Then we thought how each
spring, from remotest times this same battle-ground has been
used by Nature's children to settle questions of gravest import
to their race. Each season brings renewed conflicts. Down by the
Devil's Den ground squirrels wage their battles again and again.
Aerial battles, too, are fought by hawks above the tree tops.
In Nature, to the strongest usually comes the victory. For her
children cruel, relentless, bloody war seems inevitable. But is
it necessary that human life be sacrificed? What could be the
plan, the purpose of it all? Perhaps there was no plan, no
purpose; we do not know. But as we look across the changing
scenes that come and go with the changeless years, we seem to
see a plan, a purpose, and there are wars and bloodshed in them,
yet, they appear Divine. It seems that only the great principle
of the Universe is being fulfilled; that from the sacrifice of
life a richer, fuller life is gained.
Here the birds still come to bathe and drink and their songs
float to you from far and near. Among the branches of an oak
top, a red-eyed vireo is saying, "brigade, brigadier," and we
well know that he is not military and do not know where he
learned those military terms. But, he is destroying whole
battalions and even armies of caterpillars, those green coated
Boches and striped convicts of our forest trees; and we think
"brigadier" none too noble a title for the bravery he shows in
carolling all through the hot summer day. Someone has called him
a preacher, but we confess, we have listened to many a lengthy
discourse whose effect was slight in comparison to his wild
ringing text, so redolent of rustling leaves and murmuring
brooks - one of the sermons of God's great out-of-doors. Across
the "peach orchard" a cardinal, like a swiftly hurled firebrand,
comes toward us and utters his clear metallic Chip, then
alighting among some wild grape vines, plays several variations
on his clear, ringing flute. From an elm tree, an oriole answers
his bold challenge in his rich voice, while a band of chickadees
indulge in their querulous calls as they inspect each leaf and
twig for larva and eggs. Up in a linden tree, a blue jay is
crying "Salute me, salute me." Like a second lieutenant just
commissioned. He wears his close-fitting uniform and overseas
cap with a dignity that becomes one of that most enviable rank.
The bold bugle of the Carolina wren sounds through the leafy
encampment and like the colors ascending for retreat, the red,
white and blue of the red-headed woodpecker is seen rising
diagonally to a dead oak stub. Like a fine accompaniment the
music of the fluttering leaves blends with that of the rippling
stream and the many woodland voices mellow and supplement them
until the symphony rises a soothing and harmonious whole which
can never be forgotten.
>From Little Round Top a night hawk screams and comes booming
down to earth where squadrons of insects are manoeuvering; by
the Devil's Den a red squirrel is berating an unseen enemy,
hurling all sorts of abusive epithets at him in his wheezy,
irate manner.
Rising in strong relief at the southern edge of Cemetery Ridge
are the picturesque hills known as Little and Great Round Top.
They are wooded from base to summit. What mighty forces have
been at work here! Crevasses of broken ledges, immense boulders
cropping out on the slopes or lying here and there all show that
a battle royal has been here waged by Nature. Here, thrust out
from little Round Top, is a heap of "ripped up" ledges and
massive rocks where a great fissure leads back to a place where
the Southern sharpshooters hid while picking off the Union
officers on Little Round Top. It seemed that some great mass had
slipped from Little Round Top and had been hurled still farther
by some unknown force - a vast heap of stone deeply seamed by
rents and scars thick set with boulders and filled with holes
providing excellent hiding places for the men.
"All through that moonlight night while Buford kept watch the
roads leading to Gettysburg were lighted up by gleaming
campfires. How peacefully lay the little village slumbering in
the quiet moonlight, with never a thought of the coming battle
on the morrow. Soon the lovely valley of Willoughby Run with its
emerald meadows, flashing brooks and green woods would be
deformed by shot and shell."
It seems difficult even to imagine the terrible price that was
paid at Gettysburg - while wandering here in this charming spot,
where stretches a beautiful world of woodlands with their feast
of varying shades of green whose rare vistas open up to fields
of hay and grain.
Marry flowers and ferns grow here and, like the birds, they,
too, have their preacher. Jack in his pulpit of light green is
proclaiming wildwood messages to his flower brethren. If scarlet
represents sin among the flower family then in his congregation
are many sinners, for the vivid hues of the cardinal blossoms
burn like coals of fire against their setting of green shrubs
and vines. Joe Pye weeds blush at what they hear, as if guilty
of some flagrant wrong, although they took their name from Joe
Pye, the Indian who cured typhus fever in New England by means
of these plants. Elecampane stands up tall and straight as if
conscious of having been mentioned by Hippocrates, the father of
medicine, more than two thousand years ago, as being an
important stimulant to the brain and stomach. Fox gloves, those
Good Samaritans among the flowers, bend low their lovely heads
to catch Jack's text, and among the patron Saints John's wort
humbly rears its yellow flowers, unmindful that it was hung at
the doors and windows on St. John's Eve as a safeguard against
thunder and evil spirits.
