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In my neighborhood here in the Highlands the distribution is very marked. South of the village I invariably find one species of birds, north of it another. In only one locality, full of azalea and swamp-huckleberry, I am always sure of finding the hooded warbler. In a dense undergrowth of spice-bush, witch-hazel, and alder, I meet the worm-eating warbler.
Occasionally in the earlier part of May I find the woods literally swarming with warblers, exploring every branch and leaf, from the tallest tulip to the lowest spice-bush, so urgent is the demand for food during their long northern journeys. At night they are up and away.
And away strode the great-hearted man, holding her up that she might gaze on the scenery over his shoulder. Isabel followed close, helping herself up the steep rocks, now by catching hold of a spice-bush and shaking off all its ripe golden blossoms; now drawing down the loops of a grape-vine and swinging forward on it, encouraged in each new effort by the hearty commendations of her new friend.
The ponds and streams bear upon their bosoms leaves of all tints, from the deep maroon of the oak to the pale yellow of the chestnut. In the glens and nooks it is so still that the chirp of a solitary cricket is noticeable. The red berries of the dogwood and spice-bush and other shrubs shine in the sun like rubies and coral.
Neither was young; both were marked by the swift homeliness of the hard-working; but the look on their faces was that which falls when two have gotten an immortal youth and beauty in each other's hearts. It had been their custom on each succeeding spring to go, if the anniversary ware pleasant, to sit again at evening on the door-step with the sweetness of the straggling spice-bush upon it.
It was the great power of being able clearly to visualize things, of bringing before his mind's eye whatever he had seen, with every distinction of shape and size and color sharply present, and accurately to portray it in the absence of the original. If one should ask him, "What's the shape of the milkweed butterfly's wing, and the color of the spice-bush swallowtail, Peter Champneys?
One finds the delicate little bright yellow flowers of the spice-bush clustered thickly along the twigs long before the leaves are ready to brave the chill air. After the leaves have fallen in the autumn, these flowers stand out in a reincarnation of scarlet and spicy berries, which masquerade continually as holly berries when cunningly introduced amid the foliage of the latter.
Then six sachems rose, casting off their black-and-white blankets, and each in turn planted branches of yellow willow, green willow, red osier, samphire, witch-hazel, spice-bush, and silver birch along the edge of the silent throng of savages. "Until the night-sun comes be these your barriers, O Iroquois!" they chanted.
He knew where to find the aromatic spice-bush to cool the burning of fever, and where in the spring grew the tenderest willow twigs whose bark went into cures for rheumatism. Sassafras yielded its savory roots for tea and tonics, and the purplish red pokeberry supplied a valuable blood purifier. So he harvested the woods for others, at the same time finding for himself health and contentment.
It flows out of the "sea" unhindered now save by pickerel weed and sagittaria, rush and meadow grasses, and in woodsy places by brook alder, clethra, huckleberry and spice-bush that lean into it as they wrestle with greenbrier and clematis. The mayflower snuggles into the leaves along its drier upper margins, here and there, and is to be found on the borders of the "sea" more plentifully.
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