The Spring
Spring is here! So what! Nature is calling, but I’m no gypsy — at least not this year. I’m going to plant my feet onto the warm city pavements, and bask in the cool subway breezes. Yes, I’m going to find flowers in art-galleries, poetry in libraries, and peace in night-clubs. The city shall be my haven. After all, I know my limitations.
The cause of my disillusionment in nature and its colorful suburban propoganda was a Botany cleass. The only reason that I signed up for Botany was that I had tried Chemistry — for one day. The less said about that harrowing experience the better. It remains that I became a student botanist and for six dreary months peered at microcosms of Nature’s wonders through a classroom microscope. I learned what water-bubbles look like under a powerful lens and discovered what the anatomy of a leaf should look like from the drawings of a more convincing textbook. I was a botanist by persuasion, not observation. But I had hopes of blossoming forth as an enthusiastic scientist when I had the chance to see Nature in the undress, for in the Spring, three lectures were to be conducted in the field.
Spring arrived, much to my joy. I was inordinately bored with looking at irredescent water bubbles. Besides, during the past year I had been influenced by Wordsworth and Rousseau, both of whom I was reading at the time. Is is any wonder I had grand ideas about ‘the noble savage’ and the ‘return to Nature’?
The ‘great day’ for our first excursion arrived. I didn’t even complain at having to get up at the ungodly hour of seven a.m. After all — I reasoned — scientists must make some sacrifices in life. In my excitement, it never occurred to me that there are people made for the country, and there are those who belong to the city streets.
Trodding hastily on three-inch heels and wearing a wide-brimmed Easter hat with a trimming of red polka dots, I arrived at the appointed meeting-place — Dyckman Street Ferry. The professor looked a little startled when he saw me sailing toward the waiting group, but I construed that glance to suggest admiration for my new bonnet. On of the older boys in the group remarked, “I hope you’re not going to walk around on those stilts.” I considered it below my dignity to answer him.
We arrived in Jersey after a stimulating ferry trip, during which I protected my bonnet from the river breezes with a hardy right hand clutch. I looked about for the bus which was to conduct us to the fields, but the professor simply disdained modern conveyances and led the way to a highway minus the decoration of civilized sidewalks. He explained, “We’ll conduct class as we stroll along.” The highway, on a more appraising glance, resembled (especially to one accustomed to the level city pavement) the shoulder of Mount McKinley.
The professor strolled ahead as if he were setting the pace for a cross-country marathon. I wondered why I had never invested in a pair of low-heeled shoes. But why think about medicine after the corpse is in the grave? At length our scholarly guide slowed up; he peered at a clump of bushes overhanging a hill of loose rocks and earth. He veered in the direction of the uninteresting mound and with two professional strides, clambered up the rocks to his discovery. A few gallant boys imitated him and offered assistance to the girls who kep insisting they could do it alone.
I waited back to get the hang of the thing, so that by the time I ventured the climb and accepted help, the rocks had been sufficiently disturbed and I and the boy whose hand I was clutching, were sitting in an avalanche out in the roadway. No damage was done, except to my hat which rolled on like a May-Day hoop down the highway. We three, the boy, the runaway bonnet, and myself, were soon restored to equilibrium by a couple of unrestrainedly mirthful co-botanists, and hoisted with care and directions up the mound, where the professor pointed out the salient features of a closed bud on a bush whose name escapes me. I was busy at the time sympathizing with my chapeau.
After the more ambitious naturalists collected samples, we slid down to the main highway, where our guide started off like a steed down the track. By the wayside we visited various trees and bushes. At length the professor tired of doing things the easy way and cut off onto a narrow dirt path leading up the sides of the Palisades. By this time my feet demanded attention and I slumped onto a boulder in order to remove the pebbles from the shoes which were packed tight enough without having to box extra contents.
I sat oblivious to time or knowledge, enjoying the comforts of liberated toes, when there were cries of “Hey, where are you? Yoohoo!” I struggled into my stubborn shoes and discerned the rest of the Botany Class peering down from a steep incline which they had conquered. I hesitated, but decided it was better to go forward than wander helplessly alone in the wilds of Jersey. Halfway up, my heels dug into some loose earth and another landslide occurred. This time I wound up on my knees, my hat on my nose and my left heel abandoned, alone and helpless underneath a pile of dirt. For the rest of the climb I continued bravely with one heel on my shoe and one in my hand.
At length we reached the top of the Palisades, but I was still trembling from the terror of tottering across a narrow ledge which had overlooked the highway, shrinking in the distance like a crack in the earth’s face. I was exhausted, hot, and thirsty, besides having acquired a blister on my heel. But there was, at the other end, a delightful wooden bridge to lean on. Even in my desperation I had to admit that this was a picturesque spot. Growing all about were quaint green leaves of ivy. One unruly boy beat me to a seat on a patch of soothing looking greens. I contented myself by leaning on the wooden railing and fingered the spreading dark-green vine.
The professor, intent on his work and not interested in our reactions, pointed to a spray of shiny leaves and expounded: “Now this specimen you will all recognize . . .” I plucked one of the shiny examples, to examine it closer. He went on: “Notice the dark-green, compound leaves of three-leaflets each. This is a species of the Sumac Family, knows to science as Rhus toxicodendron and which you will recognize as Poison Ivy . . .” The weary boy jumped up with a leap which would have won a prize at an athletic meet. I simply gaped at the leaf in my hand. The professor apologized: “I should have warned you, but I thought you were all acquainted with it.” After all, exams were approaching, so I suppressed my thoughts and dropped the ominous specimen over the side of the bridge. At least I forgot my aching blister in my new-found worry. Already I was starting to itch all over.
The tour continued; my itch occupied my attention and at length from a position in the rearguard (consisting of one sympathetic boy beside myself) I could see in the distance that the class had discovered a field. That encouraged me; I hobbled along on my one heel toward the listening group. The professor was holding in his hand a flower, a daisy, I supposed. But on closer inspection I recognized a dandelion. That was the turning point. To think we had to scale the mountains of New Jersey to inspect a dandelion! As a child I would have been dismayed at such a sight — especially with all the rumors I used to hear about dandelions. But now I was simply disgusted.
The climax came when I glanced down at my feet and found reposing on one of them a bug or beetle or something. To my stunned eyes it looked like a prehistoric monster. I let out one yell and started hopping about the field. The dandelion was forgotten while I was rescued from the beast’s clutches. The professor suggested immediately after the kill that it was getting on in the day and we’d best return home. I didn’t quite like the look he gave me but I wasn’t exactly displeased either. We gave up of the primitive method of traveling and rode back to the ferry on a bus.
The next week the professor hinted to me after class that if I wished to be excused from the remaining trips it would be alright. I took him at his word. The only kind thought I have of my excursion is that I didn’t get poinson ivy — the professor did!
Peggy Stebbins, April 30, 1941