Sometimes I rambled to pine groves, standing like temples, or
like fleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy boughs, and rippling with
light, so soft and green and shady that the Druids would have
forsaken their oaks to worship in them; or to the cedar wood beyond
Flints Pond, where the trees, covered with hoary blue berries,
spiring higher and higher, are fit to stand before Valhalla, and the
creeping juniper covers the ground with wreaths full of fruit; or to
swamps where the usnea lichen hangs in festoons from the white
spruce trees, and toadstools, round tables of the swamp gods, cover
the ground, and more beautiful fungi adorn the stumps, like
butterflies or shells, vegetable winkles; where the swamp-pink and
dogwood grow, the red alderberry glows like eyes of imps, the
waxwork grooves and crushes the hardest woods in its folds, and the
wild holly berries make the beholder forget his home with their
beauty, and he is dazzled and tempted by nameless other wild
forbidden fruits, too fair for mortal taste. Instead of calling on
some scholar, I paid many a visit to particular trees, of kinds
which are rare in this neighborhood, standing far away in the middle
of some pasture, or in the depths of a wood or swamp, or on a
hilltop; such as the black birch, of which we have some handsome
specimens two feet in diameter; its cousin, the yellow birch, with
its loose golden vest, perfumed like the first; the beech, which has
so neat a bole and beautifully lichen-painted, perfect in all its
details, of which, excepting scattered specimens, I know but one
small grove of sizable trees left in the township, supposed by some
to have been planted by the pigeons that were once baited with
beechnuts near by; it is worth the while to see the silver grain
sparkle when you split this wood; the bass; the hornbeam; the Celtis
occidentalis, or false elm, of which we have but one well-grown;
some taller mast of a pine, a shingle tree, or a more perfect
hemlock than usual, standing like a pagoda in the midst of the
woods; and many others I could mention. These were the shrines I
visited both summer and winter.
Once it chanced that I stood in the very abutment of a rainbows
arch, which filled the lower stratum of the atmosphere, tinging the
grass and leaves around, and dazzling me as if I looked through
colored crystal. It was a lake of rainbow light, in which, for a
short while, I lived like a dolphin. If it had lasted longer it
might have tinged my employments and life. As I walked on the
railroad causeway, I used to wonder at the halo of light around my
shadow, and would fain fancy myself one of the elect. One who
visited me declared that the shadows of some Irishmen before him had
no halo about them, that it was only natives that were so
distinguished. Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his memoirs, that,
after a certain terrible dream or vision which he had during his
confinement in the castle of St. Angelo a resplendent light appeared
over the shadow of his head at morning and evening, whether he was
in Italy or France, and it was particularly conspicuous when the
grass was moist with dew. This was probably the same phenomenon to
which I have referred, which is especially observed in the morning,
but also at other times, and even by moonlight. Though a constant
one, it is not commonly noticed, and, in the case of an excitable
imagination like Cellinis, it would be basis enough for
superstition. Beside, he tells us that he showed it to very few.
But are they not indeed distinguished who are conscious that they
are regarded at all?
I set out one afternoon to go a-fishing to Fair Haven, through
the woods, to eke out my scanty fare of vegetables. My way led
through Pleasant Meadow, an adjunct of the Baker Farm, that retreat
of which a poet has since sung, beginning,--
"Thy entry is a pleasant field,
Which some mossy fruit trees yield
Partly to a ruddy brook,
By gliding musquash undertook,
And mercurial trout,
Darting about."
I thought of living there before I went to Walden. I "hooked" the
apples, leaped the brook, and scared the musquash and the trout. It
was one of those afternoons which seem indefinitely long before one,
in which many events may happen, a large portion of our natural
life, though it was already half spent when I started. By the way
there came up a shower, which compelled me to stand half an hour
under a pine, piling boughs over my head, and wearing my
handkerchief for a shed; and when at length I had made one cast over
the pickerelweed, standing up to my middle in water, I found myself
suddenly in the shadow of a cloud, and the thunder began to rumble
with such emphasis that I could do no more than listen to it. The
gods must be proud, thought I, with such forked flashes to rout a
poor unarmed fisherman. So I made haste for shelter to the nearest
hut, which stood half a mile from any road, but so much the nearer
to the pond, and had long been uninhabited:--
"And here a poet builded,
In the completed years,
For behold a trivial cabin
That to destruction steers."
So the Muse fables. But therein, as I found, dwelt now John Field,
an Irishman, and his wife, and several children, from the
broad-faced boy who assisted his father at his work, and now came
running by his side from the bog to escape the rain, to the
wrinkled, sibyl-like, cone-headed infant that sat upon its fathers
knee as in the palaces of nobles, and looked out from its home in
the midst of wet and hunger inquisitively upon the stranger, with
the privilege of infancy, not knowing but it was the last of a noble
line, and the hope and cynosure of the world, instead of John
Fields poor starveling brat. There we sat together under that part
of the roof which leaked the least, while it showered and thundered
without. I had sat there many times of old before the ship was
built that floated his family to America. An honest, hard-working,
but shiftless man plainly was John Field; and his wife, she too was
brave to cook so many successive dinners in the recesses of that
lofty stove; with round greasy face and bare breast, still thinking
to improve her condition one day; with the never absent mop in one
hand, and yet no effects of it visible anywhere. The chickens,
which had also taken shelter here from the rain, stalked about the
room like members of the family, too humanized, methought, to roast
well. They stood and looked in my eye or pecked at my shoe
significantly. Meanwhile my host told me his story, how hard he
worked "bogging" for a neighboring farmer, turning up a meadow with
a spade or bog hoe at the rate of ten dollars an acre and the use of
the land with manure for one year, and his little broad-faced son
worked cheerfully at his fathers side the while, not knowing how
poor a bargain the latter had made. I tried to help him with my
experience, telling him that he was one of my nearest neighbors, and
that I too, who came a-fishing here, and looked like a loafer, was
getting my living like himself; that I lived in a tight, light, and
clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual rent of such a
ruin as his commonly amounts to; and how, if he chose, he might in a
month or two build himself a palace of his own; that I did not use
tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did
not have to work to get them; again, as I did not work hard, I did
not have to eat hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food; but
as he began with tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he
had to work hard to pay for them, and when he had worked hard he had
to eat hard again to repair the waste of his system -- and so it was
as broad as it was long, indeed it was broader than it was long, for
he was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he
had rated it as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get
tea, and coffee, and meat every day. But the only true America is
that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life
as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not
endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other
superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the
use of such things. For I purposely talked to him as if he were a
philosopher, or desired to be one. I should be glad if all the
meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the
consequence of mens beginning to redeem themselves. A man will not
need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.
But alas! the culture of an Irishman is an enterprise to be
undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe. I told him, that as he
worked so hard at bogging, he required thick boots and stout
clothing, which yet were soon soiled and worn out, but I wore light
shoes and thin clothing, which cost not half so much, though he
might think that I was dressed like a gentleman (which, however, was
not the case), and in an hour or two, without labor, but as a
recreation, I could, if I wished, catch as many fish as I should
want for two days, or earn enough money to support me a week. If he
and his family would live simply, they might all go a-huckleberrying
in the summer for their amusement. John heaved a sigh at this, and
his wife stared with arms a-kimbo, and both appeared to be wondering
if they had capital enough to begin such a course with, or
arithmetic enough to carry it through. It was sailing by dead
reckoning to them, and they saw not clearly how to make their port
so; therefore I suppose they still take life bravely, after their
fashion, face to face, giving it tooth and nail, not having skill to
split its massive columns with any fine entering wedge, and rout it
in detail; -- thinking to deal with it roughly, as one should handle
a thistle. But they fight at an overwhelming disadvantage --
living, John Field, alas! without arithmetic, and failing so.
"Do you ever fish?" I asked. "Oh yes, I catch a mess now and
then when I am lying by; good perch I catch. -- "Whats your bait?"
"I catch shiners with fishworms, and bait the perch with them."
"Youd better go now, John," said his wife, with glistening and
hopeful face; but John demurred.
The shower was now over, and a rainbow above the eastern woods
promised a fair evening; so I took my departure. When I had got
without I asked for a drink, hoping to get a sight of the well
bottom, to complete my survey of the premises; but there, alas! are
shallows and quicksands, and rope broken withal, and bucket
irrecoverable. Meanwhile the right culinary vessel was selected,
water was seemingly distilled, and after consultation and long delay
passed out to the thirsty one -- not yet suffered to cool, not yet
to settle. Such gruel sustains life here, I thought; so, shutting
my eyes, and excluding the motes by a skilfully directed
undercurrent, I drank to genuine hospitality the heartiest draught I
could. I am not squeamish in such cases when manners are concerned.
As I was leaving the Irishmans roof after the rain, bending my
steps again to the pond, my haste to catch pickerel, wading in
retired meadows, in sloughs and bog-holes, in forlorn and savage
places, appeared for an instant trivial to me who had been sent to
school and college; but as I ran down the hill toward the reddening
west, with the rainbow over my shoulder, and some faint tinkling
sounds borne to my ear through the cleansed air, from I know not
what quarter, my Good Genius seemed to say -- Go fish and hunt far
and wide day by day -- farther and wider -- and rest thee by many
brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. Remember thy Creator in
the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn, and
seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the
night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields
than these, no worthier games than may here be played. Grow wild
according to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which will
never become English bay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it
threaten ruin to farmers crops? That is not its errand to thee.
Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds.
Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the
land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are
where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like
serfs.
O Baker Farm!
"Landscape where the richest element
Is a little sunshine innocent." ...
"No one runs to revel
On thy rail-fenced lea." ...
"Debate with no man hast thou,
With questions art never perplexed,
As tame at the first sight as now,
In thy plain russet gabardine dressed." ...
"Come ye who love,
And ye who hate,
Children of the Holy Dove,
And Guy Faux of the state,
And hang conspiracies
From the tough rafters of the trees!"
Men come tamely home at night only from the next field or
street, where their household echoes haunt, and their life pines
because it breathes its own breath over again; their shadows,
morning and evening, reach farther than their daily steps. We
should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and
discoveries every day, with new experience and character.
Before I had reached the pond some fresh impulse had brought out
John Field, with altered mind, letting go "bogging" ere this sunset.
But he, poor man, disturbed only a couple of fins while I was
catching a fair string, and he said it was his luck; but when we
changed seats in the boat luck changed seats too. Poor John Field!
-- I trust he does not read this, unless he will improve by it --
thinking to live by some derivative old-country mode in this
primitive new country -- to catch perch with shiners. It is good
bait sometimes, I allow. With his horizon all his own, yet he a
poor man, born to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor
life, his Adams grandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this
world, he nor his posterity, till their wading webbed bog-trotting
feet get talaria to their heels.