Frederick John Lazell - Some Spring Days in Iowa

Frederick John Lazell

Published by Good Press, 2019

EAN 4064066132910

Table of Contents

It is indeed a pleasure thus to open the gate while my friend leads us away from the din and rush of the city into Gods great out-of-doors. Having walked with him on Some Winter Days, one is all the more eager to follow him in the gentler months of Springthat mother-season, with its brooding pathos, and its seeds stirring in their sleep as if they dreamed of flowers.

Our guide is at once an expert and a friend, a man of science and a poet. If he should sleep a year, like dear old Rip, he would know, by the calendar of the flowers, what day of the month he awoke. He knows the story of trees, the arts of insects, the habits of birds and their parts of speech. His wealth of detail is amazing, but never wearying, and he is happily allusive to the nature-lore of the poets, and to the legends and myths of the woodland. He has the insight of Thoreau, the patience of Burroughs, and a nameless quality of his owna blend of joyous love and wonder. His style is as lucid as sunlight, investing his pages with something of the simplicity and calm of Nature herself. The fine sanity and health of the man are in the book, as of one to whom the beauty of the world is reason enough for life, and an invitation to live well. He does not preachthough he sometimes stops to point to a forest vista, or a sunset, where the colors are melted into a beauty too fair and frail for this earth.

Let us hope that the author will complete his history of the seasons, and tell of us of Summer with its riot of life and loveliness, and of the Autumn-time with its pensive, dreamy beauty that is akin to death. He is a teacher of truth and good-will, of health and wisdom, of the brotherhood of all breathing things. Having opened the gate, I leave it open for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Joseph Newton

Cedar Rapids, Iowa
December 1, 1908

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

A strong southeast wind is blowing straight up the broad river, driving big undulations up the stream, counter to the current which, in turn, pushes at the base of the waves and causes their wind-driven crests to fall forward and break into spray. The whole surface of the river is flecked with these whitecaps, a rare sight on an inland stream but characteristic of April. We sit on a ledge of rock high up the slope of the caon and listen as they break, break, break. We may close our eyes and fancy we are with Edmund Danton in his sea-girt dungeon, or with Tennyson and his cold, gray stones, or with King Canute and his flattering courtiers on the sandy shore. But a song sparrow with his recitative Oleet, oleet, oleet, followed by the well-known cadenza, dispels the fancies and calls our attention to himself as he sits on a hop hornbeam and sings at half-minute intervals. The wind ruffles his sober coat of brown and gray and he looks like a careless artist, thrilling with the soul of song.

Notwithstanding the high wind there is a heavy haze through which the sun casts but faint shadows. Across the white-flecked river the emerald meadow rises in a mile long slope until it meets the sky in a mist of silver blue. To the right a big tract of woodland is haloed by a denser cloud of vivid violet as if the pillar of cloud which led the Israelites by day had rested there; or as if mingled smoke and incense were rising from Druid altars around the sacred grove. As a matter of fact, it is a mingling of the ever increasing humidity, the dust particles in the air and the smoke from many April grass fires. To the left of the meadow there is a sweep of arable land where disc harrows, seeders, and ploughs are at work. The unsightly corn stalks of the winter have been laid low, the brown fields are as neat and tidy as if they had been newly swept; and this is Iowa in April.

Up and down the river the willow leaves are just unfolding, bordering the stream with tender green. The tassels of the pussy willows, which were white in March, are now rosy and gold, due to the development of the anthers. The aspens at the front of the wood are thickly hung with the long yellowish-white tassels and look like masses of floss silk among the tops of the darker trees. A big cottonwood is at its most picturesque period in the whole year. The dark red anthers make the myriads of catkins look like elongated strawberries. Tomorrow, or the next day, these red anthers will break and discharge their yellow pollen and then the tassels will be golden instead of strawberry-colored. Spring seems to unfold her beauties slowly but she has something new each day for the faithful.

The ash, the hackberry, the oaks, the linden, the locusts on the hill and the solitary old honey-locust down by the rivers brink are as yet unresponsive to the smiles of spring. The plum, the crab apple, the hawthorn and the wild cherry are but just beginning to push green points between their bud scales. But the elms are a glory of dull gold; every twig is fringed with blossoms. The maples have lost their fleecy white softness, for the staminate flowers which were so beautiful in March have withered now. But the fruit blossoms remind us of Lowells line, The maple puts her corals on in May. In Iowa he might have made it April instead of May. But that would have spoiled his verse.

For long we sit and drink in the beauty of the scene. Meanwhile the birds on this wooded slope are asking us to use our ears as well as our eyes. Such a mingling of bird voices! The spring o th year of the meadow larks and the mingled squeaks and music of the robins are brought up by the wind from the river bottom, and the shrill clear phe-be of the chickadee is one of the prettiest sounds now, just as it was in February. Pretty soon a bevy of them come flitting and talking along, like a girl botany class on the search. Before they have passed out of sight the loud and prolonged O-wick-o-wick-o-wick-o-wick of the flicker makes us lift our eyes to the top of a scarlet oak and anon three or four of the handsome fellows alight nearer by so that we may the better admire their white-tailed coats, brown shoulders, scarlet napes and the beautiful black crescent on their breasts. When we hear the call of the flicker we may know that spring is here to stay. They are as infallible as the yellow-breasted larks in the meadows.

Chip-chip-chip-chip,yes, of course thats the chipping sparrow; another of the engaging creatures which almost has been driven from the habitations of his human friends by the miserable English sparrows. Often have we seen the little fellow set upon and brutally hurt by these pirates. Now he stays around rural homes, and his chestnut crown, brown coat mixed with black and gray, his whitish vest and black bill are always a welcome sight. He takes up the chant of the year where the departing junco left it off, throws back his tiny head and his little throat flutters with the oft-repeated syllable, continued rapidly for about four seconds. A while longer we wait and are rewarded by a few bars of the musicful song of the brown thrasher who has just arrived with Mrs. Thrasher for two weeks of courtship and song, after which they will build a new home in the hazel thicket and go to housekeeping.