Travels in a Tree-top

by Charles C. Abbott

And not only a zoological garden was this and is every other old tree, but the oak had its botanic garden as well. When we consider that many of the branches were so wide and level that one could walk upon them, it is not strange that earth, dead leaves, and water should lodge in many places. Indeed, besides the two gardens I have mentioned, the oak had also an aquarium. But I cannot go into particulars. The parasitic plant-life—not truly such, like the mistletoe—was a striking feature. Maple seeds had lodged and sprouted, and in a saucer-shaped depression where dust and water had lodged a starved hawkweed had got so far towards maturity as to be in bud.

It may appear as utter foolishness to others, but I believe that trees might in time become tiresome. Whether in leaf or bare of foliage, there is a fixedness that palls at last. We are given to looking from the tree to the world beyond; to hurrying from beneath their branches to the open country. To live in a dense forest is akin to living in a great city. There is a sense of confinement against which, sooner or later, we are sure to rebel. We long for change. The man who is perfectly satisfied has no knowledge of what satisfaction really is. Logical or not, I turned my attention from the tree at last, and thought, What of the outlook? Directly north, in the shallow basin, hemmed in by low hills, lies the town. A cloud of smoke and steam rests over it, and barely above it reach the church-spires and tall factory chimneys, as if the place was struggling to be free, but only had its finger-tips out of the mire of the town, of which I know but little. My wonder is that so many people stay there, and, stranger still, wild life not only crowds its outskirts, but ventures into its very midst. In one town, not far away, I found the nests of seventeen species of birds, but then there was a large old cemetery and a millpond within its boundaries. Time was when through the town before me there flowed a creek, and a pretty wood flourished along its south bank. The creek is now a sewer, and an open one at that, and yet the musk-rat cannot quite make up his mind to leave it. Stranger than this was seeing recently, in a small creek discolored by a dyeing establishment, a little brown diver. How it could bring itself to swim in such filth must remain a mystery. A queer old character that had lived all his life in the country once said of the nearest town, “It is a good place to dump what we don’t want on the farm.” This old fellow would always drive me out of his orchard when apples were ripe, but I liked him for the sentiment I have quoted.

I am out of town now, and what of the world in another direction? Turning to the east, I have farm after farm before me; all different, yet with a strong family likeness. This region was taken up by English Quakers about 1670 and a little later, and the houses they built were as much alike as are these people in their apparel. The second set of buildings were larger only and no less severely plain; but immediately preceding the Revolution there were some very substantial mansions erected. From my perch in the tree-top I cannot see any of the houses distinctly, but locate them all by the group of Weymouth pines in front and sometimes both before and behind them. The old-time Lombardy poplar was the tree of the door-yards at first, but these, in this neighborhood, have well-nigh all died out, and the pines replace them. One farm-house is vividly pictured before me, although quite out of sight. The owner made it a home for such birds as might choose to come, as well as for himself, and what royal days have been spent there! There was no one feature to attract instant attention as you approached the house. The trees were thrifty, the shrubbery healthy, the roses vigorous, and the flowering plants judiciously selected; but what did strike the visitor was the wealth of bird-life. For once let me catalogue what I have seen in and about one door-yard and what should be about every one in the land. At the end of the house, and very near the corner of the long portico, stood a martin-box, occupied by the birds for which it was intended. In the porch, so that you could reach it with your hand, was a wren’s nest, and what a strange house it had! It was a huge plaster cast of a lion’s head, and between the grim teeth the bird passed and repassed continually. It promenaded at times on the lion’s tongue, and sang triumphantly while perched upon an eyebrow. That wren certainly saw nothing animal-like in the plaster cast as it was, and I have wondered if it would have been equally free with a stuffed head of the animal. My many experiments with animals, as to their recognition of animals as pictured, have demonstrated everything, and so, I am afraid I must admit, nothing. In the woodbine on the portico were two nests,—a robin’s and a chipping-sparrow’s. These were close to each other, and once, when sitting in a rocking-chair, I swayed the woodbine to and fro without disturbing either bird. In the garden were a mocking-bird, cat-bird, thistle-finch, song-sparrow, brown thrush, yellow-breasted chat, and red-eyed vireo. In the trees I saw a great-crested fly-catcher, purple grakle, a redstart, spotted warbler, and another I failed to identify. In the field beyond the garden were red-winged blackbirds and quail, and beyond, crows, fish-hawks, and turkey-buzzards were in the air; and, as the day closed and the pleasant sights were shut out, I heard the clear call of the kill-deer plover as they passed overhead, heard it until it mingled with my dreams. “Providence Farm” is indeed well named, for the birdy blessing of Providence rests upon it; but were men more given to considering the ways and wants of wild life, we might find such pleasant places on every hand. Farms appear to be growing less farm-like. The sweet simplicity of colonial days has been well-nigh obliterated, and nothing really better has replaced it. On the other hand, a modern “country place,” where Nature is pared down until nothing but the foundation-rocks remain, is, to say the least, an eyesore. There is more pleasure and profit in an Indian trail than in an asphaltum driveway.

Westward lie the meadows, and beyond them the river. Seen as a whole, they are beautiful and, like all of Nature’s work, will bear close inspection. The bird’s-eye view to-day was too comprehensive to be altogether enjoyable: it was bewildering. How completely such a tract epitomizes a continent! The little creek is a river; the hillock, a mountain; the brushland, a forest; the plowed tract, a desert. If this fact were not so generally forgotten we would be better content with what is immediately about us. Mere bigness is not everything. So, too, with animal life. We spend time and money to see the creatures caged in a menagerie, and never see the uncaged ones in the thicket behind the house. Every lion must roar, or we have not seen the show; a lion rampant is everything, a lion couchant, nothing. There was no visible violence in the meadows to-day; Nature was couchant, and I was thankful. When the tempest drives over the land I want my snug harbor by the chimney-throat. The sparks can fly upward to join the storm if they will. The storms I enjoy are matters of hearsay.

Take up a ponderous government quarto of the geological survey and glance over the splendid plates of remarkable rocks, cañons, and high hills, and then look out of your window at the fields and meadow. What a contrast! Yes, a decided one, and yet if you take an open-eyed walk you will find a good deal of the same thing, but on a smaller scale. You have not thought of it before; that is all. I put this matter to a practical test not long ago, and was satisfied with the result. The last plate had been looked at and the book was closed with a sigh, and a restless youth, looking over the wide range of fields before him, was thinking of the grand mountains, strange deserts, and deep cañons pictured in the volume on his lap, and comparing such a country with the monotonous surroundings of his home.

“What a stupid place this part of the world is!” he said at last. “I wish I could go out West.”

“Perhaps it is not so stupid as it looks,” I replied. “Let’s take a walk.”

I knew what the book described at which the lad had been looking, and had guessed his thoughts. We started for a ramble.

“Let us follow this little brook as far as we can,” I suggested, “and see what a stupid country can teach us,” purposely quoting my companion’s words, with a little emphasis.

Not fifty rods from beautiful old trees the collected waters, as a little brook, flowed over an outcropping of stiff clay, and here we voluntarily paused, for what one of us had seen a hundred times before was now invested with new interest. There was here not merely a smooth scooping out of a mass of the clay, to allow the waters to pass swiftly by; the least resisting veins or strata, those containing the largest percentage of sand, had yielded quickly and been deeply gullied, while elsewhere the stiff, black ridges, often almost perpendicular, still withstood the current, and, confining the waters to narrow limits, produced a series of miniature rapids and one whirlpool that recalled the head-waters of many a river.