Hobble Creek Review
| Hugh Aaron |
THE CARETAKERS
“Who lived here before us,” my little son asked as he gazed out
the bay window of our brand new house into the dense forest
surrounding us. Judging from the size of the trees, the forest is old,
as old as it takes a stand of hemlocks to grow eighty feet tall, and
white river birches to fill up the girth of a man’s encircling arms.
The beeches and ash and oaks, their barks covered with mold and
their exposed roots with lichen, appear as ancient as if they had been
there since the last ice age. This suburban acre of ours, subdivided
out of a vast forest on the slope of a worn New England hill, is part
of an old land with a history that few give thought to these days.
Joining my son’s gaze into the forest, I stammered “Nobody.” Even as
I answered I knew this was incorrect. I was guilty of simplifying. I
knew that I had seen signs of an earlier, forgotten human era. But I
hadn’t wondered about it, particularly about my specific acre in the
woods, not until that moment when I blurted, “The Indians. The
Indians lived here.” My son was delighted. “Oh boy, oh boy.” My
curiosity astir, I too was delighted.
The history books say the Nipmuc Indian tribe roamed this
region, hunted these acres, and fished the lakes nearby. One can tell
from the names of the streets and locations – Tatnuck, Wachusett,
Quinapoxet - that the Indians infiltrated this very land. The name of
our street is Squantum; our wooded acre lies on the side of
Asnebumskit hill. The neighborhood is called Indian Hill. So well
beaten are some of the footpaths that meander through the forest,
that a century or more of disuse does not meld them into obscurity
unless, of course, the deer have claimed them and keep them fresh.
Other footpaths plunge through the growth then fade into a
confusion of saplings. Are these the settlers’ paths, or were they the
paths of Indian hunters before the Pilgrims landed.
A rumor, passed down to our generation, that not only did the
Indians wander through here, they also dwelled here in teepees
located on the very spot where our prim lawn grows. Still, no sign of
their habitation or way of life linger, no arrowheads or artifacts of
any sort, raked out by the settlers after them, picked up by the
surveyors and engineers and white hunters. To the curious the forest
provides a reason. One needn’t walk far among the thickets of fern
and patches of mountain laurel before coming across the remnant of
a tumbled down stone wall, once three or four feet high but now
hidden here and there under hundreds of seasons of humus. Running
in straight lines, usually meeting another wall at a ninety degree
angle, the walls wander for a mile or so then disappear into a swath
of scattered moldy rocks. They are the relics of the settlers whose
dogged exertions cleared the land of its stones to form fences around
their fields. This slope once stripped of its trees becoming a
patchwork of denuded enclosures, was once grazing land or crop
land. So much of the returning forest is relatively young, perhaps no
more than 200 years old, although parts of it probably survived the
settlers’ axe.
Wandering deeper into the trees, down into the damp dells around
swamps, one feels that these places have always been as they are
now, untouched because useless. Only deer tracks are visible across
the springy, muddy floor. So the woods around us have not always
been so. After the virgin land had been denuded, the present day
trees form a second or third forest or more. Over the next two
centuries many of the settlers moved west to cultivate a richer, less
harsh land, while the children of others who stayed left to work in
the cities after the onset of the Industrial Revolution. By the end of
the nineteenth century the forest returned, nearly obliterating all
signs of the past, except for the footpaths and stone walls and has
been undisturbed and forgotten until this year when we built our
new house and my son asked his question.
“Who lived here before us,” my little son asked as he gazed out
the bay window of our brand new house into the dense forest
surrounding us. Judging from the size of the trees, the forest is old,
as old as it takes a stand of hemlocks to grow eighty feet tall, and
white river birches to fill up the girth of a man’s encircling arms.
The beeches and ash and oaks, their barks covered with mold and
their exposed roots with lichen, appear as ancient as if they had been
there since the last ice age. This suburban acre of ours, subdivided
out of a vast forest on the slope of a worn New England hill, is part
of an old land with a history that few give thought to these days.
Joining my son’s gaze into the forest, I stammered “Nobody.” Even as
I answered I knew this was incorrect. I was guilty of simplifying. I
knew that I had seen signs of an earlier, forgotten human era. But I
hadn’t wondered about it, particularly about my specific acre in the
woods, not until that moment when I blurted, “The Indians. The
Indians lived here.” My son was delighted. “Oh boy, oh boy.” My
curiosity astir, I too was delighted.
The history books say the Nipmuc Indian tribe roamed this
region, hunted these acres, and fished the lakes nearby. One can tell
from the names of the streets and locations – Tatnuck, Wachusett,
Quinapoxet - that the Indians infiltrated this very land. The name of
our street is Squantum; our wooded acre lies on the side of
Asnebumskit hill. The neighborhood is called Indian Hill. So well
beaten are some of the footpaths that meander through the forest,
that a century or more of disuse does not meld them into obscurity
unless, of course, the deer have claimed them and keep them fresh.
Other footpaths plunge through the growth then fade into a
confusion of saplings. Are these the settlers’ paths, or were they the
paths of Indian hunters before the Pilgrims landed.
A rumor, passed down to our generation, that not only did the
Indians wander through here, they also dwelled here in teepees
located on the very spot where our prim lawn grows. Still, no sign of
their habitation or way of life linger, no arrowheads or artifacts of
any sort, raked out by the settlers after them, picked up by the
surveyors and engineers and white hunters. To the curious the forest
provides a reason. One needn’t walk far among the thickets of fern
and patches of mountain laurel before coming across the remnant of
a tumbled down stone wall, once three or four feet high but now
hidden here and there under hundreds of seasons of humus. Running
in straight lines, usually meeting another wall at a ninety degree
angle, the walls wander for a mile or so then disappear into a swath
of scattered moldy rocks. They are the relics of the settlers whose
dogged exertions cleared the land of its stones to form fences around
their fields. This slope once stripped of its trees becoming a
patchwork of denuded enclosures, was once grazing land or crop
land. So much of the returning forest is relatively young, perhaps no
more than 200 years old, although parts of it probably survived the
settlers’ axe.
Wandering deeper into the trees, down into the damp dells around
swamps, one feels that these places have always been as they are
now, untouched because useless. Only deer tracks are visible across
the springy, muddy floor. So the woods around us have not always
been so. After the virgin land had been denuded, the present day
trees form a second or third forest or more. Over the next two
centuries many of the settlers moved west to cultivate a richer, less
harsh land, while the children of others who stayed left to work in
the cities after the onset of the Industrial Revolution. By the end of
the nineteenth century the forest returned, nearly obliterating all
signs of the past, except for the footpaths and stone walls and has
been undisturbed and forgotten until this year when we built our
new house and my son asked his question.
Hugh Aaron, born and raised in Worcester , Massachusetts , was a
Seabee in the South Pacific during World War II. After the war he
graduated from the University of Chicago where his professors
encouraged him to pursue a literary career. However, he made his living
as CEO of his own plastics materials manufacturing business while
continuing to write. Only after he retired was his writing published,
consisting of two novels, a collection of five novellas, a travel journal, two
short story collections, two books of business essays, a book of letters, a
child's book in verse and a book of movie reviews. The Wall Street
Journal also published eighteen of his articles on business management
and one on World War II. Currently writing and producing plays, he
resides by the sea in mid-coast Maine with his artist wife. Most recently,
he has been writing social satire on Zoofky.com.
Seabee in the South Pacific during World War II. After the war he
graduated from the University of Chicago where his professors
encouraged him to pursue a literary career. However, he made his living
as CEO of his own plastics materials manufacturing business while
continuing to write. Only after he retired was his writing published,
consisting of two novels, a collection of five novellas, a travel journal, two
short story collections, two books of business essays, a book of letters, a
child's book in verse and a book of movie reviews. The Wall Street
Journal also published eighteen of his articles on business management
and one on World War II. Currently writing and producing plays, he
resides by the sea in mid-coast Maine with his artist wife. Most recently,
he has been writing social satire on Zoofky.com.
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