Outings at Odd Times

by Charles C. Abbott

No bloom so bright in all the bowers of May,

As the pale violets that cluster near:

Bright grow the skies, nor troubling shadows fall;

Childhood returns, when joy encompassed all.

Wayside Trees.

Who that has ever walked in the country has not blessed the farmer who planted, or early settler who spared, the wayside trees? The average country road, especially in the poorer farming districts, is something deplorable. Only too often, even when shady and otherwise attractive, there lies only the choice of wallowing through sand, stumbling over rocks, or tripping over briers that would shame the Gordian knot for close entanglement.

It is unreasonable to expect well-worn paths, far from the town’s limits, unless Nature has provided them: but something a little better than the remote highways, as they now are, might certainly be had. Is there not sufficient tax collected in every township to secure this? Probably the farmer who never walks to the village, and finds the wagon-way fairly passable, may insist that the pedestrian can pick his way, however rough the ground. True, but this does not dissipate the pedestrian’s just claims. A man that must walk, because too poor to ride, is none the less worthy of consideration, and may well grumble if his right of way is blocked. Of course, man must take the world as he finds it, and alter it if he can; and such an alteration is practicable where good roads or foot-paths can not be, in the planting and preservation of wayside trees.

Such was the current of my thoughts when I met, recently, the overseer of a highway resting, at noon, from his labors. To him, and for him, a little speech was made; and what was the reply? “Too many shade-trees will encourage the tramps”! So he who loves to wander out of town must take the dusty highways as they are, and sigh for pleasant shade he can not enter. To plant a wayside tree, to have a country byway beautiful, must not be thought of—it will encourage the tramps!

Now, it so happens that, near where I live, a chestnut-tree was spared, two centuries ago, probably because it was too crooked for fence-rails. Certainly for no praiseworthy motive was it allowed to stand; but it does, and so to-day it casts a shadow in which half a regiment might gather. Not strangely at all, every man, woman, and child in the neighborhood loves the old tree, and points to it with pride. Were it struck by lightning, it would have a public funeral. And yet I have not found that any of my neighbors, except those very near the town, have planted even a single wayside tree. On the contrary, a noble row of catalpas was felled not long since for fence-posts!

A wayside tree means, to the pedestrian, something more than a mere island of shade in an ocean of sunshine. A stately tree has many lovers, and hosts of birds are sure to crowd its branches. Such a tree then becomes the Mecca whereat the rambler spends the hours of hot high noon, not only pleasurably but profitably—for I hold that a bird can not be watched for long without gain. Is it nothing, as one rests in the shade after a long tramp, to have a wood-thrush sing to him? Is it not a lesson to the weak-hearted to hear the restless red-eye’s ceaseless song? The perverse grumbler, has he a trace of reason, will, at least secretly, own that much of which he complains might be far worse, after listening to the singing of a bird perched in a wayside tree. Though shorn of so much that Nature granted to the most commonplace of lands, chaos has not quite come again. Certainly, however barren a sandy field may look, it is not yet a desert.