COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT.
The Black Swans
The Black Swans
And Other Friends
Indoors and Out
By
• Alvin Howard Sanders
Author of "The Road to Dumbiedykes,"
<'At the Sign of the Stock Yard Inn."
Editor "The Breeder's Gazette."
Chicago
Breeder's Gazette Print
1918
-^^f^^
w^^
Copyright, 1918
Sanders Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
OtC -2 1918
CI. A 5 1) 6 7/7 9
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V
Introduction
THE kindly reception given a little
book of sketches published two years
ago under the title ''The Road to Dumbie-
dykes" must be my only apology for com-
plying with various requests from perhaps
over-partial friends to prepare a companion
volume in similar vein. The first was sent
forth with more or less trepidation because
such work is entirely at variance with the
weightier matters that have for so many
years occupied my close attention, and I am
equally in doubt as to whether or not the
publishers are justified in permitting "The
Black Swans" to see the light.
Needless to say both are merely ^'by-
products " of idle hours; of days spent
primarily in quest of rest and relaxation;
just rambling thoughts jotted down from
time to time with no particular regard to
orderly sequence, and with slight expecta-
tion that they will be taken very seriously.
Their preparation is of course merely a
casual manifestation of an ever ready re-
sponse to the lure of the out-of-doors.
T>, The Author
DUMBIEDYKES,
October 15, 191 8
**Thovgh /or me no fiocks unnumbered^
Grazing Gallia's pastures fair
Breathe heavily beneath their swelling Jieeces,
Still I at least am free from care.'*'
— Horace.
Contents
CHAPTER
I.
PAGE
The Building of the
Nest
I
II.
Behind the Backlog
IS
III.
Half-Hours with Mer
cuRY AND Vulcan .
31
IV.
Low Tides
45
V.
The Case of Kate .
61
VI.
Smoke of the H-F Bar
73
VII.
Told in the Firelight
89
VIII.
"Tick-Tock" Talk .
103
IX.
An August Night . .
123
X.
Socks and Flocks . .
137
XL
The Pig in a Poke .
149
XII.
XIII.
A Pumpkin and a Princi
The Flames that
5 161
Clarify
179
XIV.
A Farewell ''Hike"
189
XV.
''Taps"
203
M<^)'=^%^j
THE BLACK SWANS
CHAPTER I
The Building of the Nest
THE world goes motoring heedless
by along a narrow country road
that disappears among the trees. The
vine-clad walls, the moss-green roof
and sheltering oaks accomplish their
intended purpose. The little white-
arched gateway too is camouflaged by
all-embracing shrubbery. But those
who care and enter understandingly
are welcome as the flowers that greet
them lovingly as they pass within.
And if by chance you wander by along
a walk that passes on the opposite,
the sunset side, an ivy-posted snow-
white pergola projected from the
[I]
The Black Swans
greenery will lead you through the
hedge-row to the door. Those burr-
oak trees that overhang the eaves and
guard on either side the entrance-way,
God planted many years ago and
waited. Sooner or later some one was
certain to look at them and compre-
hend. And when we found them first
I knew at once a mile-stone in a jour-
ney had been set. And so one day
there came into the world our Dumbie-
dykes.
Just a little temple in a grove!
Just a little shrine at which the deities
that rule the out-of-doors are wor-
shipped. Just a little place to call a
country home! Just a little port of
friendly call for those who have it on
their chart! And is that not enough?
No acres broad extending far afield.
No great red barns nor cattle-yards
nor granaries; no silos, plows nor
harvesters; no retinue of help nor
tenant cottages ! Why should we covet
these .^ For on the outside have we
[2]
The Building of the Nest
not the sunshine and the storms, the
song birds and the stars; and have
we not within the black swans with
their wings of fire, the friendly old
four-posted clock and books that live
through all the generations ?
I had told the architect first of all
to build for us a good big generous
fireplace with a chimney that would
not fail to draw; and then put walls
around it surmounted by a wide, low
roof with overhanging eaves. You
will see the point. I wanted to hear in
comfort by the fire the rain drops
dripping all around outside. But if
you are ever called upon, as I was
after the little patch of woodland in
the rough was bought, to plan the
house intended for a snug retreat from
city sights and sounds, do not make
this one mistake. Let the women-folk
in on it early. If you don't you will
have to do so at some little extra cost
later on, as I did. They know a lot
more than you do — or they think
[3]
The Black Swans
they do — which in all arguments af-
fecting domestic arrangements comes
to the same thing, and usually they
will be right and you will be wrong.
So compromise matters right at the
outset by doing just what they tell
you to do; and yet in giving them the
reins in this building business in re-
spect to certain things in which they
have a natural, and It seems an in-
herently intelligent Interest, if you
have a hobby of your own just Insist
upon riding it yourself while they are
astride their own.
It so happens that my own special
obsession in this home-making proposi-
tion Is an open fire, and in this par-
ticular case the builder to my mind
has scored success complete. It Is the
best fireplace I know. It Is broad
and deep and lets me do the smoking;
and I will also add that the creator
of our little design did really well
in other details. The outside eleva-
tion is generally well regarded. The
[4]
The Building of the Nest
generous porch, the living room, the
stairs and sleeping quarters are not
seriously faulted. The dining room
was, and is yet, small, too small for
general entertaining, but there are but
two of us left now, and with the lapse
of years our visitors seem to be
narrowing down to just a few of those
we love the best, so that the very
coziness of the little nook contributes
perhaps whatever charm it may pos-
sess. The door that opens towards the
little garden on the east is guarded by
mock oranges now reaching upward
to the roof, laden each May with
heavily scented bloom; a favored leafy
canopy for nesting birds. Along the
casements on the south rare holly-
hocks send up each year the brilliant
stalks so loved by busy "bumble"
bees.
The trouble was the architect and
myself both forgot about the kitchen.
That is, I forgot it altogether, and he
very nearly. He did "come to" long
[5]
The Black Swans
enough, however, to provide a two-by-
four corner somewhere about the prem-
ises which I remember was labeled on
the blue print "Kitchen." Billy was
in the hands of nurses at the time and
more interested in getting well than
in architectural drawings, and as we
wanted first of all a place where she
could soon enjoy the sun and air
during a prospectively extended con-
valescence, I gave the word and ground
was broken for the big fireplace, kitch-
enette and all. Needless to say the
original culinary department in later
years was converted into a generous
butler's pantry, and a sure-enough
kitchen added, where Mary now pre-
sides with just pride in commodious
surroundings and sings, as she works,
the song that first made Chauncey
Olcott's reputation.
It takes two hearts to make a home.
Architecturally speaking the kitchen
is one, the open fire the other. Both
of these now work as one at Dumbie-
[6]
The Building of the Nest
dykes, with a common purpose — the
comfort of those they serve.
The chimney breast that forms the
setting for the fires I love so well
was built of the long flat two-by-
twelve inch mottled Roman bricks.
It is a trifle over four feet high and
seven and a half in width. The fire-
place proper is four by two feet six.
The interior depth two feet. The fire-
floor, of the same brick, set on edge,
extends outward sixteen inches to form
the hearth. The shelf at the top is a
twelve-inch piece of oak with plain
moulding below, without carving or
ornamentation of any sort. The pro-
portions are believed to be good, and
the general effect is one of solidity and
practical utility for the purpose in-
tended. The andirons sweep forward
first, then back and out again in
graceful curves. The fender is of iron
and a big steel screen arrests the
sparks. And then, of course, tongs,
poker, shovel, and a little broom. Just
[7]
The Black Swans
why the shovel I do not know. Per-
haps some one uses it. I never do.
The ash-dump relegates the shovel,
I should say, to the limbo of the dino-
saurian. Anyhow, I don't want the
ashes all removed.
Each newly lighted fire should be
builded always on the memories of the
last.
And now about the swans, our two
black swans, that long have made
their home, and have contributed in
no small degree to the making of the
home, at Dumbiedykes. We have
never had detailed information as to
their remote origin; nor can I say that
we have had any special curiosity
upon that score. Notwithstanding
their unusual character, it has sufficed
to know that they came to us with the
first building of the fire upon our
hearth and still remain to minister
unceasingly and most effectually to
our peace of mind and bodily comfort;
and the darker the day or the colder
[8]
The Building of the Nest
the world outside the more certain
their ready response to our appeal.
Furthermore, unlike those other fabled
ornithological wonders, the great rocs
told of in the "Arabian Nights,"
which only appeared when sent for,
these swans are ever with us and are
indeed at no time parted from one
another. In fact, they are inseparable,
useless each without the other. Year
after year they stand patiently side by
side waiting to do our bidding, and the
value of the service they have rendered,
and are yet to render, who can cal-
culate? Assuredly I cannot.
Men who are supposed to know
about such things tell me that these
birds probably came originally from
the North. They have even gone so
far as to assert that in all human prob-
ability they hark back to a primeval
home located, say about latitude 47°
40" north and longitude 93° 20" west
of Greenwich, and if you will turn to
your map you will see that this fixes
[9]
The Black Swans
the earlier habitat of these mystic
swans of ours somewhere in the iron
environment of the Mesaba Hills.
They sing not, neither do they swim;
they eat not, neither do they drink;
they fly not, neither do they walk,
these swans mysterious; but they have
a certain wondrous, priceless power
which is never invoked in vain. At a
given signal they appear with flaming
wings and you have only to resign
yourself to the magic spell of the light
they radiate on such occasions to
leave your cares at once behind. You
may then be borne aloft and far away,
across immeasurable heights and
depths, over mountains, lakes and
seas, over fields and forests, back into
the remotest reaches of the past, or
forward into the illimitable vistas of
the future. Such is the boon bestowed
on those who really know and under-
stand these black-swan andirons of
our open fire. They wait only the
striking of the tiny match that lights
[lol
The Building of the Nest
the forest-born burden on their backs
to bear you where your fancy leads;
and presently the old clock in the
corner there will strike, and bring
your fireside travels to a happy end.
I am not altogether certain, even
after the lapse of many years of close
companionship with these two faithful
friends, as to which has really con-
tributed most to the sum total of life,
the fireplace or the clock. Close analy-
sis of the psychology of the situation
would, I fancy, assign first place in our
affections to the flame upon the hearth,
but through the darker days and frosty
nights of the early spring and fall,
when the glowing logs have first put
one in the proper mood, there would
still be something lacking but for the
old clock's soft-voiced measured mark-
ing of the hours.
It is not one of those massively grand
affairs with golden chimes and shining
brass securely boxed in a mahogany
mausoleum with a time-lock on the
[II]
The Black Swans
plate-glass door. We have one of
those too, in town, a very ornamental
piece of furniture, to be sure, but no
Intimate of mine. It's too infernally
exclusive. You can't get near it. A fine
Swiss watch kept in a fire-and-burglar-
proof safe would be quite as sociable.
Not so this dear old-fashioned thing
that came to live with us at Dumbie-
dykes. You have seen clocks like it.
Our grandfathers knew them well.
We ought to know them better. Simple
works, mounted on a shelf behind a
dial. Big, square, iron weights operated
by chain and pulley. A long wooden
pendulum with its metal disc swaying
lazily back and forth between four
open posts, some seven feet in height.
Nothing comes between you and itself.
It is there, alive, close to you.
I am not sure but it has altogether
the most agreeable personality of any
member of the household. Its poise
is so perfect, its voice is never raised
in anger nor suppressed in sullen
[12]
The Clock
The Building of the Nest
silence. Rain or shine, day or night,
in storm or calm, its drowsy tick-tock
talk goes on forever; and when at
night the firelight shadows play around
its face, its subtle, soothing power is
at its best.
And there is a picture painted on the
dial. You know it well. I scarce need
tell about it. The same that has been
painted on clock faces ever since men
first became familiar with red-roofed
gabled houses, with purling streams,
birds, flowers and trees, for back-
ground. Once I was well acquainted
with another clock that stood upon
an old-time kitchen shelf. I don't even
know who has it now. I wish I did.
I would go a long way to see it. And
yet, what would be the use, for is it
not before me now? Can one forget
such things? The peaceful landscape
done in colors gay upon its dial is
likely badly faded now. And there
was a little church in the background.
[13I
CHAPTER II
Behind the Backlog
A GREAT day that when the storm-
doors and windows all come down
and we let the sunlight in. This cere-
mony is commonly celebrated in April.
Of course various exploring expeditions
always precede the first real lighting
of the fire, and the actual starting of
the clock. These must wait yet a little
while. But the knowledge of the certain
joys they are to bring is ours already.
Andy, the watchman, tells us that
the snow along the hedge-row out in
front had been piled so high that in his
winter rounds he walked safely over
the top repeatedly. This we could well
believe, for unmelted remnants of
great drifts were still in evidence in
[15]
The Black Swans
the early spring. And while I think of
it: if you have a Rambler rose to
which you are specially attached, and
it is growing all over the front of your
pergola, decking it in beauty every
June, and you do not want it winter-
killed and you leave it to some "nut"
to take care of in the fall, and he does
it up splendidly in corn-stalks, and
a cold and cruel winter puts the rab-
bits hard to it for existence, and the
"bunnies" eat all the bark off poor
Dorothy Perkins's stems, and you
find the rabbit's nest still there in
April — but no rabbits — and your rose-
vine is dead as the prophets, and you
are sore and sad, do not kick anybody
or anything except yourself for an
unconscionable idiot for permitting so
silly a bit of fool preparedness. You do
not miss your rose until it's dead, and
even the least of "blessings brighten
as they take their flight."
The winter you must understand
has been spent in town in the surly
[i6]
Behind the Backlog
company of unresponsive radiators.
You can't get a word or a "rise" of any
kind out of any one of them. I have
tried it and know. All you can expect
is mere heat. True, that is no bad thing
to have around when, as happened only
last January, you are snowbound for
days while deep drifts are being opened
up to traffic; but you can study a
radiator just as long as you like and I
will wager you will receive not one sin-
gle inspiration from it, will see not one
picture of any kind, nor hear the sound
of any voice. That is the fundamen-
tal difference between dead hot metal
and living fire upon the hearth. But if
you are only patient you have always
this assurance blest — the sun-fires over-
head will surely come at the appointed
hour and the outer door be opened.
Meantime, mysterious forms of the
life everlasting, underneath the snow
and ice at Dumbiedykes, are also
waiting and watching, just as anxiously
as we ourselves around the steam coils,
[17]
The Black Szvans
for the approach of spring. We left
them there last fall, these bulbs that
were to be our hyacinths, and in their
long duress they did not lack for com-
pany. Their kin-folk, the tulips and
the daffodils, were by their side, the
valley lilies, too, and Iris; and the slum-
bering subterranean capillaries of the
lilacs and the oaks.
Lines 07i the Planting of the Hyacinths
at Dumbiedykes
Out of the earth thou earnest,
To earth return.
Thine the eternal mystery!
Out of the darkness cometh light and life.
Sleep sweetly, therefore, happy hyacinth!
Soon shall the drifting snows
Seek out thy resting place
And hold thee in their close embrace.
And through the dreary midnight hours
The glittering stars that glisten brightest
When the Frost King rides triumphant
Through the northern skies,
Shall guard thy rest.
Fear not.
Within thyself dwells immortality!
[i8]
Behind the Backlog
In God's own time
The sunshine and the showers
And soft caressing southern airs
Shall come and bid thee rise.
And clad in garments green
And bearing in thy sheltering arms
The fragrant fruitage of thy heart
Thou shalt come forth in beauty bright
To greet a world renewed.
And in thy blossoms fair
We find and understand
The truth.
The odor of the hyacinth is the one
thing in all this world that never fails
to take me back at once to another
country home. Father's, however,
were always potted or placed in water
bottles and hidden away somewhere
in the deep recesses of the cellar for
their hibernation. Mother's cellar! Its
shelving laden always with rich stores
of sweets, jams, jellies, and preserves;
each Mason jar filled and sealed and
labeled under her own personal direc-
tion! Yes, often the whole inviting
process performed by her own busy
[19]
The Black Swans
well-skilled hands! Their work was
long since finished, and he who brought
each spring his hyacinths out of the
darkness into the light that they might
bloom for all of us is not here now!
Red and white, and pink and blue, I
see them still upon the window sill.
And their perfume is not lost.
The nights are always cool in the
midst of so much encircling verdure
through the months of May and June,
and sometimes as late as July when
''dear Zeus" answers the Athenian
supplication for rain "down on the
plowed fields and the plains," the black
swans of the fireplace seem to also
hear, and know their services are
wanted. The truth is the spring fires
burn here with almost unfailing reg-
ularity, and Henry has to look well
to the wood-pile or we lack proper
supplies. A good faithful fellow,
Henry! He owns a little place himself
not far away, and markets with us
such wood as he can spare, and I am
[20l
Behind the Backlog
not sure that his forestry operations
are always carried on in strict accor-
dance with scientific principles. You
know that the infernally efficient Ger-
man Government permits in Germany
only the cutting of an amount of
wood each year that measures the
computed equivalent of what Nature
has that year added by the ordinary
process of growth and maturity. I am
not going over to investigate Henry
too closely either in regard to this
matter, and the Kaiser, thank God,
has not yet jurisdiction here, even
though this is a township bearing the
now unhappy name of Bremen. Per-
haps if our loyal Lowden remains
governor of Illinois long enough he
may have this blot on the Cook County
map removed. And speaking of the
governor and of forestry, that was a
fine thing he did many years ago on
his estate at Sinnissippi. On the sand
hills overlooking the Rock River Valley
hundreds of seedling pines were set
[21]
The Black Swans
where nothing stood before, and hardy
conifers are now growing, while he
governs, into timber that some day
may be sadly needed.
Once upon a time the upper Ohio
River valley was famous for its forests.
Here and there Indians had opened
little clearings where squaw-farming
helped forefend the hours of famine.
In the wide expansion of the arts of
agriculture that followed the great
wave of emigration that poured over
the Blue Ridge from the Old Dominion
after the close of the War of the
Revolution, the Virginia pioneers,
first in Kentucky and then in southern
Ohio, laid the axe ruthlessly to a
million monarchs of these ancient for-
ests. The soil into which for uncounted
generations they had sent their roots
was now wanted for the plow. Huge
heaps of logs were rolled together and
put to the torch; great oaks, walnuts,
hickories and beeches ''in one red
burial bent." They had no value then
[22I
Behind the Backlog
because of lack of transportation and
a market. There came a time one day,
however, in the national life when a
bridge of ships across the sea had to be
builded quickly lest a world revert to
a barbarism worse than that which
had once burned captives at the stake
in these same Ohio forest clearings; a
time when all this slaughtered timber
would have helped to win the greatest
battle of the ages! However, nothing
in nature is ever altogether lost, and
so it comes to pass in the fullness of
the years that the dust of trees thus
wantonly destroyed in days lang syne
helps to sustain at last the meadows,
fields and gardens now contributing
to a Nation's harvest.
Descended as I am in all lines from
these log-rolling, rail-splitting Virgin-
ians who opened up the virgin forests
of the Appalachian slopes, is it any
wonder that it has always seemed to
me that a home that has not the glow-
ing back-log for its background is no
[23]
The Black Swans
home at all — just a mere place to stay
and vegetate until you can get settled
by an open fire, and so get in touch at
last with all the Universe?
The woodman who brings not hick-
ory to me is not my friend. I know it
is becoming scarce and that it should
not be burned at all in these belated
and berated conservation days, but I
ask for so very little, just enough to
get the snap and a certain flame I love
to watch on evenings when it's dark
and wet and drear out there beyond
the window-sills! In fact, your true
fire-worshipper's enjoyment of his fire
begins with the selection of the proper
materials for it. This service he should
always render himself, if he wants
things as they should be, for there are
a million different kinds of fires — one
to fit every conceivable human mood;
and who knows quite so well as I
myself what may be on my mind to-
night, and just what type of fire com-
panionship I want.^ You can no more
[24]
Behind the Backlog
make a fire for some one else than you
can successfully pick a wife or hus-
band for another person. It's chancy
enough, some say, to pick one for your-
self, or be picked, as the case may
be; and the building of the fire, if it
is to be considered as a fine art —
which I certainly contend it to be — is
not the simple act it seems. I speak
of course from the standpoint of those
fortunate few who have been blessed
by Nature with the gift of reading fire-
light mysteries.
That oak now flaming so brightly
on the fire seems trying to tell me
something. When I turned away a
while ago it lapsed into absolute in-
diflPerence, so I give it a good poke and
listen to its simple story. What did it
say.^ A lot. Much more no doubt than
you would care to hear. I had been
reading Parkman and his thrilling
tales of how a great new world was
found by France and lost again. This
oak was from a tree that once had
[2Sl
The Black Swans
stood upon the top of that range of
hills to be seen there on our western
horizon. In the valley beyond flows
the little river called Des Plaines.
Farther north a low water shed divides
its drainage from another stream, once
known as the south branch of the
Chicago, that emptied into the big
lake. The portage was a short one for
the aborigines and for the explorers
journeying from Mackinac to the Mis-
sissippi. My guest from the hills is
telling that his arboreal ancestors stood
and watched with wonder LaSalle and
his intrepid company pass silently
below between those brushy banks,
his barges freighted deep with fate for
France and you and me! His works,
his deeds, live after him! And the oak
now falling into ashes on the hearth is
saying that before it came to us it
threw its own seed on the soil from
whence it sprang, and other oaks for
other fires are growing where it fell.
And so we learn again. Each "little
[26]
Behind the Backlog
life is rounded by a sleep," but nothing
worth while ever really dies.
In the glowing embers there are
pictures now. The Des Plaines has
led us southward. The waters of Fox
River are emptying into the Illinois.
Starved Rock looms in the distance.
The mini perish. Tonty passes. Some
stunted trees are clinging to their
ancient sand-stone cliffs. Far to the
west and north beyond the fertile
prairies where the waving oats and
rich green fields of tasseled Indian
corn now tell each year the story of a
thrifty husbandry, the Sinnissippi Val-
ley lies in all its beauty. The little
hamlet, Grand Detour, still dozes by
the river's edge. And farther on a
colossal figure from a dominating height
commands perhaps the fairest land-
scape in all this teeming west. Black
Hawk! A grand conception, that great
monument, the handiwork of Lorado
Taft! The last great chieftain surveys
the once happy home of the vanished
[27l
The Black Swans
tribes. Poise, dignity, faith, pathos,
patience! The red warrior with folded
arms and vision keen recalls a sceptre
lost and calmly waits the verdict of
the centuries. On the very verge of the
precipice at his feet a blasted cedar
stands, defying the lightnings of the
passing years. Tradition has it that
the eagles nested once within its
scraggy arms from which all life has
long since passed. Fit symbol this of
broken hopes; and what a story could
be told if any one of its skeleton arms
were placed upon our fire tonight!
But it is sacred now and for all time.
Were the red men as savage as they
have been painted? Perhaps. We
know that the Iroquois, the most in-
telligent, the most capable, the most
outstanding of all the so-called un-
civilized races of which there is record
in the world's history, extended their
armed sway across the American wil-
derness as far west as the land of the
Dakotas. But their worst has been
[28 1
Behind the Backlog
more than surpassed within the past
four years by a fiend incarnate claim-
ing partnership with the christian God!
I stood one day not long ago on
Black Hawk's high Rock River crag;
and a few hours later traversed the
great armed camp at Rockford, where
forty thousand brave bronzed boys
were in training for the task of helping
trail the tiger to his lair beyond the
Rhine. I saw the Eighty-sixth Divi-
sion making ready for immediate ser-
vice overseas. They call themselves
the "Blackhawks." They have official-
ly adopted the Indian word, or words,
that signify the old chief's name in his
native tongue, as their battle cry.
And so the spirit of a so-called savage
past has at last come to be invoked
in the common struggle in defense of
elemental human rights and liberties.
29]
:ml i
'^ '^.^m
^^■m
-i*^
CHAPTER III
Half-Hours with Mercury and Vulcan
THERE is still a chill in the air
this day in early June. The Great
Lake's breath is yet drawn deeply
from the far-off northern reservoirs,
and by that same token we shall have
a goodly fire again tonight. But mean-
time the sun is warm, and out there
on the lawn, protected from the wind
by the shaggy grove that guards us on
the east, an arm-chair looks inviting.
It's just an out-of-door sitting room
anyhow, this little lawn at Dumbie-
dykes. The hedge-rows all around
have grown so tall you can't see out
nor in. So here we are, the world all
barred away, shut off from all except
our own.
[31]
The Black Swans
The cat-birds like it too, and we like
them. They are so trim, so neat, so
'^ tailor-made," as Billy says; and
friendly always. They reproduce them-
selves in two short weeks, and in ten
days more the mother lights upon a
twig above the nest where they were
born and fed and clucking to the tiny
chicks with fluttering wings she tells
her wee ones of a great adventure now
at hand; and one by one they struggle
out and take their places in the big new
world. And who shall say that place
of theirs is unimportant t It may seem
so to us, but who are we.^ That is
their question. And from their stand-
point what is it we do to justify our
own existence? One thing at least it
seems the cat-bird, in common with
the robin, gives us credit for. Wherever
we build our own nests, the robber
birds — say the blue- jays or the crows —
do not come close. Our eaves and
porches look good therefore to Cock
Robin, and a cat-bird dearly loves
[32]
Half-Hours with Mercury and Vulcan
the cover of a bush that's near your
door.
How grateful is that sun ! How blue
the sky! How green today the ivies
and the Persian Hlacs that near obscure
the soft-gray stuccoed walls. The
outer hedge-rows throw their emerald
belt about it all. Not even sound
obtrudes upon seclusion all but ab-
solute, save the rustling of oak leaves
over-head. And so I doze and dream.
My book today has chanced to be
The Odyssey. In obedience to Jove's
command the winged Mercury has
just alighted on Calypso's fabled isle.
I love Leigh Hunt's translation, and
wish you would read it with me.
"And now arriving at the isle, he springs
Oblique, and landing with subsided wings,
Walks to the cavern 'mid the tall green rocks,
Where dwelt the goddess with the lovely locks.
He paused; and there came on him, as he
stood,
A smell of cedar and of citron wood,
That threw a perfume all about the isle;
And she within sat spinning all the while,
[331
The Black Swans
And sang a low sweet song that made him
hark and smile.
A sylvan nook it was, grown round with trees,
Poplars, and elms, and odorous cypresses.
In which all birds of ample wing, the owl
And hawk, had nests, and broad-tongued
waterfowl.
The cave in front was spread with a green
vine,
Whose dark round bunches almost burst with
wine;
And from four springs, running a sprightly
race,
Four fountains clear and crisp refreshed the
place;
While all about a meadowy ground was seen.
Of violets mingling with the parsley green."
And then I wake. Around about me
the enchanted island washed by blue
Aegean waves ! No, it cannot be, for it
is mint I smell, not cedar nor yet citron
wood. And those fountains, are they
really racing through the violets and
asphodel? It is not so. No Mercury
appears; only Henry in blue overalls
and he has just laid the nozzle of the
garden hose down there among the
[34]
Half-Hours with Mercury and Vulcan
pink geraniums, and is replenishing
the bird-bath yonder underneath our
best white oak. And he is not using
a graceful Grecian urn; just a common
old watering-pot with a broken spout!
And the goddess herself is not inside.
That is no whirring spinning wheel you
seem to hear. It is Kate and the
vacuum cleaner hard at work. That's
all. In fact Calypso really spread her
wings early in the day and flew away
to town on perfectly good shock-
absorbers and sound cord tires to get
a golf skirt altered. The parsley
though, of which we read, is growing
there by Mary's kitchen door. Praise
be to the gods for that much anyhow!
, We had our fire that night all right,
and needed it. In the first place Calyp-
so came home not in the best of humor.
Even goddesses, you know, are priv-
ileged to show temper at the very
throne of high Olympus itself! Field's
were so busy and so "fussed up" with
inexperienced war help that she had
[35]
The Black Swans
been compelled to wait an hour or two
before she could even get a chance to
try on the blessed skirt, and even then
it didn't fit! And she did not propose
to wear the blamed thing anyway. It
was a fright! So there! And having
once altered it, the firm refused of
course to put it back in stock, and
what's to be done? She has a match
on tomorrow with Cora or Gertrude —
I don't remember which — and nothing
to wear! Can you beat it? I ventured
to say that goddesses in the old days
were not specially particular, from all
pictures, statues and other records
handed down, as to whether they wore
a lot of clothes when on the Olympian
links or not, but this did not help
much.
In the second place, had I ordered
that coal yet for the hot-water heater?
Naturally I had not. Had I not been
comfortable out there in the sun-rays
all afternoon with Homer and the
bumble bees and big brown butterflies
[36]
Half-Hours with Mercury and Vulcan
attracted by the "perfume all about
the isle"? What did such a thing as
coal mean to any mere man under
such circumstances? Not a bit more
than it did to shrewd, hardworking
Mclnerney that Sunday when Father
Dorney made his famous appeal for
contributions to buy fuel for the
church. You doubtless all know the
answer. The good father had ob-
served that Pat had not dropped any
coin into the plate when it was passed,
and after the service was over took
him to task about it. Whereupon the
thrifty parishioner rejoined: "Well,
Father, ye can't fool me with all this
beggin' fer money to buy coal. Ye
know blanked well that this church
is hated by sthame!" And had we not
good oak and hickory?
But under the mellowing influences
of the glow that soon was casting rosy
beams of light and gladness all around,
the golf skirt that had failed, and the
coal that was not ordered, and the
[37]
The Black Swans
cold rain that now beat upon the
window panes outside, were soon for-
gotten. And the clock ticked on as if
in mockery not only of the big, but
of all the little, griefs and worries of a
foolish world.
And presently, looking at the and-
irons and the fire, I seemed to see a
portrait of a dear old-fashioned village
blacksmith, beloved by all who knew
him, whose shop was once upon a time
to me a place of a thousand mysteries,
as well as the unpretentious industrial
center of an appreciative farming com-
munity. He stands there as in days of
yore, one hand resting upon his hip,
the other working the bellows, a cheery
smile upon his honest face; big-chested,
big-hearted, gentle as any child. How
we all loved to watch him at his work.
He usually wore a red flannel shirt,
with sleeves rolled up, and the in-
evitable leather apron to protect his
clothing from the sparks. Now he
draws the white-hot rod or bar of iron
[38]
Half-Hours with Mercury and Vulcan
from out the flaming forge; fast and
hard and true the hammer falls, and
the ringing of that anvil beneath his
heavy blows is still as music to my
ears. The boy who knows not such a
picture has missed something.
Vulcan himself could have meant no
more to the ancients than did this
wonder-worker of the old-time black-
smith shop to the simple-hearted
country folk he served so long, so
honestly, so faithfully. It wasn't much
of a place to look at — this busy little
shop of which I speak — just a one-
story frame afltair with great wide
doors, dirt floor; the rafters, walls and
corners stored with the crude shapes of
iron from which the dear old smithy
wrought metallic marvels! It would
cut but a sorry figure, to be sure, along-
side a great modern forging plant such
as that our good friend Ingalls operates
now by day and night. And I have
since seen big batteries of Bessemer
blast and open-hearth furnaces dis-
[39]
The Black Swans
charging their deluges of liquid ore
under roofs that seemed acres in ex-
tent, with ingots, blooms and billets,
rails and beams traveling around great
mills where men seemed to have little
to do with anything save to work the
levers or press electric buttons. And
yet there was that about the little old
shop that fascinated boyish fancies
even more than all the prodigies of
Schwab or Carnegie.
There was a wagon-maker's shop
next door, and when the wood was
ready for the irons or steel the good
smith took his turn. There may be
wagons just as good — or, for all I
know, infinitely better ones — turned
out by modern labor-saving works,
but when those which I recall received
their coats of vivid green and flaming
Vermillion paint they were certainly
the pride of all the village streets and
country roads over which they rolled.
And they stood a world of wear and
tear.
40
Half-Hours with Mercury and Vulcan
All sorts of simple farming imple-
ments and tools came for repairs, and
plowshares must be sharpened. And
sometimes a dozen horses waited to be
shod. The shoeing of a horse's foot
interests me deeply even yet. Only
last August at the H-F Bar I often
visited the busy little shop where
Smoke and Blaze and Splash and
Colonel and all that bronco generation
came — needless to say very decidedly
against their own strong wills — to
get the little plates they needed in
their summer scrambling on the Big
Horn trails. But I did not ask the
privilege of assisting at the ceremony
there, as I always did at "Uncle
Harl's." My share in his place was
switching the flies off three legs of a
horse while the fourth was in the far-
rier's apron having a hoof pared proper-
ly for the setting of the new and still
hot shoe. This fly-chaser was a de-
funct horse's tail tacked onto a handle.
To my mind it was a genuine treasure,
[41]
The Black Swans
and those old farm teams were so
lovable. They would stand and fairly
go to sleep while the old horse-tail
fly-brush was being plied and the
shoer's work performed. On the ranch,
on the contrary, it was in some cases a
free fight between man and beast, in
which one used a bar of iron on the
ribs or head of his adversary, and the
other his heels. Even the expedient of
tightly roping one foreleg did not sufiice
in one case I recall. The farrier was
temporarily foiled by the little moun-
tain devil deliberately lying flat and
kicking on the floor. This particular
shoer had a broken leg as a memento
of some such former session with a
cantankerous subject. But of these
broncos more anon. I should not
imagine that the managers of accident
insurance companies would class shoers
of cow ponies as preferred risks in
their business.
I know that our fire set could have
been made beautifully by hand by
[42]
Half-Hours wit h Mercury and Vulcan
"Uncle Had," and it would have been
wonderful to watch him bend and
fashion each particular piece ^ as his
own fertile fancy might have dictated.
How I would love to hear that voice
again; it was so rich and deep, and
there was no note of anger in all its
register. I doubt if a kindlier bigger
heart ever beat in mortal breast. His
type has passed. Horseshoers we have
with us yet, but the all-around con-
structive, clever, clear-brained, keen-
eyed individual manipulators of hot
iron and steel at cross-roads country
towns are, I fancy, in these days rarely
to be met.
And now the clock calls "Time!"
Bed-time 1 And it is right, as usual.
CHAPTER IV
Low Tides
WE have run now Into the early
summer ''doldrums." The last
half of July is apparently a period of
rest and recuperation after the intense
and continuous activities of the weeks
immediately preceding. The seeds have
sprouted and brought forth. The
shrubbery has borne its blossoms. The
birds have mostly reared their young
and many have already left for parts
unknown. The bluegrass begins its
mid-summer sleep. The main body of
the insect army that makes August
ring with entomological melodies has
not yet arrived. The mercury flirts
with eighty-five degrees in the shade
on the porch which is well protected
[45]
The Black Swans
from the sun by trees and awnings.
A very busy birdlet still imagines
that the spring is here and carries
twigs, and twitters all day long as if it
were still mid-June. This particular
wren has been known to be at work
constructing two or three different
nests at the same time. Billy declares
therefore that he must be either a
Mormon or a bachelor. At intervals
a robin repeats his brave spring song,
but somehow he has lost his "pep."
At sunset the plaintive notes of meadow
larks are still sometimes heard, and
purple martens "flit and run" through
their accustomed evening flights.
The small grains and the hay crop
have been harvested. Red clover and
white are yielding their honey stores
and the bees are swarming. Evidently
the parent hives are hot and over-
crowded. Only yesterday a colony
from somewhere found and took pos-
session of the hollow oak, where once
the flickers lived; the same that for
[46]
.ow
Tides
one winter housed the ill-fated flying
squirrels of happy memory. Sweet
clover and tall weeds line the highways.
Running out from the city this after-
noon we passed through long walls of
green reminding us of English lanes —
chiefly because it was all so vastly
different. The road did not wind in
and out with long graceful curves, and
the greenery alongside was neither
hawthorn-hedge nor ivy; just weeds,
the rank sort that our hot summers
force in such abundance. Even the
lightnings, winds and rains that a little
while ago were playing frequent havoc
with our wires have abated their fury
in obedience to what seems to be some
natural law that ever halts the great
spring drive at this season of the year.
The fire upon the hearth no longer
burns. The old clock only changeth not.
Time neither waits nor rests.
The year is in its prime, its middle
age. Its restless youth is past. During
those turbulent earlier months many a
[47]
The Black Swans
prospect fair was blasted. Some of our
finest plants were hopelessly broken
by the driving storms of May. Limbs
were wrenched from the maples, and
torrential rains drowned various birds
unable to save themselves from the
fury of the elements. Those trying
days though now are passed, and,
supposedly, the fittest have survived
and inherited the earth. I wonder is
this always so? We make a lot of
fuss of this business of trying at any
cost to keep up with the procession
in the struggle for place, precedence or
a mere existence! As if life were a
matter of years only. May not that
boy who died so gloriously today in the
fateful valley of the Marne have lived
to far more purpose than the seedy
specimen of humanity that begged
this morning at the cottage door? And
yet another query presses. Is that
straggling stalk of corn, trying in vain
to make something out of itself in that
hard clay soil back there along the
[48]
.ow
Tides
roadside, to be blamed, because it is
not tall and green and fruitful as its
neighbor in the well-tilled field the
other side the fence? The grains
from which they sprang were equally
sound last spring and assuredly held
within themselves like possibilities.
All we know is that one found con-
genial conditions, the other not. Had
that big oak the thunderbolt destroyed
a better right to live than its neighbor
that endures.^
I have spoken of the odor of the
hyacinth as invariably recalling child-
hood days. The whirring of the elec-
tric fan, which we on occasions set in
motion to freshen up the air inside at
this season of the year, with equally
unfailing certainty carries me instantly
to a summer spent in Washington,
D. C. Once upon a time a message
came over the wire in the month of
August from the then summer capital
at Beverley Farms, Massachusetts.
It was signed by William Howard Taft
[49]
The Black Swans
and requested me to serve as a member
of a body which he had been au-
thorized to create under an Act of
Congress. Not having sought such an
appointment, and being altogether sat-
isfied at the time with Hfe as it was at
Dumbiedykes, I hesitated about ac-
cepting the service. It happened to
be work in which I had been for many
years very deeply interested. More-
over, my game of golf was just then
of a brand calculated to drive almost
any self-respecting person from the
links. Furthermore a certain United
States senator with whom I consulted
concerning the matter intimated that
if I did not accept the appointment
the President might make a worse one.
And so a little later I packed my grip
and began my indeterminate sentence.
Now, I like the capital city. Any
tree-lover must. And Rock Creek
Park is in a class all by itself, but that
sea of superheated asphalt, that humid
atmosphere, and those awful nights
[50]
Low Tides
inside New Willard walls ! Fortunately
I was not compelled by my official
duties to remain there but one sum-
mer. That, however, was quite enough
to last me a lifetime. And to this
day, no matter where it may be heard,
the humming of an electric fan carries
me forthwith to the hotel rooms in
which I lived the best part of four
years while trying to do my bit for
Uncle Sam. Up around The Highlands
and at the summit of the Park, or
even on the Speedway down along the
Potomac, there was some chance of
finding the necessary oxygen, but one
could not ride all night, and so it came
to pass that the Willard and its fans
and the blessed bath tub are associated
now and forevermore in my mind with
hot weather.
There was another and a brighter
side, however, to these Washington
experiences. Hard and grinding as was
the work; impossible as it must always
be to give general satisfaction in the
[51]
The Black Swans
handling of vital questions affecting
the American tariff, our offices, looking
out from an upper floor of the south-
ern facade of the Treasury, directly
upon the Sherman monumental group,
commanded a superb view of the White
Lot, the great shaft that commemo-
rates the memory of the Father of his
Country, and the valley of the Poto-
mac as far down as the Long Bridge
leading into Alexandria. Beyond that
the Virginia hills, which I never
contemplated without visions of Bull
Run, Fredericksburg, Antietam and
Appomattox. Even this would soon
have palled but for the unfailing en-
couragement, support, courtesy and
always kindly consideration of the
President in connection with the task
he had set.
After the lapse of all these years it
cannot now be out of place to say
that no man ever approached the task
of revising the tariff laws of the United
States with higher courage or greater
[52]
^ow
Tides
honesty of purpose than did President
Taft, and while his plan was success-
fully opposed by political adversaries
and distrustful manufacturers within
the ranks of his own party during the
years we were engaged upon it, he has
lived to see everything for which he
so valiantly contended at that time
approved and enacted into organic
law by Woodrow Wilson and the very
men in Congress who put to death
the original Tariff Board of which I
had the honor to be a member. Per-
haps then, after all, the weeks and
months away from my own fireside
and business affairs, spent first in
wrestling with Count Bernstorff and
M. Jusserand over German-American
and Franco-American trade relations,
and secondly in grappling with the
intricacies of "Schedule K" were not
entirely wasted. Somebody has al-
ways to do some plowing before some
one else may reap. Some one has to
ride ahead and help blaze the legisla-
[53]
The Black Swans
tlve trails that may lead ultimately
to national progress.
The subject of our commercial re-
lations with the world at large is one
that has always appealed to my imag-
ination. My personal activities have
dealt mainly with questions relating
to the production and marketing of the
products of the farm rather than those
of the factory, but there is such an
intimate and undivorcible relationship
between the two, and such a vast
field for the exchange of vital inter-
national concessions in arranging our
affairs with other nations, that not
even the delights of Dumbiedykes
shall ever bring. my interest in that
subject entirely to an end. And as
the close of the great war comes in
sight, who shall deny the fact that
the business readjustments between
the nations, rendered imperative by
the financial and industrial earthquake
through which we are passing, shall be
a matter demanding the thoughtful
[54]
Low Tides
and intelligent consideration of every
patriotic American.
A cool breeze is springing up now.
The electric fan that started me, in
an unguarded moment, into talking
"shop" is no longer needed. Let us
therefore shut it off and bury for the
present, in its silence, our memories
of those tropic nights when even the
cold water ran hot in New Willard
tubs.
Low tides come to us all at times I
fancy. We cannot always be riding
happily upon the flood that leads to
joyous fortune. That larkspur blooming
there so gaily, with its tall blue flower
stalks rising far above its floral neigh-
bors, is not always decked out thus.
It has been comparatively unnoticed
in the garden until now. It will add
its beauty to the scene for yet a little
while, and then is gone. And thus
with all created things. How cruelly
short the hour supreme when life
flows at its highest tide! And yet those
[55]
The Black Swans
long and tedious days or weeks or
years of unconscious preparation that
finally lead us up to these summits of
existence are apparently an essential
part of the Eternal plan. The Century
plant in bloom at last no doubt finds in
fruition long delayed the fond con-
summation of all its most cherished
hopes and dreams. And that happy
dragon fly that is born and lives its
shining hour and dies! It no doubt
also calls the world just wonderful!
At least let's hope he does.
There come times I suppose to all
of us when we must seek some Walden
Pond and woods or just ''blow up."
Rest is imperative. Dig as we may,
seek as we like ''the bubble reputa-
tion" no matter where or how, pursue
ambition's call; receive, if you are
fortunate, that worldly crown men
call success, yet soon or late the jeweled
blade that led you on must be thrown
back into the waters of the lake whence
it had been thrust by hands unseen,
[56]
Low Tides
and shadowy shapes appear to bear
you to your Isle of Avalon. And so
we cHng each to his own particular
Excalibar until the last.
Speaking for myself, in the course of
various quests for mental relaxation,
I have made some few discoveries. I
know that one of the greatest things
in the world for me is the open fire at
Dumbiedykes. Another is that or-
dinary cares are easily forgotten in any
unfrequented nook well forward on
the deck of an ocean liner speeding
noiselessly through tranquil summer
seas. A third situation in which right
perspectives have sometimes been at-
tained is a mountain height with the
earth and all the fullness thereof ap-
parently at one's feet. And if I were
to add a fourth never-failing source of
inspiration — and I am not sure but it
might be first — it would be music,
preferably Grand Opera, provided only
it be not of the heavy brand they
make in Germany.
[57]
The Black Swans
During these dog days I cannot have
my fire. The sea — thanks to the shame-
less effort to enforce the Hohenzollern
brand of civiHzation upon an unwilHng
world — Is for the present the last place
towards which one would turn for
relaxation undisturbed, but I still look
back with memories filled with pure
delight to restful hours aboard the old
Majestic of the White Star fleet on my
maiden voyage oversea. And other
near approaches to Nirvana wxre en-
joyed again when, on another holiday,
the Azores hove in sight as the fast
but ill-fated Columbia glided on her
peaceful way to sunny Italy. She Is
now, I believe, somewhere on the ocean
floor In Oriental waters. Yes, and the
Lusitania too, now rolling In her deep-
sea grave, once on a time raced east-
ward by "the Banks" through shifting
fog-drifts, alternating with glorious
sun-bursts. In a series of matchless
moving "marines" that shall hang In
the galleries of recollection until the
[58]
^ow
Tides
end of time. We were bound upon
that voyage for the Scottish Border-
land, for a certain stately manor-house
where giant beech-trees rear their ven-
erable boughs, not far from where
"Sweet Teviot" pours out its silver
tide into the Tweed. But that is
another story.
The fire-place is for the time being
impossible; the Seven Seas are for the
present, as far as ordinary travel is
concerned, verhoten, and the winged
violinists of the grass and hedge and
trees are only just beginning to arrive.
But there is left the mountains, and
it has been years since we have been
among them. Let us now therefore
seek their solitudes. And while you
are getting ready, may we gossip for
a time of mutual friends ?
"Billy"
CHAPTER V
The Case of Kate
ON the evening of July twenty-six,
it must have been about nine
o'clock, I sat reading near an open
window. The day had been hot and
sultry, and the moon which had passed
its "full" had not yet shown. Lyra
was gleaming brightly overhead with
Vega flashing steadily its blue-white
fires. Arcturus glittered in the west.
Suddenly from somewhere in the
shadows of the lawn a sound, faint
and inarticulate, it seemed, yet never-
theless distinct to one whose ears are
keenly attuned to the voices of the
out-of-doors. I listened intently for a
time for a possible repetition, but the
almost perfect silence of the summer
[6il
The Black Swans
night was quite unbroken. While I
had not been positive, yet I would
have sworn that I had heard in almost
whispered accents the one woid
"Kate!"
The sound that I had thus inter-
preted had rather startled me, be-
cause it was a signal that I clearly
understood; one that had to me a very
definite meaning if it had really been
given. In fact, it was to mark a very
important episode in the season's hap-
penings. The only question was had
the word actually been pronounced
or had my imagination only deceived
me. This I was inclined to believe
had been the case, for the tones em-
ployed had been very weak and seemed
to come from far away. I reported the
incident to Billy, and asked her if she
had heard it, but she had not, so I
said:
"Well, at this same hour tomorrow
night we will know for certain, for if
I heard that which I am not at all
[62I
The Case of Kate
sure I did hear tonight it will be re-
peated. Of that we may be absolutely
sure. If it is not, then we shall know
that I was only dreaming."
I knew from past experience that
there would be no further evidence
that evening of the presence of the
only one in the world who each year
thus heralds his coming, and so I was
not at all surprised that the only fur-
ther sound that broke the silence of
the night in question was a sudden
piercing scream, followed by a series
of muffled tremulous notes that came
from the black cover of the trees on
neighbor Alexander's place. There
could be no mistaking that. A pre-
datory undesirable citizen of the forest
of whose nocturnal habits and wan-
derings we do not approve — brer owl —
had possibly made a kill. Presently
this was heard again in the farther
distance. Then all was still.
At almost precisely the same hour
on the following night Billy called:
[63]
The Black Swans
"Come quick! I heard it! I am sure
I did!"
I knew that if matters were moving,
as I now fully suspected, some minutes
were likely to elapse before any further
progress in the action of the play was
to be anticipated, so I did not hurry,
but making the open window at the
psychological moment I caught in sub-
dued yet unmistakable staccato:
"Kate! Kate-kate! Kate!" Then
silence.
The voice was the same that I had
thought I heard twenty-four hours
previously, only now it was stronger.
Its exact location could not be deter-
mined, and I wasted no time trying
to make out the particular tree or
clump of bushes whence it had eman-
ated, for long familiarity had made me
too wise to expect any further develop-
ments even on the second appearance
of this strange visitor from the un-
known. I could now figure with exact-
ness.
[64]
The Case of Kate
''Tomorrow night, if there be no
disturbance of the elements, at this
same time he will call again. Not only
that, but a little something will be
added to his utterance; and what is of
much greater importance, he will not
be alone. At least one of his pals or
kinsmen will be with him."
And lo, on the third night, promptly
on the hour:
"Kate! Kate-kate! Kate-kate!
Kate-kate!" and then the other word,
which was as sure to follow as night is
certain to succeed the day, ''Ka-tee-
did," with the emphasis upon the last
syllable. That was all until from an-
other quarter came a low "Kate!
Kate-kate! Kate-kate!" from one that
had just been aroused from his long
sleep.
So they were here, sure enough, the
advance guard of our old friends. They
were nearly a fortnight ahead of their
accustomed schedule, and on the next
night two or three more hatched out
[6sl
The Black Swans
and gave expression, twice repeated,
to the only word they know when first
born; while the pioneer, now three
days old, having finished the cicadlan
curriculum proceeds to launch the
strange dispute that Is only ended by
the final collapse of all who participate
so strenuously In It.
"Kate! Kate-kate! Kate-did! Ka-
tee-dld! Ka-tee-did! Kate-did!"
The Issue Is now to be squarely
joined, for from the next tree or hedge
comes the quick retort:
''Kate! Kate-kate! Kate-did! Ka-
tee-dld! Ka-tee-dldn't! Ka-tee-
dldn't!"
They are off now In a bunch, and
from that night until frost stiffens
their green frames, so that they can no
longer take a part in the proceedings,
the dispute goes on with unfailing
regularity and It Is always held under
time-honored United States Senate
rules. The application of cloture In
this case has yet to come. They
[661
The Case of Kate
recognize no right on the part of any
member of their body to try to limit
debate by moving the "previous ques-
tion." Neither will they consent to
the fixing in advance upon any hour
or time for taking a vote on the guilt
or innocence of the accused. They
just keep it up as long as they have
strength enough left in their bodies to
express their sentiments — which are
obviously badly mixed — and it is not
until we come to the death-bed evi-
dence of the last of the tribe that we
apparently get a decision; a verdict
which so far as I have been able to
make out is invariably against the
defendant.
I have only the highest respect for
those scientists who can devote a life-
time to studying through a microscope
the eye of a butterfly or something
like that, and then write thick volumes
setting forth, with a devotion worthy
of any cause, and illustrated by in-
numerable color plates and careful
[67]
The Black Swans
drawings, the whole wonderful scheme
disclosed. And all the while they
might have been very much more un-
profitably employed. They might, for
Instance, have been selling to a gullible
public mining stocks, or oil-lands on
the slopes of Popocatepetl, or coffee
plantations where the cocoanuts and
paroquets and monkeys grow. They
tell us many marvelous tales about the
bee and ant and spider that many
generations of men have accepted with-
out question. There is no one to dis-
pute their statements set forth as they
are with such great wealth of detail.
Fabres do not live in every generation.
It is not therefore for any mere lay-
man or woman to question seriously,
even for a moment, researches made
with a patience that can only evoke
our profoundest admiration. So when
they tell us that the male does all the
talking in bugdom, I suppose there
is nothing to do but to accept the
statement. True, if we mere humans
[681
The Case of Kate
stop to reason by analogy we might
be quite inclined to question an asser-
tion so entirely at variance with our
own experience. In our hearts, how-
ever, we can but marvel that an All-
wise Providence should thus discrim-
inate as between mankind and our
obscure brothers of the bush. I am
perfectly willing to let these teachings
therefore go unchallenged, because I
must admit I have no lens powerful
enough, and have as yet found no day
or night long enough, to enable me to
file any demurrer based on actual
personal investigations in this case of
Kate. But for this admitted fact, I
should be inclined to reason thus:
It is a fair assumption that in such
a long and acrimonious contention as
that concerning which we write, the
female is morally certain to have the
last word, the closing word, the word
which finally prevails and is not an-
swered. The one fact we have upon
which this verdict in Kate's case is
[69]
The Black Swans
based is just this: The last one leaves
oif just as the first one began, or rather
I should say, reverses the proceeding,
gradually dropping the "didn't," thus
abandoning the denial and lapsing at
last into enforced acquiescence. Now
it is a commonly accepted statement
that females are much harsher in their
judgments of one another than males.
Where one of their own sex has been
accused of any misconduct they show
little mercy. They are even sometimes
accused of being "catty," one with the
other. There are of course exceptions
to this as well as to all other rules, but
in the main they are not naturally
inclined to be specially charitable to
one another in cases involving alleged
violations of the conventionalities.
Especially is this apt to be the case if
the one sitting in judgment happens to
be old enough to concede without
debate the probable error of the ways
of those who have perhaps not yet
altogether settled down. So getting
[70]
The Case of Kate
back to the case of Kate, it seems to me
foreordained that she is, under these
circumstances, almost certain to be
found guilty. And this is what hap-
pens.
Weakened by exposure to cold wet
weather in the fall they one by one
give up the ghost and creep silently to
rest. The one with the final "say"
having now contracted wing-itis is, at
the end, only able to reiterate, and
feebly at that, "Ka-tee-did." All op-
position ceases. And after a pause it
all ends just as it had begun on July
twenty-six with a feeble "Kate-kate!
Kate-did!" and then, last word of all,
just "Kate!"
I hold no brief for Kate, but merely
in behalf of millions of lovers of truth,
justice and fair play, who know little
of sex and songs and family jars in
the insect world, and who can with the
lights at their command pursue no
other line of reasoning, I respectfully
suggest to all naturalists of high and
[71]
The Black Swans
low degree the possibility of error as
to the male doing all the talking in this
particular instance.
We don't know what the charge has
been. Probably we never shall know.
We only know that the "dids" win
out invariably at the finish. That
Kate, poor Kate, whoever she is,
whether one of their own number or
some Catherine of higher degree whose
fate has proved of perennial interest
to the tenants of the hedges; that Kate,
poor Kate, whatever it is she did or
didn't do, as matters stand, is most
assuredly condemned. Kate did it.
At least so the record uncorrected
runs.
And now if you have on your riding
*'togs" together we will take to Big
Horn trails.
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7 ^ A /)
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Fk^
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5^^!if
^E
CHAPTER VI
Smoke of the H-F Bar
YES, "Smoke." That was his name.
He was only a cow-pony on a
western ranch, but he was wise, and,
unHke some of his kind, quite an
agreeable companion. In fact, I can
say in truth we spent many quite happy
hours together. He was not specially
communicative, and yet many a time
when I had dismounted and thrown
myself upon the ground to rest and
get in touch with all that is revealed
from some of the higher Big Horn
slopes, he would pause now and then
in his grazing by my side to poke his
muzzle along the sleeve of my riding
coat and look at me with big brown
eyes. Just what it was he said to me
[73]
The Black Swans
I may not tell, for it was strictly
entre nous.
You had only to throw your reins
to the ground and Smoke was hitched
for the day, and in the course of six
weeks of intimate companionship I
discovered that this was specially true
if I happened — as was often the case —
to stretch myself at his feet to bask
with the "rock-chucks" in the warmi
high mountain sun, and enjoy with
them and Smoke the eternal snows,
the towering rocks, the sapphire sky,
the irrigated valleys far below with
emerald green alfalfa fields, or ponder
the inscrutable mysteries of the distant
Bad Lands.
One who has known the joys that
wait upon a frosty morning's ride
along smooth Appalachian bridle paths
with a gaited southern mount will balk
at first when he sees the H-F Bar
corral and its motley aggregation being
roped and cinched. All shapes and
sizes and colors from the speckled
[74]
Smoke of the H-F Bar
Remingtonians to the comparatively
shapely ones that show a cross or two
of horse! But when you know them
better and grow familiar with the sort
of service they perform for inexperi-
enced hands your hat will come off to
these same ragged rugged products of
an iron environment, and you will know
that Nature rarely makes mistakes.
On these self-styled "dude" ranches
of Wyoming a pony goes with each cot
and the "grub" — all included in the
price where city folks now sometimes
go to make first-hand acquaintance
with the west. At the H-F Bar the
pony is yours to have and to hold — if
you can — so long as your vacation
lasts. You may not like the first one
you draw, but if it so transpires that
you do not, you have only to file
application with Harry, the senior
wrangler, for a change of venue, and
perhaps you will get a worse one. Per-
haps, however, this bronzed and keen-
eyed veteran who knows the bronco
[75]
The Black Swans
as an open book will let you in right.
Harry and Ray, his tall and typical
moving-picture mate, are all right.
They know their business just as the
ponies do, and that means that they
all ''savey" well their own particular
jobs and multifarious responsibilities.
You cannot say as much for most of
the eastern tenderfeet who swarm
around the saddles every morning.
Most of them do not know just what
they do want in the equine line. Men
with "shot" nerves, men whose idea
is that heaven lies near where a
speckled beauty swims below the tip
of a jointed rod, women who are look-
ing for lost weight and women who are
willing to lose it; children, too, the
boy who buys a hunting knife and
"chaps" before he has been on the
ranch an hour, so he can look a cow-
boy bold, and the "kids" who are to
have their first lesson here perhaps on
"Sausage" or some other fat old
veteran of the band.
[7^\
Smoke of the H-F Bar
Splash got his name, as had Smoke,
White Man and Blaze from peculiar
color markings. Splash was Billy's,
and the only "racker" on the ranch.
He was black, with a few white
splotches, and here and there the
black and white so intermingled as to
produce a peculiar grizzled mixture.
He was nimble on his feet, quick as
a cat and the easiest-gaited pony on
the ranch. In common with all the
rest, however, he invariably took the
first touch of your toe in the stirrup
as the signal to be off. You are sup-
posed to swing yourself up into the
saddle as they fly away. Billy can tell
you best about this. She made a
noble effort one fine morning to get
aboard in time, but Splash was just
a little bit too quick. But she will
have to tell of that herself.
Blaze was a decidedly good mount.
There is real horse in him. That Is to
say, he was not of the pure native
blood. In conformation, size and gen-
[77]
The Black Szva^is
eral character he stood out somewhat
from the common herd. And he, like
Splash, was not assigned promiscuous-
ly. He was one of those face-cards in
the pack, apparently held up his sleeve
by Harry, to be dealt only to some one
who had first demonstrated a capacity
for really enjoying his good points.
This chanced to be Lucile. Now Lucile
had not been just fortunate in the
original draw. Her first one was too
slow, and Prince had proved a surly,
heady brute, always looking for a
chance to get the bit between his
teeth and go. White Man, a little the
worse for wear perhaps, but still with
much in his favor, was the next candi-
date, but one day he had the mis-
fortune to fall flat, so still another was
requisitioned. The lady had through
all this clearly established her claim
to better treatment, and thus it came
to pass that Blaze was duly awarded
her, and so far as I know ridden hap-
pily ever after.
[78]
Smoke of the H-F Bar
Wise, did I say? Solomon in all his
glory or the Lord Chief Justice him-
self in wig and gown, may be set down
as "pikers" in comparison with these
hundred ponies of the H-F Bar. What
they do not know about life on their
own stony hills and treacherous trails
would not be worth printing. And
they have come to know the "dude"
and his ways quite as well, and how
they do delight to "work" him! When
It comes to wrestling with the hard-
ships and the dangers of the wild, in
the hard school of which they were
born and bred, they act on Instinct
infallible. There are certain things
they fear. Their ancestors before them
contended for their own In a land
where safety and comfort might often
be the reward of cunning, vigilance or
speed. And they are suspicious, or pre-
tend to be. The language and actions
of the "dude" they do not understand.
In fact, they usually pride themselves
upon not comprehending his meaning.
[79]
The Black Swans
And probably experience has taught
them that their own way — which they,
like some of the rest of us, dearly love
to have — is apt to be the best way, at
least for themselves.
To begin with, they are "broken"
literally, not figuratively, speaking.
As colts big enough to be bitted, they
will not surrender their native inborn
love of liberty, their right to run the
range without restraint, until con-
quered by a force they are incapable
of indefinitely resisting — such as Ray,
for instance, at the end of that long
and merciless rope. They are sub-
jected to the gross indignity of the
saddle only by the exercise of brute
force ruthlessly applied. And a game
fight, too, the best ones make before
they sue for peace, and in the case of the
more indomitable spirits among them,
they accept their bondage with a well
defined mental reservation. Some of
them have therefore to be "broken" all
over again now and then. Ray is quick
fSol
Smoke of the H-F Bar
to detect the first signs of insubordina-
tion in the ranks, and enjoys nothing
better than bringing a rebellious sub-
ject helpless to his knees with that rope
which every member of the devoted
band knows only too well and fears.
I have said the ponies are suspicious.
Some of them evidently know the old
Greek fable of the Wooden Horse on
the plains of Troy. They have a
wholesome dread of people displaying
an affection which your true bronco be-
lieves in his wild heart to be but mere
pretense. This I have seen clearly
revealed by the expression in the eye of
a genuine child of the equine wilder-
ness when some animal-loving indivi-
dual caressed or petted him. Suspicion
in every glance! They know better!
Some evil intent, some plot against
their comfort, is certainly impending!
They are glad when the ordeal is over,
and breathe freely once again.
They may shy unceremoniously at
a bit of paper or any little thing seen
[8i]
The Black Swans
along the trail that is not strictly
speaking a part of the accustomed
landscape. Nothing of this sort escapes
the more acute among them. Indians
cannot read "signs" more accurately.
All sorts of frightful-looking natural
objects such as might well throw a
high-mettled Kentucky gaited saddler
into fits, are passed by unnoticed.
They know all that of old, but if any-
thing lies in their paths that was not
there the last time they passed that
way beware! Even a stone out of its
usual place does not escape them. I
had quite an argument one day with
Smoke, reliable as he was, on this
latter subject, and he had me well
backed off under the alders by the ford
before spurs vigorously applied in-
duced him to admit that it might be
safe for him to proceed, which he
finally did with a defiant snort.
Riding in the open the ponies go
confidently ahead — Indian file of
course. They know nothing about
[82]
Smoke of the H-F Bar
traveling abreast. The trails they
know best do not admit of that sort of
progress even if they knew how, which
they do not, and the lead pony is the
scout that scents all danger for the
party. Those that follow at his heels
have little concern as to what lies on
ahead or 'round about. They know
that if a lion, or a twig bent the wrong
way, looms up to devour them, the
head of the line will be the victim, so
the rest may go to sleep in safety. It
is when your trail leads you into thick
high grass or any close-set brushy
growth that a wise cow pony becomes
most alert. His ears and eyes are all
attention now, and he takes no pains
to conceal the fact that he is not
enjoying it a little bit. In fact, he
would rather scale a perpendicular
granite wall, and at great expenditure
of effort go well around this hated
cover with its unknown risks, than
dare the dangers which he consistently
insists are lying in wait within.
[ 83 1
The Black Swans
In common with all the rest Smoke
would of course be called rough gaited
by eastern riding-masters. Still his
trot was not bad, and, when in the
mood, he could out-walk most of the
company, especially when headed
home. They all have the corral and
the hill pasture at the ranch ever in
their craniums. The return trip is
therefore apt to develop into a rattling
race, and when Smoke breaks into that
gallop it seems to me, as his heavy
hoofs come down, that every foothill,
every towering mountain from Cloud
Peak to Castle Rock, fairly trembles
beneath the shock.
Dear old "Smoke!" I can see him
now! Buck skin with black points,
trained in all the tricks and turns of the
cattle "round up," steadfast, sturdy
and sensible — at least from his own
eminently practical viewpoint — he did
the best he could with the handicap he
carried to make one visit to the H-F
Bar an experience long to be remem-
[84]
Smoke of the H-F Bar
bered. More socially inclined than
many of his mates, I think that
towards the last he began to know that
I at least was not necessarily hostile,
for he not only did not resent friendly
advances, but in those late August days
upon the mountain sides when he and
I were often all alone up there between
the earth and sky he sometimes came
quite close unbidden. And one day at
"The Chimneys" we found
Our Lady of the Silences
[Lines inspired by a remarkable rock formation seen in
the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, August, 191 7]
Cast in granite, clad in majesty,
Changeless, immutable as the Titan hills
On which thy gaze forever eastward rests,
Enthroned on high with trackless forests at
thy feet,
Dumb witness thou through centuries
Of all the miracles that mark
The advent of the darkness and the dawn,
Steadfast alike through wintry winds and
fervid suns,
The secrets of the stars and storms are thine.
And 'round thy riven rock the lightnings play.
[85]
The Black Swans
No sounds of earth or air or sky-
On those Olympian heights
Disturb thy timeless vigil.
Blind to the passing of the circling years,
Deaf to the voice of birds or beasts
That come and go, ye know nor care not
whence
Nor whither;
Yesterday, today, tomorrow; all as one to thee;
What is thy mystery?
Far down below thy lofty crag a smiling valley
lies.
Here, midst the nodding ferns,
Where dainty wild flowers blow,
A swiftly speeding crystal stream
Nursed by eternal snows,
Flows through green fields that skirt a trail
Men say leads on to Paradise.
Here, on a mossy bank, one golden summer
day.
One weak and heavy laden came to rest;
And by the cooling waters of the limpid brook.
Pillowed upon the loving lap of dear old
Mother Earth,
With face upturned toward the azure vault.
Thy noble figure, faintly limned at first,
Burst on his view.
And slowly taking, form against the blue
1861
Smoke of the H-F Bar
At last stood forth revealed.
And in the presence of thy dignity supreme,
And in the story of thy resignation, writ in
rock.
Was born a thought:
"Like unto thee.
Thou silent priestess of the mountain pass.
Guarding by night and day the way to higher
paths.
My soul is set as stone in adoration adamant;
Set by some Power whose ways we know not
nor can stay;
Set, even as thy graven face is set.
Towards visions fair as rosy-tinted morn,
And doomed like thee
To see the hope that's born anew each day,
Fade far away each night.
"Still shall I watch and wait like thee
Dwelling in solitude immeasurable as thine,
Faithful and true to my ideal.
Until the striking of the hour when I shall heed
The sunbeams and the pale moon-rays
And clouds that shroud a fading world
As little as dost thou."
87
CHAPTER VII
Told in the Firelight
SPEAKING of fires, we had one on
the rocks for two successive nights
way up in the higher range that was
a campfire sure enough. We were on a
three-day trip to Little Frying Pan
Lake where the mountain trout are so
plentiful and friendly that they swim
between your knees as you stand there
in your ''waders" begging you to take
them first instead of casting farther
out. I knew almost as much about fly-
casting as Smoke knew of Sanskrit,
so it was well for me that Lake Fry-
ing Pan trout were so utterly reck-
less. As it was I beat the surface of
the water so effectually in my efforts
at learning how to throw a fly that
[89]
The Black Swans
I drove fish by the school into Chf-
ford's basket. He couldn't cast fast
enough to accommodate the game I
threshed his way. After landing a
few by main strength and awkward-
ness as against mere skill, I suc-
cumbed to the heat and mosquitoes
and went ashore, for was Smoke not
there and Ed, good guide, unequaled
cook and general manager? And up
above did not the snow-filled gulches
beckon.^ I had often seen the white-
topped peaks, and had half believed
it possible that it was really snow
they carried in spite of the torrid mid-
day temperature at lower levels, but
I now made up my mind to find out
for certain on my own account, and
soon we were on our way. Yes, it
was snow all right, for we scrambled
over it, and up above alongside the
giant boulders of the peak the blue
forget-me-nots were blooming in what
seemed up there to be an April sun and
atmosphere.
[90]
Told in the Firelight
Camp was reached at sun-down.
The supper a Lucullus feast! A cloud-
less night; in fact, a night above the
clouds came on, and, as a full moon
shed its glory over all, the logs and
stumps and boughs of pine and spruce
and fir, piled high upon the rocks, soon
flashed their flaming message to the
skies. And by and by the fire burns
low. The coyotes are barking down
there where the ponies graze, and a
story of the West that is no more has
forced itself upon me.
The round-up at the Seven Pastures
and another we had subsequently seen
had been among our late experiences.
Old-timers like Burnett and Hess over
there near Buffalo will tell you these
are but tame affairs in these degenerate
days, but still they are not altogether
wanting even now in interest. The
various participating outfits have the
cattle well in hand gathered from the
four quarters. Some have already
reached the appointed place, and way
[91]
The Black Swans
off yonder In the north or east or south
or west a trampHng host of Herefords
and Shorthorns come a-trooping down
the hills, a solid mass of beef upon the
hoof. They are so far away at first
they seem mere specks upon the hori-
zon, but as they come nearer and
nearer you can distinguish forms and
colors. Everywhere the unmistakable
badge of the hardy, red-robed, white-
faced Hereford ! The cows with young-
est calves come last. Some of the
babies, weakened by their journey
from the far-off pastures, sank at once
when the herd was halted. Pandemo-
nium reigned. Many a mother had
been separated from her calf, but the
bawling of the cows was music to the
ears of the man who counted a good
crop ready for the branding. You
know the rest.
We sat there in our saddles and
watched the horned hundreds as they
passed; and in the long parade I saw
one poor old cripple with the roan coat
[92]
Told in the Firelight
of the Shorthorn, the white face of the
Hereford and the great wide-spreading
up-turned horns of the old-time Texan.
Obviously she embodied within herself
the whole story of the western cattle
trade; the passing of the red men and
the buffalo, the first great invasion of
the wilderness by the southern Long-
horns, the frightful losses suffered in
the early days and the subsequent
reoccupation of the ranges under better
control and management. All this
and more was now recalled by the
smouldering embers of our dying camp
fire in the mountains, and some lines *
I once had written now came clearly
back:
* Publisher's Note. — Seme years ago Mr. Sanders
prepared at the solicitation of leading western ranchmen
and cattle breeders a volume of about i,ooo pages which
he called "The Story of the Herefords." This bit of verse
was added as an appendix to that work, which is highly
technical in its character and naturally makes little appeal
to the general reader not interested in the subject matter.
Many of the author's friends have asked that "The
Coming of the Cattle" therefore be printed now in some
shape where it would be generally available. Hence its
incorporation in this sketch.
[93]
The Black Swans
The Coming of the Cattle
Ever as the evening shadows
Deepen o'er the plains and prairies,
Ever as the darkness gathers
'Round the foot-hills and the mountains,
In the fire-light there are phantoms,
In the pine-trees mystic murmurs.
Spirit voices calling ever
From the land beyond the sun-set.
There is moon-light on the mesa.
Stars are shining o'er the sages.
And the night-wind from the desert
Bears upon its wings the wailing
Of the red men in their lodges,
Of the dwellers in the canons,
Of the children of the vegas.
Of the bison on the meadows.
Of the grizzlies in the gulches.
Of the wolves upon the barrens;
And forever in the gloaming
As the Great Bear watches o'er them
Can be heard their plaintive story
Of the peace upon the ranges.
Of the fatness of the grazing,
Of the plenty in the valleys,
Of the shelter in the forest
In the days before the coming
Of the pale-face and the cattle.
[94]
Told in the Firelight
Countless moons had passed above them,
Nature's creatures of the dry-lands,
And their comrades of the high-lands.
Generations came and vanished;
Still there came naught to appal them.
Feared they not the fangs of winter,
Nor the flaming breath of summer.
For the north-wind was their keeper
And the south a loving mother;
And the wandering breezes told not.
And the rippling rivers sang not
Of the evil days impending.
But the thunder clouds were hanging
Heavy o'er the hapless races.
Moons of plenty shine not always,
Bluest skies at last are blackened.
Lightnings hover in the sunshine,
Longest trails must have an ending.
And there came the day of waking.
Signs portentous in the heavens,
Fires by night and clouds at noon-day,
Told of trampling hosts advancing.
From the distant Rio Grande.
Hoofs were heard along the Brazos,
Horns were tossing on the Pecos 1
From the far-off southern pastures.
From the waters of the Concho,
[951
The Black Swans
From the grassy realms of Texas,
Day by day in countless numbers
Pressed the cattle to the conquest.
Northward, westward, ever northward,
Toward the sunny plains of Kansas,
Toward the walls of Colorado.
Night by night their bed-grounds found them
Nearer still and always nearer
To the nameless unknown perils
Of the Northland they had entered
On the trails that led not backward.
Not the pangs of thirst nor hunger.
Not the northern storm-cloud's warning.
Not the stampede in the darkness.
Not the seas of fire that threatened
On the wind-swept blazing prairies
Stayed them in their great migration
As they journeyed ever onward
Toward the sand hills of Nebraska,
Toward the Bad Lands of Dakota,
Northward, westward, ever northward.
And the Chinook came to cheer them.
Higher still and ever higher
Newer pastures bloomed and beckoned.
Where the Yellowstone was flowing.
Where the wide Missouri wandered.
Where Montana's peaks were gleaming,
[96]
Told in the Firelight
Where the Big Horn dreamed of battle,
Where Wyoming's highest ranges
Led up to the lofty passes,
To the parting of the waters.
Came the cow-men and their cattle,
Came the bronco and the buster,
Came the camp-fire and the cabin.
Came the round-up and the branding.
Where the silent snowy summits
Guard the Colorado's sources,
Where the darkly-frowning forests
Hide the Rio Grande's fountains,
Lo, the west wind came a-sighing,
Came a-telling of the coming
Of the cattle to the empire
That belonged to Montezuma
In the days before the Spaniards.
Told of hoof-prints of the Longhorn
And of lowing herds a-basking
In the sunshine everlasting.
Where the antelope and bison
And the cliff-men of the canons
Had for ages all unbroken
Roamed and reared their happy children.
Vainly had the dread Mojave,
Vainly had the high Sierra
Stayed the coming of the cattle
On the trail of Coronado;
[97]
The Black Swans
For they failed not in their daring
Till beyond the burning desert
Far beyond the jagged sky-line
In a flowery land and fruitful
Billows beating on the sand-dunes,
Thundering on the rocky headlands,
Marked the ending of the grazing.
From their ancient haunts the hunted
Creatures that the wild had nurtured.
Driven from their lands and waters,
Now in sullen stealth retreated
To their secret rocks of refuge.
Calling on their sleeping war-gods:
Prayed that elemental furies
Might be loosed upon the ranges.
And the strangers all unconscious
That the earth would soon be shaking
With the anger of the heavens
Went their way in peace and feared not.
As the eagle from his eyrie
Hurls himself upon his quarry,
As the arrow from the cord flies.
As the lion on his prey springs.
As a wounded herd bull charging.
So the wilderness revolted;
So did Manitou awaken,
Swift to punish and to chasten.
[98]
Told in the Firelight
Through the Northland arctic demons
Rode the frozen ice-bound ranges;
Through the Southland fiery dragons
Scourged the earth with blazing horrors.
Then the drifting to the death-traps!
Hopeless struggling of the helpless!
Herds a-wreck from drouth and famine!
Bleaching bones to tell the story!
As the spear by shield is shattered,
As the shore turns back the waters,
As the rock resists the torrent,
So the wild enforced her mandates,
Claimed her tribute of the reckless.
Taught the lesson of the ages.
Nature brooks not mad defiance!
But the earth renewed its fruitage.
Sunbeams dancing on the ranges,
Waters from the purple mountains,
Soft airs from the western ocean.
Called the grasses from their slumbers,
Clothed again the world with verdure.
And again the herds were gathered,
Not with folly in the councils.
Not with blind chiefs in the saddles.
Children scorched by fire have wisdom.
On the trails that led not backward
Once again the cattle entered;
[99]
The Black Swans
Once again the herds were scattered
Far and wide across the pastures;
At their head a pale-faced stranger
Staunch of limb and lion-hearted,
From beyond the deep sea waters,
From the distant shores of England.
His the heritage of ages
From the hills of grim Glamorgan;
His the power that was descended
Through the Hereford generations,
From the wearing of the burdens
Of the yoke of heavy hauling,
From a life of toil and travail
In the service of his masters.
Proud the bearing of this chieftain
As he armed them for the battle;
Wrapped them in red robes of courage,
Bound them by the ties of kindred
As of tribes by blood united;
Filled them with his dauntless spirit.
Taught them how to meet privations.
Taught them how to face the northers.
Winter's stress and summer's terrors;
Fought their fight through many perils,
Led them bravely through all dangers.
Grasped dominion of the ranges,
Held them in secured possession,
Brought the cattle to their kingdom.
[ loo]
Told in the Firelight
As the leaves fall in October,
As the stream dies in the quicksands,
As the snow melts in the sun rays,
So the children of the open,
Of the mountain, plain and valley,
Fled before the rail and rifle,
Fled before the conquering cattle,
Farther still and ever farther
To the bosom of the river
That is bearing them forever
Through the land of the Hereafter.
The fire Is ashes now. Ed has told
his last bear story and it is growing
cold. The day is done. Our shoes are
hid away beyond the reach of prowling
porcupines. We seek our sleeping bags,
and say "Good Night." Next day we
ride away. Back to the little slab-side
cabin by the creek.
September now Is near. Vacation
days are over, and the hour arrives
when we must say good-bye to Smoke
and other loved companions of the
trails. We are leaving on the morrow.
The evening star has set behind the
western walls. A curtain dark Is
[loi]
The Black Swans
drawn o'er hill and dale. The last
long silent hours have come. And all
night long a voice that calls to me un-
ceasing through the years is heard; a
voice that shall be heard so long as
summer breezes stir green leaves and
flowing waters gurgle by their willowed
shores.
P>^r
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■^^2c^^)7 P^
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rhr/(T
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CHAPTER VIII
'' Tick-Tock'' Talk
ON our return the old clock is wig-
wagging away in its accustomed
place just as on the day we left. It
has one virtue not possessed by the
fire-place; it is always alive and ticking.
The hearth cheers only when the tem-
perature outside permits or demands
its use. At other times it is a purely
negative blessing, loved and valued
for faithful service rendered in the past,
and prized and longingly regarded for
its potential powers and latent pos-
sibilities. But the clock will talk to
you at any time, and those who have
ears to hear its calm and even-tem-
pered comment will find it oftentimes
dispensing very sound philosophy. It
[103]
The Black Swans
seems to have such a serene, contented
viewpoint, and when you return from
town or from wanderings far afield in
quest each of his own particular will
o' the wisp it invites attention at once
to the fact that many of the best
things in life really come to those who
only ''stand and wait" and bide their
time. Why race up and down the
world indeed in frantic search of this
or that supposed desideratum when
all you have to do is to choose a cosy
corner in a cottage near an open win-
dow where you can see each day and
night all that is really most beautiful
in all the world? The true measure of
all happy hours is peace.
The clock is not the only thing about
the place that takes this complacent
view. There is an old gray cat there
curled up fast asleep upon a soft
cushion Billy made for his especial
benefit. You could not excite that cat
of ours about anything in this world.
In fact, he has not even the feline
[ 104]
Tick-Tock'' Talk
fault of staying out late o' nights.
He is just a model; that's all you can
say about him. And I use that word
advisedly, for he was first cast in clay
or something, then duly decorated, set
in an oven and baked, and lo! behold
the best kind of a cat in all this world —
a life-size china cat!
I dearly love a good dog, and I have
no quarrel with those who may be
fond of cats, but to my mind the
best cat is like the best Indian. They
may be all right around old barns and
corn cribs built before this cement age
of ours. I suppose they scare some
rats away, and now and then get one,
but you can get more effective rat and
mice exterminators at the druggist's or
your hardware dealer's that eat no
meat and consume neither milk nor
songbirds, so I stand by our china cat.
As a living-room decoration he fits
in with the clock, and adds a little
touch to the picture made by the fire
at night.
[105]
The Black Swans
Yes, and we have some other pets
around the cottage. Billy has three
birds, a parrot, a canary and an un-
identified wood bird not native to these
parts. Fortunately Polly does not
talk. She just sits up on her perch on
the top of a long stick that Billy has
stuck into the middle of a basket of
palms and ferns with a snake plant
in the center. Here again food con-
servation and other economic ques-
tions have had due and, it seems to
me, most intelligent handling, for the
parrot is a wooden one and gaily
painted.
The canary's cage is a rectangular
Japanese bamboo creation with arch-
ing roof. Billy has painted it yellow
trimmed with black. On its tip-top
tiny French and British flags are flying.
Silk tassels, red, yellow, blue and green,
are pendant from each corner. Inside
the bird sits in his swinging ring; the
outfit suspended from the ceiling by a
string turning lazily from time to
[106I
" Tick-Tock " Talk
time, from side to side. Now that we
have well resolved that we shall no
longer patronize distinctively German
industries, we do not propose to lend
further aid or comfort to Harz Moun-
tain nests, and so our canary is china
too! Think of the seed we save! We
used to buy it by the bag for a bunch
of yellow warblers we once possessed in
town. Of course we always have
*'Jim" Mann's annual congressional
donation of packets to help out some,
but nowadays these have to go to the
sparrows.
I once saw a red bird — the kind they
have in Kansas — wired in for the sup-
posed gratification of the inmates of a
certain human habitation. I say in-
mates, because that is the correct
term, I believe, to apply to those
incarcerated persons who are crazy.
Of course no sane person would think
of killing thus by inches one of the
finest of God's feathered creations.
Our wild-wood bird with black tail,
[107]
The Black Swans
green back and wings, white breast,
black-and-white speckled neck and red
crest is usually to be found on the
table just back of the big, soft-cush-
ioned davenport standing always in-
vitingly before the fire-place. I don't
know just what the ware is called, but
it is highly glazed and of English
origin, and the bird mourns not lost
freedom. The swans of iron complete
our present list of household pets.
I am sure the old clock quite ap-
proves. If you must have birds, in a
country place especially, buy them at
any good department store. Leave
nests alone. Let the oaks and elms
and maples be your cages. They do
not crush and break bird health and
hearts, and my word for it — a china
cat.
I think you have now been intro-
duced to all the members of the house-
hold — excepting certain pictures, books
and spirits that are an intimate part
of life at Dumbiedykes. You see I am
[io8]
Tick-Tock " Talk
very fond of company; I mean the right
kind of company — congenial com-
pany — and it is not always with those
who talk most that we spend our
happiest hours. The clock talks a lot
to be sure, but is so quietly unobtru-
sive about it that it gets not on your
nerves. It is the only being I know
that can monopolize a conversation — I
mean talk all the time, even while you
yourself are talking — and not be rude
about it.
I suppose there isn't really much
excuse for a fire this evening. The
doors are open, but the sun is setting
earlier these days than it did six weeks
ago. There is more time therefore now
to use that davenport before paying
our final respects for the night to the
clock and the china cat. The air in
fact is cool, or at least I claim it is.
You see I seize upon any sort of half-
way plausible excuse to work that
Cape Cod lighter. I forgot to say
before that one of those inventions of
[109]
The Black Swans
the devil, or some ingenious Yankee,
which has robbed me of a lot of harm-
less satisfaction is a part of the general
equipment. I have always known that
half the fun of building a fire was in
tearing up the old "Tribunes" and
"Posts," and fussing with pine kindling
or some shavings in getting started
right, but in an evil hour an oil-
burning "lighter" came to practically
rob me of those privileges. Now we
only need a page out of the newspaper
and just a few small fagots, and the
fire is blazing there before you have
had half time enough to get ready to
enjoy it. I can thrash the man who
thought of kerosene in such connection.
It is an insult to my wood, and I ob-
ject. I prefer to dicker with the saw-
mill for good slabs to haggling with
Rockefeller over his petroleum. But
we have it, and rather than quarrel
over it we shall use it.
Prodigal as we have been in this
country in the use of our natural re-
[iio]
Tick-Tock " Talk
sources, great as has undoubtedly been
the lavish waste and destruction of our
native forests, there is still no occasion
to fear complete denudation of our
wooded areas if any sort of reasonable
conservation be practiced. We may
therefore continue to enjoy our open
fires complacently. That is one thing
among many others that we Americans
have to be thankful for.
I have been in at least two countries
where it almost seemed a crime to
burn wood upon a hearth — Italy and
parts of Scotland. The fact is that in
Rome or Naples, if you chance to be
there in February and call for wood
for your hotel grate, you will get a
handful of "punk" that responds to
your most urgent coaxing only with
that languor which we usually associate
in our minds with the Mediterranean
atmosphere, climate and peoples. In
Aberdeenshire the patches of wood
you may see here and there upon the
granite hills are just "plantations,"
[III]
The Black Swans
all of artificial production. Wood
therefore is precious, as are many
other things in the North Country —
a shilling most of all. In the Lothians
or the Trossachs and on Tweedside
you will not feel that sense of bleakness
that impressed me after I crossed
for the first time the great bridge at
Dundee en route to Aberdeen to be the
guest of an ever-hospitable community.
Up there on the western shores of the
North Sea (let us no longer say the
German Ocean) a thrifty, intelligent
and industrious people have wrought
more out of little than I have seen
produced elsewhere in either hemis-
phere. Along the coast the deep-sea
fishing is an important industry, but
it is in the shallow depths of certain
stony soils drained by the storied
Don, say at Sittyton or Collynie, that
you find the most amazing things
accomplished. If you care to know
what can be made from just turnips
(the "neeps" of colloquial Scotch)
[112]
'-' Tick-Tock " Talk
and straw, and perhaps a handful now
and then of linseed cake, go into
Aberdeenshire, or Angus or Forfar and
learn of the simple yet effective pro-
cesses with which these northern wiz-
ards work.
I know that I once lived in ancient
Northumbria and afterwards in Scot-
land, just as I am equally sure that I
passed through one former life some-
where along the flanks of the Blue
Ridge Mountains. I never visit either
that I am not possessed by a sense of
attachment, a feeling that these scenes
are most familiar and most intensely
dear to me. Sometimes I think that
I belong there still. I imagine that I
could be happy anywhere within sight
of Durham Cathedral or in the valley of
the Tees or near the Grampians, the
Hills of Lammermoor, or on either
side of those lofty, rounded, wooded
heights that separate Kentucky and
Tennessee from the Old Dominion.
"The call of the blood," I suppose, this
[113]
The Black Swans
subconscious knowledge would be
termed.
I cannot quite make out the par-
ticular location in any case. That is a
detail which in the course of genera-
tions has escaped me, but there are
certain places in that pastoral paradise
called Yorkshire that have a strangely
familiar aspect. There are rich fields
and meadow^s, rare old trees and ivied
walls and high-bred flocks and herds
and well-groomed hunters racing down
the country-side to the matchless
music of the pack — ^just as in those
days of old. I can swear that my
ancestors on one side the house were
among the ancient Britons who dwelt
in Cleveland Vale or perhaps on Der-
went Water, and were a part of the
migration of those who were pressed
out of their fair possessions perhaps in
Caesar's time far to the North beyond
the Firth of Forth, taking with them
that tongue, the remnant of which —
the old ^' broad Scotch" — is in reality
[114]
Tick'Tock'' Talk
the early English of northeastern Eng-
land, afterwards so thoroughly cor-
rupted by Roman and Norman-French
influences. I will take oath that I
passed one boyhood on the Scottish
Border. It must have been somewhere
between Coldstream and Melrose,
somewhere between Norham's ruined
tower and Dryburgh Abbey's crum-
bling glories, that I tarried through
many a year in some delectable past.
Evidently I am now passing through
some sort of transition stage, the signif-
icance of which I cannot wholly fathom.
I know I was not intended to be
harnessed and driven; I know that I
resent brick walls, office desks, patent
leather shoes, frock coats and derby
hats. And yet I have passed a good
part of this life within four walls of
masonry, and am obliged to wear the
clothes prescribed by a Michigan
Boulevard tailor. I hate the men's
wear of this period. I am not sure
that I would go to kilts. In fact, I
[115]
The Black Swans
know I should not in this climate.
And apropos of that, and of the right
to bear arms and bare legs, I once had
the pleasure and the honor of spending
a delightful summer day with the late
Sir George Macpherson Grant at Bal-
lindalloch Castle way up there in
Strathspey where the heather and the
Trojan Ericas were blooming. Prince
Ito was there also, but you might not
find him quite as interesting as I did.
Still he was a bull well worth knowing,
whose pedigree may be found in that
Scottish bovine Almanac de Gotha,
the Aberdeen-Angus herd book. I am
sure that His Lordship's ''hieland"
dress was vastly more comfortable
as we wandered up and down the
fields that day than were my own long
regulation "breeks." Freedom of
movement! Freedom of life ! Up there
in the northern air and hills! And in-
side the gray old castle walls we
climbed the steep and narrow circling
steps by which the ancient tower of
[ii6]
"Tick-Tock'' Talk
defense has been so many centuries
ascended; he in garb befitting the
environment, the history and traditions
of the place. Over the great entrance
outside is carved the coat of arms with
its warning motto: '^ Touch not the
cat but (with) the glove." Now im-
agine Sir George or any one else stand-
ing on those battlements in 1918
breeches and "bowler" defying mortal
enemies under the banner of the Grants
of Ballindalloch!
Of course we can't all be Highland
lairds, and cling even yet to our
ancient blessings and privileges; neither
can we who are just over — mind you I
said "just over" — the extended draft
age don khaki and seek shoulder
straps. But it seems to me we might
at least be allowed the Greek or Ro-
man flowing civic robes with sandles,
or the long loose smock of the English
shepherd or Breton peasant.
I think I must be a more or less
rebellious subject by nature and in-
[117]
The Black Swans
heritance. The Scotch were always a
stiff-necked generation. Neither the
EngHsh kings — nor their own some-
times — suited them; and the Estab-
lished Church they would not abide.
And as for my English forbears in the
valleys of the Potomac and Rappa-
hannock, they could not long endure
the yoke of colonial governors. Any-
how they followed Daniel Boone into
the western wild over the Blue Moun-
tains through dark forests; and had no
sooner got comfortably settled in the
Ohio Valley when something else went
wrong. The trackless prairies called,
and in a rough-hewn home of logs
beyond the Mississippi the peace and
freedom, dear alike to all created
things, was found. Maybe it is stand-
ing yet, that roof-tree under which a
boy once made mud pies and watched
wild pigeons in flocks of hundreds
gather for the night in the timber by
a little stream. Some day I may go
and see. That cabin was a cow barn
[118I
Tick-Tock " Talk
the last I heard of it — and that was
long ago — where four-footed folk found
shelter from the storms; where yellow
corn and sweet clean prairie hay
brought solid comfort and content,
where foaming milk pails stood out-
side the door and expectant cats looked
on and waited for a share.
Speaking of wild pigeons — once num-
bered by countless thousands, but now
absolutely extinct on this continent be-
cause of ruthless slaughter by thought-
less huntsmen — I once knew a boy who
thought he loved to shoot and kill all
sorts of birds, but who lived to regret
some of his own indefensible acts in that
line, and one evening not so very long
ago he sat by the evening fire, and there
came to him a scene from other days :
Forefend the Thoughtless Deed or Word
A May- time of the long ago;
A boy and dog a-huntingin the hills
'Midst flowery fields and meadows sweet.
The notes of happy songbirds
[119]
The Black Swans
Fill the vibrant vernal air
And from a woodland deep
A mourning-dove flies forth.
And if that boy shall live a hundred years,
And if naught else of early youth he shall
regret
Whene'er that plaintive spring-time cooing
call he hears
That day in May of long ago shall haunt him
yet.
A dove lies fluttering, dying at his feet.
Strange, wondrous, iridescent colors come and
go
Upon the plumage of a dainty, drooping
breast;
Pink changing into rose and purples into
violets!
Then all is still.
And when it answered not his touch,
Too late he knew he cared so much; so much!
And thus the thoughtless wanton word
Speeding its cruel shaft
Straight to its mark beyond recall
May crush a love that only winged its way to
bless
And throw the pall of darkness over all.
[ 120]
Tick-Tock " Talk
And here I am tonight at Dum-
biedykes musing to as little purpose
probably as when out there a tired,
barefooted, sleepy "kid" once mar-
veled at the whistling whippoorwills
when evening came. A slowly burning
log that never saw those scenes has
brought them back, and why not?
These trees from which our stores of
wood are drawn may have also har-
bored in their time many of those
self-same birds. It is now some years
ago, but once I heard far back in the
Clark farm w^oods near by just after
dark the old familiar cry, repeated
long and loud not less than twenty
times in quick succession, in accor-
dance with traditional whippoorwillian
practices. But he did not stay, this
courier of the air from somewhere,
sounding his message across the space;
the one and only call of its kind yet
heard at Dumbiedykes.
121 ]
CHAPTER IX
An August Night
THERE may have been bigger,
brighter moons seen somewhere,
some time, than the one which rose
beyond Midlothian Wood the night
of August twenty-second, but I doubt
it. The curving roadway and the
winding walk that led down to the
bridge were revealed with almost mid-
day clearness, and underneath the
oaks along the fringes of the open
glades elusive lights and shadows
played. And the night was filled with
music.
We expect little of that during the
dog days from the feathered folk.
They are mostly in seclusion. In fact,
the average songbird of this latitude
[ 123 ]
The Black Swans
during these late August days is a
sorry specimen. This is especially
true of the robins. They are at this
period a sad and seedy lot. That
cocksureness of themselves so much in
evidence in early May has now quite
evaporated. The fact is the birds are
moulting. They seem to know that
they are altogether unpresentable and
shun publicity accordingly. You might
not think there is so much pride among
them, but the truth seems to be that
when in this moth-eaten state they
seek cover just as naturally as some
of the rest of us would under similar
conditions. They are neither courting
mates nor public notoriety, and we
therefore see little of them, and hear
less. That yellow-tinted feather lying
on the grass there was part of a flicker's
raiment only yesterday, and you can
pick up a hatful of them if you make a
business of it. Certain warblers are
already here en route for Caribbean
waters, and yesterday a big blue heron
[ 124]
An August Night
came along. I don't know what he
was doing here nor where he was going.
Am not sure he knew himself. We
have but faint trace here of marsh or
reeds. He was just off his beat a bit, as
was also that lone Lake Michigan sea-
gull that shortly afterwards circled
and squawked above the links. The
bed of the natural surface drainage
ditch, called by courtesy a creek,
would be dry most of the summer but
for the fact that the club long since
dammed it where it enters the wood,
and keeps it pumped full of water
from a deep bored well. In fact, it is
damned at some point anew every
golfing day all summer; for the best
balls used are ''sinkers," and if that
gull and heron were as fond of hard-
coated India rubber as I suppose they
are of fish and frogs, they might, if
they but knew, feast famously at al-
most any point where water meets
those fascinating fair-ways. But we
were speaking of Luna, and I do not
[ I2S 1
The Black Swans
care to dwell upon the subject of lost
golf balls anjrway. Some people like
to joke on facts. Very well. Let them.
I prefer to forget some things.
We had been dining at the clubhouse,
this night of the cartwheel moon, with
George. Know George? He is a Con-
necticut Yankee lad of uncertain age,
who in his time has worked hard,
played some, helped a lot of people
and will be here still, I hope and
fully expect, golfing, gossiping, dining,
laughing, and making one or two new
friends each day, until on Judgment
Morn they throw him down and force
an exchange of his "knickers" for a
robe with wings, and make him play
with harps, not mid-irons, through
Elysian Fields.
It was about nine o'clock when we
started for the cottage through the
wood. Some say madness lurks in
moon-beams. Not being an alienist
I cannot discuss so technical a psychic
point. I will assert, however, that the
[126]
An August Night
supernal quality of the lunar flood this
August night might almost breed ais-
traction in any mind that has an
established touch with the Infinite.
It brings one so very close to the un-
fathomable. It is a manifestation of
the working of the same unerring
Hand that flushed with rose-tints all
unthinkable that filmy veil of vapor
overhead the evening of the last new
moon just after the sun had gone — a
cloud, such as had not been set before
I think in any sky, that seemed to
turn, as Dumbiedykes was neared,
into fleecy flaming wreaths of fire.
But after all I like the dark nights
best. A full moon is such a rank
monopolist. It dominates all heaven
and earth. You can see and think of
little else. You get too much of the
world and not enough of heaven. The
day-time is the earth-time. The night-
time is the sky-time. I know that the
face of that fair lady shining so bril-
liantly up there from out the lunar
[127]
The Black Swans
landscape is radiantly beautiful, but
give me the moonless, cloudless night
with all its million mysteries. I do
not want Libra put out of business even
for a night, because that is the zodi-
acal sign under which somebody says
I was born. I did not say when.
But it was quite long enough ago. I
am no astrologist, but I have sat many
times in that big solarium at the South
Shore Club, and admired that ceiling
decoration, even though I don't know
anything about the zodiacal signs. I
have heard it said that Libra people
are temperamental; that they enjoy
intensely and suffer correspondingly;
that they are mercurial; easily carried
up to most ecstatic heights and just
as easily plunged into the blackest
gulfs. That they are gifted (or cursed
maybe) with much imagination. That
they are apt to be idealists. That the
X-ray power of divining beauty hidden
to many other eyes is theirs. That
they love art in every form, whether
[128]
An August Night
it be in the coloring of the petal of a
flower, the pictures in the clouds or
mountains, the symphonies of the sea
or forest. They are apt to try to give
expression to their inmost thoughts.
Fond of Nature, they find their great-
est joy in creating, if they can, some-
thing that did not exist before. They
are happiest when those who love the
same things that they love are sharing
with them a great play or opera, a
wonderful painting, a poem, an April
shower, a field of waving grain, a
garden of roses or an open fire.
The star-vault's placid beauty all is
lost when the moon-queen rides, and
I like the jeweled Pleiades. I miss
Antares, too, and all his Scorpion
crew. And, so I say again, I like dark
nights; even the starless ones, if fields
be brown and the roof-tree shakes big
rain-drops on the shingles overhead.
As I was saying, we had dined with
George, and when we started down the
walk, that night of the record moon,
[129]
The Black Swans
the woods were ringing far and near
with the endless eerie triUing of the
August "choir invisible" — the so-
called snowy crickets of the trees. I
wish that some one could or would
coin a word or phrase that would
convey to the minds of those who may
not be familiar with the sound some
adequate conception of the quality
and character of this strange insect's
all-night song. Hawthorne calls it
"audible moonlight." A clever fancy
that — only the busy band plays on
just the same each August night, moon
or no moon. Thoreau has spoken of
it as "slumbrous breathing." Scudder
has located the note on the musical
scale as the fourth F above the middle
C. They have a day song too that
differs somewhat from that so per-
sistently iterated at night; but that is
not so commonly heard.
The "Kates" of course grind out
their own peculiar rasping call as the
cricket chorus swells from every bosky
[130]
An August Night
bower, but the " dids " and the ''didn'ts"
seem to tire of their dispute along
towards two in the morning. I sup-
pose they get hot boxes by that
time, and have to stop until through
the subtle processes of nature enough
synovial fluid is evolved to enable
them to resume the friction on the
ensuing evening. Not so with the
trillers in the trees, for when at four
I woke and the moon was turning pale
in the western mists the air was
vibrant still with cricketarian piping,
just as when I fell asleep. The male
does the work, and apparently just
winds up some internal spring and
goes about his nightly business, what-
ever that may be, and the little wings
keep going until broad daylight, grind-
ing out sometimes, they say, as high as
one hundred notes per minute.
At four-thirty — sun-time, not con-
gressional — they still had the air all to
themselves. A stiff morning breeze
presently began to blow, and set the
[131]
The Black Swans
oak leaves dancing, but that made no
difference. The shrill cadence still
rose and fell. And presently a low and
regularly measured note emanating
from some other source was audible.
At first I could not just make it out,
but it was soon brought up with a
sudden little jerk, and then I knew at
once that it was neither entomological
nor yet ornithological in its origin.
It was only Billy over there in her
nest in the corner of the room softly
purring. Luna is fading fast by this
time, for the gray dawn is breaking.
The crows are cawing, and at four-
forty Ben Roberts' young White Leg-
horn rooster takes a hand. He only
learned to crow last week, and doesn't
^'follow through" exactly yet, but he
has found out that he is a sure-enough
rooster now, and wants all the world to
know it.
At last there is obviously a tired
feeling creeping o'er the cricket col-
onies. There is evident lack of interest,
[132]
An August Night
or power, after fifty-four thousand
separate notes have been produced.
Some have evidently gone to sleep or
to breakfast, no matter which. A
few still "carry on." Then there is a
lapse. A few of them come wearily
back a Httle later. Then all subside
and switch to the day-time schedule.
At five o'clock the usual perform-
ance at this season of the year upon
and underneath the awnings at the
bedroom windows, is put on. You
would say that a turkey or at least a
big Buff Cochin hen had somehow
landed on the cloth outside and slid
with desperate clawing down the steep
incline. The struggle for a footing is
quite strenuous, but soon over, for the
law of gravitation is still operative,
and an awning hanging at an angle of
forty-five degrees is built for skidding
or tobogganing, not for quiet comfort
so far as the bird creation is concerned.
But notwithstanding the fact that
this vain flapping and scratching is
[133]
The Black Swans
loud enough to be attributed to a
much larger creature than a yellow-
hammer, you will presently see that
it is our old friend some call the
"flicker" that is going through this
morning exercise. But he is not doing
it just to keep his muscular house in
order. Neither is he doing it for the
mere fun of the thing. He doesn't
know the first principles of the sport
of sliding with Briggs and "Skinnay"
down a cellar door. He only knows
that on these cool nights Mr. House-
fly and a fat and juicy assemblage of
his sisters, cousins and aunts collect
around the awnings, or on the wire
screening just beneath, as affording a
comfortable lodging place; and the
bird is hungry, awkward and per-
sistent. You would think that he
would scare away at once by his first
"descensus Averno" all reasonably pru-
dent flies, but it is not so. The latter
are not yet thawed out of their noc-
turnal numbness, and are easy marks.
[134]
An August Night
And so the awning slides are repeated
perhaps a half-a-dozen times, and
may be two or three other foragers
will join in the hunt for frapped flies.
And now the birds have found that
when the top of the awning has been
cleared they can come in underneath
and work the screens. The French
windows are thrown back inside the
room, so the sport is now clearly to be
seen. This morning after the night
of the great full moon, with a reference
to which this discursive narrative be-
gan, two of the birds alighted squarely
on the perpendicular surface of the
wire netting, gripping the mesh with
their needle-pointed claws, and stood
there side by side peering curiously
and cautiously inside. To me they
are silly-looking and queer-acting
creatures at best, and their clinging
to and climbing up a window screen
is about as clumsy and ridiculous a
stunt as I have seen in bird-land.
There, side by side, the long-billed
[135]
The Black Swans
pair, glued to the wire, a very picture
of discomfort, with piercing eyes, sur-
vey the room's interior, plainly trying
to figure out what sort of creatures
live inside of such a cage. There let
us leave them.
All of which is fact, and not an out-
growth of George's dinner, and if you
don't believe it ask Billy, for she will
also tell you true; she saw them too.
Lilacs and Ivy
CHAPTER X
Socks and Flocks
THE "Knit Club" met here today.
I do not wonder that there is a
world shortage of wool. I have seen
acres of automatic looms weaving
cloths and fabrics by the mile in times
of peace in great New England mills.
In normal periods they are heavy
buyers in Melbourne, Sydney and
London of the fine Merino and Cross-
bred wools of the southern hemisphere.
Our top-makers and yarn spinners
have been able to fill but a small
percentage of their requirements from
the domestic clip. And with the
enormous war demands for woolen
goods added to the civilian consump-
tion, it is easy to understand why our
[137]
The Black Swans
old friend George Scott — who in ante-
bellum days played alleged golf at
the Midlothian Club — as acting gen-
eral manager for the American Red
Cross at one dollar per annum, has
issued a statement from his Washing-
ton office advising that the yarn supply
for the busy knitters can scarcely be
maintained this winter at its past
maximum. Just how many hanks
have been wound off long-suffering
hubby's hands into balls for sock-and-
sweater-making since the first call
was made cannot here be stated. I
know that it took, in many cases, a
hard-working sheep somewhere a whole
year to grow eight pounds in the grease,
and that in the scouring this dwindled
down to maybe two and a half or three
pounds of clean fiber, and I know
that if the countless flocks needed to
produce these great stores of soft,
warm yarns were grazing today in our
own country instead of in the Anti-
podes our people would be better
[138]
Socks and Flocks
dressed and more comfortable and our
lands vastly richer for the touch of
these million golden hoofs upon our
soil.
One of the knitters wants to know
why then this wool has to be imported.
"Why don't our own farmers grow
it?" Why be dependent upon Aus-
tralian "stations" and Argentine
estancias? The answer in simple lan-
guage is that as an economic proposi-
tion America cannot compete suc-
cessfully in the maintenance of the
particular type of sheep that bears the
special grade of wool required in such
volume in the manufacture of the
finer fabrics. The sheep that grows
this dense fine fleece can and does live
upon the scantiest of herbage on great
stretches of wild and sterile or even
desert lands that have little value for
general agricultural purposes. The
sheep that is bred in England — land of
delicious chops — and mainly in the
United States is of a heavier, fleshier
[139]
The Black Swans
sort, grown primarily for his meat,
the wool being a by-product only, and
as a rule a longer and coarser staple
than the Merinos of Australasia. Not-
withstanding the fact that the long
and so-called middle-wools find a good
market in the woolen trade, and not-
withstanding the high prices of lamb
and mutton produced by these dual-
purpose British and American sheep,
still our farmers do not now, and for
a long time to come probably will not
as a rule, engage in their production.
Why?
A knit club can ask more questions
In a minute than can be answered in a
day. There are several reasons given
by our farmers in reply to such queries.
For one, the curse of cur dogs. Any
worthless canine vagabond, of which
there are tens of thousands in the rural
districts, can and may slit the throats
and worry to their death in one night
what it has taken some hard-working
farmer-shepherd months or years to
[ 140 ]
Socks and Flocks
produce. State laws are being passed
as fast as public sentiment will sustain
them, designed to abate this ever-
present threat to successful flock-keep-
ing. But there are so many fool people
who are wedded to their curs that it is
difficult to get effective legislation.
Fine, well-bred Collies, the old English
sheep dogs, and their cousins of France
are aids rather than enemies in sheep-
raising, but in this country, and par-
ticularly in the middle West and South,
these useful varieties are as yet in a
woeful minority.
Again, flock husbandry in the case
of the mutton breeds is not the simple
pursuit it may seem to the uninitiated.
Such beautiful animals as the South-
downs, Shropshires, Oxfords, Hamp-
shires. Cheviots, Dorsets, Lincolns,
Cotswolds, Leicesters and kindred
sorts are highly artificial products.
Neglected, they will therefore deteri-
orate rapidly. They demand constant
care, thought and protection. No
[141]
The Black Swans
animal is more helpless. None needs
closer human attention. And so it
happens that many American farmers,
especially those unskilled in the shep-
herd's art, often meet with loss and
disappointment. "I have no luck
with sheep" is a common expression;
meaning, as a rule, that lack of good
fortune commonly signifies lack of
foresight, lack of knowledge, lack of
devotion to the real needs of the flock.
A pig can be turned out to rustle for
himself. "Root, hog, or die" is the
phrase that reflects that proposition.
And usually Mr. Porker^ whether of
high or low degree, whether razor-
back, Duroc, Poland, Chester,
"Hamp" or Berkshire, will root his
own way successfully, if necessity com-
pels. Not so the daintier fabricators
of the snowy fleece. The delicious
roast brown "leg" that you had at
dinner last night or the tender chop
with the light bone you enjoyed this
morning did not come from a raga-
[ 142]
Socks and Flocks
muffin flock. Toothsome "crowns"
or "racks" and rich, thick, easy-
cutting saddles or loins of mutton do
not grow on goats or starving sheep.
Good mother's milk must flow in
plenty before the epicure may call
for "baby lamb." Look at a Dorset
matron's generous stores, or contem-
plate the broad acres of good green
rape or cabbages or roots and the
bags of cake, and even "sweets," used
in the ration where prime product is
in the making, and you will realize
the labor and expense that lies behind
the butcher's block and complain no
more of cost.
I don't suppose any of you knitters
have been so wildly excited over this
prosy talk that you have dropped any
stitches. You have knit one, slipped
one, purled and narrowed on In the
same good old way, and how the socks
have grown!
Did you ever eat good mutton off
the steaming copper-covered cart at
[ 143 ]
The Black Swans
Simpson's in the Strand? Did you
ever feast on a real "finished" leg in
a Scottish border home — say like John
Clay once kept near Kelso? Did any
of you sit at our own table that time
friend Ogilvie sent us a loin and leg
from one of a lot of wonderful lambs
produced at the Wisconsin Agricultural
College farm at Madison? No? Well,
Mary knows how to brown a fancy
cut of lamb to a nicety; and if the
American people at large could once
have a chance at lamb and mutton
such as the English are familiar with,
we too would soon become a lamb-and-
mutton eating nation, which now we
are not — mainly because we have not
had a chance at the real thing.
While on this subject, and while you,
dear knitters, are proceeding with your
work of mercy, and apropos of lambs, I
once interviewed the Italian Minister
of Agriculture in Rome on the general
subject of flock-keeping in the land of
the olive, the ilex and the vine. I had
[144]
Socks and Flocks
a guide or courier while visiting in
that country, and used him as an
interpreter in the interview of which I
speak. I had noticed occasional flocks
out on the Campagna and over towards
the Alban Hills, and thought to learn
something of methods there in vogue.
Among other queries propounded to
the minister I asked as to how the
surplus of the flocks, the annual in-
crease, was disposed of. A reply was
quickly given in Italian, but Raphael
was obviously embarrassed and at a
loss to know how to translate. His
English was all right for ordinary
tourist purposes. In art galleries or
amidst the ruins of the Forum or
Pompeii he was quite at home. But a
little matter of distinguishing between
the ovine male and female brought
about in this case a somewhat amusing
denoument. He grinned and stam-
mered as he turned to give me the
reply; finally blurting out laughingly,
knowing that he was ''in bad" from
[145]
The Black Swans
an English standpoint: "The Meeni-
stair he say — he say — he say — they
sell the boys and keep the girls."
A knitter says something about
blankets — cotton ones — and this re-
calls a well-guarded remark once made
on a Southern Railway Pullman by a
certain New York City girl in reply to
a query put by her companion. It
was their first trip to Dixieland, and
many of the sights and scenes pos-
sessed for the young ladies all the
elements of genuine novelty. Passing
a field in which long rows of little
brown bushes bore small white balls
just ready for the pickers, one asked
the other, "What is that growing
there .f*" And after a moment's study
came the safety-first reply: "It is
either wool or cotton, I am not just
sure which." And the answer seemed
to satisfy; and some very intelligent
people have trouble of the same sort in
our drygoods stores when examining
certain modern fabrics.
[146]
Socks and Flocks
Billy is "pig knitting" at the mo-
ment. That is what the other "girls"
call it. She has knit herself to a
frazzle on socks. They were fearful
and wonderful at first. In fact, the
original pair came out so huge they
were hung on the mantle-piece last
Christmas, and when Santa came down
the chimney that night he fled dis-
mayed. At least he left nothing in
them. There was not enough in his
pack to make a show. Later on, how-
ever, she had better luck, and I am
ready to maintain that few fancier or
better knitted socks are now finding
their way to France than those from
Billy's busy needles. But she is now
making me a sweater, and when you
make things for any one these days
not in, over or behind the trenches you
are classed with the Chester Whites, as
a very selfish individual.
There is not nearly so much "pig
knitting" going on these days in any
line of human activity in this country
[147]
The Black Swans
as could be seen on every hand a few
years since. We are living a little more
now for others, and not quite so much
for our own selves. I know a marsh
not far away were snow-white lilies
have found their way to the surface
from forbidding murky depths. There
is good of some kind, it is said, in
everything, even war; only sometimes,
try as we may, we have real trouble
finding it.
CHAPTER XI
The Pig in a Poke
BLUE ISLAND! Sounds Inviting,
doesn't It? Makes you think of
some sequestered spot were limpid
waters lap a pebbly shore and ferns
and wild flowers blow. Don't let your
Imagination play you any such tricks,
however, In this case. Blue Island Is
our nearest post and market town, and
has no grottoes — that I know about.
I don't think that even the oldest
Inhabitant could tell you whence, or
how, or why the town came by Its
name. A young lady living In a distant
state with whom we had correspon-
dence, but who knew nothing of the
town's location or surroundings, was
invited once upon a time to visit
[ H9 ]
The Black Swans
Dumbiedykes. She had addressed her
letters as usual "Care of the Midlothian
Country Club, Blue Island, 111." Now
she knew that there was a big lake
near Chicago, and doubtless had visions
of being met by a motor boat or yacht
or being taken aboard a steamer ply-
ing between the city and her destina-
tion. Imagine her surprise, therefore,
to find that we were not on an island
in Lake Michigan at all, and that
Blue Island was neither blue nor sur-
rounded by water. Aside from those
two facts she found no fault with the
choice of name. And speaking of that
I am reminded of the case of Atlas.
Down in Pike County, Illinois, in
the hills flanking the great wide Mis-
sissippi River bottoms there are, or
were some years ago, the remnants
of a hamlet that rejoiced in the earth-
supporting name of Atlas. It consisted
mainly at the time I first passed
through it of a tumble-down black-
smith shop with the inevitable flotsam
[150]
The Pig in a Poke
and jetsam always cast up around
such places by a farming community.
Ramshackle buggies, old wagon wheels
and parts of plows or harvesters rusting
in the weeds; just a "shack" or two —
all that was left to tell the tale of
anticipated greatness unfulfilled. It
seems that Atlas is, or was, one of the
oldest towns In central western Illinois,
and its story is so similar to that of a
thousand others in the Middle West
that a little anecdote of its founding
will perhaps appeal to those who may
know of like instances of buried hopes.
I know that the town in Iowa near
which I happened to be born shared
the same fate as Atlas. Indeed its
name was long since dropped out of
the official Postoffice Directory. But
we speak now of Atlas. Its location
had been decided upon by the pioneer
land Investors of the early days when
emigration was streaming over the
flowery prairies of Illinois, with the
Mississippi or beyond as the objec-
[iSi]
The Black Swans
tive. The site selected for "the future
great" commanded a wide view of
magnificent sweeps of black alluvial
soil, and on the uplands the bluegrass
that promised rich for pastoral hus-
bandry ran riot in the hills. It looked
good. It was good. There were no
settlements with any particularly
promising prospects for leagues and
leagues in any direction. A name to fit
its manifest destiny was chosen, sur-
veys were made, the first buildings
erected and in fancy its fond founders
saw in its embryonic state the coming
metropolis of an empire rich beyond all
dreams. The empire arrived in due
course all right, but not so the hopes of
Atlas.
One day word came to the village
fathers that some hare-brained set-
tlers a little farther up the river had
staked out another town, and it was
to be known as Quincy. While this
created no particular flutter in the
expectant streets of Atlas, a meeting
[152]
The Pig in a Poke
of the bewhiskered candidates for fu-
ture aldermanic honors was neverthe-
less held that night in the corner gro-
cery to discuss the matter; and over
the "navy plug" the relative prospects
of the two communities came up for
argument and adjudication. Those
few faint-hearted ones who manifested
any doubt as to the assured supremacy
of Atlas were soon silenced, and before
the court had adjourned it had been
unanimously determined, once for all,
that "Quincy never could amount to
a damn anyhow, because it was too
near Atlas!" Alas, poor Atlas! you
know what happened to her; or rather
you know what happened at Quincy,
where one of the West's leading rail-
way systems built a great steel bridge
and shops and made a thriving city,
while Atlas withered and decayed until
finally one day a strong wind blew
it off the map. One of a thousand
similar victims of pioneer railway en-
gineering.
[153]
The Black Swans
But we are forgetting Blue Island
in our contemplation of Pike County's
tragedy. An island used to be defined
in my old school geography as a body
of land entirely surrounded by water.
The only water in or about Blue Island
is that which flows through big iron
mains beneath the pavements, and
along the bed of a creek called the
Little Calumet, soon to be utilized as
a part of a big drainage ditch. While
near the great city it is not the con-
ventional suburb at all. On the con-
trary, it has a past of its own; an
existence and individuality of its own
and certain institutions of its own to
which its inhabitants and those of the
country tributary to it cling with the
traditional tenacity and conservatism
of people of their race — old country-
men mainly of German peasant deriva-
tion. For instance, at stated intervals,
by and with the consent and co-opera-
tion of the town authorities, a genuine
old country street fair is held, upon
[154]
The Pig in a Poke
which occasion the south end of the
main thoroughfare presents a scene
with which few of the present gen-
eration of Americans have any famil-
iarity.
"Fair" day is a real gala day in this
community. From early morn till
dewy eve the trafficking and gossiping
and beer-getrinking goes on, and in the
meantime a considerable business —
made up largely of the buying and
selling of everything you can imagine
in the line of farm products from
goose eggs to spavined, string-halt
horses — is transacted. Itinerant ven-
dors of peanuts, ^^op" and pink
lemonade establish themselves just
around the corner at the crossings
nearest the heart of the day's doings.
The farm folk straggle into town, some
of them the night before, and all the
rest at early dawn, and you know when
you see the live stock put in offer that
you are not dealing with readers or
students of The Breeder^ s Gazette,
[155]
The Black Swans
Horse trading is the big feature of
the fair. Somewhere, some place — per-
haps behind the Kaiser's front Hnes —
it might be possible to collect a more
picturesque lot of lame, blind, crippled,
swollen-legged crow-baits than are as-
sembled from heaven knows where on
these Blue Island market days. I
fancy they do not all come from the
farms of Bremen township. In fact, it
is not impossible that the Hebrew
dealers and the peddlers and the
"junkers" generally in the city send
out, perhaps under cover of darkness,
some of their own most striking speci-
mens in the hope of unloading on
somebody at a profit. Gypsies, too,
sometimes have a hand in this raffle
of equine derelicts. So it is a case of
diamond cut diamond, a lottery in
which the participants apparently en-
joy taking all the chances that attach
to swapping and trading in such trash.
While the men-folk are wrangling
among themselves over the twenty-
[156]
The Pig in a Poke
five dollar horses, the women have
not been idle. In the old days they
appeared in wooden shoes. They prac-
tically monopolize the trading in cows,
sheep, pigs, geese, ducks and chickens.
These are not usually in large sup-
ply. In the case of cows, sheep and
pigs, single specimens commonly form
the subject of the bartering. Sheep
are seen but seldom. There are too
many cur dogs in the community to
make it safe or profitable for any
one except a butcher to buy one.
The class of milch cows offered would
not appeal specially to experienced
dairymen. They are of all grades and
crosses from just plain knot-heads to
an occasional poor relation of the
Hereford.
I have often heard the expression
"buying a pig in a poke," but I never
understood it exactly until the other
morning when driving through the
fair I saw an animated gunny-sack
rooting its uncertain way on the side-
[157]
The Black Swans
walk near the curb. The pig was not
able naturally to make much headway
in any particular direction. That of
course was the object of this particular
form of captivity, and presently the
old lady that had the deal in hand
effected a sale, after first giving the
prospective buyer — another thrifty-
looking hausfrau — a peek inside the
bag. Passengers on the suburban trains
making the Blue Island stop are often
surprised as the cars speed cityward to
hear the squealing of little pigs or the
quacking of ducks emanating from
somewhere within the recesses of bas-
kets belonging to undisturbed females
who have attended the fair. And if
you chance to be driving out Western
Avenue from Chicago at sundown you
will see a long string of battered,
bandaged horses straggling painfully
onward to their respective destinies,
and in and around Blue Island the
cows with doubtful udders are being
led to village pasture lots
[158]
The Pig in a Poke
The fair is over. Blue Island bars
are somewhat richer for its coming,
and a lot of people have got rid of
things they did not want or need, and
others are in possession of that which
they thought they wanted or needed
or could turn over at a profit, and no
middlemen have come between. Such
is the only rival the Union Stock
Yards or South Water Street has in
Cook County so far as I have seen.
I wonder when Mr. McAdoo may wish
to take it over.
A bit of the old world transplanted
to the new, a bit of the past engrafted
on the present, this quaint recrudes-
cence of ancient commerce on the
Little Calumet. Probably it will dis-
appear shortly. Soon also will the
little stream near by find its accus-
tomed course reversed, and Lake
Michigan's waters pouring westward
through its bed between great walls of
stone.
159
CHAPTER XII
A Pumpkin and a Prince
WHILE on the subject of fairs
I am wondering if, after all, the
great exhibitions now annually staged
by the leading farming states, repre-
senting large investments for the proper
equipment of an up-to-date agricultural
exposition, have so very much on the
old state fairs I used to know. Of
course they have. To deny that would
be to assert that we may not be mak-
ing progress, and far be it from me to
advance any such heretical suggestion.
It has fallen to my lot to acquire
familiarity with various important
state, national and international pres-
entations of the achievements of those
who till the soil and tend our priceless
[i6i]
The Black Swans
flocks and herds. It was indeed a
far-cry from the Httle county fair of
long ago, when as a boy I helped
collect for it our best productions of
garden, orchard, pasture and paddock,
to the World's Columbian Exposition.
It was a long leap from my first Iowa
State Fair at Cedar Rapids to the
imposing demonstrations of the Ex-
position Universelle de Paris of 1900.
There was some contrast between the
first Fat Stock Show I reported on the
spot where the Chicago Art Institute
now stands and the Royal Agricultural
Shows of England I have since at-
tended. But, after all, the difference
is one of degree only. The funda-
mentals are the same, yesterday, to-
day, tomorrow and forever. It is only
the setting that is different. The aims,
the objects, the purposes, the inspira-
tions have not varied. Then, as now,
it was the setting up of standards by
which the year's attainments in the
primal arts of peace might be truly
[162I
A Pumpkin and a Prince
measured and compared; the treading
of the rich fruitage of the vines, the
celebration of the gathering of the
sheaves — a custom handed down in va-
rious forms through all the generations;
and one that shall not be lost so long as
men shall sow and toil and reap.
My earliest personal experience as
an exhibitor was with a pumpkin.
Then as now in some localities it was
customary to plant the seeds of this
humble but vigorous and prolific vine
in the cornfields, and one year as the
corn was approaching its maturity one
of the hundreds of pumpkins hidden
away underneath the rustling blades
gave promise of attaining prodigious
size. Day by day I watched its steady
progress. It looked a prizewinner sure
enough, and I claimed the privilege of
entering it in the coming county com-
petition. The big Percheron horses
and pigs — the latter as good as I have
ever seen since — were being prepared
for the same great event, but my hopes
1 163]
The Black Swans
were for the time being wholly centered
in that blessed *' whopper" out there in
the cornfield. I was so afraid that
something would happen to it that
I could scarcely sleep o' nights. Some-
body or something, I was sure, might
break the fragile stem upon which my
visions of winning that dollar offered
for the best of its kind on exhibition
all depended. Early and late I noted
with ever increasing wonder and satis-
faction the extraordinary belt line of
that one great pumpkin of its day and
generation. Nothing like it had ever
developed before within the range of
my very limited observation, and I had
a lot of trouble trying to make up my
mind as to the particular use to which
I should put that dollar.
There were two red letter occasions
each year when I never, never had
half enough small change available.
One was Christmas-time; the other
the , Fourth of July — saying nothing
about circus day. Sometimes I had
[164]
A Pumpkin and a Prince
managed to accumulate for those rare
events as much as a dollar and a
quarter, but a dollar and a quarter
doesn't go real far when you are in a
toy shop every day for two or three
weeks before Christmas with the win-
dows and show cases overflowing with
marvelous gaily painted tin soldiers
and jumping jacks and monkeys that
turned wonderful somersaults over the
top of a stick! As for the glorious
"Fourth," fire crackers cost fifteen
cents a bunch and torpedoes ten cents
a bag, and if you commenced when the
other "fellers" did in the morning and
kept it up until near noon you needed
a lot more than I was ever able to
purchase. How I envied those pluto-
cratic playmates who were able to
enjoy the tremendous thrill that at-
tended the firing of a whole bunch of
the little red "crackers" all at once!
Then lemonade, peanuts and soda
water added grievously to these early
financial difficulties, especially on those
[165]
The Black Swans
halcyon days when after weeks of
anticipation we trailed the band wagon
of the circus in its triumphal tour of
the village streets. I usually got inside
the tent, and on one memorable occa-
sion had a little change left to buy a
ticket for the "special concert to be
given immediately after the conclusion
of the performance in the ring." Yes;
and by some special Providence there
was ten cents still remaining after
lavishing a quarter on the concert
ticket, for which I presently found im-
portant use. The clown that day sang
a song entitled ''Pulling Hard Against
the Stream" that for some reason or
other made quite a hit in the sleepy old
town. We boys as a matter of course
were arranging for the usual attempt
at holding a show of our own shortly
after the circus left, while the excite-
ment and enthusiasm were still in
possession of our souls. We nearly
broke our necks of course trying to
ride a horse bareback standing up
[i66]
A Pumpkin and a Prince
and testing out various acrobatic
stunts; and thinking that we should
sing something just as "them reg'lar
show actors" did, I had spent that
last ten cents before the show left
town for a copy of the clown's own
song book. For some reason or other —
probably because I couldn't walk on
my hands or successfully negotiate a
big tight-rope — I was picked to sing a
song. So I promptly memorized the
one that had drawn the most applause
at the real circus. That's how I happen
to remember parts of it even now. The
music was, I suppose, an utter abomina-
tion and the lines pure doggerel of the
cheapest sort. But it was apparently
an appeal to one's better nature, each
verse bringing up at the end with a
long-drawn-out " S — o th — e — n!" lead-
ing into the chorus :
"Do your best for one another
Making life a pleasant dream;
Help a worn and weary brother
Pulling hard against the stream."
J 167]
The Black Swans
Now I cannot say what there was
in this that seemed to strike a respon-
sive chord in the breasts of that par-
ticular community, unless it was that
nobody out there in those days ever
seemed to have much money, and being
thirty miles from any railroad, only
the worst and cheapest circuses ever
had the courage to invade it, and I
suppose that for these or other equally
cogent reasons every boy living there
knew in his own heart that he was the
particular "brother" alluded to in the
clown's plaintive ditty. I know that I
for one was beginning to rebel against
hoeing potatoes and milking cows in
red-hot weather, and envying those
favored of the gods whose only duty
was to take care of elephants and tear
down and put up tents and seats and
travel all night to the next town and
when the show "busted" get no pay.
But what about that pumpkin.?
Well, the corn was cut one day and
there lay my prize pumpkin of stu-
[i68]
A Pumpkin and a Prince
pendous girth in the mellow, late-
September sun in all its golden glory.
"They can't beat it," I said to my-
self, and to the fair it went. And do
you know that the fool judges didn't
have any more sense than to pass it
by and stick the ribbon that carried
that dollar onto a fat, heavy, orange-
colored globe that wasn't half as big
around as my own, and left me broken-
hearted! Mine was flat on top and
bottom to be sure, but any tapeline
in the world would have convinced any
committee with the ability to read
plain figures and measure accurately
that I was clearly entitled to win!
And so came, like a bolt from the blue,
what still seems to me to have been the
first truly bitter disappointment of
my life. I have had some other dis-
appointments since, but none that
made a more profound impression.
And father got his too. A favorite
trotting nag of his "broke" badly
coming down the home-stretch of that
[169]
The Black Swans
little old half-mile track and was
beaten under the wire by at least two
lengths in the deciding heat. After
listening to his comment upon that
performance, and the unprintable re-
marks of the trainer who at the critical
moment had driven the poor little bay
mare off her feet, I began to realize
that I was not the only one with a
grievance against the world, going
home that night a sadder but perhaps
wiser youngster.
This incident recalled from boyhood
days may serve as well as any other
to suggest, even if faintly, the good
actually accomplished everywhere by
these competitions. Experience is the
only school whose lessons are taken
home and long remembered. This one
taught me several things worth know-
ing.
There is an old saying to the effect
that each crow fondly thinks its own
young white; that is, better and more
beautiful and more wonderful than
[170]
A Pumpkin and a Prince
any other crowlets that ever happened.
All the other crows know the truth,
and sooner or later these doting par-
ents discover that their own progeny
are no whiter than their sisters, cousins
and aunts of crow-land.
Another thing; the casting of my
mammoth pumpkin into the discard
at this county fair taught me once
for all that mere size, mere stature,
mere girth, mere bulk, mere pounds
avoirdupois, do not necessarily mean
the most quality, and aiford no guar-
antee whatever of superior fitness or
desirability. On the contrary, when
my big pumpkin was cut open it was so
coarse-grained that when chopped into
chunks it was not even relished spe-
cially by either cows or pigs, all of which
simply means that the finer fibers
rarely accompany the ranker growths
in either the animal or the vegetable
kingdoms, and the county fair enforces
these and kindred lessons just as effec-
tually as do International Expositions.
[171]
The Black Swans
Some years after the boyhood
tragedy herein mentioned, I attended
a show of the Royal Agricultural
Society of England held in a held
adjacent to the grand old park at
Warwick Castle, not far from Leaming-
ton. This world-famous exhibition is a
"movable feast," not possessing a
permanent home and equipment as is
the case with the leading American
shows of like character; the idea in
Great Britain being to bring the bene-
fits of the show home to the very doors
of the people in all sections of the
country by shifting it from year to
year to various parts of the kingdom.
One year it may be at Bristol, the
next at Carlisle or York, and so on all
around among the larger county towns
and cities; local assistance being given
in each case, with the Royal Society's
funds drawn upon for general expense.
The Warwick show of which I speak
was held under the Presidency of the
then Prince of Wales, subsequently
[172]
A Pumpkin and a Prince
King Edward VII., and His Royal
Highness was not only present, but
took the keenest possible interest in
all its details. I knew that at his own
favorite Sandringham the Prince had
Southdown sheep and Shorthorns and
other useful and admirable types of
domestic animals, and that he took a
personal interest in them. I was
scarcely prepared, however, to learn
at Warwick of his intimate knowledge
of the breeds and their points of
excellence. These wonderful exhibi-
tions of all the finest types for which
Great Britain has so long been famous
are usually held in July out in the open;
temporary stalls with canvas covering
to protect the animals from the sun
or rains being the only shelter pro-
vided. On the opening day I was so
fortunate as to meet the Prince in that
section of the park allotted to the
cattle, "doing" the show on foot
incognito, like any other interested
visitor, in order to avoid the crowds
[173]
The Black Swans
that always surrounded him when on
official inspection tours. His only
companion was Sir Jacob Wilson, one
of the foremost agricultural author-
ities of his day in Britain. I only wish
that our American president and ex-
presidents, our senators and cabinet
officers, our men of prominence in
civic, commercial or political life, could
have listened that day to Prince Ed-
ward's comments on the animals as
they were shown. His interest was not
perfunctory, his knowledge not super-
ficial. He knew the cattle as he knew
the sheep and horses. He was not
necessarily impressed by scale. He
knew correct and faulty conformation.
He was pleased and gratified beyond
measure to see such a marvelous
presentation of England's pastoral
wealth. He was more capable of
judging in the prize-ring than thou-
sands of American farmers even, saying
nothing of the conceded incapacity in
such important matters among those
[174]
A Pumpkin and a Prince
who are most conspicuous in the social
and pictorial columns of the American
press.
I use this case of the late King
Edward merely to illustrate a broad
national difference of viewpoint in
respect to certain things lying at the
very roots of Anglo-Saxon greatness.
I afterwards visited other Royal shows,
and always found the landed gentry,
peers of the realm, members of the
royal family and government, men
whose names were familiar in high
finance and public service, mingling
with the sturdy tenantry, the herdsmen
and the shepherds; and every man
knew what he was looking at, and
could appreciate quality wherever pres-
ent. They cherish their well-kept
herds and flocks as an integral, a vital
part of a great inheritance. They
regard it as a duty as well as a personal
privilege to thoroughly inform them-
selves in respect to these truly valuable
national possessions, and in the sun-
[175]
The Black Swans
light of assured patronage and gen-
erous co-operation from the highest
sources, even the humblest ''hewer of
wood or drawer of water" in all
Britain has constant inspiration to
stand by the soil and its choicest
products; and so it is that ''over
there" a reputation for outstanding
skill in the gentle arts of agriculture
means certain reward and public ap-
preciation, and father hands it down to
son as a prized possession.
When John McCormack, the Irish
tenor whose voice is loved by millions
of Americans, offered his services to the
government at Washington to serve
during the great war in any capacity
the President might deem best, he was
urged to sing our patriotic popular
songs throughout the length and
breadth of the land, and if so disposed
turn over the proceeds to the Red
Cross. In pointing out the real value
of this form of service the President is
quoted as having said: "Somebody
[176]
A Pumpkin and a Prince
must keep the fountains of sentiment
flowing!" Woodrow Wilson is an apt
phrase-maker. Probably no president
since the lamented McKinley has pos-
sessed that gift in greater degree, and
in these few words he has given expres-
sion to a truth, the important bearing
of which is not sufficiently recognized
by so-called practical people.
One might say that there seems little
room for sentiment in the "tending of
cattle and tossing of clover;" that
there is little place for the play of the
imagination in the effort of trying to
make two blades of grass grow where
only one came forth before. That the
evolution of new and finer types of
grains and fruits and flowers is an
occupation fit for the merely patient
plodder only. That the creation and
maintenance of choice herds and flocks
is a task to which only dull minds may
profitably address themselves. Wash-
ington on his loved Mount Vernon
acres proved the hollowness of such
[177]
The Black Swans
assumptions. America seems destined
now to step into a position among the
nations of the earth that bids fair to
mean world leadership henceforth. But
this should not simply mean possible
supremacy in financial or commercial
enterprises. Indeed, if in the unfolding
of our future, we shall give to history
no names fit to match those of Bake-
well, Ellman, Tomkins, Cruickshank
or McCombie, we shall not have
recorded full-rounded progress as a
people. These names mean nothing to
you? Well, they should; and if you
don't believe it, then the next time
you come to Chicago pay a visit to the
Saddle and Sirloin Club — preferably
when the International Live Stock
Exposition is in progress — and you
may then possibly share with me the
belief that not all the great Americans
of the years to come — men with brains
and sentiment and patriotic impulse —
will build their biggest monuments
either in Wall Street or in Pittsburg.
[178]
CHAPTER XIII
The Flames that Clarify
THERE are still other fires all
normal people like, such as one
that I have just helped tend, for in-
stance, the burning of dead vines and
stalks and weeds and leaves, the rem-
nants of a garden which for weeks
has been a generous provider. How
easily the hardened roots release their
former grip upon the rich black mellow
soil! They know their race is run, and
for the most part give up gracefully.
A few sturdy ones, however, that I had
thought were done with life made a re-
sistance altogether unexpected, but
after I had torn and broken down a
plant that was not ready yet to go,
I knew at once that I had interfered
[179]
The Black Swans
with some well-formulated plan of Na-
ture, and was sorry.
We fancy we know so much more
about a lot of things in this world than
our common Mother knows. We are
always and forever assuming to im-
prove on the universal scheme, cor-
recting the Almighty and his laws, and
all the while the All-wise makes of us
and all the best-laid schemes of men
(not mice) a mockery. We can by
force of arms, by acts of parliaments,
intervene successfully for a time, we
fondly think, with the general plan,
but the tables on w^hich men carve
their edicts crumble into nothingness,
and drifting sands entomb the walls
of Babylon, whenever Nature cares to
resume the sway she never really has
resigned. I had no business pulling
up that big Helianthus before its
seeds had fully ripened, but that will
not prevent some other sunflower from
fulfilling its allotted mission. You
can't overthrow Nature by taking one
TiSol
The Flames that Clarify
life or blasting one bright hope. You
cannot change the leopard's spots by
caging him; neither can he change
them himself, try in the jungle as he
may.
Enough green stuff goes on the
autumn garden fire to fill the air with
smoke that is both blue and fragrant.
What is there in the odor of the burning
of dry grass and stems and twigs that
makes such wide appeal to human
sensibilities } Every small boy knows
well what I mean by this; and every
sane small boy is enough of a primeval
savage to scent in that smoke some
far-off simple former life in forest
glens.
Do you know that within the city
limits of Chicago is one spot where
touch with man's natural environment
may almost be attained.^ Here and
now I want to pay glad tribute to the
man who was wise enough to place in
Jackson Park that Heaven-born in-
spiration called "The Wooded Island."
[i8i]
The Black Swans
I suppose it may have been Frederick
Law Olmstead. He had a lot to do, I
believe, with the landscapes now so
dear to all who know the former site
of the World's Fair of 1893. But
whoever did it builded his own great
monument, and generations yet un-
born will seek the solace of its isola-
tion. No road-way crosses to it.
Arched bridges lead you from the busy
drives across lagoons in which big
forest trees have plunged their roots.
The motors and the trolleys are not
there. The birds know it well enough.
Trust them for that, and squirrels
once scampered everywhere until long
protection so increased their number
that it was found too many nests were
being robbed, and they were banished.
At least so I've been told.
One day last March when the sun
had whispered something to the trees
that made the willows and the dog-
woods start, I strolled across this
Wooded Isle. The grass was showing
[182]
The Flames that Clarify
faintly green, and through the branches
bare the lake winds roared. You see
the island at its best, I think, on such
a day. November though would do as
well as March. The roses will be gone
and the summer crowds that frequent
it will not be there. But you want the
tree-tops bending to the pressure of
strong winds if you would hear the
organ-chords that fill that silent, solemn
sylvan auditorium. And you may be
so lucky as to find the workmen burn-
ing brush, the trimmings from the trees.
If so, the incense rising from those fires
will do the rest. And when you turn
away and retrace your steps across
the arching bridge that sends you back
to boulevards, I wager you will almost
wish with me you wore old overalls
and had to work your way along with
axe instead of pen; at least for one long
happy day.
If you leave the island by the
southern bridge you will see French's
majestic statue of the Republic — the
[183]
The Black Swans
recently erected replica of the one in
staff that welcomed the nations of the
world in Columbian Exposition days.
The fading of that picture is Chicago's
greatest tragedy. There flowered the
architecture and the allied arts of all
the ages; a poet's dream of one short
summer night, a mirage too beautiful,
too evanescent to really exist save in
imagination. But it served its splen-
did purpose. Its profound, refining
influence upon a people none too famil-
iar with "the beauty that was Greece,"
the "grandeur that was Rome," and,
may I add, the inspiration that is
France, long since became a prized
national possession. Only a trace of
the grand aggregation of palatial
structures now remains. The Fine
Arts Building alone of all the exhibition
halls was temporarily preserved. A
great fire swept away most of them,
thus saving a laborious demolition by
hand labor. And the Art Hall's days
are numbered.
184
The Flames that Clarify
Strictly classic in spirit and outline,
its crowning feature the low-set dome
copied from the Campo Santo in
Genoa, it is slowly but surely falling
into ruin, and, when the Field Museum
is finally completed downtown, the
old Columbian relic's last days will
have come. Rabida and the caravels
are still with us. The German Building
is still permitted to stand near the
lake, and a little north of that the old
Iowa state pavilion may still be seen.
Upon the Wooded Island the quaint
artistic contribution of Japan yet bears
its testimony to the skill of the artisans
of the land of Fusiyama and the cherry
blossoms. A soul-inspiring marshaling
of the resources of a world at peace, this
celebration of the four hundredth an-
niversary of America's discovery. And
as I write, the city by the lake is
opening the gates upon a very different
scene. The Government is showing to
the people of the Middle West a
glimpse of what is meant by war —
[185]
The Black Swans
the war that means the re-birth, the
re-consecration of America. And this
brings vividly to mind that there are
other fires that differ from all others
herein mentioned; the sulphurous
flames of Hell itself let loose by one
man's hand without so much as "by
your leave" from subjects blind to
their own misconception of their des-
tiny and deaf to the voice of liberty and
law.
It seems not very long ago I made a
daily official call at the United States
Government Building on the Rue des
Nations on the banks of the Seine, in
the heart of Paris, while the last of the
series of Universal Expositions held
by the French was in progress in 1900.
The world was not yet disillusioned.
Germany was there our neighbor on
one side, and Italy on the other.
Around the Champ de Mars were
grouped the buildings that housed the
products of the arts and industries of
every clime; a brilliant artistic triumph
F186I
The Flames that Clarify
of French genius, with the flags of all
the nations overhead. The flowering
of the chestnut trees in May had
ushered in the great event with the
music, pomp and pageantry of peace.
Picard and Delcasse gave gracious
welcome in the name of France around
the rich Elysee Palace banquet board.
There was no thought in any mind,
save one perhaps, of Verdun or of
Vimy Ridge. The German High Com-
missioner was there, but made no
reference to Louvain nor Liege. The
Russian prince that sat upon my left
that night spoke not of Lenine, Bol-
sheviki nor Trotsky, and on a certain
other happy day at St. Germaine there
was no mention of the Marne. The
Bois was gay with pleasure-seeking
crowds by day; the Champs Elysees
gleaming fairyland by night.
It is hard to conceive the changes
that these eighteen intervening years
have wrought. It is difficult to under-
stand how those feted guests so warmly
[187]
The Black Swans
welcomed to that concord of the na-
tions from beyond the Rhine could
even then be plotting the hurling of
unheard-of giant super-shells from fifty
miles away into the very shadows of
Notre Dame itself. Thank God for
Joffre, Haig and Foch, and for our
Pershing, and for all their men! May
they never sheath their swords until
those flags of nations once I saw along
the Seine are streaming yet again
together in the sky, this time above
Berlin, with that of Wilhelm unter
alles.
The garden must be cleared forever
of that noxious weed, unbridled power.
The poison ivies of the Prussian wood
must be consigned to all-consuming
flames. Then, and only then, can our
children, and our children's children,
go out in safety through the world to
pluck the fruits and flowers that grow
along the paths of peace and honest
toil.
[i88
The Disappearing Road
CHAPTER XIV
A Farewell "Hike''
THIS morning I got into my
''knickers" and a good stout pair
of army shoes and took the road. It
was Saturday, too, and the golf links
looked inviting enough, but the season
was rapidly coming to an end, and I
preferred a tramp outside, because I
knew that within a week we would be
back in town where I was certain to be
uncomfortable for a time among the
crowds after having been so long in the
open country. The air was soft and
cool, the sun just bright enough and the
fields and hills and distant points were
sleeping in an atmosphere that told
the story old, yet ever new, of summer
gone. A note of universal gladness
[189]
The Black Swans
attends the April shower. A sense
of peace and plenty fills the spirit
when the wheat and oat fields and
the meadows yield their harvests, but
today the rustling corn blades and the
brown and silent wood-lands speak
soothingly of rest and sleep and finished
tasks.
I had not gone far before I overtook
an old friend of mine whose business
this particular day was evidently the
same as my own — the draining of the
few remaining drops still hanging upon
the lips of a season's emptied cup. I
found him busy with a bunch of
goldenrod that had survived most of
its companions of the roadside and was
still fresh and full of life. I stopped
and watched the busy gleaner at his
belated work. I fancy he was thinking
that the sweet clovers of August were
rather better producers for his par-
ticular purpose, but his persistence
apparently met with some reward, and
presently he spread his wings.
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A Farewell "Hike''
A little farther on some bumble bees
were on a thistle bloom, and sitting
down besides the humble plant that
seemed to have extracted honey by
some subtle process from a stiif clay
soil, I held the stems within my hand
and with a glass observed the searching
quest for food. The head of a bumble
bee is not in general shape unlike that
of an elephant's, and the comparison
does not altogether end with that,
for it has a proboscis of some sort
that finds its way deep down into the
minute recesses of each pink thistle
tube. No possible opening escapes
their probe. They did not mind me in
the least of course. When a boy I
used to kill them, and pulling their
bodies in half would extract the honey
sac and found it sweet. But I have
more respect now for life in any form,
and did not resume my tramp until
this industrious black-and-yellow trio
had lazily taken themselves off to
some other lingering way-side growth.
[191]
The Black Swans
We now approach a pasture. The
grazing still is good, and in a corner
near the road a group of dairy cows,
some standing, some lying down, chew
their cud complacently, and turn big
eyes and ears my way as I come near.
They are mostly Jersey grades and
friendly. I stop and visit with them
for a time. One of the younger set in
particular seems sociably inclined. She
comes up to the fence, and I speak to
her. She may be of the pure blood.
Her fawn-like features show some
breeding at any rate, and her shapely
udder and well-placed appendages
thereto are full of promise. Is it any
wonder people become attached to
and fond of well-bred animals.^ As
old Jorrocks of fox-hunting fame used
to say, ''Give me a bit of blood,
whether it be in a 'orse, a 'ound or a
woman!" Surely it tells. Across the
way there is another bunch of cattle
of the genus "scrub." Poor things!
They are not to blame for their own
[192]
A Farewell "Hike''
wretched personalities and very limited
capacities, but what good farmer would
wish to board them or see them about
the place? And what boy growing up
in their company could ever develop a
genuine fondness for the farm? They
neither appeal to your affections nor
make any good return for the valuable
food they eat. But look into the
intelligent, friendly eyes of this little
Jersey, with her graceful horns, her
yellow skin and silky coat, her dainty
limbs and swelling milk veins, and
behold one of the accomplishments of
man in fixing fast in animal form the
useful and the beautiful.
It has been many a moon since I
milked my quota of an old-time herd,
but there is worse employment in this
world, as I now know. Even yet it
seems to me I hear the cow bells in
the lower pasture as the cattle work
their way at close of day up towards
the gate; for they, like the rest of us,
are creatures of habit; and I recall
[193]
The Black Swans
that in the winter time each individual
member of the herd knew her own
particular stall inside the barn, and
rarely made mistake in seeking it.
Each knew that a bed of clean, dry
straw had been prepared before they
entered for the night, and that all
troughs and mangers were well-filled
and waiting. And when the storm
went driving by as a bitter night came
on and the big bare trees along the
creek were lashed and coated with the
driving snow or sleet, and I had gone
to bed, how satisfied I used to feel to
know that those four-footed friends
were warm and snug inside and did not
want!
I am sorry I cannot say that I saw
very many well-bred animals this day
of my October gypsying along this
country road. It is a district populated
mainly by folk of German birth or
blood, and whatever of thrift or other
virtues they may possess, an apprecia-
tion of improved varieties of domestic
[194]
A Farewell" Hike''
animals does not seem to exist to any
great extent among them. With all
her boasted efficiency and "Kultur,"
Germany has yet to give the world
anything much worth while in the
realm of animal husbandry, as com-
pared with her neighbors of Belgium,
France, the Netherlands, the Channel
Islands or Great Britain. I did see
now and then a horse that might have
had a Percheron sire, but these were
few and far between. And this re-
minds me of another country road I
traveled once in sunny France in the
charming little valley of the Huisne
(pronounced ''Ween") where white-
walled cottages and cosy little homes
with gardens filled with wondrous
flowers and sweet old-fashioned roses
bloomed, and apple blossoms spread
their fragance far and wide just as
they do in Normandy. In all the world
there are no greater pets than those
big fine mares and foals attended in
that favored land by the women and
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The Black Swans
the children of each household. Is
it any wonder, these big honest black
and gray horses of heavy draft that
you see in daily use upon our city
streets and cornbelt farms, are as
gentle as so many well-trained dogs,
that almost any child can handle
them? We are in France's debt for
many things, and not the least of these
is the great horse that is such a factor
in the moving of the nation's plows
and heavy trucks. You would not of
course expect to see the Percherons
numerous in a Bremen township. You
will see geese though and horses of
which you could not be very proud,
and sometimes women, too, that are
old before their time and overworked.
But it is time we were on the homeward
trail.
I have been resting as I have thus
been soliloquizing beneath a venerable
Cottonwood that stands at the end of
a row evidently planted by an early
settler in these parts. These are of
[196]
A Farewell "Hike''
course quick-growing trees. How long
they live I do not know, but this one
of which I speak is not to hear its
leaves rattling in this southwest wind
for many seasons more. It is a giant
of its sort; I should say near ten feet
in circumference. That is conceding
a diameter at its base of around
three feet. Its main top branch has
been lost in some gale years ago. It
stands thus crippled and decaying in
its gray old age awaiting, like any
other living thing that has had its
great day on earth, the end of every-
thing. A decrepit wretch in human
form, probably from the county poor-
farm over there on the other road,
went by a few moments ago, and I
classed them together and knew that
the fate of both differs in no wise from
that which is overtaking a brown dust-
covered grasshopper that just jumped
feebly by me on the grass.
And so we draw near home. Not
far from where the black swans nestle
[197]
The Black Swans
on the hearth there is this late fall
day a spot that has for me an infinitely
greater charm than any picture gallery
of which this world can boast. It is a
patch of woodland that men have not
yet touched. Briars and burrs and
thickly-matted bluegrass contest with
all sorts of underbrush for possession
of the soil beneath the trees. You will
have to fight your way into this tangled
hidden sanctuary, but once inside you
will feel and know that you are a part
of all of it, and the gray clouds floating
away there towards the lake shall pass
on over the great city with all its
miseries and leave you to your thoughts
and prayers and the blessed solace of
close fellowship with Nature clad in
beauty that no human hand can imi-
tate nor words describe. Wild grapes
and woodbine help themselves to the
first supporting branch they find. Here
and there the burly bodies of great
oaks speak eloquently of strength and
patient, silent growth through the un-
[198]
A Farewell "Hike''
counted dawns and sunsets of the
passing years. Through the tree tops
a glimpse of sky, part blue, part gray,
and all around the soft rich tints of
woodland tapestries woven in colors
only found in Nature's northern arbo-
real laboratories. The intangible grad-
ations from green to brown, rose-pink
to richest crimson, from pale lemon to
deep orange, defy definition or inter-
pretation. And tomorrow other tints
will show.
As I now return to the cottage walk,
a squirrel frisks by on his way to the
big trees in the grove. Acorns have
been falling fast for many days upon
the lawn. One of our trees in par-
ticular seems to have produced this
year most bountifully. And today we
made a great discovery. Just opposite
our bed-room window we had long
ago fastened a little so-called "wren-
house" to one of the biggest burr-oak
limbs. For some reason or other the
birds had never used it. I imagine
[ 199]
The Black Swans
because they figured that predatory
cats or squirrels might reach it too
easily. The opening in this tiny house
was very small. We had observed,
however, that some creature of the
wild had been busy of late enlarging
the entrance. We had never had the
good fortune to catch any of these
woodmen at the task; so were un-
certain about the scheme in view.
Anyhow some one had now crammed
that little box full to overflowing with
acorns, against some day of need, and
we of course credit this bit of real
preparedness to the squirrels. None
of them live in the trees about the
house, but if the coming winter should
prove as hard as was the last, this
extra store might very acceptably sup-
plement the main larder located deeper
in the woods. So much by way of a les-
son from these little folk in the matter
of saving while the saving's good.
All day long I have seen flitting
through the trees small birds innumer-
[ 200 ]
A Farewell "Hike''
able that do not spend their summers
here. I do not profess to know their
names. They are from the north and
tomorrow will be farther south. The
annual migration is at its height, and
we ourselves are joining in it. Those
fat bronze turkeys foraging contentedly
among the corn shocks would migrate
too if they were wise.
I took back with me at the close of
this really perfect day the last of our
dark-blue larkspurs, decorated with a
lacy spray of woodbine, the five-
leaved clusters of which were almost as
brilliant as Poinsettias at Christmas
time. And that was the last floral
offering I was able to bring this year
to the household gods.
The darkness settles early, and as the
night is cloudless I improve the op-
portunity, before settling down to a
final session with the fire, to bid the
bright October sky good-bye. I know
perfectly well that when we begin
driving up and down the city boule-
[201 ]
The Black Swans
vards, when the electric Hghts are on,
there will be little use trying to visit
even with the Big Dipper itself, saying
nothing about Cassiopeia. And so I
pass out into the open beyond the gate-
way through the hedge. Low in the
east old Orion is rising. Andromeda
is glowing over-head and in the west
my steel-blue favorite Vega! Stars
of the quiet autumn night! Change-
less and steadfast as thy fires shall be
my love for dear old Dumbiedykes and
all its treasured memories.
CHAPTER XV
Taps
THE last fire of another year Is
dying on the hearth. The swans
are flying low — now very low — and
presently they will fold their fluttering
wings and pass into the shadows that
shall last until the fires of yet another
spring shall be rekindled by our own
or other hands. 'Tis said the sweetest
of all songs sung by swans are always
their very last, and, as our walls re-
flect the gathering gloom, in fancy I
can hear what seems to be a fond
farewell to all the joys the vanished
hours have brought.
We are closing the cottage tomorrow.
It is the end of our sixteenth season
within its walls. Somehow the little
[203]
The Black Swans
place has grown to be a part of life
itself. We have banked the fire and
locked the entrance gate and left the
old clock standing there alone each
fall with ever-deepening regret, be-
cause each time has brought the
thought that this may be the last.
We always trust we may come back
again to see the hedge-rows and the
iris wake, but maybe we shall not.
The cricket that until tonight has
chirped about the hearth is gone. The
frost has sapped all floral life outside.
Above the general wreck a drooping
salvia only shows its scarlet bloom,
but it too, like Omar's Bird of Time,
"has but a little way to go." All things
come to an end at last, even the most
idyllic days in rare sequestered nooks.
Conditions change, and circumstances;
and we change with them. Turns come
at length in every path.
The spring-time and the summer of
our days at Dumbiedykes have passed.
That much is sure. The autumn now
[204]
Taps
is here, and the same unchanging
laws that govern in the garden and the
grove apply as well to those who plant
and plan. A few short weeks ago the
lawn was clean and green, well-trimmed
and comely. Tonight it is strewn with
the oak leaves of accomplished fact.
-There is no longer quick response to
the discharging clouds. The sun has
lost its power. The green has turned
to gold. The gold is on its way to dust.
The last log on the hearth is turning
now to ash. The hands of the clock
still move forever forward; never back.
There is no force in earth or air, no
alchemy in sky or cloud, can stay the
year's decline.
Would that we might live those years
again! There has been much that has
been truly bright and beautiful, and
many golden hours have set an impress
on our hearts which time shall not
efface. And yet there have been roses
set that never flowered, and weeds and
thorns have come sometimes where
[205]
The Black Swans
finer growths were sought. There have
been shadows dark, and bats and fear-
some cries of owls, as well as happy
May-time songs in leafy bowers.
Which is to say that this, our life at
Dumbiedykes, has simply been the
world-old blend of sunshine and of
storm.
October's mellow haze has come.
The winter waits. We know not what
it has in store. Some time, somewhere,
perhaps around the evening lamp,
when north winds howl around your
Dumbiedykes or mine, when thoughts
of springs and summers past shall
only be as happy dreams that linger
long in memory, perchance we'll meet
again.
And so we will not say "Farewell,"
but just "Good night."
PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY
AND SONS COMPANY AT THE
LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL.
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