Mother used to go wading with us, too. Taking our luncheon, we would follow the winding creek along the willows a mile or more till we came to a little grove, a sort of natural park, with an island and a dam, and a big swimming hole on one side of the island. Brother, who had been to Niagara Falls, called this Goat Island; the water that went over the dam was Niagara; and the grove was Prospect Park. Many a time he has lain in his little bedroom, his door and ours open, and recounted to Sister and me his visit to Niagara, always getting excited and waxing eloquent, and seeming to see it all over again, as he talked to his willing listeners till sleep overtook them.
“Down to the dam”—there some of our sweetest childhood hours were spent, Mother, one with us, wading the stream, teaching us the names of the flowers, and telling us what was “good to eat.” When she was in doubt about a certain thing, and so would caution us, I was pretty sure to taste it, thus finding out for myself that many a thing is good to eat at which others looked askance. Some Eves begin early to taste forbidden fruit.
Up the Ditch Bank was another favourite place for our picnics—a high grassy bank running along a feeder, and farther up a big round pond on one side of the bank, and a long stretch of marshy creek below on the other. From the bank, across a precarious bridge we got into “Groom’s Woods,” where the wake robins grew, and the large white trilliums, Dutchman’s breeches, squirrel corn, crinkle root, spring beauties, anemones, hepaticas, blood roots, and mandrakes. Mother taught us these names, and the names of what few birds we knew—robins, goldfinches, humming birds, and orioles, chiefly. Each year in cherry-blossom time, Mother would say, “The orioles are here again.”
I had a goldfinch in a cage for a time, I called it a wild canary, and grew much attached to it, but it soon died, and after that I never cared to have another bird. I had one cat that I loved, too; his name was Nimrod. He got so old a neighbour took him away. They told me what was going to happen, but when I heard the gun-shot, far away, though I had braced for it, I was nearly frantic. I could never bear to have it mentioned after that, and loathed the man who did it. Children’s griefs are about little things, but they are not little griefs. I feel sorry for the child who suffered some of the things I remember. Mother used to say,
“Poor Nimrod’s dead, he’s run his race,
No other cat can fill his place.”
And no other cat ever did. I have never cared for cats since. Cats came and went, there was always one at home; they multiplied as cats have a way of doing, but after Nimrod’s death I was indifferent to them. I had one dog, too—one cat, one bird, one dog, and ever after eschewed all pets. A little yellow dog came to our house once—from heaven, I guess. We called him Ponto—such a big name for such a roly-poly dog! Æolus would have suited him better, for we knew not whence he came, nor whither he went, months later, after having endeared himself to us all. He came the night I was brought home with a broken arm, and was such a dear companion during my six weeks in splints that I grew inordinately fond of him. Rheumatism attacking the arm caused me more suffering than did the fracture itself. Ponto would cry when I cried, putting up his paws so imploringly that, just to hear him take on, I’d stop crying in earnest, only to cry louder in make-believe. How piteously he wailed! I would get ashamed of myself for enlisting his ever-ready sympathy. He left so mysteriously that we found no trace of him. One of the desires of my heart for a year or two was to have Ponto back. I believe I used to pray for his return. “Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,” and my soul surely longed for Ponto.
Another love of mine, a less responsive one, was my big willow tree. It was only one of many trees along the creek, but oh, the difference to me! Cows grazed in the pasture near by; spearmint grew in patches along the path; the water flowed quietly. It was about ten minutes’ walk from home, but I was in another world when there. Seated in the heart of the old tree, I looked out upon a scene commonplace enough to the eye—level fields and houses and distant drumlins, but ah, what inner visions! What happy hours I have spent ensconced in that old willow! Just a little climb (for I never could really climb a tree—I was too afraid of getting up high), and there I sat, a queen on her throne. Safe in the tree I was not afraid of the cows. There I read and sang, recited poetry, and dreamed dreams.
“I am monarch of all I survey,” I usually began with—the place really belonged to me. The old farmer who came after his cows every night thought he owned the land, but I knew and the old tree knew who was the real owner. For years, as a child and a girl, I kept tryst with this tree; and for years only the cows and I knew just where it was that I went when I stole away “to the willows,” for I guarded the exact spot jealously. Often in going past it with others, I have feigned indifference, lest someone note its natural seat. I wanted it all to myself. I used to feel uneasy when I had to climb down, about supper-time; for the cows, eager for their own supper, came near the bars and insisted on coming close to me. Although my heart beat wildly at their approach, I would try to brave it out and look them down as I had heard one should do. On they always came, bland and peaceable. Facing them as long as I could, ashamed to show fright, even to cows, I finally had to cut and run, and then how chagrined I felt! Once in running from them, in my hurry to get under the fence, I flung my book ahead of me, and it went into the creek—my beloved Cathcart’s Literary Reader! To this day its stained leaves and warped cover remind me of the fright I got from the harmless, curious cows.
“Oh, aren’t they cute, they must be twins,” was a remark Sister and I often heard, long before we knew what twins really meant. Mother would follow such remarks with, “No, there’s eighteen months’ difference between them.”