"While God invites, how blest the day!"
But the next morning was pleasant likewise; and the next; and still the next; and so the story went on, till in the end, omitting five days of greater or less inclemency, I had spent nearly the entire month in the open air. I could hardly have done better had I been in Florida.
All my neighbors pronounced this state of things highly exceptional; many were sure they had never known the like. At the time I fully agreed with them. Now, however, looking back over my previous year's notes, I come upon such entries as these: "December 3d. The day has been warm. Found chickweed and knawel in bloom, and an old garden was full of fresh-looking pansies." "4th. A calm, warm morning." "5th. Warm and rainy." "6th. Mild and bright." "7th. A most beautiful winter day, mild and calm." "8th. Even milder and more beautiful than yesterday." "11th. Weather very mild since last entry. Pickering hylas peeping to-day." "12th. Still very warm; [hylas] peeping in several places." "13th. Warm and bright." "14th. If possible, a more beautiful day than yesterday."
So much for December, 1887. Its unexpected good behavior would seem to have made a profound impression upon me; no doubt I promised never to forget it; yet twelve months later traditionary notions had resumed their customary sway, and every pleasant morning took me by surprise.
The winter of 1888-89 will long be famous in the ornithological annals of New England as the winter of [killdeer plovers]. I have mentioned the great storm of November 25th-27th. On the first pleasant morning afterwards—on the 28th, that is—my out-of-door comrade and I made an excursion to Nahant. The land-breeze had already beaten down the surf, and the turmoil of the waters was in great part stilled; but the beach was strewn with sea-weeds and eel-grass, and withal presented quite a holiday appearance. From one motive and another, a considerable proportion of the inhabitants of the city had turned out. The principal attraction, as far as we could perceive, was a certain big clam, of which great numbers had been cast up by the tide. Baskets and wagons were being filled; some of the men carried off shells and all, while others, with a celerity which must have been the result of much practice, were cutting out the plump dark bodies, leaving the shells in heaps upon the sand. The collectors of these molluscan dainties knew them as quahaugs, and esteemed them accordingly; but my companion, a connoisseur in such matters, pronounced them not the true quahaug (Venus mercenaria,—what a profanely ill-sorted name, even for a bivalve!) but the larger and coarser Cyprina islandica. The man to whom we imparted this precious bit of esoteric lore received it like a gentleman, if I cannot add like a scholar. "We call them quahaugs," he answered, with an accent of polite deprecation, as if it were not in the least to be wondered at that he should be found in the wrong. It was evident, at the same time, that the question of a name did not strike him as of any vital consequence. Venus mercenaria or Cyprina islandica, the savoriness of the chowder was not likely to be seriously affected.
It was good, I thought, to see so many people out-of-doors. Most of them had employment in the shops, probably, and on grounds of simple economy, so called, would have been wiser to have stuck to their lasts. But man, after all that civilization has done for him (and against him), remains at heart a child of nature. His ancestors may have been shoemakers for fifty generations, but none the less he feels an impulse now and then to quit his bench and go hunting, though it be only for a mess of clams.
Leaving the crowd, we kept on our way across the beach to Little Nahant, the cliffs of which offer an excellent position from which to sweep the bay in search of loons, old-squaws, and other sea-fowl. Here we presently met two gunners. They had been more successful than most of the sportsmen that one falls in with on such trips; between them they had a guillemot, two horned larks, and a brace of [large plovers], of some species unknown to us, but noticeable for their bright cinnamon-colored rumps. "Why couldn't we have found those plovers, instead of that fellow?" said my companion, as we crossed the second beach. I fear he was envious at the prosperity of the wicked. But it was only a passing cloud; for on reaching the main peninsula we were speedily arrested by loud cries from a piece of marsh, and after considerable wading and a clamber over a detestable barbed-wire fence, such as no rambler ever encountered without at least a temptation to profanity, we caught sight of a flock of about a dozen of the same unknown plovers. This was good fortune indeed. We had no firearms, nor even a pinch of salt, and coming shortly to a ditch, too wide for leaping and too deep for cold-weather fording, we were obliged to content ourselves with opera-glass inspection. Six of the birds were grouped in a little plot of grass, standing motionless, like so many robins. Their novelty and their striking appearance, with two conspicuous black bands across the breast, their loud cries, and their curious movements and attitudes were enough to drive a pair of enthusiasts half crazy. We looked and looked, and then reluctantly turned away. On getting home we had no difficulty in determining their identity, and each at once sent off to the other the same verdict,—"killdeer plover."
This, as I say, was on the 28th of November. On the 3d of December we were again at Nahant, eating our luncheon upon the veranda of some rich man's deserted cottage, and at the same time enjoying the sunshine and the beautiful scene.
It was a summery spot; moths were flitting about us, and two grasshoppers leaped out of our way as we crossed the lawn. They showed something less than summer liveliness, it is true; it was only afterwards, and by way of contrast, that I recalled Leigh Hunt's