THE first years of my hermit life were passed rambling the woods of Ward Eight, Rockport, Essex, and Manchester. I bought a double-barrel shotgun, not on account of the game to be found in the woods, but because I was told of the wonderful duck shooting in Ipswich Bay.
For three years there was a great supply of acorns, and gray squirrels swarmed in the woods of the Cape. The next four years were years of famine to all animal life that depended on acorns. The gray squirrels died off by hundreds, and the second year the most of the survivors migrated. Two years ago there was a great crop of sweet acorns, and some of the gray squirrels returned. As last year was a nut year for bitter acorns, the squirrels would have become plentiful if it had not been for the gunners.
Ward Eight has been cursed by a State law. Rockport and the seven wards of Gloucester, on the east side of Annisquam River, and the town of Essex on the west, were given a close time on all kinds of land game for five years. Ward Eight was the only outlet for the gunners in a population of forty-five thousand. Every living thing wearing fur or feathers was shot at, song and insectivorous birds as well as lawful game. Almost total extermination has been the result of this unwise legislation.
One of my first ventures was a flower garden. I had trailed a few vines over the cabin, and had planted a small bed of favorite garden flowers. The summer visitors offered to buy the flowers, and I saw an opening for another year. I cleared away a small spot for a garden, and made me a hotbed, so the next year, and for the seven following years, I drove a thriving trade in cut flowers. This flower business did not leave me much time for gadding the woods.
The care and sale of flowers, and my last trip to Ipswich Bay, decided me to discard my gun. The study of the wild things at the muzzle of a shotgun did not give me the satisfaction I thought I could obtain in some other way. I found the Bay shooting was expensive, and the birds, which were mostly coots, were not edible so far as I was concerned.
My last trip to Ipswich Bay convinced me that I did not care for such unsatisfactory dangerous sport. I had engaged a young man, and he had hired a gunning boat and decoys for one day. We embarked at the Cut Bridge about midnight. We rowed down the stream, and at daylight crossed the bar at the mouth of the river. While we were crossing the bar I saw several boats returning. I hailed the nearest to find out why they were coming back. "Too much wind," was the answer.
"I SHOT TWO DUCKS.”
I should have turned back with the crowd, but like most any other tenderfoot, I did not understand the danger. We anchored in the Bay, and put out our decoys. I was pleased to see that we had the shooting to ourselves. Not a boat was in sight. I shot two ducks, and we slipped our anchor and picked them up inside of five minutes. When we essayed to return to our decoys, I found that the wind was kicking up a rough sea. I think we were over an hour getting back to the decoys. After this the wind increased, and the choppy sea begun to look ugly. The boat took in water, and we realized that we were in danger of being swamped at any moment. The young man wanted to leave the anchor and decoys, and make for the bar. I was ready to go, but refused to leave the decoys. I knew that I would have them to pay for, and there was a good reason for taking them on board: they would help to keep the boat afloat. The young fellow bailed the boat, while I pulled in the decoys. We got under way, and for two hours we had all we could do to keep our boat from going ashore on the rocks. We did not get to the bar. At the end of two hours there came a lull in the wind, and we gradually worked the boat toward the bar. When we saw a big wave coming, we swung the boat bow on, and thus kept from being swamped. After a terrible struggle, we crossed the bar and made fast to a boat-landing in the river just in time to escape from a fierce tornado. If we had encountered such wind while in the bay, some other fellow would have told this story.
I did not get home until after dark. Supper over, I turned to my note-book, and the record made was a sorry one. Expense three dollars, without a pound of meat that I could eat, or the memory of sport enjoyed, to offset, and besides, I had barely escaped with my life.
This I thought was due to my love of the gun. There was another waste of time which I laid to the door of the gun. I would feel uneasy mornings, until at last I would compromise with myself, by thinking that I would go out for two hours, and then certainly return and put away the gun. I am sorry to have to admit that it was usually the gloom of night that sent me back to the cabin. I hardly think that the gun should be held wholly guilty. My love for nature, and the keen enjoyment of finding wild flowers, little wayward brooks, or huge masses of bed rock hid away in the deep recesses of the woods, accounted for much of the time spent. However, I sold my gun, and did my hunting with note-book and pencil.
The pupils from the High School botanical class flocked to the woods about my cabin in search for flowers to identify and mount.
I was employed by the parents of some of these pupils to gather specimens and tag them with their Latin names. This method saved the pupil a lot of trouble, but it did not tend to advance the knowledge of botany. It occupied some of my time in the spring months, and gave me the pleasure of searching the woods without thinking that I was wasting my time.
It must be remembered that during my eighteen years of hermit life, I have been obliged to earn my living expenses, and to feed the wild things that come to my cabin dooryard as well. Referring to my note-book, I find that the last item foots up nearly four hundred dollars, but there are some rebates. I mounted one raccoon, many birds and squirrels, the receipts for which lessened the debtor side of the ledger.
I find that my note-book is filled with notes on flowers and other things besides birds. Early in the spring, or at other times, when the frost was coming out of the ground, I noticed that the stones, or small rocks, in the grassy highway did not fit their beds. There would be a space around each stone; the width of the space would be gauged by the shape of the stone. If the stone was conical, the space would be quite noticeable. If round, the space was much smaller. I suppose the cause was expansion, owing to the freezing of the ground. It was the water in the ground that expanded, carrying the dirt and rocks with it. Under the influence of a thaw, the rocks dropped back to their beds, leaving a space because the part of the rock above the ground is almost always smaller than the part underground. That is, a rock stands on its base and not on its apex.
Another thing that has puzzled me is the behavior of dead pine-limbs. One would suppose a dead limb ought to remain decently quiet and not move about like some living thing. I had occasion to make a path through a thick growth of small pines. The dead limbs extended on each tree from the ground to a height of ten feet. I broke off the limbs so I could pass under them without trouble. After the path was completed, it turned cold for two days. When I undertook to pass that way during the cold spell, the dead limbs were so much depressed that I was obliged to break the path anew.
I experimented on dead limbs at different times, and found it was a fact that lifeless pine-limbs will fall in cold and rise in warm weather. I am unable to give a reason for this movement.
On my way to the city, the first wild flower to greet me in the spring is the snowy white bloom of the shadbush, or June-berry, as it is called here. It grows in great masses all along the old highway. Bond's Hill is pretty well covered with a variety unknown to any botany. I have referred this variety of the Amelanchier to some of our professors in botany. I suppose in time it will find its place in the botanical works. It grows like the dwarf blueberry, fruiting when less than a foot in height. Some patches of this low variety cover two square rods or more.
After the shadbush is in full bloom, the other early wild flowers, that grow beside the old road, come into bloom in rapid succession. As I pass along to or from the city, I see in the distance patches of white which, if I did not know better, would lead me to think that I had discovered some beautiful low white flower. When I reach the spot I find it is spring everlasting (Antennaria plantaginifolia). I give the scientific name of this insignificant flower, because every spring scores of woodland ramblers bring it to me and ask its name. Early in the spring the flower is a very good white, but as the season advances, it becomes a dirty greenish white. The stem is cottony and the leaves, when young, are covered with a silky wool. With age, the leaves become green above and grayish below. One should make its acquaintance early in the spring, before other and better flowers become plentiful.
There is a clump of bushes near the brook that attracts my attention early. It is the fly honeysuckle. The pale green leaves appear while other shrubs can boast only swelling buds. Later, its slender branches are covered with honey-colored bell-shaped flowers. The flowers hang in pairs, and are airy and graceful.
On a hillside, near the road, the slender but wiry wild columbine swings its Chinese lanterns above its humble neighbors, the star-flower and the windflower. Near Western Avenue, where the bed rock overlooks the harbor, the cliffs are white with saxifrage. Scattered along the old highway may be found the common cinquefoil. Its yellow flower looks like a strawberry blossom, and strawberry blossom it is to most persons. If one is in doubt let him or her place the two side by side. The strawberry leaves are in three divisions, while the cinquefoil is in five. The stems of the strawberry are hairy, while the stems of cinquefoil are clean, brown, and wiry. The silvery cinquefoil grows all along the roadsides of Western Avenue, from the Cut to the drawbridge.
In late spring and early summer the viburnums afford a mass of bloom that makes the old road look like a cultivated shrub garden. Here the wild roses are a blaze of color. I do not believe that there is another spot on earth where the wild roses can compete with those on Cape Ann.
The city end of the old highway in mid-summer is white with the fragrant bloom of the sweet pepperbush. Then, too, the wild orange-red lily takes possession of the roadsides and waste places.
It is marvellous, that for one hundred and fifty years, this deserted old highway has maintained an existence.
Brave Old Road! You are gullied by frost and flood; you are worried by catbrier and choked by brambles. You are cursed by poison-ivy, and blessed by climbing woodbine. By night, yours is the highway of the skunk, the weasel, the raccoon, the fox, the mink, the woodchuck, and the rabbit. By day, the grouse and quail seek your grassy spots for food, and your tiny brooks for water. Birds of all kinds nest and sing in the shrubby growth that borders your roadsides. May you never lose the wildness, which, for one hundred and fifty years, you have rescued from civilization.
I have mentioned poison-ivy and woodbine. It is easy to tell one from the other. Poison-ivy has three leaflets, and the woodbine has five. When leafless, examine the method of climbing. The stem of the poison-ivy is covered thickly with fine rootlets, while the stem of the woodbine is sparingly supplied with tendrils by which it clings and climbs.
Thoreau writes: "It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild apple." Again, "What is sour in the house, a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these apples might be labelled 'to be eaten in the wind.'"
I suppose my taste must be "savage or wild," for I do appreciate wild apples. I don't know the wild apple that Thoreau describes, but those that grow lavishly in the woods of Cape Ann are not to be despised. I think I am safe in claiming that one-half of the wild trees bear sweet fruit. Many of the other half bear cooking-apples as good, or better, than can be found in most cultivated orchards. I know of several trees that bear fruit resembling the Baldwin in color and taste, and not much inferior in size. In a secluded spot, where a ledge on one side and a dense mass of catbrier on all other sides hides it from prying eyes, stands a wild apple-tree. Its fruit has no peer in woods or orchard. It is large, with a thin skin greenish-yellow in color. To the taste it is slightly acid, with a rich spicy flavor. Only three wood-folk know the secret of this wild apple-tree. A grouse, a rabbit, and a hermit. The grouse nests just over the ledge, the rabbit has a burrow underneath the mass of catbrier, and the hermit nests in the open air, and lives close to Nature, too.
Sometimes farmers with orchards offer to load me with windfalls, and are incredulous when I tell them that I have an abundant supply of apples, as good as those on their best trees. I am the proud owner of an orchard as well as the farmer, and my orchard gives greater enjoyment. The farmer visits his orchard to see how the fruit is setting. It is a humdrum affair. He walks down this row and up that, so the inspection is soon over. It takes me several days to inspect my orchard, while each night I return loaded with wild flowers and experience. There are no stiff rows to follow. My orchard is laid out without regard to quadrangles or triangles. It is Nature's plan, engineered on a grand scale, to supply the wants of the greatest number of her wild children, the mice, rabbits, grouse, robins, quail, squirrels, and woodchucks.
Where cattle are pastured in the woods, the evolution of an apple-tree, as described by Thoreau, is going on now as it did in his day. During the eighteen years of my hermit life some of the trees have emancipated themselves, and now toss their branches above their old enemies. The cattle, however, coolly appropriate the fruit of the trees they had so persistently tried to browse to death.
