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diff --git a/46905-0.txt b/46905-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e12a35c --- /dev/null +++ b/46905-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2822 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 46905 *** + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration. + See 46905-h.htm or 46905-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46905/46905-h/46905-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46905/46905-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + https://archive.org/details/kentuckywarb00allerich + + + + + +THE KENTUCKY WARBLER + + +[Illustration: "THERE HE WAS--THE KENTUCKY WARBLER!"] + + +THE KENTUCKY WARBLER + +by + +JAMES LANE ALLEN + +[Illustration: logo] + + + _When the population of this immense Western + Republic will have diffused itself over every acre of + ground fit for the comfortable habitation of man, + ... then not a warbler shall flit through our + thickets, but its name, its notes, its habits will be + familiar to all--repeated in their sayings and + celebrated in their village songs._ + --ALEXANDER WILSON + +With a Frontispiece in Colour + + + + + + + +Garden City New York +Doubleday, Page & Company +1918 + +Copyright, 1918, by +Doubleday, Page & Company +All Rights Reserved, Including That of +Translation into Foreign Languages, +Including the Scandinavian + + + + + TO + THE YOUNG KENTUCKY + FOREST-LOVER + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + CHAPTER I + HOME 3 + + CHAPTER II + SCHOOL 45 + + CHAPTER III + FOREST 100 + + CHAPTER IV + BIRD 161 + + CHAPTER V + ROAD 175 + + + + + THE KENTUCKY + + WARBLER + + + + +[Illustration: chapter I--title decoration] + + +I + +THE HOME + + +Webster, along with thousands of other lusty forward-looking Kentucky +children, went to the crowded public schools. + +There every morning against his will but with the connivance of his +parents he was made a prisoner, as it seemed to him, and for long hours +held as such while many things disagreeable or unnecessary, some by +one teacher and some by another, were forced into his head. Soon after +they were forced in most of the things disappeared from the head. What +became of them nobody knew: Webster didn't know and he didn't care. +During the forcing-in process month by month and year by year he now +and then picked up a pleasant idea for himself, some wonderful idea +about great things on ahead in life or about the tempting world just +outside school. He picked up such ideas with ease and eagerness and +held on to them. + +He lived in a small white-frame cottage which was rather new but +already looked rather old. It stood in a small green yard, which was +naturally very old but still looked young. The still-young yard and the +already-ageing cottage were to be found--should anybody have tried to +find them--on the rim of the city. If the architectural plan of the +city had been mapped out as an open-air theatre, the cottage would have +been a rear seat in the very last row at the very lowest price. The +block was made up of such cottages--rear seats. They faced the city but +couldn't see the city, couldn't see anything worth seeing, and might as +well have looked in some other direction or not looked at all. + +If Webster stepped out of the front door, he was within five yards of +the outmost thoroughfare--native dirt-road for milk wagons, butchers' +wagons, coal carts, and fruit-and-berry wagons. Webster's father +kept an especial eye on the coal carts: they weighed heavily on his +salary. Webster's mother kept her eye on the fruit-and-berry wagons: +they tantalised her passion for preserves. Everybody kept uneasy eyes +on milk and butchers' and vegetable wagons, which brought expensive +satisfaction to appetites for three meals a day. The edges of the +thoroughfare were paths for the cottagers, all of whom walked and +were glad and grateful even to be able to walk. The visitors of the +cottagers walked. Everybody walked but the drivers. The French would +have called the street The Avenue of Soles. + +One wet winter morning as Webster, walking beside his father, lifted +his feet out of the mud and felt sorry about their shoes, he complained +because there was no pavement. + +"My son," replied his father, whose remarks on any subject appeared +to come out of a clear sky, so unclouded were they by uncertainty, +"my son, your father's salary is not a paved-sidewalk salary. The mud +on your shoes is in an inverse ratio to the funds in his pockets. I +believe you have learned in your arithmetic at school by this time what +ratio is." + +One dry summer morning as Webster walked beside his father, a butcher's +wagon whirled past and covered them quickly with dust. He considered +this injury to their best clothes and complained because there was no +watering-cart. + +"My son," replied his father out of his daily clear sky, "my salary is +not a watering-cart salary. The presence of the earth's dust in your +eyes exactly equals the lack of gold-dust in your father's earthly +account. I believe by this time you have studied equations." + +But if Webster had stepped out of the back door of the cottage and +passed under the clothes-line which was held up at its middle point +by a forked pole, if he had crossed their very small vegetable garden +and then had crossed a wide deep cow-lot where some rich man of the +city pastured his fat milk cows, he would have been on the edge of the +country. It was possible for one standing on the rear porch to see all +summer thick, softly waving woods. + +Within the past two or three years, as summer had come again and the +world turned green, a change had taken place in Webster, a growth. More +and more he began to look from the porch or windows at those distant +massed trees. Something from them seemed to cross over to him, an +influence powerful and compelling; it drew him out of the house back +with it into the mystery of the forest and he never returned. + +In truth, almost as soon as he could go anywhere he had started toward +the forest without asking permission. They had overtaken him then +and dragged him back. When he was old enough to understand, they had +explained: he was too young, he would get lost, the bull would hook him. + +"But why?" Webster had asked, complaining of this new injustice in the +world. He was perpetually being surprised that so many things in the +world were bent on getting one into trouble; all around him things +seemed to be waiting to make trouble. "Why should the bull hook _me_? +_I've_ done nothing to _the bull_." + +They were about finishing breakfast. He was eating in his slow ruminant +way--he ate enormously but never hungrily. His father, whose custom it +was to divide the last half of his breakfast with the first half of his +newspaper, lowered the paper and looked over the top. + +"My son," he said, "the bull has horns. Every living creature is bound +to use everything it has. Use what you have or lose what you have--that +is the terrible law in this world. Therefore the bull is obliged to +hook what he can to keep his horns going. If you give him the chance, +he will practise them on you. Otherwise his great-great-grandson might +not have any horns when he really needed them. Do you understand?" + +"No," said Webster. + +"I'll explain again when you are mature enough to comprehend," said his +father, returning to his paper. + +Webster returned to the subject. + +"If I ever have any money in my pocket, you always tell me not to spend +it: now you say I ought to use whatever I have." + +His father quickly lowered his paper and raised his voice: + +"I have never said that you must use everything all at once, my son. +You must learn to use it at the right time." + +"When _is_ the right time to use a thing?" asked Webster, eating +quietly on. + +"I'll answer that question when it is necessary," his father replied +grumblingly from behind his paper, putting an end to the disturbance. + +A few weeks prior to this breakfast-scene Webster one day at recess had +laid bare a trouble in himself, confiding it to one of his intimate +school-mates. He did so with a tone of uncertainty, for he was not sure +but he was not being disloyal. + +"Can _your_ father answer all the questions _you_ ask _him_?" + +"Not half of them!" exclaimed the comrade with splendid candour--"Not +half!" + +"My father answers very few _I_ ask _him_," interposed a fragile little +white-faced fellow who had strolled up in time to catch the drift of +the confidential talk. He did not appear strong enough even to put a +question: he nursed a ragged ball, had lost a front tooth, and gave off +the general skim-milk look which some children carry about with them. + +Webster, without inquiring further, began to feel a new respect for +himself as not being worse off than other boys as to fathers; also a +new respect for his father as not being worse than his class: fathers +were deficient! + +Remembering this discovery at school--one of the big pleasant ideas +he picked up outside lessons--he did not on the morning in question +press his father more closely as to using horns when you have them and +not using money when you have it. In fact, he was already beginning +to shield his father and had quite ceased to interrogate him in +company, lest he expose some ignorance. He therefore credited this +incident where it belonged: as a part of his growing knowledge that +he couldn't look to his father for any great help on things that +puzzled him--fathers, as had been said, being deficient, though always +contriving to look so proficient that from merely surveying them you +would never suspect the truth. + +Webster's father was a minor bookkeeper in one of the city's minor +banks. Like his bankbooks, he was always perfectly balanced, perfectly +behaved; and he was also perfectly bald. Even his baldness might have +been credited to him as one of the triumphs of exact calculation: +the baldness of one side being exactly equal to the baldness of the +other: hardly a hair on either exposure stood out as an unaccounted-for +remainder. + +Webster thought of his father as having worked at nothing but +arithmetic for nearly forty years. Sometimes it became a kind of +disgust to him to remember this: as was his custom when displeased at +anything he grew contemptuous. In one of his contemptuous moments he +one day asked: + +"How many times have you made the figure 2?" + +"Three quadrillion times, my son," replied his father with perfect +accuracy and a spirit of hourly freshness. His father went on: + +"The same number of times for all of them. When you're in the +thousands, you may think one or the other figure is ahead, but when you +get well on into the millions, there isn't any difference: they are +neck and neck." + +This subject of arithmetic was the sorest that father and son could +have broached: perhaps that was the reason why neither could get away +from it. The family lived on arithmetic or off it--had married on it, +were born unto it, were fed by it, housed and heated by it, ventilated +and cooled by it. Webster's father's knowledge of arithmetic had +marched at the head of the family as they made their way through time +and trouble like music. It had been a lifelong bugle-blast of correct +numerals. + +Hence the terrible disappointment: after Webster had been at school +long enough for grading to begin to come home as to what faculties +he possessed and the progress he made, his parents discovered to +their terror and shame that he was good in nothing and least good in +arithmetic. It was like a child's turning against his own bread and +butter and shirt and shoes. To his father it meant a clear family +breakdown. The moment had come to him which, in unlike ways, comes to +many a father when he feels obliged to say: "This is no son of mine." + +In reality, Webster's father had had somewhat that feeling from the +first. When summoned and permitted, he had tipped into the room on the +day of Webster's birth and taken a father's anxious defensive look. He +had turned off with a gesture of repudiation but of the deepest respect: + +"No such head and countenance ever descended to him from me! We must +be square with him from the start! I place to his credit the name of +Daniel Webster. His mother, instead of admiring her husband, had been +gazing too fondly at the steel engraving of the statesman over the +mantelpiece in the parlour." + +When Webster was several years old, one day during a meal--nobody knew +just what brought forth the question--he asked: + +"Why was I named Webster?" + +His father answered: + +"Because you looked like him." + +Webster got up quietly and went into the parlour and quietly returned +to his seat at table: + +"No, I don't look like him," he said. + +"You looked like him the day you were born, my son. Any resemblance to +Daniel Webster is apt to become less and less. Finally, you don't look +like him any more. In the United States Senate nowadays, for instance, +there isn't a trace of resemblance left anywhere. Senators at present +look more like me and you know what that means: it means that nobody +need feel obliged to think of Daniel Webster!" + +That birthday jest--that he was not quite entitled to the nativity +of his own son, an uneasiness perhaps inherited by fathers from the +rudimentary marriages of primitive society--was but a jest then. +It gradually took on serious meaning as his son grew further away +from him with each year of growth. The bad passing of the arithmetic +milestone had brought the worst distinct shock. Still, even that left +Webster's father perfectly balanced, perfectly behaved: he remained +proud of his unlike offspring, fed and clothed him, and was fond of him. + +There is a bare possibility also that in Webster he saw the only chance +to risk part of his salary in secret speculation. Nearly everybody +in the town gambled on something. The bank did not favour the idea +that its employees should enjoy any such monetary pastime. But even a +bank cannot prevent a father from betting on his own son if he keeps +the indiscretion to himself. Thus it is barely possible that, in the +language of the country, Webster's father took chances on Webster as a +winning colt on some unknown track, if he should ever take a notion to +run! Why not bet, if it cost the same as not to bet: at least you had +the excitement? + +Webster on his part grew more and more into the belief that his father +not only could not answer his questions but--what was of far greater +consequence--did not open up before him any path in life. His first +natural and warm desire had been to imitate his father, to follow in +his footsteps: slowly he discovered that his father did not have any +footsteps, he made no path. His affection still encircled his father +like a pair of arms; his eyes had completely abandoned him as a +sign-post on life's road. + +Mothers often open up roads for their sons or point them out, but +Webster could not look to his mother for one unless he had wished to +take a short road to an uneventful past. The kind of a mother she was +resulted from the kind of a wife she was. She had taken her husband's +arm at marriage to keep step at his side through life. Had he moved +forward, she would have moved forward. Since he did not advance, but in +his life-work represented a kind of perpetual motion without progress, +she stayed by him and busied herself with multifarious daily little +motions of her own. Her roadless life had one main path of memory. That +led her backward to a large orchard and garden and yard out in the +country, filled with fruit trees and berry-bearing bushes and vines. +She, now a middle-aged wife and mother, was a sentimental calendar +of far-away things "just ripe." The procession of fruit-and-berry +wagons past the cottage from May to October had upon her the effect +of an acute exacerbation of this chronic lament. The street cry of a +vendor, no matter how urgent her duty anywhere in the cottage at the +moment, brought her to a front window or to the front porch or even +swept her out to the front gate, to gratify her eyes with memories and +pay her respects to the impossible. She inquired the cost of so much +and bought so little that the drivers, who are keen and unfavourable +judges of human nature, when they met at cross streets and compared +notes--the disappointed, exasperated drivers named her _Mrs. Price_: +though one insisted upon calling her _Lady Not-Today_. Whenever at the +bottom of her pocketbook she found spare change for a box of brilliant, +transparent red cherries, she bore it into the cottage as rapaciously +as some miser of jewels might have carried off a casket of rubies. Thus +you could almost have said that Webster had been born of arithmetic and +preserves. Still, his life with his father and mother was wholesome and +affectionate and peaceful--an existence bounded by the horizon of the +day. + +His boyhood certainly had no wide field of vision, no distant horizon, +as regards his sleeping quarters. In building the cottage a bathroom +on the first floor had been added to one side of it as a last luxurious +afterthought. If you stood before the cottage and looked it squarely +in the face, the bathroom protruded on one side like a badly swollen +jaw. The building-plan when worked out, had involved expense beyond +the calculation, as usually happens, and this had threatened the +Salary: the extra bath, therefore, remained unrealised. Webster +always asked at least one question about everything new and untried, +and when old enough to be put there to sleep, he had looked around +the cramped enclosure and inquired why it had been built. Thus he +learned that in the family he had now taken the place of the Bath That +Failed. It caused him a queer feeling as to his general repute in the +neighbourhood that the very sight of him might bring to any observer's +mind thoughts of a missing tub. + +His window opened upon a few feet of yard. Just over the fence was the +kitchen window of the cottage next in the row. When that window was +open, Webster had to see the kitchen table and the preparation for +meals. He violently disliked the sight of the preparations. If the +window was closed, tidings as to what was going on reached him through +another sense; his bedroom-bathroom became as a whispering gallery +of cooking odours. But their own kitchen was just across a narrow +hall, and fragrances from it occasionally mingled with those from the +kitchen over the fence. Made hungry by nasal intelligence of something +appetising, Webster would sometimes hurriedly dress and follow his +pointer into the breakfast room, only to find that he was on a false +trail: what he had expected to get his share of was being consumed by +the family next door. He no longer had confidence, so to speak, in his +own nose--not as a leading authority on meals to be eaten by him. + +One beautiful use his window had, one glorious use, one enchantment. +In the depth of winter sometimes of mornings when he got out of bed +and went to open the shutter, on the window panes would be a forest +of glittering trees. The first time he beheld such a forest, he stood +before it spell-bound: wondering whether there were silvery birds +singing far off amid the silvery boughs and what wild frost-creatures +crouched in the tall stiff frost-grass. From the ice-forests on his +window panes his thoughts always returned to the green summer forest on +the distant horizon. + +The pest of his existence at home was Elinor--a year younger but much +older in her ways: to Webster she was as old as Mischief, as old as +Evil. For Elinor had early fastened herself upon his existence as a +tease. She laughed at him, ridiculed his remarks, especially when he +thought them wise, dragged down everything in him. As they sat at table +and he launched out upon any subject with his father--quite in the +manner of one gentleman indulging his intellect with another gentleman +over their rich viands--Elinor went away up into a little gallery of +her own and tried to boo him off the stage. His father and mother did +not at times conceal their amusement at Elinor's boo's. He sometimes +broke out savagely at her, which only made her worse. His mother, who +was not without gentle firmness and a saving measure of good sense, one +day disapproved of his temper and remarked advisedly to him, Elinor +having fled after a victory over him: + +"Elinor teases you because she sees that it annoys you. She ought to +keep on teasing you till you stop being annoyed. When she sees that she +can't tease you, she'll stop trying." + +That was all very well: but one day he teased Elinor. She puckered up +and began to cry and his mother said quickly: + +"Don't do that, Webster." + +Then besides: a few years before he had one day overheard his mother +persuading his father that Elinor must not be sent to the public school. + +"I want her to go to a private school. She has such a difficult +disposition, it will require delicate attention. The teachers haven't +time to give her that patient attention in the public schools." + +"My dear," Elinor's father had replied, shaking his head, "your +husband's salary is not a private-school salary. It also has a +difficult disposition, it also requires the most careful watching!" + +"The cost will be more but she must go. Some extra expense will be +unavoidable even for her clothing but I'll take that out of _my_ +clothes." + +"You will do nothing of the kind! If Elinor has a difficult +disposition, she gets it from Elinor's father; for _he_ had one once, +thank God! He had it until he went into the bank. But a bank takes +every kind of disposition out of you, good or bad. After you've been +in a bank so many years, you haven't any more disposition. Only the +president of a bank enjoys the right to have a disposition. All the +rest of us are mere habits--certain habits on uncertain salaries. Let +Elinor go to her select school and I'll go a little more ragged. The +outside world thinks it a bank joke when they look through the windows +and see bank clerks at work in ragged coats: instead they know better. +Let Elinor go and let the damages fall on her father. He will be glad +to take the extra cost off his own back as a tribute to his unbanked +boyhood. I hope you noticed my pun--my dooble intender." + +Thus Elinor was sent to the most select private school of the city. +Webster weighed the matter on the scales of boyish justice. If you had +a bad disposition, you were rewarded by being better dressed and being +sent to the best school; if you had a good disposition, you dressed +plainly and went to the public school. What ought he to do about his +own disposition? Why not turn it into a bad one? It was among Webster's +bewilderments that he was so poorly off as not to be able to muster a +troublesome enough disposition to be sent to one of the city's select +private schools for boys: he should very much have liked to go! + +"I go to a private school because I am _nice_," Elinor had boasted to +him one morning. She was sitting on the front steps as he came out on +his way to school, and she looked very dainty and very charming--a +dark, wiry, fiery, restless little creature, and at the moment a bit of +brilliant decoration. "And I get nice marks," she added pointedly. + +He paused to make a quietly contemptuous reply. + +"Of course you get nice marks: that's what private schools are for--to +give everybody nice marks. If you went to the public school, you'd get +what you deserved." + +"Then you seem to deserve very little," said Elinor, smoothing a lock +of her black hair over one ear. + +His rage burst out at her deadly thrust: + +"You go to a private school because you are a little devil," he said. + +"Why don't you be a little devil too?" inquired Elinor, her bright eyes +mocking him. "Can't you be a little devil too?" + +He jerked the strap tighter around his battered books: + +"If you were in the public schools, they wouldn't put up with you. +They'd send you home or they'd break you in." + +"Oh, I don't know," said Elinor, with an encouraging smile, "they seem +to get along with you very well." + +Webster knew that Elinor's teasing, ridiculing eyes followed him as he +walked away. They became part of the things that cheapened him in his +life. When he had passed through the front gate, he started off in a +direction which was not the direction to school. + +Elinor sang out shrilly: + +"I know where you are going. But it's of no use. Jenny's sweetheart +goes to a private school and he stands well in his classes." + +He walked on, but turned his face toward her: + +"It's none of _your_ meddlesome business, you little black scorpion," +he said quietly. + +With an upward bound of his nature he thought of Jenny, a very +different sort of girl. + +Jenny lived in the largest cottage of the block, at the better of the +two corners. The families visited intimately. Jenny's father was a coal +merchant and Webster's father bought his coal of Jenny's father. A +grocer lived in the middle of the block: he bought supplies from that +grocer. "If you can," he said, "deal with your neighbours. It will +make them more careful: they won't dare ...!" On the contrary, Jenny's +father did not deposit his cheques in Webster's father's bank. "Don't +do your business with a neighbour," he said. "Neighbours pry." + +Jenny represented in Webster's life the masculine awakening of his +nature toward womankind. In the white light of that general dawn, she +stood revealed but not recognised. A little thing had happened, the +summer previous, which was of common interest to them. In a corner of +Jenny's yard grew a locust tree, not a full forest-sized locust tree +but still quite a respectable locust tree for its place and advantages. +All around the trunk and up the trunk clambered the trumpet-vine. +Several yards from the earth some of the branches bent over and spread +out as a roof for a little arbour--Jenny's summer play-house. + +One dewy morning Jenny had first noticed a humming-bird hovering about +the blossoms. She did not know that it was the ruby-throat, seeking +the trumpet-vine where Audubon painted him. She only knew that she was +excited and delighted. She told Webster. + +"If he comes back, run and tell me, will you, Jenny?" he pleaded, with +some strange new joy in him. Several times she had run and summoned +him; and the two children, unconsciously drawing nearer to each other, +and hand in hand watched the ruby-throat hovering about the adopted +flower of the State. + +The distant green forest and the locust tree with the trumpet-vine and +the humming-bird--these, though distant from one another, became in +Webster's mind part of something deep and powerful in his life, toward +which he was moving. + +If no road opened before him at home, none opened at school. He would +gladly have quit any day. He tried to make lessons appear worse than +they were in order to justify himself in his philosophy of contempt +and rejection. + +When any two old ladies met on the street, he argued, they did not +begin to parse as fast as possible at each other. Old gentlemen of the +city did not walk up and down with books glued to their noses, trying +to memorise things they would rather forget. When people went to the +library for delightful books to read, nobody took home arithmetics and +geographies. There wasn't a grown person in the city who cared what +bounded Indiana on the north or if all the creeks in Maine emptied into +the mouths of school teachers. In church, when the minister climbed to +the pulpit, the congregation didn't begin to examine him in history. +They didn't even examine him in the Bible; he couldn't have stood the +examination if they had. In the court-room, at the fair, at the races, +at the theatre, when you were born, when you were playing, when you had +a sweetheart, when you married, when you were a father, when you were +sick, when you were in any way happy or unhappy, when you were dying, +when you were dead and buried and forgotten, nobody called for school +books. + +Webster, nevertheless, both at home and at school made his impression. +No one could have defined the nature of the impression but every one +knew he made it. If he failed at his lessons, his teachers were not +angry; they looked mortified and said as little as possible and all +the while pushed him along by hook or crook, until at last they had +smuggled him into high school--the final heaven of the whole torment. + +The impression upon his school fellows was likewise strongly in his +favour. Toward the close of each session there was intense struggle and +strain for the highest mark in class and the next highest and the next. +When the nerve-racking race was over and everybody had time to look +around and inquire for Webster, they could see him cantering quietly +down the home stretch, unmindful of the good-natured jeers that greeted +his arrival: he had gone over the course, he had not run. As soon as +they were out of doors in a game, Webster stepped to the front. Those +who had just outstripped him now followed him. + +Roadless parents--a child looking for its road in life! That is +Nature's plan to stop imitation, to block the roads of parents to +their children, and force these into new paths for the development +of the individual and of the race. And in what other country is that +spectacle so common as in our American democracy, where progress is +so swift and the future so vast and untrod and untried that nearly +every generation in thousands of cottages represents a revolt and a +revolution of children against their parents, their work and their +ways? But Webster's father and mother were not philosophers as to how +Nature works out her plan through our American democracy: they merely +had their parental apprehensions and confidentially discussed these. +What would Webster be, would he ever be anything? He would finish at +high school this year and it was time to decide. + +A son of the grocer in the block had made an unexpected upward stride +in life and surprised all the cottagers. Webster's father and mother +took care to bring this meritorious example to their son's attention. + +"What are _you_ going to be, Webster?" his mother asked one morning at +breakfast, looking understandingly at Webster's father. + +"I don't know what I'm going to be," Webster had replied unconcernedly. +"I know I'm not going to be what _he_ is!" + +"It would never do to try to force him," his father said later. "Not +_him_. Besides, think of a couple of American parents undertaking to +force their children to do anything--_any_ children! We'll have to wait +a while longer. If he's never to be anything, of course forcing could +never make him into something. It would certainly bring on a family +disturbance and the family disturbance would be sure to get on my +nerves at the bank and I might make mistakes in my figures." + +Then in the April of that year, about the time the woods were turning +green and he began to look toward them with the old longing now grown +stronger, a great thing happened to Webster. + +[Illustration: chapter I--end decoration] + + + + +[Illustration: chapter II--title decoration] + + +II + +THE SCHOOL + + +One clear morning of that budding month of April, a professor from one +of the two institutions of learning in the city stood before the pupils +of the high school. + +He was there to fulfill his part of an experimental plan which, through +the courtesy of all concerned, had been started upon its course at +the opening of the session the previous autumn: that members of the +two faculties should be asked to be good enough to come--some one of +them once each month--and address the school on some pleasant field or +by-field of university work, where learning at last meets life. That +is, each professor was requested to appear before the ravenous pupils +of the high school with a basket of ripe fruit from his promised land +of knowledge and to distribute these as samples from an orchard which +each pupil, if he but chose, could some day own for himself. Or if he +could not quite bring anything so luscious and graspable as fruit, he +might at least stand in their full view on the boundary of his kingdom +and mark out, across that dubious Common which lies between high school +and college, a path that would lead a boy straight to some one of the +world's great highways of knowledge. + +Eight professors had courteously responded to this invitation and had +disclosed eight splendid roadways of the world's study. The Latin +professor had opened up his colossal Roman-built highway with its +pictures of the ages when all the world's thoroughfares led to Rome. +The professor of Greek had disclosed the longer path which leads back +to Hellas with its frieze of youth in eternal snow. The professor of +Astronomy had taken his band of listeners forth into the immensities +of roadless space and had all but lost them and the poor little earth +itself in the coming and going of myriads of entangled stars. Eight +professors had come, eight professors had gone, it was now April, a +professor of Geology, as next to the last lecturer, stood before them. + +Interest in the lectures had steadily mounted from the first and +was now at highest pitch. He faced an audience eager, intelligent, +respectful and grateful. On their part they consented that the man +before them embodied what he had come to teach--the blending of life +and learning. Plainly the study of the earth's rocks had not hardened +him, acquaintance with fossils had not left him a human fossil. And he +hid the number of his years within the sap of living sympathies as a +tree hides the notation of its years within the bark. + +Letting his eyes wander over them silently for a moment, he began +without waste of a word--a straightforward and powerful personality. + +"I am going to speak to you boys about a boy who never reached high +school. I want you to watch how that boy's life, first seen in the +distance through mist and snow and storm as a faint glimmering spark, +rudely blown upon by the winds of misfortune, endangered and all but +ready to go out--I want you to watch how that endangered spark of a +boy's life slowly begins to brighten in the distance, to grow stronger, +and finally to draw nearer and nearer until at last it shines as a +great light about you here in this very place. Watch, I say, how a +troubled ray, low on life's horizon, at last becomes a star in the +world of men, high fixed and resplendent--to be seen by human eyes as +long as there shall be human eyes to see anything." + +He saw that he had caught their attention. Their sympathy reacted upon +him. + +"Before I speak of the boy I wish to speak of a book. I hope all of you +have read one of the very beautiful stories of English literature by +George Eliot called _Silas Marner_. If you have, none of you will ever +forget that Silas Marner belonged to a class of pallid, undersized men +who, a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago, under pressure upon +the centres of population in England and through competition of trade, +were driven out of the towns into the country. There, as strangers, +as alien-looking remnants of a discredited race, there in districts +far away among the lanes or in the deep bosom of the hills, perhaps +an hour's ride from any turnpike or beyond the faint sound of the +coach-horn, they spent their lives as obscure weavers and peddlers. + +"You will never forget George Eliot's vivid, powerful, touching picture +of Silas Marner at work in a little stone cottage near a deserted +stone pit, amid the nut-bearing hedgerows of the village of Raveloe. +When the schoolboys of the village came to the hedges in autumn to +gather nuts or in spring to look for bird-nests--you boys still do +that, I hope--when they came and heard the uncanny sound of the loom, +so unlike that of the familiar flail on threshing floors, they would +crowd around the windows and peep in at the weaver in his treadmill +attitude, weaving like a solitary spider month after month and year +after year his endless web. Silas Marner, pausing in his work to +adjust some trouble in his thread and discovering them and annoyed by +the intrusion, would descend from the loom and come to his door and +gaze out at them with his strange, blurred, protuberant eyes; for he +was so near-sighted that he could see distinctly only objects close to +him, such as his thread, his shuttle, his loom. + +"If for a few days the sound of the loom stopped, it was because the +weaver, with his pack on his feeble shoulders, was away on journeys +through fields and lanes to deliver his linen to those who had ordered +it or who might haply buy. + +"The village of Raveloe, as you remember, lay on the rich, central +plain of Merry England, with wooded hollows and well-walled orchards +and ornamental weathercocks and church spires rising peacefully +above green tree-tops. But Silas Marner saw nothing of the Merry +England through which he peddled his cloth. He walked through it all +with the outdoor loneliness of those who cannot see. His mother had +bequeathed him knowledge of a few herbs; and these were the only thing +in nature that he had ever gropingly looked for along hedgerows and +lanesides--foxglove and dandelion and coltsfoot. + +"Now, if you have read the story, you have a far more living, touching +picture of the life of a weaver in those distant times that I could +possibly paint. The genius of George Eliot painted it supremely and I +point to her masterpiece rather than to any faint semblance I could +draw. What I want you to do is to get deeply into your minds what the +life of a weaver in those days meant: a little further on you will +understand why. + +"Next I want you to think of Silas Marner as an all too common figure +of the present time. He is a type of those of us who go through our +lives all but blind to the surpassingly beautiful life of the planet +on which it is our strange and glorious destiny to spend our human +days. He is a type of those of us who, in town or city, see only +the implements of our trade or business ever close to our eyes--our +shuttle, our thread, our loom, of whatever kind these may be. When we +go out into the world of nature, he is also a type of those of us, who +recognise only the few things we need--our coltsfoot, our foxglove, our +dandelion, of whatever kind these may be. In the midst of woods and +fields we gaze blankly around us with vision blurred by ignorance--not +born blind but remaining as blind because we do not care or have not +learned to open and to train our eyes. We have the outdoor loneliness +of Silas Marner." + +He waited a few moments to allow his words to make their impression, +and long accustomed to the countenance of listeners, he felt sure +that they were following him in the road he pursued: then he led them +forward: + +"Now, about the period that George Eliot paints the life of her poor +English weaver there lived, not in Merry England but in Bonnie +Scotland--and to be bonnie is not to be merry--there lived in the +little town of Paisley, in the west of Scotland, a man by the name of +Alexander Wilson, a poor illiterate distiller. He had a son--the boy I +am to tell you about. + +"The poor illiterate distiller and father desired to give his son +his name but not to assign him his place in life, not his own road; +he named him Alexander and he wished him to be not a distiller but +a physician. The boy's mother was a native of an island of the +Hebrides--your geographies will have to tell you where the Hebrides +are, for doubtless you have all forgotten! The inhabitants of those +wild, bleak, storm-swept islands thought much of danger and death +and therefore often of God. Perhaps the natives of small islands are, +as a rule, either very superstitious or very religious. His mother +desired him to be a minister. You may not know that the Scotch people +are, perhaps, peculiarly addicted to being either doctors of the +body or doctors of the soul. The entire Scottish race would appear +to be desirous of being physicians to something or to somebody--not +submitting easily, however, to be doctored! + +"Thus the boy's father and mother opened before him the two main +honoured roads of Scottish life and bade him choose. He chose neither, +for he was self-willed and wavering, and did not know his own mind or +his own wish. He did know that he would not take the roads his parents +pointed out; as to them he was a roadless boy. + +"His mother died when he was quite young, a stepmother stepped into a +stepmother's place, and she quickly decided with Scotch thrift. A third +Scottish road should be opened to the boy and into that he should be +pushed and made to go: he must be put to trade. Accordingly, when he +was about eleven years old, he was taken from school and bound as an +apprentice to a weaver: we lament child labour now: it is an old lament. + +"The boy hated weaving as, perhaps, he never hated anything else in +his life and in time he hated much and he hated many things. He seems +soon to have become known as the lazy weaver. Years afterward he put +into bitter words a description of the weaver: 'A weaver is a poor, +emaciated, helpless being, shivering over rotten yarn and groaning over +his empty flour barrel.' Elsewhere he called the weaver a scarecrow in +rags. He wrote a poem entitled _Groans from the Loom_. + +"Five interminable years of those groans and all his eager, wild, +headstrong, liberty-loving boyhood was ended: gone from him as he sat +like a boy-spider with a thread passing endlessly into a web. During +these interminable years, whenever he lifted his eyes from his loom +and looked ahead, he could see nothing but penury and dependence and +loneliness--his loom to the end of his life. + +"Five years of this imprisonment and then he was eighteen and his own +master; and the first thing he did was to descend from the loom, take a +pack of cloth upon his shoulders and go wandering away from the hills +and valleys and lakes of Scotland--free at last like a young deer in +the heather. He said of himself that from that hour when his eyes had +first opened on the light of grey Scotch mountains, the world of nature +had called him. He did not yet know what the forest and the life of the +forest meant or would ever mean; he only knew that there he was happy +and at home. + +"Thus, like Silas Marner, he became a poor weaver and peddler but not +with Silas Marner's eyes. Seldom in any human head has the mechanism of +vision been driven by a mind with such power and eagerness to observe. +And he had the special memory of the eye. There are those of us who +have the special memory of the ear or of taste or of touch. He had the +long, faithful recollection of things seen. With this pair of eyes +during the next several years he traversed on foot three-fourths of +Scotland. Remember, you boys of the rolling bluegrass plateau, what the +scenery of Scotland is! Think what it meant to traverse three-fourths +of that country, you who consider it a hardship to walk five level +miles, a misfortune to be obliged to walk ten, the adventure of a +lifetime to walk twenty. + +"But though he followed one after another well nigh all the roads of +Scotland, he could find in all Scotland no road of life for him. It +is true that certain misleading paths beckoned to him, as is apt +to be true in every life. Thus he had conceived a great desire to +weave poetry instead of cloth, to weave music instead of listening to +the noise of the loom: he had his flute and his violin. But what he +accomplished with poetry and flute and violin were obstacles to his +necessary work and rendered this harder. The time he gave to them made +his work less: the less his work, the less his living; the less his +living, the more his troubles and hardships. + +"Once he started out both to peddle his wares and to solicit orders for +a little book of his poems he wished to publish. To help both pack and +poetry he wrote a handbill in verse. Some of the lines ran thus: + + "'Here's handkerchiefs charming, book muslins like ermine, + Brocaded, striped, corded, or checked. + Sweet Venus, they say, on Cupid's birthday + In British-made muslin was decked. + + "'Now, ye Fair, if you choose any piece to peruse, + With pleasure I'll instantly show it. + If the peddler should fail to be favoured with sale, + Then I hope you'll encourage the poet.' + +"The result seems to have been but small sale for British-made muslins +and no sale at all for Wilson-made poems. + +"Robert Burns was just then the idolised poet of Scotland, a new +sun shining with vital splendour into all Scottish hearts. Friends +of the young weaver and apparently the young weaver himself thought +there was room in Scotland for another Burns. Some of his poems were +published anonymously and the authorship was attributed to Burns. That +was bad for him, it made bad worse. Wilson greatly desired to know +the rustic poet-king of Scotland. The two poets met in Edinburgh and +were to become friends. Then Burns published _Tam O'Shanter_. As young +Kentuckians, of course, you love horses and cannot be indifferent even +to poems on the tails of horses. Therefore, you must already know the +world's most famous poem concerning a horse-tail--_Tam O'Shanter_. +The Paisley weaver by this time had such conceit of himself as a poet +that he wrote Burns a caustic letter, telling him the kind of poem +_Tam O'Shanter_ should and should not be. Burns replied, closing the +correspondence, ending the brief friendship and leaving the weaver to +go back to his loom. It was a terrible rebuff, and left its mark on an +already discouraged man. + +"Next Wilson wrote an anonymous poem, so violently attacking a wealthy +manufacturer on behalf of his poor brother weavers, that the enraged +merchant demanded the name of the writer and had him put in prison and +compelled him to stand in the public cross of Paisley and burn his poem. + +"Darker, bitterer days followed. He shrank away to a little village +even more obscure than his birthplace. There, lifting his eyes, again +he looked all over Scotland: he saw the wrongs and sufferings of the +poor, the luxury and oppression of the rich: he blamed the British +government for evils inherent in human nature and for the imperfections +of all human society: turned against his native country and at heart +found himself without a fatherland. + +"Then that glorious vision which has opened before so many men in their +despair, disclosed itself: his eyes turned to America. You should never +forget that from the first your country has been the refuge and the +hope for the oppressed, the unfortunate, the discouraged of the whole +world. In America he thought all roads were open, new roads were being +made for human lives; that should become his country. One autumn he +saw in a newspaper an advertisement that an American merchantman would +sail from Belfast the following spring and he turned to weaving and +wove as never before to earn his passage money. At this time he lived +on one shilling a week! And it seems that just now he undertook to make +up his lack of knowledge of arithmetic. Some of you boys will doubtless +greatly rejoice to hear that he was deficient in arithmetic! When +spring came, with the earnings of his loom he walked across Scotland +to the nearest port. When he reached Belfast every berth on the vessel +had been taken: he asked to be allowed to sleep on the deck and was +accepted as a passenger. + +"He had now left Scotland to escape the loom--never to see Scotland +again. + +"And you see, he is beginning to come nearer. + +"The vessel was called The Swift and it took The Swift two months +to make the passage. The port was to be Philadelphia but he seems +to have been so impatient to set foot on the soil of the New World +that he left the ship at New Castle, Delaware. He had borrowed from a +fellow-passenger sufficient money to pay his expenses while walking to +Philadelphia thirty-four miles away; and with this in his pocket and +his fowling-piece on his shoulder he disappeared in the July forests of +New Jersey. The first thing he did was to kill a red-headed wood-pecker +which he declared to be the most beautiful bird he had ever seen. + +"I do not find any word of his that he had ever killed a bird in +Scotland during all his years of wandering. Now the first event that +befell him in the New World was to go straight to the American woods +and kill what he declared to be the most beautiful bird he had ever +seen. This might naturally have been to him a sign of his life-road. +But he still stood blinded in his path, with not a plan, not an idea, +of what he should be or could be: he had not yet read the handwriting +on the wall within himself. + +"His first years in the New World were more disastrous than any in +Scotland, for always now he had the loneliness and dejection of a man +who has rejected his own country and does not know that any other +country will accept him. A fellow Scot, in Philadelphia, tried him at +copper-plate printing. He quickly dropped this and went back to the +old dreadful work of weaving--he became an American weaver and went +wandering through the forests of New Jersey as a peddler: at least +peddling left him free to roam the forests. Next he tried teaching +but he himself had been taken from school at the age of eleven and +must prepare himself as one of his own beginners. He did not like this +teaching experiment in New Jersey and migrated to Virginia. Virginia +did not please him and he remigrated to Pennsylvania. There he tried +one school after another in various places and finally settled on the +outskirts of Philadelphia: here was his last school, for here was the +turning point of his life. + +"I wish I had time to describe for you the school-house with its +surroundings, for the place is to us now a picture in the early +American life of a great man--all such historic pictures are +invaluable. Catch one glimpse of it: a neat stone school-house on a +sloping green; with grey old white oaks growing around and rows of +stripling poplars and scattered cedar trees. A road ran near and not +far away was a little yellow-faced cottage where he lived. The yard was +walled off from the road and there were seats within and rosebushes and +plum trees and hop-vines. On one side hung a signboard waving before a +little roadside inn; on the other a blacksmith shop with its hammering. +Not far off stood the edge of the great forest 'resounding with the +songs of warblers.' In the depths of it was a favourite spot--a secret +retreat for him in Nature. + +"There then you see him: no longer a youth but still young; every road +he had tried closed to him in America as in Scotland: not a doctor, not +a minister, not a good poet, not a good flutist, not a good violinist, +not a copper-plate engraver, not a willing weaver, not a willing +peddler, not a willing school-teacher--none of these. No idea yet in +him that he could ever be anything. A homeless self-exile, playing +at lonely twilights on flute and violin the loved airs of rejected +Scotland. + +"Now it happened that near his school was a botanical garden owned by +an American naturalist. The American, seeing the stranger cast down by +his aimless life, offered him his portfolio of drawings and suggested +that he try to draw a landscape, draw the human figure. The Scotch +weaver, the American school-teacher, tried and disastrously failed. As +a final chance the American suggested that he try to draw a bird. He +did try: he drew a bird. He drew again. He drew again and again. He +kept on drawing. Nothing could keep him from drawing. And there at last +the miracle of power and genius, so long restless in him and driving +him aimlessly from one wrong thing to another wrong thing, disclosed +itself as dwelling within his eyes and hands. His drawings were so true +to life, that there could be no doubt: the road lay straight before him +and ran clear through coming time toward eternal fame. + +"All the experience which he had been unconsciously storing as a +peddler in Scotland now came back to him as guiding knowledge. The +marvelous memory of his eye furnished its discipline: from early +boyhood through sheer love he had unconsciously been studying birds in +nature, and thus during all these wretched years had been laying up as +a youth the foundation of his life-work as a man. + +"Genius builds with lavish magnificence and inconceivable swiftness; +and hardly had he succeeded with his first drawings before he had +wrought out a monumental plan: to turn himself free as soon as possible +into the vast, untravelled forest of the North American continent and +draw and paint its birds. Other men, he said, would have to found the +cities of the New World and open up its country. His study was to be +the lineaments of the owl and the plumage of the lark: he had cast in +his lot with Nature's green magnificence untouched by man." + +The lecturer paused, as a traveller instinctively stops to look +around him at a pleasant turn of his road. It had, in truth, been a +hard, crooked human road along which he had been leading his young +listeners--a career choked at every step by inward and outward +pressures. He had not failed to notice the change in every countenance, +the brightening of every eye, as soon as his audience discovered that +they were listening to a story, not of mere weaknesses and failures, +but of the misfortunes and mistakes of a man, who at last stood out as +truly great. This hapless weaver, this aimless wanderer through the +forests of two worlds, after all had success in him, strength in him, +genius in him, fame in him! He was a hero. Henceforth they were alive +with curiosity for the rest of the story which would bring the distant +hero to Kentucky, to their Lexington. + +The lecturer realised all this. But he had for some time been even +more acutely aware that something wholly personal and extraordinary +was taking place: one of the pupils of the high school was listening +with an attention so absorbed and noticeable as to set him apart from +all the rest. Just at what point this intense attention had been so +aroused, had not been observed; but when once observed, there was no +forgetting it: it filled the room, the other listeners were merely +grouped around it as accessories and helped to make its breathless +picture. + +The particularly interested pupil sat rather far back in the +school-room, near a window--as though from a vain wish to jump out and +be free. The morning light thus fell across his face: it was possible +to watch its expression, its responsive change of light at each turn +of the story. He seemed to hold some kind of leadership in the school: +other pupils occasionally turned their faces to glance at him, to keep +in touch with him: he did not return their glances--being their leader; +or he had forgotten them for the story he was hearing. + +The lecturer became convinced that what had more than once happened to +him before as a teacher was happening again: before him a young life +was unexpectedly being solved--to its own wonderment and liberation, to +its amazement and joy. + +That perpetual miracle in nature--the contexture of the +generations--the living taking the meaning of their lives from the +dead! You stand beside some all but forgotten mound of human ashes; +before you are arrayed a band of youths, unconsciously holding in their +hands the unlighted torches of the future. You utter some word about +the cold ashes and silently one of them walks forward to the ashes, +lights his torch and goes his radiant way. + +Thus the Geologist felt a graver responsibility resting on him--placed +there by one of them, more than by all of them: the words he was +speaking might or might not give final direction to a whole career. He +went on with his heroic narrative more glowingly, more guardedly: + +"For a while he must keep on teaching in order to live: he taught all +day, often after night, barely had time to swallow his meals, at the +end of one term tells us he had as large a sum as fifteen dollars. +Often he coloured his first drawings by candle light, drew and painted +birds without knowing what they were. Drawing and painting by candle +light!--but now he had within himself the risen sun of a splendid +enthusiasm. That sun kindled his schoolboys. They found out what he +wanted and helped. One boy brought him a large basketful of crows. +Another caught a mouse in school and contributed that--the incident +is worth quoting by showing that the boy preferred a mouse to a +school-book. + +"Take one instance of the energy with which he was now working and +worked for the rest of his life: he wished to see Niagara Falls, and +to lose no time while doing it he started out one autumn through the +forest to walk to the Falls and back, a short trip for him of over +twelve hundred miles. He reached home 'mid the deep snows of winter +with no soles to his boots. What of that? On his way back he had shot +two strange birds in the valley of the Hudson! For ten days--ten days, +mind you!--he worked on a drawing of these and sent it with a letter +to Thomas Jefferson. You may as yet have thought of Jefferson only as +one of America's earliest statesmen: begin now to think of him as one +of the first American naturalists. And if you wish to read a courteous +letter from an American President to a young stranger, go back to +Jefferson's letter to the Scotch weaver who sent him the drawing of a +jaybird. + +"Pass rapidly over the next few years. He has made one trip from +Maine down the Atlantic Seaboard to the South. He has returned and is +starting out again to cover the vast interior basin of the Mississippi +Valley: he is to begin at Pittsburgh and end at New Orleans. + +"Now again you see that he is coming nearer--nearer to you here. + +"Look then at this bold, splendid picture of him outlined against the +background of early American life. All such pictures are part of our +richest heritage. + +"The scene is Pittsburgh. He has ransacked the winter woods for new +species, he has found only sparrows and snow-birds. That was the year +1810; this is the year 1916--over a hundred years later in the history +of our country. Gaze then upon this wild scene of the olden time, all +such pictures are good for young eyes: it is the twenty-fourth of +February: the river, swollen with the spring flood, is full of white +masses of moving ice. A frail skiff puts off from shore and goes +winding its way until it is lost to sight among the noble hills. + +"They warned him of his danger, urged him to take a rower, urged him not +to go at all. Those who risked the passage of the river floated down on +barges called Kentucky arks or in canoes hollowed each out of a single +tree, usually the tulip tree, which you know is very common in our +Kentucky woods. But to mention danger was to make him go to meet it. He +would have no rower, had no money to hire one, had he wished one. He +tells us what he had on board: in one end of the boat some biscuit and +cheese, a bottle of cordial given him by a gentleman in Pittsburgh, his +gun and trunk and overcoat; at the other end himself and his oars and +a tin with which to bail out the skiff, if necessary, to keep it from +sinking and also to use as his drinking-cup to dip from the river. + +"That February day--the swollen, rushing river, the masses of white +ice--the solitary young boatman borne away to a new world on his great +work: his heart expanding with excitement and joy as he headed toward +the unexplored wilderness of the Mississippi Valley. + +"Wondrous experiences were his: from the densely wooded shores there +would reach him as he drifted down, the whistle of the red bird--those +first spring notes so familiar and so welcome to us on mild days toward +the last of February. Away off in dim forest valleys, between bold +headlands, he saw the rising smoke of sugar camps. At other openings +on the landscape, grotesque log cabins looked like dog-houses under +impending mighty mountains. His rapidly steered skiff passed flotillas +of Kentucky arks heavily making their way southward, transporting men +and women and children--the moving pioneers of the young nation: the +first river merchant-marine of the new world: carrying horses and +plows to clearings yet to be made for homesteads in the wilderness; +transporting mill-stones for mills not yet built on any wilderness +stream; bearing merchandise for the pioneers who in this way got their +clothing until they could grow flax and weave to clothe themselves. +Thus in the Alps of the Alleghenies he came upon the river peddlers of +America as years before amid the Alps of Scotland he had come upon the +foot peddlers of his own land. On the river were floating caravans of +men selling shawls and muslins. He boarded a number of these barges; as +they approached a settlement, they blew a trumpet or a lonely horn on +the great river stillness. + +"The first night he drew in to shore some fifty miles down at a +riverside hovel and tried to sleep on the only bed offered him--some +corn-stalks. Unable to sleep, he got up before day and pushed out again +into the river, listening to the hooting of the big-horned owl echoing +away among the dawn-dark mountains, or to the strangely familiar +crowing of cocks as they awoke the hen roosts about the first American +settlements in the West. + +"He records what to us now sounds incredible, that on March fifth he +saw a flock of parrokeets. Think of parrokeets on the Ohio River in +March! Of nights it turned freezing cold and he drew liberally on his +bottle of cordial for warmth. Once he encountered a storm of wind and +hail and snow and rain, during which the river foamed and rolled like +the sea and he had to make good use of his tin to keep the skiff bailed +out till he could put in to shore. The call of wild turkeys enticed him +now toward the shore of Indiana, now toward the shore of Kentucky, but +before he reached either they had disappeared. His first night on the +Kentucky shore he spent in the cabin of a squatter and heard him tell +tales of bear-treeing and wildcat-hunting and wolf-baiting. All night +wolves howled in the forests near by and kept the dogs in an uproar; +the region swarmed with wolves and wildcats 'black and brown.' + +"On and on, until at last the skiff reached the rapids of the Ohio +at Louisville and he stepped ashore and sold his frail saviour craft +which, at starting, he had named the Ornithologist. The Kentuckian who +bought it as the Ornithologist accepted the droll name as that of some +Indian chief. He soon left Louisville, having sent his baggage on by +wagon, and plunged into the Kentucky forest on his way to Lexington. + +"And now, indeed, you see he is coming nearer. + +"It was the twenty-fourth of March when he began his first trip +southward through the woods of Kentucky. Spring was on the way but had +not yet passed northward. Nine-tenths of the Kentucky soil, he states, +was then unbroken wilderness. The surface soil was deeper than now. +The spring thaw had set in, permeating the rich loam. He describes +his progress through it as like travelling through soft soap. The +woods were bare as yet, though filled with pigeons and squirrels and +wood-peckers. On everything he was using his marvellous eyes: looking +for birds but looking at all human life, interested in the whole life +of the forest. He mentions large corn fields and orchards of apple and +of peach trees. Already he finds the high fences, characteristic of +the Kentuckians. He turned aside once to visit a roosting place of the +passenger pigeon. + +"It was on March twenty-ninth that, emerging from the thick forest, +he saw before him the little Western metropolis of the pioneers, the +city of the forefathers of many of us here today--Lexington. I wish I +could stop to describe to you the picture as he painted it: the town +stretching along its low valley; a stream running through the valley +and turning several mills--water mills in Lexington a hundred years +ago! In the market-place which you now call Cheapside he saw the +pillory and the stocks and he noted that the stocks were so arranged as +to be serviceable for gallows: our Kentucky forefathers arranged that +they should be conveniently hanged, if they deserved it, as a public +spectacle of warning. + +"On a country court day he saw a thousand horses hitched around the +courthouse square and in churchyards and in graveyards. He states that +even then Kentucky horses were the most remarkable in the world. + +"He makes no mention of one thing he must have seen, but was perhaps +glad to forget--the weavers and the busy looms; for in those days +Kentuckians were busy making good linen and good homespun, as in +Paisley. + +"He slept while in Lexington--this great unknown man--in a garret +called Salter White's, wherever that was: and he shivered with cold, +for you know we can have chill nights in April. He says that he had +no firewood, it being scarce, the universal forest of firewood being +half a mile away: this was like going hungry in a loft over a full +baker-shop. + +"And I must not omit one note of his on the Kentuckians themselves, +which flashes a vivid historic light on their character. By this time +he rightly considered that he had had adventures worth relating; but +he declares that if he attempted to relate them to any Kentuckian, the +Kentuckian at once interrupted him and insisted upon relating his own +adventures as better worth while. Western civilization was of itself +the one absorbing adventure to every man who had had his share in it. + +"Here I must pause to intimate that Wilson all his life carried with +him one bird--one vigourous and vociferous bird--a crow to pick. He +picked it savagely with Louisville. But he had begun to pick it with +Scotland. He had picked it with Great Britain and with New Jersey +and Virginia. In New England the feathers of the crow fairly flew. In +truth, civilization never quite satisfied him; wild nature alone he +found no fault with--there only was he happy and at home. He now picked +his crow with Lexington. Afterward an indignant Kentuckian, quite in +the good Kentucky way, attacked him and left the crow featherless--as +regards Lexington. + +"On the fourteenth day of April he departed from Lexington, moving +southward through the forest to New Orleans. Scarcely yet had the woods +begun to turn green. He notes merely the white blossoms of the redroot +peeping through the withered leaves, and the buds of the buckeye. With +those sharp eyes of his he observed that wherever a hackberry tree had +fallen, cattle had eaten the bark. + +"And now we begin to take leave of him: he passes from our picture. We +catch a glimpse of him standing on the perpendicular cliffs of solid +limestone at the Kentucky River, green with a great number of uncommon +plants and flowers--we catch a glimpse of him standing there, watching +bank swallows and listening to the faint music of the boat horns in the +deep romantic valley below, where the Kentucky arks, passing on their +way southward, turned the corners of the verduous cliffs as the musical +gondolas turn the corners of vine-hung Venice in the waters of the +Adriatic. + +"On and on southward; visiting a roosting-place of the passenger +pigeon which was reported to him as forty miles long: he counted +ninety nests in one beech tree. We see him emerging upon the Kentucky +barrens which were covered with vegetation and open for the sweep of +the eye. + +"Now, at last, he begins to meet the approach of spring in full tide: +all Nature is bursting into leaf and blossom. No longer are the redbud +and the dogwood and the sassafras conspicuous as its heralds. And now, +overflowing the forest, advances the full-crested wave of bird-life +up from the south, from the tropics. New and unknown species are +everywhere before his eyes; their new melodies are in his ears; he is +busy drawing, colouring, naming them for his work. + +"So he passes out of our picture: southward bound, encountering +a cloud of parrakeets and pigeons, emerging from a cave with a +handkerchief full of bats, swimming creeks, sleeping at night alone in +the wilderness, his gun and pistol in his bosom. He vanishes from the +forest scene, never from the memory of mankind. + +"Let me tell you that he did not live to complete his work. Death +overtook him, not a youth but still young; for, as a Roman of the +heroic years deeply said: 'Death always finds those young who are still +at work for the future of the world.' + +"I told you I was going to speak to you of a boy's life. I asked you +to fix your eyes upon it as a far-off human spark, barely glimmering +through mist and fog but slowly, as the years passed, getting +stronger, growing brighter, always drawing nearer until it shone about +you here as a great light and then passed on, leaving an eternal glory. + +"I have done that. + +"You saw a little fellow taken from school at about the age of eleven +and put to hard work at weaving; now you see one of the world's +great ornithologists, who had traversed some ten thousand miles of +comparative wilderness--an imperishable figure, doing an imperishable +deed. I love to think of him as being in the end what he most hated to +be in the beginning--a weaver: he wove a vast, original tapestry of the +bird-life of the American forest. + +"As he passed southward from Lexington that distant April of 1810, +encountering his first spring in the Ohio valley with its myriads of +birds, somewhere he discovered a new and beautiful species of American +wood warbler and gave it a local habitation and a name. + +"He called it the Kentucky Warbler. + +"And now," the lecturer said, by way of climax, "would you not like to +see a picture of that mighty hunter who lived in the great days of the +young American republic and crossed Kentucky in the great days of the +pioneers? And would you not also like to see a picture of the exquisite +and only bird that bears the name of our State--the Kentucky Warbler?" + +He passed over to them a portrait engraving of Alexander Wilson in the +dress of a gentleman of his time, his fowling-piece on his forearm. +And along with this he delivered to them a life-like, a singing +portrait, of the warbler, painted by a great American animal painter +and bird painter--Fuertes. + +[Illustration: chapter II--end decoration] + + + + +[Illustration: chapter III--title decoration] + + +III + +THE FOREST + + +It was the first day of vacation. + +Schools, if you were not through with them, had now become empty, +closed, silent buildings, stripped of authority to imprison and bedevil +you and then mark you discreditably because you righteously rebelled +against being imprisoned and bedeviled. They could safely be left to +dust and cobwebs within and to any weeds that might lodge and sprout +outside--the more the better. You stood on the spring edge of the +long, free, careless summer and could look unconcernedly across at the +distant autumn edge. Then as the woods, now in their first full green, +were beginning to turn dry and yellow, the powerless buildings would +again become tyrannical schools. + +But if you had finished high school, on this first day of vacation you +were on the Boy's Common: schools behind you, the world of business +around you, ahead of you ambitious college or the stately University. +Webster had been turned loose on the Boy's Common. + + * * * * * + +The family were at breakfast. Every breakfast in the cottage was much +the same breakfast: routine is the peace of the roadless. Existence +there throughout the year was three hundred and sixty-five times more +or less like itself. The earth meantime did change for the signs of +the zodiac: the cottage changed also, but had a zodiac of its own. +Thus, when the planet was in the sign of _Capricornus_, the cottage +on a morning had fried perch for breakfast, as a sign that it was in +_Pisces_; when earth was in _Gemini_, the family might have a steak +which showed that it was in _Taurus_--or that _Taurus_ was in the +family. + +There was always hot meat of one kind and hot bread of two kinds and +hot coffee of any kind. If Webster's father upon entering the breakfast +room had not seen a dish before him to carve or apportion, the shock +could not have been greater, had he found lying on his folded napkin +an enclosure from the bank notifying him that he had been discharged +for having made the figure four instead of the figure two. + +He sat squarely facing the table as long as his own portion of the meat +lasted, meantime eating rapidly and bending over to glance at his paper +which lay flat beside his coffee cup. With the final morsel of meat he +turned sidewise and sat cross-legged, with his paper held before his +face as a screen--notification that he would rather not talk at the +moment, unless they preferred.... If they showed that they did prefer, +he still had means to discourage their preference. Now and then he +reached around toward his plate and groped for the remaining crumbs of +bread, or hooked his forefinger in the handle of his cup and conveyed +it behind the paper. + +Webster's mother, busied with service at the tray, commenced her +breakfast after the others. She talked to her husband until he +interposed his newspaper. Then she unconsciously lowered her voice and +addressed remarks to the children. Occasionally she tried to arrange +their dissensions. + +A satirist of human life, studying Webster's father and mother at the +head and foot of the table--symbol at once of their opposition and +conjunction--a satirist, who for his own amusement turns life into +pictures of something else, might have described their bodily and +pictorial relation as that of a large, soft deep-dished pudding to a +well trimmed mutton chop. Their minds he would possibly have imagined +as two south winds moving along, side by side; whatever else they blew +against, they could not possibly blow against each other. + +On this fine June morning, the first day of his vacation, Webster was +late for breakfast. He arranged to be late. From his bathroom-bedroom +he could hear the family with their usual morning talk, Elinor's +shrill chatter predominating. When her chatter ceased he would know +that she had satisfied her whimsical appetite and had slipped from +her chair, impatient either to get to the front porch with its creaky +rocking-chair or to dart out the gate to other little girls in the +block; restlessly seeking some adventure elsewhere if none should pass +before her eyes at home. + +He waited till she should go; there was something especial to speak +of with his father and he did not wish this to be spoiled by Elinor's +interference and ridicule. + +When she was gone he went in to breakfast. + +"Well, my son, how are you going to spend your first day of vacation?" +his father inquired, helping him to his portion and not particularly +noticing his own question. + +"I thought I'd go over into the woods," Webster replied. + +An unfavourable silence followed this announcement. That old stubborn +controversy about the woods!... + +"Father," asked Webster, with his eyes on his plate, "did you ever see +the Kentucky warbler?" + +Webster's father looked over the top of the wood-pulp screen. His face +had a somewhat vacant expression. He waited. Finally he said: + +"My son, I believe you asked me a question: I shall have to ask you to +repeat your question; I may be losing my hearing or I may be losing my +mind. You asked me--?" + +Webster, in the same deliberate tone, repeated his question: + +"Did you ever see the Kentucky warbler?" + +Webster's father looked over his spectacles at Webster's mother as with +the air of an appeal for guidance: + +"My dear, your son asks me, if I understand him, whether I have ever +seen a Kentucky wooden war horse?" + +He was not above fun-making and it seemed to him that the occasion +called for it. + +Webster's mother explained: + +"One of the professors from the University lectured to them in April +about birds. His head has been full of birds ever since: I shouldn't +wonder if his dreams have been full of them." She looked at Webster not +without ineradicable tenderness and pride; she could not quite have +explained the pride, she could have explained the tenderness. + +Now the truth of the matter was that since that memorable morning +of the April talk at high school, she had been hearing from Webster +repeatedly on that subject. He had told her of the lecture immediately +upon reaching home; she had never seen him so wrought up. And from that +time he had upon occasion plied her with questions: as to what she knew +of birds when she lived in the country. She had to tell him that she +knew very little; everybody identified the several species that preyed +upon fruit and berries and young chickens; she named these readily +enough. She had never heard of a bird called the Kentucky warbler. And +she had never heard of Alexander Wilson. + +All this she had duly narrated to Webster's father--greatly to his +dejection. A bank officer with a solitary son, now graduated from high +school, going after bird-nests--that was a prospect before such a +father! He had shaken his head in silence that more than spoke. + +"I told him," Webster's mother had concluded, "that the only Wilsons +worth knowing in Kentucky were the horse-people Wilsons: of course we +know _them_. It has been amusing to watch Elinor. Whenever Webster has +begun about birds, if she has overheard him, she has made it convenient +to settle somewhere near and listen. She would break in and stop his +questions, but then there would be no more entertainment for her. She +has been a study." + +Thus Webster's father was not so ill-informed as he now appeared. In +return for the information from Webster's mother, apparently for the +first time imparted, he looked at his son with an expression which +plainly meant that as a speculation the latter was becoming a graver +risk. + +"No, my son," he said, "I have never met your forest friend. I am +merely a Kentucky bank warbler. One who did his warbling years ago. +There is some _war_ left in me. I suppose there will always be _war_ +left in me, but there isn't any _war_-ble. I warbled one distant +solitary spring to your mother. She replied beautifully in kind and +lavishly in degree. We made a nest and had a hatching. Since then +the male bird has been trying--not to escape the consequences of his +song--but to meet his notes like a man. I have never stumbled upon your +forest friend." + +Webster ate in silence for a few moments and then remarked, as though +it were a matter of vital importance: + +"His notes are: + +"'_Tweedle tweedle tweedle, Tweedle tweedle tweedle_,' Wilson described +them that way a hundred and six years ago." + +"I don't doubt it, my son. I am not questioning your word--nor Mr. +Wilson's. But I don't see anything very remarkable in that: if you come +to the bank any day, you can hear men say the same thing. They come in +and say, 'Tweedle.' And they go out." + +Webster continued: + +"Audubon described the notes as '_Turdle turdle turdle_.'" + +Deeper silence at the table. Webster continued in the face of the +silence; + +"A living naturalist says the notes may be: + +"'_Toodle toodle toodle._'" + +Silence at the table still more deep. Webster broke it: + +"Another naturalist describes the bird as saying: + +"'_Ter-wheeter wheeter wheeter wheeter wheeter._'" + +The silence! Webster continued: + +"Another naturalist thinks the song is: + +"'_Che che che peery peery peery._'" + +Webster's father raised his eyebrows--he had no hair to raise--at +Webster's mother: a sign that their graduate was beginning to celebrate +his vacation. + +"My son," he said, "when I was a little fellow in school, one of the +reading lessons was a poem called 'Try, Try Again.' Perhaps the bird +is working along that line." + +"Thomas Jefferson followed a bird for hours in the woods," said +Webster, with dignity: he somehow felt rebuked. "And for twenty years +he tried to catch sight of another." + +"Don't let me come between you and Thomas Jefferson," said Webster's +father, waving his hand toward his son in protest. "God forbid that I +should come between any two such persons as Daniel Webster and Thomas +Jefferson!" + +"The government at Washington," observed Webster stoutly, "is behind +the Kentucky warbler." + +"Then, my son, I advise you to get behind the Government." + +The rusty bell at the little front door went off with a sound like +the whirr of a frightened prairie chicken. The breakfast maid, also +the cook, also the maid of all work, also a unit of the standardised +population of disservice and discontent, entered and pushed a bill at +Webster's father. + +"The butcher," she announced with sullen gratification, "He's waiting." + +As Webster's father left the table, he tapped his son affectionately +on the head with his paper: "You follow the bird, my boy; and follow +Thomas Jefferson, if you can. The butcher follows me." + +Webster's mother sat watching him. He had begun to get his lunch ready. +He held the bottom-half of a long, slender roll, which might have +served as a miniature model for an old-time Kentucky river-ark; and +with his knife, grasped like an oar, he was lining the inside with some +highly specialised yellow substance. She deplored his awkwardness and +fought his independence. + +"Let me put up your lunch for you, my son!" + +"I'll put it up." + +He was not to be cheated out of that fresh sensation of pleasure which +comes to the male, young or old, who tries to cook in camp, to fry, to +boil, to season, or to serve things edible. + +Webster pulled out of his pocket a crumpled piece of brown paper and +smoothed it out on the table cloth. It showed butcher stains. + +Webster's mother protested. + +"My son! Take a napkin! Take this clean napkin for your lunch!" + +"I like this paper." + +The idea of being in the forest and unrolling his lunch from a napkin: +what would Wilson have thought? Elinor, being "nice," always rolled her +lunch in a napkin. + +"But you will be hungry: let me get you some preserves!" + +"Not anything sweet." Elinor always had preserves. He rolled his lunch +roughly and thrust it, butcher-stains and all, into his pocket. His +mother was exasperated and distressed. + +"My son, your lunch will come loose in your pocket: I'll get you a +string." + +"I don't want a string." Elinor tied everything. Girls tied; boys +buttoned. The difference between men and women was strings. + +"But you'll get the grease on you, Webster! It will run down your +legs!" + +"Very well, then, I'll have greasy legs. Why not?" + +She followed him out to the porch. Her character lacked capacity +of initiative. She waited for him to be old enough to take some +initiative; then she would stand by him. + +"Don't go too far," she said tenderly, "and you ought to have some of +your friends to go with you, some of the boys from school." + +"They can't go today. Nobody can go today. Anybody would be in the way +today." + +He said this to himself. + +She watched him from the porch and called: "Don't stay too late." + +Webster walked quickly to the main corner of the block--Jenny's +corner. On this first morning of being through with school and of +feeling more like a man free to do as he pleased, Jenny for that reason +became more important--he must see her before starting. Heretofore the +pleasure of being with Jenny had definitely depended upon what Jenny +might do; this morning the idea was beginning to be Jenny herself. + +She was in her trumpet-vine arbour, the roof of which was already +sun-dried. The shaded sides were still dew-wet. She bounded across to +him, very exquisite in her light blue frock with broad, fresh white +ribbons in her light-brown hair: healthy, docile, joyous, with innocent +blue eyes and the complexion of apple blossoms. + +"Where are you going?" she asked in a voice which implied that the day +would be as pleasant, no matter where he went: nevertheless she had no +thought of appearing indifferent to him. + +He told her. + +"What are you going into the woods for?" she inquired, with little +dancing movements of her feet on the yard grass in irrepressible health +and joy and with no especial interest in his reply. + +He told her. + +"Could _you_ go?" He very well knew she could not and merely yielded to +an impulse to express himself: he was offering to ruin the day for her. + +"They wouldn't let me," said Jenny, apparently not disappointed at +being thus kept at home. + +He sought to make the best of his disappointment. + +"Even if you could go, I am afraid you never would be quiet, Jenny." + +"I'm afraid I wouldn't," Jenny replied, responsive to every suggestion. + +He lingered, tenderly disturbed by her: the roots of the future were +growing in him this morning. He was changing, he was changing _her_: +there was an outreaching of his nature to draw her into the future +alongside him. + +Jenny suddenly stopped dancing and came closer to the fence, having +all at once become more conscious of Webster, standing there as he had +never stood before, looking at her as he had never looked. Her nature +was of yielding sweetness, clasping trust. She glanced around the +cottage windows: the situation was very exposed. Webster glanced at the +cottage windows: the situation did not appear in the least exposed. +Her eyes became more round with an idea: + +"Are you coming back this way?" + +"I _will_ come back this way." + +Jenny danced away from the fence, laughing excitedly: "Will it be late?" + +"I can _make_ it late?" + + * * * * * + +Webster climbed the fence of the forest under the foliage of a big +tree of some unknown kind and descended waist-deep into the foliage +of a weed with a leaf as big as an elephant's ear: it had a beautiful +trumpet-shaped white and purple flower. He wished he knew what it was: +on the very edge of the forest, at his very first step, he had sunk +waist-deep into ignorance. Then he waded through the rank nightshade +and stepped out upon the grass of the woods--the green carpet of thick +turf, Kentucky bluegrass. + +At last he was there under those softly waving trees which summer after +summer he had watched from the porch and windows: long they had called +to him and now he had answered their call. + +But the disappointment! As he had looked at the forest across the +distance, the tree-tops had made an unbroken billowy line of green +along the blue horizon, continuous like the waves of the sea as he +imagined the sea. Somewhere under that forest roof he had taken it +for granted that there would be thick undergrowth, wild spots for shy +singing nesting birds. The disappointment! The trees stood ten or +twenty or thirty feet apart. The longest boughs barely touched each +other, their lowest sometimes hung forty or fifty feet in the air. He +did not see a tree whose branches he could reach with his upstretched +arm. The sun shone everywhere under them every bright day and the grass +grew thick up to their trunks. + +Another disappointment! The wood was small. He walked to the middle of +it and from there could see to its edge on each of its four sides. On +one side was a field of yellow grain--what the grain was he did not +know--ignorance again. On the side opposite this was a field of green +grain--what he did not know. Straight ahead of him as he looked through +the trees, he could see an open paddock on which the sunlight fell in +a blazing sheen; it turned to silver the white flanks of some calves +and made soft gold of the coats of grazing thoroughbreds. Beyond the +paddock he could see stables and sheds and beyond these a farmhouse: he +could faintly hear the cackle of barnyard poultry. + +He stood in bluegrass pasture--once Kentucky wilderness. It was like an +exquisite natural park. As he had skirmished toward the country along +turnpikes with school-mates or other friends during his life, often his +eyes had been drawn toward these world-famous bluegrass pastures. Now +he was in one; and it was here that he had come to look for the warbler +which haunts the secret forest solitudes! + +He sat down under a big tree with a feeling of how foolish he had +been. This was again followed by an overwhelming sense of his +ignorance. + +He did not know the kind of tree he sat under nor of any other that +stood far or near. These were such as sugar maple and red oak and +white oak and black ash and white ash and black walnut and white +walnut--rarely white walnut--and hickory and locust and elm and a few +haws: he did recognise a locust tree but then a locust tree grew in +Jenny's yard! All around him weeds and wild flowers and other grasses +sprang up out of the bluegrass: he did not know them. + +There was one tree he curiously looked around for, positive that he +should not be blind to it if fortunate enough to set his eyes on +one--the coffee tree. That is, he felt sure he'd recognise it if it +yielded coffee ready to drink, of which never in his life had they +given him enough. Not once throughout his long troubled experience as +to being fed had he been allowed as much coffee as he craved. Once, +when younger, he had heard some one say that the only tree in all the +American forest that bore the name of Kentucky was the Kentucky coffee +tree; and he had instantly conceived a desire to pay a visit in secret +to that corner of the woods. To take his cup and a few lumps of sugar +and sit under the boughs and catch the coffee as it dripped down.... No +one to hold him back ... as much as he wanted at last ...! The Kentucky +coffee tree--his favourite in Nature! + +He said to himself, looking all round him, that he had the outdoor +loneliness and blindness of Silas Marner this wonderful morning. + +Propped against the tree he sat still a while, thinking of the long day +before him and of how he should spend it in this thin empty pasture, +abandoned by the wild creatures. But as he deliberated, suddenly and +then more and more he awoke to things going on around him. + +A few feet away and on a level with his eyes a little fellow descended +from high over-head. A little green gymnast trying to reach the ground +by means of his own rope which he manufactured out of his body as he +came down. How could he do it? How had he learned the very first time +to make the rope strong enough to bear his weight instead of its +giving way and letting him drop? Something seized one of Webster's +ankles with a pair of small jaws like pincers and reminded him that his +foot was in the way: it had better move on. A black ant suddenly rushed +angrily over his knee. A cricket leaped in the grass. One autumn one +of them had started its song behind the wainscoting, Elinor had pushed +her toe against the woodwork and silenced it. A few feet away a bunch +of white clover blossomed: a honey bee was searching it. Webster found +on the back of one of his hands, which was pressed against the grass, a +tiny crimson coach--a mere dot of a crimson coach being moved along he +could not see how. The colour was most gorgeous and the material of the +finest velvet. He let it go on its way across his hand withersoever it +might be journeying. Directly opposite his eyes, some forty feet from +the ground, was a round hole in a rotten tree-trunk. Webster wondered +whether a bird ever pecked a square hole in anything. Suddenly from +behind him a red-headed bird flew to the dead tree-trunk and alighted +near the hole: he recognised the wood-pecker. And he remembered that +this was the first bird Wilson had killed that first day he entered the +American forest: he was glad that it was the first _he_ encountered! +No sooner had the wood-pecker alighted than the head of another bird +appeared at the hole and the wood-pecker took to his heels--to his +wings. Webster wished he had known what this other bird was: it had +a black band across its chest and wore a speckled jacket and a dull +reddish cap on the back of its head. A disturbance reached him from +a nearby treetop, a wailing voice, a gulping sound, as if something +up there were sick and full of suffering and were trying to take its +medicine. He watched the spot and presently a crow flew out of the +thick leaves: the crow's family seemed not in good health. A ground +squirrel jumped to the end of a rotting log some yards away but at +sight of him shrieked and darted in again. The whole pasture was alive. + +Webster had all this time become conscious that another sound had been +reaching his ear at regular intervals from the high branches of the +trees, first in one place and then in another. His eyes had followed +the voice but he could see no bird. The sound was like this: + +_Se--u--re?_ + +That was the first half of the song--a question. A few moments later +the other half followed, perhaps from another tree--the answer: + +_Se--u--u._ + +Here was a mystery: what was the bird? Could it be the bluebird!--his +ignorance again, the comicality of his ignorance! Webster had never +seen or heard a bluebird. He recalled what the professor had told +them--that Alexander Wilson had written the first poem on the American +bluebird, perhaps still the best poem; and he had given them the poem +to memorise if they liked, saying that they might not think it good +poetry, but at least it was the poetry of a man who thought he could +criticise Robert Burns! Webster had memorised the verses and as he now +searched the forest boughs for this invisible bluebird, he repeated to +himself some of Wilson's lines: + + "When all the gay scenes of summer are o'er + And autumn slow enters so silent and sallow + And millions of warblers that charmed us before + Have fled in the train of the sun-seeking swallow; + The bluebird, forsaken, but true to his home + Still lingers and looks for a milder tomorrow + Till forced by the horrors of winter to roam, + He sings his adieu in a lone note of sorrow." + +Again that long fine strain cast far out upon the air like a silken +reel: + +_Se--u--re? Se--u--u._ + +Or could it be a woodcock? + +He got up by and bye and walked toward the field of yellow grain on one +side of the pasture. Before he was halfway he stopped, arrested by a +wonderful sound: from the top rail of the fence before him, separating +the pasture from the grain, came a loud ringing whistle. It was +Bobwhite! Boys at school sometimes whistled "bobwhite." He knew this +bird because he had seen him hanging amid snow and ice and holly boughs +outside meat shops about Christmas time. Here now was the summer song: +in it the green of the woods, the gold of the grain, the far brave +clearness of the June sky. + +He tipped forward, not because his feet made any noise. Once again, +nearer, that marvellous music rang past him, echoing on into the woods. +Then it ceased; and as Webster approached the field fence what he saw +was a rabbit watching him over the grass tops until with long soft +leaps it escaped through the fence to the safety of the field. + +For a while he remained leaning on this fence and looking out across +the coming harvest. Twenty yards away a clump of alders was in bloom: +some bird was singing out there joyously. It made a _che che che_ +sound, also; but its colour was brown. + +The idea occurred to Webster that he would recross the pasture to the +field on the other side and go on to the turnpike: one ran there, for +he heard vehicles passing. He would make inquiry about some piece of +forest further from the city. He remembered again what the professor +told them: + +"Some of you this summer during your vacation may go out to some +nearby strip of woods--what little is left of the old forest--in quest +of the warbler. Seek the wildest spots you can find. The Kentucky +bluegrass landscape is thin and tame now, but there are places of thick +undergrowth where the bird still spends his Kentucky summer. Shall I +give you my own experience as to where I found him when a boy half a +century ago? On my father's farm there was a woodland pasture. The +land dipped there into a marshy hollow. In this hollow was a stock +pond. Around the edges of the pond grew young cane. It was always low +because the cattle browsed it. The highest stalks were scarcely five +feet. On the edge of the canebrake a thicket of papaw and blackberry +vines added rankness and forest secrecy. It was here I discovered him. +The pale green and yellow of his plumage blent with the pale green and +yellow of the leaves and stalks. But it was many years before I knew +that the bird I had found was the Kentucky warbler. If I had only known +it when I was a boy!" + + * * * * * + +When Webster reached the turnpike and looked up and down, no one was in +sight. He sat on the fence and waited. By and bye, coming in from the +country, a spring wagon appeared. Curious projections stuck out from +the top and sides of boxes in the wagon. When it drew nearer Webster +saw poultry being taken to market. He looked at the driver but let him +pass unaccosted: there would be little use in applying for information +about warblers at headquarters for broilers. + +Next from the direction of the city he saw coming a splendid open +carriage drawn by a splendid horse and driven by a very pompous +coloured coachman in livery. An aristocratic old lady sat in the +carriage, shielding her face from the dazzling sunlight with a rich +parasol. She leaned out and looked curiously at Webster. + +"Suydam," she called out to her coachman with a voice that had the +faded sweetness of faded rose leaves, "did you notice that remarkable +boy? He looked as though he would have liked to drive with me out into +the country. I wish I had invited him to do so." + +A milk cart followed with a great noise of tin cans. With milk carts +Webster felt somewhat at home: it was often his business to receive +the family milk. As the cart was passing, he motioned for the milkman +to stop. Perhaps all milkmen stop at any sign: there may be an order: +Webster called out with a good deal of hesitation: + +"Do you know of a woods further out full of bushes and thickets?" + +The milkman gave a little flap of the rein to his horse: + +"What's the matter with _you_?" he said with patient forbearance: + +Finally Webster saw creeping down the turnpike toward him an empty +wagon-bed drawn by a yoke of oxen. A good-natured young negro man sat +sideways on the wagon-tongue, smoking. Webster halted him by a gesture +and a voice of command: + +"Do you know of a bushy woods further out?" + +Any negro enjoys being questioned because he enjoys not answering +questions. Most of all he enjoys any puzzling exercise of his mother +wit. + +"A bushy woods?" + +"Yes, a bushy woods." + +"What do you want with a bushy woods?" + +"I want to find where there is one." + +The negro hesitated: "there's a bushy woods about four miles out." + +"Is it on the pike?" + +"On the pike! Did you ever see a bushy woods on the pike? It's _beside_ +the pike." + +"Right side or left side?" + +"Depends which way you're going. Right side if you are going out, left +side if you're coming in." + +"You say it's four miles out?" + +"You pass the three mile post and then you go a little further." + +"Are there any birds in it?" + +"Birds? There's owls in it. There's coons in it." + +"Do you know a young canebrake when you see one?" + +"I know an old hempbrake when I see one." + +Webster enjoyed his new authority in holding up his negro and +questioning him about a forest. And it seemed to him that the moment +had come when it was right to use money if you had it, horns or no +horns. He pulled out a dime. The negro, too surprised to speak, +came across and received it. He declined to express thanks but felt +disposed to show that he had earned the money by repeating a piece of +information: + +"It's four miles out." + +"Is there much of it?" + +"Much of it? Much as you want." + +"Do you live in it?" + +"No, I don't live in it: I live in a house." + +He had retaken his seat on the wagon-tongue. + +"What kind of pipe stem is that you are using?" + +"What kind? It's a cane pipe stem." + +"Where did you get the cane?" + +"Where did I get it? I got it in the woods." + +"Then there _is_ young cane growing in the woods?" + +"Who said there wasn't?" + +Webster, beginning this morning to use his eyes, took notice of +something which greatly interested him as the wagon moved slowly off +down the pike: strands of hemp clung to it here and there like a dry +hanging moss. The geologist had told them that his own boyhood lay +far back in the era of great Kentucky hemp-raising. Much of the hemp +was broken in March, the month of high winds. As the hemp-breakers +busily shook out their handfuls while separating the fibre from the +shard, strands were carried away on the roaring gales, lodging against +stubble and stumps and fences of the fields or blown further on into +the pastures. Later when it was baled and hauled in, other filaments +were caught on the rafters and shingles of hemp-houses and barns. Thus +when in April the northward migration of birds reached Kentucky, this +material was everywhere ready and plentiful, and the Baltimore orioles +on the bluegrass plateau built their long hanging nests of Kentucky +hemp. + +Webster, sitting on the fence and thinking of this, meantime laid his +plans for the larger adventure of the following day: the clue he sought +had unexpectedly been found: he would go out to the place where young +cane grew: there he might have a real chance at the warbler. + +This being settled to his satisfaction, he hurried impatiently back to +his woodland pasture. It had seemed empty of living creatures when he +entered it; soon it had revealed itself as a whole teeming world. The +mere green carpet of the woods was one vast birthplace and nursery, +concert hall, playground, battlefield, slaughter-pen, cemetery. + +"But my ignorance!" he complained. "I have good strong eyes, but all +these years they have been required to look at dead maps, dead books, +dead pencils and figures, dead everything: not once in all that time +have they been trained upon the study of a living object." + +His ears were as ignorant as his eyes: he had not been educated to hear +and to know what he heard. Innumerable strange sounds high and low beat +incessantly on them--wave upon wave of louder and fainter melodies, +the summer music of the intent and earnest earth. And everywhere what +fragrances! The tonic woody smells! Each deep breath he drew laved +his lungs with sun-clean, leaf-sweet atmosphere. Hour after hour of +this until his whole body and being--sight, smell, hearing, mind and +spirit--became steeped in the forest joyousness. + + * * * * * + +Now it was alone in the June woods that long bright afternoon that +Webster took final account of the last wonderful things the geologist +had told them that memorable morning. He pondered those sayings as best +he could, made out of them what he could: + +"_I am not afraid to trust you, the young, with big ideas which will +lift your minds as on strong wings and carry them swiftly and far +through time and space. If you are taught to look for great things +early in life, you will early learn how to find great things; and the +things you love to find will be the things you will desire and try to +do. I wish not to give you a single trivial, mean weak thought._" + + * * * * * + +"_The Kentucky warbler for over a hundred years has worn the name of +the State and has carried it all over the world--leading the students +of bird life to form some image of a far country and to fix their +thoughts at least for some brief moment on this same beautiful spot +of the world's surface. As long as he remains in the forests of the +earth, he will keep the name of Kentucky alive though all else it once +meant shall have perished and been forgotten. He is thus, as nearly as +anything in Nature can be, its winged worldwide emblem, ever young as +each spring is young, as the green of the woods is young._" + + * * * * * + +"_Study the warbler while you may: how long he will inhabit the +Kentucky forest no one can tell. As civilisation advances upon the +forest, the wild species retreat; when the forest falls, the wild +species are gone. Every human generation during these centuries has a +last look at many things in Nature. No one will ever see them again: +Nature can never find what she has once lost: if it is gone, it is +gone forever. What Wilson records he saw of bird life in Kentucky a +hundred years ago reads to us now as fables of the marvellous, of the +incredible. Were he the sole witness, some of us might think him to be +a lying witness. Let me tell you that I in my boyhood--half a century +later than Wilson's visit to Kentucky--beheld things that you will +hardly believe. The vast oak forest of Kentucky was what attracted +the passenger pigeon. In the autumn when acorns were ripe but not +yet fallen, the pigeons filled the trees at times and places, eating +them from the cups. Walking quietly some sunny afternoon through the +bluegrass pastures, you might approach an oak and see nothing but the +tree itself, thick boughs with the afternoon sunlight sparkling on the +leaves along one side. As you drew nearer, all at once, as if some +violent explosion had taken place within the tree, a blue smoke-like +cloud burst out all around the treetop--the simultaneous explosive +flight of the frightened pigeons. Or all night long there might be +wind and rain and the swishing of boughs and the tapping of loosened +leaves against the window panes; and when you stepped out of doors +next morning, it had suddenly become clear and cold. Walking out into +the open and looking up at the clear sky you might see this: an arch +of pigeons breast by breast, wing-tip to wing-tip, high up in the air +as the wild geese fly, slowly moving southward. You could not see the +end of the arch on one horizon or the other: the whole firmament was +spanned by that mighty arch of pigeons flying south from the sudden +cold. Not all the forces in Nature can ever restore that morning sunlit +arch of pigeons flying south. The distant time may come, or a nearer, +when the Kentucky warbler will have vanished like the wild pigeon: +then any story of him will be as one of the ancient fables of bird +life._" + + * * * * * + +"_The rocks of the earth are the one flooring on which every thing +develops its story, then either disappears upon the stillness of the +earth's atmosphere or sinks toward the silence of its rocks. Of the +myriad forms of life on the earth the bird has always been the one +thing nearest to what we call the higher life of the human species._ + +"_It is the form and flight of the bird alone that has given man at +last the mastery of the atmosphere. Without the bird as a living model +we have not the slightest reason to believe that he could have ever +learned the mechanism of flight. Now it is the flight of the bird, +studied under the American sky, that has given the_ nations the war +engine that will perhaps rule the destiny of the human race henceforth. +_The form of the bird will fly before our autumn-brown American armies +as they cross the sea--leading them as the symbol of their victory. +When they lie along the trenches of France as thick as fallen brown +autumn leaves in woodland hollows, it will be the flight of bird-like +emblems of destruction that will guide them like hurricane-rushing +leaves as they sweep toward their evil enemy._" + + * * * * * + +"_Through all ages the flight of the bird alone has been the +interpreter of the human spirit. The living, standing on the earth and +seeing the souls of their dead pass beyond their knowledge, have fixed +upon the bird as the symbol of their faith. When you are old enough, +if not already, to know your Shakespeare, you will find in one line of +one of his plays the whole vast human farewell of the living to the +dead: they are the words of Horatio to Hamlet, his dying prince: 'the +flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.'_" + + * * * * * + +"_As far as we geologists know, this is the morning of the planet. Not +its dawn but somewhere near its sunrise. The bird music we hear in +these human ages are morning songs. Back of that morning stretches the +earth's long dawn; and the rocks tell us that thrushes were singing +in the green forests of the earth millions of years before man had +been moulded of the dust and had awakened and begun to listen to them. +Thus bird music which seems to us so fresh is the oldest music of the +earth--millions of years older than man's. And yet all this is still +but a morning song. The earth is young, the birds are young, man is +young--all young together at the morning of the earth's geologic day. +What the evening will be we do not know. It is possible that the birds +will be singing their evening song to the earth and man already have +vanished millions of years before._" + +"_Many questions vex us: all others lead to one: when man vanishes, +does he pass into the stillness of the earth's atmosphere and sink +toward the stillness of its rocks like every other species? He answers +with his faith: that his spirit is here he knows not why, but takes +flight from it he knows not how or whither. Only, faith discloses to +him one picture: the snowy pinion folded and at rest in the Final +Places._" + + * * * * * + +That long sunny afternoon in the June woods! The shadows of the trees +slowly lengthened eastward. The sun sank below the forest boughs and +shot its long lances against the tree trunks. It made a straight path +of gold, deeper gold, across the yellow grain. The sounds of life died +away, the atmosphere grew sweeter with the odours of leaves and grasses +and blossoms. + +Webster recrossed the woods as he had entered it, waded through the +nightshade and climbed the fence under the dark tree. + +It was twilight when he entered the City. + +As he passed her yard, Jenny bounded across to him joyous, innocent, +tender, in a white frock with fresh blue ribbons in her brown hair. + +"Did you find him?" she asked, her happiness not depending on his +answer. + +"It was not the right place. Tomorrow I am going out further into the +country to a better place." + +"The humming-bird has been here," Jenny announced with an air of saying +that she had been more successful as a naturalist. + +He made no reply: as the veteran observer of a day, he had somewhat +outgrown the trumpet-vine arbour and the ruby-throat. + +He lingered close to the fence. Jenny lingered. He moved off, +disappointed but devoid of speech. + +"Come back!" Jenny whispered, with reproach and vexation. + +It was the first invitation. It was the first acceptance of an +invitation. There would have been a second acceptance but the +invitation was not there to accept. + +When Webster turned in at his home gate, everything was just as he +had foreseen: his father sat on one side of the porch, smoking the +one daily cigar; his mother faced him from the opposite side, slowly +rocking. Elinor crouched on the top step between them: he would have to +walk around her or over her. + +His father laughed heartily as he sauntered up. + +"Well, my son, where is your game bag? What have you brought us for +breakfast?" + +Webster looked crestfallen: he returned empty-handed but not +empty-minded: he had had a great rich day; they thought it an idle +wasted one. + +"Some of the boys have been here for you," said his mother. "They left +word you must be certain to meet them, in the morning for the game. +Freshen yourself up and I'll give you your supper." + +Elinor said nothing--a bad sign with her. She sat with her sharp little +chin resting on her palms and with her eyes on him with calculating +secrecy. He stepped around her. + +His room had never seemed so cramped after those hours in the woods +under the open sky. The whole cottage seemed so unnatural, everything +in the City so unnatural, after that day in the forest. + +At supper he had not much to say; his mother talked to him: + +"I put my berries away to eat with you for company." They ate their +berries together. + +He felt tired and said he would go to bed. His room was darkened when +he returned to it; he felt sure he had left his lamp burning; someone +had been in it. He lighted his lamp again. + +As he started toward his window to close the shutters, his eye caught +sight of an object hanging from the window sash. A paper was pinned +around it. The handwriting was Elinor's. It was a bluejay, brought +down by a lucky stone from some cottager's hand. Webster read Elinor's +message for him: + + "Your favourite Kentucky Warbler, + + From your old friend, + Thomas Jefferson." + +He sat on the side of his bed. The sights and sounds and fragrances of +the pasture were all through him; the sunlight warmed his blood still, +the young blood of perfect health. + +He turned in for the night and sleep drew him away at once from +reality. And some time during the night he awoke out of his sleep to +the reality of a great dream. + +[Illustration: chapter III--end decoration] + + + + +[Illustration: chapter IV--title decoration] + + +IV + +THE BIRD + + +It was in the depths of a wonderful forest, green with summer and hoary +with age. He was sitting on the ground in a small open space. No path +led to this or away from it, but all around him grew grasses and plants +which would be natural coverts for wild creatures. No human tread had +ever crushed those plants. + +The soft vivid light resting on the woods was not morning-light nor +evening-light: it was clear light without the hours. Yet the time must +have been near noonday; for as Webster looked straight up toward the +unseen sky, barred from his eyes by the forest roof of leaves, slender +beams of sunlight filtered perpendicularly down, growing mistier as +they descended until they could be traced no longer even as luminous +vapour; no palest radiance from them reached the grass. + +He could not see far in any direction. At the edge of the open +space where he sat, fallen rotten trees lay amid the standing live +ones--parents, grandparents, great-grandparents of the rising forest, +passing back into the soil of the planet toward the rocks. + +Strange as was the spot, stranger was Webster to himself and did +not know what had changed him. It seemed that for the first time +in his life his eyes were fully opened; never had he seen with such +vision; and his feeling was so deep, so intense. The whole scene was +enchantment. It was more than reality. _He_ was more than reality. +The singing of birds far away--it was so crystal sweet, yet he could +see none. A few yards from him a rivulet made its way from somewhere +to somewhere. He could trace its course by the growth of plants which +crowded its banks and covered it with their leaves. + +Expectancy weighed heavily on him. He was there for a purpose but could +not say what the purpose was. + +All at once as his eyes were fixed on the low, green thicket opposite +him, he saw that it was shaken; something was on its way to him. He +watched the top of the thicket being parted to the right and to the +left. With a great leaping of his heart he waited, motionless where +he sat on the grass. What creature could be coming? Then he saw just +within the edge of the thicket a curious piece of head-gear--he had no +knowledge of any such hat. Then he saw a gun barrel. Then the hand and +forearm of a man was thrust forward and it pushed the underbrush aside; +and then there stepped forth into the open the figure of a hunter, +lean, vigorous, tall, athletic. The hunter stepped out with a bold +stride or two and stopped and glanced eagerly around with an air of +one in a search; he discovered Webster and with a look of relief stood +still and smiled. + +There could be no mistake. Webster held imprinted on memory from a +picture those features, those all-seeing eyes; it was Wilson--weaver +lad of Paisley, wandering peddler youth of the grey Scotch mountains, +violinist, flutist, the poet who had burned his poem standing in the +public cross, the exile, the school teacher for whom the boy caught the +mouse, the failure who sent the drawing to Thomas Jefferson, the bold +figure in the skiff drifting down the Ohio--the naturalist plunging +into the Kentucky wilderness and walking to Lexington and shivering in +White's garret--the great American ornithologist, the immortal man. + +There he stood: how could it be? It was reality yet more than reality. + +The hunter walked straight toward him with the light of recognition in +his eyes. He came and stood before Webster and looked down at him with +a smile: + +"Have you found him, Webster?" + +Webster strangely heard his own voice: + +"I have not found him." + +"You have looked long?" + +"I have looked everywhere and I cannot find him." + +The hunter sat down and laid on the grass beside him his fowling piece, +his game bag holding new species of birds, and his portfolio of fresh +drawings. Then he turned upon Webster a searching look as if to draw +the inmost truth out of him and asked: + +"Why do you look for the Kentucky Warbler?" + +Webster hesitated long: + +"I do not know," he faltered. + +"Something in you makes you seek him, but you do not know what that +something is?" + +"No, I do not know what it is: I know I wish to find him." + +"Not him alone but many other things?" + +"Yes, many other things." + +"The whole wild life of the forest?" + +"Yes, all the wild things in the forest--and the wild forest itself." + +"You wish to know about these things--you wish to know them?" + +"I wish to know them." + +The hunter searched Webster's countenance more keenly, more severely: + +"Are you sure?" + +There was silence. The forest was becoming more wonderful. The singing +of the unseen birds more silvery sweet. It was beyond all reality. +Webster answered: + +"I am sure." + +The hunter hurled questions now with no pity: + +"Would you be afraid to stay here all night alone?" + +"I would not." + +"If, during the night, a storm should pass over the forest with thunder +deafening you and lightning flashing close to your eyes and trees +falling everywhere, you would fear for your life and that would be +natural and wise; but would you come again?" + +"I would." + +"If it were winter and the forest were bowed deep with ice and snow +and you were alone in it, having lost your way, would you cry enough? +Would you hunt for a fireside and never return?" + +"I would not." + +"You can stand cold and hunger and danger and fatigue; can you be +patient and can you be persevering?" + +"I can." + +"Look long and not find what you look for and still not give up?" + +"I can." + +There was silence for a little while: the mood of the hunter seemed to +soften: + +"Do you know where you are, Webster?" + +"I do not know where I am." + +"You did not know then, that this is the wilderness of your +forefathers--the Kentucky pioneers. You have wandered back to it." + +"I did not know." + +"Have you read their great story?" + +"Not much of it." + +"Are you beginning to realise what it means to be sprung from such men +and women?" + +"I cannot say." + +"But you want to do great things?" + +"If I loved them." + +The hunter stood up and gathered his belongings together. His questions +had become more kind as though he were satisfied. He struck Webster on +his shoulder. + +"_Come_," he said, as with high trust, "_I will show you the Kentucky +warbler._" + +He looked around and his eyes fell upon the forest brook. He walked +over to it, to discover in what direction it ran and beckoned. + +"We'll follow this stream up: the spring may not be far away." He +glanced at the tree-tops: "It is nearly noon: the bird will come to the +spring to drink and to bathe." + +Webster followed the hunter as he threaded his way through the forest +toward the source of the brook. + +Not many yards off his guide turned: + +"There is the spring," he said, pointing to a green bank out of which +bubbled the cool current. + +"Let us sit here. Make no movement and make no noise." + +How tense the stillness! They waited and listened. Finally the hunter +spoke in an undertone: + +"Did you hear that?" + +Away off in the forest Webster heard the song of a bird. Presently +it came nearer. Now it was nearer still. It sounded at last within +the thicket just above the spring, clear, sweet, bold, emphatic notes +distinctly repeated at short intervals. And then-- + +_There he was--the Kentucky Warbler!_ + +Webster could see every mark of identification. The bird had come +out of the dense growth and showed himself on the bough of a sapling +about twenty feet from the earth, in his grace and shapeliness and +manly character. With a swift, gliding flight downward he lighted on +a sweeping limb of a tree still nearer, within a few inches of the +ground. Then he dropped to the ground and moved about, turning over +dead leaves. He was only several yards away and Webster could plainly +trace the yellow line over his eye, the blackish crown and black sides +of the throat, the underparts all of solid yellowish gold, the upper +parts of olive green. An instant later the bird was on the wing again, +hither, thither, up and down, continually in motion. No white in the +wings, none in the tail feathers. Once he stopped and poured out his +loud, musical song--unlike any other warbler's. A moment later he was +on the ground again, with a manner of self-possession, dignity--as on +his namesake soil, Kentucky. + +Webster had sat bent over toward him, forgetful of everything else. At +last drawing a deep breath, he looked around gratefully, remembering +his guide. + +No one was near him. Webster saw the hunter on the edge of the thicket +yards away; he stood looking back, his figure dim, fading. Webster, +forgetful of the bird, cried out with quick pain: + +"Are you going away? Am I never to see you again?" + +The voice that reached him seemed scarcely a voice; it was more like an +echo, close to his ear, of a voice lost forever: + +"_If you ever wish to see me, enter the forest of your own heart._" + +[Illustration: chapter IV--end decoration] + + + + +[Illustration: chapter V--title decoration] + + +V + +THE ROAD + + +Webster sprang to his feet in the depths of the strange summer-dark +forest: that is to say, he awoke with a violent start and found himself +sitting on his bed with his feet hanging over one side. + +It was late to be getting up. The sun already soared above the roof of +the cottage opposite his window and the light slanted in full blaze +against his shutters. Shafts penetrated some weather-loosened slats and +fell on his head and shoulders and on the wall behind him. Breakfast +must be nearly ready. Fresh cooking odours--coffee odour, meat odour, +bread odour--filled the little bathroom-bedroom. Feet were hurrying, +scurrying, in the kitchen. Quieter footsteps approached his door along +the narrow hall outside and there came a tap: + +"Breakfast, Webster!" + +It was his mother's voice, indulgent, peaceful, sweet. He suddenly +thought that never before had he fully realised how sweet it was, had +always been, notwithstanding he disappointed her. + +He got up and went across to open his shutters and had taken hold of +the catch, when he was arrested in his movement. At night he tilted +the shutters, so that the morning sun might not enter crevices and +shine in his face and awaken him. Now looking down through the slats, +he discovered something going on in the yard beneath his window. +Elinor had come tipping around the corner of the cottage. She held one +dark little witch-like finger unconsciously pressed against her tense +lips. Her dark eyes were brimming with a secret, mischievous purpose. +A ribbon which looked like a huge, crumpled purple morning-glory was +knotted into the peak of her ravenish hair. Her fresh little gown, +too, suggested the colours of the purple morning-glory and her whole +presence, with a freshness as of dew-drops formed amid moonbeams at +midnight, somehow symbolised that flower which surprises us at dawn as +having matured its unfolding in the dark: half sinister, half innocent. + +With cautious, delicate steps, which could not possibly have made any +noise in the grass, she approached the window and stopped and lifted +the notched pole which was used to hold up the clothes-line in the +back yard. Setting the pole on end and planting herself beside it, she +pushed it with all her slight but concentrated strength against the +window shutters. It struck violently and fell over to the grass in one +direction as Elinor, with the silence of a light wind, fled in the +other. + +Webster stood looking down at it all: he understood now: that was the +crashing sound which had awakened him. + +It had been Elinor who had ended his dream. + +But his dream was not ended. It would never end. It was in him to stay +and it was doing its work. The feeling which had surprised him as to +the sweetness of his mother's voice but marked the deeper awakening +that had taken place in his sleep, an unfolding, his natural growth. It +was this growth that now animated him as he smiled at Elinor's flying +figure. Her prank had not irritated him: no intrigue of hers would +ever annoy him again. Instead, the idea struck him that Elinor must +be thinking of him a great deal, if so much of her life--incessantly +active as it was with the other children of the cottages--were +devoted to plans to worry him. She must often have him in mind quite +to herself, he reflected; and this fresh picture of Elinor's secret +brooding about him somehow for the first time touched him tenderly and +finely. + +He turned back from the window shutters without opening them and sat +on the edge of his bed. He could not shake off his dream. How could it +possibly be true that there was no such forest as he had wandered into +in his dream--that Kentucky wilderness of the old heroic days? Could +anything destroy in him the certainty that with wildly beating heart he +had seen the living colours and heard the actual notes and watched the +characteristic movements of the warbler? Then, though these things were +not real, still they were true and would remain true always. + +Thus, often and to many of us, between closing the curtains of the +eyes upon the outer world at night and drawing them wide in the +morning, within that closed theatre a stage has been erected and we +have stepped forth and spoken some solitary part or played a rôle in a +drama that leaves us changed for the rest of our days. Yesterday an old +self, today a new self. We have been shifted completely away from our +last foot-prints and our steps move off in another direction, taking a +truer course. + +Beyond all else a high, solemn sense subdued Webster with the thought, +that in his sleep he had come near as to unearthly things. The +long-dead hunter, who had appeared to him, spoke as though he lived +elsewhere than on the earth and lived more nobly; his accents, the +majesty of his countenance, were moulded as by higher wisdom and +goodness. Webster was overwhelmed with the feeling that he had been +brought near the mystery of life and death and as from an immortal +spirit had received his consecration to the forest. + +... He got down on his knees at his bedside, after a while, though +little used to prayer.... + +When he walked into the breakfast-room with a fresh step and freshened +countenance, probably all were not slow to notice the change. Families +whose lives run along the groove of familiar routine quickly observe +the slightest departure from the customary, whether in voice or +behaviour, of any member. There was response soon after his entrance +to something in him obviously unusual. + +"My son," said his father, who had laid down his paper to help him to +the slice which had been put aside, "the woods must agree with you"; +and he even scraped the dish for a little extra gravy. Ordinarily, when +deeply interested in his paper or occasionally when conscious of some +disappointment as to his son, he forgot, or was indifferent about, the +gravy. + +"They do agree with me!" Webster replied, laughing and in fresh tones. +He held out his plate hungrily for his slice and he waited for all the +gravy that might be coming to him. + +"One of the boys has already been here this morning," said his mother, +handing him his cup. "They want you to be sure to meet them this +afternoon, not to fail. You must have been dead asleep, for I called +you at three different times." + +"Did you knock three times?" + +Webster asked his question with a sinking of the heart; what if his +mother's first knock had awakened him? He might never have finished his +dream, might never have dreamed at all. How different the morning might +have been, how different the world--if his mother had awakened him +before his dream! + +He received his cup from her and smiled at her: + +"I was dreaming," he said, and he smiled also at the safety of his +vision. + +Elinor, sitting opposite him, had said nothing. She had finished her +breakfast before he had come in and plainly lingered till he should +enter. Since his entrance she had sat restless in her chair, toying +with her fork or her napkin, and humming significantly to herself. She +had this habit. "You must not sing at the table, Elinor," her mother +had once said. "I am _not_ singing," Elinor had replied, "I am humming +to myself, and _no_ one is supposed to listen." Meantime this morning, +her quickly shifting eyes would sweep his face questioningly; she must +have been waiting for some sign as to what had been the effect of the +Thomas Jefferson bluejay the night before and of the repeated attack on +his window shutters. + +Often when out of humour with her he had declined to notice her at +table; now once, when he caught her searching glance, he smiled. +Dubiously, half with disbelief and half with amazement, she looked +steadily back at him for an instant; then she slipped confusedly from +her seat and was gone. Webster laughed within himself: "what will she +be up to next?" he thought. + +It was quiet now at the table: his father had gone back to his paper, +his mother was eating the last of her breakfast fruit, and perhaps, +thinking that out in the country things were getting ripe. After an +interval Webster broke the silence: he was white with emotion. + +"Father," he said quietly, "I have decided what I'd like to do." + +Webster's father dropped his paper: Webster's mother's eyes were on +him. The years had waited for this moment, the future depended upon it. + +"If you and mother do not need me for anything else just yet, I'd +like to work my way through the University. But if there's something +different you'd rather I'd do, or if you both want me in any other way, +I am here." + +"My son," exclaimed his father, rudely with the back of his hand +brushing away a tear that rolled down his cheek--a tear perhaps started +by something in his son's words that brought back his own hard boyhood, +"your father is here to work for you as long as he is alive and able. +Your mother and I are glad--!" but he, got no further: his eyes had +filled and his voice choked him. + +Webster's mother stood beside him, her hand on his head, her +handkerchief pressed to her eyes. + + * * * * * + +When he had made his preparations for the glad day's adventure and +stepped out on the front porch, his father had gone to the bank, his +mother was in the kitchen. Elinor was sitting on the top step. Her +back was turned. Her sharp little elbows rested on her knees and her +face was propped in her palms. Her figure again suggested a crumpled, +purple morning-glory--fragile, not threatened by any human violence but +imperilled by nature. + +She did not look around as he stepped out or move as he passed down. +He felt a new wish to say something pleasant but could not quite so +conquer himself. As he laid his hand on the yard gate, he was stopped +by these words, reaching his ears from the porch: + +"Take me with you!" + +He could not believe his ears. Could this be Elinor, his tease, his +torment? This wounded appeal, timid pleading--could it proceed from +Elinor? He was thrown off his balance and too surprised to act. The +words were repeated more beseechingly, wistfully: + +"Take me with you, will you, Webster?" + +For now that she had given herself away to him, he might as well see +everything: that at last she was openly begging that she be admitted to +a share in his plans and pleasures, that he no longer disdain to play +with her. + +He spoke with rough embarrassment over his shoulder: + +"You can't go today. Nobody can go today. I'm going miles out into the +country to the woods." + +"But some day will you take me over into the woods yonder?" + +After a while he turned toward her: + +"Yes, I will." + +"Thank you very much. Thank you very much, indeed, Webster!" + +The tide of feeling began to rush toward her: + +"There are some wild violets over there, Elinor, wild blue violets and +wild white violets--thick beds of them in the shade." + +"Oh, how lovely!" She clasped her hands and knotted them tensely under +her chin and kept her eyes fixed more hopefully on him. + +"There is a flock of the funniest little fairies dancing under one of +the big forest trees, each carrying the queerest little green parasol." + +"How perfectly, perfectly lovely!" + +"And I found one little cedar tree. If they'll let us, I'll dig it up +and bring it home and plant it in the front yard. It will be your own +cedar tree, Elinor." + +"Oh, Webster! Could anything be more lovely of you?" + +"You and I and Jenny will go some day soon--" + +"No, no, no!" cried Elinor, stamping her feet fiercely and wringing her +hands. "I don't want Jenny to go! I won't have Jenny! Just you and I! +Not Jenny! Just you and I!" + +"Then just you and I," he said, smiling at her and moving away. + +"_Wait!_" + +She darted down the steps and ran to him and drew his face over and +laid her cheek against his cheek, clinging to him. + +He struggled to get away, laughing with his new happiness: tears welled +out of her eyes with hers. + + * * * * * + +Webster had taken to the turnpike. + +The morning was cool, the blue of the sky vast, tender, noble. Rain +during the night had left the atmosphere fresh and clear and the pike +dustless. Little knobs of the bluish limestone jutted out. The greyish +grass and weeds on each side had been washed till they looked green +again. + +The pike climbed a hill and from this hilltop he turned and looked +back. He could see the packed outskirts of the city and away over in +the heart of it church spires rising here and there. The heart of it +had once been the green valley through which a stream of the wilderness +ran: there Wilson had seen the water mills and the gallows for hanging +Kentuckians and the thousand hitched horses and folks sitting on the +public square selling cakes of maple sugar and split squirrels. + +Soon he passed the pasture where he had spent yesterday. That had done +well enough as a beginning: today he would go further. He remembered +many things he had seen in the park-like bluegrass woods. Sweet to his +ear sounded the call of bobwhite from the yellow grain. He wondered +whether the ailing young crows in the tree-tops had at last taken all +their medicine. The curious bird which had watched him out of a hole in +the tree-trunk--the chap with the black band across his chest and the +speckled jacket and the red cap on the back of his head, was he still +on the lookout? What had become of the gorgeous little velvet coach +that had travelled across the back of his hand on its unknown road? +And that mystery of the high leaves--that wandering disembodied voice: +_Se-u-re? Se-u-u._ Did it still haunt the waving boughs? + +But miles on ahead in the country, undergrowth, shade, secrecy for wild +creatures--his heart leaped forward to these and his feet hastened. + +This day with both eyes open, not shut in sleep, he might find the +warbler. + +Whole-heartedly, with a boy's eagerness, Webster suddenly took off his +hat and ran down the middle of the gleaming white turnpike toward the +green forest--toward all, whether much or little, that he was ever to +be. + +[Illustration: chapter V--end decoration] + + + + +[Illustration: logo--Country Life Press] + + THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS + GARDEN CITY, N.Y. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 46905 *** |