^ LIBRARY | I UNIVERSITY OF CALIF ( I SAN DIEGO fcoofea bj> ^flr. Correp. BIRDS IN THE BUSH. i6mo, $1.25. A RAMBLER'S LEASE. i6mo, $1.25. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK. A RAMBLER'S LEASE BY BRADFORD TORREY I have known many laboring men that have got good estates in this valley. BUNYAN Sunbeams, shadows, butterflies, and birds. WORDSWORTH BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 1889 Copyright, 1889, BY BRADFORD TORREY. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S.A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O lloughton & Co PREFATORY NOTE. THE writer of this little book has found so much pleasure in other men's woods and fields that he has come to look upon him- self as in some sort the owner of them. Their lawful possessors will not begrudge him this feeling, he believes, nor take it amiss if he assumes, even in this public way, to hold a rambler's lease of their prop- erty. Should it please them to do so, they may accept the papers herein con- tained as a kind of return, the best he knows how to offer, for the many favors, alike unproffere ; d and unasked, which he has received at their hands. His private opinion is that the world belongs to those who enjoy it ; and taking this view of the iv PREFATORY NOTE. matter, he cannot help thinking that some of his more prosperous neighbors would do well, in legal phrase, to perfect their titles. He would gladly be of service to them in this regard. CONTENTS. MY REAL ESTATE 1 A WOODLAND INTIMATE 22 AN OLD ROAD 45 CONFESSIONS OF A BIRD'S-NEST HUNTEB . . 70 A GREEN MOUNTAIN CORN-FIELD ... 99 BEHIND THE EYE H4 A NOVEMBER CHRONICLE 121 NEW ENGLAND WINTER 14 A MouNTAiK-SiDE RAMBLE .... 164 A PITCH-PINE MEDITATION 182 ESOTERIC PERIPATETICISM 189 BUTTERFLY PSYCHOLOGY 206 BASHFUL DRUMMERS 214 A RAMBLER'S LEASE. MY REAL ESTATE. Yet some did think that he had little business here. WOKDSWOKTH. EVERY autumn the town of W sends me a tax -bill, a kindly remembrance for which I never fail of feeling grateful. It is pleasant to know that after all these years there still remains one man in the old town who cherishes my memory, though it be only " this publican." Besides, to speak frankly, there is a measure of satis- faction in being reminded now and then of my dignity as a landed proprietor. One may be never so rich in stocks and bonds, government consols and what not, but, ac- ceptable as such " securities " are, they are after all not quite the same as a section of the solid globe itself. True, this species of what we may call astronomic or planet- ary property will sometimes prove compara- 2 MY REAL ESTATE. lively unremunerative. Here in New Eng- land (I know not what may be true else- where) there is a class of people whom it is common to hear gossiped about compassion- ately as " land poor." But, however scanty the income to be derived from it, a landed investment is at least substantial. It will never fail its possessor entirely. If it starve him, it will offer him a grave. It has the prime quality of permanence. At the very worst, it will last as long as it is needed. Railroads may be " wrecked," banks be broken, governments become bankrupt, and we be left to mourn ; but when the earth departs we shall go with it. Yes, the an- cient form of speech is correct, land is real; as the modern phrase goes, translat- ing Latin into Saxon, land is the thing ; and though we can scarcely reckon it among the necessaries of life, since so many do without it, we may surely esteem it one of the least dispensable of luxuries. But I was beginning to speak of my tax- bill, and must not omit to mention a further advantage of real estate over other forms of property, It is certain not to be over- looked by the town assessors. Its pro- MY REAL ESTATE. 3 prietor is never shut up to the necessity of either advertising his own good fortune, or else submitting to pay less than his right- ful share of the public expenses, a merci- ful deliverance, for in such a strait, where either modesty or integrity must go to the wall, it is hard for human nature to be sure of itself. To my thinking there is no call upon a man's purse which should be responded to with greater alacrity than this of the tax- gatherer. In what cause ought we to spend freely, if not in that of home and country ? I have heard, indeed, of some who do not agree with me in this feeling. Possibly tax - rates are now and then exorbitant. Possibly, too, my own view of the subject might be different were my quota of the public levy more considerable. This year, for instance, I am called upon for seventy- three cents ; if the demand were for as many dollars, who knows whether I might not welcome it with less enthusiasm ? On such a point it would be unbecoming for me to speak. Enough that even with my fraction of a dollar I am able to rejoice that I have a share in all the town's multifa- 4 MY REAL ESTATE. rious outlay. If an additional fire-engine is bought, or a new school-house built, or the public library replenished, it is done in part out of ray pocket. Here, however, let me make a single ex- ception. I seldom go home (such language still escapes me involuntarily) without find- ing that one or another of the old roads has been newly repaired. I hope that no mill of my annual seventy or eighty cents goes into work of that sort. The roads such as I have in mind are out of the way and little traveled, and, in my opin- ion, were better left to take care of them- selves. There is no artist but will testify that a crooked road is more picturesque than a straight one ; while a natural border of alder bushes, grape-vines, Roxbury wax- work, Virginia creeper, wild cherry, and such like is an inexpensive decoration of the very best sort, such as the Village Improvement Society ought never to allow any highway surveyor to lay his hands on, unless in some downright exigency. What a short - sighted policy it is that provides for the comfort of the feet, but makes no account of those more intellectual and spir- MY REAL ESTATE. 5 itual pleasures which enter through the eye! It may be answered, I know, that in matters of general concern it is necessary to consult the greatest good of the great- est number ; and that, while all the inhab- itants of the town are supplied with feet, comparatively few of them have eyes. There is force in this, it must be admitted. Possibly the highway surveyor (the high- wayman, I was near to writing) is not so altogether wrong in his "improvements." At all events, it is not worth while for me to make the question one of conscience, and go to jail rather than pay my taxes, as Thoreau did. Let it suffice to enter my protest. Whatever others may desire, for myself, as often as I revisit W , I wish to be able to repeat with unction the words of W 's only poet, 1 " How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood ! " And how am I to do that, if the " scenes " have been modernized past recognition ? 1 Since this essay was originally published (in the Atlantic Monthly) I have been assured that the author of The Old Oaken Bucket was not born in W , but in the next town. Being convinced against my will, however, and finding the biographical dictionaries divided upon the point, I conclude to let the text stand unaltered. 6 MY REAL ESTATE. My own landed possessions are happily remote from roads. Not till long after my day will the " tide of progress " bring them " into the market," as the real-estate brokers are fond of saying. I have never yet been troubled with the importunities of would-be purchasers. Indeed, it is a prin- cipal recommendation of woodland prop- erty that one's sense of proprietorship is so little liable to be disturbed. I often reflect how altered the case would be were my fraction of an acre in some peculiarly de- sirable location near the centre of the vil- lage. Then I could hardly avoid knowing that the neighbors were given to speculat- ing among themselves about my probable selling price ; once in a while I should be confronted with a downright offer ; and what assurance could I feel that somebody would not finally tempt me beyond my strength, and actually buy me out ? As it is, my land is mine ; and, unless extreme poverty overtakes me, mine it is reasona- bly certain to remain, till death shall sepa- rate us. Whatever contributes to render life in- teresting and enjoyable goes so far toward MY REAL ESTATE. 7 making difficult its final inevitable sur- render ; and it must be confessed that the thought of my wood-lot increases my other- wise natural regret at being already so well along on my journey. In a sense I feel my own existence to be bound up with that of my pine-trees ; or, to speak more exactly, that their existence is bound up with mine. For it is a sort of unwritten but inexora- ble law in W , as in fact it appears to be throughout New England, that no pine must ever be allowed to reach more than half its normal growth ; so that my trees are certain to fall under the axe as soon as their present owner is out of the way. I am not much given to superstition. There are no longer any dryads, it is to be pre- sumed ; and if there were, it is not clear that they would be likely to take up with pines ; but for all that, I cherish an almost affectionate regard for any trees with which I have become familiar. I have mourned the untimely fate of many ; and now, see- ing that I have been entrusted with the guardianship of these few, I hold myself under a kind of sacred obligation to live as long as possible, for their sakes. 8 MY REAL ESTATE. It is now a little less than a fortnight since I paid them a visit. The path runs through the wood for perhaps half a mile ; and, as I sauntered along, I heard every few rods the thump of falling acorns, though there was barely wind enough to sway the tree-tops. " Mother Earth has begun her harvesting in good earnest," I thought. The present is what the squir- rels call a good year. They will laugh and grow fat. Their oak orchards have seldom done better, the chestnut oaks in partic- ular, the handsome, rosy-tipped acorns of which are noticeably abundant. This interesting tree, so like the chestnut itself in both bark and leaf, is unfortu- nately not to be found in my own lot; at any rate, I have never discovered it there, although it grows freely only a short dis- tance away. But I have never explored the ground with anything like thorough- ness, and, to tell the truth, am not at all certain that I know just where the bound- aries run. In this respect my real estate is not unlike my intellectual possessions ; con- cerning which I often find it impossible to determine what is actually mine and what MY REAL ESTATE. 9 another's. I have written an essay before now, and at the end been more or less in doubt where to set the quotation marks. For that matter, indeed, I incline to believe that the whole tract of woods in the midst of which my little spot is situated belongs to me quite as really as to the various per- sons who claim the legal ownership. Not many of these latter, I am confident, get a better annual income from the property than I do ; and even in law, we are told, possession counts for nine points out of the ten. They are never to be found at home when I call, and I feel no scruple about carrying away whatever I please. My treas- ures, be it said, however, are chiefly of an impalpable sort, mostly thoughts and feelings, though with a few flowers and ferns now and then ; the one set about as valuable as the other, the proprietors of the land would probably think. In one aspect of the case, the lot which is more strictly my own is just now in a very interesting condition, though one that, unhappily, is far from being uncommon. Except the pines already mentioned (only six or eight in number), the wood was en- 10 MY REAL ESTATE. tirely cut off a few years before I came into possession, and at present the place is covered with a thicket of vines, bushes, and young trees, all engaged in an almost des- perate struggle for existence. When the ground was cleared, every seed in it be- stirred itself and came up ; others made haste to enter from without ; and ever since then the battle has been going on. It is curious to consider how changed the ap- pearance of things will be at the end of fifty years, should nature be left till then to take its course. By that time the contest will for the most part be over. At least nineteen twentieths of all the plants that enlisted in the fight will have been killed, and where now is a dense mass of shrub- bery will be a grove of lordly trees, with the ground underneath broad -spaced and clear. A noble result ; but achieved at what a cost ! If one were likely himself to live so long, it would be worth while to cat- alogue the species now in the field, for the sake of comparing the list with a similar one of half a century later. The contrast would be an impressive sermon on the mu- tability of mundane things. But we shall MY REAL ESTATE. H be past the need of preaching, most of us, before that day arrives, and not unlikely shall have been ourselves preached about in enforcement of the same trite theme. Thoughts of this kind came to me the other afternoon, as I stood in the path (what is known as the town path cuts the lot in two) and looked about. So much was going on in this bit of earth, itself the very centre of the universe to multitudes of living things. The city out of which I had come was not more densely populous. Here at my elbow stood a group of sassafras saplings, remnants of a race that has held the ground for nobody knows how long. One of my earliest recollections of the place is of coming hither to dig for fragrant roots. At that time it had never dawned upon me that the owner of the land would some day die, and leave it to me, his heir. How hard and rocky the ground was ! And how hard we worked for a very little bark ! Yet few of my pleasures have lasted better. The spicy taste is in my mouth still. Even in those days I remarked the glossy green twigs of this elegant species, as well as the unique and beautiful variety of its leaves, 12 MY REAL ESTATE. some entire and oval, others mitten- shaped, and others yet three-lobed ; an ex- tremely pretty bit of originality, suiting admirably with the general comely habit of this tree. There are some trees, as some men, that seem born to dress well. Along with the sassafras I was delighted to find one or two small specimens of the flowering dogwood {Cornus florida), an- other original genius, and one which I now for the first time became acquainted with as a tenant of my own. Its deeply veined leaves are not in any way remarkable (un- less it be for their varied autumnal tints), and are all fashioned after one pattern. Its blossoms, too, are small and inconspic- uous ; but these it sets round with large white bracts (universally mistaken for petals by the uninitiated), and in flower- ing time it is beyond comparison the show- iest tree in the woods, while its fruit is the brightest of coral red. I hope these sap- lings of mine may hold their own in the struggle for life, and be flourishing in all their beauty when my successor goes to look at them fifty years hence. . Having spoken of the originality of the J/r REAL ESTATE. 13 sassafras and the dogwood, I must not fail to mention their more abundant neighbor, the witch - hazel, or harnamelis. In com- parison with its wild freak of singularity, the modest idiosyncrasies of the other two seem almost conventional. Why, if not for sheer oddity's sake, should any bush in this latitude hold back its blossoms till near the edge of winter? As I looked at the half- grown buds, clustered in the axils of the yellow leaves, they appeared to be waiting for the latter to fall, that they might have the sunlight all to themselves. They will need it, one would say, in our bleak No- vember weather. Overfull of life as my wild garden patch was, it would not have kept its (human) possessor very long from starvation. One or two barberry bushes made a brave show of fruitf ulness ; but the handsome clusters were not yet ripe, and even at their best they are more ornamental than nutritive, though, after the frost has cooked them, one may go farther and fare worse. A few stunted maple-leaved viburnums (this plant's originality is imitative, a not un- common sort, by the bye) proffered scanty 14 MY REAL ESTATE. cymes of dark purplish drupes. Here and there was a spike of red berries, belong- ing to the false Solomon's - seal or false spikenard (what a pity this worthy herb should not have some less negative title !) ; but these it would have been a shame to steal from the grouse. Not far off a single black alder was reddening its fruit, which all the while it hugged close to the stem, as if in dread lest some chance traveler should be attracted by the bright color. It need not have trembled, for this time at least. I had just dined, and was tempted by nothing save two belated blackberries, the very last of the year's crop, and a single sassafras leaf, mucilaginous and savory, ad- mirable as a relish. A few pigeon-berries might have been found, I dare say, had I searched for them, and possibly a few spo- radic checkerberries ; while right before my eyes was a vine loaded with large bunches of very small frost-grapes, such as for hardness would have served well enough for school-boys' marbles. Everything has its favorable side, however; and probably the birds counted it a blessing that the grapes were small and hard and sour ; else MY REAL ESTATE. 15 greedy men would have come with baskets and carried them all away. Except some scattered rose - hips, I have enumerated everything that looked edible, I believe, though a hungry man's eyes might have lengthened the list materially. The cherry- trees, hickories, and oaks were not yet in bearing, as the horticultural phrase is ; but I was glad to run upon a clump of bayberry bushes, which offer nothing good to eat, to be sure, but are excellent to smell of. The leaves always seem to invite crushing, and I never withhold my hand. Among the crowd of young trees scrub oaks, red oaks, white oaks, cedars, ashes, hickories, birches, maples, aspens, sumachs, and hornbeams was a single tupelo. The distinguished name honors my catalogue, but I am half sorry to have it there. For, with all its sturdiness, the tupelo does not bear competition, and I foresee plainly that my unlucky adventurer will inevitably find itself overshadowed by more rapid growers, and be dwarfed and deformed, if not killed outright. Some of the very strongest natures (and the remark is of general application) require to be planted 16 MY REAL ESTATE. in the open, where they can be free to de- velop in their own way and at leisure. But this representative of Nyssa multiflora took the only chance that offered, I presume, as the rest of us must do. Happy the humble ! who aspire not to lofty things, demanding the lapse of years for their fulfillment, but are content to set before themselves some lesser task, such as the brevity of a single season may suffice to accomplish. Here were the asters and golden -rods already finishing their course in glory, while the tupelo was still barely getting under way in a race which, how- ever prolonged, was all but certain to ter- minate in failure. Of the golden -rods I noted four species, including the white which might appropriately be called sil- very - rod and the blue-stemmed. The latter (Solidago ccesia) is to my eye the prettiest of all that grow with us, though it is nearly the least obtrusive. It is rarely, if ever, found outside of woods, and ought to bear some name (sylvan golden-rod, per- haps) indicative of the fact. As a rule, fall flowers have little deli- cacy and fragrance. They are children of MY REAL ES TA TE. 1 7 the summer ; and, loving the sun, have had almost an excess of good fortune. With such pampering, it is no wonder they grow rank and coarse. They would be more than human, I was going to say, if they did not. It is left for stern winter's pro- geny, the blossoms of early spring-time, who struggle upward through the snow and are blown upon by chilly winds, it is left for these gentle creatures, at once so hardy and so frail, to illustrate the sweet uses of adversity. All in all, it was a motley company which I beheld thus huddled together in my speck of forest clearing. Even the lands beyond the sea were represented, for here stood mullein and yarrow, contesting the ground with oaks and hickories. The smaller wood flowers were not wanting, of course, though none of them were now in bloom. Pyrola and winter -green, violets (the common blue sort and the leafy- stemmed yellow), strawberry and five-finger, saxifrage and columbine, rock -rose and bed-straw, self - heal and wood - sorrel, these, and no doubt many more, were there, filling the chinks otherwise unoccupied. 18 MY REAL ESTATE. My assortment of ferns is small, but I noted seven species: the brake, the poly- pody, the hay-scented, and four species of shield - ferns, Aspidium Noveboracense, Aspidium spinulosum, variety intermedium , Aspidium marginale, and the Christmas fern, Aspidium acrostichoides. The last named is the one of which I am proudest. For years I have been in the habit of com- ing hither at Christmas time to gather the fronds, which are then as bright and fresh as in June. Two of the others, the poly- pody and Aspidium marginale, are ever- green also, but they are coarser in texture and of a less lively color. Writing of these flowerless beauties, I am tempted to exclaim again, " Happy the humble ! " The brake is much the largest and stoutest of the seven, but it is by a long time the first to be cut down before the frost. Should I ever meet with reverses, as the wealthiest and most prudent are liable to do, and be compelled to part with my woodland inheritance, I shall count it ex- pedient to seek a purchaser in the spring. At that season its charms are greatly enhanced by a lively brook. This comes MY REAL ESTATE. 19 tumbling down the hill -side, dashing against the bowlders (of which the land has plenty), and altogether acting like a thing not born to die ; but alas, the early summer sees it make an end, to wait the melting of next winter's snow. Many a happy hour did I, as a youngster, pass upon its banks, watching with wonder the swarms of tiny insects which darkened the foam and the snow, and even filmed the surface of the brook itself. I marveled then, as I do now, why such creatures should be out so early. Possibly our very prompt March friend, the phoebe, could suggest an explanation. A break in the forest is of interest not only to such plants as I have been remark- ing upon, but also to various species of birds. No doubt the towhee, the brown thrush, and the cat-bird found out this spot years ago, and have been using it ever since for summer quarters. Indeed, a cat-bird snarled at me for an intruder this very September afternoon, though he himself was most likely nothing more than a chance pilgrim going South. This member of the noble wren family and near cousin of the 20 MY REAL ESTATE. mocking-bird would be better esteemed if he were to drop that favorite feline call of his. But this is his bit of originality (imi- tative, like the maple-leaved viburnum's), and perhaps, if justice were done, it would be put down to his credit rather than made an occasion of ill-will. Once during the afternoon a company of chickadees happened in upon me ; and, tak- ing my cue from the newspaper folk, I im- mediately essayed an interview. My imi- tation of their conversational notes was hardly begun before one of the birds flew toward me, and, alighting near by, pro- ceeded to answer my calls with a mimicry so exact, as fairly to be startling. To all appearance the quick - witted fellow had taken the game into his own hands. In- stead of my deceiving him, he would prob- ably go back and entertain his associates with amusing accounts of how cleverly he had fooled a stranger, out yonder in the bushes. It would have seemed a graceful and ap- propriate acknowledgment of my rightful ownership of the land on which the cat- bird and the titmice were foraging, had MY REAL ESTATE. 21 they greeted me with songs. But it would hardly have been courteous for me to pro- pose the matter, and evidently it did not occur to them. At all events, I heard no music except the hoarse and solemn assev- erations of the katydids, the gentler mes- sage of the crickets, and in the distance an occasional roll-call of the grouse. My dog who is a much better sportsman than myself, but whose companionship, I am ashamed to see, has not till now been men- tioned was all the while making forays hither and thither into the surrounding woods ; and once in a while I heard, what is the best of all music in his ears, the whir of " partridge " wings. Likely as not he thought it a queer freak on my part to spend the afternoon thus idly, when with a gun I might have been so much more profit- ably employed. He could not know that I was satiating myself with a miser's de- lights, feasting my eyes upon my own. In truth, I fancy he takes it for granted that the whole forest belongs to me and to him. Perhaps it does. As I said just now, I sometimes think so myself. A WOODLAND INTIMATE. Surely there are times When they consent to own me of their kin, And condescend to me, and call me cousin. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. IT is one of the enjoyable features of bird study, as in truth it is of life in gen- eral, that so many of its pleasantest expe- riences have not to be sought after, but befall us by the way ; like rare and beauti- ful flowers, which are never more welcome than when they smile upon us unexpect- edly from the roadside. One May morning I had spent an hour in a small wood where I am accustomed to saunter, and, coming out into the road on my way home again, fell in with a friend. " Would n't you like to see an oven- bird's nest ? " I inquired. He assented, and turning back, I piloted him to the spot. The little mother sat motionless, just within the door of her comfortable, roofed house, watching us intently, but all uncon- A WOODLAND INTIMATE. 23 scious, it is to be feared, of our admiring comments upon her ingenuity and courage. Seeing her thus devoted to her charge, I wondered anew whether she could be so in- nocent as not to know that one of the eggs on which she brooded with such assiduity was not her own, but had been foisted upon her by a faithless cow-bird. To me, I must confess, it is inexplicable that any bird should be either so unobservant as not to recognize a foreign egg at sight, or so easy- tempered as not to insist on straightway being rid of it ; though this is no more in- scrutable, it may be, than for another bird persistently, and as it were on principle, to cast her own offspring upon the protection of strangers ; while this, in turn, is not more mysterious than ten thousand every-day oc- currences all about us. After all, it is a wise man that knows what to wonder at ; while the wiser he grows the stronger is likely to become his conviction that, little as may be known, nothing is absolutely unknowable ; that in the world, as in its Author, there is probably " no darkness at all," save as daylight is dark to owls and bats. I did not see the oven-bird's eggs at 24 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. this time, however, my tender-hearted com- panion protesting that their faithful custo- dian should not be disturbed for the grati- fication of his curiosity. So we bade her adieu, and went in pursuit of a solitary vireo, just then overheard singing not far off. A few paces brought him into sight, and as we came nearer and nearer he stood quite still on a dead bough, in full view, singing all the while. When my friend had looked him over to his satisfaction, never having met with such a specimen be- fore, I set myself to examine the lower branches of the adjacent trees, feeling no doubt, from the bird's significant behavior, that his nest must be somewhere in the im- mediate neighborhood. Sure enough, it was soon discovered, hanging from near the end of an oak limb ; a typical vireo cup, sus- pended within the angle of two horizontal twigs, with bits of newspaper wrought into its structure, and trimmed outwardly with some kind of white silky substance. The female was in it (this, too, we might have foreseen with reasonable certainty) ; but when she flew off, it appeared that as yet no eggs were laid. The couple manifested A WOODLAND INTIMATE. 25 scarce any uneasiness at our investigations, and we soon came away ; stopping, as we left the wood, to spy out the nest of a scar- let tanager, the feminine builder of which was just then busy with giving it some fin- ishing touches. It had been a pleasant stroll, I thought, nothing more ; but it proved to be the beginning of an adventure which, to me at least, was in the highest degree novel and interesting. I ought, perhaps, to premise that the sol- itary vireo (called also the blue-headed vi- reoand the blue-headed greenlet) is strictly a bird of the woods. It belongs to a dis- tinctively American family, and is one of five species which are more or less abun- dant as summer residents in Eastern Mas- sachusetts, being itself in most places the least numerous of the five, and, with the possible exception of the white -eye, the most retiring. My own hunting-grounds happen to be one of its favorite resorts (there is none better in the State, I suspect), so that I am pretty certain of having two or three pairs under my eye every season, within a radius of half a mile. I have 26 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. found a number of nests, also, but till this year had never observed any marked pecu- liarity of the birds as to timidity or fear- lessness. Nor do I now imagine that any such strong race peculiarity exists. What I am to describe I suppose to be nothing more than an accidental and unaccount- able idiosyncrasy of the particular bird in question. Such freaks of temperament are more or less familiar to all field natural- ists, and may be taken as extreme develop- ments of that individuality which seems to be the birthright of every living creature, no matter how humble. At this very mo- ment I recall a white - throated sparrow, overtaken some years ago in an unfre- quented road, whose tameness was entirely unusual, and, indeed, little short of ridicu- lous. Three or four days after the walk just now mentioned I was again in the same wood, and went past the vireos' nest, pay- ing no attention to it beyond noting that one of the birds, presumed to be the female, was on duty. But the next morning, as I saw her again, it occurred to me to make an experiment. So, quitting the path sud- A WOODLA^D INTIMATE. 27 denly, I walked as rapidly as possible straight up to the nest, a distance of per- haps three rods, giving her no chance to slip off, with the hope of escaping unper- ceived. The plan worked to a charm, or so I flattered myself. When I came to a standstill my eyes were within a foot or two of hers ; in fact, I could get no nearer without running iny head against the branch; yet she sat quietly, apparently without a thought of being driven from her post, turning her head this way and that, but making no sound, and showing not the least sign of anything like distress. A mosquito buzzed about my face, and I brushed it off. Still she sat undisturbed. Then I placed my hand against the bottom of the nest. At this she half rose to her feet, craning her neck to see what was going on, but the moment I let go she settled back upon her charge. Surprised and de- lighted, I had no heart to pursue the mat- ter further, and turned away ; declaring to myself that, notwithstanding I had half promised a scientific friend the privilege of "taking" the nest, such a thing should now never be done with my consent. Be- 28 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. fore I could betray a confidence like this, I must be a more zealous ornithologist or a more unfeeling man, or both at once. Science ought to be encouraged, of course, but not to the outraging of honor and com- mon decency. On the following day, after repeating such amenities as I had previously indulged in, I put forth my hand as if to stroke the bird's plumage ; seeing which, she raised her beak threateningly and emitted a very faint deprecatory note, which would have been inaudible at the distance of a few yards. At the same time she opened and shut her bill, not snappishly, but slowly, a nervous action, simply, it seemed to me. Twenty-four hours later I called again, and was so favorably received that, besides taking hold of the nest, as before, I brushed her tail feathers softly. Then I put my hand to her head, on which she pecked my finger in an extremely pretty, gentle way, more like kissing than biting, and made use of the low murmuring sounds just now spoken of. Her curiosity was plainly wide awake. She stretched her neck to the ut- most to look under the nest, getting upon A WOODLAND INTIMATE. 29 her feet for the purpose, till I expected every moment to see her slip away ; but presently she grew quiet again, and I with- drew, leaving her in possession. By this time a daily interview had come to be counted upon as a matter of course, by me certainly, and, for aught I know, by the vireo as well. On my next visit I stroked the back of her head, allowed her to nibble the tip of my finger, and was greatly pleased with the matter-of-fact man- ner in which she captured an insect from the side of the nest, while leaning out to oversee my manoeuvres. Finally, on my offering to lay my left hand upon her, she quit her seat, and perched upon a twig, fronting me ; and when I put my finger to her bill she flew off. Even now she made no outcry, however, but fell immediately to singing in tones of absolute good -humor, and before I had gone four rods from the tree was back again upon the eggs. Of these, I should have said, there were four, the regular complement, all her own. Expert as cow-birds are at running a block- ade, it would have puzzled the shrewdest of them to smuggle anything into a nest so sedulously guarded. 30 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. Walking homeward, I bethought myself how foolish I had been not to offer my little protegee something to eat. Accordingly, in the morning, before starting out, I filled a small box with leaves from the garden rose-bush, which, as usual, had plenty of plant-lice upon it. Armed in this manner, as perhaps no ornithologist ever went armed before, I approached the nest, and to my delight saw it still unharmed (I never came in sight of it without dreading to find it pillaged) ; but just as I was putting my hand into my pocket for the box, off started the bird. Here was a disappointment in- deed ; but in the next breath I assured my- self that the recreant must be the male, who for once had been spelling his companion. So I fell back a little, and in a minute or less one of the pair went on to brood. This was the mother, without question, and I again drew near. True enough, she wel- comed me with all her customary polite- ness. No matter what her husband might say, she knew better than to distrust an inoffensive, kind - hearted gentleman like myself. Had I not proved myself such time and again ? So I imagined her to be A WOODLAND INTIMATE. 31 reasoning. At all events, she sat quiet and unconcerned ; apparently more unconcerned than her visitor, for, to tell the truth, I was so anxious for the success of this crowning experiment that I actually found myself trembling. However, I opened my store of dainties, wet the tip of my little finger, took up an insect, and held it to her mandibles. For a moment she seemed not to know what it was, but soon she picked it off and swallowed it. The second one she seized promptly, and the third she reached out to anticipate, exactly as a tame canary might have done. Before I could pass her the fourth she stepped out of the nest, and took a position upon the branch beside it ; but she accepted the morsel, none the less. And an extremely pretty sight it was, a wild wood bird perched upon a twig and feeding from a man's finger ! She would not stay for more, but flew to another bough ; whereupon I resumed my ramble, and, as usual, she covered the eggs again before I could get out of sight. When I returned, in half an hour or thereabouts, I proffered her a mosquito, which I had saved for that purpose. She took it, but presently 32 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. let it drop. It was not to her taste, prob- ably, for shortly afterward she caught one herself, as it came fluttering near, and dis- carded that also ; but she ate the remain- der of my rose-bush parasites, though I was compelled to coax her a little. Seemingly, she felt that our proceedings were more or less irregular, if not positively out of charac- ter. Not that she betrayed any symptoms of nervousness or apprehension, but she re- peatedly turned away her head, as if deter- mined to refuse all further overtures. In the end, nevertheless, as I have said, she ate the very last insect I had to give her. During the meal she did something which as a display of nonchalance was really amazing. The eggs got misplaced, in the course of her twisting about, and after vainly endeavoring to rearrange them with her feet, as I had seen her do on several occa- sions, she ducked her head into the nest, clean out of sight under her feathers, and set matters to rights with her beak. I was as near to her as I could well be, without having her actually in my hand, yet she deliberately put herself entirely off guard, apparently without the slightest misgiving I A WOODLAND INTIMATE. 33 Fresh from this adventure, and all aglow with pleasurable excitement, I met a friend in the city, a naturalist of repute, and one of the founders of the American Ornitholo- gists' Union. Of course I regaled him with an account of my wonderful vireo (he was the man to whom I had half promised the nest) ; and on his expressing a wish to see her, I invited him out for the purpose that very afternoon. I smile to remember how full of fears I was, as he promptly accepted the invitation. The bird, I declared to my- self, would be like the ordinary baby, who, as everybody knows, is never so stupid as when its fond mother would make a show of it before company. Yesterday it was so bright and cunning ! Never was baby like it. Yesterday it did such and such unheard- of things ; but to-day, alas, it will do noth- ing at all. However, I put on a bold face, filled my pen -box with rose-leaves, ex- changed my light-colored hat for the black one in which my pet had hitherto seen me, furnished my friend with a field-glass, and started with him for the wood. The nest was occupied (I believe I never found it otherwise), and, stationing my associate in 34 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. a favorable position, I marched up to it, when, lo, the bird at once took wing. This was nothing to be disconcerted about, the very promptness of the action making it certain that the sitter must have been the male. The pair were both in sight, and the female would doubtless soon fill the place which her less courageous lord had deserted. So it turned out, and within a minute everything was in readiness for a second es- say. This proved successful. The first insect was instantly laid hold of, whereupon I heard a suppressed exclamation from be- hind the field-glass. When I rejoined my friend, having exhausted my supplies, noth- ing would do but he must try something of the kind himself. Accordingly, seizing my hat, which dropped down well over his ears, he made up to the tree. The bird pecked his finger familiarly, and before long he came rushing back to the path, exclaiming that he must find something with which to feed her. After overturning two or three stones he uncovered an ant's nest, and moistening his forefinger, thrust it into a mass of eggs. With these he hastened to the vireo. She helped herself to them ea- A WOODLAND INTIMATE. 35 gerly, and I could hear him counting, " One, two, three, four," and so on, as she ate mouthful after mouthful. Now, then, he wished to examine the contents of the nest, especially as it was the first of its kind that he had ever seen out- of-doors. But the owner was set upon not giving him the opportunity. He stroked her head, brushed her wings, and, as my note-book puts it, " poked her generally ; " and still she kept her place. Finally, as he stood on one side of her and I on the other, we pushed the branch down, down, till she was fairly under our noses. Then she stepped off ; but even now, it was only to alight on the very next twig, and face us calmly ! and we had barely started away before we saw her again on duty. Brave bird ! My friend was exceedingly pleased, and I not less so ; though the fact of her making no difference between us was some- thing of a shock to my self-conceit, en- deavor as I might to believe that she had welcomed him, if not in my stead, yet at least as my friend. What an odd pair we must have looked in her eyes ! Possibly she had heard of the new movement for the pro- 36 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. tection of American song-birds, and took us for representatives of the Audubon Society. Desiring to make some fresh experiment, I set out the next morning with a little water and a teaspoon, in addition to my ordinary outfit of rose-leaves. The mother bird was at home, and without hesitation dipped her bill into the water, the very first solitary vireo, I dare be bound, that ever drank out of a silver spoon ! After- wards I gave her the insects, of which she swallowed twenty-four as fast as I could pick them up. Evidently she was hungry, and appreciated my attentions. There was nothing whatever of the coquettishness which she had sometimes displayed. On the contrary, she leaned forward to wel- come the tidbits, one by one, quite as if it were the most natural thing in the world for birds to be waited upon in this fashion by their human admirers. Toward the end, however, a squirrel across the way set up a loud bark, and she grew nervous ; so that when it came to the twenty-fifth louse, which was the last I could find, she was too much preoccupied to care for it. At this point a mosquito stung my neck, A WOODLAND INTIMATE. 37 and, killing it, I held it before her. She snapped at it in a twinkling, but retained it between her mandibles. Whether she would finally have swallowed it I am not able to say (and so must leave undecided a very interesting and important question in economic ornithology), for just then I re- membered a piece of banana with which I had been meaning to tempt her. Of this she tasted at once, and, as I thought, found it good ; for she transfixed it with her bill, and, quitting her seat, carried it away and deposited it on a branch. But instead of eating it, as I expected to see her do, she fell to fly-catching, while her mate promptly appeared, and as soon as opportunity of- fered took his turn at brooding. My eyes, meanwhile, had not kept the two distinct, and, supposing that the mother had re- turned, I stepped up to offer her another drink, but had no sooner filled the spoon than the fellow took flight. At this the female came to the rescue again, and un- hesitatingly entered the nest. It was a noble reproof, I thought ; well deserved, and very handsomely administered. " Oh, you cowardly dear," I fancied her saying, 38 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. " he '11 not hurt you. See me, now ! I 'm not afraid. He 's queer, I know ; but he means well." I should have mentioned that while the squirrel was barking she uttered some very pretty sotto voce notes of two kinds, one like what I have often heard, and one en- tirely novel. A man ought to have lived with such a creature, year in and out, and seen it under every variety of mood and condition, before imagining himself possessed of its entire vocabulary. For who doubts that birds, also, have their more sacred and intimate feelings, their esoteric doctrines and ex- periences, which are not proclaimed upon the tree-top, but spoken under breath, in all but inaudible twitters ? Certainly this pet of mine on sundry occasions whispered into my ear things which I had never heard before, and as to the purport of which, in my ignorance of the vireonian tongue, I could only conjecture. For my own part, I am through with thinking that I have mastered all the notes of any bird, even the commonest. I wondered, by the bye, whether my A WOODLAND INTIMATE. 39 speech was as unintelligible to the greenlet as hers was to me. I trust, at all events, that she divined a meaning in the tones, however she may have missed the words ; for I never called without telling her how much I admired her spirit. She was all that a bird ought to be, I assured her, good, brave, and handsome ; and should never suffer harm, if I could help it. Alas ! al- though, as the apostle says, I loved "not in word, but in deed and in truth," yet when the pinch came I was somewhere else, and all my promises went for nothing. Our intercourse was nearing its end. It was already the 10th of June, and on the 12th I was booked for a journey. During my last visit but one it gratified me not a little to perceive that the wife's example and reproof had begun to tell upon net- mate. He happened to be in the nest as I came up, and sat so unconcernedly while I made ready to feed him that I took it for granted I was dealing with the female, till at the last moment he slipped away. I stepped aside for perhaps fifteen feet, and waited briefly, both birds in sight. Then the lady took her turn at sitting, and I 40 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. proceeded to try again. She behaved like herself, made free with a number of insects, and then, all at once, for no reason that I could guess at, she sprang out of the nest, and alighted on the ground within two yards of my feet, and almost before I could realize what had occurred was up in the tree. I had my eyes upon her, determined, if possible, to keep the pair distinct, and suc- ceeded, as I believed, in so doing. Pretty soon the male (unless I was badly de- ceived) went to the nest with a large in- sect in his bill, and stood for some time be- side it, eating and chattering. Finally he dropped upon the eggs, and, seeing him grown thus unsuspicious, I thought best to test him once more. This time he kept his seat, and with great condescension ate two of my plant-lice. But there he made an end. Again and again I put the third one to his mouth ; but he settled back obsti- nately into the nest, and would have none of it. For once, as it seemed, he could be brave ; but he was not to be coddled, or treated like a baby or a female. There were good reasons, of course, for his being less hungry than his mate, and conse- A WOODLAND INTIMATE. 41 quently less appreciative of such favors as I had to bestow ; but it was very amusing to see how tightly he shut his bill, as if his mind were made up, and no power on earth should shake it. If any inquisitive person raises the ques- tion whether I am absolutely certain of this bird's being the male, I must answer in the negative. The couple were dressed alike, as far as I could make out, save that the female was much the more brightly washed with yellow en the sides of the body ; and my present discrimination of them was based upon close attention to this point, as well as upon my careful and apparently successful effort not to confuse the two, after the one which I knew to be the female (the one, that is, which had done most of the sitting, and had all along been so very familiar) had joined the other among the branches. I had no downright proof, it must be acknowledged, nor could I have had any without killing and dissect- ing the bird ; but my own strong convic- tion was and is that the male had grown fearless by observing my treatment of his spouse, but from some difference of taste, 42 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. or, more probably, for lack of appetite, found himself less taken than she had com- monly been with my rather meagre bill of fare. This persuasion, it cannot be denied, was considerably shaken the next morning, when I paid my friends a parting call. The father bird, forgetful of his own good ex- ample of the day before, and mindless of all the proprieties of such a farewell occa- sion, slipped incontinently from the eggs just as I was removing the cover from my pen-box. Well, he missed the last oppor- tunity he was likely ever to have of break- fasting from a human finger. So ignorant are birds, no less than men, of the day of their visitation ! Before I could get away, while I was yet within two yards of the nest, the other bird hastened to occupy the vacant place. She knew what was due to so considerate and well-tried a friend, if her partner did not. The little darling ! As soon as she was well in position I stepped to her side, opened my treasures, and gave her, one by one, twenty-six insects (all I had), which she took with avidity, reaching forward again and again to antici- A WOODLAND INTIMATE. 43 pate my motions. Then I stole a last look at the four pretty eggs, having almost to force her from the nest for that purpose, bade her good-by, and came away, sorry enough to leave her ; forecasting, as I could not help doing, the slight probability of finding her again on my return, and pictur- ing to myself all the sweet, motherly ways she would be certain to develop as soon as the little ones were hatched. Within an hour I was speeding toward the Green Mountains. There, in those an- cient Vermont forests, I saw and heard other solitary vireos, but none that treated me as my Melrose pair had done. Noble and gentle spirits ! though I were to live a hundred years, I should never see their like again. The remainder of the story is, unhappily, soon told. I was absent a fortnight, and on getting back went at once to the sacred oak. Alas ! there was nothing but a sev- ered branch to show where the vireos' nest had hung. The cut looked recent ; I was thankful for that. Perhaps the " collector," whoever he was, had been kind enough to wait till the owners of the house were done 44 A WOODLAND INTIMATE. with it, before he carried it away. Let us hope so, at all events, for the peace of his own soul, as well as for the sake of the birds. AN OLD ROAD. Methinks here one may, without much molestation, be thinking what he is, whence he came, what he has done, and to what the King has called him. BUN VAN. I FALL in with persons, now and then, who profess to care nothing for a path when walking in the woods. They do not choose to travel in other people's footsteps, nay, nor even in their own, but count it their mission to lay out a new road every time they go afield. They are welcome to their freak. My own genius for adventure is less highly developed ; and, to be frank, I have never learned to look upon affectation and whim as synonymous with originality. In my eyes, it is nothing against a hill that other men have climbed it before me ; and if their feet have worn a trail, so much the better. I not only reach the summit more easily, but have company on the way, company none the less to my mind, per- haps, for being silent and invisible. It is 46 AN OLD ROAD. well enough to strike into the trackless for- est once in a while ; to wander you know not whither, and come out you know not where ; to lie down in a strange place, and for an hour imagine yourself the explorer of a new continent : but if the mind be awake (as, alas, too often it is not), you may walk where you will, in never so well known a corner, and you will see new things, and think new thoughts, and return to your house a new man, which, I venture to believe, is after all the main considera- tion. Indeed, if your stirring abroad is to be more than mere muscular exercise, you will find a positive advantage in making use of some well-worn and familiar path. The feet will follow it mechanically, and so the mind that is, the walker himself will be left undistracted. That, to my thinking, is the real tour of discovery wherein one keeps to the beaten road, looks at the customary sights, but brings home a new idea. There are inward moods, as well as out- ward conditions, in which an old, half-dis- used, bush-bordered road becomes the saun- terer's paradise. I have several such in my AN OLD ROAD. 47 eye at this moment, but especially one, in which my feet, years ago, grew to feel at home. It is an almost ideal loitering place, or would be, if only it were somewhat longer. How many hundreds of times have I traveled it, spring and summer, autumn and winter ! As I go over it now, the days of my youth come back to me, clothed all of them in that soft, benignant light which nothing but distance can be- stow, whether upon hills or days. This gracious effect is heightened, no doubt, by the fact that for a good while past my visits to the place have been only occasional. Memory and imagination are true yoke- fellows, and between them are always pre- paring some new pleasure for us, as often as we allow them opportunity. The other day, for instance, as I came to the top of the hill just beyond the river, I turned sud- denly to the right, looking for an old pear- tree. I had not thought of it for years, and the more I have since tried to recall its appearance and exact whereabouts, the less confident have I grown that it ever had any material existence ; but somehow, just at that moment my mouth seemed to recollect 48 AN OLD ROAD. it ; and in general I have come to put faith in such involuntary and, if I may say so, sensible joggings of the memory. I wonder whether the tree ever was there or any- where. At all events, the thought of it gave me for the moment a pleasure more real than any taste in the mouth, were it never so sweet. Thank fortune, imagina- tive delights are as far as possible from being imaginary. The river just mentioned runs under the road, and, as will readily be inferred, is one of its foremost attractions. I speak of it as a " river " with some misgivings. It is a rather large brook, or a very small river ; but a man who has never been able to leap across it has perhaps no right to deny it the more honorable appellation. Its source is a spacious and beautiful sheet of w T ater, which heretofore has been known as a "pond," but which I should be glad to believe would hereafter be put upon the maps as Lake Wessagusset. This brook or river, call it whichever you please, goes meandering through the township in a northeasterly direction, turning the wheels of half a dozen mills, more or less, on its AN OLD ROAD. 49 \vay; a sluggish stream, too lazy to work, you would think ; passing much of its time in flat, grassy meadows, where it idles along as if it realized that the end of its course was near, and felt in no haste to lose itself in the salt sea. Out of this stream I pulled goodly numbers of perch, pickerel, shiners, flatfish, and hornpouts, while I was still care- less-hearted enough (" Heaven lies about us in our infancy ") to enjoy this very ami- able and semi -religious form of "sport;" and as the river intersects at least seven roads that came within my boyish beat, I must have crossed it thousands of times; in addition to which I have spent days in pad- dling and bathing in it. Altogether, it is one of my most familiar friends; and what one cannot say of all familiar friends I do not remember that it ever served me the slightest ill-turn. It passes under the road of which I am now discoursing, in a double channel (the bridge being sup- ported midway by a stonewall), and then broadens out into an artificial shallow, through which travelers may drive if they will, to let their horses drink out of the stream. First and last, I have improved 50 AN OLD ROAD many a shining hour on this bridge, leaning industriously over the railing. I can see the rocky bed at this moment, yes, and the very shape and position of some of the stones, as I saw them thirty years ago ; especially of one, on which we used to bal- ance ourselves to dip up the water or to peer under the bridge. In those days, if we essayed to be uncommonly adventurous, we waded through this low and somewhat dark passage ; a gruesome proceeding, as we were compelled to stoop a little, short as we were, to save our heads, while the road, to our imagination, seemed in momen- tary danger of caving in upon us. Cour- age, like all other human virtues, is but a relative attribute. Possibly the heroic deeds upon which in our grown-up estate we plume ourselves are not greatly more meritorious or wonderful than were some of the childish ventures at the recollection of which we now condescend to feel amused. On the surface of the brook flourished two kinds of insects, whose manner of life we never tired of watching. One sort had long, wide-spreading legs, and by us were AN OLD ROAD. 51 known as " skaters," from their movements (to this day, I blush to confess, I have no other name for them) ; the others were flat, shining, orbicular or oblong, lead col- ored bugs, " lucky bugs " I have heard them called, and lay flat upon the water, as if quite without limbs ; but they darted over the brook, and even against the cur- rent, with noticeable activity, and doubtless were well supplied with paddles. Once in a while we saw a fish here, but only on rare occasions. The great unfailing attrac- tion of the place, then as now, was the flowing water, forever spending and never spent. The insects lived upon it ; appar- ently they had no power to leave it for an instant ; but they were not carried away by it. Happy creatures ! We, alas, sport- ing upon the river of time, can neither dive below the surface nor mount into the ether, and, unlike the insects (" lucky bugs," in- deed ! ), we have no option but to move with the tide. We have less liberty than the green flags, even, which grow in scat- tered tufts in the bed of the brook ; whose leaves point forever down stream, like so many index fingers, as if they said, "Yes, 52 AN OLD ROAD. yes, that is the way to the sea ; that way we all must go;" while for themselves, nevertheless, they manage to hold on by their roots, victorious even while profess- ing to yield. To my mind the river is alive. Reason about it as I will, I never can make it oth- erwise. I could sooner believe in water nymphs than in many existences which are commonly treated as much more certain matters of fact. I could believe in them, I say ; but in reality I do not. My commun- ings are not with any haunter of the river, but with the living soul of the river itself. It lags under the vine-covered alders, has- tens through the bridge, then slips care- lessly down a little descent, where it breaks into singing, then into a mill-pond and out again, and so on and on, through one expe- rience after another ; and all the time it is not dead water, but a river, a thing of life and motion. After all, it is not for me to say what is alive and what dead. As yet, indeed, I do not so much as know what life is. In certain moods, in what I fondly call my better moments, I feel measurably sure of being alive myself; but even on that AN OLD ROAD. 53 point, for aught I can tell, the brook may entertain some private doubts. Just beyond the bridge is an ancient ap- ple orchard. This was already falling into decay when I was a boy, and the many years that have elapsed since then have nearly completed its demolition ; although I daresay the present generation of school- boys still find it worth while to clamber over the wall, as they journey back and forth. Probably it will be no surprise to the owner of the place if I tell him that before I was twelve years old I knew the taste of all his apples. In fact, the orchard was so sequestered, so remote from any house, especially from its pi-oprietor's, that it hardly seemed a sin to rob it. It was not so much an orchard as a bit of woodland ; and besides, we never shook the trees, but only helped ourselves to windfalls ; and it must be a severe moralist who calls that stealing. Why should the fruit drop off, if not to be picked up ? In my time, at all events, such appropriations were never accounted robbery, though the providential absence of the owner was unquestionably a thing to be thankful for. He would never 54 AN OLD ROAD. begrudge us the apples, of course, for he was rich and presumably generous ; but it was quite as well for him to be somewhere else while we were gathering up these fa- vors which the winds of heaven had shaken down for our benefit. There is something of the special pleader in most of us, it is to be feared, whether young or old. If we are put to it, we can draw a very fine dis- tinction (in our own favor), no matter how obtuse we may seem on ordinary occasions. Remembering how voracious and undis- criminatiug my juvenile appetite was, I cannot help wondering that I am still alive, a feeling which I doubt not is shared by many a man who, like myself, had a coun- try bringing-up. We must have been born with something more than a spark of life, else it would certainly have been smothered long ago by the fuel so recklessly heaped upon it. But we lived out-of-doors, took abundant exercise, were not studious over- much (as all boys and girls are charged with being nowadays), and had little to worry about, which may go far to explain the mystery. It provokes a smile to reckon up the AN OLD ROAD. 55 many places along this old road that are iudissolubly connected in my mind with the question of something to eat. At the foot of the orchard just now spoken of, for example, is a dilapidated stone wall, be- tween it and the river. Over this, as well as over the bushes beside it, straggled a small wild grape-vine, bearing every year a scanty crop of white grapes. These, to our unsophisticated palates, were delicious, if only they got ripe. That was the rub ; and as a rule we gathered our share of them (which was all there were) while they were yet several stages short of that desirable consummation, not deeming it prudent to leave them longer, lest some hungrier soul should get the start of us. Graping, as we called it, was one of our regular autumn industries, and there were few vines within the circle of our perambu- lations which did not feel our fingers tug- ging at them at least once a year. Some of them hung well over the river ; others took refuge in the tops of trees ; but by hook or by crook, we usually got the better of such perversities. No doubt the fruit was all bad enough ; but some of it was 56 AN OLD ROAD. sweeter (or less sour) than other. Perhaps the best vine was one that covered a cer- tain superannuated apple-tree, half a mile west of our river-side orchard, before men- tioned. Here I might have been seen by the hour, eagerly yet cautiously venturing out upon the decayed and doubtful limbs, in quest of this or that peculiarly tempting bunch. These grapes were purple (how well some things are remembered !), and were sweeter then than Isabellas or Cataw- bas are now. Such is the degeneracy of vines in these modern days ! Altogether more important than the grapes were the huckleberries, for which, also, we four times out of five took this same famous by-road. Speaking roughly, I may say that we depended upon seven pastures for our supplies, and weite accus- tomed to visit them in something like reg- ular order. It is kindly provided that huck- leberry bushes have an exceptionally strong tendency to vary. We possessed no the- ories upon the subject, and knew nothing of disputed questions about species and va- rieties ; but we were not without a good degree of practical information. Here was AN OLD ROAD. 57 a bunch of bushes, for instance, covered with black, shiny, pear-shaped berries, very numerous, but very small. They would do moderately well in default of better. An- other patch, perhaps but a few rods re- moved, bore large globular berries, less glossy than the others, but still black. These, as we expressed it, " filled up " much faster than the others, though not nearly so " thick." Blue berries (not blue- berries, but blue huckleberries) were com- mon enough, and we knew one small clus- ter of plants, the fruit of which was white, a variety that I have since found noted by Doctor Gray as very rare. Unhappily, this freak made so little impression upon me as a boy that while I am clear as to the fact, and feel sure of the pasture, I have no dis- tinct recollection of the exact spot where the eccentric bushes grew. I should like to know whether they still persist. Gray's Manual, by the way, makes no mention of the blue varieties, but lays it down suc- cinctly that the fruit of Graylussacia re- sinosa is black. The difference we cared most about, how- ever, related not to color, shape, or size, 58 AN OLD BO AD. but to the time of ripening. Diversity of habit in this regard was indeed a great piece of good fortune, not to be rightly appre- ciated without horrible imaginings of how short the season of berry pies and puddings would be if all the berries matured at once. You may be sure we never forgot where the early sorts were to be found, and where the late. What hours upon hours we spent in the broiling sun, picking into some half- pint vessel, and emptying that into a larger receptacle, safely stowed away under some cedar - tree or barberry bush. How proud we were of our heaped-up pails ! How carefully we discarded from the top every half-ripe or otherwise imperfect specimen ! (So early do well-taught Yankee children develop one qualification for the diaconate.) The sun had certain minor errands to look after, we might have admitted, even in those midsummer days, but his principal business was to ripen huckleberries. So it seemed then. And now well, men are but children still, and for them, too, their own little round is the centre of the world. All these pastures had names, of course, well understood by us children, though I AN OLD ROAD. 59 am not sure how generally they would have been recognized by the townspeople. The first in order was River Pasture, the owner of which turned his cattle into it, and every few years mowed the bushes, with the result that the berries, whenever there were any, were uncommonly large and handsome. Not far beyond this (the entrance was through a " pair of bars," beside a spreading white oak) was Mill- stone Pasture. This was a large, strag- gling place, half pasture, half wood, full of nooks and corners, with by-paths running hither and thither, and named after two large bowlders, which lay one on top of the other. We used to clamber upon these to eat our luncheon, thinking within our- selves, meanwhile, that the Indians must have been men of prodigious strength. At that time, though I scarcely know how to own it, glacial action was a thing by us un- heard of. We are wiser now, on that point, at any rate. Two of the other pas- tures were called respectively after the rail- road and a big pine-tree (there was a big pine-tree in W once, for I myself have seen the stump), while the remainder took 60 AN OLD ROAD. their names from their owners, real or re- puted; and as some of these appellations were rather disrespectfully abbreviated, it may be as well to omit setting them down in print. To all these places we resorted a little later in the season for blackberries, and later still for barberries. In one or two of them we set snares, also, but without materially lessening the quantity of game. The rabbits, especially, always helped themselves to the bait, and left us the noose. At this distance of time I do not begrudge them their good fortune. I hope they are all alive yet, including the young- ster that we. once caught in our hands and brought home, and then, in a fit of con- trition, carried back again to its native heath. All in all, the berries that we prized most, perhaps, were those that came first, and were at the same time least abundant. Yankee children will understand at once that I mean the checkerberries, or, as we were more accustomed to call them, the boxberries. The very first mild days in March, if the snow happened to be mostly AN OLD ROAD. 61 gone, saw us on this same old road bound for one of the places where we thought our- selves most likely to find a few (possibly a pint or two, but more probably a handful or two) of these humble but spicy fruits. Not that the plants were not plentiful enough In all directions, but it was only in certain spots (or rather in very uncertain spots, since these were continually shift- ing) that they were ever in good bearing condition. We came after a while to un- derstand that the best crops were produced for two or three years after the cutting off of the wood in suitable localities. Letting in the sunlight seems to have the effect of starting into sudden fruitfulness this hardy, persistent little plant, although I never could discover that it thrived better for growing permanently in an open, sunny field. Perhaps it requires an unexpected change of condition, a providential nudge, as it were, to jog it into activity, like some poets. Whatever the explanation, we used now and then in recent clearings (and no- where else) to find the ground fairly red with berries. Those were red-letter days in our calendar. How handsome such a 62 AN OLD ROAD. patch of rose-color was (though we made haste to despoil it), circling an old stump or a bowlder ! The berries were pleasant to the eye and good for food ; but after all, their principal attractiveness lay in the fact that they came right upon the heels of winter. They were the first-fruits of the new year (ripened the year before, to be sure), and to our thinking were fit to be offered upon any altar, no matter how sacred. I have called the subject of my loving meditations a by-road. Formerly it was the main thoroughfare between two villages, but shortly after my acquaintance with it began a new and more direct one was laid out. Yet the old road, half deserted as it is, has not altogether escaped the ruthless hand of the improver. Within my time it has been widened throughout, and in one place a new section has been built to cut off a curve. Fortunately, however, the discarded portion still remains, well grown up to grass, and closely encroached upon by willows, alders, sumachs, barberries, dogwoods, smilax, cle- thra, azalea, button-bush, birches, and what not, yet still passable even for carriages, AN OLD ROAD 63 and more inviting than ever to lazy pedes- trians like myself. On this cast-off section is a cosy, grassy nook, shaded by a cluster of red cedars. This was one of our favorite way-stations on summer noons. It gives me a comfortable, restful feeling to look into it even now, as if my weary limbs had reminiscences of their own connected with the place. Right at this point stands an ancient rus- set-apple tree, which seems no older and brings forth no smaller apples now than it did when I first knew it. How natural it looks in every knot and branch ! Strange, too, that it should be so, since I do not re- call its ever contributing the first mouthful to my pleasures as a schoolboy gastronomer. In those times I judged a tree solely by the New Testament standard, very literally in- terpreted, " By their fruits ye shall know them." Now I have other tests, and can value an old acquaintance of this kind for its picturesqueness, though its apples be bitter as wormwood. I am making too much of the food ques- tion, and will therefore say nothing of straw- berries, raspberries, thimbleberries, cranber- 64 AN OLD ROAD. lies (which last were delicious, as we took them out of their icy ovens in the spring), pig-nuts, hazel-nuts, acorns, and the rest. Yet I will not pass by a small clump of dan- gleberry bushes (a September luxury not common in our neighborhood) and a lofty pear-tree. The latter, in truth, hardly be- longs under this head ; for though it bore superabundant crops of pears, not even a y no means so positive in my conviction. If an observer wishes to be absolutely sure of a thing, I have learned this by long experience, let him look at it once, and forever after shut his eyes ! On the whole, I return to my pre- vious opinion, that the sound is made by the downward stroke, though whether against the body or against the air, I will not presume to say. A man who is a far better ornithologist than I, and who has witnessed this perform- ance under altogether more favorable con- ditions than I was ever afforded, assures me that his performer sat down ! My bird took no such ridiculous position. So much, at least, I am sure of. When he had drummed three times, my partridge quit his boulder (I was near enough to hear him strike the dry leaves), 222 BASHFUL DRUMMERS. and after a little walked suddenly into plain sight. We discovered each other at the same instant. I kept motionless, my field- glass up. He made sundry nervous move- ments, especially of his ruff, and then si- lently stalked away. I could" not blame him for his lack of neighborliness. If I had been shot at and hunted with dogs as many times as he prob- ably had been, I too might have become a little shy of strangers. To my thinking, indeed, the grouse is one of our most esti- mable citizens. A liking for the buds of fruit-trees is his only fault (not many of my townsmen have a smaller number, I fancy), and that is one easily overlooked, especially by a man who owns no orchard. Every sportsman tries to shoot him, and every winter does its worst to freeze or starve him ; but he continues to flourish. Others may migrate to sunnier climes, or seek safety in the backwoods, but not so the partridge. He was born here, and here he means to stay. What else could be ex- pected of a bird whose notion of a lover's serenade is the beating of a drum ? OUT-DOOR BOOKS, Bottj IDrosfe anD poetical, PUBLISHED BV HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. BOSTON AND NEW YORK. Agassiz, Alexander and Elizabeth C. Seaside Studies in Natural History. Illustrated. 8vo, $>oo. Agassiz, Prof. Louis. Methods of Study in Natural History. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, gilt top, #1.50. Geological Sketches. First Series. With Illustrations. Crown STO, gilt top, $1.50. Geological Sketches. 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