Nature's Serial Story Part 21

CHAPTER XXVI

VERY MOODY

The next morning Amy, on looking from her window, could scarcely believe she was awake. She had retired with her mind full of spring and spring-time beauty, but the world without had now the aspect of January.

The air was one swirl of snow, and trees, buildings--everything was white. In dismay she hastened to join the family, but was speedily rea.s.sured.

"There is nothing monotonous in American weather, and you must get used to our sharp alternations," said Mr. Clifford. "This snow will do good rather than harm, and the lawn will actually look green after it has melted, as it will speedily. The thing we dread is a severe frost at a far later date than this. The buds are still too dormant to be injured, but I have known the apples to be frozen on the trees when as large as walnuts."

"Such snows are called the poor man's manure," Webb remarked, "and fertilizing gases, to a certain amount, do become entangled in the large wet flakes, and so are carried into the soil. But the poor man will a.s.suredly remain poor if he has no other means of enriching his land. What a contrast to yesterday! The house on the northeast side looks as if built of snow, so evenly is it plastered over. I pity the birds. They have scarcely sung this morning, and they look as if thoroughly disgusted."

Amy and Johnnie shared in the birds' disapproval, but Alf had a boy's affinity for snow, and resolved to construct an immense fort as soon as the storm permitted. Before the day had far declined the heavy flakes ceased, and the gusty wind died away. Johnnie forgot the budding flowers in their winding-sheet, and joyously aided in the construction of the fort. Down the sloping lawn they rolled the s...o...b..a.l.l.s, that so increased with every revolution that they soon rose above the children's heads, and Webb and Burt's good-natured help was required to pile them into ramparts. At the entrance of the stronghold an immense snow sentinel was fashioned, with a cord-wood stick for a musket. The children fairly sighed for another month of winter.

All night long Nature, in a heavy fall of rain, appeared to weep that she had been so capricious, and the morning found her in as uncomfortable a mood as could be imagined. The slush was ankle-deep, with indefinite degrees of mud beneath, the air chilly and raw, and the sky filled with great ragged ma.s.ses of cloud, so opaque and low that they appeared as if disrupted by some dynamic force, and threatened to fall upon the shadowed land. But between them the sun darted many a smile at his tear-stained mistress. At last they took themselves off like ill-affected meddlers in a love match, and the day grew bright and warm. By evening, spring, literally and figuratively, had more than regained lost ground, for, as Mr. Clifford had predicted, the lawn had a distinct emerald hue.

Thenceforth the season moved forward as if there were to be no more regrets and nonsense. An efficient ally in the form of a southwest wind came to the aid of the sun, and every day Nature responded with increasing favor. Amy no more complained that an American April was like early March in England; and as the surface of the land grew warm and dry it was hard for her to remain in-doors, there was so much of life, bustle, and movement without.

Buds were swelling on every side. Those of the lilac were nearly an inch long, and emitted a perfume of the rarest delicacy, far superior to that of the blossoms to come. The nests of the earlier birds were in all stages of construction, and could be seen readily in the leafless trees. Snakes were crawling from their holes, and lay sunning themselves in the roads, to her and Johnnie's dismay. Alf captured turtles that, deep in the mud, had learned the advent of spring as readily as the creatures of the air. The fish were ascending the swollen streams. "Each rill," as Th.o.r.eau wrote, "is peopled with new life rushing up it." Abram and Alf were planning a momentous expedition to a tumbling dam on the Moodna, the favorite resort of the sluggish suckers. New chicks were daily breaking their sh.e.l.ls, and their soft, downy, ball-like little bodies were more to Amy's taste than the peepers of the marsh.

One Sat.u.r.day morning Alf rushed in, announcing with breathless haste that "Kitten had a calf." Kitten was a fawn-colored Alderney, the favorite of the barnyard, and so gentle that even Johnnie did not fear to rub her rough nose, scratch her between her horns, or bring her wisps of gra.s.s when she was tied near the house. Her calf was unlike all other calves.

There was no rest until Amy had seen it, and she admitted that she had never looked upon a more innocent and droll little visage. At the children's pleading the infant cow was given to them, but they were warned to leave it for the present to Abram and Kitten's care, for the latter was inclined to act like a veritable old cat when any one made too free with her bovine baby.

This bright Sat.u.r.day occurring about the middle of the month completely enthroned spring in the children's hearts. The air was sweet with fragrance from the springing gra.s.s and swelling buds, and so still and humid that sounds from other farms and gardens, and songs from distant fields and groves, blended softly yet distinctly with those of the immediate vicinage. The sunshine was warm, but veiled by fleecy clouds; and as the day advanced every member of the family was out-of-doors, even to Mrs. Clifford, for whom had been constructed, under her husband's direction, a low garden-chair which was so light that even Alf or Amy could draw it easily along the walks. From it she stepped down on her first visit of the year to her beloved flower-beds, which Alf and Burt were patting in order for her, the latter blending with, his filial attentions the hope of seeing more of Amy. Nor was he unrewarded, for his manner toward his mother, whom he alternately petted and chaffed, while at the same time doing her bidding with manly tenderness, won the young girl's hearty good-will. The only drawback was his inclination to pet her furtively even more. She wished that Webb was preparing the flower-beds, for then there would be nothing to perplex or worry her. But he, with his father and Leonard, was more prosaically employed, for they were at work in the main or vegetable garden. It was with a sense of immense relief that she heard Mrs. Clifford, after she had given her final directions, and gloated over the blooming crocuses and daffodils, and the budding hyacinths and tulips, express a wish to join her husband.

"Come back soon," pleaded Burt.

"I'm your mother's pony to-day," she replied, and hastened away. A wide path bordered on either side by old-fashioned perennials and shrubbery led down through the garden. Amy breathed more freely as soon as she gained it, and at once gave herself up to the enjoyment of the pleasing sights and sounds on every side. Mr. Clifford was the picture of placid content as he sat on a box in the sun, cutting potatoes into the proper size for planting. Johnnie was perched on another box near, chattering incessantly as she handed him the tubers, and asking no other response than the old gentleman's amused smile. Leonard with a pair of stout horses was turning up the rich black mould, sinking his plow to the beam, and going twice in a furrow. It would require a very severe drought to affect land pulverized thus deeply, for under Leonard's thorough work the root pasturage was extended downward eighteen inches. On the side of the plot nearest to the house Webb was breaking the lumps and levelling the ground with a heavy iron-toothed rake, and also forking deeply the ends of the furrows that had been trampled by the turning horses. Leaving Mrs.

Clifford chatting and laughing with her husband and Johnnie, Amy stood in the walk opposite to him, and he said presently:

"Come, Amy, you can help me. You said you wanted a finger in our horticultural pies, and no doubt had in your mind nothing less plebeian than flower seeds and roses. Will your nose become _retrousse_ if I ask you to aid me in planting parsnips, oyster-plant, carrots, and--think of it!--onions?"

"The idea of my helping you, when the best I can do is to amuse you with my ignorance! But I'll put on no airs. I do not look forward to an exclusive diet of roses, and am quite curious to know what part I can have in earning my daily vegetables."

"A useful and typical part--that of keeping straight men and things in general. Wait a little;" and taking up a coiled garden line, he attached one end of it to a stout stake pressed firmly into the ground. He then walked rapidly over the levelled soil to the further side of the plot, drew the line "taut," as the sailors say, and tied it to another stake.

He next returned toward Amy, making a shallow drill by drawing a sharp-pointed hoe along under the line. From a basket near, containing labelled packages of seeds, he made a selection, and poured into a bowl something that looked like gunpowder grains, and sowed it rapidly in the little furrow. "Now, Amy," he cried, from the further side of the plot, "do you see that measuring-stick at your feet? Place one end of it against the stake to which the line is fastened, and move the stake with the line forward to the other end of the measuring-stick, just as I am doing here. That's it. You now see how many steps you save me, and how much faster I can get on."

"Are those black-looking grains you are sowing seed?"

"Indeed they are, as a few weeks may prove to you by more senses than one. These are the seeds of a vegetable inseparable in its a.s.sociations from cla.s.sic Italy and renowned in sacred story. You may not share in the longings of the ancient Hebrews, but with its aid I could easily bring tears of deep feeling to your eyes."

"The vegetable is more pungent than your wit, Webb," she laughed; but she stood near the path at the end of the line, which she moved forward from time to time as requested, meanwhile enjoying an April day that lacked few elements of perfection.

The garden is one of the favorite haunts of the song-sparrow. In the flower-border near, Amy would hear such a vigorous scratching among the leaves that she might well believe that a motherly hen was at work, but presently one of these little sober-coated creatures that Th.o.r.eau well calls a "ground-bird" would fly to the top of a plum-tree and trill out a song as sweet as the perfume that came from the blossoming willows not far away. The busy plows made it a high festival for the robins, for with a confidence not misplaced they followed near in the furrows that Leonard was making in the garden, and that Abram was turning on an adjacent hillside, and not only the comparatively harmless earth-worms suffered, but also the pestiferous larvae of the May-beetle, the arch-enemy of the strawberry plant. Even on that day of such varied and etherealized fragrance, the fresh, wholesome odor of the upturned earth was grateful.

Suddenly Webb straightened himself from the sowing of the scale-like parsnip-seed in which he was then engaged, and said, "Listen." Remote yet distinct, like a dream of a bird-song, came a simple melody from a distant field. "Welcome," he said. "That's our meadow-lark, Amy; not equal to your skylark, I admit. Indeed, it is not a lark at all, for Dr.

Marvin says it belongs to the oriole family. Brief and simple as is its song, I think you will agree with me that spring brings few more lovely sounds. That is the first one that I have heard this year."

She scarcely more than caught the ethereal song before Burt and Alf came down the path, trundling immense wheelbarrow-loads of the prunings of the shrubbery around the house. These were added to a great pile of brush and refuse that had acc.u.mulated on the other side of the walk, and to Alf was given the wild excitement of igniting the inflammable ma.s.s, and soon there was a fierce crackling as the flames devoured their way into the loose dry centre of the rejected debris of the previous year. Then to Alf and Johnnie's unmeasured delight they were permitted to improvise a miniature prairie fire. A part of the garden had been left to grow very weedy in the preceding summer, and they were shown how that by lighting the dry, dead material on the windward side, the flames, driven by a gentle western breeze, would sweep across the entire plot, leaving it bare and blackened, ready for the fertilizers and the plow. With merry cries they followed the sweeping line of fire, aiding it forward by catching up on iron rakes burning wisps and transferring them to spots in the weedy plot that did not kindle readily. Little Ned, clinging to the hand of Maggie, who had joined the family in the garden, looked on with awe-struck eyes. From the bonfire and the consuming weeds great volumes of smoke poured up and floated away, the air was full of pungent odors, and the robins called vociferously back and forth through the garden, their alarmed and excited cries vying with the children's shouts. In half an hour only a faint haze of smoke to the eastward indicated the brief conflagration; the family had gone to the house for their one-o'clock dinner, and the birds were content with the normal aspect of the old garden in April.

The promise of the bright spring day was not fulfilled. Cold rains followed by frosty mornings and high cool winds prevailed with depressing persistency. It required almost as much vigor, courage, and activity as had been essential in March to enjoy out-door life. In many of her aspects Nature appeared almost to stand still and wait for more genial skies, and yet for those who watched to greet and to welcome, the mighty impulse of spring manifested itself in many ways. The currant and gooseberry bushes, as if remembering their original haunts in dim, cold, boggy forests, put forth their foliage without hesitation. From the elm-trees swung the little pendent blossoms that precede the leaves. The lilacs and some other hardy shrubs grew green and fragrant daily. Nothing daunted, the crocuses, hyacinths, and tulips pushed upward their succulent leaves with steady resolution. In the woods the flowers had all kinds of experiences. On the north side of Storm King it was still winter, with great areas of December's ice unmelted. On the south side of the mountain, spring almost kept pace with the calendar. The only result was that the hardy little children of April, on which had hung more snow-flakes than dew, obtained a longer lease of blooming life, and could have their share in garlanding the May Queen. They bravely faced the frosty nights and drenching rains, becoming types of those lives whose beauty is only enhanced by adversity--of those who make better use of a little sunny prosperity to bless the world than others on whom good-fortune ever seems to wait.

The last Sat.u.r.day of the month was looked forward to with hopeful expectations, as a genial earnest of May, and a chance for out-door pleasures; but with it came a dismal rain-storm, which left the ground as cold, wet, and sodden as it had been a month before. The backward season, of which the whole country was now complaining, culminated on the following morning, which ushered in a day of remarkable vicissitude. By rapid transition the rain pa.s.sed into sleet, then snow, which flurried down so rapidly that the land grew white and wintry, making it almost impossible to imagine that two months of spring had pa.s.sed. By 10 A.M.

the whirling flakes ceased, but a more sullen, leaden, March-like sky never lowered over a cold, dripping earth. On the north side of the house a white hyacinth was seen hanging its pendent blossoms half in and half out of the snow, and Alf, who in response to Dr. Marvin's suggestion was following some of the family fortunes among the homes in the trees, came in and said that he had found nests well hidden by a covering all too cold, with the resolute mother bird protecting her eggs, although chilled, wet, and shivering herself. By 1 P.M. the clouds grew thin, rolled away, and disappeared. The sun broke out with a determined warmth and power, and the snow vanished like a spectre of the long-past winter.

The birds took heart, and their songs of exultation resounded from far and near. A warm south breeze sprang up and fanned Amy's cheek, as she, with the children and Burt, went out for their usual Sunday-afternoon walk. They found the flowers looking up hopefully, but with melted snow hanging like tears on their pale little faces. The sun at last sank into the unclouded west, illumining the sky with a warm, golden promise for the future. Amy gazed at its departing glory, but Burt looked at her--looked so earnestly, so wistfully, that she was full of compunction even while she welcomed the return of the children, which delayed the words that were trembling on his lips. He was ready, she was not; and he walked homeward at her side silent and depressed, feeling that the receptive, responsive spring was later in her heart than in Nature.

CHAPTER XXVII

SHAD-FISHING BY PROXY

According to the almanac, May was on time to a second, but Nature seemed unaware of the fact. Great bodies of snow covered the Adirondack region, and not a little still remained all the way southward through the Catskills and the Highlands, about the headwaters of the Delaware, and its cold breath benumbed the land. Johnnie's chosen intimates had given her their suffrages as May Queen; but prudent Maggie had decided that the crowning ceremonies should not take place until May truly appeared, with its warmth and floral wealth. Therefore, on the first Sat.u.r.day of the month, Leonard planned a half-holiday, which should not only compensate the disappointed children, but also give his busy wife a little outing.

He had learned that the tide was right for crossing the shallows of the Moodna Creek, and they would all go fishing. Johnnie's friends and Dr.

and Mrs. Marvin were invited, and great were the preparations. Reed and all kinds of poles were taken down from their hooks, or cut in a neighboring thicket, the country store was depleted of its stock of rusty hooks, and stray corks were fastened on the brown linen lines for floats.

Burt disdained to take his scientific tackle, and indeed there was little use for it in Moodna Creek, but he joined readily in the frolic. He would be willing to fish indefinitely for even minnows, if at the same time there was a chance to angle for Amy. Some preferred to walk to the river, and with the aid of the family rockaway the entire party were at the boat-house before the sun had pa.s.sed much beyond the meridian. Burt, from his intimate knowledge of the channel, acted as pilot, and was jubilant over the fact that Amy consented to take an oar with him and receive a lesson in rowing. Mrs. Marvin held the tiller-ropes, and the doctor was to use a pair of oars when requested to do so. Webb and Leonard took charge of the larger boat, of which Johnnie, as hostess, was captain, and a jolly group of little boys and girls made the echoes ring, while Ned, with his thumb in his mouth, clung close to his mother, and regarded the nautical expedition rather dubiously. They swept across the flats to the deeper water near Plum Point, and so up the Moodna, whose sh.o.r.es were becoming green with the rank growth of the bordering marsh. Pa.s.sing under an old covered bridge they were soon skirting an island from which rose a n.o.ble grove of trees, whose swollen buds were only waiting for a warmer caress of the sun to unfold. Returning, they beached their boats below the bridge, under whose shadow the fish were fond of lying. The little people were disembarked, and placed at safe distances; for, if near, they would surely hook each other, if never a fin. Silence was enjoined, and there was a breathless hush for the s.p.a.ce of two minutes; then began whispers more resonant than those of the stage, followed by acclamations as Johnnie pulled up a wriggling eel, of which she was in mortal terror.

They all had good sport, however, for the smaller fry of the finny tribes that haunted the vicinity of the old bridge suffered from the well-known tendency of extreme youth to take everything into its mouth. Indeed, at that season, an immature sun-fish will take a hook if there is but a remnant of a worm upon it. The day was good for fishing, since thin clouds darkened the water. Amy was the heroine of the party, for Burt had furnished her with a long, light pole, and taught her to throw her line well away from the others. As a result she soon took, amidst excited plaudits, several fine yellow perch. At last Leonard shouted:

"You shall not have all the honors, Amy. I have a hook in my pocket that will catch bigger fish than you have seen to-day. Come, the tide is going out, and we must go out of the creek with it unless we wish to spend the night on a sand-bar. I shall now try my luck at shad-fishing over by Polopel's Island."

The prospect of crossing the river and following the drift-nets down into the Highlands was a glad surprise to all, and they were soon in Newburgh Bay, whose broad lake-like surface was unruffled by a breath. The sun, declining toward the west, scattered rose-hues among the clouds. Sloops and schooners had lost steerage-way, and their sails flapped idly against the masts. The grind of oars between the thole-pins came distinctly across the water from far-distant boats, while songs and calls of birds, faint and etherealized, reached them from the sh.o.r.es. Rowing toward a man rapidly paying out a net from the stern of his boat they were soon hailed by Mr. Marks, who with genial good-nature invited them to see the sport.

He had begun throwing his net over in the middle of the river, his oarsman rowing eastward with a slight inclination toward the south, for the reason that the tide is swifter on the western side. The aim is to keep the net as straight as possible and at right angles with the tide.

The two boats were soon following Mr. Marks on either side, the smooth water and the absence of wind enabling them to keep near and converse without effort. Away in their wake bobbed the cork floats in an irregular line, and from these floats, about twenty feet below the surface, was suspended the net, which extended down thirty or forty feet further, being kept in a vertical position by iron rings strung along its lower edge at regular intervals. Thus the lower side of the net was from fifty to sixty feet below the surface. In shallow water narrower nets are rigged to float vertically much nearer the surface. Mr. Marks explained that his net was about half a mile long, adding,

"It's fun fishing on a day like this, but it's rather tough in a gale of wind, with your eyes half blinded by rain, and the waves breaking into your boat. Yes, we catch just as many then, perhaps more, for there are fewer men out, and I suppose the weather is always about the same, except as to temperature, down where the shad are. The fish don't mind wet weather; neither must we if we make a business of catching them."

"Do you always throw out your net from the west sh.o.r.e toward the east?"

Webb asked.

"No, we usually pay out against the wind. With the wind the boat is apt to go too fast. The great point is to keep the net straight and not all tangled and wobbled up. Pa.s.sing boats bother us, too. Sometimes a float will catch on a paddle-wheel, and like enough half of the net will be torn away. A pilot with any human feeling will usually steer one side, and give a fellow a chance, and we can often bribe the skipper of sailing-craft by holding up a shad and throwing it aboard as he tacks around us. As a rule, however, boats of all kinds pa.s.s over a net without doing any harm. Occasionally a net breaks from the floats and drags on the bottom. This is covered with cinders thrown out by steamers, and they play the mischief."

"Do the fish swim against the tide?"

"Usually, but they come in on both sides."

"Mr. Marks, how can you catch fish in a net that is straight up and down?" Amy asked.

"You'll soon see, but I'll explain. The meshes of the net will stretch five inches. A shad swims into one of these and then, like many others that go into things, finds he can't back out, for his gills catch on the sides of the mesh and there he hangs. Occasionally a shad will just tangle himself up and so be caught, and sometimes we take a large striped ba.s.s in this way."

In answer to a question of Burt's he continued: "I just let my net float with the tide as you see, giving it a pull from one end or the other now and then to keep it as straight and as near at right angles with the river as possible. When the tide stops running out and turns a little we begin at one end of the net and pull it up, taking out the fish, at the same time laying it carefully in folds on a platform in the stern-sheets, so as to prevent any tangles. If the net comes up clear and free, I may throw it in again and float back with the tide. So far from being able to depend on this, we often have to go ash.o.r.e where there is a smooth beach before our drift is over and disentangle our net. There, now, I'm through, with paying out. Haven't you noticed the floats bobbing here and there?"

"We've been too busy listening and watching you," said Leonard.

"Well, now, watch the floats. If you see one bob under and wobble, a shad has struck the net near it, and I can go and take him out. In smooth water it's like fishing with one of your little cork bobblers there on your lines. I'll give the shad to the first one that sees a float bob under."

Alf nearly sprang out of the boat as he pointed and shouted, "There, there."

Laughing good-naturedly, Mr. Marks lifted the net beneath the float, and, sure enough, there was a great roe-shad hanging by his gills, and Alf gloated over his supper, already secured.