I think I never knew any other man whose
learning sat upon him as lightly or was given to others as gracefully.
I had once a like pleasure in raking over an Indian shell-heap with
Wyman. The quiet, amused amazement of the native who plied the spade
for us was an odd contrast to Wyman's mood of deep interest and
serious occupation. He had a boy's pleasure in the quest, and again
displayed for me the most ready learning as to everything involved in
the search. Bits of bones were named as I would name the letters of
the alphabet: bone needles, fragments of pottery and odds and ends of
nameless use went with a laugh or some ingenious comment into his
little basket. In truth, a walk with Wyman at Mount Desert was
something to remember.
The acquaintances of the merchant or lawyer grow fewer as age comes
on, but the naturalist is always enlarging his circle of living or
dead things in which he takes interest, and none more profited thus by
the years as they came than Wyman. The bird, the tree, the flower, the
rock, tiny worlds beneath damp stones, little dramas of minute life
within mouldy tree-trunks, the quaint menageries in the sea-caves,
shifted with every tide, whatever the waves brought or the winds
carried or the earth bore were one and all acquaintances of this
delightful and delighted companion.
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