The
Reeds, Called Tules, Are Ghostly Pale In Winter, In Summer Deep
Poisonous-Looking Green, The Waters Thick And Brown; The Reed Beds
Breaking Into Dingy Pools, Clumps Of Rotting Willows, Narrow
Winding Water Lanes And Sinking Paths.
The tules grow
inconceivably thick in places, standing man-high above the water;
cattle, no, not any fish nor fowl can penetrate them.
Old stalks
succumb slowly; the bed soil is quagmire, settling with the weight
as it fills and fills. Too slowly for counting they raise little
islands from the bog and reclaim the land. The waters pushed out
cut deeper channels, gnaw off the edges of the solid earth.
The tulares are full of mystery and malaria. That is why we
have meant to explore them and have never done so. It must be a
happy mystery. So you would think to hear the redwinged blackbirds
proclaim it clear March mornings. Flocks of them, and every flock
a myriad, shelter in the dry, whispering stems. They make little
arched runways deep into the heart of the tule beds. Miles across
the valley one hears the clamor of their high, keen flutings in the
mating weather.
Wild fowl, quacking hordes of them, nest in the tulares. Any
day's venture will raise from open shallows the great blue
heron on his hollow wings. Chill evenings the mallard drakes cry
continually from the glassy pools, the bittern's hollow boom rolls
along the water paths. Strange and farflown fowl drop down against
the saffron, autumn sky. All day wings beat above it hazy with
speed; long flights of cranes glimmer in the twilight. By night
one wakes to hear the clanging geese go over. One wishes for, but
gets no nearer speech from those the reedy fens have swallowed up.
What they do there, how fare, what find, is the secret of the
tulares.
NURSLINGS OF THE SKY
Choose a hill country for storms. There all the business of the
weather is carried on above your horizon and loses its terror in
familiarity. When you come to think about it, the disastrous
storms are on the levels, sea or sand or plains. There you get
only a hint of what is about to happen, the fume of the gods rising
from their meeting place under the rim of the world; and when it
breaks upon you there is no stay nor shelter. The terrible mewings
and mouthings of a Kansas wind have the added terror of
viewlessness. You are lapped in them like uprooted grass; suspect
them of a personal grudge. But the storms of hill countries have
other business. They scoop watercourses, manure the pines, twist
them to a finer fibre, fit the firs to be masts and spars, and, if
you keep reasonably out of the track of their affairs, do you no
harm.
They have habits to be learned, appointed paths, seasons, and
warnings, and they leave you in no doubt about their
performances. One who builds his house on a water scar or the
rubble of a steep slope must take chances.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 60 of 70
Words from 30400 to 30911
of 35837
