After changing the position of the little glossy things from the earth to our satchels, we cross the glade, and strike a narrow road that enters the forests in that direction. We pass along, our feet sinking deep in the dead leaves, until we come to an opening where a bridge spans a stream. It is a slight, rude structure, such as the emigrating settler would (and probably did) make in a brief hour to facilitate his passage across. Let us sketch the picture to our imagination for a moment. We will suppose it about an hour to sunset of a summer's day. There is a soft richness amidst the western trees, and the little grassy opening here is dappled with light and shade. The emigrant's wagon is standing near the brink, with its curved canvas top, white as silver, in a slanting beam, and the broad tires of its huge wheels stained green with the wood-plants and vines they have crushed in their passage during the day. The patient oxen, which have drawn the wagon so far, are chewing their cud, with their honest countenances fixed straight forward. Around the wagon is hung a multitude of household articles—pans, pails, kettles, brooms, and what not; and on a heap of beds, bedding, quilts, striped blankets, &c., is the old woman, the daughter, about eighteen, and a perfect swarm of white-headed little ones. The father, and his two stalwort sons, are busy in the forest close at hand. How merrily the echoes ring out at each blow of their axes, and how the earth groans with the shock of the falling trees. The two largest of the woodland giants are cut into logs—the others are also divided into the proper lengths. The logs are placed athwart the stream several feet distant from each other—the rest are laid in close rows athwart, and lo! the bridge. Over the whole scene the warm glow of the setting sun is spread, and a black bear, some little distance in the forest, is thrusting his great flat head out of a hollow tree, overseeing the proceedings with the air of a connoisseur.
The bridge is now old and black, and has decayed and been broken into quite a picturesque object. One of the platform pieces has been fractured in the middle, and the two ends slant upwards, as if to take observations of the sky; and there is a great hole in the very centre of the bridge. Add to this the moss, which has crept over the whole structure, making what remains of the platform a perfect cushion, and hanging in long flakes of emerald, which fairly dip in the water, and the whole object is before you. The stream has a slow, still motion, with eddies, here coiling up into wrinkles like an old man's face, and there dimpling around some stone like the smiling cheek of a young maiden, but in no case suffering its demureness to break into a broad laugh of ripples. In one spot tall bullrushes show their slender shapes and brown wigs; in another there is a collection of waterflags; in another there are tresses of long grass streaming in the light flow of the current, whilst in a nook, formed by the roots of an immense elm on one side, and a projection of the bank on the other, is a thick coat of stagnant green—a perfect meadow for the frogs to hold their mass meetings in, differing from ours, however, from the fact of theirs being composed of all talkers and no listeners.
Let us look at the stream a little, which has here expanded into a broad surface, and view its "goings on." There is a water-spider taking most alarming leaps, as if afraid of wetting his feet; a dragon-fly is darting hither and yon, his long, slender body flashing with green, golden and purple hues; a large dace has just apparently flattened his nose against the dark glass inward, dotting a great and increasing period outward. A bright birch-leaf, "the last of its clan," has just fallen down, and been snapped at most probably by a little spooney of a trout, thinking it a yellow butterfly; and on the bottom, which, directly under our eyes is shallow, are several water-insects crawling along like locomotive spots of shadow and reflected through the tremulous medium into distorted shapes. However, we have lingered here long enough—let us onward.
What on earth is that uproar which is now striking our ear. Such hoarse notes, such rapid flutterings, whizzings, deep rumbling sounds, and such a rustle of dead leaves surely betoken something. We turn an elbow of the road, and a flashing of blue wings, and darting of blue shapes in the air, now circling round, now shooting up, and now down, with a large beech tree for the centre, meet our eyes. The tumult is explained. A colony of wild pigeons is busy amongst the beech-nuts, which the frost has showered upon the earth. The ground for some distance around the tree is perfectly blue with the birds picking, and fighting, and scrambling. It is ludicrous to see them. Here a score or two are busy eating, looking like a collection of big-paunched, blue-coated aldermen at a city feast; there, all are hurrying and jostling, and tumbling over one another like the passengers of a steamboat when the bell rings for dinner. By the side of yonder bush there is a perfect duel transpiring between two pugnacious pigeons dashing out their wings fiercely at each other with angry tones, their beautiful purple necks all swollen, and their red eyes casting devouring looks, whilst two others are very quietly, yet swiftly, as if making the most of their time, causing all the nuts in sight, and which probably induced the quarrel, disappear down their own throats. See! here is a pigeon who has over-estimated his capacity of swallowing, or has encountered a larger nut than usual, for he is exhibiting the most alarming symptoms of choking. He stretches his neck and opens his bill like a cock in the act of crowing, at the same time dancing up and down on his pink legs as if his toes had caught fire. However, he has mastered the nut at last with a vigorous shake of his neck, and bobs industriously again at his feast.
Determining to have some of the brown luscious mast, we make a foray amongst the gorging host, and succeeded in causing a cloud of them to take wing, and in securing a quantity of the spoil.
We then start again on our way, but do not advance far before—b-r-r-r-r-r-h—off bursts a partridge, and shoots down the vista of the road, with the dark sunshine glancing from his mottled back. If little "Spitfire" was here, how he would yelp and dance, and dart backward and forward, and shake his tail, so as to render it doubtful whether it wouldn't fly off in a tangent.
Rattat, tattat, tat—tat—t-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r—there is the great red-headed woodpecker, or woodcock, as he is called by the country people, looking like a miniature man with a crimson turban and sable spear, attacking the bark of yon old oak. He is making a sounding-board of the seamed mail of the venerable monarch, to detect by the startled writhing within the grub snugly ensconced, as it thinks, there, in order to transfix it with his sharp tongue through the hole made by his bill. He ceases his work though as we approach—and now he flies away.
A mile farther, we come to the strawberry-field belonging to Deacon Gravespeech, the outlines of whose dark, low farm-house are etched on the mist which is again slowly spreading over the landscape, for it is now near sunset. Having left the forest, we see the mild red orb, like an immense ruby, just in the act of sinking in the bank of pale blue which now thickens the Western horizon. But what have we here? A splendid butternut tree, with quantities of the oval fruit scattered about amidst the brown leaves, in their coats of golden green. What a rich lustre is upon them, made brighter by the varnish, and how delightful their pungent perfume. Let us crack a few of the strong, deeply-fluted shells. In their tawny nooks nestle the dark, golden-veined meats, which with the most delicious sweetness crumble in the mouth.
Of all the fruits of the Northern forests give me the butternut; and, speaking of fruits puts me in mind of the strawberry field. I was here with a small party one day last June. The field was then scattered thickly over with the bright crimson spotting fruit, and the fingers of all of us were soon dyed deeply with the sweet blood. There is great skill in picking strawberries, let me tell you, reader, although it is a trifle. Go to work systematically, and don't get excited. Gather all as you go, indiscriminately. Don't turn to the right for two splendid berries, and leave the one in front, for it is just as likely, before you gather the two, a cluster, with five ripe tempting fellows, will cause you to forget the others, and in whirling yourself around, and stretching over to seize the latest prize, your feet and limbs not only destroy the first and second, but a whole collection of the blushing beauties hid away in a little hollow of buttercups and dandelions.
Well, "as I was saying," I was here with a small party, and had fine sport picking, but the next day a precept, at the suit of Peter Gravespeech, was served upon Hull and myself, (the two gentlemen of the party,) issued from "Pettifogger's Delight," as the office of Squire Tappit, the justice, was called throughout the village: action, trespass. "For the fun of the thing" we stood trial. The day came, and all the vagabonds of the village,—those whose continual cry is that they "can never get any thing to do," and therefore drive a brisk business at doing nothing,—were in attendance. The justice was a hot-tempered old fellow, somewhat deaf, and,—if his nose was any evidence,—fond of the brandy bottle.