Pastoral Days; or, Memories of a New England Year

by W. Hamilton Gibson

Still farther up the pond the marbled button-wood-tree, with spreading limbs and knotty brooms of branchlets, rises clear against the sky, its little pendulums swinging away the winter moments. At its very roots the dam spreads into a tufted swamp, thick-set with alders. How often have I picked my way through that wheezing, soggy marsh in quest of the rare Cecropia cocoons; treading among glazed air-chambers, whose roof of ice, like a pane of brittle glass, falls in at my approach—a crystal fairy grotto, set with diamonds and frost ferns, annihilated at a step.

Here, too, the sagacious musk-rat built his cemented dome, and along the neighboring shore we set the chained steel-traps, or made the ponderous dead-fall from nature’s rude materials. Yonder, in the side-hill woods, I set the big box rabbit-traps; with keen-edged jack-knife trimmed the slender hickory poles, and on the ground near by, with sharpened, branching sticks, I built the little pens for my twitch-up snares. Can I ever forget the fascinating excitement which sped me on from snare to snare in those tramps through the snowy woods, the exhilarating buoyancy of that delicious suspense, every nerve and every muscle on the qui vive in my eagerness for the captured game! Even the memory of it acts like a tonic, and almost creates an appetite like that of old.

And then the lovely woods. How few there are who ever seek their winter solitude: and of these how fewer still are they who find anything but drear and cold monotony!

We read the literature of our time, and find it rich in story of the home aspects of winter; of Christmas joys and festivals, of holiday festivities, and all the various phases of cosy domestic life; but not often are we tempted from the glowing hearth into the wilds of the bare and leafless forest. We read of the “drear and lonely waste, the cheerless desolation of the howling wilderness,” and we look out upon the naked, shivering trees and draw our cushioned rockers closer to the grateful fire.

Not I; bitter were the winds and high the piled-up drifts that shut me in from out-of-doors in those glorious days; and whether on my animated trapping tours, or hunting on the crusted snow, with powder-horn and game-bag swinging at my side, or perhaps pressing through the tangled thickets in my impetuous search for those pendulous cocoons, now stopping to tear away the loosening bark on moss-grown stump, now looking beneath some prostrate board for the little “woolly bears” curled up in their dormant sleep: no matter what my purpose, always I was sure to find the winter full of interest and beauty. How distinctly I recall the thrilling spectacle of that glad morning when, awakening early, and jumping from the little cot so snug and warm, I tripped across the chilly floor and scratched a peep-hole on the frosted window-pane; looked out upon a world so changed, so strangely beautiful, that at first it seemed like a lingering vision in half-awakened eyes—still looking into dream-land. All the world is dressed in purest white, as soft and light as down from seraphs’ wings. The orchard trees, the elms, and all the leafless shrubs, as if by magic spell, transformed to shadowy plumes of spotless purity, and the interlacing boughs o’erhead vanishing in a canopy of glistening, feathery spray. I look upon a realm celestial in its beauty, unprofaned by earthly sign or sound. A strange, supernal stillness fills the air; and save where some unseen spirit-wing tips the slender twig and lets fall the scintillating shower, no slightest movement mars the enchanted vision. Above, in the far-off blue, I see the circling flock of doves, their snowy wings glittering in their upward flight—apt emblems in a scene so like a glimpse of spirit-land. A single vision such as this should wed the heart to winter’s loveliness, a loveliness inspiring and immaculate, for never in the cycle of the year does nature wear a face so void of earthly impress, so spirit-like, so near the heavenly ideal.

One of the most striking features of the winter ramble in the woods is their impressive stillness. But stop awhile and listen. That very silence will give emphasis to every sound that soon shall vibrate on the clear atmosphere, for “little pitchers have big ears,” and wide-open eyes too. They will first be sure that the stick you hold is only a cane, and not the small boy’s gun which they have so learned to dread. Hark! even from the hollow maple at your side there comes a scraping sound, and in an instant more two black and shining eyes are peering down at us from the bulging hole above. Tut! don’t strike the little fellow. Had you only waited a moment longer, we would have seen him emerge from his concealment, and with frisky, bushy tail laid flat upon the bark, he would have hung head downward on the trunk, and watched our every movement; but now you’ve startled him, he thinks you mean mischief, and you’ll see his sparkling eyes no more at that knot-hole. Listen! Now we hear a rustling in the sere and snow-tipped weeds somewhere near by, and presently a little feathery form flits past, and settles yonder on the swaying rush. With feathers ruffled into a little fuzzy ball, he bustles around among the downy seeds, now prying in their midst, now

The bending rush but lightly feels the dainty form, and, if at all, it must delight to bear so sweet a burden. How dearly have I learned to love this little fellow, perhaps my special favorite among the birds; for while the others one by one desert us with the dying year for scenes more bright and sunny, the chickadee is content to share our lot; he is constant, always with us, ever full of sprightliness and cheer. No winter is known in his warm heart, no piercing blast can freeze the fountain of his song.