Chapter 2

stood afar off and worshiped toward these holy hills; but the white man clambers gayly up their sides, guide-book in hand, and leaves his sardine box and eggshells--and likely enough his business card--at the top. Let us be thankful, I repeat, for the light vouchsafed to us; ours is a goodly heritage; but there are moods--such creatures of hereditary influence are we--wherein I would gladly exchange both the guide-book and the sardine box for a vision, never so indistinct and transient, of Kitche Manitoo. Alas! what a long time it is since any of us have been able to see the invisible. "In the mountains," says Wordsworth, "did he feel his faith." But the poet was speaking then of a very old-fashioned young fellow, who, even when he grew up, made nothing but a peddler. Had he lived in our day, he would have felt not his faith, but his own importance; especially if he had put himself out of breath, as most likely he would have done, in accomplishing in an hour and forty minutes what, according to the guide-book, should have taken a full hour and three quarters. The modern excursionist (how Wordsworth would have loved that word!) has learned wisdom of a certain wise fowl who once taught St. Peter a lesson, and who never finds himself in a high place without an impulse to flap his wings and crow.

For my own part, though I spent nearly three hours on the less than four miles of mountain path, as I have already acknowledged, I was nevertheless somewhat short-winded at the end. So long as I was in the woods, it was easy enough to loiter; but no sooner did I leave the last low spruces behind me than I was seized with an importunate desire to stand upon the peak, so near at hand just above me. I hope my readers are none of them too old to sympathize with the boyish feeling. At all events, I quickened my pace. The distance could not be more than half a mile, I thought. But it was wonderful how that perverse trail among the boulders did unwind itself, as if it never would come to an end; and I was not surprised, on consulting a guide-book afterwards, to find that my half mile had really been a mile and a half. One's sensations in such a case I have sometimes compared with those of an essay-writer when he is getting near the end of his task. He dallied with it in the beginning, and was half ready to throw it up in the middle; but now the fever is on him, and he cannot drive the pen fast enough. Two days ago he doubted whether or not to burn the thing; now it is certain to be his masterpiece, and he must sit up till morning, if need be, to finish it. What would life be worth without its occasional enthusiasm, laughable in the retrospect, perhaps, but in itself pleasurable almost to the point of painfulness?

It was a glorious day. I enjoyed the climb, the lessening forest, the alpine plants (the diapensia was in full flower, with its upright snowy goblets, while the geum and the Greenland sandwort were just beginning to blossom), the magnificent prospect, the stimulating air, and, most of all, the mountain itself. I sympathized then, as I have often done at other times, with a remark once made to me by a Vermont farmer's wife. I had sought a night's lodging at her house, and during the evening we fell into conversation about Mount Mansfield, from the top of which I had just come, and directly at the base of which the farmhouse stood. When she went up "the mounting," she said, she liked to look off, of course; but somehow what she cared most about was "the mounting itself."

The woman had probably never read a line of Wordsworth, unless possibly, "We are Seven" was in the old school reader; but I am sure the poet would have liked this saying, especially as coming from such a source. _I_ liked it, at any rate, and am seldom on a mountain-top without recalling it. Her lot had been narrow and prosaic,--bitterly so, the visitor was likely to think; she was little used to expressing herself, and no doubt would have wondered what Mr. Pater could mean by his talk about natural objects as possessing "more or less of a moral or spiritual life," as "capable of a companionship with man, full of expression, of inexplicable affinities and delicacies of intercourse." From such refinements and subtleties her mind would have taken refuge in thoughts of her baking and ironing. But she enjoyed the mountain; I think she had some feeling for it, as for a friend; and who knows but she, too, was one of "the poets that are sown by Nature"?

I spent two happy hours and a half at the summit of Lafayette. The ancient peak must have had many a worthier guest, but it could never have entertained one more hospitably. With what softly temperate breezes did it fan me! I wish I were there now! But kind as was its welcome, it did not urge me to remain. The word of the brook came true again,--as Nature's words always do, if we hear them aright. Having gone as high as my feet could carry me, there was nothing left but to go down again. "Which things," as Paul said to the Galatians, "are an allegory."

I was not asked to stay, but I was invited to come again; and the next season, also in June, I twice accepted the invitation. On the first of these occasions, although I was eight days later than I had been the year before (June 19th instead of June 11th), the diapensia was just coming into somewhat free bloom, while the sandwort showed only here and there a stray flower, and the geum was only in bud. The dwarf paper birch (trees of no one knows what age, matting the ground) was in blossom, with large, handsome catkins, while Cutler's willow was already in fruit, and the crowberry likewise. The willow, like the birch, has learned that the only way to live in such a place is to lie flat upon the ground and let the wind blow over you. The other flowers noted at the summit were one of the blueberries (_Vaccinium uliginosum_), Bigelow's sedge, and the fragrant alpine holy-grass (_Hierochloa alpina_). Why should this sacred grass, which Christians sprinkle in front of their church doors on feast-days, be scattered thus upon our higher mountain-tops, unless these places are indeed, as the Indian and the ancient Hebrew believed, the special abode of the Great Spirit?

But the principal interest of this my second ascent of Mount Lafayette was to be not botanical, but ornithological. We had seen nothing noteworthy on the way up (I was not alone this time, though I have so far been rude enough to ignore my companion); but while at the Eagle Lakes, on our return, we had an experience that threw me into a nine days' fever. The other man--one of the botanists of last year's crew--was engaged in collecting viburnum specimens, when all at once I caught sight of something red in a dead spruce on the mountain-side just across the tiny lake. I leveled my glass, and saw with perfect distinctness, as I thought, two pine grosbeaks in bright male costume,--birds I had never seen before except in winter. Presently a third one, in dull plumage, came into view, having been hidden till now behind the bole. The trio remained in sight for some time, and then dropped into the living spruces underneath, and disappeared. I lingered about, while my companion and the black flies were busy, and was on the point of turning away for good, when up flew two red birds and alighted in a tree close by the one out of which the grosbeaks had dropped. But a single glance showed that they were not grosbeaks, but white-winged crossbills! And soon they, too, were joined by a third bird, in female garb. Here was a pretty piece of confusion! I was delighted to see the crossbills, having never before had the first glimpse of them, summer or winter; but what was I to think about the grosbeaks? "Your determination is worthless," said my scientific friend, consolingly; and there was no gainsaying his verdict. Yet by what possibility could I have been so deceived? The birds, though none too near, had given me an excellent observation, and as long as they were in sight I had felt no uncertainty whatever as to their identity. The bill alone, of which I had taken particular note, ought in all reason to be held conclusive. So much for one side of the case. On the other hand, however, the second trio were unmistakably crossbills. (They had been joined on the wing by several others, as I ought to have mentioned, and with their characteristic chattering cry had swept out of sight up the mountain). It was certainly a curious coincidence: three grosbeaks--two males and a female--had dropped out of a tree into the undergrowth; and then, five minutes later, three crossbills--two males and a female--had risen out of the same undergrowth, and taken almost the very perch which the others had quitted! Had this strange thing happened? Or had my eyes deceived me? This was my dilemma, on the sharp horns of which I tried alternately for the next eight days to make myself comfortable.

During all that time, the weather rendered mountain climbing impracticable. But the morning of the 28th was clear and cold, and I set out forthwith for the Eagle Lakes. If the grosbeaks were there, I meant to see them, though I should have to spend all day in the attempt. My botanist had returned home, leaving me quite alone at the hotel; but, as good fortune would have it, before I reached the Profile House, I was overtaken unexpectedly by a young ornithological friend, who needed no urging to try the Lafayette path. We were creeping laboriously up the long, steep shoulder beyond the Eagle Cliff gorge, and drawing near the lakes, when all at once a peculiarly sweet, flowing warble fell upon our ears. "A pine grosbeak!" said I, in a tone of full assurance, although this was my first hearing of the song. The younger man plunged into the forest, in the direction of the voice, while I, knowing pretty well how the land lay, hastened on toward the lakes, in hopes to find the singer visible from that point. Just as I ran down the little incline into the open, a bird flew past me across the water, and alighted in a dead spruce (it might have been the very tree of nine days before), where it sat in full sight, and at once broke into song,--"like the purple finch's," says my notebook; "less fluent, but, as it seemed to me, sweeter and more expressive. I think it was not louder." Before many minutes, my comrade came running down the path in high glee, calling, "Pine grosbeaks!" He had got directly under a tree in which two of them were sitting. So the momentous question was settled, and I commenced feeling once more a degree of confidence in my own eyesight. The loss of such confidence is a serious discomfort; but, strange as it may seem to people in general, I suspect that few field ornithologists, except beginners, ever succeed in retaining it undisturbed for any long time together. As a class, they have learned to take the familiar maxim, "Seeing is believing," with several grains of allowance. With most of them, it would be nearer the mark to say, Shooting is believing.

My special errand at the lakes being thus quickly disposed of, there was no reason why I should not accompany my friend to the summit. Lafayette gave us a cold reception. We might have addressed him as Daniel Webster, according to the time-worn story, once addressed Mount Washington; but neither of us felt oratorically inclined. In truth, after the outrageous heats of the past few days, it seemed good to be thrashing our arms and crouching behind a boulder, while we devoured our luncheon, and between times studied the landscape. For my own part, I experienced a feeling of something like wicked satisfaction; as if I had been wronged, and all at once had found a way of balancing the score. The diapensia was already quite out of bloom, although only nine days before we had thought it hardly at its best. It is one of the prettiest and most striking of our strictly alpine plants, but is seldom seen by the ordinary summer tourist, as it finishes its course long before he arrives. The same may be said of the splendid Lapland azalea, which I do not remember to have found on Mount Lafayette, it is true, but which is to be seen in all its glory upon the Mount Washington range, in middle or late June; so early that one may have to travel over snow-banks to reach it. The two flowers oftenest noticed by the chance comer to these parts are the Greenland sandwort (the "mountain daisy"!) and the pretty geum, with its handsome crinkled leaves and its bright yellow blossoms, like buttercups.

My sketch will hardly fulfill the promise of its title; for our June in Franconia included a thousand things of which I have left myself no room to speak: strolls in the Landaff Valley and to Sugar Hill; a walk to Mount Agassiz; numerous visits--by the way, and in uncertain weather--to Bald Mountain; several jaunts to Lonesome Lake; and wanderings here and there in the pathless valley woods. We were none of us of that unhappy class who cannot enjoy doing the same thing twice.

I wished, also, to say something of sundry minor enjoyments: of the cinnamon roses, for example, with the fragrance of which we were continually greeted, and which have left such a sweetness in the memory that I would have called this essay "June in the Valley of Cinnamon Roses," had I not despaired of holding myself up to so poetic a title. And with the roses the wild strawberries present themselves. Roses and strawberries! It is the very poetry of science that these should be classified together. The berries, like the flowers, are of a generous turn (it is a family trait, I think), loving no place better than the roadside, as if they would fain be of refreshment to beings less happy than themselves, who cannot be still and blossom and bear fruit, but are driven by the Fates to go trudging up and down in dusty highways. For myself, if I were a dweller in this vale, I am sure my finger-tips would never be of their natural color so long as the season of strawberries lasted. On one of my solitary rambles I found a retired sunny field, full of them. To judge from appearances, not a soul had been near it. But I noticed that, while the almost ripe fruit was abundant, there was scarce any that had taken on the final tinge and flavor. Then I began to be aware of faint, sibilant noises about me, and, glancing up, I saw that the ground was already "pre-empted" by a company of cedar-birds, who, naturally enough, were not a little indignant at my poaching thus on their preserves. They showed so much concern (and had gathered the ripest of the berries so thoroughly) that I actually came away the sooner on their account. I began to feel ashamed of myself, and for once in my life was literally hissed off the stage.

Even on my last page I must be permitted a word in praise of Mount Cannon, of which I made three ascents. It has nothing like the celebrity of Mount Willard, with which, from its position, it is natural to compare it; but to my thinking it is little, if at all, less worthy. Its outlook upon Mount Lafayette is certainly grander than anything Mount Willard can offer, while the prospect of the Pemigewasset Valley, fading away to the horizon, if less striking than that of the White Mountain Notch, has some elements of beauty which must of necessity be lacking in any more narrowly circumscribed scene, no matter how romantic.

In venturing upon a comparison of this kind, however, one is bound always to allow for differences of mood. When I am in tune for such things, I can be happier on an ordinary Massachusetts hilltop than at another time I should be on any New Hampshire mountain, though it were Moosilauke itself. And, truly, Fortune did smile upon our first visit to Mount Cannon. Weather conditions, outward and inward, were right. We had come mainly to look at Lafayette from this point of vantage; but, while we suffered no disappointment in that direction, we found ourselves still more taken with the valley prospect. We lay upon the rocks by the hour, gazing at it. Scattered clouds dappled the whole vast landscape with shadows; the river, winding down the middle of the scene, drew the whole into harmony, as it were, making it in some nobly literal sense picturesque; while the distance was of such an exquisite blue as I think I never saw before.

How good life is at its best! And in such

"charmed days, When the genius of God doth flow,"

what care we for science or the objects of science,--for grosbeak or crossbill (may the birds forgive me!), or the latest novelty in willows? I am often where fine music is played, and never without being interested; as men say, I am pleased. But at the twentieth time, it may be, something touches my ears, and I hear the music within the music; and, for the hour, I am at heaven's gate. So it is with our appreciation of natural beauty. We are always in its presence, but only on rare occasions are our eyes anointed to see it. Such ecstasies, it seems, are not for every day. Sometimes I fear they grow less frequent as we grow older.

We will hope for better things; but, should the gloomy prognostication fall true, we will but betake ourselves the more assiduously to lesser pleasures,--to warblers and willows, roses and strawberries. Science will never fail us. If worse comes to worst, we will not despise the moths.

DECEMBER OUT-OF-DOORS.

"December's as pleasant as May." _Old Hymn._

For a month so almost universally spoken against, November commonly brings more than its full proportion of fair days; and last year (1888) this proportion was, I think, even greater than usual. On the 1st and 5th I heard the peeping of hylas; Sunday, the 4th, was enlivened by a farewell visitation of bluebirds; during the first week, at least four sorts of butterflies--Disippus, Philodice, Antiopa, and Comma--were on the wing, and a single Philodice (our common yellow butterfly) was flying as late as the 16th. Wild flowers of many kinds--not less than a hundred, certainly--were in bloom; among them the exquisite little pimpernel, or poor man's weather-glass. My daily notes are full of complimentary allusions to the weather. Once in a while it rained, and under date of the 6th I find this record,--"Everybody complaining of the heat;" but as terrestrial matters go, the month was remarkably propitious up to the 25th. Then, all without warning,--unless possibly from the pimpernel, which nobody heeded,--a violent snow-storm descended upon us. Railway travel and telegraphic communication were seriously interrupted, while from up and down the coast came stories of shipwreck and loss of life. Winter was here in earnest; for the next three months good walking days would be few.

December opened with a mild gray morning. The snow had already disappeared, leaving only the remains of a drift here and there in the lee of a stone-wall; the ground was saturated with water; every meadow was like a lake; and but for the greenness of the fields in a few favored spots, the season might have been late March instead of early December. Of course such hours were never meant to be wasted within doors. So I started out, singing as I went,--

"While God invites, how blest the day!"

But the next morning was pleasant likewise; and the next; and still the next; and so the story went on, till in the end, omitting five days of greater or less inclemency, I had spent nearly the entire month in the open air. I could hardly have done better had I been in Florida.

All my neighbors pronounced this state of things highly exceptional; many were sure they had never known the like. At the time I fully agreed with them. Now, however, looking back over my previous year's notes, I come upon such entries as these: "December 3d. The day has been warm. Found chickweed and knawel in bloom, and an old garden was full of fresh-looking pansies." "4th. A calm, warm morning." "5th. Warm and rainy." "6th. Mild and bright." "7th. A most beautiful winter day, mild and calm." "8th. Even milder and more beautiful than yesterday." "11th. Weather very mild since last entry. Pickering hylas peeping to-day." "12th. Still very warm; hylas peeping in several places." "13th. Warm and bright." "14th. If possible, a more beautiful day than yesterday."

So much for December, 1887. Its unexpected good behavior would seem to have made a profound impression upon me; no doubt I promised never to forget it; yet twelve months later traditionary notions had resumed their customary sway, and every pleasant morning took me by surprise.

The winter of 1888-89 will long be famous in the ornithological annals of New England as the winter of killdeer plovers. I have mentioned the great storm of November 25th-27th. On the first pleasant morning afterwards--on the 28th, that is--my out-of-door comrade and I made an excursion to Nahant. The land-breeze had already beaten down the surf, and the turmoil of the waters was in great part stilled; but the beach was strewn with sea-weeds and eel-grass, and withal presented quite a holiday appearance. From one motive and another, a considerable proportion of the inhabitants of the city had turned out. The principal attraction, as far as we could perceive, was a certain big clam, of which great numbers had been cast up by the tide. Baskets and wagons were being filled; some of the men carried off shells and all, while others, with a celerity which must have been the result of much practice, were cutting out the plump dark bodies, leaving the shells in heaps upon the sand. The collectors of these molluscan dainties knew them as quahaugs, and esteemed them accordingly; but my companion, a connoisseur in such matters, pronounced them not the true quahaug (_Venus mercenaria_,--what a profanely ill-sorted name, even for a bivalve!) but the larger and coarser _Cyprina islandica_. The man to whom we imparted this precious bit of esoteric lore received it like a gentleman, if I cannot add like a scholar. "We _call_ them quahaugs," he answered, with an accent of polite deprecation, as if it were not in the least to be wondered at that he should be found in the wrong. It was evident, at the same time, that the question of a name did not strike him as of any vital consequence. _Venus mercenaria_ or _Cyprina islandica_, the savoriness of the chowder was not likely to be seriously affected.

It was good, I thought, to see so many people out-of-doors. Most of them had employment in the shops, probably, and on grounds of simple economy, so called, would have been wiser to have stuck to their lasts. But man, after all that civilization has done for him (and against him), remains at heart a child of nature. His ancestors may have been shoemakers for fifty generations, but none the less he feels an impulse now and then to quit his bench and go hunting, though it be only for a mess of clams.