A WHITE HERON
by Sarah Orne Jewett
I
The woods were already filled with shadows
one June evening, just before eight o'clock,
though a bright sunset still glimmered
faintly among the trunks of the trees. A
little girl was driving home her cow, a
plodding, dilatory, provoking creature in
her behavior, but a valued companion for
all that. They were going away from whatever
light there was, and striking deep into the
woods, but their feet were familiar with
the path, and it was no matter whether
their eyes could see it or not.
There was hardly a night the summer
through when the old cow could be found
waiting at the pasture bars; on the contrary,
it was her greatest pleasure to hide herself
away among the huckleberry bushes, and though
she wore a loud bell she had made the discovery
that if one stood perfectly still it would
not ring. So Sylvia had to hunt for her until
she found her, and call Co'! Co'! with never
an answering Moo, until her childish patience
was quite spent. If the creature had not given
good milk and plenty of it, the case would
have seemed very different to her owners.
Besides, Sylvia had all the time there was,
and very little use to make of it. Sometimes
in pleasant weather it was a consolation to
look upon the cow's pranks as an intelligent
attempt to play hide and seek, and as the
child had no playmates she lent herself to
this amusement with a good deal of zest.
Though this chase had been so long that the
wary animal herself had given an unusual
signal of her whereabouts, Sylvia had only
laughed when she came upon Mistress Moolly at
the swampside, and urged her affectionately
homeward with a twig of birch leaves. The old
cow was not inclined to wander farther, she
even turned in the right direction for once
as they left the pasture, and stepped along
the road at a good pace. She was quite ready
to be milked now, and seldom stopped to browse.
Sylvia wondered what her grandmother would
say because they were so late. It was a great
while since she had left home at half-past
five o'clock, but everybody knew the difficulty
of making this errand a short one. Mrs. Tilley
had chased the horned torment too many summer
evenings herself to blame any one else for
lingering, and was only thankful as she waited
that she had Sylvia, nowadays, to give such
valuable assistance. The good woman suspected
that Sylvia loitered occasionally on her own
account; there never was such a child for
straying about out-of-doors since the world
was made! Everybody said that it was a
good change for a little maid who had tried
to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing
town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed
as if she never had been alive at all before
she came to live at the farm. She thought
often with wistful compassion of a wretched
geranium that belonged to a town neighbor.
"'Afraid of folks,'" old Mrs. Tilley said to
herself, with a smile, after she had made the
unlikely choice of Sylvia from her daughter's
houseful of children, and was returning to the
farm. "'Afraid of folks,' they said! I guess
she won't be troubled no great with 'em up to
the old place!" When they reached the door
of the lonely house and stopped to unlock it,
and the cat came to purr loudly, and rub
against them, a deserted pussy, indeed, but
fat with young robins, Sylvia whispered that
this was a beautiful place to live in, and she
never should wish to go home.
The companions followed the shady woodroad,
the cow taking slow steps and the child very
fast ones. The cow stopped long at the brook
to drink, as if the pasture were not half a
swamp, and Sylvia stood still and waited,
letting her bare feet cool themselves in the
shoal water, while the great twilight moths
struck softly against her. She waded on
through the brook as the cow moved away, and
listened to the thrushes with a heart that
beat fast with pleasure. There was a stirring
in the great boughs overhead. They were full
of little birds and beasts that seemed to be
wide awake, and going about their world, or
else saying good-night to each other in sleepy
twitters. Sylvia herself felt sleepy as she
walked along. However, it was not much farther
to the house, and the air was soft and sweet.
She was not often in the woods so late as this,
and it made her feel as if she were a part of
the gray shadows and the moving leaves. She
was just thinking how long it seemed since she
first came to the farm a year ago, and wondering
if everything went on in the noisy town just
the same as when she was there; the thought of
the great red-faced boy who used to chase and
frighten her made her hurry along the path
to escape from the shadow of the trees.
Suddenly this little woods-girl is
horror-stricken to hear a clear whistle not
very far away. Not a bird's-whistle, which
would have a sort of friendliness, but a
boy's whistle, determined, and somewhat
aggressive. Sylvia left the cow to whatever
sad fate might await her, and stepped
discreetly aside into the brushes, but she
was just too late. The enemy had discovered
her, and called out in a very cheerful and
persuasive tone, "Halloa, little girl, how
far is it to the road?" and trembling Sylvia
answered almost inaudibly, "A good ways."
She did not dare to look boldly at the
tall young man, who carried a gun over his
shoulder, but she came out of her bush and
again followed the cow, while he walked
alongside.
"I have been hunting for some birds," the
stranger said kindly, "and I have lost my
way, and need a friend very much. Don't be
afraid," he added gallantly. "Speak up and
tell me what your name is, and whether you
think I can spend the night at your house,
and go out gunning early in the morning."
Sylvia was more alarmed than before.
Would not her grandmother consider her much
to blame? But who could have foreseen such
an accident as this? It did not seem to be
her fault, and she hung her head as if the
stem of it were broken, but managed to
answer "Sylvy," with much effort when her
companion again asked her name.
Mrs. Tilley was standing in the doorway
when the trio came into view. The cow gave
a loud moo by way of explanation.
"Yes, you'd better speak up for yourself,
you old trial! Where'd she tucked herself
away this time, Sylvy?" But Sylvia kept
an awed silence; she knew by instinct
that her grandmother did not comprehend
the gravity of the situation. She must
be mistaking the stranger for one of the
farmer-lads of the region.
The young man stood his gun beside the
door, and dropped a lumpy game-bag beside
it; then he bade Mrs. Tilley good-evening,
and repeated his wayfarer's story, and
asked if he could have a night's lodging.
"Put me anywhere you like," he said. "I
must be off early in the morning, before
day; but I am very hungry, indeed. You
can give me some milk at any rate, that's
plain."
"Dear sakes, yes," responded the hostess,
whose long slumbering hospitality seemed to
be easily awakened. "You might fare better
if you went out to the main road a mile or
so, but you're welcome to what we've got.
I'll milk right off, and you make yourself
at home. You can sleep on husks or feathers,"
she proffered graciously. "I raised them
all myself. There's good pasturing for geese
just below here towards the ma'sh. Now step
round and set a plate for the gentleman,
Sylvy!" And Sylvia promptly stepped. She
was glad to have something to do, and she
was hungry herself.
It was a surprise to find so clean and
comfortable a little dwelling in this
New England wilderness. The young man had
known the horrors of its most primitive
housekeeping, and the dreary squalor of
that level of society which does not
rebel at the companionship of hens. This
was the best thrift of an old-fashioned
farmstead, though on such a small scale
that it seemed like a hermitage. He
listened eagerly to the old woman's quaint
talk, he watched Sylvia's pale face and
shining gray eyes with ever growing enthusiasm,
and insisted that this was the best supper
he had eaten for a month, and afterward
the new-made friends sat down in the
door-way together while the moon came up.
Soon it would be berry-time, and Sylvia was
a great help at picking. The cow was a good
milker, though a plaguy thing to keep track
of, the hostess gossiped frankly, adding
presently that she had buried four children,
so Sylvia's mother, and a son (who might be
dead) in California were all the children she
had left. "Dan, my boy, was a great hand to
go gunning," she explained sadly. "I never
wanted for pa'tridges or gray squer'ls while
he was to home. He's been a great wand'rer,
I expect, and he's no hand to write letters.
There, I don't blame him, I'd ha' seen the
world myself if it had been so I could."
"Sylvy takes after him," the grandmother
continued affectionately, after a minute's
pause. "There ain't a foot o' ground she don't
know her way over, and the wild creatur's
counts her one o' themselves. Squer'ls she'll
tame to come an' feed right out o' her hands,
and all sorts o' birds. Last winter she got
the jaybirds to bangeing* here, and I believe
she'd 'a' scanted herself of her own meals to
have plenty to throw out amongst 'em, if I
hadn't kep' watch. Anything but crows, I tell
her, I'm willin' to help support -- though Dan
he had a tamed one o' them that did seem to have
reason same as folks. It was round here a good
spell after he went away. Dan an' his father
they didn't hitch, -- but he never held up his
head ag'in after Dan had dared him an' gone
off."
The guest did not notice this hint of family
sorrows in his eager interest in something else.
"So Sylvy knows all about birds, does she?"
he exclaimed, as he looked round at the little
girl who sat, very demure but increasingly
sleepy, in the moonlight. "I am making a
collection of birds myself. I have been at it
ever since I was a boy." (Mrs. Tilley smiled.)
There are two or three very rare ones I have
been hunting for these five years. I mean to
get them on my own ground if they can be
found."
"Do you cage 'em up?" asked Mrs. Tilley
doubtfully, in response to this enthusiastic
announcement.
"Oh no, they're stuffed and preserved,
dozens and dozens of them," said the
ornithologist, "and I have shot or snared
every one myself. I caught a glimpse of a
white heron a few miles from here on Saturday,
and I have followed it in this direction.
They have never been found in this district
at all. The little white heron, it is," and
he turned again to look at Sylvia with the
hope of discovering that the rare bird was
one of her acquaintances.
But Sylvia was watching a hop-toad in the
narrow footpath.
"You would know the heron if you saw it,"
the stranger continued eagerly. "A queer
tall white bird with soft feathers and long
thin legs. And it would have a nest perhaps
in the top of a high tree, made of sticks,
something like a hawk's nest."
Sylvia's heart gave a wild beat; she knew
that strange white bird, and had once stolen
softly near where it stood in some bright
green swamp grass, away over at the other
side of the woods. There was an open place
where the sunshine always seemed strangely
yellow and hot, where tall, nodding rushes
grew, and her grandmother had warned her that
she might sink in the soft black mud underneath
and never be heard of more. Not far beyond
were the salt marshes just this side the sea
itself, which Sylvia wondered and dreamed
much about, but never had seen, whose great
voice could sometimes be heard above the
noise of the woods on stormy nights.
"I can't think of anything I should like
so much as to find that heron's nest," the
handsome stranger was saying. "I would give
ten dollars to anybody who could show it to
me," he added desperately, and I mean to
spend my whole vacation hunting for it if
need be. Perhaps it was only migrating, or
had been chased out of its own region by
some bird of prey."
Mrs. Tilley gave amazed attention to all
this, but Sylvia still watched the toad,
not divining, as she might have done at
some calmer time, that the creature wished
to get to its hole under the door-step,
and was much hindered by the unusual
spectators at that hour of the evening.
No amount of thought, that night, could
decide how many wished-for treasures the
ten dollars, so lightly spoken of, would
buy.
The next day the young sportsman hovered
about the woods, and Sylvia kept him company,
having lost her first fear of the friendly
lad, who proved to be most kind and sympathetic.
He told her many things about the birds and
what they knew and where they lived and what
they did with themselves. And he gave her
a jack-knife, which she thought as great a
treasure as if she were a desert-islander.
All day long he did not once make her troubled
or afraid except when he brought down some
unsuspecting singing creature from its bough.
Sylvia would have liked him vastly better
without his gun; she could not understand why
he killed the very birds he seemed to like
so much. But as the day waned, Sylvia still
watched the young man with loving admiration.
She had never seen anybody so charming and
delightful; the woman's heart, asleep in the
child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of
love. Some premonition of that great power
stirred and swayed these young creatures who
traversed the solemn woodlands with soft-footed
silent care. They stopped to listen to a bird's
song; they pressed forward again eagerly,
parting the branches -- speaking to each other
rarely and in whispers; the young man going
first and Sylvia following, fascinated, a few
steps behind, with her gray eyes dark with
excitement.
She grieved because the longed-for white
heron was elusive, but she did not lead the
guest, she only followed, and there was no
such thing as speaking first. The sound of
her own unquestioned voice would have
terrified her -- it was hard enough to answer
yes or no when there was need of that. At last
evening began to fall, and they drove the cow
home together, and Sylvia smiled with pleasure
when they came to the place where she heard
the whistle and was afraid only the night
before.
II.
Half a mile from home, at the farther
edge of the woods, where the land was highest,
a great pine-tree stood, the last of its
generation. Whether it was left for a
boundary mark, or for what reason, no one
could say; the wood-choppers who had felled
its mates were dead and gone long ago, and
a whole forest of sturdy trees, pines and
oaks and maples, had grown again. But the
stately head of this old pine towered above
them all and made a landmark for sea and
shore miles and miles away. Sylvia knew
it well. She had always believed that whoever
climbed to the top of it could see the
ocean; and the little girl had often laid
her hand on the great rough trunk and looked
up wistfully at those dark boughs that the
wind always stirred, no matter how hot and
still the air might be below. Now she thought
of the tree with a new excitement, for why,
if one climbed it at break of day could not
one see all the world, and easily discover
from whence the white heron flew, and mark
the place, and find the hidden nest?
What a spirit of adventure what wild
ambition! What fancied triumph and delight
and glory for the later morning when she
could make known the secret! It was almost
too real and too great for the childish
heart to bear.
All night the door of the little house
stood open and the whippoorwills came and
sang upon the very step. The young sportsman
and his old hostess were sound asleep, but
Sylvia's great design kept her broad awake
and watching. She forgot to think of sleep.
The short summer night seemed as long as
the winter darkness, and at last when the
whippoorwills ceased, and she was afraid the
morning would after all come too soon, she
stole out of the house and followed the
pasture path through the woods, hastening
toward the open ground beyond, listening
with a sense of comfort and companionship
to the drowsy twitter of a half-awakened
bird, whose perch she had jarred in passing.
Alas, if the great wave of human interest
which flooded for the first time this dull
little life should sweep away the satisfactions
of an existence heart to heart with nature
and the dumb life of the forest!
There was the huge tree asleep yet in the
paling moonlight, and small and silly Sylvia
began with utmost bravery to mount to the top
of it, with tingling, eager blood coursing
the channels of her whole frame, with her
bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held
like bird's claws to the monstrous ladder
reaching up, up, almost to the sky itself.
First she must mount the white oak tree that
grew alongside, where she was almost lost
among the dark branches and the green leaves
heavy and wet with dew; a bird fluttered
off its nest, and a red squirrel ran to and
fro and scolded pettishly at the harmless
housebreaker. Sylvia felt her way easily.
She had often climbed there, and knew that
higher still one of the oak's upper branches
chafed against the pine trunk, just where
its lower boughs were set close together.
There, when she made the dangerous pass from
one tree to the other, the great enterprise
would really begin.
She crept out along the swaying oak limb
at last, and took the daring step across into
the old pine-tree. The way was harder than
she thought; she must reach far and hold fast,
the sharp dry twigs caught and held her and
scratched her like angry talons, the pitch
made her thin little fingers clumsy and stiff
as she went round and round the tree's great
stem, higher and higher upward. The sparrows
and robins in the woods below were beginning
to wake and twitter to the dawn, yet it seemed
much lighter there aloft in the pine-tree,
and the child knew she must hurry if her
project were to be of any use.
The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as
she went up, and to reach farther and farther
upward. It was like a great main-mast to
the voyaging earth; it must truly have been
amazed that morning through all its ponderous
frame as it felt this determined spark of
human spirit wending its way from higher
branch to branch. Who knows how steadily
the least twigs held themselves to advantage
this light, weak creature on her way! The old
pine must have loved his new dependent. More
than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and
even the sweet voiced thrushes, was the brave,
beating heart of the solitary gray-eyed child.
And the tree stood still and frowned away the
winds that June morning while the dawn grew
bright in the east.
Sylvia's face was like a pale star, if one
had seen it from the ground, when the last
thorny bough was past, and she stood trembling
and tired but wholly triumphant, high in the
treetop. Yes, there was the sea with the
dawning sun making a golden dazzle over it,
and toward that glorious east flew two hawks
with slow-moving pinions. How low they looked
in the air from that height when one had only
seen them before far up, and dark against the
blue sky. Their gray feathers were as soft
as moths; they seemed only a little way from
the tree, and Sylvia felt as if she too could
go flying away among the clouds. Westward, the
woodlands and farms reached miles and miles
into the distance; here and there were church
steeples, and white villages, truly it was a
vast and awesome world!
The birds sang louder and louder. At last
the sun came up bewilderingly bright. Sylvia
could see the white sails of ships out at
sea, and the clouds that were purple and
rose-colored and yellow at first began to
fade away. Where was the white heron's nest
in the sea of green branches, and was this
wonderful sight and pageant of the world
the only reward for having climbed to such
a giddy height? Now look down again, Sylvia,
where the green marsh is set among the
shining birches and dark hemlocks; there
where you saw the white heron once you will
see him again; look, look! a white spot of
him like a single floating feather comes up
from the dead hemlock and grows larger, and
rises, and comes close at last, and goes by
the landmark pine with steady sweep of wing
and outstretched slender neck and crested
head. And wait! wait! do not move a foot or
a finger, little girl, do not send an arrow
of light and consciousness from your two
eager eyes, for the heron has perched on a
pine bough not far beyond yours, and cries
back to his mate on the nest and plumes
his feathers for the new day!
The child gives a long sigh a minute later
when a company of shouting cat-birds comes
also to the tree, and vexed by their fluttering
and lawlessness the solemn heron goes away.
She knows his secret now, the wild, light,
slender bird that floats and wavers, and
goes back like an arrow presently to his
home in the green world beneath. Then Sylvia,
well satisfied, makes her perilous way down
again, not daring to look far below the
branch she stands on, ready to cry sometimes
because her fingers ache and her lamed feet
slip. Wondering over and over again what the
stranger would say to her, and what he would
think when she told him how to find his way
straight to the heron's nest.
"Sylvy, Sylvy!" called the busy old
grandmother again and again, but nobody
answered, and the small husk bed was empty
and Sylvia had disappeared.
The guest waked from a dream, and remembering
his day's pleasure hurried to dress himself
that it might sooner begin. He was sure from
the way the shy little girl looked once or
twice yesterday that she had at least seen
the white heron, and now she must really be
made to tell. Here she comes now, paler than
ever, and her worn old frock is torn and
tattered, and smeared with pine pitch. The
grandmother and the sportsman stand in the
door together and question her, and the
splendid moment has come to speak of the
dead hemlock-tree by the green marsh.
But Sylvia does not speak after all, though
the old grandmother fretfully rebukes her,
and the young man's kind, appealing eyes
are looking straight in her own. He can make
them rich with money; he has promised it,
and they are poor now. He is so well worth,
making happy, and he waits to hear the story
she can tell.
No, she must keep silence! What is it that
suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb?
Has she been nine years growing and now,
when the great world for the first time puts
out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside
for a bird's sake? The murmur of the pine's
green branches is in her ears, she remembers
how the white heron came flying through the
golden air and how they watched the sea and
the morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak;
she cannot tell the heron's secret and give
its life away.
Dear loyalty, that suffered a sharp pang
as the guest went away disappointed later
in the day, that could have served and
followed him and loved him as a dog loves!
Many a night Sylvia heard the echo of his
whistle haunting the pasture path as she
came home with the loitering cow. She forgot
even her sorrow at the sharp report of his
gun and the sight of thrushes and sparrows
dropping silent to the ground, their songs
hushed and their pretty feathers stained
and wet with blood. Were the birds better
friends than their hunter might have been,
-- who can tell? Whatever treasures were
lost to her, woodlands and summer-time,
remember! Bring your gifts and graces and
tell your secrets to this lonely country
child!
~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~
* A regional term meaning loafing, or lounging around.
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