Some Summer Days in Iowa Part 1

Some Summer Days in Iowa.

by Frederick John Lazell.

PREFACE

Like the two preceding little volumes of this series, this book seeks to show something of what Iowa has to offer to the man who loves the out-of-doors. There is nothing very unusual in it. The trees and the flowers, the birds and the small wild animals which it mentions and describes are such as may be seen in the Iowa fields and woods by anyone who cares enough about them to walk amid their haunts. The ill.u.s.trations are such as the ordinary nature lover may "take" for himself with his pocket kodak. The woodthrush built in a thicket by the bungalow and borrowed a paper napkin for her nest. The chipmunk came every morning for his slice of bread. And then the woodchuck learned to be unafraid.

It has long been the author's belief that Iowa has just as much to offer the nature lover as any other part of the world--that she has indeed a richer flora than many states--and that every true Iowan ought to know something of her trees and shrubs and herbs, her birds and animals, and to feel something of the beauty of her skies and her landscapes. There is so much beauty all around us, every day of the year, shall we not sometimes lift our eyes to behold it?

The majority of Iowa people still find pleasure in the simple life, still have the love for that which Nature so freely bestows. They find time to look upon the beauty of the world. Many a busy man finds his best recreation in the woods and fields. It may be only a few hours each week, but it is enough to keep the music of the flowing waters ever in his ears and the light of the sunshine in his eyes. It is enough to give the men and the women of the state wholesome views of life, happy hearts and broad sympathies. Some few find in the woods and fields thoughts and feelings which are, to them, almost akin to religion. If this little book helps such lovers of the out-of-doors ever so little; if it shall help others to see for themselves the beauty and the joy and the goodness of this world in which we live, the author will feel that it has been worth while.

VII.--AN OLD ROAD IN JULY

In the old woods road a soft haze hung, too subtle to see save where its delicate colorings were contrasted against the dark green leaves of the oaks beyond the fence. Not the tangible, vapory haze of early morning, but a tinted, ethereal haze, the visible effluence of the summer, the nimbus of its power and glory. From tall cord gra.s.ses arching over the side of the road, drawing water from the ditch in which their feet were bathed and breathing it into the air with the scent of their own greenness; from the transpiration of the trees, shrubs and vines, flowers and mosses and ferns, from billions of pores in acres of leaves it came streaming into the sunlight, vanishing quickly, yet ever renewed, as surely as the little brook where the gra.s.ses drank and the grackles fished for tadpoles and young frogs, was replenished by the hidden spring. Mingled with it and floating in it was another stream of life, the innumerable living organisms that make up the dust of the sunshine. Pink and white, black and yellow spores from the mushrooms over the fence in the pasture; pollen pushed from the glumes of the red top gra.s.ses and the lilac spires of the hedge nettle and germander by the roadside; shoals of spores from the mosses and ferns by the trees and in the swamp; all these life particles rose and floated in the haze, giving it tints and meanings strangely sweet. When a farmer's buggy pa.s.sed along the old road the haze became a warm pink, like some western sky in the evening, slowly clearing again to turquoise as the dust settled. Viewed in this way, the haze became a mighty, broad-mouthed river of life, fed by billions of tiny streams and moving ever toward the vast ocean of the sunlight.

Faintly visible to the discerning eye, it was also audible to the attentive ear, listening as one listens at the edge of a field in the night time to hear the growing of the corn. If all the millions of leaves had ceased their transpiration, if this flow of life had been shut off, as the organist pushes in the tremolo stop, the sound of the summer would not have been the same. Something of the strength and joy of the summer was in it. Drinking deeply of it the body was invigorated and the heart grew glad. In it the faith of the winter's buds and the hope of the spring's tender leaves found rich fulfillment. Theirs was a life of hope and promise that the resurrection should come; this was the glorious life after the resurrection, faith lost in sight and patient hope crowned.

Slender white minarets of the Culver's root, rising from green towers above the leafy architecture of the woodland undergrowth and reaching toward the light of the sky, told the time of the year as plainly as if a muezzin had appeared on one of its leafy balconies and proclaimed a namaz for the middle of July. Beholding them from afar, honey bees came on humming wings for the nectar lying deep in their tiny florets.

Eager stamens reached out far beyond the blossoms to brush the bees'

backs with precious freights of pollen to be transported to the stigmas of older flowers. Playing each its part in the plan of the universe, flower and insect added its mite to the life and the loveliness of the summer. From the sunshine and the soil-water the long leaves manufactured food for the growth of the plant. Prettily notched, daintily tapering, and arranged in star-like whorls about the stem, they enhanced the beauty of the flowers above them and attracted the observer to the exquisite order governing their growth. When the leaves were arranged in whorls of four, the floral spires were quadruple, like the pinnacles on a church tower; if the green towers were hexagonal, then six white minarets pointed to the sky. The perfect order of the solar system and the majesty of the Mind which planned it, was manifested in this single plant. So does beauty lead the way to the mountain tops of truth. By the road of earthly beauty we may always reach religion and truth is ever beckoning us to new and n.o.bler visions. That "thread of the all-sustaining beauty, which runs through all and doth all unite" gently leads us from the things which are tangible and temporal to the truths which are spiritual and eternal; from the beauty of the concrete to the beauty of the abstract, onward along the road of beauty and farther up the heights of truth until our admiration for the beauty of the sunrise, the snow crystal, the graceful spray of the trees in winter, the exquisite order and harmony of the universe from the orbit of the largest planet to the flow of life in the tiniest leaf, develops into a lasting love for beauty in life and in character; and still farther up the heights into an atmosphere of intelligent, rational, genuine love for the Great First Cause of all beauty. As the heart opens to receive the beauty of the world, as the mind and soul strive, like the plants, for the highest development, so is the world redeemed from error and crime and the perfection of the race is attained. If one soul finds this truth more quickly and easily here amid the trees and flowers, for him is the old road greater than religious dogmas or social systems.

Always beautiful and interesting, in these long days of mid-July the old road is at its best. No length of day can measure its loveliness or encompa.s.s its charm. Very early in the morning there is a faint rustle of the leaves, a delicate flutter through the woods as if the awakening birds are shaking out their wings. Shrubs and bushes and trunks of trees have ghostly shapes in the few strange moments that are neither the darkness nor the dawn. As the light steals through the woods their forms grow less grotesque. In the half light a phoebe begins her shrill song. A blue-jay screams. The quail sounds his first "Bob White." Brown thrashers in the thicket--it is past their time of singing--respond with a strange, sibilant sound, a mingled hiss and whistle, far different from his ringing songs of May, now only memories; different also from her scoldings when she was disturbed on her nest and from her tender crooning calls to her babies during June.

As the light increases waves of delicate color appear in the sky to the northeast, and by and by the sun's face appears over the tops of the trees. He shoots arrows of pale flame through the woods. In the clearing the trunks of the trees are like cathedral pillars, and the sunlight comes down in slanting rays as if the openings among the tree-tops were windows and the blue haze beneath the incense of the morning ma.s.s. Black-capped precentor of the avian choir, the chickadee sounds two sweet tones, clear and musical, like keynotes blown from a silver pipe. The wood thrush sounds a few organ tones, resonant and thrilling. It is almost his last summer service; soon, like the thrashers, he will be drooping and silent. The chewink, the indigo bird, the glad goldfinches, the plaintive pewees are the sopranos; the blue-bird, the quail, with her long, sweet call, and the grosbeak, with his mellow tones, are the altos; the nuthatch and the tanager take up the tenor, while the red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, the crows and the cuckoos bear down heavy on the ba.s.s. Growing with the light, the fugue swells into crescendo. Lakes of sunshine and capes of shadow down the old road are more sharply defined. Bushes of tall, white melilot, cl.u.s.tered with myriads of tiny flowers, exhale a sweet fragrance into the morning air. The clearing around the house is flooded with sunlight. In the wooded pasture some trunks are bathed with a golden glory, while others yet stand iron gray in the deep shadows. The world is awake. The day's work begins. One late young redhead in a hole high up in the decaying trunk of an aspen tree calls loudly for his breakfast, redoubling his noise as his mother approaches with the first course. Sitting clumsily on a big stump, a big baby cowbird, well able to shift for himself, shamelessly takes food from his little field sparrow foster-mother, scarcely more than half his size. Soon he will leave her and join the flocks of his kindred in the oat-fields and the swamps. Young chewinks are being fed down among the ripening May-apples in the pasture. A catbird with soft "quoots" a.s.sembles her family in the hazel and the wood-thrush sounds warning "quirts" as fancied peril approaches her children beneath the ripening blackberries. From the top of a tall white oak a red squirrel leaps to the arching branches of an elm, continuing his foraging there. Sitting straight up on a mossy log the chipmunk holds in his paws a bit of bread thrown from somebody's basket, nibbles at it for a while and then makes a dash for the thicket, carrying the bread in his mouth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "EVERY TREE IS A PICTURE" (p. 22)]

Tiny rabbits venture out from the tall gra.s.ses and look on life with timid eyes. Bees and b.u.t.terflies are busy with the day's work. Life with its beauty and its joy is everywhere abundant. Living things swim in and upon the brook, insects run and leap among the gra.s.ses, winged creatures are in the shrubs, the trees, the air, active, eager, beautiful life is everywhere. The heart thrills with the beauty, the joy, the zest, the abundance of it, expands to a capacity for the amplitude of it. Human life grows sweeter, richer, more worth while.

There is so much to live for, so much to hope for; this is the meaning and the glory of the summer.

Farther out, where the old road leaves the woods, the landscape is like a vast park, more beautiful than many a park which the world calls famous. From the crest of the ridge the fields roll away in graceful curves, dotted with comfortable homes and groves and skirted by heavy timber down in the valley where the sweet water of the river moves quietly over the white sand. Still responding to the freshening impulse of the June rains, fields and woods are all a-quiver with growth. By master magic soil-water and sunshine are being changed into color and form to delight the eye and food to do the world's work.

Every tree is a picture, each leaf is as fresh and clean as the rain-washed air of the morning. From the low meadows the perfume of the hay is brought up by the languid breeze. Amber oat-fields are ripening in the sun and in the corn-fields there is a sense of the gathering force of life as the st.u.r.dy plants lift themselves higher and higher during

_"The long blue solemn hours, serenely flowing Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good."_

Many a tourist comes home to a land like this, weary and penniless, like Sir Launfal after his fruitless quest, to discover that the grail of health and rest and beauty which he sought afar so strenuously is most easily and readily found at home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "CURVES WHICH ADD MUCH TO ITS WILD BEAUTY" (p. 23)]

Ceaselessly up and down the old road pa.s.ses the pageant of the year, never two days the same, especially at this season. In the middle of the road is a dirt wagon-track, on either side of which is a broad belt of gra.s.s, flowers, shrubs and small trees till you come to the fence. Beyond one fence the thick woods has a heavy undergrowth; over the other is a well-wooded pasture. On the south side, between the road and the fence there is a little brook, sometimes with a high, mossy and timbered bank, sometimes completely hidden by tall gra.s.ses.

The road rises and falls in gentle grades, with alternating banks and swales. At one high point there is a view down the long avenue of trees across the open valley beyond, where the city lies snugly, and then upward to the timber on the far heights across the river where the hills are always softly blue, no matter what the season of the year. Sometimes the old road sweeps around fine old trees in unmathematical curves which add much to its wild beauty. The first man who drove along it, a hundred years or more ago, followed a cow-path and the road hasn't changed much since, though the fences which were later threaded through the shrubs and trees on either side, run straighter. Never was summer day long enough for me to see and to study all that the old road had to show. Here, at the moist edge of the road, the ditch stone-crop is opening its yellow-green flowers, each one a study in perfect symmetry. With the showy, straw-colored cyperus it flourishes under the friendly shade of the overhanging cord-gra.s.ses whose flowering stalks already have shot up beyond the reach of a man. Among them grows the tall blue vervain, its tapering fingers adorned with circles of blue flowers, like sapphire rings pa.s.sing from the base to the tips of the fingers. You must part these gra.s.ses and pa.s.s through them to see the thicket of golden-rod making ready for the yellow festival later on. White cymes of spicy basil are mingled with the purple loosestrife and back of these the fleabanes lift daisy-like heads among the hazel overhanging the wire fence. Then the elms and the oaks and in the openings the snowy, starry campion whose fringed petals are beginning to close, marking the morning's advance. In the moist places the Canada lily glows like a flaming torch, its pendant bells slowly swinging in the breeze, ringing in the annual climax and jubilee of the flowering season.

Across the road the monkey flower grins affably at the edge of the gra.s.s and the water hemlock, with a hollow stem as big as a gun-barrel and tall as a man, spreads its large umbels of tiny white flowers on curving branches like a vase-shaped elm in miniature. Twice or thrice pinnate leaves, toothed like a tenon saw, with conspicuous veins ending in the notches, brand it as the beaver poison, otherwise known as the musquash root and spotted cowbane. From its tuberous roots was prepared the poison which Socrates drank without fear; why should he fear death? Does he not still live among us? Does he not question us, teach us? Yellow loose-strifes and rattle-box are in the swamp, and a patch of swamp milkweed with brilliant fritillaries sipping nectar from its purple blossoms. White wands of meadow-sweet, cl.u.s.ters of sensitive fern, a big shrub of p.u.s.s.y willow with cool green leaves as grateful now as the white and gold blossoms were in April; white trunks and fluttering leaves of small aspens where the grosbeak has just finished nesting; bushy willows and withes of young poplar; nodding wool-gra.s.ses and various headed sedges; all these are between the roadside and the fence. There the elder puts out blossoms of spicy snow big as dinner-plates and the Maryland yellow-throat who has four babies in the bulky nest at the foot of the black-berry bush sits and sings his "witchity, witchity, witchity." The lark sparrow has her nest at the foot of a thistle and her mate has perched so often on a small elm near-by that he has worn several of the leaves from a topmost twig. In the late afternoons and evenings he sits there and vies with the indigo bunting who sits on the bare branches at the top of a tall red oak, throwing back his little head and pouring out sweet rills of melody. Near him is the d.i.c.kcissel, incessantly singing from the twig of a crab-apple; these three make a tireless trio, singing each hour of the day. The bunting's nest is in a low elm bush close to the fence where a wee brown bird sits listening to the strains of the bright little bird above and the little d.i.c.kcissels have just hatched out in the nest at the base of a tussock not very far away.

Now the evening primrose at the side of the road has folded all its yellow petals, marking the near approach of noon. Growing near it on this rise of the road are lavender-flowered bergamot, blue and gold spiderwort, milkweeds in a purple glory, black-eyed Susans basking in the sun, cone-flowers with brown disks and purple petals, like gypsy maidens with gaudy summer shawls. Closer to the fence are lemon-yellow coreopsis with quaint, three-cleft leaves; thimble weeds with fruit columns half a finger's length; orange-flowered milkweed, like the color of an oriole's back, made doubly gay by brilliant b.u.t.terflies and beetles. On the sandy bank which makes the background for this scene of splendor, the New Jersey tea, known better as the red-root, lifts its feathery white plumes above restful, gray-green leaves. Just at the fence the prairie willow has a beauty all its own, with a wealth of leaves glossy dark green above and woolly white below.

There's a whine as if someone had suddenly struck a dog and a brownish bird runs crouching through the gra.s.s while little gingery-brown bodies scatter quickly for their hiding places. It was near here that the quail had her nest in June and these are her babies. I reach down and get one, a little bit of a chick scarcely bigger than the end of my thumb. The mother circles around, quite near, with alarm and distress until I back away and watch. Then she comes forward, softly clucking, and soon gathers her chickens under her wings.

Similar behavior has the ruffed grouse which you may still find occasionally in the deeper woods. Stepping over the fallen tree you send the little yellow-brown babies scattering, like fluffy golf-b.a.l.l.s rolling for cover. Invariably the old bird utters a cry of pain and distress, puts her head down low and skulks off through the gra.s.s and ferns while the chicks hasten to hide themselves. Your natural inclination is to follow the mother, and then she will take very short flights, alternated with runs in the gra.s.s, until she has led you far from her family. Then a whirr of strong wings and she is gone back to the cover where she clucks them together. But if you first turn your attention to the chicks the mother will turn on her trail, stretch out her long, broad, banded tail into a beautiful fan, ruffle up the feathers on either side of her neck and come straight towards you.

Often she will stretch her neck and hiss at you like a barn-yard goose. There is a picture of the ruffed grouse worth while. You will learn more about the ruffed grouse in an experience like this than you can find in forty books. If you pause to admire this turkey-gobbler att.i.tude of the grouse she thinks she has succeeded in attracting your attention. The tail fan closes and droops, the wings fall, the ruffs smooth down. With her head close to the ground, she once more attempts to lead you from her children. If you are heartless enough you may again hunt for the chicks and back will come the old bird again, almost to your feet, with feathers all outstretched.

Creamy cl.u.s.ters of the bunch-flower rise from the brink of the brook and near-by there are the large leaves of the arrow-head, with its interesting stalk, bearing homely flowers below and interesting chalices of white and gold above. Shining up through the long gra.s.ses, the five-pointed white stars of the little marsh bell-flower are no more dismayed by the stately beauty of the tall blue bell-flower over the fence, with its long strings of blossoms set on edge like dainty Delft-blue saucers, than the Pleiades are shamed by the splendor of Aldebaran and Betelguese on a bright night in November. Clover-like heads of the milkwort decorate the bank, and among the mosses around the bases of the trees the little shin-leaf lifts its pretty white racemes.

Twisting and twining among the hazel, long stems of wild yam display pretty leaves in graceful strings, each leaf set at the angle which secures the greatest amount of light. On the wire fence the bittersweet hangs and reaches from thence to the top of the low hawthorne, seeking the strength of the sun for the ripening of its pods, which slowly change from green to yellow as the month advances.

Thickly-p.r.i.c.kled stems of green-brier, the wild smilax, rise to the height of the choke-cherry shrubs and the branches lift themselves by means of two tendrils on each leaf-stalk to the most favorable positions for the sunlight. Under these broad leaves the catbird is concealed. Elegant epicurean, he is sampling the ripening choke-cherries. He complains querulously at being disturbed, flirts his tail and flies. Stout branches of sumac, with bark colored and textured much like brown egg-sh.e.l.l, sustain a canopy of wild grape, the cl.u.s.ters of green fruit only partly hidden by the broad leaves.

Curiously beautiful are the sumac's leaves, showing long leaf-stalks of pink purple and pretty leaflets strung regularly on either side.

The sumac's fruit, unlike the grape's, seeks no concealment; proudly lifting its glowing torches above the leafy canopy, it lights the old road for the pa.s.sing of the pageant of summer. From greenish gold to scarlet, swiftly changing to carmine, terra cotta, crimson and garnet, so glows and deepens the color in the torches. When comes the final garnet glow not even the cold snows of winter can quench it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE SUMAC'S TORCHES LIGHT UP THE OLD ROAD" (p. 35)]

Around the fence-post, where the versi-colored fungus grows, the moon-seed winds its stems, like strands of twine. Its broad leaves are set like tilted mirrors to catch and reflect the light. Trailing among the gra.s.s the pea-vine lifts itself so that its blossoms next month shall attract the bees. The wild hop is reaching over the bushes for the branches of the low-growing elm from which to hang its fruit cl.u.s.ters. Circling up the trunk and the spreading branches of the elm, the Virginia creeper likewise strives for better and greater light.

Flower and vine, shrub and tree, each with its own peculiar inherited tendencies resulting from millions of years of development, strives ever for perfection. Shall man, with the civilization of untold centuries at his back to push him on, do less? Endowed with mind and heart, with spiritual aspirations and a free will, shall he dare cease to grow? Equipped so magnificently for the light, dare he deliberately seek the darkness and allow his mental and spiritual fruits to wither?

These are questions to ponder as the afternoon shadows lengthen.

If you walk through the wooded pasture, close by the side of the roadside fence, the hollow stumps hold rain-water, like huge tankards for a feast. Sometimes a shaft of sunlight shoots into the water, making it glow with color. Fungi in fantastic shapes are plentiful.

Growing from the side of a stump, the stem of the fawn-colored pluteus bends upwards to the light. Golden clavarias cover fallen trunks with coral ma.s.ses and creamy ones are so delicately fragile that you almost fear to touch them lest you mar their beauty. Brown brackets send out new surfaces of creamy white on which the children may stencil their names. That vivid yellow on a far stump is the sulphur-colored polyporus. Green and red Russulas delight the eye. The lactaria sheds hot, white milk when you cut it, and the inky coprinus sheds black rain of its own accord. Puff-b.a.l.l.s scatter their spores when you smite them and the funnel-shaped c.l.i.tocybe holds water as a wine-gla.s.s holds Sauterne.

Springing from a log lying by the fence a dozen plants of the glistening coprinus have reared themselves since morning, fresh from the rain and flavored as sweet as a nut. Narrow furrows and sharp ridges adorn their drooping caps; these in turn are decorated with tiny shining scales. Nibbling at the nut-like flesh, I am touched with the nicety, the universality of nature's appeal to the finer senses and sentiments. Here is form and color and sparkle to please the eye, flesh tender to the touch, aroma that tests the subtlest sense of smell, taste that recalls stories of Epicurean feasts, millions of life-germs among the purple-black gills, ready to float in the streams of the atmosphere to distant realms and other cycles of life. No dead log and toadstools are here, but dainty shapes with billions of possibilities for new life, new beauties, new thoughts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: YOUNG BLUE-JAY TRYING TO CLIMB BACK TO ITS NEST

"THE WOOD THRUSH HAS A LATE NEST IN A YOUNG ELM" (p. 41)

"THE CHIPMUNK HOLDS IN HIS PAWS A BIT OF BREAD" (p. 20)]

Goldfinches ride on the billows of the air, now folding their pinions and shooting silently downward into the trough of the sea, then opening their wings and beating their way upwards, singing meanwhile.

Going over the woods they fly twenty to thirty feet above the tops of the tallest trees, but when they reach the meadow lands they drop to about the same height above the surface of the ground. Only a few of them are nesting yet. The tall thistle by the roadside is nearly ten feet high, but its heads have not fully opened. They like its down for their nests and its seeds to feed the fledgelings. They fly in pairs often and in the evenings they cling prettily to the catnip by the pasture fence, digging into each calyx for its four sweet nutlets.

The woodthrush has a late nest in a young elm; her first family was eaten by the blue-jays just after the hatching,--so were the young grosbeaks in a nearby tree, but the cedar waxwings were slain and eaten by the cannibalistic grackles. A blue-jay is just approaching the wood pewee's nest in the burr oak, but the doughty husband does battle with the fierceness of a kingbird and chases him away. Three tiny birdlings, covered with hairs soft and white as the down of a thistle, are in the nest, which is saddled snugly to the fork of a horizontal tree. In another nest, near by, the three eggs have only just been laid. The path which used to run under the over-hanging trees is grown up with gra.s.ses. Here the slender rush grows best, and makes a dark crease among the taller and lighter-green gra.s.ses, showing where the path winds. Twenty feet overhead, on the slender branch of a white oak, is a tiny knot, looking scarcely larger than the cup of a mossy-cup acorn. It is the nest of the ruby-throated hummingbird, so well concealed by the leaves and by the lichens fastened to its exterior that it would not have been noticed at all but for the whirling wings of the exquisite creature a month ago. Her two tiny eggs have since been safely hatched and the young birds reared; now the nest is empty, a prize to be taken and preserved for future study and admiration.

At the foot of a figwort stalk in the pasture, shielded by a little sprig of choke-cherry and a wisp of gra.s.ses, a new nest is being builded. That is why the chewink sings so happily from dawn till dark.

His summer song is now heard more often than his spring song. Through April, May and June he sings: