The Lay of the Land

XII

The Palace in the Pig-pen

It is certainly a humble environment. The delicious spring of water, the plenty of wild, cool air, and the clean pavement of loose stones do not surround this home as they did the home of Mr. Burroughs’s phœbes, nor does this look “out upon some wild scene and overhung by beetling crags.” Instead, this phœbe’s nest is stuck close up to the low board roof in my pig-pen.

“You have taken a handful of my wooded acres,” says Nature, “and if you have not improved them, you at least have changed them greatly. But they are mine still. Be friendly now, go softly, and you shall have them all, – and I shall have them all, too. We will share them together.”

And we do. Every part of the fourteen acres is mine, yielding some kind of food or fuel or shelter. And every foot, yes, every foot, is Nature’s; as entirely hers as when the thick primeval forest stood here. The apple trees are hers as much as mine, and she has an average of ten different bird families, living in them every spring. A pair of crows and a pair of red-tailed hawks are nesting in the woodlot; there are at least three families of chipmunks in as many of my stone piles; a fine old tree toad (his fourth season now) sleeps on the porch under the climbing rose; a hornet’s nest hangs in a corner of the eaves; a small colony of swifts thunder in the chimney; swallows twitter in the hayloft; a chipmunk and a half-tame gray squirrel feed in the barn; and – to bring an end to this bare beginning – under the roof of the pig-pen dwell this pair of phœbes.

To make a bird house of a pig-pen, to divide it between the pig and the bird – this is as far as Nature can go, and this is certainly enough to redeem the whole farm. For she has not sent an outcast or a scavenger to dwell in the pen, but a bird of character, however much he may lack in song or color. Phœbe does not make up well in a picture; neither does he perform well as a singer; there is little to him, in fact, but personality, – personality of a kind and quantity, sufficient to make the pig-pen a decent and respectable neighborhood.

Phœbe is altogether more than his surroundings. Every time I go to feed the pig, he lights upon a post near by and says to me: “It’s what you are! Not what you do, but how you do it!” – with a launch into the air, a whirl, an unerring snap at a cabbage butterfly, and an easy drop to the post again, by way of illustration. “Not where you live, but how you live there; not the feathers you wear, but how you wear them, – it is what you are that counts!”

There is a difference between being a “character” and having one. “Jim” Crow is a character, largely because he has so little. That is why he is “Jim.” My phœbe lives over the pig, but he has no nickname like the crow. I cannot feel familiar with a bird of his air and carriage, who faces the world so squarely, who settles upon a stake as if he owned it, who lives a prince in my pig-pen.

Look at him! How alert, able, free! Notice the limber drop of his tail, the ready energy it suggests. By that one sign you would know the bird had force. He is afraid of nothing, not even the cold, and he migrates only because he is a flycatcher, and is thus compelled to. The earliest spring day, however, that you find the flies buzzing in the sun, look for phœbe. He is back. The first of my birds to return in the spring is he, often beating the bluebird and robin by almost a week. It was a fearful spring, the spring of 1904. How phœbe managed to exist those miserable March days is a mystery. He came directly to the pen, as he had come the year before, and his presence in that bleakest of Marches made it almost spring.

The same force and promptness are manifest in the domestic affairs of the bird. The first to arrive that spring, he was also the first to build and bring off a brood, – or, perhaps, She was. And the size of the brood – of the broods, for the second one is now a-wing, and there may yet be a third!

Phœbe appeared without his mate, and for nearly three weeks he hunted in the vicinity of the pen, calling the day long, and, toward the end of the second week, occasionally soaring into the air, flapping and pouring forth a small, ecstatic song that seemed fairly forced from him.

These aerial bursts meant just one thing: she was coming, was coming soon! Was she coming, or was he getting ready to go for her? Here he had been for nearly three weeks, his house-lot chosen, his mind at rest, his heart beating faster with every sunrise. It was as plain as day that he knew – was certain – just how and just when something lovely was going to happen. I wished I knew. I was half in love with her myself, half jealous of him, and I, too, watched for her.

But she was not for me. On the evening of April 14, he was alone as usual. The next morning a pair of phœbes flitted in and out of the windows of the pen. Here she was. Will some one tell me all about it? Had she just come along and fallen instantly in love with him and his fine pig-pen? There are foolish female birds; and there are records of just such love affairs; but this was too early in the season. It is pretty evident that he nested here last year. Was she his old mate, as Wilson believes? Did they keep together all through the autumn and winter, all the way from Massachusetts to Florida and back? Or was she a new bride, who had promised him before he left Florida? If so, then how did she know where to find him?

Here is a pretty story. But who will tell it to me?

What followed is a pretty story, too, had I a lover’s pen with which to write it, – the story of his love, of their love, and of her love especially, which was last and best.

For several days after she came the weather continued raw and wet, so that nest-building was greatly delayed. The scar of an old, last year’s nest still showed on a stringer, and I wondered if they had decided on this or some other site for the new nest. They had not made up their minds, for when they did start it was to make three beginnings.

Then I offered a suggestion. Out of a bit of stick, branching at right angles, I made a little bracket and tacked it up on one of the stringers, down near the lower end of the roof. It appealed to the birds at once, and from that moment the building went steadily on.

Saddled upon this bracket, as well as mortared to the stringer, the nest, when finished, was as safe as a castle. And how perfect a thing! Few nests, indeed, combine the solidity, the softness, and the exquisite curve of phœbe’s.

In placing the bracket, I had carelessly nailed it under one of the cracks in the loose board roof. The nest was receiving its first linings when there came a long, hard rain that beat through the crack and soaked the little cradle. This was serious, for a great deal of mud had been worked into the thick foundation, and here, in the constant shade, the dampness would be long in drying out.

The builders saw the mistake, too, and with their great good sense immediately began to remedy it. They built the bottom up thicker, carried the wall over on a slant that brought the outermost point within the crack, then raised the whole nest until the cup was as round-rimmed and hollow as the mould of the bird’s breast could make it.

The outside of the nest, its base, is broad and rough and shapeless enough; but nothing could be softer and lovelier than the inside, the cradle, and nothing drier, for the slanting walls shed every drop from the leaky crack.

Wet weather followed the heavy rain until long after the nest was finished. The whole structure was as damp and cold as a newly plastered house. It felt wet to my touch. Yet I noticed the birds were already brooding. Every night, and often during the day, I would see one of them in the nest, so deep in that only a head or a tail showed over the round rim. After several days I looked to see the eggs, but to my surprise found the nest empty. It had been robbed, I thought, yet by what creature I could not imagine. Then down cuddled one of the birds again, – and I understood. Instead of wet and cold, the nest to-day felt warm to my hand; it was dry almost to the bottom. It had changed color, too, all the upper part having turned a soft silver-gray. She (I am sure it was she) had not been brooding her eggs at all; she had been brooding her mother’s thought of them; and for them had been nestling here these days and nights, drying and warming their damp cradle with the fire of her life and love.

In due time the eggs came, – five of them, white, spotless, and shapely. While the little hen was hatching them I gave my attention further to the cock.

I am writing this with a black suspicion overhanging him. But of that later. I hope it is unfounded, and I shall give him the benefit of the doubt. A man is innocent until proved guilty. I have no positive evidence of Mr. Phœbe’s wrong.

Our intimate friendship has revealed a most pleasing nature in phœbe. Perhaps such close and continued association would show like qualities in every bird, even in the kingbird. But I fear only a woman, like Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, could find them in him. Not much can be said of this flycatcher family, except that it is useful, – a kind of virtue that gets its chief reward in heaven. I am acquainted with only four of the other nine members, – great-crest, kingbird, pewee, and chebec, – and each of these has some redeeming attributes besides the habit of catching flies.

They are all good nest-builders, good parents, and brave, independent birds; but aside from phœbe and pewee – the latter in his small way the sweetest voice of the oak woods – the whole family is an odd lot, cross-grained, cross-looking, and about as musical as a family of ducks. A duck seems to know that he cannot sing. A flycatcher knows nothing of any shortcoming. He knows he can sing, and in time he will prove it. If desire and effort count for anything, he certainly must prove it in time. How long the family has already been training, no one knows. Everybody knows, however, the success each flycatcher of them has thus far attained. According to Mr. Chapman’s authority, the five rarer members perform as follows: the olive-sided swoops from the tops of the tallest trees uttering “pu-pu” or “pu-pip”; the yellow-bellied sits upon the low twigs and sneezes a song, an abrupt “pse-ek,” explosive and harsh, produced with a painful, convulsive jerk; the Acadian by the help of his tail says “spee” or “peet,” now and then a loud “pee-e-yúk,” meanwhile trembling violently; Trail’s flycatcher jerks out his notes rapidly, doubling himself up and fairly vibrating with the explosive effort to sing “ee-zee-e-up”; the gray kingbird says a strong, simple “pitirri.”

It would make a good minstrel show, doubtless, if the family would appear together. In chorus, surely, they would be far from a tuneful choir.

I should hate to hear the flycatchers all together. Yet individually, in the wide universal chorus of the out-of-doors, how much we should miss the kingbird’s metallic twitter and the chebec’s insistent call!

There was little excitement for phœbe during this period of incubation. He hunted in the neighborhood and occasionally called to his mate, contented enough perhaps, but certainly sometimes appearing tired. One rainy day he sat in the pig-pen window looking out at the gray wet world. He was humped and silent and meditative, his whole attitude speaking the extreme length of his day, the monotony of the drip, drip, drip from the eaves, and the sitting, the ceaseless sitting, of his brooding wife.

He might have hastened the time by catching a few flies for her or by taking her place on the nest, but I never saw him do it.

Things were livelier when the eggs hatched, for it required a good many flies a day to keep the five young ones growing. And how they grew! Like bread sponge in a pan, they began to rise, pushing the mother up so that she was forced to stand over them; then pushing her out until she could cling only to the side of the nest at night; then pushing her off altogether. By this time they were hanging to the outside themselves, covering the nest from sight, almost, until finally they spilled off upon their wings.

Out of the nest upon the air! Out of the pen and into a sweet, wide world of green and blue and golden light! I saw the second brood take their first flight, and it was thrilling.

The nest was placed back from and below the window, so that in leaving it the young would have to drop, then turn and fly up to get out. Below was the pig.

As they grew I began to fear that they might try their wings before this feat could be accomplished, and so fall to the pig below. But Nature, in this case, was careful of her pearls. Day after day they clung to the nest, even after they might have flown; and when they did go, it was with a sure and a long flight that carried them out and away to the tops of the neighboring trees.

They left the nest one at a time, and were met in the air by their mother, who darting to them, calling loudly, and, whirling about them, helped them as high and as far away as they could go.

I wish the simple record of these family affairs could be closed without one tragic entry. But that can rarely be of any family. Seven days after the first brood were a-wing, I found the new eggs in the nest. Soon after that the male bird disappeared. The second brood has now been out a week, and in all this time no sight or sound has been had of the father.

What happened? Was he killed? Caught by a cat or a hawk? It is possible; and this is an easy and kindly way to think of him. Nor is it impossible that he may have remained as leader and protector to the first brood, or (perish the thought!) might he perhaps have grown weary at sight of the second lot of five eggs, of the long days and the neglect that they meant for him, and out of jealousy and fickleness wickedly deserted?

I hope it was death, a stainless, even ignominious death by one of my neighbor’s dozen cats.

Death or desertion, it involved a second tragedy. Five such young ones at this time were too many for the mother. She fought nobly; no mother could have done more. All five were brought within a few days of flight; then, one day, I saw a little wing hanging listlessly over the side of the nest. I went closer. One had died. It had starved to death. There were none of the parasites in the nest that often kill these birds. It was a plain case of sacrifice, – by the mother, perhaps; by the other young, maybe, – one for the other four.

But she did well. Nine such young birds to her credit since April. Who shall measure her actual use to the world? How does she compare in value with the pig? Yesterday I saw several of her brood along the meadow fence hawking for flies. They were not far from my cabbage patch.

I hope that a pair of them returns to me another spring, and that they come early. Any bird that deigns to dwell under roof of mine commands my friendship; but no other bird takes phœbe’s place in my affections, there is so much in him to like and he speaks for so much of the friendship of nature.

“Humble and inoffensive bird” he has been called by one of our leading ornithologies – because he comes to my pig-pen! “Inoffensive”? this bird with the cabbage butterfly in his beak? The faint and damning praise! And “humble”? There is not a humble feather on his body. Humble to those who see the pen and not the bird. But to me – why, the bird has made a palace of my pig-pen.

The very pig seems less a pig because of this exquisite association; and the lowly work of feeding the creature has been turned by phœbe into an æsthetic course in bird study.

XIII

An Account with Nature

There were chipmunks everywhere. The stone walls squeaked with them. At every turn, from early spring to early autumn, a chipmunk was scurrying away from you. Chipmunks were common. They did no particular harm, no particular good; they did nothing in particular, being only chipmunks and common, until one morning (it was June-bug time) I stopped and watched a chipmunk that sat atop the stone wall down in the orchard. He was eating, and the shells of his meal lay in a little pile upon the big flat stone which served as his table.

They were acorn shells, I thought, yet June seemed rather early in the season for acorns, and looking closer I discovered that the pile was entirely composed of June-bug shells, – wings and hollow bodies of the pestiferous beetles!

Well, well! I had never seen this before, never even heard of it. Chipmunk, a useful member of society! actually eating bugs in this bug-ridden world of mine! This was interesting and important. Why, I had really never known chipmunk, after all!

So I hadn’t. He had always been too common. Flying squirrels were more worth while, because there were none on the farm. Now, however, I determined to cultivate the acquaintance of chipmunk, for there might be other discoveries awaiting me.

And there were. A narrow strip of grass separated the orchard and my garden patch. It was on my way to the garden that I most often stopped to watch this chipmunk, or rather the pair of them, in the orchard wall. June advanced, the beetles disappeared, and my garden grew apace. For the first time in four years there were prospects of good strawberries. Most of my small patch was given over to a new berry, one that I had originated, and I was waiting with an eagerness which was almost anxiety for the earliest berries.

The two chipmunks in the wall were now seven, the young ones quite as large as their parents, and both young and old on the best of terms with me.

I had put a little stick beside each of the three big berries that were reddening first (though I could have walked from the house blindfolded and picked them). I might have had the biggest of the three on June 7th, but for the sake of the flavor I thought it best to wait another day. On the 8th I went down with a box to get it. The big berry was gone, and so was one of the others, while only half of the third was left on the vine!

Gardening has its disappointments, its seasons of despair, – and wrath, too. Had a toad showed himself at that moment he would have fared badly. I snatched a stone and let it go at a robin flying over, for more than likely it was he who had stolen my berries. On the garden wall sat a friendly chipmunk eyeing me sympathetically.

Three days later several fine berries were ripe. On my way to the garden I passed the chipmunks in the orchard. A shining red spot among the vine-covered stones of their wall brought me to a stop, for I thought, on the instant, that it was my rose-breasted grosbeak, and that I was about to get a clue to its nest. Then up to the slab where he ate the June-bugs scrambled the chipmunk, and the rose-red spot on the breast of the grosbeak dissolved into a big scarlet-red strawberry. And by its long wedge shape I knew it was one of my new variety.

I hurried across to the patch and found every berry gone, while a line of bloody fragments led me back to the orchard wall, where a half dozen fresh calyx crowns completed my second discovery.

No, it did not complete it. It took a little watching to find out that the whole family – all seven! – were after berries. They were picking them half ripe, even, and actually storing them away, canning them down in the cavernous depths of the stone pile!

Alarmed? Yes, and I was wrathful, too. The taste for strawberries is innate, original; you can’t be human without it. But joy in chipmunks is a cultivated liking, æsthetic in its nature. What chance in such a circumstance has the nature-lover with the human man? What shadow of doubt as to his choice between the chipmunks and the strawberries?

I had no gun then and no time to go over to my neighbor’s to borrow his. So I stationed myself near by with a fistful of stones, and waited for the thieves to show themselves. I came so near to hitting one of them once that the sweat started all over me. After that there was no danger. I lost my nerve. The little scamps knew that war was declared, and they hid and dodged and sighted me so far off that even with a gun I should have been all summer killing the seven of them.

Meantime, a big rain and the warm June days were turning the berries red by the quart. They had more than caught up to the squirrels. I dropped my stones and picked. The squirrels picked, too, so did the toads and robins. Everybody picked. It was free for all. We picked them and ate them, jammed them and canned them. I almost carried some over to my neighbor, but took peas instead. You simply can’t give your strawberries in New England to ordinary neighbors, who are not of your choosing. You have no fears at all as to what they will say to your peas.

The season closed on the Fourth of July, and our taste was not dim nor this natural love for strawberries abated; but all four of the small boys had the hives from over-indulgence, so bountifully did nature provide, so many did the seven chipmunks leave us!

Peace between me and the chipmunks had been signed before the strawberry season closed, and the pact still holds. Other things have occurred since to threaten it, however. Among them, an article in a recent number of a carefully edited out-of-door magazine, of wide circulation. Herein the chipmunk family was most roundly rated, in fact condemned to annihilation because of its wicked taste for birds’ eggs and for young birds. Numerous photographs accompanied the article, showing the red squirrel with eggs in his mouth, but no such proof (even the red squirrel photographs I strongly believe were done from a stuffed squirrel) of chipmunk’s guilt, though he was counted equally bad and, doubtless, will suffer with chickaree at the hands of those who took the article seriously.

I believe that is a great mistake. Indeed, I believe the whole article a deliberate falsehood, concocted in order to sell the fake photographs. Chipmunk is not an egg-sucker, else I should have found it out. But because I never caught him at it does not mean that no one else has. It does mean, however, that if chipmunk robs at all he does it so seldom as to call for no alarm nor for any retribution.

There is scarcely a day in the nesting season when I fail to see half a dozen chipmunks about the walls, yet I never noticed one even suspiciously near a bird’s nest. In an apple tree, barely six jumps from the home of the family in the orchard wall, a brood of white-bellied swallows came to wing one spring; while robins, chippies, and red-eyed vireos – not to mention a cowbird, which I wish they had devoured – have also hatched and flown away from nests that these squirrels might easily have rifled.

It is not often that one comes upon even the red squirrel in the very act of robbing a nest. But the black snake, the glittering fiend! and the dear house cats! If I run across a dozen black snakes in the early summer, it is safe to say that six of them will be discovered by the cries of the birds they are robbing. Likewise the cats. No creature, however, larger than a June-bug was ever distressed by a chipmunk.

In a recent letter to me Mr. Burroughs says: “No, I never knew the chipmunk to suck or destroy eggs of any kind, and I have never heard of any well-authenticated instance of his doing so. The red squirrel is the sinner in this respect, and probably the gray squirrel also.”

It will be difficult to find a true bill against him. Were the evidence all in, I believe that instead of a culprit we should find chipmunk a useful citizen. I reckon that the pile of June-bug bodies on the flat stone leaves me still in debt to him even after the strawberries have been credited. He may err occasionally, and may, on occasion, make a nuisance of himself, – but so do my four small boys, bless them! And, well – who doesn’t? When a family of chipmunks, which you have fed all summer on the veranda, take up their winter quarters inside the closed cabin, and chew up your quilts, hammocks, table-cloths, and whatever else there is of chewable properties, then they are anathema.