This Apple-Tree, Which Stands Within A
Few Rods Of The River, Is Called "Elisha's Apple-Tree," From A
Friendly
Indian, who was anciently in the service of Jonathan
Tyng, and, with one other man, was killed here by his
Own race in
one of the Indian wars, - the particulars of which affair were
told us on the spot. He was buried close by, no one knew exactly
where, but in the flood of 1785, so great a weight of water
standing over the grave, caused the earth to settle where it had
once been disturbed, and when the flood went down, a sunken spot,
exactly of the form and size of the grave, revealed its locality;
but this was now lost again, and no future flood can detect it;
yet, no doubt, Nature will know how to point it out in due time,
if it be necessary, by methods yet more searching and unexpected.
Thus there is not only the crisis when the spirit ceases to
inspire and expand the body, marked by a fresh mound in the
churchyard, but there is also a crisis when the body ceases to
take up room as such in nature, marked by a fainter depression in
the earth.
We sat awhile to rest us here upon the brink of the western bank,
surrounded by the glossy leaves of the red variety of the
mountain laurel, just above the head of Wicasuck Island, where we
could observe some scows which were loading with clay from the
opposite shore, and also overlook the grounds of the farmer, of
whom I have spoken, who once hospitably entertained us for a
night. He had on his pleasant farm, besides an abundance of the
beach-plum, or _Prunus littoralis_, which grew wild, the Canada
plum under cultivation, fine Porter apples, some peaches, and
large patches of musk and water melons, which he cultivated for
the Lowell market. Elisha's apple-tree, too, bore a native
fruit, which was prized by the family. He raised the blood
peach, which, as he showed us with satisfaction, was more like
the oak in the color of its bark and in the setting of its
branches, and was less liable to break down under the weight of
the fruit, or the snow, than other varieties. It was of slower
growth, and its branches strong and tough. There, also, was his
nursery of native apple-trees, thickly set upon the bank, which
cost but little care, and which he sold to the neighboring
farmers when they were five or six years old. To see a single
peach upon its stem makes an impression of paradisaical fertility
and luxury. This reminded us even of an old Roman farm, as
described by Varro: - Caesar Vopiscus Aedilicius, when he pleaded
before the Censors, said that the grounds of Rosea were the
garden (_sumen_ the tid-bit) of Italy, in which a pole being left
would not be visible the day after, on account of the growth of
the herbage. This soil may not have been remarkably fertile,
yet at this distance we thought that this anecdote might be told
of the Tyngsborough farm.
When we passed Wicasuck Island, there was a pleasure-boat
containing a youth and a maiden on the island brook, which we
were pleased to see, since it proved that there were some
hereabouts to whom our excursion would not be wholly strange.
Before this, a canal-boatman, of whom we made some inquiries
respecting Wicasuck Island, and who told us that it was disputed
property, suspected that we had a claim upon it, and though we
assured him that all this was news to us, and explained, as well
as we could, why we had come to see it, he believed not a word of
it, and seriously offered us one hundred dollars for our title.
The only other small boats which we met with were used to pick up
driftwood. Some of the poorer class along the stream collect, in
this way, all the fuel which they require. While one of us
landed not far from this island to forage for provisions among
the farm-houses whose roofs we saw, for our supply was now
exhausted, the other, sitting in the boat, which was moored to
the shore, was left alone to his reflections.
If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveller always
has a resource in the skies. They are constantly turning a new
page to view. The wind sets the types on this blue ground, and
the inquiring may always read a new truth there. There are
things there written with such fine and subtile tinctures, paler
than the juice of limes, that to the diurnal eye they leave no
trace, and only the chemistry of night reveals them. Every man's
daylight firmament answers in his mind to the brightness of the
vision in his starriest hour.
These continents and hemispheres are soon run over, but an always
unexplored and infinite region makes off on every side from the
mind, further than to sunset, and we can make no highway or
beaten track into it, but the grass immediately springs up in the
path, for we travel there chiefly with our wings.
Sometimes we see objects as through a thin haze, in their eternal
relations, and they stand like Palenque and the Pyramids, and we
wonder who set them up, and for what purpose. If we see the
reality in things, of what moment is the superficial and apparent
longer? What are the earth and all its interests beside the deep
surmise which pierces and scatters them? While I sit here
listening to the waves which ripple and break on this shore, I am
absolved from all obligation to the past, and the council of
nations may reconsider its votes. The grating of a pebble annuls
them. Still occasionally in my dreams I remember that rippling
water.
Oft, as I turn me on my pillow o'er,
I hear the lapse of waves upon the shore,
Distinct as if it were at broad noonday,
And I were drifting down from Nashua.
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