PART IV
IN AUTUMN
A Lake-Side Outing
Having been within the city’s bounds for a week – for me a novel experience that has little merit – it was with the eagerness of a child that I rode a short distance out of town, and, turning my back upon the railway station, started with a few friends upon an old-time tramp. In the company were a geologist, an engineer, a botanist, an artist, and others who, like myself, professing nothing, were eager to extract the good from everything that came in our way. We filed along the dusty highway, some miles from Toronto, with Lake Ontario as our objective point.
There was not a feature of that ancient highway that differed essentially from the country roads at home. The same trees, wayside weeds, and butterflies met me at every turn; even the crickets creaked in the same key, and the farmers’ dogs were equally inquisitive. For more than a mile I am not sure that I saw a bird of any kind. In this respect we are surely better off at home. This absence of novelty was a little disappointing, but I had no right to expect it. Canada has been longer settled than New Jersey, and doubtless many a field we passed was cleared years before the forest was felled along the Delaware.
However this may be, the outlook soon changed for the better, and reaching the upper terrace, or ancient shore, the broad and beautiful expanse of Lake Ontario lay before us. From the upper to the lower terrace was but a step, and then, on the very edge of a precipitous cliff, I looked over to see the waves dashing at its foot, and carrying the loose sand and clay steadily into the lake. Clear as crystal and brightly blue the waters as they struck the shore; roily and heavy laden with the sand as they receded. It is little wonder that the cliff is rapidly yielding; there is nothing to protect it even from the gentle ripples of a summer sea. Yet wherever spared for a short season vegetation came to the rescue, and the yellow-white cliff was dotted with blooming clusters of tansy, golden-rod, eupatorium, and mullein yellow and white, that were too like the background to be conspicuous; but not so the scattered asters, which were large and very blue; more so, indeed, than any that I saw elsewhere.
The proportion of clay in the cliff differed exceedingly, and where it was greatly in excess of the sand had withstood the destructive action of wind and wave, and stood out in great pillars, walls, and turrets, that suggested at once the ruins of ancient lake-side castles.
Leaving the cliff, not because weary of it, but to crowd a week’s outing into an hour, the party turned to a deep, shady, vine-entangled ravine. I was happy. Indifferent to the geology ably explained by one, to the botany by another, to the beauty as extolled by the artist, I found a rustic seat and feasted upon raspberries. To eat is a legitimate pastime of the confirmed rambler. One’s eyes and ears should not monopolize all the good things in nature; but these again were not neglected, for I stopped eating – when the berries gave out – and toyed with the beautiful seed-pods of the Actæa, or bane-berry. This I never find near home, and so its novelty gave it additional merit; but it needs no extraneous suggestiveness. The deep, coral-red stems and snow-white seed-pods completely captivated my fancy. Bearing this as a prize, I moved slowly over a pathless wild, hearing pine finches to my delight, and above all other sounds the muffled roar of the lake as it beat upon the narrow beach nearly two hundred feet below me. At last I was in a strange country; one that bore not the remotest resemblance to any I had seen before.
There was no time to tarry, however attractive any spot might prove; and next in order, having seen the uplands, was to descend to the foot of the cliff and stroll along the beach. I was assured that Fortune favored us, as near by was a well-worn path. Never was a path better described – it was well worn. Smooth as a toboggan-slide and with few shrubs or sturdy weeds to seize in case of accident, my steps were clogged with fear; each foot weighted with a painful doubt. I hate to run a risk, and fear so strained my nerves that when the base was reached every muscle ached through sympathy.
If we limit the localities to sand and water, the lake was an ocean on a small scale, and not a very small scale either. Sky and water closed in the earth’s boundary upon three sides; but the water lacked life. Not a shell, not an insect, not a fish had been tossed upon the sand – nothing but sand. This want was a disappointment, for the gathering of flotsam along our sea-coast is a never-ending source of pleasure. Perhaps, had there been recently a violent storm, I might have been more successful, but probably the water is too cold. On the other hand, it was a comfort to have land and water about one free from every trace of man’s interference. Thank goodness, there were no iron piers and hideous rows of booths and bath-houses! For aught one could see, the Indians might have left these shores but yesterday.
Where we now strolled the cliff had been spared for several years, and a rank vegetation covered it from base to top. Squatty willows and dwarf sumachs, golden-rod and chess, a wild grass that recalled the graceful plumes of the Panicum crusgalli at home; these held the winds at bay, but were likely, when next it stormed to be carried out to sea, and with them tons of the cliff upon which they grew. As so many of the rank growths near by were heavy with seed, it was and is an unsolved puzzle why there should have been a complete absence of birds. Everything that an ornithologist would say seed-eating birds required was here in profusion; yet the birds were not. Already the summer migrants had departed – I found many warblers’ and fly-catchers’ nests – and the winter birds of the region had not yet appeared. From what I saw this day and afterward in other localities, I am well convinced that, taking the year through, there is no spot, east of the Alleghanies, in the United States where birds are so abundant as in the valley of the Delaware. I have seen, since my return, more birds of many kinds in one half-hour at home than I saw during two weeks’ rambles in Canada.
I was in no hurry to climb up the cliff, the descent of which was still impressed upon my memory, but the order to march came from the guide, and we struggled slowly up the well-worn path. If a brief rest had not been permitted, I should have rebelled; but we were fortunate in this, and never did lake look lovelier than “in the golden lightning of the sunken sun.” It was with regret that we turned our faces landward and crossed prosy fields, and even longed for the bright waters while threading a fragment of Canadian forest. Here, too, silence brooded over nature; not even a chickadee flitted among the branches of the sturdy oaks and maples, nor a woodpecker rattled the rough bark of towering white pines. As we reached the public road, and stopped for supper at an old wayside inn, three silent crows passed by high overhead. They were flying in a southeasterly direction, and I watched them long, and wondered if they were bound for the far-off meadows at home, where hundreds of their kind gather daily as the sun goes down.
Dew and Frost
At sunrise to-day, by reason of the dew, the whole earth was beautiful. Every harsh outline was softened to comely roundness. Not even an ungainly fence scarred the landscape. Instead of Nature tortured out of shape, the outlook was as a peep into a fairy-land. And all by reason of the glittering dew. What is dew? Says the physical geography at hand: “When at night the earth radiates the heat which it has received during the day, the surface becomes colder than the ground beneath or the air above. Vapor rises from the moist soil below, to be condensed at the cooler surface. The adjacent layer of air above is also cooled to its point of saturation, and its vapor is deposited. This condensed moisture at the surface, whether from the soil or the air, is dew… Dew does not fall, but is condensed on the best radiators, such as grass and trees.”
Going no further into explanations, let us consider the dewy morn as we find it. What of this “early, bright, transient, and chaste” moisture that bathes the world alike? No, it does not, by the way. Many a spot is dry as powder, while elsewhere all is dripping. It does not do to make sweeping assertions even about such a phenomenon as this. You will stir the lurking critic in his den if you do, and what a fell catastrophe!
But to-day, October 3d, the dry spots are to be looked for, so scattered are they, and practically everywhere are sparkling globules of pure water. Finding the world so, it becomes the essential business of the rambler to determine its effects. Are the birds chilled to silence? Does the field-mouse shiver in his grassy nest? I think not. Often have I wished to detect some marked evidence of the influence of dew, but my sluggish senses have failed me. Up from the glistening expanse of weedy meadows comes the blithe song of the sparrow; out from the misty depths of the river valley floats the triumphant cawing of the crow. The bluebird greets the dawn with prophetic warble, promising the brightness of summer when the dew has gone; and chill though the night has been, the twittering swifts are alert and aloft at daybreak. Whether there be dew or none, it seems to matter nothing to the birds. But it is a veritable tell-tale so far as the early stirring mammals are concerned. They can never move so daintily that the dew-drops are not brushed aside, and the long lines of swept herbage stand out in boldest relief as the sunlight sweeps across the field. One can now track the belated creature to his home.
Most marked of all the effects of a heavy dew is the beading of a spider’s web. A more exquisite object than a dew-spangled gossamer I have never seen. Within a week I saw a single silken strand that reached a rod in length, and not a break was there in the row of sparkling beads that clung to it. At the same time, from rail to rail of the roadside fence were stretched the marvelous weavings of the geometric spider, and every horizontal thread was dew-laden. I waited until the sun broke through the bank of clouds in the east, anticipating a splendid exhibition, nor was I disappointed. Alas! that language is so inadequate to one’s needs, when such magnificence is before us. What the spiders may think of dew remains to be determined. As I prodded several of them, and forced them to the fore, they were a sorry-looking set, and shook their webs and themselves in a disconsolate way, as though chilled to the core. An hour later, as I passed by, their energy had revived.
And now what of dew as a weather sign? I turn to the “weather proverbs” that have been gathered and made into a little book (Signal Service Notes, No. IX), and find the sum and substance of fourteen “sayings” to be that dew in summer and autumn is indicative of fair days; the absence of it, of rain. “If your feet you wet with the dew in the morning, you may keep them dry for the rest of the day.” It is a comfort to know that a modicum of truth lies in some of the sayings in everybody’s mouth; and certainly a dewy morn is likely to be followed by a dry and sunny noon. Nevertheless, do not expect to notch off your three score and ten years without a failure in these sayings. Euripides never hit the nail more squarely on the head than when he wrote —
What to-morrow is to be
Human wisdom never learns.
Sooner or later in October we have frost. The beautiful dewy morning two days ago was followed to-day by a no less beautiful morning; but the meadows were gray with frost. Says the physical geography: “When the weather is cold, so that but little vapor can be carried in the air, the dew-point may be below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. In this event what is deposited is solid frost.”
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
and whatever it might have killed it compensated therefor by adding life to the air. Despite its beauty, the country was reeking with an unseen, unsuspected poison, but one none the less sure in its fell effects. How different to-day! There is evidence of vigor so widely spread that the blighted leaves and drooping blossoms may well be overlooked. No sounds are muffled; the faintest chirping of a distant bird falls sharply on the ear. The loose bark of the nut trees snaps and crackles at the squirrel’s touch, and not a tiny twig breaks in the timid rabbit’s path but we plainly hear it. The languor that held spellbound the woods and fields fled with the coming of that “killing frost.” Well can we spare the daintier bloom of summer, seeing how great a train of blessings follows in the wake of frost.
There is a widespread impression that animal life is affected almost to the same extent as vegetation by these so-called killing frosts. This is not true. Insects are benumbed by it, but recover before noon. Frogs and salamanders are silenced and sluggish, but the morning sun renews their vigor; and who ever heard of a frostbitten bird? On the contrary, scarcely an hour after the sun rose on October 5th, there were a dozen birds, that, moping and peevish, had petulantly chirped for weeks, and now sang gayly. Later there was an old-time concert in the hillside thicket, even a brown thrush singing half his May-day song. Nature is renewed by a killing frost. It destroys the old to give place to the new; and this early autumn life that makes glorious October and softens the gloom of November has charms too little heeded. The world does not need to be embowered in green leaves to tempt the rambler. He who lives out of town well knows how many are the frosty days when the uplands and meadows alike teem with myriad forms of happy life.
A Hermit for the Day
A peculiarly disagreeable northeast storm, continuing for some time, kept me out of the woods, and it was long after the October moon had fulled that my opportunity came. Then I turned hermit for the day.
I question if it matters much at what time of year you turn your back upon civilization and take to the woods. They will greet you kindly at all seasons. If, by reason of your delay, they do not charm you with spring flowers, they have cool shades to offer when the dog-star rages; and following these, a carnival of color and harvest of sweet nuts. If you have tarried in town too long for these, then plunge into the forest at midwinter, and, sheltered by a sturdy oak, build your camp-fire. Do this, and if you return without a harvest of new thoughts, the chances are that you have turned up on the wrong planet.
The best means of realizing what others have enjoyed or suffered is to taste of their experience. I know of hermits from hearsay only, and I wished to test the accuracy of what I had heard and read concerning them. Pleased with the novelty of my quick-laid scheme, I renounced the world at midnight, and, laden with a blanket and provisions, started long before sunrise for a hollow sycamore miles deep in a lonely swamp. Of what I was to do when I reached the proposed goal I had no idea. The one controlling purpose was to get, not out of the world, but on one of its edges. Trudging half-heartedly along – the silence of midnight clogs one’s energy – I reached before dawn the confines of that lonely swamp. As seen by the dim light of the drowsy stars, there was little to tempt me to enter, although the now scarcely discerned wood road that crossed it was familiar enough. What if there was no real danger (and he is a coward who turns from an imaginary foe) still the imagination persists in peopling a forest with most strange shapes – shapes at which one shudders; and yet, contradictory as we are, we give no heed to hosts of creatures daily about us that are far more marvelous. If I had any purpose whatever in this unusual outing, it was to study wild life; and now, because the dry twigs cracked loudly and the chafing branches overhead groaned dolorously, I was disposed to forget that it was my own feet that broke the former and the wind that moved the tree-tops. What a fool man can be upon occasion! Be it on record, however, that the woods were entered, and many a rod was measured with firm steps, when, at a turn in the road, a flickering, sickly light danced in the foreground. A gypsy camp, I thought, and how still I stood! Then, while staring steadily at the pallid flame, I saw there was no one near it, and the truth flashed upon me. It was merely a will-o’-the-wisp. I laughed at my blunder; so did an owl. Woo-roo-roo! shouted the feathered imp in my ears. Never was sound more welcome. Now I was well at home. A hermit for a day loves company – this I learned; and the little red owl and I are old friends. I took his hooting as a hearty welcome, and with lighter steps followed the crooked wood road. Now every sound excited curiosity, no doubt; and when this is true, a walk in the woods, be it night or day, is an unmixed delight. Later, as the pale gray dawn sifted its meager light through the trees, I paused at many a familiar tree and shrub. All regrets had vanished, and I bade the swamp “Good morning” with a hearty shout, when the old sycamore loomed up before me, its scattered leaves gilded by the herald rays of the slowly rising sun. There was scarcely a dozen rods between us, but that much of my journey was not to be accomplished. A huge old maple had fallen across the road, the course of a little creek had recently been changed, and bees were swarming about the hollow tree. It was plain that I must seek a new hermitage. But why any particular spot? There was no tree so inhospitable as to refuse me a shelter. But why seek shelter at all, under an unclouded sky? Placing my burdens on a mossy knoll, I sat down. Now, I thought, I am a hermit, and perhaps a fool. The latter thought nettled me, but what could I do? Still I vowed that I would not return empty-handed. I had met Nature half-way; would she make like advances?
Click-click-clatter, so it sounded, and I cut my meditations short. The work of the hermit was, I hoped, about to commence. Chatter, clatter, everywhere, as if every twig were busy; nor was all this varied volume of sound derived from but one source. There were squirrels overhead, and chipmunks among the dead leaves. Two downy woodpeckers were scanning, in close company, the dead limb of an old oak, and flitting everywhere were scores of kinglets and warblers. A host of tree-sparrows and white-throated finches filled the chinkapin shrubbery; while, dearest of all, a brave black-capped titmouse came almost within reach, looked me boldly in the face, and twittered “Good morning.” It was worth all the drawbacks of being a temporary hermit to be greeted so cordially. It is true the woods are never quite deserted, and yet it is not in them that birds most congregate; but here, this day, were more birds immediately about me than I ever saw before. More tree-sparrows directly from Canada than I saw in all my tramps there two months ago; and certainly more kinglets than I ever saw before. The chilly northeast storm doubtless had something to do with this abundance of birds, but this matters not. Here were birds in abundance. What can they teach me?
To think that with one glance of the eye more Canadian sparrows could be seen than I found in all my Canadian tramps two months ago! And they had all the freshness, too, of this brisk October morning. There was no listlessness, however long their journey may have been. Snap – crackle, these crisp words best describe their songs and movements; and when life snaps and crackles, whether it is our own or that of other creatures, it is life worth living. So marked is the difference between bird life now as compared with what we see of it in May that the same species are scarcely to be recognized as such. This is peculiarly true when the spring and autumn plumage are different, as in the case of bobolinks, that now are flitting southward as yellow-brown reed-birds. With our recent arrivals, as well as all-the-year-round birds, it is now a season of fun and feasting. Life has few cares for them for months to come, and they appreciate the fact.
It was the old story. I was seeing too much. Had I not kept in the background, the day would have teemed with adventure, but I should have been less of a hermit. It was hard to single out some one small bird among a hundred. I turned from white-throats to kinglets, from woodpeckers in the trees to chewinks on the ground, but everywhere there was no end of bustle, if not confusion. Silent woods, indeed! No city could have shown a busier thoroughfare than the interlocking branches of the trees. The Stock Exchange was never noisier than when a crowd of grakles came rushing from the outer world and settled in a little cluster of white pines. Here seemed the opportunity of a lifetime, yet I was puzzled to know what to do. To merely catalogue the species as they came in view would have been absurd; to say that a flock of this or that species was feeding in the tree tops is equally uncalled for. Would there never come some startling incident? It came that moment. A swift-winged hawk dashed through the trees. I fancied I felt the fanning of his wings upon my face. But, better than all, I saw something of the swifter tactics of threatened birds. Their darting earthward was simply, marvelous; their clinging to the under side of branches was wonderful; but, above all, the instantaneous recognition of danger and promptness to find a safe shelter struck me. After all, the sense of danger was ever present with these happy-go-lucky birds. Unless there was such a sense controlling them their movements could not have been so efficacious and so wholly free from confusion. Here is no loose interpretation that profound critics love to dwell upon. One has but to see a host of birds, and if of several species so much the better, to recognize how busily their brains keep working that the dangers really ever in attendance shall not rob them of all comfort.
Never shall I forget one tiny kinglet that squatted upon the blanket at my feet. Its wings were outspread, and, looking directly up, it seemed in utter despair; but the shadow passed as quickly as it came, and when I innocently stooped to pick up and soothe the kinglet, it was too much itself again, and sped away as cheerily as though nothing had happened.
“What next?” I asked after a moment’s quiet; for the kaleidoscopic effect of ever-shifting flocks of busy birds soon became monotonous. I longed for hawks at the rate of one every ten minutes at least; so firmly fixed is one’s desire for adventure. But the hawks came not. Instead, that matchless songster of sweet summer days appeared, and made the woods ring with his sharp metallic “click.” How I longed for his May-day melodies! But no, he chirped and teazed; and then, as if ashamed, warbled a few faultless notes, and away he sped. The whole host of finches caught the magic of that song, and every white throat whistled at his best. Up from the woods rose a swelling volume of sweet sound that should have bid murder pause. It only brought destruction upon their heads again. A rush of wings, a dark streak across the sky, and every bird was silent. But their plans varied in this. When the danger had passed they seemed of one accord too insecure at this spot, and left me to my meditations. Here again was a noticeable feature of bird life. Either each group had its leader, or every individual was at the same moment impelled by a like thought to seek safety, and all in one direction. This is improbable, and certainly the fact of like species flocking indicates that they find good in association and have means of communication, for, without some sort of language, flocking would be a source of danger. This has been shown, however, time and again. Birds have language and an abundance of forethought, and so are better worth study than some would have us believe.
The woods were now, for the first time, really silent. I listened for several minutes, but could detect no sound, and was delighted at last when the wind sprang up and rustled the dead leaves. Then a faint chirp was heard, and a chickadee came within arm’s reach. Its busy search for food reminded me that I had brought food with me, and I sat down to eat. Tossing the crumbs before me, they were scrutinized by the little bird, but not closely, and I was myself more the object of its curiosity. How I longed for it to perch upon me! But it would not, and my opportunity for a pretty story was lost. Birds do not like solitude. Where there is one chickadee, rest assured another is not far off; and soon there were two before me. And now I would that some critical know-all would tell us the meaning of such an action as this: these chickadees came together; they faced each other, twittered faintly in each other’s ears, then looked directly toward me; then came nearer, and, alighting on a branch not three feet from my head, looked down at me, twittering all the while. Would they have done this had I been a stump? Were they not discussing me? He who says they were not may be a “thorough naturalist,” but he is something besides – no matter what.
And the chickadees passed by.
But the woods proved not an aviary only. I have spoken of squirrels. There were rabbits, mice, and a stray mink, also, there, and what host of hidden creatures, furred and feathered, we shall never know. The heyday of the wood’s wild life, however, was well-nigh over. It was past noon, and rest was the order of the hour. What creatures I saw moved with great leisure, as if annoyed that they had to move at all. The mink crept along a prostrate log as though stiff in every joint, but when at the end of his short journey I whistled shrilly, with what animation it stood erect and stared in the direction of the sound! How evident that this feature of the sense of direction is well developed! Half concealed as I was, the mink saw nothing to rouse its suspicions; it was merely curious or puzzled; it was thinking. Here was an occurrence beyond the range of its experience. What did it mean? The mink did not move a muscle, but stared at me. Then I commenced whistling in a low tone, and the animal became more excited; it moved its head from side to side, as if in doubt, and needed but a slight demonstration upon my part to convert this doubting into fear. I whistled more loudly, and moved my arms. In an instant the mink disappeared. There was not in this case a single act upon the part of the animal that differed from a timid and at the same time inquisitive child, and however much others may demur, I consider the mental activity the same in each.
Long before sunset the sky became clouded, the shadows in the wood were deepened, and wild life was better heard than seen. Then the resounding rain-drops striking the crisp leaves dulled all other sounds, and bade me seek refuge. I had not long to search, and, without hesitation, pushed through a jagged opening into a huge hollow maple. It is seldom that such convenient shelters are unoccupied; certainly this one was not.
Spiders in that hollow tree,
How they came and glared at me!
On trembling bridges overhead
To and fro in anger sped;
But the fear they would arouse,
While unbidden in their house,
Failed my stubborn nerves to touch,
Though they threatened overmuch.
From the moss, with glittering eye,
Mottled snake went gliding by;
With its forkéd tongue thrust out,
Wondered what I was about,
Standing in the hollow tree,
Wild-life’s home, this century.
Centipedes, uncanny forms,
Slimy, slippery, noisome worms,
From the cracks and crannies there
Startled each from hidden lair,
Crept and crawled, above, below,
Threatened me with direst woe
If I chanced to cross their path,
If I dared excite their wrath.
From a distant nook afar,
Gleaming like a double star,
Eyes of owlet, full of fire,
Questioned my insane desire
Here within the tree to stand,
Trespassing on wild-life’s land.
Why not in the outer world?
This the question at me hurled.
But I stubbornly refused
To be other than amused.
Nor till night I bent my way
Homeward, hermit for the day.