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Transcriber's Notes: Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been
left as in the original. No typographical corrections have been made.
Words in italics in the original are surrounded by _underscores_. Words
in bold in the original are surrounded by =equal signs=. The words
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    +--------------------------------------------------------------+
    |                     Books by Mr. Torrey.                     |
    |                                                              |
    |                                                              |
    |               BIRDS IN THE BUSH. 16mo, $1.25.                |
    |               A RAMBLER'S LEASE. 16mo, $1.25.                |
    |                                                              |
    |                                                              |
    |                   HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.                    |
    |                     BOSTON AND NEW YORK.                     |
    |                                                              |
    +--------------------------------------------------------------+




                          A RAMBLER'S LEASE


                                  BY

                           BRADFORD TORREY


     I have known many laboring men that have got good estates in
     this valley.--BUNYAN

     Sunbeams, shadows, butterflies, and birds.--WORDSWORTH


                         BOSTON AND NEW YORK
                    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
                    The Riverside Press, Cambridge
                                 1892




                           Copyright, 1889,
                         BY BRADFORD TORREY.

                        _All rights reserved._


          _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
           Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.




PREFATORY NOTE.


The writer of this little book has found so much pleasure in other men's
woods and fields that he has come to look upon himself as in some sort
the owner of them. Their lawful possessors will not begrudge him this
feeling, he believes, nor take it amiss if he assumes, even in this
public way, to hold _a rambler's lease_ of their property. Should it
please them to do so, they may accept the papers herein contained as a
kind of return, the best he knows how to offer, for the many favors,
alike unproffered and unasked, which he has received at their hands. His
private opinion is that the world belongs to those who enjoy it; and
taking this view of the matter, he cannot help thinking that some of
his more prosperous neighbors would do well, in legal phrase, to perfect
their titles. He would gladly be of service to them in this regard.




CONTENTS.


                                              PAGE
     MY REAL ESTATE                              1

     A WOODLAND INTIMATE                        22

     AN OLD ROAD                                45

     CONFESSIONS OF A BIRD'S-NEST HUNTER        70

     A GREEN MOUNTAIN CORN-FIELD                99

     BEHIND THE EYE                            114

     A NOVEMBER CHRONICLE                      121

     NEW ENGLAND WINTER                        140

     A MOUNTAIN-SIDE RAMBLE                    164

     A PITCH-PINE MEDITATION                   182

     ESOTERIC PERIPATETICISM                   189

     BUTTERFLY PSYCHOLOGY                      206

     BASHFUL DRUMMERS                          214




A RAMBLER'S LEASE.




MY REAL ESTATE.

     Yet some did think that he had little business here.--WORDSWORTH.


Every autumn the town of W---- sends me a tax-bill, a kindly remembrance
for which I never fail of feeling grateful. It is pleasant to know that
after all these years there still remains one man in the old town who
cherishes my memory,--though it be only "this publican." Besides, to
speak frankly, there is a measure of satisfaction in being reminded now
and then of my dignity as a landed proprietor. One may be never so rich
in stocks and bonds, government consols and what not, but, acceptable as
such "securities" are, they are after all not quite the same as a
section of the solid globe itself. True, this species of what we may
call astronomic or planetary property will sometimes prove
comparatively unremunerative. Here in New England (I know not what may
be true elsewhere) there is a class of people whom it is common to hear
gossiped about compassionately as "land poor." But, however scanty the
income to be derived from it, a landed investment is at least
substantial. It will never fail its possessor entirely. If it starve
him, it will offer him a grave. It has the prime quality of permanence.
At the very worst, it will last as long as it is needed. Railroads may
be "wrecked," banks be broken, governments become bankrupt, and we be
left to mourn; but when the earth departs we shall go with it. Yes, the
ancient form of speech is correct,--land is _real_; as the modern phrase
goes, translating Latin into Saxon, land is _the thing_; and though we
can scarcely reckon it among the necessaries of life, since so many do
without it, we may surely esteem it one of the least dispensable of
luxuries.

But I was beginning to speak of my tax-bill, and must not omit to
mention a further advantage of real estate over other forms of property.
It is certain not to be overlooked by the town assessors. Its
proprietor is never shut up to the necessity of either advertising his
own good fortune, or else submitting to pay less than his rightful share
of the public expenses,--a merciful deliverance, for in such a strait,
where either modesty or integrity must go to the wall, it is hard for
human nature to be sure of itself.

To my thinking there is no call upon a man's purse which should be
responded to with greater alacrity than this of the tax-gatherer. In
what cause ought we to spend freely, if not in that of home and country?
I have heard, indeed, of some who do not agree with me in this feeling.
Possibly tax-rates are now and then exorbitant. Possibly, too, my own
view of the subject might be different were my quota of the public levy
more considerable. This year, for instance, I am called upon for
seventy-three cents; if the demand were for as many dollars, who knows
whether I might not welcome it with less enthusiasm? On such a point it
would be unbecoming for me to speak. Enough that even with my fraction
of a dollar I am able to rejoice that I have a share in all the town's
multifarious outlay. If an additional fire-engine is bought, or a new
school-house built, or the public library replenished, it is done in
part out of my pocket.

Here, however, let me make a single exception. I seldom go home (such
language still escapes me involuntarily) without finding that one or
another of the old roads has been newly repaired. I hope that no mill of
my annual seventy or eighty cents goes into work of that sort. The
roads--such as I have in mind--are out of the way and little traveled,
and, in my opinion, were better left to take care of themselves. There
is no artist but will testify that a crooked road is more picturesque
than a straight one; while a natural border of alder bushes,
grape-vines, Roxbury wax-work, Virginia creeper, wild cherry, and such
like is an inexpensive decoration of the very best sort, such as the
Village Improvement Society ought never to allow any highway surveyor to
lay his hands on, unless in some downright exigency. What a
short-sighted policy it is that provides for the comfort of the feet,
but makes no account of those more intellectual and spiritual pleasures
which enter through the eye! It may be answered, I know, that in matters
of general concern it is necessary to consult the greatest good of the
greatest number; and that, while all the inhabitants of the town are
supplied with feet, comparatively few of them have eyes. There is force
in this, it must be admitted. Possibly the highway surveyor (the
highwayman, I was near to writing) is not so altogether wrong in his
"improvements." At all events, it is not worth while for me to make the
question one of conscience, and go to jail rather than pay my taxes, as
Thoreau did. Let it suffice to enter my protest. Whatever others may
desire, for myself, as often as I revisit W----, I wish to be able to
repeat with unction the words of W----'s only poet,[5:1]--

     "How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood!"

And how am I to do that, if the "scenes" have been modernized past
recognition?

My own landed possessions are happily remote from roads. Not till long
after my day will the "tide of progress" bring them "into the market,"
as the real-estate brokers are fond of saying. I have never yet been
troubled with the importunities of would-be purchasers. Indeed, it is a
principal recommendation of woodland property that one's sense of
proprietorship is so little liable to be disturbed. I often reflect how
altered the case would be were my fraction of an acre in some peculiarly
desirable location near the centre of the village. Then I could hardly
avoid knowing that the neighbors were given to speculating among
themselves about my probable selling price; once in a while I should be
confronted with a downright offer; and what assurance could I feel that
somebody would not finally tempt me beyond my strength, and actually buy
me out? As it is, my land is mine; and, unless extreme poverty overtakes
me, mine it is reasonably certain to remain, till death shall separate
us.

Whatever contributes to render life interesting and enjoyable goes so
far toward making difficult its final inevitable surrender; and it must
be confessed that the thought of my wood-lot increases my otherwise
natural regret at being already so well along on my journey. In a sense
I feel my own existence to be bound up with that of my pine-trees; or,
to speak more exactly, that their existence is bound up with mine. For
it is a sort of unwritten but inexorable law in W----, as in fact it
appears to be throughout New England, that no pine must ever be allowed
to reach more than half its normal growth; so that my trees are certain
to fall under the axe as soon as their present owner is out of the way.
I am not much given to superstition. There are no longer any dryads, it
is to be presumed; and if there were, it is not clear that they would be
likely to take up with pines; but for all that, I cherish an almost
affectionate regard for any trees with which I have become familiar. I
have mourned the untimely fate of many; and now, seeing that I have been
entrusted with the guardianship of these few, I hold myself under a kind
of sacred obligation to live as long as possible, for their sakes.

It is now a little less than a fortnight since I paid them a visit. The
path runs through the wood for perhaps half a mile; and, as I sauntered
along, I heard every few rods the thump of falling acorns, though there
was barely wind enough to sway the tree-tops. "Mother Earth has begun
her harvesting in good earnest," I thought. The present is what the
squirrels call a good year. They will laugh and grow fat. Their oak
orchards have seldom done better, the chestnut oaks in particular, the
handsome, rosy-tipped acorns of which are noticeably abundant.

This interesting tree, so like the chestnut itself in both bark and
leaf, is unfortunately not to be found in my own lot; at any rate, I
have never discovered it there, although it grows freely only a short
distance away. But I have never explored the ground with anything like
thoroughness, and, to tell the truth, am not at all certain that I know
just where the boundaries run. In this respect my real estate is not
unlike my intellectual possessions; concerning which I often find it
impossible to determine what is actually mine and what another's. I
have written an essay before now, and at the end been more or less in
doubt where to set the quotation marks. For that matter, indeed, I
incline to believe that the whole tract of woods in the midst of which
my little spot is situated belongs to me quite as really as to the
various persons who claim the legal ownership. Not many of these latter,
I am confident, get a better annual income from the property than I do;
and even in law, we are told, possession counts for nine points out of
the ten. They are never to be found at home when I call, and I feel no
scruple about carrying away whatever I please. My treasures, be it said,
however, are chiefly of an impalpable sort,--mostly thoughts and
feelings, though with a few flowers and ferns now and then; the one set
about as valuable as the other, the proprietors of the land would
probably think.

In one aspect of the case, the lot which is more strictly my own is just
now in a very interesting condition, though one that, unhappily, is far
from being uncommon. Except the pines already mentioned (only six or
eight in number), the wood was entirely cut off a few years before I
came into possession, and at present the place is covered with a thicket
of vines, bushes, and young trees, all engaged in an almost desperate
struggle for existence. When the ground was cleared, every seed in it
bestirred itself and came up; others made haste to enter from without;
and ever since then the battle has been going on. It is curious to
consider how changed the appearance of things will be at the end of
fifty years, should nature be left till then to take its course. By that
time the contest will for the most part be over. At least nineteen
twentieths of all the plants that enlisted in the fight will have been
killed, and where now is a dense mass of shrubbery will be a grove of
lordly trees, with the ground underneath broad-spaced and clear. A noble
result; but achieved at what a cost! If one were likely himself to live
so long, it would be worth while to catalogue the species now in the
field, for the sake of comparing the list with a similar one of half a
century later. The contrast would be an impressive sermon on the
mutability of mundane things. But we shall be past the need of
preaching, most of us, before that day arrives, and not unlikely shall
have been ourselves preached about in enforcement of the same trite
theme.

Thoughts of this kind came to me the other afternoon, as I stood in the
path (what is known as the town path cuts the lot in two) and looked
about. So much was going on in this bit of earth, itself the very centre
of the universe to multitudes of living things. The city out of which I
had come was not more densely populous. Here at my elbow stood a group
of sassafras saplings, remnants of a race that has held the ground for
nobody knows how long. One of my earliest recollections of the place is
of coming hither to dig for fragrant roots. At that time it had never
dawned upon me that the owner of the land would some day die, and leave
it to me, his heir. How hard and rocky the ground was! And how hard we
worked for a very little bark! Yet few of my pleasures have lasted
better. The spicy taste is in my mouth still. Even in those days I
remarked the glossy green twigs of this elegant species, as well as the
unique and beautiful variety of its leaves,--some entire and oval,
others mitten-shaped, and others yet three-lobed; an extremely pretty
bit of originality, suiting admirably with the general comely habit of
this tree. There are some trees, as some men, that seem born to dress
well.

Along with the sassafras I was delighted to find one or two small
specimens of the flowering dogwood (_Cornus florida_),--another original
genius, and one which I now for the first time became acquainted with as
a tenant of my own. Its deeply veined leaves are not in any way
remarkable (unless it be for their varied autumnal tints), and are all
fashioned after one pattern. Its blossoms, too, are small and
inconspicuous; but these it sets round with large white bracts
(universally mistaken for petals by the uninitiated), and in flowering
time it is beyond comparison the showiest tree in the woods, while its
fruit is the brightest of coral red. I hope these saplings of mine may
hold their own in the struggle for life, and be flourishing in all their
beauty when my successor goes to look at them fifty years hence.

Having spoken of the originality of the sassafras and the dogwood, I
must not fail to mention their more abundant neighbor, the witch-hazel,
or hamamelis. In comparison with its wild freak of singularity, the
modest idiosyncrasies of the other two seem almost conventional. Why, if
not for sheer oddity's sake, should any bush in this latitude hold back
its blossoms till near the edge of winter? As I looked at the half-grown
buds, clustered in the axils of the yellow leaves, they appeared to be
waiting for the latter to fall, that they might have the sunlight all to
themselves. They will need it, one would say, in our bleak November
weather.

Overfull of life as my wild garden patch was, it would not have kept its
(human) possessor very long from starvation. One or two barberry bushes
made a brave show of fruitfulness; but the handsome clusters were not
yet ripe, and even at their best they are more ornamental than
nutritive,--though, after the frost has cooked them, one may go farther
and fare worse. A few stunted maple-leaved viburnums (_this_ plant's
originality is imitative,--a not uncommon sort