CHAPTER XXVI.
Spring at the West.--"Sugar Days."--Performances of the Cattle.--April.--Advent of the Blue-Jays and the Crows.--The Bluebirds, Phebes, and Robins.--April and its Inspiring Days.--The Frogs and their Concerts.--Gophers, Squirrels, Ants; Swallows, Brown-Threshers, and Blackbirds.--The Swallows, the Martins, and the Advent of May.
Spring opens in the western wilds with great pomp and beauty. After ourwinter had passed, accompanied with few out-door amusements, how inspiringwere her first footsteps! February slowly gave way to March, the sun eachday rolled higher and higher, and the heavens grew bluer and bluer. Thencame the still, clear, cold nights, when the stars flashed like diamonds,and the still, warm days, that flooded the lakes and streams. Here andthere a bird would appear--one of the more hardy sort--a kind of courier,that had been sent out by his fellows, lonely, like the dove from the ark,to spy out the land, and report its condition. These couriers, who Isupposed were birds that were with us the preceding year, rummaged aroundthe woods, like a family who had just returned to a long deserted mansion.They flew from tree to tree, eyed the knot-holes, examined everything,shivered a few nights on a snowy limb, and then hurried back to make theirreport. The outside birds who were thus represented, and who were soanxious to "come on," were like a press at the theatre, before the hourhad arrived to hoist the curtain.
These March days were "sugar days." Puddleford was, of course, inconfusion; men, women, and children turned out with kettles and pans, intothe "bush;" and one would have supposed, from the clouds of smoke thatrolled over the tops of the trees, that a tribe of gypsies had campedthere. The girls, dressed in linsey-woolsey, were boisterous; the boys,uproarious; and a whole army of dogs, full of the spirit of the occasion,stormed around, barking at every deer track, and tore all the rotten logsin pieces. Then came a long, warm, still rain--and the frogs shouted toeach other their melancholy music--and the grass and the roots that weresoaking in the marshes sent out their sweetness--the bud began to swell onthe willow--the geese gathered in a procession, with some pompous gander atits head, and marched to the river--and the barn-yard fowls climbed up intotrees, on top of the sheds and stacks, and cackled, and crowed, andclucked, and chatted together, like so many guests at a party.
The cattle congregated, and wandered away off to an open plain, and wentthrough certain exercises, the significance of which was known only tothemselves. One old cow of mine, whose reputation was good, and whosefrosty bones had scarcely moved during the winter, and who was present atthis celebration, suddenly wheeled out of the ranks, rolled her tail overher back, put herself on a circuitous canter, cutting as many capers as aFrench dancing-master, and brought up, at last, with a bellowing blast thatwas quite terrific.
At a distance stood another of the herd, frothing at the mouth, lashingherself with her tail, and throwing clouds of sand on high with her forefeet. Away, in another quarter, were a couple of very thoughtful lookinganimals, fencing with their horns. Every little while some good or evilspirit would take possession of them, and the whole company would flingtheir tails aloft, and with a great noise go off in a stampede that madethe ground tremble.
As April approached, or rather the reflected light from her distant wheels,the voice of the birds changed into a mellower tone. The blue-jay, whoseharsh scream had so long grated on my ear, grew softer, and he blew once ina while one of his spring pipes (for he is a great imitator, and has many),which, after all, sounded rather husky and winter-like. His heart grewwarmer, too. He would sit on a dry tree close to the eaves of my house, andpeer through the windows, to see what was going on inside, jump down, andbow himself up on the door-steps, to remind us, in the best way he could,of the sunshine outside.
Soon the crows began to sweep solemnly through the air with their caw! caw!They sailed round and round, now lighting on some tree, now on the ground,then away they went into the heavens again. They seemed to be taking a verythorough examination of the premises, making out the lines of occupation,and acquiring a new possession of the same, for the use of themselves andthose they represented. Sometimes a body of them, lazily winging their wayover my house, and looking down from their height upon my diminutive form,would shower upon my head ten thousand _Ca's!_ as if in utter contempt ofboth me and mine. I occasionally fired a shot at them, and the only answerI got was a quick "_Ca-Ca!_"--as much as to say, "Try it again! Try itagain? Who cares?"
Then came the bluebird. I threw up my window amid the latter days of March,one sunshiny morning, and there she sat on a maple, blowing her flute.Banks of snow were scattered here and there, but the ground smelled moistand spring-like. Where did that little piece of melody come from? Where wasshe the day before? Her song was a little poem about south-west winds, andviolets, and running brooks--perhaps she was a preacher, sent out by thedaisies to herald their coming--perhaps her song was only a prayer--for shewent round from place to place, on this tree and that, in her littlecathedral, as priests do in theirs, and erected her altar, and made heroffering. She had a great deal to say, and a great many persons and thingsto deliver her message to; for in a little while she went, rising andfalling as though she were riding billows of air, to the roof of myneighbor's house, where she sang the same song again; and after thusspending an hour or two about the neighborhood, she crossed the river, anddashed into the woods.
On the next morning the bluebird came again, and brought a phebe with him,and the two sang a kind of duet for my benefit. Their harmony wasperfect--for "there is no discord in nature." On the following day, atdawn, before the sun arose, I heard the robin rolling off her mellow notes.I looked out and saw a little flock running along on the ground, andpicking at the fresh earth, evidently for the purpose of determining itscondition. This same flock, I am sure, remained upon my premises during thesummer, and had, in fact, possession of them for many years previous. Forthey appeared every day or two, and grew more and more inquisitive, andexamined more closely. A couple finally took possession of this tree, and acouple of that. They commenced "cleaning house." They flitted about fromlimb to limb, balanced themselves on the dry twigs, as if trying theirstrength and elasticity, ran themselves away down into the joints, anddissected the crotches, picked up and cast away the dead moss and leaves,and made as much bustle and stir as a woman on May-day.
As I was watching a couple of them one day, while they were busy at work,they seemed quite annoyed at my presence. They flirted off from the tree toa fence near by, with a mellow cry--saying, plainly enough, as they bobbedaround, "What! what!" "Any-thing-wrong? Any-thing-wrong?""Please-go-away--ha-ha-please-go-away."
Some four weeks later, these birds began to build. They went sailingthrough the air with the timbers of their castle in their mouths. Thistimber was selected with great care. Straw after straw, and sprig aftersprig, was picked up and cast away before the right one was found. Theyremained with me during their stay north, and returned each succeeding yearto the same tree, until the woods all about me were felled, when theydeserted me for other quarters.
April shone out at last. Away down in the wild meadows the cowslip pushedup its green head into the sunshine, and along the warm hill-sides thewind-flowers were strewn. How they came there, I cannot tell. The daybefore it was all bleak, and chilly, and flowerless there. They must havebeen scattered by the morning rays of light. A melting bank of snowfrowned down upon them, close by. Soon the shade-tree sent out its blossomsof lilac, and the dog-wood burst into a pile of snow. The hard, gray,leafless trees stood up sternly around these first daughters of spring,arrayed in their garments of pomp, and looked, as well as inanimate thingscan look, jealous and uneasy. All over the aisles of the forest layenormous trunks of trees, like columns about an unfinished temple, thicklycoated with a heavy green moss; and there was a smell of bark, and swellingtwigs, and struggling roots--such a smell as only the early spring daysgive out--as though the earth and the forest were just gaping andstretching with a decayed last year's breath, before rousing up to theduties of th
is.
Then the rivulets began to get into tune. The one that ran tumbling throughthe woods seemed to be in a very great hurry, and shot around its islandsof moss and promontories of tree-roots with great zeal. It had unwound fromits reel of light and moisture a green ribbon, that lay along its shoresmiles and miles away in the wilderness; and the birds slyly bathedthemselves in its waters; and now and then a small fish came rushing downwith the speed of an arrow, just returning from his winter quarters to theriver, probably to enter his name upon the great piscatorial rollpreparatory to summer service.
In a basin, just below a little fall of this brook, two or three wood-duckswere ploughing round and round. These wood-ducks are hermits, and secretethemselves in ponds and watery thickets, where silence and shadows prevail.On one of these mornings, ruminating on its banks, sat Venison Styles, hisgun resting on the ground, apparently in a profound study. I looked at theold hunter a long time, and his figure was as fixed and immovable as if hewere a part of the landscape, and had grown there like the trees about him.What can the old man be dreaming about? thought I. Perhaps he already hearsthe approaching footsteps of dancing May, her head crowned with flowers,and the music of the thousand birds that supported her train. It wasalready spring--summer--in his soul. He was thinking of the sports of thecoming year, and the light and pomp of the seasons passed before hisimagination like the gorgeous pictures of a panorama.
These April days were inspiring. Occasionally a bleak squall of rain orsnow obscured the sky, and silenced the music of Nature; but the heavenslooked bluer, and the birds sang more lustily, after it passed away. In thelatter part of the month the ground became settled, and the frogs, towardsevening, and sometimes during the moist, smoky afternoons, sent up theirmelancholy wailing from the wide wastes of marsh that stretched themselvesthrough the woods and along the river banks. Some of these marshes were tenmiles long, and two or three broad; and such a concert of voices ascongregated there was never equalled by anything else. I had, and stillhave, notions of my own about these vocalists. I am sure that they sangunder discipline and system--that they performed on different kinds ofinstruments. Some of them seemed to be blowing a flageolet; others drewtheir bows across their violins; some played the fife; while here and theremight be heard grum twangs, like the twanging of bass-viol strings. He wholistened long and closely might detect delicate vibrations of almost everytone in art or nature. Sometimes their voices sounded like the dying echoesof ten thousand bells, all of a different key, yet the tangled melody wasan entanglement of chords and discords, and it rolled away, and expired inwaves of pure harmony; again, it was like a choir of human voicesperforming an anthem. I thought I could hear syllables, too--thearticulation of words--something like a psalm. Then the words and soundsappeared to change, and, by the aid of the imagination, one would havesupposed that the whole community were shouting--delivering politicalharangues--or that its members had got on a "bust," and were rattling offall kinds of nonsense in a drunken frolic.
April brought with it, too, flying showers and warm sunshine. The grassbegan to wake up, and scent the air with its sweetness. Along thewatercourses the willows unfolded their leaves; the buds swelled in theforests; and the tree-tops were touched with a light shade of brown, andthen a shade of green, which grew deeper and deeper each day. Large flocksof pigeons darkened the air, all moving from south to north,--from whence,or to where, I could not tell. A company would sometimes "hold up" for anhour or two, to "feed and rest," like a caravan at an oasis; but they soontook their wings again, and pursued their journey.
The tenants of the ground burst their tombs, and came up for duty. Thegopher, and squirrel, and the ant went to work. I noticed a large communityof ants who had commenced building a city. Their last year's metropolis wasdestroyed, and they were compelled to begin from the foundation; and such astir and bustle was never exceeded. Hundreds of laborers were in the workup to their eyes. Here was one fellow with a grain of sand in his mouth--arock to him, I suppose--climbing over twigs and dead grass, standingsometimes perpendicular with his load, and not unfrequently falling overbackwards, yet struggling away, surmounting all obstacles, until he finallyreached the place of deposit. Then there was a class of miners who shot upfrom their holes, dropped their speck of dirt, wheeled, and shot backagain. Trains of them were continually ascending and descending. There wasstill another class--"blooded characters," most likely--possiblyoverseers--who did not do any work, but ran around from point to point, asif inspecting the rest, and giving to them directions. Once in a while acouple of workmen would run a-foul of each other, and get into a quarrel--aclinch--a fight--and the "tussle" lasted until they were parted. Thiscolony, I will say, erected a large mound of earth in a very fewweeks--gigantic to them as an Egyptian pyramid is to us--in which theylived and labored during the season.
Finally, the swallows, and brown-threshers, and blackbirds, and martinscame--not all in a body, but straggling along. The blackbirds appearedfirst, and might be seen flying about from tree to tree, and fence tofence, near by the upturned furrows that the ploughman had left behind him.Such a saucy troop of pirates as they were! Flocks of them sat about in theoaks, showering a host of epithets upon the said ploughman; then a dozen ormore darted down, staggered over the ground, picked up a worm, and dashedaway into the oaks again. They scolded, and fretted, and coaxed, andthreatened, and nettled about like a belle of sixteen. Some of them weredressed in a suit of glossy black, with a neckcloth of shifting green;others wore red epaulets on their wings; and a flock of them, dartingthrough the air, had the appearance of braided streams of fire, orinterlaced rainbows. Towards evening they all went down among the aldersand willows by the river, and had a long chat among themselves. They bowed,and twitched, and stretched down one wing, and then the other; lit upon thelittle twigs, and see-sawed as they sung, and did many other things. Theywere evidently erecting themselves into some kind of a government for theyear--holding a caucus--perhaps an election--deposing an old monarch, orelevating a new; for it was easy to hear them say what they would do, andwhat they wouldn't--that is, easy for one who has studied the blackbirdlanguage--and sometimes an awful threat might be detected, mixed with agreat many wheedling words and gracious postures.
The brown-threshers came next, and they were just as full of chatter andlife as they were the year before. Birds never grow old, it seems to me,nor have I ever been able to determine when or where they die. The hunterkills but a very few, and those few of a certain kind. What becomes of therest? They breed every spring in great numbers; but how, when, and where dothey die? We do not find dead birds in the woods; at any rate, very few.Yes, the brown threshers were as young as ever. They looked very shabby andmussed when I last saw them in the fall; but now their brown clothes shoneas cleanly as a Quaker-girl's shawl. They took up Nature's music-book, andrattled off all the songs, and glees, and anthems in it--very often makinga medley of it, mixing the notes of the birds that were chanting aroundall together--and they often closed the performance with an original strainof their own, composed on the spot.
When the swallows and the martins came, I knew that spring was fullyestablished. They appeared suddenly during the night; for when the May sunarose, they were twittering and wheeling through the air, shooting up andplunging down in a kind of delicious rapture. Their music was set on thestaff of blue skies, south-west winds, and flowers. There was not a note ofwinter in it. The woods, and streams, and fields seemed to have beenwaiting for their melody, for all Nature went to work, and was soon clad inbeauty, and light, and song.