Part 13 (2/2)

Over what? Mending our trout-rods, of course. It is pretty work, calling for strength and precision of grasp, and as he winds and winds, adjusting all the little bra.s.s leading-rings, or supplying new ones, and staying points in the bamboo where he suspects weakness, we talk over last years trout-pools, and wonder what they will be like this year.

But beyond wonder we do not get, often for weeks after the trout season is, legislatively, open. Jonathan is busy. I am busy. We know that, if April pa.s.ses, there is still May and June, and so, if at the end of April, or early May, we do at last pick up our rods,all new-bedight with red silk windings, and s.h.i.+ny with fresh varnish,it is not alone the call of the trout that decides us, but another call which is to me at least more imperious, because, if we neglect it now, there is no May and June in which to heed it. It is the call of the arbutus.

Any one with New England traditions knows what this call is. Its appeal is to something far deeper than the love of a pretty flower. For it is the flower that, to our fathers and our grandfathers, and to their fathers and grandfathers, meant spring; and not spring in its prettiness and ease, appealing to the idler in us, nor spring in its melancholy, appealing toshall I say the poet in us? But spring in its blessedness of opportunity, its joyously triumphant life, appealing to the worker in us.

Here, of course, we touch hands with all the races of the world for whom winter has been the supreme menace, spring the supreme and saving miracle.

But each race has its own symbols, and to the New Englander the symbol is the arbutus.

This may seem a bit of sentimentality. And, indeed, we need not expect to find it expressed by any New England farmer. New England does not go out in gay companies to bring back the first blossoms. But New England does nothing in gay companies. It has been taught to distrust ceremonies and expression of any sort. It rejoices with reticence, it appreciates with a reservation. And yet I have seen a sprig of arbutus in rough and clumsy b.u.t.tonholes on weather-faded lapels which, the rest of the twelve-month through, know no other flower. And when, in unfamiliar country, I have interrupted the ploughing to ask for guidance, I usually get it:Arbutus?

Yaas. Thes a lot of it up along that hillside and in the woods over beyondt was out last week, some of it, I happened to noticethis in the apologetic tone of one who admits a weaknessguess youll find all you want. I venture to say that of no other wild flower, except those which work specific harm or good, could I get such information.

To many of us, city-bred, the tradition comes through inheritance. It means, perhaps, the shy, poetic side of our fathers boyhood, only half acknowledged, after the New England fas.h.i.+on, but none the less real and none the less our possession. It means rare days, when the citywhose chiefest signs of spring were the flare of dandelions in yards and parks and the chatter of English sparrows on ivy-clad church wallswas left behind, and we were in the country. It was a country excitingly different from the country of the summer vacation, a country not deeply green, but warmly brown, and sweet with the smell of moist, living earth.

Green enough, indeed, in the spring-fed meadows and folds of the hills, where the early gra.s.s flashes into vividest emerald, but in the woods the soft mist-colored mazes of mult.i.tudinous twigs still show through their veilings and dustings of colorpalest green of birches, gray-green of poplar, yellow-green of willows, and redder tones of the maples; and along the fence-lines and roadsidesblessed, untidy fence-lines and roadsides of New Englanda fine penciling of red stemsthe cut-back maple bushes and tangled vines alive to their tips and just bursting into leaf. And everywhere in the woods, on fence-lines and roadsides, the white blossoms of the shad-blow, daintiest of spring trees,too slight for a tree, indeed, though too tall for a bush and looking less like a tree in blossom than like floating blossoms caught for a moment among the twigs. A moment only, for the first gust loosens them again and carpets the woods with their petals, but while they last their whiteness s.h.i.+mmers everywhere.

Such rare days were all blown through with the wonderful wind of spring.

Spring wind is really different from any other. It is not a finished thing, like the mellow winds of summer and the cold blasts of winter. It is an imperfect blend of s.h.i.+vering reminiscence and eager promise. One moment it breathes sun and stirring earth, the next it reminds us of old snow in the hollows, and bleak northern slopes.

When, on these days, the wind blew to us, almost before we saw it, the first greeting of the arbutus, it always seemed that the day had found its complete and satisfying expression. Every one comes to realize, at some time in his life, the power of suggestion possessed by odors. Does not half the power of the Church lie in its incense? An odor, just because it is at once concrete and formless, can carry an appeal overwhelmingly strong and searching, superseding all other expression. This is the appeal made to me by the arbutus. It can never be quite precipitated into words, but it holds in solution all the things it has come to meandear human tradition and beloved companions.h.i.+p, the poetry of the land and the miracle of new birth.

In late March or early April I am likely to see the first blossom on some friends tableI try not to see it first in a florists display! To my startled question she gives rea.s.suring answer, Oh, no, not from around here. This came from Virginia.

Days pa.s.s, and, perhaps, the mail brings some to me, this time from Pennsylvania or New Jersey, and soon I can no longer ignore the trays of tight, leafless bunches for sale on street corners and behind plate-gla.s.s windows. From York State, they tell me. I grow restive.

Jonathan, I say, holding up a spray for him to smell, weve got to go.

You cant resist that. Well take a day and go for itand trout, too.

It is as well that arbutus comes in the trout season, for to take a day off just to pick a flower might seem a little absurd. But, coupled with troutall is well. Trout is food. One must eat. The search for food needs no defense, and yet, the curious fact is, that if you go for trout and dont get any, it doesnt make so much difference as you might suppose, but if you go for arbutus and dont get any, it makes all the difference in the world. And so Jonathan knows that in choosing his brook for that particular day, he must have regard primarily to the arbutus it will give us and only secondarily to the trout.

Every one knows the kind of brook that is, for every one knows the kind of country arbutus loves.h.i.+lly country, with slopes toward the north; bits of woodland, preferably with pine in it, to give shade, but not too deep shade; a scrub undergrowth of laurel and huckleberry and bay; and always, somewhere within sight or hearing, water. It is curious how arbutus, which never grows in wet places, yet seems to like the neighborhood of water. It loves the slopes above a brook or the s.h.a.ggy hillsides overlooking a little pond or river.

Fortunately, there is such a brook, in just such country, on our list.

There are not so many trout as in other brooks, but enough to justify our rods; and not so much arbutus as I could find elsewhere, but enoughoh, enough!

To this brook we go. We tie Kit at the bridge, Jonathan slings on a fish-basket, to do for both, and I take a box or two for the flowers. But from this moment on our interests are somewhat at variance. The fact is, Jonathan cares a little more about the trout than about the arbutus, while I care a little more about the arbutus than about the trout. His eye is keenly on the brook, mine is, yearningly, on the ragged hillsides that roll up above it.

Jonathan feels this. There isnt any for two fields yetmight as well stick to the brook.

I know. I thought perhaps Id go on down and let you fish this part. Then Id meet you beyond the second fence

Oh, no, that wont do at all. Why, theres a rock just below heredown by that wild cherrywhere I took out a beauty last year, and left another. I want you to go down and get him.

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