This Hill, This Valley

by Hal Borland

  Its name comes from the Greek for swallow, the bird, and it is sometimes called swallowwort. By nature it is a biennial and it winters with a large rosette of lower leaves persistently green even under snow and ice. Late Winter, and it burgeons with new leaves as though trying to hurry Spring. Two things distinguish it—this early vigor, and a beautiful name. Otherwise, it’s nothing but a roadside weed.

  Pat adopted us the first Winter we lived here. He arrived in the midst of a snowstorm, he and a black pup, both of them rib-thin and wary. They spent two nights on our front porch and refused to leave the place. You can’t let even a tramp dog starve in such weather, so we finally fed them and gave them sleeping room in the woodshed, hoping they would move on when the weather eased. They didn’t. Nobody in the area had ever seen them before and they had no identification tags. Eventually the black pup became a nuisance and we transferred our nebulous title to a family ten miles away. By then Pat had made himself at home with us.

  Pat is every ounce a gentleman and he has a good but unknown background. He is a handsome black-and-white dog, probably a foxhound with some beagle blood. He is an excellent rabbit dog; but someone also taught him impeccable manners both in the house and out. He has had, from the beginning, a reserved and almost distant dignity, especially with guests. He has three privileged places in the house: in front of the living-room fire, on the Navajo rug at the head of the stairs, and in my study. He knows that bedrooms and the dining room are out of bounds, seems always to have known it. He knew from the beginning, too, that Barbara’s study, just across the hall from mine, is forbidden to him. He does not snitch food. He stays off the furniture, with one exception—the chaise longue that stays on the porch in Summer. He and Barbara wage persistent war over the chaise. He knows it is forbidden to him, but he can’t resist its soft comfort; and he always is chagrined when she catches him on it.

  Pat owns the valley and everyone knows him, but he has only a few intimate human friends. I am his man, and Barbara is his woman; apparently she is the first woman he ever liked. In his other life he must have known maids or housewives who broomed him, for a broom is the one thing he fears. Charley stands next to me and Barbara in his affections. Bobbie, who visits us from time to time, is the only other woman he seems to regard as more than a casual acquaintance; Bobbie prowls the mountainside with him.

  Pat loves to hunt. Charley calls him the best rabbit dog in the area. He will go hunting with Charley any time, and he would hunt every day and all day with me if I would go. But the only other person he will hunt with is Georgie, Charley’s teen-age grandson. All Summer Pat wages his own war on the woodchucks, the only wild animals I have ever known him to kill. Last Summer he caught and killed seven woodchucks in one two-week span. He also likes to go fishing with us. We go in the boat and he prowls the banks, swims the river, startles frogs, herons, rabbits, an occasional fox, and makes a splendid outing of every trip.

  Twice Pat decided to live with Charley, who indulges him more than we do; but each time he changed his mind—Charley calls him a notional dog—and came back here to live. Now when we have to be away for a few days, Pat moves up to Charley’s till we come home, then comes back here and is wholly content.

  Pat has made his peace with life, even our kind of life. As I write these words he lies here in my study, drowsing, occasionally looking at me with one dark eye, waiting for me to finish and go up the mountain with him. I wish I knew half as much about that mountainside as Pat does, but I know I never shall.

  The year holds one moment, which may last for a week, when tree and bush and vine are on the breathless verge of leafing out. It is then that one can stand on a hilltop and look across the valley and see the scarlet and orange maple blossoms like a touch of pastel crayon across the treetops.

  I saw such a generalization today and I knew that breathless moment is here. Then I began to look for particulars. The pear tree beside the garden is dressed in green lace, its leaves no larger than my little fingernail. The lilacs are tufted at their stem-ends, each twin leaf cluster tipped with faint brownish purple and not a leaf among them as big as a squirrel’s ear. The wild raspberries beside the river have scarlet tassels not half an inch long, each tassel an unfolding group of leaves whose form can be faintly seen. The early apple trees have silver gray nubs at their twig tips; when I drew down a branch to look I could see each nub as a young leaf cluster emerging from the bud, each leaf the size of a ladybird’s wing and each red-tipped as though blushing. The bridal-wreath bush is green at every joint with little green rosebud leaves. These things are here now, this instant. Even an hour from now all will be changed. Tomorrow it will be still different. This is the trembling moment when life stands between bud and leaf, promise and achievement. A new world is in the making on these old, old hills. I am an observer while Creation is taking place.

  I am glad we came here to live, and my satisfaction is not compounded of a fine April day and a savory breakfast. It goes deeper. We came here because we thought this was a place where we could feel at home, which is to say at ease with ourselves and the things around us. Not until weeks after we had moved in and settled did we see, consciously, that this area reminds us in many ways of a certain foothill region in Colorado which means much to us.

  I wonder how many people who have their own choice of a living place choose an area that reminds them of some pleasant memory. I suspect that is a greater factor than any of us know or admit. We feel at ease there, in a state of friendship with our environment. Man is a restless, sensitive creature and is happiest when he is at ease in that sense, when he feels that he belongs where he is. We belong here. The land just happens, by the turn of an economic factor, to belong to us. Had not that sense of belonging to the land been present, we would never have been at home here no matter how long we stayed.

  Violets, marsh marigolds, Dutchman’s-breeches and trilliums will soon be brightening our woods and meadows; but until these natives spread their petals I am thankful to the Mediterranean basin for April color. The bulbs now beginning to brighten the lawn and garden are, with few exceptions, natives of the Mediterranean area.

  The big hyacinth, for instance, which especially delights Barbara’s heart, came long ago from the lands which stretch eastward from Greece into Asia. The name comes from the Greek, and there are at least two versions of its origin. One is that the flower sprang from the blood of the tragic youth, Hyacinthus, when he was slain. The more likely origin is in the ancient name for a precious stone thought to have been a sapphire, in which case it would be another of the many color-names of flowers.

  And the narcissus, in its various forms, is native both to the European and the African shores of the Mediterranean. Most of the narcissuses we cultivate today are of European origin. The varieties are almost countless, but they fall into three broad groups: the poet’s narcissus, with shallow cup and broad petals; the jonquil, which bears two to five small, fragrant blossoms on one stem; and the trumpet daffodil. The name “daffodil” is closely related to “asphodel,” a standard topic for English nature poetry a few generations ago.

  All these flowers are migrants, even as so many of us are. If they spoke a vocal language, if they had a religion, if they competed on the labor market, we probably would find some excuse to dislike them. Since they are flowers, not people, we accept them at face value and think they are rather wonderful.

  Perhaps one reason I am so fond of trees is that I grew up in a treeless country. The plains of eastern Colorado have a few valleys with watercourses lined with willow brush and an occasional Cottonwood tree; but both the watercourses and those trees are rare. During my early boyhood I never made or even saw a willow whistle. Then I spent a summer in the mountains and learned about pines and spruce and aspens and oaks.

  When I first owned a few acres of woodland, years later, I couldn’t bear to chop down a tree, even for firewood or to clear a driveway. I left so many trees around the house that it was dark and damp, and I marveled at th
e way seedlings sprang up everywhere, even in the tomato patch. I suppose that a Sahara Arab would have the same awe of green grass.

  I still dislike to cut down a tree, though this land of ours is well timbered, timber on a whole mountainside above the pastures. When I walk there I watch that I do not step on a seedling pine, no matter how slim may be its chances of ultimate maturity. And when they cut trees along the river to widen our road I objected vigorously, even though I had to eat my words when the cutting had opened up a new and magnificent vista from our front porch.

  I watch the trees now, the way the white pines put forth each annual whorl of five branches, the way the sugar maples open their leaves, the way the pear tree keeps shooting up, untrimmed, until its fruit is beyond reach of hand or ladder. I am childish about these matters—not childlike, but childish, sentimental, unreasonable. I remember when and where there were no trees.

  Our house grew on this land, literally grew here. The farmer who built it lived for years in a small white house just north of where the present house stands. Countrywise, he built a big barn and ample outbuildings before he listened to his wife’s desire for a new house, but when he gave in he gave in completely. One Winter he went up on the mountain, chose the trees, felled them, trimmed them, cut them to length and skidded them down to a hollow just above the middle pasture. He cut oak and chestnut and white pine, and when the weather was right he brought in a sawmill. For days the mill must have chugged and whined, and the whole valley must have been sweet with the fragrance of fresh planks and boards. Then he stacked and seasoned his lumber.

  The next year he built this house, and built it well. The subflooring is white pine. The beams and rafters are oak and chestnut. The trim and stairs are chestnut. There is a full basement, poured concrete, spacious, dry. When he had finished the house he moved in and tore down the old one, some of the boards of which probably went into a new chicken house. But he never got around to leveling off the old cellar hole. It was a two-foot hollow in the lawn until last Summer, when I filled it in and planted grass.

  At the foot of the mountain the dark pile of moldering sawdust still remains. On up the mountain are the stumps, big stumps now surrounded by trees a foot through. Every time I walk that way I glance at the old sawdust pile and nod to the big stumps. That is where my house grew.

  Ever since man first was aware of Spring he has stood at this season with awe in his eyes and wonder in his heart, sensing the magnificence of life returning and life renewed; and something deep within him has responded, whatever his religion or spiritual belief. It is as inevitable as sunrise that man should see the substance of faith and hope in the tangible world so obviously responding to forces beyond himself or his accumulated knowledge.

  For all his learning or sophistication, man still instinctively reaches toward that force beyond, and thus he approaches humility. Only arrogance can deny its existence, and the denial falters in the face of evidence on every hand. In every tuft of grass, in every bird, in every opening bud, there it is. We can reach so far with our explanations, and there still remains a force beyond, which touches not only the leaf, the seed, the opening petal, but man himself.

  Spring is a result, not a cause. The cause lies beyond, still beyond; and it is the instinctive knowledge of this which inspires our festivals of faith and life and belief renewed, our Easters of whatever name. Resurrection is there for us to witness and participate in; but the resurrection around us remains the symbol, not the ultimate truth. And man instinctively reaches for that truth. He reaches, like the leaf itself, for something beyond, ever beyond.

  Everywhere that Spring comes now we look out across the hills and meadows and fields and lawns and say, “How good it is to see a green world again.” And thus we pay tribute to the grasses of this earth, which are even more widespread than the trees and, in some ways, even more closely linked with mankind’s life. Grass is not only the ubiquitous green of this world; it is the life-giver. Grass, which grows everywhere there is even moderately dry land and an even intermittently hospitable climate for man or beast.

  Of all green-growing things, grass is one of the most humble and at the same time one of the most persistent. There are about 5,000 species of grass, some of which grow in the hottest of the tropics and others of which can be found well inside the Arctic Circle. Grass finds a foothold where nothing else but lichen can survive. It asks only a little rootage, a scant foothold, an occasional taste of moisture.

  Few areas are more amazing than the vast plains where grass stretches mile after mile, native grass which was there before the first man saw those plains. Few things are more beautiful, or more taken for granted, than an eastern meadow green with Spring new-come. And who can travel the Midwest and fail to be astounded by the horizon-wide fields of that giant grass called corn? Our corn is grass, as are wheat and rye and oats and all our grains, and sugar cane and sorghum and all our forage, and even bamboo. Few of us are vegetarians, but none of us would have meat if there were no grass; our meat animals are vegetarians, grass-eaters.

  Looking at my pastures this morning I could see in their live green grass the substance of milk, butter, cheese, beef, leather and a dozen other items in my wardrobe and larder.

  We found marsh marigolds today. We had to wade, almost up to my boot tops, to pluck a handful. Even to find them, for that matter, for they grow in the swamps and boglands by preference, and occasionally on the banks of a slow stream, where the wild iris will be blooming in June. We found ours in a marsh beyond the river.

  Only the first of them are opening bud. The flowers are like giant buttercups, with the same lacquered golden look to the petals. The resemblance is no accident, for the marigold of the marshes belongs to the same family as the buttercup of the meadows. The Latin name, Caltha palustris, means cup of the marsh. The marsh marigold leaves are heart-shaped, like big violet leaves.

  Some call them cowslips, for no understandable reason. The true cowslip belongs to the primrose family and has no resemblance whatever to the marsh marigold. And of all the flowers of Spring, only the buttercup itself can rival the marsh marigold in color. Its waxy petals, however, are big as silver half-dollars, dwarfing even the biggest buttercups.

  The place to find marsh marigolds is where the giant marsh violets grow, preferably where slow-flowing water warms their roots. They grow in shallow water or at the oozy margin of a bog and make late April a heart’s delight on a brisk day. Some country folk use them for cooked greens. They have a mild flavor, not too unlike spinach, but it seems a shame to pot them. Only the first few were in bloom today, but ten days from now the bog will be carpeted with them. And before they are gone the bog will begin to turn purple with violets.

  Today we looked for hepatica but found none, for some reason. We did find many leaves and a few blooms of bloodroot. And all over the mountainside the anemones are in blossom, both the wood anemones and their daintier cousins, the rue anemones.

  Anemones are early risers among the debris of Fall and Winter. They have a life cycle to complete, leaves to spread, delicate white-petaled blossoms to open, bees to welcome, seeds to ripen and root to strengthen. Another month and there will be little sun where the anemones now stand thick, for the ferns will shadow them, the viburnum will be in full leaf, and the oaks and maples and birches will be reaching for the sun with their full leaf heads. So this is the anemones’ time, now, while the April wind is still chill and the warmth of fermenting leaf mold is just beginning. Now they must get their heads above ground and open their petals, all in what amounts to one gesture, to lure the sluggish bee and get their life cycle past dead center. A month from now would be too late. Even a week from now would be dangerously late.

  The anemone is a flower—one of the few—whose popular name is a literal translation of its botanical name. It is often called windflower, particularly the big wood anemone or Anemone quinquefolia. Anemone comes directly from the Greek and means “wind,” the same root as the word anemometer, which is
an instrument for measuring wind.

  T.S. Eliot said something about April being the cruelest month, which suited his purpose but is something less than the truth. April is cruel only as it stirs some cruel memory.

  April is newness and eagerness and urgency; but all those are qualities in the observer rather than in the season. April brings newness in an old pattern, eagerness as eagerness always is, and urgency to accomplishment. Come to mid-April and you are already forgetting March and thinking ahead to May.

  One year we went to Florida and back in April, and as we drove up through the Carolinas, homeward, April was almost poignant. It was a little breathless, it was so beautiful. Not only to the eye, which by then was accustomed to pristine leaves and Spring flowers, but to the skin. The touch of April was the feel of perfection. Today was like that, though squills and hyacinths and a few early tulips were the only flowers out. The temperature was in the high 50s and April was a joy to know.

  On second thought, maybe Eliot was right. The sap flies are here.

  My entomology is by no means conclusive, but I know that two types of insects are damned with the sap-fly name at this time of year. One is the tiny bloodsucker often called No-see-um and scientifically one of the Culicoides, related rather closely to the pesky but relatively painless midge. No-see-ums are also close kin to sand flies, which have a vicious bite. The other variety is the larger Simuliidae, the black fly and the buffalo gnat; their vigor as attackers seems to increase as the square of their volume. They can drive an unprotected man insane.

  What we have here just now are the smaller ones, the No-see-ums. They always appear in swarms when the birches are leafing out, and when I walk in the woods I have to wear a handkerchief dangling beneath my cap to keep them out of my ears. I am tempted to wear goggles, too, for they get in my eyes. Their life span is brief and their stay a matter of only ten days or two weeks, but for that time they are the epitome of persistent annoyance. Spring isn’t Spring without them; but Spring can’t be enjoyed with them, either.