Chapter 12
What drew us first to the pasture--which we came to at last--was our search for a magpie's nest. The home of this knowing fellow is the Rocky Mountain region, and, naturally, he was the first bird we thought of looking for. There would be no difficulty in finding nests, we thought, for we came upon magpies everywhere in our walks. Now one alighted on a fence-post a few yards ahead of us, earnestly regarding our approach, tilting upward his long, expressive tail, the black of his plumage shining with brilliant blue reflections, and the white fairly dazzling the eyes. Again we caught glimpses of two or three of the beautiful birds walking about on the ground, holding their precious tails well up from the earth, and gleaning industriously the insect life of the horse pasture. At one moment we were saluted from the top of a tall tree, or shrieked at by one passing over our heads, looking like an immense dragonfly against the sky. Magpie voices were heard from morning till night; strange, loud calls of "mag! mag!" were ever in our ears. "Oh, yes," we had said, "we must surely go out some morning and find a nest."
First we inquired. Everybody knew where they built, in oak-brush or in apple-trees, but not a boy in that village knew where there was a nest. Oh, no, not one! A man confessed to the guilty secret, and, directed by him, we took a long walk through the village with its queer little houses, many of them having the two front doors which tell the tale of Mormondom within; up the long sidewalk, with a beautiful bounding mountain brook running down the gutter, as if it were a tame irrigating ditch, to a big gate in a "combination fence." What this latter might be we had wondered, but relied upon knowing it when we saw it,--and we did: it was a fence of laths held together by wires woven between them, and we recognized the fitness of the name instantly. Then on through the big gate, down a long lane where we ran the gauntlet of the family cows; over or under bars, where awaited us a tribe of colts with their anxious mammas; and at last to the tree and the nest. There our guide met us and climbed up to explore. Alas! the nest robber had anticipated us.
Slowly we took our way home, resolved to ask no more help, but to seek for ourselves, for the nest that is _known_ is the nest that is robbed. So the next morning, armed with camp-chairs and alpenstocks, drinking-cups and notebooks, we started up the mountain, where we could at least find solitude, and the fresh air of the hills. We climbed till we were tired, and then, as was our custom, sat down to rest and breathe, and see who lived in that part of the world. Without thought of the height we had reached, we turned our backs to the mountain, rising bare and steep before us, and behold! the outlook struck us dumb.
There at our feet lay the village, smothered in orchards and shade-trees, the locusts, just then huge bouquets of graceful bloom and delicious odor, buzzing with hundreds of bees and humming-birds; beyond was a stretch of cultivated fields in various shades of green and brown; and then the lake,--beautiful and wonderful Salt Lake,--glowing with exquisite colors, now hyacinth blue, changing in places to tender green or golden brown, again sparkling like a vast bed of diamonds. In the foreground lay Antelope Island, in hues of purple and bronze, with its chain of hills and graceful sky-line; and resting on the horizon beyond were the peaks of the grand Oquirrhs, capped with snow. Well might we forget our quest while gazing on this impressive scene, trying to fix its various features in our memories, to be an eternal possession.
We were recalled to the business in hand by the sudden appearance on the top of a tree below us of one of the birds we sought. The branch bent and swayed as the heavy fellow settled upon it, and in a moment a comrade came, calling vigorously, and alighted on a neighboring branch. A few minutes they remained, with flirting tails, conversing in garrulous tones, then together they rose on broad wings, and passed away--away over the fields, almost out of sight, before they dropped into a patch of oak-brush. After them appeared others, and we sat there a long time, hoping to see at least one that had its home within our reach. But every bird that passed over turned its face to the mountains; some seemed to head for the dim Oquirrhs across the lake, while others disappeared over the top of the Wasatch behind us; not one paused in our neighborhood, excepting long enough to look at us, and express its opinion in loud and not very polite tones.
It was then and there that we noticed our pasture; the entrance was beside us. Shall we go in? was always the question before an inclosure. We looked over the wall. It was plainly the abode of horses, meek work-a-day beings, who certainly would not resent our intrusion. Oak-brush was there in plenty, and that is the chosen home of the magpie. We hesitated; we started for the gate. It was held in place by a rope elaborately and securely tied in many knots; but we had learned something about the gates of this "promised land,"--that between the posts and the stone wall may usually be found space enough to slip through without disturbing the fastenings.
In that country no one goes through a gate who can possibly go around it, and well is it indeed for the stranger and the wayfarer in "Zion" that such is the custom, for the idiosyncrasies of gates were endless; they agreed only in never fitting their place and never opening properly. If the gate was in one piece, it sagged so that it must be lifted; or it had lost one hinge, and fell over on the rash individual who loosened the fastenings; or it was about falling to pieces, and must be handled like a piece of choice bric-a-brac. If it had a latch, it was rusty or did not fit; and if it had not, it was fastened, either by a board slipped in to act as a bar and never known to be of proper size, or in some occult way which would require the skill of "the lady from Philadelphia" to undo. If it was of the fashion that opens in the middle, each individual gate had its particular "kink," which must be learned by the uninitiated before he--or, what is worse, she--could pass. Many were held together by a hoop or link of iron, dropped over the two end posts; but whether the gate must be pulled out or pushed in, and at exactly what angle it would consent to receive the link, was to be found out only by experience.
But not all gates were so simple even as this: the ingenuity with which a variety of fastenings,--all to avoid the natural and obvious one of a hook and staple,--had been evolved in the rural mind was fairly startling. The energy and thought that had been bestowed upon this little matter of avoiding a gate-hook would have built a bridge across Salt Lake, or tunneled the Uintas for an irrigating ditch.
Happily, we too had learned to "slip through," and we passed the gate with its rope puzzle, and the six or eight horses who pointed inquiring ears toward their unwonted visitors, and hastened to get under cover before the birds, if any lived there, should come home.
The oak-brush, which we then approached, is a curious and interesting form of vegetation. It is a mass of oak-trees, all of the same age, growing as close as they can stand, with branches down to the ground. It looks as if each patch had sprung from a great fall of acorns from one tree, or perhaps were shoots from the roots of a perished tree. The clumps are more or less irregularly round, set down in a barren piece of ground, or among the sage bushes. At a distance, on the side of a mountain, they resemble patches of moss of varying shape. When two or three feet high, one is a thick, solid mat; when it reaches an altitude of six to eight feet, it is an impenetrable thicket; except, that is, when it happens to be in a pasture. Horses and cattle find such scanty pickings in the fields, that they nibble every green thing, even oak leaves, and so they clear the brush as high as they can reach. When therefore it is fifteen feet high, there is a thick roof the animals are not able to reach, and one may look through a patch to the light beyond. The stems and lower branches, though kept bare of leaves, are so close together and so intertwined and tangled, that forcing one's way through it is an impossibility. But the horses have made and kept open paths in every direction, and this turns it into a delightful grove, a cool retreat, which others appreciate as well as the makers.
Selecting a favorable-looking clump of oak-brush, we attempted to get in without using the open horse paths, where we should be in plain sight. Melancholy was the result; hats pulled off, hair disheveled, garments torn, feet tripped, and wounds and scratches innumerable. Several minutes of hard work and stubborn endurance enabled us to penetrate not more than half a dozen feet, when we managed, in some sort of fashion, to sit down, on opposite sides of the grove. Then, relying upon our "protective coloring" (not evolved, but carefully selected in the shops), we subsided into silence, hoping not to be observed when the birds came home, for there was the nest before us.
A wise and canny builder is Madam Mag, for though her home must be large to accommodate her size, and conspicuous because of the shallowness of the foliage above her, it is, in a way, a fortress, to despoil which the marauder must encounter a weapon not to be despised,--a stout beak, animated and impelled by indignant motherhood. The structure was made of sticks, and enormous in size; a half-bushel measure would hardly hold it. It was covered, as if to protect her, and it had two openings under the cover, toward either of which she could turn her face. It looked like a big, coarsely woven basket resting in a crotch up under the leaves, with a nearly close cover supported by a small branch above. The sitting bird could draw herself down out of sight, or she could defend herself and her brood, at either entrance.
In my retreat, I had noted all these points before any sign of life appeared in the brush. Then there came a low cry of "mag! mag!" and the bird entered near the ground. She alighted on a dead branch, which swung back and forth, while she kept her balance with her beautiful tail. She did not appear to look around; apparently she had no suspicions and did not notice us, sitting motionless and breathless in our respective places. Her head was turned to the nest, and by easy stages and with many pauses, she made her way to it. I could not see that she had a companion, for I dared not stir so much as a finger; but while she moved about near the nest there came to the eager listeners on the ground low and tender utterances in the sweetest of voices,--whether one or two I know not,--and at last a song, a true melody, of a yearning, thrilling quality that few song-birds, if any, can excel. I was astounded! Who would suspect the harsh-voiced, screaming magpie of such notes! I am certain that the bird or birds had no suspicion of listeners to the home talk and song, for after we were discovered, we heard nothing of the sort.
This little episode ended, madam slipped into her nest, and all became silent, she in her place and I in mine. If this state of things could only remain; if she would only accept me as a tree-trunk or a misshapen bowlder, and pay no attention to me, what a beautiful study I should have! Half an hour, perhaps more, passed without a sound, and then the silence was broken by magpie calls from without. The sitting bird left the nest and flew out of the grove, quite near the ground; I heard much talk and chatter in low tones outside, and they flew. I slipped out as quickly as possible, wishing indeed that I had wings as she had, and went home, encouraged to think I should really be able to study the magpie.
But I did not know my bird. The next day, before I knew she was about, she discovered me, though it was plain that she hoped I had not discovered her. Instantly she became silent and wary, coming to her nest over the top of the trees, so quietly that I should not have known it except for her shadow on the leaves. No talk or song now fell upon my ear; calls outside were few and subdued. Everything was different from the natural unconsciousness of the previous day; the birds were on guard, and henceforth I should be under surveillance.
From this moment I lost my pleasure in the study, for I feel little interest in the actions of a bird under the constraint of an unwelcome presence, or in the shadow of constant fear and dread. What I care to see is the natural life, the free, unstudied ways of birds who do not notice or are not disturbed by spectators. Nor have I any pleasure in going about the country staring into every tree, and poking into every bush, thrusting irreverent hands into the mysteries of other lives, and rudely tearing away the veils that others have drawn around their private affairs. That they are only birds does not signify to me; for me they are fellow-creatures; they have rights, which I am bound to respect.
I prefer to make myself so little obvious, or so apparently harmless to a bird, that she will herself show me her nest, or at least the leafy screen behind which it is hidden. Then, if I take advantage of her absence to spy upon her treasures, it is as a friend only,--a friend who respects her desire for seclusion, who never lays profane hands upon them, and who shares the secret only with one equally reverent and loving. Naturally I do not find so many nests as do the vandals to whom nothing is sacred, but I enjoy what I do find, in a way it hath not entered into their hearts to conceive.
In spite of my disinclination, we made one more call upon the magpie family, and this time we had a reception. This bird is intelligent and by no means a slave to habit; because he has behaved in a certain way once, there is no law, avian or divine, that compels him to repeat that conduct on the next occasion. Nor is it safe to generalize about him, or any other bird for that matter. One cannot say, "The magpie does thus and so," because each individual magpie has his own way of doing, and circumstances alter cases, with birds as well as with people.
On this occasion we placed ourselves boldly, though very quietly, in the paths that run through the oak-brush. We had abandoned all attempt at concealment; we could hope only for tolerance. The birds readily understood; they appreciated that they were seen and watched, and their manners changed accordingly. The first one of the black-and-white gentry who entered the grove discovered my comrade, and announced the presence of the enemy by a loud cry, in what somebody has aptly called a "frontier tone of voice." Instantly another appeared and added his remarks; then another, and still another, till within five minutes there were ten or twelve excited magpies, shouting at the top of their voices, and hopping and flying about her head, coming ever nearer and nearer, as if they meditated a personal attack. I did not really fear it, but I kept close watch, while remaining motionless, in the hope that they would not notice me. Vain hope! nothing could escape those sharp eyes when once the bird was aroused. After they had said what they chose to my friend, who received the taunts and abuse of the infuriated mob in meek silence, lifting not her voice to reply, they turned the stream of their eloquence upon me.
I was equally passive, for indeed I felt that they had a grievance. We have no right to expect birds to tell one human being from another, so long as we, with all our boasted intelligence, cannot tell one crow or one magpie from another; and all the week they had suffered persecution at the hands of the village boys. Young magpies, nestlings, were in nearly every house, and the birds had endured pillage, and doubtless some of them death. I did not blame the grieved parents for the reception they gave us; from their point of view we belonged to the enemy.
After the storm had swept by, and while we sat there waiting to see if the birds would return, one of the horses of the pasture made his appearance on the side where I sat, now eating the top of a rosebush, now snipping off a flower plant that had succeeded in getting two leaves above the ground, but at every step coming nearer me. It was plain that he contemplated retiring to this shady grove, and, not so observing as the magpies, did not see that it was already occupied. When he was not more than ten feet away, I snatched off my sun hat and waved it before him, not wishing to make a noise. He stopped instantly, stared wildly for a moment, as if he had never seen such an apparition, then wheeled with a snort, flung out his heels in disrespect, and galloped off down the field.
The incident was insignificant, but the result was curious. So long as we stayed in that bit of brush, not a horse attempted to enter, though they all browsed around outside. They avoided it as if it were haunted, or, as my comrade said, "filled with beckoning forms." Nor was that all; I have reason to think they never again entered that particular patch of brush, for, some weeks after we had abandoned the study of magpies and the pasture altogether, we found the spot transformed, as if by the wand of enchantment. From the burned-up desert outside we stepped at once into a miniature paradise, to our surprise, almost our consternation. Excepting the footpaths through it, it bore no appearance of having ever been a thoroughfare. Around the foot of every tree had grown up clumps of ferns or brakes, a yard high, luxuriant, graceful, and exquisite in form and color; and peeping out from under them were flowers, dainty wildings we had not before seen there. A bit of the tropics or a gem out of fairyland it looked to our sun and sand weary eyes. Outside were the burning sun of June, a withering hot wind, and yellow and dead vegetation; within was cool greenness and a mere rustle of leaves whispering of the gale. It was the loveliest bit of greenery we saw on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. It was marvelous; it was almost uncanny.
Our daily trips to the pasture had ceased, and other birds and other nests had occupied our thoughts for a week or two, when we resolved to pay a last visit to our old haunts, to see if we could learn anything of the magpies. We went through the pasture, led by the voices of the birds away over to the farther side, and there, across another fenced pasture, we heard them plainly, calling and chattering and making much noise, but in different tones from any we had heard before. Evidently a magpie nursery had been established over there. We fancied we could distinguish maternal reproof and loving baby talk, beside the weaker voices of the young, and we went home rejoicing to believe, that in spite of nest robbers, and the fright we had given them, some young magpies were growing up to enliven the world another summer.
XIX.
THE SECRET OF THE WILD ROSE PATH.
"Shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice?"
Wordsworth's lines are addressed to the cuckoo of the Old World, a bird of unenviable reputation, notorious for imposing his most sacred duties upon others; naturally, therefore, one who would not court observation, and whose ways would be somewhat mysterious. But the American representative of the family is a bird of different manners. Unlike his namesake across the water, our cuckoo never--or so rarely as practically to be never--shirks the labor of nest-building and raising a family. He has no reason to skulk, and though always a shy bird, he is no more so than several others, and in no sense is he a mystery.
There is, however, one American bird for whom Wordsworth's verse might have been written; one whose chief aim seems to be, reversing our grandmothers' rule for little people, to be heard, and not seen. To be seen is, with this peculiar fellow, a misfortune, an accident, which he avoids with great care, while his voice rings out loud and clear above all others in the shrubbery. I refer to the yellow-breasted chat (_Icteria virens_), whose summer home is the warmer temperate regions of our country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, and whose unbirdlike utterances prepare one to believe the stories told of his eccentric actions; this, for example, by Dr. Abbott:--
"Aloft in the sunny air he springs; To his timid mate he calls; With dangling legs and fluttering wings On the tangled smilax falls; He mutters, he shrieks-- A hopeless cry; You think that he seeks In peace to die, But pity him not; 't is the ghostly chat, An imp if there is one, be sure of that."
I first knew the chat--if one may be said to know a creature so shy--in a spot I have elsewhere described, a deserted park at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain. I became familiar with his various calls and cries (one can hardly call them songs); I secured one or two fleeting glimpses of his graceful form; I sought and discovered the nest, which thereupon my Lady Chat promptly abandoned, though I had not laid a finger upon it; and last of all, I had the sorrow and shame of knowing that my curiosity had driven the pair from the neighborhood. This was the Western form of _Icteria_, differing from the Eastern only in a greater length of tail, which several of our Rocky Mountain birds affect, for the purpose, apparently, of puzzling the ornithologist.
Two years after my unsuccessful attempt to cultivate friendly relations with "the ghostly chat," the middle of May found me on the shore of the Great Salt Lake, where I settled myself at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, at that point bare, gray, and unattractive, showing miles of loose bowlders and great patches of sage-bush. In the monotonous stretches of this shrub, each plant of which looks exactly like every other, dwelt many shy birds, as well hidden as bobolinks in the meadow grass, or meadow-larks in the alfalfa.
But on this mountain side no friendly cover existed from which I could spy out bird secrets. Whatever my position, and wherever I placed myself, I was as conspicuous as a tower in the middle of a plain; again, no shadow of protection was there from the too-ardent sun of Utah, which drew the vitality from my frame as it did the color from my gown; worse than these, the everywhere present rocks were the chosen haunts of the one enemy of a peaceful bird lover, the rattlesnake, and I hesitated to pursue the bird, because I invariably forgot to watch and listen for the reptile. Bird study under these conditions was impossible, but the place presented a phase of nature unfamiliar to me, and for a time so fascinating that every morning my steps turned of themselves "up the stony pathway to the hills."
The companion of my walks, a fellow bird-student, was more than fascinated; she was enraptured. The odorous bush had associations for her; she reveled in it; she inhaled its fragrance as a delicious perfume; she filled her pockets with it; she lay for hours at a time on the ground, where she could bask in the sunshine, and see nothing but the gray leaves around her and the blue sky above.
I can hardly tell what was the fascination for me. It was certainly not the view of the mountains, though mountains are beyond words in my affections. The truth is, the Rocky Mountains, many of them, need a certain distance to make them either picturesque or dignified. The range then daily before our eyes, the Wasatch, was, to dwellers at its feet, bleak, monotonous, and hopelessly prosaic. The lowest foothills, being near, hid the taller peaks, as a penny before the eye will hide a whole landscape.