Out on the islands that poke their rocky shores above the waters of Penobscot Bay, you can watch the time of the world go by, from minute to minute, hour to hour, from day to day, season to season.
You can watch a cloud peep over the Camden Hills, thirty miles away across the bay—see it slowly grow and grow as it comes nearer and nearer; see it darken the hills with its shadow; and then, see it darken, one after the other, Isleboro, Western Island, Pond Island, Hog Island, Spectacle Island, Two Bush Island—darken all the islands in between, until
you, on your island, are standing in the shadow, watching the rain begin to spill down way across the bay.
The rain comes closer and closer. Now you hear a million splashes. Now you even see the drops on the water…
on the age-old rocky point…
on the bayberry…
on the grass…
Now take a breath—
IT’S RAINING ON YOU!
At the water’s edge on a foggy morning in the early spring you feel as though you were standing alone on the edge of nowhere.
You hear a snorting sound from out of the nowhere and you know that no, you are not alone. A family of porpoises is nearby, rolling over and over, having an acrobatic breakfast of herring under the bay.
Then through the fog you hear Harry Smith over at Blastow’s Cove start the engine of his lobster boar and go out to pull his traps.
Suddenly there is a ripple and a splash along the shore that makes you jump! It is the wake from Harry Smith’s lobster boat, and you smile because you almost got wet feet that time!
The ripple disappears into the fog, and though you cannot see it you know that it is silently gliding, gliding on its way. Then another distant, unseen splash—and the gulls and cormorants on Two Bush Lodge, with their seabird sense of humor, start giggling and laughing because they too were suddenly surprised by the wake.
Back from the shore the trees look like ghosts. The forest is so quiet that you can hear an insect boring a tunnel deep inside a log. And that other sound—not the beating of your heart, but the one like half a whisper—is the sound of growing ferns, pushing aside dead leaves, unrolling their fiddle-heads, slowly unfurling, slowly stretching.
Now the fog turns yellow. The bees begin to buzz, and a hummingbird hums by. Then all the birds begin to sing, and suddenly
the fog has lifted!
And suddenly you find that you are singing too,
With the blue water sparkling all around, all around,
With the blue water sparkling all around!
At the height of the summer season the bay is spotted with boats—with racing sailboats, with cruising schooners, with busy fishing boats, and with buzzing outboards.
In the afternoon you sail among the islands, pushed by gentle breezes. You sail close by Swain’s Cove Ledges, where a mother seal is nursing her baby.
And then at sunset, with porpoises puffing and playing around your boat, you come about and set a course for the island that is home.
The rock on the point of the island is very old. It was fiery hot when the world was new. It was icy cold when a glacier covered it with grinding weight.
This morning the rock is warm in the sun, and loud with happy noise of children who have come to spend the day.
They dive off the rock and swim, then stretch out, dripping, in the sun, making salty young silhouettes on the old scars made by the glacier.
In the afternoon, when the tide is out, they build a castle out of rocks and driftwood below the spot where they had belly-whoppered and dog-paddled during the morning.
In the evening, when the tide is high again, and all your guests have gone, you row around to the point, feeling lonely, until an owl asks a question. A heron croaks an answer.
A seal sniffs softly as he recognizes you, and eider ducks and fishhawks—all are listening, all are watching as you row. By the rock, you shine a light down into the water. There is a crab on the bottom where you were playing this afternoon.
He tiptoes sideways through the castle gate and disappears into its watery keep.
You snap off the light and row toward the dock as the stars are gazing down, their reflections gazing up. In the quiet of the night one hundred pairs of eyes are watching you, while one pair of eyes is watching over all.
As the days grow shorter and shorter there are fewer and fewer boats on the bay, until at last only the fishing boats are left. The wind blows brisk from the northwest, rustling the birch leaves.
The ferns change from green to yellow to brown. The robins are gone from the lawn and the garden. The swallows have flown from their nests in the boathouse.
To take their places, migrating birds from the north stop off to rest on their way south. The crows and the gulls fly over, fussing and feuding. And the hummingbirds visit the petunia patch.
Mr. Billings flies over, looking for schools of herring. When he sees you waving on the beach, he dips the seaplane’s wings in greeting.
On some days the wind is so strong that not even the sturdy fishing boats are out on the bay.
Now is the time for being watchful.
And other times there is not a breath of wind to ripple the reflection of an unusual sky.
Now is the time for being prepared.
Over in Blastow’s Cove, Harry Smith looks at the sky and says, “We’re going to have some weather.” On Eggamoggin Reach, Clyde Snowman listens to the loons and says, “It’s a comin’!” On Cape Rosier, Ferd Clifford listens to the sound of the bell off Spectacle Island and says, “She’s gonna blow.”
On your island you feel the light crisp feeling go out of the air and a heavy stillness take its place. It’s time to make a quick trip to the mainland for food and gasoline.
It’s time to get ready.
We’re going to have some weather.
It’s a-comin’.
She’s gonna blow.
In Bucks Harbor are the cruise schooners—the Alice Wentworth, the Stephen Taber, and the Victory Chimes—riding at anchor to spend the winter. Men are busy putting out extra anchors, pulling up skiffs and rowboats, checking moorings, checking chains, checking pennants, getting ready.
Take aboard groceries. Take aboard gasoline. All of the talk is of hundred pound anchors, two-inch rope, one-inch chain, and will it hold? And the weather…and when? Mr. Gray strokes his chin and says, “With the next shift of the tide.”
Hurry for home, for there’s much to be done before the tide is too low.
The ledges behind Pumpkin Island are covered with gulls, all sitting solemnly faced in the same direction. There is no giggling and cackling as your wake splashes the ledge today. This is no time for seabird sense of humor.
We’re going to have some weather.
It’s a-comin’!
She’s gonna blow.
With the next shift of the tide.
Home on the island, you pull in the sailboat, chain the motorboat fast to its mooring, pull the rowboats high off the beach.
Mr. Smith hurries by with a boatload of lobster traps that he has been taking up.
Over in Swain’s Cove, Mr. Billings puts extra lines on the wings of his seaplane.
Fishermen put extra lines on herring boats and scalloping boats.
At Franky Day’s boat yard up Benjamin River, and at Hal Vaughn’s boat yard up Horseshoe Creek, men are working with the tide pulling up sloops and yawls, ketches and motorboats; shackling chains, tying ropes, making things fast, battening down, getting ready.
Stack the groceries on kitchen shelves. Bring in wood to build a fire. Fill the generator with gas. Then take one last careful look, while the calm sea pauses at dead low water. A mouse nibbles off one last stalk from the garden and drags it into his mouse hole. A spider scurries across his web and disappears into a knothole. All living things wait, while the first surge of the incoming tide ripples past Eagle Island, ripples past Dirigo, past Pickering, past Two Bush Island. The bell-buoy off Spectacle Island sways slightly with the ripple,
tolling…
tolling…
tolling the shift of the tide.
Gently at first the wind begins to blow.
Gently at first the rain begins to fall.
Suddenly the wind whips the water into sharp choppy waves. It tears off the sharp tops and slashes them into ribbons of smoky spray. And the rain comes slamming down. The wind comes in stronger and stronger gusts. A branch snaps from a tree. A gull flies over, flying backward, hoping for a chance to drop into the lee of the island. Out in the channel a tardy fishing boat wallows in the waves, seeking the shelter of Bucks Harbor.
A tree snaps. Above the roar of the hurricane you see and feel but do not hear it fall. A latch gives way. People and papers and parcheesi games are puffed hair-over-eyes across the floor, while Father pushes and strains to close and bolt out the storm.
Mother reads a story, and the words are spoken and lost in the scream of the wind. You are glad it is a story you have often heard before. Then you all sing together, shouting, “eyes have seen the glory” just as loud as you can SHOUT. With dishtowels tucked by doorsills just to keep the salt spray out.
The moon comes out, making a rainbow in the salt spray, a promise that the storm will soon be over. Now the wind is lessening, singing loud chords in the treetops. Lessening, it hums as you go up to bed.
And the great swells coming in from the open sea say SH-h-h-h…SH-h-h-h…SH-h-h-h as they foam over the old rock on the point. Lessening, the wind whispers a lullaby in the spruce branches as you fall asleep in the bright moonlight.
The next morning you awaken to an unaccustomed light made by a frosty coating of salt on all the windows. And out-of-doors in the gentle morning lie reminders of yesterday’s hurricane. Fallen and broken trees are everywhere—on the terrace, on the path—blocking your way at every turn. You cannot walk on familiar paths and trails, but you can explore the tops of giant fallen trees, and walk on trunks and limbs where no one ever walked before.
Then, seeking out still more places where no one ever walked before, you explore the jagged holes left by roots of fallen trees. Under an old tree by the house you discover an Indian shell heap, and, poking in the thousands of snow-white clam shells, so old they crumble at a touch, you realize that you are standing on a place where Indian children stood before the coming of white men.
Now it is time for one last chore of hauling seaweed from the beach to fertilize the garden. Spreading the seaweed with its iodine smell, you are pleased to see that the storm-flattened sunflowers are once more lifting faces to the sun. And here are the hummingbirds, humming a hymn to the morning, making a final round to the last of the petunias. It is time for hummingbirds to leave the island.
It is the end of another summer. It is time for you to leave the island too. Good-by to clams and mussels and barnacles, to crows and swallows, gulls and owls, to sea-urchins, seals, and porpoises.
It is time to reset the clock from the rise and fall of the tide, to the come and go of the school bus. Pack your bag and put in a few treasures—some gull feathers, a few shells, a book of pressed leaves, a piece of quartz that came from a crack in the old rock on the point.
And, children, don’t forget your toothbrushes.
Then “All aboard!” and around Deer Island, past Birch Island, past Pumpkin Island, and across Eggamoggin Reach, for the last time this year.
Take a farewell look at the waves and sky. Take a farewell sniff of the salty sea. A little bit sad about the place you are leaving, a little bit glad about the place you are going. It is a time of quiet wonder—for wondering, for instance: Where do hummingbirds go in a hurricane?
You can watch a cloud peep over the Camden Hills, thirty miles away across the bay—see it slowly grow and grow as it comes nearer and nearer; see it darken the hills with its shadow; and then, see it darken, one after the other, Isleboro, Western Island, Pond Island, Hog Island, Spectacle Island, Two Bush Island—darken all the islands in between, until
you, on your island, are standing in the shadow, watching the rain begin to spill down way across the bay.
The rain comes closer and closer. Now you hear a million splashes. Now you even see the drops on the water…
on the age-old rocky point…
on the bayberry…
on the grass…
Now take a breath—
IT’S RAINING ON YOU!
At the water’s edge on a foggy morning in the early spring you feel as though you were standing alone on the edge of nowhere.
You hear a snorting sound from out of the nowhere and you know that no, you are not alone. A family of porpoises is nearby, rolling over and over, having an acrobatic breakfast of herring under the bay.
Then through the fog you hear Harry Smith over at Blastow’s Cove start the engine of his lobster boar and go out to pull his traps.
Suddenly there is a ripple and a splash along the shore that makes you jump! It is the wake from Harry Smith’s lobster boat, and you smile because you almost got wet feet that time!
The ripple disappears into the fog, and though you cannot see it you know that it is silently gliding, gliding on its way. Then another distant, unseen splash—and the gulls and cormorants on Two Bush Lodge, with their seabird sense of humor, start giggling and laughing because they too were suddenly surprised by the wake.
Back from the shore the trees look like ghosts. The forest is so quiet that you can hear an insect boring a tunnel deep inside a log. And that other sound—not the beating of your heart, but the one like half a whisper—is the sound of growing ferns, pushing aside dead leaves, unrolling their fiddle-heads, slowly unfurling, slowly stretching.
Now the fog turns yellow. The bees begin to buzz, and a hummingbird hums by. Then all the birds begin to sing, and suddenly
the fog has lifted!
And suddenly you find that you are singing too,
With the blue water sparkling all around, all around,
With the blue water sparkling all around!
At the height of the summer season the bay is spotted with boats—with racing sailboats, with cruising schooners, with busy fishing boats, and with buzzing outboards.
In the afternoon you sail among the islands, pushed by gentle breezes. You sail close by Swain’s Cove Ledges, where a mother seal is nursing her baby.
And then at sunset, with porpoises puffing and playing around your boat, you come about and set a course for the island that is home.
The rock on the point of the island is very old. It was fiery hot when the world was new. It was icy cold when a glacier covered it with grinding weight.
This morning the rock is warm in the sun, and loud with happy noise of children who have come to spend the day.
They dive off the rock and swim, then stretch out, dripping, in the sun, making salty young silhouettes on the old scars made by the glacier.
In the afternoon, when the tide is out, they build a castle out of rocks and driftwood below the spot where they had belly-whoppered and dog-paddled during the morning.
In the evening, when the tide is high again, and all your guests have gone, you row around to the point, feeling lonely, until an owl asks a question. A heron croaks an answer.
A seal sniffs softly as he recognizes you, and eider ducks and fishhawks—all are listening, all are watching as you row. By the rock, you shine a light down into the water. There is a crab on the bottom where you were playing this afternoon.
He tiptoes sideways through the castle gate and disappears into its watery keep.
You snap off the light and row toward the dock as the stars are gazing down, their reflections gazing up. In the quiet of the night one hundred pairs of eyes are watching you, while one pair of eyes is watching over all.
As the days grow shorter and shorter there are fewer and fewer boats on the bay, until at last only the fishing boats are left. The wind blows brisk from the northwest, rustling the birch leaves.
The ferns change from green to yellow to brown. The robins are gone from the lawn and the garden. The swallows have flown from their nests in the boathouse.
To take their places, migrating birds from the north stop off to rest on their way south. The crows and the gulls fly over, fussing and feuding. And the hummingbirds visit the petunia patch.
Mr. Billings flies over, looking for schools of herring. When he sees you waving on the beach, he dips the seaplane’s wings in greeting.
On some days the wind is so strong that not even the sturdy fishing boats are out on the bay.
Now is the time for being watchful.
And other times there is not a breath of wind to ripple the reflection of an unusual sky.
Now is the time for being prepared.
Over in Blastow’s Cove, Harry Smith looks at the sky and says, “We’re going to have some weather.” On Eggamoggin Reach, Clyde Snowman listens to the loons and says, “It’s a comin’!” On Cape Rosier, Ferd Clifford listens to the sound of the bell off Spectacle Island and says, “She’s gonna blow.”
On your island you feel the light crisp feeling go out of the air and a heavy stillness take its place. It’s time to make a quick trip to the mainland for food and gasoline.
It’s time to get ready.
We’re going to have some weather.
It’s a-comin’.
She’s gonna blow.
In Bucks Harbor are the cruise schooners—the Alice Wentworth, the Stephen Taber, and the Victory Chimes—riding at anchor to spend the winter. Men are busy putting out extra anchors, pulling up skiffs and rowboats, checking moorings, checking chains, checking pennants, getting ready.
Take aboard groceries. Take aboard gasoline. All of the talk is of hundred pound anchors, two-inch rope, one-inch chain, and will it hold? And the weather…and when? Mr. Gray strokes his chin and says, “With the next shift of the tide.”
Hurry for home, for there’s much to be done before the tide is too low.
The ledges behind Pumpkin Island are covered with gulls, all sitting solemnly faced in the same direction. There is no giggling and cackling as your wake splashes the ledge today. This is no time for seabird sense of humor.
We’re going to have some weather.
It’s a-comin’!
She’s gonna blow.
With the next shift of the tide.
Home on the island, you pull in the sailboat, chain the motorboat fast to its mooring, pull the rowboats high off the beach.
Mr. Smith hurries by with a boatload of lobster traps that he has been taking up.
Over in Swain’s Cove, Mr. Billings puts extra lines on the wings of his seaplane.
Fishermen put extra lines on herring boats and scalloping boats.
At Franky Day’s boat yard up Benjamin River, and at Hal Vaughn’s boat yard up Horseshoe Creek, men are working with the tide pulling up sloops and yawls, ketches and motorboats; shackling chains, tying ropes, making things fast, battening down, getting ready.
Stack the groceries on kitchen shelves. Bring in wood to build a fire. Fill the generator with gas. Then take one last careful look, while the calm sea pauses at dead low water. A mouse nibbles off one last stalk from the garden and drags it into his mouse hole. A spider scurries across his web and disappears into a knothole. All living things wait, while the first surge of the incoming tide ripples past Eagle Island, ripples past Dirigo, past Pickering, past Two Bush Island. The bell-buoy off Spectacle Island sways slightly with the ripple,
tolling…
tolling…
tolling the shift of the tide.
Gently at first the wind begins to blow.
Gently at first the rain begins to fall.
Suddenly the wind whips the water into sharp choppy waves. It tears off the sharp tops and slashes them into ribbons of smoky spray. And the rain comes slamming down. The wind comes in stronger and stronger gusts. A branch snaps from a tree. A gull flies over, flying backward, hoping for a chance to drop into the lee of the island. Out in the channel a tardy fishing boat wallows in the waves, seeking the shelter of Bucks Harbor.
A tree snaps. Above the roar of the hurricane you see and feel but do not hear it fall. A latch gives way. People and papers and parcheesi games are puffed hair-over-eyes across the floor, while Father pushes and strains to close and bolt out the storm.
Mother reads a story, and the words are spoken and lost in the scream of the wind. You are glad it is a story you have often heard before. Then you all sing together, shouting, “eyes have seen the glory” just as loud as you can SHOUT. With dishtowels tucked by doorsills just to keep the salt spray out.
The moon comes out, making a rainbow in the salt spray, a promise that the storm will soon be over. Now the wind is lessening, singing loud chords in the treetops. Lessening, it hums as you go up to bed.
And the great swells coming in from the open sea say SH-h-h-h…SH-h-h-h…SH-h-h-h as they foam over the old rock on the point. Lessening, the wind whispers a lullaby in the spruce branches as you fall asleep in the bright moonlight.
The next morning you awaken to an unaccustomed light made by a frosty coating of salt on all the windows. And out-of-doors in the gentle morning lie reminders of yesterday’s hurricane. Fallen and broken trees are everywhere—on the terrace, on the path—blocking your way at every turn. You cannot walk on familiar paths and trails, but you can explore the tops of giant fallen trees, and walk on trunks and limbs where no one ever walked before.
Then, seeking out still more places where no one ever walked before, you explore the jagged holes left by roots of fallen trees. Under an old tree by the house you discover an Indian shell heap, and, poking in the thousands of snow-white clam shells, so old they crumble at a touch, you realize that you are standing on a place where Indian children stood before the coming of white men.
Now it is time for one last chore of hauling seaweed from the beach to fertilize the garden. Spreading the seaweed with its iodine smell, you are pleased to see that the storm-flattened sunflowers are once more lifting faces to the sun. And here are the hummingbirds, humming a hymn to the morning, making a final round to the last of the petunias. It is time for hummingbirds to leave the island.
It is the end of another summer. It is time for you to leave the island too. Good-by to clams and mussels and barnacles, to crows and swallows, gulls and owls, to sea-urchins, seals, and porpoises.
It is time to reset the clock from the rise and fall of the tide, to the come and go of the school bus. Pack your bag and put in a few treasures—some gull feathers, a few shells, a book of pressed leaves, a piece of quartz that came from a crack in the old rock on the point.
And, children, don’t forget your toothbrushes.
Then “All aboard!” and around Deer Island, past Birch Island, past Pumpkin Island, and across Eggamoggin Reach, for the last time this year.
Take a farewell look at the waves and sky. Take a farewell sniff of the salty sea. A little bit sad about the place you are leaving, a little bit glad about the place you are going. It is a time of quiet wonder—for wondering, for instance: Where do hummingbirds go in a hurricane?