Parting the branches, I would step into the hush of the sleeping wood, pushing my way through ma.s.ses of glossy, dark-green Christmas ferns and clumps of feathery, tossing maidenhair. Black-throated blue warblers sang above, and that ventriloquist, the oven bird, would call from apparently a long way off, "Teacher, teacher, teacher," ending with a tremendous "TEACH!" right under my feet.
At last there would loom up through the green tangle a squat broken white pine. That was my landmark. I would push my way through a tangle of sanicle, and beyond the trunk of a slim elm catch a gleam of white in the dusk. There, all rose-red and snow-white, with parted lips, waited for me the queen flower of the woods, the _Cypripedium reginae_, the loveliest of all our orchids. Two narrow, white, beautiful curved petals stretched out at right angles, while above them towered a white sepal, the three together making a snowy cross. Below this cross hung the lip of the flower, a milk-white hollow sh.e.l.l fully an inch across and an inch deep, veined with crystalline pink which deepened into purple, growing more intense in color until the veins ma.s.sed in a network of vivid violet just under the curved lips kissed by many a wandering wood-bee. Inside the sh.e.l.l were spots of intense purple, showing through the transparent walls. The other two white sepals were joined together and hung as a single one behind the lip.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PINK AND WHITE LADY SLIPPERS (_Cypripedium reginae_)]
I had first found this orchid while hunting for a veery"s nest in the marsh. At that time nothing was showing except the leaves, which grow on tall, round, downy stems. They were beautifully curved at the margin, and were of a brilliant green, a little lighter on the under side than on the upper, and, at first sight, much like the leaves of the well-known marsh h.e.l.lebore. That day was the beginning of a ten-year tryst which I kept every summer with this wood-queen. Then, alas, I lost her!
It came about thus. The marsh in which she hid was part of a thousand acres owned by a friend of mine, who was an enthusiastic and rival flower-hunter. Each year, when I visited my colony of these queen orchids, I sent him one with my compliments and the a.s.surance that the flower belonged to him because it was found on his land. I accompanied these gifts with various misleading messages as to where they grew. He would hunt and hunt, but find nothing but exasperation. Finally, he bribed me, with an apple-wood corner cupboard I had long coveted, to show him the place. It was not fifty yards from the road, and when I took him to it he was overcome with emotion.
"I"ll bet that I have tramped a hundred miles," he said plaintively, "through every spot on this farm except this one, looking for this flower. n.o.body who knew anything about botany would ever think of looking here."
The next year my wood-lady did not meet me, nor the next, and I strongly suspect that she has been transplanted to some secret spot known to my unscrupulous botanical friend alone. Moreover, he has never yet paid me that corner cupboard.
I never saw the flower again until last summer I visited a marsh in northern New Jersey, where I had been told by another orchid-hunter that it grew. This marsh I was warned was a dangerous one. Cattle and men, too, in times past have perished in its depths. For eight unexplored miles it stretched away in front of me. After many wanderings I at length found my way to Big Spring, a murky, malevolent pool set in dark woods, with the marsh stretching away beyond.
Not far away, in a limestone cliff, I came upon a deep burrow, in front of which was a sinister pile of picked bones of all sizes and shapes. The sight suggested delightful possibilities. Panthers, wolves, ogres--anything might belong to such a pile of bones as that.
I knew, however, that the last New Jersey wolf was killed a century or so ago. The burrow was undoubtedly too small for a panther, or even an undersized ogre. Accordingly I was compelled reluctantly to a.s.sign the den to the more commonplace bay-lynx, better known as the wild-cat.
On these limestone rocks I found the curious walking-fern, which loves limestone and no other. Both of the cliff brakes were there, too--the slender, with its dark, fragile, appealing beauty, and its hardier sister, the winter-brake, whose leathery fronds are of a strange blue-green, a color not found in any other plant. Then there was the rattlesnake fern, a lover of deep and dank woods, with its golden-yellow seed-cl.u.s.ter, or "rattle," growing from the centre of its fringed leaves. The oddest of all the ferns was the maidenhair spleen-wort, whose tiny leaves are of the shape of those of the well-known maidenhair fern. When they are exposed to bright sunlight, all the fertile leaves which have seeds on their surface suddenly begin to move, and for three or four minutes vibrate back and forth as rapidly as the second-hand of a watch.
Farther and farther I pushed on into the treacherous marsh, picking my way from tussock to tussock. Now and then my foot would slip into black, quivering mire, thinly veiled by marsh-gra.s.ses. When this happened, the whole swamp would shake and chuckle and lap at the skull-shaped tussocks and the bleached skeletons of drowned trees which showed here and there. At last, when I had almost given up hope, I came upon a clump of the regal flowers growing, not in the swamp itself, but on a shaded bank sloping down from the encircling woods.
Three of the plants had two flowers each, the rest only one. Among these was a single blossom, pure white without a trace of pink or purple. Although it was only the thirtieth of June, several of the flowers were already slightly withered and past their prime, showing that this orchid is at its best in New Jersey in the middle of June, rather than the end of the month, as in Connecticut. The perfect flowers were beautiful orchids, and had a rich fragrance which I had never noticed in my Connecticut specimens. Yet, in some way, to me they lacked the charm and loveliness of my lost flowers of the North.
It was a cold May day. The Ornithologist and myself were climbing Kent Mountain, along with Jim Pan, the last of the Pequots. Whenever Jim drank too much hard cider, which was as often as he could get it, he would give terrible war-whoops and tell how many palefaces his ancestors had scalped. He would usually end by threatening to do some free-hand scalping on his own account--but he never did. He had a son named Tin Pan, who never talked unless he had something to say, which was not more than once or twice during the year.
The two lived all alone, in a little cabin on the slope of Kent Mountain. On the outside of Jim"s door some wag once painted a skull and crossbones, one night when Jim was away on a hunt for some of the aforesaid hard cider. When the Last of the Pequots came back and saw what had been done, he swore mightily that he would leave said insignia there until he could wash them out with the heart"s blood of the gifted artist. They still show faintly on the door, although Jim has slept for many a year in the little Indian cemetery on the mountain, beside his great-aunt Eunice who lived to be one hundred and four years old. Lest it may appear that Jim was an unduly fearsome Indian, let me hasten to add that there was never a kinder, happier, or more untruthful Pequot from the beginning to the end of that long-lost tribe.
On that day the Ornithologist and myself were on our way to a rattlesnake den, the secret of which had been in the Pan family for some generations. In past years Jim"s forbears had done a thriving business in selling skins and rattlesnake oil, in the days when the rattlesnake shared with the skunk the honor of providing an unwilling cure for rheumatism. Our path led up through ma.s.ses of color. There was the pale pure pink of the crane"s-bill or wild geranium, the yellow adder"s tongue, and the faint blue-and-white porcelain petals of the hepatica, with cl.u.s.ter after cl.u.s.ter of the snowy, golden-hearted bloodroot whose frail blossoms last but for a day.
That very morning a long-delayed warbler-wave was breaking over the mountain, and the Ornithologist could hardly contain himself as he watched the different varieties pa.s.s by. I recall that we scored over twenty different kinds of warblers between dawn and dark, and I saw for the first time the Wilson"s black-cap, with its bright yellow breast and tiny black crown, and the rare Cape May warbler, with its black-streaked yellow underparts and orange-red cheeks. The richly dressed and sombre black-throated blue and bay-breasted were among the crowd, while black-throated greens, myrtles, magnolias, chestnut-sided, blackpolls, Canadians, redstarts, with their fan-shaped tails, and Blackburnians, with their flaming throats and b.r.e.a.s.t.s glowing like live coals, went by in a never-ending procession.
All the way Jim kept up a steady flow of anecdote. I can remember only one, a blood-curdling story about a man from Bridgeport, name not given, who caught a rattlesnake while on a hunt with Jim, but who let go while attempting to put it into the bag, whereupon the rattlesnake bit him as it dropped.
"Did he die?" queried the writer and the Ornithologist in chorus.
"No," said Jim proudly; "Tin and I saved his life."
"Whiskey?" ventured the writer.
"Not for snake-bites," responded Jim simply.
"Well, how was it?" persisted the Ornithologist, hoping to learn of some mysterious Indian remedy.
"Well," said Jim, stretching out his tremendous arms like a great bear, "I held him tight and Tin here burned the place out. It took two matches and he yelled somethin" terrible. I told him we were savin"
his life, but the fool said he would rather die of snake-bite than be burned to death. You wouldn"t suppose a grown man would make such a fuss over two little matches."
Finally, we reached the Den, a ledge of rocks near the top of the mountain, where for some unknown reason all the rattlesnakes for miles around were accustomed to hibernate during the winter and to remain for some weeks in the late spring before scattering through the valley. The Ornithologist and I fell un.o.btrusively to the rear, while the dauntless Pan led the van with a crotched stick. Suddenly Jim thrust one foot up into the air like a toe-dancer, and pirouetted with amazing rapidity on the other. He had been in the very act of stepping over a small huckleberry-bush, when he noted under its lee a rattlesnake in coil, about the size of a peck measure--as pretty a death-trap as was ever set in the woods. By the time I got there, Jim had pinned the hissing heart-shaped head down with his forked stick, while the bloated, five-foot body was thrashing through the air in circles, the rattles whirring incessantly.
"Grab him just back of the stick," panted Jim, bearing down with all his weight, "and put him in the bag."
I paused.
"You"re not scared, are you?" he inquired; while Tin, who had hurried up with a gunny-sack, regarded me reproachfully.
"Certainly not," I a.s.sured him indignantly, "but I don"t want to be selfish. Let Tin do it."
"No," said Jim firmly, "you"re company. Tin can pick up rattlesnakes any day."
"Well, how about my friend?" I rejoined weakly.
The Ornithologist, who had been watching the scene from the far background, spoke up for himself.
"I wouldn"t touch that d.a.m.n snake," he said earnestly, "for eleven million dollars."
At this profanity the rattlesnake started another paroxysm of struggling, while his rattle sounded like an alarm-clock. When he stopped to rest, the Ornithologist raised his price to an even billion--in gold. It was evident that I was the white man"s hope. It would never do to let two members of a conquered race see a pale-face falter. Remembering Deerslayer at the stake, Daniel Boone, and sundry other brave white men without a cross, I set my teeth, gripped the rough, cold, scaly body just back of the crotched stick, and lifted.
The great snake"s black, fixed, devilish eyes looked into mine. If, in this world, there are peep-holes into h.e.l.l, they are found in the eyes of an enraged rattlesnake. As he came clear of the ground, he coiled round my arm to the elbow, so that the rattles sounded not a foot from my ear. Although the rattlesnake is not a constrictor, and there was no real danger, yet under the touch of his body my arm quivered like a tuning-fork.
"What makes your arm shake so?" queried Jim, watching me critically.
"It"s probably rheumatism," I a.s.sured him.
Suddenly, under my grip, the snake"s mouth opened, showing on either side of the upper jaw ridges of white gum. From these suddenly flashed the movable fangs which are always folded back until ready for use.
They were hollow and of a glistening white. Halfway down on the side of each was a tiny hole, from which the yellow venom slowly oozed. I began tremulously to unwind my unwelcome armlet, while Tin waited with the open bag.
"Be sure you take your hand away quick after you drop him in," advised Jim.
"Don"t you worry about that," I replied; "no man will ever get his hand away quicker than I"m going to."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KING OF THE FOREST--THE BANDED RATTLESNAKE]
Whereupon I unwound the rattling coils from my arm, and then broke all speed records in removing my hand from the neighborhood of that snake.
This was my first introduction to the King of the Dark Places, the grim timber rattlesnake, the handsomest of all the thirteen varieties found within the United States.
On my way back from the den it was Jim Pan who pointed out to me on the lower slope of the mountain the beautiful showy orchid (_Orchis spectabilis_). Between two oblong shining green leaves grew a loose spike of purple-pink and white b.u.t.terfly blossoms. This is the first of the orchids to appear, and no more exquisite or beautiful flower could head the procession which stretches from May until September. I find this flower but seldom, usually because I am not in the hill-country early enough, although once I found a perfect flower in bloom as late as Decoration Day, a left-over from the first spring flowers.
It was Jim, too, that day, who quite appropriately showed me the rattlesnake plantain (_Goodyera p.u.b.escens_), with its rosette of green leaves heavily veined with white, from the centre of which in late summer grows a spike of crowded, greenish-white flowers. Under the doctrine of signatures, these leaves are still thought by many to be a sure cure for the bite of a rattlesnake. Personally, I would rather rely on a sharp knife and permanganate of potash. In the same group as the rattlesnake plantain are several varieties of lady"s tresses, which grow in every damp meadow in midsummer and early fall. Little spikes of greenish-white flowers they are, growing out of what looks like a twisted or braided stem. Of them all the most interesting to me is the gra.s.s-leaved lady"s tresses (_Gyrostachys praec.o.x_), where the flowers grow round and round the stem in a perfect spiral.
As I went on with my hunting, I learned that not all the members of the orchis family are beautiful. There is the coral root, with tiny dull brownish-purple flowers, which one finds growing in dry woods, often near colonies of the Indian pipe. The green and the ragged-fringed orchids are other disappointing members. Yet, to a confirmed collector, even these poor relations of the family are full of interest. In fact, the second rarest orchid of our American list--the celebrated crane-fly orchid (_Tipularia unifolia_)--has a series of insignificant greenish-purple blossoms which look as much like mosquitoes or flies as anything else, and can be detected only with the greatest difficulty. Yet I am planning to take a journey of several hundred miles this very summer on the off-chance of seeing one of these flowers. Nearly as rare is the strange ram"s-head lady"s-slipper (_Cypripedium arietinum_), the rarest of all the cypripedia and belonging to the same family as the glorious moccasin flower and queen flower. The lip of the ram"s-head consists of a strange greenish pouch with purple streaks, shaped like the head of a ram.
There are scores of other odd, often lovely, and usually rare, members of the great orchis family, which can be met with from May to September. There is the beautiful golden whip-poor-will"s shoe, in two sizes (_Cypripedium hirsutum_, and _Cypripedium parviflorum_), and those lovely nymphs, rose-purple Arethusa (_Arethusa bulbosa_), and Calypso (_Calypso borealis_), with her purple blossom varied with pink and shading to yellow.
One of the fascinations of orchid-hunting is the fact that you may suddenly light upon a strange orchid growing in a place which you have pa.s.sed for years. Such a happening came to me the day when I first found the rose pogonia (_Pogonia ophioglossoides_). I was following a cow-path through the hard hack pastures which I had traveled perhaps a hundred times before. Suddenly, as I came to the slope of the upper pasture, growing in the wet bank of the deep-cut trail, my eye caught sight of a little flower of the purest rose-pink, the color of the peach-blossom, with a deeply fringed drooping lip, the whole flower springing from a slender stem with oval, gra.s.s-like leaves. To me it had a fragrance like almonds, although others have found in it the scent of sweet violets or of fresh raspberries. It is the pogonia family which includes the rarest of all of our orchids, the almost unknown smaller whorled pogonia (_Pogonia affinis_). Few indeed have been the botanists who have seen even a pressed specimen of this strange flower.
Two weeks after I found the rose pogonia, I came again to visit her.
To my astonishment and delight, by her side was growing another orchid, like some purple-pink b.u.t.terfly which had alighted on a long swaying stem. It was no other than the beautiful gra.s.s-pink (_Limodorum tuberosum_), which blooms in July, while the pogonia comes out in late June. The gra.s.s-pink has from two to six blossoms on each stem, and the yellow lip is above instead of below the flower, as in the case of most orchids. Years later I was to find this orchid growing by scores in the pine-barrens.
Last, but by no means least, is the great genus _Habenaria_--the exquisite fringed orchids. Purple, white, gold, green--they wear all these colors. He who has never seen either the large or the small purple fringed orchid growing in the June or July meadows, or the flaming yellow fringed orchid all orange and gold in the August meadows, has still much for which to live.