Nature's Serial Story

by Edward Payson Roe

At the breakfast-table each one was expatiating on the rare promise of the day. Even Mrs. Clifford, awakened by the half subdued clatter of the children, had seen the brilliant, rose tinted dawn.

"The day cannot be more beautiful than was the night," Webb remarked. "A little after midnight I was awakened by a clamor from the poultry, and suspecting either two or four footed thieves, I was soon covering the hennery with my gun. As a result, Sir Mephitis, as Burroughs calls him, lies stark and stiff near the door. After watching awhile, and finding no other marauders abroad, I became aware that it was one of the most perfect nights I had ever seen. It was hard to imagine that, a few hours before, a gale had been blowing under a cloudy sky. The moonlight was so clear that I could see to read distinctly. So attractive and still was the night that I started for an hour's walk up the boulevard, and when near Idlewild brook had the fortune to empty the other barrel of my gun into a great horned owl. How the echoes resounded in the quiet night! The changes in April are more rapid, but they are on a grander scale this month."

"It seems to me," laughed Burt, "that your range of topics is even more sublime. From Sir Mephitis to romantic moonlight and lofty musings, no doubt, which ended with a screech-owl."

"The great horned is not a screech-owl, as you ought to know. Well, Nature is to blame for my alternations. I only took the goods the gods sent."

"I hope you did not take cold," said Maggie. "The idea of prowling around at that time of night!"

"Webb was in hopes that Nature might bestow upon him some confidences by moonlight that he could not coax from her in broad day. I shall seek better game than you found. Ducks are becoming plenty in the river, and all the conditions are favorable for a crack at them this morning. So I shall paddle out with a white coat over my clothes, and pretend to be a cake of ice. If I bring you a canvas-back, Amy, will you put the wishbone over the door?"

"Not till I have locked it and hidden the key."

Without any pre-arranged purpose the day promised to be given up largely to country sport. Burt had taken a lunch, and would not return until night, while the increasing warmth and brilliancy of the sunshine, and the children's voices from the maple grove, soon lured Amy to the piazza.

"Come," cried Webb, who emerged from the wood-house with an axe on his shoulder, "don rubber boots and wraps, and we'll improvise a male-sugar camp of the New England style a hundred years ago. We should make the most of a day like this."

They soon joined the children on the hillside, whither Abram had already carried a capacious iron pot as black as himself. On a little terrace that was warm and bare of snow, Webb set up cross-sticks in gypsy fashion, and then with a chain supended the pot, the children dancing like witches around it. Mr. Clifford and little Ned now appeared, the latter joining in the eager quest for dry sticks. Not far away was a large tree that for several years had been slowly dying, its few living branches having flushed early in September, in their last glow, which had been premature and hectic. Dry sticks would make little impression on the sap that now in the warmer light dropped faster from the wounded maples, and therefore to supply the intense heat that should give them at least a rich syrup before night, Webb threw off his coat and attacked the defunct veteran of the grove. Amy watched his vigorous strokes with growing zest; and he, conscious of her eyes, struck strong and true. Leonard, not far away, was removing impediments from the courses, thus securing a more rapid flow of the water and promoting the drainage of the land. He had sent up his cheery voice from time to time, but now joined the group, to witness the fall of a tree that had been old when he had played near it like his own children to-day. The echoes of the ringing axe came back to them from an adjacent hillside; a squirrel barked and "snickered," as if he too were a party to the fun; crows overhead cawed a protest at the destruction of their ancient perch; but with steady and remorseless stroke the axe was driven through the concentric rings on either side into the tree's dead heart. At last, as fibre after fibre was cut away, it began to tremble. The children stood breathless and almost pitying as they saw the shiver, apparently conscious, which followed each blow. Something of the same callousness of custom with which the fall of a man is witnessed must blunt one's nature before he can look unmoved upon the destruction of a familiar tree.