William Gibson: Pastoral Days; or, Memories of a New England Year

AS far as the eye can reach, the snow lies in a deep mantle over the cheerless landscape. I look out upon a dreary moor, where the horizon melts into the cold gray of a heavy sky. The restless wind sweeps with pitiless blast through shivering trees and over bleak hills, from whose crests, like a great white veil, the clouds of hoary flakes are lifted and drawn along by the gale. Down the upland slope, across the undulating field, the blinding drift, like a thing of life, speeds in its wild caprice, now swirling in fantastic eddies around some isolated stack, half hidden in its chill embrace, now winding away over bare-blown wall and scraggy fence, and through the sighing willows near the frozen stream; now with a wild whirl it flies aloft, and the dark pines and hemlocks on the mountain-side fade away in its icy mist. Again, yonder it appears trailing along the meadow, until, flying like some fugitive spirit chased from earth by the howling wind, it vanishes in the sky. On every side these winged phantoms lead their flying chase across the dreary landscape, and fence and barn and house upon the hill in turn are dimmed or lost to sight.

Who has not watched the strange antics of the drifting snow whirling past the window on a blustering winter’s day? But this is not a winter’s day. This is the advent of a New England spring.

CATKINS.

PUSSIES.

Such days in March are too perfect to endure, and at night the sky is overcast and dark. Then follows a long warm rain that unlocks the ice in all the streams. The whiteness of the hills and meadows melts into broad contracting strips and patches. One by one, as mere specks upon the landscape, these vanish in turn, until the last vestige of winter is washed from the face of the earth to swell the tide of the rushing stream. Even now, from the distant valley, we hear a continuous muffled roar, as the mighty freshet, impelled by an irresistible force, ploughs its tortuous channel through the lowlands and ravines. The quiet town is filled with an unusual commotion. Excited groups of towns-people crowd the village store, and eager voices tell of the havoc wrought by the fearful flood. We hear how the old toll-bridge, with tollman’s house and all, was lifted from its piers like a pile of straw, and whirled away upon the current. How its floating timbers, in a great blockade, crushed into the old mill-pond; how the dam had burst, and the rickety red saw-mill gone to pieces down the stream. Farmer Nathan’s barn had gone, and his flat meadows were like a whirling sea, strewn with floating rails and driftwood. Every hour records its new disaster as some eager messenger returns from the excited crowds which line the river-bank. How well I remember the fascinating excitement of the spring freshet as I watched the rising water in the big swamp lot, anxious lest it might creep up and undermine the wall foundations of the barn! And what a royal raft I made from the drifting logs and beams, and with the spirit of an adventurous explorer sailed out on the deep gliding current, floating high among the branches of the half submerged willow-trees, and scraping over the tips of the tallest alder-bushes, whose highest twigs now hardly reached the surface! How deep and dark the water looked as I lay upon the raft and peered into the depths below! But this jolly fun was of but short duration. The flood soon subsided, and on the following morning nothing was seen excepting the settlings of débris strewn helter-skelter over the meadow, and hanging on all the bushes.

The tepid rain has penetrated deep into the yielding ground, and with the winter’s frost now coming to the surface, the roads are well-nigh impassable with their plethora of mud. For a full appreciation of mud in all its glory, and in its superlative degree, one should see a New England highway “when the frost comes out of the ground.” The roads are furrowed with deep grimy ruts, in which the bedabbled wheels sink to their hubs as in a quicksand, and the hoofs of the floundering horse are held in the swampy depths as if in a vise. For a week or more this state of things continues, until at length, after warm winds and sunny days, the ground once more packs firm beneath the tread. This marks the close of idle days. The junk pile in the barn is invaded, and the rusty plough abstracted from the midst of rakes and scythes and other farming tools. The old white horse thrusts his long head from the stall near by, and whinnies at the memories it revives, and with pricked-up ears and whisking tail tells plainly of the eagerness he feels.

EARLY PLOUGHING.

RETURN FROM THE FIELDS.

VOICES OF THE NIGHT.

So runs the record of a busy day in the early New England springtime, and with its all-absorbing industry it is a day that passes quickly. The afternoon runs into evening. Cool shadows creep across the landscape as the glowing sun sinks through the still bare and leafless trees and disappears behind the wooded hills. The fields are now deserted, and through the uncertain twilight we see the little knots of workmen with their swinging pails, and hear their tramp along the homeward road. In the dim shadows of the evergreens beyond, a faint gray object steals into view. Now it stops at the old watering-trough, and I hear the sip of the eager horse and the splash of overflowing water. Some belated ploughman, fresh, perhaps, from a half-hour’s gossip at the village store. I hear the sound of hoofs upon the stones as they renew their way, the dragging of the chain upon the gravelly bed, and the receding form is lost in the darkening road. One by one the scattered barns and houses have disappeared in the gathering dusk, marked only by the faint columns of blue smoke that rise above the trees, and melt away against the twilight sky. I look out upon a wilderness of gloom, where all above is still and clear, and all below is wrapped in impenetrable mystery. A plaintive piping trill now breaks the impressive stillness. Again and again I hear the little lonely voice vibrating through the low-lying mist. It is only a little frog in some far-off marsh; but what a sweet sense of sadness is awakened by that lowly melody! How its weird minor key, with its magic touch, unlocks the treasures of the heart. Only the peeping of a frog; but where in all the varied voices of the night, where, even among the great chorus of nature’s sweetest music, is there another song so lulling in its dreamy melody, so full of that emotive charm which quickens the human heart? How often in the vague spring twilight have I yielded to the strange, fascinating melancholy awakened by the frog’s low murmur at the water’s edge! How many times have I lingered near some swampy roadside bog, and let these little wizards weave their mystic spell about my willing senses, while the very air seemed to quiver in the fulness of their song! I remember the tangle of tall and withered rushes, through whose mysterious depths the eye in vain would strive to penetrate at the sound of some faint splash or ripple, or perhaps at the quaint, high-keyed note of some little isolated hermit, piping in his sombre solitude.