Part 9
It is of interest to note that among the early settlers of this region, for at least three generations, the impression was prevalent that there might be some monster lurking in the deep holes of the creek or in the river. The last of the old hunters and fishermen of this region, who had spent all his life in a boat or prowling along shore, was ever talking of a “king tortle” that for forty years had defied all his efforts to capture it. “Mostly, it only shows its top shell, but I have seen it fair and square, head and legs, and I don’t know as I care to get very close, neither.” This was his unvaried remark whenever I broached the subject. To have suggested that it was a sunken log, or in some other way tried to explain the matter, would only have brought about his ill will. I once attempted it, very cautiously, but he effectually shut me up by remarking, “When this here creek runs dry and you can walk over its bottom, you’ll larn a thing or two that ain’t down in your books yet, and ain’t goin’ to be.” The old man was right. I do not believe in “king tortles,” but there certainly is “a thing or two” not yet in the books. Stay! How big do our snappers grow? Is the father of them all still hiding in the channel of Crosswicks Creek?
A description in an old manuscript journal, of the general aspect of the country as seen from the river, bears upon this subject of strange wild beasts and monsters of the deep, as well as on that of sunken trees that endangered passing shallops.
“As we pass up the river,” this observant writer records, "we are so shut in by the great trees that grow even to the edge of the water, that what may lye in the interior is not to be known. That there be fertile land, the Indians tell us, but their narrow paths are toilsome to travel and there are none [of these people] now that seem willing to guide us. As we approached ffarnsworth’s the channel was often very close to the shore, and at one time we were held by the great trees that overhung the bank and by one that had been fallen a long time and was now lodged in the water. As I looked towards the shore, I exclaimed, ‘Here we are indeed in a great wilderness. What strangeness is concealed in this boundless wood? what wonder may at any time issue from it, or fierce monster not be lurking in the waters beneath us?’ Through the day the cries of both birds and beasts were heard, but not always. It was often so strangely quiet that we were more affected thereby than by the sounds that at times issued forth. At night there was great howling, as we were told, of wolves, and the hooting of owls, and often there plunged into the stream wild stags that swam near to our boat. But greater than all else, to our discomfort, were the great sunken trunks of trees that were across the channel, where the water was of no great depth."
What a change! and would that this old traveller could revisit the Delaware to-day. My boat is free again and the mists are gone. Through the trees are sifted the level sunbeams. There is at least a chance now to compare notes. The forest is now a field, the trackless marsh a meadow; wild life is largely a thing of the past; silence, both day and night, replaces sound. No, not that; but only the minor sounds are left. There are still the cry of the fish-hawk and the sweet song of the thrush. No stags now swim the river, but there remain the mink and the musk-rat. It has not been long since I saw a migration of meadow-mice, and at night, I am sure, many an animal dares to breast the stream, a mile wide though it be. Too cunning to expose itself by day, it risks its life at night; and how tragic the result when, nearly at the journey’s end, it is seized by a lurking foe; dragged down, it may be, by a snake or a turtle!
The world is just as full of tragedy as ever, and, let us hope, as full of comedy. In a bit of yonder marsh, above which bends the tall wild rice, there is daily enacted scene after scene as full of import as those which caused the very forest to tremble when the wolf and panther quarrelled over the elk or deer that had fallen.
It has been insisted upon that a goal-less journey is necessarily a waste of time. If on foot, we must keep forever on the go; if in a boat, we must keep bending to the oars. It is this miserable fallacy that makes so many an out-door man and woman lose more than half of that for which they went into the fields. Who cares if you did see a chippy at every turn and flushed a bittern at the edge of the marsh? If you had been there before them, and these birds did the walking, you would have gone home the wiser. It is not the mere fact that there are birds that concerns us, but what are they doing? why are they doing it? This the town-pent people are ever anxious to know, and the facts cannot be gathered if you are forever on the move. Suppose I rush across the river and back, what have I seen? The bottom of the boat. I came to see the river and the sky above, and if this is of no interest to the reader, let him turn the leaf.
Does every storm follow the track of the sun? As the sun rose there were clouds in the east and south and a haziness over the western sky. Had I asked a farmer as to the weather probabilities, he would have looked everywhere but due north. Why does he always ignore that quarter? There may be great banks of cloud there, but they go for nothing. “Sou-east” and “sou-west” are forever rung in your ears, but never a word of the north. Sometimes I have thought it may be for this reason that about half the time the farmer is all wrong, and the heaviest rains come when he is most sure that the day will be clear.
Looking upward, for the sky was clear in that direction now, I saw that there were birds so far above me that they appeared as mere specks. Very black when first seen, but occasionally they flashed as stars seen by day from the bottom of a well. They could not be followed, except one that swept swiftly earthward, and the spreading tail and curve of wings told me it was a fish-hawk. What a glorious outlook from its ever-changing point of view! From its height, it could have seen the mountains and the ocean, and the long reach of river valley as well. If the mists obscure it all, why should a bird linger in the upper air? The prosy matter of food-getting has nothing to do with it. While in camp on Chesapeake Bay, I noticed that the fish-hawks were not always fishing, and often the air rang with their strange cries while soaring so far overhead as to be plainly seen only with a field-glass. Every movement suggested freedom from care as they romped in the fields of space. It is not strange that they scream, or laugh, shall we say? when speeding along at such rate and in no danger of collision. If I mistake not, the cry of exultation is coincident with the downward swoop, and I thought of old-time yelling when dashing down a snow-clad hill-side; but how sober was the work of dragging the sled up-hill! The hawks, I thought, were silent when upward bound. If so, there is something akin to humanity in the hawk nature.
I have called the cry of the fish-hawk a “laugh,” but, from a human stand-point, do birds laugh? It is extremely doubtful, though I recall a pet sparrow-hawk that was given to playing tricks, as I called them, and the whole family believed that this bird actually laughed. Muggins, as we named him, had a fancy for pouncing upon the top of my head and, leaning forward, snapping his beak in my face. Once an old uncle came into the room and was treated in this fashion. Never having seen the bird before, he was greatly astonished, and indignant beyond measure when the hawk, being rudely brushed off, carried away his wig. Now the bird was no less astonished than the man, and when he saw the wig dangling from his claws he gave a loud cackle, unlike anything we had ever heard before, and which was, I imagine, more an expression of amusement than of surprise. I think this, because afterwards I often played the game of wig with him, to the bird’s delight, and he always “laughed” as he carried off the prize. On the contrary, the unsuccessful attempt to remove natural hair elicited no such expression, but sometimes a squeal of disgust.
In the _Spectator_ of October 1, 1892, page 444, I find a most thoughtful article, entitled “The Animal Sense of Humor,” and I quote as follows: “The power of laughter is peculiar to man, and the sense of humor may be said, generally speaking, to be also his special property.” Again, “We never saw the slightest approach to amusement in one animal at the mistakes of another, though dogs, so far as we can venture to interpret their thoughts, do really feel amusement at the mistakes of men.” Possibly the author is right, but do not cats show a sense of humor at the rough-and-tumble gambols of their kittens? Is not the sly cuff on the ear that sends a kitten sprawling indicative of a sense of fun on the part of tabby? Our author says, “so far as we can venture to interpret their thoughts.” "Ay, there’s the rub." No one can tell how far it is safe to venture, but I go a great deal beyond my neighbors. Our author concludes, “In animals, as in man, humor is the result of civilization, and not as we understand it, a natural and spontaneous development.” I cannot subscribe to this. I know little of domestic animals, but have got the idea of an animal’s sense of humor from wild life, and confirmed it by what I have seen of cats and dogs.
While I have been drifting, and using my eyes and ears instead of legs and arms, as is advocated, the clouds, too, have been creeping this way, and, while the morning is yet fresh, it is certainly going to rain. Had I consulted the barometer, I would have known this; but then, knowing it, might I not have stayed at home? Why not enjoy part of a day? That the rain will soon be here does not diminish one’s pleasure, unless there is a fear of getting wet, and this is all too common. I hope that it does not mean that you have but one suit of clothes.
The approaching rain, the increasing cloudiness, the shut-in appearance, made the river exceedingly attractive. With the down-dropping clouds dropped down the birds, and the swallows now skimmed the water as they had been skimming the sky. The fish-hawks departed, but a host of land-birds crossed the stream, as if comparing the shelter afforded by the cedars on one side and pines on the other. These birds chattered as they flew by, and turned their heads up- and downstream, as if curious as to all that might be going on. Suddenly the water ceased to be rippled, and far down-stream a cloud appeared to have reached the river. It was the rain. It seemed to march very slowly, and every drop made a dimple on the river’s breast. Then I could hear the on-coming host, the sound having a distinct bell-like tinkle as each drop touched the surface and disappeared. A curious effect, too, was produced by the wind or the varying density of the cloud above, in that the drops were very near together where I happened to be, and much farther apart and larger some distance beyond the boat. I could of course make no measurements, but appearances suggested that in the middle of the river the drops were less numerous in the proportion of one to five. Does it usually rain harder over land than over water? Heretofore I had seen the rain upon the river while on shore, and was now very glad to have been caught adrift, so as to observe it from a new point of view. It was a beautiful sight, well worth the thorough wetting that I got and which drove me home soon after with pleasant thoughts of my goalless journey.
CHAPTER FIFTEENTH
_FOOTPRINTS_
While the camp-fire was smoking, for the wood was green and I was willing that my companion should worry over it, I strolled up the long, sandy beach with no particular object in mind and quite ready to meet and parley with any creature that I overtook. I saw only evidences of what had been there, or what I supposed had been. There were tracks that I took to be those of herons, and others that suggested a raccoon in search of crayfish. Here and there a mouse had hurried by. What lively times had been kept up at low tide within sight of the tent door! and yet we knew nothing of it. But these tracks were not well defined, and therefore why not misinterpreted? I have not suggested all the possibilities of the case—— Here my meditations were checked by the call to breakfast, but I took up the subject again as I walked alone in the woods, for I was but the companion of a worker, not one myself.
It occurred to me that when we read of hunters, or perhaps have followed a trapper in his rounds, we have been led to think that footprints are animal autography that the initiated can read without hesitation. To distinguish the track of a rabbit from that of a raccoon is readily done, and we can go much further, and determine whether the animal was walking or running, made a leap here or squatted there; but can we go to any length, and decipher every impress an animal may have made in passing over the sand or mud? I think not. I have seen a twig sent spinning a long distance up the beach at low tide, making a line of equidistant marks that were extremely life-like in appearance. A cloud of dead leaves have so dotted an expanse of mud that a gunner insisted there had been a flock of plover there a few moments before he arrived. All depends, or very much does, on the condition of the surface marked. If very soft and yielding, the plainest bird-tracks may be distorted, and a mere dot, on the other hand, may have its outline so broken as to appear as though made by a bird or mammal. Still, tracks are a safe guide in the long run, and, whether our opinion as to them be correct or not, the rambler finds something worth seeing, and he goes on anything but a wild-goose chase who sometimes finds himself mistaken. It is well to check our confidence occasionally and realize the limits of our power.
Opportunity afforded while in camp, and I made a short study of footprints. With a field-glass I noted many birds, and then going to the spot, examined the impressions their feet had made. A night-heron did not come down flatly upon its feet with outspread toes, and so the tracks were quite different from the impressions made when the bird walked. Crows, I noticed, both hopped and walked, and the marks were very different, the former being broad and ill-defined in comparison with the traces of the same bird’s stately tread. Had the bird not been seen, any one would have supposed two creatures had been keeping close company, or that some one individual had passed by in the very path of another. The purple grakle and red-winged blackbird made tracks too much alike to be distinguished, yet these birds have not the same size or shape of foot. A water-snake came up over the mud and left a line of marks upon the sand that could not be recognized as that of any animal, except it might be a faint resemblance to the trail of a mussel. I chased a dozen crayfish over a mud flat, and their backward and sidewise leapings caused an old gunner to say there had been plover about. A blue-winged teal made a long double line of dents in the sand before it rose clear of the beach, and these were very like many a footprint I had previously seen. What, then, must we think of the fossil footprints of which so much has been written? As different species, a long series of these impressions in the rock have been described and given high-sounding titles. I am not entitled to an opinion, but have doubts, nevertheless, of the wisdom of considering every slightly different form as made by a different creature. I have given my reasons, and will only add another instance, one of greater significance than all as bearing upon the question. I startled a slumbering jumping-mouse last summer and it bounded across the smooth sand bared by the outgoing tide. Its track then was one made by its body rather than the extremities, and a curious dent in the river-shore’s smooth surface it was; but before taking again to the woods it walked in its peculiar way, and the little footprints were quite distinct and unmistakably those of a small mammal. Had the two sets of markings been preserved in a slab of sandstone, no ichnologist would have recognized the truth, but probably would have said, “Here is a case where some leaping creature has overtaken a small rodent and devoured it.”
Difficult as fossil footprints may be to decipher, they call up with wonderful distinctness the long ago of other geologic ages. It is hard to realize that the stone of which our houses are built once formed the tide-washed shore of a primeval river or the bed of a lake or ocean gone long before man came upon the scene.
But the footprints of to-day concern me more. Looking over the side of the boat, I saw several mussels moving slowly along and making a deep, crooked groove in the ripple-marked sand, “streaking the ground with sinuous trace,” as Milton puts it; and the school of blunt-headed minnows made little dents in the sand wherever the water was shallow, when they turned suddenly and darted off-shore. This sand seemed very unstable, and a little agitation of the water caused many a mark to be wiped out; and yet we find great slabs of ripple-marked and foot-marked sandstone. I picked up such a piece not long ago on which were rain-drop marks. This is the story of a million years ago; but who ever found Indian moccasin-marks not two centuries old? The footprints that could tell us many a wonderful story are all gone and the tale of a rain-drop remains. This is a bit aggravating. Here where we have pitched our camp, or very near it, was a Swedish village in 1650 and later, and for two days I have been hunting for evidence of the fact,—some bit of broken crockery, rusty nail, glass, pewter spoon, anything,—but in vain. History records the village, and correctly, without a doubt, but there are no footprints here, nor other trace to show that a white man ever saw the place until our tent was pitched upon the beach.
Towards evening I had occasion to renew my youth,—in other words, “run on an errand,” as my mother put it,—and going half a mile through the woods, I came to a narrow but well-worn path. This was so akin to my footprint thoughts of the morning that I gladly followed it instead of making a short cut. It was fortunate, for the path led directly to where I wished to go, and our theoretical geography, as usual, was terribly out of joint. As it was, on the edge of an old village I found a very old man in a very old house. His memory as to the earlier half of the century was excellent, and he gave me the desired information and more. I spoke of the path through the woods, and he chuckled to himself.
“Through the woodses, eh? Well, when I made the path, goin’ and comin’ through the brush that wasn’t shoulder-high, there was no trees then. That was more’n forty years ago.”
"No, John, ’twa’n’t," piped a weak voice from the interior of the little cottage; “’twa’n’t mor’n——”
"Laws, man, don’t mind her. She disputes the almanac, and every winter gets in New Year’s ahead of Christmas."
I did not stop to argue the matter, but hurried campward, glad that, if I could find no footprints of human interest and historic, I at least had followed a path made forty years ago,—a path that had been worn among bushes and now led through a forest. It was indeed suggestive. By the camp-fire that night I vowed to plant a forest where now there was but a thicket, and in my dreams I walked through a noble wood.
Think how much might be done to beautify the world, and how little is accomplished.
CHAPTER SIXTEENTH
_FOOTPRINTS_
The great storm of yesterday cleared the air as well as cleaned the beaches, and the river was fresh and sparkling as though the tempest had added new life, so that the listless midsummery water was now as champagne, “with beaded bubbles winking at the brim.” The air was heavy with sweetness and with song, the fields and meadows painted as the rose. The buckwheat was in bloom, and a million bees were humming. The pasture was gay with pink gerardia, or reflected the summer sky where the day-flower blossomed. There was no commingling of these late flowers. Each had its own acre, exercised squatter sovereignty, and allowed no trespassing. The only evidence of man’s interference, except the buckwheat-field, was a dilapidated worm-fence, and this is one of several instances where beauty increases hand in hand with decay. The older such a fence, the better; when merely a support for Virginia creeper or the rank trumpet-vine, it is worthy the rambler’s regard. Wild life long ago learned what a safe snug-harbor such ruined fences offer. It puzzles even a mink to thread their mazes, and the shy rabbit that has its “form” in a brier-hidden hollow of the crooked line feels that it is safe.
There are traces of these old fences of which no record remains, placed perhaps by the very earliest settler in a tract that he had cleared and which has since gone back to an almost primitive state. In an old woodland I once traced a fence by the long line of cypripediums in bloom, which were thriving in the mould of decayed fence-rails, a pretty if not permanent monument to departed worth.
A word more of these old fences in winter. When the snow beats across the field, it stops here and gracefully curves above it, arching the rails and vines until all is hidden, unless it be some lonely projecting stake, by which alone it communicates with the outside world. I rashly attempted once to go across-lots over a new country, and made a discovery. The snow-bound fence was but a drift, I thought, but it proved to be far different. The thick mat of hardy growths had kept back the snow, which was but a roof and did not wholly exclude the light. For some distance I could dimly make out the various growths, and each little cedar stood up as a sentinel. A loud word sounded and resounded as if I had spoken in an empty room or shouted in a long tunnel. The coldest day in the year could not inconvenience any creature that took shelter here, and I found later that life, both furred and feathered, knew the old fence far better than I did.
But this is the last day but one of August, and so nominally the end of summer. Only nominally, for these flowery meadows and sweet-scented fields contradict the almanac. This quiet nook in the Delaware meadows offers no intimation of autumn until October, and late in the month at that. The bees and buckwheat will see to this, or seem to, which is just as much to the purpose. To-day along the old worm-fence are many kingbirds, and, although mute, they are not moping. There is too much insect life astir for that. With them are orioles and bluebirds, the whole making a loose flock of perhaps a hundred birds. The bluebirds are singing, but in a half-hearted, melancholy way, reminding me of an old man who spent his time when over ninety in humming “Auld Lang Syne.” Before the buckwheat has lost its freshness these birds will all be gone, but at what time the bluebirds part company with the others I do not know. They certainly do not regularly migrate, as do the others. There was a colony of them that lived for years in and about my barn, and one was as sure to see them in January as in June. No English sparrows could have been more permanently fixed.