Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, July 25, 1914

Afternoon & evening spent at Beech Camping Grounds.

A loose day. Clouds were misty and low-hanging, catching on the jagged treetops. A hesitating sprinkle accompanies us on our journey out. The earth is like a sponge, the trees bushes + fields rain-soaked have swelled out and expanded into a delightful airiness. Rain youthifies. Seek a grassy uncut meadow, with a goodly number of sapling growths in it, and with little effort, we can imagine it is early June again.

The showery weather has set some of the birds a tune, which we had given up. Chewinks sing (not the yodeling song, however) wren song sparrows riotous in song. It is not the great variety but the copiousness of their song.

Yellow spiders are in their infancy. Very small yet. Bodies silver. Black-winged yellow-edged grasshoppers were abundant in fields.

Teasel abloom. The oddity in the manner of blooming: Cylindrical cone-shaped head girdled at top & at the bottom with a ringlet of tiny flowers. Beauty is enhanced by a yellow cabbage butterfly and black swallowtail.

Pause at the Bridge. Jim & Fred fish. I sit on a sandy mound under the bridge to write. Blooming sow-thistle abound here and are more in evidence still further down the creek as observed last year.

Thus with blue Vervain & teasel, we have three prolific violet flowered plants flourishing at this season. Yellow, which overruns all other colors in August & September, is still in an undeveloped stage. Wood sunflowers are just commencing to bloom.

Butterfly weeds abound. That peculiar shell-pink is nowhere duplicated I believe in the flower realm, rendering them doubly precious. As the top half of the blossom is almost white the clu¬sters have the appearance of being pearl studded. Is there not something subtle in the fact that milkweed longhorn’s color is a red of that same kind, deeper? One might fancy they acquired their color by ages of milkweed leaf diet.

Mourning doves call at times. Song sparrows are tireless. Damselflies along the creek. Hedge Bindweed flowers are still fresh, owing to the damp cloudy weather.

After a short delay, we follow the creeks' edge northward.

Primroses profuse. Interspersed with pink spikes of an unfamiliar flower probably a member of the lobelia family. Self Heal flowers are a common sight now.

Arrival at Beech Camp. With great expectations, I turn my way towards West Pond. The air is of clear blue sky. The thrill it gives would lead one to think I had never seen the blue sky before. How easily is the choppy foliage of the buttonwood trees picked out in the landscape? By slow degrees, I am coming to realize that this is one of the most beautiful trees with a beauty rivaling that of an elm.

Coming to West Pond territory I sit on a huge log to write. Here a patch of scrubby Hawthorne merges into a tiny grove of beech and elm.

All at once, a shrill “yipe” clearing to the north from the horizon up a goodish distance is a patch of causes me to jump. It is a piercing sound meeting to go thru one, “like a knife.” Sounds like the scraping of steel many times magnified.

My first thought is a bird & I attribute it to her speech. Hear it several times. I get up and advance stealthily in its direction. As I near a rail fence a bird flies up. For a moment I imagine it is the cause, start my eye unconsciously glances downward. There standing, tense, and “frozen” was a woodchuck.

Even as I gazed he uttered his shrill cry startling me so that I jumped. All his strength seemed to go into that cry. Immediately followed its utterance, his whole fore-body vibrated tensely and his mouth was drawn tightly back, displaying his fangs to advantage.

This together with his fierce sparkling eye, gave him an appearance of savage rage, as was doubtless the case, at my intrusion. Again he uttered his cry & this time I noticed that it was followed by a rapid succession of minute sounds, as a taut wire, when snapped, will vibrate indefinitely. Whether this was meant to inspire fear within me or whether it was merely rage on his part I was unable to determine.

If he was frightened he gave no evidence of it which is all there is to courage. Not a move did he make until after several repetitions he darted abruptly into a hole between the roots. Even while there he gave his bark again & again, sounding muffled, and presently his head appeared above the root, probably to see if I had gone away. In this position, he pierced the air time after time, and once more he disappeared. His cries grew fainter & finally ceased.

Again I sat down.

With the breaking of the clouds came a steady wind which now sings in the tree-tops as it scatters the soft sunlight about. Fritillary on clover. I wonder why he does not fly up. Turning clover over reveals a yellow crab spider. The singular beauty of fern-shaped clusters of flowers on nettles in mosquito grove.

Woodchuck barks again & thrust their nose out. After one or two cries, disappears.

What an amount of life one can see by merely squatting down on a log. The ground is thickly spotted with spiderwebs. Harvester spiders abound. Three species of ants were observed. Millipede, Treehoppers. Mosquito, Wasps, Craneflies Three species of flies.

The log I am sitting on is beautifully woven with snail tracks. Observe plant leaves with wriggly paths of serpentine miners on them. Bobwhite becomes musical. Is offset in opposite direction by a mourning dove. “Tseerie-bird” calls once.

Get up to crawl fence. See woodchuck’s head. I sketch him. Gives bark. I crawl fence and proceed towards him. He does not give an inch. I come quite close & stand watch¬ing him. A step closer & he disappears only to come forth again. I stand directly over him and put my hand down & he disappears evidently for good.

The tree under whose roots is his home is a tall elm with a huge weatherbeaten base trunk. On the opposite side of the trunk is another hole under the roots not so well concealed, being betrayed by a pile of freshly dug earth. About a yard up from the ground in a huge knotty growth is a hole of about six inches high and half as many broad.

A look inside reveals a spacious cavity; the size & extent of which must be left to con¬jecture. This discovery at once sets it apart and adds an air of mystery or romance to it.

I will call it Hollow Elm.

The air is full of aimless spiderwebs strands, glittering silken in the late afternoon sun, swayed here & thereby a fit¬ful breeze. This means it is that spiders weave their webs across impossible places. This is a splendid time of the day & does not occur every day.

Sun is three or four hours from the horizon & very bright and sparkling. The wind is easy & fresh & seems inseparable from the sunlight. Leaves of jewelweed become transparently yellow-green. After all, it is the unexpected sights that please the most & remain the longest in our consciousness. All unawares I suddenly came upon a colony of cardinal flowers & gazed for a moment aim without breathing. True it was my pulse quickened. What a luminous red!  The eye cannot look at them & see a clear outline.

They border the edge of an empty stream bed, whose mud bottom is yet slimy. Amble down this bed. Come to a colony of plants who hold aloft along spikes of lavender star-shaped flowers. Woods thick with a scrawny species of nigger-lice, whose spikes alike show the tiny pale lavender flowers & burr-like seeds. Here we may observe both male & female species of Tall Meadow Rue. The male overwhelmingly outnumbered the female.

Touch me not abundant the pale variety only, as becomes a shady woods, though shade has nothing to do with it. Agrimony at full tilt.

Foam flowers bob with the wind. Fri¬nged loose-strife. Wild Bergamot overrun the south end of this grove. Am delighted to see hawk moths in comparatively large numbers. Beautiful creatures they are. From a distance, they appear a spot of opaque lemon yellow surrounded by a dull reddish glow. Seen close at hand we may observe still more beauty. A dull yellow-green head, orange thorax & dark brown abdomen. Their transparent wings edged with opaque brown have a peculiar effect. As far as I could observe they never rested.

Hear the call of wood-chuck to west. Investigate but do not see him.

Having apparently drained the grove (spending the afternoon there) I proceed towards West Pond in hopes of stealing a march on a sheitpoke. Just as I come near the pond one flies up. Here in the pond, a tragedy was being enacted. The pond, lately so flush with water, is practically dried up...