The White Rose Road
Being a New Englander, it is natural that I should first speak aboutthe weather. Only the middle of June, the green fields, and blue sky,and bright sun, with a touch of northern mountain wind blowingstraight toward the sea, could make such a day, and that is all onecan say about it. We were driving seaward through a part of thecountry which has been least changed in the last thirty years,--amongfarms which have been won from swampy lowland, and rocky,stump-buttressed hillsides: where the forests wall in the fields, andsend their outposts year by year farther into the pastures. There is ayear or two in the history of these pastures before they have arrivedat the dignity of being called woodland, and yet are too much shadedand overgrown by young trees to give proper pasturage, when they madedelightful harbors for the small wild creatures which yet remain, andfor wild flowers and berries. Here you send an astonished rabbitscurrying to his burrow, and there you startle yourself with apartridge, who seems to get the best of the encounter. Sometimes yousee a hen partridge and her brood of chickens crossing your path withan air of comfortable door-yard security. As you drive along thenarrow, grassy road, you see many charming sights and delightful nookson either hand, where the young trees spring out of a close-croppedturf that carpets the ground like velvet. Toward the east and thequaint fishing village of Ogunquit, I find the most delightfulwoodland roads. There is little left of the large timber which oncefilled the region, but much young growth, and there are hundreds ofacres of cleared land and pasture-ground where the forests arespringing fast and covering the country once more, as if they had noidea of losing in their war with civilization and the intruding whitesettler. The pine woods and the Indians seem to be next of kin, andthe former owners of this corner of New England are the only properfigures to paint into such landscapes. The twilight under tall pinesseems to be untenanted and to lack something, at first sight, as ifone opened the door of an empty house. A farmer passing through withhis axe is but an intruder, and children straying home from schoolgive one a feeling of solicitude at their unprotectedness. The pinewoods are the red man's house, and it may be hazardous even yet forthe gray farmhouses to stand so near the eaves of the forest. I havenoticed a distrust of the deep woods, among elderly people, which wassomething more than a fear of losing their way. It was a feeling ofdefenselessness against some unrecognized but malicious influence.Driving through the long woodland way, shaded and chilly when you areout of the sun; across the Great Works River and its pretty elm-grownintervale; across the short bridges of brown brooks; delayed now andthen by the sight of ripe strawberries in sunny spots by the roadside,one comes to a higher open country, where farm joins farm, and thecleared fields lie all along the highway, while the woods are pushedback a good distance on either hand. The wooded hills, bleak here andthere with granite ledges, rise beyond. The houses are beside theroad, with green door-yards and large barns, almost empty now, andwith wide doors standing open, as if they were already expecting thehay crop to be brought in. The tall green grass is waving in thefields as the wind goes over, and there is a fragrance of whiteweedand ripe strawberries and clover blowing through the sunshiny barns,with their lean sides and their festoons of brown, dusty cobwebs;dull, comfortable creatures they appear to imaginative eyes, waitinghungrily for their yearly meal. The eave-swallows are teasing theirsleepy shapes, like the birds which flit about great beasts; gay,movable, irreverent, almost derisive, those barn swallows fly to andfro in the still, clear air.The noise of our wheels brings fewer faces to the windows than usual,and we lose the pleasure of seeing some of our friends who are apt tobe looking out, and to whom we like to say good-day. Some funeral mustbe taking place, or perhaps the women may have gone out into thefields. It is hoeing-time and strawberry-time, and already we haveseen some of the younger women at work among the corn and potatoes.One sight will be charming to remember. On a green hillside slopingto the west, near one of the houses, a thin little girl was workingaway lustily with a big hoe on a patch of land perhaps fifty feet bytwenty. There were all sorts of things growing there, as if a child'sfancy had made the choice,--straight rows of turnips and carrots andbeets, a little of everything, one might say; but the only touch ofcolor was from a long border of useful sage in full bloom of dullblue, on the upper side. I am sure this was called Katy's or Becky'spiece by the elder members of the family. One can imagine how theyoung creature had planned it in the spring, and persuaded the men toplough and harrow it, and since then had stoutly done all the workherself, and meant to send the harvest of the piece to market, andpocket her honest gains, as they came in, for some great end. She wasas thin as a grasshopper, this busy little gardener, and hardly turnedto give us a glance, as we drove slowly up the hill close by. The sunwill brown and dry her like a spear of grass on that hot slope, but aspark of fine spirit is in the small body, and I wish her a famouscrop. I hate to say that the piece looked backward, all except thesage, and that it was a heavy bit of land for the clumsy hoe to pickat. The only puzzle is, what she proposes to do with so long a row ofsage. Yet there may be a large family with a downfall of measles yetahead, and she does not mean to be caught without sage-tea.Along this road every one of the old farmhouses has at least one tallbush of white roses by the door,--a most lovely sight, with buds andblossoms, and unvexed green leaves. I wish that I knew the history ofthem, and whence the first bush was brought. Perhaps from Englanditself, like a red rose that I know in Kittery, and the new shootsfrom the root were given to one neighbor after another all through thedistrict. The bushes are slender, but they grow tall without climbingagainst the wall, and sway to and fro in the wind with a grace ofyouth and an inexpressible charm of beauty. How many lovers must havepicked them on Sunday evenings, in all the bygone years, and carriedthem along the roads or by the pasture footpaths, hiding them clumsilyunder their Sunday coats if they caught sight of any one coming. Here,too, where the sea wind nips many a young life before its prime, howoften the white roses have been put into paler hands, and witheredthere!In spite of the serene and placid look of the old houses, one who hasalways known them cannot help thinking of the sorrows of these farmsand their almost undiverted toil. Near the little gardener's plot, weturned from the main road and drove through lately cleared woodland upto an old farmhouse, high on a ledgy hill, whence there is a fine viewof the country seaward and mountainward. There were few of the oncelarge household left there: only the old farmer, who was crippled bywar wounds, active, cheerful man that he was once, and two youngorphan children. There has been much hard work spent on the place.Every generation has toiled from youth to age without being able tomake much beyond a living. The dollars that can be saved are but few,and sickness and death have often brought their bitter cost. Themistress of the farm was helpless for many years; through all thesummers and winters she sat in her pillowed rocking-chair in the plainroom. She could watch the seldom-visited lane, and beyond it, a littleway across the fields, were the woods; besides these, only the cloudsin the sky. She could not lift her food to her mouth; she could not beher husband's working partner. She never went into another woman'shouse to see her works and ways, but sat there, aching and tired,vexed by flies and by heat, and isolated in long storms. Yet the wholecountryside neighbored her with true affection. Her spirit grewstronger as her body grew weaker, and the doctors, who grieved becausethey could do so little with their skill, were never confronted bythat malady of the spirit, a desire for ease and laziness, which makesthe soundest of bodies useless and complaining. The thought of herblooms in one's mind like the whitest of flowers; it makes one braverand more thankful to remember the simple faith and patience with whichshe bore her pain and trouble. How often she must have said, "I wish Icould do something for you in return," when she was doing a thousandtimes more than if, like her neighbors, she followed the simple roundof daily life! She was doing constant kindness by her example; butnobody can tell the woe of her long days and nights, the solitude ofher spirit, as she was being lifted by such hard ways to the knowledgeof higher truth and experience. Think of her pain when, one afteranother, her children fell ill and died, and she could not tend them!And now, in the same worn chair where she lived and slept sat herhusband, helpless too, thinking of her, and missing her more than ifshe had been sometimes away from home, like other women. Even astranger would miss her in the house.There sat the old farmer looking down the lane in his turn, bearinghis afflictions with a patient sternness that may have been born ofwatching his wife's serenity. There was a half-withered rose lyingwithin his reach. Some days nobody came up the lane, and the wildbirds that ventured near the house and the clouds that blew over werehis only entertainment. He had a fine face, of the older New Englandtype, clean-shaven and strong-featured,--a type that is fast passingaway. He might have been a Cumberland dalesman, such were his dignity,and self-possession, and English soberness of manner. His large framewas built for hard work, for lifting great weights and pushing hisplough through new-cleared land. We felt at home together, and eachknew many things that the other did of earlier days, and of lossesthat had come with time. I remembered coming to the old house often inmy childhood; it was in this very farm lane that I first saw anemones,and learned what to call them. After we drove away, this crippled manmust have thought a long time about my elders and betters, as if hewere reading their story out of a book. I suppose he has hauled many astick of timber pine down for ship-yards, and gone through the villageso early in the winter morning that I, waking in my warm bed, onlyheard the sleds creak through the frozen snow as the slow oxen ploddedby.Near the house a trout brook comes plashing over the ledges. At oneplace there is a most exquisite waterfall, to which neither painter'sbrush nor writer's pen can do justice. The sunlight falls throughflickering leaves into the deep glen, and makes the foam whiter andthe brook more golden-brown. You can hear the merry noise of it allnight, all day, in the house. A little way above the farmstead itcomes through marshy ground, which I fear has been the cause of muchillness and sorrow to the poor, troubled family. I had a thrill ofpain, as it seemed to me that the brook was mocking at all thattrouble with all its wild carelessness and loud laughter, as ithurried away down the glen.When we had said good-by and were turning the horses away, theresuddenly appeared in a footpath that led down from one of the greenhills the young grandchild, just coming home from school. She was asquick as a bird, and as shy in her little pink gown, and balancedherself on one foot, like a flower. The brother was the elder of thetwo orphans; he was the old man's delight and dependence by day, whilehis hired man was afield. The sober country boy had learned to waitand tend, and the young people were indeed a joy in that lonelyhousehold. There was no sign that they ever played like otherchildren,--no truckle-cart in the yard, no doll, no bits of brokencrockery in order on a rock. They had learned a fashion of life fromtheir elders, and already could lift and carry their share of theburdens of life.It was a country of wild flowers; the last of the columbines wereclinging to the hillsides; down in the small, fenced meadows belongingto the farm were meadow rue just coming in flower, and red and whiteclover; the golden buttercups were thicker than the grass, while manymulleins were standing straight and slender among the pine stumps,with their first blossoms atop. Rudbeckias had found their way in, andappeared more than ever like bold foreigners. Their names should betranslated into country speech, and the children ought to call them"rude-beckies," by way of relating them to bouncing-bets andsweet-williams. The pasture grass was green and thick after theplentiful rains, and the busy cattle took little notice of us as theybrowsed steadily and tinkled their pleasant bells. Looking off, thesmooth, round back of Great Hill caught the sunlight with its fieldsof young grain, and all the long, wooded slopes and valleys were freshand fair in the June weather, away toward the blue New Hampshire hillson the northern horizon. Seaward stood Agamenticus, dark with itspitch pines, and the far sea itself, blue and calm, ruled the unevencountry with its unchangeable line.Out on the white rose road again, we saw more of the rose-trees thanever, and now and then a carefully tended flower garden, alwaysdelightful to see and think about. These are not made by merelylooking through a florist's catalogue, and ordering this or that newseedling and a proper selection of bulbs or shrubs; everything in acountry garden has its history and personal association. The oldbushes, the perennials, are apt to have most tender relationship withthe hands that planted them long ago. There is a constant exchange ofsuch treasures between the neighbors, and in the spring, slips andcuttings may be seen rooting on the window ledges, while the houseplants give endless work all winter long, since they need carefulprotection against frost in long nights of the severe weather. Aflower-loving woman brings back from every one of her infrequentjourneys some treasure of flower-seeds or a huge miscellaneousnosegay. Time to work in the little plot of pleasure-ground is hardlywon by the busy mistress of the farmhouse. The most appealingcollection of flowering plants and vines that I ever saw was inVirginia, once, above the exquisite valley spanned by the NaturalBridge, a valley far too little known or praised. I had noticed an oldlog house, as I learned to know the outlook from the picturesquehotel, and was sure that it must give a charming view from its perchon the summit of a hill.One day I went there,--one April day, when the whole landscape wasfull of color from the budding trees,--and before I could look at theview, I caught sight of some rare vines, already in leaf, about thedilapidated walls of the cabin. Then across the low paling I saw thebrilliant colors of tulips and daffodils. There were many rose-bushes;in fact, the whole top of the hill was a flower garden, once wellcared for and carefully ordered. It was all the work of an old womanof Scotch-Irish descent, who had been busy with the cares of life, anda very hard worker; yet I was told that to gratify her love forflowers she would often go afoot many miles over those rough Virginiaroads, with a root or cutting from her own garden, to barter for a newrose or a brighter blossom of some sort, with which she would returnin triumph. I fancied that sometimes she had to go by night on thesecharming quests. I could see her business-like, small figure settingforth down the steep path, when she had a good conscience toward herhousekeeping and the children were in order to be left. I am surethat her friends thought of her when they were away from home andcould bring her an offering of something rare. Alas, she had grown tooold and feeble to care for her dear blossoms any longer, and had beenforced to go to live with a married son. I dare say that she wasthinking of her garden that very day, and wondering if this plant orthat were not in bloom, and perhaps had a heartache at the thoughtthat her tenants, the careless colored children, might tread the youngshoots of peony and rose, and make havoc in the herb-bed. It was anuncommon collection, made by years of patient toil and self-sacrifice.I thought of that deserted Southern garden as I followed my own NewEngland road. The flower-plots were in gay bloom all along the way;almost every house had some flowers before it, sometimes carefullyfenced about by stakes and barrel staves from the miscreant hens andchickens which lurked everywhere, and liked a good scratch andfluffing in soft earth this year as well as any other. The worldseemed full of young life. There were calves tethered in pleasantshady spots, and puppies and kittens adventuring from the doorways.The trees were full of birds: bobolinks, and cat-birds, andyellow-hammers, and golden robins, and sometimes a thrush, for theafternoon was wearing late. We passed the spring which once marked theboundary where three towns met,--Berwick, York, and Wells,--a famousspot in the early settlement of the country, but many of its oldtraditions are now forgotten. One of the omnipresent regicides ofCharles the First is believed to have hidden himself for a long timeunder a great rock close by. The story runs that he made his miserablehome in this den for several years, but I believe that there is norecord that more than three of the regicides escaped to this country,and their wanderings are otherwise accounted for. There is a firmbelief that one of them came to York, and was the ancestor of manypersons now living there, but I do not know whether he can have beenthe hero of the Baker's Spring hermitage beside. We stopped to drinksome of the delicious water, which never fails to flow cold and clearunder the shade of a great oak, and were amused with the sight of aflock of gay little country children who passed by in deepconversation. What could such atoms of humanity be talking about?"Old times," said John, the master of horse, with instant decision.We met now and then a man or woman, who stopped to give us hospitablegreeting; but there was no staying for visits, lest the daylight mightfail us. It was delightful to find this old-established neighborhoodso thriving and populous, for a few days before I had driven overthree miles of road, and passed only one house that was tenanted, andsix cellars or crumbling chimneys where good farmhouses had been, thelilacs blooming in solitude, and the fields, cleared with so muchdifficulty a century or two ago, all going back to the originalwoodland from which they were won. What would the old farmers say tosee the fate of their worthy bequest to the younger generation? Theywould wag their heads sorrowfully, with sad foreboding.After we had passed more woodland and a well-known quarry, where, fora wonder, the derrick was not creaking and not a single hammer wasclinking at the stone wedges, we did not see any one hoeing in thefields, as we had seen so many on the white rose road, the other sideof the hills. Presently we met two or three people walking sedately,clad in their best clothes. There was a subdued air of publicexcitement and concern, and one of us remembered that there had been adeath in the neighborhood; this was the day of the funeral. The manhad been known to us in former years. We had an instinct to hide ourunsympathetic pleasuring, but there was nothing to be done except tofollow our homeward road straight by the house.The occasion was nearly ended by this time: the borrowed chairs werebeing set out in the yard in little groups; even the funeral supperhad been eaten, and the brothers and sisters and near relatives of thedeparted man were just going home. The new grave showed plainly out inthe green field near by. He had belonged to one of the ancientfamilies of the region, long settled on this old farm by the narrowriver; they had given their name to a bridge, and the bridge hadchristened the meeting-house which stood close by. We were much struckby the solemn figure of the mother, a very old woman, as she walkedtoward her old home with some of her remaining children. I had notthought to see her again, knowing her great age and infirmity. She waslike a presence out of the last century, tall and still erect,dark-eyed and of striking features, and a firm look not modern, but asif her mind were still set upon an earlier and simpler scheme of life.An air of dominion cloaked her finely. She had long been queen of hersurroundings and law-giver to her great family. Royalty is a quality,one of Nature's gifts, and there one might behold it as truly as ifVictoria Regina Imperatrix had passed by. The natural instincts commonto humanity were there undisguised, unconcealed, simply accepted. Wehad seen a royal progress; she was the central figure of that ruralsociety; as you looked at the little group, you could see her only.Now that she came abroad so rarely, her presence was not without deepsignificance, and so she took her homeward way with a primitive kindof majesty.It was evident that the neighborhood was in great excitement and quitethrown out of its usual placidity. An acquaintance came from a smallhouse farther down the road, and we stopped for a word with him. Wespoke of the funeral, and were told something of the man who had died."Yes, and there's a man layin' very sick here," said our friend in anexcited whisper. "He won't last but a day or two. There's anotherman buried yesterday that was struck by lightnin', comin' acrost afield when that great shower begun. The lightnin' stove through hishat and run down all over him, and ploughed a spot in the ground."There was a knot of people about the door; the minister of thatscattered parish stood among them, and they all looked at us eagerly,as if we too might be carrying news of a fresh disaster through thecountryside.Somehow the melancholy tales did not touch our sympathies as theyought, and we could not see the pathetic side of them as at anothertime, the day was so full of cheer and the sky and earth so glorious.The very fields looked busy with their early summer growth, the horsesbegan to think of the clack of the oat-bin cover, and we were hurriedalong between the silvery willows and the rustling alders, taking timeto gather a handful of stray-away conserve roses by the roadside; andwhere the highway made a long bend eastward among the farms, two of usleft the carriage, and followed a footpath along the green river bankand through the pastures, coming out to the road again only a minutelater than the horses. I believe that it is an old Indian trailfollowed from the salmon falls farther down the river, where theup-country Indians came to dry the plentiful fish for their wintersupplies. I have traced the greater part of this deep-worn footpath,which goes straight as an arrow across the country, the first day'strail being from the falls (where Mason's settlers came in 1627, andbuilt their Great Works of a saw-mill with a gang of saws, andpresently a grist mill beside) to Emery's Bridge. I should like tofollow the old footpath still farther. I found part of it by accidenta long time ago. Once, as you came close to the river, you were sureto find fishermen scattered along,--sometimes I myself have beendiscovered; but it is not much use to go fishing any more. If somepublic-spirited person would kindly be the Frank Buckland of NewEngland, and try to have the laws enforced that protect the inlandfisheries, he would do his country great service. Years ago, therewere so many salmon that, as an enthusiastic old friend once assuredme, "you could walk across on them below the falls;" but now they areunknown, simply because certain substances which would enrich thefarms are thrown from factories and tanneries into our clear NewEngland streams. Good river fish are growing very scarce. The smelts,and bass, and shad have all left this upper branch of the Piscataqua,as the salmon left it long ago, and the supply of one necessary sortof good cheap food is lost to a growing community, for the lack of alittle thought and care in the factory companies and saw-mills, andthe building in some cases of fish-ways over the dams. I think thatthe need of preaching against this bad economy is very great. Thesight of a proud lad with a string of undersized trout will scatterhalf the idlers in town into the pastures next day, but everybodypatiently accepts the depopulation of a fine clear river, where thetide comes fresh from the sea to be tainted by the spoiled stream,which started from its mountain sources as pure as heart could wish.Man has done his best to ruin the world he lives in, one is tempted tosay at impulsive first thought; but after all, as I mounted the lasthill before reaching the village, the houses took on a new look ofcomfort and pleasantness; the fields that I knew so well were afresher green than before, the sun was down, and the provocations ofthe day seemed very slight compared to the satisfaction. I believedthat with a little more time we should grow wiser about our fish andother things beside.It will be good to remember the white rose road and its quietness inmany a busy town day to come. As I think of these slight sketches, Iwonder if they will have to others a tinge of sadness; but I haveseldom spent an afternoon so full of pleasure and fresh and delightedconsciousness of the possibilities of rural life.
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