Outings at Odd Times

by Charles C. Abbott

As any ornithologist will tell you, birds, though there be little that favors them and much that is harmful beset them everywhere, will persistently cling to a tree by the roadside; will even nest in it, although the ubiquitous small boy showers them with stones; and, more, though persecution is the order of their day, will sing as in a paradise regained, thankful that the world has even this much of untamed nature left.

If, then, in spite of themselves, farmers love what wayside trees there are, why can we not have more? Think of a leisured stroll, of a hot summer’s day, through a long avenue of leafy oaks!

Skeleton-Lifting.

There are probably very few people but have seen the pretty stone arrow-heads that are found, often in abundance, after the fields have been plowed. I have often filled my pockets with them while wandering about, and, in the words of a friend, “been amazed at the numbers which are sown over the face of our country, betokening a most prolonged possession of the soil by their makers. For a hunting population is always sparse, and the collector finds only those arrow-heads which lie upon the surface.” But if their handiwork is abundant, not so their skeletons, and it is the uncanny taste of archæologists to prize the bones as well as the weapons of the Indians. Still, it is not more objectionable to carefully preserve the bones in a glass case than to scatter them with the plowshare.

Because it is well to turn aside from beaten tracks occasionally, that we may appreciate their beauty the more upon our return, and avoid the danger of having the sweets of the upland or the meadow pall, I have been indulging, of late, in archæological pursuits; been gathering relics, though the locust and wild cherry drooped with their burden of bright bloom, and the grosbeaks wooed me to the hillside. Notwithstanding this, I resolutely turned my back upon bird and blossom alike, and sought a neighbor’s field, over which waved tall and stately grain. It was proposed to give the day, but, as it proved, the night was added, to archæology.

There were weighty reasons, of course, for this intrusion upon my neighbor’s land, as no sane man without a potent incentive would dare to walk through growing grain. What moved me to so bold a deed was this: Last autumn I discovered that my farmer neighbor had two skeletons, and of one of which he neither had any use nor knowledge of its existence. When apprised of the fact, he expressed no surprise, but resolutely declined my offer to become the custodian of the superfluous bones, and even went so far as to make appropriation next to impossible. But I bided my time, and now, these bright June days, the grain kindly covers the ground and every creeping thing upon it, as it proved when a dog bounded into the field on the trail of a rabbit. I forthwith took the hint and crept upon the trail of a dead Indian. The danger of discovery—real, not fancied—gave something of zest to the work. With only a garden trowel, the earth, over a marked spot, was carefully removed, and as I had all the while to lie upon my breast while at work, the task was a painfully slow one, and I more than once wished myself away, until a few small bones were brought to light. Then all thought of discomfort vanished. Bone after bone was slowly uncovered, but all, alas! were so friable that not one could be removed with safety. In a short time the entire skeleton was laid bare, but under what strange circumstances! I had it within my grasp, but could not move it, nor indeed myself, more than to crouch in the tall grain about me. It was too like digging one’s own grave, and once, imagining an approach, I lay full length by the side of my fleshless friend. The day of my rejoicing had come, it is true, but there proved to be an overabundance of thorns with the rose. Here was the long-coveted skeleton; but within hearing, in the adjoining field, was a burly farmer, passing to and fro with his plow. Whenever he came near, the grinning skull grew pale, as though it, too, feared discovery; and so, until the dinner-horn sounded across-lots, I was held a prisoner. How anxiously did I listen for retreating steps and the rattling of the unloosened plow-chains!—welcome sounds that came at last, assuring me that the coast was clear. Then, leaving the treasure to the kindly sun that was rapidly warming it to hardness, I sped dinnerward.

The Fates were intolerably cruel that day. At sunset, when I purposed to return, innumerable obstacles loomed up, and every excuse to run away from company that had most inopportunely arrived was pooh-poohed by madam, in a most meaning manner; and it was just midnight when the open grave was reached. The full moon at that moment broke through the clouds, and a flood of pallid light filled the spot when I shook hands with the fleshless warrior and forced myself to return the ghastly grin of his angular countenance. There was something of defiance, too, in his eyeless sockets, and a ghost of resistance as he was lifted from a couch that he had occupied for some three thousand moons at least. The rattle of his disjointedness was as harsh as the language that once he spake, and while I thridded the woods and skirted, on my way home, the resounding marshes, where every frog most ominously croaked, every jostle of the warrior’s bones seemed to force a protesting syllable between his rattling teeth.

With all deference to the votaries of archæology, skeleton-lifting by moonlight is, I claim, a most uncanny pastime.

Why I prefer a Country Life.

Uz Gaunt was, in the writer’s experience, the most level-headed of farmers. He once remarked, “Town folks smile at my vim and way of putting things, but I’d rather be next neighbor to Natur’ than to most of the town folks.” That remark impressed me many a year ago as a nugget of pure wisdom, and now, when on the shady side of forty, I still think it wiser than any casual remark, learned essay, or eloquent oration I have ever heard in town.