462 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
f June 13, im- 
Growing Old. 
It is only ten o'clock of a fresh June morning, yet I 
am lying on a lounge under an open window, listening 
dreamily to the merrj' jingle of the bobolinks in the 
meadow and the broken song o£ a robin "singin' for rain," 
as our country folks say. As the sailor whistles for a 
breeze to fill his flagging sail, so robin whistles for rain 
that shall bring up worms to fill his own crop and that of 
his brooding mate. I am reminded of my neighbor's re- 
mark yesterday: "The' haint only oncte in a while a 
robin 'at sings naowerdays, an' the bobolinks don't sing a 
mite as they uster. The' uster be oncte in a while one 
'at sung diff'rent from t'others, an' we uster call 'em 
Frenchmen, but naow they all sing that way!" 
It is true there is only one robin singing now; but it is 
late in the season for them to be singing at all, except 
in the early morning, and surely this one sings the old 
cheery song— "Europe ! Europe! Europe!" — just as robins 
sang when I was a boy, which was not so many years ago, 
though. As for the bobolinks, their blythe melody jingles 
to the same medley of words we set it to when we were 
as care-free as the pied revellers themselves that flitted 
and hovered over us and the daisies and buttercups where 
their nests were hid that we never could find. 
"Colink, coler! Old England, New England! Tackle 
me, tackle me, kiss me sweet — sweet — sweetly !" It is 
no more the patois of Canadian habitants now than it 
was then. Whatever the invasion of these northern 
aliens may have done to us, it has not changed the Eng- 
lish of our bobolinks. 
I begin to suspect that my neighbor is arriving at that 
stage of his journey wherein nothing of the present or the 
future seems so good as what lies in the past. Yet that 
can hardly be, for he is not a year older than I am. 
There is a sound of approaching footsteps, heavy and 
deliberate, recognized at once as those of the hired man, 
which are^moderate but at meal time or when the chores 
are overtaken by sundown. There is a clink of a hoe on 
the stones, the tap of the handle on the well curb, the 
creak of wheel and axle, the hollow thump and final 
splash of the bucket's descent, then its dripping ascent, 
a period of silence followed by a long, gusty sigh of satis- 
faction. Then he addresses the hired girl, whose noisy 
work ceases while she feeds her eyes upon him from the 
kitchen door or pantry window. There is a growing ten- 
derness between them, fostered by frequent whispered in- 
terviews wherein our interests languish. I noticed last 
night a protracted sorting of beans for to-day's dinner 
as I passed through the "wash room," that lasted until 
good beans were not to be distinguished from bad ones 
in the deepening twilight, and I could hear, as I sat in 
the kitchen with my pipe, much stirring and groping in 
the pan by hands that are not mates, and the patter and 
rattle of beans slacken between intervals of mumbled 
words that disguised speech more effectively than whis- 
pering. 
"Wal," he now drawls in a tone indicative of weari- 
ness of well-doing, "I got his sweet cawn all hoed, I 
wonduh what he wants me tuh fly to next?" You might 
know he came from "over the mountain" by his treatment 
of the letter R, as no born western Vermonter uses it. 
"I wonduh wheuh the ol' man is, anyway?" 
What old man, I wonder. I have not heard of any aged 
person about the place to-day. Suddenly it dawns upon 
me that from his point of view I may be considered 
worthy of this disrespectfully venerable title. 
Can it be possible that I really am so? It was such a 
little while ago that my mates and I were boys at play 
beneath the rollicking bobolinks. Only a little while ago. 
Let me count the years. Nigh on to fifty! How many 
of my playmates are left? Of the boys who can answer 
to roll call? Here there is only my old neighbor who 
criticises the songs of the bobolinks. Some are gone 
quite out of the world, almost out of the memory of living 
men, and some the great cities and the great West have 
taken almost as completely beyond our ken. So, too, the 
girls have drifted out of our knowledge, all but two or 
three, and they gather no more buttercups and daisies, 
and all the roses of youth have faded out of their cheeks. 
It is but a little while since they were blooming. 
Yet in that time how many things have happened! 
What strange things, grown familiar— the shriek of 
the locomotive, contact with the busy outer world, the 
hum of the electric wire, news but a day old from the 
furthermost parts of the earth ! It is as new and strange 
as were all these to be called an old man. 
I shall become accustomed to it, even in my own speech. 
As I con in memory the old song of the bobolinks, I do 
miss something in this later melody, and must confess 
there are not so many robins singing, as in myself I miss 
the jo)^ousness of youth and its delight in mere existence. 
It is pleasanter to look backward than forward, for noth- 
ing is quite so good as it once was, nor ever will be again. 
Yes, the hired man was quite right in asking for the 
old man, and I must accept the title with all that it im- 
plies as gracefully as possible. At least I can have the 
consolation of bragging about things of the past to the 
young fellows, and among many doubters find few who, 
out of their own experience, can dispute my assertions 
concerning, for instance, the partridges that once thronged 
the now barren woods; the ducks that swarmed in the 
deserted marshes, or the big fish that crowded each other 
in streams in whose shrunken waters the minnows are 
lonely. 
Better than this, I may be sure that for many a one the 
bobolinks are singing as blythely as ever they did for me, 
and for them there are as many robins as ever there were. 
Rowland E. Robinson. 
Down in Mississippi. 
"Nigger — Hey, you nigger!" It was a white man's 
voice and the target for it was shambling along the 
muddy street in that shaky, pottering fashion, that 
marks the plantation negro of medium age from every 
other varietj' of the genus Homo yet discovered. To 
Northern ears this abrupt and rather vigorous saluta- 
tion carried with it visions of flying brick bats and a 
general session of "rough house," but the meek and 
gentle rejoinder, "What yo' want, boss?" set at rest all 
thoughts of trouble, and convinced one quicker than 
would an atlas and a railroad guide that we were in the 
land of the "Cotton and the Cane," well to the south of 
"Mason and Dixon's line." Yes, we were in Missis- 
sippi at last and waiting impatiently about the village 
for the arrival of the team that was to haul our party 
of Ohioans, bag and baggage, out to "the plantation," 
on the far bank of the "Tippo." We had been three 
nights and as many days on the road, had crossed the 
State of Ohio from Toledo (our home) to Cincinnati, 
and the States of Kentucky and Tennessee to Chatta- 
nooga, and after a night's rest in the latter city, had 
bowled along the rails to Greenwood, Miss., and then 
eighteen miles further next day, over a little "jerk 
water" line to the town of Phillip, Tallahatchie county. 
Our party of three consisted of tried and time-tested 
companions, who had shared the pleasures and priva- 
tions of other lands together. The Patriarch, whose 
flowing white beard marked his eightieth year, had 
lashed the mules down in Arkansas a few seasons be- 
fore and furnished expletives meantime, while the 
Judge and the Yachtsman — standing in mud to their 
knees, pried up the rear wheels of the wagon with a 
fence rail (used as a lever of the second kind), and all 
three had dipped cornmush out of the same pot and 
taken turns at building camp-fire on the frosty mornings 
down in the cypress swamps of the White River coun- 
try. We had come down to "Ole Mississippi" to try 
for "big game," and the slow progress made in getting 
to our chosen location was rather trying. 
Reader, were you ever hung up in a Southern lum- 
ber hamlet with a contract on your hands to kill time 
till further orders? No? Well, don't undertake such 
a deal if it can be avoided. A sawmill and cotton press 
both asleep — a hotel that is closed for want of busi- 
ness, some piles of railroad ties along the track, a strag- 
gling row of small frame houses and a bunch of idle, 
noisy negroes constitute the points of interest in the 
dull winter season, and time hangs on one's hands like 
the old man of the sea to the back of Sinbad, and 'tis 
scarcely safe to rely on Sinbad's remedy either, for the 
liquor down this way is wild, woollj-^ and raw, and 
there's no particular point in pouring it down the other 
MYSTERY AND MIRROR EFFECT. 
fellow (old Sinbad) when you have the blues yourself. 
A few hours of waiting sufficed for the Judge and the 
Yachtsman. 'Twas three or four miles out to "the 
plantation," and a sea of mud and the "Tippo" were 
between, but they set out afoot about an hour before 
dark and soon disappeared up the muddy road, wading 
through the semi-liquid alluvium knee deep here and 
there. 
Along about dark there came a team of mules hitched 
to a farm wagon and driven by a negro, who announced 
that the outfit lielonged to Massa F , and that he 
would be ready to start as soon as the wagon was 
loaded. The loading process accomplished, a man and 
woman appeared (relations of the planter), and with 
four people and a wagon box full of baggage the trip 
began. Darkness settled down over the scene ere the 
lights of the town were left behind, and stillness 
reigned supreme, broken only by the splash of the ani- 
mals' hoofs and the creaking of the wagon as it 
groaned its way slowly over hummocks of partly dried 
mud, or plunged forward into a 'chuck hole, shifting the 
cargo in sudden fashion and threatening the passengers 
with a plunge into the mud. The Patriarch is not much 
given to expostulations, and is, indeed, an exceedingly 
quiet personage (save when engaged in starting a pair 
of obstreperous mules in a mud hole), but when the 
good ship of the prairie, with a mighty lurch to star- 
board, went over on her beam ends almost, all but 
carrying away the deck load and allowing a wash of 
Mississippi mud to come in over the leeward rail, mid 
DOWN ON THE TIPPO FAR AWAY. 
the screams of the lady passenger, the hoarse shouts 
of the negro driver and the cracking of his whip, the 
Patriarch mildly declared that the passage reminded 
him of Maumee Bay in a nor-easter. 
A short distance out the darkness became absolutely 
impenetrable, and the driver had his hands full at keep- 
ing the team in the road. In spite of his efforts the 
mules would stagger out of the beaten track, causing 
much annoyance, but no particular damage, for the 
road itself was neither better nor worse for traction 
purposes than the surrounding country. However, the 
road led to an intended destination, and the surround- 
ing country might lead most anywhere, so it was 
deemed best to keep in the road if possible. A flicker- 
ing light ahead indicated a habitation, and upon arriv- 
ing in front of it, the driver pulled up and prevailed 
upon the occupant to lend him a lantern, and with this 
in hand one of the party led the way on foot, and thus 
guided, Sambo and the pair of illegitimate members 
of the genus Equus made much better work of it, and 
slowly tolled off the three miles and more that lie be- 
tween Philipp and the "Tippo." 
The soil of this region is something never to be for- 
gotten once you make its acquaintance in the wet sea- 
son. Black as Erebus, sticky as shoemaker's wax and 
deep as the bottomless pit — yet drying out and becom- 
ing even dusty in season and yielding fine crops of cot- 
ton and corn — when nature smiles. The whole neigh- 
borhood is of alluvial structure, and in its time com- 
posed the bed of the mighty Mississippi before that 
great artery had shrunk to its present proportions, and 
as the shrinking process developed, vast areas of silt 
and clay were deposited in rather uneven fashion, form- 
ing ridges and hollows for us mortals to climb over 
and wallow through in these later day's. The ridges 
nature has taken possession of for the purpose of fish- 
pole culture, and thus it is that "cane brakes" cover 
much of the land lying above high-water mark, forcing 
the woodsman to take to the bottom lands when moving 
about the country. This is all simple enough in dry 
weather, but when the bottom lands are several feet 
under water it is a different matter. 
Much has been written and related about the "Im- 
passable Cane Brakes," but no one ever appreciated the 
full meaning of the word impassable, until he has tried 
to force his way along or through a "brake." A 
hatchet or stout sharp knife and time are the only 
antidotes, and even these give little satisfaction to the 
person making the application. "Go way around," 
never through, is the maxim one soon learns to re- 
member. 
The "cane" is, however, the Southern planter's close 
friend, for it furnishes his live stock with fodder during 
the long fall and winter months. The leaves remain 
green the year through, and must contain a great deal 
of nutriment, for the mules looked sleek and trim, and 
the cows, who have nothing else given them, came up 
to the house each night during our stay with udders 
well filled with milk. Their young calves tied to the 
fence all day, were sure of an evening meal, and while 
the calf, occupying one side of its mother, proceeded 
to extract its food supply from that side, the young 
lady of the household, tin cup in hand, made strenuous 
and successful efforts to extract on the other sufficient 
trimmings for our coffee. The flavor of the milk, 
while not equal to that produced from clover and tim- 
othy, is a decided improvement over the wild flavored 
article evolved from the mesquite chapparal of West 
Texas, or the bitter almond kind given up by the goats 
of old Mexico after a day's browse on maguey stems, 
sage brush and prickly pear. 
But the "Tippo" can't be far away now, for the road 
