The Woods

The woods were all around us on Daufuskie. Like most of the eastern United States, the Sea Islands were once covered by natural forests that were cut down in the 1700s and 1800s for lumber, fuel, and fields. But if you leave such a field alone, it won’t be a field for long. And the Daufuskie of my childhood had been left alone a long time.

Tall pines, hickories, gums, and oaks, with thick underbrush, grew right up to the edges of our dirt roads. Paths through the woods were marked by deer tracks and formed by our trips to gather firewood. And it was a constant effort to keep our yard and garden from being overgrown by thick woods and underbrush.