Chapter 10

with its glorious forests and songful streams. Here indeed is the tree lover's paradise. Here you will find primeval woods with decayed leaves and plants underneath, almost a foot in thickness. The massed foliage at noon let in the light in shimmering patches of sunshine and shade, making squares and angles like a Persian rug with flower and fern designs.

Here weary travelers may find a camper's heaven. Just opposite Mount Jackson is a velvety lawn with grass and flowers in abundance. Water may be had not far distant. The lovely birch trees gleam where your camp fire is kindled and the larger evergreens stand like sombre sentinels on watch through the night. But one sometimes learns a camper's life is not all places of cool retreats, bright camp fires, dry beds of plush- like boughs, with delicious breaths of birch, pine and mountain wild flowers sifting through his tent. Because the wood thrush and cardinal sang while you ate your supper of well-cooked trout is no sign you will be so highly favored the next time you pitch your tent. Instead you often find unsuitable places for camping with dust and heat in place of cool retreats; instead of the cheerful campfire anticipated, you may work hard to get a "smudgy smouldering fire." Your meal will in all probability consist of raw salmon eaten at The Sign of the Smoke Screen; while your dry bed of balsam boughs may turn out to be rain trickling down your neck, Niagara-like, and your resting place a veritable Lake Erie. Your fragrance of a thousand flowers may be the pungent aroma of the skunk, borne by the evening breeze; and your evening serenade perhaps will be made by an immense number of "no see ems" whose shrill and infinitely fine soprano is paid for in so many installments of blood, to say nothing of the furious itching and nights of "watchful waiting." Even to enjoy Nature in her finer moods you must always pay a price, and people gain "beauty, as well as bread, by the sweat of their brows."

But here we are at Crawford's notch, gazing at the mountains that tower far above us. Their bases already lie in deep shadows which are creeping continually upward. We lifted our eyes toward the masses of light gray rock many hundreds of feet in height, which kept watch over the lovely glen below. There were the tops of the mountains bathed in floods of golden light, while their lower levels were already dim with twilight gloom. How true, in life, we said, are the sunshine and shadow. The paths of ease and self-indulgence are full of mortals because they wind and diverge from the way of truth, leading to lower and more easily attained levels. But up on the mountain top no dissatisfied throng stirs up the dust and we feel that joyous exaltation of spirit which comes to those who climb a little nearer heaven.

In the park-like space in which we find the Crawford House, how quiet and beautiful all things are! Towering all around are lofty peaks as if to shut out the beauty from the rest of the world. We are not artists, so we sit down in this quiet-retreat and let Nature paint the picture. The breath of the pine and birch fills the place like incense. The softly sighing pines with the distant waterfalls are singing their age-old songs. The evergreens are marshalled in serried ranks, spire above spire, like a phalanx of German soldiers clad in their green coats, their spiked helmets gleaming in the evening light. But they are pushing on to "victory and peace," and each soldier with aeolian melodies marches to his own accompaniment while the evening breeze softly thrums its anthem of divine love. We wished our lives might be pierced by the mystery of their gleaming javelins that we too might learn their lessons of strength, endurance and noble aspiration. As we stood at the base of these glorious forest-crowned mountains, gazing in rapt admiration and wonder at God's "handiwork," we were conscious of a revelation whispered through the myriad needles of the pine. How small seem the honors, customs, cares, and petty bickerings of men seen through the vast perspective of these eternal hills. How quickly we forget our seeming ills and are more in "tune with the Infinite."

"The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration."

As the shadows crept higher along the ridges the breeze died away. The great artist, evening, with all rare colors was painting another masterpiece. The last rays of the sun were now gilding the mountain peaks; long ago their bases rested in purple shadow and the yellow light seemed to be reflected from all their wooded heights. At our right lay Mount Tom in deep shadow; the pines on Mount Jackson to the east cut the blue vault of the sky with their serrated edges. The drooping birch trees stood silent as if awaiting a benediction. The sky all along the eastern horizon was a broad belt of old rose which deepened to crimson, then crimson was succeeded by daffodil yellow. Far up in the mountain above a wood thrush poured forth his clear notes. "The last rays that lingered above the purple peaks were slowly withdrawn into that shadowy realm called night." Only the wind sighed again among the faint silvery clashing of distant waterfalls. How like a prayer was that vast sea of changing colors. The poem of creation was written unmistakably upon the evening sky. Out here God himself is teaching his grandest lessons, but alas! how few there are who really hear them.

How wonderful the dawns and twilights; how vast and changeable the ocean; how pure and deep the lakes; how strong and high the mountains; how infinite and full of mystery the sky, yet how few there are who really see and enjoy them.

If only all people would accept the invitation froth that sweet singer of the Wabash, Maurice Thompson, we would hear fewer people say, "It isn't much," or "We are exceedingly disappointed in it."

"Come, let us go, each pulse is precious, Come, ere the day has lost its dawn; And you shall quaff life's finest essence From primal flagons drawn!

Just for a day to slip off the tether Of hot-house wants, and dare to be A child of Nature, strong and simple, Out in the woods with me."

How calmly and soothingly night came on! Over the quiet glen at Crawford's notch, the sunset, moonlight, and starlight were weaving the mysterious spell of the night. On the very edge of a mountain ridge glowed the evening star. There was no sound except the rhythmical murmur of the pines and far-heard sound of waterfalls. Presently a night hawk rose from a wooded ridge and uttered her weird cry, then a bat darted "hither and thither, as if tethered by invisible strings." Then began the real serenade of the evening. Down in the waters of Lake Waco the frogs broke the silence. We moved slowly to the edge of the water, disturbing some of the members of the aquatic orchestra, who kept springing into the lake with a final croak of disapproval. We made our way back to the hotel across the velvety grass, already wet with dew, to find a crowd of splendidly attired tourists, poring over their cards or dancing away those rare hours, at the close of "one of those heavenly days that cannot die."

"Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds."

So thought we as the day that was breaking found us out in the lovely glen; hemmed in on all sides by lofty hills. The birds at this season of the year do most of their singing in the morning hours. Early as the time was, we were not the first to greet the coming dawn.

The blue mantle that clothed the mountains had been withdrawn so that the serrated points of spruce and pine stood out in bold relief against the pale blue of the morning sky. The stars, like far-off beacon lights along the mountain tops, slowly melted into the dawn. Over in the direction of Mount Willard the rich contralto of the wood thrush sounded; the white crowned sparrow's sweet, wavering whistle rang from the spruce crested slopes; from the telephone poles down by the railroad station the king birds were loudly disputing with the indigo buntings for full possession of the wires; flickers and downy woodpeckers called loudly or gave vent to their morning enthusiasm by beating a lively tattoo upon the dead pine stubs; while the ringing reveille of the cardinal must have awakened the sleepiest denizen of the forest.

But another song rises pure and serene above the general chorus of vireos and warblers. You saunter along a murmuring stream, scarce noting the fresh green of bush and tree, or the ferns, flowers and moss that are massed in marvelous beauty. Nature has arranged her stage in the amphitheater of the hills for some great pageant. All the while you are listening to the rich melody coming from the shadowy depths of hemlock in the direction of Mount Willard. "It seemed as if some unseen Orpheus had strayed to earth and from some remote height was thrumming a divine accompaniment." Here among the majesty and stillness of the White Mountains was a song most fitting and infinitely beautiful to express their loveliness. It seemed to have in it the purity and depth of crystal clear lakes; the solemn and shadowy grandeur of hemlock forests, the faint, far-away spirit music of mountain echoes, the calm serenity of evening skies, the prayers and hopes and longings of all creation. With such a prelude as this did we behold the coming of the dawn. Nature had erected an emerald portal for the triumphal entry of the king of day. The curtains of misty green were drawn back at the signal of some nymph. Between the broken ridges of Mount Clinton and Jackson the sun appeared long after his first beams were old on the opposite side of the mountains.

While the swallows that built their nests beneath the eaves of the Crawford House were busy many hours with their family cares, the card-crazed players and the dancers of the night before were sleeping the troubled sleep of the idlers.