Rambles With John Burroughs Part 3

"At this time America has no great writer, but many who use pretty English. They seem to have no great message. Stedman wrote well, but his essays always savored too much of the mid-night oil. They read as if the best of his energy had been spent in something else, and the tired mid-night hours turned to literary work. They are not fresh like Lowell's essays. I do not think anything he wrote has lasting qualities, with the possible exception of two or three poems. Aldrich wrote sweet verse, but it is sweet in the sense that a peach or a plum is sweet. It has no fast colors. Trowbridge is one of our best present-day writers, and much of his work will be unknown to the next generation. He is a man of attractive personality and exceptionally pleasing manners. Mrs.

Burroughs and I have, for a long time, enjoyed his friends.h.i.+p. As for my own writings, I sometimes wonder just how they have affected people, and what my life has meant. I have always hoped that some would be helped by my books. A short time ago, I had a letter from a preacher in the upper part of New York state, who had just finished a book on 'The Gospel of Christ,' and he asked me if I would write a book on 'The Gospel of Nature.' After I received the letter and began to think about the matter, I was much perplexed as to whether there is a gospel of Nature.

I have since then written something along the line suggested, but I do not know whether it will ever appear in print. It is always interesting to have suggestions from any one about what I should write. Writing is more a product of the soul than of the will.

"I once asked President Roosevelt what he would do when he left the White House. He replied quickly: 'Oh, I'll find plenty to do. Don't worry about that.' And he will find plenty to do. He is a man of intense activity, and will always be happiest when he is busiest. I admit that he takes large liberties as the executive of the nation, but he is a natural leader and controller of men. When he sets his head to do a thing, he keeps digging away till it is done. He is full of resources. I have just received a letter from him consenting to be interviewed by my friend, William Bayard Hale. Hale is a good man, and will give a most reliable account of his visit to the White House."

John Burroughs, who is destined to be called "the good gray naturalist,"

is a man who enters freely into the life of those who admire him and his writings. Recently it was my delight to read and discuss one of his short poems, "The Return," with Mrs. Burroughs, and I could not resist the temptation to remark that Mr. Burroughs must have been homesick for the old place when he wrote it.

The wife said: "Yes; you have no idea how true that is! Mr. Burroughs often goes back to his old home at Roxbury, up in the Catskills, and walks over the farm and through the woods where he used to go when he was a boy, and he always tells me how sad it makes him feel. I sometimes think that he would like to live his life over, he has so many fond memories and pleasant recollections of his early life."

THE RETURN

He sought the old scenes with eager feet, The scenes he had known as a boy, "Oh, for a draught of those fountains sweet, And a taste of that vanished joy!"

He roamed the fields, he wooed the streams, His schoolboy paths essayed to trace; The orchard ways recalled his dreams, The hills were like his mother's face.

O sad, sad hills! O cold, cold hearth!

In sorrow he learned this truth-- One may return to the place of his birth, He cannot go back to his youth.

RAMBLES AROUND ROXBURY

I

To one who is interested in the most beautiful things in nature a day trip up the Hudson by boat in mid-summer is a real treat. Here you get a general idea of the palisades and are far more impressed with their beauty and significance than is possible when taking a hurried trip by rail. You are constantly s.h.i.+fting the scenes from hill to hill, from mountain to mountain and from outline to outline, each scene characterized by its particular fascinating beauty, till you reach the climax as you approach the Highlands. Here you get the best the Hudson has to offer, and you almost feel suddenly lifted above yourself as you approach these round mountain peaks clad in dark and light green, and reflected almost as perfectly in the calm gentle flowing river.

An additional charm is added to the trip as you approach West Park, a small station on the West Sh.o.r.e Railroad, about five miles above Poughkeepsie, the home of John Burroughs, the great literary naturalist, the interpreter of Nature, the delightful man of many parts. From the boat you can see Riverby, his stone house, and the small bark covered study near by. Perhaps if he were here, we could see him in the little summer house overlooking the river, taking his mid-day rest. But he is back at the old home farm in the western Catskills, at Roxbury, enjoying again the scenes of his boyhood, or better, as he himself puts it, "drinking from the fountains of his youth." From time to time, he goes back to his native heath and rambles over his favorite boyhood haunts, and climbs the hills and stone walls he used to climb. He was born in a farm house in one of the valleys just above the little town of Roxbury, to the northwest, on one of the best farms in that part of the state of New York, and the homing instinct appeals to him no more than the desire to get back to the farm he helped develop, and to enjoy the free open air of the hills and mountains.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EATING RASPBERRIES ON THE SITE OF HIS GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE, LONG SINCE TORN AWAY]

"Well, you did come didn't you," are the first words he spoke as I stepped off the afternoon train from Kingston Point. Yes, he was there and what a warm and welcome hand-shaking he gave me! Soon plans were perfected for our journey up the hill from the railway station to Woodchuck Lodge, a farm house where Mr. Burroughs keeps house of late years while he visits his old home. This house is on the south and west edge of his brother's farm, in the direction of the station, and is a comfortable place for his summer work. He thinks that he will fit it up and spend part of every summer in it as long as he lives. John Burroughs had been tramping all day with some friends, and but for his vigor of manhood, would have been too tired to meet the train that afternoon, but one of the party said he was right in for meeting the train, and never thought of yielding the task to another. When he gets back among his native hills he is no longer aged, despite his gray hairs, nor does he credit his own lines, "One may go back to the place of his birth, He cannot go back to his youth." Here he is back to his youth and it is not to be denied. He is as optimistic as any young man ever was.

With all his optimism, however, there are many sad hints mingled. Before we had reached Woodchuck Lodge, he pointed many scenes of his childhood, and said in a little undertone: "These are the scenes upon which my eyes first opened, and I sometimes think I would not mind if they closed for the last time upon them. I would not mind if I come to the end of my journey right here among these hills." As we went slowly up the hillside, he began pointing out the many places of interest about the town, among which was the Roxbury Academy, a large two-story frame building, that he longed to attend as a young man but never did. The academy looked about as it did sixty years ago, and was conducted practically along the same lines. Many modern ideas and methods had crept into the curriculum, but the tendency was to stick to the traditions of the past. "This little brook here used to be a famous trout stream when I was a boy. Many are the times I have fished up and down it when a bare-foot boy, and have caught some fine fish in it too.

They are all about gone now, so many people have moved in and taken the timber from the valley of the brook, and have fished it out. We shall go up by the edge of that pond and follow the trail around the upper end of it, instead of going around the roadway. In this way we can make our walk some shorter." His mind wandered from one thing to another as he led the way up the hill. Now he would be pointing out some interesting flower or plant, now some bird or nest, and in it all he found joy and, as truly, shared it with me.

The small artificial pond we were pa.s.sing was stocked with fish, and I was told by the keeper had a half million trout in it. Pointing back toward the town Mr. Burroughs said: "Over there is the famous Gould Memorial Church, built by Helen Gould, and just to the left of the church you will see the Gould home, in front of which is a beautiful park." As we approached the upper end of the pond he saw a gopher run up a tree and disappear in a hollow, a sight he had never witnessed before, and he remarked with some pride: "One never gets too old to learn. I thought I knew the gopher pretty well, but this is the first time I ever saw one hide himself in a tree after that manner." About this time a hyla sounded his familiar note in a small tree just across the brook, and Mr. Burroughs hastened to that part of the bog and lingered about this tree till we heard a vesper sparrow singing his evening hymn on the stone wall just beyond the bog. "I never tire of such music as that. The vesper sparrow sings for me many months in the year and has been doing so as long as ever I can remember, but its music is as fresh and sweet today as it was the first time I ever heard it. There is something strange about the constancy of nature and the inroads she makes upon one's mind and soul." It would hardly be a mistake to say that the appeal which nature makes to John Burroughs has kept before him all these years high ideals and a great purpose, and has been responsible for his success as a writer. He has been constant in his love for and devotion to nature, but has had to wait (and he has done it patiently) for the great welcome the world is now giving him. His circle of admirers was very much restricted for many years during the beginnings of his literary career, but he kept before him the lessons of nature, and never lacked for enthusiasm to reflect truth when the appeal came.

The afternoon was beautiful. As we approached Woodchuck Lodge the shadows were growing long and dim, and the sky was beginning to turn saffron, but there was some signs of discontentment in the weather, which did not fail to bring fruit before morning, for there was a strong wind from the east before mid-night, which brought clouds with a little sprinkling of rain and a considerable drop in temperature before morning. The walk had ended and we were tired, but how refres.h.i.+ng was the shredded wheat and fresh sweet milk, the home-made loaves, the maple cookies (Mr. Burroughs' boyhood favorites) and the beautiful white honey. This repast was fit for a king, and served in this simple manner, tasted better than it would have on any king's table. Whatever else he was doing, once in awhile I could hear him sigh: "I get so home sick for these dear old scenes of my early days! I cannot stay away from them long at a time! I come back every year and spend some time following up the paths I helped to make around the old home place! Mrs. B. used to come with me, but she doesn't enjoy it now like she did years ago. It is the best of tonics for me."

After the evening meal, Mr. Burroughs took me over to the old Burroughs'

home, where his brother now lives, and who could have experienced greater pleasure than I, when it was announced that I was to occupy Uncle John's room for the time of my stay! To think that I should look out from the windows that he looked from, and would see the scenes that inspired him so much during the formative period of his life, was all joy to me. To know the interesting family of his brother, and to sleep under the roof that had for so many years, brought happiness to the man whom I had gone far to see, these were experiences that add much to one's resources of life. Here in this beautiful valley among the hills of the western Catskills, nestled the village in which grew the boy who now, at seventy three years young, brings people from all parts of the world to his door. A man who has put man and Nature on good terms and brought happiness to thousands of homes. No wonder he sighs for the hills and for the home of his youth! They gave him his first love for Nature.

His interest in the affairs of the farm was keen. He would ask his nephew: "How is your crop of oats turning out? Aren't you afraid to leave the shocks in the field too long? I should think they would begin to rot. When are you going to cut the field up by the road?" Nothing of interest about the farm escaped his attention, and though his interest was altogether a personal interest, you would think he was getting half the revenue of the crop.

II

Before going to the woods and mountains the next morning, Mr. Burroughs showed me a copy of the Atlantic Monthly containing his essay, "Expression," published in November, 1860, and asked if I cared to read the essay. I found it interesting and as perfect a piece of work as John Burroughs ever did. It begins: "The law of expression is the law of degrees,--much, more, most.... There is no waste material in a good proverb; it is clear meat like an egg,--a happy result of logic, with the logic left out, and the writer who shall thus condense his wisdom, and as far as possible give the two poles of thought in every expression, will most thoroughly reach men's minds and hearts." Thus ends the first paragraph of the essay, and it continues to abound in Transcendentalism to the end. The following is the last and much quoted paragraph: "Johnson's periods act like a lever of the third kind, the power always exceeds the weight raised." It is filled with proverbs and brilliant thought. Perhaps it is Emersonian, but certainly it is different from anything Emerson ever did. It is so entirely different from anything else Burroughs did that one can hardly feel while reading it that he is following after the author of "Wake Robin," or "Winter Suns.h.i.+ne." It is so well done, however, that one cannot help but feel that if he had given himself over to that form of literature, he would have rivaled Emerson, or any other writer, in that field of expression.

Wake Robin, though keyed in a much lower tone than the essay, is as fresh as the morning dew, and sparkles as much, and we cannot help but feel that Mr. Burroughs did the proper thing when he came down from his high perch of Transcendentalism.

After breakfast was over, and the ch.o.r.es were done, we prepared for the morning tramp in the hills. Our itinerary, which had already been mapped out by Mr. Burroughs, lead down the road by the old home farm and up the lane beyond to the south and east. In the corner of a meadow, to the right of the road beyond the Burroughs' house, is an old family grave yard, and when we reached this, Mr. Burroughs stopped and gave a little history of the farm and of several of the people who had been planted there in the city of the dead. "Ezra Bartram owned this farm before father, and sold it to father. Bartram built the house in which I was born. When I was a young boy father built the house you see down there now. Edna Bartram, the grand-daughter of Ezra, was my first sweetheart and I recall now just how she looked." We entered the old grave yard from the bars in the stone fence, and Mr. Burroughs had much pleasure reading the names and telling of the people who were buried there. When he came to the name of Jeremiah Dart, he recalled that he had three sons, Dave, Abe and Rube, and that Rube once worked for his father. The Scudders were teachers and preachers. The Corbins were successful farmers and respectable people. "Deacon Jonathan Scudder had a farm joining father's farm on the southwest, and well do I remember how straight he was. The Deacon built that fence over there beyond our farm, and I can see him now as straight as a rod, picking up stones in that pasture. He never bent except at the hips. How he ever built that wall is a puzzle. But he was forever going through the pasture picking up stones and putting them on the fence one by one. He was thrifty and always had things done right about him." Mr. Burroughs went on across the grave yard and came to a name that interested him a great deal.

"Nath Chase was the first to introduce top-knot chickens in our community, and O how I wanted some of those chickens!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: RESTING UNDERNEATH A CATSKILL LEDGE WHERE HE HAS OFTEN BEEN PROTECTED FROM THE RAIN IN SUMMER]

From this grave yard we went over the hill to the east, following the public road, till we came to a large patch of raspberries on the left of the road, which were growing in a hole surrounded by heaps of stone and brickbats. Mr. Burroughs did not tell me why his fancy led him there, but I knew when he told me that his father was born there, and that it was his grandfather's place. He was loath to leave here, but sat down on one of the old timbers in the centre of the place where the house stood and ate raspberries for some time. "How delicious these berries are! Far better it seems to me than any cultivated berries that ever grew."

Having said this, he gave me a handful that I might try those he himself was gathering. From this place we went to the site of his grandfather's barn, where Mr. Burroughs discovered a few years ago his father's initials cut in a slab of stone. "These letters, 'C. A. B.' stand for Chauncey A. Burroughs, my father, born in 1803, who must have cut them here many, many years ago. I was very glad to make the discovery."

Just as we began our journey toward the nearby woods, he pointed out to me the little red school on the edge of the opposite hillside, where he got most of his education. "That school and the grounds about it, are about as they were when I was in school there over sixty years ago. The house was painted red then as it is now, and on some of the old seats I can see where some of my schoolmates cut their names." The call of a sharp s.h.i.+nned hawk attracted our attention from the school house, to the woods. Now we halted for several moments in the lower edge of the meadow. Mr. Burroughs thought they must have found some prey and that we might see what it was if we kept still and quiet. But the hawks went across the valley in the direction of the school house and we never saw what was the cause of the disturbance.

Going south from here, we came to some beautiful woods, at the bottom of which flowed a clear cool brook. At the upper edge of the hill was an outcrop of stratified rock. This was of the greatest interest to the naturalist, who, just back from the petrified forests of Arizona and the Yosemite valley, where he had enjoyed the companions.h.i.+p of John Muir, was chuck full of Geology and the Geological history of the earth. "You can see the effects of water in this perfect stratification here," he would say, as he pointed out the leaves of stone so perfectly marked there in the hillside. "If we could just roll back the pages of history a few millions of years, we could read some interesting and wonderful stories of the formation of Mother Earth's crust. Just look at the wave marks of the sea along the edges of the hill! How I wonder if old Triton did not have a great task allaying the waves that folded these pages! O what a small part man plays in the history of the earth! The creature of the hour and a mere speck on the face of nature." There is a sadness and sweetness in the a.s.sociations with a man like this, and I could not help but think of Wordsworth's little poem as I listened to John Burroughs tell about his idea of the earth in its relation to man, and of how little man studies Mother Earth.

"The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This sea that bears her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great G.o.d! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."

There is kept before your mind the unquestionable seriousness of the influences of cosmic forces; the effects of an intimate relations.h.i.+p with Nature. Burroughs always sees the better and larger side of things.

You never hear any of the nature prattle so common among the less serious students.

At this moment the red-eyed vireo burst in full song only a few feet from us and a Rubenstein would not have commanded our attention quicker.

"The little fellow is doing almost the work of two," said the naturalist, so fluent was the song. He came within close range and softened down into a low mellow song, whereupon Mr. Burroughs remarked: "His audience is not quite as large as he first thought, so he is tuning his harp down accordingly." Here we came into the settlement roadway and returned to the Lodge for dinner.

III

In the afternoon, we set out early from Woodchuck Lodge for a long tramp through the pasture south of the Burroughs farm and in the direction of the Nath Chase farm. Back through the woods between the Lodge and the old farm, were scattered apple trees, which had some apples on them. Mr.

Burroughs told something of the history of some of these apple trees, that they had been grafted many years ago by his father, and that others had been planted by the cattle as they followed the pathway through this pasture. There were signs that the gray squirrels had been eating the apples. We saw several piles of chips and a few apple seeds scattered on the wall fence, which the squirrels had chosen for a festal hall. On this wall, the naturalist would lean and look off over the hills toward the town of Roxbury, and tell of the neighbors who had settled this field and that. His mind sometimes seemed to be on,

"Far-off things, And battles long ago."

Suddenly he looked around and said: "It's sweet to muse over one's early years and first experiences. I was just thinking of the many times I had gone through these woods. But O, how I dislike to see these trees cut down for wood, when so many are already down and rotting. This patch of woods extended to the bottom of the hillside, when I was a boy, and I think it was much prettier then than it is now." A very interesting piece of natural history pointed out to me beyond this pasture, was the tendency of birch to trace its roots over large areas of stone almost barren of soil. It has a preference for rocky places. The root of this tree will sometimes trace a small crevice in the stone twenty or thirty feet and does not seem to reach into any soil throughout its whole length.

At the edge of the flat gra.s.s covered hill beyond the pasture, was a perpendicular wall of several feet in height,--the outcrop of the same stratification of stone we had observed during the earlier part of the day. A number of birch roots had reached all the way down to the bottom of this ledge and fastened themselves in the soil below. Several phoebe nests had been built on the shelves of rock along under the ledge, which the naturalist pointed out to me. Under one ledge that extended over at least twelve feet, was a phoebe's nest that Mr. Burroughs thought had been there for more than a quarter of a century. On the table of rock beneath the nest was a pile of waste ten or twelve inches in height, and there was enough material in the nest itself to build more than a dozen phoebe's nests. The place was so inaccessible to other animals, that the birds took advantage of this, and doubtless made of it hereditary property, handing it down from generation to generation since its discovery.

Pa.s.sing on down through the Scudder pasture toward the lower woods, to the south, we met a lad herding cattle for the night, and after a few words with him, we turned to the left and went up the side of a steep hill through a deep hemlock forest. This was a pretty hard climb, and I kept looking for Mr. Burroughs to stop and blow a little, but not a bit of it. He took the lead and kept up the climb without even a hint of exhaustion. In fact, I had begun to wish that he would stop and rest for a moment, when pointing up to a white wall of stone he said, "There is the Old Gray Ledge. It looks like a white house from here. This is one of the most beautiful places you will find in this part of the Catskill mountains, and O, the times I have come here for rest and study!" There is a rough broken surface of rock wall at least seventy-five feet high, all covered with moss and lichens, and almost as gray as whitewash on a stone house. In the hemlocks toward the valley from here, are hundreds of fine timber trees, and we could hear among them nut-hatches, chickadees and t.i.tmice. We spent almost an hour about this beautiful place, discussing in a friendly way, neighbors and people, great and small. Our next task was to get to the top of the Old Gray Ledge, which we did by going a little distance south and picking the place that showed the least resistance. The woods on the top of the Ledge were level and consisted of much shrubbery and some large hardwood trees and a few hemlocks and pines. We soon came out of the woods to the west and entered a pasture on the Nath Chase farm, from which we could see across the beautiful valley to the south and many mountain peaks, among which were a few that Mr. Burroughs said he could see from the top of a mountain by Slabsides, down at West Park. This was the connecting link between the old and the new home.

Turning around, we could see to the north across the valley, in which was the Burroughs farm and the Old Clump beyond. There was a swift breeze from the northeast and the air was quite cool for the early part of August. But after our climb up The Old Gray Ledge, it was quite wholesome and renewed our strength. The pure swift mountain breeze fitted well with my own feelings, for I had begun to feel the effects of a steady pull up the hill and needed oxygen and ozone. But best of all, I had enjoyed the day with the man who brought the pleasures of the woods and the mountains to me, and I felt that I had been blest. I had felt the sympathies and love of a strong poetic pulse. I had a glimpse of something that,

"Made the wild blood start In its mystic springs,"

and I wondered if we have any greater heights to look forward to! I wondered if we should ever find in the trackless paths of eternity a joy that would eclipse this! I thought I had learned "that a good man's life is the fruit of the same balance and proportion as that which makes the fields green and the corn ripen. It is not by some fortuitous circ.u.mstances, the especial favor of some G.o.d, but by living in harmony with immutable laws through which the organic world has evolved, that he is what he is." We reached the Lodge just as the sun was going down, and soon the evening meal was over. I went back across the hill to the old home for the night, and as I pa.s.sed down the road way, I called to mind many things that had interested me during the day. After I had retired for the night and sleep had been induced, the joys, the pleasures, the happiness of the day, haunted me in my dreams, and I knew that I had 'staid my haste and made delays, and what was mine had known my face.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CATSKILL MOUNTAIN SIDE WHERE THE PHOEBE BUILDS]