The Writings of John Burroughs | Page 9

liked to hear its history and the story
of the lives it had rocked, as the rain sang and the boughs tossed
without! Above it was the cradle of a phÂœbe- bird saddled upon a
stick that ran behind the rafter; its occupants had not flown, and its
story was easy to read.
Soon after the first shock of the storm was over, and before I could see
breaking sky, the birds tuned up with new ardor,--the robin, the
indigo-bird, the purple finch, the song sparrow, and in the meadow
below the bobolink. The cockerel near me followed suit, and repeated
his refrain till my meditations were so disturbed that I was compelled to
eject him from the cover, albeit he had the best right there. But he
crowed his defiance with drooping tail from the yard in front. I, too,
had mentally crowed over the good fortune of the shower; but before I
closed my eyes that night my crest was a good deal fallen, and I could
have wished the friendly elements had not squared their accounts quite
so readily and uproariously.
The one shower did not exhaust the supply a bit; Nature's hand was full
of trumps yet,--yea, and her sleeve too. I stopped at a trout brook,
which came down out of the mountains on the right, and took a few
trout for my supper; but its current was too roily from the shower for
fly-fishing. Another farmhouse attracted me, but there was no one at
home; so I picked a quart of strawberries in the meadow in front, not
minding the wet grass, and about six o'clock, thinking another storm
that had been threatening on my right had miscarried, I pushed off, and
went floating down into the deepening gloom of the river valley. The
mountains, densely wooded from base to summit, shut in the view on
every hand. They cut in from the right and from the left, one ahead of
the other, matching like the teeth of an enormous trap; the river was
caught and bent, but not long detained, by them. Presently I saw the
rain creeping slowly over them in my rear, for the wind had changed;
but I apprehended nothing but a moderate sundown drizzle, such as we

often get from the tail end of a shower, and drew up in the eddy of a big
rock under an overhanging tree till it should have passed. But it did not
pass; it thickened and deepened, and reached a steady pour by the time
I had calculated the sun would be gilding the mountain-tops. I had
wrapped my rubber coat about my blankets and groceries, and bared
my back to the storm. In sullen silence I saw the night settling down
and the rain increasing; my roof-tree gave way, and every leaf poured
its accumulated drops upon me. There were streams and splashes where
before there had been little more than a mist. I was getting well soaked
and uncomplimentary in my remarks on the weather. A saucy catbird,
near by, flirted and squealed very plainly, "There! there! What did I tell
you! what did I tell you! Pretty pickle! pretty pickle! pretty pickle to be
in!" But I had been in worse pickles, though if the water had been salt,
my pickling had been pretty thorough. Seeing the wind was in the
northeast, and that the weather had fairly stolen a march on me, I let go
my hold of the tree, and paddled rapidly to the opposite shore, which
was low and pebbly, drew my boat up on a little peninsula, turned her
over upon a spot which I cleared of its coarser stone, propped up one
end with the seat, and crept beneath. I would now test the virtues of my
craft as a roof, and I found she was without flaw, though she was pretty
narrow. The tension of her timber was such that the rain upon her
bottom made a low, musical hum.
Crouched on my blankets and boughs,--for I had gathered a good
supply of the latter before the rain overtook me,--and dry only about
my middle, I placidly took life as it came. A great blue heron flew by,
and let off something like ironical horse laughter. Before it became
dark I proceeded to eat my supper,--my berries, but not my trout. What
a fuss we make about the "hulls" upon strawberries! We are
hypercritical; we may yet be glad to dine off the hulls alone. Some
people see something to pick and carp at in every good that comes to
them; I was thankful that I had the berries, and resolutely ignored their
little scalloped ruffles, which I found pleased the eye and did not
disturb the palate.
When bedtime arrived, I found undressing