Secret places are the prerogative of boys. A hideout is something a boy must have, whether up in a tree where branches form a natural seat, or in some sheltered corner of the woods, or high on a hill where there may be a private outlook on extensive properties.
Unlike the generally increased value most things assume when they are shared, a boy’s secret places are best and most enjoyed when they are in fact secret and private, shared with no one.
There is something phenomenal about a boy’s possession of a secret place. It comes without cost. Whether it be the top of a pine tree known only to one climber, a stream-bend pool where he’s sure to catch at least one trout, or a briar patch off in the corner of a run-down farm where rabbits respond to the barking of his dog, it grants the boy golden moments without covetous design, without greed, without selfishness.
My earliest boyhood was lived in Stoughton. In 1930, this small and insignificant eastern Massachusetts town lay as a kind of semi-conscious, Depression-ridden nonentity south of Boston, split in half by Boston & Maine railroad tracks to Cape Cod. Its citizens were all shocked in the first short circuiting of the Great Depression.
The town’s two businesses — rubber and leather — were folded early by the Depression’s clammy hand as it closed upon all of this country’s industries. A public works project was started after a year or two, and Stoughton eventually boasted a sewer, dug by the town’s men, all of whom were otherwise unemployed. Of the 20 families living on our street, not more than five owned an automobile. Secret places abounded in Stoughton.
At that time, a small business venture, the Phillips Machine Screw Co. (parent of the Phillips screw), was enjoying a successful beginning. Demand for its product, plus good leadership, kept the fledgling enterprise alive despite the Depression. One of the company’s directors owned a sizable property in Stoughton, which he stocked plentifully with pheasants at personal expense, maybe 100 birds or so.
As a very young boy, I had researched all the possibilities of every patch of woods within three miles of my home, east and west of the railroad tracks. Needless to say, I found the woods and fields where those pheasants had been stocked.
A high stone wall hemmed in one good square of the farm patch. One day quite by accident, I found a hole at the base of the wall. It was too small to squeeze through, but large enough to see through unseen. This, for a small boy, was one perfect secret place.
The pheasants fed on the seed grasses that lay thick and matted on the other side. Many an hour I lay full-length to spy upon roosters and hens, watching as they methodically stripped a stock of its edibles, or pecked at grasshoppers and other field creatures found food-worthy.
Hunting pressure — a principal term in today’s lexicon of game management — was light in those days. I don’t know what kind of hunter the Phillips Machine Screw executive was, but his pheasants didn’t appear to disappear. I watched them from my hiding place for several years over all four seasons.
Quail were indigenous and fairly common then. It was not uncommon to see several bobwhites vying with the pheasants for early spring-hatched bugs. Side-by-side the quail, despite their darting about, seemed puny, while the pheasants — the cocks in particular — took on a lordly and magnificent mien.
In the leaflessness of winter, and still in the fullness of late spring and summer, the pheasants were there. I don’t suppose they ever knew a boy was watching them. I relished the thought even though I was only eight or nine at the time.
Every time spring came ’round, several of the hens produced young. I never once crossed the fence into the field. Common sense told me I would quickly lose the value of my secret place. But I did search the periphery, hoping to find where the nests were and the eggs were laid. I never did find them. Just as well.
Perhaps the birds’ progeny are still there to entertain some lad who has that need in boys for a place to hide and watch things in secret.