may—the planting moon
one day, evan and i played make believe and went a-maying. this was not very long ago, yet in those days, high-road and byways were divided between horse and man only and therefore were our own, while we jogged along plucking at the branches and trailers that we passed, letting the horses browse, reins upon neck without risk of danger.
the make believe was that we were a couple of carefree children playing at going on a journey to seek the tree of life, which, should we chance to find in blossom and walk in its shadow, would enable us to live as long as we wished. this had been one of my childhood’s plays, a hybrid born of genesis and pilgrim’s progress, belonging to days spent alone in the garden when father had gone a day’s journey to see some patients over the hills, and aunt lot was immersed in preserves and forgot me. blissful forgetfulness of children by their elders that is one of the gates to wonderland!
we took the idea as a motive for make believe, and if one plays at being a child, one must complete the game, turn loose the overworked horses of every day, proof and reason, and harness in their places instinct and belief, steeds who may be trusted to know the straightest road to happiness. as to the maying part, that is a play also, and, at least in the new england country, a game of chance if you do not know the moves, but an ecstasy if the combinations fall right.
the red men waited for the may moon to wax full and the truce flowers of the white dogwood to signal frost’s surrender from the wood edges before they planted their maize. we wait for the first blooming of an apple tree to tell us that the springtide is at its height. not one of the opulent, well-fed orchard trees, having all the advantages of a protected location, but a wayside, ungrafted scion of the old orchard standing alone in a field, on the north side of the spruce wind break. we called this tree “the messenger.” it is the bearer of inconsequent fruit akin to the wild, but in may it is garlanded with firm-fleshed, deep rose-hued blossoms. when this tree opens its buds, we know that its kindred of the hill country will also be decked, and it is our time to go forth, for here the maying is the festival of the apple blossoms, and the blushing snow of it veils the grim gray hills, and brocades the silken emerald of the grassy lowlands every may as completely as the gold and purple of golden-rod and aster mantle the land in autumn.
people make journeys to the orient to see the festival of fruit blossoms, where many of the trees enclosed in gardens are shown with suggestion both of art and artifice; all this is deemed wonderful because it is far away. distance promises change, and change is seemingly the key-note of current life. perpetuity was the ambition of our forbears, else we should not be here. yet when the near-by holds a festival of apple blossoms reaching from our doors to the horizon line that travels before us, when we try to reach it, do we make a national event of it? who goes out? who sees? the reeds shaking in the wind, perhaps; the bluebirds that nest in the hollow tree trunks; the flaming orioles that, grown wanton with spring joy, rifle the honeyed blossoms; but people, where are they? no parties of school children playing in the abandoned orchards, no others sauntering along the highways like ourselves. for the twenty years that we have gone up through the hill country for this maying, we have never met any others bent upon the same errand. so we call this festival our own, and as we stray along, we conjure up companions from the past to bear us company; the people who planted the orchards that still remain and blossom through all the neglect and moss that time has dropped upon them.
each year, though we traverse mainly the same roads, by some fashion we always come upon some place or sign that has before escaped us, though rarely anything that brings past and present together as happened on the day that we played make believe and set out to find the tree of life.
after we left oaklands and the bluffs behind, and dipped into the valley north of hemlock hill, we began to look for signs and symptoms; for in this country, one can never tell what a winter may bring forth, what tottering chimneys may have collapsed into a stone heap, or piece of primal woodland disappear into the maw of a travelling saw-mill to emerge in form of railway ties. yes, the overshot water-wheel had disappeared from the mill in the cedar woods, and the back of the lilac house on the hilltop overlooking the moosatuck was broken, though the giant lilac bushes that hedged it seemed striving to hide its crippled state.
here was our first stop. i love to sit on that which was a door-stone; well-sweep on one side, wood-shed on the other, across the road the skeleton of the oak-timbered barn where the rays of sunlight and swallows in intimate kinship, shoot in and out through chinks and knot-holes. before me, the old orchard sloping downhill to the bush-screened moosatuck, tall flowering ferns, the cinnamon and royal blending with spreading brakes to hide the tumble-down stone-walls. then only to close the eyes and think backward, and the people come; only do not think too far. i do not care, even in make believe, for the company of the indians, the stone heads of whose arrows are scattered through the valley. they were no kin of mine; they left no trace, neither making the world happier or more fruitful.
in the apple orchards runs the blood of our race, the blood of the sweat and toil of our pioneer forefathers; all these old orchards are peopled, for those who have the eyes to see, and so there is no loneliness for us in this silent hill country.
the ancients had it that every child was born under the influence of a particular star; a more spiritual age, that each child has its guardian angel. i have always believed that my particular guardian is a tree, and that one an apple, for this was the first tree that i remember lying under and looking up through the flower-laden branches at the sky, as mother sat upon the round seat that encircled the big trunk, the great fragrant russian violets growing at her feet.
the first two birds i learned to call by name lived in that apple tree,—a robin who had saddled his untidy nest of mud and straws on a drooping branch, and a pair of purling bluebirds, who lived in a little hole where a broken limb had let in the rain and consequently decay followed,—while my first remembrance of being hurt was when a heavy baldwin apple fell from the tip-top of the tree and bumped me on the forehead. as i grew up and left dolls behind, my kinship with the tree grew more material,—four apples and a book, to be taken at regular intervals in the depths of the big leather chair in father’s study, being my formula for comfort on a rainy autumn afternoon.
when we had looked and dreamed our fill, we turned into one of the meandering cross-roads that traverse lonetown converging toward pine ridge, to crawl slowly upward to our watch-tower. this is the place of all others in our haunts for looking down upon the country as if mirrored in a pool or seen as mirage—tuck hill in may time, and there is nothing more to be desired! evan and i crouched on the summit in the shelter of an old tree, still brave with blossoms though the trunk had fallen forward as if on its knees, and gazed our fill.
for days after, i felt the rush of the wind through my hair, for at this spot the wind of the hills meets the breath of the salt-water. below, two rivers, that give the hill its name, shot their silvery arrows through the overhanging foliage; tuck being an indian term for river, as moosatuck, aspetuck.
no druids crowned with oak leaves, or men of myth and marvel, came to us there, such as puck could conjure from his charmed british hill home; only pictures of the simple settlers who planted their dwellings in the wilderness near ways that are remote even now from the pulse of things. these humble settlers dared and suffered and won out in spirit unconquerable; and though people and homes have vanished without written history, yet god in nature has made record of them. far and near throughout the land the festival of apple blossoms is celebrating them in the orchards, some still vigorous in age, and others all of gnarled trees that are leaning slowly earthward, as though making ready to fall to final sleep. again others, young limbed and smooth of bark, unlicensed gypsy scions of the old race, often bitter of fruit, and yet sometimes chancing to bring forth a blend incomparable. these striplings, that wandered from the parent close, had ventured in stony pastures, sought shelter in wood edges, and followed the watercourses, and one and all seemed to whisper to the winds that bore their vital pollen, “yes, they are all gone who planted us, but we try to shift for ourselves and live forever, for we cannot forget our mother, the tree that stood in the midst of the first garden!”
all these things i said half aloud, ending with the query, “why has no one hereabout planted an orchard for thirty years at least?”
“you are forgetting that we are playing make believe,” muttered evan, who had been lying so still that i thought he must be trying to ‘hear the grass grow,’ which is the outdoor man’s cover for sleep.
“if we are children, we mustn’t preach or think about why the orchards are running out or why no one plants apple trees,” he continued. “children never look behind or before, but make a whole lifetime of a single happy day, and it’s because people nowadays are like restless children that they do not plant orchards; what do they care for the future; it seems too long before the fruiting time; they want a quicker crop.”
“who is talking a sermon?” i cried. “come down through that lane where we tied the horses; it’s full of dogwood and pinxter flowers; we will fill the chaise and bury ourselves in them; being children, it does not matter if they fade by noon so that we can gather more,” and then we wandered down and on, choosing the pleasantest ways, and letting the horses lead so long as we kept due north, or fancied we did.
“we should cross the ridge before noon,” said evan, after we had driven for many miles without keeping track of time. “i wonder if there is a short cut: here is a green lane that runs in the right direction, but it has a gate to it, and may either be a pent road or a private way.” strangely enough, the old gray horses turned toward the gate, nosed it, and whinnied in unison.
“see the wild fruit trees and bushes that hedge it,” i cried; “apples, cherries, a peach or two, tall blackberries; i wonder if there ever was a garden in this corner? there are all the signs, the lilac bushes, stones that might have been a chimney, and there are new horse tracks in the turf, and colts pasturing yonder in that field. the way is pretty enough to lead to the land of forbidden fruit, and we may find the tree of life we are looking for at the end. do let us go in; as we are only children, no one will have the heart to scold us if we should find ourselves in some one’s yard.” so evan opened the gate, which was made of rough-sawn chestnut boards, and followed rather than led the horses along the way, for the trees closed low above our heads and shut out the distance.
in a glimpse across the fields we saw the tower and broken outlines of a little church.
“that’s not pine ridge church!” exclaimed evan, stopping short. “the ridge church has a pointed steeple, and that is”—“a christopher wren box,” i said, the name by which evan had once designated that particular style of architecture with a tower top that looks like a turned-over table, legs pointing skyward.
“where are we, barbara? you were born in this country, not i; this lane seems to be leading us due west, and i’m getting hungry, a natural feeling for a child.”
“i do not know,” i confessed; “there is a place back of banbury somewhere in this direction called fool’s hill because of its cross-purpose roads, where father once had a patient, but i’ve never been there. wherever we are, we can stop for lunch at the first flat rock that we see.”
still another sweep of lane and the sound of running water. the horses pricked up their ears and whinnied again, and their call, evidently of interrogation, was answered. suddenly we emerged from the trees into an open space; a rushing brook crossed the meadow, and was itself crossed by a railed bridge of logs and wide chestnut planks.
“why didn’t i think to bring my trout pole,” sighed evan.
“it’s not at all necessary; i can supply a bent pin, and boys always have string in their pockets; while you cut a hickory pole, i will dig for worms with one of these tin spoons; martha never gives us anything but tin when we go a-maying.”
evan looked about as though inclined to accept my offer, and then he stood transfixed, pointing toward a tree on the other side of the river we were preparing to cross; it was a slender white birch that leaned out over the water as if keeping watch, both up and down stream, while its pointed, silver-lined leaves trembled and tittered as it swayed. halfway up the trunk was a small board that said in unmistakable letters,—“no hunting, fishing, or trespassing—by request of father adam.”
i pinched myself to see if i were awake, and i believe that evan did the same, though he would not acknowledge it. now, indeed, had make believe come true. “why?” i began, but evan promptly replied, “why not?” hearing a rustling among the bushes, i half expected the bodiless head of the cheshire cat to appear, but instead there stood a tall man with a strong, smooth-shaven, sunburned face capped with curling white hair, and dark eyes that, though their flash could be seen even across stream, had a genial sort of twinkle at their corners. save that he was coatless, his clothes were neat almost to precision, even to a clean linen collar turned down over a loose black tie, something unusual in any part of the hill country.
then evan spied the man, who stood gazing at us more in amazement than anger. “we were looking for something quite different when we saw your sign,” said evan, awkwardly, “and now we’ll go away as soon as i can turn the horses.”
“are you father adam?” i asked.
“that is what people call me,” he answered; “and who are you, and what are you trying to find?” this time his gaze took a sweep that included not only ourselves but the horses and the chaise, which we had forgotten was decked like a bower.
“we? oh, we are only two children out a-maying,” i said, the spirit of make believe taking complete possession, “and we are searching for the tree of life, so that we may pass under its branches and live as long as we choose. do you know where we might find it?”
“yes; it grows up yonder in the midst of my orchard. how did i come by it? ah, that is a story that i only tell those who promise to believe it. now it is my turn to ask questions,” said father adam. “where did you get those horses?”
“we borrowed them from father, who is dr. russell and lives down at oaklands.”
“so then you are his daughter; well, i know that you are telling the truth, for i sold him those gray colts, as they were then, sixteen years ago.”
“they whinnied when we turned in the gate, and rather led us on; can horses remember a place for sixteen years?”
“yes, and longer if it is the home where they were foaled; but the time has been broken, for the doctor has chanced in every few years.”
then i began to wonder about this man’s age, who spoke of a few years as if they were but days; was he fifty, or seventy, which?
“come, let us go up into the cleared land, and i will show you the tree and tell you its story,” said father adam, as he took gray tom by the bit to lead him, the horse nosing and nibbling at his hand familiarly.
“is it far?” asked evan; “because if it is, i think we’d better eat our luncheon first; children always listen better when they’re not hungry.” something in the tone made father adam laugh, and a different expression took possession of his features, as though at first he had doubts as to our entire sanity which were now removed.
“it’s only a few hundred yards, and if those who only pass under the shadow of the tree may have their wish, how much more will happen to those who eat bread beneath it!”
so we two followed him hand in hand, over the bridge and through another bit of lane, and then a vision of peace broke upon our sight,—a green hill sloping upward to a group of elms that shaded a low, rambling house, on one side of which was a bit of garden gay with tulips, bleeding hearts, and columbine, flanked by rows of beehives, tilled fields showing beyond. but it was the right slope that held the eyes; row upon row the apple trees, in first full maturity, made endless aisles into green space—aisles so wide that we traversed them side by side and yet had room to spare.
then, again, we came upon an open, a square court of grass, and in the centre an apple tree such as i had never seen before,—tall, with two main trunks, high-branched, straight and spreading at the top, elm fashion, half was covered with dazzling white flowers, the other half with pink, after the pattern of a florist’s formal bouquet.
“sit ye down there,” said father adam, “and hear my story. will i eat with ye? well, i’ll break a bit of bread for company, for i dined at noon, and it’s now past two.” while he was speaking, the man had slipped the harness from the horses and left them to graze and roll at will.
“though this was my forbears’ homestead, i was born out in ohio on a little farm in the muskingan river valley. seventy years ago it was hard living there as far as indoor comforts went, yet all the rich land was free for the tilling, and the corn and wheat flourished, but the thing i first remember about spring was the blooming apple trees. everybody had them, half a dozen about the dwelling and then an orchard strip, while in almost every settlement there was a space roughly fenced in where young seedling trees were cultivated.
“who made these apple nurseries, where the settler might get the stock of what was truly the tree of life to him, the fruit, food and drink that moistened his bread instead of tears? was it the pioneers’ own providence? was it the government? no; it was johnny appleseed who planted and cultivated, and the apple trees were his.
“did you ever hear of the man? few of your generation have, yet i remember him as i saw him when i was a lad, sixty years ago, and my mother, who was massachusetts born, numbered him among her distant kin. she said, and she had it from her mother, that he was born in boston in the year of paul revere’s ride; and that his real name was chapman (the same as my mother’s), john chapman. he was a studious boy, and wished to be a preacher, having a zealous streak to go overseas and teach the heathen, but what with the war and troubled times, the way was not made straight. yet the times were fair enough for falling in love, and this he did with one anice chase, but while he bestirred himself for the wherewithal to marry, the white plague laid its hands on her. in those days, at the first sign, the victim was set apart as doomed, and so it was with anice. only a year from their betrothal, and john journeyed on foot three days out from boston town to her father’s farm to bid her good-by.
“it was a may afternoon, and the lilacs and apples in the yard were all abloom; anice on a couch lay under one of those trees, for she would not rest content indoors; the sight and smell of the flowers were all she thought or spoke of. long they talked together, and then she said so feebly that he could scarcely hear, ‘go and preach, but not to the far-off heathen. stay in your own land, but go westward, preach christ and the garden of eden, which is home, and wherever you go plant the apple, the tree of life that stood in the midst of the garden, as its symbol and mine. for i shall reach the garden first and wait for you close to the door.’
“that night anice died. john chapman soon after fell ill of a fever, they said from exposure on his homeward journey, and when he recovered, he had strange fancies, and then totally disappeared.
“soon after the year eighteen hundred, early in spring, and for nearly half a century following, a traveller made his way from western pennsylvania into ohio, journeying straight across country to the indiana border, whether there were houses in his route or not. he was a strange-looking figure, tall, gaunt, and clad in curiously assorted garments, sometimes hatless and barefoot, sometimes wearing mismated shoes and a peaked cap of his own manufacture. either on his back, or else in a small cart that he dragged after him, he carried a bag filled with apple seeds. whenever he came to a likely spot, he would loosen the ground with a rude, strong hoe, plant some seeds, weave saplings into a strong enclosure to keep the cattle out, and then pass on. wild beasts never molested him, the rattlesnakes turned from his path, and the indians, brutal as they were at that time in their treatment of the settlers, not only never harmed him, but treated him with reverence as a messenger of the great spirit.
“then, when the day was done, he would knock at the door of a cabin, and after partaking of simple food, for which he would always offer to pay, either in coin of which he managed to earn enough to supply his few needs, or else in young apple trees, he would draw close to the lamp or throw himself on the floor by the fire, and pulling a tattered bible from his shirt, open it and proclaim as one reading a letter, ‘behold i have planted the tree of life at your doors, now hearken to the news fresh from heaven.’
“to a few of the women, from time to time, he told detached fragments of his history, and my mother being one of these, recognized him almost by intuition as her kinsman john chapman; and either feeling the distant tie of blood, or because we children gathered about him and hung on his words, he came to our cabin more frequently than to others, for next to his beloved trees, he loved little children and all animals. for women who tried to better his attire or sympathize with him, he had no eyes. ‘i have a wife waiting for me beside the gates of paradise,’ he would say, ‘and what has she to do but busy her fingers in making me wedding garments, and none but of her making will i wear.’ as to his name, johnny appleseed was the only title he was known by in that country.
“every spring he returned to pennsylvania for more seed, for which he bartered at the cider mills, and wherever he went his path was strewn with his kind deeds. did he come across a sick horse left to die by pioneers, it was housed and fed at his expense. did he meet a traveller more ragged than himself, he always found that he had a garment he could spare, until finally, a feed bag with opening for head and arms was his most common coat.
“one autumn, being lame, he tarried a long while at our cabin; it was the year that i was ten, and word came that the connecticut home in which my father was born had fallen to him, who, being the youngest, had been obliged to strike out for himself. at first my mother cried, for she had learned to love the free life, hard as it was, and she could not bear the thought of leaving what was now home to her; but in connecticut there were better schools, and mother came of gentle stock, and had planned to make a preacher of me.
“when the day for leaving came, johnny appleseed, who had not left the vicinity of our cabin for weeks, appeared beside my mother in the kitchen; in one hand he held a straight young apple tree, securely packed in moss and sacking for the journey, and in the other a leaf from his bible, the page of genesis that tells of the tree of life.
“?‘take them with you, hannah, and you will not be lonely,’ he said; ‘where the tree of life is there is home, and i give you fresh news of it; soon i shall enter forever into the garden where it grows;’ and before she could answer, he had disappeared among the trees.
“my mother brought the apple tree back with her, set it in the midst of her garden, and cherished it as she did her own children; the leaf from genesis is now in the family bible, where the record is writ of her own entry into the garden. mother would never let the tree of life be grafted, for grafting was a thing that johnny appleseed discountenanced, and many good varieties came from his seedlings; as it grew, two branches of equal vigour started half a dozen feet above the ground; yet when it came to bloom, one main branch bore white flowers, and the other rose, while the apples of the white flowers were yellow with rosy cheeks, and the fruit of the pink flowers golden russets.
“?‘see, adam,’ said my mother, the year that the tree blossomed (she had christened me adam because i was her first man child), ‘i will call one branch anice and the other john. what does it signify? that they are united in the tree of life.’
“not many years after, we heard that john appleseed had come to plant at the house that had once been ours, and after talking cheerfully at supper, spoke of an unusual light that lingered after sunset, and the clouds that were like a door opening in the heavens. after his evening reading, he went to sleep as usual on the floor, leaving the door open, for the night was mild. in the morning they came upon him, the rising sunlight shining on his smiling face, for anice had been allowed to open the garden door at dawn.”
the bees hummed, and the petals of the apple blossoms fell upon us until father adam broke the spell by saying, “it is turning four, and little children should not stay out after dark, for the babes in the wood must have had a cold, damp bed in spite of the robins.”
so we thanked him, wishing to ask many questions that we could not, and pulling the faded blossoms from the chaise, took the flower branches from the tree of life that he gave us together with a jar of honey, and turning the way he pointed, up past the house, to the high-road, the grays, old as they were, trotted gaily home.
then i told father. “yes,” he answered, “i know where you have been, to adam kelby’s farm. a methodist preacher of power, also a farmer and raiser of fine stock, called father by the hill people, because that’s what he is to them one and all, never straying far from home. he was born out in ohio, and believes strange things about apple trees, and holds them sacred, as the druids did the oaks, some people say. well, so do i!” as for johnny appleseed, he was an actual being who lived and toiled much as adam has said.
we could not stay indoors that night, but sat on the back steps and supped with the dogs, eating buttered bread in great slabs, with honey to boot. feasting slowly and dreamily, as pleases children who have been out all day, and between whose mouthfuls the sandman is beckoning.
as i finished my last bit, assisted by lark, who has a sweet tooth, i said half to myself, “we’ve certainly been a-maying, but i wonder did we play make believe, or are we really children who have found the tree of life.” evan echoed, “i wonder,” and straightway spread more honey on his bread.