oreau liked to crack a sly
joke at the region he loved, as well as do the rest of us. The
other day I too crossed the Cape, not exactly in Thoreau's
footsteps but through the region of the "Chawums," which, I take
it, are the Mashpees of later days. The trail began at East
Sandwich where the sandy road crosses the State highway and goes
on up the sandhills, always with the blue of the sea teasing from
behind the keen javelin of the north wind pushing me on southward.
It was wonderful, that blue of the cold, wind-beaten sea. It shone
through the maze of mingled twigs for miles till I finally lost it
in topping the plateau, passing from loose sand to clayey bottom
and fairer growth in moister and more fertile soil. One
fascination of the region comes in the fact that in a few rods one
leaves all trace of civilization behind, unless one may call the
narrow road a trace, and traverses the Cape Cod wilderness for
mile on mile, just such a wilderness as Thorfinn Karlsefne may
have tramped in armor with spear and crossbow of his day, such as
Myles Standish and his men shivered through or Verrazani and
Captain John Smith marched over and mapped. Pitch pines, small
oaks of many varieties with an undergrowth "trash" of "hurts" and
scrub oaks make up the forest which presses narrow cart paths and
hangs over them. All the way up the slope the persistent chill of
the north wind filled the air with the tonic tang of brine and
held back the gray-green mist of leaves that strained at the buds,
eager to be out. In hollows the spring had come. On ridges it
delayed, finding the auguries unfavorable and waiting a new voice
from file altar. But wherever the sun shone in and the wind was
stayed it had loosed the butterflies that soared or flitted or
flipped about in joy of long awaited warmth. Broad wings of
gold-margined, brown Vanessa antiopa soared serenely along under
overarching white oaks. "Little Miss Lavender" folded her gray-blue
wings in demure beauty on the gray cladium-mossed stumps by
the roadside, and dusky-winged species of the skipper brood were
agile with new-born life, yet glad to fold wings and sleep in the
sun on the road. These were sprites of the deep forest. None were
visible in the town margin, though perhaps it was the sweep of the
north wind that kept them away. Bird regions, too, showed a
definite demarcation. In the orchards and open fields of the town
were the home-loving birds, bluebirds, robins, song and other