In New England Fields and Woods Part 6

If "the open fire furnishes the room," the camp-fire does more for the camp. It is its life--a life that throbs out in every flare and flicker to enliven the surroundings, whether they be the trees of the forest, the expanse of prairie, shadowed only by clouds and night, or the barren stretch of sandy sh.o.r.e. Out of the encompa.s.sing gloom of all these, the camp-fire materializes figures as real to the eye as flesh and blood. It peoples the verge of darkness with grotesque forms, that leap and crouch and sway with the rise and fall and bending of the flame to the wind, and that beckon the fancy out to grope in the mystery of night.

Then imagination soars with the updrift of smoke and the climbing galaxy of fading sparks, to where the steadfast stars shine out of the unvisited realm that only imagination can explore.

The camp-fire gives an expression to the human face that it bears in no other light, a vague intentness, an absorption in nothing tangible; and yet not a far-away look, for it is focused on the flame that now licks a fresh morsel of wood, now laps the empty air; or it is fixed on the shifting glow of embers, whose blushes flush or fade under their ashen veil. It is not the gaze of one who looks past everything at nothing, or at the stars or the mountains or the far-away sea-horizon; but it is centred on and revealed only by the camp-fire. You wonder what the gazer beholds--the past, the future, or something that is neither; and the uncertain answer you can only get by your own questioning of the flickering blaze.

As the outers gather around this cheerful centre their lips exhale stories of adventure by field and flood, as naturally as the burning fuel does smoke and sparks, and in that engendering warmth, no fish caught or lost, no buck killed or missed, suffers shrinkage in size or weight, no peril is lessened, no tale shorn of minutest detail. All these belong to the camp-fire, whether it is built in conformity to scientific rules or piled clumsily by unskilled hands. What satisfaction there is in the partnership of building this altar of the camp, for though a master of woodcraft superintends, all may take a hand in its erection; the youngest and the weakest may contribute a stick that will brighten the blaze.

What hospitality the glow of the camp-fire proclaims in inviting always one more to the elastic circle of light and warmth, that if always complete, yet expands to receive another guest. A pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night, it is a beacon that guides the wanderer to shelter and comfort.

The Indian weed has never such perfect flavor as when, contending with heat and smoke, one lights his pipe with a coal or an elusive flame, s.n.a.t.c.hed from the embers of the camp-fire, and by no other fireside does the nicotian vapor so soothe the perturbed senses, bring such lazy contentment, nor conjure such pleasant fancies out of the border of dreamland.

There is no cooking comparable with that which the camp-fire affords. To whatever is boiled, stewed, roasted, broiled or baked over its blaze, in the glow of its embers or in its ashes, it imparts a distinctive woodsy flavor that it distills out of itself or draws from the spiced air that fans it; and the aroma of every dish invites an appet.i.te that is never disappointed if the supply be large enough.

It cannot be denied that the camp stove gives forth warmth and, with more comfort to the cook, serves to cook food of such tame flavor as one may get at home. But though the serviceable little imp roar till its black cheeks glow red as winter berries, it cannot make shanty or tent a camp in reality or impart to an outing its true flavor. This can only be given by the generous camp-fire, whose flames and embers no narrow walls inclose, whose hearth is on every side, whose chimney is the wide air.

XXIV

A RAINY DAY IN CAMP

The plans of the camper, like those of other men, "gang aft agley." The morrow, which he proposed to devote to some long-desired hunting or fishing trip, is no more apt to dawn propitiously on him than on the husbandman, the mariner, or any other mortal who looks to the weather for special favor. On the contrary, instead of the glowing horizon and the glory of the sunburst that should usher in the morning, the slow dawn is quite apt to have the unwelcome accompaniment of rain.

The hearing, first alert of the drowsy senses, catches the sullen patter of the drops on tent or shanty, their spiteful, hissing fall on the smouldering embers of the camp-fire, and with a waft of damp earth and herbage stealing into his nostrils, the disappointed awakener turns fretfully under his blanket, then crawls forth to have his lingering hope smothered in the veil of rain that blurs the landscape almost to annihilation.

He mutters anathemas against the weather, then takes the day as it has come to him, for better or for worse. First, to make the best of it, he piles high the camp-fire, and dispels with its glow and warmth some cubic feet of gloom and dampness. Then he sets about breakfast-making, scurrying forth from shelter to fire, in rapid culinary forays, battling with the smoke, for glimpses of the contents of kettle and pan. His repast is as pungent with smoke as the strong waters of Glenlivat, but if that is valued for its flavor of peat-reek, why should he scorn food for the like quality?

Then if he delights in petty warfare with the elements, to bide the pelting of the rain, to storm the abatis of wet thickets and suffer the sapping and mining of insidious moisture, he girds up his loins and goes forth with rod or gun, as his desire of conquest may incline him.

But if he has come to his outing with the intention of pursuing sport with bodily comfort, he is at once a.s.sured that this is unattainable under the present conditions of the weather. Shall he beguile the tediousness of a wet day in camp with books and papers?

Nay, if they were not left behind in the busy, plodding world that he came here to escape from, they should have been. He wants nothing here that reminds him of traffic or politics; nothing of history, for now he has only to do with the present; nothing of travel, for his concern now is only with the exploration of this wild domain. He does not wish to be bothered with fiction, idealized reality is what he desires. Neither does he care for what other men have written of nature. Her book is before him and he may read it from first hands.

Looking forth from his snug shelter on the circ.u.mscribed landscape, he marvels at the brightness of a distant yellow tree that shines like a living flame through the veil of mist. The blaze of his sputtering camp-fire is not brighter. He notices, as perhaps he never did before, how distinctly the dark ramage of the branches is traced among the brilliant leaves, as if with their autumnal hues they were given transparency. Some unfelt waft of the upper air casts aside for a moment the curtain of mist and briefly discloses a mountain peak, radiant with all the hues of autumn, and it is as if one were given, as in a dream, a glimpse of the undiscovered country. He realizes a dreamy pleasure in watching the waves coming in out of the obscurity and dashing on the sh.o.r.e, or pulsing away in fading leaden lines into the mystery of the wrack.

In the borders of the mist the ducks revel in the upper and nether wetness, and with uncanny laughter the loon rejoices between his long explorations of the aquatic depth. A mink, as heedless of rain as the waterfowl, comes stealing along the sh.o.r.e, thridding the intricacies of driftwood and web of wave-washed tree roots, often peering out in inquisitive examination of the quiet camp. Less cautious visitors draw nearer--the friendly chickadee, hanging from the nearest twig; the nuthatch, sounding his penny trumpet, accompanied by the tap of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, as one creeps down, the other up a tree trunk; the scolding jays, making as noisy protest over human intrusion as if they had just discovered it; a saucy squirrel, scoffing and jeering, till tired of his raillery he settles down to quiet nut-rasping under shelter of his tail.

There are unseen visitors, too: wood-mice, astir under cover of the fallen leaves, and, just discernible among the patter of the falling rain and of the squirrels' filings, footfalls unidentified, till a ruffed grouse starts new showers from the wet branches in the thunder of his flight.

Narrowed to the width of tent or shanty front, the background but a pallid shroud of mist, the landscape yet holds much for pleasant study.

But if the weather-bound camper exhausts this or tires of it, he may turn to gun-cleaning or tackle-mending. If a guide be with him, he can listen to his stories of hunting, fishing, and adventure, or learn woodcraft of him and the curious ways of birds and beasts. He may fashion birch-bark camp-ware, dippers, cups, and boxes, or whittle a paddle from a smooth-rifted maple. If he is of artistic turn, he can pleasantly devote an hour to etching pictures on the white under surface of the fungus that grows on decaying trees, and so provide himself with reminders of this rainy day in camp.

So, with one and another pastime, he whiles away the sunless day, which, almost before he has thought of it, merges into the early nightfall, and he is lulled to sleep by the same sound that wakened him, the drip and patter of the rain. And when he looks back to these days of outing he may count this, which dawned so unpropitiously, not the least pleasant and profitable among them, and mark with a white stone the rainy day in camp.

XXV

AUGUST DAYS

With such unmistakable signs made manifest to the eye and ear the summer signals its fullness and decline, that one awakening now from a sleep that fell upon him months ago might be a.s.sured of the season with the first touch of awakening.

To the first aroused sense comes the long-drawn cry of the locust fading into silence with the dry, husky clap of his wings; the changed voice of the song birds, no more caroling the jocund tunes of mating and nesting time, but plaintive with the sadness of farewell.

The bobolink has lost, with his pied coat, the merry lilt that tinkled so continually over the b.u.t.tercups and daisies of the June meadows; rarely the song sparrow utters the trill that cheered us in the doubtful days of early spring. The bluebird's abbreviated carol floats down from the sky as sweet as then, but mournful as the patter of autumn leaves.

The gay goldfinch has but three notes left of his June song, as he tilts on the latest blossoms and fluffy seeds of the thistles. The meadowlark charms us no more with his long-drawn melody, but with one sharp, insistent note he struts in the meadow stubble or skulks among the tussocks of the pasture and challenges the youthful gunner. What an easy shot that even, steady flight offers, and yet it goes onward with unfaltering rapid wing-beats, while the gun thunders and the harmless shot flies behind him. The flicker cackles now no more as when he was a jubilant new comer, with the new-come spring for his comrade, but is silent or only yelps one harsh note as he flashes his golden wings in loping flight from fence-stake to ant-hill.

The plover chuckles while he lingers at the bounteous feast of gra.s.shoppers, but never pierces the August air with the long wail that proclaimed his springtime arrival. After nightfall, too, is heard his chuckling call fluttering down from the aerial path, where he wends his southward way, high and distinct above the shrill monotony of crickets and August pipers. The listening sportsman may well imagine that the departing bird is laughing at him as much as signaling his course to companion wayfarers.

The woodland thrushes' flutes and bells have ceased to breathe and chime, only the wood pewee keeps his pensive song of other days, yet best befitting those of declining summer.

The trees are dark with ripened leaf.a.ge; out of the twilight of the woodside glow the declining disks of wild sunflowers and shine the rising constellations of asters. The meadow sides are gay with unshorn fringes of goldenrod and willow-herb, and there in the corners of the gray fences droop the heavy cl.u.s.ters of elderberries, with whose purple juice the flocking robins and the young grouse, stealing from the shadowed copses along this belt of shade, dye their bills.

The brook trails its attenuated thread out of the woodland gloom to gild its shallow ripples with sunshine and redden them with the inverted flames of the cardinals that blaze on the sedgy brink. Here the brown mink prowls with her lithe cubs, all unworthy yet of the trapper's skill, but tending toward it with growth accelerated by full feasts of pool-impounded minnows. Here, too, the racc.o.o.n sets the print of his footsteps on the muddy sh.o.r.es as he stays his stomach with frogs and sharpens his appet.i.te with the hot sauce of Indian turnip while he awaits the setting of his feast in the cornfields. The hounds are more impatient than he for the opening of his midnight revel, and tug at their chains and whimper and bay when they hear his querulous call trembling through the twilight. They are even fooled to melodiously mournful protest when their ears catch the shriller quaver of the screech owl's note.

The woodc.o.c.k skulks in the bordering alders, and when forced to flight does so with a stronger wing than when a month ago his taking off was first legally authorized. Another month will make him worthier game; and then, too, the ruffed grouse need not be spared a shot, as full grown and strong of pinion he bursts from cover; nor need the wood duck, now but a vigorous bunch of pin feathers, be let go untried or unscathed, when from his perch on a slanted log or out of a bower of rushes he breaks into the upper air with startling flutter of wings and startled squeak of alarm.

Summer wanes, flowers fade, bird songs falter to mournful notes of farewell; but while regretfully we mark the decline of these golden days, we remember with a thrill of expectation that they slope to the golden days of autumn, wherein the farmer garners his latest harvest, the sportsman his first worthy harvest, and that to him that waits, come all things, and even though he waits long, may come the best.

XXVI

A VOYAGE IN THE DARK

A few days ago, a friend who is kind and patient enough to enc.u.mber himself with the care of a blind man and a boy took me and my twelve-year-old a-fishing. It was with a fresh realization of my deprivation that I pa.s.sed along the watery way once as familiar as the dooryard path, but now shrouded for me in a gloom more impenetrable than the blackness of the darkest night. I could only guess at the bends and reaches as the south wind blew on one cheek or the other, or on my back, only knowing where the channel draws near the sh.o.r.e upon which the Indians encamped in the old days by the flutter of leaves overbearing the rustle of rushes. By the chuckle of ripples under the bow, I guessed when we were in mid-channel; by the entangled splash of an oar, when we approached the reedy border where the water-lilies rode at anchor, and discharged their subtle freight of perfume as they tossed in our wake. I knew by his clatter, drawing nearer only with our progress, that a kingfisher was perched on a channel-side fishing-stake, used in turn by him and bigger but not more skillful fishers. I heard his headlong plunge, but whether successful or not the ensuing clatter did not tell me, for he has but one voice for all expressions. Yet as his rattling cry was kept up till the rough edge of its harshness was worn away in receding flight, I fancied he was proclaiming an unusually successful achievement. For the sake of his reputation, he would never make such a fuss over a failure, unless he was telling, as we do, of the big fish he just missed catching. At any rate, I wished him good luck, for who would begrudge a poor kingfisher such little fish as he must catch! They would need years of growth to make them worth our catching or bragging over the loss of, and by that time we may be done with fishing.

Suddenly there was a roar of mult.i.tudinous wings as a host of redwings upburst from springing and swaying wild rice stalks, all of which I saw through the blackness illumined for an instant by memory,--the dusky cloud uprising like the smoke of an explosion, the bent rice springing up beneath its lifted burden, the dull-witted or greedy laggards dribbling upward to join the majority. My companions exclaimed in one voice at the rare sight of a white bird in the flock, and by the same light of memory I also saw it as I saw one in an autumn forty years ago, when, with my comrade of those days, I came "daown the crik"

duck-shooting, or trolling as to-day. Again and again we saw this phenomenal bird like a white star twinkling through a murky cloud. The fitful gleam was seen day after day, till the north wind blew him and his cloud away southward.

The pother of the blackbirds overhead disturbed the meditations of a bittern, who, with an alarmed croak, jerked his ungainly form aloft in a flurry of awkward wing-beats, and went sagging across the marshes in search of safer seclusion. I wished that he might find it, and escape the ruthless gunners that will presently come to desolate these marshes. Very different from his uprising was that of a pair of wood ducks, revealing their unsuspected presence with startling suddenness, as they sprang from water to air with a splash and whistle of rapid wings and their squeaking alarm cry, and then flew swiftly away, the sibilant wing-beats pulsing out in the distance. These, too, I wished might safely run the gauntlet of all the guns that will be arrayed against them when the summer truce is broken. If I had not been mustered out, or if my boy were mustered in, no doubt I should feel differently toward the inhabitants of these marshes. Compulsory abstinence makes one exceedingly virtuous, and because I am virtuous there shall be no cakes and ale for any one.

The absence of the rail's cackle was noticeable, a clamor that used to be provoked at this season by every sudden noise. We never got sight of the "ma'sh chickens" as they skulked among the sedges; and when the birds were pressed to flight, rarely caught more than a fleeting glimpse as they topped the rushes for an instant, and dropped again into the mazes of the marsh. But they were always announcing a numerous if invisible presence where now not one answered to our voices or the noise of our oars.