The oriole, trained in tropic woodlands to avoid climbers, instinctively finds the pendulous tips of slender elm boughs the best place for his nest, yet often in apple-blossom time he becomes so enamored of them that the white snow of their falling petals leaves him building on the twigs from which they scatter. In July the incessant, cry-baby twittering of the young orioles is thus as common a sound of the orchard and pasture as it is of the elm-shaded street. Other apple tree nest-hangers are the vireos, yellow throated, red-eyed and white-eyed, all of whom love to build on the low-swinging tips of the benedictory limbs. It seems to me that no other tree attracts such a variety of beautiful birds out of what one might think to be their usual environment. Of these I may cite the scarlet tanager and the rose-breasted grosbeak, both rather shy woodland dwellers, the tanager the friend of the tall timber, the grosbeak partial to sprout land and second growth, but both often found building their nests on the inviting boughs of apple trees not far from their favorite haunts.
It seems, too, as if the tree made especial preparation for the housing of other less shy folk. I know no other tree so nobly hollow-hearted. At little excuse, if it be not good will toward woodpeckers, bluebirds and their like, the mahogany-like dense heart-wood rots, leaving hollow passages in the trunk and larger limbs, and often in the smaller ones, too. Here are homes for all who seek complete seclusion from storms and enemies. The little screech owl loves these hollows more than those of any other tree, and sings his little quavering night song from the dusky tops, while his mate and her eggs are safely hidden in the blackness of the hollow below. The downy woodpecker bores his nest hole in the softened heart-wood of upright limbs and pays for his lodging by devouring all grubs and borers that otherwise might make his house fall too soon. The bluebird finds his dwelling ready made, lower down, often in a horizontal limb, having neither strength nor inclination to bore for himself. The flicker, too, loves the apple tree and bores his own hole in upright limbs, as does the downy woodpecker, often with much noise and obtrusion of vigorous chips.
Nor need the list stop here. The red squirrel and the gray, the bat, the field mouse and the white-footed mouse all feel this welcoming charm, this endearing hospitality of the wild apple tree, whether born wild or grown wild through neglect, and go to it for protection, for food, for a home, or just because, like man, they love it and feel sweetened and heartened in its presence.
Soon now the snow of falling petals will whiten the ground beneath all wild apple trees, carrying an inexpressible purity and fragrance to the rich wild earth beneath. Whither these melt it is hard to say. They whiten the ground for a few brief hours and are gone. I can fancy the wee sprites of earth in whatever form they happen to dwell at the moment, beetle or bumblebee, eft or elve, gathering these eagerly by scent and by sight, to store them away below ground for slow transmutations of their own. If wrapped in bed-clothing like this it is no miracle that rough grubs should come forth gauzy winged and beautiful insects that flit by and delight the eye of the naturalist. If fed upon these it is no wonder that summer wild flowers of the deep woods can show us delicate tints and woo us with dainty perfumes, the very memory of which is happiness for long after. Thus the tree makes kindly messengers of even the rough winds of March that sometimes charge back upon us for a day, obliging them to carry the very essence of the gentle good will and fondness of the spring farther than it might otherwise reach and finally bidding them faint and die for very love of the perfume and beauty they bear. Thus the wild apple tree, still the brooding mother of all woodland things, sends fragrant love and kindness questing far through the rougher woodland till its gentle spirit seems to imbue all things. In all the pastures there is none like it.
CHAPTER IX
MIDSUMMER MOONLIGHT
All through the afternoon of the fervent July day I could see the sun sifting and winnowing his gold for the sunset. All the morning his alchemic forces had been quietly transmuting gray mists of midnight, vapors from damp humus, moisture from lush leaves and I know not what other pure though common elements into the precious glow that began to haze the west soon after noon. The old belief that the alchemist at his utmost cunning could recreate rose blooms from their own ashes had sure foundation. I have seen the sun do it every June in countless gardens where, out of this same humus and soft rains, his potency works the transmutation as if in a night. So on July days this father of transmuters melts in his crucible, of which the earth under our feet seems always the very bottom of the bowl, many ingredients, and distils from them this pure gold. Soon after he passes the meridian you may see it sprinkled lavishly from zenith to horizon, and as the day wanes it gilds all sordid things with the glow of romance. By it we get the clearer vision and have thoughts of the unseen things which are eternal. The trouble with sordid souls, if such there be, is that they have never seen enough sunsets. People who live in places or palaces where these are never seen have need to be born of noble fathers and sweet mothers, to be carefully nurtured in hope and aspiration and belief, or the world is the worse for them.
Long after the sun had gone and the evening was cool with unclotted dew, the fires of the melting burned high in the upper air and the gold that had been thin vapor seemed to condense into clouds that glowed copper-red with the molten metal and cooled and dropped into the distant hills. No wonder the miners go ever westward for the precious gold, to Colorado and Nevada and California, to Sitka and the Copper River, to Anvil City and the Nome beach and across the straits to Siberia. Never a clear night falls but they see the alchemy at work and the precious element going down in dust and nuggets and wide lodes behind the peaks and into the canons just beyond.
Usually it is not until the gold begins to pass that I notice the nighthawk, though he may have been circling and crying "peent, peent" all the afternoon. If you can catch sight of him before the light fades too much you will see the white bar which crosses each wing beneath and looks exactly like a hole, as if the bird had transparencies in his pinions as has the polyphemus moth. Many a summer afternoon I have seen nighthawks circling erratically above Boston Common, and there their cry has sounded like a plaint. No doubt these birds fly there by choice and bring up their young on the tops of Back Bay buildings because they prefer the place, but this has not prevented a tinge of melancholy in their voices. Like many another city dweller they may take habit for preference, but the longing for the freedom of the woods, though unconscious, will voice itself some way. The nighthawk's cry, falling from the high gold of the waning sunset to dusky pasture glades, has no note of melancholy but a soothing sleepiness about it that makes it a lullaby of contentment. I rarely hear him after dark. I fancy he goes higher and higher to keep in the soft radiance of the fading glow. Only once have I ever seen one sky-coasting, falling like a dark star from a height where he seemed but a mote in the gold, a smaller, point that the green glint of a real star that had just come through. It was as if his wings had lost their hold on the thinner air of this remote height. He half shut them to his body and dived head foremost on a perilous slant. Then, just as he must be dashed to pieces on the gray rock of the ledge on which I sat, he spread them wide, caught the air that sang through the wide-spread primaries with a clear, deep-toned note, and rose again; and in his "peent, peent" was a quaint note of self-satisfaction and self-praise.