Summerfield Part 10

"O no; but why should we have winter at all, when continual summer would be so much more pleasant?"

"To me perpetual summer would not be more pleasant. We are so const.i.tuted that diversity of air, weather and prospects, is indispensable to our enjoyment, and progress. Would you appreciate the beauty and blessing of spring, summer and autumn, you must experience in their unfailing turn, the gloomy rigors of winter."

"But why have these last been colder than others, causing so much suffering and need?"

"I cannot see all the Divine design, but I can see a lesson of good in the cold seasons. We learn wisdom, and get strength and breadth of life by suffering. These last winters have taught many of us wisdom and forethought; made us prudent; showed us how dependent we are, and yet learned us self-dependence. After this I'll warrant, the people of Summerfield will do and save more in the summer, to lay up comforts for the winter; and provide for unseen needs. And I feel in my heart a warmer sympathy for suffering, and know a little of the satisfaction one enjoys a.s.sisting his neighbors; while I see our neighborhood bound together in stronger bonds of love, by the concern which those bitter cold storms forced us to take of one another. What would become of charity if there were no wants to relieve? or hope, if we could not keep looking for pleasanter springs and more fruitful summers?"

"But, cold summers came, and the corn was all cut off, giving n.o.body good for the labor of ploughing and planting."

"Good was done to our lands, neighbor Nimblet, good was certainly done to our lands. We had run our corn lands too hard; fruitful seasons tempted us to imprudence, and we were running them all out. They have had a long rest now and will be more productive. Beside, we have found out that there are many honest ways to get a living, and have learned how to s.h.i.+ft from right hand to left. A knack like that is well worth learning."

"From lessons of evil?"

"Yes, from lessons of evil. Would the maples stand the storms as they do, and grow all the more; would the oaks get so great, if they sprung from a city hot-house?"

"Are you as happy as you would be, Squire, if you could remember no affliction?"

"I enjoy happiness of a higher, sweeter and solider kind, I a.s.sure you, as I think of all past sorrows. Who can have so sweet an enjoyment of health, as one that has recovered from sickness, and walks out in the animating air and light? Yes, some of my best joys come and cheer me and strengthen me, after I have suffered. From anguish and bereavement the brightest views of G.o.d have shone on my soul, as you have seen rainbows s.h.i.+ne brightest in the darkest skies."

"I cannot see everything as you do," said Mr. Nimblet, and went his way, while Fabens was preparing to speak of several more blessings, that would follow the cold seasons.

XV.

A WAR OF EXTERMINATION.

The people of Summerfield were never so thankful or happy as in the beautiful year that followed the Cold-Seasons. Plenty returned to abide there, and Prosperity re-appeared, leading Hope, Comfort, Peace, and Joy in her jocund train. Still that continued a land of the earth, bearing the thorn as well as the rose, having briers as well as berries.

The people were greatly offended. Wolves and foxes still infested the woods, and many of their lambs and fowls were killed and eaten by the animals. They were hated with increased hatred. Not because they were any worse than they ever had been before; but the people grew impatient of annoyance, and found it more and more difficult to see why wolves and foxes were made; and why they were suffered to live, and prowl about the abodes of men.

The birds too were very troublesome. Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs pecked the trees, and robins plucked the first ripe cherries. Hawks pounced upon the chickens, and crows and blackbirds pulled the corn. What were they all made for, and poised upon wings, with an omnipresence to annoy our race? Robins were good to eat, and they were more harmless, than others; but why were blackbirds let loose on earth? and for what did crows and hawks take flight in our air? Why were the brutal beasts and troublesome fowls, saved out of the things that were drowned in Noah's flood?

Fabens confessed he could not see for what good purpose wolves and foxes were made; farther than the vagabond sort of happiness they might enjoy, and the discipline they gave to man in griefs and vexations.

The predatory birds he thought were made equally in vain. He was tired all out with their felon ravages. He judged at last that wolves and foxes, and the blackbirds, and birds of prey, ought to be exterminated.

Nothing now could so benefit the town, as a war of extermination, He could not raise a perfect crop of corn; he could not enjoy his ox-heart cherries; he could not raise a full brood of chickens, nor keep what were raised; he could not trust his geese from his door, nor turn his sheep and lambs into his fresh woods pasture, without suffering depredations; and something must be done to destroy the evil beasts and birds.

"We told you the first winter you was here, Fabens, that you would have to come to that," said Colwell. "It is high time a town meeting was called, and a general plan hit on to kill off the critters. I have my plan about it, and I have told it to a good many who fall in with me."

"What is your plan? The woods are alive with foxes, and there are a great many wolves yet away back in the swamps and hills, while the air is black with crows and blackbirds. How can we lessen their numbers much?"

"Club together and buy at the apothecaries a hundred dollars worth of pison; fix it in sc.r.a.ps of meat, and scatter it through and through the woods; and if it don't make the animals scarce, I'll quit a guessin'.

Then git up a hunt for the birds--a univarsal hunt, and have judges and give premiums to them that count the most game; continue the hunt a week or fortnight for two or three years runnin', and the birds won't pester us much after that."

"The plan is a good one, and I'll do my part to carry it into execution. I am all out of patience with the creatures. If we do not kill more of them, they will get to be worse than Egypt's plagues."

A town meeting was called, and Colwell's plan was adopted. A large sum was contributed to procure poison; and bird hunts were arranged. The poison was scattered abroad, and hundreds of foxes and wolves lay dead all over the woods and swamps; while the money was returned with interest to the people, by the sale of furs gathered from their bodies.

The bird hunts came off with equal success, and there followed a marked cessation of annoyance.

Only now and then a robin molested a fruit tree; and the tap of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r was seldom heard. Hawks and crows that were left, looked so wistful and lonely they were not begrudged the little they ventured at times to take. Blackbirds troubled the corn but little, and were more reserved of their mannerless clack. The fowls could repose at night without fear of foxes; and lambs might wander in the wide woods pasture, and lie down unharmed by wolves.

It could not be denied however that the fields and Woods were less cheerful, if they were more safe. Some could not sense the change, except in an increase of harvests, cattle and fowls; others again, more spiritual in feeling, hearing and sight, discerned a gloom in the air, and a gloom on every scene, that seemed ominous of woe. f.a.n.n.y Fabens took all that gloom to her heart, and she seemed another being. Her nature was glad and joyous, as a grove full of robins; but now she grew sad, and wept and moaned, where once she laughed and sang. She could hardly account for all her grief; she seemed to inhale it from the air, imbibe it from the light, and taste it in the breath of the woods, and the odor of the flowers.

But the death of the birds she knew was the beginning of her sorrows.

She wept the loss of her favorite robin, from the ash tree in the middle meadow; and it was no longer a bliss, but a grief, to lie in that lovely shade, and sing her jocund songs, and scent the clover blooms. She missed the little sparrow that had come three years in succession, and reared three broods in a season, from a nest in the honeysuckle that curtained her window. She missed the robins from the cherry-trees, and the cherries palled on her tongue. She missed the bluebirds from the cornfield, and the yellow-birds from the flax; she missed the meadow-larks from the lawns, and the quails from the oats and wheat; she missed the bobolinks from the hayfields, and the jays from the girdling; she missed the ground-birds from the pastures, and thrushes and sweet swamp-robins from the woods; and the poor girl wandered about for months very sad and lonely, singing no songs and sharing no delights.

Mrs. Fabens felt the bereavement quite as keenly as f.a.n.n.y, and she declared, if the ox-heart cherries were fairer and more abundant now, their sweetness was bitter to her taste, and it seemed like devouring so much beauty and song to eat them; for beauty had been banished and song silenced, to bring them to such a yield. Fabens could not deny that the gloom invaded his heart also, and he took no comfort in the cherries, while he missed the music of the birds, and missed the songs of joy that the birds prompted f.a.n.n.y to sing.

Yet, to him it seemed a just and victorious warfare, and he exchanged congratulations with his neighbors. He was pleased to get free from plagues, and he thought that relief was a good achieved of a real evil.

His next argument with Mr. Nimblet, was less confidently urged, while Mr. Nimblet brought new ill.u.s.trations to his aid. Fabens, indeed, staggered at the reasons that now opposed his view. Prowling beasts of prey were evil as anything that had started up to devour his idea, and good to all must come, he thought, for sweeping them away.

Another season bloomed, and the birds were very few, and the bark of the fox, and the howl of the wolf, were very seldom heard. But now was the beginning of plagues more appalling. Flies that had served the robins for food, swarmed forth unmolested, and stung the cherry-trees, so that they bore little fruit at all, and that little was wormy and worthless. And worms that had served all the birds of the air with meat, now multiplied greatly, and cut down all the vines, and destroyed double the corn that the fowls had taken; while caterpillars and locusts trimmed the orchards, and plagued the oats and wheat.

"I begin to think that the poor birds were our friends, after all, and we shall now get our pay for killing them," said Fabens to Colwell, one day, while talking of the new annoyance.

"Prospects for crops never looked so squally afore," said Colwell. "I can stand crows and blackbirds, I can stomach wolves and foxes, better'n them nasty worms."

"We called that evil which G.o.d sent for good," said Fabens.

"I know not what we are coming to," sighed neighbor Nimblet.

"But, we done some good, our lambs and geese are safe, sense we pisoned the animals," said Colwell, cheering up his heart.

"I have noticed that the woods looked very yellow of late," said neighbor Nimblet. "What can be the cause of that? My maple orchard, my chestnut woods, my cedar swamp and pine groves, look as though they were dying."

"I have noticed it," said Fabens; "but I did not think to examine till yesterday. My most valuable pines and cedars, and my chestnuts and sugar maples are dying. And come to examine them, I find the wood-mice and rabbits have girdled them. This is something I never saw before.

The woods fairly crawl with creatures that are destroying them. And we are at fault for it all, neighbor Nimblet. Say what you will, wolves and foxes were our friends. They destroyed vermin and rabbits, and protected our woods. But because they took a goose, and a lamb, once in a while, in part payment for the good they did, we saw in them nothing but evil, we hated them and killed them. Now, creatures more destructive come forth, destroying all before them."

"It cannot be quite so bad, Squire," replied Mr. Nimblet.

"It is the solemn truth, bad as it is, and I know it, and we are having our punishment for our error," rejoined Squire Fabens.

"I must go and see," said Mr. Nimblet; and the conversation ended.

He went to see his woods, and found it even so; and he was greatly grieved, for much valuable property was wasting as in a fire. It proved a greater calamity than the cold seasons. It was long before the fine forests of Summerfield recovered from their wounds.

But that scourge was a good lesson, from which all took profit in the end. Men learned more of the designs of G.o.d, saw more good in all His works, let the birds and animals live, valued more preciously what was left them, enjoyed more wisely and sweetly such blessings as came, and were more thankful.

There were none who took more instruction from that lesson than Mr. and Mrs. Fabens. It elevated their views, it increased their faith, it enlarged the sphere of their spirits, and cleared up more of the mystery of evil. All of that mystery they did not expect to see unveiled below. It was not a possible thing to make mortal men see and understand it. But if the dark cloud still spread its dubious dusk on the sky, more and more of it melted into the rainbow as they gazed; and while part of that bow was still involved in the cloud, and part hidden away far below the horizon, enough was still glowing in glory on their sight, and enough gleaming and breaking through the darkness, to enable them to know it would burst at last on their blessed eyes, in a perfect circle of the light of love.

"We should all be happier and more fortunate," said Mrs. Fabens, "if we had faith to see a blessing of G.o.d in more of the things we regard as evil. It requires great faith, I know, to be reconciled under all griefs, and see a good design in all that afflicts us. It has been hard for me to see why G.o.d made wolves and foxes, and how they could minister good to man. They may be evil, for all I know, but if they do not fulfil a good design, why has it proved an evil to kill them?"

"It does, indeed, require great faith to accept your suggestion; but that faith must be the true one after all," said the Squire. "They made incursions on our folds. They took now and then a lamb, or fowl; but how much less have they taken than enough to pay them for the good they did. How few of us would do the same good to them for the same small reward. We are impatient of griefs and vexations. We chafe, and foam, and champ the bit that curbs in our pa.s.sions, and reins us around the wisest way. We think it hard that wolves should sometimes bring us a disguised blessing. We find it difficult to discover the good design of apparent ill. But at last we shall see how evil may issue in good.

The end will reveal the good design of all. As I understand it, evil is the imperfection which necessarily follows our nature. The moral difference between an imperfect world and a perfect G.o.d. The shadow of the Tree of Life. The cloud that veils the Mercy-Seat. The sad and the bitter, the dark and dreary, that serve but to reveal the joyful and sweet, the bright, and glad, and beautiful.

"And we know by experience, Julia, that the evils of this world may be turned into a high and fruitful discipline; and from that discipline we may rise to a life of maturer powers, and more ample and energetic character; with thriftier faith and greener hope; and cl.u.s.tering graces all around the heart, of juicier pulp and rarer flavor."