^42 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
tMARCH 31, 1900, 
Back in Fancy t(ir the Old Brook. 
The day has been dark and cold aod dreary, and in the 
moil and turmoil of business cares came weariness of mind 
and body; but home firesides have their charms, and this 
evening I have been reading back numbers of Forest 
AND Stream. I have been down in old Virginia with 
Charles Hallock and Lewis Hopkins; in far-off Hawaii 
ill company with Llewella Pierce Churchill — and fine 
company she is indeed. I have been out on the Kansas 
prairie with Pine Tree and back with him to the Hatfield 
Meadows. I have been up in Danvis with Sewh Level's 
boy Bub, smelt fishing in the Chicago Riv«r with E. 
Hough, and with myself, wandering in the October sun- 
shine among the Adirondack balsams. Maybe I think 
the flame in the grate is a camp-fire, or the terra cotta 
cameos of the deer and iduck on the fagade of the fire- 
place are alive; but there is a picture on the mantel of a 
little home beside the brook in the Old Bay State, and 
a few years ago a desire to see the old stream and to 
visit those who called me "brother" and "uncle" took 
me back to it, and now in my fancy I go over it again. 
You may come along with me, but do not get lost. 
Early in the morning we are digging worms beneath 
the sink spout, and little four-year-old Raloh hears his 
mother's voice from the window, saying, "Ralph, keep 
out of the dirt," and he winks arid says to us, "How can 
you get worms and no dirt?" A robin straining to 
pull a worm from. the 
sod attracts our at- 
tention, and Ralph 
says, "If that worm 
breaks red robin will 
sit on his tail." The 
little boy's legs are 
too short for a long 
tramp, and profnis- 
ing to bring home a 
supper of fish, we 
leave him. and turn- 
ing back after a while 
see his arm and hat 
waving "good luck" 
from the top of the 
wood pile. They are 
plowing the fields 
now, and the rooster 
leads his flock close 
behind the team, in 
the furrow of the 
plow, and he deals out 
grubs and worms as 
condescendingly _ as 
a dude clerk giving 
away souvenirs at a 
rycle show. We are 
on the brook bank 
new, and from that 
pool many years ago 
Tve extracted horn 
pouts, perch, pickerel 
.3T i mayoe an eel or 
i turtle. Over the 
narrow path we tied 
the grass tops to trip 
up the unwary. Over 
in yonder wood we 
gathered sassafras 
root and checker- 
berry chinks and 
played "Indian." 
There in the turnout 
on the roadway the 
thirsty horses drink 
from the cool stream, 
while the wagon 
wheels soak up the 
moisture to keep the tires from rattling. The brook, 
which seemed when we were boys to be a river. 
Where snakes grew up from horse hairs, 
T And frogs from pollywogs; 
. j. ■ Where ships were sailed by corsairs. 
And turtles grew on logs, 
now seems dwarfed, and the barns, that looked so large, 
are nothing but sheds. But the grass is as green, the lilies 
smell as sweet and the birds sing as of old. The lark 
carols reveille at daybreak, the bobolink the assembly, 
the robin "sounds off" at retreat, and in the hush of 
nightfall the whippoorwill calls tattoo and taps, and all 
lights go out but the stars and fireflies. 
Come over to that blackened rock on the mound in the 
meadow. When they board up the dam in the winter the 
water rises to help the cranberry crop for the coming 
year, and to make the ice for cutting and for the skaters. 
The mound and rock are left above the ice, and there in 
the moonlight the skaters build the beacon of hilarity, and 
clasping hands in an endless chain dance around the fire 
in the moonlight singing, 
"High jib along, jib along a Josi«, 
'' High jib along, jib along a Joe. 
Th^ence rails and railroad ties grow scarce, and even 
now we can see the burnt spikes "rising phoenix-like 
from the ashes." Do you remember the old skates, bound 
on with straps, and the runner irons, scroll-like, turning 
up over the foot? Then came those that ran a screw 
up into the boot heel and compelled you to carry a 
"gimblet" in your pocket. After that came an improved 
kind; but things have changed since Hannah died, and 
we do not get a skate oft now. But "Don't you remem- 
ber sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?" Don't you remember how 
Vou walked home with her in the snowy road — walked 
with her in the moonlight, after the hours of skating — 
how you stood at the gate, and just as four warm lips and 
two blue noses were about to touch you heard a tap on 
the window elass and saw a white-robed parent part the 
curtains? "Oh, I dinnaw," yQU say, but 70U 4id not get 
fhe kiss, did yOH?" , ^ , ' '" , 
It was a cold night, but it is spring time now, and with 
the aid of stones in the brook bed we can leap it where 
the pussy willows grow, and up there on the hill is the 
old brown school house. "Thar ye suffe'd sevarely." 
Didn't you put a bent pin in the seat of the lank lad 
before you, and didn't you hold down the nail in the 
worn aisle with your forefinger as punishment — one of 
those nails that stood up with polished head above the 
worn boards because it was of harder stuflf, and while en- 
during the torture with bent back and unbended knees 
didn't the big boys in the back seat use the broad patch 
in your knickerbockers as a target for spit-balls? You 
had to sit with the girls because you wrote notes to them ; 
you cars^ed your name on the rough pine benches; you 
drowned flies in the ink-well, and called it the "black 
hole of Calcutta." You did not know at that time that 
the long stovepipe distilled pyroligneous acid, and that 
the pans suspended at the joints were there to catch it; 
but you knew how much cord wood the box stove con- 
sumed when it was your day to feed it. 
The country school house will take care of itself. Come 
back to the brook again, where imaginative boys formed 
anew the Macedonian army, and with the broad leaves of 
the skunk cabbage making the testudo, and the dried 
stems of the cat-o'-nine-tails for spears, the phalanx of 
Alexander the Great charged across the Granicus and 
defeated an imaginary Persian army on the heights above. 
On that little island was the City of Tyre, and we captured 
it over and over again, and slew the inhabitants every 
time. This brook was our River Styx, and we were sus- 
pended in it, heels and all, and unlike Achilles, had no 
vulnerable parts. Memnon and Agamemnon were there. 
'th£ OtD BROOK.* 
We saw Philotas on the rack and Parmenio stabbed. 
Alexander the Great killed Clitus with the javelin and 
then died a drunkard di'inking brook water. I nick- 
named you Ben Bolt back down the stream, and Ben 
Bolt you are. The five pickerel that you pulled from 
under the arches of the shady stone railroad bridge show 
that you were the better fisherman ; but you kindly allowed 
me to carry them in my creel — five and two are seven 
pickerel, and five perch besides; that is a meal for four at 
least. 
Six miles down the road is a magnificent lake. The 
water is as clear and blue as the sky above and as cool 
as a shady spring. There is no detritus on the shore — 
no dead branches or leaves — ^just white sand and stony 
depths, and the line of union of forest and lake is as 
distinct as the edge of the iris in the blue of the baby's 
eyes. Here transcendentalist Thoreau lived alone, while 
he grew beans around his hut and "Galway sluggers" 
around his throat. He was a dreamy hermit, a Concord 
philospher, and not a conquered benedict. Had he en- 
joyed some good woman's society maybe he would have 
thought differently, but as it was he ran no risk of being 
stabbed with a hat pit or of being awakened in the night 
to fix an unruly nursing bottle. Concord people have 
their own ideas, though some of them think that Emerson 
willed his intellect to them, but are unable to prove it, 
Thoreau loved the lake, the birds, the trees and shrubs — 
everything but the shriek of the iron horse; and it 
seems sad to think that after particularly describing his 
three-legged table the book illustrators should add an- 
other leg. Some book makers do make trouble. 
Two miles from the lake, through the woods and fields, 
sleeps sleeping Concord, and there Emerson wrote as 
only he could. I see his home now in memory — ^low- 
roofed, beneath the trees, where the road parts for Lin- 
coln and Lexington; and one day after the panic of '57 
I was driving by with my father, and said to him, "There 
is Mr. Emerson walking under the trees deep in thought." 
My sire looked and said sadly, "He is as deep in thought 
as I am in debt. My boy, you will be happy in propor- 
tion as you keep out of either condition," and I have 
lived long enough to verify the pld gentleman's pre- 
diction. 
Well, Ben Bolt, we will walk back up the track, like 
two broken barn-stormers, to the brook once more; but 
before we leave the track, look at the ruins of the shanty' 
in the sandpit. It was once a home— "Squatters," they 
call them. They had to squat; poverty would not let themi 
rise. Yet in that shanty of old boards, ties and tin were 
born five bits of humanity, four of whom developed intot 
able and good citizens. Playing on a freight train cut out 
one at twelve, and I remember him as the bravest Httlei 
Irish lad that ever blacked an eye or chased the quiet 
shadows in the fields. By the by, Ben Bolt, have yoii 
ever read Blackmore's "Lorna Doone"? If you have not, 
there is a blank in your life, Blackmore died a few weeks, 
ago, and Lorna will live on forever. We cannot follow' 
the brook through that swamp unless we have a boat or. 
the swamp be frozen. We have to go around^ and there 
I will show you just such a place as Blackmore de- 
scribed, and you can think yourself John Ridd. Here' 
we are! Go in, go under the overhanging arch of the 
tree lirnbs that cover this Bagworthy stream. The light 
will shine in once in a while, as in the other. You will 
find the same black pit and pool, with the froth on the 
edges of it. There are no loaches here, but the horn pouts 
will stab your bare legs. You will hear the same roar, 
see the pale slide of water and understand why the pool 
is still in the center and swirling and frothy at the edge. 
The sun is setting! Gird up your breeches anew, as John 
did! Step into the rushing slope of water, and your feet 
will come out from under you; but the stafif of your 
landing net will save you from the pool, as the loach 
stick saved John! Hang on by toe-nail and eyebrow— 
up, up the sloping torrent and slipping stonesl Pray the 
Lord's Prayer, as 
John did, if you can 
remember it, and be 
willing to die at last, 
; so that your legs will 
j ache no more! Cour- 
age, man! there i,5 
light at the top in the 
dense foliage! You 
will get there with 
barked shins, but you 
will not meet lovely 
black-eyed Lorna — 
just a bald-headed old 
friend, who has the 
laugh on you ! 
Well, you have done 
it, but you are tired 
out, and I will loan 
you 15 cents when we 
get down to the rail- 
road station in the 
village, and you can 
ride down to the start- 
ing point, I will 
wa'k and go through 
the west village road- 
ways. Good-by. 
I am wandering 
alone along the coun- 
try road now between 
the hamlets. The rob- 
ins sing in the gloam- 
ing, and the light of 
day is fading in the 
west, and this part of 
the world, turning 
east, silently enters 
the shadows of the 
night. The blossoms 
of the wild flowers on 
the roadside are hid- 
den from sight, but 
the locust blossoms 
and the wild honey- 
suckle fill the air of 
the arched valley 
road with nectar. 
, . , , , . Some wild thing that 
sees m the night rustles the brush in the roadside as I 
walk along, but I fear not. 
Hark! What is that sound rolling in through the trees 
over the meadows and hills? It is the sound of the same 
old church bell— the same bell that Thoreau heard from 
Walden! It is the Angelus of early days, and after a 
pause It comes agam— another pause, and again, and so 
on until 78 are counted! "Some one told the sexton and 
the sexton tolled the bell." Some Whitcomb, Wetherbee 
Hayward or Hapgood— a Matthew, Mark, Luke or John 
has passed into the keeping of Him who, "Watching over 
Israel, slumbers not or sleeps." Perhaps it be a Blanch- 
ard, Tuttle or Hosmer, surnamed Hezekiah, Uriah or 
Phinias. It is all the same whoever it may be, "Man 
that is ^born of a woman is of few days and fnll of 
trouble." There are many troubles, many burdens to 
bear in this world, and no one of ordinary birth gets out 
of it alive. There is only one end, and one destination^ 
but, while here, much can be done to make light the yoke' 
and the fields and the forests and streams make up a 
saddle cloth that keeps many a back from blistering, and 
down in that hollow vale, where the brook runs under the 
bridge and the bridge runs over the brook, the choristers 
of the evening— the katydid, the cricket and the frog- 
sing to me as I lean on the bridge rail, "Katy did Katy 
didn't, chirp, cheer up." "Tr-r-r-oonk," down in the 
pads below, and "Tr-r-r-oonk," comes back from away 
up stream, and the whippoorwill on the swamp border 
takes up the cry of exultation, and its mate ansv^ers 
plaintively from the monument in the cemetery and in 
the gloaming, on the hilltops, a belated cow is lowing 
and the voice comes down and my eyes go up and see 
her magnified dimensions on the evening horizon, as she 
hurries home. Should I stay here long enough "l could 
say with Longfellow, 
"T stood on the bridge at midnight . • 
While _the clock was striking the hour," 
and would hear the hoo-hoo-hoo-hooree-hoo of the hoot 
owl in reply. But T cannot stay. "There is a light in the 
window for thee, brother," and I must hurry home 
Many years ago there was a path— a short cut throuffh 
the woods. It is easy to find the entrance, "but every 
