CROWLANDS, FORMERLY THE OLD DOE FARM
When the day is done, and pale sunset colors lie in the sky behind the witching iron tracery in the great western gateway, my soul goes northward again into that other October when the early snow melted, and the winds blew in the fair Chocorua land. I go back to a gusty afternoon when we rowed our boat the length of the lakes and landed upon the silent shore of the old Doe farm. It was our first visit to the white sand of that beach, to the little footpath leading upward through the orchard, and to the tumble-down cottage with its huge chimney, in which the swifts had found no smoke for twenty long years. Our first visit,—yet now the anchor of life is so strongly fixed on that shore, and the family fairies so firmly domiciled on that hearth, that our first voyage of discovery seems as far off as the time when “Kit Colombus sailed from the Papal See.”
We wandered through the rooms of the cottage, peeped at the sky through the cracks in its roof, noted the pewee’s nest on the wainscoting in the east room, and whirled the old flax-wheel which stood in the dark attic. Then, passing the ancient maples behind the great barn, we strolled on and on through the pastures until a faint path led us to the lonely lake among the dingles, almost at the foot of Chocorua. Softly descending the steep path to the edge of the green water, we saw five black ducks rise from the lake and fly from us over the oaks. The rush of their wings is in my ears to this day, and my eyes recall the clouds which loomed over the peak and swept down upon the lake, bringing much cold wind and a little rain. From the storm-clouds a small hawk came circling down towards the troubled water and tossing birches. As he soared above us, seemingly protesting against our coming into the charmed vale, I shot him. The strong wings gave one spasmodic beat, the fierce head fell forward, and the body shot downward and struck the sand at our feet. We had claimed dominion by force of arms, and when we next saw the lake, it was ours in law.
The wheel turns fastest in the University prison house when pale boys and gaunt young men come to me with confidences of their life-long hope to come to fair Harvard, of mothers’ sacrifices, and fathers’ toil, of the parson’s chiding against the influence of the non-sectarian college, and the schoolmaster’s prophecy that Cambridge will be all proud looks and cold hearts, and finally of their own determination to work their way through, no matter what the cost in comfort and energy. It is the same soul-stirring story, whether it speaks from the butternut-colored coat from Georgia, the coarse gray homespun from Cape Breton, or the shiny, long-tailed black frock from Nebraska. Beseeching, honest, or searching eyes look straight into the heart, and the heart would not be good for much if it did not grow warmer under their scrutiny. Generally all except the least useful and adaptable of such men find ways of earning much of that which is needed to keep them decently clad and safely fed during their years of study; but it is anxious work starting them on self-support, and helping them to drive away homesickness.
There is a feeling of gritting sand and the lack of oil in the wheel when purse-proud, over-dressed, loud-voiced, tired-eyed youths drift to me in their attempts to escape parts of their college duties. They have come from shoddy homes to mix shoddy with the honest stuff of Harvard life. It would be better for them, for us, and for all their associates, if they never set foot on scholastic ground. Still they serve as a foil to the noble-hearted men of wealth who are the glory of a college,—men who are strong in their willingness to aid others, pure in heart, active in body, loyal to the ideals of the University.
One reason that the wheel of duty turns hard is to be found in the multitude of human atoms pressing against it. The present system of college government was well adapted for the management of five or six hundred men, for it is an easy task for an officer of keen sympathies and a good memory to carry even more than six hundred men in his mind, and to know their faces, names, and general record. Now that the six hundred have become two thousand, and the same system is applied, each officer being expected to know something of every student, the memory gives way, interest weakens, and discipline through acquaintance becomes impossible. Here and there individual students stand out conspicuously and become well-known figures in the crowd; but it is more likely to be through their success in football than in their studies. The man who attains “Grade A” in all his studies may be dull-eyed and dingy; but the half-back on the university eleven cannot fail to have in him some of the qualities of the hero.
On the football field of a Saturday afternoon I am less likely to let my thoughts wander away to Chocorua than when at my desk. Something akin to the wild north wind seems surging down old Jarvis when the crimson rush-line guards its bunch of ball-carriers as they fly round the left end, blocking, interfering, sweeping down opposing arms, hurling themselves against crouching tacklers, and finally falling across the line for the triumphant touchdown. That Chocorua north wind is as irresistible in its way, when in October it hurls itself from the mountains and lashes the lake till foam flies in white masses over the crests of the breaking waves. Such winds often arise suddenly, and in a moment change the placid water, full of its reflections of gay forest and lofty peak, into a turbulent mass of waves. I well remember a soft, hazy morning when we rowed a heavy flat-bottomed boat to the northern end of the lake, returning about noon. When in the middle of the pond, the wind caught us, and, turning the boat sideways, drove it towards a shallow cove lined with boulders. Every wave dashed spray and water over the gunwales, and the most vigorous rowing availed nothing against the furious wind. It was not until I could jump overboard in the shoal water and push the boat before me out of the wind that I really regained the mastery of it.
About the middle of October a vast regiment of birds passes over the Bearcamp valley. On the 13th of October, 1889, I counted and recognized 488 birds. Of these, 173 were crows, flying from the northeast towards the southwest in two great flocks. They passed far above the forests, many of them being much above the tops of the highest mountains. On the same day I counted 143 juncos, which were peppered all over fields, roads, small thickets, pasture bushes, and woods of small height. Wherever we strolled the little cowled heads turned to watch us, or the white V-shaped tail-feathers flashed as the juncos flew from us. The white-throated sparrows were almost always with them, coming, I doubt not, from the same breeding-grounds, and bent upon reaching the same winter-quarters, or havens even farther south than those which juncos like. Now and then a white-crowned sparrow is to be seen among flocks of this kind. Those who watch for them are apt to see many white-throats, which they try to persuade themselves are the rarer species, but when the eye at last rests upon a white-crown there is no doubting his identity.
The golden-crested kinglets were present in great numbers on the same 13th of October, 1889, and as they passed through the evergreens they accomplished a marvelous amount of effective house-cleaning. With them or near them chickadees, red nuthatches, white nuthatches, and brown creepers took part in the keen inspection of the trees, and woe came to the insect which fell under their eyes.
Among the other birds which I recorded that day were robins, a hermit thrush, bluebirds, yellow-rumped warblers, solitary vireos, a flock of thirty-five goldfinches, a good many sparrows of various kinds, blue jays, one or two kinds of woodpeckers, several hawks, and a flock of black ducks. They formed the rear guard of the grand army, and as the leaves rustled down over them it was easy to imagine snowflakes gathering in the northern clouds and waiting for a summons to begin their soft descent upon the abandoned earth.