330 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 27, 1910. 
self stern on to ns. That he was large I saw, 
but from where we were it whs impossible to 
say whether or not he carried large tusks. Al¬ 
most at that moment he turned. I fairly gasped 
with astonishment and for a moment forgot 
about shooting or trying to get nearer. He was 
sixty yards off, and as there was good cover I 
made up my mind to chance nothing, and if 
necessary to follow him for a week, but bag 
him I would. I had got., to within forty yards 
and was going to shoot, when without any cause 
that I could see something scared the cows, which 
started trumpeting and stampeding directly away 
from us, and the old bull was off in a moment 
“Riddle me, riddle me rocket,” 
That which the poor savage throws away, 
The antiquary puts in his pocket. 
I N the latter half of the last century, in every 
community of the West or of the Middle 
West, was to be found a type now passing. 
Intellectually pre-eminent in his community, or 
sometimes sharing that eminence with the minis¬ 
ter. stood the village doctor, known to all the 
country side, honored arid loved by some, hated 
by others, justly or unjustly, but always of 
forceful personality, if sometimes austere or 
autocratic. 
Did a traveler desire information or acquaint¬ 
ance with local topography, geology or antiqui¬ 
ties, the doctor had been first in the field. His 
stick had poked the flint from the farmer’s field, 
or the spade, in his own hands, had burrowed 
the mound in search of knowledge. In his 
library could be found those first gleams of that 
broader knowledge now spread to a wider field, 
and on his study desk and shelves reposed fos¬ 
sils, botanical specimens, “curiosities” and bugs 
awaiting identification. 
Jogging thoughtfully hither and yon over coun- 
try v roads in all weathers, behind the nag, by 
courtesy called the “pony,” his was the eye first 
to note glacial striae or non-conformity in rock 
formations, or that the rude-chiseled bowl used 
by the farmer for a horse trough had been cut 
from the quarry by a primitive workman at some 
time in the prehistoric past. 
The great museums at the centers of popula¬ 
tion, with their staffs of trained investigators, 
have now cornered the world’s knowledge, and 
the local student of phenomena or antiquities is 
stripped of honor and even authenticity in pass¬ 
ing. We who labored with him, however, can¬ 
not resist the desire for a glance backward at 
the well-remembered figure, the kindly, studious 
countenance arid generous, poetical temperament 
contrasted with the narrower, more specialized 
subdivisions of the sciences of the present day. 
The collection of “relics” and curios in the doc¬ 
tor’s cabinet were a labor of love, each sherd or 
rock reminiscent of the golden days wherein 
they were gathered in rambles by forest and 
stream, and about them clung the glamor of 
things yet to be revealed. 
The antiquary was no hard-headed pedant ex- 
before I could shoot. I had seen about £ 100 
in my hands and in one second it was gone. I 
reckoned it was no use following them up any¬ 
how for a time, and returned to camp. 
In the afternoon, as I was feeling far from 
well, I sent out Eli to report, but on his return 
he told me that they had gone a long way and 
fast, and evidently they had been badly fright¬ 
ened, as they had knocked down fairly big trees 
in their stampede. The following day I was 
not well enough to go out, so remained in camp 
and gave that lot up as a bad job, but my friend 
with the overcoat was far from satisfied, and 
I think I fell 100 per cent, in his estimation. 
pending his energy on problems of uniform no¬ 
menclature and classification. He was first of 
all a worker in the field of original research, and 
often a romanticist or dreamer. From the color¬ 
lessness of the prosaic life about him he fled to 
the silent places, and with his pick and shovel 
for keys unlocked the records of the centuries 
and dwelt therein, not among mummies, but in 
a world peopled as the world was when it was 
young. 
l'he golden hours of the days were never long 
enough; the tasks he attempted never finished. 
The uncertainty of the reward lent to his labor 
something of the charm a fisherman experiences 
when he feels a nibble, and nature ever showered 
upon him the blessings of her multiform moods. 
Some of the pictures brought back into the world 
from the golden days in enchanted forests dwell 
long in the memory. 
A forest of oak covered the hilltop, dark, 
majestic, silent; primeval growth, we called it, 
and many of the trees were already old when 
the pilgrims came. In the depth of the forest 
stood shapely mounds of the prehistoric dead— 
symmetrical, huge and generously spaced—one 
from another. 
Between the giant gray lichen-coated trees far 
down below lay the blue ribbon of the river, and 
beyond the blue and gold of distant horizon and 
valley, while on the other side a tangle of vines 
and rank grass led to a hay field aglow with 
sunshine, sweeping to a dark barrier of brush, 
sharp-lined against the blue of an August sky. 
Deep down in the tangle of briers lay the trail 
to the spring, which flowed part way down the 
hill, and dripping from ledge to ledge of the 
blue laminated stone, formed pools in the hollows. 
The distinguishing characteristics and area of 
each prehistoric center of culture by observation 
became known to the antiquary and were placed 
in time by this and by that deduction in such and 
such a period, and came to stand in his con¬ 
sciousness for definite ideas, so that what may 
have seemed to you to be August Lovell’s farm 
and Jim Smith’s vineyard and Orson Hunt’s 
gravel pit were in the doctor’s consciousness not 
farms and- vineyards and gravel pits at all, nor 
were there fences and docile munching cows by 
the way, but instead a wide free world and an 
unfettered people. 
In the black earth of river bottoms, where the 
young maize, fragrant with the damp of morn¬ 
ing dew, ran interminable lines until merged in 
a sea of green, where the river, outlined by syca¬ 
mores, curved backward in double loops, the 
doctor picked quaintly modeled sherds—lips and 
handles of broken pots, and sultry noon might 
find his gig still under a locust tree along the 
road. 
The far horizon of purple hills where dwelt 
the stone-grave people, quivered with heat, and 
save a rain toad or a cicada calling from the 
locust tree, no sound broke in upon the silence. 
The antiquary on his knees was uncovering 
ancient hearths and graves and “spiling a sight 
of Jim Bradfield's corn,” for which he would 
have to settle. 
The wide valley held in its lap and on its 
escarpments perhaps the most remarkable series 
of antiquities to be found anywhere within so 
small a compass, by reason "uf diversity in type 
and in point of time or period of occupation. 
While the valley was majestically broad and 
wonderfully fertile, the forests and brush along 
its hilltops and flanks enhanced its loveliness, 
and the river, though not a large stream, yet had 
wondrous beauty in its serpentine coursing from 
side to side. 
On the gravel terraces, sixty feet above, were 
the mounds of one cultural period, on the hills 
the stone graves of another, while the bottoms 
gave evidence of village habitation, extending 
miles along the valley with the dead of this lat¬ 
ter culture buried in graves or in pits close at 
hand. Remarkable finds were made in this val¬ 
ley of implements and ornaments and of detail 
of structure, and the light thrown upon the every 
day life of these ancient peoples would, if pub¬ 
lished-, make them live again historically in the 
valley they loved. The great mound, covering 
several acres, remains inviolate to this day, 
towering from the midst of a maize field, a 
sacred sentinel of the past. 
Who can forget the wild brier fragrance in 
the days of gray and gold when we worked in 
the trenches between showers and when the sun 
at intervals poured its steaming radiance upon 
us. Wisps of cloud lay clinging to the flanks of 
the far green hills and mellow lights and high 
lights and shadows tagged one upon another 
over the scene. There were other day» when 
out of a gray sky a drizzle, cold and persistent, 
blotted out the horizon and valley at the very 
time when photographs should be taken and per¬ 
ishable exposures of material protected. Be¬ 
numbed, with stiffened fingers, we welcomed the 
shelter of the tent. 
Equally is this true of certain recollections of 
starlit nights when we shared the tent shelter 
with a multitude of sacked and labeled skeletons. 
The glow of the fire without dying to a flicker¬ 
ing spark, the long slender maize leaves stirring 
in the wind, ever whispering in ghostly murmur¬ 
ing converse. 
The infirmities of age coming upon one whom 
you have known in life's prime after a lapse of 
twenty years and more come upon you with a 
shock, sending memory chasing back over the 
years. As one in the fragrant haze of Indian 
summer days contemplates sadly the forests as 
they color, and the leaves fall while life’s sap 
recedes, so with infinite regret we perceive in 
the comrade of our youth those indications of 
declining vitality, chastened and sweetened, how- 
The Antiquary 
By W. B. NICKERSON 
