Wood-Smoke

PSYCHOLOGISTS tell us that of all the senses smell is the quickest to kindle memory. This corroboration of the scientists almost takes away the intimate joy of our discovery that a whiff of mint sauce, even when as yet no nearer than the pantry-door, instantly spreads between us and the damask a green pasture and a sparkling brook. Neither do we like to share with psychologists, or others, the peculiar responsiveness that makes us feel quick tears at the smell of fresh-baked bread — tears born of fair dreams and brave resolves in long-ago convent corridors, fragrant of much baking for many hungry girls. It is pleasanter and more delicate to feel that this olfactory sensibility is not every one’s, and that in our own case it is due to the fact that what we have to remember is so peculiarly vivid and sweet — so peculiarly sweeter than the green pastures and fragrant corridors of other people’s memories.

And yet, monopolists though we would be of these quick-flashing responses, other people, even Philistines, probably enjoy them in a higher or a lower degree. Indeed, it would be interesting if, after the fashion of autograph albums, we might ask each promising new friend, ‘What fragrance is to you most reminiscent, most suggestive?’ If the answer were truthful, we might be friends — or not friends — a little sooner, perhaps. At any rate, I am sure I should want to be friends with any one who would confess to being under the spell of wood-smoke!

Ah, wood-smoke! Thing compounded of the swift run of the sap, of the pricking of the first buds, of the pale shimmer of young leaves, of the swift pallor of storm-tossed summer boughs, of the drop of nut, and the rustle of brown and gold and crimson in the white rime! No wonder thou art a magician, to bring to life again old springs and summers, old lights and shadows, old sounds and old silences, made as thou art of the very secretest powers of life!

And so, small wonder is it that in a high-built street of a factory town, with trampled gray snow under foot and stark black chimneys against a leaden sky, the wood-smoke from a wayside pile of shavings, tended by shivering children, should sweep the canvas clean, and flash on it a sloping green pasture, a tumbling brook, and, in the deepest dimple of the hillside, a gray-shingled spring-house under a lace-leafed thorn tree. In front of the spring-house crackles a big fire; the smoke curls and blows and fades; little darkies throw yellow chips into the blaze, and Aunt Caroline’s red bandana glows out of the gray as she turns the linen in the great kettle. On the mullein and the iron-weed round about, on the little thorn-bushes, on the milkweed and the briers, bloom the pink and blue checked pinafores of the children at the ‘Big House,’ their white ruffled sunbonnets and snowy frocks ; on the grass, sniffed at sometimes by strolling sheep, shine the great white tablecloths and the sheets. By the spring-house door hangs a long gourd dipper. Yellow butterflies flicker in and out of the mint and the pickerel-weed and the rushes. Then a child’s voice: ‘Law, mammy, look yonder! Ef dar ain’t Miss Hallie and Mars Abe comin’ down de hill! An’ ain’t dey comin’ slow ! De hosses is jes’ creepin’ along like dey was asleep. I’ll run an’ open de big gate.’

Flash again! The picture’s gone. The steam pours out of the escape valves into the mill-canals! The voice of the machinery drowns the little voice of your dream. And for a moment the wheels of your own life seem to stop and waver backwards, forwards, before they drop into the tick of forgetfulness.

Another time! Monday morning in the library! You gather up Cæsar’s cigar ashes, and put his pipes into the rack; pipes among which he chooses to suit each varying mood. You beat up the pillows in the window-seat, thinking how badly that brown rep has worn. You take down your turkeywing and sweep your hearth, eying casually the dullness of the andirons, inwardly questioning when it would be least dangerous to request the stolid and free-spoken Swede also to eye their dullness and to apply her polish. Presto! The dead embers in the fireplace, cold smoke, the little flurry of ashes!

That’s the Loire out there between the poplars, under the pearly, sunrifted sky; and that’s Blois, red-roofed, smoke-wreathed, climbing hesitatingly up the narrow crooked streets below you. On the leaded panes of the open casement where you stand, over the great chimney-piece behind you, on a blue background, bristle the gold porcupines of Louis XII. Below the porcupines in the vast fireplace, there is still the black impress of long-ago fires, the faint, close smell of long-vanished smoke in tight-closed rooms.

Ah, ghost of gray smoke-wreaths, spirit of blinking embers, what a magician thou art! The long white hands of Catherine de’ Medici herself, in her poison cabinet close at hand, could brew no subtler infusion to stir the blood and fire the brain! In thy train come other ghosts — ghosts of those who lived and loved and hated, and flashed and went out in the light of thy long cold fires. In the deep windowseat, looking down over the red roofs to the dove-gray river, sits la Belle Fosseuse, lifting arch eyebrows from her Amadis de Gaul to smile deeply at Amyot. Mary Stuart sweeps a lute with fine white hand, the firelight warming the cold of the bridal pearls in her ruddy hair. De Guise’s narrow black eyes ponder the coals, the ivory pallor of his lean cheeks faintly rose-touched. And as the fire dies down, the great Catherine’s beruffed head looks palely in at the door.

’Is it chop or steak you will hef for de childer?’ says my Swede at my door. And you go from smoke-wreaths and wraiths to the sunny kitchen and the sweet hunger of children.

But another time! In the Palm Garden at the Plaza. There is a mist of warm fragrances: Java, Orange Pekoe, Orriza violet, fresh violets, sandalwood, roses, Havanas! There is a mist of music surging in and out, shot through with women’s laughter. There is the sparkling staccato of twinkling gems - the adagio of soft color — the cantante of silk on silks.

The man next you strikes a match. A keen wind splashes your cheek, a wind compounded of salt seas, of hemlocks filtered through frost. A flamelight fills your fancy, out of which spring pine trees and night-depths of forest. Your camp-fire crackles. Your dog’s cold nose is next your cheek. A great brown antlered thing stretches quiet in the shadows. Above, the sharp black tops of the pines point to white stars.

‘You ordered a café parfait, Madame!’