Part 13

I should have turned back with the crowd, but like most any other tenderfoot, I did not understand the danger. We anchored in the Bay, and put out our decoys. I was pleased to see that we had the shooting to ourselves. Not a boat was in sight. I shot two ducks, and we slipped our anchor and picked them up inside of five minutes. When we essayed to return to our decoys, I found that the wind was kicking up a rough sea. I think we were over an hour getting back to the decoys. After this the wind increased, and the choppy sea begun to look ugly. The boat took in water, and we realized that we were in danger of being swamped at any moment. The young man wanted to leave the anchor and decoys, and make for the bar. I was ready to go, but refused to leave the decoys. I knew that I would have them to pay for, and there was a good reason for taking them on board: they would help to keep the boat afloat. The young fellow bailed the boat, while I pulled in the decoys. We got under way, and for two hours we had all we could do to keep our boat from going ashore on the rocks. We did not get to the bar. At the end of two hours there came a lull in the wind, and we gradually worked the boat toward the bar. When we saw a big wave coming, we swung the boat bow on, and thus kept from being swamped. After a terrible struggle, we crossed the bar and made fast to a boat-landing in the river just in time to escape from a fierce tornado. If we had encountered such wind while in the bay, some other fellow would have told this story.

I did not get home until after dark. Supper over, I turned to my note-book, and the record made was a sorry one. Expense three dollars, without a pound of meat that I could eat, or the memory of sport enjoyed, to offset, and besides, I had barely escaped with my life.

This I thought was due to my love of the gun. There was another waste of time which I laid to the door of the gun. I would feel uneasy mornings, until at last I would compromise with myself, by thinking that I would go out for two hours, and then certainly return and put away the gun. I am sorry to have to admit that it was usually the gloom of night that sent me back to the cabin. I hardly think that the gun should be held wholly guilty. My love for nature, and the keen enjoyment of finding wild flowers, little wayward brooks, or huge masses of bed rock hid away in the deep recesses of the woods, accounted for much of the time spent. However, I sold my gun, and did my hunting with note-book and pencil.

The pupils from the High School botanical class flocked to the woods about my cabin in search for flowers to identify and mount.

I was employed by the parents of some of these pupils to gather specimens and tag them with their Latin names. This method saved the pupil a lot of trouble, but it did not tend to advance the knowledge of botany. It occupied some of my time in the spring months, and gave me the pleasure of searching the woods without thinking that I was wasting my time.

It must be remembered that during my eighteen years of hermit life, I have been obliged to earn my living expenses, and to feed the wild things that come to my cabin dooryard as well. Referring to my note-book, I find that the last item foots up nearly four hundred dollars, but there are some rebates. I mounted one raccoon, many birds and squirrels, the receipts for which lessened the debtor side of the ledger.

I find that my note-book is filled with notes on flowers and other things besides birds. Early in the spring, or at other times, when the frost was coming out of the ground, I noticed that the stones, or small rocks, in the grassy highway did not fit their beds. There would be a space around each stone; the width of the space would be gauged by the shape of the stone. If the stone was conical, the space would be quite noticeable. If round, the space was much smaller. I suppose the cause was expansion, owing to the freezing of the ground. It was the water in the ground that expanded, carrying the dirt and rocks with it. Under the influence of a thaw, the rocks dropped back to their beds, leaving a space because the part of the rock above the ground is almost always smaller than the part underground. That is, a rock stands on its base and not on its apex.

Another thing that has puzzled me is the behavior of dead pine-limbs. One would suppose a dead limb ought to remain decently quiet and not move about like some living thing. I had occasion to make a path through a thick growth of small pines. The dead limbs extended on each tree from the ground to a height of ten feet. I broke off the limbs so I could pass under them without trouble. After the path was completed, it turned cold for two days. When I undertook to pass that way during the cold spell, the dead limbs were so much depressed that I was obliged to break the path anew.

I experimented on dead limbs at different times, and found it was a fact that lifeless pine-limbs will fall in cold and rise in warm weather. I am unable to give a reason for this movement.

On my way to the city, the first wild flower to greet me in the spring is the snowy white bloom of the shadbush, or June-berry, as it is called here. It grows in great masses all along the old highway. Bond's Hill is pretty well covered with a variety unknown to any botany. I have referred this variety of the Amelanchier to some of our professors in botany. I suppose in time it will find its place in the botanical works. It grows like the dwarf blueberry, fruiting when less than a foot in height. Some patches of this low variety cover two square rods or more.

After the shadbush is in full bloom, the other early wild flowers, that grow beside the old road, come into bloom in rapid succession. As I pass along to or from the city, I see in the distance patches of white which, if I did not know better, would lead me to think that I had discovered some beautiful low white flower. When I reach the spot I find it is spring everlasting (Antennaria plantaginifolia). I give the scientific name of this insignificant flower, because every spring scores of woodland ramblers bring it to me and ask its name. Early in the spring the flower is a very good white, but as the season advances, it becomes a dirty greenish white. The stem is cottony and the leaves, when young, are covered with a silky wool. With age, the leaves become green above and grayish below. One should make its acquaintance early in the spring, before other and better flowers become plentiful.

There is a clump of bushes near the brook that attracts my attention early. It is the fly honeysuckle. The pale green leaves appear while other shrubs can boast only swelling buds. Later, its slender branches are covered with honey-colored bell-shaped flowers. The flowers hang in pairs, and are airy and graceful.

On a hillside, near the road, the slender but wiry wild columbine swings its Chinese lanterns above its humble neighbors, the star-flower and the windflower. Near Western Avenue, where the bed rock overlooks the harbor, the cliffs are white with saxifrage. Scattered along the old highway may be found the common cinquefoil. Its yellow flower looks like a strawberry blossom, and strawberry blossom it is to most persons. If one is in doubt let him or her place the two side by side. The strawberry leaves are in three divisions, while the cinquefoil is in five. The stems of the strawberry are hairy, while the stems of cinquefoil are clean, brown, and wiry. The silvery cinquefoil grows all along the roadsides of Western Avenue, from the Cut to the drawbridge.

In late spring and early summer the viburnums afford a mass of bloom that makes the old road look like a cultivated shrub garden. Here the wild roses are a blaze of color. I do not believe that there is another spot on earth where the wild roses can compete with those on Cape Ann.

The city end of the old highway in mid-summer is white with the fragrant bloom of the sweet pepperbush. Then, too, the wild orange-red lily takes possession of the roadsides and waste places.

It is marvellous, that for one hundred and fifty years, this deserted old highway has maintained an existence.

Brave Old Road! You are gullied by frost and flood; you are worried by catbrier and choked by brambles. You are cursed by poison-ivy, and blessed by climbing woodbine. By night, yours is the highway of the skunk, the weasel, the raccoon, the fox, the mink, the woodchuck, and the rabbit. By day, the grouse and quail seek your grassy spots for food, and your tiny brooks for water. Birds of all kinds nest and sing in the shrubby growth that borders your roadsides. May you never lose the wildness, which, for one hundred and fifty years, you have rescued from civilization.

I have mentioned poison-ivy and woodbine. It is easy to tell one from the other. Poison-ivy has three leaflets, and the woodbine has five. When leafless, examine the method of climbing. The stem of the poison-ivy is covered thickly with fine rootlets, while the stem of the woodbine is sparingly supplied with tendrils by which it clings and climbs.

Thoreau writes: "It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild apple." Again, "What is sour in the house, a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these apples might be labelled 'to be eaten in the wind.'"

I suppose my taste must be "savage or wild," for I do appreciate wild apples. I don't know the wild apple that Thoreau describes, but those that grow lavishly in the woods of Cape Ann are not to be despised. I think I am safe in claiming that one-half of the wild trees bear sweet fruit. Many of the other half bear cooking-apples as good, or better, than can be found in most cultivated orchards. I know of several trees that bear fruit resembling the Baldwin in color and taste, and not much inferior in size. In a secluded spot, where a ledge on one side and a dense mass of catbrier on all other sides hides it from prying eyes, stands a wild apple-tree. Its fruit has no peer in woods or orchard. It is large, with a thin skin greenish-yellow in color. To the taste it is slightly acid, with a rich spicy flavor. Only three wood-folk know the secret of this wild apple-tree. A grouse, a rabbit, and a hermit. The grouse nests just over the ledge, the rabbit has a burrow underneath the mass of catbrier, and the hermit nests in the open air, and lives close to Nature, too.

Sometimes farmers with orchards offer to load me with windfalls, and are incredulous when I tell them that I have an abundant supply of apples, as good as those on their best trees. I am the proud owner of an orchard as well as the farmer, and my orchard gives greater enjoyment. The farmer visits his orchard to see how the fruit is setting. It is a humdrum affair. He walks down this row and up that, so the inspection is soon over. It takes me several days to inspect my orchard, while each night I return loaded with wild flowers and experience. There are no stiff rows to follow. My orchard is laid out without regard to quadrangles or triangles. It is Nature's plan, engineered on a grand scale, to supply the wants of the greatest number of her wild children, the mice, rabbits, grouse, robins, quail, squirrels, and woodchucks.

Where cattle are pastured in the woods, the evolution of an apple-tree, as described by Thoreau, is going on now as it did in his day. During the eighteen years of my hermit life some of the trees have emancipated themselves, and now toss their branches above their old enemies. The cattle, however, coolly appropriate the fruit of the trees they had so persistently tried to browse to death.

MR. AND MRS. CHEWINK

It was a May morning, clear and warm, the time was half-past five. It was my breakfast-hour and a pert chickadee had just whistled "Tea's ready," to the other birds, when I heard in the bushes near by a bird voice call out "Chewink," in answer to the chickadee. My breakfast-table was a dry-goods box and this morning it was under a pine-tree. A newspaper served for a table-cloth. Breakfast under the pines was a grand affair, and I was sorry when a year later I had dropped the custom for a breakfast in the city. When I sat down to breakfast my woodland orchestra was in full swing. The musicians numbered one song sparrow, one robin, one chewink, or towhee-bunting, one catbird, three veeries, two wood-thrushes, and a chestnut-sided warbler. While I was sipping my coffee, and reading in Thoreau's "Maine Woods" how to make tea from wild stuff, I again heard the bird voice call out "Chewink." I looked up and saw a female chewink on the end of the plank seat, not ten feet away. She had hopped into sight and had introduced herself by announcing her name.

In some way, this little wild bird had discovered that I supplied free food to the wild things, and she had called on me to establish friendly relations. I threw a bit of cookie to her and it rolled to the ground. She hopped down, found the food, and ate it on the spot, then looked up for more. I gave her another piece which she carried to the bushes.

My dinner hour was three o'clock P. M., two meals instead of the usual three. Miss Chewink was on hand and she was not alone. She had brought along two young gentlemen, who cared more about showing their fine clothes than they did about eating. They strutted around with their tails spread out like fans, and I was soon convinced that they were rivals. The little lady ignored them completely, while she dined with me as freely as if she was not a self-invited guest.

I suppose it would be the proper thing to describe my guests. The chewink, or towhee-bunting is nearly two-thirds the size of a robin. The male has a coal-black head, black wings and tail. Below he is white with orange sides. His eyes are red like the dove's. The tail when spread is bordered with white. The female is a warm brown where the male is black, otherwise the sexes are alike.

After dinner my guests departed. Later I looked them up. The female was perched on a horizontal limb, while about ten feet away the two dudes strutted and spread their wings and tails, in an effort to affect the choice of the demure maiden. For three days the rivals showed off before the little lady in brown and orange. The morning of the fourth day only two of the birds came to breakfast. The little lady had made her choice, and was now a bride. The other suitor had disappeared, perhaps to look up a second choice. Housekeeping was a failure with the newly wedded pair for two years. Nest after nest was looted by snakes until the third year. That year the birds reared a family of four. Mrs. Chewink was very industrious, and worked early and late gathering straws, rootlets, and bits of weed-stalk for a nest. Mr. Chewink turned out to be a lazy, good-for-nothing, shiftless fellow. Not even a feather did he carry to the new home. However, he had one redeeming quality, he could sing. Somehow, his song seemed to fit into the glorious spring mornings, and the listener felt that it was in perfect harmony with wild flowers, with the drowsy hum of insect life and the tinkling notes of the woodland brook. When the little ones were out of the shell, Mrs. Chewink had all she could do to supply their wants. She carried bread from the dooryard, and gleaned bugs and beetles in the flower garden.