Kitabı oku: «Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848», sayfa 8

WHORTLEBERRYING

BY ALFRED B. STREET

About the middle of August, the village was honored by repeated visits from the little ragged population of "Barlow's Settlement," on the "Barrens," with quantities of whortleberries for sale. "Want any huckleberries to-day?" was heard all over. You couldn't stir abroad without some urchin with a smirched face – a tattered coat, whose skirts swept the dust, showing, evidently, its paternal descent, and pantaloons patched in the most conspicuous places, more picturesque than decent – thrusting a basket of the rich fruit into your very face, with an impudent yell of "huckleberries, sir?" or some little girl, the edges of whose scanty frock were irregularly scalloped, making a timid courtesy, saying meekly, "Don't you want some berries to-day, sir? nice berries, sir, just picked!"

At length Bill Brattle, who is a resident of the settlement, came into the village, and said in Wilson's bar-room, "that he'd lived on the Barrens nigh on six years, and he'd never in all that 'ere time seed sich an allfired grist of huckleberries. Why there was acres on acres on 'em, and he didn't tell no lie when he said that the airth was parfectly blue with 'em."

This soon got about, and the consequence was a whortleberry party the very next day. A number of the young people, of both sexes, started in several conveyances, and about noon found themselves, after rumbling through the covered bridge on the Neversink River, climbing slowly up the steep winding hill that ascends from the east bank of the stream, and whence was a beautiful view of the valley below.

Now there are many fine views in Sullivan. It is an exceedingly picturesque county. It has all the charms of precipitous hills, winding valleys, dark wooded gorges, lovely river-flats, and meandering streams. It is sufficiently cultivated to have the beauty of rural landscape softening the forest scenery, without disturbing to any great degree its wildness and grandeur.

This Neversink valley river, although not among the finest, is nevertheless a very lovely one —

Beneath – the clear placid stream comes coursing from the north, through narrow but beautiful flats, in all the pomp of rural wealth, wrinkled with corn-fields, bearded with rye, and whitened with buckwheat, imaging old age rejoicing amongst its blessings. Opposite, rise steep hills in all the stages of cultivation – the black logging – the grain waving amidst stumps – and the smooth grassy meadow – whilst at the south, where the little river makes a bold turn, the sweet landscape is lost in the deep mantle of the aboriginal forest.

Mastering the hill, the whole cavalcade was soon turning into a stony, root-tangled, miry road, leading from the turnpike into the heart of the "Barrens," the territory of the desired fruit. After sinking and jolting for some little distance, we came to a part of the track which had been laid over with small parallel logs, close to each other, and forming what is called in country parlance "a corduroy road". We "bumped along" (as Jim Stokes, one of our party, a plain young farmer, expressed it) over this railway of the woods, until our bones seemed so loose we thought we could hear them rattle at every jolt; and at last stopped at a large log cabin which had been fitted up as a tavern.

A fierce eagle, with his head nearly all eye, one striped claw grasping a bundle of arrows, and the other the American flag, served for the sign, and was elevated upon a tall hickory sapling, with the ambitious legend of "Eagle Hotel; by A. Pritchard," flaunting in a scroll from the ferocious bird's mouth.

A smaller log structure, with one large door, and a square opening over it, through which a haymow seemed thrusting its brown head, as if to look abroad, with a warm glow of sunshine upon it, told plainly that our horses at all events would not suffer.

In a short time we scattered ourselves over the ground in the vicinity, in search of our fruit. The appearance of things around was quite characteristic of the region generally. The principal growth were a dwarf species of oak, called in the language of the country "scrub-oak" – low shaggy spruces – stunted gnarled pines, and here and there, particularly in low places, tall hemlocks. The earth was perfectly bestrewed with loose stones, between which, however, the moss showed itself, thick and green, with immense quantities of that beautiful creeping plant called the "ground pine," winding and twining its rich emerald branching fingers in every direction. Scores of cattle-paths were twisting and interlacing all around us, giving, in fact, to the scene, notwithstanding its barrenness, a picturesque appearance. There were stone-fences also intersecting each other every where, erected for no earthly purpose, as I could perceive, but to make way with some part of the vast quantities of stone scattered about; for as to cultivating the lots, that was entirely out of the question.

There was some little pasturage, however, and the bells of the browsing cows were heard tinkling in a pleasing manner, and giving somewhat of a social character to the desolate landscape.

We were all soon immersed in our search. The bushes were crouching all around us, bearing their rich clusters of misty blue berries, covered with the soft beautiful down that vanished at the touch leaving the berry dark and glittering as the eye of a squirrel. How like is the down of the fruit to the first gossamer down of the heart – and ah! how soon the latter also vanishes at the rude touch of the world. The pure virgin innocence with which God robes the creature when fresh from His holy hand! why cannot it stay! why, oh why, does it so soon depart and leave the soul disrobed of its charm and loveliness. Harsh world, bad world! it destroys all it touches.

Ahem! we'll return.

Merry laughter breaks out from the girls, and playful scrambles occur amongst them as to who should secure the most fruit. The berries pour in handfuls in the baskets, which show in some cases signs of plethora. I tell you what it is, reader, there is sport in picking whortleberries. Strawberries pout their rich mouths so low that it gives a sore temptation to the blood to make an assault upon the head, causing you, when you lift it, to look darkly upon various green spots dancing about your eyes. Raspberries again, and blackberries, sting like the dev – I beg pardon, making your hands twitch up like a fit of St. Vitus' dance. But picking whortleberries is all plain sailing. Here are the berries and there are your baskets; no getting on your knees, (although it must be confessed the bushes are somewhat low,) and no pricking your fingers to the verge of swearing.

We all hunt in couples – a lover and his sweet-heart – and take different paths. My companion was a tall black-eyed girl, the sight of whom always made my heart beat quicker, in those unsophisticated days. Rare sport we had, and so, doubtless, had the rest. Pick, pick, pick went the fingers – and ruttle, ruttle, ruttle in the baskets ran the berries. Glorious sport! glorious times! We talked, too, as we picked – indeed why should we not – we had the whole English language to ourselves, and no one to disturb us in it – and I tell you what it is – if people can't talk they had better sell their tongue to the surgeons and live only through their eyes. What's the use of existing without talk – ay, and small talk too. Small talk is (as somebody I believe says, although I am not certain, but no matter) the small change of society, and who hasn't the small change, ten chances to one hasn't the large. However, we'll change the theme.

We hear in the distance the hum of male voices, and the light silvery tones of female, broken in upon by frequent laughter and the music of the cow-bells, tingle lingle, tink clink – here – there – far off and near.

All of a sudden, as I part a large thick cluster of whortleberry bushes, I hear an indescribably quick rattle, amounting to a hum as it were – fearful and thrilling in the extreme. I start back, but as I do so I see in the gloom of the bushes two keen blazing orbs, and a long scarlet tongue quivering and dancing like a curl of fire. "A rattlesnake – a rattlesnake," I cry involuntarily – my companion gives a little shriek, and in a moment several of our company, of both sexes, are hastening toward us. It is a peculiarity or want of ability in the reptile to dart only its length, and my first recoil had placed me, I knew, beyond its reach. But there stood the leafy den, studded all over with a profusion of beautiful gems, and although the rattle had ceased, there to a certainty was the enraged monster, swelling doubtless in his yellow venom; for it is another trait of the crawling, poisonous demons never to desert their post, (rather a good trait, by the way, not always possessed by those erect rattlesnakes, men,) and we must get rid of the dragon before we could come at the fruit. Well! what was to be done! We couldn't think of leaving the field – that would be too bad – to be driven off by a snake, and before the eyes of our Dulcineas too – it couldn't be thought of! So one of us cuts a pole with a crotch at the end – the rest of us arm ourselves with stones and sticks, and then the poleman commences his attack upon the bush. Ha! that was a thrust, well aimed! hear him rattle, hum-m-m – how the bush flutters! he sprang then! That was a good thrust! Jupiter, how he rattles! see, see, see, there are his eyes! ugh! there's his tongue! now he darts out his head and neck! Heavens! what malignant rage and ferocity. Keep back, girls! don't be too curious to see! Thrust him again! How he makes the bush flutter! how his eyes shoot around! how his tongue darts in and out – and whir-r-r-r-r-r – how his rattles shake. Now he comes out, head up, tongue out, eyes like coals of fire – give him the stones now – a full battery of them! Halloo! what's Sloan about there with his crotched pole. Well planted, by Jupiter! right around his neck. Ha! ha! ha! how he twists and turns and writhes about – how he would like to bite! how he would like to strike some of that tawny poison of his into our veins! Yes, yes, your snake-ship! but it wont do! "you can't come it," as Loafing Jim says, "no how you can fix it."

He's a tremendous snake though – full four feet! u-g-h! only think of his crawling around and catching hold of the calf of your leg! Not so pleasant as picking whortleberries, to say the least of it. See his gray mottled skin! though it looks beautiful, flashing in the rays of the sun – and then the ribbed white of his undershape! However, what shall we do with him! Sloan, hold him tight now, and I'll aim at his head. Good sharp stone this – whew – well aimed, although I say it – I think he must have felt it this time. Halloo! another stone – from Wescott. I fancy that made his head ache! And that one has crushed it as flat as a – griddle-cake.

We again, after this terrific battle, (a dozen against one though I must confess,) scatter among the bushes. Awful onslaughts are again made amongst the berries, and our baskets (those at all events in sight) are plumping up with the delicious, ripe, azure balls. I have forgotten to mention, though, that it is a very warm day. The sky is of a pale tint, as if the bright, pure, deep blue had been blanched out by the heat; and all around the horizon are wan thunder-caps thrusting up their peaks and summits. It looks decidedly thunderish.

What's that again! another alarm? How that girl does scream out there! What on earth is the matter! We rush around a sand-bank, looking warm and yellow in the sun, and we see the cause of the outbreak. There is Caroline G. shrinking back as if she would like to evaporate into thin air, and executing a series of shrieks, with her open mouth, of the most thrilling character. Young Mason is a little in front, with a knotted stick, doubtless just picked up, whilst some ten or twelve rods in advance is a great shaggy black bear, very coolly helping himself to the contents of the two baskets hitherto borne by the couple, giving himself time, however, every now and then to look out of his little black eyes at the rightful owners, with rather a spiteful expression, but protruding at the same time his red tongue, like a clown at the circus, as if enjoying the joke of their picking and he eating. Afterward I learned that they had deposited their baskets on the ground under a loaded bush, for greater facility in securing the fruit, when suddenly they heard a blow and a snort, and looking where the queer sounds came from, they saw his Bruinship's white teeth and black phiz within a foot or two of them, directly over the bush. Abandoning their baskets, they retreated in double quick time, and while Mason sought and found a club for defence, Caroline made haste to clear her voice for the most piercing efforts, and succeeded in performing a succession of sustained vocal flights, that a steam whistle couldn't much more than match. The sight as we came up was in truth somewhat alarming, but Bruin didn't seem disposed to be hostile except against the whortleberries, which he certainly made disappear in the most summary manner; so we, after hushing with difficulty Caroline's steam whistle, (I beg her pardon,) stood and watched him. After he had discussed the contents of the baskets, he again looked at us, and, rearing himself upon his hind legs, with his fore paws hanging down like a dancing Shaker, made two or three awkward movements, as if dancing an extempore hornpipe, either in triumph or to thank us for his dinner; he next opened his great jaws in resemblance to a laugh, again thrust out his tongue, saying plainly by it, "hadn't you better pick some more whortleberries," then deliberately fell upon his fore feet and stalked gravely and solemnly away. As for ourselves, we went where he didn't.

It wanted now about an hour to sundown, and this was the time agreed upon by all of us to reunite at Pritchard's and start for home. The beautiful charm of light and shade cast by the slanting rays already began to rest upon the scene. The small oaks were glowing through and through – the thick spruces were kindled up in their outer edges – the patches of moss looked like carpets of gold spread by the little genii of the woods – the whortleberry bushes were drenched in rich radiance, the fruit seeming like the concentrated radiance in the act of dropping – whilst the straggling, tall, surly grenadiers of hemlocks had put on high-pointed yellow caps, with rays streaking through their branches like muskets. The cow-bells were now tinkling everywhere, striking in an odd jumble of tones – tingle ling, tingle ling ting tingle – as their owners collected together to eat their way to their respective milking places – and all told us that the day was drawing to a close. Independently of this, a dark crag of cloud was lifting itself in the southwest, with a pale glance of lightning shooting out of it occasionally, hinting very strongly of an approaching thunder-storm.

In about half an hour we were all re-assembled at Pritchard's. I believe I have not described the scenery around this little log tavern. There was a ravine at some little distance from it, densely clothed with forest. Through it a stream found its way. Directly opposite the side porch, the ravine spread widely on each side, shaping a broad basin of water, and then, contracting again, left a narrow throat across which a dam had been thrown. Over this dam the stream poured in a fall of glittering silver, of about ten feet, and then, pursuing its way through the "Barrens," fell into the Sheldrake Brook several miles below. Here, at the fall, Pritchard had erected a saw-mill.

Now people don't generally think there is any thing very picturesque about saw-mills, but I do. The weather-beaten boards of the low structure, some hanging awry, some with great knot-holes, as if they were gifted with orbs of vision, or were placed there for the mill to breathe through, some fractured, as if the saw had at times become outrageous at being always shut up and made to work there for other people, and had dashed against them, determined to gain its liberty – whilst some seem as if they had become so tantalized by the continual jar of the machinery, that they had loosened their nails, and had set up a clatter and shake themselves in opposition – these are quite picturesque. Then the broad opening in front, exposing the glittering saw bobbing up and down, and pushing its sharp teeth right through the bowels of the great peeled log fastened with iron claws to the sliding platform beneath – the gallows-like frame in which the saw works – the great strap belonging to the machinery issuing out of one corner and gliding into another – the sawyer himself, in a red shirt, now wheeling the log into its place with his handspike and fastening it – and now lifting the gate by the handle protruding near him – the axe leaning at one side and the rifle at the other – the loose floor covered with saw-dust – the stained rafters above with boards laid across for a loft – the dark sloping slab-roof – the great black wheel continually at war with the water, which, dashing bravely against it, finds itself carried off its feet into the buckets, and whirled half around, and then coolly dismissed into the stream below – the long flume through which the water rushes to the unequal fray, and – what next!

Then the pond, too, is not to be overlooked. There are generally some twenty or thirty logs floating in one corner, close to each other, and breaking out into great commotion every time the gate is hoisted – the otter is now and then seen gliding in the farther nooks – and a quick eye may catch, particularly about the dam, where he generally burrows, a glimpse of the musk-rat as he dives down. Now and then too the wild duck will push his beautiful shape with his bright feet through it – the snipe will alight and "teter," as the children say, along the banks – the woodcock will show his brownish red bosom amongst the reeds as he comes to stick his long bill into the black ooze for sucking, as dock-boys stick straws into molasses hogsheads – and once in a great while, the sawyer, if he's wide awake, will see, in the Spring or Fall, the wild goose leaving his migrating wedge overhead, and diving and fluttering about in it, as a momentary bathing place, and to rest for a time his throat, hoarse with uttering his laughably wise and solemn "honk, honk." Nor must the ragged and smirched-faced boys be forgotten, eternally on the logs, or the banks, or in the leaky scow, with their twine and pin-hooks catching "spawney-cooks," and "bull-heads" as worthless as themselves, and as if that were their only business in life. And then the streak of saw-dust running along in the midst of the brook below, and forming yellow nooks to imprison bubbles and sticks and leaves and what not, every now and then making a jet outward and joining the main body – and lastly the saw-mill yard, with its boards, white, dark and golden, piled up in great masses, with narrow lanes running through – and gray glistening logs, with their bark coats off, waiting their turn to be "boarded."

The cloud had now risen higher, with its ragged pointed edges, and murky bosom – sharper lightning flashed athwart it, sometimes in trickling streaks, and sometimes in broad glances, whilst low growls of thunder were every now and then heard. The sun was already swallowed up – and a strange, unnatural, ghastly glare was upon every object. The atmosphere was motionless – not a stir in the thickets around, not a movement in the forest at the ravine. Through the solemn silence the crash of the falling water came upon the ear, and its gleam was caught against the black background of the cloud. It really seemed as if Nature held her breath in anticipating terror. Higher and higher rose the cloud – fiercer and fiercer flashed the lightning, sterner and sterner came the peals of the solemn thunder. Still Nature held her breath, still fear deep and brooding reigned. The wild tint still was spread over all things – the pines and hemlocks near at hand seeming blanched with affright beneath it. Suddenly a darkness smote the air – a mighty rush was heard – the trees seemed falling upon their faces in convulsions, and with a shock as if the atmosphere had been turned into a precipitated mountain, amidst a blinding flash and tearing, splitting roar, onward swept the blast. Another flash – another roar – then tumbled the great sheeted rain. Like blows of the hammer on the anvil beat it on the water – like the smitings of a mounted host trampled it upon the roof – like the spray flying from the cataract smoked it upon the earth. The fierce elements of fire and air and water were now at the climax of their strife – the dark blended shadow of the banners under which they fought almost blotting out the view. Occasionally glimpses of writhing branches could be seen, but only for a moment – all again was dim and obscure, with the tremendous sights and sounds of the storm dazzling the eye and stunning the ear. The lightning would flash with intolerable brilliancy, and immediately would follow the thunder with a rattling leap as if springing from its lair, and then with a deafening, awful weight, as if it had fallen and been splintered into pieces in the sky. Then would re-open the steady deep boom of the rain, and the stern rushing of the chainless wind. At length the air became clearer – the lightning glared at less frequent intervals – the thunder became more rolling and distant, and the tramp of the rain upon the roof less violent. The watery streaks in the atmosphere waxed finer – outlines of objects began to be defined – till suddenly, as a growl of thunder died away in the east, a rich thread of light ran along the landscape, that looked out smiling through its tears; and thronging out into the damp fresh, sweet air, where the delicate gauze-like rain was glittering and trembling, we saw on one hand the great sun looking from a space of glowing sky upon the scene, and dashing upon the parting clouds the most superb and gorgeous hues – whilst on the other smiled the lovely rainbow, the Ariel of the tempest, spanning the black cloud and soaring over the illuminated earth, like Hope spreading her brilliant halo over the Christian's brow, and brightening with her beautiful presence his impending death.

We all concluded to wait for the moon to rise before we started for home, and in the meanwhile another cloud arose and made demonstration. This storm, however, was neither so long nor so violent as the first, and we found attraction in viewing the lightning striking into ghastly convulsions the landscape – so that the falling rain – the bowed trees – the drenched earth – the streaked mill, and the gleaming water-fall were opened to our view for an instant, and then dropped as it were again into the blackness. But after a while the sky cleared its forehead of all its frowns – the broad moon wheeled up – and in her rich glory we again moved slowly along the rough road, until we came to the smooth turnpike, where we dashed along homeward, with the cool, scented air in our faces, and the sweet smile of the sun's gentle and lovely sister resting all about us, making the magnificent Night appear like Day with a veil of softening silver over his dazzling brow.