... generally in the plural." - -A small, domestic, plural job! There are men without such a job, but -not by nature's intention; as there are women without children, and -cows without cream. - -What change and relief is this small, domestic, plural job from the -work of the shop! That work is set and goes by the clock. It is nine -hours long, and all in the large or all in the infinitesimally small, -and all alike. It may deal with millions, but seldom pays in more -than ones and twos. And too often it is only for wages; too seldom is -it for love--for one's self. - -Not so this small domestic job. It is plural and personal, to be done -for the joy of doing it. So it ought to be with these Freshmen themes -that I go on, year after year, correcting; so it ought to be with the -men's shoes that my honest neighbor goes on, year after year, vamping. -But the shoes are never all vamped. Endless vistas of unvamped shoes -stretch away before him down the working days of all his years. He -never has the joy of having finished the shoes, of having a change of -shoes. But recently he reshingled his six by eight hencoop and did a -_finished_ piece of work; he trimmed and cemented up his apple tree -and did a finished piece of work; he built a new step at the kitchen -door and did a finished piece of work. Step and tree and hencoop had -beginnings and ends, little undertakings, that will occur again, but -which, for this once, were started and completed; small, whole, -various domestic jobs, thrice halting for him the endless -procession,--the passing, the coming, the trampling of the shoes. - -And here are the teachers, preachers, writers, reformers, -politicians--men who deal, not in shoes, but in theories, ideals, -principalities, and powers, those large, expansive, balloonish -commodities that show the balloon's propensity to soar and to -explode--do they not need ballast as much as the shoemaker, bags of -plain sand in the shape of the small domestic job? - -Daring some months' stay in the city not long ago, I sent my boys to a -kindergarten. Neither the principal nor the teachers, naturally, had -any children of their own. Teachers of children and mothers' advisers -seldom have. I was forced to lead my dear lambs prematurely forth from -this Froebel fold, when the principal, looking upon them with tears, -exclaimed, "Yes, your farm is no doubt a _healthful_ place, but they -will be so without guidance! They will have no one out there to show -them how to play!" - -That dear woman is ballooning, and without a boy of her own for -ballast. Only successful mothers and doting old grandfathers (who can -still go on all fours) should be allowed to kindergarten. Who was it -but old Priam, to whom Andromache used to lead little Astyanax? - -The truth is, all of the theorizing, sermonizing, inculcating -professions ought to be made strictly avocational, strictly incidental -to some real business. Let our Presidents preach (how they love it!); -let our preachers nurse the sick, catch fish, or make tents. It is -easier for the camel, with both his humps, to squeeze through the eye -of the needle than for the professional man of any sort to perform -regularly his whole duty with sound sense and sincerity. - -But ballast is a universal human need--chores, I mean. It is my -privilege frequently to ride home in the same car with a broker's -bookkeeper. Thousands of dollars' worth of stock pass through his -hands for record every day. The "odor" of so much affluence clings to -him. He feels and thinks and talk in millions. He lives over-night, to -quote his own words, "on the end of a telephone wire." That boy makes -ten dollars a week, wears "swagger clothes," and boards with his -grandmother, who does all his washing, except the collars. What ails -him? and a million other Americans like him? Only the need to handle -something smaller, something realer than this pen of the recording -angel--the need of chores. He should have the wholesome reality of a -buck-saw twice a day; he might be saved if he could be interested in -chickens; could feed them every morning, and every evening could "pick -up the eggs." - -So might many another millionaire. When a man's business prohibits his -caring for the chickens, when his affairs become so important that he -can no longer shake down the furnace, help dress one of the children, -or tinker about the place with a hammer and saw, then that man's -business had better be put into the hands of a receiver, temporarily; -his books do not balance. - -I know of a college president who used to bind (he may still) a cold -compress about his head at times, and, lying prone upon the floor, -have two readers, one for each ear, read simultaneously to him -different theses, so great was the work he had to do, so fierce his -fight for time--time to lecture to women's clubs and to write his -epoch-making books. - -Oh, the multitude of epoch-making books! - -But as for me, I am a Commuter, and I live among a people who are -Commuters, and I have stood with them on the banks of the Ohio, -according to the suggestion of one of our wisest philosophers (Josh -Billings, I think), and, in order to see how well the world could get -on without me, I have stuck my finger into the yellow current, pulled -it out, and looked for the hole. - -The placid stream flowed on. - -So now, when the day's work is done, I turn homeward here to Mullein -Hill, and these early autumn nights I hang the lantern high in the -stable, while four shining faces gather round on upturned buckets -behind the cow. The lantern flickers, the milk foams, the stories -flow--"Bucksy" stories of the noble red-man; stories of Arthur and the -Table Round, of Guyon and Britomart, and the heroes of old; and -marvelous stories of that greatest hero of them all--their father, far -away yonder when he was a boy, when there were so many interesting -things to do, and such fun doing them! - -Now the world is so "full of a number of things"--things to do still, -but things, instead of hands, and things instead of selves, so many -things to do them with--even a _thing_ to milk with, now! But I will -continue to use my hands. - -No, I shall probably never become a great milk-contractor. I shall -probably remain only a Commuter to the end. But if I never become -anything great,--the Father of my Country, or the Father of Poetry, or -the Father of Chemistry, or the Father of the Flying Machine,--why, I -am at least the father of these four shining faces in the lantern -light; and I have, besides them, handed down from the past, a few more -of life's old-fashioned inconveniences, attended, gentle reader, with -their simple old-fashioned blessings. - - -The Riverside Press - -CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS - -U . S . 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