Those Who Were Here Before Us

When spring finally hit New England, it was like being raised from the dead. Shoots and sprouts exploded out of the ground so fast that when I went to school, the world was gray and when I got off the bus that afternoon it had turned sap green.

One Saturday while enjoying an acute case of  spring fever, I sat and watched Pop plow the garden; the smell of the good earth filled the air and the sun was warm on my face.

Our silly beagle was rooting and snuffling around in the overturned soil, which must have smelled even more wonderful to his sensitive nose.

Suddenly Pop stopped the tractor and got down to look at something on the ground. He waved me over-oh boy, a treasure! It was a quartz arrowhead, perfect and complete.

Farmers found lots of arrowheads in our neighborhood but I never thought about the implications of that until that spring day. As I turned the arrowhead over and over in my hand, I was suddenly and powerfully struck by the knowledge that someone else once lived here. They were gone and now we lived here.

I walked to my thinking place by the stream and thought. What was their life like? Did they feel like they were raised from the dead when spring came? How skillful was the man who made this perfect arrowhead-did his little girl watch him like I watched Pop plow the field? Did he love her? I bet he did.

Did she get spring fever and sit by this very stream to think? I bet she did.

She grew up and raised a family, grew old and died. No doubt she and her ancestors were buried nearby. But one spring day, she had been a little girl, just like me, maybe sitting on this very stone, thinking….the green smell of new life filling her nostrils and the sun warm on her upturned face.