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The Library of America • Story of the Week
From Sarah Orne Jewett: Novels & Stories (Library of America, !””#), pages $$”–%”.

First published in A White Heron and Other Stories (!&&$).

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STORIES AND SKETCHES

at half-past five o’clock, but everybody knew the difficulty of
making this errand a short one. Mrs. Tilley had chased the
horned torment too many summer evenings herself to blame
any one else for lingering, and was only thankful as she
waited that she had Sylvia, nowadays, to give such valuable
assistance. The good woman suspected that Sylvia loitered oc-
casionally on her own account; there never was such a child
for straying about out-of-doors since the world was made!
Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid
who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufac-
turing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she
never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm.
She thought often with wistful compassion of a wretched ge-
ranium that belonged to a town neighbor.

” ‘Afraid of folks,’ ” old Mrs. Tilley said to herself, with a
smile, after she had made the unlikely choice of Sylvia from
her daughter’s houseful of children, and was returning to the
farm. ” ‘Afraid of folks,’ they said! I guess she won’t be trou-
bled no great with ’em up to the old place!” When they
reached the door of the lonely house and stopped to unlock
it, and the cat came to purr loudly, and rub against them, a
deserted pussy, indeed, but fat with young robins, Sylvia
whispered that this was a beautiful place to live in, and she
never should wish to go home.

The companions followed the shady wood-road, the cow
taking slow steps and the child very fast ones. The cow
stopped long at the brook to drink, as if the pasture were
not half a swamp, and Sylvia stood still and waited, letting
her bare feet cool themselves in the shoal water, while the
great twilight moths struck softly against her. She waded on
through the brook as the cow moved away, and listened to
the thrushes with a heart that beat fast with pleasure. There
was a stirring in the great boughs overhead. They were full
of little birds and beasts that seemed to be wide awake, and
going about their world, or else saying good-night to each
other in sleepy twitters. Sylvia herself felt sleepy as she
walked along. However, it was not much farther to the
house, and the air was soft and sweet. She was not often in
the woods so late as this, and it made her feel as if she were

A WHITE HERON 671

a part of the gray shadows and the moving leaves. She was
just thinking how long it seemed since she first came to the
farm a year ago, and wondering if everything went on in the
noisy town just the same as when she was there; the thought
of the great red-faced boy who used to chase and frighten
her made her hurry along the path to escape from the
shadow of the trees.

Suddenly this little woods-girl is horror-stricken to hear a
clear whistle not very far away. Not a bird’s-whistle, which
would have a sort of friendliness, but a boy’s whistle, deter-
mined, and somewhat aggressive. Sylvia left the cow to what-
ever sad fate might await her, and stepped discreetly aside
into the bushes, but she was just too late. The enemy had
discovered her, and called out in a very cheerful and persua-
sive tone, “Halloa, little girl, how far is it to the road?” and
trembling Sylvia answered almost inaudibly, “A good ways.”

She did not dare to look boldly at the tall young man, who
carried a gun over his shoulder, but she came out of her bush
and again followed the cow, while he walked alongside.

“I have been hunting for some birds,” the stranger said
kindly, “and I have lost my way, and need a friend very much.
Don’t be afraid,” he added gallantly. “Speak up and tell me
what your name is, and whether you think I can spend
the night at your house, and go out gunning early in the
morning.”

Sylvia was more alarmed than before. Would not her grand-
mother consider her much to blame? But who could have
foreseen such an accident as this? It did not seem to be her
fault, and she hung her head as if the stem of it were broken,
but managed to answer “Sylvy,” with much effort when her
companion again asked her name.

Mrs. Tilley was standing in the doorway when the trio
came into view. The cow gave a loud moo by way of ex-
planation.

“Yes, you’d better speak up for yourself, you old trial!
Where’d she tucked herself away this time, Sylvy?” But Sylvia
kept an awed silence; she knew by instinct that her grand-
mother did not comprehend the gravity of the situation. She
must be mistaking the stranger for one of the farmer-lads of
the region.

672 STORIES AND SKETCHES

The young man stood his gun beside the door, and
dropped a lumpy game-bag beside it; then he bade Mrs.
Tilley good-evening, and repeated his wayfarer’s story, and
asked if he could have a night’s lodging.

“Put me anywhere you like,” he said. “I must be off early in
the morning, before day; but I am very hungry, indeed. You
can give me some milk at any rate, that’s plain.”

“Dear sakes, yes,” responded the hostess, whose long slum-
bering hospitality seemed to be easily awakened. “You might
fare better if you went out to the main road a mile or so, but
you ‘re welcome to what we ‘ve got. I ’11 milk right off, and
you make yourself at home. You can sleep on husks or feath-
ers,” she proffered graciously. “I raised them all myself.
There ‘s good pasturing for geese just below here towards the
ma’sh. Now step round and set a plate for the gentleman,
Sylvy!” And Sylvia promptly stepped. She was glad to have
something to do, and she was hungry herself.

It was a surprise to find so clean and comfortable a little
dwelling in this New England wilderness. The young man
had known the horrors of its most primitive housekeeping,
and the dreary squalor of that level of society which does not
rebel at the companionship of hens. This was the best thrift of
an old-fashioned farmstead, though on such a small scale that
it seemed like a hermitage. He listened eagerly to the old
woman’s quaint talk, he watched Sylvia’s pale face and shining
gray eyes with ever growing enthusiasm, and insisted that this
was the best supper he had eaten for a month, and afterward,
the new-made friends sat down in the doorway together
while the moon came up.

Soon it would be berry-time, and Sylvia was a great help at
picking. The cow was a good milker, though a plaguy thing
to keep track of, the hostess gossiped frankly, adding pres-
ently that she had buried four children, so Sylvia’s mother,
and a son (who might be dead) in California were all the
children she had left. “Dan, my boy, was a great hand to go
gunning,” she explained sadly. “I never wanted for pa’tridges
or gray squer’ls while he was to home. He’s been a great
wand’rer, I expect, and he’s no hand to write letters. There, I
don’t blame him, I’d ha’ seen the world myself if it had been
so I could.”

A WHITE HERON 673

“Sylvia takes after him,” the grandmother continued affec-
tionately, after a minute’s pause. “There ain’t a foot o’
ground she don’t know her way over, and the wild creatur’s
counts her one o’ themselves. Squer ‘ls she ‘ll tame to come
an’ feed right out o’ her hands, and all sorts o’ birds. Last
winter she got the jay-birds to bangeing here, and I believe
she’d ‘a’ scanted herself of her own meals to have plenty to
throw out amongst ’em, if I hadn’t kep’ watch. Anything
but crows, I tell her, I’m willin’ to help support-though
Dan he had a tamed one o’ them that did seem to have rea-
son same as folks. It was round here a good spell after he
went away. Dan an’ his father they didn’t hitch, -but he
never held up his head ag’in after Dan had dared him an’
gone off.”

The guest did not notice this hint of family sorrows in his
eager interest in something else.

“So Sylvy knows all about birds, does she?” he exclaimed,
as he looked round at the little girl who sat, very demure but
increasingly sleepy, in the moonlight. “I am making a collec-
tion of birds myself. I have been at it ever since I was a boy.”
(Mrs. Tilley smiled.) “There are two or three very rare ones I
have been hunting for these five years. I mean to get them on
my own ground if they can be found.”

“Do you cage ’em up?” asked Mrs. Tilley doubtfully, in
response to this enthusiastic announcement.

“Oh no, they ‘re stuffed and preserved, dozens and dozens
of them,” said the ornithologist, “and I have shot or snared
every one myself. I caught a glimpse of a white heron a few
miles from here on Saturday, and I have followed it in this
direction. They have never been found in this district at all.
The little white heron, it is,” and he turned again to look at
Sylvia with the hope of discovering that the rare bird was one
of her acquaintances.

But Sylvia was watching a hop-toad in the narrow foot-
path.

“You would know the heron if you saw it,” the stranger
continued eagerly. “A queer tall white bird with soft feathers
and long thin legs. And it would have a nest perhaps in the
top of a high tree, made of sticks, something like a hawk’s
nest.”

STORIES AND SKETCHES

Sylvia’s heart gave a wild beat; she knew that strange white
bird, and had once stolen softly near where it stood in some
bright green swamp grass, away over at the other side of the
woods. There was an open place where the sunshine always
seemed strangely yellow and hot, where tall, nodding rushes
grew, and her grandmother had warned her that she might
sink in the soft black mud underneath and never be heard of
more. Not far beyond were the salt marshes and just this side
the sea itself, which Sylvia wondered and dreamed much
about, but never had seen, whose great voice could some-
times be heard above the noise of the woods on stormy
nights.

“I can’t think of anything I should like so much as to find
that heron’s nest,” the handsome stranger was saying. “I
would give ten dollars to anybody who could show it to me,”
he added desperately, “and I mean to spend my whole vaca-
tion hunting for it if need be. Perhaps it was only migrating,
or had been chased out of its own region by some bird of
prey.”

Mrs. Tilley gave amazed attention to all this, but Sylvia still
watched the toad, not divining, as she might have done at
some calmer time, that the creature wished to get to its hole
under the door-step, and was much hindered by the unusual
spectators at that hour of the evening. No amount of
thought, that night, could decide how many wished-for trea-
sures the ten dollars, so lightly spoken of, would buy.

The next day the young sportsman hovered about the
woods, and Sylvia kept him company, having lost her first
fear of the friendly lad, who proved to be most kind and sym-
pathetic. He told her many things about the birds and what
they knew and where they lived and what they did with them-
selves. And he gave her a jack-knife, which she thought as
great a treasure as if she were a desert-islander. All day long
he did not once make her troubled or afraid except when he
brought down some unsuspecting singing creature from its
bough. Sylvia would have liked him vastly better without his
gun; she could not understand why he killed the very birds he
seemed to like so much. But as the day waned, Sylvia still
watched the young man with loving admiration. She had

A WHITE HERON 675

never seen anybody so charming and delightful; the woman’s
heart, asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of
love. Some . premonition of that great power stirred and
swayed these young creatures who traversed the solemn
woodlands with soft-footed silent care. They stopped to listen
to a bird’s song; they pressed forward again eagerly, parting
the branches-speaking to each other rarely and in whispers;
the young man going first and Sylvia following, fascinated, a
few steps behind, with her gray eyes dark with excitement.

She grieved because the longed-for white heron was elu-
sive, but she did not lead the guest, she only followed, and
there was no such thing as speaking first. The sound of her
own unquestioned voice would have terrified her-it was
hard· enough to answer yes or no when there was need of
that. At last evening began to fall, and they drove the cow
home together, and Sylvia smiled with pleasure when they
came to the place where she heard the whistle and was afraid
only the night before.

II.

Half a mile from home, at the farther edge of the woods,
where the land was highest, a great pine-tree stood, the last of
its generation. Whether it was left for a boundary mark, or
for what reason, no one could say; the woodchoppers who
had felled its mates were dead and gone long ago, and a
whole forest of sturdy trees, pines and oaks and maples, had
grown again. But the stately head of this old pine towered
above them all and made a landmark for sea and shore miles
and miles away. Sylvia knew it well. She had always believed
that whoever climbed to the top pf it could see the ocean; and
the little girl had often laid her hand on the great rough trunk
and looked up wistfully at thos~ dark boughs that the wind
always stirred, no matter how pot and still the air might be
below. Now she thought of thf tree with a new excitement,
for why, if one climbed it at break of day could not one see all
the world, and easily discover from whence the white heron
flew, and mark the place, and find the hidden nest?

What a spirit of adventure, what wild ambition! What fan-
cied triumph and delight and glory for the later morning

STORIES AND SKETCHES

when she could make known the secret! It was almost too real
and too great for the childish heart to bear.

All night the door of the little house stood open and the
whippoorwills came and sang upon the very step. The young
sportsman and his old hostess were sound asleep, but Sylvia’s
great design kept her broad awake and watching. She forgot
to think of sleep. The short summer night seemed as long as
the winter darkness, and at last when the whippoorwills
ceased, and she was afraid the morning would after all come
too soon, she stole out of the house and followed the pasture
path through the woods, hastening toward the open ground
beyond, listening with a sense of comfort and companionship
to the drowsy twitter of a half-awakened bird, whose perch
she had jarred in passing. Alas, if the great wave of human
interest which flooded for the first time this dull little life
should sweep away the satisfactions of an existence heart to
heart with nature and the dumb life of the forest!

There was the huge tree asleep yet in the paling moonlight,
and small and silly Sylvia began with utmost bravery to
mount to the top of it, with tingling, eager blood coursing
the channels of her whole frame, with her bare feet and fin-
gers, that pinched and held like bird’s claws to the monstrous
ladder reaching up, up, almost to the sky itself. First she must
mount the white oak tree that grew alongside, where she was
almost lost among the dark branches and the green leaves
heavy and wet with dew; a bird fluttered off its nest, and a
red squirrel ran to and fro and scolded pettishly at the harm-
less housebreaker. Sylvia felt her way easily. She had often
climbed there, and knew that higher still one of the oak’s
upper branches chafed against the pine trunk, just where its
lower boughs were set close together. There, when she made
the dangerous pass from one tree to the other, the great en-
terprise would really begin.

She crept out along the swaying oak limb at last, and took
the daring step across into the old pine-tree. The way was
harder than she thought; she must reach far and hold fast, the
sharp dry twigs caught and held her and scratched her like
angry talons, the pitch made her thin little fingers clumsy and
stiff as she went round and round the tree’s great stem, higher
and higher upward. The sparrows and robins in the woods

A WHITE HERON 677

below were beginning to wake and twitter to the dawn, yet
it seemed much lighter there aloft in the pine-tree, and the
child knew she must hurry if her project were to be of any
use.

The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as she went up, and
to reach farther and farther upward. It was like a great main-
mast to the voyaging earth; it must truly have been amazed
that morning through all its ponderous frame as it felt this
determined spark of human spirit wending its way from
higher branch to branch. Who knows how steadily the least
twigs held themselves to advantage this light, weak creature
on her way! The old pine must have loved his new depen-
dent. More than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and even
the sweet voiced thrushes, was the brave, beating heart of the
solitary gray-eyed child. And the tree stood still and frowned
away the winds that June morning while the dawn grew
bright in the east.

Sylvia’s face was like a pale star, if one had seen it from the
ground, when the last thorny bough was past, and she stood
trembling and tired but wholly triumphant, high in the tree-
top. Yes, there was the sea with the dawning sun making a
golden dazzle over it, and toward that glorious east flew two
hawks with slow-moving pinions. How low they looked in
the air from that height when one had only seen them before
far up, and dark against the blue sky. Their gray feathers were
as soft as moths; they seemed only a little way from the tree,
and Sylvia felt as if she too could go flying away among the
clouds. Westward, the woodlands and farms reached miles
and miles into the distance; here and there were church stee-
ples, and white villages; truly it was a vast and awesome
world!

The birds sang louder and louder. At last the sun came up
bewilderingly bright. Sylvia could see the white sails of ships
out at sea, and the clouds that were purple and rose-colored
and yellow at first began to fade away. Where was the white
heron’s nest in the sea of green branches, and was this won-
derful sight and pageant of the world the only reward for
having climbed to such a giddy height? Now look down
again, Sylvia, where the green marsh is set among the shining
birches and dark hemlocks; there where you saw the white

STORIES AND SKETCHES

heron once you will see him again; look, look! a white spot of
him like a single floating feather comes up from the dead
hemlock and grows larger, and rises, and comes close at last,
and goes by the landmark pine with steady sweep of wing and
outstretched slender neck and crested head. And wait! wait!
do not move a foot or a finger, little girl, do not send an
arrow of light and consciousness from your two eager eyes,
for the heron has perched on a pine bough not far beyond
yours, and cries back to his mate on the nest and plumes his
feathers for the new day!

The child gives a long sigh a minute later when a company
of shouting cat-birds comes also to the tree, and vexed by
their fluttering and lawlessness the solemn heron goes away.
She knows his secret now, the wild, light, slender bird that
floats and wavers, and goes back like an arrow presently to his
home in the green world beneath. Then Sylvia, well satisfied,
makes her perilous way down again, not daring to look far
below the branch she stands on, ready to cry sometimes be-
cause her fingers ache and her lamed feet slip. Wondering over
and over again what the stranger would say to her, and what
he would think when she told him how to find his way
straight to the heron’s nest.

“Sylvy, Sylvy!” called the busy old grandmother again and
again, but nobody answered, and the small husk bed was
empty and Sylvia had disappeared.

The guest waked from a dream, and remembering his day’s
pleasure hurried to dress himself that might it sooner begin.
He was sure from the way the shy little girl looked once or
twice yesterday that she had at least seen the white heron, and
now she must really be made to tell. Here she comes now,
paler than ever, and her worn .old frock is torn and tattered,
and smeared with pine pitch. The grandmother and the
sportsman stand in the door together and question her, and
the splendid moment has come to speak of the dead hemlock-
tree by the green marsh.

But Sylvia does not speak after all, though the old grand-
mother fretfully rebukes her, and the young man’s kind, ap-
pealing eyes are looking straight in her own. He can make
them rich with money; he has promised it, and they are poor

A WHITE HERON 679

now. He is so well worth making happy, and he waits to hear
the story she can tell.

No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids
her and makes her dumb? Has she been nine years growing
and now, when the great world for the first time puts out a
hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a bird’s sake? The
murmur of the pine’s green branches is in her ears, she re-
members how the white heron came flying through the
golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning
together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron’s
secret and give its life away.

Dear loyalty, that suffered a sharp pang as the guest went
away disappointed later in the day, that could have served and
followed him and loved him as a dog loves! Many a night
Sylvia heard the echo of his whistle haunting the pasture path
as she came home with the loitering cow. She forgot even her
sorrow at the sharp report of his gun and the sight of
thrushes and sparrows dropping silent to the ground, their
songs hushed and their pretty feathers stained and wet with
blood. Were the birds better friends than their hunter might
have been, -who can tell? Whatever treasures were lost to
her, woodlands and summer-time, remember! Bring your
gifts and graces and tell your secrets to this lonely country
child!