More Jonathan Papers Part 14

You get him. I dont mind.

Oh, but I mind. Here, Ive got it all planned: theres a bit of brush-fis.h.i.+ng just below

No brush-fis.h.i.+ng for me, please!

Thats what Im saying, if youll only give me time. Ill take thatthere are always two or three in thereand when youve finished here you can go around me and fish the bend, under the hemlocks, and then the first arbutus is just beside that, and Ill join you there.

WellI a.s.sent grudginglyonly, really, Id be just as happy if youd fish the whole thing and let me go right on down

No, you wouldnt. Now, remember to sneak before you get to that rock.

Drop in six feet above it and let the current do the rest. Theyre awfully shy. I expect you to get at least one there, and two down at the bend. He trudges off to his brush-fis.h.i.+ng and leaves me bound in honor to extract a trout from under that rock. I deposit my boxes in the meadow above it, and sneak down. The sneak of a trout fisherman is like no other form of locomotion, and I am convinced that the human frame was not evolved with it in mind. But I resort to it in deference to Jonathans prejudicesin deference, also, to the fact that when I do not the trout seldom bite. And Jonathan is so trustfully counting on my getting that trout!

I did get him. I dropped in my line, as per directions, and let the current do the rest; had the thrill of feeling the line suddenly caught and drawn under the rock, held, then wiggled slightly; I struck, felt the weight, drew back steadily, and in a few moments there was a flopping in the gra.s.s behind me.

So that was off my mind.

I strung him on a twig of wild cherry, gathered up my boxes, and wandered along the faint path, back of the patch of brush where, I knew, Jonathan was cheerfully threading his line through tangles of twig, briar, and vine, compared with which the needles eye is as a yawning barn door.

Jonathans att.i.tude toward brush-fis.h.i.+ng is something which I respect without understanding. Down one long field I went, where the brook ran in shallow gayety, and there, ahead, was the bend, a sudden curve of water, deepening under the roots of an overhanging hemlock. I climbed the stone wall beside, glanced at the watervery trouty water indeedglanced at the hill-pasture abovevery arbutusy indeedlaid down my rod and my trout and my box, and ran up the low bank to a clump of bay and berry-bushes that I thought I remembered. Yes! There it was! I had remembered! Ah! The dear things!

When you first find arbutus, there is only one thing to do:lie right down beside it. Its fragrance as it grows is different from what it is after it is picked, because with the sweetness of the blossoms is mingled the good smell of the earth and of the woody twigs and of the dried gra.s.s and leaves. And there are other rewards one gets by lying down. It is all very well to talk proudly about mans walking with his head erect and his face to the heavens, but if we keep that posture all the time we miss a good deal. The att.i.tude of the toad and the lizard is not to be scorned, though when the needs of locomotion convert it into the fishermans sneak, it is, as I have suggested, to be sparingly indulged in. But if we could only nibble now and then from the other side of Alices mushroom, what a new outlook we should get on the world that now lies about our feet! What new aspects of its beauty would be revealed to us: the forest grandeurs of the gra.s.s, the architecture of its slim shafts with their pillared aisles and pointed arches of interlocking and upspringing curves, their ceiling traceries of spraying tops against a far-away background of sky!

To know arbutus, you must stoop to its level, and look across the fine, frosty fur of its stiff little leaves, and feel the nestle of its stems to the ground, the little up-fling of their tips toward the sun, and the neat radiance of its flower cl.u.s.ters, with their blessed fragrance and their pure, babyish color.

But after that? You want to pick it. Yes, you really want to pick it!

In this it is different from other flowers. Most of them I am well content to leave where they grow. In fact, the love of picking thingsflowers or anything elseis a youthful taste: we lose it as we grow older; we become more and more willing to appreciate without acquiring, or rather, appreciation becomes to us a finer and more spiritual form of acquiring.

Is it possible that, after all, the old idea of heaven as a state of enraptured contemplation is in harmony with the trend of our development?

But if there is arbutus in heaven, I shall need to develop a good deal further not to want to pick it. It suggests picking; it almost invites it.

There is something about the way it nestles and hides, that makes you want to see it better. Here is a spray of pure white, living under a green tent of overlapping leaves; one must raise it, and nip off just one leaf, so that the blossoms can see out. There is another, a pink cl.u.s.ter, showing faintly through the dry, matted gra.s.s. You feel for the stem, pull it gently, and, lo, it is many stems, which have crept their way under the tangle, and every one is tipped with a cl.u.s.ter of stars or round little buds each on its long stem, fairly begging to be picked. It gets picked.

Yet sometimes its very beauty has stayed my hand. I shall never forget one clump I found, growing out of a bank of deep green moss, partly shaded by a great hemlock. The soft pink blossomsluxuriant leafy sprays of themwere lying out on the moss in a pagan carelessness of beauty, as though some G.o.d had willed it there for his pleasure. I sat beside it a long time, and in the end I left it without picking it.

On this particular day, Jonathan being still lost in the brush patch, I had risen from my visit with the first-discovered blossoms and wandered on, from clump to clump, wherever the glimpse of a leaf attracted me, picking the choicest here and there and dropping them into my box. After I do not know how long, I was roused by Jonathans whistle. I was some distance up the hillside by this time, and he was beside the brook, at the bend.

What luck? he called.

Good luck! Ive found lots. Come up!

He took a few steps up toward me, so that conversation could drop from shouting to speaking levels. How many did you get? he asked.

How many? Oh why Oh, I got one up there where you showed meunder the rock, you know.

Good one?

Eight inches. Hes down there by the bars.

Good! And what about the bend?

The bend? Oh, I didnt fish therelook at these! Arent they beauties? I came down the hill to hold my open box up to his face. But my casual word almost effaced the scent of the flowers.

Ahyesdeliciousdidnt fish there? Why not? Did they see you?

Who? The trout? I dont know. But I saw this. And I just had to pick it.

Well! Youre a great fisherman! And with that water right there beside you! Lord!

With the arbutus right here beside me! Lord!

But the arbutus would wait.

But the trout would wait. Theyre waiting for you now, dont you hear them? Go and fish there!

No. Thats your pool. Jonathan has a way of bestowing a trout-pool on me as if it were a bouquet. To refuse its opportunities is almost like throwing his flowers back in his face.

Wellof course its a beautiful pool

Best on the brook, murmured Jonathan.

But, truly, Id enjoy it just as much to have you fish it.

n.o.body can fish it now for a while. I thought youd be there, of course, and I came stamping along down, close by the bank. They wouldnt bite nownot for half an hour, anyway.

Well, then, thats just right. Well go on up the hillside for half an hour, and then come back and fish it. Set your rod up against the bayberry here, and come alonglook there! youre almost stepping on some!

Jonathan, gradually adjusting himself to the turn of things, stood his rod up against the bush with the meticulous care of the true sportsman. Where did you leave yours? he asked, with a suspiciousness born of a deep knowledge of my character.

Oh, down by the bars.

Standing up or lying down?

Lying down, I think. Its all right.

Its not all right if its lying down. Anything might trample on it.

For instance, what?birds or crickets?

For instance, people or cows. He strode down the hill, and I saw him stoop. As he returned I could read disapproval in his gait. Will you never learn how to treat a rod! It was lying just beyond the bars. I must have landed within two feet of it when I jumped over.

Im sorry. I meant to go back. I know perfectly how to treat a rod. My trouble comes in knowing when to apply my knowledge. Well, lets go up there. Near those big hemlocks theres some, I remember. And we wandered on, separating a little to scan the ground more widely.

Once having pried his mind away from the trout, Jonathan was as keen for arbutus as I could wish, and soon I heard an exclamation, and saw him kneel. Oh, come over! he called; you really ought to see this growing!

But theres some I want, right here, thats lovely

Never mind. Come and see thisoh, come!

Of course I come, and of course I am glad I came, and of course soon I am obliged to call Jonathan to see some I have foundJonathan, it is truly the loveliest _yet!_ Its the way it growswith the moss and allplease come! And of course he comes.