Earl H. Reed

“ Time finally bent the sinewy form, the springing strides became shorter, and their vigor became less. The frosts and sorrows of many winters had turned the dark locks white, when, at the end of one summer—just as the first leaves began to fall—he once more journeyed to the high rock to invoke the aid and counsel of the hero god.
His dimmed eyes once more sought the star, and when he saw its light, he told Manabush the story of his fruitless quest. His tired limbs could no longer keep the trail, and his weary arms could no longer bend the bow to the arrow’s length. ”

“ Old piles and floating objects in the lake have an added interest with his trim figure perched upon them. The perched birds seem magnified and ghostly when one comes suddenly upon them in{41} the fog and they disappear with shrill cries into the mists.
There is no gleam of human interest in the eye of a gull. It is fierce, cold, and utterly wild. The birds we love most are those that nest in the land in which we live. The home is the real bond among living things, and our feathered friends creep easily into our affections when we can hear their love songs and watch their home life. ”

“ The transient winged tribes, that come and go—like ships on the sea—and rear their young in other lands, arouse our poetic reflections, challenge our admiration, and excite our love of the beautiful. They delight our eyes but not our hearts.
The graceful forms of the gulls give an ethereal note of exaltation to the spirit of the landscape—a suggestion of the Infinite—as they soar in long curves in the azure blue, or against the dark clouds that roll up in portentous masses from the distant horizon and sweep across the heavens over the great lake. ”

“ In years of obscure legend, birch-bark canoes{34} were drawn out on the gleaming beach by red men who carried weapons of stone. They hunted and fought among the yellow hills. They saw them basking under summer suns, and swept by the furies of winter storms. From their tops they watched the dying glories of the afterglows in the western skies. They saw the great lake shimmer in still airs, and heard the pounding of remorseless waters in its sterner moods. They who carried the weapons of stone are gone, and time has hidden them in the silence of the past. ”

“ Much of the mysterious lure of the dunes is in the magnificent sweep of the great lake along the wild shores. Its restless waters are the complement of the indolent sands. The distant bands of deep blue and green, dappled with dancing white-caps, in the vistas through the openings, impart vivid color accents to the grays and neutral tones of the foregrounds.
No great mind has ever flowered to its fullness that was insensible to the allurements of a large body of water. It may be likened to a human soul. ”

“ A footfall on the dead leaves, the snapping of a twig, a suspicious movement among the trees, or the hoot of an owl, may alarm the wary watchers and start another uproar that will result in complete desertion of the vicinity of the suspected danger.
When morning comes, various groups visit the beach and strut along the shore, drinking and picking up stray morsels. Dead fish that have been cast in by the waves, and numerous insects crawling on the sand, are eagerly devoured. ”

“ A wild duck hurries her downy young into the thick grasses—a few turtles tumble hastily from the bogs into the water—a large blue heron rises slowly out of an unseen retreat, and trails his long{269} legs after him in rhythmic flight down the marsh—mysterious wings are heard among the rushes—immense flocks of blackbirds fill the air—there is a splash out among the lily pads, where a hungry fish has captured his unsuspecting prey, and the deep sonorous bass of a philosophic bullfrog resounds from concealed recesses. ”

“ Nature has begrudgingly yielded a scanty livelihood to the brave and simple ones who have spent their youth and middle age in wresting away the barriers which have stood between them and the comforts of life. The broken-spirited animals that stand still, with lowered heads, in the little fields and around the barn, are mute testimonies of the years of drudgery and hardship.{200}
On approaching the house we encounter a few ducks that splash into the ditch along the muddy road, and disappear in great trepidation among the weeds and bulrushes beyond the fence. ”

“ The common variegated pond turtle, which is the variety most often found among the dunes, is a beautiful harmless creature, but his wicked cousin, the snapping turtle, is an ugly customer. He leads a life of debased villainy, and no justification for his existence has yet been discovered. He is a rank outlaw, and the enemy of everything within his radius of destruction. His crimes are legion, and like the sand-burr, he seems to be one of nature’s inadvertencies. The mother ducks, the frog folk, and all the small life in the sloughs dread his sinister bulk and relentless jaws. ”

“ Those who have gone may have wandered far in the world—they may have forgotten, or their fingers may have become cold and still, but there is hope in one heart that only ends with life itself. A pen may sometimes tremble, lips may sometimes falter, and eyes become dim, when the thought comes that{140} a mother’s love will be “waitin’ at the gate” when the other loves in this world are dead. ”

“ They have become desocialized, and have sullenly sunk into the hermit lives that harmonize with the dead and tangled roots which the roving sands have left uncovered to bleach and decay in the sun and rain.
They eke out a simple existence with their nets and set-lines in the lake, and by shooting and trapping the small game which still lives in this region. The driftwood supplies them with fuel in winter, and occasional wreckage that is washed ashore sometimes adds conveniences and comparative luxury to their impoverished abodes. ”

“ They seem undaunted by the cold and but few of them migrate. During the winter storms they find what refuge they can in the seclusion of the hollows in the deep woods, and among the heavy foliage of the pines. They eke out a precarious livelihood, with scanty food and uncertain shelter, until nature becomes more heedful of their wants and again sends the springtime into the world. ”

“ The landscapes among the dunes are not for the realist, not for the cold and discriminating recorder of facts, nor the materialist who would weigh with exact scales or look with scientific eyes. It is a country for the dreamer and the poet, who would cherish its secrets, open enchanted locks, and explore hidden vistas, which the Spirit of the Dunes has kept for those who understand. ”

“ When the first gray tones of light appear, the night-prowlers seek seclusion, and the stillness is broken by the crows. A single note is heard from among the boughs of a far-off pine, and in a few moments the air is filled with the noisy conversation of these interesting birds—mingled with the cries of the gulls and terns, which have come in from the lake and are searching for the refuse of the night waves. The beams of a great light burst through the trees—the leaves and the sands are touched with gold—and the awakening of the hills has come. ”

“ The echoes of the roar of the surf among the distant dunes pervade them with solemn sound. An indefinable spirit of mute resistance and power{31} broods in the inert masses. They seem to be holding back mighty and remote forces that beat upon their barriers.
The color fairies play out on the bosom of the lake in the silver radiance of the moon and stars, and marvelous tones are spread upon it by the sun and clouds. ”

“ The countless centuries seem to hang over them like a pall, when no living green comes forth among the stones to nourish the soul with faith in life to come. We walk in these profound solitudes with an irresistible sense of spiritual depression.
On Nature’s great palette green is the color of hope. We see it in the leaves when the miracle of the spring unfolds them, and on the ocea{19}n’s troubled waters when the sun comes from behind the curtains of the sky. ”

“ Swamps of tamarack, which are impenetrable, contribute their masses of deep green to the charm of the landscape. The ravagers of the wet places hide in them, and the timid, hunted wild life finds refuge in their still labyrinths. In the winter countless tracks and trails on the snow lead into them and are lost.
Among the most interesting of the marsh dwellers is the muskrat. This active little animal{195} is an ever-present element in the life of the sloughs, and he is the most industrious live thing in the back country. ”

“ When the night shadows come into the dune country, the spell of mystery and poetry comes with them. The sorcery of the dark places leads us into a land of dreams and unreality.
Out on the tremulous surface of the lake, we may fancy the lifting of silvery paddles in the path of the moon’s reflections, and the furtive movement across the bar of light, of mystic shapes in phantom canoes.
Mingled with the lispings of the little waves, we may hear ghostly prows touch the sand, and see spectral figures file into the hills. The faint echoes of strokes upon flint come out of the shadows. ”

“ Nature is as regardless as she is beneficent, and her storms and her sunshine do not discriminate.
Some lonely dweller on the coast may have builded too near the abodes of the water gods, and, in their anger they may have reached out long arms to his humble home, and flung the fruits of his toil among the mysteries of the deep. Some unfortunate bark may have lost its battle with the tempest, and given its sails and timbers to the waves. ”

“ Some confused marks, and a mussy-looking spot on the sand, record a brief struggle for existence, and perhaps a few mangled remains, with some scattered feathers or bits of fur, are left to tell the tale. A weak life has gone out to support a stronger. ”

“ We examined the odd pieces which had been used in building the shanty, with much interest.
The widely scattered driftwood, along the miles of curving sandy shore, suggests many reflections to the imaginative mind. Trees that have been washed from their footholds on the margins of distant forests—logs, slabs, and wasted material of many kinds, incident to man’s destruction in the wilderness—broken and lost timbers from piers, bridges and wrecks—are among the spoils of winds and seas that are relentless. ”

“ The tired mind seeks it, and weary travelers on the deserts of life are sustained by the hope of living waters beyond. There are winding rivers on which we may float in the world of our fancy, and it is on them that we may find peace when sorrows have afflicted us and our burdens have made scars. ”

“ A few cattle, several horses, and a solitary crow give a life note to the landscape. A faint wreath{259} of smoke is visible above some trees on the right, there are echoes from a hidden barnyard, and a fussy bunch of tame ducks are splashing around the end of a half-sunken flat-bottomed boat attached to a stake.
A freckled faced boy, of about ten, with faded blue overalls, frayed below the knees, and sustained by one suspender, is watching a crooked fishpole and a silent cork, near the roots of a big sycamore that shades a pool. ”

“ The big ranges of sand dunes that skirt the southern and eastern shores of Lake Michigan, and the strip of sparsely settled broken country back of them, contain a rich fund of material for the artist, poet, and nature lover, as well as for those who would seek out the oddities of human kind in by-paths remote from much travelled highways. ”

“ Out in the mysterious depths of the lake are pale sandy floors that no eye has ever seen. The mobile particles are shifted and eddied into strange shadowy forms by the inconstant and unknown currents that flow in the gloom. There are white bones and ghostly timbers there which are buried and again uncovered. There are dunes under the waters, as well as on the shores. Slimy mosses creep along their shelving sides and over their pallid tops into profound chasms beyond. ”

“ The Winding River has its solemn hours as well as those of gladness. Heavy masses of low gray clouds are creeping into the sky, the shadows are disappearing and a moody monotone has come over the landscape. ”

“ They go and report to the main body beyond the hills, and soon the horizon becomes black with the oncoming phalanxes, steadily winging their way to the chosen spot.
For a long time the sky above it is filled with their dark forms, circling and hovering over and among the trees. Much uncertainty seems to agitate them, and there is a great deal of noisy confusion before even comparative quiet comes. ”