Part 10

When the buckwheat is ripe and the fields and meadows are brown, there will be other birds to take their place. Tree-sparrows from Canada and white-throats from New England will make these same fields merry with music, and the tangle about the old fence will ring with gladness. But it is August still, and why anticipate? High overhead there are black specks in the air, and we can mark their course, as they pass, by the bell-like _chink-chink_ that comes floating earthward. It is one of the sounds that recall the past rather than refer to the present. The reed-bird of to-day was a bobolink last May. His roundelay that told then of a long summer to come is now but a single note of regret that the promised summer is a thing of the past. It is the Alpha and Omega of the year’s song-tide. Not that we have no other songs when the reed-bird has flown to the Carolina rice-fields. While I write, a song-sparrow is reciting reminiscences of last May, and there will be ringing rounds of bird-rejoicing from November to April. Still, the initial thought holds good: bobolink in May, and only a reed-bird in August; the beginning and the end; the herald of Summer’s birth and her chief mourner; Alpha and Omega.

Where the brook that drains the meadow finds its way, the little rail-birds have congregated. Many spent their summer along the Musketaquid, where Thoreau spent his best days, but they bring no message from New England. They very seldom speak above a whisper. Not so the king-rail. He chatters as he threads the marsh and dodges the great blue barrier that sweeps above the cat-tail grasses and has to be content with a sparrow or a mouse.

These late August days are too often overfull, and one sees and hears too much,—so very much that it is hard to give proper heed to any one of the many sights and sounds. But how much harder to turn your back upon it! All too soon the sun sinks into the golden clouds of the western sky.

That was a happy day when the buckwheat was threshed in the field, on a cool, clear, crisp October morning. The thumping of the Hails on the temporary floor put the world in good humor. No bird within hearing but sang to its time-keeping. Even the crows cawed more methodically, and squirrels barked at the same instant that the flail sent a shower of brown kernels dancing in the air. The quails came near, as if impatient for the grains eyes less sharp than theirs would fail to find. It was something at such a time to lie in the gathering heap of straw and join in the work so far as to look on. That is a boy’s privilege which we seldom are anxious to outgrow. A nooning at such a time meant a fire to warm the dinner, and the scanty time allowed was none too short for the threshers to indulge in weather prognostications. This is as much a habit as eating, and to forego it would be as unnatural as to forego the taking of food. As the threshers ate, they scanned the surroundings, and not a tree, bush, or wilted weed but was held to bear evidence that the coming winter would be “open” or “hard,” as the oldest man present saw fit to predict. No one disputed him, and no one remembered a week later what he had said, so the old man’s reputation was safe.

The buckwheat threshed, the rest is all a matter of plain prose. Stay! In the coming Indian summer there was always a bee-hunt. The old man whom we saw in the buckwheat-field in October was our dependence for wild honey, which we fancied was better than that from the hives. He always went alone, carrying a wooden pail and a long, slender oaken staff. How he found the bee-trees so readily was a question much discussed. “He smells it,” some one suggested; “He hears ’em a-buzzin’,” others remarked. Knowing when he was going, I once followed on the sly and solved the mystery. He went without hesitation or turning of the head to a hollow beech, and straightway commenced operations. I did not stay to witness this, but came away recalling many a Sunday afternoon’s stroll with him in these same woods. What he had seen in August he had remembered in December, and, wise man that he was, said nothing meanwhile. Why, indeed, should he throw aside the opportunity to pose as one having superior knowledge, when others were so persistent in asserting it of him? There is that much vanity in all men.

But a year later his superior knowledge failed him. I had found the same tree in my solitary rambles, and was there ahead of him. Still, I never enjoyed my triumph. I felt very far from complimented when he remarked, as an excuse for his failure, that “a skunk had been at the only bee-tree in the woods. He saw signs of the varmint all about;” and when he said this he looked directly at me, with his nose in the air.

It is winter now, and when in the early morning I find cakes and honey upon the breakfast-table, excellent as they are in their way, they are the better that they call up the wide landscape of those latter August days and of frosty October, for I see less of the morning meal before me than of bees and buckwheat.

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH

_DEAD LEAVES_

I have often wondered why the Indians did not call November the month of dead leaves. The out-of-town world is full of them now. They replace the daisies and dandelions in the open fields, the violets and azaleas in the shady woods. They are a prominent feature of the village street. Many will cling to the trees the winter long, but millions are scattered over the ground. Even on the river I find them floating, borne slowly by the tide or hurrying across the rippled surface, chased by the passing breeze.

The pleasure—common to us all—we take in crushing them beneath our feet savors of heartlessness. Why should we not recall their kindness when, as bright-green leaves, each cast its mite of grateful shade, so dear to the rambler, and now, when they have fallen, let them rest in peace? We should not be ugly and revengeful merely because it is winter. There is nothing to fret us in this change from shade to sunshine, from green leaves to brown. The world is not dead because of it. While the sun looks down upon the woods to-day there arises a sweet odor, pleasant as the breath of roses. The world dead, indeed! What more vigorous and full of life than the mosses covering the rich wood-mould? Before me, too, lies a long-fallen tree cloaked in moss greener than the summer pastures. Not the sea alone possesses transforming magic; there is also “a _wood_-change into something rich and strange.” Never does the thought of death and decay centre about such a sight. The chickadee drops from the bushes above, looks the moss-clad log over carefully, and, when again poised on an overhanging branch, loudly lisps its praises. What if it is winter when you witness such things? One swallow may not make a summer, but a single chickadee will draw the sting from any winter morning.

I never sit by the clustered dead leaves and listen to their faint rustling as the wind moves among them but I fancy they are whispering of the days gone by. What of the vanished springtide, when they first timidly looked forth? They greeted the returning birds, the whole merry host of north-bound warblers, and what startling facts of the bird-world they might reveal! There is no eye-witness equal to the leaf, and with them lives and dies many a secret that even the most patient ornithologist can never gain. How much they overhear of what the birds are saying! to how much entrancing music they listen that falls not upon men’s ears! What a view of the busy world above us has the fluttering leaf that crowns the tall tree’s topmost twig! Whether in storm or sunshine, veiled in clouds or beneath a starlit sky, whatsoever happens, there is the on-looking leaf, a naturalist worth knowing could we but learn its language.

A word here as to the individuality of living leaves. Few persons are so blind as to have never noticed how leaves differ. Of every size and shape and density, they have varied experiences, if not different functions, and their effect upon the rambler in his wanderings is by no means always the same. At high noon, when the midsummer sun strives to parch the world, let the rambler stand first beneath an old oak and then pass to the quivering aspen, or pause in the shade of a way-side locust and then tarry beneath the cedar, at whose roots the sunshine never comes. It needs but to do this to realize that there are leaves and leaves: those that truly shelter and those that tease you by their fitfulness.

It is winter now and the leaves are dead; but, although blighted, they have not lost their beauty. Heaped in the by-paths of this ancient wood, they are closely associated with the pranks of many birds, and for this alone should be lovingly regarded. Even now I hear an overstaying chewink—for this is a warm wood the winter long—tossing them in little clouds about him as he searches for the abundant insects that vainly seek shelter where they have fallen. The birds seem to seek fun as well as food among the leaves. I have often watched them literally dive from the overhanging bushes into a heap of leaves, and then with a flirt of the wings send dozens flying into the air. It is hard to imagine any other purpose than pure sport. When, as often happens, two or three follow their leader, I always think of a string of boys diving or playing leap-frog. “Coincidence,” cries old Prosy, with a wise shake of his head. Perhaps; but I think old Prosy is a fool.

The strange, retiring winter wren is equally a lover of dead leaves. He plays with them in a less boisterous manner, but none the less delights in tossing them to and fro. It is at such a time that a few notes of his marvellous summer song occasionally escape him. The white-throated sparrows fairly dance among or upon the heaped-up leaves, and play bo-peep with the clouds of them they send aloft; and in February the foxie sparrows play the same pranks. Squirrels and mice are equally at home, and abandon all prudence when they frolic among the windrows. The more clatter and cackle, the better they are pleased. When freed from the restraint of fear, wild life is fun-loving to the very brim.

Dead leaves are never deserted unless the weather is extremely cold or a storm has prevailed until they are a sodden mat. Even from such a wetting they soon recover and respond to the passing breeze’s gentlest touch. Dead leaves are the matured fruit of summer, and what an important part they really play as the year closes! They are not now of the air, airy, but of the earth, earthy. Dead, it is true, yet living. Passive, yet how active! They are whispering good cheer now to the sleeping buds that await the coming of a new year, and faithfully guard them when the storm rages. For such deeds we owe them our kindliest thoughts.

In the golden sunshine of this dreamy day the leaves have yet another visitor that makes merry with them. The little whirlwind, without a herald, springs laughingly upon them, even when the profoundest quiet reigns throughout the wood. Touched by this fairy’s wand, the leaves rise in a whirling pillar and dance down the narrow path into some even more secluded nook. Dead leaves, indeed! Never did the wildest madcap of a courting bird play livelier pranks.

Time was when I would have searched the woods for winter-green and worn it gayly. I am content to-day to carry a withered leaf.

INDEX

A. _Allium_, 77. _Amelanchier_, 140. _Andromeda_, 57. _Ants_, 14, 36. _Arbutus_, 51, 57, 62. _Arrow-point_, 156. _Azalea_, 141.

B. _Bear_, 54. _Beaver_, 66. _Beech_, 43. _Birch_, 54. _Bittern_, 73, 180. _least_, 42. _Bittersweet_, 142. _Blackbird_, 32, 41, 67, 75, 189. _Blueberry_, 64. _Bluebird_, 18, 67, 143, 197. _Boneset_, 155. _Butterflies_, 20, 156. _Buzzards_, 67.

C. _Cardinal bird_, 23, 59, 75, 80, 87, 111, 144. _Cat-bird_, 32, 59, 87, 137, 146. _Caterpillar_, 133. _Catlinite_, 150, 158. _Cat-tail_, 42. _Cedar_, 64. _Celastrus_, 142. _Centaury_, 155 _Centipede_, 57. _Chat_, 32, 83. _Cherry, wild_, 43. _Chewink_, 59, 80, 206. _Chickadee_, 204. _Chimney-swift_, 20. _Clay_, 35. _Clethra_, 141. _Cougars_, 65. _Cow-bird_, 93. _Crayfish_, 187, 190. _Crocus_, 145. _Crow_, 11, 32, 47, 76, 86, 189, 200. _Cyperus_, 77.

D. _Day-flower_, 195. _Deer_, 54, 179 _Deer-berry_, 141. _Deutzia_, 141. _Diver_, 29. _Dodder_, 116, 156. _Dove_, 24. _Dragon-fly_, 156. _Ducks, wild_, 86; _wood-_, 56.

E. _Eagle_, 24. _Eel_, 54. _Elk_, 179. _Elm_, 43.

F. “_False-teeth_,” 141. _Finch, indigo_, 72; _purple_, 59; _thistle_, 32. _Fly-catcher_, 15, 32, 144. _Frogs_, 58, 67.

G. _Galium_, 77. _Gerardia_, 195. _Golden-club_, 56. _Grakle_, 32, 75, 145, 189. _Grosbeak, rose-breasted_, 59. _Gulls_, 76. _Gum-tree_, 66.

H. _Harrier_, 199. _Hawk, black_, 17. _duck-_, 24. _fish-_, 26, 32, 179, 181. _sparrow-_, 182. _Heron, blue_, 42; _green_, 25; _night_, 189. _Herons_, 41, 67, 187. _Herring_, 67. _Hickory_, 17, 44. _Holly_, 51. _Honeysuckle_, 136. _Humming-bird_, 136. _Hyla_, 58.

I. _Indian grass_, 64. _relics_, 148, 152, 157, 160. _Ink-berry_, 52. _Iris_, 40. _Iron-weed_, 155.

J. _Jasper_, 151. _Jay, blue-_, 47. _Jerboa_, 59.

K. _Kill-deer plover_, 32, 67, 77, 95. _Kingbird_, 41, 197. _Kinglet_, 65, 82. _King-rail_, 42, 199.

L._Leucothoe_, 141. _Lindera_, 140. _Liquidambar_, 54. _Loon_, 67. _Lotus_, 41, 134.

M. _Magnolia_, 66. _Maple_, 28, 52, 72. _Martin_, 31, 143. _Mink_, 53, 156, 179. _Minnow, mud-_, 39. _Minnows_, 126, 191. _Mistletoe_, 28, 66. _Mocking-bird_, 32. _Moss, club-_, 57; _reindeer_, 54, 62. _Mouse, meadow-_, 17, 42, 156, 179. _white-footed_, 59. _Musk-rat_, 29, 53, 156, 179. _Mussel_, 191.

O._Oak_, 10, 21, 44, 64, 138. _willow-_, 53. _Obsidian_, 150, 159. _Opossum_, 46, 59. _Orioles_, 71, 90, 144, 197. _Oven-bird_, 135. _Owl, barn_, 123.

P. _Panther_, 179. _Partridge-berry_, 54. _Pepper-bush, sweet_, 141. _Pike_, 125. _Pine, Weymouth_, 30. _Pinxter flower_, 141. _Pipilo_, 113. _Plover_, 188. _Plum, wild_, 141. _Pontederia_, 155. _Poplar, Lombardy_, 30. _Primrose_, 155. _Pyxie_, 57, 61, 68.

Q. _Quail_, 32, 200.

R. _Rabbit_, 44, 188, 196. _Raccoon_, 47, 187. _Rail-bird_, 199. _Raven_, 146. _Red-eye_, 19, 32. _Redstart_, 32. _Reed-bird_, 198. _Reeds_, 155. _Relics, Indian_, 43. _Robin_, 32, 47, 75, 146. _Rose-mallow_, 41. _Roses_, 145.

S. _Sand-piper_, 25, 38. _Saponaria_, 77. _Sedge_, 156. _Shad-bush_, 140. _Snake, garter-_, 27. _water-_, 130, 179, 190. _Snow-birds_, 67. _Sparrow, chipping_, 32, 180. _foxie_, 207. _song-_, 25, 32, 76, 88, 135. _swamp-_, 41. _tree-_, 59, 82, 198. _white-throated_, 59, 198, 207. _Sphagnum_, 56, 57, 69. _Spice-wood_, 73, 140. _Spiders_, 37. _Spirea_, 141. _Squirrel, flying-_, 59. _Sundew_, 69. _Sunfish_, 129. _Sunflower_, 41, 155. _Swallow, bank_, 93; _barn_, 94.

T. _Tanager, scarlet_, 53, 144. _Tea-berry_, 52. _Teal, blue-winged_, 190. _Thorn, white_, 141. _Thrush, brown_, 32, 72, 82. _Thrushes_, 71, 144. _Titmouse_, 20, 67, 75. _Trout_, 127. _Trumpet-creeper_, 136. _Tulip-tree_, 43. _Turkey-buzzard_, 32. _Turtle, snapping-_, 132, 179.

V. _Vireo, red-eyed_, 32, 90; _white-eyed_, 112.

W. _Warbler, spotted_, 32, 51. _tree-creeping_, 87. _Warblers_, 51, 73, 205. _Weasel_, 156. _Whippoorwill_, 72. _Winter-green_, 62, 69. _Wolf_, 179. _Wood-robin_, 18. _Wren_, 31, 72, 142. _Carolina_, 79. _marsh-_, 41. _winter_, 207.

Transcriber’s Note

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original. The following issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.

95.10 Why, on the other hand, wood[ /-]peckers Added. 140.9 and often sparse of bloom[,/.] But Replaced.

End of Project Gutenberg's Travels in a Tree-top, by Charles Conrad Abbott