Old Farm Fairies Part 1

Old Farm Fairies.

by Henry Christopher McCook.

PREFACE.

This preface shall be a personal explanation. The following book was written during the winter of 1876-77, more than eighteen years ago. Its origin was in this wise: Some of my readers will know that for more than twenty years I have studied the habits of our spider fauna. During the first years of these studies, the thought came to me to write a book for youth wherein my observations should be personified in the imaginary creatures of fairy lore, and thus float into the young mind some of my natural history findings in such pleasant form that they would be received quite unconsciously, and at least an impression thereof retained with sufficient accuracy to open the way to more serious lessons in the future.

It further seemed to me that the fairies of Scotland, with whom I had been familiar from childhood, might afford vivid personalities for my plan. Accordingly, the spiders were a.s.signed the part of Pixies or goblins, the ill-natured fairies of Scotland and Northern England. The Brownies, or friendly folk, the "gude neebours," or household fairies, were made to personify those insect forms, especially those useful to man, against which spiders wage continual war. Moreover, to express the relations of the lower creatures to human life, and their actual as well as imaginary interdependence, human characters were introduced, and conflicts between Pixies and Brownies were interwoven with their behaviour.

This purely personal statement has been intruded upon the reader to explain that the Brownies, as represented in this book, are not imitations. They antedated, by a number of years, the popular creations of Mr. Palmer c.o.x. The writer well understands as a naturalist that priority depends not upon originality of intention or invention, or even of preparation, but upon precedence in publication. It will be found, however, that my conception and treatment of these wee folk differ from those of Mr. c.o.x. As they appear to me from the recollections of childhood, they have a more serious aspect, a more human-like nature, which ought not to be wholly sacrificed to their jovial characteristics.

I have therefore presented the Brownies as beings with humanized affections, pa.s.sions and methods reflected in miniature.

I confess some qualms, on the scientific side of my conscience, at compelling my friends, the spiders, to play the part of Pixies. But there seemed no other course out of regard both to common belief and the necessity imposed by the facts. As I went on with the work, I wondered at the ductility with which the current habits of the aranead tribes yielded to personification. The water spiders permitted the introduction of smugglers, pirates and sailors; the burrowing and trapdoor spiders opened up tales of caves and subterranean abodes; the ballooning spiders permitted an adaptation of modern military methods of reconnoissance; and so on through a long list of aranead habits.

In order to make this more apparent, and to give adult readers, parents and teachers, and the older cla.s.s of youthful readers, a scientific key to the various situations, brief notes have been added in an Appendix, to which foot-note references have been made in most of the chapters.

Moreover, the natural habits personified are interpreted by figures set into the text with no explanation but the legend written thereunder.

The crudely drawn cuts which figure in the pages as "The Boy's Ill.u.s.trations" are exact reproductions of sketches made by a lad in my own family, between eight and nine years old, to whom, with others, the ma.n.u.script was read as a sort of test of its quality. Encouraged by the advice of one of the keenest and most sympathetic students of child life in America, I have ventured to give a few of these drawings to the public, as a curious study in the operations of child-mind.

I had agreed with myself not to print the Brownie Book until my scientific work upon the spiders was finished, and the ma.n.u.script remained untouched until the winter of 1885-6. At that time I seemed to see the nearing end of my studies, and portions of the Brownie-Pixie story were distributed to various artists, among them Mr. Dan. C. Beard and Mr. Harry L. Poore. Some of the ill.u.s.trations at that time made, appear in the following pages, bearing date 1886. "Tenants of an Old Farm" had now appeared, and was so well received that it was thought advisable to connect this book with that by an "Introductory Chapter"

intended for older readers, and which gives the key to the motive of the story. Early in 1886 I recalled all contracts and arrangements for publication, as a prolonged sickness compelled me to drop scientific work and defer the issue of the "American Spiders." On the very day that the binders placed the first finished copy of the third and last volume of that work in my hands, the "copy" of "Old Farm Fairies" went to the printer.

H. C. McC.

THE MANSE, PHILADELPHIA, _May 21, A. D. 1895._

THE INTRODUCTION.

AN INTRODUCTION.

[Ill.u.s.tration: pointing finger] This Chapter is for Grownups only.

Children will please skip it.

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND THE FAIRIES.

In the south yard of the Old Farm at Highwood there stands a n.o.ble Elm tree. Its ma.s.sive proportions, the stately pose of its furrowed trunk and the graceful outlines of its drooping branches have often drawn my pleased eyes and awakened admiration. There is nothing in Nature that better serves to stir up human enthusiasm than a fine tree; and as our vicinage for miles around abounds in worthy examples of American forest growths, there is ample opportunity for such sentiment to be kept aglow in the hearts of the Tenants at the Old Farm. Yet it must be confessed that there is also occasion at times for a kindling of quite another sort, when the stupidity, perversity, and penuriousness of men wage a vandal war against the n.o.ble monarchs of the woods.

The fall of a huge tree is a touching sight. See! the trunk trembles upon the last few fibres that stand in the gap which the axman has made.

A s.h.i.+ver runs through the foliage to the summit and circ.u.mference of the branches. The tree-top bows with slightest trace of a lurch to one side. Then it sinks--slowly, faster, fast! With no undignified rush, but with a stately sweep it descends to the earth. Cras.h.!.+ The ground trembles at the fall. The nethermost branches in their breakage explode sharply like a farewell volley of soldiers over a comrade's grave.

Boughs, twigs and leaves vibrate, as with a pa.s.sionate earnestness of grief, for a few moments, and then are still. There, p.r.o.ne upon the forest mould the glorious monarch lies, majestic even in its fallen estate. A few bunches of human muscle, a keen steel edge and a scant fraction of time have destroyed two centuries of Nature's cunning work.

Well, one is inclined to so vary the version of a certain Scripture Text that it shall read "a man was infamous" rather than "a man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees."[A]

Of course Mr. Gladstone, and the mult.i.tude of undistinguished axmen who delight to fall a tree, have an honorable and lawful vocation. Trees ripen, like other animate things, and when they are full ripe they may be felled; when their time has come they ought to fall; when the exigencies of higher intelligences truly require, they also must fall before their time. But, this brings no justification of that murderous idiocy which sets so many citizen sovereigns of America to slaughtering the grand sovereigns of the plant world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1.--The Forest Monarch's Fall. The Brownie's Grief and Anger Thereat.]

However, all this perhaps has little to do with our great Elm, except, that one must be grateful that it has been spared to cause the eyes to rejoice in its beauty and to refresh us with its shade. We built a rustic seat, against its trunk, and there in the warm summer days and evenings which succeeded the winter of our coming to the Old Farm, I was wont to sit and meditate, and sometimes doze. It was a favorite spot with me, but others of the family often shared it with me, or enjoyed it by themselves. This will well enough introduce a matter which I have now to lay before the reader. It came to me from the Schoolmistress, who, I venture to hope, is not forgotten by the readers of "The Tenants of An Old Farm."

My dear Mr. Mayfield:

The package that I herewith send you has a strange history which I beg to recite ere you break the wrappings and examine the contents of the parcel.

It happened during one of the warm days of last June that I sat on the rustic bench under the Great Elm and read Mr. Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal." I closed the book and thought, with an exquisite sense of its beauty and fitness, upon the poet's opening verses which contain a description of June, and in which are these lines:

"'Tis Heaven alone that is given away, 'Tis only G.o.d may be had for the asking; There is no price set on the lavish Summer, And June may be had by the poorest comer."

As I conned the words my eyes slowly wandered along the landscape, and my heart rejoiced in the royal bounty of beauty which the poet sings. Then my vision returned to the objects just around me, and gradually became fixed upon some of the living things about which you have kindly told us so much new and interesting. Indeed, they seemed already like old friends, and I watched with keen zest their various movements.

How bright everything was, and how peaceful the tone of Nature!

b.u.t.terflies flitted by, beating the air in their leisurely way, then rested on leaf or flower while they opened and closed their wings with graceful, fanlike movements. The winged Hymenoptera dashed by with the sharp, quick wingstroke of their kind, or hung humming above the flowers. Honey-bees, Carpenter-bees, Digger-wasps, the blue Mud-dauber, the brown Paper-wasp, Hornets and Yellow-jackets were busy at their various occupations. One dusted pollen into its "basket;" another dumped aromatic pellets of sawdust from a cedar rail; another scooped up mandible hodfulls of mortar at the edge of the brook; others plucked chiplets of old wood from a weathered fence post; all seemed happy, and devoted to peaceful industry.

The great green Gra.s.shopper was in hearing, if not in sight, the veritable "hopper" whose long threadlike antennae and wedge shaped head you have taught us to recognize as marking the true from the so called gra.s.shopper or locust. He sat upon the tall gra.s.s on the bank of the Run close by the spring house, and shrilled his piping love call to his mate. The annual Cicada, too ("Pruinosa"

you called it), was sounding his amorous drum from the trees with a volume and sharpness of sound that far exceed those of his cousin german the Seventeen Year Cicada. His silent ladylove might occasionally be seen flitting from bough to bough. An Orbweaving spider's web was spun upon an adjacent bush, and three courtiers were established at different parts of the margin of the snare awaiting the complaisance of Madam Aranea the housekeeper. Near my feet a bevy of Fuscous Ants[B] were tugging with great to-do at a crumb of sweet cake, while their fellow formicarians were equally concerned in covering and screening the gate of their nest that lay to the right under the verge of the Elm's shadow. Birds of several species were near by; Robins whistled in the meadow, a Vireo sang in the tree tops, Sparrows twittered around the birdcote; Hens cackled in the barnyard, and wakened the hearty, answering "Tuk-aw, tuk-aw!" of the big red Rooster. Out in the lane Sarah's conch sh.e.l.l was sending a melodious call to Hugh whom the Mistress had bidden her to summon from the wood pasture. The whole aspect of Nature, indeed, was so charming that I was soothed into a delicious repose of body and mind.

I am conscious, dear Sir, that I shall lay a heavy tax upon your credulity by what I am now to relate. Or, perhaps, you will smile and say that your friend Abby has fallen to dreams and visions, and like some of her young pupils has imagination so little disciplined as to be quite unable to distinguish between a vivid waking fancy or dream of sleep, and a real occurrence. Very well, I must bear your unbelief as best I may, and at all events you will listen to my story.

Will you believe that among the Tenants of our Old Farm is a nation of Fairies? You have not suspected their existence heretofore; but then, neither did I suspect that legions of curious beings are all around us until the wand of your knowledge had touched my eyes, and opened them to the wonderful life histories that are being wrought out among our fellow tenants of the insect world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BOY'S ILl.u.s.tRATION.

FIG. 2.--Queen Fancy and the Schoolmistress.[C]]

Such, at least, was my own thought as I saw several wee dainty bodies spring from the backs of some Honey-bees hovering over the white clover, after the fas.h.i.+on of a rider dismounting from his horse, and another group alight from a bevy of yellow b.u.t.terflies that fluttered low down and just above the walk. They were joined by many others of like appearance, who suddenly emerged from the gra.s.s, from the flower border, from the drooping leaves of the Elm, and approached me. They clambered up the English Ivy that clings to the south side of the tree; they climbed upon the rustic bench, and a few even ventured upon the gnarled arm against which my elbow rested. This seemed a novel occurrence, certainly; but I a.s.sure you that I was rather pleased than surprised thereby, for it at once linked itself with your strange histories of insects, and seemed a natural and matter-of-course affair. Really, I have come to think that Nature has so many rare and beautiful facts hidden away in her secret places that one must never be surprised to see or hear of the most marvelous happenings. One of the brightest and most prettily robed of these tiny people, who seemed to be a sort of queen among them, drew quite near and addressed me.

"You are not alarmed at our appearance. Good! Fairies do not visit those who doubt or fear them. We are pleased to see you smile upon us. Thanks! We give you greeting! Would you like to know who we are? Yes? Well, we are called Brownies. Our folk came from Scotland. You know where that is?"

"Oh, yes," I replied, speaking, I suppose, quite mechanically, "Scotland is the northern part of the island of Great Britain; it is bounded on the south by England, on the east by the Ger----"

"Never mind the boundary," interrupted the Brownie with a dainty, tinkling laugh, "we are not a Schoolmistress and her Committee, and you needn't say your lesson now. It's enough for us that you know where Scotland is,--the dear auld land o' cakes!

We're Scotch fairies--Brownies."

"But how came you here?" I asked.

"Oh! there's nothing odd about that; we follow our wandering Sawnies wherever they go. We have all been interested with you in Mr. Mayfield's accounts of insect life, and have been present at many of your walks and talks when you little suspected such company. Ah! we could give the Tenant some hints well worth following up! Although, he does very well, very well indeed! But we wish you to know that there are other tenants on the old farm than those Mr. Mayfield knows. _We_ are here, you see! And, alack-a-day! there are other folk here not so agreeable as we!"

"Many thanks," I said, "for the pleasure of your acquaintance. I am delighted and honored by your action, Madam--Madam? what shall I call you?"

"Fancy; Queen Fancy, if you please; so I am called, although, to be sure, there is not much royal state among our folk."