Читать книгу Outings At Odd Times - Abbott Charles Conrad - Страница 6

It is a dilapidated outbuilding now, and the merest ghost of its former self. Scarcely one of the many marked features of the old kitchen is left. The cavernous fireplace, the corner cupboard, the narrow box staircase, the heavy double doors, with their long strap hinges, the long narrow table by the south windows, have all been removed. And sad, too, to think that, one by one, the sturdy farmer folk that lived in and loved this now dark and dingy room have all passed away. For me, it is the Mecca to which I most fondly turn when indulging in retrospection. In and about it were passed many of those peculiarly happy days, the recollection of which grows brighter as the years roll by. From late autumn until spring, when for five months the nights were long, this kitchen was the favorite rendezvous, and conversation, rather than reading, the popular amusement. Not that there were no books in the house. There were fifty volumes, at least, in the old book-case, but I can not recall one in the hands of a reader. There are many of them now on my own shelves – Gibbon, Johnson, Goldsmith, Burns, and the journal of many a Quaker of colonial times. It would be unfair to say that books were unpopular, but rather that conversation was held in higher esteem. Then, certainly, every neighborhood had its characters, and their like has not been transmitted to the present generation. I saw the last of a native folk who had occupied my neighborhood since 1680. Now a new people, and as different as black from white, occupy the land; but during my early childhood, my grandfather’s help, like himself, had always lived in the neighborhood. They had been boys together, and little wonder that, when a day’s work was done, the evening should have been spent in reminiscent talk. The farmer was not off to his book at candle-light, and the “hands” left to their thoughts.

How glad, now, am I, that I caught, even in early youth, a glimpse of simpler times! In one way, however, the world has not changed; conversation continually turned upon the weather, and there was one book to which reference was often made and quite frequently consulted – the almanac. How plainly I can see my grandfather adjust his heavy-rimmed spectacles and turn to the record of the current month! “Yes, thee is right, Abijah; the moon changes in the forenoon.” Then the thin pamphlet was hung again in its place in the chimney corner. Hard-headed and alertly observant as were the farmers of fifty years ago, they all deferred to the almanac’s dictum. Men might say, perhaps, what they pleased; but if he who could write an almanac ventured to predict, who were they to dispute it? So they thought, and if snow had been foretold for the Fourth of July, they would have explained the reason why it did not come, and pity, not scorn, the prophet.

I do not know when the first almanac was hung in the chimney corner, but the custom, once started, continued to the end, and when the kitchen was dismantled, a great pile of “Poor Richards” were brought to light from a dark hole in the cavernous corner cupboard. The wisdom crowded upon those torn and tattered pages seems to have been lost, and the later generations were content, if I do not misunderstand them, with the commonplaces and predictions to which reference has been made. But with all their unquestioning reliance upon the almanac, the men who were daily out of doors were prophets unto themselves, and proud of the petty discoveries they claimed to have made. This it was that spiced their conversation and made the meeting of two or three in a cozy kitchen an attractive occurrence to young ears. I do not wonder that books were ignored, when every laboring man laid claim to peculiar knowledge, and, of course, formulated weather proverbs, the like of which have never got into print. For while the neighborhood had, like all others, its common stock of accepted “sayings,” not a man for miles around but had some two or three that he had framed for his own guidance. Every discussion teemed with “according to Joshua,” or “Jeremiah’s saying is,” but every man was largely a follower of himself. Looking backward, and studying my grandfather’s “help,” and even my farmer neighbors, I see, in the light of the present, that these men were both ignorant and wise; having a rich store of facts from which they drew illogical deductions.

Apropos of this, let me add that of a series of sixteen newspaper clippings, from papers published in October and November, 1889, fifteen of them were predictions of a winter of unusual severity in the Middle States. The one that maintained the coming of a mild winter gave no reasons for such a conclusion, but stated very briefly that “certain never-failing signs pointed that way.” It is a pity that such signs were not generally known, now that the “ground-goose, hog-bone” theory has proved unreliable.

And so it was, a year earlier. During the autumn of 1888, I gathered, by the aid of several friends, a considerable number of newspaper clippings concerning the character of the coming winter. Most of them predicted a very severe season and a late spring; a few were somewhat more moderate in the use of superlatives, and one long essay on the breast-bone of the goose made me shiver to read, although the day was warm, and in spite of the assurance that each of the “phenomenally cold periods” would be alternated by “spells of fall-like weather.” Not one hit the nail upon the head and foretold that December and January would be winter with winter left out. And only to-day (January 31) I find in a local paper that the musk-rats are stopping up the entrances to their homes, and February will be very cold. Perhaps! On the other hand, I have just received Volume I of the Geological Survey of New Jersey, in which is a most interesting chapter on the climate of this State. Looking over a tabulated statement of the weather, as characteristic of seasons, I find that we have had six notably mild winters in the past forty years, that of ’81-’82 being “one of the warmest on record.” Armed with these facts, I hunted up our oldest neighbor, Zephaniah Blank, and plied him with questions. Of course, as I intended, the conversation turned upon the weather, as it usually does, and he was very positive that we had had no such winter as the present for “nigh on to thirty years.” The old gentleman could recollect the moderately warm winter of ’57-’58, but that of ’81-’82 had passed from his mind. Had a reporter overheard our talk upon the subject, the local paper would doubtless have recorded the present as the warmest winter in thirty years, which is not the fact. Besides, we are not yet out of the woods, for February is often very cold, and March, to put the best face upon it, exceedingly tricky. Considering that weather is the most talked-of of subjects, is it not strange that upon no other is so much ignorance displayed?

It has been said that every man is a fool or a physician at forty. Whether true or not, every sexagenarian hereabouts is a weather prophet, and their combined wisdom is, as might be seen, valueless. Every one of these worthy men, as such, is a delusion and a snare, but all have faithful followers. Uncle Zephaniah, for instance, was very impatient, to express it mildly, when I spoke of the winter of 1881-’82. The curl of his lip, the glitter of his eyes and wave of his hand, when he remarked, “As if I didn’t know!” spoke volumes. Yet, in spite of his eighty years, he did not know. There is still another feature of weather wisdom, if I can call it such, that is even more remarkable – the proneness to forget the character of a season so soon after it has passed. It may be hard to believe, but many a person will stop to think when the question is put whether the great March blizzard was last year or the year before. Unless such a storm is coupled with some political event or a great disaster, as fire or shipwreck, it passes almost directly out of mind, and its magnitude dwindles in comparison to some lesser event with which the world’s history was connected. And the moral of all this is: keep a diary, swear only by it, and give nothing more than a respectful hearing to unlettered historians and weather prophets.

But if the people have changed, the country has not; and from the same woodland almanac from which they drew their facts we can draw ours. Can any one read it aright? Verily, is not Nature a tricksy author? There are the flowers that many a town dweller thinks truly report the seasons. Pshaw! Away up in Massachusetts, Bradford Torrey found over seventy plants in bloom during a November afternoon; and full well I know of a meadow where violets, bluets, dandelions, and blue-curl can be gathered, even at Christmas, and all the year round, when we have, as now (1889-’90) a typical open winter.

What of the birds? For of these and blossoms is a naturalist’s year made up. The woodland almanac goes for little so far as they are concerned – unless, indeed, you have a trained ear for varying twitters. Bird music is never lacking, and I have long held it an open question if we may not spare the thrush, when there are foxy-sparrows among the briers. So far as weather is concerned, we can not build upon our birds, and no one of our seasons lacks them. It is the whim of closet ornithologists and petty critics to assert that winter is comparatively birdless, but even this is not true. There are not so many species, but often quite as many individuals, and oftener more. Birdless, indeed! Redbirds, meadow-larks, song-sparrows, and blue jays at this moment are making merry in my garden. Notwithstanding all this, there will always be those who will strive to the end to decipher the woodland almanac, and where is he who claims not to have solved its meaning? It were well if every one spelled over a few pages of it every day. It is healthy exercise, fitting one to duties of all kinds, and never tending to sour the temper of a sane person if, at the close of threescore years and ten, he finds that he is sure of but the first lesson – there are four seasons. Weather wisdom, as we all know, meets us at every turn, and while usually irritating, occasionally proves a source of amusement. Some such experience as the following, may have been the fate of many more than I suppose.

John Blank is one of those unfortunates who desire to be thought a genius. To float with the current is beneath his dignity. Uz Gaunt described him well as one who persists in looking toward the west to see the sun rise. Knowing my love for the open fields, this would-be genius has kindly treated me, of late, to innumerable accounts of recent observations of beasts, birds, reptiles, and wild life’s less noble forms, and certainly the man has remarkable powers in one direction – he can misinterpret admirably. “Think of it!” he exclaimed excitedly; “here it is December, and I have heard a frog croak! It was not a springtime croak, of course, but a cry of pain, and I believe a musk-rat dug it out of its winter quarters, and the sound I heard was a cry of pain.” It is a wonder that he did not hear the musk-rat’s chuckle over a good dinner, also. Here we have three assumptions – that frogs never sing in winter; that they habitually hibernate; and that musk-rats dig them out of the mud. The aforesaid John Blank had lived forty-odd years on a farm, and did not know that frogs voluntarily sang or croaked during mild winter days. Like many another, finding that it is cold in December, he turns his back on winter sunshine.

Here are some statistics concerning frogs in winter. Previous to Oct. 20, 1889, there had been white frost, some chilly days as well as nights, and yet the frogs sang merrily on that date. There was frost, snow, and ice during the following week, and then these same frogs were again in full chorus; and later, in November, as late as the 19th, they rattled and piped, not only in the sheltered marshes, but among the wilted stalks of lotus in an exposed upland field. Then a long interim, when I was constantly in town, but at noon, December 19, I heard them again, and on Jan. 12, 1890, frogs of at least two species were croaking; and, too, bees were about, snakes were sunning themselves, turtles crawled from the mud, and salamanders squatted on dead oak leaves in the full glare of an almost midsummer sun. When John Blank was told of this he looked his name; but he was not disconcerted. “Did you ever examine the marshes in winter?” I asked.

“Certainly not,” he replied, and added: “What’s to be found in frozen mud, cold water, and about dead grass?”

“More life than you ever saw in midsummer,” was the impatient reply, and with this I moved off.

Blank maintained his reputation and declined to take a hint. “Did you ever see wild violets at Christmas?” he asked. I laughed, and assuming good-nature, said, “Come along,” and started with the conceited nuisance to a sheltered meadow. The grass was not dead, although Christmas was at hand; there were even green leaves on the sassafras sprouts; the water was not cold, although its surface had been frozen; the mud was very soft. Clustered about the roots of a noble tulip tree were claytonias in bloom; in the moist meadows were pale-blue violets, and beyond, exposed to the sweep of every chilly breeze from the west, were houstonias, and scattered here and there were single dandelions. “This,” I remarked, “is no unusual matter, referable to midwinter, and ought to be familiar to you; but you have probably not looked in the proper places for these things”; and, taking my cue from dear old Uz Gaunt, added, “don’t look in the west to see the sun rise.”

Then, pleading an engagement with solitude, I bade John Blank “Good-morning.”

The landscape lightened as the bore disappeared. And how an hour’s outing with nature soothes the irritation of an unwelcome interview! If I were an editor, I would have a cage of frogs, with a bit of green moss and a pool of water like that now at my elbow. To this I could turn for mental refreshment the moment the retiring intruder faced the door of the sanctum. There is nothing so reviving as to contemplate a frog, or, better yet, a tree-toad. Here is one from Florida that takes the world philosophically. When it is too cool on the shady side of his home he creeps to the sunny side; and as the sun will not stand still, the toad moves with it; This seems too trivial to mention, but really is not. There are people in my neighborhood who growl because the sun does not shine through the north windows, and more than one old farmer who persists in shivering in the wagon-house, under protest, of course, while the woodshed is warm and sunny. There is a chance for every man born in the world, but this same world is not to be molded to every crank’s convenience. Even my tree-toad knows that a fly may be on the wrong side of the glass for him; although it took months of vain bumping of his precious head before the idea reached his brain, and even now he sometimes forgets the lesson so painfully learned. On the other hand, there is little reason to believe that John Blank will look in the sunny meadows next year for belated blossoms. If he finds one by accident in a corner of a cold upland field, it will be heralded as a great discovery.

There is another tree-toad in the frog-pen that is a happy philosopher. Of late, either the food offered is not the proper sort, or the creature habitually fasts at this time of year, which is not improbable. Be this as it may, there is no giving way to despondency because of an empty stomach, and when his companions are taking noonday naps, or recalling the outer world that once they knew, this little fellow, from the door of his mossy cave, or perched upon a dead twig near by, sings merrily. There are doubtless some who would be stupid enough to declare it the cry of despair; but there is no trace of trouble in the sound; no tremulous quaver as though fraught with grief. It is the clear, joyous exultation of supreme content, as we hear it in the woods during bright October days. Again, perhaps those gifted with an ear for music would call the tree-toad’s song a “squeak.” This matters not, for when that tree-toad pipes his single note, I take an outing. My study walls vanish; the hillside and meadow, the winding creek, rolling field, and shady orchard are again, as of old, the playground of my rambling life.