There is greater merit in the little word “up” than in “down.” If, when in a place new to me, I am asked to go “up the creek,” my heart leaps, but there is less enthusiasm when it is suggested to go down the stream. One seems to mean going into the country, the other into the town. All this is illogical, of course, but what of that? The facts of a case like this have not the value of my idle fancies. After all, there is a peculiar merit in going up-stream. It is something to be going deeper and deeper into the heart of the country. It is akin to getting at the foundations of things.
In the case of small inland streams, generally, the mouth is a commonplace affair. The features that charm shrink from the fateful spot, and we are put in a condition of anticipation at the start which, happily, proves one of abundant realization at the finish.
A certain midsummer Saturday was not an ideal one for an outing, but with most excellent company I ventured up the creek. It was my friend’s suggestion, so I was free from responsibility. Having promised nothing, I could in no wise be justly held accountable. Vain thought! Directly I suffered in their estimation because, at mere beck and nod, polliwogs were not forthcoming and fishes refused to swim into my hand. What strange things we fancy of our neighbors! Because I love the wild life about me, one young friend thought me a magician who could command the whole creek’s fauna by mere word of mouth. It proved an empty day in one respect, animal life scarcely showing itself. To offer explanations was of no avail, and one of the little company recast her opinions. Perhaps she even entertains some doubt as to my having ever seen a bird or fish or the coveted polliwog.
It is one thing to be able to give the name and touch upon the habits of some captured creature, and quite another to command its immediate presence when we enter its haunts. This always should, and probably never will, be remembered.
But what of the creek, the one-time Big-Bird Creek of the Delaware Indians? With ill-timed strokes we pulled our languid oars, and passed many a tree, jutting meadow, or abandoned wharf worthy of more than a moment’s contemplation. But, lured by the treasure still beyond our reach, we went on and on, until the trickling waters of a hillside spring proved too much for us, and, turning our prow landward, we stopped to rest.
Among old trees that afforded grateful shade, a spring that bubbled from an aged chestnut’s wrinkled roots, a bit of babbling brook that too soon reached the creek and was lost, and, beyond all, wide-spreading meadows, boundless from our point of view—what more need one ask? To our credit, be it said, we were satisfied, except, perhaps, that here, as all along our course, polliwogs were perverse. Birds, however, considerately came and went, and even the shy cuckoo deigned to reply when we imitated his dolorous clucking. A cardinal grosbeak, too, drew near and whistled a welcome, and once eyed us with much interest as we sat lunching on the grass. What did he think of us? Eating, with him, is so different a matter, and perhaps he could give us a few useful hints. The trite remark, “Fingers came before forks,” has a significance in the woods, if not in the town. While eating we listened, and I heard the voices of nine different birds. Some merely chirped in passing, it is true, but the marsh-wrens in the cat-tail thicket just across the creek were not silent for a moment. Here in the valley of the Delaware, as I recently found them on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, the wrens are quite nocturnal, and I would have been glad to have heard them sing in the moonlight again; for our enthusiasm would have been strengthened by a few such glimpses of the night side of Nature.
No bird is so welcome to a mid-day camp as the white-eyed vireo, and we were fortunate in having one with us while we tarried at the spring. Not even ninety degrees in the shade has any effect upon him, and this unflagging energy reacts upon the listener. We could at least be so far alive as to give him our attention. Mid-day heat, however, does affect many a song-bird, and now that nesting is well-nigh over, the open woods are deserted for hidden cool retreats, where the songster takes its ease, as we, far from town, are taking ours. There is much in common between birds and men.
How, as we lingered over our glasses, counting the lemon-seeds embedded in sugar, we would have enjoyed a wood-thrush’s splendid song or a rose-breasted grosbeak’s matchless melody! but the to-whee of the pipilo scratching among dead leaves, the plaint of an inquisitive cat-bird threading the briers, the whir of a humming-bird vainly seeking flowers,—these did not pass for nothing; and yet there was comparative silence that suggested a sleeping rather than a wakeful, active world.
Here let me give him who loves an outing a useful hint: be not so anxious for what may be that you overlook that which is spread before you. More than once to-day our discussion of the “silence” of a midsummer noontide drowned the voices of singing-birds near by.