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a ten-acre field of luxuriant clover-hay, (the second crop)--the
livid-ripe red blossoms and dabs of August brown thickly spotting
the prevailing dark-green. Over all flutter myriads of light-yellow
butterflies, mostly skimming along the surface, dipping and oscillating,
giving a curious animation to the scene. The beautiful, spiritual
insects! straw-color'd Psyches! Occasionally one of them leaves his
mates, and mounts, perhaps spirally, perhaps in a straight line in the
air, fluttering up, up, till literally out of sight. In the lane as I
came along just now I noticed one spot, ten feet square or so, where
more than a hundred had collected, holding a revel, a gyration-dance, or
butterfly good-time, winding and circling, down and across, but always
keeping within the limits. The little creatures have come out all of a
sudden the last few days, and are now very plentiful. As I sit outdoors,
or walk, I hardly look around without somewhere seeing two (always two)
fluttering through the air in amorous dalliance. Then their inimitable
color, their fragility, peculiar motion--and that strange, frequent
way of one leaving the crowd and mounting up, up in the free ether, and
apparently never returning. As I look over the field, these yellow-wings
everywhere mildly sparkling, many snowy blossoms of the wild carrot
gracefully bending on their tall and taper stems--while for sounds, the
distant guttural screech of a flock of guinea-hens comes shrilly yet
somehow musically to my ears. And now a faint growl of heat-thunder in
the north--and ever the low rising and falling wind-purr from the tops
of the maples and willows.
_Aug. 20_.--Butterflies and butterflies, (taking the place of the
bumble-bees of three months since, who have quite disappear'd,) continue
to flit to and fro, all sorts, white, yellow, brown, purple--now and
then some gorgeous fellow flashing lazily by on wings like artists'
palettes dabb'd with every color. Over the breast of the pond I notice
many white ones, crossing, pursuing their idle capricious flight. Near
where I sit grows a tall-stemm'd weed topt with a profusion of rich
scarlet blossoms, on which the snowy insects alight and dally, sometimes
four or five of them at a time. By-and-by a humming-bird visits
the same, and I watch him coming and going, daintily balancing and
shimmering about. These white butterflies give new beautiful contrasts
to the pure greens of the August foliage, (we have had some copious
rains lately,) and over the glistening bronze of the pond-surface. You
can tame even such insects; I have one big and handsome moth down here,
knows and comes to me, likes me to hold him up on my extended hand.
_Another Day, later_.--A grand twelve-acre field of ripe cabbages with
their prevailing hue of malachite green, and floating-flying over and
among them in all directions myriads of these same white butterflies. As
I came up the lane to-day I saw a living globe of the same, two or three
feet in diameter, many scores cluster'd together and rolling along
in the air, adhering to their ball-shape, six or eight feet above the
ground.
A NIGHT REMEMBRANCE
_Aug. 23, 9-10 A.M._--I sit by the pond, everything quiet, the broad
polish'd surface spread before me--the blue of the heavens and the
white clouds reflected from it--and flitting across, now and then, the
reflection of some flying bird. Last night I was down here with a friend
till after midnight; everything a miracle of splendor--the glory of the
stars, and the completely rounded moon--the passing clouds, silver and
luminous-tawny--now and then masses of vapory illuminated scud--and
silently by my side my dear friend. The shades of the trees, and patches
of moonlight on the grass--the softly blowing breeze, and just-palpable
odor of the neighboring ripening corn--the indolent and spiritual night,
inexpressibly rich, tender, suggestive--something altogether to filter
through one's soul, and nourish and feed and soothe the memory long
afterwards.
WILD FLOWERS
This has been and is yet a great season for wild flowers; oceans of them
line the roads through the woods, border the edges of the water-runlets,
grow all along the old fences, and are scatter'd in profusion over the
fields. An eight-petal'd blossom of gold-yellow, clear and bright, with
a brown tuft in the middle, nearly as large as a silver half-dollar, is
very common; yesterday on a long drive I noticed it thickly lining the
borders of the brooks everywhere. Then there is a beautiful weed cover'd
with blue flowers, (the blue of the old Chinese teacups treasur'd by our
grand-aunts,) I am continually stopping to admire--a little larger than
a dime, and very plentiful. White, however, is the prevailing color. The
wild carrot I have spoken of; also the fragrant life-everlasting. But
there are all hues and beauties, especially on the frequent tracts of
half-opened scrub-oak and dwarf cedar hereabout--wild asters of all
colors. Notwithstanding the frost-touch the hardy little chaps maintain
themselves in all their bloom. The tree-leaves, too, some of them are
beginning to turn yellow or drab or dull green. The deep wine-color of
the sumachs and gum-treesis already visible, and the straw-color of the
dog-wood and beech. Let me give the names of some of these perennial
blossoms and friendly weeds I have made acquaintance with hereabout one
season or another in my walks:
Wild azalea, dandelions wild honeysuckle, yarrow, wild roses, coreopsis,
golden rod, wild pea, larkspur, woodbine, early crocus, elderberry,
sweet flag, (great patches of it,) poke-weed, creeper, trumpet-flower,
sun-flower, scented marjoram, chamomile, snakeroot, violets, Solomon's
seal, clematis, sweet balm, bloodroot mint, (great plenty,) swamp
magnolia, wild geranium, milk-weed, wild heliotrope, wild daisy,
(plenty,) burdock, wild chrysanthemum.
A CIVILITY TOO LONG NEGLECTED
The foregoing reminds me of something.
As the individualities I would mainly portray have certainly been
slighted by folks who make pictures, volumes, poems, out of them--as
a faint testimonial of my own gratitude for many hours of peace and
comfort in half-sickness, (and not by any means sure but they will
somehow get wind of the compliment,) I hereby dedicate the last half of
these Specimen Days to the
bees, glow-worms, (swarming millions
black-birds, of them indescribably
dragon-flies, strange and beautiful at night
pond-turtles, over the pond and creek,)
mulleins, tansy, peppermint, water-snakes,
moths, (great and little, some crows,
splendid fellows,) millers,
mosquitoes, cedars,
butterflies, tulip-trees, (and all other trees,)
wasps and hornets, and to the spots and memories
cat-birds, (and all other birds,) of those days, and the creek.
DELAWARE RIVER--DAYS AND NIGHTS
_April 5, 1879_.-With the return of spring to the skies, airs, waters of
the Delaware, return the sea-gulls. I never tire of watching their broad
and easy flight, in spirals, or as they oscillate with slow unflapping
wings, or look down with curved beak, or dipping to the water after
food. The crows, plenty enough all through the winter, have vanish'd
with the ice. Not one of them now to be seen. The steamboats have again
come forth--bustling up, handsome, freshly painted, for summer work--the
Columbia, the Edwin Forrest, (the Republic not yet out,) the Reybold,
Nelly White, the Twilight, the Ariel, the Warner, the Perry, the
Taggart, the Jersey Blue--even the hulky old Trenton--not forgetting
those saucy little bull-pups of the current, the steamtugs.
But let me bunch and catalogue the affair--the river itself, all the
way from the sea--Cape island on one side and Henlopen light on the
other--up the broad bay north, and so to Philadelphia, and on further to
Trenton;--the sights I am most familiar with, (as I live a good part
of the time in Camden, I view matters from that outlook)--the great
arrogant, black, full-freighted ocean steamers, inward or outward
bound--the ample width here between the two cities, intersected by
Windmill island--an occasional man-of-war, sometimes a foreigner, at
anchor, with her guns and port-holes, and the boats, and the brown-faced
sailors, and the regular oar-strokes, and the gay crowds of "visiting
day"--the frequent large and handsome three-masted schooners, (a
favorite style of marine build, hereabout of late years,) some of
them new and very jaunty, with their white-gray sails and yellow pine
spars--the sloops dashing along in a fair wind--(I see one now, coming
up, under broad canvas, her gaff-topsail shining in the sun, high and
picturesque--what a thing of beauty amid the sky and waters!)--the
crowded wharf-slips along the city--the flags of different
nationalities, the sturdy English cross on its ground of blood, the
French tricolor, the banner of the great North German empire, and the
Italian and the Spanish colors--sometimes, of an afternoon, the whole
scene enliven'd by a fleet of yachts, in a half calm, lazily returning
from a race down at Gloucester;--the neat, rakish, revenue steamer
"Hamilton" in mid-stream, with her perpendicular stripes flaunting
aft--and, turning the eyes north, the long ribands of fleecy-white
steam, or dingy-black smoke, stretching far, fan-shaped, slanting
diagonally across from the Kensington or Richmond shores, in the
west-by-south-west wind.
SCENES ON FERRY AND RIVER--LAST WINTER'S NIGHTS
Then the Camden ferry. What exhilaration, change, people, business, by
day. What soothing, silent, wondrous hours, at night, crossing on the
boat, most all to myself--pacing the deck, alone, forward or aft. What
communion with the waters, the air, the exquisite _chiaroscuro_--the
sky and stars, that speak no word, nothing to the intellect, yet so
eloquent, so communicative to the soul. And the ferry men--little they
know how much they have been to me, day and night--how many spells of
listlessness, ennui, debility, they and their hardy ways have dispell'd.
And the pilots--captains Hand, Walton, and Giberson by day, and captain
Olive at night; Eugene Crosby, with his strong young arm so often
supporting, circling, convoying me over the gaps of the bridge, through
impediments, safely aboard. Indeed all my ferry friends--captain Frazee
the superintendent, Lindell, Hiskey, Fred Rauch, Price, Watson, and
a dozen more. And the ferry itself, with its queer scenes--sometimes
children suddenly born in the waiting-houses (an actual fact--and more
than once)--sometimes a masquerade party, going over at night, with a
band of music, dancing and whirling like mad on the broad deck, in their
fantastic dresses; sometimes the astronomer, Mr. Whitall, (who posts
me up in points about the stars by a living lesson there and then, and
answering every question)--sometimes a prolific family group, eight,
nine, ten, even twelve! (Yesterday, as I cross'd, a mother, father, and
eight children, waiting in the ferry-house, bound westward somewhere.)
I have mention'd the crows. I always watch them from the boats. They
play quite a part in the winter scenes on the river, by day. Their black
splatches are seen in relief against the snow and ice everywhere at that
season--sometimes flying and flapping--sometimes on little or larger
cakes, sailing up or down the stream. One day the river was mostly
clear--only a single long ridge of broken ice making a narrow stripe by
itself, running along down the current for over a mile, quite rapidly.
On this white stripe the crows were congregated, hundreds of them--a