The day is done; but the night brings no end of novelty. The moping herons are no longer stupid; the blinking owls are all activity. Afar off the whip-poor-will calls—who knows why?—and the marsh-owl protests, as well it may, at such unseemly clatter. How quickly into a new world has the familiar meadow grown! Through the half-naked beam and rafters of my leafy tent I watch the night-prowling birds go hurrying by, and follow their shadows as the weird bats flit before me, for the moon has risen, and in its pallid light every familiar tree and shrub and all the night-loving wild-life of the meadows is wrapped in uncanny garbs. It is fitting now that a filmy mist should rise as a curtain and shut out the view. “He is none of us,” seems to shout every creature in my ear, and, taking the hint, I pick my way homeward through the dripping grass.
A Wayside Brook.
It is not that I may indulge in mock heroics that I champion the so-called waste-places, but out of pure love for the merits of even the least of Nature’s work. A single cedar casts sufficient shade for me, and, resting full length on a bed of yarrow, I have, at once the breath of the tropics and the aroma of the Spice Islands wherewith to while away these July days. From such a spot there is pleasure too in watching the shifting scenes of the sunlit world beyond—a pleasure greater than peering into the depths of a dark, monotonous swamp or pathless wood. But if this is simplifying matters beyond reasonable limits, then let us to a wayside brook, and to the shade and spiciness add the music of rippling waters. Surely this should suffice the idle saunterer at midsummer. When it is ninety in the shade, it is wiser to watch the minnows in a brook than to battle with pickerel in the mill-pond. Nor should such contemplation be too trivial for one’s fancy. Even little fishes have their ups and downs, although everything goes swimmingly with them. As has been said somewhere, if my memory plays me no tricks, the fish-world is diversified by other occurrences than feeding or going to feed others. In other words, they have impressions, vague though they may be, of the world about them, and existence is something more than—
“A cold, sweet, silver life, wrapped in round waves,
Quickened with touches of transporting fear.”
The brook need not be deep nor wide, and may wander through many a rod of dusty fields, scarcely covering the pebbles that bestrew its bed, and yet contain fishes. I have often been surprised to find many small minnows in brooks that were scarcely more than damp, except here and there a spring-hole, or pool, about the roots of a tree. Such places are noble hunting-grounds if the rambler is an enthusiastic naturalist, and many a chapter might be written concerning our smallest fishes. Except to very few, they are wholly unknown.
On the bank of a little wayside brook I tarried for half a day recently, with minnows, birds, and dragon-flies to keep me company, and what a royal time we had! At first the fish were shy, and took refuge under flat pebbles but I coaxed them forth at last by tossing crumbs before them. At ease, so far as I was concerned, they commenced their beautiful game of chasing sunbeams, the largest stone in the stream being the base from which they ceaselessly darted to and fro. The flashing of the fishes’ silvery sides, the darting rays of sunlight, the sparkle of the great bubbles that danced on every ripple, proved a very carnival of light and color, the soul of which was this company of fun-loving minnows. In saying this, I intend to convey all the meaning that such a phrase comprehends—in other words, to ascribe to these small fishes a pronounced degree of intelligence.
Their life proved not without its shadows, however, as very often their merriment was changed to terror in a twinkling. It happened that a gorgeous dragon-fly came with a sudden onset to the little brook and filled these fish with fear while it hovered above them. I leave it to others to say why the minnows should have been afraid. Has any person ever seen a dragon-fly catch a fish?
Prof. Seeley, writing of a European cyprinoid, remarks, “Probably every person who has ever looked into a small stream has been surprised by the singular way in which minnows constantly arrange themselves in circles like the petals of a flower, with their heads nearly meeting in the center, and tails diverging at equal distances.” I looked for this, but our Jersey minnows were not so methodically inclined, and all kept their heads in one direction, up-stream, until at a certain point, when, as if on signal given, they would, right about face, and dart down-stream for a yard or two, re-form, and as a company make their way to the dispersing point, a thin slab of stone that barred their further passage.
So, in this most unpromising spot I found no end of entertainment, and, except in midsummer, would not have tired of any single feature; but study, even studies a-field, are irksome in July, and I forgot the minnows as my eyes fell upon a large slab of stone near where I was lying. It was one of four broad stepping-stones that nearly two centuries ago were placed here. Then, there flowed, through a thick woods, a broad stream, and near here the first house was built. Upon these stones had stepped the grave elders and loitered the light-hearted children of three generations; and now not a trace of house, garden, barn, woods, or pasture remains. Everything has given way to more pretentious structures, broader fields, and painfully angular highways. The one-time winding lane, shaded by noble oaks, is now not even to be traced across the fields; and, instead thereof, a narrow sunny strip of yellow sand leads to the public road. “What an improvement!” once remarked a neighbor, when the change was made. What an improvement, indeed! where once was beauty, one finds, save this little remnant of a creek, an endless array of fields, with scarcely a tree along the division fences. Doubtless, could the brook have been obliterated, the work would have been undertaken. As it is, the narrow strip is all that Nature can call her own, and so, whatever of her charms can find a place, here she sets them down; and so here a rambler may be happy, or fairly content at least, if he does not raise his eyes continually to scan the horizon. I, for one, on the half-loaf principle, accept the wayside brooks with thankfulness, and now after long years have found that in many an essential feature they do not suffer so greatly as one might suppose when compared with Nature’s more pretentious waterways. Let Nature, on however small a scale, have the upper hand, and at such a spot the rambler can afford to tarry. But perhaps I am partial, for this was my playground, forty years ago; still, I would say—