FAMILIAR FACES AT THE VILLAGE STORE.FAMILIAR FACES AT THE VILLAGE STORE.
Suddenly we leave the stream as it glides away on an abrupt turn beneath the crescent of a rocky precipice, and before we have fairly lost the sound of the ripples we have arrived at our journey’s end. A pair ofbars under an old butternut-tree mark the place. The carriage is backed to the side of the road, and the horse turned loose in the rocky meadow. This is Joab Nichols’s “pasture lot,” with fodder consisting principally of huge boulders, hardhack, and spleenwort; to be sure, with a stray relish of “butter-and-eggs” here and there, and a thousand white saucers of wild carrot handy to go with them. One or two trips across the field bring all our luggage, and we are soon enjoying cool comfort in the hemlock shade of a fairy grotto. Above us the babbling brook bounds and splashes over mossy rocks, disappearing in a mass of creamy foam, from under which it eddies toward us only to plunge twenty feet into a miniature cañon below. Again, yonder it bubbles into a whirling pool, where the bordering ferns bend and nod above its buoyant surface; and now gliding from view beneath the tangle of drooping boughs, it disappears only to burst forth once more in its merry song as it rushes over the rapids.
“I chatter, chatter as I go,To join the brimming river;For men may come and men may go,But I go on forever.”
“I chatter, chatter as I go,To join the brimming river;For men may come and men may go,But I go on forever.”
Here in this wild retreat I have found my sylvan studio—shut in by fringed and fragrant evergreens, enlivened by the undergrowth of feathery fronds, and the shimmer of the beech, as the tracery of overhanging boughs trembles in the gentle breeze. Day after day finds us in this little paradise, and as one in luxurious hammock swings away the hours, now lost in fiction, now in short repose, or perhaps with busy needle fashions graceful figures in Kensington design, the canvas on the easel shows a fortnight’s constant care, and the palette changes to a keepsake of a sunny memory—a tinted souvenir.
For two weeks the gurgling brook sang to us in this wild retreat. As evening after evening closed in upon us, the unfinished pictures were stowed away in horizontal crevices between the rocks, and, with hammock still swinging in the trees, we left the gloom to the hooting owl, that evening after evening, with tremulous cry, proclaimed the twilight hour from the tall hemlock overhead. Ere long the murmuring Housatonic shimmers below us in the moonlight as we hurry on our homeward way, and the distant lights of Hometown are soon seen glimmering; through the evening mist. The old bridge now rumbles through the darkness its signal of our return, and the host of Draper’s Inn is seen awaiting us at theillumined door-way. A quiet, cosy supper, and in the rays of a gleaming lantern, held aloft to light our path, we follow our lengthening shadows to the old front gate. Repeat this day’s record fourteen times, and you have the sum of a happy experience, with but one drawback: it had an end—an end that would have left its reaction, were it not for the store of increased pleasure that awaited us for the few closing days of our pilgrimage—for me, at least, although in other scenes, its climax.
A SOUVENIR.A SOUVENIR.
Many like me are happy in the possession of a dear old homestead; but there are few, I ween, who enjoy the blessing of a double inheritance such as has been my lot—two homes which share my equal devotion, two homes without a choice; the one this beloved heirloom in Hometown, and the other—But you shall see. We shall be there soon, for the little satchel is packed, and the carriage awaits us at the gate. A drive of eighteen miles is before us—a beautiful series of pictures. Down through the village, past the old red mill and smithy, with its ringing anvil, and we are soon winding ourway through a sombre glen. Presently we catch glimpses of the great rumbling factory, with its clouds of smoke and steam melting into the wooded mountain above. The old yellow bridge now creaks under our approach, and ere we are aware a sudden turn leads us out of a wilderness on to the shore of the beautiful Housatonic. For a few minutes the rushing water trickles through the wheels as over jolting stones our pony leads us through the ford, and, refreshed by the cool bath, makes a lively sally up the eastern bank. For ten miles the Housatonic guides us around its winding curves through a path of ever-changing beauty, now shut in by the dense, dark evergreens, and again emerging into a bower of silvery beeches, where the roadway is carpeted with mottled shadows, and the dappled trunks flicker with the softened glints of sunlight. Here we come upon a sandy stretch where the road is sunken between two sloping banks thick-set with mulleins and sweet-fern, and overrun with creeping brambles. The stone-wall above is wreathed in trailing woodbine, and along its crest we see the swaying tips of wheat from the edge of the field just beyond; and here we pass a border of whortleberry bushes, laden with their fruit. Now it is a hazel thicket crowding close upon our wheels, and among the leaves we see the brown, tanned husks of the ripening nuts, almost ready for that troop of boys and girls that you may be sure are watching and waiting for them.
The old gray toll-bridge soon nears to view, with its two long spans and fantastic beams. Farther on, peering from its willows, stands the ruined cider-mill, with its long moss-grown lever jutting through the trees—an old-time haunt, now crumbling in decay. But we only catch a glimpse of it, for in a moment more we are shut in beneath another bower of beeches and white birches, where the road takes a steep ascent, and the rippling river sends up its sunny reflections among the leaves and tree-trunks. When once more upon a level, it is to look ahead through a long avenue of shade—a leafy canopy two miles in length—with only an occasional break to open up some charming bit of landscape across the water. In these two miles of umbrage you may see types of almost every tree that grows within the boundaries of New England. Old veteran beeches are here, their trunks disfigured with scars that once were names cut in the bark. Here are spots that look like half obliterated figures; and here are spreading hieroglyphs that tell, perhaps, of old-time vows plighted at the trysting-tree; and here’s a semblance of a heart, a broken heart indeed, if its present form be taken as a prophetic symbol.
ALONG THE HOUSATONIC.ALONG THE HOUSATONIC.
There are magnificent rock-maples too, and silver-maples that shake down their little swarms of winged seeds. Tulip-trees and spotted buttonwoods grow side by side, and quivering aspens and white poplars are seen at every clearing. There are yellow birch-trunks frayed out with the wind, and great snake-like stems of grape-vine, that twist and writhe among the branches of the trees. There are hop hornbeams, and chestnuts, and—But there is no need to enumerate them all. Just think of every New England tree you ever knew, and add a score besides, and you will form a slight idea of the varied verdure that hems in this charming Housatonic drive, with its rocky roadside embroidered in trickling moss and fumitory; and rose-flowered mountain-raspberry growing so close upon the road that your pony takes a wayward nip, and plucks its blossomed tip as he passes.
Now comes an open level, with wide, expansive views, where every turn upon the road brings its fresh surprise, as some new combination of hazy mountain landscape towers above the distant river bend; and the flitting cloud shadows lead their capricious, undulating chase across the wooded slopes. The roadsides here are full of everchanging beauties too, with their trimmings of ornamental sunflowers, their picturesque oldfences, and their clumps of purple-berried poke-weed, with here and there a yellow patch of toad-flax, and aromatic tufts of tansy hugging close against the fence. Even that clambering screen of clematis that trails over the shrubbery yonder cannot hide the scattered tips of crimson that already have appeared among the sumach leaves.
There are a thousand things one meets upon a country ride or ramble which at the time are allowed to pass with but a glance. The eye is surfeited and the mind confused with the continual pageantry. But months afterward, in the reveries about our winter fires, they all come back to us, with the added charm of reminiscence; and whether it be a crystal spring among a bank of ferns, or a thistle-top with its fluttering butterfly and inevitable bumblebee rolling in the tufted blossom, or a squirrel running along a rail, or perhaps a rattling grasshopper hovering in mid-air above the dusty road—no matter what, they all are welcome memories at our fireside, and draw our hearts still closer to the loveliness of nature.
This Housatonic road is rich in just such pastoral pictures. Two hours on such a course soon pass, when our pony whinnies at the welcome sight of the old log water-trough beyond—a landmark old and green when I was yet a boy, still nestling in its rocky bed, shadowed by the drooping hemlocks, still lavish with its overflowing bounty.
This benefactor by the way-side marks a turning-point in our journey, as we leave the grandeur of the Housatonic to pursue our way by the nooks and dingles of the wild Shepaug—a bubbling tributary whose happy waters sing of a varied experience. Now placid through the blossoming fields, now plunging down the precipice to ripple through a verdant valley, where, hemmed in at every turn, it seeks its only liberty beneath the rumbling of the old mill-wheels; and at last, ere it loses its identity in the swelling tide, leaving a mischievous and tumultuous record as it pours through the rocky cañon, and with surging, whirling volume carves huge caverns and fantastic statues in its massive bed of stone. Even now through the dark forest beyond we can hear the muffled roar, and for nearly a league farther as we ascend the long hill it comes to us in fitful whispers wafted on the changing breeze. Reaching the summit of this incline, we find ourselves on a hill-top wide and far-reaching, on right and left losing itself in wooded wold, while in front the level road diminishes to a point, surmounted by blue hills in the distance. Two miles on a pastoral hill-top, where golden-rod and tall spiræas clusteralong the lichen-covered walls, where orange-lilies gleam among the alders, with now and then a blazing group of butterfly-plant or a dusty clump of milk-weed. The air is laden with the nut-like odor of the everlasting flowers all around us. The buzzing drum of the harvest-fly vibrates from every tree, and we hear the tinkling bell and lowing of the cattle in some neighboring field. Farther on, we look down from the edge of the plateau through the length of Happy Valley, with its winding stream, its barns and busy mills, its sunny homes glinting through the summer haze. On the left the lofty shadowed cliff known as “Steep-rock” towers against the evening sky, and again we catch the murmuring whiffs of the rushing stream in its sweeping bend beneath the overhanging precipice. A sharp turn round a jutting hill-side, and I meet a prospect that quickens the heart and makes the eye grow dim. There beyond, three miles “as flies the laden bee,” I linger on the welcome sight, as on its hill-top fair two steeples side by side betray the hidden town, my second home.
How lightly did I appreciate the fortunate journey when, twenty summers ago, I followed this road for the first time, when a boy of ten years, on my way to an unknown village, I looked across the landscape to the little spires on that distant hill! Little did I dream of the six years of unmixed happiness and precious experience that awaited me in that little Judea! I only knew that I was sadly quitting a happy home on my way to “boarding-school”—a school called the Snuggery, taught by a Mr. Snug, in a little village named Snug Hamlet, about twenty miles from Hometown.
There are some experiences in the life of every one which, however truthful, cannot be told but to elicit the doubtful nod or the warning finger of incredulity. They were such experiences as these, however, that made up the sum of my early life in that happy refuge called in modern parlance a “boarding-school”—a name as empty, a word as weak and tame in its significance, as poverty itself; no doubt abundantly expressive in its ordinary application, but here it is a mockery and a satire. This is not a “boarding-school;” it is ahousehold, whose memories moisten the eye and stir the soul; to which its scattered members through the fleeting years look back as to a neglected home, with father and mother dear, whom they long once more to meet as in the tenderness of boyhood days; a cherished remembrance which, like the “house upon a hill, cannot be hid,” but sends abroad its light unto many hearts who in those early days sought the loving shelter; a bright star in the horizon of thepast, a glow that ne’er grows dim, but only kindles and brightens with the flood of years. Yes, yes; I know it sounds like a dash of sentiment, but words of mine are feeble and impotent indeed when sought for the expression of an attachment so fond, of a love so deep.
Fifteen years ago, with a parting full of sorrow, I rode away from Snug Hamlet yonder in the village stage—a day that brought a depression that lingered long, and lingers still. Glowing, sunset-tinted fields glide by unnoticed now, as, with eyes intent on the distant hill, I look back through the lapse of time. A mile has gone without my knowing it, when a joyous laugh awakens me from my day-dreams. Two boys approach us on the road ahead, and, what might seem very strange to you, one wears a wooden boot-jack strung around his neck and dangling on his breast; but he carries his burden lightly and cheerfully. As they near the carriage I draw the rein, and they both pause by the roadside.
“Well, boys,” I ask, “where doyouhail from?”
“We’re from the Snuggery, sir.”
“I thought so,” said I, with a laugh, in which they both joined. “But what are you doing with that boot-jack?”
“Oh, you see,” said one, with a roguish smile, “Charlie and I were having a little tussle in the sitting-room, and he picked up Mr. Snug’s boot-jack in the corner and began to pummel me with it; and jest as we were having it the worst, and were rollin’ on the floor, Mr. Snug came in and caught us in the job, and now we’repayin’for it.”
“How so?” I inquired, well knowing what would be the response.
“Oh, you see, Mr. Snug held a diagnosis over our remains, and said he thought we were suffering, for the want of a little exercise, and ordered us on a trip to Judd’s Bridge.”
“And the boot-jack?”
“Oh, he said that Charlie might want to play with that some more on the way, and that he’d better fetch it along;” and with a mischievous snicker at his encumbered companion, he led him along the road in an hilarious race, while we enjoyed a hearty laugh at their expense.
And this apunishment! Yes, here is an introduction to one phase of a system of correction as unique as the matchless institution in which it had its birth—a system without a parallel in the annals of chastisement or school government, and which for thirty years has proved its wisdom in the household management of the Snuggery.
“To Judd’s Bridge!” How natural the sound of those words! Howmany times have I myself been on that same pilgrimage of penance! The destination of these boys is a rickety but picturesque structure which spans the Shepaug five miles below Snug Hamlet. Through three decades it looks back to its host of acquaintances of those romping lads who, in the superfluity of exuberant spirits, made havoc and din in the household. The dose is administered with wise discrimination both as to the symptoms and the needs and strength of the patient. It always proves a sterling remedy, and sometimes, indeed, a sugar-coated one, as in the case of these two ruddy, rollicking examples.
Judd’s Bridge is but one of a score of places which serve in the administration of Snuggery discipline. It is, however, the one most remote, and its ten-mile journey is reserved as an heroic dose for extraordinary cases, after other prescriptions have been tried without avail. Next on the list comes Moody Barn, with “open doors” every day in the week to its frequent callers. This old settler, gray and weather-beaten, marks a point one mile from the Snuggery, where the still waters of the Shepaug run slow and deep—the favorite “swimming-hole” of the Snuggery.
THE HAUNTED MILL.THE HAUNTED MILL.
And then there’s Kirby Corners, a mere stroll of a few minutes round the square of a rock-bound pasture—just enough to give yourself time to think a bit and congratulate yourself on what you have escaped. All these, and several more, are vivid in my memory; friends, old and intimate. And here’s another, right before us by the roadside. For several minutes through the tantalizing trees we have heard its rumbling wheel, its reiterating clank, and busy saw; and now, as its familiar outline looms up against the evening sky, the vision seems to darken, as on that night of long ago, when throughthe shadowy mystery of the moonlit gloom I stole my way among the sheltering golden-rod; when the lofty flume, like a huge horned creature, seemed to stride athwart me in the darkness, and the fitful boyish fancy saw strange phantoms in the floating, melting mist. This ancient structure reposes in a verdant dell at the foot of Snug Hamlet Hill. A choice of two roads lies before us—one short and direct, the other a roundabout approach. A sudden impulse leads me into the latter. On right and left I see the same old rocks and trees. There stands the aged beech to whose gnarled and hollow trunk I traced the agile flying-squirrel, and with suffocating flame and smoke drove him from his hiding-place. Here between large rocks and stones the trout-stream runs its course, now pouring in small cataracts, now eddying into still, dark nooks, where in those by-gone times I dropped the line of expectancy, but showed the clumsiness of adversity. A few minutes later, and we are gliding again by the dark Shepaug, now flowing calm and silent beneath a rugged bank, wild and umbrageous, where the swarm of katydids, with grating discord, maintain their old dispute, that never-ending feud. The wheels turn noiselessly in the shifting sand as we pursue our way. The low gray fog steals lightly over the lily-pads, floating into seclusion beneath the sheltering boughs, or, like an evanescent spirit, borne upon the evening breath, is lifted from the gloom, and slowly melts into the twilight sky. The solitary whippoorwill from his mysterious haunt, perhaps in yonder tree, perhaps in the mountain loneliness beyond, proclaims with dismal cry his oft-repeated wail. And as we ascend the darkening path, through the still night air, in measured cadence long and sad, we hear the toll of the distant knell. Threescore-and-ten its numbers tell of the earthly years—a curfew requiem for the dead. Even as we pass the little chapel at the summit of the hill, and the bell has scarcely ceased its melancholy tidings, we hear the shouts and merry laughs of the boys on the village green. Presently its broad expanse, shut in by twinkling windows and massive trees, spreads out before us, as a clear and ringing voice, like that of old, echoes through the growing darkness, “One hundred! Nothing said, coming ahead!” and a dim figure steals cautiously from the steps of the old white church to seek in the sequestered hiding-places. With a heart that fairly thumps, I urge my pony onward across the green, and ere he slackens his pace I am at my journey’s end. The dear old Snuggery, with its gables manifold and quaint, its fantastic wings and towers, stands there before me, the glowing windows beamingthrough the maples. Leaving our pony in willing hands, we enter the gate, and are soon upon the wide porch.
PURSUERS AND PURSUED.PURSUERS AND PURSUED.
It is eight o’clock, and the Snuggery is hushed in the quiet of the study hour, and as we look through the windows we see the little groups of studious lads bending over their books. Turning a corner on the piazza, we are confronted with a tall hexagonal structure at its farther end. This is the Tower, the lower room of which is consecrated to the cosy retirement of Mr. and Mrs. Snug. The door leading to the porch is open, and, as if awakening from a nap in which the past fifteen years have been a dream, I listen to the same dear voice. I approach nearer. Under the glow of a student’s lamp I look upon the beloved face, the flowing hair and beard now silvered with the lapse of years—a face of unusual firmness, but whose every line marks the expression of a tender, loving nature, and of a large and noble heart. Nearhim another sits—a helpmeet kind and true, cherished companion in a happy, useful life. Into her lap a nestling lad has climbed; and as she strokes the curly head and looks into the chubby face, I see the same expression as of old, the same motherly tenderness and love beaming from the large gray eyes.
Mr. Snug is leaning back in his easy-chair, and two boys are standing up before him; one of them is speaking, evidently in answer to a question.
“I called him a galoot, sir.”
“You called George a galoot, and then he threw the base-ball club at you—is that it?”
“Yes, sir,” interrupted George; “but I was only playing, sir.”
“Yes,” resumed the voice of Mr. Snug, “but that club went with considerable force, and landed over the fence, and made havoc in Deacon Farish’s onion-bed; and that reminds me that the deacon’s onion-bed is overrun with weeds. Now, Willie,” continued Mr. Snug, after a moment’s hesitation, with eyes closed, and head thrown back against the chair, “Saturday morning—to-morrow, that is—directly after breakfast, you go out into the grove and call names to the big rock for half an hour. Don’t stop to take breath; and don’t call the same name twice. Your vocabulary will easily stand the drain. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, George,” continued Mr. Snug, with deliberate, easy intonation, “to-morrow morning, at the same time, you present yourself politely to Deacon Farish, tell him that I sent you, and ask him to escort you to his onion-bed. After which you will go carefully to work and pull out all the weeds. You understand, sir?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then you will both report to me as usual.” And with a pleasant smile, which was reflected in both their faces, the erring youngsters were dismissed. Before the door has closed behind them we are standing in the door-way. Here I draw the curtain; for who but one of its own household could understand a welcome at the Snuggery?
Those of my old school-mates who read this meagre sketch will know the happiness of such a meeting; but others less fortunate in the recollections of school-life can only look for its counterpart in an affectionate welcome in their own homes, for the Snuggeryisa home to all who ever dwelt within its gates. Seated in the familiar cosiness, and surroundedby the friends of my school-days, the hours fly fast and pleasantly. There is plenty to talk about. Here is a village full of good people of whom I wish to learn, and there are many far-off chums of whom I carry tidings. A bell rings in the cupola as one by one, from the buzz in the outer rooms, boys large and small seek our seclusion for the accustomed good-night adieu; and ere another hour has passed forty sleepy urchins are packed away in their snug quarters. The evening runs on into midnight, as with stories of the past, its pains and penalties, its remembrances, now humorous now sad by turns, we recall the good old times; and the “wee sma’ hours” are already upon us as we reluctantly retire from the goodly company to our rooms across the way.
TOLLING FOR THE DEAD.TOLLING FOR THE DEAD.
The next morning finds us in the midst of a merry load, with Mr. Snug as a driver; and many and varied were the beauties that opened up before us on that charming ride! Snug Hamlet, once called Judea, in the qualities of its landscape as well as in everything else, is unique. Stripped of all its old associations, it presents to the artistic eye a combination of attractions scarcely to be equalled in the boundaries of New England. Situated itself on the brow of an abrupt hill, where its picturesque homes cluster about a broad open green, a few minutes’ drive in any direction reveals a surrounding panorama of the rarest loveliness. Five hundred feet below us, winding in and out, now beneath leafy tangles, now under quaint little bridges, and again reposing placidly in broad mill-ponds, the happy Shepaug lendsto a lovely valley its usefulness and beauty. Turning in another direction, we pass the Snuggery ball-ground, animated with the shouts of victory; and descending into a vale of almost primeval wildness, we continue our way up the ascent of “Artist’s Hill,” from whose summit on every side, as far as the eye can reach, the landscape softens into the hazy horizon. Returning, we pass through a ruined waste, where, three months before, the fierce tornado swooped down in its fiendish fury. On every side we see its awful evidences. Huge oaks, like brittle pipe-stems, snapped from their moorings; sturdy hickories, mere play-things in the gale, twisted into shreds.
WRECKS OF THE TORNADO.WRECKS OF THE TORNADO.
Every morning saw me on some new drive, either with a wagon full of merry company, or as alone with Mr. Snug we held our quiettête-à-têteon wheels, living over the olden times. In the afternoon I strolled by myself through the old and eloquent scenes. A volume could not hold the memories they revived—no, not even those of yonder barn alone. Even as I sit making my pencil-sketch, its reminiscences seem to float across the vision. Distinctly it recalls the events of one evening years ago. It was at about the sunset hour one Friday. I was quietly sitting on a lounge in the parlor talking to Cuthbert Harding, who was standing in front of me. Presently the door opens, and the tall figure of DickShin enters. Dick and I were antipodes in every sense of the word. Physically we were as a match and a billiard ball, he being the lucifer. He was also mybête noire, and he never missed an opportunity to vent his spite. Accordingly he stalked toward us, and with a violent push sent Cuthbert pell-mell on to me. In falling, he stepped heavily on my foot, and hurt me severely, which accounted for my excited expression as I threw him from me.
Of course Mr. Snug had to come in just at this time, and seeing us in what looked to him very like a fight, he took us firmly by the ears and stood us side by side, while I ventured to explain.
“Not a word!” exclaimed he, in a tone there was no mistaking. “You two boys may cool off on a trip to Moody Barn, after which you will report to me in the Tower. Now go.”
Whatever may have been the state of my mind a few moments before, I was now mad in earnest, and with every bit of my latent obstinacy aroused, I sauntered out on to the porch.
“Cool off, old boy,” whispered a grating voice at my side, as I turned and met the gaze of Dick Shin, motioning with his thumb in the direction of Moody Barn—“cool off; you need it;” and his ample mouth stretched into a sneering grin.
I had already formed an intention, but now it was a resolve.
“Cuthbert,” said I to my quiet and less choleric companion, when some distance down the road, “I am not going on that trip.”
“Not going!” replied he, with surprise; “why, you’llhaveto go.”
“But Iwon’tgo, and that settles it. It’s confounded unjust that we’re sent, anyhow, and I don’t propose to stand it.”
“I think so too,” answered Cuthbert, with hesitating emphasis; “but what’ll we do? We’ll have to report to Mr. Snug, you know; that’s theworstof it.”
“Well, I’ll be spokesman, and I’llliebefore I’ll go on that trip.”
I was boiling over with righteous wrath, but Cuthbert never was known to boil; he only simmered a little, but readily seconded my plan. We stopped at Kirby Corners, and there, secluded from view in the bushes, we spent the interval. Cuthbert had a watch, and by the light of the rising moon we were enabled to fix the full period for the trip. One hour and a half we allowed—an abundant limit. During this time I had completely “cooled off,” and had schooled myself to that point where I could tell a lie with a smooth face and a clear conscience.Accordingly, when the time came, we appeared at the door of the Tower. Mr. Snug was sitting in his accustomed place, and we entered and stood before him.
PASSING THOUGHTS.PASSING THOUGHTS.
“Well, sir,” said he, with a polite bow of the head, dropping his paper and looking up at us.
“Mr. Snug, we have come to report,” said I, fearlessly. “We have been to Moody Barn.”
Instantly Mr. Snug straightened himself up in his chair, pushed backthe gray locks from his high forehead, and, with an expression that I never shall forget, glared at me from under the frowning eyebrows.
“You lie, sir!” he exclaimed, in thundering tones that fairly made my hair stand on end, while Cuthbert trembled from head to foot; then followed a brief moment of consternation that seemed an age. “Now go!” continued he, as with an emphatic nod of the head he motioned toward the door. Sheepish and crest-fallen, we slunk away from the room. It is needless to say that we went this time. Through the darkness, by the aid of a lantern, we picked our way, as with theories numerous and ingenious we strove to account for that vociferous reception.
Late that night we held an experience meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Snug in the Tower, and if I remember right there were a few tears that fell, and many apologies and good resolves, and as the true state of the case dawned on Mr. Snug there was an evident twinge of regret on his kind face.
On the following morning (Saturday) there was a jolly party of youths leaving the Snuggery for a day’s boating at the lake. Dick Shin was among them; and just as he was passing out the gate, a youngster approaches him and taps him on the shoulder. “You are hereby arrested, sir, on the orders of Mr. Snug.”
With an anxious and innocent expression Dick follows his juvenile constable into the Tower, and his companions stroll along after to ascertain the cause of the detention. We pass over the brief but amusing trial, in which the prisoner, with the innocence of a little lamb, pleaded his cause.
“Youstumbled, did you?” said Mr. Snug. “Well, you ought to know, sir, by this time that I don’t allow young men to stumble in that way in my house. These two boys have suffered through your admitted clumsiness.” Here Mr. Snug paused in a moment’s thought. “Dick Shin,” he continued, “I sent these innocent young gentlemen on two trips to Moody Barn—that makes four miles for Bigson and four miles for Harding, together making eight that they walked on your account. Now you may put down your fishing-pole, and ‘stumble’ along on the road to Judd’s Bridge, which will give you two extra miles in which to think over your sins. And to make sure”—here Mr. Snug arose and went to the closet—“you may take this hatchet along with you, and bring me back a good big chip from the end of the long bridge beam. I shall ride over that way to-morrow and see whether it fits. You understand?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the injured voice of Dick Shin. “But, Mr. Snug, can’t I put off that penance until Monday?”
“No, sir,” replied Mr. Snug, with a beaming smile and a bow of the head. “This is a lovely morning for contrite meditation. Go—instantly.”
Two hours later saw a demonstrative individual threatening to chop down the whole side of a bridge, while ten miles to the northward the placid surface of Waramaug rippled to the oars, and the lofty mountain-sides echoed with the shouts of a merry holiday.
But all things must have an end. The school-days ended, and so did this memorable vacation. A letter breaks the charm: insatiate publisher! Once more through the winding paths of the Housatonic, and I leave the loveliness of Hometown for the metropolis of brick and stone, there to resume the old routine.
THE WANING
IAM sitting alone upon a wooded knoll at our old farm at Hometown. Above me a venerable oak holds aloft its dome of bronze-green verdure, and oneither side the gnarled and knotty branches bend low, and trail their rustling leaves among the tufts of waving grass that fringe the slope around me.
It is a spot endeared to me from earliest memory, a loved retreat whose every glimpse beneath the overhanging boughs has left its impress, whose every feature of undulating field, of wooded mountain, and winding meadow-brook I have long been able to summon up at will before my closed eyes, as though a mirror of the living picture now before me. And what is this picture?
It is an enchanted vision of nature’s autumn loveliness—a vision of peace and tranquil resignation that lingers like a poem in the memory. It is a glorious October day, one of those rarest and loveliest of days when all nature seems transfigured, when a golden, misty veil swings from the heavens in a charmed haze, through which the commonest and most prosaic thing seems spiritualized and glorified. The summer’s full fruition is past and gone, the dross has been consumed; and in the lingering life, whose yielding flush now lends its sweet expression to the declining year, we see the type of perfect trust and hope that finds a fitting emblem in the dim horizon, where heaven and earth are wedded in a golden haze, where purple hills melt softly in the sky. It is a day when one may dream with open eyes, and whose day-dreams haunt the memory as sweet realities. The sky is filled with rolling, fleecy clouds, whose flat receding bases seem to float upon a transparent amber sea, from whose depths I look through into the blue air beyond.
Below me an ancient orchard skirts the borders of the knoll. Its boughs are crimson studded, and the ground beneath is strewn with the bright red fruit. They mark the minutes as they fall, running the gauntlet of the craggy twigs and bounding upon the slope beneath. Beyond the orchard stretch the low, flat meadow lands, set with alders and swamp-maples, with swaying willows, now enclosing, now revealing the graceful curves of the quiet stream as it winds in and out among the overhanging foliage. Soon it is lost beneath a wooded hill, where an old square tower and factory-bell betray the hiding-place of the glassy pond that sends its splashing water-fall across the rocks beneath the old town bridge. Looking down upon this bridge, Mount Pisgah, with its rugged cliff, is seen rising bold and stern against the sky, above a broad and bright mosaic of elms and maples, spreading from the grove of oaks near by in an unbroken expanse, to the very foot of the precipice, with here and there asunny cupola or gable peering out among the branches, or a snowy steeple lifting high its golden cross or weather-vane glittering in the sun. The mountain-side is lit up with its autumn glow of intermingled maples, oaks, and beeches, with its changeless ledges of jutting rock, and dense, defiant pines standing like veteran bearded sentinels in perpetual vigilance.
All this comes to me in a single glimpse beneath the branches. But there are others, where undulating meadows, with their flowing lines of walls and fences, lead the eye through soft gradations to distant purple hills, through thrifty farms, with barns and barracks and rowen fields with browsing cattle, and ruddy buckwheat patches, where the flocks of village pigeons congregate among the cradle marks, in quest of scattered kernels shaken from the sheaves.
There is a tiny lake near by that nestles among the hill-side farms, where sloping pastures and fields of yellow, rustling corn glide almost to the water’s edge. So sensitive and sympathetic is this little sheet of water that I christened it one day Chameleon Lake, for it wears a different expression for every phase of season or freak of weather, and always dwells in harmony with the landscape which encloses it. In cloudy days it frowns as cold as steel. In days of sunshine it is as bright and blue as the sky itself, or shimmers like a shield of burnished silver. And now it is a flood of autumn gold, carrying from shore to shore a maze of ripples laden with opaline reflections of intermingled glints from cloud and sky, and of the gold and ruby colored foliage along its banks.
But this knoll and all these farms are not mine alone. They are such as I should hope might lurk in the memory of almost any one who looks back to early days among New England hills.
AN OCTOBER DAY.AN OCTOBER DAY.
This old oak-tree, whose furrowed bark I lean upon, was a hardy patriarch when first I sought its shade. Its added years have scarcely changed a feature or modified a line in its old-time noble expression. As I look up, its great open arms spread out against the sky exactly as they did when I lolled beneath their shelter and watched the drifting clouds of twenty years ago sail through them in the blue above. Even the jagged furrows in the bark I seem to recognize. Here, too, is that same spreading scale of greenish lichen that fain will grow upon the trunk, as if I had not often picked it all to pieces in my early idling. The same round oak-gall rests on the bed of leaves in the hollow between the rocks near by, as though it had forgotten how a dozen years ago I cracked its polished shell and sent its spongy contents to the winds.
And here comes that veritable ant creeping through the grass at my elbow—now on the root, now on the bark, exploring every crack and crevice in his hurried search. I wonder if the little fellow will ever find what he has been looking for so long. And here’s a friend of his coming down. They stop and wag their antennæ in a moment’s conversation. I wonder what they said. I alwaysdidwonder when I watched them do the same thing on this very spot a score of years ago. The soft waving grass whispers about my ears as it did then, and I hear the low trumpet of the nuthatch as he creeps about in the tree o’erhead. Easily may one forget the lapse of time in such a place as this, where every leaf, and twig, and blade of grass conspire to breed forgetfulness of later years. Hark! that shrill tattoo again! The tree-toad. Yes, that same recluse in his mysterious hiding-place, seeking by his tantalizing trill to renew that game of hide-and-seek we left off so long ago—in those eager days when every stick and stone upon the knoll was overturned in my zeal to find his whereabouts. There he goes again! louder and more shrill. But now I realize the effect of time, for I only sit and listen to his oft-repeated call. Formerly that sound was like a galvanic thrill that electrified every nerve and muscle in my physiology. No, I’ll not hunt for you again, my musical young friend; besides, the odds would be against you now, for I know more about tree-toadsthan I once did, and you wouldn’t see me hunting on the ground as in the olden days. Besides, you’re getting bold; there is no need of hunting, for in that last toot you gave yourself away. Even now my eyes are fixed upon the hole in yonder hollow limb, and I see your tiny form clinging to the rotten wood within the opening. WhatwouldI not have givenonceto have thought of that soggy hole!
A WAY-SIDE PASTORAL.A WAY-SIDE PASTORAL.
Near by a spreading yew monopolizes a rocky bit of ground, its foliage creeping above a silvery gray bed of branching moss, whose pillowy tufts spread almost to my feet. This was my fairy forest of tiny trees. Here I found the fairies’ cups and torches, and even now I can see their scarlet tips scattered here and there among the gray; and fragile little parasols, too—it were an insult, indeed, to designate such dainty things as these by the name of toadstools. Beyond this bed of moss a scrubby growth of whortleberry takes possession of the ground. The bushes are now bare of fruit, but ruddy with their autumn blushes, tingeing the surface of the knoll with a delicate coral pink. This thicket extends far down upon the slope, even encroaching upon the wheel-ruts of the lane, and across again, untilcut short by an ancient tumbling line of lichen-covered stones, a landmark which has long since yielded up its claim as a barrier of protection to the old orchard it encloses, now only a moss-grown pile, with every chink and crevice a nestling-place of some searching tendril, fern, or clambering vine. For rods and rods it creeps along beneath the laden apple-trees, skirting the borders of this old farm lane, and finally hides away among a clump of cedars a few hundred feet away.
Of all the picturesque in nature, what is there, after all, that so wins one’s deeper sympathies as the ever-changing pictures of a rustic lane or roadside, with its weather-beaten walls and fences, and their rambling growth of weeds and creeping vines? How sweet the sense of near companionship awakened by these charming way-side pastorals that accompany you in your saunterings, and reach out to touch you as you pass—a sense of friendly fellowship that breathes a silent greeting in the most deserted paths or loneliest of by-ways!
Show me a ruined wall or a rutted zigzag fence, and I will show you a string of pearls, or rather, if in these later months, a fringe of gems, for the autumn fence is set in wreaths of rubies and glowing sapphires. Follow its rambling course, now through the field, now skirting swampy fallows, now by rustic lanes and cornfields and over rocky pastures, and you will follow a lead that will take you through the rarest bits of nature’s autumn landscape.
Even in this lane, at the foot of the knoll below us, see the brilliant luxuriance of clustered bitter-sweet draping the side of that clump of cedars! It is only an indication of the beauty that envelops this lane for a full half mile beyond. Every angle of its rude rail fence encloses a lovely pastoral, each a surprise and a contrast to its neighbor.
Right here before us, what a beginning! Hold up your hands on either side, and shut out the surroundings. Such is the glimpse I always long to paint from nature, and yet how almost maddening is the result! Rather would I drink it all in and fix its every feature in my mind, and paint it from its memory, when the presence of the living thing before me shall not mock my efforts and put to shame the crude creations of oil and pigment.
See how the cool gray rails are relieved against that rich dark background of dense olive juniper, how they hide among the prickly foliage! Look at that low-hanging branch which so exquisitely conceals the lowest rail as it emerges from its other side, and spreads out among the creepingbriers that wreathe the ground with their shining leaves of crimson and deep bronze! Could any art more daringly concentrate a rhapsody of color than nature has here done in bringing up that gorgeous spray of scarlet sumach, whose fern-like pinnate leaves are so richly massed against that background of dark evergreens? And even in that single branch see the wondrous gradation of color, from purest green to purplish olive, and olive melting into crimson, and then to scarlet, and through orange into yellow, and all sustaining in its midst the clustered cone of berries of rich maroon! Verily, it were almost an affront to sit down before such a shrine and attempt to match it in material pigment. A passing sketch, perhaps, that shall serve to aid the memory in the retirement of the studio, but a careful copy,never!until we can have a tenfold lease of life, and paint with sunbeams. But there is more still in this tantalizing ideal, for a luxuriant wild grape-vine, that shuts in the fence near by, sends toward us an adventurous branch that climbs the upright rail, and festoons itself from fence to tree, and hangs its luminous canopy over the crest of the yielding juniper. Even from where we stand we can see the pendant clusters of tiny grapes clearly shadowed against the translucent golden screen. Add to all this the charm of life and motion, with trembling leaves and branches bending in the breeze, with here and there a flitting shadow playing across the half hidden rails, and where can you find another such picture, its counterpart in beauty—where? perhaps its very neighbor, for all roadside pictures are “hung upon the line,” they are all by the same great Master, and it is often difficult to choose.
Here we have a contrast. A dappled rock has taken possession of this little corner, or the corner has been built around it, if you choose—a “gray” rock we would call it in common parlance, but it is a gray composed of a checkered multitude of tints, colors which upon a rock, it would seem, were hardly worth an appreciative glance; but only let them be exhibited upon a fold of Lyons silk or Jouvin kid glove, and dignify them by the compliments of “ashes of roses,” or “London smoke,” and how eagerly they are sought, how exquisite they become. I speak in moderation when I say that I have often sat and counted as many as thirty just such tints upon the surface of a small “gray” rock, eachdistinct, and all sorefinedand exquisite in shade. This rounded bowlder is no exception; and with its tufted spots of jetty moss, and outcroppings of glistening quartz, its rounded, spreading blots of greenish lichens, and mottled groundwork, it may well defy the craft of the most skilled palette.And when these grays are contrasted with tender yellow greens and browns of fading ferns, such as fringe the borders of the one before me, with a background of scarlet whortleberry bushes and deep-green sprays of blackberry clustering about the loosening bark of a crumbling stump, with its shelving growth of fungus hiding among its brown debris, one may well pause and wonder which to choose, or where a single touch is wanting in the perfect unity and harmony of either.