Edge O’ The Dark

At dawn of night
And at the night’s pale end,
Such things have chanced to me
That I, by day
Would scarce dare tell a friend
For fear of mockery.

One uncle followed the sea: after commanding the crew’s fortunes and adding much prize money to his own and the store, he settled down and seaways knew him no more. His was the type of mind which required something more material than memories so he refoliaged the family tree. This excursion into genealogy may be interesting to the delver but as proving the importance of the present generation doesn’t get far with me: we had no choice in ancestral selection and whether our forbears were robber barons or gentlemen is neither to our discredit nor praise.

The old captain spent years in research and printed a book of results–altho I’ve never seen it: for all I know, roots of the family tree may have been started in the Apeman’s garden beneath Java skies!

When fifteen I was apprenticed to the foremost New York jewelry house in their designing and engraving department. The ease with which crests, coats of arms, et cetera, could be acquired, soon divested my juvenile mind of their value and authenticity.

A wasp-waisted female (no figure of imagination, either!) would sweep majestically down the aisle into the office:

“Ah, yes, the Scotch O’Toole’s, doubtless? . . . . Brasher, bring Burke’s peerage!”

In I trotted, impressively as an acolyte, bearing the precious volume. The matter was settled in a few minutes, the inquirer triumphantly departing with a rapidly-sketched outline of her crest. (When our family discust Uncle Marston’s investigations with pride, I failed to join in: however, I am sure there was one branch on that tree which he never saw.)

Somewhere in the past there was an Indian romance. . . . . . How do I know? Well, I don’t; merely suspect it from some of my reactions. Even my colored mammy’s ghost tales failed to people the dark with demons and all caves were thoroly explored. The Indian gift of traveling noiselessly thru forests ‘nights is mine, too: this capacity of detecting an unseen object by a faint nerve compression as the body approaches, is a strange accentuation of the senses. Perhaps all solids give off rays of force which some can detect or we may be sensitive to an air cushion surrounding material things.

My first intrusion into the edge of the dark neared fatal results: there was a bit of the nomad in one of my nurses–I think she was Scotch–which impelled her occasionally to seek convivial countrywomen and ower glasses of Duggan’s Dew of Kilmarnock. On such an excursion I was lugged along and, the lady’s memory becoming dulled, she forgot we were due home for supper. Toward evening I weariedly opened a door and was confronted by a huge dark area which I thot led upstairs. . . . . . When they picked me up I had accumulated a bump for every step. A few stitches–plenty of arnica–investigating spirit undimmed.

My next dark adventure was discouraging but without serious injury: our house was set in a half acre of yard near Prospect Park, Brooklyn. In the block below stood a small frame dwelling with a large willow tree close to the sidewalk picket fence. Six feet above the sharp stakes was a birdbox wherein a pair of English Sparrows were busily arranging home furniture. The owner seemed to sit all day in the front window, smoking his pipe: a raid on that nest would have to be staged when he was asleep; I was anxious to find out if there were any truth in the rumor that birds laid eggs!

About three o’clock one cold rainy April morn I dressed, sneaked downstairs and out of one long window which opened flush with the porch. The tree was too thick for my spidery legs but I wiggled up the ruf bark, poked two fingers into the entrance–scared off the mother–edged a couple of eggs into my palm and started to descend. . . . . .

“What are yez doin’ there?” boomed in my ears. I never told him–but birds did lay eggs!

Our cook mistook me for a leprechaun warming itself by the stove and her shriek of terror aroused the family. Their remarks, altho pointed, left me cold; their actions hurt my pride–and another (more material) section of my anatomy.

The aftermath left a lifelong regret: with youthful stubbornness I refused to show further interest in Birds. Ornithology was my father’s hobby but notwithstanding his repeated invitations to watch him mount a bird, my determination to retaliate remained firm! Alas for this pagan spirit of vengeance in youth! –that Autumn he went out on the long trail, unaware that my love of wild life budded and blossomed soon after his going. . . . . .

In those days Prospect Park contained many fine old chestnut trees: gathering nuts was permissible but climbing trees was against the rules. Unfortunately there were about 99 squirrels to one nut (a reversal of human proportions): three of us kids got to windward of the shinnying prohibition by doing it in the dark. One year–I think, in 1882–we marched up Flatbush Avenue at two o’clock in the morning, toward a great comet’s flaming band. While many years have slipt over the millrace I can see that wonderful parabola of light as clearly as tho it shone above these hills tonight; I can hear the taps of our heels on that deserted street and sense once more the spirit of adventure which impelled us to leave comfortable beds and fare thru forsaken thorofares.

“Where you kids goin’?” demanded a fearsome voice from a longcoated figure swinging a nightstick.

“We’re goin’ after chestnuts in the Park an’ want to be on the ground first.”

“Is that so? –Well, let’s see what you’ve got in those satchels!”

Finding only sandwiches allayed suspicion, so he waved us on. The paths were not patrolled at night but a “cop” was supposed to be on guard at the entrances. Sometimes they nodded in the little sentry boxes and then we slipped in. When starlight glinted on brass buttons we had to vault the old wooden sideline fence. First we always tackled two splendid trees standing on the edge of Long Meadow because in daylight they were under the Argus eyes of Old John from his perch in the carousel house.

One Saturday, long before night had touched the edge of dawn, I “squirreled up” one of these oldtimers and commenced shaking limbs. Suddenly a loud volley of frightened squawks from the dusky forms fluttering overhead–and something hit my cap a sharp altho not stunning blow. Daylight revealed that the missile was a baseball dislodged from a crotch and the birds were Night Herons which had returned early from the meadows for their diurnal snooze.

Now, these were the palmy days of the dime novel: –a superman named Frank performed incredible feats on Mr. Beadle’s ten-cent sheet. Strange enuf, many of the exploits (incredible then) have become realities. Frank, careening wildly over the plains in his steam wagon bristling with steel spearheads, the poor Indians scattering like tumbleweeds before his onslaught, was the forerunner of the modern ranch boss in his six-cylinder car without spearheads! . . . . .

While an observant Mother kept my indulgence in this particular form of dissipation somewhat in check, her vision was not sufficiently keen to notice the cave-building operations going on behind the traverse fence in our backyard: here, within a tiny cavern, proscribed literature was avidly absorbed until the candle spluttered out or the air became so thick that even youth’s lung capacity could not endure it. I soon graduated–perhaps that is not the correct word–anyway, I transferred my allegiance from Mr. Beadle to Capt. Mayne Reid. One afternoon in the den I started to read the HEADLESS HORSEMAN. Here was a real hero! While the villains were whipping Old Rube, his unwavering eye traveled from face to face and penetrated every disguise. He swore to run down each one who had lain a lash upon him and, gosh, he did it! –A full dozen of them eventually bit the dust. The cave’s atmosphere must have been unadulterated carbon monoxide before I tenderly placed that volume on the single narrow shelf and staggered into the air.

Regular heroes such as these must be honored. On the greatest chestnut we conferred the name of “Old Rube”, the lesser trees received the cognomens of his pards. And of course Fenimore Cooper was not ignored. . . . . .

“Guess we’d better go over to ‘The Deerslayer’ from here?”

“Yes, and then ’round to ‘Uncas’; he’s a pretty good one. Then we can trail it to ‘Red Rover’; we always get a couple of quarts from him, especially when it blows as it’s doin’ now.”

Fame is brief: some years later I saw those same splendid trees slowly dying, destroyed by that scourge which has completely eliminated them from our northeastern states. I watched, while axe and saw felled them one after another. The woodcutters were laying low not only trees–many memories and dreams died with the prostrate trunks.

Old Rube leaned toward a bridle path; it could be dropt only across it; the men worked all day while I watched. At dark I went home and let them finish the job.

More line slipt from the reel of Time. Desire for a boat materialized when I constructed a 16-foot canoe in the cellar workshop. All troubles usually attending a boy’s first efforts in naval architecture came to roost on that bucket, including the time-honored trick of building it too large for the door. Preliminary launching was via removed-window-sash route. A round midship-section made her extremely cranky but I got many a thrill skirting the liquid edge of eternity. In later days when I went down to the sea in real ships I realized how close to the edge o’ the dark that canvas-covered coffin had been sailed. But the Old Fellow who likes to swing a scythe up and down the world nearly nipped me once.

One winter afternoon I set decoys at the point of Rockaway Beach, hoping to lure within range, flocks of old mammies sweeping seaward from bayfeeding grounds. But wooden counterfeits failed to divert them from the air groove they followed a quarter mile off. It was bedtime–they were seeking their restless couch on the open ocean–if those men-chumps wanted to sleep under the point, let ‘em! We’re goin’ on.

The dark shut down. I started gathering the imitations–over-reached and went out of the canoe head first. Rubber boots are lethal when filled with water. It wasn’t far to shore but that slashing tide was carrying me into the seaward channel at a speed of five knots at hour! There was muscular activity aplenty in those strenuous two minutes. No “past life” chimera at all. The predominant thot was self-congratulation that I had made the shotgun fast to a lanyard! The battle was only half-won, tho, when my toes touched sand–two miles to paddle against current in frozen clothes. After near-tragedy, Old Man Trouble added a touch of irony to the situation: Canada Geese were winnowing in to rest on the quiet waters of the bay, so close overhead as to be discernable against the murky night sky and my stiffened fingers refused to release the paddle. Maybe it wasn’t hard luck for had I downed one or two, and delayed to pick them up, I might never have reached the Life Saving Station; I made this haven with only a remnant of consciousness which took in two things–the glorious half-moons beneath canted stove lids and Captain Abrams’ remark:

“Where the hell did you come from?”

The boys told me next day they had quite a job untwining my finger; that I ate some food, then was put to bed. (I took their word for it.)

Along the eastern edge of Somerset County in Maine are many little ponds with interlacing streams where thirty years ago the drama of wild life went on unhindered by man’s interference or cruelty. Jo, and his partner Ben, had asked me to spend a month with them in a cabin they intended occupying that winter.

We were putting our backs into it, trying to reach the portage so we could make one carry over the last mile before night. Rounding a short bend, or creek, we almost ran the bows into an old bear’s ribs as he sat on the bluff-bank eating blueberries. . . . . .

“Woof–WOOF–WOOF!′ and a diminishing series of crashes thru the brush.

“An’ thaw’s some thinks a bear’s dangerous!” remarked Jo, without a break in paddle rhythm.

Beaching the birch bark at the carry-foot we commenced discharging duffel: the evening tranquility suddenly was broken by harsh croaking keers.

“Here comes Smokie.”

A crow winged over the spruces, alighting on the canoe gunnel. He left that perch for Jo’s shoulder, then flew excitedly toward the timber edge.

Jo watched the bird intently a moment, then seized a shoulder satchel.

“Something wrong with Ben! –Take matches, slab o’ bacon, twenty-two an’ let’s get out o’ here!”

The crow flew ahead, waiting until we were abreast before leaving his perch, occasionally fluttering above us in narrow circles, croaking weirdly.

“Ben bought Smokie for a quarter from a kid who was tryin’ to split its tongue so it would talk. Maybe it’s grateful–I dunno–but a dog wouldn’t stick closer than that bunch o’ black feathers does to Ben. Him bein’ off here worries me. You can see he’s tellin’ us to hurry. Why that old rascal’s . . . . . ”

Three regularly-spaced faint reports interrupted.

“Trouble!” exclaimed Jo.

He sensed the direction accurately and altho the game trails we followed sometimes veered, we made better time than had a direct course been held thru the brush. Scarcely audible calls became louder as we panted onward: soon we could distinguish the words–

“This way!”

We found Ben stretched flat on a nearly level rock, both legs pinioned under a poplar. Most of the branches hung free over the edge. The trunk was raised with improvised levers and Ben carefully hauled out.

A slight uneveness in the rock-contour had saved Ben’s bones but both legs were bruised terribly.

“Where were you when you heard the shots?”

“About quarter mile in; Smokie told us there was something up at the carry, tho.”

“Well, you old black snoozer! –Can’t always tell by the kind of coat how much sense a feller’s got in his bean, can you?”

Camp was pitched on the spot. Smokie made a quick and efficient job of his share of bacon. We propped Ben comfortably against spruce branches under the leanto, then passed him a fire-splinter for his pipe.

“Under there long, Ben?”

“Since ‘bout three o’clock, an’ I bin spendin’ the time since cussin’ myself for not sizin’ up things before I sat down. Was lookin’ off, figurin’ lay o’ the land when I heard the tree start droppin’. Tried to roll off the rock but she landed before I could make it. In hundreds of miles that tree’s the only one that fell today an’ I had to be under it! –That thot kept turnin’ over an’ over in my mind.”

“Poplars are poor stuff,” said Jo. “You never want to camp near ‘em. This one that nearly winked you out had grown into the edge of a sharp rock so far it was jes’ hangin’ by the bark. A chipmunk jumpin’ on it would have brot it down.”

“Somethin’ like that: ’t wasn’t ’wind–thar warn’t any.”

The campfire dwindled: dark evergreens against star-sprayed sky, dark sleeping forms– dark bird. Shadow of the dark angel had paused over Ben and passed into the forest gloom. While I hovered on that strange borderland ‘twixt life and sleep, a Great Horned Owl shifted across the far edge of fireshine–and struck! I heard twigs snap and in the morning found where a Spruce Grouse had passed from temporary to eternal oblivion under the scimitars of that formidable hunter.

. . . . .

Often I have wondered whether Birds dream: chances for verifying such conjecture always must be few. Vigilance may be the price of our liberty but with wild birds it is Life. We seldom detect one asleep but watching Smokie huddled at Ben’s feet I saw his head twitch uneasily–like a dog afoot in dreamland. While speculating about it I drifted off on the same uncharted course.

In the morning we littered Ben over to the cabin. In ten days he was hobbling and could navigate as well as ever by the month’s end. Living naturally these Maine men recover rapidly from injuries.

Half a mile northeast lay a tiny springfed lake with brook outlet running down into a feeder of Dead River. Broad palmations of Otter footprints were visible everywhere along the banks. Late one afternoon I slipt into a ruf blind on the border of this pond. That friend and solace of many a vigil–the old pipe–remained imprisoned in my pocket for Otter detect tobacco smoke quickly as Moose and are equally suspicious of it.

A thin wand of southbound Ducks wavered overhead–too high for identification. The pool changed from sapphire to pale emerald, then mirrored faint topaz of the western sky. Crunching of a porcupine’s jaws eating his drybark supper was the only sound in that wide stillness.

From deep purple gray shadows under the western bank a liquid spearhead took point, broadening as it advanced into the amber plain. The broad arrow was formed by merging of five smaller triangles, each headed by a sharp nose and a pair of mica eves. Glasses revealed the leaders were oldsters and this was unusual for father Otter generaly forsakes the home when youngsters arrive. Probably Mrs. Otter suggests the wisdom of such a trip: maternal jealousy is often a necessary law if the species is to survive. Food, touching as it does the law of self-preservation, is usually pursued in a serious and determined manner but this family was making a pastime of the chase. One of the first pair of heads would disappear and after a short absence break water in the same relative position, with a trout in its jaws. The fish was thrown backward with a snap and caught in midair by one of the youngsters who swam ashore with it.

While the three children ate supper the parents remained on guard, half-submerged in shallow water within a few feet of them. The Victorian custom of a separate table for juveniles, obtained. Nor was this the only old-fashioned rule which prevailed in the Lutra clan: leaving the bony remnants of the feast, they all returned to the pond for a gambol before retiring. One of the parents would shoot clear of the surface, describe a graceful curve in the air and dive. One followed the other, each disappearing exactly in the spot where his predecessor’s tail sank and trouble came swiftly to the youngster who tried to flip out of turn! . . . . . It was harried back into line and compelled to repeat the performance correctly.

While I watched, some semi-hidden remembrance strove to project itself on memory’s screen: where had I seen similar antics? I have it! –I was steering my sloop down the Florida shore, skimming the Gulf Stream’s inner edge, when hundreds of porpoises suddenly seethed around in semi-circles. Here was a mimic reproduction of that crashing outburst–furry porpoises disporting in a northern lake on the edge o’ the dark. Unlike its relative the Mink, who kills for the love of slaughter, the Otter normally catches only what food it requires. The single variation I ever witnessed was here: five heads lay quiet a moment–one swirled below and reappeared in a few seconds with a finny victim, tossed to another which passed it down the line; the last catcher threw it over his back into the water–that lake was so full of trout that the temptation to nip an extra one apparently was irresistible. I timed them when catching supper: thirty seconds was the longest interval required to hook game.

A Spruce Grouse clucked impatiently: the dive ripples of their exit lapped into silence on the dusky shore.

About two miles south, on the main brook’s steep bank, was one of their slides. I made many trips hoping to see them “shoot the chutes.” Every artifice I knew was employed, even to climbing a densely-foliaged spruce, but all were unsuccessful. The runway was being used but their woodcraft won. I wanted to settle conclusively the argument about the position of their front legs while tobogganing. Slight tracking skill is needed to prove from “ground sign” that they are folded under the chest but I wanted visual proof and also material for a page or two describing the performance.

Alas for the inhibitions of truth! Once I heard splashes which may have been a tail gesture of farewell–that’s the closest I ever came.

Possessing cunning, wariness and extraordinary strength (weight-for-weight, no North American animal is more powerful than the Otter), they are making a noble effort to survive civilization. In many places their presence is entirely unsuspected; a pair travels Babbling Brook, 150 feet from my home and within 80 miles of New York City. One must be an ancient grandfather–the snowpath he makes sliding down declivities measured nearly nine inches across. (This may have been the same fellow who got into two traps at the same time in Macedonia Brook a few miles south, and broke loose from both! . . . . . The Society for Suppression of Steel Traps would have far better enforcement than prohibitionists if they could organize a company or two of Wolverenes and Otters!)

I have long held that the primary cause of most of the world’s trouble is rooted in that egotism which impels others to attend to your business. This is especially true in religious matters and until we adjust our attitude to the fact that minds are as variable as faces, and dogmas as unsatisfactory, unrest will roam footloose. Intolerance is the greatest immorality; primitive and difficult to eradicate as quackgrass in the garden.

One of our foremost religious writers makes the following remark:

“Agnostics and Freethinkers have no faith in their beliefs because they do not try to make converts.”

NO, they do not try to change others because they possess tolerance which such writers would do well to acquire and because Life has taught them that Example is the best tool in the influence-shop. But when “parties of the second part” are birds and animals, minding one’s own business too strictly may cause us to overlook interesting happenings in their lives.

The brook running along the eastern side of our meadow became clogged with algea and spoiled the trout fishing. The water was drawn off thru the dam valve and the stuff raked out. My friend Ed tells me that Mr. and Mrs. Otter raised a family there last Spring; a Virginia Rail couple did likewise; Muskrat & Company have established a thriving city within a few hundred feet of my home. . . . Three important incidents in Chickadee Valley unsuspected by me because I did not want to annoy nesting Marsh Hawks! I think my intrusion would not have been resented unless I came with uplifted finger and admonitory ejaculations anent their manner of living and what they should eat and drink!

In that mysterious time ’twixt twilight and dark, some woodland adventures assume a touch of unreality which time never dispels. . . Resting my back against a maple trunk, I was trying to discover the cause of discussion by a Blue lay trio in an adjacent oak top, when a mink slid above the bank within 30 feet of me. The ground was clear of underbrush and covered with a gorgeous mosaic of leaves: the tenuous brown body, with glinting eyes, undulated toward me smoothly as a copperhead. The resemblance to that chunky reptile was close but the up-and-down instead of sidewise motion dispelled that illusion: pattering of its short feet was audible, so close did it come and then, while I looked straight into that triangular face, it disappeared! Carefully, hand-knee-fully I went over every inch of that spot until I could see no more, without finding crevice or hole. Where did that Mink go?

For 25 years the question has remained unanswered. . . . . . Hallucination is not the answer; if my mind tended that way, similar episodes would have happened. They have not.

‘The animal or bird which achieves a natural death is rare: tragedy forever is on their trail and catches nearly all. Hereditary fear of their relentless enemy, Man, still is overwhelmingly potent. There is hope for the Little People, tho; the rainbow of Fair Play slowly arches over their domain of wood and field–Youth may be “wild” but I think it’s less bloodthirsty. Perhaps someday, we can call fox children from their cavern-home for a friendly frolic while Mr. and Mrs. Reddie look on with approval. ( With inexplicable irony Nature places helpless most frequently on the sacrificial altar–the rabbit’s stubby tail spells “meal ticket” to every rapacious form which runs or flies, from slim weasel to soaring eagle.)

A former owner of these rocky acres lived a half mile west of the present house and the small cleared spaces, altho filled with white birches, have not reverted completely to forest. These halfgrown lots are a favorite playground for Cottontails: I was workin’ up next year’s wood along the edge altho the calendar read “December 16th.” The day was filched from October, even with six inches of snow underfoot. Parking the ax in a convenient stump (I wouldn’t sell that faithful blade for a galleon of doubloons!) the old pipe was fired for a last drag before taking the home trail.

Comfort in the tranquil air–beauty in the pallid cadmium west; Nirvana in the briar bowl–irresistible! I lingered while the edge o’ the dark touched the hills, faded, then returned in silver as the moon rose with branch lacery across her face. (Maybe Luna dispels tragedy in dark shadow for B’rer Rabbit–when they are abroad above snow–surely seem to forget.)

One after another slipt into a small level space about 30 feet away, and a trifle below my “rocking chair,” for a game of tag. A ring (20 feet in diameter–I measured it with the rake handle) was beaten down: sometimes four were galloping around at once; then, in an instant. all vanished. They reappeared singly, their courage mounting to the point of facing the open when they saw another had braved unsheltered ground. Brush cover was not dense around this little hippodrome but sufficiently so to hide performers. There seemed to be about seven members of the circus but four the most I saw at once. Raising a hand would clear the ring instantly but the lure of play is irresistible and within five minutes the first intrepid galloper returned to the track. Three were tearing around–urged by foot-stamping applause of the hidden audience–when motion and sound stopt abruptly.

“What now?” . . . . .

Not a fox–it would wind me and sheer off. Then a swift-winged blur of black–a smothered scream. Drama had followed thru. Horned Owl? –No. As it swept by I saw the wings were more pointed, the head sharper than that night pirate.

A Rufleg Hawk held Bunny in its talons and a new bit of that Raptore’s life-history was revealed– they hunt along the “edge o’ the dark!”

‘The emotional, religious, type of mind would see in this tragedy the revelation of a divine (?) plan in which the weak are quite properly used as food by the strong (ye gods!). But I have noticed that benevolent conclusions from objective observation change if one becomes a participant. Being of a materialistic scientific turn, mentally I saw the suffering of an unfortunate rabbit torn from his little world of happiness and play into oblivion, by a cruel, indifferent power exemplified and put into action by a fierce combination of claws and feathers.

An old darky at the Sportsman Show once offered me a furry charm:
“Dis am de lef’ hind foot ob a rabbit, an’ berry lucky, sah!”
“How do you know, Uncle, it’s the left hind foot?”
“Dem as is ’quainted wid sech tings kin always tell.”
“Do you think it was lucky for the rabbit?”
“No, sah, I spects it warn’t.”