A place to run away to

Otha Barham

June 11, 2009 11:18 pm

— “Gradually the cool dim gray of the morning whitened and as gradually sounds multiplied and life manifested itself. The marvel of Nature shaking off sleep and going to work unfolded itself to the musing boy. A little green worm came crawling over a dewy leaf, lifting two thirds of his body into the air from time to time and sniffing around, then proceeding again for he was measuring, Tom said…
“Now a procession of ants appeared, from nowhere in particular, and went about their labors; one struggled manfully by with a dead spider five times as big as itself in its arms, and hugged it straight up a tree trunk…
“A brown spotted lady bug climbed the dizzy height of a grass-blade and Tom bent down close to it and said, “Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home, your house is on fire, your children’s alone,” and she took wing and went off to see about it--which did not surprise the boy for he knew of old that this insect was credulous about conflagrations…

Beetles and birds

“A tumblebug came next, heaving sturdily at its ball and Tom touched the creature to see it shut its legs against its body and pretend to be dead…A catbird, the Northern mocker, lit in a tree over Tom’s head and trilled out her imitations of her neighbors in a rapture of enjoyment…
“All Nature was wide awake and stirring now; long lances of sunlight pierced down through the dense foliage far and near, and a few butterflies came fluttering upon the scene.”
Mark Twain experienced the outdoors vicariously through the life of his character, Tom Sawyer, as Tom woke up that first morning on Jackson’s Island, that remote, uninhabited bit of land in the middle of the wide Mississippi where he and Huck and Joe had fled by raft from their problems.
This masterful author offers us a timeless pattern for rejuvenation. His story exemplifies our perennial need to get away and clarify what life is about and find ourselves and our place in a master scheme. And here in the “Adventures of Tom Sawyer” the trio, who deemed themselves hapless, sought answers through adventure in the very arms of “Nature.” The mightiest force of “Nature” that the three could clearly identify, the great river, would be their highway.
The river would carry them away, but it could also kill them. They had thought about it and talked about it earlier. As they cast off on their float in the night, “The Black Avenger,” (Tom), stood still (on the raft) with folded arms. ‘looking his last’ upon the scene of his former joys and his later sufferings, and wishing ‘she’ could see him now, aboard on the wild sea, facing peril and death with dauntless heart, going to his doom with a grim smile on his lips.”

Off they go

Thus emerged what Tom and Joe and Huck sought on this great escape; adventure; the unknown being preferred over what they had known up to then. And Clements chose to wake them on their first morning of freedom with the vast but intricate components of “Nature” by way of a green worm and ants and a spider and a lady bug and a tumblebug and a mockingbird and a virtual sea of natural life at work.
Perhaps I have oversold my point here, and it would have sufficed to say that I, as are legions, am drawn magnetically to this natural world that surrounds us; from the mighty flowing waters to the tiniest ant and the unfathomable body in between that begs embracement. And that we would not have a single person miss out on what we so cherish. I speak for millions who have found these natural treasures, often in simple creatures like inchworms, and who urge strangers to the wilds to venture forth, not unlike Tom and Huck and Joe did in the mind of Samuel Clemens.
We find ourselves in June, National Great Outdoors Month. And June 27 is the Great American Backyard Campout day. (See more about these on this page.) So the message is clear; get out there where nature thrives, whether it be a back yard campout or a wilderness venture. Wake up in a world where ants carry spiders and birds mimic the perfect language of their co-inhabitants. Step off the land of “former joys and later sufferings” onto the raft that will float you on enchanting yet unrelenting waters to untold adventures in our natural world.

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