An Open Winter
I have heard or read that one may experience a sense of weariness when surrounded by the best that Nature has to offer – a cloying with too many sweets, as it were. It seems hard to believe, so rejoiced is the average rambler at the return of spring, but that it is true has recently dawned upon me, here in the wilds of Jersey, after some six weeks of merely nominal winter.
Wherever there is a little shelter from the occasional north winds, the immediate outlook is suggestive of early April, but the growing daffodils and blooming hunger-plant, dead-nettle, chickweed, spring beauties, violets, and dandelions, do not give us a springtide landscape, although columbine, giant hyssop, motherwort, self-heal, yellow corydalis, alum root, false mitrewort, and star of Bethlehem, are all green in the sheltered nooks, and the waters of many a spring-basin glow as emeralds with their wealth of aquatic plant life. It avails nothing that these springs and outflowing brooks teem with fish, frogs, salamanders, and spiders; nor does it matter that the sun gives us summer heat and that birds throng the underbrush as in nesting days; still it is winter. This is the crowning fact that colors every thought, and though we can not step but we crush a flower, winter will not be ignored. Nor would I have it so. January has its merits as well as June, and I hail with pleasure that spot where frost has gained a foothold. Here is one such spot; a circle of dead weeds bordering one of moss, and blackberry canes in rank profusion arising as an oval mound within all. It is an odd-looking spot to-day, and sure to attract attention. It is unlike the average clump of briers, and properly should be, as it is the sorry monument to a giant that for century after century dwelt here in glory. It was my good fortune to know him well, but my misfortune to be too young to assume the role of historian. Here stood the Pearson Oak. Perhaps my learned botanical friends may take exceptions, but I hold that this tree was nearly, if not quite, one thousand years old. How the Indian looms up when we think of such a tree! Here was a silent witness to the every-day life of an Indian village that in part rested in the mighty shadows that it cast. And later, from one huge limb dangled the rude pole swing that was the delight of the first of my people born in America. Being the most prominent feature of the neighborhood, this oak was brought within the boundary line of two great plantations, and the half acre beneath its branches was the common playground of two families. Little wonder, then, that in time it was also common courting ground. Indeed, the phrase common in several families now, referring to engaged couples, “under the oak,” has reference to this tree and the engagements that arose from frequently meeting there, during the first half-century after the place was settled.
But what has this to do with winter? Nothing, perhaps, but it seemed fitting that a film of ice should cover the little pool in the circle, as frost had blighted every shrub about, when recalling that long-gone past that seems to us so rosy-hued when comparing it with the present. Ruin is stamped upon every feature of the landscape here, and it is well that the old oak that witnessed more mirth than sadness should have passed away.
To those who can walk eight furlongs and see only a milestone, winter may be a dreary season: but Nature at rest, for those who love her, is a sleeping beauty. Again, if it so happens death is everywhere about you, it should not prove repulsive. Death is the law of life, and not a flower in June can boast greater beauty than the empty seed-pods of many a decaying plant. Shudder, if you will, at the word “skeleton,” but handle that of many a creature or plant, and enthusiastic admiration is sure to follow. In June, we glory in the deadly struggle for existence that everywhere is raging; charmed by the flaunting banners, the music, the “pomp and circumstance of glorious war”; why not then be rational and cull beauty as well as profit from the battle-field when the struggle is over? If a shrub is beautiful clad in motley garb, should not its filmy ghost in silvery gray merit a passing glance?
So ran my thoughts as I crossed my neighbor’s field, seeking new traces of frost’s handiwork, but here I failed. The general aspect was wintry, but definite results of wintry weather could not be found. Even on cold clay soil dandelions bloomed, and tissue-ice in the wagon ruts had no discouragement for the grass that bordered it. To sum up the result, rambling in January during such winter as this is not attractive, unless one is carried away by the novelty of plants blooming out of season, or hearing sounds when he expected silence. And a word here of winter sounds. Except immediately before a snow-storm, the country is never silent. Here and there, the fields may be deserted, but birds are somewhere, and these, of both sexes, can not keep quiet long. Of our winter birds, it can be said that they are essentially noisy, and chirp more, if they sing less, than birds in summer; and in the anomalous condition of the outdoor world, at present it was a relief to reach a hedge with its complement of birds. Their listless chirping now recalled days with the mercury near zero, when, defying the keen wind from the north, they sang a hearty welcome to the season and hailed every snow-squall as a gift from the gods. Nowhere else, however, and I walked several miles, were birds to be found, save here and there a solitary crow, and the conclusion is, that such a season drives off rather than attracts certain species, while others having no incentive to migrate, have not wandered this far south. I do not know what the result of observation in general has been, but certainly over my own rambling ground birds have been noticeably scarce. Flowers out of season are no compensation for the losses that a thoroughly open winter brings upon us; the more so, if an open winter lessens the number of our birds.
As the sun rose to-day, the thought “what splendid weather!” was uppermost, and, impelled by it, I struck across lots for the uncultivated nooks that are so pitifully few near by. The result has been given – not a single satisfactory feature in the whole range of half a dozen miles. A little here and there to wonder over, disappointment at nearly every turn; more, many more somber than merry thoughts; and not one successful effort at thinking any thought to a logical conclusion. To what is this due? Without doubt, to the “open” season. Nor is it strange. In no respect is nature soul-satisfying when unseasonable. A cool June morning is not a contradiction, and is delightful; but sultry January days are an utter abomination. Midwinter kicks over the traces when daffodils sport in January sunshine, as they are doing this morning about the crooked maple wherein I sit and write. The truth is, the present conditions offer no pronounced feature of the open country; nothing hot or cold, but all in that lukewarm condition tending to nausea. Nor is this feeling of dissatisfaction that takes so strong a hold upon mankind confined thereto. It is seen in half the creatures that one meets. A meadow-mouse is no sluggard at other times, and a lazy deer-mouse is a contradiction; but with what measured steps and slow a mouse comes hobbling over the dead leaves about the maple I am perched in! The creature looks at the sky, then at the ground, and finally at a sorry shrub with seedless pods. Not a bit of animation in its motions, but the same dejected feelings I recognize in myself evidently held the mouse in bondage. Then I moved suddenly, but the creature merely looked up, as if surprised at so much energy on my part. This was irritating, so I sprang cat-like to the ground, but only to find the mouse just out of reach and evidently not alarmed. Climbing again into the maple, I awaited further developments, and saw at last a white-footed or deer-mouse that seemed to me to drop from branch to branch, as it descended from its bush nest, a dozen feet from the ground. This was indeed discouraging. Usually there is no more graceful sight in the woods, during autumn or winter, than that of this dainty mammal, picking its way a-down a crooked highway of a tangled brier-patch. It is a sight sure to be recorded in full in my note-books, as every time I witness it some new grace marks the event, so I anticipated the old delight when I caught my first glimpse of the mouse, and such a result!
It is true that if one’s feelings are out of tune, there may be a distorted vision, but not so to-day. The world was askew, and has been since the first frost, for whoever knew the crows to be silent – positively silent, as compared with crows – on a crisp, frosty morning? There were forty, by count, that flew over the maple, and only one gave tongue. Here I may be charged with fancy, but that one crow gave out no ringing caw, that is music to him who loves the country. It was rather a fretful, long-drawn pshaw! and fittingly voiced the surroundings.
A winter in the tropics may be very delightful, but an “open” winter in New Jersey is an utter abomination.
A Foggy Morning
We know too little of the world except when bathed in sunshine. Not that I recognize any advantage in groping in darkness – this is too like dogmatizing on a theory; but between the obscurity of night and brilliancy of the day there are happy mediums, too commonly neglected. I have lately been wandering through a thick fog. Not a metaphysical, but a material one; nor was it gloomy. The fog was thick, yet through it streamed the level rays of the rising sun, gilding the topmost twigs of the forest trees, roofing with gold a trackless wild beneath. So changed for an hour or more was every long-familiar scene that, as I wandered, I was a stranger in a strange land.
The late John Cassin, the ornithologist, has left on record how a vast multitude of crows tarried for some time in Independence Square, Philadelphia, having, after leaving their roosting grounds, lost their reckoning in a dense fog. He tells us how the masses obeyed a few leaders, and how methodically they all departed, led by their appointed scouts. It was an incident that thrilled him more than all else that he had witnessed; and none knew our birds in their homes better than he.
The bewildered crows this morning recalled this story, for the poor birds were in a hopeless plight. Perhaps their leaders were at loggerheads, or, being none, it was a case of each for himself and ill-luck catch the hindmost. Be this as it may, their party-cries filled the misty air and relieved me of all feeling of loneliness. From the open meadows I ventured into a gloomy wood, leaving the crows to solve their own problems. Here the fog proved an enormous lens, and, at the same time obscuring the tops of even dwarfed undergrowth, made them appear as trees, and the taller grasses that had withstood the winter were as shrubbery. It was this most strange effect that made my old playground as a land unknown. But as the wild cries of the troubled crows grew faint, the sense of loneliness, against which one naturally rebels, assumed mastery, and I longed for at least sunlight, that the familiar trees might be stripped of their masks. One’s own thoughts should be acceptable company at all times, but mine are not in the gray of a winter morning, and fog-wrapped at that. Nevertheless, longing as I did for others’ voices, I protested then and there against my dependence upon bird-life. “Are there no other creatures astir?” I asked, and pushed on yet deeper, where the old oaks were clustered. Into whatever seemed a shelter I peered, and often thrust my arm, in hopes of feeling some furry yet not too responsive mass. Nothing resented my unmannered intrusion. Then into sundry hollow trees I thrust my cane, thinking at least an owl might be roused from his slumbers; but ill-luck attended me.
A little later, as the sun rose fairly high, the upper fog descended, and so far increased the gloom in the forest; but beyond it, as I looked down a long wood-path, I saw the cold gray light that brightened the outer world. Among the trees there was no dispelling force, and the fog became denser, until, overcome by its own weight, it turned to rain, and such a shower! The mists of the open air had fled, while through the woods the rain-drops, touched with a mellow light, shone as molten metal. Rebounding from the interlacing twigs above and the carpet of matted leaves below, these golden drops rang up, as might a myriad of bells, the laggard life about me. Rang up the timid shrews, and one darted among the dead leaves and moss, as though hotly pursued; aroused the squirrels, and creeping stealthily down an oak’s extended arms, a pair passed by, thinking by their cunning to escape my notice; called forth a white-footed mouse, daintiest of all our mammals, that picked its tortuous way to the meadow from its bush-nest in the briers. What folly to suppose there is no life about you because it eludes your search! The quickening rays of the sun have keener vision than any man, however gifted in woodcraft, and these to-day peered directly into every creature’s lair.
I might have searched in vain for half a day, yet found nothing among the trees. Even the nest of the mouse in the bushes I had mistaken for a cluster of thorn-pierced autumn leaves. It would seem as if every creature anticipated the possible visit of a Paul Pry, and was cunning enough to outwit him. The greater the effort made by the intruder, the less are his chances of seeing much. Let him be patient. Often a moment or two spent leaning against a tree effects more than a mile of noisy plowing through the brittle, crackling leaves. The careless snapping of a twig may not startle you, but it telegraphs your whereabouts to creatures many a rod away. How do I know this? In this way: Not long since I was watching a weasel as it tipped along the rough rails of an old worm fence. It was intently engaged, following the trail of a ground squirrel perhaps. Suddenly, as if shot, it stood in a half-erect posture; turned its head quickly from one side to the other; then rested one ear on or very near the rail, as I thought; then reassumed a semi-erect position, gave a quick, bark-like cry, and disappeared. There was no mistaking the meaning of every movement. The animal had heard a suspicious sound, and recognizing it as fraught with danger, promptly sought safety.
Extremely curious myself to learn what the weasel had heard, for I was sure it was the sound of an approaching object, I sat perfectly still, awaiting coming events. The mystery was quickly solved; a man drew near. In about two minutes I heard footsteps, and in two more saw the man approaching. Calculating the element of time in the succession of events, it appeared that the weasel heard the approaching footsteps first, fully one minute before I did, and about six elapsed before the man reached me from the time of the weasel’s disappearance; in all, some seven minutes. Now, allowing twenty paces to the minute and two and one half feet to the pace, this man was considerably more than one hundred yards distant. Indeed, I think he was walking faster and took longer steps than I have allowed in my calculation, and was really still farther away than 116 yards when the weasel caught the sound of his approach. Is it any wonder, then, that the woods seem silent as we saunter carelessly along?
The question now arises, Can any animal distinguish between the sounds of the footsteps of our many wild and domestic animals? Can any one of them recognize the difference between the steps of a man, fox, cow, or rat? Now, a weasel, for instance, would not fear a cow or a sheep, but would flee ordinarily from a man or a dog, and so such power of discrimination would be very useful to it. I am positive that they can distinguish, in the manner pointed out, between friend and foe, and so are not required to seek safety at every unusual sound. I know that the most dolorous screeching made by branches rubbing together whenever the wind blew had no terror for squirrels or rabbits, yet they must have trembled when they first heard it; I remember very well that I did. That fish can recognize the approach of a man and will hide, and yet pay not the slightest attention to galloping horses or tramping cattle that come near, is well known; and I can see no reason to deny a like discriminating ability to those animals whose very existence depends upon it. The fact that such a power is the mainspring of their safety is of itself a warrant for our belief that they possess it. And from what I have observed of animal life, I am further convinced that the power grows with the animal’s growth; hence the necessity of the young remaining, as they do, with their parents until well matured. The sense of hearing in a weasel, raccoon, or other creature is one that develops, and doubtless varies, in efficiency among individuals. There is no cut-and-dried instinct about it. I have often thought how much there is in the saying common among trappers concerning very cunning animals of any kind, “He is too old to be caught.” As chance has offered, I have experimented upon our wild animals as to this very point, and though the results were largely negative, there was nothing in them that showed my inference, or conviction rather, to be untrue; and, on the other hand, much that pointed unmistakably the other way.
But what of the clearing fog? True enough, I have drifted from it, and it has passed earthward and away. So may it ever be! Let but a bird pass by, singing or silent, it matters not; let but the shadow of a fleeing creature cross my path, and clouds, sunshine, storm, or fairest weather are alike one.
The Old Farm’s Wood-Pile
“In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages long ago.”
This was my wont just forty years ago; but such nights were never tedious; nor were the ages woful of which the old folks chatted. Sitting by the fire to-night, I am led to contemplate, not so much the heaped-up logs and cheerful blaze before me as that other feature of days gone by, the old farm’s wood-pile.
Recalling both what I saw and heard when a lad of a few summers, I am startled to find that, one after the other, the prominent features of my childhood’s days have largely disappeared. Improved farm machinery may delight the economist, but its introduction has added no new charm to country life, and robbed it of more than one. Was there not a subtle something in the swish of the scythe to be preferred to the click of the modern mower? Harvest comes and goes now without a ripple of excitement upon the farm. A hum of the reaper for a few hours, and the work is done. A portable steam-engine puffs in the field for a day, and the threshing is over. But what a long series of delights, at least to the onlooker, when grain was cradled, shocked, and then carted to the barn! And, later, far in the winter, what music was the measured thumping of the flails!
In due course came the present order, the natural outcome of relentless evolution, and it is affectation to decry it. Mankind in the long run has been benefited, and all should be thankful. But with these major changes have come minor ones that I trust can be mourned without risking a charge of silliness. I need not name them. Mention of any one calls up the rest, so closely related were they all. Who can think of the old wood-pile, a maze of gnarly sticks, huge chopping-log, and the rudely hafted axe, without a vision also of the old kitchen with its cavernous fireplace, and, just outside the door, the mossy well with its ungainly sweep! All these were practically out of date in my time, but here and there were retained on more than one old farm I knew, and are still in use within walking distance of my home.
To many, perhaps, a wood-pile is but a pile of wood; but it is something more. Can you not see that the ground is depressed, as though the earth had been beaten down by the continued blows of axe and beetle? Do you not notice that the outlying weeds are different from those that are scattered elsewhere about the dooryard? Here, there is not only a wood-pile now, but there has been one for many a long year, perhaps for more than a century. Turn up the soil and you will find it black; examine it with a lens, and you will find it filled with wood fiber in every stage of decomposition. Dig deeper and you will find many a relic of a by-gone generation. Pewter buttons that once shone like silver, the pride of beaux who, though Quakers, loved a smart-looking coat; buckles worn at the knee and upon the shoes; bits of spectacle rims that once held circular glasses of enormous diameter; a thousand odds and ends, indeed, of metal, glass, and china, discarded, one by one, as they were broken; for the wood-pile was a dust-heap as well, and the last resting-place of every small object that could not be burned.
My own earliest recollection of outdoor sport is of “playing house” about the generous heap of gnarly logs and crooked branches that had been brought from the woods during the winter. At some convenient corner the loose earth would be scooped away, water brought until the hollow was filled, and a long row of mud pies molded in clamshells, the product of a happy morning’s work. It was usually when thus engaged that some curious object would be brought to light and referred for explanation to the wood-chopper, if he were present. I can see two old men now, whose sole occupation in their later years, so far as I can recall, was to split wood. These two men, Uz Gaunt and Miles Overfield, were “master hands with an axe,” as they promptly said of themselves. With one foot resting upon the chopping-block, and leaning upon his axe, Uz or Miles would critically examine whatever I had found; and then, after silently gazing into the distance to recall the past, with what an air of wisdom would the information be forthcoming! Nor would either of these old men ever promptly resume his labor. Such an interruption was sure to call up a flood of memories, and delightful stories of long ago made me quite forget my play. Nothing that my own or another’s brain could suggest ever equaled in interest these old men’s stories. I can not clearly recall a single one of them now, but simply the effect they produced and the sad fact that, in their estimation, the present never favorably compared with the days when they were young. And is it not ever so? If I have learned nothing else since then I have learned this – that the glorious future to which as a child I looked forward has proved everything but what my fancy painted.
There was a comic side to my interviews with the wood-choppers which I recall even now with grim satisfaction, for I think it was right that I outwitted an unreasonably cross-grained aunt. Often my heart was sorely troubled because, in the midst of a most exciting story, Aunt would call out, “Thee is hindering Miles at his work; he doesn’t like to be bothered;” all of which was in the interest of the work being done, and not Miles’s comfort. Not like to be bothered, indeed! Neither he nor Uz disapproved of loitering, for both were old, and Aunt knew this as well as they. Before summer was over, a stratagem was devised that succeeded admirably. I had merely to take my place on the off side of the wood-pile, where I was quite out of sight, and Miles or Uz would work, oh, so diligently! at the light wood for half a day, which needed next to no exertion, and all the while could talk as freely as when taking his nooning. Perhaps it was not well, but, young as I then was, I learned that in human nature the real and the apparent are too often as widely apart as the poles.
The wild life that forty years ago lurked in the woods and swamps of the old farm was not different from what is still to be found there, but there has been a great decrease in the numbers of many forms. The wild cat and fox, perhaps, may be considered as really extinct, although both are reported at long intervals in the immediate neighborhood. These, it is certain, are stragglers – the former from the mountains to north, the latter from the pine regions toward the sea-coast. But it has not been long since the raccoon was regularly hunted during the moonlit winter nights and the opposum found security in half the hollow trees along the hillside. The dreaded skunk was then abundant. None of these, however, can be said to be of common occurrence now, and their discovery produces a ripple of excitement at present, while in my early days their capture excited scarcely a word of comment. Then the old wood-pile was not infrequently the hiding-place of one or more of these “varmints,” which raided the hen-roost, kept the old dog in a fever of excitement, and baffled the trapping skill of the oldest “hands” upon the farm. Now, at best, when the last sticks are cut and stored in the woodshed, the burrow of a rat is all we find.
With what glee do I still recall an autumn evening, years ago, when the unusually furious barking of the old mastiff brought the whole family to the door! In the dim twilight the dog could be seen dashing at and retreating from the wood-pile, and at once the meaning of the hubbub was apparent. Some creature had taken refuge there. A lantern was brought, and as every man wished to be the hero of the hour, my aunt held the light. The wood-pile was surrounded; every stick was quickly overturned, and finally a skunk was dislodged. Confused or attracted by the light, I do not know which, the “varmint” made straightway for the ample skirts of the old lady, followed by the dog, and, in a second, skunk, dog, lady, and lantern were one indistinguishable mass. My aunt proved the heroine of the evening, nor did the men object. I often pause at the very spot, and fancy that “the scent of the roses” doth “hang round it still.”
A wood-pile, if it be not too near the house, has many attractions for birds of various kinds, and I am at a loss to know why the whip-poor-will should, of recent years, have forsaken it. Formerly, the first of these birds heard in early spring was that which perched upon the topmost stick and whistled his trisyllabic monologue from dark to dawn. Now they frequent only the retired woodland tracts. Various insect-eating birds continually come and go, attracted by the food they find in the decayed wood, but the house-wren remains throughout its summer sojourn here – that is, from April to October; while during the colder months the winter wren takes the other’s place. These little brown birds are exceedingly alike in appearance, in habits, and in size, and I shall never forget my communicating the fact that they were not the same to Miles Overfield. It was almost my last conversation with him.
“Not the same?” he exclaimed. “You might as well tell me that a snow-bird isn’t a chippy in its winter dress!”
“They are not, indeed!” I replied, astonished to hear so remarkable a statement.
“So you set up book-learnin’ against me about such things as that, eh?” Miles remarked, with unlimited scorn in both his voice and manner; and from that time I lost favor in his eyes. Such crude ideas concerning our common birds are still very common, nor is it to be wondered at. Knowledge of local natural history is still at a discount. Is there a country school where even its barest rudiments are taught?
The heaped-up logs that, burning brightly, made cheery my room when I sat down for a quiet evening’s meditation, are now a bed of ashes and lurid coals. They typify the modern wood-piles about our farms – mere heaps of refuse sticks and windfall branches of our dooryard trees. Fit for kindling, perhaps, but never for a generous fire upon an open hearth. As I linger over them, the irrecoverable past, with all its pleasures to the fore, comes back with painful vividness. The fantastic shapes of the ruddy coals, the caverns in the loose ashes, the shadows of the andirons, the filmy thread of smoke, are a landscape to my fancy, upon which my eyes can never dwell again. In the faint moaning of the wind that fills the chimney corner I hear a voice, long stilled, whose music led me dancing through the world. Place and people are alike changed. “All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.”