“Telling the pearls on this rosary of a path one is led beyond the homestead.”
Telling the pearls on this rosary of a path in the homeward direction one is led beyond the homestead and on, by a slenderer, less trodden way to the old Pilgrim cemetery where the great man lies buried among the pioneers of the neighborhood, Peregrine White, the Winslows, and a host of others whose fame has not gone so far perhaps, but those names may be written in the final domesday book in letters as large as his. Nor does any storied monument recite the deeds of the statesman or bear his name higher than that of his fellows. A simple slab with the name only stands above the mound beneath which he lies, and in the side of this mound a woodchuck has his burrow, seeming to emphasize by his presence the cosy friendliness of the little spot. It is a hillock, just a little way from the house, just a little way from the big orchard which Webster loved so well, surrounded by pasture and cranberry bog and with the marsh drawing lovingly up to it on one side. Over this marsh comes the free salt air of the sea, but a little more gently to the lowly hillock than to the summit of Black Mount. Because of this loitering gentleness it has time to drop among the lingerers there all the wild aromas and soft perfumes of the marsh and pasture and bring all the soothing sounds of life to ears that for all I know hear them dreamily and approve. Quail, the first I have heard in New England for a long time, whistled cheerily one to another from nearby thickets. Nor did these seem fearful of man. One whistled as a wagon rattled by his hiding place on the dusty winding road, and held his perch beneath a berry bush till I approached so near that I could hear the full inflection of the soft note with which he prefixed his “bob white,” see the swell of his white throat and the tilt of his head as he sent forth the call. A pair of mourning doves crooned in the old apple orchard and flew on whistling wings as I approached too near. I have heard heartache in the tones of these birds, but here their mourning seemed only the gentle sorrow of a mother’s tones as she soothes a weary child, a mourning that voiced love and sympathy rather than pain. On a tree nearby a great-crested flycatcher sat and seemed to say to himself, “grief, grief.” These were the only notes of sorrow that the place held. All else in sky and field, marsh and hillside, seemed to thrill with a gentle optimism, and the hillock itself rested amidst this in a patriarchal peace and simplicity that became it well. Memory of this gentle peace and simplicity lingers long and runs like a tender refrain through the harmony of fragrant, vivid life that marks this lovely section of old Marshfield.
II
AT WHITTIER’S BIRTHPLACE
The Homestead two Centuries Old and the Unspoiled Country about it
They lighted a fire for me in Whittier’s fireplace. The day had been one of wilting July heat and sun glare till storm clouds from the New Hampshire hills brought sudden cool winds and black shadows. Twilight settled down in the wide, ancient living-room, bringing brooding darkness and mystery. The little light that came through the tiny, lilac-shaded windows seemed to half reveal ghosts of legends and romance, wrapped in darkness, slipping indistinctly from the black cavern of the fireplace, standing close before it and hiding it, and gathering in formless groups in the corners of the room. They whispered and the leaves on the trees outside rustled the tale, while echoes of warlock warfare rumbled in the sky above and witch fires flared. A witches’ twilight had come down the Merrimac and brought under its blanket shades of all the mountain legends that had in times past trooped to the mind of the poet as he sat there with sensitive soul a-quiver to their touch, photographing them in black and white for the minds of all men forever. From the fireplace stalked Mogg Megone and the powwows of his tribe, bringing with them all the dusky people of the weird stories of his day. The wind wailed their lone songs outside, and in its deep throat the aged chimney mumbled to itself old, old tales of night and darkness.
Then a slender flame slipped upward from the hearth, showing the form of the caretaker faintly shadowed and edged with light against the black background, and if I saw not her but the outline of Whittier’s mother bending to light the fire and drive from the minds of the children the fancies of the dusk it must have been because the witches’ twilight still held the room under its spell. Between the fore and back logs the brush of hemlock and of pine crackled and sent incense across the gloom to me, and with the leap of the flame all the weird shadows wavered into the corner and vanished. In their stead trooped up-river the cheery hearthside stories of the English settlers, sturdy tales and rough perhaps but with the glow of the hearth log flickering gleefully through them. The gusts drew whirling sparks upward, and in its deep throat the chimney, no longer aged but stout and strong with vigorous work to do, guffawed in cheerful content. The dancing firelight sent gleams of quiet laughter over the face of Whittier himself, that before had looked so grimly from the frame over his ancient desk, and the room glowed with homey hospitality. If there were shades there they were golden ones of gentle maids and rollicking boys that we knew and loved so well, and though without the window opposite the fireplace and right through the shading lilac bushes a ghostly replica of the fireplace with its flickering flames appeared and vanished and reappeared, there was nothing sinister in its uncanniness, for
“under the tree
When fire outside burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”