Literary Pilgrimages of a Naturalist

Part 1

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Italic text is denoted by underscores.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

LITERARY PILGRIMAGES OF A NATURALIST

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | THE WORKS OF WINTHROP PACKARD | | | | | | WOODLAND PATHS | | WILD PASTURES | | WOOD WANDERINGS | | WILDWOOD WAYS | | | | Each illustrated by Charles Copeland | | | | 12mo. Ornamental cloth, gilt top, each volume $1.20 net; | | by mail, $1.28 | | | | These four volumes together constitute “The New England | | Year” series, dealing, in the order given, with the four | | seasons. Sold separately. | | | | | | FLORIDA TRAILS | | | | As seen from Jacksonville to Key West, and from November to | | April, inclusive | | | | Illustrated from photographs by the author and others | | | | 8vo. Ornamental cloth, gilt top, boxed, $3.00 net; by | | mail, $3.25 | | | | | | LITERARY PILGRIMAGES OF A NATURALIST | | | | Visits to the haunts of Whittier, Emerson, Hawthorne, Celia | | Thaxter, Webster, Aldrich, and others | | | | Illustrated from photographs by the author and others | | | | 12mo. Ornamental cloth, gilt top, boxed, $2.00 net; by | | mail, $2.20 | | | | | | SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY | | PUBLISHERS BOSTON | +--------------------------------------------------------------+

See page 2 ]

LITERARY PILGRIMAGES

A NATURALIST

WINTHROP PACKARD

Author of “Florida Trails,” “Wild Pastures,” “Wood Wanderings,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS

BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD, AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1911 BY SMALL, MAYNARD, AND COMPANY (INCORPORATED)

Entered at Stationers’ Hall

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.

TO THE MEMORY OF CLARENCE H. BERRY

A Schoolmaster of Long Ago

THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

The author wishes to express his thanks to the editors of the “Boston Evening Transcript” for permission to reprint in this volume matter which was originally contributed to its columns.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. IN OLD MARSHFIELD 1

II. AT WHITTIER’S BIRTHPLACE 15

III. IN OLD PONKAPOAG 30

IV. AT THE ISLES OF SHOALS 44

V. THOREAU’S WALDEN 60

VI. ON THE FIRST TRAIL OF THE PILGRIMS 75

VII. IN OLD CONCORD 90

Part 2

VIII. THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET 104

IX. IN OLD NEWBURYPORT 118

X. PLYMOUTH MAYFLOWERS 135

XI. OLD SALEM TOWN 148

XII. VERMONT MAPLE SUGAR 164

XIII. NATURE’S MEMORIAL DAY 183

XIV. BIRDS OF CHOCORUA 197

INDEX 213

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

“No wonder Daniel Webster, wandering southward over the hills in search of a country home, chose this as his abiding-place.” See page 2 Frontispiece

“Telling the pearls on this rosary of a path one is led beyond the homestead.” 12

“Within this wide circle, with the house its core, and the hearth its shrine, revolved the homely, cheerful, whole-hearted life of the farm.” 22

“Watching the crane and pendant trammels grow black against the blaze.” See page 18 28

A corner of the room in which Whittier was born 28

“The study where Aldrich wrote some of his daintiest verse looks forth upon a sweet valley.” 30

“The study window in what was ‘The Bemis Place’ of the elder days of Ponkapoag.” See page 35 36

Celia Thaxter’s home at the Isles of Shoals 44

“Chasms down which you may walk to the tide between sheer cliffs.” 50

“Up to the smooth turf on this knoll crowd all the pasture shrubs that she loved.” 58

“Here is the cairn erected to his memory, to which with doffed hat you may well add a stone.” See page 65 66

“Walden is Walden still, very much as Thoreau painted it.” 70

“Pilgrim Lake,” where that first washing was done by the Pilgrim mothers 78

“That little creek that blocked the way of doughty Myles Standish and his men, sending them inland on a detour.” See page 85 86

“Here in a volley was the summing up of the nature of the heroes that had grown up, quite literally, in the Concord soil.” See page 93 92

“Hither, too, came Hawthorne, to tramp the woods as did the others, and feel as did they, the divine afflatus.” 98

“The water from the old well cooled the throat of his memory, and sparkled to the eye of it as he recalled the dripping bucket.” 114

The Newburyport home of Joshua Coffin, the early friend and teacher of Whittier 126

Part 3

“Down river to the old chain bridge the rough rocks of the New Hampshire hills come to get a taste of salt.” See page 129 130

One angle of “The House of the Seven Gables.” 150

“A Salem dock of the old sea-faring days.” 150

“The only sound was the crunch of soft snow and the splash of sap within the barrel.” See page 171 172

“But here is a sweetness that the tree almost bursts to deliver.” 178

“The farmhouse where Bolles lived and loved the woods and all that therein lived with him.” See page 197 198

Nightfall on Chocorua Lake 208

LITERARY PILGRIMAGES OF A NATURALIST

LITERARY PILGRIMAGES OF A NATURALIST

IN OLD MARSHFIELD

Glimpses of the Country about the Daniel Webster Place

Down in Marshfield early morning brings to the roadside troops of blue-eyed chicory blooms, shy memories of fair Pilgrim children who once trod these ways. They do not stay long with the wanderer, these early morning blooms. The turmoil and heat of the mid-summer day close them, but the dreams they bring ramble with the roads in happy freedom from all care among drumlins and kames, vanishing in the flooding heat of some wood-enclosed pasture corner to spring laughingly back again as the way tops a hill and gives a glimpse of the purple velvet of the sea. No wonder Peregrine White, the first fair-skinned child born in New England, strayed from the boundaries of Plymouth and chose his home here. No wonder Daniel Webster, New England’s most vivid great man, wandering southward over the hills in search of a country home two centuries later, fixed upon the spot just below Black Mount, looking down upon Green Harbor marshes and the sea, and chose this for his abiding-place.

The statesman and orator, whose words still ring across the years to us, with the trumpet sounding in them even from the printed page, may well have breathed inspiration for them from the winds that come from seaward across the aromatic marshes. There is cool truthfulness in these winds, and understanding of the depths, and the salty, wild flavor of the untamed marsh gives them a tang of primal vitality. Breasting them at mid-day from under the wilt of summer heat you seem to drink air rather than to breathe it, and find intoxication in the draught. I never heard a robin sing in mid-flight, soaring upward like a skylark, till I came to this bit of sweet New England country. The east wind drifted in to him as he sat on a treetop caroling, and he spread his wings to it and fluttered upward, pouring out round notes of melody as he went. Webster’s most famous speeches were composed while he tramped these hills and marshes and sailed the blue velvet of the outlying sea, and their richest phrases soar as they sing, even as did the robin.

You may come to Black Mount with its panoramic view of the Webster farm, the surrounding pastures and marshes and the little Pilgrim cemetery where he lies buried, from either the Marshfield railway station or that of Green Harbor, both a mile or more away by road. A better route lay for me through the woods by paths flecked with sunlight and dappled with shadow, paths which the Pilgrims’ descendants first sought out and which are as fair to-day to our feet as they were to theirs. One can easily fancy Peregrine and his wife picking berries along here on days when the farm work allowed them freedom, the children frolicking about with them and eating or spilling half they picked, as the children do on these hills now. Voices and laughter rang through the woods as I passed, and there is small blame to the pickers if they do eat the berries as fast as they pick them. They never taste quite so good as on this direct route from producer to consumer. Along this path you may have your choice of varieties as you go, from the pale blue ones that grow so very near the earth on their tiny bushes that they seem the salt of it, giving the day its zest, through the low-bush-blacks, crisp with seeds and aromatic in flavor as if smoked with the incense of the sweet-fern, to those other black ones that grow on the high bushes and rightfully take the name of huckleberry. The soil of these sandy hills may be thin and not worth farming, but it produces fruit whose quality puts to shame the product of well-cultivated gardens. The good bishop of England who once said, “Doubtless God could have produced a better berry than the strawberry, but doubtless He never did,” never ate blueberries from the bush in a New England pasture.

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