Outings At Odd Times. Abbott Charles Conrad
way.” It is a pity that such signs were not generally known, now that the “ground-goose, hog-bone” theory has proved unreliable.
And so it was, a year earlier. During the autumn of 1888, I gathered, by the aid of several friends, a considerable number of newspaper clippings concerning the character of the coming winter. Most of them predicted a very severe season and a late spring; a few were somewhat more moderate in the use of superlatives, and one long essay on the breast-bone of the goose made me shiver to read, although the day was warm, and in spite of the assurance that each of the “phenomenally cold periods” would be alternated by “spells of fall-like weather.” Not one hit the nail upon the head and foretold that December and January would be winter with winter left out. And only to-day (January 31) I find in a local paper that the musk-rats are stopping up the entrances to their homes, and February will be very cold. Perhaps! On the other hand, I have just received Volume I of the Geological Survey of New Jersey, in which is a most interesting chapter on the climate of this State. Looking over a tabulated statement of the weather, as characteristic of seasons, I find that we have had six notably mild winters in the past forty years, that of ’81-’82 being “one of the warmest on record.” Armed with these facts, I hunted up our oldest neighbor, Zephaniah Blank, and plied him with questions. Of course, as I intended, the conversation turned upon the weather, as it usually does, and he was very positive that we had had no such winter as the present for “nigh on to thirty years.” The old gentleman could recollect the moderately warm winter of ’57-’58, but that of ’81-’82 had passed from his mind. Had a reporter overheard our talk upon the subject, the local paper would doubtless have recorded the present as the warmest winter in thirty years, which is not the fact. Besides, we are not yet out of the woods, for February is often very cold, and March, to put the best face upon it, exceedingly tricky. Considering that weather is the most talked-of of subjects, is it not strange that upon no other is so much ignorance displayed?
It has been said that every man is a fool or a physician at forty. Whether true or not, every sexagenarian hereabouts is a weather prophet, and their combined wisdom is, as might be seen, valueless. Every one of these worthy men, as such, is a delusion and a snare, but all have faithful followers. Uncle Zephaniah, for instance, was very impatient, to express it mildly, when I spoke of the winter of 1881-’82. The curl of his lip, the glitter of his eyes and wave of his hand, when he remarked, “As if I didn’t know!” spoke volumes. Yet, in spite of his eighty years, he did not know. There is still another feature of weather wisdom, if I can call it such, that is even more remarkable – the proneness to forget the character of a season so soon after it has passed. It may be hard to believe, but many a person will stop to think when the question is put whether the great March blizzard was last year or the year before. Unless such a storm is coupled with some political event or a great disaster, as fire or shipwreck, it passes almost directly out of mind, and its magnitude dwindles in comparison to some lesser event with which the world’s history was connected. And the moral of all this is: keep a diary, swear only by it, and give nothing more than a respectful hearing to unlettered historians and weather prophets.
But if the people have changed, the country has not; and from the same woodland almanac from which they drew their facts we can draw ours. Can any one read it aright? Verily, is not Nature a tricksy author? There are the flowers that many a town dweller thinks truly report the seasons. Pshaw! Away up in Massachusetts, Bradford Torrey found over seventy plants in bloom during a November afternoon; and full well I know of a meadow where violets, bluets, dandelions, and blue-curl can be gathered, even at Christmas, and all the year round, when we have, as now (1889-’90) a typical open winter.
What of the birds? For of these and blossoms is a naturalist’s year made up. The woodland almanac goes for little so far as they are concerned – unless, indeed, you have a trained ear for varying twitters. Bird music is never lacking, and I have long held it an open question if we may not spare the thrush, when there are foxy-sparrows among the briers. So far as weather is concerned, we can not build upon our birds, and no one of our seasons lacks them. It is the whim of closet ornithologists and petty critics to assert that winter is comparatively birdless, but even this is not true. There are not so many species, but often quite as many individuals, and oftener more. Birdless, indeed! Redbirds, meadow-larks, song-sparrows, and blue jays at this moment are making merry in my garden. Notwithstanding all this, there will always be those who will strive to the end to decipher the woodland almanac, and where is he who claims not to have solved its meaning? It were well if every one spelled over a few pages of it every day. It is healthy exercise, fitting one to duties of all kinds, and never tending to sour the temper of a sane person if, at the close of threescore years and ten, he finds that he is sure of but the first lesson – there are four seasons. Weather wisdom, as we all know, meets us at every turn, and while usually irritating, occasionally proves a source of amusement. Some such experience as the following, may have been the fate of many more than I suppose.
John Blank is one of those unfortunates who desire to be thought a genius. To float with the current is beneath his dignity. Uz Gaunt described him well as one who persists in looking toward the west to see the sun rise. Knowing my love for the open fields, this would-be genius has kindly treated me, of late, to innumerable accounts of recent observations of beasts, birds, reptiles, and wild life’s less noble forms, and certainly the man has remarkable powers in one direction – he can misinterpret admirably. “Think of it!” he exclaimed excitedly; “here it is December, and I have heard a frog croak! It was not a springtime croak, of course, but a cry of pain, and I believe a musk-rat dug it out of its winter quarters, and the sound I heard was a cry of pain.” It is a wonder that he did not hear the musk-rat’s chuckle over a good dinner, also. Here we have three assumptions – that frogs never sing in winter; that they habitually hibernate; and that musk-rats dig them out of the mud. The aforesaid John Blank had lived forty-odd years on a farm, and did not know that frogs voluntarily sang or croaked during mild winter days. Like many another, finding that it is cold in December, he turns his back on winter sunshine.
Here are some statistics concerning frogs in winter. Previous to Oct. 20, 1889, there had been white frost, some chilly days as well as nights, and yet the frogs sang merrily on that date. There was frost, snow, and ice during the following week, and then these same frogs were again in full chorus; and later, in November, as late as the 19th, they rattled and piped, not only in the sheltered marshes, but among the wilted stalks of lotus in an exposed upland field. Then a long interim, when I was constantly in town, but at noon, December 19, I heard them again, and on Jan. 12, 1890, frogs of at least two species were croaking; and, too, bees were about, snakes were sunning themselves, turtles crawled from the mud, and salamanders squatted on dead oak leaves in the full glare of an almost midsummer sun. When John Blank was told of this he looked his name; but he was not disconcerted. “Did you ever examine the marshes in winter?” I asked.
“Certainly not,” he replied, and added: “What’s to be found in frozen mud, cold water, and about dead grass?”
“More life than you ever saw in midsummer,” was the impatient reply, and with this I moved off.
Blank maintained his reputation and declined to take a hint. “Did you ever see wild violets at Christmas?” he asked. I laughed, and assuming good-nature, said, “Come along,” and started with the conceited nuisance to a sheltered meadow. The grass was not dead, although Christmas was at hand; there were even green leaves on the sassafras sprouts; the water was not cold, although its surface had been frozen; the mud was very soft. Clustered about the roots of a noble tulip tree were claytonias in bloom; in the moist meadows were pale-blue violets, and beyond, exposed to the sweep of every chilly breeze from the west, were houstonias, and scattered here and there were single dandelions. “This,” I remarked, “is no unusual matter, referable to midwinter, and ought to be familiar to you; but you have probably not looked in the proper places for these things”; and, taking my cue from dear old Uz Gaunt, added, “don’t look in the west to see the sun rise.”
Then, pleading an engagement with solitude, I bade John Blank “Good-morning.”
The landscape lightened as the bore disappeared. And how an hour’s outing with nature soothes the irritation of an unwelcome interview! If I were an editor, I would have a cage of frogs, with a bit of green moss and a pool of water like that now at my elbow. To this I could