They'd been walking for hours. On an Indian trail. Mabel was tired. She'd also discovered a number of unpleasant facts:

• Her right sock had a hole in the heel, and her foot had a blister.
• Moccasins were not fun to walk in.
• She had a stone in her shoe, but was afraid to stop, lest the others complain.
• Her warm coat, welcome at dawn, was now uncomfortably hot and heavy.
• Midges bite.

Being the shortest member of the group, Mabel had to walk more quickly to keep up with the others. She was afraid of falling behind, because bears. Also wolves. And catamounts. She kept her eyes on the ground for fear of rattlesnakes.

Mabel was puzzled: she loved Nature. Seriously, she did. She was always reading about it in her poetry books. Wordsworth's description of the amazing vista at Tintern Abbey, for instance. Or those glorious daffodils – a whole field of them, just like the ones in Aunt Tibby's front garden, only more glorious, of course, because there were more of them and they were being admired by a great poet like Wordsworth… That was the kind of Nature Mabel appreciated: the kind that knew what it was about in the inspiration business. Not this horrible habitat of beasts, insects, and obstreperous plant life. If this was Nature, you could keep it.

Mabel trudged along, hoping that Arrowhead, their Tuscarora guide, would stop soon and she could catch her breath.

Miraculously, he did. On a ridge, with a view of the land to the west. Mabel sat down on a rock to remove the stone from her moccasin – not an easy job since it involved unlacing and relacing the ugly footwear. The task accomplished, she looked around and tried to admire the landscape. She was well practised in this from many visits to the galleries to study paintings by Turner and others. She cast her eye over the scene…er, vista, panorama…?

Her first thought was, 'Too much green.' She dismissed this as unworthy, and went for 'verdant'. Yes, it was verdant. Lots of trees. Lots and lots and lots of trees…

Lord, were those trees tall. A hundred feet or more. Giant oaks, maples, basswood reaching up, almost to the sun, it seemed, building a formidable canopy. We're going into that? she thought. Yikes.

Mabel was a tree snob. As soon as she noticed the occasional birch and aspen struggling its way in among the crown of foliage, she thought it was rather gracious of the 'noble' oaks to make room for these 'inferior' trees. As with flowers and backyard birds, Mabel thought of trees in a Society way: the oaks and maples she'd leave her calling card with, the basswood? Well, she might be 'at home' to it if it would only use its European name, linden. Birches and aspens? She'd send the butler with regrets.

Her reverie was interrupted by a terse communication from Arrowhead that they should move on. What a shame, she thought. She hadn't had a chance to properly appreciate yet. Feeling that she had insufficiently worshipped at the shrine of Nature, Mabel quickly intoned under her breath:

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld…

'I bet Longfellow didn't have a hole in his sock,' she thought as she trudged onward.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

02.03.20 Front Page

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