# Rural Hours/Autumn

AUTUMN.
Friday, September 1st—Glorious night. The moon rose early in the evening, with unusual splendor, ascending into a cloudless sky, with a brilliancy and power in her light quite remarkable. The stars were all pale and dim. The blue of the sky and the green of the trees were clearly seen; even the character of the foliage on the different trees was plainly marked. The lake and hills might have been almost as well known to a stranger as by day. The whole village was like a brilliantly-lighted room; one knew their acquaintances in the street, and could distinguish their different dresses. Within doors, the moonbeams poured a flood of silvery light through the windows; lamps and candles seemed needless; one could go all about the house without their assistance, and we read both letters and papers with ease.
The frogs were singing in full chorus, and the insect world was wide awake, humming in every field. It seemed really a shame to close one's eyes upon such a night. Indeed, there was nothing this evening of the calm, still, dreamy character of common moonlight, but rather an animating, exciting power in the fullness of light, which seemed to rival the influence of the busy day.
Saturday, 2d.—Saw a few barn-swallows about a farm-yard, some miles from the village. The chimney-swallows have not yet disappeared. The goldfinches are scouring the fields and
​gardens in flocks,, feasting upon the ripe seeds; at this moment, they have a little chatty note, which is very pleasant, though scarcely musical; but as they all seem to be talking at once, they make a cheerful murmur about the thickets and fields.
Monday, 4th.—Many of the maple leaves are now covered with brilliant crimson patches, which are quite ornamental; these are not the autumnal change in the color of the leaf itself, for that has not yet commenced, but little raised patches of crimson, which are quite common upon the foliage of our maples in August and September. Many persons suppose these to be the eggs of some insect; but they are, I believe, a tiny parasitic vegetable, of the fungus tribe, like that frequently seen on the barberry, which is of a bright orange color. The insects who lay their eggs in leaves, pierce the cuticle of the leaf, which distends and swells over the young insect within; but the tiny parasitic plants alluded to are not covered by the substance of the leaf, they rise above it, and are quite distinct from it. Those on the maple are the most brilliant of any in our woods.
The leaves of the wych-hazel are frequently covered with large conical excrescences, which are doubtless the cradle of some insect; over these, the cuticle of the leaf itself rises, until it grows to a sharp-pointed extremity. Some leaves show a dozen of these excrescences, and few bushes of the wych-hazel are entirely free from them. Occasionally, one finds a good-sized shrub where almost every leaf has been turned to account in this way, the whole foliage bristling with them. Indeed, there is no other tree or bush in our woods so much resorted to by insects for this purpose as the wych-hazel; all the excrescences bear the same form, so that they probably belong to the same insect, which must be
​a very common one, judging from the provision made for the young. But so httle attention has yet been paid to entomology in this country, that we have not been able to discover, from any books within reach, what little creature it is which crowds the wych-hazel leaves in this way.
Those excrescences made by insects are probably always injurious to the plant, the little creatures generally feeding on the juices of the foliage, which they often destroy; but the tiny parasitic plants of the Æcidium tribe are comparatively harmless, and they are frequently ornamental.
Tuesday, 5th.—A party of chimney-swallows were seen wheeling over the highway, near the bridge, this afternoon.
Wednesday, 6th.—Delightful weather. Long walk. The Michaelmas daisies and golden-rods are blooming abundantly in the fields and woods. Both these common flowers enliven the autumn very much for us, growing freely as they do in all soils and situations, for, unlike the more delicate wild flowers of spring, they are not easily driven from the ground, growing as readily in the fields among foreign grasses as in their native woods. By their profusion, their variety, and their long duration, from midsummer to the sharpest frosts of autumn, they console us for the disappearance of the earlier flowers, which, if more beautiful, are more fragile also.
The golden-rod is a fine showy plant in most of its numerous forms. There are said to be some ninety varieties in North America, and about a third of these belong to our own part of the continent, the Middle States of the Union. Of this number, one, with
​a pyramidal head, has fragrant leaves. Another is common to both Europe and America; this is one of the smaller and insignficant kinds, but the only plant of the family found on both continents. Perhaps the golden-rods are not quite so luxuriant with us, and in the lower counties; the larger and more showy kinds seem more abundant in the valley of the Mohawk than upon our hills. Still, they are common enough here, lining all the fences just now. The silver-rod, or Solidago bicolor, abounds in our neighborhood; the bees are very fond of it; at this season, and even much later, you often find them harvesting the honey of this flower, three or four bees on one spike.
WILLOW LEAVED GOLDEN ROD. [Solidago Stricta.] :
| G. P. Putnam, N. Y. |||
| | Endicott's Lith. N. Y. |
​ As for the Michaelmas daisies, they can scarcely thrive better anywhere than in our own region—common as possible in all the fields and woods. There would seem to be a greater variety among these flowers than in any other family except the grasses; botanists count some hundred and thirty American asters, and of these, about one-fourth belong to this part of the country. The difference between many of these is very slight, scarcely perceptible to the casual observer; but others, again, are very strongly marked. We all note that some are quite tall, others low; that some bear very small blossoms, others large and showy flowers; some are white, others pinkish, others grayish, those purple, these blue. Their hearts vary also in color, even upon the same plants, according to the age of the different flowers, the centre being either yellow, dark reddish purple, or pale green; and this enlivens the clusters very much. The leaves, also, are widely different in size and form. All this variety, added to their cheerful abundance, gives interest to this common flower, and makes it a favorite with those who live in the country. They remain so long
​in bloom, that toward the close of the season, the common sorts may all be found together. Some of the handsomer kinds, large, and of a fine purple color, delight in low, moist spots, where, early in September, they keep company, in large patches, with the great bur-marigold, making a rich contrast with those showy golden blossoms.
It is well known that both the golden-rods and asters are considered characteristic American plants, being so much more numerous on this continent than in the Old World.
Another flower, common in our woods just now, is the Bird-bell, the Nabalus of botanists. There are several varieties of these; the taller kinds are fine plants, growing to a height of four or five feet, with numerous clusters of pendulous, straw-colored bells, strung along their upper branches. If the color were more decided, this would be one of our handsomest wild flowers; its numerous blossoms are very prettily formed, and hung on the stalks with peculiar grace, but they are of a very pale shade of straw color, wanting the brilliancy of warmer coloring, or the purity of white petals. These plants are sometimes called lion's-foot, rattlesnake-root, &c., but the name of Bird-bell is the most pleasing, and was probably given them from their flowering about the time when the birds collect in flocks, preparatory to their flight southward, as though the blossoms rung a warning chime in the woods, to draw them together. The leaves of the Bird-bell are strangely capricious in size and shape, so much so at times, that one can hardly credit that they belong to the same stalk; some are small and simple in form, others are very large and capricious in their broken outline. Plants are sometimes given to caprices of this kind in their foliage, but the Bird-bell indulges in
​far more fancies of this sort than any other with which we are acquainted in this neigliborhood.
Yellow Gerardias are in flower still in the woods, and so is the Hawk-wort. The blue Gentian is also in bloom now; though not common, it is found in spots about the lake.
We gathered, this afternoon, some flowers of the partridge-berry and squaw-vine, the only spring blossoms still found in the woods. Directly in the path, as we were going up Mount ——, we also found a large dragon's-claw, or corallarhiza; its brown stalk and flowers measured about fifteen inches in height, and it was divided into eight leafless branches.
Thursday, 7th.—Cooler. Went down to the great meadow for lady's tresses, which grow there plentifully. Pretty and fragrant, these flowers are not unlike an autumn lily of the valley; one is puzzled to know why they should be called lady's tresses—possibly from the spiral twist of the flowers on the stalk. Gathered also a fine bunch of purple asters, and golden bur-marigolds; these last were slightly fragrant.
This evening we kindled our autumn fires.
Friday, 8th.—Lovely day; warm, silvery mist, gradually clearing to soft sunshine. Passed a charming morning at the Cliffs. The wych-hazel is in bloom; brown nuts and yellow flowers on the same twig. Gathered some speckled-jewels, partridge-berry, and squaw-vine blossoms. Found a purple rose-raspberry in flower; it is always pleasant to meet these late flowers, unlooked-for favors as they are. A year or two since the wild roses on this road flowered in September, a second bloom; and the same season a number of our earlier garden roses bore flowers the second time as late as the 16th of September.
​Blackberries still very plenty, and sweet; they have not brought any to the village lately, people seem tired of them. Found also a few red raspberries, whortleberries, and the acid rose-berry. This is a land of berries; a large portion of our trees and plants yield their seed in this form. Among such are the several wild cherries, and plums, the amelanchiers and dog-woods, the mountain ash, the sumachs, and the thorns; all the large bramble tribe, with their pleasant fruits, roses, raspberries, the blackberry, and the gooseberry; the numerous whortleberries, and bilberries, viburnums, and honeysuckles, spikenards, and cohoshes; pokeweed, the trilliums, the convallarias, and the low cornel, clintonia, and medeola; the strawberry, the partridge plant, and squaw-vine, &c., &c. These are all common, and very beautiful while in season. Without going at all out of our way this morning, we gathered a very handsome bunch of berries, some of a dark purple, others light, waxy green, these olive, those white, this scarlet, that ruby color, and others crimson, and pale blue. The berry of the round-leaved dog-wood is of a very delicate blue.
The snowberry, so very common in our gardens, is a native of this State, but I have never heard of its being found in this county.
The birds were feasting upon all these berries at the Cliffs; saw quite a gathering of them in a sumach grove, robins, blue-birds, sparrows, goldfinches, cat-birds, wild pigeons, and woodpeckers; there were several others also perched so high that it was not easy to decide what they were. The little creatures were all very active and cheerful, but quite songless; a chirrup, or a wild call, now and then, were the only sounds heard among them.
Saturday, 9th.—Pleasant morning in the woods. Much amused
​by squirrels. First found a little chipmuck, or ground squirrel, sitting on a pile of freshly-cut chestnut rails, at a wild spot in the heart of the woods. The little creature saw us as we approached, and took a seat not far from him; he moved quickly a few yards and then resumed his sitting position, with his face toward us, so as to watch our movements. He was holding something in his fore paws, which he was eating very busily; it was amusing to watch him taking his dinner; but we were puzzled to know what he was eating, for it was evidently no chestnut, but covered with down, which he brushed away from his face, now and then, quite angrily. For nearly ten minutes he sat there, looking toward us from time to time; but we were curious to know what he was eating, and moved toward him, when he vanished among the rails; he left a bit of his dinner, however; this proved to be the heart of a head of half-ripe thistle, in which the seed had not yet formed; it looked very much like a miniature artichoke, and he seemed to enjoy it exceedingly. Returning to our seat, he reappeared again upon the rails. Presently a beautiful red squirrel made his appearance, in the notch of a tall old pine, perhaps fifty feet from the ground; a hemlock had been uprooted, and in falling its head had locked in this very notch, its root was near the spot where we were sitting. This squirrel is very fond of the cones of the hemlock, and other firs, and perhaps he had run up the half-prostrate trunk in quest of these; at any rate, he took this road downward. He paused every few steps to utter the peculiar cry which has given them the name of chickaree, for they often repeat it, and are noisy little creatures. He came deliberately down the whole length of the trunk, chatting and waving his beautiful tail as he moved along. After leaving the tree
​he played about, here and there, apparently in quest of nuts, and he frequently came very near us of his own accord; once we might have struck him with ease, by stretching out our parasols. His large eyes were beautiful. This kind of squirrel eats most of our grains, wheat, rye, buckwheat. He swims quite well, and is found as far south as the mountains of Carolina. His fur is thought the best among his tribe.
Passing under a chestnut-tree by the road-side, we had farther occasion to observe how fearless the squirrels are in their interviews with mankind. A little fellow was cutting off chestnut burs with his teeth, that they might drop on the ground; he had already dropped perhaps a dozen bunches; after a while he came down, with another large cluster of green burs in his mouth, with these he darted off into the woods, to his nest, no doubt. But he soon came back, and taking up another large cluster from the ground, ran off again. This movement he repeated several times, without being at all disturbed, though he evidently saw us standing a few yards from him. These gray squirrels are common in every wood, and they say that one of them is capable of eating all the nuts yielded by a large tree; one of them had been known to strip a butternut-tree, near a house, leaving only a very meagre gleaning for the family. These little creatures sometimes undertake the most extraordinary journeys; large flocks of them set out together upon a general migration. Some forty years since a great migration of this kind took place among the gray squirrels, in the northern part of this State, and in crossing the Hudson above Albany, very many of them were drowned. This was in the year 1808.
​There is another larger gray squirrel not so common, called the fox squirrel, measuring two and a half feet in length.
The black squirrel is small, only a foot long; its fur is of a glossy jet black. We saw one this summer, but at a distance from our lake. They are nowhere very common, and are rather a northern variety, not seen south of Pennsylvania. There is a deadly feud between these and the gray squirrels, and as their enemies are the largest and the most numerous, they are invariably driven off the nutting-grounds when both meet. The two kinds are said never to remain long together in the same neighborhood.
These, with the flying squirrel, make up all the members of their family found in our State. The pretty little flying squirrels are quite small, about nine inches long. They are found here and there through this State, and indeed over the Union, and in Mexico also. They live in hollow trees, but we have never had the good luck to meet one in our rambles. They are seldom seen, however, in the daytime, dozing away until twilight.
Monday, 11th.—Church-yards are much less common in this country than one might suppose, and to judge from the turn things are taking now, it seems probable this pious, simple custom of burying about our churches, will soon become obsolete. As it is, the good people of many rural neighborhoods must make a day's journey before they can find a country church-yard in which to read Gray's Elegy. A great proportion of the places of worship one sees here have no graves near them. In the villages they make part of the crowd of buildings with little space about them; nor does it follow that in the open country, where land is cheaper, the case is altered; you pass meeting-houses
​standing apart, with broad fields spreading on all sides, but no graves at hand. Some distance beyond, perhaps, you will come to a square enclosure, opening into the highway, and this is the cemetery of the congregation. Small family burying-grounds, about the fields, are very common; sometimes it is a retired spot, neatly enclosed, or it may be only a row of graves in one corner of the meadow, or orchard. Walking in the fields a while since, we were obliged to climb a stone wall, and on jumping down into the adjoining meadow, we found we had alighted on a grave; there were several others lying around near the fence, an unhewn stone at the head and foot of each humble hillock. This custom of burying on the farms had its origin, no doubt, in the peculiar circumstances of the early population, thinly scattered over a wide country, and separated by distance and bad roads from any place of public worship. In this way the custom of making the graves of a family upon the homestead gradually found favor among the people, and they learned to look upon it as a melancholy gratification to make the tombs of the departed members of a family near the dwelling of the living. The increase of the population, and the improvement of the roads on one hand, with the changes of property, and the greater number of villages on the other, are now bringing about another state of things. Public cemeteries for parishes, or whole communities, are becoming common, while the isolated burial-places about the farms are more rare than they used to be.
The few church-yards found among us are usually seen in the older parishes; places of worship, recently built, very rarely have a yard attached to them. The narrow, crowded, abandoned church-yards, still seen in the heart of our older towns, have
​become, in the course of time, very striking monuments to the dead. Nowhere is the stillness of the grave so deeply impressive; the feverish turmoil of the living, made up of pleasure, duty, labor, folly, sin, whirling in ceaseless movement about them, is less than the passing winds, and the drops of rain to the tenants of those grounds, as they he side by side, in crowded but unconscious company. The present, so full, so fearfully absorbing with the living, to the dead is a mystery; with those mouldering remains of man the past and the future are the great realities. The stillness, the uselessness if you will, of the old church-yard in the heart of the bustling city, renders it a more striking and impressive memento mori than the skull in the cell of a hermit.
We hear from time to time plans for changes which include the breaking up of those old church-yards in the towns. We are told that those old graves are unsightly objects; that a new square on the spot would be more agreeable to the neighborhood; that a street at this particular point would be a very convenient thoroughfare, and would make A, B, or C richer men by some thousands. Such are the motives usually urged in defence of the act:—embellishment, convenience, or gain. But which of these is of sufficient force to justify the desecration of the tomb? Assuredly necessity alone can excuse the breach of equity, of decency, of good faith, and good feeling involved in such a step. Man is the natural guardian of the grave; the remains of the dead are a solemn deposit entrusted to the honor of the living. In the hour of death we commend our souls into the hands of our Maker; we leave our bodies to the care of our fellow-creatures. Just so long, therefore, as each significant mound bears a trace of its solemn character, just so long should it be held sacred
​by the living. Shall we, in a Christian land, claim to have less of justice, less of decency and natural feeling, than the rude heathen whose place on the earth we have taken; a race who carefully watched over the burial-places of their fathers with unwavering fidelity? Shall we seek to rival the deed of the brutal wrecker who strips the corpse of the drowned man on the wild shore of the ocean when no honest arm is near? Shall we follow in the steps of the cowardly thief who prowls in the darkness about the field of battle to plunder the lifeless brave? Shall we cease to teach our children that of all covetousness, that which would spoil the helpless is the most revolting? Or, in short, shall we sell the ashes of our fathers that a little more coin may jingle in our own pockets?
It matters little that a man say he should be willing his own grave should be broken up, his own bones scattered to the winds; the dead, whom he would disturb, might tell a different tale could their crumbling skeletons rise up before him, endowed once more with speech. There was a great man who, if we may believe the very solemn words on his tomb, has spoken in this instance, as in ten thousand others, the strong, natural language of the human heart:
* Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
* To dig the dust enclosed here;
* Blest be he that spares these stones,
* And curst be he that moves my bones.”
In this new state of society—in this utilitarian age—it behooves us, indeed, to be especially on our guard against any attack upon the tomb; the same spirit which, to-day, stands ready to break open the graves of a past generation, to-morrow, by carrying out
​the same principle, may deny decent burial to a brother. It may see useless expense in the shroud, waste of wood in the coffin, usurpation of soil in the narrow cell of the deceased. There is, indeed, a moral principle connected with the protection of the grave, which, if given up, must inevitably recoil upon the society by whom it has been abandoned.
The character of a place of burial, the consideration or neglect it receives, the nature of the attention bestowed on it, are all intimately connected with the state of the public mind on many important subjects. There is very little danger in this country of superstitions connected with the grave. What peril there is lies on the other side. Is there no tendency to a cold and chilling indifference upon such subjects among our people? And yet a just consideration of Death is one of the highest lessons that every man needs to learn. Christianity, with the pure wisdom of Truth, while it shields us on one hand from abject, cowardly fear, on the other hand is ever warning us alike against brutal indifference, or the confidence of blind presumption. With all the calmness of Faith, with all the lowliness of Humility, with all the tenderness of Charity, and with the undying light of heavenly Hope at her heart, the Christian Church sits watching beside the graves of her children.
The oldest tomb belonging to the good people of this little town lies within the bounds of the Episcopal Church-yard, and bears the date of 1792. It was a child who died of the smallpox. Close at hand is another stone bearing a date two years later, and marking the grave of the first adult who fell among the little band of colonists, a young man drowned while bathing in the lake—infancy and youth were buried before old age. At
​the time these graves were dug, the spot was in a wild condition, upon the border of the forest, the wood having been only partially cut away. In a few years other members of the little community died, one after another, at intervals, and they were also buried here, until the spot had gradually taken its present character of a burying-ground. The rubbish was cleared away, place was made for those who must follow, and ere many years had passed, the brick walls of a little church rose within the enclosure, and were consecrated to the worship of the Almighty, by the venerable Bishop Moore. And thus this piece of ground was set apart for its solemn purposes, while shaded by the woods, and ere it had been appropriated to common uses: the soil was first broken by the spade of the grave-digger, and Death is the only reaper who has gathered his harvest here. The spot soon lost its forest character, however, for the older trees were all felled; possibly some among them may have been used as timber in building the little church. Happily, at the time of clearing the ground, a few young bushes were spared from the axe, and these having been left to grow at will, during the course of half a century, have become fine flourishing trees. The greater number are pines, and a more fitting tree for a Christian church-yard than the white pine of America could scarcely be named. With all the gravity and unchanging character of an evergreen, they have not the dull gloom of the cypress or the yew; their growth is noble, and more than any other variety of their tribe, they hold murmuring communion with the mysterious winds, waving in tones of subdued melancholy over the humble graves at their feet. A few maples and elms, and a fine amelanchier, appear among them, relieving their monotonous character. Some of these have been planted for that purpose,
​but the pines themselves are all the spontaneous growth of the soil. Judging from their size, and what we know of their history, they must have sprung up from the seed about the time when the first colonists arrived—contemporaries of the little town whose graves they overshadow.
The tombs themselves have all a natural interest for the people of the place, but there are none to attract the attention of a stranger. One of the earlier Missionaries in these parts of the country is buried here among his flock; he came into the woods a young man, passed a long life in preaching the Gospel among the different hamlets about, and died at last much respected and esteemed for his simplicity of character and faithful performance of the duties of his sacred office. One day, as he was walking through the church-yard with a brother clergyman, he pointed out a spot beneath two pines, expressing a wish to lie there, when the work of life should be over. Years after this conversation, he died in another parish, and was buried there; but he was nominal rector of this church at the time, and his friends were aware that he wished his body removed to this ground. Steps were accordingly taken, his remains were brought here, and laid in a grave selected by one of the vestry. A simple monument of white marble was raised to his memory by the different parishes he had founded in the county. Some years later, the clergyman to whom the old Missionary had pointed out the spot where he wished to be buried, happened to preach here, and passing through the church-yard, he paused to look at the monument, observing that he was pleased to find his friend had been laid in the very spot chosen by himself so long before; and it was only then the parish learned that their old rector had pointed out
​this same position for his grave, a vestryman having chosen it without being aware of the fact. Thus the wish of the old servant of God was unconsciously fulfilled by those who were ignorant of it.
* The dead in Christ, they rest in hope,
* And o'er their sleep sublime,
* The shadow of the steeple moves,
* From morn, to vesper chime.
* On every mound, in solemn shade.
* Its imaged cross doth lie.
* As goes the sunlight to the west,
* Or rides the moon on high.”
Tuesday, 12th.—Delightful walk. Many flocks of birds in movement, wheeling in the sunshine, or alighting upon the trees and fences. Saw a large hawk in full flight before a few king-birds—a common sight enough. Crows, also, when they meet the stout-hearted king-birds in the corn-fields, which they frequently do at this season, are sure to retreat before their spirited enemy. Even the eagle is worsted by them at times, and keeps out of their way.
The butterflies were enjoying the bright, warm day. We observed one, a common yellow butterfly, who had been soaring very high; he came down from the top of a tall pine, growing on high ground, and made a long descent to the glen below, without pausing. Generally, these little creatures fly low. In England, they have a handsome butterfly, which they call the “Emperor;” he lives entirely on the tallest forest trees, and never descends to the ground, his exalted position having been the cause of his receiving the title; I do not know whether we have any in this country with the same habits.
​The woods, generally, are green as midsummer—but a small shrub here and there is faintly touched with autumnal colors.
Wednesday, 13th—Bright and pleasant. Slight touch of frost in the clear moonlight of last night, the first we have had this autumn. It has left no traces, and seems only to have fallen in spots; even the tomato-vines in the garden are untouched.
As we were standing on the wharf, we observed burr-marigolds growing in a spot usually covered with water the year round. The lake has been very low lately, but this particular spot can only have been out of water three or four weeks at the utmost, and here we have plants already grown up and in flower. They are annuals, I believe.
Thursday, 14th.—Rainy, cheerless day. Short walk toward evening. Saw a couple of snail-shells, in a tuft of fern, by the road-side. How much less common are these land-snails in our part of the world than in Europe; in the Old World, you find them in the fields and gardens at every turn, but here we only see one now and then, and chiefly in the woods.
Friday, 15th.—Strong wind from the south, rustling with a full, deep sough through the trees. The locusts, as their branches bend before the wind, show their pods prettily—some clusters bright yellow, others a handsome red, as they are more or less ripe. The Virginia creepers are turning cherry color; they are always the first leaves to change.
Saturday, 16th.—Pleasant, soft weather. The farmers are ploughing and sowing grain, and have been doing so for some days; they are earlier than they used to be with their autumn seed-time. The buckwheat fields are turning red, and will soon be cut. The maize-stalks are drying and withering as the ears
​ripen; on some farms, they are harvesting both crops—red buckwheat sheaves, and withered corn-stalks, are standing about the fields. All through the summer months, the maize-fields are beautiful with their long glossy leaves; but when ripe, dry and colorless, they will not compare with the waving lawns of other grains. The golden ears, however, after the husk has been taken off, are perhaps the noblest heads of grain in the world; the rich piles now lying about the fields are a sight to rejoice the farmer's heart.
The great pumpkins, always grown with maize, are also lying ripening in the sun; as we have had no frost yet, the vines are still green. When they are harvested and gathered in heaps, the pumpkins rival the yellow corn in richness; and a farm-wagon carrying a load of husked corn and pumpkins, bears as handsome a load of produce as the country yields. It is a precious one, too, for the farmer and his flocks.
Cattle are very fond of pumpkins; it is pleasant to see what a feast the honest creatures make of them in the barn-yard; they evidently consider them a great dainty, far superior to common provender. But in this part of the world, not only the cattle, but men, women, and children—we all eat pumpkins. Yesterday, the first pumpkin-pie of the season made its appearance on table. It seems rather strange, at a first glance, that in a country where apples, and plums, and peaches, and cranberries abound, the pumpkin should be held in high favor for pies. But this is a taste which may probably be traced back to the early colonists; the first housewives of New England found no apples or quinces in the wilderness; but pumpkins may have been raised the first summer after they landed at Plymouth. At any rate, we know that
​they were soon turned to account in this way. The old Hollander, Van der Donck, in his account of the New Netherlands, published in 1656, mentions the pumpkin as being held in high favor in New Amsterdam, and adds, that the English colonists—meaning those of New England—“use it also for pastry.” This is probably the first printed allusion to the pumpkin-pie in our annals. Even at the present day, in new Western settlements, where the supply of fruit is necessarily small at first, pumpkins are made into preserves, and as much pains are taken in preparing them, as though they were the finest peaches from the markets of Philadelphia and Baltimore. When it is once proved that pumpkin-pies were provided for the children of the first colonists by their worthy mothers, the fact that a partiality for them continued long after other good things were provided, is not at all surprising, since the grown man will very generally be found to cherish an exalted opinion of the pies of his childhood. What bread-and-milk, what rice-puddings, can possibly equal the bread-and-milk, the rice-puddings of the school-boy? The noble sex, especially, are much given to these tender memories of youthful dainties, and it generally happens, too, that the pie or pudding so affectionately remembered, was home-made; you will not often find the confectioner's tart, bought with sixpence of pocket-money, so indelibly stamped in recollections of the past. There is at all times a peculiar sort of interest about a simple home-made meal, not felt where a cordon-bleu presides; there is a touch of anxiety in the breast of the housekeeper as to the fate of the boiled and roast, the bread and paste, preserves and other cates, which now changes to the depression of a failure, now to the triumph of brilliant success, emotions which are of course shared, in a greater or
​less degree, by all who partake of the viands, according to the state of the different appetites, and sensibilities. But this ghost of the school-boy pie, this spectral plum-pudding, sitting in judgment upon the present generation of pies and puddings, when it takes possession of husband, brother, or father, has often proved the despair of a housekeeper. In such a case, no pains-taking labors, no nice mixing of ingredients, no careful injunctions to cook or baker, are of any use whatever; that the pie of to-day can equal the pie of five-and-twenty years since, is a pure impossibility. The pudding is tolerable, perhaps—it does pretty well—they are much obliged to you for the pains you have taken—yes, they will take a little more—another spoonful, if you please—still, if they must speak with perfect frankness, the rice-pudding, the plum tart, the apple-pie they are now eating, will no more compare with the puddings, and tarts, and pies eaten every day in past times at their good mother's table, than—language fails to express the breadth of the comparison! Such being man's nature, apropos of pies and puddings, it follows, of course, that the pumpkin-pies eaten by the first tribe of little Yankee boys were never equalled by those made of peaches and plums in later years, and the pumpkin-pie was accordingly promoted from that period to the first place in pastry, among all good Yankees. Probably the first of the kind were simple enough; eggs, cream, brandy, rose-water, nutmegs, ginger, and cinnamon, are all used now to flavor them, but some of these ingredients must have been very precious to the early colonists, too valuable to be thrown into pies.
Probably there was also another reason why the pumpkin-pie was so much in favor in New England: it had never made part
​of Christmas cheer: it was not in the least like the mince-pie, that abomination of their stern old fathers. We hardly know whether to laugh or to cry, when we remember the fierce attacks made upon the roasted boar's-head, the mince-pies, and other good things of that kind, by the early Puritans; but when we recollect the reason of this enmity, we mourn over the evils that prejudice brings about in this world. Strange, indeed, that men, endowed with many Christian virtues, should have ever thought it a duty to oppose so bitterly the celebration of a festival in honor of the Nativity of Christ! Happily, Time, the great ally of Truth, has worked a change in this respect; Christmas is kept throughout the country, and mince-pies are eaten with a quiet conscience and very good appetite by everybody. And what is vastly to the credit of the community, while all have returned to the mince-pie, all are quite capable of doing justice to a good pumpkin-pie also, and by a very happy state of things, the rival pastries are found on the same tables, from Thanksgiving to Ash-Wednesday. Mince-pies are even more in favor in this country than in England; some people eat them all the year round; I have been offered a slice on the eve of the 4th of July. Those made by the farmers' wives about the country are, however, very coarse imitations of the real thing; their paste is made with lard, and always heavy; coarsely-hashed meat, and apples, and suet, with a little spice, are the chief ingredients, and a dish more favorable to dyspepsia could not easily be put together.
Monday, 18th.—A pair of the golden-winged woodpeckers, or clapes, as many persons call them, have been on the lawn all the afternoon. These large woodpeckers often come into the village, especially in the spring and autumn, and they are frequently seen
​on the ground, running their bills into the grass in quest of ants and their eggs, which are favorite food with them. They are handsome birds, differing in some respects from the other woodpeckers, and peculiar to North America, although two kindred varieties of golden-winged woodpeckers are found about the Cape, of Good Hope. But they have no bird in Europe at all like ours.
Besides the clape, we frequently see the downy woodpecker, and the hairy woodpecker, in the village; the first is the smallest of its tribe in America, and the second, which is a little larger, differs from it chiefly in the red band on its head. Both these birds make holes innumerable in the trunks of many trees, not only for insects, but for the sake of the sap also, which they drink; they are called sap-suckers by the country people, on that account. Frequently one sees a tree completely riddled, by a succession of these holes, which go round the trunk in regular rings, many of the circles lying close together; Mr. Wilson says that they are often so near together, that one may cover eight or ten of these holes with a silver dollar. Both these smaller woodpeckers are often seen on the rails of fences hunting for insects; and both remain here through the winter.
The handsome red-head, one of the migratory woodpeckers, is much more rare in our neighborhood than it used to be, but it is still found here, and we have seen them in the village. They are naturally sociable birds. A hundred miles to the westward, they are very numerous, even at the present day.
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. :
| G. P. Putnam, N. Y. | Endicott's Lith. N. Y. |
​ The large pileated woodpecker, or log-cock, a resident in Pennsylvania through the winter, is said to have been
​occasionally seen here of late years; but we have never observed it ourselves. It is quite a forest bird.
Besides these, there are the red-bellied, and the yellow-bellied, coming from the south, and rarely seen in this part of the State. The arctic and the banded woodpeckers, coming from the north, are occasional visitors, but we have never met them.
Tuesday, 19 th.—Mild, soft weather lately; to-day, high gust, with rain. Those leaves that had at all loosened their hold, locusts and Virginia creepers, are flying before the wind. The apples, blown off, are lying under the trees, scattered in showers over the green grass.
Saw a flock of wild pigeons; they have not been very numerous in our neighborhood lately, but every year we have a few of them. These birds will go a great distance for food, and their flight is astonishingly rapid. A pigeon of this kind is said to have been killed in New York during the rice season, with undigested Carolina rice in its crop; and as they require but twelve hours for digestion, it is supposed that the bird was only a few hours on his journey, breakfasting on the Santee, and dining on the Hudson. At this rate, it has been calculated that our passenger-pigeon might go to Europe in three days; indeed, a straggler is said to have been actually shot in Scotland. So that, whatever disputes may arise as to the rival merits of Columbus and the Northmen, it is very probable that American pigeons had discovered Europe long before the Europeans discovered them.
Thursday, 21st.—Equinox. Warm; showery as April. Sunshine, showers, and rainbows succeeding each other through the day. Beautiful effect of light on the hills; a whole
​mountainside on the lake shore bathed in the tints of the rainbow, the colors lying with unusual breadth on its wooded breast. Even the ethereal green of the bow was clearly seen above the darker verdure of the trees. Only the lower part of the bow, that which lay upon the mountain, was colored; above, the clouds were just tinged where they touched the brow of the hill, then fading away into pale gray.
Ice at table still. We Americans probably use far more ice than most people; the water for drinking is regularly iced, in many houses, until late in the autumn, when the frost cools the springs for us out of doors.
Friday, 22d.—Mushrooms are springing up by the road-side and in pasture-grounds; are not so numerous as last year, however, when the fungus tribe abounded. Mushrooms are not much eaten in our country neighborhood; people are afraid of them, and perhaps they are right. Certainly, they should never be eaten unless gathered by a person who understands them thoroughly. In France, they are not allowed to be offered for sale, I believe, until inspected by an officer appointed for the purpose. There is a good old Irish mother who supplies one or two houses in the village when they are in season, and she understands them very well.
The Indians of this part of the continent ate mushrooms. Poor creatures, they were often reduced to great extremities for food, from their want of forethought, feeding upon lichens, tripe de roche, and everything edible which grew in the forest. But mushrooms seem to have been considered by them as a great delicacy. A Chippewa, when speaking with Major Long on the subject of a future life, gave the following account of the opinions
​prevailing among his people: “In this land of souls, all are treated according to their merits.” “The wicked are haunted by the phantoms of the persons or things they have injured; thus, if a man has destroyed much property, the phantoms of the wrecks of this property obstruct his passage wherever he goes; if he has been cruel to his dogs, they also torment him after death; the ghosts of those whom during his lifetime he has wronged, are there permitted to avenge their wrongs.” “Those who have been good men are free from pain; they have no duties to perform; their time is spent in dancing and singing, and they feed upon mushrooms, which are very abundant.” Thus, mushrooms appear to be the choice food of the Chippewa heroes in the happy hunting-grounds.
Saturday, 23d.—Lovely evening; soft and mild, windows open; the sun throwing long shadows on the bright grass of the lawn. But for a light touch of autumn here and there, we might have believed ourselves at midsummer.
The last melons were eaten to-day. The grapes are ripening; many years we lose them by frost, either in the spring, or early in the autumn. Cold injures them less, however, at this season than in spring.
A large flock of black and white creepers running about the apple-trees, up and down, and around the trunk and branches; they are pretty, amusing little creatures, like all birds of that habit.
Monday, 25th.—Showery again. The woods are still green, but some trees in the village are beginning to look autumn-like. And yet we have had no frost of any consequence. Though an active agent in effecting the beautiful autumnal changes in the
​foliage, frost does not seem indispensable; one finds that the leaves turn at a certain time, whether we have had frost or not. The single trees, or groves, and the borders of a wood, seem to be touched first, while the forest generally still preserves its verdure. The Virginia creepers, whether trained upon our walls, hanging about the trees in the woods, or tangling the thickets on the banks of the river, are always the first to show their light, vivid crimson, among the green of the other foliage. A maple here and there generally keeps them company, in scarlet and yellow.
The pines are thickly hung with dark-brown cones, drooping from their higher branches. This is also the moment when their old leaves fall, and there is more yellow among their foliage this autumn than usual, probably owing to the dry weather we have had. Near at hand, these rusty leaves impair their beauty, but at a little distance, they are not observed. The hemlocks effect the change in their foliage imperceptibly, at least they seldom attract attention by it; nor do their fallen leaves lie in rusty, barren patches on the earth, beneath the trees, like those of the pine.
Saw a pretty sight: a party of robins alighted on the topmost boughs of a group of young locusts near the house, and sipped up the rain-drops gathered on the leaves; it was pretty to see them drinking the delicate drops, one after another. Smaller birds joined them—sparrows, probably, and drank also. Birds often drink in this way, but one seldom sees a whole flock sipping at the same time. It is said that the fine pinnated grouse, now becoming a very rare bird in this State, drinks only in this way, refusing water from a vessel, or a spring, but eagerly drinking when it trickles down in drops.
​Tuesday, 26th.—A fine bunch of woodcock, with several partridges, and a brace of wood-ducks, brought to the house. The woodcock is less common here than the partridge, or the ruffed grouse rather, as we should call it; but all our game-birds are rapidly diminishing in numbers. By the laws of the State every county is enabled to protect its own property of this kind, by including any wild animal, or bird, or fish within the list of those which can only be destroyed at certain seasons; the county courts deciding the question in each case. Hitherto more attention has been paid to the preservation of game on Long Island than in any other part of this State; and although so near New York, although the laws are very imperfectly administered in these, as in some other respects, yet the efforts of the Long Islanders have succeeded in a degree at least. The deer, for instance, are said to be actually increasing there, and until lately they have preserved more game-birds than in most other counties; they still have, or had quite lately, a few of the fine pinnated grouse. In this county very little attention has been paid to this subject, and probably everything of the kind will soon disappear from our woods. The reckless extermination of the game in the United States would seem, indeed, without a precedent in the history of the world. Probably the buffaloes will be entirely swept from prairies, once covered with their herds, by this generation.
The wood-ducks brought in this morning were both drakes, but young, and consequently they had not acquired their beautiful plumage. We had one for dinner; it was very delicate; a
​canvas-back could scarcely have been more so. These ducks are summer visitors to our lake. Unlike others of their family, they build nests in trees. They are said to be one of the two most beautiful species in the world, the other being the Mandarin Duck of China. Ours are chiefly confined to the fresh waters of the interior, being seldom found on the sea-shore. They are said frequently to build in the same tree for several seasons. Mr. Wilson gives a pleasing account of a nest he had seen on the banks of the Tuckahoe River, New Jersey:—“The tree was an old grotesque white oak, whose top had been torn off by a storm. In this hollow and broken top, and about six feet down, on the soft, decayed wood, lay thirteen eggs, snugly covered with down, doubtless taken from the breast of the bird. The eggs were of the highest polish, fine in the grain, greatly resembling old polished ivory. This tree had been occupied, probably by the same pair, for four successive years in breeding-time; the person who gave me the information, and whose house was within twenty or thirty yards of the tree, said that he had seen the female, the spring preceding, carry down thirteen young, one by one, in less than ten minutes. She caught them in her bill by the wing, or the back of the neck, and landed them safely at the foot of the tree, when she afterward led them to the water. Under this same tree, at the time I visited it, a large sloop lay on the stocks, nearly finished; the deck was not more than twelve feet distant from the nest, yet notwithstanding the presence and the noise of the workmen, the ducks would not abandon their old breeding-place, but continued to pass out and in, as if no person had been near. The male usually perched on an adjoining limb, and kept watch while the female was laying, and also often while she was
​sitting. A tame goose had chosen a hollow space at the root of the same tree, to lay and hatch her young in.”
The feathers of these beautiful birds are said to be frequently used by the Indians to ornament their calumet, or Pipe of Peace; the head and neck of the wood-duck are frequently seen covering the stem of the pipe.
* WOOD DUCK.
​ Owing to the richness of its plumage, Linnaeus gave this bird the name of the Bridal Duck, Anas Sponsa, and it is singular that the bird which approaches nearest to ours, the Mandarin Duck of China, figures regularly in the marriage procession of the Chinese; not, however, from its beauty, but as an emblem of conjugal fidelity, for which good quality they are remarkable. A story is told of a female in the aviary of a European gentleman at Macao, who all but starved herself to death when her husband was carried off, and would probably have died had he not been found and restored to her. The joy of both at meeting was extreme, and the husband celebrated his return by putting to death a rival drake who had been trying, but in vain, to console his mourning partner. We have never heard whether our own birds are remarkable for the same good quality or not, but their returning to the same nest for years, looks, at least, as if they mated for life.
Wednesday, 27th.—Decided white frost last night. The trees show it perceptibly in a heightened tint of coloring, rising here and there; some single maples in the village streets are vividly crimson. But the general tint is still green.
Many birds flying about in parties. Some of the goldfinches still wear their summer colors, yellow and black. Walking in the lane, we came upon a large mixed flock, feeding on the thistles and silkweed of an adjoining field which is overrun with
​these weeds. There were goldfinches, blue-birds, sparrows, robins; and perched in a tree, at no great distance, were several meadow-larks apparently attracted by the crowd, for they sat quietly looking on. Altogether there must have been several hundreds in the flock, for there were frequently six or eight hanging upon one thistle-stalk. Some were feeding busily; others were flitting about, now on the fences, now in the road. It was a gay, pretty sight. We disturbed them, of course, passing in their midst; but they did not seem much alarmed. Taking flight, as we came close upon them, they alighted again on the rails and weeds, a few yards beyond, repeating over and over the same movement as we walked slowly on, until more than half the flock had actually accompanied us in this way a good piece of road, called near a quarter of a mile. They seemed half convinced that we meant no harm to them. As we reached the end of the lane and turned into the highway, some went back to their feast; others, as it was near sunset, flew away in parties.
The numbers of these autumn flocks vary very much with the seasons; some years they are much more numerous than others. After a cold, late spring, we have comparatively few. Many birds at such times, probably, stop short on their spring journey, remaining farther south; and others, alas! are destroyed by a severe untimely frost. Not long since, early in the season, a large party of blue-birds arrived in the village. We watched them with much interest; their brilliant plumage of silvery blue showing beautifully as they flitted about in the sunshine; and added to their gentle, harmless character and pleasant note, this makes them very desirable birds to have about a house and on a lawn. We observed no less than three pairs building under the eaves, at the
​time referred to, passing up and down before the windows twenty times a day, and several others were going in and out of holes and chinks of the trees in sight. One night there came a hard frost, followed by a fall of snow; the next day six of these pretty blue-birds were picked up dead in one cluster in our own garden, and several others were said to be lying about the grounds. They seemed to have collected together to warm themselves. That summer we saw very few blue-birds, and the following autumn there was scarcely a large flock of them seen in the neighborhood.
Fine sunset; the evening still and quiet. The lake beautiful in its reflections of the sky. Soft barred clouds were floating above the hills, and the color of each lay faithfully repeated on the water;—pink, violet, gray, and blue in successive fields.
Thursday, 28th.—In our walk, this afternoon, observed a broad field upon a hill-side covered with the white silvery heads of the everlastings. The country people sometimes call these plants “moonshine,” and really the effect in the evening upon so broad a field reminded one of moonlight. These flowers deserve the name of “everlasting;” some of them begin to bloom early in the spring, and they continue in blossom until the latest days of autumn. They are extremely common here; one of our characteristic plants.
A noisy flock of blue-jays collected in the wood behind us as we were standing on Mount ——. They were hunting for nuts, and chattering like monkeys. Their cry is anything but musical, but they are certainly very handsome birds. There is another kind of jay—the Canada jay—sometimes seen in this State; it is not so fine a bird as the common sort. These birds are said to
​eat all sorts of things; just now they are frequently mischievous in the maize-fields. They are good mimics, when trained, and a little given to thieving, like the magpie. We do not quarrel with them, however, for they are one of the few birds that pass the winter in our woods: at least, some of their flocks remain here, though others probably go off toward the coast.
BLUE JAY. :
| G. P. Putnam, N. Y. | Lith. of Wm. Endicott & Co. |
​ Friday, 29th.—Great change in the weather. Chilly, pinching day. The county fair of the Agricultural Society is now going on in the village, which is thronged with wagons and chilly-looking people. Three or four thousand persons, men, women, and children, sometimes attend these fairs; to-day the village is thought more crowded than it has been any time this year; neither the circus, nor menagerie, nor election, has collected so many people as the Fair.
The cattle-show is said to be respectable; the ploughing match and speech were also pronounced creditable to the occasion. Within doors there is the usual exhibition of farm produce and manufactures. The first department consists of butter, cheese, maple sugar, honey, a noble pumpkin, about five feet in circumference; some very fine potatoes, of the Carter and pink-eye varieties, looking as though there were no potato-disease in the world; some carrots and turnips also. Apples were the only fruit exhibited. Some of the butter and cheese was pronounced very good; and both the maple sugar and honey were excellent. Altogether, however, this part of the show was meagre; assuredly we might do much more than has yet been done in this county, with our vegetables and fruits. And a little more attention to the arrangement of the few objects of this kind exhibited at the Fair, is desirable; people take great pains in arranging a room for a
​public ball or dinner; but an exhibition of this kind is of far more real interest and importance than any meeting for mere amusement. These agricultural fairs are among the most pleasing as well as most important gatherings we country people know of.
The cattle and the domestic manufactures form much the most important features in our fairs. The stock of this county is not thought remarkable, I believe, either one way or the other; but some prizes from the State Society have been distributed among us. Our domestic manufactures, however, are really very interesting, and highly creditable to the housewives of the county. Some of the flannels and carpeting are of excellent quality. A very short time since, before imported carpets were reduced as low in price as they are to-day, a large amount of carpeting was made by families in the inland counties, and some of the best houses were carpeted throughout with domestic manufactures, the wool being raised on the farm, and spun, dyed, and woven in the house, or in the immediate neighborhood. At this moment many such carpets are found in our county, and are probably thought imported by those who are not aware how much work of the kind is done among our rural population. Some are made on the Venetian patterns, like stair carpeting, but others are imitations of ingrain. There is still another kind of carpeting, more humble in quality, much used in the country, rag carpeting, some of which may be seen in every farm-house, and common in the villages also; strips of cotton, woollen, or linen are cut, sewed together, and dyed of different colors, when they are woven with a warp of tow, in Venetian patterns. Some of these are very pretty and neat. One of the best and largest country inns in the interior of this State is almost wholly carpeted in this way. In
​Europe these rag carpets are not seen, at least not on the common track of travellers, and possibly they are an invention of our great-grandmothers after they had crossed the ocean. Or it may be that they are found in English farm-houses off the common route.
Besides excellent flannels and carpeting, we saw very good shawls, stamped table-covers, blankets, shirting and sheeting, towelling and table linen; leather and morocco; woollen stockings, mittens, gloves, and socks; very neat shoes and boots, on Paris patterns; embroidery, and fancy work of several kinds; some very good broadcloth; pretty plaid and striped woollen materials, for dresses; handsome bed-quilts, of unusually pretty patterns, and well quilted, &c., &c. Altogether this was the most creditable part of the in-door exhibition. Every one must feel an interest in these fairs; and it is to be hoped they will become more and more a source of improvement and advantage in everything connected with farming, gardening, dairy-work, manufacturing, mechanical, and household labors.
The butter and cheese of this county ought to be of the very highest quality. That of our best dairies already commands a high price in the large towns; but with plenty of grass, good spring water in abundance, and a comparatively cool summer climate, there ought not to be a pound of bad butter to be found here. Unfortunately, a great deal of a very indifferent kind is made and eaten; and yet bad butter is almost as injurious to health as bad air, of which we hear so much now-a-days. At the taverns it is seldom that one meets with tolerable butter.
Saturday, 30th.—Milder again. There are still many grasshoppers thronging the fields and road-sides of warm days. The
​turkeys, however, make great havoc among them; these birds fatten very much on the grasshoppers of September.
Monday, October 2d.—Soft, half-cloudy day; something of spring in the atmosphere. The woods also are spring-like in their appearance to-day: many trees are just on the verge of turning, colored in light, delicate greens of every tint; the effect is very beautiful, and strangely like May. But here and there, amid these pleasing varieties of verdure, we find a brilliant flash of scarlet or crimson, reminding us that we are near the close of the year, under the influence of bright autumn, and not of gentle spring.
Drive and walk. Sat upon the cliffs enjoying the view. The day was perfectly still, the lake calm and placid, the reflection of its banks more than usually lovely in its clearness and accuracy; the changing woods, each brilliant tree, the hills, farms, and buildings were all repeated with wonderful fidelity, and all the sweetness of the natural landscape.
Gathered quite a pretty bunch of flowers; asters, everlastings, golden-rods, bird-bell, innocence, pink and yellow fumitory, and a bunch of white blackberry flowers, blooming out of season. Found some of the fruit, also, quite eatable still; a rose-berry also, here and there. Some of the leaves of these bushes, the rose-raspberry, are very large, among the largest leaves we have; measured one this morning of unusual size, twelve inches and a half in breadth. The bush grew in a moist, shady spot.
Many butterflies sailing over the fields. The yellow butterflies are the earliest to come, and the last to leave us; they seem more social in their habits than most of their kind, for you generally see them in parties, often in the meadows, often on the highways.
​Not long since we saw a troop of these little creatures, a dozen or more, fluttering over a muddy spot in the road, as they often do,—whether to drink or not, I do not know; there was a cottage and a blacksmith-shop close at hand, and a pretty white kitten had strayed out to sun herself. As we came to the spot puss was in the midst of the butterflies at quiet, gentle play with them; they did not seem to mind her good-natured taps at all, avoiding them by flitting about, but without any signs of alarm, still hovering over the same spot; we watched them a moment, and then, fearful that puss might wound some of her little play-fellows, we took her up and set her on the fence.
Heard a cat-bird and jays in the woods. Heard a gun also, boding mischief to partridges or pigeons.
Sat down to look at the water, and a bit of pebbly shore, many feet below. Counted the flowers of a tall mullein spike, which measured thirty-three inches in length; it bore five hundred and seventy flowers, or rather seed-vessels, for it was out of blossom; each of these seed-vessels was filled with tiny dark seed, probably by the hundred, for I had not the time or patience to count these. No wonder that mulleins are common; they must yield fruit ten thousand-fold! The birds do not seem to like their seed; they are not seen feeding on the mullein stalks, as we see them on the thistles every day.
Wednesday, 3d.—Pleasant. The varied greens of yesterday are already gone; light, delicate yellows prevail to-day, and the groves remind us of what we read of the golden gardens of the Incas, in the vale of Cuzco. Scarlet and crimson are increasing also; it seems singular, but the sumachs, which a few days since were a dark reddish purple, are now taking a bright scarlet, a
​much lighter tint, while the usual progress with the coloring of the foliage is from light to dark. The Virginia creeper is vivid cherry color, as usual, and its leaves are already dropping; they are always the first to fall. The birches are yellow, more so than usual; the elms also; the lime-trees deep orange. The aspens are quite green still, as well as the Lombardy poplars, and the willows.
They are digging the potatoes; the crop is not a bad one in this neighborhood; some of the Carters, especially, are very fine, large and mealy; and there is generally but little of the decay yet. Some of the farmers expect to lose only a fourth of the crop, others more, some few even less. But the disease often shows itself after the potatoes are in the cellar.
Wednesday, 4th.—Sky soft, but cloudy. How rapid are the changes in the foliage at this season! One can almost see the colors growing brighter. The yellows are more decided, the scarlet and crimson spreading farther, with a pink flush rising on many trees where yellow prevails, especially among the maples. Still there is a clear vein of green perceptible; not the verdure of the pine and hemlock, but the lighter greens of the aspens and beeches, with some oaks and chestnuts not yet touched. Indeed, the woods are very beautiful to-day; the general effect is charming, while here and there we note a scarlet maple, a golden birch, so brilliantly vivid that we are really amazed at the richness and beauty of their coloring.
The children are out nutting; it is the chestnuts which are the chief attraction with them—they are very common here. A merry group of boys and girls were chatting away in the “Chestnut Grove” this afternoon, as we passed. Black walnuts are not
​so frequent, and the butternuts in this immediate neighborhood are rare; in some parts of the county they abound. Beech-nuts are plenty. Hazel-nuts are rare, and our hickory-nuts are not as good as “Thiskytoms” should be. Still, all things with kernels are “nuts” to boys, and the young rogues make furious attacks upon all the chestnut, walnut, and hickory trees in the neighborhood; they have already stripped the walnut-trees about the village of all their leaves; these are disposed to fall early, but the boys beat the branches so unmercifully that they become quite bare as soon as the fruit is ripe.
A large party of pretty little wrens were feeding on the haws of an old thorn-tree by the road-side. Perhaps they were winter wrens, which are found in this State, and remain here through the year. We do not remember, however, to have ever seen a wren in this county, during our coldest months.
Thursday, 5th.—The woods are very fine, under the cloudy sky, to-day. Scarlet, crimson, pink, and dark red increasing rapidly—gaining upon the yellows. So much the better; seasons where yellow prevails are far from being our finest autumns. The more crimson and scarlet we have to blend with the orange and straw colors, the gayer we are. Still, this seems rather a yellow year; for the elms and hickories—which often wither and turn brown, without much beauty—are very handsome just now, in clear shades of yellow, fluttering in the breeze like gold-leaf; while the chestnuts, birches, wych-hazel, and many maples, as usual, wear the same colors. Although there are certain general rules regarding the coloring of the trees, still they vary with different seasons; some which were red last year may be yellow
​this autumn, and others which were dull russet may be bright gold color. The other day we found a wood-path strewed, at one spot, with pink aspen-leaves; but the general color of this tree is a decided yellow, nor do I ever remember to have seen its foliage pink before this instance; still there was no mistake about the matter, the leaves belonged to the large aspen, and they were clearly pink. They looked, however, as if they had first turned yellow, and then a coat of rich warm lake had been laid on afterward. Maples frequently go through the same process.
Some of the oaks are turning deep red, others scarlet. The ashes are already dark purple. But while most of the foliage is gaining in brilliancy, bare limbs are already seen here and there; the Virginia creepers are all but leafless, so are the black walnuts; and the balm of Gilead poplar is losing its large leaves. Such is Autumn: prodigal in her magnificence, scattering largesse with a liberal hand, she is yet careless, and regardless of finish in the lesser details; she flings cloth of gold over the old chestnut, and Tyrian purple upon the oak; while the neighboring grape-vine hangs a dull and blighted garland of russet upon the forgotten aspen, still green. Spring has a dainty hand, a delicate pencil; no single tree, shrub, plant, or weed, is left untouched by her; but Autumn delights rather in the breadth and grandeur of her labors, she is careless of details. Spring works lovingly—Autumn, proudly, magnificently.
Friday, 6th.—Beautiful day. House-cleaning going on in the village; happily, the labors of the task at this season are less tremendous and overwhelming than in spring; it is a matter of two or three days, instead of weeks.
​The woods are brilliant in the sunshine. There is still a vein of green, however, running through the forest, independently of the pines and firs.
In our stroll this evening we saw several flocks of birds, waterfowl and other smaller birds, moving steadily to the southward. These flocks give much interest to the autumn sky; they are often seen now, but are not common at other seasons—unless, indeed, it be in picture-books, where every landscape is provided with a nondescript flock of its own, quite as a matter of course. Through the spring and summer, the birds live with us, in our own atmosphere, among our own groves and plants, every-day companions; but at this season they soar above us, and we look up at the little creatures with a sort of respect, as we behold the wonderful powers with which they are endowed, sailing in the heavens, over hill and dale, flood and town, toward lands which we may never hope to see.
Saturday, 7th.—Charming weather. The woods on the hills are glorious in the sunshine, the golden light playing about their leafy crests, as though it took pleasure in kindling such rich coloring. The red of the oaks grows deeper, the chestnuts are of a brighter gold color. Still a touch of green in the woods; the foliage of the beech struggles a long time to preserve its verdure, the brownish yellow creeps over it very slowly; most trees turn more rapidly, as though they took pleasure in the change.
Butterflies fluttering about in the sunshine; dragon-flies also, “la demoiselle dorée,” as the French call them—strange, that what is a young lady in France should become a dragon across the Channel! Many grasshoppers by the road-sides. Small gnat-like flies abound, in flocks,
* “borne aloft,
* Or sinking, as the light wind lives or dies.”
Beautiful moonlight this evening, with a decided frosty feeling in the air. The moon was determined to show us what she could do toward lighting up the autumn foliage at night; the effect was singular, as seen in the trees about the lawn. A dreamy fugitive coloring of scarlet and yellow seemed to be thrown over the sumachs and maples, near the house; and even upon the hills, in spots where the light fell with all its power, the difference between the colored belts of yellow or scarlet, and the darker evergreens, was quite perceptible.
Monday, 9th.—As the sun rose the lake lay buried in mist, which gradually rolled away, with sea-like glimpses of the water. The leaves of the locusts are shrivelled by the frost, and dropping rapidly and silently from the branches; several trees on the lawn will be all but bare to-night. The foliage always falls as much after a sharp frost as from the effect of a high wind; such mornings as this the leaves drop calmly and silently to the earth, but the stormy winds tear them angrily from the trees, and drive them wildly from grove to grove, from field to field, ere they rest beneath their shroud of snow.
The air is quite sharp this morning, and the birds come fluttering about the windows, as though it were more chilly than they liked out of doors; we saw several robins, sparrows, and goldfinches about the windows in different parts of the house. One goldfinch, in full color, flew against the glass pane. One would gladly open to the little creatures, but if we approach the window they are frightened, and fly off again; it is a pity we cannot make them understand they would be very welcome to warm
​themselves and then fly away at will. Probably they take the house for a respectable sort of cave, where they mean to shelter themselves from the frosty air a while; but as they never come until toward the last of the season, it looks very much as if they wished to say good-bye, and inquire if we have any messages for our friends in Carolina.
A handsome Antiopa butterfly, brown and buflf, also came fluttering about a window of the second story several times in the course of the morning, coming and going, as if anxious to find its way in. At last we opened the window, but it was frightened by the noise, and fluttered away. These large and handsome butterflies are longer-lived than many of their companions; they outlive the winter, by clinging to the rafters of barns and out-buildings, or concealing themselves in sheltered crevices of walls, where they remain in a torpid state until the mild weather in spring, when they come out again, and may occasionally be seen flitting about among the leafless and flowerless shrubs of March and April.
Tuesday, 10th.—Mild. Showery morning, bright afternoon. Pleasant walk on the lake-road. The pines are clear green again, having cast their rusty leaves. A few cones also are dropping, but many hang on the trees through the winter.
A few years since, those who followed this road, along the lake shore, frequently met an old man, coming and going in this direction, whose venerable appearance would probably have attracted a stranger's attention. His head was white with the honors of fourscore and upward, yet his tall, slender figure was erect and active, showing few marks of age; and his face was remarkable for a kindly, benevolent expression, a bright, healthy eye, and
​ruddy complexion. This old man led a singular life, partaking of the retirement and simplicity of that of a hermit, with the active benevolence of a different class of men. With children living in the village, and calling the house of a daughter his home, he loved the quiet solitude of the fields; and, unwilling to be idle, so long as he had strength to work, the good old man applied to the owner of the land in this direction for a spot to till; his request was complied with, and he chose a little patch within a short walk of the village. Early in the morning, before sunrise, he would go out into the woods, frequently remaining out the whole day, only bending his steps homeward toward evening. Often he might be seen at work with his spade or his hoe, about the little field which he was the first man to till; he made a fence of the decayed logs lying about, collected the rubbish and brushwood and burned it, then ploughed, and planted maize and potatoes. Often, when missed from his field, he has been found sitting among the bushes reading his Bible or his hymn-book, or kneeling in prayer. On the hill-side, at no great distance from his little clearing, there is a shallow cave, well known in the neighborhood, and many a summer morning, before the village bell has rung for sunrise, the good old man has been kneeling there, in earnest prayer for the people of the sleeping town at his feet. Much of his time was passed in prayer, in reading the Holy Scriptures, and singing pious hymns, with his pleasant old voice. He always had a smiling, friendly greeting for his acquaintances, and expressed a very warm interest in the children and grandchildren of those he had known in earlier days; he never met a young person of his acquaintance without some solemn words of good advice, and a blessing, given with earnest sincerity.
​Occasionally he would visit his different friends in the village, and although his object was generally of a charitable or religious nature, yet he loved to talk of past times with those whose memories went back to the first years of the little colony. He had been a miller by trade, and came into the county at an early day, and of course knew much of the history of this rural community. But he had also other recollections of a more ambitious nature; for he had begun life as a soldier, during the troubles of the Revolution, having belonged to the “Jersey line;” and it was with some latent pride that he would relate how he had, more than once, stood sentinel before the tent of General Washington, and seen “His Excellency” go in and out. His recollection of the battle of Long Island, and the celebrated retreat across the East River, was particularly good; his old cheek would flush, and his mild eye grow brighter, as he told the incidents of that day and night; while the listener must needs smile to see the young soldier thus getting the better of the peaceful old solitary. His activity was unusual for such advanced years: a great walker, he never used horse or wagon if he could help it; and at the age of eighty-two he walked forty miles in one day, to visit a friend in the next county. He ate only the simplest food, and never drank anything but water, or a bowl of milk now and then; and this temperance, added to regular exercise and light labor in the fields, with a mind at peace, were no doubt the cause of the good health and activity be enjoyed so late in life. This excellent man was a striking example of what the Holy Scriptures alone may do for the honest, simple heart, who endeavors faithfully to carry out the two great commandments—loving our Maker with all the heart, and doing unto others as we would have others do to us.
​Full of simple piety and benevolence, temperate, frugal, and industrious, single-minded, and upright in word and deed, his conduct in all these respects was such as to command the respect and veneration of those who knew him. It was like a blessing to meet so good a man in one's daily walks. Such an instance of honorable integrity and simple piety was a strong encouragement to perseverance in duty, among the many examples of a very opposite character—examples of weakness, folly, and sin, which hourly crossed one's path.
Not long since, during the cold weather in winter, the village heard with regret that their venerable old neighbor had fallen on the ice, and broken a leg; from that time he has been compelled to give up his field labors, having become quite infirm. Bowed down with age and debility, his mind often wanders; but on the subject nearest his heart, he is still himself. He may be seen occasionally, of a pleasant day, sitting alone in the lane near his daughter's door, scarcely heeding what passes before him; his eyes closed, his hands clasped, and his lips moving in prayer. If one stops to offer him a respectful greeting, he shakes his head, acknowledging that memory fails him, but he still bestows a blessing with his feeble voice and dim eye—“God bless you, my friend, whoever you be!”
The little patch of ground enclosed by logs, just within the edge of the wood, and the frequent turning-point in our walks, was the good man's clearing. It now lies waste and deserted. A solitary sweet-briar has sprung up lately by the road-side, before the rude fence. This delightful shrub is well known to be a stranger in the forest, never appearing until the soil has been broken by the plough; and it seems to have sprung up just here
​expressly to mark the good man's tillage. Tall mullein-stalks, thistles, and weeds fill the place where the old husbandman gathered his little crop of maize and potatoes; every season the traces of tillage become more and more faint in the little field; a portion of the log fence has fallen, and this summer the fern has gained rapidly upon the mulleins and thistles. The silent spirit of the woods seems creeping over the spot again.
Wednesday, 11th.—Autumn would appear to have received generally a dull character from the poets of the Old World; probably if one could gather all the passages relating to the season, scattered among the pages of these writers, a very large proportion would be found of a grave nature. English verse is full of sad images applied to the season, and often more particularly to the foliage.
“The chilling autumn, angry winter,”
are linked together by Shakspeare.
“The sallow autumn fills thy laps with leaves,”
writes Collins.
* O pensive autumn, how I grieve
* Thy sorrowing face to see,
* When languid suns are taking leave
* Of every drooping tree!”
says Shenstone.
“Ye trees that fade when autumn heats remove,”
says Pope.
“Autumn, melancholy wight!”
exclaims Wordsworth. And hundreds of similar lines might be
​given; for very many of the English poets seem to have felt a November chill at their fingers' ends when alluding to the subject.
The writers of France tell much the same tale of Autumn, across the Channel.
“Plus pâle, que la pâle automne,”
says Millevoye, in his touching lament.
* “la pâle Automne
* D'une main languissante, effeuillant sa couronne,”
writes Delille; and again,
* “Dirai-je à quels désastres,
* De l'Automne orageux nous exposent les astres?”
And again,
* “Voyez comment l'Automne nébuleux
* Tous les ans, pour gémir, nous amène en ces lieux.”
St. Lambert tells us of fogs and mists, in his sing-song verses, his “ormeaux, et rameaux, et hameaux.”
* Ces voiles suspendus qui cachent à la terre
* Le ciel qui la couronne, et l'astre qui l'éclaire
* Préparent les mortels au retour des frimas.
* Mais la feuille en tombant, du pampre dépouillé
* Découvre le raisin, de rubis émaillé.”
Observe that he was the especial poet of the seasons, and bound to fidelity in their behalf; and yet, painting Autumn during the vintage, he already covers the sky with clouds, and talks of “frimas.”
| “ | Salut, bois couronnés d'en reste de verdure |
| | Feuillage, jaunissant sur les gazons épars,” |
writes M. de Lamartine, in his beautiful but plaintive verses to the season.
In Germany we shall find much the same tone prevailing.
“In des Herbstes welkem Kranze,”
says Schiller; and again,
| “ | Wenn der Frühlings Kinder sterben, |
| | Wenn vom Norde's kaltem Hauch |
| | Blatt und Blume sich entfärben—” |
As for the noble poets of Italy, summer makes up half their year; the character of autumn is less decided; she is scarcely remembered until the last days of her reign, and then she would hardly be included among “i mesi gai.”
In short, while gay imagery has been lavished upon Spring and Summer, Autumn has more frequently received a sort of feuille morte drapery, by way of contrast. Among the older poets, by which are meant all who wrote previously to the last hundred years, these grave touches, in connection with autumn, are particularly common; and instances of an opposite character are comparatively seldom met with.
There were exceptions, however. Such glowing poets as Spenser and Thomson threw a warmer tint into their pictures of the season. But, strange to say, while paying her this compliment, they became untrue to nature—they robbed Summer to deck Autumn in her spoils. They both—British poets, as they were—put off the grain-harvest until September, when in truth the wheat-sheaf belongs especially to August, in England; that month
​is given up to its labors, and it is only the very last sheaves which are gathered in September. Yet hear what Spenser says:
* Then came the Automne, all in yellow clad,
* As though she joyed in her plenteous store.
* Laden with fruit that made her laugh full glad ;
* Upon her head a wreath, which was enrolde
* With eares of corne of every sort, she bore.
* And in her hand a sickle she did holde,
* To reap the ripened fruits the earth did yolde.”
The ears of corn, and the sickle, were certainly the rightful property of Summer, who had already been spending weeks in the harvest-field. Thomson first introduces the season in very much the same livery as Spenser, as we may all remember:
* Grown'd with the sickle, and the wheaten sheaf,
* While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
* Comes jovial on;.....
* ....broad and brown, below.
* Extensive harvests hang the heavy head:—”
In classic days Spring was seen crowned with flowers; Summer with grain; Autumn with fruits; and Winter with reeds. All the four seasons, the Anni of Roman mythology, took a masculine form. Traces of this may be found in the gender given to the different seasons, grammatically speaking, in the principal modern tongues of Europe, for they are chiefly masculine. In Italian, spring, la primavera, is feminine; l'estate, l'autumno, l'inverno, are masculine; in verse, il verno is occasionally used for winter; and the gender of summer is sometimes changed to a feminine substantive, la state. In German, der Frühling, der Sommer, der Winter, der Herbst, are all masculine, and so is the
​more poetical word, der Lenz, for spring; but the Germans, as we all know, have peculiar notions on the subject of gender, for they have made the sun feminine, and the moon masculine. The Spaniards have adopted the same words as the Italians, with the same genders—la primavera, el verano or el estio, el otoño, el invierno, spring alone being feminine. In French, we have them all masculine, strictly speaking, le printemps, l'été, l'automne, l'hiver; but by one of the very few licenses permitted in French grammar, autumn occasionally becomes feminine, in a sense half poetical, half euphonical. Strictly speaking, we are taught that, with an adjective preceding it, autumn, in French, is always masculine.
| “ | Ou quand sur les côteaux le vigoureux Automne |
| | Etalait ses raisins dont Bacchus se couronne;” |
while with the adjective coming after, it is feminine: “une automne delicieuse,” says Madame de Sévigné. But this rule is often neglected in verse, by the same writers who are quoted as authority for it, as we have seen in “la pâle automne” of Delille; the feeling and tact of the individual seem to decide the question; and this is one of the very few instances in which such liberty is allowed to the French poet. As might be supposed, the variation becomes a grace; and probably if something more of the same freedom were generally diffused through the language, the poetry of France would have more of that life and spirit which is now chiefly confined to her greater writers in verse. In that case, we should have had more than one Lafontaine to delight us.
In English, thanks to our neuter gender, poets are allowed to do as they choose in this matter; and in many cases they have chosen to represent all three of the earlier seasons in a feminine form—not
​only spring and summer, but autumn also—as we have just seen in the case of Spenser. Thomson, however, has made Summer a youth, a sort of Apollo:
* Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes
* He comes attended by the sultry hours,
* And ever fanning breezes on his way.”
And his autumn also, “crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,” scarcely looks like a female.
In climates still warmer than those of Greece and Rome, the ears of grain might correctly have been woven into the wreath of May. Ruth must have gleaned the fields of Boaz during the month of May, or some time between the Passover and Pentecost—festivals represented by our Easter and Whitsunday—for that was the harvest-time of Judea.
Many of the poets of our mother-speech have, however, followed the examples of Spenser and Thomson, in representing autumn as the season of the grain-harvest in England. Among others, Keats, who also gives a glowing picture of the season, in those verses, full of poetical images, beginning—
| “ | Season of mists, and mellow fruitfulness! |
| | Close bosom friend of the maturing sun.” |
He then asks, “Who has not often seen thee
* ..sitting careless on a granary floor,
* Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
* Or on a half-reaped furrow lain asleep,
* Drows'd with the fume of poppies; while thy hook
* Spares the next swathe, and all its twined flowers!”
But while such poets as Spenser and Thomson give a warmer
​picture of the season than many of their contemporaries, on another point, at which we are looking just now, they do not differ from others—neither of them sees any beauty in the foliage of the season. It is true, Thomson speaks, in one line, of
“Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods,”
but this seems an accidental epithet, for it does not occur in the descriptive part of the season. When he is expressly engaged in painting autumn for us, he tells us of the “tawny copse.” Another passage of his commences in a way which at first leads one to expect some praise of the autumn foliage, for he speaks of the “many-colored woods.” To an American, this immediately suggests the idea of scarlet and golden tints; but he proceeds in a very different tone—his “many-colored woods” are all sad.
* Shade deep'ning over shade, the country round
* Imbrown: a clouded umbrage, dusk and dun,
* Of ev'ry hue, from wan declining green
* To sooty dark.”
Sober enough, in good sooth. And then he strips the trees amid gloomy fogs and mists:
* And o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams;
* Till chok'd and matted with the dreary shower,
* The forest walks at ev'ry rising gale
* Roll wide the wither'd waste.”
It would require a general and accurate knowledge of English verse, and a very correct memory, to say positively that no allusion to the beauty of the autumnal woods may be found in the older poets of England; but certainly, if such are to be met with, they do not lie within the range of every-day reading. Are there
​any such in Milton, skillful as he was in picturing the groves and bowers of Eden?
| “ | Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks |
| | In Vallambrosa,” |
will occur to the memory; but we have no coloring here. Is there a single line of this nature in Shakspeare, among the innumerable comparisons in which his fancy luxuriated? Shall we find one in the glowing pages of Spenser? In Dryden? In Chaucer, so minute in description, and delighting so heartily in nature—from the humble daisy to the great oaks, with “their leavès newe?” One is almost confident that in these, and every other instance, the answer will prove a negative.
Much the boldest touch of the kind, remembered at present, in European verse, is found in a great French rural writer, Delille; speaking of the woods in Autumn, he says:
| “ | Le pourpre, l'orangé, l'opale, l'incarnat, |
| | De leurs riches couleurs étalent l'abondance.” |
But these lines stand almost alone, differing entirely from other descriptions of the season by himself and many of his countrymen, with whom it has very generally been “la pâle automne.” Probably in these lines Delille had some particular season in view. European autumn is not always dull; she has her bright days, and at times a degree of beauty in her foliage. From the more northern countries, as far south of Italy, one may occasionally see something of this kind, reminding one of the season in America. More than a hundred years since, Addison alluded briefly, in his travels, to the beauty of the autumnal woods in Southern Germany, where, indeed, the foliage is said to be finer
​than in any other part of Europe: but nowhere, I believe, has he given the colored leaves a place in verse. Delille, it must be remembered, was a more modern poet, writing at the close of the last and the commencement of the present century; and just about that time allusions of this kind were finding their way into the literature of Europe.
A very decided change in this respect has indeed taken place within the last fifty or sixty years. English writers, particularly, seem suddenly to have discovered Autumn under a new character; two very different pictures are now given of her; one is still “Autumn, melancholy wight!” while the other bears a much gayer expression. Just now allusions to beautiful “autumnal tints” have become very much the fashion in English books of all sorts; and one might think the leaves had been dyed, for the first time, to please the present generation. In reality, there can hardly have been any change in this respect since the days of Chaucer; whence, then, comes this altered tone?
Some foundation for the change may doubtless be found in the fact, that all descriptive writing, on natural objects, is now much less vague and general than it was formerly; it has become very much more definite and accurate within the last half century. Some persons have attributed this change, so far as it regards England, to the taste for landscape painting, which has been so generally cultivated in that country during the same period Probably this has had its effect. The partiality for a more natural style in gardening may also have done something toward bringing the public mind round to a natural taste on all rural subjects. It is seldom, however, that a great change in public taste or opinion is produced by a single direct cause only; there are generally many
​lesser collateral causes working together, aiding and strengthening each other meanwhile, ere decided results are produced. This is perceptible in small matters, as well as in matters of importance. Something more than a mere partiality for landscape painting has been at work; people had grown tired of mere vapid, conventional repetitions, they felt the want of something more positive, more real; the head called for more of truth, the heart for more of life. And so, writers began to look out of the window more frequently; when writing a pastoral they turned away from the little porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses, standing in high-heeled shoes and powdered wigs upon every mantel-piece, and they fixed their eyes upon the real living Roger and Dolly in the hay-field. Then they came to see that it would do just as well, nay, far better, to seat Roger and Dolly under a hawthorn, or an oak of merry England, than to paint them beneath a laurel, or an ilex of Greece or Rome; in short, they learned at length to look at nature by the light of the sun, and not by the glimmerings of the poet's lamp. And a great step this was, not only in art, but in moral and intellectual progress. One of the first among the later English poets, who led
​the way back into the track of truth, was the simple, kindly, upright Cowper; and assuredly it was a task worthy of a Christian poet—that of endeavoring to paint the works of the Creation in their native dignity, rather than tricked out in conventional devices of man.
Still, all this might have taken place without producing that especial attention to autumn, perceptible in later English writers; that very frequent mention of its softer days and varied foliage, which marks a change of feeling from the “chilling autumn” of Shakspeare, and the foliage “dusk and dun” of Thomson. One is led to believe that the American autumn has helped to set the fashion for the sister season of the Old World; that the attention which the season commands in this country, has opened the eyes of Europeans to any similar graces of the same months in their own climates; the gloom is less heeded by them, while every pleasing touch is noted with gratification. In the same way, we now see frequent allusions to the “Indian summer” by Englishmen, in their own island, where this last sweet smile of the declining year was entirely unheeded until its very marked character in this country had attracted admiration. Our native writers, as soon as we had writers of our own, pointed out very early both the sweetness of the Indian summer, and the magnificence of the autumnal changes. In fact, they must have been dull and blind not to have marked both these features of the season, as we usually
​enjoy them. And here, indeed, we find the precise extent of the difference between the relative beauty of autumn in Europe and in America: with us it is quite impossible to overlook these peculiar charms of the autumnal months; while in Europe, though not wholly wanting, they remained unnoticed, unobserved, for ages. Had the same soft atmosphere of the “Indian summer” warmed the woods of Windsor, year after year, while Geoffrey Chaucer roamed among their glades, the English would have had a word or a phrase to express the charm of such days, before they borrowed one from another continent. Had the maples, and oaks, and ashes, on the banks of the Avon, colored the waters of that stream, year after year, with their own scarlet, and crimson, and purple, while Will. Shakspeare, the bailiff's son, was shooting his arrows on its banks, we should have found many a rich and exquisite image connected with autumnal hours hovering about the footsteps of Lear and Hamlet, Miranda and Imogen, and Rosalind. Had the woods of England been as rich as our own, their branches would have been interwoven among the masques of Ben Jonson and Milton; they would have had a place in more than one of Spenser's beautiful pictures. All these are wanting now. Perhaps the void may be in a measure filled up for us by great poets of our own; but even then one charm will fail—the mellow light of eld, which illumines the page of the old poet, will be missed; for that, like the rich flavor of old wine, is the gift of Time alone.
In the meanwhile, however, the march of Autumn through the land is not a silent one—it is already accompanied by song. Scarce a poet of any fame among us who has not at least some graceful verse, some glowing image connected with the season;
​and year after year the song must become fuller, and sweeter, and clearer.
In those parts of this continent which answer to the medium climates of Europe, and where Autumn has a decided character of her own, the season is indeed a noble one. Rich in bounty, ripening the blended fruits of two hemispheres, beauty is also her inalienable dower. Clear skies and cheerful breezes are more frequent throughout her course than storms or clouds. Fogs are rare indeed. Mild, balmy airs seem to delight in attending her steps, while the soft haze of the Indian summer is gathered like a choice veil about her brows, throwing a charm of its own over every feature. The grain-harvest has been given to Summer; of all its treasures, she preserves alone the fragrant buckwheat and the golden maize. The nobler fruits are all hers—the finer peaches and plums, the choicest apples, pears, and grapes. The homely, but precious root-harvest belongs to her—winter stores for man and his herds. And now, when the year is drawing to a close, when the blessings of the earth have been gathered and stored, when every tree and plant has borne its fruits, when every field has yielded its produce, why should the sun shine brightly now? What has he more to ripen for us at this late day?
At this very period, when the annual labors of the husbandman are drawing to a close, when the first light frosts ripen the wild grapes in the woods, and open the husks of the hickory-nuts, bringing the latest fruits of the year to maturity, these are the days when, here and there, in the groves you will find a maple-tree whose leaves are touched with the gayest colors; those are the heralds which announce the approach of a brilliant pageant—the moment chosen by Autumn to keep the great harvest-home of
​America is at hand. In a few days comes another and a sharper frost, and the whole face of the country is changed; we enjoy, with wonder and delight, a natural spectacle, great and beautiful, beyond the reach of any human means.
We are naturally accustomed to associate the idea of verdure with foliage—leaves should surely be green! But now we gaze in wonder as we behold colors so brilliant and so varied hung upon every tree. Tints that you have admired among the darker tulips and roses, the richer lilies and dahlias of the flower-garden—colors that have pleased your eye among the fine silks and wools of a lady's delicate embroidery—dyes that the shopman shows off with complacency among his Cashmeres and velvets—hues reserved by the artist for his proudest works—these we now see fluttering in the leaves of old oaks, and tupeloes, liquid ambers, chestnuts, and maples!
We behold the green woods becoming one mass of rich and varied coloring. It would seem as though Autumn, in honor of this high holiday, had collected together all the past glories of the year, adding them to her own; she borrows the gay colors that have been lying during the summer months among the flowers, in the fruits, upon the plumage of the bird, on the wings of the butterfly, and working them together in broad and glowing masses, she throws them over the forest to grace her triumph. Like some great festival of an Italian city, where the people bring rich tapestries and hang them in their streets; where they unlock chests of heir-looms, and bring to light brilliant draperies, which they suspend from their windows and balconies, to gleam in the sunshine.
The hanging woods of a mountainous country are especially
​beautiful at this season; the trees throwing out their branches, one above another, in bright variety of coloring and outline, every individual of the gay throng having a fancy of his own to humor. The oak loves a deep, rich red, or a warm scarlet, though some of his family are partial to yellow. The chestnuts are all of one shadeless mass of gold-color, from the highest to the lowest branch. The bass-wood, or linden, is orange. The aspen, with its silvery stem and branches, flutters in a lighter shade, like the wrought gold of the jeweller. The sumach, with its long, pinnated leaf, is of a brilliant scarlet. The pepperidge is almost purple, and some of the ashes approach the same shade during certain seasons. Other ashes, with the birches and beech, hickory and elms, have their own tints of yellow. That beautiful and common vine, the Virginia creeper, is a vivid cherry-color. The sweet-gum is vermilion. The Viburnum tribe and dog-woods are dyed in lake. As for the maples, they always rank first among the show; there is no other tree which contributes singly so much to the beauty of the season, for it unites more of brilliancy, with more of variety, than any of its companions; with us it is also more common than any other tree. Here you have a soft maple, vivid scarlet from the highest to the lowest leaf; there is another, a sugar maple, a pure sheet of gold; this is dark crimson like the oak, that is vermilion; another is parti-colored, pink and yellow, green and red; yonder is one of a deep purplish hue; this is still green, that is mottled in patches, another is shaded; still another blends all these colors on its own branches, in capricious confusion, the different limbs, the separate twigs, the single leaves, varying from each other in distinct colors, and shaded tints. And in every direction a repetition of this magnificent picture meets the eye: in
​the woods that skirt the dimpled meadows, in the thickets and copses of the fields, in the bushes which fringe the brook, in the trees which line the streets and road-sides, in those of the lawns and gardens—brilliant and vivid in the nearest groves, gradually lessening in tone upon the farther woods and successive knolls, until, in the distant back-ground, the hills are colored by a mingled confusion of tints, which defy the eye to seize them.
Among this brilliant display, there are usually some few trees which fade, and wither, and dry into a homely brown, without appearing to feel the general influence; the sycamores, the locusts, for instance, and often the elms also, have little beauty to attract the eye, seldom aiming at more than a tolerable yellow, though at times they may be brighter.
Imported trees, transplanted originally from the Old World, preserve, as a rule, the more sober habits of their ancestral woods; the Lombardy poplar and the weeping willow are only pale yellow; the apple and pear trees, and some of the garden shrubs, lilacs, and syringas, and snow-balls, generally wither, without brilliancy, though once in a while they have a fancy for something rather gayer than pale yellow or russet, and are just touched with red or purple.
Other trees, again, from some accident of position or other cause, will remain a clear green, weeks after their companions of the same species are in full color.
But amid the general gayety, the few exceptions are scarcely observed, unless they are pointed out, and the beautiful effect of the great picture remains unbroken.
One observes also, that the spirit of the scene is carried out in many lesser details, for which we are scarcely prepared. Walking
​through the woods and fields, you find many of the smaller shrubs very prettily colored, little annuals also, and the seedlings of the forest-trees. The tiny maples especially, not longer than your finger, with half a dozen little leaflets, are often as delicately colored as blossoms, pink, and red, and yellow. Some of the flowering plants, also, the sarsaparillas and May-stars, with their finely-cut leaves, are frequently of a soft, clear straw-color. One may make very handsome bunches of these bright leaves; a branch of the golden chestnut, or aspen, or birch, a crimson twig from a young oak, another of scarlet maple, a long, plume-like leaf of the red sumach, with some of the lesser seedlings, and the prettiest of the wood-plants, make up a bouquet which almost rivals the dahlias in brilliancy.
Some persons occasionally complain that this period of the year, this brilliant change in the foliage, causes melancholy feelings, arousing sad and sorrowful ideas, like the flush on the hectic cheek. But surely its more natural meaning is of a very different import. Here is no sudden blight of youth and beauty, no sweet hopes of life are blasted, no generous aim at usefulness and advancing virtue is cut short; the year is drawing to its natural term, the seasons have run their usual course, all their blessings have been enjoyed, all our precious things are cared for; there is nothing of untimeliness, nothing of disappointment in these shorter days and lessening heats of autumn. As well may we mourn over the gorgeous coloring of the clouds, which collect to pay homage to the setting sun, because they proclaim the close of day; as well may we lament the brilliancy of the evening star, and the silvery brightness of the crescent moon, just ascending into the
​heavens, because they declare the approach of night and her shadowy train!
Mark the broad land glowing in a soft haze, every tree and grove wearing its gorgeous autumnal drapery; observe the vivid freshness of the evergreen verdure; note amid the gold and crimson woods, the blue lake, deeper in tint at this season than at any other; see a more quiet vein of shading in the paler lawns and pastures, and the dark-brown earth of the freshly-ploughed fields; raise your eyes to the cloudless sky above, filled with soft and pearly tints, and then say, what has gloom to do with such a picture? Tell us, rather, where else on earth shall the human eye behold coloring so magnificent and so varied, spread over a field so vast, within one noble view? In very truth, the glory of these last waning days of the season, proclaims a grandeur of beneficence which should rather make our poor hearts swell with gratitude at each return of the beautiful autumn accorded to us.
Thursday, 12th.—Rather cool this afternoon. As we were walking to and fro, about twilight, a bat came flickering across our path several times. It was quite a small one, and perhaps inexperienced in life, for most of his kind have already disappeared—we have not seen one for some weeks. There are said to be five different kinds of bats in this State, and we have a good share here. One evening in the month of August, there were no less than five of these creatures in the house at the same time; after a prolonged fight, two of them were routed; the other three kept possession of the ground all night.
Friday, 13th.—Delightful day. Long walk in the woods. Found a few asters and golden-rods, silver-rods, and everlastings, scattered about. The flowers are becoming rare, and chary of
​their presence; still, so long as the green grass grows, they lie scattered about, one here, another there, it may be in the shady woods, or it may be in the flower-border; reminding one of those precious things which sweeten the field of life—kindly feelings, holy thoughts, and just deeds—which may still be gleaned by those who earnestly seek them, even in the latest days of the great pilgrimage.
The woods are very beautiful; on Mount —— the ground-work of the forest was colored red by the many little whortleberry bushes growing there—they are brighter than usual. Here and there we found fresh berries on them, and a white flower among their red leaves. Some of the wych-hazels have lost their foliage entirely, the yellow blossoms hanging on leafless branches.
A number of the trees, in low situations and along the shores of the lake, are quite green still. The alders are all unchanged. So are the apple-trees, lilacs, syringas, the willows and aspens. The poplars are beginning to turn yellowish on their lower branches, their tops are still clear green.
Saturday, 14th.—Pleasant day. Walked some distance along the bank of the river. Gathered handsome berries of the cranberry-tree. Found many vines along the bank in that direction; bitter-sweet, with its red berries; hairy honeysuckle; greenbriars, with their dark-blue berries, besides many Virginia creepers and grape-vines. Observed several soft maples of a clear gold-color throughout, while others near them were bright crimson; they are not so often variegated as the sugar maple. Saw a handsome thorn-tree vivid red. The large leaves of the moose-wood are yellow. The mountain maple is pinkish red. Plums and wild cherries reddish. A handsome dog-wood, of the
​alternate-leaved variety, deep lake; it was quite a tree. The Viburnums are generally well colored at this season; the large leaves of the hobble-bush especially are quite showy now. This is the American “way-faring tree,” but on several accounts it scarcely deserves the name; though pretty in its way, it is only a shrub, and instead of giving pleasure to the wanderer, it is frequently an obstacle in his path, for the long branches will sometimes root themselves anew from the ends, thus making a tangled thicket about them; this habit, indeed, has given to the shrub the name of “hobble-bush.” The blackberry-bushes are a deep brownish red; the wild raspberries purplish red. Altogether, the shrubs and bushes strike us as more vividly colored than usual. Every season has some peculiarity of its own in this way, the trees and bushes varying from year to year, which is an additional source of interest in the autumnal pageant. A particular maple, which for years has turned a deep purple crimson, is now yellow, with a flush of scarlet. Observed several ashes yellow shaded with purple, the two colors being very clearly marked on the same tree.
Monday, 16th.—Charming weather; bright and warm, with hazy Indian summer atmosphere. They are harvesting the last maize-fields; some farmers “top” the stalks, that is to say, cut off the upper half, and leave the lower ears several weeks longer to ripen. Others cut the whole crop at once, gathering the ears first, then cutting the stalks and leaving them to stand in sheaves about the fields for a few days. The maize harvest is usually several weeks going on, as some farmers are much earlier with the task than others. The red buckwheat sheaves are also left standing about some farms much longer than others; they are seen in many fields just now, in neighborhood with the maize-stalks.
​The birds are quite numerous still; many robins running about the lawn. Gnats and gray flies, innumerable, are dancing in the sunshine. Saw yellow butterflies. Heard a few field-crickets chirruping cheerfully.
Tuesday, 17th.—In our walk this morning, observed a large stone farm-house, with maples grouped about in most brilliant color; a party of men were husking maize in the foreground; a group of cows grazing, in one direction, and a cart with a pile of noble pumpkins lying in the other. It would have made a good picture of an American autumn scene. The coloring of the trees was just what one could wish for such a purpose, and the contrast with the stone house and gray barns was all that could be desired.
It is to be regretted that we have not more superior pictures of autumnal scenes, for the subjects are so fine that they are worthy of the greatest pencils. It is true, Mr. Cole, and some others of our distinguished artists, have given us a few pictures of this kind; but in no instance, I believe, has a work of this nature been yet considered as a chef-d'œuvre of the painter. No doubt there must be great difficulties, as well as great beauties, connected with the subject. There is no precedent for such coloring as nature requires here among the works of old masters, and the American artist must necessarily become an innovator; nay, more, we are all of us so much accustomed to think of a landscape only in its spring or summer aspects, that when we see a painting where the trees are yellow and scarlet, and purple, instead of being green, we have an unpleasant suspicion that the artist may be imposing on us in some of his details. This is one of those instances in which it requires no little daring simply to copy nature. And
​then there are other difficulties in the necessary studies: three or four weeks at the utmost are all that is allowed to the painter from year to year; and from one autumn to another he may almost persuade himself that he was deceived in this or that tint, preserved by his sketches. In short, to become a superior and faithful painter of autumn in this country, must require a course of study quite peculiar, and prolonged over half a lifetime. Still, some landscape Rubens or Titian may yet, perhaps, arise among us, whose pencil shall do full justice to this beautiful and peculiar subject.
Independently of this higher branch of art, one would gladly see the beauty of our autumnal foliage turned to account in many other ways; as yet it has scarcely made an impression upon the ornamental and useful arts, for which it is admirably adapted. What beautiful arabesques might be taken from our forests, when in brilliant color, for frescoes or paper-hangings! What patterns for the dyer, and weaver, and printer; what models for the artificial-flower makers and embroiderers; what designs for the richest kind of carpeting! Before long, those beautiful models which fill the land every autumn, must assuredly attract the attention they deserve from manufacturers and mechanics; that they have not already done so, is a striking proof of our imitative habits in everything of this kind. Had the woods about Lyons been filled with American maples and creepers, we may rest assured that the shops in Broadway and Chestnut street would long since have been filled with ribbons, and silks, and brocades, copied from them.
Wednesday, 18th.—Rainy, mild. The woods, alas! are beginning to fade. Many trees are losing something of their vivid
​coloring, and others are rapidly dropping their leaves. People observe that the forest has not remained in full color as long as usual this fall. The last twenty-four hours of rainy weather has had a great effect. A week or two earlier, rain will often heighten the coloring, but after the leaves begin to lose their life it hastens their decay.
The larches are just touched with yellow; hitherto they have been clear green. The willows and abele-trees are unchanged. The shrubbery is getting quite gay, the rose-bushes turning scarlet and yellow. The wild roses are generally vivid yellow. The sweet-briars are already bare of leaves. The snow-ball is purplish; some of the lilacs are more yellow than common, while others are withering slowly, in green, as usual. Some of the scarlet honeysuckles show quite handsome branches, red, and yellow, and purple, in the same large leaf. Saw a wild gooseberry in the woods, with leaves as brilliant as those of a maple.
A number of birds about the house; passengers on their way south, or winter birds coming in from the woods. Snow-birds, chicadees, crested titmice, and sparrows. Also observed a cross-looking butcher-bird sitting by himself; this is the bird which impales grasshoppers and insects, fastening them upon the thorns and twigs about the bushes; probably he does it from that sort of instinct which makes the dog bury a bone, and the squirrel lay up nuts; having eaten enough for the present, he puts this game of his by for another occasion. We have never heard, however, whether they return to feed upon these impaled insects. The habit has a cruel look, certainly, and no wonder the bird is rather out of favor. Mr. Wilson says the German farmers in Pennsylvania call him Neuntodter, or Ninekiller, because they believe
​that he allows himself to impale nine grasshoppers daily; they also accuse him of devouring their peas, or those honey-loving insects which live in hives, called bees by most of us.
Thursday, 19th.—The falling leaves are still brightly colored, strewing the paths and village side-walks in many places; one is often tempted to stoop by the brilliancy of some of these fallen leaves, it seems a pity to leave them to wither in their beauty. When dried they preserve their colors a long time, especially when varnished; of course they lose a degree of brilliancy, but much less than the flowers.
The brooks and streams are often gayly strewn with the fallen foliage; the mill-dam at the Red Brook was sprinkled this afternoon with bright leaves, red and yellow, like a gay fleet from fairy-land.
Friday, 20th.—Rain. Many trees in the village losing their leaves very perceptibly; those that are yet in leaf have faded decidedly within the last thirty-six hours. The woods are still in color, however. Larches turning yellow rapidly. Willows unchanged. Evergreens in great beauty. The bare locusts brown with pods. Grass, bright green, well sprinkled with colored leaves.
Robins and a few other birds flitting about; saw sparrows, and several blue-birds, with them.
Saturday, 21st.—Mild, light rain; gnats dancing in spite of the rain-drops. Gray branches becoming more numerous every hour. Woods generally fading, though some trees brilliant still, red oaks and yellow birches; along the lake shore the trees are quite gay yet. The poplars in the village are beginning to drop their leaves. They first become bare below, while their upper branches are in
​full leaf, unlike most other trees, which lose their foliage from above, downward.
Monday, 23d.—Clear and cool. Light frost last night, the first we have had for a fortnight. Bright leaves here and there sailing in the light noon-day air, looking like large butterflies; some of them, after being severed from the branch, will sail about a minute or two before they touch the earth. But the woods are growing dull. Willows and abele-trees, with a few garden plants and hedges, are all that is left of green among the deciduous foliage. The apple-trees are losing their leaves; they seldom have much coloring, and often wither from green to russet without any gay tint at all.
Saw a few musquitoes in the woods. We have very few of these annoying insects in our neighborhood. In the village we seldom see one; in the woods they sometimes attack us.
The summer birds are rapidly deserting the village; the last few days have thinned their numbers very much. We have not seen one to-day.
Tuesday, 24th.—Mild rain. The chicadees are gathering about the houses again; these birds are resident with us through the year, but we seldom see them in summer; until the month of June they are often met fluttering about the groves near at hand, but from that time until the autumn is advancing, perhaps you will not see one. We have frequently watched for them in vain during the warm weather, not only near the village, but in the woods also, and we have never yet seen one at midsummer. This morning there was a large flock in the grounds, fluttering about among the half-naked branches. One is pleased to see the merry little creatures again.
​The snow-birds are also resident in our hills through the year, but unlike the chicadees, they show themselves at all seasons. You can hardly go into the woods without meeting them; many are seen running in and out about the fences, and they may almost be called village birds with us; at all seasons you may find them about the gardens and lawns, and I have no doubt some of them have nests in the village. The greater number, however, retire to the fields and hill-sides. At one moment this afternoon there was a meeting in our own trees of two large flocks, chicadees and snow-birds; they were all in fine spirits at the approach of winter, restless and chirping, flitting hither and thither with rapid, eager movements. Among the throng were two little birds of another kind, much smaller in size, and of a plain plumage; they were evidently strangers, possibly on their way southward; they perched on a high twig apart from the flock, and sat there quietly together, side by side, as if weary; they remained on the same branch more than a quarter of an hour, just turning their little heads occasionally to look with amazement at the flirting, frolicksome chicadees. They were about the size of wrens, but were perched too high for us to discover of what species they were.
Wednesday, 25th.—Pleasant. Long drive. Calm, sweet day. Here and there dashes of warm coloring still in the woods, although in other places they are dull, and nearly bare. The evergreens of all kinds are in triumph; their verdure is brilliantly fresh, and vivid, in their untarnished summer growth, while all other foliage is fading, and falling from the naked branches. The larches look prettily; a few days since they were entirely green, but now they are wholly yellow, though in full leaf, which, from
​their evergreen form, attracts the more attention. The abele-trees look oddly, with their fluttering leaves, silvery on one side, and gold-color on the reverse.
A robin flew past us on the highway; how often one meets them alone at this season, as if they had been left behind by their companions.
Thursday, 26th.—Cloudy, but mild. Long drive by the lake shore. Sky, water, and fields alike gray. Woods getting bare, yet vivid touches of yellow here and there, the orange of the birch, or lighter yellow of the aspen, enlivening the deepening grays. The village still looks leafy from the distance, chiefly from its willows. We passed a group of fine native poplars, very large, and quite green still; what is singular, a very large maple near them was also in full leaf, and partially green, though very many of its brethren are quite bare. These trees stood near the lake shore. The whole bank between the road and the water was still gay, with a fringe of underwood in color. Many asters of the common sorts were growing here, with golden-rods also, and a strawberry blite in crimson flower. The asters, and golden-rods, and nabali, and hawk-worts, along this bank have been innumerable through the season, and now that they are in seed, their downy heads look prettily mingled with the plants still in blossom, and the bushes still in leaf; the weather has been quiet, and the ripening blossoms, undisturbed by the wind, preserve the form of their delicate heads perfectly, some tawny, some gray, some silvery white, powdered flowers, as it were, like the powdered beauties of by-gone fashions. The pyramid golden-rod is really very pleasing in this airy, gossamer state. A large portion of our later flowers seem to ripen their seed in this manner. The
​gossamer of the willow-herb and that of the silk-wort are perhaps the most beautiful kinds, so purely white, but the down lies concealed within the pods, and as soon as these are opened the seeds escape, flying off on their beautiful silvery plumes. The down of the asters and golden-rods, however, remains a long time on the plants; and so does that of the fire-weed, which is very white.
What ugly things are the shrivelled thistles at this season! they look utterly worthless, more like the refuse of a past year than plants of this summer's growth; and yet there is life in their withered stalks, for here and there a purple blossom is trying to flower among the ragged branches.
A very large flock of wild ducks, flying northward over the lake, alighted on the water within half a mile of us; there must have been a hundred of them, if not more. We seldom see so many together in our waters.
Friday, 27th.—At early dawn this morning, just as the sky was becoming flushed with sun-rise colors, we saw a large flock of wild geese flying steadily to the southward. They moved in a regular wedge-shaped phalanx, as usual, with their leader a little in advance. Perhaps they had passed the night in our lake; they are frequently seen here, though rarely shot by our “gunners.” They seem often to travel by daylight. The ducks are said to migrate generally at night, especially the Mallard or common wild duck. It was a beautiful sight to see the flock, this morning; it reminded one of Mr. Bryant's noble “Water-fowl,” simply, however, because one never sees the wild fowl travelling through the air, spring or autumn, without thinking of those fine verses. In the present case it was morning, and a whole flock
​were in movement; Mr. Bryant saw his bird in the evening, and it was alone, still the lines would recur to one:
* Whither, 'midst falling dew,
* While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
* Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
* Thy solitary way.”
A flock of migratory birds can never fail, indeed, to be a beautiful and striking sight. The proud ships crossing the vast ocean, with man at the helm, are not a more impressive spectacle than these lesser creatures travelling through
| “ | The desert and illimitable air— |
| | Lone, wandering, but not lost.” |
Doubtless the flocks which now pass over the valley are as nothing compared with the throngs that went and came when the red man hunted here; still, we never fail to see them spring and fall. Many are the different varieties which come and go, and various are their habits of travelling. Some fly by day, others at night; some are silent, others utter loud and peculiar cries; these move in a regular phalanx, those in a careless crowd; some have leaders, others need none; these move rapidly, and directly toward their goal, others linger weeks on the way. Some travel in flocks, others in pairs; with these the males fly first, with those all move together; some follow the coast, others take an inland course.
And how much pleasure the birds give and receive by their migrations! This singular instinct implanted in the breast of the fowls of the air, is indeed a very touching instance of the tenderness of Providence, who not only bestows what is necessary on
​His creatures, but adds to the cup of life so many innocent pleasures. Some birds are stationary, and, doubtless, it would have been easy to have ordered that all should be so; but now we find that many of the most beautiful and pleasing of the race pass and repass annually over a broad expanse of the earth, giving and receiving enjoyment as they move onward. Many of those which are the most cheering and delightful spread themselves over half the earth: among these are the delicate wrens and humming-birds, the gay swallows, those noble singers, the thrushes; while the larger and more dangerous birds of prey are few in numbers, and chiefly confined to particular regions. No doubt the change of food, of air, of climate, is a source of enjoyment to the birds; nay, the very effort of the journey itself is probably accompanied with that gratification which is usually connected with the healthful, natural exercise of the higher powers of every living being. And how much delight do they afford mankind! Their first appearance, with the hopeful hours of spring; their voices, their pleasing forms, their cheerful movements, nay, their very departure in autumn, all bring to our hearts some pleasures, and thoughts, and feelings, which we should not know without them. Wanderers though they be, yet the birds of one's native ground are a part of home to us.
Perhaps the birds generally follow the same course, year after year, in their annual journeyings. There are facts which lead one to believe so. It is already proved that the same individuals, of various tribes, will return to the same groves for many successive seasons. It has also been observed that certain birds are seen to the north and south of a particular region every year; but within certain limits they are never met with. Like the house-wren, for
​instance, which avoids Louisiana, and yet passes farther to the southward every autumn. Other cases of the same kind might be named. A well-authenticated story is also told by Mr. Wilson of a wild goose which had been tamed on Long Island, but the following spring flew away to join a passing flock on its way to the northward. The succeeding autumn, as the farmer was standing in his barn-yard, he observed a flock of wild geese on the wing; one of these left the flock and alighted near him, proving to be his old pet. Now, the party which the goose joined was probably the same as that with which she returned, and here they were passing directly over the same farm, going and coming.
The flocks that pass over our own little lake note it, perhaps, as the last in the long line of inland waters, the thousand lakes of all sizes passed on their way from the arctic seas. There is no sheet of fresh water of any size to the southward and eastward of our own. Possibly, the celebrated canvas-backs pass us every year on their way to the Chesapeake, for the mouth of our own river is favorite ground with those celebrated birds. Very few of the canvas-backs remain in this State; only a very small number are seen occasionally in the Hudson.
Saturday, 28th.—The woods are fading fast, losing their leaves rapidly. Here and there, however, we yet see a birch or aspen, perhaps on the lake shore, perhaps on the mountain-side, still vividly yellow. Seen thus amid the dull and dreary woods, they look like forgotten torches, burning among the wrecks of past revels.
Monday, 30th.—Mild, gray day; air soft and spring-like. Toward evening walked to the glen, along the Green Brook. Met
​a solitary robin. The flocks of summer birds have now entirely disappeared; only a few stragglers are seen, shy and solitary, as though they had been forgotten. We frequently throw out seeds and crumbs for the birds at this season; but it is seldom, indeed, one has the pleasure of seeing the little creatures eat them. As long as there are berries on the vines and bushes, and seeds on the flowers and weeds, they prefer to forage for themselves. They often alight near the birds-seed and bread thrown on the gravel, without touching a crumb; and the provision thrown out for them will lie unheeded until the snow falls upon it. Having made up their minds to leave us, they are not to be coaxed into staying by any friendly attentions. Perhaps our robin, in particular, may be more shy than that of Europe. We hear of the European red-breast being frequently fed upon crumbs about farm-houses in cold weather. Christiana, in the Pilgrim's Progress, thought they lived entirely on such food: “Then, as they were coming in from abroad, they espied a robin with a great spider in his mouth: so the Interpreter said, ‘Look here!’ So they looked, and Mercy wondered; but Christiana said, ‘What a disparagement it is to such a little pretty bird as the robin red-breast is! he being also a bird above many, that loveth to maintain a kind of sociableness with men. I had thought they had lived upon crumbs of bread, or upon other such harmless matter. I like him worse than I did.’ ”
We have no right to complain, however, if robin prefers spiders to bread, since we in our turn are capable of making a very good meal of robin himself; and so, after abusing him for neglecting the crumbs, we give a pretty anecdote, much to his credit; it is
​found in the “Gleanings” of Mr. Jesse, occurred in England, and is vouched for by Mr. Jesse himself. A gentleman had directed a wagon to be packed with hampers and boxes, intending to send it some distance; its departure was delayed, however, and it was placed under a shed, packed as it was. While there, says Mr. Jesse, “a pair of robins built their nest among some straw in the wagon, and had hatched their young just before it was sent away. One of the old birds, instead of being frightened away by the motion of the wagon, only left its nest from time to time, for the purpose of flying to the nearest hedge for food, for its young; and thus alternately affording warmth and nourishment to them, it arrived at Worthing. The affection of this bird having been observed by the wagoner, he took care, in unloading, not to disturb the robin's nest; and my readers will, I am sure, be glad to hear that the robin and its young ones returned in safety to Walton Heath, being the place from whence they had set out. Whether it was the male or the female robin which kept with the wagon, I have not been able to ascertain, but most probably the latter, as what will not a mother's love and a mother's tenderness induce her to perform? The distance the wagon went in going and returning could not have been less than one hundred miles.”
Tuesday, 31st.—About a mile from the village, there runs a little stream whose waters are darker in color than others in the neighborhood, and called, on that account, the Red Brook—the first humble tributary of a river which may boast many a broad and flowing branch, ere it reaches the ocean. It comes toward the highway through a narrow ravine thickly shaded by forest-trees, and then passing beneath a bridge, winds through open meadows until it joins the river. This little stream turns a
​saw-mill on one side of the highway, and on the other fills the vats of a tannery; several roads draw toward the point from different directions, and a little hamlet is springing up here, which has been chosen as the site of a school-house.
The building itself, standing within bow-shot of the saw-mill, is of stone, and one of the best in the neighborhood. The situation is good, and the spot might easily have been made very pleasant by merely leaving a few scattered trees here and there; but they have been all swept away to feed the saw-mill, and the banks of the ravine, beautifully shaded only a short time since, are now becoming every day more bare. A spring of water, where the children fill their pitchers, falls with a pleasant trickling sound into a rude trough hard by; a single tree, with a bench in the shade, would have given a friendly, rural look to the spot, but neither shade nor seat is there. Even a tuft of young hemlocks, which stood on the bank near the spring, have been recently cut down.
The smaller towns and villages of this country have generally a pleasing character, a cheerful, flourishing aspect, with their trees, their gardens, and neat door-yards, which give them an advantage over the more close and confined villages of the Old World. But with the hamlet, the mere cluster of a dozen buildings, the case is different. The European hamlet is often a very picturesque spot, for it frequently happens that the cottages have grown up about some half-ruined tower, or ancient bridge, or old well, or a quaint-looking mill, or perhaps some old religious stone. With us the central point of a hamlet can seldom boast of more attractions than a smithy, or a small store and post-office, or a naked school-house, while the spirit which takes pleasure in local public improvement, seems to lie dormant until aroused by the
​ambition of becoming a greater “settlement;” it is only then that trees which a few years before were all blindly cut away, are now carefully replaced by regular plantations, and the general aspect of things is brought under consideration. But the hamlet at the Red Brook has not yet reached this point of progress. Many trees have been cut down, scarce, one set out. There is not even a classic birch within shading distance of the school-house; one looks in vain for the
* “—— birchen tree
* Which learning near her little dome did stowe.”
The “birchen twig,” that whilome sceptre of power in the hand of dame or master, is, however, no longer an essential part of the school-house furniture; like Solomon's rod, it has well nigh become a mere tradition. The red-cherry ruler is in modern times the ensign of office.
Many, indeed, are the changes that have taken place, without and within the school-house walls, since the days of Shenstone and the dame who taught him his A B C, a hundred years ago. It is no longer a “matron old whom we school-mistress name,” who is found presiding there; and all that part of the description which refers to her, has become quite obsolete:
* Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her truth,
* Ne pompous title did debauch her ear,
* Goody—good-woman—gossip—n'aunt, forsooth,
* Or dame, the sole additions she did hear.”
An elderly person acting as master or mistress of a common school, is an unheard of circumstance throughout the country; it may be doubted if such an individual could be found between the
​St. Croix and the Colorado. It is even rare to meet one who has decidedly reached the years of middle life; while nothing is more common than to see very young persons in this post of authority. In most situations, a young countenance is a pleasant sight; but perhaps there is scarcely another position in which it appears to so little advantage, as sole ruler in the school-house. Young people make excellent assistants, very good subordinates in a large establishment, but it is to be regretted that our common schools should so often be under their government, subject only to a supervision, which is frequently quite nominal. They may know as much of books as their elders, but it is impossible they should know as much of themselves and of the children; where other points are equal, they cannot have the same experience, the same practical wisdom. Hitherto, among us, teaching in the public schools has not been looked upon as a vocation for life; it has been almost always taken up as a job for a year or two, or even for a single season; the aim and ambition of those who resort to it, too often lie beyond the school-house walls. The young man of eighteen or twenty means to go into business, or to buy a farm, or to acquire a profession; he means anything, in short, but to remain a diligent, faithful, persevering schoolmaster for any length of time. The young girl of seventeen or eighteen intends, perhaps, to learn a trade next year, or to go into a factory, or to procure an outfit for her wedding; never, indeed, does the possibility of teaching after she shall have reached the years of caps and gray hairs occur to her even in a nightmare. And yet nothing can be more certain than that those young people have undertaken duties the most important man or woman can discharge; and if they persevere in the occupation, with a conscientious regard to
​its obligations, they will be far better qualified for the same situation twenty years hence, than they are to-day.
The metamorphosis of
* “books of stature small,
* Which, with pellucid horn secured, are”
into Dictionaries, and volumes on Science, is quite as striking as the change from old to young, in the instructors. The very name of a horn-book is never heard to-day, and perhaps there are not half a dozen persons in an American country school district who know its meaning. In this respect, our children of the present day have greatly the advantage over their predecessors; few things are cheaper and more common now than books. Possibly fingers are also more clean, and do not need the sheath of horn to protect the paper; though, upon consideration, it seems by no means certain that the hands of modern little folk are so much better washed than those of their grand-parents, since it will be remembered that the dame's little troop for “unkempt hair,” were “sorely shent,” and where the hair was required to be nicely combed, it is but natural to suppose that faces and hands were well washed.
The flock that came tripping out of the Red Brook school-house this afternoon was composed of boys and girls, varying in ages and sizes from the little chubby thing, half boy, half baby, to the elder sister, just beginning to put on the first airs of womanhood. Different codes of manners are found to prevail in different school-houses about the country: sometimes, when the children are at play before the door, or trudging on their way to or from home, the little girls will curtsey, and the boys bow to the passing stranger, showing that they have been taught to make their manners;
​but—alas, that it should be so—there are other unruly flocks where the boys, ay, and even the girls, too, have been known to unite in hooting and making faces at the traveller, a disgrace to themselves and to their instructors. But the children at the Red Brook behaved very properly, albeit they were not so polished as to bow and curtsey. They told their names, showed their books, and pointed out their different roads home in a civil, pretty way. Indeed, those instances of unmannerly conduct alluded to above did not occur in the same neighborhood, but were observed at some little distance from this valley.
The appearance of most of the little people was creditable; they looked cleanly and simple. Many of the children were bare-footed, as usual in warm weather,—almost all the boys, and a number of the girls. In winter they are all provided with shoes and stockings. Here and there among the girls there was some show of tawdry finery: ribbons that were no longer clean, glass jewels, and copper rings; and one of the older girls had a silk hat, which looked both hot and heavy, beside her companions' nice sun-bonnets; it was trimmed inside and out with shabby artificial flowers. But then, as an offset to these, there were several among the little people whose clothes, well washed and ironed, showed a patch here and there. Now there is nothing in the world which carries a more respectable look with it, than a clean coat or frock which has been nicely patched; when united with cleanliness, the patch tells of more than one virtue in the wearer: it shows prudence, simplicity, and good sense, and industry; it shows that he or she is not ashamed of honest poverty, and does not seek to parade under false colors. There are two situations in which patched clothing excite an especial feeling of interest and
​respect for the wearer; and these are, in church and at school. At a time when a gay dress is thought as necessary at church as in a ball-room, when constant excuses are made by women who have not much money to spare, mothers and daughters, that they cannot go to church because they have no “new hat,” no “new dress,” when husbands and sons require new beavers and new broadcloth for the same purpose, it is honorable to that man or woman to whom Providence has appointed the trial of poverty, that a patched coat or a faded gown does not keep them from going to the house of God. And when one sees a family of children going to school in clean and well-mended clothing, it tells a great deal in favor of their mother; one might vouch that those children learn some valuable lessons at home, whatever they may be taught at school.
One can never look with entire indifference upon a flock of children; those careless little ones have a claim upon us all, which makes itself felt as we listen to their prattle and watch their busy, idle games. As much variety of character and countenance may be found among them, as exists in their elders, while the picture is so much the more pleasing, as the lines are always softened by something of the freshness of childhood. This sweet-faced little girl, that bright-eyed boy, this laughing, merry young rogue, yonder timid, gentle child, this playful, kitten-like creature, that frank and manly lad, will each in turn attract attention; ay, even the dull, the cold, the passionate, the sullen, are not forgotten; so long as they show childish faces, we look at them with an especial interest, made up of hope as well as fear. Each has its claim. It will often happen that the most intelligent countenance is connected with ill-formed features, that the best expression of kindly
​feeling, or generous spirit, beams over the homely face. And then we know but too well, with the fatal knowledge of daily experience, that yonder bright-eyed boy, by abusing the talent entrusted to him, may fall with the evil-doers. We know that yonder cherub-faced girl may sink to the lowest degradation of corruption, unless she learn betimes to cherish womanly modesty, and fear of sin. And, thanks be to God, we know also, that the cold heart may learn to feel, the sullen temper may clear, the passionate may become cool, the wavering firm, by humbly taking to heart the lessons of wisdom, and earnestly, ceaselessly, seeking a blessing from their Maker and Redeemer.
Some persons, in watching a party of children, have pleased themselves by drawing an imaginary horoscope for each of the group; adding a score or two of years to each young life, they parcel out honors, and wealth, and fame, and learning to some; care, and trouble, and disappointment to others; to these they give distinction, to those obscurity; appointing the different lots, perhaps, with as much judgment and impartiality as the world will show in bestowing them at a later day. But I should care little to know which of those lads will count the highest number of thousands, I should not ask which will boast the readiest tongue, the sharpest wit, which will acquire the most learning, or which will fill the highest place. There is another question to be answered; a question of deeper import to the individual himself, and to his fellow-creatures. True, it does not involve either wealth, or honors, or fame; but it is much more closely connected than either of these with individual happiness, and with the well-being of society. I would ask, rather, which of those boys now making trial of the powers with which their Maker has endowed
​them, will employ those powers, both of body and mind, to the best, the most just, the most worthy purposes? That boy, though his talents may be few, his lot humble, will do more for himself, more for the real good of others, than either of his companions; his will be the healthful, quiet conscience, his that contentment which “is great gain:” his will be the example most needed in the day and society to which he belongs. The precise amount of abilities is a point of far less importance than the ends to which those abilities are devoted; wealth is daily won by evil means, honors are daily purchased at a vile price, and fame is hourly trumpeting falsehoods through this world; but neither wealth, nor honors, nor fame can ever bring true health, and peace, and contentment to the heart. He who endeavors faithfully and humbly to use his faculties for truly good ends, by plainly good means, that man alone makes a fitting use of the great gift of life; however narrow his sphere, however humble his lot, that man will taste the better blessings of this world, the best hopes for the world toward which we are all moving. That man, that lad, commands our unfeigned respect and admiration, whatever be his position in life.
To a looker-on—and one very sincerely interested in the subject—there appears a chief error in American education under most of its forms, the neglect of systematic training in childhood and youth. There are two great principles which make up the spirit of all education—impulse, if we may apply the word in this sense, and restraint. These are not equally attended to among us, though both are clearly essential to the good of the individual, and of society. There is no want of intellectual activity in our system; there is no fear that the children in the district
​school-house will be cramped by confining their energies within too narrow a field, no fear that their faculties will remain dull and benumbed for the want of impulse. Everything lies open before them; and motives for action are ceaselessly urged upon them by the most animating, nay, even exciting language. It is the opposite principle of restraint which seems to receive less consideration than it deserves. It is not wholly neglected, God in mercy forbid that it ever should be; but does it meet with that full, serious attention which is needed? Is it not too often rendered subservient to the former principle of impulse, and activity? And yet, let it be remembered that it is this principle of restraint which is more especially the moral point in education; where it fails, discipline and self-denial are wanting, with all the strength they give to integrity, and honor, and true self-respect, with all the decencies of good manners which they infuse into our daily habits. That must ever be the soundest education in which the proportions between the different parts are most justly preserved.
Let it be remembered, also, that the more knowledge is increased, so much the more binding becomes the obligation to keep up the just proportions between moral and intellectual instruction. We have thrown aside the primer and horn-book, let us bear in mind that every new science introduced into the school-room brings with it an additional weight of moral responsibility. And instead of the amount of intellectual culture bestowed being an excuse for the neglect of religious and moral instruction, this very amount becomes in itself an imperative demand for more earnest, energetic, hearty efforts on those vital points. In a Christian community assuming their education, the children have a clear right to plain, sound, earnest lessons of piety, truth, honesty,
​justice, and self-discipline. Neglect of these points becomes treachery to them, treachery to our God. And without these, though complete in every other point, what is the education of an individual? However showy in other respects, without these what is the education of a nation?
November, Wednesday, 1st.—Decided frost last night; yet very mild this morning. Bright, cloudless day. Long walk on the hills. The woods are getting bare; even the willows and abele-trees are thinning. The larches are deep orange; their evergreen forms look oddly in this bright color.
The lake ultramarine blue. Saw several butterflies and parties of gnats. A full flock of snow-birds were feeding before a cottage door; and among them was a large, handsome fox-colored sparrow, one of the handsomest birds of its tribe. It seemed quite at ease among the snow-birds.
Thursday, 2d.—Very pleasant. Delightful walk in the woods. Some of the forest-trees are budding again. Found pipsissiwa and a ground-laurel, with their flowers in bud: the first plant blooms regularly about Christmas in some parts of the country, but I have never heard of its flowering here in winter. Gathered a pretty bunch of bead-ruby; the transparent berries quite perfect, and the cluster unusually large. The mosses in flower in some spots; the handsome Hypnum splendens, with its red stems, and some of the other feather mosses, Hypnum crista-castrensis, &c., &c. Ferns, sheltered by woods, in fine preservation. The earth thickly strewed with fallen leaves, completely covering the track, and in many places burying the lesser plants—a broad, unbroken carpeting of russet. This was especially the case where chestnut-trees were numerous,
​for the foliage seems to fall in fuller showers in such spots. The beech-trees are dotted with nuts. The wych-hazel has opened its husks, and the yellow flowers are dropping with the ripe nuts from the branches. Acorns and chestnuts are plentifully scattered beneath the trees which bore them. How much fruit of this sort, the natural fruit of the earth—nuts and berries—is wasted every year; or, rather, how bountiful is the supply provided for the living creatures who need such food!
Friday, 3d.—Very pleasant morning; the sun shining with a mild glow, and a warm air from the south playing over the fading valley. Long walk to a neighboring hamlet.
The farmers are busy with their later autumn tasks, closing the work of the present year; while, at the same time, they are already looking forward to another summer. There is something pleasing in these mingled labors beneath the waning sun of November. It is autumn grown old, and lingering in the field with a kindly smile, while they are making ready for the young spring to come. Here a farmer was patching up barns and sheds to shield his flocks and stores against the winter storms. There ploughmen were guiding their teams over a broad field, turning up the sod for fresh seed, while other laborers were putting up new fences about a meadow which must lie for months beneath the snow, ere the young grass will need to be protected in its growth. Several wagons passed us loaded with pumpkins, and apples, and potatoes, the last crops of the farm on the way from one granary to another. Thus the good man, in the late autumn of life, gathers cheerfully the gifts which Providence bestows for that day, despising no fruit of the season; however simple or homely, he
​receives each with thankfulness, while, looking forward beyond the coming snows, he sees another spring, and prepares with trustful hope for that brighter season.
Half an hour's walk upon a familiar track brought us to a gate opening into an old by-road which leads over the hills to the little village where we were bound; it was formerly the highway, but a more level track has been opened, and this is now abandoned, or only used as a foot-path. These lanes are charming places for a walk; there are cross-roads enough about the country in every direction, but they are all pretty well travelled, and it is a pleasant variety, once in a while, to follow a silent by-way like this, which is never dusty, and always quiet. It carried us first over a rough, open hill-side, used as a sheep-pasture; a large flock were nibbling upon the scraps of the summer's grass among the withered mulleins; we went quietly on our way, but as usual, our approach threw the simple creatures into a panic, disturbing their noon-day meal.
Having reached the brow of a hill, we turned to enjoy the view; the gray meadows of the valley lay at our feet, and cattle were feeding in many of them. At this season the flocks and herds become a more distinct feature of the landscape than during the leafy luxuriance of summer; the thickets and groves no longer conceal them, and they turn from the sheltered spots to seek the sunshine of the open fields, where their forms rise in full and warm relief upon the fading herbage. The trees have nearly lost their leaves, now scattered in russet showers, about their roots, while the branches are drawn in shadowy lines by the autumn sun upon the bleached grass and withering foliage with which it is strewn. The woods are not absolutely bare, however, there are
​yet patches in the forest where the warm coloring of October has darkened into a reddish brown; and here and there a tree still throws a fuller shadow than belongs to winter. The waters of the river were gleaming through the bare thickets on its banks, and the pretty pool, on the next farm, looked like a clear, dark agate, dropped amid the gray fields. A column of smoke, rising slowly from the opposite hill, told of a wood which had fallen, of trees which had seen their last summer. The dun stubble of the old grain-fields, and the darker soil of the newly-ploughed lands, varied the grave November tints, while here and there in their midst lay a lawn of young wheat, sending up its green blades, soft and fresh as though there were no winter in the year, growing more clear and life-like as all else becomes more dreary—a ray of hope on the pale brow of resignation.
So calm and full of repose was the scene, that we turned from it unwillingly, and with as much regret as though it were still gay with the beauty of summer.
Just beyond the brow of the hill the road enters a wood; here the path was thickly strewn with fallen leaves, still crisp and fresh, rustling at every step as we moved among them, while on either side the trees threw out their branches in bare lines of gray. Old chestnuts, with blunt and rough notches elms; with graceful waving spray; vigorous maples, with the healthful, upright growth of their tribe; the glossy beech, with friendly arms stretched out, as if to greet its neighbors, and among them all, conspicuous as ever, stood the delicate birch, with its alabaster-like bark, and branches of a porphyry color, so strangely different from the parent stem. Every year, as the foliage falls, and the trees reappear in their wintry form, the eye wonders a while at the change,
​just as we look twice ere we make sure of our acquaintance in the streets, when they vary their [garbled].
The very last flowers are withering. The beautiful fern of the summer lies in rusty patches on the open hill-side, though within the woods it is still fresh and green. We found only here and there a solitary aster, its head drooping, and discolored, showing but little of the grace of a flower. Even the hardy little balls of the everlasting, or moonshine, as the country people call it, are getting blighted and shapeless, while the haws on the thorn-bushes, the hips of the wild rose and sweet-briar, are already shrunken and faded. It is singular, but the native flowers seem to wither earlier than those of the garden, many of which belong to warmer climates. It is not uncommon to find German asters, flos adonis, heart's-ease, and a few sprigs of the monthly honeysuckle, here and there, in the garden even later than this; some seasons we have gathered quite a pretty bunch of these flowers in the first week of December. At that time nothing like a blossom is to be found in the forest.
SIDE SADDLE FLOWER. [ Sarracenia Purpurea Var. Heterophylla.] :
| G. P. Putnam, N. Y. |||
| | Endicott's Lith. N. Y. |
​ There once stood a singular tree in the wood through which we were passing. Wonders are told of its growth, for it is now some years since it disappeared, and its existence is becoming a tradition of the valley. Some lovers of the marvellous have declared that upon the trunk of a hemlock rose the head of a pine; while others assert that it was two trees, whose trunks were so closely joined from the roots that there appeared but one stem, although the two different tops were distinctly divided; others, again, living near, tell us that it was only a whimsical hemlock. In short, there are already as many different variations in the story as are needed to make up a marvellous tale, while all agree at
​least that a remarkable tree stood for years after the settlement of the country on this hill, so tall and so conspicuous in its position as to be seen at some distance, and well known to all who passed along the road. Its fate deserves to be remembered more than its peculiarity. On inquiring what had become of it, we learned the history of its fall. It was not blasted by lightning—it was not laid low by the storm—it was not felled by the axe. One pleasant summer's night, a party of men from another valley came with pick and spade and laid bare its roots, digging for buried treasure. They threw out so much earth, that the next winter the tree died, and soon after fell to the ground. Who would have thought that this old crazy fancy of digging about remarkable trees for hidden treasure should still exist in this school-going, lecture-hearing, newspaper-reading, speech-making community?
“But it was probably some ignorant negro,” was observed on hearing the story.
“Not at all. They were white men.”
“Poor stupid boors from Europe, perhaps—”
“Americans, born and bred. Thorough Yankees, moreover, originally from Massachusetts.”
“But by whom did they suppose the money to have been buried? They must have known that this part of the country was not peopled until after the Revolution, and consequently no fear of Cow-Boys or Skinners could have penetrated into this wilderness. Did they suppose the Indians had gold and silver coin to conceal?”
“No. They were digging for Captain Kidd's money.”
​“Captain Kidd! In these forests, hundreds of miles from the coast!”
Incredible as the folly may seem, such, it appears, was the notion of these men. According to the computation of the money-diggers, Captain Kidd must have been the most successful pirate that ever turned thief on the high seas, and have buried as many treasures as Crœsus displayed. It has been quite common for people to dig for the pirate's treasure along the shores of Long Island, and upon the coast to the northward and southward; but one would never have expected the trees of these inland woods to be uprooted for the same purpose. But men will seek for gold everywhere, and in any way.
This is the third instance of the kind accidentally come to our knowledge. The scene of one was in the heart of the city of New York, and the attraction a singular tree, growing in the yard of a house in Broadway, whose occupant was repeatedly disturbed by applications to dig at its roots. The other two cases occurred among these hills; and on one of these occasions the search was declared to be commenced at the instigation of a professed witch, living in a neighboring village, and regularly armed with a twig of wych-hazel!
But there is more superstition left among us than is commonly supposed. There are still signs and sayings current among the farmers, about the weather and the crops, which they by no means entirely discredit; and there are omens still repeated by nurses and gossips, and young girls, about death-beds, and cradles, and dreams, and wedding-days, which are not yet so powerless but that they make some timid heart beat with hope or
​fear, most days that pass over us. Most of these are connected with rural life, and have doubtless come from the other side of the ocean; one of the pleasantest, however, may possibly be traced back to the Indians—the humming-bird and its love-message.
In passing through the woods, we looked about for the ruins of the old tree, but none of our party knew exactly where it had stood. We had soon crossed the hill, and Oakdale, with its little hamlet, opened before us. Its broad shallow stream turns several mills, one of them a paper-mill, where rags from over the ocean are turned into sheets for Yankee newspapers. One of the few sycamores in the neighborhood stands by the bridge.
Saturday, 4th.—Cloudy, and toward evening rainy; I fear our pleasant weather is over.
Monday, 6th.—Mild. Heavy rain all night, and raining still this morning. About 10 o'clock some flakes of snow mingled with the rain—then sleet—then, rather to our surprise, a regular fall of snow, continuing until afternoon. The whole country white with it, to the depth of an inch or two. Yet the air is mild to-day. Thus it is: the leaves have hardly fallen before winter advances; shreds of colored foliage are still hanging on some trees and shrubs. The little weeping-willow is in full leaf, bending under the snow.
Tuesday, 7th.—Election day. The flags are flying in the snow, which still falls in showers, with intervals of sunshine. The election goes on very quietly in the village; four years ago there was rather more movement, and eight years since, there was a very great fuss with hard cider, log-cabins, and election songs to all tunes. This afternoon there are scarcely more people in the streets than usual, and very little bustle.
The shrubbery beneath the windows was enlivened to-day by
​a large flock of very pretty little birds, the golden-crested kinglets, with greenish-yellow and brown bodies, a brilliant carmine spot on the head, encircled with a golden border, and then a black one. They are very small, decidedly less than the common wren, and only a size or two larger than the humming-bird. In this State they are rare birds. They are hardy little creatures, raising their young in the extreme northern parts of the continent, and are chiefly seen here as birds of passage, though remaining through the winter in Pennsylvania. They are indeed great travellers, frequenting the West Indies during the winter months. It is the first time we have ever observed them here, although their kinsmen, the ruby-crowned kinglets, are very common with us, especially in the spring months, when they linger late among our maple-blossoms. The flock about the house to-day was quite large, and they showed themselves several times in the course of the morning, flickering about the lilac and syringa bushes, and hanging on the leafless branches of the creeper trained against the wall.
RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET. :
| G. P. Putnam, N. Y. | Endicott's Lith. N. Y. |
​ They have a bird in Europe all but identical with ours, the difference between the two varieties being so slight that for a long time the best ornithologists were unaware of it. The European gold-crests winter in England and Germany; in the last country they are very numerous, and although so diminutive, they are brought to market, being esteemed a great dainty; about Nuremburg, in Bavaria, they are particularly abundant, and so much prized for the table that they command a high price. When broiled their bodies can scarcely be as large as a French chestnut! What should we think of a dish of humming-birds?
It is this little bird which is alluded to in Lafontaine's charming
​fable of the Oak and the Reed; this is the tiny roitelet which the Oak pronounces a heavy burden for the Reed:
“Pour vous un roitelet est un pesant fardeau.”
Wednesday, 8th.—November is considered one of the best months for fishing in our lake; all the more important fish are now taken in their best state. We have one fish peculiar to this lake; at least, the variety found here is very clearly marked, and differs from any yet discovered elsewhere. It is a shad-salmon, but is commonly called the “Otsego Bass,” and is considered one of the finest fresh-water fish in the world. In former years they were so abundant that they were caught by the thousand in seines; on one occasion five tliousand are said to have been taken; the people in the village scarcely knew what to do with them; some were salted, others thrown to the hogs. They are still drawn in the seine, being seldom taken by the hook, but their numbers, as might be supposed, have very much diminished. An attempt was recently made to protect them for three years, to allow them to increase again, but after a few months the law was repealed. The best months for the bass-fishing are April, May, and June, and in autumn, November and December; they are caught more or less through the winter, but not during the heats of summer; or, if occasionally one is taken in warm weather, it is out of the usual course of things. The largest bass known here have weighed seven pounds, but they do not often exceed three or four pounds at present. They have a very sweet, fine, white meat, with a dark, gray skin.
The lake trout, or salmon-trout, taken here are also of a superior
​quality; this same fish, in many other lakes, is considered coarse and tasteless, but here it is frequently met with very delicate and rich, and it finds great favor with epicures. It varies very much, however, with individuals, one being very fine, another quite indifferent. The salmon-trout, in the form we know it, is said to be almost peculiar to our New York lakes; at least this same variety is not found in Canada, nor farther south than Silver Lake, just beyond the borders of Pennsylvania. Our fishermen say the best time for trout fishing is during the last ten days of November; they are taken, however, at all seasons, but are more common in cool weather. The largest taken here is said to have weighed thirty pounds, and others twenty-five and twenty-seven pounds; within the last dozen years we have seen them weighing sixteen and twelve pounds, but fish of this size have now become very rare. They are caught with the seine or with baited hooks, and are sometimes speared. Some years since, seven or eight hundred were taken at one haul of the seine. In winter, the lake is well sprinkled with baited hooks, sunk through small openings in the ice, and fine salmon-trout are often taken in this way.
The pickerel fishing also becomes more active at this season; lights are seen now, every evening, passing to and fro along the shores, to attract the pickerel, and a very pretty sight they are. The pickerel is said not to extend beyond the Great Lakes. The largest caught here have weighed seven pounds.
The perch—the yellow perch—is also common in our lake; the largest are said to have weighed between three and four pounds. Besides these our fishermen take eels, dace or roach, suckers,
​catfish, and bull-pouts. Formerly, when the river was not obstructed by so many mill-dams, the herring used to visit this inland lake every year, following the stream, many a long mile from the ocean; they were a very acceptable variety to the common fare in those days, and were so numerous that they were frequently fished up in pails by the first colonists.
Thursday, 9th.—At sunrise the thermometer had fallen to 16 above zero. Snow still lying on the ground, though little of it. Gloomy, dark day. People are taking out their winter clothing, and asking each other if this can possibly last? if winter is coming in earnest, and so suddenly? Dreary walk, so different from those of last week; the road hard and rough; had the highway quite to myself; in the distance of more than a mile, did not meet a living creature.
Another visit from the little kinglets—quite a party of them in the bushes beneath the windows.
Friday, 10th.—Thermometer only 6 above zero, at seven o'clock this morning. “Don't be concerned,” say the farmers, “we shall have our Indian summer yet!” One would like to feel sure of it; the very idea warms one such a day as this.
Saturday, 11th.—Very cold. The thermometer very near zero.
Monday, 13th.—Mild again. Yesterday, Sunday, there was another light fall of snow.
Tuesday, 14th.—Soft, mild day; but it has scarcely thawed out of the sunshine for the last week. Snow still lying on the ground, though very little of it; at no time has there been enough for sleighing.
Wednesday, 15th.—There is a strange story going about the
​village: it is said that several respectable persons have had glimpses of a panther in our hills during the last two months! Probably they have been deceived, for it seems all but incredible that one of these wild creatures should really have appeared in our woods. It is between forty and fifty years since any panther has been heard of in this neighborhood.
Thursday, 16th.—Lovely day; bright air and soft sky. Perhaps the farmers will prove right about the Indian summer, after all. The walking is very bad; the late snow and last night's rain making a sad muss. Still, those who delight in the open air, may verify the old proverb: “Where there is a will there is a way;” one may pick out spots for walking, here and there.
The new-fashioned plank-walks have not yet become general here; they are convenient in muddy weather, though very ugly at other times. The neatest side-walk for a village or rural town seems to be a strip of brick, or stone pavement, three or four feet wide, with a broad border of grass on each side, where trees are planted, such as they have them in some of the Western villages. The plank roads and walks will probably be introduced here before long; they will use up an immense amount of timber, and one would think that this must eventually put a stop to them. It is said that the hemlock timber, which is used for the purpose, never attains to any great size in its second growth; such is the opinion here; whether it be correct or not, I do not know. There seems no good reason why it should not grow out of the old forests, as well as the pine.
The roads are at their worst just now; the stage-coach was ten hours yesterday coming the twenty-two miles from the railroad. That particular route, however, crossing the hills to the
​railway and canal, is the worst in the county. In summer, our roads are very good; but for two or three weeks, spring and autumn, they are in a terrible state. And yet they have never been quite so bad as those in the clay soils of the western part of the State; the year before the railroad was completed between Geneva and Canandaigua, a gentleman of the first village having business of consequence at the latter town early in the spring, was anxious to keep his appointment on a particular day, but he was obliged to give it up; the road, only sixteen miles, was so bad, that no carriage would take him. He made a particular application to the stage-coach proprietors; they were very sorry, but they could not accommodate him; it was quite out of the question: “We have twelve stage-coaches, at this very moment, sir, lying in the mud on that piece of road!” Now we never heard of a coach being actually left embedded in the mud on this road of ours, bad as it is; the passengers are often obliged to get out, and walk over critical spots; the male passengers are often requested to get out “and hold up the stage for the ladies;” often the coach is upset; frequently coach, passengers, and all sink into the slough to an alarming depth, when rails are taken from the fences to “pry the stage out;” but, by dint of working with a good will, what between the efforts of coachman, horses, and passengers, the whole party generally contrives to reach its destination, in a better or worse condition, somewhere within eighteen hours. They sometimes, however, pass the night on the road.
Friday, 17th.—Although the history of this county is so short, it has yet had several architectural eras. Without including the Indian wigwam, which has become only a tradition, specimens of half a dozen different styles are seen among us to-day. First in
​order of time ranks, of course, the log-cabin, such as are still seen to-day in the hills, or on the skirts of the woods: low, substantial, and rustic; when well put together, and inhabited by neat and thrifty people, they look very snug and comfortable, and decidedly picturesque, also. Not long since, we passed one a few miles from the village, which had as pleasant a cottage look as possible; it was in excellent order, in a neat little yard, with flower-borders under the windows, a couple of very fine balsam-firs before the door, and a row of half a dozen luxuriant hop-vines just within the fence. Another, near the Red Brook, attracted our attention more than once, during our summer walks: everything about it was so snug; the little windows looked bright and clean, as though they belonged to a Dutch palace; the rose-bushes standing in the grassy yard were flourishing and luxuriant; a row of tin milk-pans were usually glittering in the sun, and a scythe hung for several weeks beside the door; it would have made a pretty sketch. One dark cloudy afternoon, we also passed another of these log-cottages, of the very smallest size; it was old, and much out of repair, and stood directly by the road-side, without any yard at all; but everything about it was very neat: a tub and pails were piled under a little shed at the door, the small window was bright and well washed, and a clean white curtain within was half drawn to let in the light upon a table on which lay a large open Bible, and a pair of spectacles; twice, toward evening, we chanced to see that little curtain half drawn, to let in the light upon the Holy Book; doubtless some aged Christian lived there. The building is now turned into a shed; we did not know who lived there, but we never pass it without remembering the little table and the Bible. Unhappily, all log-cabins have not
​such tenants; where the inmates are idle and shiftless, they are wretched holes, full of disorder and filth.
Next to the log-cabin, in our architectural history, comes its very opposite, the lank and lean style, the shallow order, which aimed at rising far above the lowly log-cottage; proud of a tall front and two stories, proud of twice too many windows, but quite indifferent to all rules and proportions, to all appearance of comfort and snugness; houses of this kind look as if the winter wind must blow quite through them. The roof presses directly upon the upper tier of windows, and looks as though it had been stretched to meet the walls, scarcely projecting enough, one would think, for safety, eaves being thought a useless luxury; the window-frames are as scant as possible, and set on the very surface of the building, and there is neither porch nor piazza at the door. Such is the shallow in its simplest form, but it is often seen in a very elaborate state—and to speak frankly, when this is the case, what was before ungainly and comfortless in aspect, becomes glaringly ridiculous. In instances of this kind, we find the shallow-ornate assuming the Grecian portico, running up sometimes one wing, sometimes two; pipe-stem columns one-fiftieth of their height in diameter, and larger, perhaps, in the centre than at either extremity, stand trembling beneath a pediment which, possibly, contains a good-sized bed-room, with a window in the apex. Such buildings are frequently surrounded with a very fanciful paling of one sort or other. One looks into the barn-yard of such a house with anxious misgivings, lest the geese should be found all neck, the cocks all tail, the pigs with longer noses, the ponies with longer ears than are usually thought becoming.
Succeeding to the common shallow, and coeval with the
​shallow-ornate, dating perhaps forty years back, appears the plain, straightforward style, with its square outline, its broader foundations, respectable from a pervading character of honest comfort, although capable of many improvements. Sometimes houses of this kind have a wing, sometimes two, but more frequently the addition is put up with an eye to convenience rather than symmetry, and a long, low building, containing the kitchen, wood-shed, &c., &c., projects from the rear, forming with it, at right angles with the house, two sides of a yard. These dwellings are seen in every direction, rather more common, perhaps, than any other, and where things are in good order about them, they have a pleasant, cheerful look. This plain, straightforward style has, however, received a certain development within the last ten years which, when not carried to extremes, is a progress for the better: the foundation is broader, the elevation of the building lower, the roof projects farther, the cornices and all parts of the frame-work are more substantial, the porch or verandah is in better proportions, and the whole has a look of more finished workmanship. A farm-house of this homely, substantial kind, standing beside one of the common shallow, or a starved Grecian edifice of the shallow-ornate style, appears to great advantage, and speaks encouragingly for the growth of common sense and good taste in the community.
Still more recently, however, this substantial school has been somewhat abused. You see here and there new wooden cottages, which, in the anxiety of the architect to escape the shallow, err in the opposite extreme, and look oppressively heavy, as though the roof must weigh upon the spirits of those it covers. The cornices and door-frames of these small cottages would often suit
​buildings of twice their size, and, altogether, they belong to the ponderous style.
It is amusing, in passing from one hamlet to the other, to observe how imitative the good people are; for there is generally some one original genius in every neighborhood who strikes out a new variation upon one of the styles alluded to, and whether the novelty be an improvement, or an unsightly oddity, he is pretty sure of being closely followed by all who build about the same time. One often sees half a dozen new houses in close neighborhood precisely on the same pattern, however grotesque it may chance to be. This imitative disposition shows itself also in the coloring of the houses; for of course here, as elsewhere throughout the country, they change their colors every few years with the last coat of paint. Many are white; many others yellow and orange; some are red, others brown; green, blue, and pink may also be found in the county; but these last shades are more rare, not having taken generally. Two or three years since, black was the hue of the season, but at present gray is all the fashion. It is by no means uncommon to find a house under different shades, front and rear, and I have seen a small farm-house with a different color on each of its four walls; yellow, red, brown, and white. We have also seen red houses with brimstone-colored blinds. But this Harlequin fancy seems to be subsiding, and as it has already been observed, sober gray and drabs are the colors in favor to-day, as though all the houses in the land were turning Quaker.
The “rural Gothic” and “Elizabethan,” which have grown rapidly into favor about the suburbs of large towns, have scarcely as yet made any impression here. There are, probably, not more
​than half a dozen houses of the kind in the whole county. The rounded, double-pitched roofs, so common in the older parts of the country, and the shingled walls, also, found so frequently on old farm-houses of Long Island, New Jersey, and the neighborhood of New York, are very rare here; probably there are not a dozen double-pitched roofs in the county, and we do not know of one building with shingled sides.
Certainly there is not much to boast of among us in the way of architecture as yet, either in town or country; but our rural buildings are only seen amid the orchards and fields of the farms, or surrounded by the trees and gardens of the villages, so that their defects are, perhaps, less striking, relieved, as they generally are, by an air of thrift and comfort, and softened by the pleasing features of the surrounding landscape.
Saturday, 18th.—Although the foliage has now entirely fallen, yet the different kinds of seeds and nuts still hanging on the naked branches give them a fuller character than belongs to the depths of winter. The catkins on the different birches thicken the spray of these trees very perceptibly; these are of two sorts, the fertile ones are more full than the sterile heads; both grow together on the same branch, but in different positions.
There are as many as six kinds of birches growing in this State: the canoe birch, the largest of all, sometimes seventy feet high, and three feet in diameter, and which grows as far south as the Catskills; the Indians make their canoes of its bark, sewing them with the fibrous roots of the white spruce. The cherry birch, or black birch, is also a northern variety, and very common here; it is used for cabinet work. Then there is the yellow birch, another northern variety, and a useful tree. The red birch, also a tree
​of the largest size, is the kind used for brooms. The white birch, a small tree, is of less value than any other; it is quite common in our neighborhood; we have understood, indeed, that all the birches are found in this county, except the little dwarf birch, an Alpine shrub, only a foot or so in height.
Monday, 20th.—The potato crop is quite a good one this year, in our neighborhood, though a portion of it will be lost. But the disease has never been as fatal here as in some other places, and the farms of the county have always yielded more than enough for the population. Some ten years since potatoes sold here for twelve and a half cents a bushel; since then they have risen at the worst season to seventy-five cents. They have been considered high at fifty cents for the last year or two, and are now selling at thirty-one cents a bushel.
Tuesday, 21st.—Again we hear of the panther story. The creature is said to have been actually seen by two respectable persons, in the Beaver Meadows; a woman who was out gathering blackberries saw a large wild animal behind a fallen tree; she was startled, and stopped; the animal, which she believed to be a catamount, got upon the log, and hissed at her like a cat, when she ran away. A man also, who was out with his gun in the woods, a few days later, near the same spot, saw a large wild creature in the distance; he fired, and the animal leaped over a great pile of brush and disappeared. It would be passing strange, indeed, if a panther were actually roving about our woods.!
Wednesday, 22d.—Very pleasant day. There is still a sprinkling of snow in some woods, for the weather has been cool and dry, but the country generally is quite brown again. The western hills are entirely free from snow, while those of the eastern range
​are all thinly sprinkled yet. Can this difference be owing to the greater power of the morning sun?
Pleasant walk. Stopped at the mill to order samp, or cracked corn. It is always pleasant in a mill; things look busy, cheerful, and thrifty there. The miller told us that he ground more Indian corn than anything else; nearly as much buckwheat, and less wheat than either; scarcely any rye, and no oatmeal at all. The amount of wheat ground at our mills is no test, however, of the quantity eaten, for a great deal of wheat flour is brought into the county from the westward.
They grind buckwheat at the village mill all through the summer, for a great deal of this flour is eaten here. In most families of the interior buckwheat cakes are a regular breakfast dish every day through the winter. In many houses they are eaten in the evening also, and among the farmers they frequently make part of every meal. This is the only way in which the flour is used with us—it all takes the form of “buckwheat cakes.” The French in the provinces eat galettes of the same flour; they call it there blé de Sarazin, as though it had been introduced by the Saracens. It came originally from Central Asia. Montesquieu speaks of these French buckwheat cakes as a very good thing: “Nos galettes de Sarrazin, humectées toutes brulantes de ce bon beurre du Mont d'Or étaient, pour nous, le plus frois régal.”
It appears that the Chinese eat much buckwheat also; they make it up there in the form of dumplings, and Sir George Staunton speaks of these as a very common dish in China.
Indian corn differs from the buckwheat in being prepared in many ways by our housewives: we have sapaen, or
​hasty-pudding; griddle-cakes, made with eggs and milk; hoe-cake, or Indian bread, baked in shallow pans; samp or hominy, corn coarsely broken and boiled; Jonikin, thin, wafer-like sheets, toasted on a board; these are all eaten at breakfast, with butter. Then we have the tender young ears, boiled as a vegetable; or the young grain mixed with beans, forming the common Indian dish of succotash; the kernel is also dried, and then thoroughly boiled for a winter vegetable. Again, we have also Indian puddings, and dumplings, and sometimes lighter cakes for more delicate dishes. The meal is also frequently mixed with wheat in country-made bread, making it very sweet and nutritious. Besides these different ways of cooking the maize, we should not forget parched or “popped” corn, in which the children delight so much; and a very nice thing it is when the right kind of corn is used, and the glossy yellow husk cracks without burning, and the kernel bursts through pure, and white, and nicely toasted. A great deal of popped corn is now used in New York and Philadelphia by the confectioners, who make it up into sugar-plums, like pralines. Acres of “popping corn” are now raised near the large towns, expressly for this purpose; the varieties called rice-corn, and Egyptian corn, are used, the last kind being a native of this country, like the others.
The word sapaen has sometimes been supposed of Indian origin. It is not found in any dictionary that we know of, though in very common use in some parts of the country. Vanderdonck speaks of the dish: “Their common food, and for which their meal is generally used, is pap, or mush, which in the New Netherlands is named sapaen. This is so common among the Indians that they
​seldom pass a day without it, unless they are on a journey, or hunting. We seldom visit an Indian lodge at any time of the day without seeing their sapaen preparing, or seeing them eating the same. It is the common food of all; young and old eat it; and they are so well accustomed to it, and fond of it, that when they visit our people, or each other, they consider themselves neglected unless they are treated to sapaen.” Maize seems, indeed, to have been the chief article of food with those Indians, at least, who lived upon the banks of the Hudson, or in the New Netherlands. Vanderdonck, in describing their food, does not, I believe, once mention the potato, at least not in the parts of his works which have been translated. He speaks of beans as a favorite vegetable of theirs, and one of the few they cultivated, planting them frequently with maize, that the tall stalk of the grain might serve as a support to the vine. He observes, they had several kinds of beans—probably all the native varieties, of which we have several, were cultivated by them. Squashes he mentioned as peculiar to them, and called by the Dutch Quaasiens, from a similar Indian word. Pumpkins were also cultivated by them, and calabashes, or gourds, which, says he, “are the common water-pails of the Indians.” Tobacco is also named as cultivated by them. But, as we have already observed, in his account of their field and garden produce, he says nothing of the potato, which is quite remarkable. The maize, on the contrary, seems to have been eaten at every meal: “Without sapaen,” he continues, “they do not eat a satisfactory meal. And when they have an opportunity they boil fish or meat with it, but seldom when the fish or meat is fresh—but when they have the articles dried hard and pounded fine. * * They also use many dry beans, which
​they consider dainties. * * When they intend to go a great distance on a hunting expedition, or to war, * * they provide themselves severally with a small bag of parched corn or meal; * * a quarter of a pound is sufficient for a day's subsistence. When they are hungry they eat a small handful of the meal, after which they take a drink of water, and they are so well fed, that they can travel a day. When they can obtain fish or meat to eat, then their meal serves them as well as fine bread would, because it needs no baking.” Speaking of their feasts, he says: “On extraordinary occasions, when they wish to entertain any person, then they prepare beavers' tails, bass-heads, with parched corn-meal, or very fat meat stewed, with shelled chestnuts, bruised.”—Not a bad dinner, by any means. Thus we see that while they relied on the maize in times of scarcity and fatigue, it made a principal part of their every-day fare, and entered into their great feasts also; but potatoes do not appear at all.
In using the word sapaen, Vanderdonck leads one to believe it either a provincialism of the New Netherlands, or an Indian word. Very possibly it may have been borrowed from the red man, like the quaasiens or squash. There is, however, a word which corresponds to our English sup, to swallow without mastication, which in Saxon is zupan; the Dutch are said to have a word similar to this, and sapaen may prove a provincialism derived from it. A regular Hollander could probably decide the question for us. Samp for cracked corn; hominy for grain more coarsely cracked; and succotash for beans and maize boiled together, are all considered as admitted Indian words. Mush is derived from the German Musse, for pap, and probably has reached us through the Dutch.
Thursday, 23d.—Thanksgiving-day. Lovely weather;
​beautiful sky for a festival. Pleasant walk. As we came back to the village the bells were ringing, and the good people, in their Sunday attire, were going in different directions to attend public worship. Many shop-windows were half open, however; one eye closed in devotion as it were, the other looking to the main chance.
This is a great day for gatherings of kith and kin, throughout the country; and many a table stands at this moment loaded with good things, for family guests and old family friends to make merry, and partake of the good cheer together. Few households where something especially nice is not provided for Thanksgiving dinner; for even the very poor, if known to be in want, generally receive something good from larders better filled than their own.
It was one of the good deeds of the old Puritans, this revival of a Thanksgiving festival; it is true, they are suspected of favoring the custom all the more from their opposition to Christmas; but we ought not to quarrel with any one Thanksgiving-day, much less with those who have been the means of adding another pleasant, pious festival to our calendar; so we will, if you please, place the pumpkin-pie at the head of the table to-day.
Surely no people have greater cause than ourselves for public thanksgivings, of the nature of that we celebrate to-day. We have literally, from generation to generation, “eaten our bread without scarceness.” Famine, to us, has been an unknown evil; that fearful scourge—one of the heaviest that can fall upon a nation, accompanied, as it is, by a long train of ghastly woes—that scourge has never yet been laid upon us; the gloomy anxiety of its first approaches, the enfeebled body, the wasting energies, the bitterness of spirit, the anguish of heart which attend its course, these have caused us to weep for our fellow-beings, but never yet
​for ourselves; the general distress, dismay, confusion, and suffering—the excess of misery—which follow its paralyzing progress through a country, are only known to us as evils which our fellow-men have suffered, and from which we, and those we love most warmly, have ever been graciously spared. Year after year, from the early history of the country, the land has yielded her increase in cheerful abundance; the fields have been filled with the finest of wheat, and maize, and rice, and sugar; the orchards and gardens, ay, the very woods and wastes, have yielded all their harvest of grateful fruits; the herds have fed in peace within a thousand quiet valleys, the flocks have whitened ten thousand green and swelling hills; like the ancient people of God, we may say, that fountains of milk and honey have flowed in upon us; the humming of the cheerful bee is heard through the long summer day about every path, and at eventide the patient kine, yielding their nourishing treasure, stand lowing at every door.
General scarcity in anything needful has been unknown among us; now and then the failure of some particular crop has been foretold by the fearful, but even this partial evil has been averted, and the prognostic has passed away, leaving no trace, like the gray cloud overshadowing but for an instant the yellow harvest-field, and followed by the genial glow of the full summer sunshine. In this highland valley we often hear fears expressed of this or that portion of the produce being cut off by the frosts belonging to our climate; now we are concerned for the maize, now for our stock of fruits, and yet how seldom has the dreaded evil befallen us! What good thing belonging to the climate has ever wholly failed; when have we wanted for maize, when have we suffered from lack of fruit? Every summer, currants have dried on the bushes,
​apples have lain rotting on the grass, strawberries have filled the meadows, raspberries and blackberries have grown in every thicket, while the richer fruits of warmer climates, oranges, and peaches, and water-melons, have been selling for copper in our streets.
The only approach to anything like scarcity known here since the full settlement of the county, occurred some ten years since; but it was owing to no failure of the crops, no ungenial season, no untimely frost. During the summer of 1838, wheat-flour became scarce in the country, and all that could be procured here was of a very indifferent quality—grown wheat, such as we had never eaten before. It was during the period of infatuation of Western speculation, when many farmers had left their fields untilled, while they followed the speculating horde westward. At that moment, many houses in the county were seen deserted; some closed, others actually falling to ruin, and whole farms were lying waste, while their owners were running madly after wealth in the wilds of Michigan and Wisconsin. The same state of things was general throughout the country, and, united to speculations in wheat, was the occasion of a temporary difficulty. As yet, this has been the only occasion when anything like scarcity has been felt here.
Well, indeed, does it become us to render thanks for mercies so great, wholly unmerited as they are. As we pass from valley to valley, from one range of highlands to another, from broad and heaving plains to plains still broader, from the fresh waters of great rivers and inland seas to the salt waves of the ocean, everywhere, on either hand, the bounties of Providence fill the land; the earth is teeming with the richest of blessings. And yet, in what part of this broad land, from one utmost verge to the other,
​shall we find the community that may justly claim the favor of the God of truth and holiness? Which great city, which busy town, what quiet village, what secluded hamlet, has deserved the blessing of Heaven on its fields? What city, or borough, or village, or hamlet, can say: “There is no sin here, there is no fraud, no deceit, no treachery, no drunkenness; no violence, rioting, impurity; no envy, no covetousness, no injustice, no slander, no falsehood, no insubordination among us; none of those evils declared hateful in the eyes of the God we worship, are going to and fro in our streets, upon our highways, sitting down and rising up unrebuked and unrepented of—these things are unknown here—we are wholly clean!” The heart recoils from the very idea of such presumption, and we bow our heads to the dust in deep acknowledgment of our unworthiness, as individuals, as communities, as a nation. “What is man that Thou visitest him, or the son of man, that Thou so regardest him!”
Happy, indeed, is it for the children of men, that the long-suffering God sendeth his rain upon the fields of the just and the unjust, and maketh his sun to shine upon the garden of the sinner with that of the righteous. Well, indeed, does it become us to render heartfelt, humble thanks to the God “who feedeth all flesh; for his mercy endureth forever.”
It may prove of some interest to pause a moment and look back at the Jewish festivals of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth, whence our own has been derived. It is, indeed, remarkable, that while the Jewish law was, in its general character, severe and stern, as compared with the milder and more merciful nature of Christianity, its worship gave such full and frequent expression to the beautiful spirit of thankfulness. The faithful
​Jew, obedient to the ritual of his church, would scarcely be guilty of the sin of ingratitude; just as it is difficult that the Christian, who, at the present hour, faithfully keeps the higher festivals of the Church, should be thankless and forgetful of all the mercies of his Almighty Father.
In the Jewish Church there were, besides the weekly Sabbaths and other lesser festivals, three great feasts of chief importance, the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. At each return of these, every male among the Twelve Tribes was commanded to go up to Jerusalem, and there to worship Jehovah. The women were allowed to accompany them, and were often in the habit of going, as we learn from Scripture history; but the journey was not obligatory with them. It is easy to see the many advantages that must have resulted to the different tribes from this general intercourse, hallowed by duty and religious services as it was. The Passover, as we all know, commemorated the deliverance of the Jews on that fearful night in Egypt, when “there was not a house where there was not one dead;” but like all the greater points in the Jewish ritual, it was also typical and prophetic in character, foreshadowing the salvation of the Christian Church by the death of the true Paschal Lamb, our Blessed Lord, who was sacrificed at that festival some sixteen centuries after its institution. For us, therefore, the Passover has become Easter.
The second great festival of the Jews was called by them the “Feast of Weeks,” because it was kept seven weeks after the Passover; and from its following on the fiftieth day from that feast, it has received the more modern name of Pentecost. To the Jews it commemorated the proclamation of the Law on Mount
​Sinai, an event which took place fifty days after their departure from Egypt. To the Christian Church this has also been a high festival, for on that day took place the miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church at Jerusalem, as recorded in the Acts. And this is the Whitsunday of our own Calendar.
The third great festival, the Feast of Tabernacles, was entirely Jewish, and peculiar to themselves. As the Passover occurred in spring, Pentecost in summer, so the Feast of Tabernacles was held in the autumn. On some accounts, it was the most important of all their festivals; it fell during the seventh month of their ecclesiastical year, which commenced at the Passover; but this was also the first month of their civil year, answering to our October, and a period of peculiar importance for the number of religious observances which fell during its course. The first of this month was their New-Year's day, and kept by a very singular custom, the priests blowing a solemn blast on the trumpets, whence it was called the Feast of Trumpets, and they believed, on traditional authority, that the world was created at this season. Ten days after the Feast of Trumpets followed the great national fast, or day of atonement. But it was the third week of the same month that concluded the greater festivals of the year by the Feast of Tabernacles, one of their most peculiar and most joyous celebrations. They were enjoined to live in booths for a week, to remind them of the tents of their ancestors, wanderers in the wilderness for forty years. These booths, or tents, or tabernacles—for such is the import of the latter word—were ordered to be made of branches “with boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook.” But while thus commemorating the poverty and hardships of
​their ancestors in the wilderness, they were also enjoined, at the same time, to “rejoice before the Lord their God,” and celebrate his infinite mercies to an unworthy race by especial thanksgivings. The last, or eighth day of the celebration, “that great day of the feast,” as St. John calls it, was particularly devoted to thanksgivings for the “in-gathering” of the fruits of the earth. This was, indeed, the great harvest-home of Judea.
Each of these three greater festivals to which we have particularly alluded, the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, independently of other associations, had also a connection with the mercies of God, in bestowing upon man the fruits of the earth. Their harvest was solemnly commenced the day after the Passover by a peculiar religious observance: three sheaves of barley were gathered in three different fields of the territory of Jerusalem, and carried to the temple, where they were threshed in the court, and were then solemnly offered to the Lord by the priest, in the name of the nation. This ceremony was enjoined in Leviticus, and before it had been performed, no man was allowed to put the sickle to his barley, the first grain reaped. At Pentecost again, when the wheat harvest was over, two loaves were offered in the temple by the priest, in the name of the nation. And the Feast of Tabernacles, as we have already seen, concluded with especial offerings and sacrifices, and thanksgivings for the great national harvest, now fully completed.
But independently of these general public observances, there were others enjoined upon the Jews of a private nature. Every one was commanded to offer personally the first-fruits of his own portion to the Lord. The women, when making the bread of the family, set apart a portion for the Levite, which was considered
​as an offering to the Lord, the priests having no lands or harvests of their own. The fortieth or sixtieth portion of the dough kneaded at the time was reserved for this purpose. And then, again, the first-fruits of every private harvest, not only of the grain, but of the fruits also, were offered at the temple with a solemn and very touching ceremony. The time for this private observance, and the amount offered, were left to the judgment of each individual. For this purpose, the Jews, at the conclusion of their harvests, used to collect in little parties from the same neighborhood, four to twenty persons together. They were preceded by an ox appointed for sacrifice, with a crown of olives on his head, and his horns gilded, with a player on the flute before him; and thus they walked in company to Jerusalem. The offerings were carried in baskets, and consisted of wheat, barley, grapes, figs, apricots, olives, and dates. From the fortieth to the sixtieth of the crop was offered. Each one bore his own basket; those of the rich were made of gold, those of the poor of wicker-work. When they arrived at Jerusalem, their friends came out to meet them. On reaching the temple, every man, the king himself, if he were there, took his basket on his shoulder and carried it into the court, where the Levites received the party, singing the xxx. Psalm: “I will extol Thee, O Lord,” &c., &c. After this, the form and ceremony enjoined in Deuteronomy were complied with:
“And it shall be, when thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest therein, that thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring of thy land that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and
​shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shalt choose to place his name there.
“And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him: ‘I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us.’
“And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God.
“And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, ‘A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous;’
“ ‘And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage.
“ ‘And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our afflictions, and our labor, and our oppression:
“ ‘And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders:
“ ‘And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey.
“ ‘And now, behold, I have brought the first-fruits of the land which thou, O Lord, hast given me.’
“And thou shalt set it before the Lord thy God, and worship before the Lord thy God.
“And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house; thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you.”—Deut. xxvi., 1-11.
​A beautiful ceremony, indeed. Thus we see how full of this acknowledgment of the mercies of God in feeding his people, was the Jewish ritual. The Christian, in the same spirit of constant dependence upon Almighty Providence for life of body and soul, has also been taught by Divine authority, whether rich or poor, humbly to pray for the boon of his daily bread.
Friday, 24th.—Evening; 9 o'clock. The lake has been very beautiful all day. In the morning, light gleaming blue; soft and still in the afternoon, sweetly colored by reflections of the hills and sky; and this evening it is quite illuminated by an unusual number of fishing lights, moving slowly under the shores and across the little bays.
Saturday, 25th.—Looking over the country from a height, now that the leaves have fallen, we found the fences attracting our attention. They are chiefly of wood in our neighborhood; zig-zag enclosures of rails, or worm-fences, as they are called. We have but few stone walls here; stump-fences are not uncommon. The rails used for the worm-fences are often of chestnut, which is considered the best wood for the purpose. Foreigners from the Continent of Europe usually quarrel with our fences, and perhaps they are right; they look upon this custom as a great and needless waste of wood. They say they are ugly in themselves, and that an open country, well cultivated, but free from these lines, gives the idea of a higher state of civilization, than lands where every half dozen acres are guarded by enclosures. General Lafayette, when sitting in his tower at Lagrange, in the midst of his fine farms of Brie, used to say that he could not like our fences, and thought we should yet learn to do without them; he believed the cost of the wood, and the trouble and expense of putting them up and
​keeping them in order, might be disposed of to greater advantage in other ways. Hedges, it is to be feared, will never suit our climate—in this State, at least—unless it be our own evergreen shrubs. The hemlock is now coming into use for this purpose, in some neighborhoods. As regards appearances, hedges, close at hand, are very pleasing; but at a little distance, they are scarcely an improvement upon the fence: they are still dark, stiff lines, crossing the country with a net-work of enclosures. Probably we might at least do with much less fencing in this country; it often strikes one that fields are unnecessarily cut up in this way.
Monday, 27th.—There is an insect very common in the lower parts of the State, which we never see here: the ball-rolling beetle, so much resembling the sacred scarabæus of the Egyptians. One observes them on all the roads about New York and on Long Island, but we have never yet seen them in this county. If they exist here at all, they must be very rare. The sacred beetle of the Egyptians is said to have been rather larger than our insect of the same kind.
Tuesday, 28th.—Very pleasant, mild weather. Charming today; walking excellent. The farmers were right: we have had very pleasant weather after those cold days early in the month.
Wednesday, 29th.—Very pleasant; observed gnats in some places this afternoon.
Thursday, 30th.—Pleasant. Long walk in the bare, open woods; neither heard nor saw a bird.
| “ | Le bocage était sans mystère |
| | Le rossignol était sans voix.” |
The long yellow petals have fallen from the wych-hazel; the
​nut is beginning, to form, the heart slowly becoming a kernel, and the small yellow flower-cups turning gradually into the husk. On some bushes, these little cups are still yellow and flower-like; on others, they have quite a husky look. It takes these shrubs a full year to bring their fruit to maturity.
The green wheat-fields look vivid and bright lying about the gray farms. The lake is deep blue just now; it seems to be more deeply blue in the autumn than at other seasons; to-day, it is many shades darker than the sky, almost as blue as the water in Guido's Aurora.