The Face of the Fields. Sharp Dallas Lore
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so or not, the best things in most books are their prefaces. It was not, however, the quality of the preface to these great volumes that interested me, but rather the wicked waste of durable book-material that went to its making. Reading down through the catalogue of human names and of thanks for help received, I came to a sentence beginning: —
“In New England I have myself collected largely; but I have also received valuable contributions from the late Rev. Zadoc Thompson of Burlington; … from Mr. D. Henry Thoreau of Concord; … and from Mr. J. W. P. Jenks of Middleboro’.” And then it hastens on with the thanks in order to get to the turtles, as if turtles were the one and only thing of real importance in all the world.
Turtles no doubt are important, extremely important, embryologically, as part of our genealogical tree; but they are away down among the roots of the tree as compared with the late Rev. Zadoc Thompson of Burlington. I happen to know nothing about the Rev. Zadoc, but to me he looks very interesting. Indeed, any reverend gentleman of his name and day who would catch turtles for Agassiz must have been interesting. And as for D. Henry Thoreau, we know he was interesting. The rarest wood-turtle in the United States was not so rare a specimen as this gentleman of Walden Woods and Concord. We are glad even for this line in the preface about him; glad to know that he tried, in this untranscendental way, to serve his day and generation. If Agassiz had only put a chapter in his turtle book about it! But this is the material he wasted, this and more of the same human sort; for the “Mr. J. W. P. Jenks of Middleboro’” (at the end of the quotation) was, some years later, an old college professor of mine, who told me a few of the particulars of his turtle contributions, particulars which Agassiz should have found a place for in his big book. The preface, in another paragraph, says merely that this gentleman sent turtles to Cambridge by the thousands – brief and scanty recognition! For that is not the only thing this gentleman did. On one occasion he sent, not turtles, but turtle eggs to Cambridge —brought them, I should say; and all there is to show for it, so far as I could discover, is a sectional drawing of a bit of the mesoblastic layer of one of the eggs!
Of course, Agassiz wanted to make that mesoblastic drawing, or some other equally important drawing, and had to have the fresh turtle egg to draw it from. He had to have it, and he got it. A great man, when he wants a certain turtle egg, at a certain time, always gets it, for he gets some one else to get it. I am glad he got it. But what makes me sad and impatient is that he did not think it worth while to tell about the getting of it, and so made merely a learned turtle book of what might have been an exceedingly interesting human book.
It would seem, naturally, that there could be nothing unusual or interesting about the getting of turtle eggs when you want them. Nothing at all, if you should chance to want the eggs as you chance to find them. So with anything else, – good copper stock, for instance, if you should chance to want it, and should chance to be along when they chance to be giving it away. But if you want copper stock, say of C & H quality, when you want it, and are bound to have it, then you must command more than a college professor’s salary. And likewise, precisely, when it is turtle eggs that you are bound to have.
Agassiz wanted those turtle eggs when he wanted them – not a minute over three hours from the minute they were laid. Yet even that does not seem exacting, hardly more difficult than the getting of hen eggs only three hours old. Just so, provided the professor could have had his private turtle-coop in Harvard Yard; and provided he could have made his turtles lay. But turtles will not respond, like hens, to meat-scraps and the warm mash. The professor’s problem was not to get from a mud turtle’s nest in the back yard to the table in the laboratory; but to get from the laboratory in Cambridge to some pond when the turtles were laying, and back to the laboratory within the limited time. And this, in the days of Darius Green, might have called for nice and discriminating work – as it did.
Agassiz had been engaged for a long time upon his “Contributions.” He had brought the great work nearly to a finish. It was, indeed, finished but for one small yet very important bit of observation: he had carried the turtle egg through every stage of its development with the single exception of one – the very earliest – that stage of first cleavages, when the cell begins to segment, immediately upon its being laid. That beginning stage had brought the “Contributions” to a halt. To get eggs that were fresh enough to show the incubation at this period had been impossible.
There were several ways that Agassiz might have proceeded: he might have got a leave of absence for the spring term, taken his laboratory to some pond inhabited by turtles, and there camped until he should catch the reptile digging out her nest. But there were difficulties in all of that – as those who are college professors and naturalists know. As this was quite out of the question, he did the easiest thing – asked Mr. Jenks of Middleboro’ to get him the eggs. Mr. Jenks got them. Agassiz knew all about his getting of them; and I say the strange and irritating thing is, that Agassiz did not think it worth while to tell us about it, at least in the preface to his monumental work.
It was many years later that Mr. Jenks, then a gray-haired college professor, told me how he got those eggs to Agassiz.
“I was principal of an academy, during my younger years,” he began, “and was busy one day with my classes, when a large man suddenly filled the doorway of the room, smiled to the four corners of the room, and called out with a big, quick voice that he was Professor Agassiz.
“Of course he was. I knew it, even before he had had time to shout it to me across the room.
“Would I get him some turtle eggs? he called. Yes, I would. And would I get them to Cambridge within three hours from the time they were laid? Yes, I would. And I did. And it was worth the doing. But I did it only once.
“When I promised Agassiz those eggs I knew where I was going to get them. I had got turtle eggs there before – at a particular patch of sandy shore along a pond, a few miles distant from the academy.
“Three hours was the limit. From my railroad station to Boston was thirty-five miles; from the pond to the station was perhaps three or four miles; from Boston to Cambridge we called about three miles. Forty miles in round numbers! We figured it all out before he returned, and got the trip down to two hours, – record time: driving from the pond to the station; from the station by express train to Boston; from Boston by cab to Cambridge. This left an easy hour for accidents and delays.
“Cab and car and carriage we reckoned into our time-table; but what we didn’t figure on was the turtle.” And he paused abruptly.
“Young man,” he went on, his shaggy brows and spectacles hardly hiding the twinkle in the eyes that were bent severely upon me, “young man, when you go after turtle eggs, take into account the turtle. No! no! that’s bad advice. Youth never reckons on the turtle – and youth seldom ought to. Only old age does that; and old age would never have got those turtle eggs to Agassiz.
“It was in the early spring that Agassiz came to the academy, long before there was any likelihood of the turtles laying. But I was eager for the quest, and so fearful of failure, that I started out to watch at the pond fully two weeks ahead of the time that the turtles might be expected to lay. I remember the date clearly: it was May 14.
“A little before dawn – along near three o’clock – I would drive over to the pond, hitch my horse near by, settle myself quietly among some thick cedars close to the sandy shore, and there I would wait, my kettle of sand ready, my eye covering the whole sleeping pond. Here among the cedars I would eat my breakfast, and then get back in good season to open the academy for the morning session.
“And so the watch began.
“I soon came to know individually the dozen or more turtles that kept to my side of the pond. Shortly after the cold mist would lift and melt away, they would stick up their heads through the quiet water; and as the sun slanted down over the ragged rim of treetops, the slow things would float into the warm, lighted spots, or crawl out and doze comfortably on the hummocks and snags.
“What fragrant mornings those were! How fresh and new and unbreathed! The pond odors, the woods odors, the odors of the ploughed fields – of water-lily, and wild grape, and the dew-laid soil! I can taste them yet, and hear them yet – the still, large sounds of the waking day – the pickerel breaking the quiet with his swirl;