"But you discarded logic, threw away argument, and came down to the sure demonstrations of sober fact. You watched by the marshy pool, and caught the 'peeper' in the act, took him 'in flagrante, delicto,' as the lawyers say, and thus ended the theoretical discussion about the 'peepers.' You placed another fixed fact upon the page of natural history.
"And how often has the wisdom of the schools, the philosophy of the profoundest theorists, been overthrown by the simple demonstrations of practical facts? For a thousand years the world was in pursuit of the giant power that lay hidden in heated vapor, the steam that came floating up from boiling water. That power eluded the grasp and baffled the research of human genius, which was looking so earnestly after it, until ingenuity gave it up, and philosophy pronounced it a delusion. Not far from the beginning of the present century, practical experiment began to develop the mysterious power of steam. Rudely and imperfectly harnessed, at first, it still made the great wheel revolve, and men talked about making it a great motor for mechanical purposes. Philosophy volunteered its demonstrations of the absolute impossibility of such a thing. Still human ingenuity felt its way carefully onward, until the great fact was developed, that steam was in truth capable of moving machinery, was endowed almost with vitality, and could be made to throw the shuttle and spin. Ingenious men hinted that it might be made to propel water-craft in the place of wind and sails, and thus be harnessed into the service of commerce, as it had already been into that of manufactures. Here again philosophy interposed its axioms, and declared the scheme among the wild vagaries of a distempered fancy. But years rolled on, and the tall ship that swung out upon the broad ocean, and moved forward when the air was still and calmness was on the face of the deep, forward in the eye of the wind—forward in the teeth of the storm, that stopped not for billow or blast, gave the lie to philosophy, and scattered the theory of the wise like chaff.
"The lightning, that fierce spirit of the storm, that darted down on its mission of destruction from the black cloud floating in the sky, became a thing of interest to the mechanical world, and the question was asked, 'Why cannot the lightning be harnessed into the service of man, and be made utilitarian?' Philosophy sneered at the wild delusion, but see how that same subtle and mysterious agency has been conquered? Note how truthfully it carries every word intrusted to its charge, along thousands of miles of the telegraph wire, with a speed, in comparison with which, sound is a laggard, a speed that annihilates alike space and time. Men looked into a mirror, and seeing their own counterpart, a fac-simile of themselves reflected there, began to ask, 'Why may not that shadow be fixed; fastened in some way, to remain upon the polished surface that gives it back, even after the original may be mouldering in the grave?' Here again philosophy laid its finger upon its nose, and winked facetiously, as if it had found a new subject for ridicule, in the stupendous folly of such an inquiry. But from that simple question, rose up the Daguerreian art; an art which fixes upon metallic plates, upon paper, the shadow of a man, of palace and cottage, of mountain and field, giving thus a picture ten thousand times truer to nature than the pencil of the cunningest artist. These and a thousand other mighty triumphs of human ingenuity have fought their way onward to their present position, against the fogyism of philosophy, the inertia of the schoolmen. They have been the sequence of cold, resistless demonstrations of experiment and fact. The world would stand still but for the spirit of research for the practical; for experimental, and not theoretical knowledge, that is abroad. It is this spirit that moves the world in all its present matchless career of progress, and distinguishes our era above all others of the world's existence. You may be thankful, my friend, that you have been able to add another fixed fact to the stock of human knowledge, even though it be only that the 'peeper' is a frog, and not a 'newt' or a 'myth.'
"But who would suppose that such a tiny little frogling could make such a loud, shrill, and ear-piercing sound? Who would think that a million of such puny things, could make the air of a summer evening so full of the music of their songs? I remember how, in my boyhood, I listened to their voices, which came up loudest, shrillest, merriest, when twilight was spreading its grey mantle over the earth; while the song of the birds was hushing into silence, and the coming darkness was lulling the things of the day into repose; Oh! how merrily they sang along the little brooklet that took its rise in a spring in the meadow, and wended its way among the young grass, just springing into verdure, to the beautiful lake beyond. Their song is in my ear now, and that meadow, that beautiful lake, the tall hills on the summits of which the departing sunlight lingered, the tall maples that clustered in their conelike beauty around that gushing fountain, the clustered plum trees, the giant oak, spared by the woodman's axe when the old forest was swept away, the fields, the 'Gulf' in the hill-side, and the beautiful creek, that came cascading down the shelving rocks, and leaping over precipices in which the speckled trout sported: all these are before me now—a vision of loveliness, all the more dear because stamped upon the memory when life was young. Oh! Time! Time! the wrecks that lie scattered in thy pathway! That little brooklet, and the peepers, the fountain, the maples, and the meadow, are all gone. The brave old oak was riven by the lightning. The fields have crept up to the very summit of the hills, and even the stream that came down from the mountain has vanished away, save when the rains, or the melting snows send it in a freshet over the rocks where, when I was a boy, it was cascading always. That beautiful meadow, too, is gone, and the streets of a modern village, with blocks of houses, and stores, and shops, occupy the place where I swung my first scythe. The old log-house vanished years and years ago. A steamboat ploughs its way through that beautiful lake, and the things of my boyhood are but visions of memory, called up from the long, long past. Not one landmark of the olden time remains. Oh! Time! Time!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE CRICKET IN THE WALL—THE MINISTER'S ILLUSTRATION—OLD MEMORIES.
We spent the following day in drifting quietly around the lake, floating lazily in the little bays, under the shadow of the tall trees, and lounging upon small islands, gathering the low-bush whortleberries which grew in abundance upon them. We filled our tin pails with this delicious fruit for a dessert for our evening meal. On one of these islands we found indications of its being inhabited by wood rabbits, and we sent Cullen to the shanty for the dogs to course them, not however with any intention of capturing them, but to enjoy the music of the chase, and hear the voices of the hounds echoing over the water. We landed them upon the island, and began beating for the game. The hounds understanding that their business was the pursuit of deer, and having hunted the island over thoroughly, came back to us, and sat quietly down upon their haunches, as much as to say there was nothing there worth looking after. But we had seen one of the little animals that had been roused from its bed by the dogs, and we called their special attention to the fact by leading them to the spot, and bidding them to "hunt him up." They understood our meaning, and started on the trail, with a loud and cheerful cry. For half an hour, they coursed him round and round the island, making the lake vocal with their merry music. We might have shot the game they were pursuing fifty times, but we had no design against its life. The little fellow did not seem to be greatly alarmed, for we noted him often, when by doubling he had temporarily thrown off the dogs, squat himself down, and throw his long ears back in the direction of the sound that had been pursuing him; and when the dogs straightened upon his trail, and approached where he sat, he would bound nimbly away among the thick bushes to double on them again.
We called off the dogs and passed on to float along under the shadow of the forest trees and the hills, and take an occasional trout by way of experiment among the broken rocks along the shore. We had dispatched Cullen to the shanty to prepare dinner for us by six o'clock, at which hour we were to be at home. Cullen had promised, to use his own expression, "to spread himself" in the preparation of this meal, and he kept his promise. On our return, we found a sirloin of moose roasted to a turn, a stake of bear-meat broiled on the coals, a stew of jerked venison, and as pleasant a dish of fried trout and pork as an epicure could desire. Our appetites were keen, and we did ample justice to his cookery. This was one of the most delightful evenings that I have ever spent in the northern woods. There was such a calm resting upon all things, such an impress of repose upon forest and lake, such a cheerful quiet and serenity all around us, that one could scarcely refrain from rejoicing aloud in the beauty and the glory of the hour. As the sun sank to his rest behind the western hills, and the twilight began to gather in the forest and over the lake, the moon rose over the eastern high lands, walking with a queenly step up into the sky, casting a long line of brilliant light across the waters, showing the shadows of the mountains in bold outline in the depths below, and paling the stars by her brightness above. We all felt that we were recruiting in strength so rapidly in these mountain regions, where the air was so bracing and pure, under the influence of exercise, simple diet, natural sleep, and the absence of the labors and cares of business, that we were contented, notwithstanding the monotony that began to mark our everyday proceedings.
"I have been listening," said Spalding, as we sat upon the rude benches in front of our camp-fire, indulging in our usual season of smoking after our meals, "to the song of the crickets in those rude jams, and they call up sad, yet pleasant memories from the long past; of the old log house, the quiet fire-place, the crane in the jam, the great logs blazing upon the hearth of a cold winter evening, the house dog sleeping quietly in the corner, and the cat nestled confidingly between his feet. Oh! the days of old! the days of old! These crickets call back with these memories the circle that gathered around the hearth of my home, when I was young. Father, mother, brothers, sisters, playmates, and friends. How quietly some of them grew old and ripe, and then dropped into the grave. How quietly others stole away in their youth to the home of the dead, and how the rest have drifted away on the currents of life and are lost to me in the mists and shadows of time. Even the home and the hearth are gone; they
'Battled with time and slow decay,'