Читать книгу Now I Remember: Autobiography of an Amateur Naturalist - Thornton Waldo Burgess - Страница 9

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Mother and I left grandfather’s home when I was about six years old. Shortly before this an early attempt to dig the Cape Cod Canal was made. Several hundred Italian laborers were brought to Sandwich to dig the canal with shovels. The townspeople were mostly of fine old Yankee and Irish-American stock; the good-natured sons of sunny Italy were needlessly looked on with suspicion and distrust. Brass chains that would permit the opening of a door only wide enough for a cautious survey of the outside before permitting a guest inside appeared on some doors. This was especially true in some of the better homes.

It was for but a short time. Then the laborers shouldered their shovels and departed for parts unknown where the dollars came more frequently and more regularly. Thus ended this attempt to dig the Cape Cod Canal.

The next attempt was also made during my boyhood. A multiple bucket dredge was towed down from East Boston, and majestically ate its way from Cape Cod Bay through the beach and sand dunes into the Sagamore marshes. Slowly it gnawed ahead, the buckets on an endless chain, each one cutting off a slice of marsh muck to drop into the bucket below. By water pressure this was then spewed out at a distance on the marsh through a big pipeline that had to be moved ahead with the dredge.

By the time the dredge had dug inland for something less than a mile old Neptune had land-locked it with a solid beach, and wind and waves were well on the way to raising a sand dune of the most approved Cape Cod type where the entrance to the canal had been. It was a lovely and most effective gesture of defiance and contempt.

I caught many smelt from the stern of that dredge while it was in operation. Ultimately the marsh gave it indigestion, the financial remedy was insufficient, and so ended another attempt to dig the canal. It was long after I left the Cape that this important waterway was finally completed. Now instead of smelt huge striped bass are the lure of the fishermen in those waters.

Mother was not strong at the time, a semi-invalid. But somehow, with some help from my paternal grandparents, she managed to support us. At an early age I learned to look on both sides of a penny. I made such small contributions to our support as a healthy, willing small boy in a country village might earn. From the time I was ten years old I managed to earn enough to buy most of my own clothes.

Mother made candy and I peddled it from house to house and in the glass works. Now and then there was an errand to be run for a nickel or possibly a dime. Sometimes in winter there was snow to shovel. In the spring came the dandelion greens, which I dug and sold. In summer it was blueberries, most bountiful where forest fires had burned two years before. These were the low bush berries. It was a matter of pride to get the first berries of the season, possibly a couple of quarts for a long morning’s search. But they brought a small fortune, all of twenty-five cents per quart. This price held for no more than a day or two. Then the decline in price was rapid until the low of eight cents per quart for shipment to Boston.

Sometimes I had company. More often I went alone. Frequently I was afield a mile or two from town shortly after daybreak. I think it was then and on lone quests for arbutus in the early spring that my love for Nature was aroused and nurtured.

The arbutus came in April, loveliest blossoms of the spring, Nature’s fulfillment of autumn’s pledge of vernal awakening. I knew where grew the largest clusters and the pinkest blossoms with the longest stems. There always was a ready market for them. They were my favorite flowers and still are. A whiff of their fragrance unlocks a store of precious memories. Today the arbutus is protected as it should be and I am glad.

One winter day, January 7 to be exact—I remember the date because it was my chum’s birthday—wandering afield with him, we found at the edge of a patch of snow on a bank beside an old wood road a lone arbutus plant. There in the midst of the dark green and the brown dead leaves was a spray of full-blown blossoms. It seemed then, and still seems, incredible. But there they lay as lovely and as delicately scented as if they were indeed the heralds of spring. What a birthday gift from the giver of all living things!

The following year, remembering that brave challenge to the season of bitter cold, I looked for and found in midwinter that same sturdy plant. There were no open blossoms, but two or three faded ones still clung to the stems. Often I have wondered what science might have done with that sturdy plant in developing a new strain of extra-early-blooming arbutus. The fact that it had blossomed in January in successive years, although in neither year had there been an unreasonable period of warm weather, indicated to me that this tendency to out-of-season flowering was inherent in the plant and not the result of local external conditions.

The location was not even sheltered. The plant was a freak. Or was it? Let us say that it possessed characteristics that gave it distinctive individuality. Long since, I discovered individuality may be, and is, found in most living things, including plants. It is from outstanding individuals that adaptation to changed conditions develops to the end that perpetuation and betterment of the race may be insured.

Sometimes when I watch thunderheads of a summer’s day and hear the muttering of the threatening storm, a sort of mental television picture is flashed on memory’s screen. I see a lone small boy picking berries in Great Hollow, hurrying to fill his pail before a threatening storm broke. He didn’t like thunderstorms. Anxiously he watched the ugly threat in the darkening sky. With about four quarts of berries in his pail he began to run for the nearest house, perhaps a mile away.

The storm broke. The rain began in big drops. It became a wind-driven deluge. Panting, wet to the skin, his stockings coming down, still clinging to his pail and careful not to spill his precious berries, he stumbled out of the woods. When midway across a brush-grown old pasture there came a blinding flash of lightning and a terrific crash of thunder, as if the sky itself had been split open. A terrified small boy fell flat, his pail rolling away, his berries a total loss. I never have enjoyed thunderstorms since.

That was a freak storm. There was but one bolt of lightning. It was forked, one tine hitting the famous, beautiful “Christopher Wren” spire of the Congregational Church, while the other straddled the village and ripped a great gap in one of the huge chimneys of the glass works.

I have another mental picture of that same small boy in another thunderstorm. From early colonial times until comparatively recent years Sandwich had a great public pasture bordering the sea near the present entrance to the Canal. Perhaps “co-operative” would be the more correct term, for this pasture was owned in shares based on the number of cows to be pastured there. From spring until fall village folk with one or two cows, and others on the edge of the village with small herds but no immediately available pastures, drove their cows to Town Neck, as the big pasture was called.

At four o’clock every afternoon the gate was opened, and the cows always gathered there to be let out. Owners, or those working for them, were supposed to be on hand to cut out their animals from the herd and drive them home. I was then driving two small herds from adjoining farms on the edge of the town. There were eight to a dozen cows. The distance was something over a mile. I drove them to the Neck shortly after six o’clock in the morning. At four o’clock in the afternoon I was at the gate to drive them home. The job netted me seventy-five cents a week to add to the home income.

On this still well-remembered day I was on hand at the gate when it was opened. But when I had cut out my small herd one of my cows was missing. There was nothing for me to do but drive the others home, then trudge back to look for the missing one. A tempest was brewing. I didn’t like thunderstorms. In short, I was afraid. It didn’t occur to me to turn back on this account. The rain fell, the lightning flashed, the thunder roared and crashed, and a small boy plodded on, wet to the skin, muddy and scared.

Town Neck was a vast, lonely place with patches of brush, swampy places, and two or three small ponds. Under the stormy sky it was dismal and gloomy. The dull booming of the surf beyond the dunes and the wild screaming of the gulls riding the storm added eeriness to the surroundings. I doubt that a more badly frightened boy ever slipped through a pasture gate.

Then as I topped a rise of ground the storm ended abruptly. The sun broke through and there against the retreating clouds a wonderful rainbow arched the sky from horizon to horizon. Framed in a break between distant sand dunes was a bit of blue ocean with blue sky above, and centered in the far distance the white sails of a ship caught the slanting rays of the sun.

The volatile spirits of a boy leaped as only a boy’s spirits can. I shouted as I ran, beating the patches of brush, until at last I found the missing cow lying behind some bushes. Beside her was a newly born calf.

“So that’s it, you old fool!” I shouted, but I suspect there was gentleness and perhaps something of wonder in my voice as I looked down on the helpless calf.

Then happily I trudged back to get the farmer with horse and wagon to take home the calf and lead the cow. Supper was late that night, but a happy one as I told Mother all about the adventure. A boy did a lot for seventy-five cents in those days.

It was on that same seventy-five-cent job that stark tragedy once occurred. Shortly before reaching Town Neck, the highway turned sharply at right angles and ran parallel to the railroad for a short distance to where the road to the Neck gate turned off and crossed the railroad. One morning I had reached the highway turn and my cows were slowly moving along parallel to the railroad. I heard the Boston-bound morning freight whistle. A girl had just pastured her cows and was at the crossing on her way home. I yelled to her to head off my cows. She did and they began browsing on both sides of the road while we waited for the train to pass.

At that point the railroad was on an embankment quite a bit above the level of the road. A rail fence separated the railroad right of way from the highway. Brush had grown up high on both sides of the fence so that it was hidden from my view. Idly I waited for the freight to pass. I was rudely startled by a sharp blast from the engine whistle. I looked up to see one of my cows just topping the railroad embankment. She had forced her way through the bushes screening the fence, found it down, and gone through the gap.

Instead of turning back, she started along the middle of the track, galloping in clumsy cow fashion, her arched tail held high, the iron monster at her heels with tooting whistle and clanging bell, the cars clattering and banging into each other as the brakes took hold.

All that cow had to do was jump off the track. She didn’t. She was feminine. She wanted to reach the crossing and she meant to. She was terror-stricken, but her mind was set. She did reach the crossing. Alas, despite the engineer’s efforts to prevent it, the engine reached her at the same instant. Even as she made a frantic leap off to one side the engine hit her hind legs and threw her high in the air. Both legs were broken.

The girl at the crossing took the rest of my cows to the Neck, and a shocked and desperately frightened boy, fearful that he would be blamed and might have to pay for the cow, turned back to tell the owner of the disaster. On the way he stopped at the home of the town’s pig killer. If a man was a pig killer he probably would be willing to be a cow killer, and that cow with two broken legs had to be killed.

I had misjudged the owner of the cow. Instead of the anger and blame I feared and dreaded even though I knew I was blameless, I received only comforting words from an understanding and kindly man as we drove back to the scene of the disaster. Believe it or not, by the time we got there the fence was up. A section gang, whose negligence was the cause of the accident, had been at work not far away. Too late they had made haste to restore the fence.

The railroad did not protest the bill for damages and paid in full. Then my kindhearted employer, who had had the cow dressed out and properly hung, offered me a roast of beef and some choice steaks. Mother and I talked it over. It was seldom that we could afford beefsteak. It always was a treat. But this wasn’t beef. It was my cow. When you daily drive cows to and from pasture they are your cows, regardless of who owns them. We couldn’t possibly eat a mouthful of my cow. We agreed on that. So we didn’t. We were appreciatively grateful, but we just couldn’t accept the offer. The owner of the cow understood.

So it was that through two cows, the missing one on Town Neck and the one killed at the railroad crossing, I learned the meaning of responsibility.

In addition to driving cows I added to the weekly income by delivering milk on a short route. In a child’s express wagon I dragged the cans of milk from door to door, measuring it out in a quart measure to pour into a receptacle at each place. It was not pasteurized; it was not homogenized. It sold at five cents a quart. Eggs then were sometimes down to twelve cents a dozen.

Another source of income in summer was the delivery of mail and telegrams to a man living on the outskirts of the village who was a pioneer grower of pink pond lilies. From the post office to his place was about one and a half miles. There he had a series of small artificial ponds fed by a stream of spring water from which I took many a pink-fleshed trout. I wonder if any are there now.

The middle of each small pond could be reached with a long slender pole having a knife blade set at an angle at one end for cutting under water lily stems of sufficient length. The mature buds just ready to break open were cut, graded and packed in damp sphagnum moss. They were shipped to florists and private trade all over the country. Roots were also sold. As there was no telephone I was paid fifteen cents for taking Mr. Chipman his mail and telegrams. Usually I made but one trip a day, occasionally two. A round trip was about three miles.

When I was about twelve years old Mr. Chipman became worried by small snails eating the lily leaves, or pads as they are commonly called. He had an idea that striped perch would eat the snails. Now I am not a businessman—far, far from it. But I am a Yankee. It shows briefly at intervals. It did then. With my chum I contracted to deliver at the ponds three hundred live striped perch at three cents each, a total of nine dollars. Four and a half dollars each—a bonanza! And it wouldn’t be work. It would be fun, for both of us loved to fish.

The Mill Pond (now Shawme Lake), the lower end of which comes down into the village, is connected at the upper end with another and deeper body of water called the Upper Pond. This teemed with small striped perch. We had a boat on each pond.

Our plans were carefully laid. At the lower end of the Mill Pond we placed two wheelbarrows with the sides removed. On each was an old-fashioned blue wooden washtub. Blue is, or was, the standard color on the Cape for washtubs, wheelbarrows, wagons and window shutters, the latter always called blinds. We borrowed the tubs from our mothers.

We rowed up to the head of the Mill Pond, crossed over a dam to the Upper Pond, and in another boat rowed to a place where perch usually were plentiful. They were there waiting for us and they were hungry. We used short poles with short lines and small hooks that could not injure the fish. To the stern of the boat we had tied a large vegetable crate made of laths. In the top at one end was a small trap door. The spaces between the laths were not wide enough for the fish to escape but allowed free circulation of water. The crate floated submerged.

The perch were co-operative. They bit as fast as we could bait the hooks. It was exciting. It was fun. It didn’t take long to fill our improvised fish container. We towed it to the place where we would carry it over the dam to the lower pond.

Each grasping a lath at one end of the crate, we lifted it between us from the water and with our frantically flapping load started to run as fast as we could to get the fish into the water again as soon as possible. Midway over the carry, a lath pulled free at one end and the crate fell, banging and scraping bare shins painfully. But those were not to be thought of then. There was no time for that. Flapping on the ground on all sides were gasping perch at three cents each.

Have you ever tried to pick up a flapping striped perch, let alone a couple of dozen of them? If you ever must do this I urgently advise you to first put on gloves. A striped perch has a dorsal fin which at such a time it most inconsiderately insists on raising and keeping raised. On it are needle-sharp spines set to meet the hands of the grabber whichever way he grabs.

With hands much the worse for mercenary greed we got the fish back into the crate before more than three or four had flopped from the profit column over to the loss column. Then, rowing with sore and smarting hands, we towed the crate the length of the Mill Pond to the waiting tubs. Hastily we filled the tubs two-thirds full of water and in each put twenty-five or thirty fish. Then we started for the lily ponds a mile and a half away and for three cents each for those fish.

Never again did I ever try to push a wheelbarrow on which was an old-fashioned washtub two-thirds full of water. It was midsummer and a scorching hot day. The loads were heavy. Our hands were sore. Almost at once we began to learn things we hadn’t known about fish. We learned fast. We had known how to catch fish, but not until that day, as wet with perspiration as were the fish with water, with aching muscles and growing anxiety, did we learn that a fish must have oxygen just as we must, and there isn’t enough of it in a tub of warm water for more than two or three fish at a time. With more than that all soon die.

There was too much water to wheel and not enough water for the fish. One turned his white belly with its pretty red anal fins up to the pitiless sun. Three cents gone! We tried harder than ever to hurry. The water slopped out of the tubs. The perch came to the surface gasping. Anyway they looked as if they were gasping. We hurried and sweated and ached and worried. More and more fish turned belly up.

The wheels squeaked, the water slopped, the fish died, but we got there at last. Half a dozen fish were still alive. We divided eighteen cents, then pushed the wheelbarrows with the empty tubs a mile and a half home.

But the live perch contract was not without profit. Far from it. We gained much in nature lore. We learned that catching fish is not all the reward of fishing, and many, many years later I collected the full contract price of nine dollars with interest many times compounded. I sold the story of the contract to a magazine for fifty dollars.

In the fall there were beach plums and wild grapes to gather and find a market for. In September and October came the cranberries. In those days we “picked” cranberries. Later they were “scooped.” In those days the scoop and rake were outlawed. It was a job for nimble fingers. Cape Cod cranberries were held by growers to be too high-grade to be touched by aught but human hands. Scoop and rake finally were no longer taboo, and now even these have given way to the machine.

I confess to a wave of nostalgia every time I see the crimson dish of cranberry sauce flanking the Thanksgiving turkey. I see again the bog lined off in rows by means of white cord, the kneeling figures, the girls and women sunbonneted and the men and boys for the most part in old trousers and flannel shirts. At the starting point at one end of each row was a crate. Each picker had a six-quart ringed pail called a “measure.” Each ring measured a quart. The pay for picking was ten cents per measure where the picking was good, and sometimes twelve cents where it was poor.

As a rule a low round pan, perhaps a milk pan, that could be held between the spread knees and over the edge of which the wiry vines could be pulled by the cupped hands filled with berries, was used. Then the vines were quickly spread and the few berries that had fallen on the ground were picked up. The picker hitched forward a knee’s length and again the cupped hands scooped in the berries. When the pan was filled the berries were transferred to the measure and when this was full it was emptied into the crate at the end of the row and there checked by the foreman. It often was good for a few extra cents to not quite fill the measure to the brim, letting it stand for the berries to settle while again filling the picking pan. Then a know-how toss of the measure before taking it to be checked would fill the pail to the brim and even more.

School did not open until October because at just that period cranberries were more important than the three R’s. Whole families went cranberrying. While fingers were busy tongues were busy too, and village news became cranberry gossip. Some bogs were not far back of the beach sand dunes, and the bracing air was salt on the lips. Some were in deep woods near the shores of ponds that in the years since have matriculated into the dignity of lakes.

Oh, those picnic lunches at the nooning while backs straightened and fingers relaxed! Mother made cold roast pork sandwiches of homemade bread and slices of chicken-tender meat from the sweetest pigs that ever grunted, and there was plenty to satisfy the cranberry bog appetite of a hungry boy. There was the spice of good stories and old-time familiar songs. Then the tally at the end of the picking and the long walk or ride home, sometimes a matter of several miles, a jarring ride on boards put across the sides of a blue truck wagon drawn by a plodding horse or a span that sometimes plodded and sometimes hurried with a jolting trot.

Cranberry picking was hard on the hands. We boys used shoemaker’s wax to protect the quick or base of each fingernail. Girls often wore gloves. But even though they beat us picking, we boys scorned the gloves. Cranberries on the Cape are a bigger and more important crop than ever, but no longer are they “picked” and all the romance and social life of long-ago days have been “scooped” away.

In the Christmas season I took orders for Christmas cards, canvassing the village homes, and sold Mother’s candy. Mother had a reputation for her delicious candy. Even old Bruce, a neighbor’s pointer dog, appreciated that candy. One day he slipped in the back room where Mother had left on the table a batch of molasses candy to cool sufficiently to be pulled. It was not hot enough to burn and Bruce took the whole batch into his eager jaws. It had stiffened enough to be chewy and to stick to the teeth. The old dog got more than he had bargained for. There was far, far too much to be swallowed and he couldn’t let go of it. It was an open question whether Bruce had possession of the candy or the candy had possession of the dog. The odds were in favor of the candy. His jaws were stuck together and he struggled in vain to get them unstuck. On his face despair struggled with chagrin. That batch of candy was a dead loss to all concerned, but Bruce never again tried to turn thief.

Let no one scorn those halcyon days because we had no radio, no television. The phonograph was still in its infancy, the automobile a crazy man’s dream, and the mere idea of man’s flying was the folly of a fool. I still am glad I grew up in those benighted days.