Id Him Gently His Back and Stroked Him Beneath

M OUNT CHOCOR UA IN W INTE R

” I D H

A T THE NOR TH OF B E AR CA M P W A TE R

Chron icles of a Stroll er in New En glan d f rom July to December

FRANK BOLLE S

WITH ILL USTB A TION8

BOSTON YORK HOUGHTON M IFFLIN COMPANY

(C b' Wham pm cramming:

CONTENTS.

A THUNDER BTO R M IN THE FOR E ST THE HEAR T on THE MOUNTA IN A LONE LY LAKE FOLLO WING A LOST TR A IL A NIGHT A LONE ON C II OGO E UA B R INGING HOME T HE B EAR ’ THE DEA D TB E E s DA Y

TR A PPING GNOME s

OLD SHA G

’ MY B EA E T G IN THE HIGHLA NDS THE VINT AGE OF THE LEAVES C HOCOR UA IN NOVE MB ER AMONG THE WIND- SWE PT LA KE S ’ ’ LE GT ION DA Y, 92 A WIN TE Y WILDER NE SS CLIMB ING B EA R M OUNTAIN IN THE SNOW IN T HE PA UGUs Woo n s A T T HE FOOT OF PA sSA OONAW A Y CHR ISTMA S A T SA BB A DA Y FA LLS ’ DO WN THE TOR R E NT S PA THWA Y sw arm

o n tain air To drin k the Win e of m u

Beside th e Bearcamp

W HITTIER, ILLUSTR ATIONS;

MOUNT CHOGOR UA IN WINTER WA TE R -LILIE S IN CHOCOR UA LA KE 16 C HOC OR UA PRO M HE R O N POND 28 C ANOE B IR OHE S o r T HE B EA R OA M P VA LLE Y 40 THE PE A K OP CHOGOR UA FR OM TH E HA MMOND TRA IL 64 “ ” THE Co w 68 THE PE AK FR OM THE SOUTHE A ST 72 THE PE A K r R O M TH E NOR TH 76 “ ” IE W FR O TH E CO W HO WING MOA MO N AIN V M , S T U T AND M O UNT PE ' UA WK E T B E YOND 80 THE DEA D TR E E 98 MOUNT CHOGOR UA AND CHOCOR UA LAKE IN SUMME R 1 18 T WO KINDS o r GNOM Es HE SP E R OM YS AND ZA PUS 1 38 PA UGUS FR O M WONA LANCE T ROA D 146 C HOGOR UA SEE N FR O M THE SIDE OF PA UGUS 1 50 WHIT E FA GE A ND PA SSA OONA W A Y FR OM PA UGUS 154 C R O W A N FOR E R T HE OLD DOE FA R 158 L DS, M LY M TWILIGHT ON THE LA KE 174 ’ C HOGOR UA A ND DR . C HADW IOK S PINE S 184 THE PE A K O F C HOGOR UA FR OM BA LD MO UNTA IN MOUNT C HOGORUA PR OM WHITT ON POND “ MOA I E A B R E A ING WA VE T, L K K MOUNT CHOGOR UA AND T HE LA KE IN WIN TE R FR OST-COVER E D SPR UCE NEAR THE SUMMIT or PA SSA OONA WA Y MOA T MOUNTAIN AND THE SWIFT RIVER

AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP

WA TER .

D R T RM IN THE R T A THUN E S O FO ES .

DUR ING nearly the whole of the forenoon of

3 1 892 r i . July , , a soft ain had been fall ng It had begun in the night to the discomﬁture of to t u the whippoorwills , but not the ex ing ish

ment of their voices . It continued until nearly o no n , when the wind shifted from east to west ,

a r patches of blue sky appe red , and eve and anon gleams of sunlight fell upon the distan t

forest across the lake , or slid slowly over the

- tree tops on the side of Chocorua . Bird voices

grew stronger with the promise of fair weather .

- Hermit thrushes , veeries , red eyed vireos , and Maryland yellow-throats sang four invitations

s from as many points of the compa s , and I said

e Yes to the ve ries and sought the swam p . A Ne w Hampshire swamp is full of attractions at

all seasons . In winter the great northern hares a make innumerable p ths across its soft snow, HE H OF B E AR CA M P W 2 A T T NORT ATER.

and tempt the gunner into the chill y gloom in

sear ch of a shot at their phantom forms . In spring a host of migrating warblers makes

-tO s th e merry in its tree p , and the song of win ter wren is sent from heaven to give joy to its

shadows . Summer brings to it many a shy

ﬁs h orchid blooming among the ferns , and the ’ erman ﬁnds the trout in its brook s placid po ols long after they have ceased to bite well in the upper reaches of the stream . There are no venomous serpents hanging from its moss - grown trees , no tigers concealed in its brakes , and no ague lingering in its stagnant pools . It is a safe swamp and kind , yet none the less a swamp .

When I reached its borders, after crossing the meadow, I found wild roses in bloom . It was of these, doubtless , that the veery was sing hi ing so bewitc ngly . Certainly nothing less i fair coul d have prompted such mag c music . ’ Moreover, the veery s nest, framed in nodding n u osmu das , is near these beautif l blossoms , wi th many a pool and thicket between it and hard ground . Passing into the darkness of the

I sk . Th e swamp, glanced back at the y north an d west were ﬁlled with black clouds which

were stirred by passionate winds in their midst . A low growl of thunder came through the heavy

air . I felt as though forbidden to enter the

mysteries of the swamp , as though warned that A TE UNDE R STOR M IN THE F OREST. 3

danger lay within those aisles of twilight . The v eery ceased its song . No bird voice broke the

stillness of the gloom , and a hush of expectation held every leaf motionless . The branches closed behind me and I stole on between lofty trees u with mossy tr nks , over fallen logs , and through f the dripping jungle o ferns . Upland woods

are cleaner, stronger, more symmetrical than wt ff swamp gro h , but they have not the e ect of tropical luxuriance which the swamp forest pos

sesses . The mosses , lichens , ferns of many

- species , climbing vines , and such large leaved

plants as the veratrum and skunk cabbage , give to the moist land an air of wealth of leaf -growth

which is distinctive .

Two species of orchid were conspicuous , ris

e ing just above the ferns . Th y were the pur

- ple fringed , just coming into bloom , and the

white , which was abundant . Splashing back h and fort through the shallow pools , gathering

the spikes of the white orchis , I did not at ﬁrst notice a distant sound which grew in volume u until its s llen vibration could not be ignored .

- i The tree tops above me gave a sudden , v cious

n swish . Crows to the westward were Sawi g

i un mis ~ w ldl y . The roar of the storm became takable ; the swamp grew darker ; a few big l t a drops of rain fel , and then , as though a r in u were pl nging down noisy rails upon the forest, M 4 AT THE NORTH OF B E AR CA P WATER.

the rain and wind leaped upon the trees , ﬁlling af the air with de ening sounds , and twisting the branches until it seemed as though the whole structure of the woods was about to collapse in h n one vast ruin . T e through the tormented

- Th e tree tops the ﬂoods fell . y were white like

snow, and seemed to be a fallen part of a white sky which showed now and then as the forest ’ swayed back and forth in the W ind s arms . as Wet the swamp had been before , its colors

became more vivid under this deluge . Every

leaf grew greener, and each lichen gave out new

r tints as it drank in rain . The t unks of the trees assumed more distinctive shades ; that of of the ash became brown , the yellow birch al k ff most li e sa ron , and of the canoe birch glis

te ning white . The rain pelting into my eyes bade me look less at the sky and mor e at the

beauties at my feet . Beauties there surely were

at my feet, both of color and form . There were

no ﬂowers , but the leaves were enough to satisfy — both eye and mind , large leaves and small , stiﬁ coarse and delicate, strong and feeble , and

d . rooping Some were long and slender, others

deeply cleft, some round , or smoothly oval ,

- others shaped like arrow heads . Some received the rain submissively and bowed more and more

before it , others responded buoyantly as each e drop struck them and was tossed oﬂ . In som

6 AT THE NORTH OF B E AR CA M P WA TER . thunder which is so much more impressive than that in level regions . At first heaven was rent by the sound ; then mountain after mountain a e seemed to f ll in noisy ruin , the great ledg s tumbling in upon each other with deafening shocks ; then the sound rolled away through the n sky, striki g here and there upon some cloudy promontory and giving out a softened boom or waning rumble . For full twenty minute s the trees writhed in W the ind , the rain fell , the leaves nodded and shivered under the drops , and the rhythmic roar of the rain was broken irregularly by the thun der . As time passed , the shower slackened, the thunder followed the lightning at longer and t longer in ervals , the wind seemed to take deeper e and less nervous breaths, and I list ned to dis cover what creature of the swamp would first raise its voice above the subsiding storm . A d mosquito hovered before me , dodging the rops in its vibratory flight . If it was buzzing I could not hear it . Suddenly a single call from ull a blue jay came , in a l of the wind , from a “ thicket of spruces . Yoly it said , and was silent again . I took a few steps forward , and the shrill alarm -note of a chipmunk sounded through the gloom . I strolled slowly through the drenched and dripping woods fragrant with e the perfume of moss and mould . It was mor A TH UNDERSTORM IN THE F OREST. 7

a i f had like wading th n walk ng , for every lea a drop of cold water ready to give away to un i whatever ﬁrst touched it . A ray of s l ght dodged through the lifting clouds and fell into the swamp . The song of a parula warbler,

ll S . disti ed by it , ﬂoated back kyward As the

- west grew golden and blue , bird songs sounded from every quarter . The merry chickadees , al l e conversation vireos , and queru ous wood p wees vied with each other and the tree - toads in replacing the orchestral passion of the storm by

the simple music of their solos .

Leaving the swamp , I climbed the terrace

marking the ancient border of the lake , which c on e included the swamp in its area , and passed

through a grove of slender birches and poplars .

Their stems , streaming with rain , were as a bright as polished m rble , and their foliage , l e i luminat d by the clear sunlight , was marvel k o usly gree n against the deep blue of the s y .

Presently a vista opened northward , and at its

end rose the dark peak of Chocorua . After a rain thi s towering rock presents a noticeably f dif erent appearance from its normal coloring.

Most of its surface is covered by lichens , one

species of which , when dry , resembles burnt

paper . When rain falls upon these lichens they u in alter their tints , and the b rnt paper species particular becomes so green that a wonderful 8 A T THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WATER. change takes place in the whole coloring of the mountain . Looked upon through the birch vista , the air being clear and clean , and the l colors of the mountain uncommon y bright, the a peak seemed near at h nd , and even grander h than usual . There are few t ings in New Eng land as trul y picturesque as this horn of Cho corua . Three thousand feet above its lake and r the level of the Saco , the g eat rock lifts itself with bold and naked outline into the midst of the sky . No foot seems able to creep up its e precipitous slop s to its dizzy tip , and even the sturdy spruce can cling on ly to the deep clefts

- in its storm swept ledges . There was a time when the forest reached to its crest, and when the cold rocks , now naked , were covered deep in soil and mosses . Passaconaway, close by, shows how this could have been , and how Cho corua must have looked draped in evergreens . Fir e and hurricane destroyed the tr ees ; the parched soil was washed away from the rocks ; and now the only trace of the old forest gr owth is an occasional bleached stump or log hidden in a cleft in the ledges . As I str olled homewards I pas sed a spot where the linnaea has covered several square yards of ground in a bir ch wood . The tiny bells had rung out their elﬁn music for the year . By dint of labo rious search on hands and knees A TH UNDERSTORM IN THE F OREST.

n ull I fou d eight of the ﬂowers , still wonderf y fragrant though somewhat faded . All the rest t of the chime had fallen . Not far away a grow h of dogbane fringed the path . I picked some of its blossoms and held the two sets of bell s side a by side in my h nd . The comparison made me feel sorry for the dogbane . THE HE RT OF M OUNT IN A THE A .

FLOA TING upon the clear waters of Chocorua k in La e the latter part of a warm July afternoon , and looking northward , I see the coolness of night beginning to grow in the heart of the i mounta n . At first there is but a slender dark line marking a deep ravine , through which a brook flows ; then the shadow widens until a great hollow in the mountain ’ s side is fil led with shade . As the sun sinks the shadow reaches higher and higher upon the wooded flanks of the two spurs which hold the hollow betwee n them , until at last only the vast rock of the

e - is p ak, resting upon its forest clad shoulders , ’ left warm in the sun s rays . The point where the shadow begins to form is more than a thou

th of . sand feet above e level the lake From it, re achIn g upwards , two folds in the forest dra pery extend towards the foot of the peak . One marks a brook coming from the upper part of

- the right hand ridge , the other a brook which

- rises at the very head of the left hand, or west ridge . The heart of the mountain is the wild ravine where these two streams min gle in per H H T E EART OF THE M O UNTAIN.

etual s to p coolness and shadow . No path lead it and few are the feet whi ch have found a way l to its beauties . There is a pecu iar charm in a en spot unknown to the many . Its loneliness its s dears it to the mind, and gives a sociations

a rarer ﬂavor . If besides being unfrequented a it is singul rly beautiful in itself, it becomes a ’ c . shrine , a pla e sacred to one s best thoughts

To me the heart of Chocorua is a shrine , all the more valued because of the weariness of

ﬂesh required to attain to it . l 1 0 Early on the morning of Ju y , I set out

across the pastures for th e foot of the mountain .

The sun was hot , the air hazy , and not a breath

of a breeze made the aspens quiver . In the shaded hollows something of the night ’ s chill lm still lingered , and from them ﬂoated the psa

of the hermit and the gypsy music of the vee ry .

hmbe - Now and then the clear, cool p note of the car chickadee reached the , in contrast to the trill of the ﬁeld sparrows which came from the

- n ll warmest parts of the grass land . O the hi to the westward young crows with high - pitched voices clamored for food , and quarreled with

each other on their shady perch in the beeches . The ﬂowers which bloomed by the path were i m . ch ldren of heat , types of midsum er Buds ’ - on . ohn s were large the goldenrod , the St J wort l o was in ful bl om , and so , too , were the diurnal H B E A R A M 1 2 AT THE NORT OF C P WATER.

- ﬂeaban e evening primrose , the and dogbane ,

r r r both wo thy of sweeter names ; the ya ow , as disagreeable among ﬂowers as a cynic is among men ; the tall potentilla, yellow clover, and, rep resenting the purple ﬂowers , the brunella . In

of many places thick beds checkerberry , decked with brilliant berries , were made gayer by many heads of the brunella growing through them . ' The brunella is shaped somewhat like the con v en tion al chess castle , but the castle is never quite complete while blossoming , owing to the lack of harmony among the many little ﬂowers

r which unite to fo m its head . Low, running blackberry dotted the banks with un interesting f f a white blossoms , and the sti spikes of the spir ea were abundant . The daisy , stigmatized as white weed by the indignant farmers , still displayed a few battered blossoms , which kept company with heads of red and of white clover . After of passing these ﬂowers summer, it seemed

- strange , on descending into a deep cup shaped basin where a small pond fed by spr ings is a sh ded by lofty oaks and birches , to ﬁnd the houstonia still in full glory, and the dwarf cor nel blooming i n dark and mossy nooks . Ani mate nature takes solid comfort in a hot day . As I stole softly downward to the shore of the little pond , scores of tadpoles shot away from th e edge of the water into its green depths .

1 4 AT THE NORTH OF B E AR CA M P WA TER . and its tawny sister the pine sap ( M on otr op a

o yit s . r hyp z y ) The wintergreens are st ong, posi l tive herbs with rich pungent flavor, but the pa e parasitic plants are mere negations . They are “ the poor relations among flowers , content to draw their sustenance from others , while show ing no color , giving out no perfume , attracting no butterflies , and not even daring to face the

blue sky until they are dead . The oven - bird stepped primly about upon h er

of - neat carpet dry leaves , the red eyed vireo preached his perpetual homily fr om the tree ’ a r tops , young Cooper s hawk screamed sh illy

- a in the distance , and two inquisitive red c pped sapsuckers hitched up and down tree -trunks near

me , while I hooted at them after the manner

of my barred owls . A grouse had been wallow

ing among the leaves , and had left a round hol low in the dust with ﬁve discarded feathers and the prints of her feet to show that she had been

- . ama s lva ica there R y t , the wood frog , betrayed

himself by leaping over the dry beech leaves . I

followed him quickly as he sought to elude me . l l Not on y were his leaps long , but his skil in

doubling was something marvelous . His second jump was generally at right angles with the

ﬁrst , and thrice he no sooner struck the ground

than he turned and rebounded upon his tracks ,

so that he passed over or between my feet. THE HEART OF THE M O UNTAIN.

When he was weary I caught him and , laying him n on my k ee , stroked the nape of his neck , his back and sides . He soon ceased to struggle on and sat motionless . I laid him gently his back and stroked him beneath . His throat h hi s t robbed and eyes blinked , but he made no

effort to escape . Then I restored him to his proper position , and extended one leg after

other . He was as pliable and nerveless as a ll al rubber frog . Fina y I let him one , wonder ing how soon he would hop away ; but he showed l k a wi lingness to spend the day on my nee , and not until I placed him on the leaves did he seem to awaken to life and the advantages of free

dom . me A few rods beyond , a toad hopped from and I foll owed him to see what method of escape

he woul d ad opt . As soon as he saw that he was pursued he increased his speed and by a series of rapid hops reached a cavern under the arched root of a stump and plunged out of sight in its

. of depths Our toads , although but a single

species , vary in color from black to the paleness

of a dry beech leaf . This one , living in the a l midst of p le browns and yel ows , was nearly as light in tone as the light-footed R an a sylva

tica. The color of the dry beech leaves as they lie upon the ground is sometimes curiously be A 1 6 AT THE NORTH OF B E AR C M P WATER . witched by the spots of sunl ight which dapple the woodland carpet . Walking with the sun behind me , the sunlight , especially where it fell in small round spots on th e beech leaves before

me , was of an unmistakably amethystine hue . al Sever years ago when I ﬁrst noticed this , I e supposed it to be due to t mporary causes , but I am now convinced that the color will al ways be distin guishable when the condi tions named

are favorable . The loveliest Jul y ﬂower in the woods fring

ing Chocorua is the mitchella , named by Lin In n ze us for Dr . John Mitchell of Virginia . al their sm l round leaves of dark glossy green ,

their creeping stems , their modest , delicate

- r tinted and highly pe fumed blossoms , the ﬂower of Linnaeus and the ﬂower of Mitchell are much

- . r a alike The part idge berry, as the mitchell

is commonly called, begins to bloom just as the a linn ea bells cease to swing . It is an ever al l t green , and through the win er its bright green leaves and red berries are one of the pledges of returning life after snow and ice have

vanished . The ﬂower is small and faces the

sky . It is white with a delicate rosy blush

tinging its corolla , chieﬂy on its outer side . The four pointed petals open wide and curve

back, exposing the whole interior of the ﬂower

to view. Each petal is covered on its inner

THE HEA RT OF THE M O UNTA IN. 1 7

surface with . a thick velvety nap which is the a distinguishing ch racteristic of the blossom . Th e perfume of this ﬂower is both powerful and

pleasant . When freshly picked it suggests the

- in scent of the water lily, coupled with someth g as spicy and enduring as the heavier perfume of

heliotrope . Fifteen or twenty minutes ’ walking over the beech leaves brought me within hearing of the torrent which ﬂows from the heart of the moun s d tain . Pre ently I came to the e ge of its cut

ting and saw far below me , through the trees e which ﬁlled the gorge, the ﬂash of its wat rs k u and the vivid green of mosses . Wal ing p

r al a of an st eam ong the f ce the b k , yet neither i r of climbing nor descend ng, I st uck the level

the wate r at a po int not many rods distant . I had not gone down to the brook ; it had come was its up to me . The whole ravine ﬁlled with

music , and following down with its eager ﬂow

was a current of cold air . Above , in the woods ,

quiet and heat had prevailed . Here noise and Th e co olness rul ed with absolute sway . sound a c me in waves as did the water and the breeze , but no human senses could measure the inter vals between the beats . The sound seemed threefold , a splash , a murmur, and a deeper

roar . The ro ar reached me even if I pressed e my hands tightly over my ears while , if I mad H H B E A R A M 1 8 A T T E NORT OF C P WATER .

- ear trumpets of my hands , the splashing thus intensiﬁed drowned the heavier sounds . The rhythm of the water was most prettily shown on a boulder faced with thick moss . When the high water came it poured over the top of the rock , and the moss was ﬁlled with white shining drops coursing downward through it ; i i but, on the reaction , it nstantly became v vid green . The same pulsation showed in each a cascade , which was greater then less , gre ter then less , in each second of time . As I bent over a pool , taking now and then a sip of the

ll m r icy water , a sma trout suddenly ju ped nea the foot of the fall below . He was intensely busy working about in the edge of the falling

r W wate , here rising bubbles and whirling foam

un half concealed him . In color he looked not a like beech leaf, and he moved so constantly that only an attentive eye could distinguish him fr om the waste of the stream whirled about in the eddies . I cast him some moss and mould , and he darted hither and thither in the water clouded by it , snapping up bits of food or specks which he mistook for food . His eagerness and restlessness seemed born of the restlessness of the stream and the keen temperature of the water in which he lived . There was something of the impressiveness of the sea in this mountain brook . The sea rolls

H B E AR A M P 20 AT THE NORT OF C WATER. into a black cavern beneath , making a whirlpool in the darkness . The temperature under this ledge was nearly forty degrees lower than on a the top of the bank a few yards above . St nd a ing by the ledge , I counted nine distinct casc des six varying from three to feet in height . One o f l them was an ideally symmetrica fall , for the whole body of water, gathered between two rocky faces , fell into a deep round pool just at l h its centre . Another fa l s owed clearly why the s water under a ca cade looks white . The water ad poured into a very bro , deep basin at its upper corner, leaving most of the surface undisturbed ; and between the limpid fall ing water and the ﬂat face of rock behind it air was caught and sucked downward by the ﬂow . It was carried to the very bottom of the pool , where , breaking

sur into small round bubbles , it struggled to the

r an d - face . St ings masses of snow white bub bles ﬁlled the area in front and at each side of the fall , while some were drawn some distance

- down stream by the escaping water . These bubbles , when under water , produced the white ness of the pool , and , on reaching the surface , burst and made a large part of its foam and

. this ool r spray In p , as in many othe s , small trout hovered about the edge of the rising bub i bles , seizing upon everything which looked l ke food . They rose wi th charming promptness to THE H H E M EART OF T O UNTA IN. anything resembling a ﬂy which I tossed upon the surface of the foam .

r As I neared the hea t of the mountain I saw, towering above twin cascades which fell into a single pool at its feet , the rough likeness of a

n i sphi x . It was a huge boulder , divid ng the

- torrent by its lichen covered mass , and lifting its frost-hewn face to wards the narrow strip of

r r sky left between the trees ove a ching the ravine . Close above the sphinx a spring in the easte rn bank ﬁlled a hollow in the hill with cold, fern ul decked mud . A ﬂower I never sho d have sought in this lofty nook had taken po ssession of the spot and rais ed hundreds of its white spikes towards the sky . It was a white orchis ,

en Hab ari a dilatata. In a space six feet by

-five in ten , I counted seventy of its plants , each full bloom . On the edges of this miniature swamp the leaves of the m ayflower mingled with those of the linnaea . The blossoms of the may flower s were dry and brown ; those of the lin n aea r , with one frag ant exception , had fallen .

- of Close by, the open eyed ﬂowers the oxalis

- smiled from their beds of clover shaped leaves .

A few rods farther up the stream , the land grew steeper and the walls of the ravine drew more closely together . Taller trees presided u w over the torrent, and the water str ggled do n

l . r ward between larger bou ders A st eam , tum 22 A T THE NORTH OF B E AR CA M P WA TER .

bling down its narrow bed , came from the high eastern ledges and met that which pour ed from

. t the heights on the west Here , in the perpe ual

o f r r music falling d ops , whe e one or another of the gr eat walls of the gorge always casts a deep w shado upon the ferns , is the heart of the moun

i . tain , the birthplace of the twil ght Early in the afternoon I followed the western

r l stream to its source , where, in a da k hol ow at the head of the west ridge , hidden wholly from view by the forest, lies a small mountain lake . Perhaps it would be more truthful to cal l it a

n l large pool , fed as it is mai y by melting snow o r the streams of rain -water poured into it from ll the crags of Chocorua . Beneath its sha ow water the maroon and dark green sphagnum

formed a submerged carpet of intense colors .

- The growing tops of the moss , star shaped and

of . r r erect , glowed with the tint life The bo de s o f the pool were fringed with dense growths of yellow - green Osmun da r egalis which wer e

r swayed by a sweet wind . Th ough the soft foli

r r age of the deciduous trees su ounding the pool , lance - shaped spruces and balsams pierced a way

r for themselves towards the sky . No ﬁsh we e

visible in the pool , and its only living tenants seemed to be some tadpoles about the size of

- r squash seeds . Now that the noises of the b ook

no longer overwhelmed every other sound , the THE HEART OF THE M O UNTA IN. 2 3

r - songs of bi ds could be heard . Red eyed and

i - - solitary v reos , oven birds , a black throated blue warbler, a hermit thrush , and another

r th ush which was neither hermit nor veery , wer e singing either in the woods close by or among the small spruces which crowned the adjoining ledges . I climbed to the to p of the nearest ledge in search of the thrush , and gained not only the full beneﬁt of his song , but

r a view of many a mile of the fai lake country ,

Be ar cam the p valley, and the rugged peaks of uiv the Sandwich range . The air was full of q

ering heat and hazy midsummer softness . Over

OssI ee s o f B ear cam the shoulder of the p , south p

W in n e e Water, sparkled Squam Lake and p

l s saukee . The hayﬁe d of Sandwich wer e bak ’ N ing under the sun s ﬁerce heat . orth of them

began the mountains , Black Mountain in the

edge of Campton , Whiteface , Passaconaway, u and, nearer at hand , Paug s , towards which all

the western ridges of Chocorua were tending . The sun being over and beyond these wooded a mountains , they were very d rk , lacking in de

tail , but clearly outlined against one another . Northwar d and just above me the cliff s of the

Chocorua horn hung in the sky . The lichens

r on the crag were dry and ve y black . Tower f ing into the air, ledge upon ledge , and cli f over cliﬁ , the peak was like a huge citadel defying H B E A R ’AM P 24 AT THE NORT OF C WATER.

d attack . I had climbe upon the shoulders of the mountain , but its proud head, held high , was still out of reach . The thrush was one which is common upon

r the uppe slopes of the mountains , wholly re placing the veery there and probably outn i un

n r : Its beri g the he mit song , while pleasing , is

al of not as music ly beautiful as that the hermit , ’ n nor yet as u ique as the veery s . The hermit

r o n e has three distinct ph ases , the veery , and ’ al Swainson s sever which are not distinct , but rather jumbling reproductions of the same notes .

If this bird had learned his song for himself, I shoul d surmise that he had listened closely to a

r r vee y and a thrashe , and then tried to model a combination of their notes upon the lines of the ’ r hermit s exquisite song . Pe haps it was the an d l l th e or heat the g are of ight on ledges , perhaps it was a certain dullness in the Swain ’ son s song, at all events I wearied of it and i d sought a h gher le ge beyond the pool . ll Kalmia au On this higher ledge , lambki (

’ ust olza g if ) was blooming in great abundance .

It is a handsome ﬂower , and it goes a little way to console us for not having mountain laurel . Between two great patches of lambkill and

ﬂowering diervilla was a level strip of gravel . It bore printed on its face an inte resting his B tory . eginning near the edge of a thicket THE H R THE M EA T OF O UNTAIN.

i and extending to the edge of the cl ff , where a view of miles of surroun ding country coul d be

- obtained , was a line of sharp hoof marks . A deer had walked slowly to the verge of the th e ledge , presumably to survey landscape . The tr ack had been made since the rain of the

f or day before , and , all that I could see , might

have been made within an hour . While study ing it I heard an unfamiliar bir d- song remind ’ i - o ing me sl ghtly of the Maryland yellow thr at s . e Th e bird was in the thicket . I cr pt towards

him . , but he retreated , singing at intervals

After following for some time , I tried working “ hi s a on sympathies, and sque ked like a bird in di stress . Instantly a ﬂash of vivid yellow came through the trees and a magniﬁcent mal e magnolia or black and yellow warbler appe ared in search of the supposed suff erer . His mate soon joined him , as did a junco and two white of throated sparrows . The coloring the mag

- n olias is certainly gay . It includes blue gray

- on the head , black on the back, canary yellow b eneath and on the rump , with white and dark bars , stripes , and spots enough on various parts of his body to make him as variegated as a har

While the magnolia warblers are members of an the Canadi fauna , and seldom seen in the e br eding season south of the White Mountains , A T H B E A R A M P A 26 THE NORT OF C W TER . the bird which I next heard singing was even more interesting . It was a mal e blackpoll

r wa bler, perched upon the highest plume of a spruce and pouring out his unmusical z e-se -s e ’ - r a se se with all a lover s ea nestness . He cle rly consider ed two thousand feet rise on Chocorua equival ent to several hundred miles ’ ﬂight

towar ds Labr ador . In this the ﬂowers sus tain ed him , for growing near by was the charm

A r en ar ia r aen l an dica ing g , with its cluster of

r i delicate white ﬂowers sp ing ng from the sand ,

an d P ten tilla r iden the o t tata blooming freely . Apparently dissenting from this bor eal majority f was a bunch o goldenrod in full bloom . It was a mountain species which comes into ﬂower a fortnight or more earlier than its lowland rel

atives . My homeward path followed the crest of the great eastern ridge of Chocorua as it descends

towards the basin of Chocorua ponds . The

ridge is narrow and mainly open , save for a few

- stunted spruces . In every direction far reach ing and beautiful views charmed me and

tempted me to linger . From the last of the B open ledges , the top of what is called ald

Mountain , I saw the sun set just behind the

peak . Then with quickened pace I entered the forest and ran thr ough the gathering gloom down the rough path to the pastures a mile be

low .

H B E AR A M 28 AT THE NORT OF C P WATER. upper and larger belt of light made a sharp bend inward a few degrees above the horizon , and to a less deﬁned extent the smal ler arch was similarly shaped . The effect of thi s curve at the base of the two bows was very r emarka d ble , for it destroye the image of an arch and created the impr ession that one was looking into the inner curve of a ring which surroun ded the

t r earth , just as the rings of Sa urn enci cle that

n planet . Gradually the lower ri g faded , the upper on e settled down closer and closer to Chocorua ; masses of electric ener gy seemed to

r dart across the eastern sky , where Si ius and

the fair Pleiades gleamed , to the moon and

Mars sailing serenely on their westward way . Behind Pequawket the lowest line of sky grew

an d white . The dawn was coming , , as though

to avoid it, the hurrying beams and ﬂashing waves of aurora moved faster and faster until in

their dimness they could scarce be seen . Snowy mists raised their phanto m forms from the lake

and ﬂoated eastward to meet the sun . A whip i poorw ll sang his last song to the night , and as the glow of day grew more real a hermit thrush told in its heartfelt music the joy of life at the

birth of a new period of labor . A scrap of mist which trailed over the forest just at the foot of one of the ridges of Chocorua was the spirit of a lonely lake rising to do hom CHOCOR UA F R OM HE R ON P OND

A L ONE L Y K LA E.

- age to the day star . This lake is a rendezvous for all that is wildest and freest in the animal

l . ufﬁ ife of the region It is s cient unto itself,

r and yields no tribute save to its lo d the sun . A l round it , high glacia walls stand , crowned l with ancient oaks and gracefu birches . No

n stream ﬂows from it , or into it , u less threads of ice - cold water coming from springs in its

r . ar e banks are called st eams Its waters deep, ﬁ n a the sherman , so they say, ﬁ ding pl ces in its t cen re where long lines reach no bottom . Seen

c in from the peak of Cho orua , this lake , even as November, is as green an emerald , and when one ﬂoats upon its surface and gaz es far down

- into its depths , rich green water weeds are seen

u r stretching their trem lous ﬁngers towa ds him , and crowding each other for standing - room on its muddy ﬂoor . Many are the days I have spent at this lonely

an d lake learning the secrets of its tenants , this e l morning , soon aft r the aurora beauties had a faded from the sky, I c me to it while the dew

r sparkled on the ferns . D ifting with the wind on the water , or stretched on the soft mosses which ﬂourish under the birches , I stayed by the lake until evening . If an observer keeps i still , it matters little whether he sits h dden under the spreading branches of a great oak on e the the shore , or lies upon a raft anchor d in H B E AR CA M P 3 0 AT THE NORT OF WATER .

r lake , he is sure to see something inte esting in

. On e r either case mo ning , as I leaned against ’ r the oak s wide t unk , watching a bittern on the opposite shore , I noticed that the bird showed signs of uneasiness , paying more heed to the bushes than to its ﬁshing . Suddenly the cause of its unrest became apparent . The bushes just behind it wer e slowly poked apart and the

r head of a fox appea ed . With a guttural note of alarm the bittern rose and ﬂew across the a l ke , above the trees on the opposite bank , and out of sight . Reynard , graceful and alert , stood upon the mossy shore for a moment , look ing after his lost opportunity ; then tur ned

n abruptly and vanished in the under br ush . A

r other morning , while I was unde the same tree , a big blue heron came softly stepping al ong the beach towards me . He was a comical

ﬁgure , with his attenuated legs , wasted to the

r semblance of rushes ; his extensible neck , exp es sive of centur ies of hungry reaching after the partly attainable ; and his long beak as cruel as

of a pair of shears . His dull eyes told terror when he saw me . For a moment I felt their

rr r wo ied gla e , and then the quaint machinery of the bird was put in motion and he ﬂapped oﬁ out of sight .

One still , cloudy afternoon in August, I lay upon a raft of weather -beaten logs and mossy A LONEL Y LA KE. 3 1

t ﬁtf ul boards , wa ching the sky and listening to

r - an occasional bi d note , when suddenly my eyes were drawn to the north shore of the lake by

r m a seeing a branch of g een leaves swim ing , p

ar en tl p y unaided , along the surface of the water . After progressing for forty or ﬁfty feet it disappeared under the ripples . A mystery , ’ r trul y . A few moments later a musk at s head

r rose above the water, and the creatu e swam back to the point fr om which the leaves had

. L started eaving the lake cautiously, the rat crawled clumsily up the bank into the bushes . After a minute or two it came waddling out

r bearing a second b anch of ash , and this, too , ﬂoated along the placid sur face of the lake until ’ abruptly drawn down into the rat s burrow in L e the submerged bank . ater in the aft rnoon I noticed a V - shaped ripple plowing across th e

r r n lake from the southe n sho e . O it came , a i small , dark object being at its po nt, parting the water steadily . As it drew near the raft I saw that the dar k spot was the head of another

r muskrat , whose cou se was shaped straight for the hole into which his mate had been carrying ash branches . He passed quite close to me

r e without ala m , and a minute or two lat r the ripple ceased as the rat sank below the water a few yards from the mouth of the hole . l The same still , cloudy day , a brownish b ack ’ M 32 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CA P WATER . creature appeared on the southern shore of the lake and ambled along the edge of the water . tt At ﬁrst glance it looked like a black ki en , but a plainer view showed it to be twice the length of a kitten , although no larger round than a ’ man s wrist . Its progress at times was almost

- snake like , so undulatory was it . Its head and fore - quarters would be gliding down one side of a log before its black tail and hind feet had quite reached the log on the other side . The edge of the pond was lined with tadpoles cling

r ing to logs and stones , with thei heads towards the shore . The black creature seemed to be

ﬁsh - attempting to catch these like batrachians, for every few yards he pounced at something, ul and , if successf , cantered out of sight , into

un the weeds and bushes, where he remained til , so I surmised , he had eaten his adolescent Al nl frog . though the raft was o y about a hun dred feet from the western shore of the pond , the mink kept his course past me , apparently without a thought of anything beyond the wary ol p ywogs . He went as far as the mouth of the muskrat hole and then turned and retraced his can tering until I lost sight of him on the farther al hi s southern shore . Sever times , in eagerness to catch a tadpole , he plunged wholly beneath the water and pursued his prey as though he had been a pickerel .

34 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WATER . tion of the harvest and conceal it in their bur

r rows . Chickaree , too , is the e , nervous , petu lant, and noisy , but he is more likely to be found in the pines , or near the butternuts . In winter, especially, the pine woods are alive with

s uir red squirrels . I recall seeing twenty red q rels in a single midwinter day . Chipmunks may be seen late in December, and by the end

of of February , if it is warm , and the mouths their holes are not covered by snow , they are ready to take a peep at the sky . They store enormous quantities of food , and the heat and moisture of their nests is such that they can eat corn sprouts and acorn shoots in midwinter while poor Chickaree is scratching about in the cold snow for an unnibbled pine cone . The gray squirrels are fond of the high - bush blue e in an b rries , which grow abund ce on the mar gins of the pond . They come down from the oaks to the great fall en trees lying half on the f ak shore and hal in the l e , and bask in the sun

i of run light, dr nk the water, and up and down th e logs with tails arched and waving behind them . The home of the porcupines is west of the th e pond on the slope of a heavily wooded hill , sides of which are encumber ed by very large

boulders . Beneath one of the largest of these

boulders and overhung by one almost as large , A K LONEL Y LA E . w ’ hich rests against its mate , is the porcupines den . By lying down between the rocks and crawling forward into the mouth of the den I can see several feet into its black interior . A passage large enough for a hound to squeeze through leads out of sight below the rocks .

' uills and hairs line the ground , and other marks of long occupancy are abundant . I have been told by far mers that they had kill ed old

hedgehogs weighing nearly ﬁfty pounds .

Tales are told of white porcupines , and it is ’ impossible to shake the hunter s belief in the brutes ’ power to shoot their quills at their enemies . The skunk is a well - known character at the t pond , but I have not sought her socie y , and it is an open question whether she lives in a de ser ted woodchuck hole or among the boulders ’ on the porcupine s hill .

So far as I know , Bruin never comes to my pond . He lives within sight of it among the oaks and blueberry patches on the ledges of

Chocorua, and if his small eyes ever scan the landscape from the cliff s above the heart of the m mountain , he can see its emerald water glea

r w ing in the sunlight . I am mo e than illing not to ﬁnd his huge footprints on my mosses . f re Deer, on the other hand , go freely and M a quently to the pond , and in y and June come to the garden patch below my cottage . ' 36 A T THE NORTH OF B E AR CA M P WATER . Wings even more than feet bring wild life to

r the lonely lake . The first time that I eve saw the wate r s of the pond flashing and rippling in the sunlight, wings awoke the echoes of the basin as a flock of black ducks rose at my com ing and vanished behind the oaks . Wood ducks nested for years in a hollow oak by the shore .

O n e bright October morning a black tern , borne by storm or waywardness of wing , came to the lake with five black ducks . That tiny mirror in the dee p woods seemed to pleas e the weary se a- bird , for it rested there many hours , and even when al armed circled for a while in the sky and then returned to the spot Where Choco ’ rua s horn was reflected in the mountain pool . The great numbers of tadpoles and frogs always to be found in the lake attract not only the great blue heron and the bitterns , but also the night herons , which sometimes come in flocks of eight or ten to fish in the lakes of this region . Early in August of each year a kingfisher ap pears at the pond and passes much of hi s time by it . There are certain dry branches upon i wh ch he perches one after another in order, as he circles roun d the pond utter ing his harsh rattling cry . I suspect that fishing of the same

r kind goes on after da k , for the lake is a favor e ite resort of the barred owls , whos trumpet a tones are he rd nightly at certain seasons . K A LONEL Y LA E. 3 7 More than once I have seen them on branches

r above the wate , or ﬂoating on noiseless wing

r from shore to sho e . The fondness of this o wl r for frogs and ﬁsh is remarkable , particula ly

ak . for hornpout , which abound in this l e I have known my captive owls to strike a ﬁsh with their talons when it was several inches below the sur

o f face the water in a tank . Many a time as I have been hidden by shel

tering boughs , scanning the lake and its shores da w for signs of life , I have seen a rk shado

e r r - glide across the wat , and then a b oad winged bird alight noiselessly on a dead limb from which the whole sur face of the lake could

be seen . Its face would express cruelty and

hunger , apprehension and something akin to

remorse . The eyes of a hawk are full of mean ing ; they tell the stor y of guilt and of the eter

nal miser y of spirit which follows guilt . The hawks which come to my pond are of several bute s species , including the slow o , which one sees cir cling by the hour in the high skies ; the

acci iter s dangerous p , so ruthless in their raids upon poul try and small birds ; and the low

ul - n ﬂying, gracef , mouse hu ting marsh hawk,

readily to be known by its white rump . At evening the whippoorw ills and their cousins the

- at night hawks frequent the lake . Just twilight I have heard six whippoorwills at once singing 38 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WA TER .

f their strange song on the edge o the water . Per haps they come there to bathe ; at all events l f they sing on y for a moment , a ter which only an occasional cluck or whip betrays their

- presence . Late in August the night hawks ﬂy

-ﬁ in large companies , and as many as twenty ve have sometimes wheeled into the lake ’ s basin and circled over it, to the consternation of the smal l frogs .

B in ehind the great oaks , which scarlet tana gers breed , there is a level overgrown with gray birches . Nearly a dozen of these trees have been converted into drinking fountains by a

- family of sap sucking woodpeckers , and through the summer days , as long as the sap is sweet and

r u abundant , the indolent bi ds cling to the tr nk , ’ sip the tree s lifeblood as it drains away, and catch a few of the many insects which hover around the moist bark . The product of the

- trees is shared with several humming birds , and the insects attract small ﬂycatch er s and war

bler s . To tell of all the birds which either live near a the l ke or come to it more or less regularly, woul d be to recount the doings of most of the six - score species which are found in the Choco rua country . The lake is not only a favorite

f or ' r e siden t place of resort birds , but it is a section of one of those diml y recogniz able A K A LONEL Y L E. 39

lines of migration along which bands of spring and autumn birds seem by instinct to “ take their way year by year . On this line , above the lake shore , I met my ﬁrst and only a on e o ur Phil delphia vireo , of the rarest of migrants . The vegetation of the lake shore has a great deal to do with its power to attract animal and bird life . I know of some woods which ar e for ever silent to bird voices , and in which the snows of winter seem untrodden by any foot save mine . The lake was once in the heart of a white pine w forest . Scores of huge stumps sho where the giant trees lived until a tornado overturned

r them . Now the canoe birch is the p evailing tree , and few creations of the New England soil l c al can riva it in gra e , beauty , and useful qu i ’ ties . The forest s carpet of gray and green W ae mosses , intergreen , checkerberry , linn a, an d dwarf cornel , asters and goldenrod , ferns brakes , is strangely lacking in one ﬂower gen

r e ally common to the region . I have searched for half a mile in every direction from the pond and failed to ﬁnd more than one root of the may

. r e ﬂower That oot , with its three or four clust rs of ﬂowers , is well hidden in a deeply shaded and

r r u r poo ly wate ed spot, where its f tu e is threat ened by a lack of all the elements which make plant life prosperous . Near this solitary root H B E AR CAM P 40 AT THE NORT OF WATER.

of mayﬂower there grows an eccentric blueberry

i r i bush , wh ch bears pale pink and white be r es

r very sweet to the taste , but which neve grow

blue . Here , too , is to be found the shy little

r has snowber y, whose fruit the art of hiding

itself beneath glossy round leaves , so that close

search is needed to gather it . Al ong the banks of the lake high - bush bluebe rries of fabulous e size t mpt the stroller from his course . Some of these berries were once mistaken for fox

grapes . In the moist sand at the foot of these

r bluebe ry bushes , the modest houstonia blossoms

throughout six consecutive months of the year .

It comes in May , and it fades not until Novem

r ber . The bunchbe ry retains its ﬂowers in these groves until lon g after its berries ar e red

elsewhere . Yet autumn ﬂowers are not notice h n e ably slow in blooming by t e lake . O of these

r autumn ﬂowers is an interesting hyb id , so rec

o gn iz ed at the Gray Her barium . For four years we have foun d several roots of a golden

caes ia e rod which is neither the , which it clos ly bicolor resembled in form , nor the , from which

it inherits its white r ay ﬂower s . Both of these

an d r esum familiar species grow near it, are p

r ably its pa ents . Within the waters of the lake there is abun

r dant life . Yea s ago it was a famous trout

pond , stocked perhaps by the Indians, but the

L K A LONEL Y A E . 41

malice of the white man spoiled it . A man who had a grudge against those who most enjoyed tr out - ﬁshin g in the lak e caught a pailful of horn

n pout and tur ed them into the green waters .

They multiplied , and now legions of them move their hideous bodies back and forth thr ough the

swaying weeds beneath its surface . They never e i grow large , but their numb rs are appall ng . m Sometimes when , in a still su mer evening, the

un ruﬂl ed wi surface of the lake is by nd , and myriads of small insects have fallen upon the o ul s water, the p ut appear in countless m titude , swimming so that their horns or tails show above

th e wate r . The tadpoles also are extraordinar ily numer too a ous at some seasons , and they , , h ve a way of coming to the top of the water and contem

i r plat ng the uppe world , to which they hope some day rightft to attain . A sudden stamp of the foot upon th e shore will cause hundreds of these ﬂoating polyw ogs to splash into foam the

water over half the surface of the lake . The

r i painted to toise l ves in the lake , but no other

atu hi n n ear . cre re of s ki d is found it In fact , I have never seen the spotted turtle in the Bear e camp valley . I once dug sevent en painted turtles out of one hole in the mud on the west had ern edge of the lake , where they crowded for some reas on of their own . 42 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WA TER .

Of all the many creatures which frequent the lonely lake , the big blue heron seems to be the most in sympathy with its shy silence and lone

lin ess . He is its king, and by his name the lake Is FOLLOWING LO T R IL A S T A .

OF the many road s whi ch start northward B ear cam from p Water , every one is either warded OHby the Sandwich range into the Saco

P emi ewas set l smoth or into the g val ey, or else ered in the dark forest - clad ravines between the mountain ridges . From Conway on the east to

Campton and Thornton on the west, there is no rift in the mountain wall through which travel

ﬂows . There was a time , however, before the

Civil War, when near the middle of the great barrier the human current found an outlet southward from the upper end of Swift River

e r am int rvale to the Bea c p Valley . Sitting by the ﬁreside of a sturdy Albany farmer as the Dece mber moonlight gleamed upon the level of the snows the intervale , I heard stories of ’ lumberm en s journeys through those dark an d

r s . G nar ow pa ses reat spars and masts , the

farmer said , had been hauled out of the valley

r under the f owning cliffs of Paugus , and carried

safely to the level ﬁelds of Sandwich . Then there arose a storm such as old men know but s once in a lifetime , and the pa ses were ﬁlled 44 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WATER.

with tangled masses of wrecked forest . All the axes in Albany and Tamworth could not have cut a way through the snarl without many weeks of exhausting labor . So at least thought the lumbermen who attempted to pass the abattis raised by the storm . Years elapsed and the road became only a matter of vague tradition . Those who climbed the peak of Passaconaway or the lofty ledges of Paugus saw below them a f panorama of ruin . Bleached bones o the great spruce forest lay there piled in magniﬁcent con é fusion . Over the d bris , springing from its midst, a dense growth of mountain ash , wild

- cherry, and hobble bush made the chaos more

“ was chaotic . No trace of the lost trail visible i even to the most fanc ful eye . Between Paugus and Chocorua the hurricane

r l had not done its worst wo k . There one cou d see four miles of narrow ravin e reaching from the Tamworth ﬁelds directly northward to a steep ridge connecting Paugus with Chocorua at their northern slopes . On the other side of the barrier lay the Swift River intervale . If that ridge were out of the way , if it could be easily surmounted , or if a rift could be found in it, the journey of nearly thirty miles from

r the southern spu s of Paugus , round through

Conway to the northern spurs , would be reduced to eight or nine miles . The people living at F OLL O WING A LOST TRAIL . 45

of the upper end Swift River valley , instead of

- ofﬁce having to travel sixteen miles to a post ,

doctor, minister, or store, could touch civiliza tion by driving about eleven miles . At half past four on the morning of Satur 30 dl day, July , I drove rapi y away from my red - roofed cottage towards the southern foot of

o f Paugus . Long days parching heat had been brought to an end by a series of three heavy thunderstorms , which had drenched the country during the preceding evening . Nature had revived . The sky was bluer, the forest greener, the gold of the goldenrod more intense . Every particle of dust had been washed out of the air

- and off the many tinted garments of the earth . For nearly a fortnight the mercury had been among the nineties as often as the clock str uck noon . To face a cool breeze , to see everything r sparkling with moistu e , to have the air feel and appear thin and clear , was inspiring and h ex ilar ating . To ﬁnd the lost trail into the Swift River valley was n o w a matter of delight ful interest . At the southern foot of Paugus is a ruined mill and an old lumber camp . A good road leads thither from the highway , and the house at the point where the lumber road begins is

of Nat. the home Berry , farmer , lumberman , hunter, trapper, surveyor, carpenter, and pub H OF B E A R AM P 46 A T THE NORT C WATER .

- lic spirited citizen . I felt that if any man on the southern side of the mountains knew a way

r through them , that man was Be ry . Two years

of before , while wandering over the ridges Cho ’ in on e of B corua , I had been caught erry s forty poun d steel bear traps . The springs of the trap

r were weak and it was deeply bu ied in the moss , so that before its cruel jaws had closed ﬁrml y

r upon my ankle , I th ust the stock of my gun d ’ between them and with rew my foot . Berry s to greeting, as we drove up his house , showed

r that he had not fo gotten my adventure , for “ he shouted , Come at last , have you , to let me ’ ’ cut oﬁ them ears ? Can t c lect my bounty o n ’ ” r B you without em . A few wo ds told erry of my errand , and he at once showed interest in the quest . “ ” “ i - Th rty seven year ago , he said, when I was only twelve year old , a road was run through from this house to the back settlements . a It was a winter ro d , but I recollect that a man and his wife drove over it in a pung . They f went clean through . About ﬁ teen year ago I

a- went in where you are going , with a railroad r h un su veyor, and he said there was only ﬁve dred feet rising between here and the height of land . There used to be another road between ’ s Toadback and Passaconaway, but that all n choked up now by the harrica e . This road is

H B 48 AT THE NORT OF E AR CA M P WATER.

- the ruins of a saw mill , two or three slab houses , ’ and a collapsed stable where the lumberm en s

oxen had been kept in the winter nights , years ’ In r ago . the mill s time sawdust h ad cove ed

t r every hing ; but now the strong , qua relsome

ur blackberry had mastered the sawdust . O guide pointed to a break in the solid wall of

woods surrounding the mill , so we struggled through the blackberry jungle and left the sun

us . light behind As we entered the forest,

bird music ceased , few ﬂowers decked the

n - grou d , the pallid Indian pipe seeming more u akin to the f ngi than to ﬂowers , and not a

squirrel disturbed the quiet of the endless aisles . Here and there small brightly colored toadstools and the fruit of bunchberry or clintonia lent

of a bit vermilion , orange , yellow, or lustrous metal lic blue to the dull brown carpet of the

r woods ; or a branch of maple , p ematurely

l - off robbed of its ch orophyll , gleamed in the far

- sun light among the tree tops . If by chance the eye caught a glimpse of the ﬂowers of the rattle

ak o r i sn e plantain , of some of the green sh wood h orchids , it found in t em less color than in the toadstools and less perfume than in the needl es

of the balsam . There extended before us a clearly marked passageway between the giant trunks of ancient

tre es . It was the beginning of the old trail . F OLL O WING A LOST TRAIL .

a had r w t Stout young s plings g o n up wi hin it , and the long interlacing stems of the hobble “ an - e con bush , or t gle foot as B rry called it, al its ce ed many inequalities . We proceeded t slowly, cut ing away bushes as we went, and

the horse followed with the wagon , which ro se and fell over logs and boulders as though to ssed

on the waves of the sea . At the end of hal f a all mile , we decided to leave the horse with of di our impe menta except axes and luncheon . A ce o K spa was acc rdingly cleared , and itty , tied was to a large tree , fenced in on two sides to n e prevent her from walking arou d the tre , and

so choking herself . The trees which formed the forest were of

many kinds , making it much more interesting than the monotonous spruce growth of the

higher slope s . Those which were to all appear

ance the oldest were the yellow birches , hun dreds of them having trunks over ten feet in circumference at a point two feet from the

ground . Some of the giant hemlocks were larger, but they are , I believe , trees of more rapid growth than the yellow birch and so prob was ably less venerable . There a large repre sen tation of ancient beech - trees with trunks ad which looked as hard as granite , yet which m e me think of wrestlers with swollen muscles str ained and kn otted under the tightly dr awn 50 A T THE H B E AR CA M P NORT OF WATER.

skin . Some of the beeches seemed to have be

- gun life in mid air, for their trunks rested upon tripods or polypods of naked and spreading o ro ts , which held them two or even three feet

from the surface of the soil . In other cases these polypods clasped great boul ders in their

unyielding embrace , showing that the beech in its in f ancy had taken root upon the top of the r ock, and year by year extended its thirsty ten taeles lower and lower down the sides o f its mossy foundation until the soil was reached . th e Then hungry sapling, fed for so long on meagre supplies of food and water, must have

expanded with sudden vigor, while its roots grew strong and gripped the rock in tighter and tighte r embrace . The only way of accounting for the empty polypods seemed to be to suppose the trees to have sprouted upon stumps prone o m to decay , or up n rocks capable of rapid disi tegration . Many of the glimpses through these beech woods reminded me of the grotesque for e st picture s which are produced so frequently in German woodcuts . l Huge maples , with bark resemb ing that of an ancient oaks , formed an import t part of the did forest, and so canoe birches of various ages , of solitary white pines immense height, and old the la a r growth spruces , st n med becoming mo e an d more numerous as our ro ad gained higher F OLLO WING A LOST TRAIL . 51

levels . Dozens of these trees had been struck by lightnin g and more or less injured . One had been completely shattered and surroun ded by a spiral abattis of huge splinters stuck firml y into the ground . The twilight and silence of the forest made ul on e it restf at first, but as the day wore , rar glimpses of distan ce and o f sunlight were as welcome to us as to men confined between

prison walls . We had gone rather more than three miles ’ from Berry s house when our guide paused and “ : said There , the old road is missing for a

piece beyond this , and the best we can do is to

head north and spot the trees as we go .

To that point there had been evident , to eyes r ff be accustomed to fo est travel , a di erence tween the co ntinuity of large timber and the strip once cleared of this timber in order to

form the road . Looking back , we could see the

passage ; looking forward , there seemed to be t no trace of it . The greater par of Paugus had our been passed on left , and on our right the ’ n peak of Chocorua , which at Berry s had bee t nor heast , was now a little south of east from

us . Before us the valley narrowed somewhat, and far ahead a continuation of the ridge of Paugus seemed to cross the north ern sky line

and approach the northern spurs of Chocorua. H B E AR CA M P 52 A T THE NORT OF WATER.

h Blazing the trees as we walked by them , bot i e on our left and on our r ght , on the south sid

r al we of the t unks and on their north sides so , pushed forward due north . Ever since leaving the ruined mill our way had lain close to the wi foot of Paugus , the dth of the valley being between us and the foot of Chocorua . Nearly a mile was traversed before we touched the wall of Paugus barring the north and for cing us to

. i bend eastward Entering a narrow rav ne , t oo none wide for a single road at its bottom ,

we came once more upon the lost trail . Marks o f the axe were frequent , but the great hem locks which it had felled were mere moss - covered V pulp , and from their stumps iburnum or young

trees had sprouted . Berry found spots on the trees which he remembered to have made when he guided the engineer through the pass ﬁfteen w years before . The walls of the ravine gre s e e a t ep r, and cross it fallen trees occasionally blocked the way . Presently it bent sharply to the left, so that we were once more headed northward , and then it widened into an amphi f ‘ theatre hal a mile in width , wholly surrounded by steep and rocky sides . The old trail was again lost , and Berry declared that out of this pocket there was no outlet save over the tower

ing ridge at the n orth . The story of the man an d woman in a sleigh , who had once crossed F OLLO WING A LOST TRAIL .

this frowning barrier, alone sustained our hopes of ﬁnding a pass which could be opened to l whee s .

A . M My watch said that it was . As

~ ha we d our A . M . begun ﬁrst meal at four , a se cond one seemed appropriate ; so in the face of our frowning crisis we lay upon the moss and made way with the larger part of our knap ’ sack s contents . A red squirrel , inquisitive , id petulant Chickaree , came down from the r ge and chatte red to us . Far above in the tree tops two birds called loudly to each other .

Their notes were new to me , and so shy were they that I secured only a distant glimpse of them th rough my glass . They seemed to prefer a the highest tips of de d trees , from which they

r darted now and then into the air afte insects . It did not require much knowledge of birds to assign this noisy couple to the family of the

ﬂ catch er s tyrant y , and their size was so great as

hr to make them one of t ee species , kingbirds ,

ﬂ catch er s - ﬂ catch great crested y , or olive sided y

e r s . n two r As I k ew the ﬁrst well , f om daily a l ch nces to watch their habits , I felt practical y certain that these keepers of the pass were the

- ﬂ catch er s wild, wayward , and noisy olive sided y of which I had heard so Often , but never before

- met on their breeding grounds . Luncheon over, w we faced the barrier, and , selecting a shallo 54 H B E AR A M A T THE NORT OF C P WATER .

ravine in its side , began the ascent . While struggling over huge boulders an d winding around fallen trees we did not feel as though wheels were ever likely to go where legs were

having so hard a time . Still the ascent was

m t r acti ade in less than ten minu es , and to a p

- cal road builder the slope , cleared of its surface debr is , would present few serious obstacles . On reaching the top we gained a view of the

peak of Chocorua well to the south of east, and

of the ramparts of Paugus , half spruce hung an d al i half b d rock , bound ng the long valley through which our morning tramp had taken

us . The peak of Chocorua had lost its horn like contour and resembled more a combing

wave dashing northward . It was the only part in of the mountain proper to be seen , as the foreground a massive spur projecting northwest

ward completely concealed the principal mass .

Looking towards the north , the prospect was disheartening . The ridge on which we stood

had been a battleground of the elements . It “ was , in the language of this region , a harri ” c ane , and woe to the man who ventures into a “ ” h arr ican e . We advanced cautiously, choos

ing our ground , and cutting a narrow path h an d throug the small spruces , cherry saplings , mountain maples which had overgrown the u on f allen forest . Every few steps we came p

6 A T THE H B E AR A M P 5 NORT OF C WATER .

c l t pie es of the stove lay on the ﬂoor, and a hough the roof had been sprung by snow resting h eav t ily upon it , the hut was as dry and habi able as “ a ever . It even ret ined the stuffy smell of a

- l dirty and ill venti ated house . It was inhabited , m too , not by men , but by hedgehogs , as the A er ican porcupine is universally cal led in Ne w

. r Hampshire They had been under it , th ough

it , and over it . Every piece of stair, joist , or al ﬂoor, upon which salt or grease had f len , had

been gnawed away by them . They had slept in

the bunks both upstairs and down , and the stairs

bore traces of their constant use .

- In front of the hut stood a watering trough . It w as a huge log hollowed by the axe into two ’ tanks , a small one at the upper end for man s

a . use , and a larger one below for the c ttle Small logs had been neatly grooved as spouts to lead the water from the brook to the trough . Moss grew upon them now and the summer sun light shone upon them , but it was easy to ima il gine the snow piled high upon the h ls , smother

ing the brooks and burying the rough spouts , and to fancy that over the trampled snow the woolly and steaming oxen came to drink of the tu water, while a s rdy French Canadian broke the ice with his axe and drank at the spot where from under the snow the spouts led the water d into his end of the dugout . Th e cattle are dea , F 5 OLL O WING A LOST TRAIL . 7

C an adian has k the axe has rusted , the been illed or in a brawl , has gone back to his River St . Lawrence to spend his old age un der the shadow ll of the cross , but the brook sti murmurs over ll its pebbles , and when snow fa s by the trough and the hut it is cleaner and purer than the foot of the lumberman left it . Woe to the man who ventures into a harri ” cane ' Not content with the road which we had made and found over the ridge, we sought, u as we t rned homewards , to see whether another l umber road , which came into ours from the s southeast , did not cross the ridge by an ea ier

r l g ade . Fo lowing it upward higher and higher, we came at last to an open ledge from whi ch a beautiful view was gained . Northward of us

B . frowned ear Mountain , dark in its spruces

To its left were Lowell , Nancy, Anderson , and r in the rest of the proud retinue of C ar iga .

Deep shad ows lay in C ar r igain Notch . Bluer i and fairer , higher and more d stant, the heads B n of ond , Willey, and the Franconia Mou tains rested against the sky . To the westward , above ﬂat the long rampart of Paugus with its , gray ff cli s capped by black spruce , towered the cone of Passaconaway, wooded to its very tip . South ward , just across a deep ravine and behind a e heavily timber d spur , was Chocorua , its great tooth cutting into the blue heavens . Though we H H 58 AT T E NORT OF B E A R CAM P WA TER.

enjoyed the picture of the distance , we were ﬁlled

i r with something l ke despai at the foreground . “ On three sides of us the har r ican e extended as far as the nature of the ground permitted us

. l direc to see Westward , a ong the ridge , in the tion in which lay our trail of the morning , it at reached for half a mile least, and through it

r e we must go , unless , indeed, we preferred to trace our steps into the Swift River valley and regain our path by such an ignominious circuit .

l - Seen from above , that ha f mile of forest wreck

- looked like a jack straw table of the gods . t Thousands of trees, averaging six y or seventy to feet in height , had been uprooted and ﬂung “ ” gether every which way . They were ﬂat upon

‘ the ground , piled in parallel lines , crossed at a right angles , he d to head , root to root , twisted d as though by a whirlwin , or matted together as they might have been had a sea of water swept

- them from hill crest to valley . Boulders of various sizes lay under the wreck , and , to make

d l r s its confusion more istracting, sap ings , brie , and vines ﬂourished upon the ground shaded and enriched by the wasting ruin . It took more than an hour to climb and tum ble over half a mile of this tangle . Any one who has watched an ant laboriously traversing

- ﬁeld a stubble or a handful of hay, crawling l r a ong one st aw, across some , under others , and F A OLL O WING LOST TRAIL . anon climbing to a height to consult the dis

i ad our tance , w ll know how we m e journey .

Men go through great battles without a scratch , “ but they coul d not penetrate a harr iean e with

any such fortunate results . The spots on our blazed trees seemed as ’ friendly as home on a winter s night, when at last we reached them and began the southward

march . As we had been two hours without us water, the ﬁrst brook drew to its side and

held us entranced by its tiny cascades . In the o a po l from which I drank , h lf a dozen caddis

worm cases lay upon the sand at the bottom .

They were sand , yet not of the sand , for mind had rescued them from the monotony of their

matter and made them signiﬁcant of life . They had faithfully guarded their little builders while

dormant , and now those awakened tenants had

i r r sen f om the water , dried their gauzy wings

in th e sun and vanished in airy wanderings .

r Near the b ook lay a dead tree , and upon it were

fastened a number of brightly colored f ungi . Their lower surfaces an d margins were creamy i wh te , then a band of orange vermilion passed

r l around them , while the upper and p incipa part was greenish gray marked with dark brown

i . wavel ke lines They reminded me , by their

r color and su face , of the tinted clay images or costume ﬁgur es which are made by peasants in T H B E A M 60 A THE NORT OF R CA P WATER.

e . s veral parts of southern Europe, and in Japan Anything more in contrast with the gloom of

a northern forest would be hard to discover . Much of the ground near the brook was covered l l by yew bushes , on which , bri liant as jewe s , gleamed their pendent and slightly attached red an d berries . The mosses lichens were the glory

of the wood . Never parched by thirst in these t u on perpe ual shades , they grew l xuriantly l ll bou ders , fa en logs , standing trees , the faces

of ledges , and over the moist brook banks and

beds of leaf mould . What the great forest was

to us , that the mosses must be to the minute

insects which live among them . So thoroughly had we spotted the tr ees in the

morning , that as we followed our trail back there was not a moment when our eyes hesitated

as to the direction of the path .

d Four days passe , and on the morning of the ﬁfth a gay column wound its way through the

forest following the regained trail . Nearly a c mach ettas score of axes , hat hets , and savage resounded upon the trees and shrubs which en

croached upon the road . Behind the axemen

came several horses , each bearing a rider as

courageous as she was fair . If branches

men aced the comfort of these riders , they were speedily hewn away ; if the bobble -bus h hid F A OLLO WING LOST TRAIL .

ul hollows or bo ders in the road , it was cut off at the root ; if a ford or a hog ofiered uncertain t footing to the snor ing horses , strong hands grasped their bridles and they were led through f to surer groun d . When the di ficulties of the r m n oad beca e serious , the horses were left behi d and the column pressed forward on foot . The “ ” h arr ican e ridge was met and stormed , the ’ c was safely pier ed , the hedgehog s hut was vis ite d d and passed , and the old lumber roa was followed swiftly down to the grass - land and wo highway of the Albany interval e . If one man in days long past had traversed the winter had road in a sleigh , others of her sex now over come greater difficulties and broken the stub born barr ier of the Sandwich range . NIGHT LONE ON CHO OR A A C UA .

THE 1 0th of August ranked , by the family thermometer, as next to the hottest day o f the

. was m summer It a arked day in my calendar , marked long in advance for a night alone on the narrow rock which forms the tip of Choco ’ rua s peak . It was chosen on account of the display of meteors which , in case of a clear sky, always makes that night attractive for a vigil .

1 0 1 891 r On August , , I counted two hund ed and ﬁf ty meteors between sunset and eleven ’

P . M saw o clock . As I watched the sky , and the great rock of the peak rising sharply into it, I determined that another year I would u count my meteors from its s mmit , and not from the common level of a ﬁeld . By four o ’ clock in the afternoon a breeze had

us be drifted down to from the mountains , and hind them cloud - heads were rising in the north

n ed u west . Fan by the breeze and ndaunted by of r clouds , I began the ascent Choco ua by the

r Hamm ond path . In the woods the b eeze was i st ﬂed by the trees , and I was stiﬂed by the still heat which oppressed all nature . For three

64 H B E A R A M P AT THE NORT OF C WATER.

All but one of the well - mar ked paths up Chocorua spend too much time in the ravines

and woods . It is discouraging to toil mile

after mile through uninteresting small growth , without a breath of cool air or a glimpse of dis

tan ce . The Hammond path cancels nearly half the height of the moun tain in the ﬁrst mile of

d r woo land , and then rewa ds the climber by suc cessive views which grow mor e charming as l edge after ledge is passed . While following the top of the slowly rising and scantily wooded r r idge , the peak is seen coming neare and nearer,

and growing more and more impressive . Range after range of northern mountains rise above

the foreground , and the far horizon widens

slowly . When the foot of the peak is ﬁnally r t a eached , shutting out for a time all h t is a grandest in the view, the climber feels th t he n cliﬁs be must scale those forbiddi g , whatever

comes of him when the ﬁnal struggle is over . n So I felt as , at about half past six, I gai ed the top of the mountain ’ s shoulder and looked up at

the huge rock which forms its awful head . The eastern side of the peak is so precipito us that al few have the temerity even to try to sc e it . s m f The outhern side is broken into s aller cli fs , between which tufts of spruces grow . In winter this face is quite r eadily climbed upon the packed

snow, but in summer wide sloping ledges polished THE P E A K OF CHOCOR UA F R OM THE HA M M OND TR A IL

A H ON H NIG T ALONE C OCOR UA .

by ice make the way difli cult and dangerous to i c . the nov e A few score rods to the west, yet a still on the southern f ce of the peak , there is a rift in the clifis fill ed with small trees and frag

ments of rock . This cleft leads straight up wards to a small sandy plate au o n the west side u of the peak , two thirds of the way to its s mmit . As I struggled up this almost pe rpendicular ra

vine , I heard the steady roar of thunder, and s aw above me black clouds surging across the

sky . It would have been dark had not the south been ﬁl led with silvery light and hazy

r - sunset glo y . A black mouthed cave upon my

ff . right o ered a refuge Hedgehogs lived in it,

- but its outer chamber would be storm proof .

' ? ul Should I wait No , storm or no storm , I wo d gain the peak , and do my part to keep my tryst

with the stars .

Stumbling out of the ravine upon the plateau,

I faced the north . A picture was there which made the memory of Doré ’ s strongest delinea ’ tions of Dante s visions seem weak . On my ac right was an upright wall of bl k rock, on my e a left an abyss . Northward , b fore me , lay th t wilderness of forests and peaks which forms the i White Mountains , th rty miles square of spruce

r fo ests , and all of it on edge , a sierra forbid d ding at its best, but now ma e terrible by a e ﬁ tempes t . Th higher heavens were lled with H B E AR CAM P 66 AT THE NORT OF WATER.

loose, rounded black clouds with white spaces between them . Below them , impending over r of a belt of count y about ten miles north me , was a very long but narrow cloud, black as ink,

- with a clean cut lower edge as straight as a level .

From it forked lightning was playing downward . The outlines of the mountains were singularly

. l see clear I cou d , beginning at the right, the n A n Presidential Ra ge , the Crawford Notch , der son C arr i ain , Nancy, Lowell , the g Notch , C arr i ain g ; and then , partly obscured by rain , the Franconia Mountains and the nearer heights of Tr ipyr amid and its neighbors . Just over

Tri r amid py , reaching nearly to the zenith , was be an opening in the clouds , a narrow space It tween two storms . was clear gold within , but hideous black proﬁl es were outlined against it, as though the ﬁends of one storm were look ing across it at their allied hosts in the second bank of clouds now hurrying upward from the southwest .

Turning sharply to the right, I found and climbed the rough path leading up the rocks to the highest point on the peak . Three thousand a f feet below me , in that pe ce ul valley by the

l . ul ake , was my home I co d just see its red roof among the trees . Wind ripples were chas in t a i g each o her across the lake , m rring its wh te

- u . s rface The lake is heart shaped , and my cot A NIGHT ALONE ON CHOCOR UA .

0 tage rests at the tip . N storm impended over those whom I had left behind , but the voice of the thunder reminded me of what was passing to the northward .

Under the long level black cloud , from which zigzag lightning darted downward like a snake ’ s

r r tongue , were th ee zones of color . The ﬁ st , nearest the east , and at the head of the storm as it moved forward , was gray . It was formed of

s en d . c The second was bla k, and from it shot mo st of the lightning . The third was snowy white shaded by perpendicular lines . This was the rain . Each belt seemed to be two miles or more in width , and the whole was moving about twenty miles an hour . When I reached the

C ar ri ain peak , g Notch was just passing under

sen d the , and as I watched , Lowell , Anderson , and Nancy were in turn obscured . By the time

C ar r i ain an d Mount Nancy was covered , g its notch were reappearing . Meanwhile , the golden th e gap in clouds had closed , and the second storm was approaching . Its course was such as to take in Chocorua, Paugus , and the Swift River intervale which lay just below me on the north . Wild as the ﬁrst storm made the nor th mak ern sky , the second one seemed bent upon th e ing the picture even more gloomy . It was moment of sunset, but the sun was lost in a

- l wilderness of thunder clouds . Sudden y a sound H B E AR A M 68 AT THE NORT OF C P WATER.

clear and sweet came to me . It was the ﬁrst u sound, save th nder and wind , that I had heard

i . since reach ng the peak A long, pure note , b al followed y one much higher, repeated sever th e n i times , formed song of my compa on on the heights . It was the farewell to the day of a

- white throated sparrow, that sweetest singer of the mountain peaks . A feeling of forlornness which had been creeping over me was di spelled .

Let the storm come ; I was ready for it . s e Not many rod below the p ak , on the very verge of the eastern crag , stands an enormous l c detached rock , rough y cubi al in shape , and at least twenty feet in each dimension . This rock, w “ ” which is kno n as the Cow , rests upon a narrow shelf having a saucer -shaped depression about ﬁf teen feet in diamete r in its upper sur face . The Cow projects slightly beyond the d outer edge of the le ge , but at the point where it projects the concavity of the under granite leaves a space exactly eighteen inches in height e i and sev ral feet long , which admits l ght into the hollow beneath the Cow . Years before , I had t discovered this s range cave , and had found that a projecting corner of rock gave standing room near enough to the narrow mouth to all ow hi a man to creep into it . To t s shelter I deter mined to take my luggage for safe -keeping dur in g the rain . As I wound my way down the

A H ON H NIG T ALONE C OCOR UA .

zigzag path to the cave , a junco ﬂew past me in

the gloom and chirped inquiringly . A drop or

two of rain fell . Thunder roared in the south

in r west as well as the no th . The mountains had lost the wonderful dark violet shade whi ch

they possessed before the light faded , and were

now almost black , those nearest being darkest .

un com As I reached the mouth of the cave , an f o rtabl e thought intruded itself upon my mind, — was it possible that bears used the cave ? I

peered in . The place was empty now, at all

events . Pushing in my oilskin coat , jersey ,

u a - knapsack with l nch , l ntern , and star atlas , I th slid in after them . At the deepest part of e e depression in the ledge , the space betwe n the rock below and the rock above is thirty inches . e I could not sit up straight , but I could reclin comfortably at various angles . Lighting my a l ntern , I unpacked my bag and furnished my

o - bo x ul l dgings . A watch , match , foot r e , ther m om eter i , pencil , a m rror for signaling , com

- n i pass , hunting k fe , bird whistles, supper, s un n breakfa t, and dry derclothi g made the cave at seem quite homelike . The dry clothing tracted me , for I was wet with perspiration , and my thermometer reminded me that I felt

? . chill y . I listened . Was it raining No t Taking my lantern , supper , and dry clo hes, I wriggled to the entrance and regained the air. A T E 70 THE NORTH OF R A R GAM P WA TER .

Happy thought : if any bear coul d get into that

u . h cave , it wo ld be a very thin one Un appy thought : his thinness woul d betoken all the un greater h ger .

There was a lull in the storm , for although t every hing above was black , the wind seemed to have died away and the thunder to be very di stant . On the narrow ledge between the tower ing pinnacle and the black abyss below d the Cow, I iscarded my damp clothes and put on the dry ones . The change was comforting . had I was glad when it was accomplished, for I no inclination to ﬁght a bear in the costume of n un n Mulvaney at the taking of Lu gt gpe . Step by step I crept back up the cliﬁ to the

summit . There was wind enough on top , and my lantern had to be thrust into a cr ack in the rock on the lee side to keep it not only fr om blowing out, but from blowing away . The top of Chocorua is about the shape and size of a

- a . l rge , wide dining table On the south , other levels lead up to it gradually ; but west , north , and east this highest rock is bounded by abrupt

sides , from which a fall in the night would be a

n serious matter . Lyi g down on this dizzy plat form , I ate my supper with savage relish , and took new account of the night and its pictures . Except when lightning ill umined some part of the horizon , the only things visible to me were A NIGHT ALONE ON CHOCOR UA . 7 1

the long black ridge of Paugus , the hump of r Passaconaway over Paugus , f agments of white ledges on the northern spurs of Chocorua , and ﬁf lakes in the valley . Even Ossipee Lake , or nl te en miles more away, was plai y distin guishabl e as a white spot in the surrounding

gloom . Lights shone from many of the cot in tages near Chocorua Lake , and from Birch

ter val e Al an e . , b y int rvale , and Conway They were the connecting link between me and the

rest of mankind . In the sky there was absolute

blackness , curiously broken once by the sudden appearance of the red planet for the space of a

single minute . Sometimes a few drops of rain o o r eserv fell , but the sec nd st rm seemed to be ing most of its strength for a region farther ’ east . It was now nine O clock, and the ﬁrst

storm had passed far over into Maine , its light ning playing with rapid ﬂashes behind Mount n Pequawket . At every ﬂash the sky just behi d the pyramidal peak assumed the color of dead

gold , while the mountain was embossed upon it

like an emblem on a shield . Occasionally the o e second st rm produc d lightning , and when it did eﬁects so the were startling, so near was the

heavenl y ﬁre . One ﬂash was from side to side across a low cloud which hung near Chocorua

o n . v the east It was very ivid , and so complex with its many delicate lines and loops of light 72 N H B E A R AM P A T THE ORT OF C WATER.

that a ﬁery sentence appe ared to have been

written on the sky . Another bolt was broad

and straight, and went down into the forest like

an arrow . It was so near and so brilliant that l ul for a most a minute I co d see nothi ng . The

thunder which followed it began in the zenith , e and roll d away, booming and crashing, in three so directions , lasting long that I wished I h ad

timed it , to see for how many seconds its terriﬁc

echoes refused to subside . As many of its rumblings and mutter ings resounded from the ff ravines and hillsides below me , the e ect of this great peal was unlike an y I had ever before heard . While I was listening to the sighing of the wind - tossed forest in the hollows eastward of the mountain , another sound reached my ears , and made me concentrate my senses in an eff ort th e to determine its nature . At moment I h heard it , I was somew at below the peak , lean ing against a wall of rock facing the south .

The sound seemed to come from above . It resembled that made by a thin stick or shingle when whirled rapidly in the air . At the same l time there was a creaking, and sounds a most

an d . like wailing groaning A moment later, a e slender column of whit cloud , a hundred feet hu or more in height , but proportioned like a ur l th e man ﬁg e , g ided past the mountain over

4 A T THE H B E A R A M P A 7 NORT OF C W TER .

parts of the cave . Now and then a ﬂash of lightning showed where the entrance faced the

east, and where one or two other cracks were

open between the Cow and its rocky foundation .

I lay perfectly motionless , pondering upon the

strange sounds I had heard . My eyes rested upon several stones lying in the narrow space beyond my feet where the two rocks neared each

other . Something moved there . A bo dy had passed fr om the shelter of one stone to that

of another . I held my breath , and watched . Again a brownish thing ﬂashed past an open

r r ing , came nea er, darted forwa d into the light ,

vanished , reappeared , came clearly into view,

shot back, and ﬁnally sped across a broad , well

lighted face of rock , and revealed itself as a

ar - — r e l ge short tailed mouse , pe haps an East rn

P ken acomys as yet unknown to collectors . Al

though I did not move for a long time , he failed

to reappear, and my only companion was a gauzy - win ged ﬂy which sat upon my knee and

contemplate d the ﬂame of the lantern . o i an n u The rain c ntinu ng, I s g and whistled ’ til after ten o clock, when I crawled to the mouth of my cave and looked down into the as depths beneath . A stone thrown far out, so

r to clear the ﬁ st few ledges , might fall eight hundred feet before it struck the rocks below . d As I stare into the darkness , I found that A NIGHT ALONE ON CHOCOR UA . 7 5 much which had been invisible an hour e arlier was now diml y outlined in black and white . n The sky , too , showed gaps in its curtai , and th e white lakes in the distant valleys were more

silvery than before . The storm was over, the o moon was at work eating the clouds , and s on ,

ar ul . L I hoped , the st s wo d keep their tryst an e t d t rn in hand , I crept up the rocks , and set le Al l dl myself once more on the peak . my frien y

lights in the valley had gone out, and I was

now al one in the sky . an d a e Paugus , Passaconaway, Whitef c were quite clearly outlined against each other and

the sky . They seemed very near , however, so that it was easier for me to imagine myself on a u lonely rock in the ocean , with h ge waves about

to overwhelm me , than to make those combing a waves st nd back three , eight, twelve miles and

- be come spruce covered mountains . Gradually a l a other mount in out ines bec me discernible , and the cloud - curtain above showed folds and wr in ’ kl es un , which in time wore out der the moon s chaﬁng and let thro ugh a glimpse of Mars or

Vega, marvelously far away in that serene ether . Half an hour be fore midnight the pale di sk of an d the moon appeared through the thin clouds , at the Witching hour she sailed out proudly into

- a little space of clear blue black heaven . The

ff - wind came in fresher pu s , a snowy cloud cap 6 H B E A R CA M P 7 A T THE NORT OF WA TER .

rested on the head of Paugus , and the air was so much colder that I was glad to put on both j ersey and oilskin jacket . A dozen lakes and twenty -ﬁve mountain peaks were visible at half

r past twelve , and Mars had wo ked a place for a l his red eye , so th t it cou d look down through the breaking clouds without interruption .

Drowsiness now overtook me , and in order to keep awake I was forced to walk rapidl y up and al of down the sm l area the top , or to jump about over the ledges farther south . About one o ’ clock a light flashed brightly from a point a near the Maine line ; perh ps in Fryeburg . At first I thought it might be a fire which woul d gather strength and size ; then , as it appeared to move and come nearer, it looked more like the headl ight of a locomotive . My glass made it seem smaller, and the motion was so slow and irregular that I thought the gleam might be ’ r f om a doctor s buggy , as the man of sickness took his way through the night .

My own light was now growing dim , so I e xtinguished it in order to save the remaining

r oil for emergencies . Immediately afterwa ds a bat ﬂew against the lantern , and then perched

- upon a lichen hung rock near by, to recover his

r composu e . The moon slowly made way with ’ the clouds , and by two o clock a quarter part f r o the sky was clear . The mercu y had dropped

A NIGHT ALONE ON CHOCOR UA . 7 7 to and the moisture hurled against the mountain by the wind was condensed and sent f boiling and seething up the sides o the peak . Tongues of fog lapped around me with th e same spasmodic motion which ﬂames display in rising

from a plate of burning alcohol . At first they scarcely reached the peak ; then they came to s my feet , and swept pa t me around both sides of my platform ; finally they flun g thems elves i hi h gher and gher , hiding not only the black

valley from which they came , but Paugus and a more distant pe ks , the sky , the moon , and the

- glimmering stars . Suddenly from the fog ﬁlled air came once more the gruesome sound which

I had heard earlier in the night . Its cause was t nearer to me now, and I felt sure hat it was

some creature of the air, and consequently no s thing which could cau e me inconvenience . I tu strained my eyes to see the crea re as it passed, in but in vain , until its ﬂight it chanced to cross

the face of the moon . Then the myste ry was

- solved . I saw that it was either a night hawk o r a bird of similar size . The speed at which

it was ﬂying was wonderful . When it tacked

or veered , it produced the extraordinary sounds wi which , th their echoes from the rocks , had so puzzled me at ﬁrst . Once or twice during the

- a night I had heard night h wks squawking, and from this time on their harsh voices were heard 78 H B E AR A M AT THE NORT OF C P WATER .

at intervals mingled with the booming which , r ? for some unexplained eason , they make by nigh as well as by day ; after as well as during the breeding season . A few minutes after two o ’ clock a large me teor shot across a small patch of clear sky near the constellation Andromeda, and was quenched in the fog . From time to time other smaller ones ﬂashed in brief glory in the same quarter of the heavens , and one brilliant fragment u m eas ur b rned its way past Jupiter, as though in g its passing glory with the light of the planet .

The wind was falling, the temperature rising , n fl and , following these two i uences , the fog de u l u creased , ntil its on y remnants cl ng to the ponds and rivers far below . Two thirds of the ’ In sky were clear by three o clock . the east , the Pleiades sparkled in mysterious consul ta tion farther north, Capella flashed her colored a lights , and Venus , radi nt with a lustre second ’ off only to Selene s own , threw the clouds which for an hour had concealed her loveliness , and claimed from Mars the foremost place in the triumph of the night . Her reign was short . At a quarter after three I noticed that the cloud bank which lay along the eastern and northern horizon was be comin g more sharply defined by the gradual growth of a white band above it . A greater orb than Venus was undermining her

H B E AR A M P 80 AT THE NORT OF C WATER.

. l against the violet , silver, and orange A ful hour had sped by since I ﬁrst noted the coming

of . the day , and still the earth below slept on Hark 1 up from the deep valley below the Cow

- r its comes a single bird voice , but sca cely are

notes sprinkled upon the cool , clear air, when a

dozen, yes , ﬁfty singers join their voices in a

medl ey of morning music . The ﬁrst songster

i - ulk was a wh te throat, and the b of the chorus

- s was made up of juncos and white throat , the stronger song of Swainson ’ s and hermit thrushes c in clearly now an d then from points . oming imore distant from the peak . There was ecstasy

in those matins . No sleepy choir of mortal men or women ever raised such honest, buoyant ’ music in honor of the day s coming . The birds love the day, and they love life for all that each

n day brings . They labor singing, and they si g their vespers, as they sing their matins , with hearts overﬂowing with joy and thanksgiving . There is somethi ng inexpressibly touching an d di inspiring in the combination of fa ng night, ’ with its planets still glowing, and the bird s song of welcome to the day . Night is more eloquent than day in telling of the wonders of s the vast creation . Day tell less of distance, more of detail ; less of peace , more of contest ;

m . The less of im ortality , more of the perishable sun its , with dazzling light and burning heat,

BRINGING HOM E BE R THE A .

THE horn of Chocorua rose into a sky full of

r threatening colors and shadows . Its own colo ing was sinister, its outlines vague , its height

a . apparently greater th n usual Low , growling n thu der came from its ledges and ravines . The forest at its feet, which ended at my door, was silent ; no whisper swept through its waiting leaves . In the west as in the north , cloud masses were boiling up into the sky, covering the blue with white , gray , and black, through which now and then shot a ray of gold from the protesting sun . A tempest seemed brewing as

- a not unwelcome close of a mid August day . A tall man emerged from the woods and came

striding towards me across the grass . A riﬂe

swung to and fro in his right hand as he walked .

It was a repeating riﬂe , one of those inclusive

of l - - successors the fow ing piece , shot pouch ,

-ﬂask - - o powder , cap box , and wad p cket of this ’ tall man s boyhood . The stride ended at my

side , and the tall man and I spoke of the heat ,

the drought, and the approaching storm . Just as he was preparing to lope onwards down the a : ribbon road through the birches , I s id B H M R RINGING O E THE EAR. 83

I hear Merrill caught a bear Saturday, and ’ ” brought it out at Piper s . “ That so ? How big was it ?

- - A small one , a two year old , probably . It ” was in one of his traps and he shot it . “ ’ v e i . Well , I kept up with him this t me I ’ a shot one less th n an hour ago , and he warn t ” in any trap , either . th I looked at e man wonderingly . There had his been no unusual spark in his eye , ﬂush on bronzed cheek , or spring in his heavy step . He

had not boasted , or even spoken of his achieve ment until I touched his pride by my tale of ’ his rival s success . Would he have gone home

without telling me ? I think so . Yet this d meeting with a bear , alone , on the high le ges i of Chocorua , had been one of the joys of th s ’ n man s life . Ma y a weary hour had he carried

his magazine riﬂe over the ledges , treading ear se e softly, keeping eye and alert, hoping to

- Bruin on his feeding ground . A year before he had trapped and killed some of the great creatures ; but shooting a beast caught in a forty -pound ste el tr ap is tame sport compared

r r with facing a f ee bea on the open ledges .

Before the hunter left me , we had arranged that soon after sunrise on the following mor n ing he was to pass through my dooryard on his c way to the spot where , under those bla k clouds , i poor Bruin was ly ng dead . E H E 84 AT TH NORT OF B AR CA M P WATER .

The rage around Chocorua deepened . Boom , boom , of thunder rolled downward from the heights of storm . The peak was swept by F masses of rain . lash after ﬂash lit up the darkening sky behind the grim mountain . Still the nearer forests lay at rest, waiting . Then a

- golden rift came in the western cloud bank . On e half of the storm roll ed past us on the s W olf bo r ou h outh , drenching Ossipee and g , the other half on the north , soaking Conway and

Fryeburg ; we al one were dry . The morning of the 1 3th of August breathlessly hot . Even the hermit thrushes f forgot to sing . A rattle o wheels brought me from breakfast to join the party or ganized to

r - bring home the bear . A strong , su e footed horse was dr awing a farm wagon which had

an -b been the st d y of an earlier generation , and

f . which , therefore , was made of solid stu f My tall friend and two of his hunting satellites were in it , and around them were strewn riﬂe ,

- a hatchet, ropes , empty grain bags , and other p paratus to be used in br inging the dead brute down the mountain . My master of the horse , an alert and muscular Prince Edward Islander,

d r stood by rea y to march , so the wo d was given , o and we ﬁve , some walking , s me in the ancient wagon , started for the mountain .

For a quarter of a mile the road was good,

86 AT THE N ORTH OF B E A R CAM P WATER.

i . Ledges , on wh ch the bear had been shot As one looks at Chocorua from the south , its peak seems to rest upon the shoul der s of two con verg ing ridges , one sloping upward towards it from

. De the southeast, and one from the southwest tween the two ridges the soft forest drapery of the mountain fal ls in grace ful folds and curves to the level of the lake . We were in one of these folds , climbing towards the steep inner side of the western ridge . On each side of us lofty trees clung to the slopes of the valley . Owls hoot in these woods after twilight and at li dawn . Great boulders e in confusion in the t perpe ual shadows of the trees , and in the cav erns between and under them are dens of por

cu in es an d . p , foxes , skunks Not until we reached the torrent at the foot of the west ridge was the wagon abandoned and

r the horse tethered . The fo est at this point

s r . con ists mainly of popla s , birches , and oaks

- The bear slayer led the way through them , and his more muscular satellite followed at his heels , cutting saplings in order to form a path for o ur descent with the bear . After climbing sev eral hundred feet , we rested . A loud humming

ﬁl . led the air, yet no bees were to be seen at They appeared to be in the higher foliage , tracte d by something on the leaves . We ex amin ed es the lower branches , and then the leav H M 8 BRINGING O E THE REAR . 7

h e be of low s rubs and plants . They se med to c overed with dew, but the dew was sticky and o proved to be sweet to the taste . As we c ntin ued our walk we found that the entire side of th e mountain had been sprinkled with heavenly sweetness of the same kind . The roar of bees had become fami liar to our

- ears . The bear slayer was bending down a e slender be ch for the satellite to cut, when sud den l y he uttered a cry and sprang backward . “ ” run an d Run , , he shouted , in a moment the Islander and the small satellite were bounding

- down the moun tain side like chamois . The larger satellite became a football under the ’ - bear slayer s feet , and I , hearing a second cry “ ” of hornets ' plunged headforemost into the bushes and crawled away under the brakes , thus avoiding both the hornets and the necessity ’ r - - of e climbing lost ground . The bear slayer s retreat was marked by repeate d howls of pain which lent further speed to the ﬂying heels of

- the rear guard . It was some time before the ignominious stampede was checked and a f resh

- ascent begun . The bear slayer had been stung

r in three places , and the la ger satellite declared he had saved himse lf from a sting by pulling

oﬁ n the hornet his back with his ﬁ gers . Standing among the young tre es of the fore st

were many gray stumps of ancient origin , H R E A R M 88 AT THE NORT OF GA P WATER. decayed relics of forest gentr y now displaced i by the democracy of poplars and b rches . These stumps bore no axe marks ; they had fallen at the command of the tornado , not of the lumber thief . On their sides were long i H scratches which looked l ke claw marks . ad “ Sis Wildcat bee n trying her claws there ? “ ” No ; but Brer Bar had be en . Near by was m a s all grove of oaks , not one of which was r more than a foot in diameter . Thei sides ’ were deeply scored by Bruin s claws , and their highest branches hung down upon the rest of their limbs , broken and dying . There is hardl y an oak on Chocorua which has not been c climbed by bears in a orn time , and disﬁgured by the great brutes in their attempts to reach

the coveted nuts . Towering close above the oaks we coul d see

the abrupt faces of the West Ledg es . We see med to be at the foot of a great feudal castle whose gray walls needed scaling ladders to be in conquered . Ferns grew in the crevices the rock ; tiny streams of water trickled down its

sides and fed mosses and lichens ; honeysuckle , ’ n al mou tain ash , wild Solomon s se , and striped in n maple sprang luxuria t tangles from its feet, ’ and tripped us as we skirte d the castle s base

and sought a break in its smooth walls . Pres e ntly we found one , a rift made originally by

H B E AR AM P 90 AT THE NORT OF C WATER .

It did not go straight towards that proud rock, but sought it by bending westwar d and then

t . con s nor hward in a great bow The peak , e

quently, stood the other side of a vast hollow

ﬁlled with tangled forest . It was near, and yet

appeared unattainable . I thought of the winter day when I had climbed to this point over four feet of packed and frozen snow and seen the e a Chocorua horn , crust d with ice and ﬂ nked

by mighty snowdrifts , hanging in the bright blue

sky . Then , stimulated by the keen air, I had

e i plunged into the hollow , crossed it, scal d ts t k far her side on hands and nees , gained the foot ﬁ l u of the peak , and na ly won its slippery s mmit, no larger than my dining table ; and lying there

- r half freezing , had seen the snow cove ed world from Casco Bay to the Green Mountains ; Mo

n adn ock to Dixville Notch . The sun of August d did not encourage such exploits , and a dea bear lyin g hidden near us drew our thoughts away from the heights to the damp thicket close

below . “ The bear- slayer was telling his story : I was

coming along here , sort of softly, thinking it b was just the kind of place for a ear , when just as I got to this open ledge I heard a hustling

round in that snarl of bushes . I stopped short and listened and peeped in . There was some thing black and hairy rubbing round in the BR IN GING HOM E THE BEAR. 91

— blueberry bushes , you can see how thick the berries are in there Well , I thought , I must be careful ; there are lots of folks berrying , and I should hate to put one of these pills into a wo man picking blueberries . It would settle her right off . So I peeked round , till I was dead sure it was a bear, and then I let drive at l what I could see . The bal hit him in his side ul not far back of his sho der, and he gave an l e awful roar and started out this way . I c imb d ’ s up on this big boulder, ﬁve feet out of harm

i . i way, and wa ted He was lett ng out roars and ul then drawing awful deep breaths . You co d l him hear those gasps a mile . I cou d not see , he was in so thick in the bushes . But then he began to dr ag himself OE towards old C or oway and I started after him . I heard him go ker n chu k down this ledge , and then I caught sight of his head and let him have another, and a ’ third ball , but they did n t seem to stop him a ’ hit Off hi s , just glanced skull , I s pose . Well , he got down ’ most a hundred feet before I could hi s get a sight at side again , but when I did , I put one in where it stopped his gasping and ” kicking . During this narrative we had followed the t hun er through the network of trees , bushes ,

r and brambles , t acing the track made by the b ear in his agony . Branches were broken , H B E A R AM P 92 AT THE NORT OF C WATER.

leaves crushed, moss stained, and rocks torn s s up . As we de cended the north slope toward the dark ravine which the bear had sought, the sunlight grew dim and the air cold . Suddenly

I saw the bear . At the foot of a slippery ledge , o ver which hung dripping wet moss , lying upon e was a de p bed of sphagnum , a gaunt black

f . d h orm Dea and still as it was , it sent a t rill n thr ough me . I seemed to see the bei g for whom this wild region had been create d . The

- -ﬁrin e n - n s horn blowing, pistol g , p a ut eati g touri t is out of place in th e rugged ravines of Choco

e - i rua . Even the bronz d , gray sh rted native with his magazine rifle is not in tune with the h B solemn music of t is wilderness . ut in the dead creature on the moss I saw the real owner i of forest and ledge , mountain pool and h dden lake . He looked weary and worn , as though life had been full of hunger and terror The small , keen , wicked eyes were closed ; the cruel e teeth were locked tight , the broad f et were cut r by his last st uggles on the ledges , and his thin flecked hair, showing the hide below it , was with blood which had oozed from four bullet wounds . We five men gathered aroun d the dead bear o and lo ked at him , felt of him , counted his n his his ails , tried to open set jaws , guessed at u e e his weight, disc ss d his character, wonder d at

94 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WATER weight of the heavy satellite . The hunter took his place under the poles , and ﬁfty yards more u were gained . Then the h nter, with a resound

m o ing excla ation , ﬂung down the p les and

- whipped out his hunting knife . With difﬁculty he was dissuaded from skinning and quarterin g

Bruin on the spot . The plan which induced him to stay his hand was suggested by one of th e party who had read of what he cal led an “ ” Indian wagon . Under his direction two long poles were cut and the bear was lashed on top of them near their heavy ends . The satellites

r then stood between the light ends , as ho ses

r stand between the shafts , and began d agging the bear down the steep side of the mountain . They had not gone ﬁfty feet befor e the weight of the bear turned the poles over and left the satellites sprawling in the bushes . Once more

n r knives were draw and skinning th eatened . The next proposal was to wrap B ruin in grain t bags so as to pro ect his skin, and then to drag and roll him down to wher e traveling would be

- tr easier . The bear slayer consented to y this

r experiment, and two large shorts bags were d awn

d r r r m over the bo y, one f om its head , the othe f o

. O r a its tail the bags were l id under the body,

r and , thus p otected , it was dragged, bumping an d li d r rol ng, down several hun red ya ds to the

- n foot of the ledges . Short cross sticks were the M HE BRINGING HO E T BEAR.

i r inse rted in the lashings, which were t ed ound ’ b us the ear s legs , and four of , two on each side,

or two in front and two behind, raised the body by these sticks and bore it through the winding

path we had cleared while ascending . The

s s e les er at llite, carrying the riﬂe , hatchet, and

other luggage , brought up the rear, and urged on the party by jeering remarks and snatches of

song . In spite of repeate d cautions from the

- ll r d n ar bear slayer, whose stings sti sma te , we ’ ro wly escaped walking into the hornet s nest a i second t me . More than six hours had elapsed since our departure from home when our little procession wound out of the woods into my dooryard . Raspberry vinegar never was more gratefully wa was c s llowed , and never dead emperor re eived with more respect than poor Bruin by the crowds which ﬂocked to view his remains dur f ing the afternoon o that hot August day . One hi s hi s bought nails , another teeth , a third his i h of thinly ha red skin , w ile pieces his ﬂesh , e c o prepar d for future o king , were carried away l in various directions . As when sugar is spil ed

n upon the grou d , ants come from every quarter w to gather up the grains and draw them a ay, so dead Bruin dr ew gossips and idl ers from all his parts of the town , eager to pick up bits of b ody or stories of his melancholy end . ’ THE DEAD TREE S DAY.

IT is the theory that there are al ways plenty of hens to be bought in a New England far ming of town ; but as a matter fact , in the month

1 892 r of B ear cam of July, , the country no th p presented such a dearth of hens that , after traveling miles in my efforts to buy some , I re turned to my own neighbor hood and hired a contingent for the season . The transaction l a was unique, but, on the whole , mutua ly s tis factory . It had one drawback . When one th e m m owns fowls , accu ulation of fa ily wrath against the rooster on account of too early crow ing on his part always finds relief in eating him ; but when one hires a rooster, his life is im u charmed by contract, and he can with p nity crow the family into nervous prostration . The magnificent Black Spanish cock hired by me began crowing , on the morning of August 21 f , at twenty minutes o four . Not a ray of daylight pierced the bank of mist which filled the east . Nothing but instinct or a bad co n science could have told Murillo that it was time

. i i to crow Nevertheless , on th s occas on his

H B E A R AM P 98 AT THE NORT OF C WA TER.

r . a was , they were awake and stir ing Re ching

the bank of the lake a minute or two after four, b I startled a spotted sandpiper from the each , and heard his peeping whistle as he ﬂew from

n me across the black water, beyond which o ly dusky masses of gloom marked the pine woods

on the farther shore . The surface of the water was disturbed by thousands of insects cutting

queer ﬁgures upon it . Where they moved , l white ripples fol owed . As I walked along the

an r moist s d of the beach , pickerel shot out f om m the shore , bats squeaked , and frogs ju ped into

deeper water with nervous croaks of fear .

Then a whippoorwill sang , and as his weird

notes echoed from the woods , Venus sailed clear from the mist ban k and reﬂected her dazzling

r beauty in the lake . As I d ew near the mouth

of the brook , a solitary tattler ran along the

an . s d in front of me , whistling softly When I o an d turned into the bushes , he st pped resumed

his search for breakfast .

The dead tree rose above me , jet black

against the dark sky . Stepping softly through di the bushes , I sturbed the wary catbirds , and their fretful cries awoke the meadow . At

r w twenty minutes past four , th ee whippoor ills were singing, and two catbirds , with several hermit thrushes , were complaining . A few mo s l ment ater, the call of a veery was heard , a

1 00 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CAM P WATER . Far away in the swampy woods to the north “ - - - a. bi Ic e k e g red shouldered hawk cried y , y , ” - c e. Iy I remembered the morning, just a year

previous , when , sitting in about the same spot , with Puffy perched on a dead limb over my

- w head , a red shouldered hawk had flo n with stately wing - beat to one of the lower branches di of the dead tree , and then , suddenly scovering had r the owl , th ust its head forward , opened i wide its beak , and , with its fierce eyes glar ng, had shrieked its hatred at the almost unmoved a owl . This morning it did not visit the me dow, am probably finding its humble g e nearer home . The first bird to appear flying abo ve the level

ul - of the meadow was a gracef night hawk . Perhaps he had just come down from a night ’ s ’ n revel i the cool air over Chocorua s summit . I wondered whether he had been one of a com pany of between two and three hundr ed of his tribe which deployed across the sky on the af tern oon 1 9th of the , just in advance of a violent 20th A u thunderstorm . Yearly, about the of

- gust, the night hawks muster their forces and

parade during one or two afte rnoons . Yet there seems to be no diminution in the number

of the local birds after the army di sappears . Perhaps it is formed of migrants from the all north ; or perhaps the display is , after , only a ll dri , preparatory to a later ﬂight . D ’ THE DEA TREE S DA Y.

Th l - e Maryland yel ow throats, in moving th e about bushes , discovered me , and began e scolding at my intrusion . Th y came so near to me that they seemed within reach of my l hands . I kept perfectly stil , and half closed i e c my eyes . Their nspection se med to onvince l them that I was harm ess , for they went away, “ an d s ri -a i T i pre ently the male sang his g j g , g ’ ” - a i r i O i . g g , g j g , close behind me I am con vin ced that closing the eyes does a great deal l to reassure a timid bird . Ow s entirely cloak their evil appearance by simply dr awing their i eyelids down , and closing their feathers t ghtly about them . On discovering a man , birds watch , not his legs or his body , but his face , and his eyes are the most conspicuous part of his face and fullest of menace . I have sometimes fancied that nervous birds knew when they were watched , even though they could not see the

observer . At akin gbir d came sailing and ﬂuttering

over the meadow, its chattering cries giving ample warning of its approach . It lighted in the big tree , and scanned sky, water, and grass , to searching for something with which quarrel .

A ﬂicker passed silently, coming , as the king bird had , from the woods , and going to a tree a near the lake shore . Sm ll birds , possibly war

westvviard. a hlers , ﬂew by, A blue jay scre med B E M 1 02 AT THE NORTH OF AR CA P WATER.

harshly in the edge of the woods , but the fog, which was growing more an d mor e dense upon the meadow, discouraged its coming to the dead ’ s oldﬁn ch trees . Ju t at ﬁve o clock a g undulated

past, and the noisy rattle of a kingﬁsher echoed al ong the edge of the pond , provoking answers e from a red squirrel , whose chatt r seemed an

imitation of the call , and from a crow, whose ’ mimicry of the ﬁsh er s rattle was remarkably

- good . Probably all bird calls originated in the eff orts of their makers to reproduce sounds which

a . ple sed or startled them In this case , Chickaree and Cor vus had no sober motive for replying to the kingﬁsher ; they may neither of them have associated the rattle with the blue projectile at which made it . Both were entertained or e its tract d by the sound , and each in way tried a to reproduce it . It is by a simil r process ,

doubtless , that parrots , crows , and blue jays acquire the power of producing sounds which

correspond to our words . Later , they may gain,

r through expe ience , a knowledge of the meaning c n or for e of such words , but often no such k ow ledge lies behind the empty iteration of the

parrot . For nearly a quarte r of an hour there seemed

be - to a lull in the process of bird awakening .

- The Maryland yellow throats were moving, and n ow and then the mal e sang a little . Crows

A T THE H B E A 1 04 NORT OF R OA M P WATER. in ak the dim upper air but a moment, t ing a headlong plunge into the shr ubbery below . I thought even the frogs resented the slow -mov in g vapors , for they croaked and splashed rest lessly . A red -eyed vireo began his sermon at af and soon ter, blue sky and scattering rays f o sunlight appeared . Then the birds became s more cheerful , and catbirds , crows , kingbird ,

- Maryland yellow throats , and song sparrows vied with each other in activity an d noise . Every one of them was intent upon makin g k V n a good brea fast . The catbirds ate ibur um berries ; the crows marched upon the lake sand , searching f or the waste of the waves ; a barn d fl swallow , the kingbir s , and several smaller y t catchers hovered or dar ed in pursuit of insects, and the sparrows gathered their harvest from the earth . Then a flicker appeared in the top old r of the t ee , and , finding a resonant spot in

r e . the t unk , beat his r veille softly upon it My neck fairly ached when I tried to imagine the mental and muscular eff ort required of the bird to produce such regular and rapid action with his beak . The only way in which a man can make as many be ats to the minute with any regul arity is by allowing his hand to rest in such a wi position that it ll tremble . Then , by grasp in g a pencil and resting its tip upon a board , a THE D D ’ EA TREE S DA Y.

sound somewhat similar to the rolling r ever ’ ber ation of the woodpe cker s drumming can be

pr oduced . At half past six an olive - sided ﬂycatcher

on came to the pine , but seeing the kingbird dis

appeared . A moment later the kingbird ﬂew

- u away , and the olive sided at once ret rned to the the highest branch of tree , and made it his point of rest during a long series of sallies af ter

. of insects When he caught one large size , he a o brought it b ck to his perch , and p unded it violently against the branch until its struggles t ceased , and its harder por ions were , presuma

bly , reduced to a jelly . The kingbirds really have more right than any of the migrants to use a the old tree , for they have built, year after ye r, r time out of mind , in the spreading b anches of

the nearest living pine overhanging the lake . e As August advanc s , however, they wander a o to go d deal , paying visits my orchard and other

- good feeding grounds near the lake . While

hmbes they are away, wood pewees and p , Olive e fl catch er s i sid d and least y , visit the v cinity , and enjoy the great tree and the fine chances which it ofier s of seeing insects over bo th land an d water . About quarter to seven a solitary sand i ll . piper flew sw ftly over the meadow, ca ing It d th e ma e two great circles , rising above trees , an d then flew westward so fast that I looked to H B E AR AM 1 06 AT THE NORT OF C P WATER .

discover a pursuer, but could discern none . In the high woods , over which it ﬂew, the crows

r . orthwar d we e chortling N the peak was clear, although below it a long scarf of mist trailed over the forest , moving westward . In the tree “ ” top the ﬂicker ﬂickered , and then drummed ;

r called again , and d ummed more emphatically .

Soon a second woodpecker appeared , but ﬂew

s . by into the wood The ﬁrst one watched him ,

um r and then dr med again , whe eupon the new an comer ﬂew to him , and animated dialogue

r took place , the second bird appa ently having much to say in an excited manner . After they had ﬁnished their conference , the second bird

ﬂew away, and the ﬁrst relapsed into a reverie .

It lasted only a few moments , for shortly before seven o ’ clock two crows ﬂew into the two dead trees , and the woodpecker hurried away . Each r c ow took the topmost perch on his tree , and began his toilet . Just then a frog jumped with of a splash into the pool in front me , and the crows , hearing the noise , looked searchingly

w off . do n , saw me , and ﬂew without a caw For several years the morning of the 21 st of August has been my time for ﬁrst se eing Wil son ’ s blackcap warblers on their autumn jour ney southward . Having been in the swamp three hours without seeing one , I began to 1 892 think that , being leap year, the pretty

1 08 H B E A R C’A M P AT THE NORT OF WATER.

of watching, and I crept softly down to the brook . Before I had gone a dozen steps, a huge bird sprang from the sedgy growth by the lake shore and rose into the air . It was a blue heron which had been patrolling the sand within al forty feet of me . He ﬂew ong the shore for some distance , then rose and passed over the trees towards the north , seeking, no doubt, my

l . lonely lake , ha f a mile away in the forest

One morning , when hidden in the alders and viburnums which grow at the very foot of the big tree , I heard a queer guttural call or grunt from the meadow , and the next moment the o heron stood ab ve me , on the lowest limb of the pine . He looked sharply over the meadow and the lake , stretched first one leg , then the other , l then each wing in turn , and final y fell to preen al ing his blue and gray plumes . Against a p e blue sky or ruffled water which mingles blue r and g ay with bits of white , he is marvelously well protected by his coloring . No wonder that the poor frogs fal l a prey to his patient spear hl ing . I kept breat essly still , and watched this od largest of our Chocorua birds . It seemed d that the old tree shoul d be a perch for him and

- for the humming bird . The hummer is three and a quarter inches long ; the heron spreads h is six feet with great wings when he ﬂies , and measures over four feet when standing . After THE D D ’ DA Y EA TREE S .

a while I grew weary of watching the heron , and of wondering at his macaroni - like legs and his

n stra gely concentrated stare , which now and

x i n - wh is then ﬁ ed itself on my hid g place , so I tl ed softly . The heron paused in his feather combing and looked towards me . There was no fear in his glance , only mild interest . I sang , “ ” ” ﬁrst sad music , then Nancy Lee , Pinafore , ” t Hold the Fort , every hing I could think of, in fact , which might prompt him to action ; but he only stared , now over his beak , then under etf e it . The latter method of ogling was very c t tive , for the long bill was con emplating the

skies , while the cold , calculating eyes stood out each side of its base and glared down across it un til I seemed to feel their clamminess . From m usic I turned to animal language , and barked , mewed , mooed , brayed , whinnied , quacked , crowed , cackled , peeped , hooted , and cawed , eu until my thr oat was raw . He was clearly

tertain ed r . , and showed no desi e to leave me s At last I came down to plain English , suppo ing that my voice undisgui sed by song woul d him certam alarm , but to my great surprise he apparently did not associate the human voice with its owner in the slightest degree . In fact,

an d on he now seemed bored by my noise , went with his preening . Suddenly , in moving my e foot, I snapped a small twig . Before ther A THE H B E A R A M P 1 1 0 T NORT OF C WATER. seemed to have been time for the sound to reach hi s an d sa brain , the heron was on the wing, I w

r him no mo e that day .

At as I was watching the big tree , a

- large, light colored bird passed close to its trunk and plunged downward towards the deep pool at its foot . The sound of splashing water was followed by utter silence . After remaining mo tion less for several minutes I crawled car efully towards the bank of the brook . The bushes dr were thick , and small y twigs covered the ground . Their snapping could not be avoided , and just before I reached a point where I could see the water and the narr ow strip of muddy beach , a heavy bird rose with a great beating

- of wings and flew up stream . I broke through the cover, headlong, but the bird was out of sight . The surface of the stream was covered with small , soft feathers , which I gathered to gether and dried . They appeared to be from the breast of a sandpiper . Who the murderer was ll k wi never be nown , though I presume that ’ it was a Cooper s hawk . m My gli pse of this hawk , if such it was , re minded me of an encounter between a sharp shinned hawk an d a flock of blue jays which I had seen at the tree the week previous . The hawk arrived when several flickers were in the fled tr ee and hurled himself upon them . They ,

E AM 1 1 2 AT THE NORTH OF B AR C P WATER.

- as a red eyed vireo sitting upon a twig . Close by it was a second vireo al so perfectly passive .

I watched them for a long time , and could see n othing but their eyes move . It is such moods as this , taking possession of birds , which make some parts of the day silent , and cause the woods to seem deserted by all their feathered tenants . Another occupant of the thicket was

- v t a yellow bellied ﬂycatcher, whose acti i y in the pursuit of small insects was tireless . He cer tainl y found enough to eat , for small insects n have been u usually abundant this summer, while birds have been noticeably scarce near

. r e re Chocorua Some species , usually well p sented , have seemingly vanished , and others , quite numerous in average years , have been very sparingly represented . For instance , the summer has passed without my seeing either an oriole or a winter wren , while redstarts and

- ll chestnut sided warblers , usua y among the most numerous species , have been represented by a mere handful of birds . The supposed local causes of this dearth of small birds are a heavy f snow all , which occurred the last week in May, d and a hailstorm , which did great amage just in the middle of the nesting period . Unusual numbers of bir ds are said to have been kill ed by spring storms in the Gulf States before the ’ year s migration really began . ’ THE DEAD TREE S DA Y. 1 1 3 At eleven o ’ clock a ﬂock of small birds moved

rapidly across the meadow, and four of the num

ber passed through my covert . They were a ’ chickadee and three Wilson s blackcaps . I wish the latter bird lived here in the breeding con ﬁdin t l season , for it is a pretty , g , gentle li t e

creature . The departure of these birds was has tened by the appearance on the lake shore of a young man , a boy, and a dog . The man car th e in ried a gun , and dog rushed about an ex in cited way, doing his best cur fashion to aid in the hunt . When the trio reached the brook at the point where it debouched upon the lake man r sand , the cursed the st eam for its width , and the boy, in a loud nasal voice , followed his example . They stood upon the farther side for several minutes pouring out blasphemy and ﬁlth until a sandpiper attracted their attention and

o . their gun sp ke sharply The bird escaped , in the s perhaps to die meadow gra s , and again the two intelligent human beings invoked wrath upon the bird , the stream , the meadow, the dog , and the gun . Then they crossed the brook r higher up , whe e it was narrower , and distance w covered their conversation ith a welcome veil . As long as the pleasan t memories of that quiet day linger in my mind , so long will there be drawn through them a black line of disgust at the vileness of the two representatives of my H B E AR A M 1 14 A T THE NORT OF C P WA TER. own species who offer ed such a contrast to the purity of nature . From eleven until one o ’ clock there was almost l unbroken stil ness near the great tree . Now and then some one of the regul ar residents of the meadow spoke , a dragonfly buzzed past , a small pickerel stirred in the brook , or a frog “ ” war m q TO'ILIL said , , and splashed in the still water among the reeds . The kingbirds broke the monotony by coming , three strong , with much noise and fluttering to take possession of the tree . One of them flew to the sand by the lake ripples and drank . Then all three came upon th e lowest branches of the big tree and

n looked at the dark pool below . O e ﬂew obliquely against the water, striking it and

ir dashing a thousand bright drops into the a . tu He rose chattering and re rned to his perch , shaking himself . I thought he had aimed for a

ﬂy and struck the water unintentionally, but

w . do n he went again , making even more of a splash than before , and presently both the oth ers followed his example at such frequent inter val s that the pool had no time to smooth its rippl es . This odd kind of bathing was contin i ued for ten minutes , during which t me a cat bird sneaked down upon the sand and watched the process silently but with evident interest . Later he saw me sitting motionless under the

H B E AR A M P 1 1 6 AT THE NORT OF C WATER .

’ It was not until nearly six o clock that the l l tree became rea ly popu ous again . Then the

catbirds went upstairs on its branches , ﬂickers and kingbirds occupied its top ; a humming - bird buzzed in the face of a pewee who was perched full y thirty feet from the ground ; a sapsuckin g

woodpecker came and drummed for a moment, and ﬁnally a ﬂock of cedar - birds rested in it for

a while as they had in the morning . The sun set

and night breathed upon the meadow . A single cedar-bird remained in the tip of the tree and

drearily repeated his one dismal word . Below in the shad ows the catbirds were restlessly

mewing , and as it grew dark the lament of the

hermits joined in the gloomy chorus . The sky i was fair, and rosy l ghts ﬂowed and ebbed in

the clouds . The stars came, and in the distant pines a barred owl sounded his long trumpet

note . A few minutes after seven , when cat

birds and hermits were silent for the night, I heard a solitary sandpiper whistling at the

mouth of the brook . My glass brought his tiny

form to view, and as I watched him , a second tattler ran along the gleaming sand and the

whistling ceased . Suddenly they ﬂew together

as though startled , and the next moment I saw what I had supposed to be a bunch of pickerel weed growing in the shallows move slowly east ward . The object was several rods from the D D ' THE EA TREE S DA Y. 1 1 7

an d shore, moving across the mouth of the

brook . Now it glided a few inches , then it

paused . Ten minutes passed before it pro ’ gressed as many yards . It was the heron s ghostly form . When he reached the easte rn shore a light ﬂashed across the lake and a voice

sounded . He ﬂew . I rose to go , but as I crept out upon the sand I turned to take a last look at the tree , and saw there the heron , stand

n la i s the sk . i g on a high limb , b ck aga n t y For h e l ed us h e sai d to a o ou l n , , j y s a d,

Wh re wat rs ush d an d f r ui - rees rew e e g e t t g ,

A n d ﬂ w rs ut on a. f air r h ue o e p e , A n d ever hin was stran e an d n yt g g ew .

’ THE quaint story of Noah s gathering the animals into the ark is always linked in my w wi mind ith the Pied Piper, and th that strange turn in the tide of bir d life which is called mi

i n r grat o . The ma velous music which charmed the rats and children of Ham elin town must have been used by Noah to cal l his creatures of ll into the ark safety , and it is sti to be heard in the winds of autumn sighing through the Chocorua forests and calling the birds away to al other lands . One day all is c m and serene ; the next , though the sky is just as blue and the

of n sunlight just as warm , something u rest is in

air r the , and the bi ds are telling each other the

r story of the great journey . Songs are fo gotten or sung only to gr eet the dawn and bless the night ; nestlings ar e trained to ﬂight and led

n r silent jour eys th ough ﬁeld , forest , or ether after food ; new scenes are visited, and the weak

M I GR A TION. 1 1 9

a the to . T separ ted from strong and left die hen , s i ometimes by day , somet mes by night, the hosts r meet , drawn together by a fo ce as irresistible and mysterious as magnetism , and ﬁnally the story of the great journey is written in fact once more . In the August mornings I hear the Swainson ’ s

r thrush by the lake . He was not the e a few

- days before , he was on the mountain side . He n is drifti g southward, slowly at ﬁrst , but feeling ’ the thrill of the Pied Pipe r s music in his wings . All through the summer I have listened in vain “ ” a uan k uan h uan k for the nas l q , q , q , of the red

- t a . nu h tch Suddenly , in mid August, I hear it o n e the mountain , and an hour or two lat r every ’ ﬂock of chickadees brings the northern migrant s “ cal w r dee dee l along ith the jolly cho us of , ,

dee . These chickadees , alert , courageous , tire e l ss , and generous , are the convoys of the warbler e t ﬂee ts . For an hour the silence of the for s will be broken onl y by the tiresome platitudes

red - d ac of of the eye vireo , the dry st cato the

- ﬂ n . harvest y , and the occasio al whistle of a hyla

l dee- ee Then , far away, wi l be heard the faint d

t . c of the ti mouse It omes nearer , and presently l a dozen or twenty ittle birds are seen hovering,

n darting , ﬂitting , but steadily advanci g , tree by

tree , through the woods . Perhaps not more than on e in ten will be a chickadee , yet it is the chick N OR TH or B E AR A M P 1 20 AT THE C WATER. adee which gives character and direction to the body The guided ﬂock of easy - going warblers an d vireos , nuthatches and kinglets , drift on , l feeding and frolicking, heed ess of what it passes .

If the observer squeaks , or if an owl draws the attention of the passing birds , the chickadee r e comes to the front at once , with his sharp proving iterations , and his beady eyes snapping

- indignantly . Al ong with him come red eyed

i a - and sol t ry vireos , nuthatches , golden crested ’ - kinglets , black throated blue warblers , Wilson s

c - black aps , young chestnut sided warblers , look ing puzzl ingly unlike their parents . Black burn ian s aﬂame - , with throats black throated i greens , rich in spring t nts of yellow and ten der green ; black and white creepers , the tidiest s of birds ; the gay magnolias , red tarts , Cana dians , and sober myrtle warblers . Sometimes a single ﬂock contains nearly all of these cour d tiers of the woods , while others are compose almost entirely of a single species , as , for ex

ac - ma ample , the bl k throated greens , or the g

n olias . In these sam e late August an d early Septem ber days the cherry and berry eaters gather o r together and travel in ﬂocks . R bins by sco es , i somet mes by hundreds , combine with the cedar birds and ﬂickers and range over the country in

B E A M 1 22 AT THE N OR TH OF R CA P WATER. coul d explain the present temperaments of the wandering birds , but we may never know what that something is . Whether we are to know it o r not, it is natural to have a feeling akin to pity for birds so lacking in home life .

r The winter w en is an amusing little migrant . He seems to have an underground railway of his own from the grim northern forest straight to wards a milder clime . Like other underground s ways , it has breathing holes , and out of the e he occasionally pops his head and sputter s at i the observer . Somet mes he appears at an opening in a stone wall and scolds mankind for picking blackberries or plucking goldenrod ; again he emerges from the darkness beneath a log in the swamp , and bustles about with the offensive energy of a special policeman . If he travels in company, the fact is not often made a evident . He cert inly seems too crusty for pleasant companionship on a long journ ey . One late September morning a winter wren ﬂew into my hen -house and became my prisoner for a few hours . I placed him in a room and t watched his efforts to escape . He ﬂew wi h such speed that he made almost as much of a

- r humming as a humming bi d . He clung to the woodwork, and hid in the curtains , but ﬁnally dropped to the ﬂoor and ran about like a mouse , hiding in corners or behind the legs of chairs . MIGRATION. 1 23

On ce or twice I caught him and stroked hi s head an d neck . He was quiet enough while I

touched him , but the moment my ﬁngers left him , he slipped away out of sight . When i taken out of doors and set free , he darted nto the nearest stone wall and was seen no more . Birds of the upper air which feed on insects depart early . The eaves swallows and martins go while some mothers are still sitting on be l w lated eggs . Bank swallows , barn swa lo s ,

n i - s ﬂ catch ers ght hawk , and many of the tyrant y have vanished by the time the maples begin to

- n 3d ﬂame upon the mountain side . O the of 1 891 August , , I saw about twenty martins in

t . the dead ree They were very noisy , and h evidently excited . W ile watching them I saw

in the zenith what looked like a cloud of insects . s My glass showed it to be a large ﬂock of bird ,

i . apparently swallows , mov ng in a great circle After a time all but one of the martin s in the e tree ﬂew away and were gone many minut s ,

the birds in the sky also disappearing . The t r martins re u ned, however, to the one which discov had not flown , and shortly after I again t s ered the bird cluster in the sky . Af er fre h noise and flutter in gs of wings the martins th e finally flew, and no more were seen near

lake that season . Often in an Augus t afternoon l i he s the ake w ll apparently without bird , when 4 N OR TH B E A R A M P 1 2 AT THE OF C WATER. in a twinkling the air will be full of graceful

of - forms , and a ﬂock white breasted swallows ,

- barn swallows , or night hawks will sweep over the blue water, rise , vanish over the meadow, ak reappear, ﬂy towards the pe , wheel , return , h and then per aps speed away, not to greet the fair lake again until ice and snow have come i and gone , and the number of their own l ght dl di forms has been sa y minished in the south . A ﬁeld of buckwheat or other small grain is a magnet in the days when the birds are wan i dering . To it come the song sparrows , ch p

i - e ping sparrows , wh te throats , juncos , purpl oldfin ches finches , field sparrows , g , and bay winged bun tings . They love to linger many days in the stubble ; and when bird music is s rare , their occasional song are precious to the car . If the field is approached softly there i seems to be no life h dden in its midst , but sud den l e y wings whirr noisily, and bird aft r bird

ﬂies up into the neighboring trees and bushes .

ll acs Sparrows love fences , stone wa s, and their companying growths of berry -bushes and small o trees . The latter are ur New England sub s titute s for the hedgerows of the Old World, and I believe the sparr ow tribe takes as much com fort in wall and briers as in hedge and ditch . The ditch is more than replace d by countless s an d all brook , always clear pure, and the w

N OR TH B E A R A M W 1 26 AT THE OF O R ATER .

l on the upper curve of a bou der, the tip of a

r cedar, or some equally favo able point for see

ing and being seen . They are comparatively

hew it silent, but now and then their sweet c comes as a promise that after the long winter

spring shall return , and with it their loveliness an and courage . M y of the birds go south in diﬂer en tl cheerfully, or y, but the bluebirds

dl an d seem to linger sa y and lovingly, to feel that the migration is an enforced exile from the

home they love best . The Chocorua country is not a good one for n starli gs and blackbirds ; in fact , I have never seen but one bobolink nearer than Fryeburg

l - ﬁve interva es , twenty miles away ; and with all

i r m my watch ng, no crow blackbi d or eadow lark has ever caught my eye in this region . w The old residents say that years ago , hen ﬂax was cultivated hereabouts and grain - ﬁelds wer e

r broader, these birds were p esent in large num bers . The ﬁrst ﬂock of rusty grackles which I have ever seen here appeared this year on a hill l af top, about the midd e of the ternoon of Sep tember 22 . The birds were either very tame or very weary , for they remained in the tops of

- some locust trees , while I not only stood beneath o l them , but sho k their tree , ca led to them , and e clapped my hands . They maintained a st ady

ﬂow of s otto voce music charming to the ear . M IGRA TION. 1 27

All migrants are not desirable visitors . An inroad of hawks is far from pleasant for the birds of a neighborhood , or for other migrants . All through the month of September hawks abound . They circle round the peak of Cho

s . corua , seemingly for the plea ure of it Often ’ a dozen sharp - shinned and young Cooper s hawks are in sight there at once . Sometimes great ﬂocks of hawks pass across the sky, not

- - circling, as the red tailed and red shouldered

li r hawks are so fond of doing , but sai ng st aight before the wind like a ﬂeet of m ackerelmcn

running down the coast wing and wing . I once saw three hundr ed and thirty migrating hawks

in one forenoon , most of them a thousand feet h or less above the earth , but some so high t at a powerful glass onl y just brought them into

view . The stately progress of these birds , mov ing many miles an hour without a wing - beat

visible to the observer, is one of the wonders of

- nature . The Dead Tree is a resting place for migrating hawks , eagles , and ospreys . I doubt l not that by night it is used by ow s , when they to o move southward as their food grows scarce . In several different years I have seen my big

in blue heron sail away southward . In each stance it has been about four o ’ clock in the

afternoon . Rising with slow an d digniﬁed e m ﬂight, he makes two or thr e i mense circles N R TH R E A A W 1 28 AT THE O OF R O M P ATER.

a over the l kes , and then , as though partings were said , landmarks remembered , and bearings taken , he ﬂies with strong and steady strokes towards the outlet of the Ossipee basin . This year , in August, ten night herons visited us at i in one t me , remaining the neighborhood two or

. r three days When distu bed by day, they rose ,

r ﬂe w and , forming an orde ly ﬂock, away with

e . military pr cision The ducks and geese are ,

e - l however, the b st examples of well dri led com

. al panics Geese are not often seen here , though several were killed this spring in a small lake f hal way between Chocorua and the Be ar camp. Wood duck and black duck begin to fly past us late in August , but their numbers are compara tiv el un y insignificant , a flock of ten being In usually large . October and early November the wind - swept lakes are seldom without littl e k companies of black ducks , sheldra es , and their less common relatives . One of the most inte resting of migrants is the loon , or great northern diver . Loons are hi said to breed in this vicinity on W tton Pond , and they are seen now and then during all the summer months . It is on the edge of a north in k east storm September, when mac erel clouds deck the sky and the hazy sunlight spreads gold u i pon the r pples , that the migrating loon comes

- ll with the force of a cannon ba , and plunges

1 30 N OR TH B E AR CAM P AT THE OF WATER. Late in September and in October there are days when the rush of migrating birds i s like of the stampede a defeated army . I recall one 25th 1 891 such day, the of September , , when a torrent of migrants swept past my red - roofed w cottage in the hour follo ing sunrise . Befor e f breakfast, and without going out of sight o my

n in door, I saw over two hu dred birds go by, al cluding sixty pigeon woodpeckers , sever sap suckers , nuthatches , chickadees , crows , blue i jays , robins , catbirds , seven k nds of warblers ,

- solitary and red eyed vireos , four kinds of spar a rows , tanager , pewees , and a ﬂock of cedar birds . Most of these birds were on the trees ,

o r s bushes , ground , busily feeding , yet restles ly progressing southwestward , as though haunted by some irresistible impul se to keep in motion . an d The day was hot still , and my notes men tion th e fact that we heard the splash of an a osprey as he plunged into the l ke , more than a a quarter of a mile away . Th t evening the whippoorwill s were singing their farewells in the soft moon light .

As the early October days glide by , these an d waves of migration come faster faster, their acceleration seeming , as one looks back upon it , like the ever quicker throbbing of the air

- under the wing be ats of the grouse . Even as the drumming suddenly ceases and the summer air 1 31 s eems still and heavy in the silence which fol lows , so the migration suddenly ends , and the woods and ﬁelds be come very still in the late

Indian sum mer . Now and then the scream of ll a blue jay fa s upon the ear, or a faint note of a tree sparrow comes from the weeds by the u roadside ; but as a rule nature is d mb , and the

leaves fal l like tears . All the beauty of sky and autumn foliage cannot bring the birds back

to the sil ent forest . Warm though the sun

may be , and soft the haze on the cheek of Pas sacon awa s woo y , the e charms cannot back the

birds from their migration . The music of the

are r Pied Piper has bewitched them , they d eam in g of gushing waters and ﬂowers of fairest hue ; a and m ny a frosty , starlit night will pass before their wings beat once more in the clear Ch o

corua air . R P P G G OM T A IN N ES.

WHEN the harvest moon is large and the nights clear, I love to spend an evening hour or two under the great oak -trees on the shore of my lonely lake . The soft mists creep across a the water, bats flit back and forth sque king, the whippoorwill s call to each other that the time for migration is near at hand , and some times the voices of the barred owls wake weird ’ echoes in the lake s curves . Sitting motionless w in the black shado , I am unseen and nusus pected by the night creatures roun d me . Many flutter feet move upon the dry leaves , and the ing of wings disturbs the still air . Measuring ’ the evening from sunset until ten o clock , it seems a period of more activity than the day . Hours roll by in the September sunlight with ak scarce a sign of life near the l e , but the com ing of twilight is a signal for awakening . High in the oaks the gray squirrels are busy with the acorns . In the stilln ess of the night an acorn falling against one and another bunch of stiff al u leaves , fin ly striking pon the ground, seems to make an unduly loud noise . The fine squeak

B E A AM 1 34 AT THE N OR TH OF R C P WATER.

hours in his form among the swamp evergreens .

- Gnome hunting has been my pastime , and so low is our human estimate of the char acter and usefulness of these tiny creatures that my co n science has not given the faintest bit of a twinge when I have brought home dead gnomes from

ﬁeld , meadow, mountain , and forest . Our gnomes are not all of one kind, and when I started with my game - bag in the September sun light I did not feel sure what manner of elf I might bring home with me . Setting out early 1 2th on the morning of the , I dashed the dew from the brakes as I crossed an open pasture n o the way to my lonely lake . The brakes were r growing b own , yet we had had no frost , and the equinox was still ten days distant . The u a an d or s m cs were gorgeous in green , scarlet , ange , waiting for the ﬁrst rain or wind to hurl th ev to the ground half their gay leaves . As

n hung motionless in the su light, they seemed brilliant en ough for the tropics . Aste rs and goldenrod joined them in painting part of the picture with high colors , and so did the maples on the high ledges of the mountain where a ’ - bear hunter s ﬁre raged last October . A bit of woodbine climbing up the maple trunk gleamed

t - like ﬂames , moun ain ash berries were full of the

ﬁr e same , and the clustered fruit of the hobble bush glowed in the midst of its maroon and i cr mson foliage . TRAPPING GNOM ES .

What means this decking of the earth in au tu mu with scarlet and purple , crimson and gold , russet and orange ? The ﬂowers of the spring ul time are f l of joyous color, in order that the wandering bee and butterﬂy may aid in their fertilization . The bird gleams with color as

- e the glow worm gleams with ﬁre , that his mat may not forget him in the mazes of the life tu dance . The au mn is the season of ripening, th e a of gathering of harvests , of the dec y of the t ear hly, and the creation of that which shall l endure . A r e these colors on y the emblems of

death , the garlands upon the pall , or are they the signals which Nature hangs on high to call her forces into ranks for the battle against ex tinction and in favor of persistent life ? Surely the berry which by its brilliancy of color calls e the bird to it, in order that it may be eat n and

its seeds carried afar , is as wise as the ﬂower which by its tints and perfume attracts the bee

and secures fertilization . Perhaps the tree which blazes with autumn color is avoided by insects whose instinct te aches them to shun colors

in contrast to their own . Just beyond the sumacs is the stump of a pre

r It histo ic pine . has lasted generations since its towering pillar fell and sank year by year o deeper into the soil . Its hard gray walls l ok as though they might endure half a century 1 36 OE B E AR C’AM P AT THE NORTH WATER . more of snow and sunshine . Gnomes live under a u tr th t st mp , and the ﬁrst of my aps was set at their cave archway . Kneeling down behind the e i r clustering blackb rry br e s , I could see the archway just at the head of the opening between t two of the great but ress roots of the stump . e Moss was growing at the thr shold , ferns over h hung the doorway, and a tiny path led t rough the grass from the arch into the dry pasture be

yond the briers . Yes , the trap had been sprung, and crushed beneath its cruel springs was a gray

gnome . His eyes were large and dark . His

coat was of soft gray , and his waistcoat snowy . His hands and feet were very white and his elﬁn

ears mischievously large and erect . The name l — Hes er om s of this gnome is quite musica , p y ,

the evening gnome . In a deep hollow between wooded banks runs

the pasture brook . It comes fr om the forest

a - cl d mountain side , and ﬂows to a dark swamp , l l beyond which is the ake . Gnomes ive by the

brook, both in the hollow and in the swamp . Nine traps were set in the holl ow an d eighteen

in . i the swamp These traps are , w th true Yan “ ” kee originality, named cyclones, and they are

nearly perfect as engines of destruction . Upon a small square of tin are hinged two rectangles stiﬂ i c of w re , so atta hed to strong springs that

they naturally lie ﬂat upon the square of tin .

1 38 AT THE NORTH OF R E AR OA M P - WATER

with moss , violet leaves , and rue . One trap was on this log, one by the boulder close to a little hole running under it , and the third near the mouldering stump . At ﬁrst as I stood in the midst of the traps I could see none of them . The corn scattered near had been carried away o r eaten , and the strings by which the traps wer e tied to stakes were not where I remembered to have left them . Suddenly I saw one trap .

It was sprung and drawn away among the leaves . i Something was in it, someth ng I had never before seen , a creature more beautiful than any

as su e s squirrel , as graceful as a swallow and gg tive of speed and lightness . I knelt over this

- slender, brightly clad gnome , and released his

- lifeless body from the trap . His cobweb like whiskers were wonderfully long , his coat was of pale straw color and brown , his waistcoat of has purest white . No monkey a tail proportion all y longer than the seemingly endless white

‘ Za us in si n is tipped appendage of p g , this jump ing gnome of the mountain streams . Exquisite t r crea u e , I thought, how can I have lived so long among woods and br ooks without suspect “ ” ing your pr esence ? But for a cyclone I might never have known that such a being ex

isted .

t co n The other two raps were sprung, one Za us an d t taining a second p , the hird a gray T W O K IND S OF GNOME S

1 40 B E A R CA M P AT THE NORTH OF WA TER.

e land lat r than the sapsuckers , but that they

migrate southward earlier .

While I waited under the birches , a gray squirrel came tr ipping over the gras s an d

through the brakes . His great brush was not

carried over his back , but in an arch behind

him . His approach was so noisy that at ﬁrst I

thought a dog was coming towards me , but his

t . C lack luck clack d eck voice be rayed him , c , , , “ cleck clack clack , , , If a cyclone had been choking him he coul d not have made

sounds any more queer . When at last he dis n a covered me , he lowered his tail and u dul ted v ery softly away . The ﬁrst of the second series of traps was set on the slope leading down towards the moist bed

of the swamp . It contained one of the white

footed gray gnomes . The next three were e ﬁve empty . Numb r was in the darkest part of the swamp on a huge upturned stump whose wi i l t sted roots , look ng ike the arms of a devil

. was ﬁsh , reached far into the air The trap

sprung, and the gnome in it was as new to my

Za us . eyes as p had been Coarse , chestnut w bro n hair , in parts almost as bright as red s an d mahogany, small eyes , conspicuou ears , a tail so short that it see med onl y a stump of con s icu something more satisfactory , were the p s us points in this gnome . His name , as I later TRAPPING GNOM ES .

E votom s - a learned , was y , the long c red gnome . His rich coloring matched to perfection the de ca ed l t m v y hem ock s u p in which he li ed , and harmonized with the brown bar k of pines an d

the stained waters of the swamp broo ks . In the a sunlight, or upon the s nd by the brookside , he

would have been conspicuous . Where he lay he looked like a fragment of the reddish wood

under him . i Five more of his tribe , and a t ny shrew, only

three inches long, were found in the remaining had swamp traps . One of the gnomes been

nearly devoured as he lay in the trap , the parts i remaining being sk n , feet , tail , and a small

portion of the head . I suspected a big mole of

being the ghoul . On my way home I looked in a trap set under a smal l foot - bridge which

-ﬁ l spanned a damp spot in a mowing e d . The victims her e for two had been caught at

' A rmcola d once were of the family , the stur y f gnomes o the ﬁelds . Their eyes were very l small , their ears a most concealed by their

- a coarse , dark brown h ir , and their bodies awk war dl r y but strongly built . They are the fa m ing gnomes . 1 7 ’ On September , I walked from Berry s to “ the f t Swi River intervale , over the once lost ” c e a dl trail , now nearly omplet d as a bro d bri e

-ﬁv e path and wi nter road. I took twenty 1 42 OE B E A R CA M P AT THE NORTH WATER. cyclones with me and set them at the most

favorable spots along the way . B rook cr oss

- ings , big, moss grown stumps or logs , boul der s

overhanging springs or rivulets , and old log ging camps wer e among the places which seemed

to me likely to be frequented by gnomes . As I

was not to return until the next day, a night would intervene to give the little cave - dwellers time to smell the cor n and to inspect and spr ing the trap The intervale was very beautiful as it lay

r tranquil in the autumn haze , but the memo ies of last Chr istmas - time had a char m about them which even the foretaste of Indian summer

could not equal . Snow adds greatly to the dig n ity and grandeur of our New England moun ak tains , making them more in to the Alps , per

etual . r p in their wintry covering Choco ua, al of t r ways a reminder the Mat e horn , is much

r - mo e like it when clad in ice , and rose tinted E r . r by the mo ning sun ven Swift River, f amed

in meadow brakes , waving osmundas , and gay

scarlet maples , seemed less sparkling than when set in ice and overhanging banks of pure white

snow .

As night came , coldness suggestive of winter

crept over the great plain . The ﬁrst light frost came caressingly in the still night hour s and fell upon the pumpkin vines and the delicate

1 44 B E A R CA M P AT THE NORTH OF WA TER.

C arrigain and Bear and climbed the ridge a ul to wards Paugus v lley . Wo d the traps be sprung ? The question gave speed to my foot steps, which might otherwise have lagged by s spring or brook ide , for the day was meltingly warm and no breeze came over the Paugus ram r parts . The ﬁ st trap was near the top of the

ul . ridge , under a huge bo der It was two miles from the nearest house in the intervale , and more than double that distance from Berry ’ s o r n a any other i h bited dwelling in Tamworth . Perhaps gnomes did not live in spots so remote

- from man and his grain ﬁelds . The trap was

. m sprung E voto ys had found it and perished .

The next one was sprung , and a second long eared victim lay in it . So with the third and

l . fourth , set at interva s of many rods The

ﬁfth was sprung, but empty ; the sixth con tain ed a gray Hesp er omys the seventh another

E votomys . I was now in the deep , dark valley between the northern ridges of Paugus and

‘ Chocorua . Three miles and a half of the roughest moun tain woodland lay between this l ma i spot and tilled and , yet ani l l fe was so abundant that it seemed to make no diff erence where I set my traps and scattered my corn ; gnomes were everywhere waiting .

-ﬁve Out of twenty traps , ﬁfteen held victims

u . an d six others were spr ng, but empty One M 1 45 TRAPPING GNO ES.

an . of the slain was a chipmunk , other a mole

r - Of the remainder, th ee were long tailed gray

ee er om s re d- H p y , and ten were backed E voto

mys . The latter are clearly the most numerous e inhabitants of the dark evergr en forests, but they are also to be found near secluded farm buildings in spots where the fulvous H esp er o e mys is the pr vailing sprite . Among these d all gnomes of the woo s and ﬁelds, true Ameri

e a u . In can sp cies, European intr der is found some thickly settled places he has done among gnomes what the European sparrow has done

among birds, elbowed himself into exclusive

r possession . When found in a t ap, or seen a sc mpering along the pantry shelf, this gnome i a m use. s called , in vulgar English, o LD O SHAG.

LD HA G O S , Toadback, or Paugus Mountain stands in the Sandwich range between Cho corua on the east and Pas saconaway on the west . It is better armed against attack by mountain climbers than any of its neighbors , and this in spite of the fact that in elevation it is the lowest of the range . Its defenses consist of numerous radi ating ridges covered with dense “ growths of spruce and crossed by belts of har ” ff ricane , miles of cli s so forbidding as to repel i any but determined assault , and rav nes choked by débris of rock and fallen forest . No path of

y kind leads to its top , and when its summit

is gained , none of the familiar marks indicating

vi - n i al - u previous sits by egg eating, i ti c tting

tourists are discoverable .

Like most impregnable fortresses , Paugus has h its weak spot . T ere is a way to reach its south “ ” ern har rican e summit without touching a ,

r climbing a precipice , or st uggling through

r more than a few rods of spruce jungle . Mo e on over, this way the traveler is sung to by one of the most musical of streams , while his eyes

OLD SE A G. 1 47 are charmed by the ever - changing beauties of a series of as exquisite cas cades as are to be found

in the White Mountains . It is true that in midsummer the brook is so reduced in size that

its chief charm is seriously lessened , but if the n time chosen for ascent is in spring , autum , or

after a heavy summer rain , the falls will be

found at their best . 1 5 r On the morning of September , a pa ty of “ ” e di four persons ent red the lost trail, lea ng ’ from Berry s to the Swift River intervale . A heavy rain had fallen during the whole of the

preceding day, and Paugus River , with all its

i r sons and daughters , grandch ld en brooks , and

- great grandchildren rivulets , made the forest resound with the music of innumer able singing

r l falls and rapids . Following the old t ai for

two miles , the party reached a spot where a good - sized str eam appeared ﬂowing eastward from the great hollow in the eastern ﬂan k of

- . L Paugus eaving the bridle path at this point,

r r and walking nea ly due west, the explore s fol

lowed the bran ch towards its source . As the region was reported to be thickly set with bear

traps , the party walked in Indian ﬁle , while their leader sounded and punched every foot of

moss and soft leaf mould with his stout staff . The tr aps used by the hunters on these moun a i t ins are murderous inventions , consist ng of B E A R A M P 1 48 AT THE NORTH OF C WATER. two huge ste el jaws lined with sharp teeth .

The trap , when set , is buried beneath a layer of moss . If a bear or man steps between the s opened jaws , thereby pre sing a pan which r f ees the two powerful springs below the jaws ,

the trap closes instantaneously, the teeth are l e ock d in the ﬂesh , cutting sinews and crushing

bone . A man thus caught is maimed for life , if , indeed , he does not die from starvation and pain befor e he can be released from his horrible

impri sonment . A bear usually drags the trap i unt l its anchor catches in a tree, or his strength o is exhausted . Sometimes he gnaws ff his foot

and crawls away bleeding and crippled . The

w -ﬁve n trap weighs from t enty to forty pou ds , an d although usually marked in such a way that e r its owner can r cognize it, no name bet ays the

identity of the trapper . The places chosen by the bear hunter for set ting his traps are those to which a bear is in the

habit of going often . On damp and mossy spots the great footprints of the brute show i l a pla n y, and when the trapper is satisﬁed th t i al u Bru n w ks that way habit ally, he cuts out a squar e of moss upon whi ch the footprint is a pl inly visible , places his open trap in the hole , r wi estores the moss th great care , and goes a way for a week, or even longer , visiting other

traps , some of which may be many miles away .

THE B E 1 50 AT NORTH OF AR CAM P WATER .

d r r d by the moss be s th ough which it had ﬁlte e , poured in quivering folds over the rock . Stan d ing by the side of the pool at the foot of the lowest incline , we could see four of these smooth ledge faces rising one behind another abo ve us . o ll Climbing to their t p, we saw as many more sti higher, and beyond them all , twin cascades e a gleamed through the tr es, as they fell from ledge in the middl e of which a mass of black spruces and huge gray rocks seemed to form an island poised in the air between the two hal ves of the torrent . ll Nearly a thousand feet above this twin fa , yet so close beyond it that my companions al most despaired of further progress up the moun tain , was a wall of gray rock suspended between

- was r e the sky an d the tree tops . It the last n doubt of the impreg able Paugus . Was there i e ? n a r ft in its appar ntly solid face Yes , I k ew a th t there must be , because years before I had come down this ravine from the summit and had found no obstacle to gradual and easy de scent . While passing the falls , we used the barometer to ascertain their approximate height, and found a difier en ce of two hundred and fif ty feet between the level of the pool at their foot and that of the stream above the twin cascades . The several inclines down which the water shot in rippling sheets were each fif ty or sixty fee t CHOCORUA SE E N FROM THE SIDE OF PA UGU S

B E AR CAM P 1 52 AT THE NORTH OF WATER .

e am amber masses , bubbles, she ts of fo , and yellow leaves dropped by the ripening tree s . As it seemed about to hurl itself upon me and

d n bed . sweep me ow its , it disappeared When the water reache d the bottom of the

crevasse , it turned aside and ﬂowed at right angles to its course until a fault in the rock

allowed it to steal out into the daylight . The s an d crevasse was full of sound , amid the sh spla ing, gurgling, and roaring of the water, car t the could fancy that it detec ed wild cries, o s bs , and moans . Above this rift and cavern of wild waters

came many a rod of steep climbing . Again and again an impassable cliff seemed to bar our

way , but each time the stream showed us how, a by a zigzag or a long diagon l , we could avoid the abrupt face of the rock and ﬁnd a way to a s higher level . Finally, after nearly four hour of climbing we found ourselves in a moist an d mossy hollow be tween two of the summits of the k mountain . Northward the roc s rose abruptly o to the wo ded crest of the highest ridge , south war d they rose to the dome - shaped ledge which

forms the best height for observation , wind and

ﬁre having left it as bald as an egg . It was i mpossible to cross the moist hollow dry shod , for at no point was it less th an a rod wide and in parts it was forty or ﬁf ty yards fr om ledge to OLD SB A G . 1 53

ledge . The brown water stood in pools amid the sphagnum beds and between the stems of

trees . Several paths led downward between

the low spruces to these pools , but we shunned

. r un them Human feet had not t odden them , s s less , indeed , the bear hunter had pa ed that way di and set his traps rectly across them . In one place I saw where a bear had re cently walked the a m across sph gnum , leaving the i print of i h s huge foot clearly stamped upon th e moss . The view from the dome of Paugus was au

tumn al in tone . Great masses of cold clouds d were sweeping across the blue sky, urge for

h r ward by a blustering northwest wind . W e ever the spruce growth upon the mountains was e interrupted by deciduous tr es , delicate shades

r ed of , yellow, or russet lay in patches between

the sombre to nes of the evergreens . In spots l bril iant scarlet maples stood out boldly, but as a rule the new colors were not pronounced but merely suggestive of the gorgeous transforma

. l es tion soon to be perfected In the hol ows , “ ” pecially those in which h arr ican es had bee n an d l overgrown by mountain ash , sumac , simi ar

perishable wood , the autumnal tints were more preval ent and stronger . The only ﬂowers upon the mountain - to p were a few small asters with ma r o highly scented leaves , and a goldenrod ( c h l p yl a) with large blossoms and coarse leaves . B E AR M TE 1 54 AT THE NORTH OF CA P WA R . Old Shag is not high enough to rival Cho a s coru or Pa saconaway with its views , but it affords the only reall y satisfactory chance of studying those two mountains from a point be

tween them . Chocorua varies strangely in its ff outlines from di erent points of view . From the south it looks like a huge lion couchant ; from the Albany interval e it is an irregul ar ridge resembling a breaking wave ; from Paugus

it seems more like a giant fortress , with bat

er e f t d ramparts li ted high against th e sky . A

slide , invisible from other points , is seen to ex tend from the western foot of the peak far down

into the forests of the Paugus valley . North of it a ridge densely grown with old spruce runs

from the peak northwestward . It is one of the few parts of Chocorua n ot given up to deciduous s trees . Beyond it rises the Champney Fall n brook whi ch ﬂows northward i to Swif t River . Passaconaway from the Bear camp valley is on e of the most pe rfect of pyr amids ; from Pau gus it is a rough hump of sinister outline and c l color . The spru es upon it grow so thick y

that it is hard to force a way through them , yet they spring from sides so steep that it seems a marvel that any soil or vegetation can cling to

the rocks . A slide of great length shows its

scar upon the eastern face , and serves to em phasiz e the fact that thi s side of Passaconaway

OLD SHAG.

is really less of a slope than of a continuous precipice nearly thr ee thousand feet from sum l mit to plain . In these a most inacce ssible for ests several birds from the Canadi an fauna are

occasionally found . I have seen there in sum mer both kinds of the three - toed woodpeckers ; Canada grouse or spruce partridges h ave been

s - shot there this autumn , and the moo e bird , or lum Canada jay, is occasionally seen near the

ber camps . In descending a mountain in the afternoon h i w ich has been cl mbed in the morning , many eﬂects an d new of light shade , color , and even

. uz of outline , are observable This may be p z lin g to the guide who does not thoroughly kn ow his path , but it is the one redeeming feature in a homewar d scramble to those who are weary enough to regard their second view of a moun tain - side as an anti - climax to the triumphant n ascent of a ew peak . Paugus Falls were more beautiful with the pall or of the afternoon around an s e them , th they were with the southea t rn sun i shining into the r rushing bubbles . They were whiter and the water consequently looked greater in volume . Again we wondered how such rare beauty coul d have been hidden so

r r long in an untrodden fo est , and , wonde ing , we blazed the tr ees so that those who might come after us could follow without perplexity B E A M 1 56 AT THE NORTH OF R CA P WA TER. the easy and beautiful way which we had been fortunate enough to ﬁnd .

When we reached the old trail, about ﬁve ’ o clock , the woods seemed dark and the pene tratin g coolness of an autumn night was in the e l air . Twenty minut s ater we emerged in the

- ll blackberry tangle by the abandoned saw mi , and found wagons and warm wraps waiting for us . As we looked back towards the golden d sunset , the ark dome of Old Shag stood boldly out against the sky . Fire and wind had left ll scars upon its face , and nature origina y made it so rough in outline that “ Toadback is tell in gly descriptive of its shape . Toads have l s hi in h their jewe s , and so has Paugu , dden t e of shadows its easte rn ﬂank .

OE B E AR A M W E 1 58 AT THE NORTH C P A T R .

m autu n sparkled in the rays of the rising sun .

Skies of blue , forests of fire , fields of snow , those were the delights of that matchless Octo ber dawning . If the wheel grows too noisy I come back from these visions to my desk and its papers , and open dozens of letters from all over our broad u co ntry, from Europe , Japan , Mexico , and from distant India , whence some Harvard soldier of the Cross writes to ask tidings of his alma ma r te . In his day every John knew every ll an d Wi iam , the roll of the University never climbed beyond the hundreds . Now the ques tion er at my side wonders how near we shall come to having thr ee thousand students this year ; while the prophet declar es that in five years or less Harvard will have distanced Cam O an d bridge and xford , become the greatest

- English speaking University in the world . Even now her students do not all speak Eng

f c r lish . Aside rom the s o es of American youths who hear onl y light- weight silver dollar

English at home , and who learn little that is

at . sch ool better , there are many who come to

- Harvard fr om far away foreign homes . The tall Bulgarian with his dar k eyes full of poetry and ﬁre ; the patient Russian Jew , exiled from an an d a cruel l d , and struggling night day to win an education and a fortune in the home of R W LA NDS R E RLY T HE LD DOE A R C O , FO M O F M

60 B E AR CAM P 1 AT THE NORTH OF WATER.

a dis on that hearth , th t our ﬁrst voyage of cov “ ery seems as far o ff as the time when Kit i ” Colombus sa led from the Papal See . We wandered through the rooms of the cot e e tage , p ep d at the sky through the cracks in ’ its roof, noted the pewee s nest on the wains l coting in the east room , and whirled the o d

- flax . T wheel which stood in the dark attic hen , passing the ancient maples behind the great t on barn , we s rolled and on through the pas tures until a faint path led us to the lonely lake among the dingles , almost at the foot of Cho corua . Softly descending the steep path to the e dge of the green water, we saw five black ducks rise from the lake and fly from us over the oaks . The rush of their wings is in my ears to this day, and my eyes recall the clouds which loomed e over the p ak and swept down upon the lake , bringing much cold wind and a little rain .

From the storm - clouds a small hawk came cir o cling down to wards the troubled water and tossing birches . As he soared above us , seem in gly protesting against our coming into the

him . charmed vale , I shot The strong wings gave one spasmodic beat , the ﬁerce head fell

r r fo wa d, and the body shot downward and h ad struck the sand at our feet . We claimed dominion by force of arms , and when we next

saw h w . t e lake , it was ours in la ’ M Y HEART S IN THE HIGHLANDS . 1 61 The wheel turns fastest in the University prison house when pal e boys and gaunt young men come to me with con fide n ce s of their life ’ r long hope to come to fair Harva d , of mothers ’ ’ r th e sac ifices , and fathers toil , of parson s chiding against the influence of the non - secta l ’ rian college , and the schoo master s prophecy that Cambridge will be all proud looks and cold fi hearts , and nally of their own determination

o to work their way thr ugh , no matter what the

cost in comfor t and energy . It is the same

- soul stirring story, whether it speaks from the

- r butternut colored coat f om Georgia , the coarse

u r or gray homesp n f om Cape Breton , the shiny,

” - Be long tailed black frock from Nebraska .

s eechin t g , honest , or searching eyes look s raight

into the heart , and the heart would not be good for much if it did not grow warmer under their

scrutiny . Generally all except the least useful and adaptable of such men ﬁnd ways of earnin g much of that which is needed to keep them decently clad and safely fed during their years of study ; but it is anxious work starting them

l - on se f support , and helping them to drive

away homesickness . There is a feeling of gritting sand and th e'

a r - l ck of oil in the wheel when pu se proud , over

- - dressed, loud voiced , tired eyed youths drift to me in their attempts to escape parts of their 1 62 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WA TER

a college duties . They h ve come from shoddy homes to mix shoddy with the honest stuff of

ar . ul e Harv d life It wo d be b tter for them , for us , and for all their associates , if they never set l foot on scholastic ground . Stil they se rve as a foil to the noble -hearted men of weal th who are the glory of a college , men who are strong in their willingness to aid others , pure in heart , active in body, loyal to the ideals of the Uni

One reason that the wheel of duty turns hard is to be found in the multitude of human atoms pressing against it . The present syste m of col lege government was well adapted for the man a emen t g of ﬁve or six hundred men , for it is an easy task for an ofﬁcer of keen sym pathies and a good memory to carry even more than six hi s m hundred men in ind , and to know their

s . face , names , and general record Now that

r the six hund ed have become two thousand , and th e f n same system is applied, each o ﬁcer bei g tu expected to know something of every s dent, the memory gives way, interest weakens , and discipline thr ough acquaintance becomes im possible . Here and ther e individual students stand out conspicuously and become well -kn own ﬁgures in the crowd ; but it is more likely to be through their success in football than in their ” “ all studies . The man who attains Grade A in

1 64 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WATER

l ous wind . It was not until I cou d jump over board in the shoal water and push the boat before me out of the wind that I reall y regained the mastery of it . About the middle of October a vast regiment f e B ear cam On o birds pass s over the p valley . 1 3th O 1 889 the of ctober, , I counted and recog

n iz ed 488 . 1 73 birds Of these , were crows , ﬂying from the northeast towards the southwest in two great ﬂocks . They passed far above the forests , many of them being much above the tops of the highest mountains . On the same

un 1 43 day I co ted juncos , which were peppered all over ﬁelds , roads , small thickets , pasture bushes , and woods of small height . Wherever we strolled the little cowled heads turned to

V- - watch us , or the white shaped tail feathers

ﬂashed as the juncos ﬂew from us . The white t al throa ed sparrows were almost ways with them ,

r coming , I doubt not, from the same b eeding

r g ounds , and bent upon reaching the same

e - h wint r quarters , or havens even fart er south than those which juncos like . Now and then a white - crowned sparr ow is to be seen among

ﬂocks of this kind . Those who watch for them

i - are apt to see many wh te throats , which they u try to pers ade themselves are the rarer species , but when the eye at last rests upon a white t crown here is no doubting his identity . us IN MY HEART THE HIGHLANDS. 1 65

The golden -crested kinglets were present in m 1 3 great nu bers on the same th of October ,

1 889 r , and as they passed through the eve greens they accomplished a marvelous amount of eﬂec

- tive house cleaning . With them or near them

chickadees , red nuthatches , white nuthatches , and brown creepers took part in the keen in s ection r in p of the t ees , and woe came to the l sect which fel under their eyes . Among the other birds which I recorded that

day were robins , a hermit thrush , bluebirds ,

- yellow rumped warblers , solitary vireos , a ﬂock

t -ﬁve oldﬁn ch es of thir y g , a good many sparrows tw o of various kinds , blue jays , one or kinds of

l aﬂock woodpeckers , severa hawks , and of black

of ducks . They formed the rear guard the

grand army, and as the leaves rustled down over them it was easy to imagine snowﬂakes gather in g in the northern clouds and waiting for a summons to begin their soft descent upon the

abandoned earth . Bird voices sometimes mingle with the hum

- f and roar of my duty wheel . Opposite my o ﬁce

- window are two tall pine trees , almost the only evergreens in the college yard . These trees swarm with the alien sparrows , whose clamor at B t times is almost deafening . et er three months of utter silence than such bird music as this .

Each year, as autumn deepens into winter , I 1 66 OE B E AR CA M P AT THE NORTH WATER. watch the immigrant sparrow to see whether he is not learning that migration southward in the season of snow is wise and comfortable . He does wander somewhat , already , when food fails , be and it will not strange if, as years pas s , he shoul d acquire by sympathetic vibration some w thing of the s ing of the migratory pendulum . When I walk slowly home from my office past Christ Church an d the silent field of o quaintly lettered st nes , past the old elm within whose shade Washington took command of the ’ Colonial army, and past Cotton Mather s gold chanticlee r holding high his ancient head against e all the rosy aft rglow, I seem to see beyond i these things the crouch ng lion of Chocorua . a Waking or dreaming, the outline of th t peak is always stamped upon my northern horizon , and the north is the point to which my face turns as surely as does the needle , whenever my face , t like the needle , is lef to settle its direction in accordance with its controlling affinities . In these October days the picture of Chocorua which haunts me is not a summer picture . Far n from it . In it the leaves are falling , drifti g s al down like snow , birds are silent , nervou , ways on the alert for danger ; new ledges show

- upon the mountain sides , new vistas have opened be through the forests , and spots which , when hind their August leaf mantles seemed dark and

R IDA Y e 21 F , Octob r , was observed by Har as vard University a holiday, Columbus , while hunting for something else , having on that day, four hundred years ago , rediscovered America

e . for the Europ ans On the same day, four e ri hundr d years ago , the Ame cans discovered

Columbus , a weary and worn mariner , nearing

- the shore in a small an d feebly rigged ship . At that time America was much more of a boon to the explorer th an he seemed likely to be to the continent . I left Cambridge about the time the sun r eached it, and gained the valley of the Bear a P M ar e a camp t 1 . . There some d ys in the year which seem to have happened upon the wrong calendar day . They are to o cold or too warm to keep company with the days which go before and after . This was not one of them .

It was a model late October day, with clear air,

i - d a rushing w nd , dark blue gray clou s moving s i fa t across a pale blue sky , leaves fly ng before w f d the wind , and ith ru fled water full of col l reflec ights , though in spots increasing in its THE VINTA GE OF THE LEA VES . 1 69

tions the blue of the sky . Marvelous colors

r d were sp ea upon the face of the meadows , and s crept up the sides of the hill . The world was i in gay attire , gayer even than the towns th s

day decked out in honor of the Genoese . w a Gazing out of the train indow, I h ve seen the Sandwich range from afar over the melting

greens of spring , the rich verdure of summer,

- and the cold, still snow of winter . To day I s — saw it framed in rus et and carmine , the col

- ors of the oak clad hills of Wakeﬁeld . The peak of Chocorua was capped by a dark slate color ed cloud from which rain seemed to be fall

ing . Behind or above the other mountains of

the ran ge th e same threatening vapors hung . i As the tra n sped onward , past Ossipee Lake , Bearcam over the p, and up to the West Ossipee

station , the clouds rolled away and a ﬂood of clear sunlight poured its revealing rays into the

c . hidden olors of the distant forests From cold , dark masses in which black rocks were no darker ’ than gloomy groves , the mountains sides sud n l de y became aglow with warm tones . The ’ - al far reaching view suggested a painter s p ette, upon which he had been daubing his colors from th e t ubes . Here he laid on a mass of dark m t green , there cri son , and nex to it pale yellow . T ff hen bu and orange , scarlet and blood red e pleased him , and he rubbed them upon spar B E A R A M W 1 7 0 AT THE NORTH OF C P ATER.

t a areas . Cobalt and ul ram rine added he re and

there , with now and then a dash of silvery white o r a broad band of burnt sienna, served to make the scarlets more intense and the yellows more aggressive . Drivin g in an open wagon from West Ossipee to the Chocorua House , I found a heavy over m coat , war gloves , and a fur robe essential to

t on c r comfor , especially oming f om the steam heated cars into the racing northwest wind . As e we sp d through groves and across meadows, my eyes devoured the wonderful coloring of all h t i that ad once been green . I could see no h ng l . to e se , think of nothing else The contrast our summer coloring coul d not have been much sharper if I had been transported to the san guin ary groves and pastures of the red planet the Mars . Even the birds which rose from roadside and whirled away before th e wind the seemed less interesting, so absorbing were marvels of coloring in foliage from ancient oak to te nder grasses . A ﬂock of birds seemed to dance through the sunlight across the road, yet when I looked afte r them they were onl y beech leaves hurried along by the wind . A cloud an d of leaves , picked up by an eddy of the air a e tossed high above the trees , suddenly bec m bluebirds and sparrows speeding away from in the wagon across the pasture . Crows , few

T B E A R A M P 1 72 AT THE NOR H OF C WATER.

i whistling , blowing out long jets of wh te smoke and slender tongues of ﬂame , its voice and warmth have carr ied me back in spirit to the brown beds of fern , the busy chipmunks under

ma ﬂower the old oak in the wall , or to the y s gathered in spring from the edges of the linger

- a ing snow banks . I passed ledge of rocks on which I had seen a woo dchuck sunning himself s la t August , and I recalled how he had squeezed himself into a little cave in the ledge only to t ﬁnd me peering in af er him, and quite able to reach him with a stick . His method of escape from me was characteristic . Grunting and

r snarling , he spent half his time in th eatening to come out and attack me , and the other half in underm ining himself and poking the earth with his nose into th e hole through which I was looking . In ﬁve minutes he had completely covered the opening and sunk his plump body o out of reach of my probe . Later in the seas n I had a young woodchuck which had been partly tamed escape from captivity by gnawing his way through a thick pine board . The same individual repeatedly climbed up six feet from the ﬂoor on the coarse wire netting which formed

r t the f ont of his cage , so that in fu ure I shall not think it strange if I see a woodchuck climb a tree . His eccentricity also carried him to th e point of devouring nearly a third of the THE VINTAGE OR THE LEA VES. 1 7 3

- l carcass of a freshly killed red squirrel , a though an abundance of clover and young vegetables

were close at hand ready for his dinner . My walk took me up the western side of the

lake to my own land and cottage . Robins rose

from the ground in small flocks , a few tree sparrows and juncos flew from a plowed field on by the wall , and two crows were feeding

swampy ground by a brook . It was to them

- a that the land really belonged , not to me ,

- waif from the city . So a ﬂock of white throats

thought , as I disturbed them feeding upon the

chaff at the back door of my barn . They ﬂew

dr into a bush on which a few y leaves swun g .

While still watching them , as I supposed , I dis

covered that they had vanished , the wagging

leaves alone remaining . In the orchard a few

red apples hung , and gleamed like polished

stones . One which grew upon a wild tree in o the edge of the wo d swung near the ground , and sharp little teeth had bitten out pieces from

its side . Some of the fruit which lay upon the ground had been gnawed away until its seeds

could be reached . Man eats the pul p and throws away the seeds , the mice and squirrels waste the peric solely to gain the seeds . Perhaps in this case man would have thrown away both apple and seeds had he tasted the

l . bitter, wi d fruit B E A R 1 74 AT THE NORTH OF CAM P WATER. The lake was lower by a foot than I had ever u before seen it in the aut mn . In August it had washed the bushes on its dikes ; now a yard or more of sand tempted a stroller to foll ow its fair rim past wood and meadow . Along my shore of the lake the natural dike is in places fully seven feet high . It has been made during the “ ” centuries by the thrust of the ice which re sults from the expansion of the ice - field by day an following its contraction by night . On a s dy shore the expandi ng ice pushes up a little ridge of silt, and works it higher and higher as the ice mass rises during the winter . If the edge of the ice meets an obstacle , it is apt to break at a ll foot or more from the shore , and the pieces , sti carrying their load of gravel , are shoved up the k i ban to its top , unt l , as years roll by , the dike is made too high to receive further additions . The lake in summer is certain to be stirring with life . Insects upon and over the water, f t e fish , rogs , birds, muskrats , and of en larg animals are in sight and moving both by day and by night . Now , as the waning sun grew hi pale be nd the birches , no living creature moved . The yellow leaves drifted out upon the i f breeze , and kept on dr fting across the ru fled water . Nothing cared where they drifted . al l They were dead , and just then the world seemed full of falling, drifting leaves , with no

THE VINTA GE OF THE LEA VES . 1 75

on e to notice them or care for th em . Were they to blame for the feeling of sadness which crept over me as the sun went down and the ﬁrst chill of night came into the air ? Or was

it the absence of those who might , had they twi been by the lake , have enjoyed the placid light with me ? No lights gleamed behind the e k clos d blinds of my home , no ﬁre crac led upon

the hearth . Those whom I loved were far away

in the city . Leaves were falling in the city, birds had ﬂed from it as well as from the moun n tains . Chilly ight had fallen there too , and am e with it c e , not the sweetness of clear str ams

v ul and pine gro es , but the fo breath of the an d Charles of Alewife Brook , open sewers of

n . n ﬁlthy tow s No , it was not the sad ess of the seas on or the inﬂuence of drifting leaves which cast a little shadow over my enjoyment of the

exquisite scene before me . It was regret at being alone in its presence and of having to

leave it so soon in favor of desk and drudgery . m s r At ten inutes past ﬁve , planet spa kled in

the silvery sky , yet a mile away the colors of o aks and poplars still burned their way to me l through the clear air . As I wa ked back to the hotel , I noticed more clearly the number of B tr ees which had lost their leaves . y daylight

they were inconspicuous , flanked and backed as they had been by evergreens and trees full of 6 A T HE B E A 1 7 T NORTH OF R CAM P WA TER . showy color . Now they reared their skeleton ak arms against the sky, m ing some parts of the way seem as desolate as in winter . Many of the goldenrods , asters , and immortelles contri buted to the wintriness of the scene , for only dry white phantoms of their once cheerful flow ers remained upon their stalks . The soft air with only a trace of cold in it beli ed these signs of winter, and so did the occasional note of a lo cust . From the little rustic bridge between the l arge and second lakes , the evening view of the mountains was bewitching . If a hermit thrush could have sung even one phrase of his holy but music , I might have felt satisfied ; no bird was there to sing, and only the waves lapping upon the pebbles and the breeze sighing in the pines broke the silence of the starlit night . A leaf came sailing down the lake and passed t af der the bridge . Its lit le life as a green le was over . It had served the tree which bore it, and now its parched body was given to the stream to be borne away wherever wind and cur it all ? rent decided . Was , then , dead for time l Ask this of the coa which glows in the grate , the oil which burns in the lamp , or the may flower whose roots spread through the leaf mould

e . in the for st Where was this leaf a year ago , o r a century ago ? As certainly as the parts of l f ar a this eaf have endured thus , so cert inly will

B E A R 1 78 AT THE NORTH OF CA M P WA TER .

- s which ﬂoated feather like above Paugu , and a

- f delicate sea shell pink suf used it . Some of the same radiance fell upon the granite peak of h o C corua , ﬂoated over the highest ridges of

- u spruce hung Pa gus and Passaconaway, warmed

o the naked shoulder of Whiteface , and t uched even the dark head of the Sandwich Dome th e P emi Th rising from gewasset forests . e ﬂanks of these mountains and the whole of o Mount Whittier, which rose in the s uthwest ,

were violet . A moment before they might have

been dark purple , but now the rosy rays of i dawn were steal ng down them swiftly . I had scarcely time to note the wealth of suppressed color which lay upon the wave - like hil ls be tween i me and the mountains , or to spr ng to my north i i s e window , ﬂ ng its bl nd wide op n , and see the lake so rufﬂed by the wind and so hidden from the coming dawn as to be only the quicksilver

side of the mirror, before the sunlight began

- creeping down the mountain sides . It is a pretty sight in the twilight or dar k ness to see a rosy edge of ﬂame play along the i marg n of a sheet of burning paper, slowly de v ourin g it . Some parts of the paper burn more ad brightly than others , but the whole line of n v an cin g ﬁre is beautiful and animati g . So it was with the line of sunlight slowly passing a s fr om th e rosy crests of the high mount in , THE VINTA GE OF THE LEA VES .

a downward , with even march cross their flanks , h ll their projecting spurs , t en the nearer hi s , a the l ke , and river hollow , and finally over the great reach of woods and field nearest to me . In summer nearly the whole of this wide land scape is green or grayish green . In winter it

is r . white , grayish brown , and da k green Early autumn dots the woods with vivid points of scarlet and gold which stand out sharply from the mass of green ; but as the sunlight crept downward over this late October foliage the

prevailing color, which glowed forth full of meahin — strength , warmth , and g , was red , the

of red of dregs of wine , of iron rust , sleek

kine , of blood . Intermingled with it were bits l in of golden or of sulphur yel ow, mark g birches an d poplars , and in the pastures a few maples late in turning blazed with ﬁery scarlet as

their fellows had weeks earlier . The warmes t of the color came from the o aks , but the beeches supported them with

generous pigments , and so did the masses of

- r blackberry vines , choke cherry and huckleber y had bushes , and other small shrubs which

- turned crimson , red , or madder brown under

- the October sun . Sweet fern bushes , brakes ,

ferns , pine needles , many of the grasses , and most of the fallen leaves constitutin g the greater ’ ’ e part of the earth s carpet , answer d the sun s B E AR A M P 1 80 AT THE NORTH OF C WATER .

r e g e ting by showing broad expanses of brown, ranging from burnt umber to dark straw color . th e Near lake were many pines , and as the light reached them they seemed to grow higher , broader, nearer, and to shed into the surround ing air something of their steadfastness and

. l strength They change not, falter not , fai not, come what may to their deciduous neigh bors . In this northern land they are a symbol

of constancy and faith . No one can look at a pine - tree in winter without knowing that spring

will come again in due time . The lake itself soon shared in the ﬂood of color brought out by of the sun . Most its surface was rufﬂed by

the breeze , but at points where the high pines

sheltered the water and left it rippleless , the

- mountain sides mirrored themselves , and the

reﬂection was red like wine . As the sun rose higher above the hill behind

me, and cast its rays against the west , more

and more from above , and less from a level, o am the c lors in the landscape bec e less vivid, t and leaﬂess trees , birch runks , and softer tints

in general , blended with the maroons and w t browns , toning them do n and ﬂat ening them , until the prevailing coloring on the mountain slopes became like the bloom on the cheek of a

plum ; and even the brighter, stronger tints in

the nearer view grew softer and dimmer .

B E A R A M T 1 82 AT THE NORTH OF C P WA ER.

an dragonﬂy dart past, and later a solitary t

crawl slowly across a patch of sand . No but

terﬂies came to me , yet they were still abundant

in Cambridge . There was no chill in the air which surged

r ll . ove the hi top It was soft and caressing, yet so cool that thick clothing or constant oxer e cise was need d to keep warm . Its perfect dryn ess made it seem less cool th an it really ull was . The sky was wonderf y blue , and it lent

its marvelous color to the lake . I have a friend who says that March water is bluer than any

n l other . It certai y carries its blueness as straighter into the heart than any other, but I looked at Chocorua Lake from the hill top it seemed to me that it could not be any bluer m than it was , fra ed in glossy pines on the one in w on hand , and golden bro n and wine color

the other . The wind was rough with the lake f this morning . Striking it suddenly at the ar

- s north end, near where my well loved home stand

an d silent deserted in the old orchard , it dark ened the clear blue into angry ﬂaw -lines and hurried them down the long mile towards the i bridge , against wh ch it hurled them in white

capped waves . I laughed as I watched one of the white - edged squalls pass down the length of in the lake , for it reminded me of a day mid winter when I attempted to cross the lake near 1 83 THE VINTAGE OF THE LEA VES,

“ uff e its middle , carrying my pet owl P y p rched

- upon my gun barrel . A squall cam e over the

ice - white , bearing stinging snow dust in its van ; it caught Puff y from his perch and set him down ice e upon the with fe t helplessly spread , and then as he opened his wings and tail and strug him u gled in the breeze , it spun so thward , slid he ing and rolling, poor wisp of feathers that l was , until he was landed , more dead than a ive ,

in the woods on the southern shore . The pines below my breezy hill top tempted

me by their music into their aisles . Under

them was spread the new carpet of their needles , r dry, wa m , and tempting as a couch of eider i n o so down . The wind sang their t ps , oh th e sweetly, and it took me back to moment in my earliest childhood when I was ﬁrst conscious

hi . of that soft , soot ng music I do not know

when it was , nor where it was , nor how young I ma hav e e n y b e , but I can recall as from an al most inﬁnite distance the memory of a sudden feelin g of happiness at hearing the voice of the

n i pines , and k owing that it was something k nd

and soothing . If we are in tune with Nature , all her music can ﬁnd a way into the heart and i satisfy someth ng there which yearns for it, and can be ll never who y happy without it . The man who trembles at thunder is more to be pitied than the poo r Esquimau who was fright HE B E R A M P 1 84 AT T NORTH OF A C WATER. ened the other day by the crash of orchestral music at a Boston theatre . While I listened to the pines a chickadee sang

- h ce be . his p note It was but once , but it told of his happiness as he hus tled about in the dar k pine wood from which warbler and vir eo had e departed , and upon which b fore many days the

r ﬁ st snows of winter are to fall . Brave little titmice ' they are among the sturdiest of New ’ Englan d s sons . i In the heart of the p nes stands a house . I well remember the gray autumn morning when Than ks i v m three of us , on a g g holiday, staked out its foundation lin es in the thin snow and drifted leaves . We tramped back and forth i among the trees , now h gher, now lower, then a

l t . ittle to the lef , then more to the right The peak of Chocorua must clear th ose monste r pines ; that bunch of low pines must be left low of l enough to give a free view the arge lake , and finally the young tree s rising on the left must not on any account cover the charming glimpse of the thi rd lake with its grove . At last we t fin set led the spot, and drove our first stakes , gered the long bras s tape and drove more stakes . Our s hand , ears , and noses were cold , but it was rare sport settling j ust where that new home should be planted among the singing pines . i e e e n To th s hous , d s rted like my own sun y

THE VINTAGE OF THE LEA VES . 1 85

co o . i ttage , I to k my way Ascend ng its steps, I

hin n - z stood wit its lofty , gra ite walled piaz a, as an S e rom tic a pot, with its three arch d openings

facing westward , as a screened loggia overlook ’ ing fair Maggiore s azure waves . the b and out of sight of road , em owered in the

forest, and with the very essence of the exquisite d Chocorua landscape frame in its arches , this l d house might we l attract me and raw me , even n from the singing pines, to li ger the rest of the

forenoon above its terraces . Bees and locusts us made m ic in the sunlight , ﬂaming geraniums s bloomed at the foot of the ca tle wall , the per fume of sweet peas still in full ﬂower hung li htl in g y the air, and upon one of the stone col

umn s - of the arches , morning glories , unharmed by the several frosts which had wrought havoc u with other tender plants , t rned their ﬁlmy blos

soms towards the sun . Society with its present habits is to blame for the desertion of such a hi u home as this on such a day as t s , when Nat re N is at her loveliest . Why is it that all ew has an England which brains , money, or phil thropy thinks th e city the one proper sphere for life in all save a few weeks given grudgingly to h u rest ? The cities are too large , too rich in man forces . They are debasing our New Eng land stock, draining away the best of our vital ity in their too nervous life . If a third of their B E A M 1 86 AT THE NORTH OF AR C P WATER. population coul d be sown into the fallow places ill e in the h country, th ir own competition would l u become a less fata flame, and the co ntry dis tr icts a e , inste d of st adily degenerating in phys al ul ical , moral , and intellectu tone , wo d again become prolific in healthy men and women . “ So far as I know, the word moor is not ap plied to any part of our New England scenery ; dr r s yet there are y, comparatively t eeless upland , wind - swept and dotted with bogs which closely l resemble English moorland . I c imbed to the level of on e early in the afternoon and strolled al ong its rough sur face . At the first bit of hog that I struck a wood - frog j umped across the path . He was listless , and made but short him be leaps . When I followed he plunged hi B neath a log w ch lay in the cold mud . e yond , on dry ground, a grouse rose noisily from low cover and flew far before going out of e sight . As I crossed some stony ground a mous ran from me and hid between two boul ders . Blockin g both entrances to his hidi n g -place t wi h my feet, I tilted one rock away from the other . The mouse darted first towards one of ed my feet and then towards the other . He dar not cross either, for I kept them moving . So he remained trembling in the middle . He was Hes er om s the - p y , deer mouse , big eyed and

- him m d . white footed . I left unhar e

1 88 AT THE NORTH OE B E A R CAM P WATER.

to join legions already on the ground, waiting there the soft tyranny of the snow . In the midst of the beeches stood a lofty hemlock . The owner of this woo d had chosen it for his castle . About thirty feet from the ground at a point where sever al limbs diverged from the main trunk a nest was securely ﬁxed . Perhaps an inexperienced eye would have taken ’ ’ it for a bird s nest . It may have been a bird s nest originally . Now the mass of dead beech leaves heaped upon it and woven into its fabric, making it a conspicuous object from every point of view, proclaimed it to be the home of a gray squirrel . Winds may blow, and rain , hail , and a snow fall , but th t nest will rest secure against ’ un a f the hemlock s tr k , under the th tched roof o hemlock branches . Early in September I found

- a new nest of this kind in a large beech tree , and upon opening it made a discovery . The e compressed green be ch leaves gave out a strong, aro matic odor which I at once recognized as one of which I had often obtained whiff s in u walking thro gh the beech woods , but which I never had been able to assign to an y ﬂower or

In the lulls between the wind ’ s gusts I could hear the tinkling of a brook at the bottom of i the glen . Peering nto the gloom below, where ’ hemlock bushes overshadowed the stream s bed, THE VINTAGE OF THE LEA VES .

I sought for a gleam of water . Not a drop was to be seen . I descended, following the sound i to of the fall ng drops , and came a perpendicular ledge at the upper end of the ravine . There was no mistaking the direction of the music ; it came from the face of the rocks and the pile of débris at its bottom . Still not a drop of water could be seen . The falling beech leaves had completely covered brook and fall , pool and

rock, but behind their veil the water went on ll with its singing . It wi do the same , brave little rill ' when snow covers the leaves and ice w forms above and belo the snow . The sweet muﬂi ed jingling notes will be , but they will be

sung al l the same .

Of course I drank from the brook, sweeping away the encumbering leaves from the top of the fall to get the water just where it rushed

most swiftly . Not to drink from a New Hamp shire brook is alm ost as much of a slight as not

to bow to a friend , or not to kiss a little child when she lifts her face for the good - night caress which she thinks all the world is ready and

worthy to give to little children . Refreshed , I clambered up the other side of the glen and

r regained the open moorland , and the glo ious ,

rushing wind . Across the valley the old river terraces stood out as sharply as steps out in the

face of the hill . To have out those fair out A T T B E AR CA M P T 1 90 THE NOR H OF WA ER . lines there must have been more water ﬂowing o ut of Chocorua lakes in the olden time than

ﬂows from them now . Perhaps in those days h e Ossipee Lake washed t ese very t rraces . Coming to another deep cleft in the side of the moor, I hesitated whether to run down one

r grassy slope , a hundred feet and mo e , and then e up the other slop , or to go round . Precedent decided me to go round . About six feet below the edge of the bank a narr ow well - trodden path i e ad sk rt d the ravine , going to its he , crossing at the same level an d following along just below the edge of the opposite bank . Sometimes a well - turfed bank in a pasture where food is not abundant will be scored by many paths of this

i . k nd , one below another They are made by ll t the cattle , for a cow never wi go down a s eep incline if , without too great exertion , she can keep her four feet approximately on a level . When I gained the southern end of the

- moor like ridge , two villages lay before me , one on the left, the other on the right . One was

n the home of the dead , the other the toili g ground of the living . They can see each other, and year by year the village on the hill grows larger, and that in the valley grows smaller . When the venerable village postmaster was suddenly turned out of ofﬁce a few years ago against the public wishes , but in obedience to

1 92 A T THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WATER

was bush not many years out of the acorn , the

- color of newly shed blood in its centre , but many small detached areas upon it remained green . From a sucker shoot of a poplar I gath e red several strangely effective leaves . One was of sulphur yellow coarsely spotted with black dots ; another was blackish brown with i o ll crimson ve nings ab ve , and clear ye owish — a white veinings below, most unique combi

n nation . From a adjoining poplar I picked one ml unifor y black over three quarters of its area,

but blotched with vivid green near its apex . Its veins were yellowish white both above and e below . The clust rs of lambkill leaves were

very pretty . While the upper surfaces of the leaves were faded vermilion or pinkish salmon buﬂ or color, the under sides were , very pale

e . sage gre n The willow leaves were queer, a d maged looking things , a good deal nibbled by insects and much splashed with dark brown

upon a yellowish olive groundwork . A bunch

of violet leaves were clear golden yellow, while some of the more delicate ferns were nearly u white . Tr ly the botanists have many pleasant problems before them if they are ever to asoer u c tain why some green leaves t rn bla k, and n others brown , ora ge , yellow, red , purple, or

An inspection of the mail led me to wal k THE VINTAGE OF THE LEA VES . 1 93

rapidl y back to the Chocorua House and pack

my bag for a return journey to the city . As I e drove southward the mountains , se n across the

. i pine barrens , were veiled in haze The w nd seemed chiding me for going away so abruptly from this paradise of color . Again and again I s looked back at my favorite peaks and forest , printing more and more deeply in my mind the recollection of their noble outlines and remark the able coloring . Finally from platform of the rear car I saw them over the Bearcamp h its meadows , and above and beyond them , wit

- i w cloud cap just dr fting away to the east ard , hi o Mount Was ngt n , benignantly presiding over

the northern sky . Then the train rumbled across the Bear camp trestle and the shadow of the Ossipee hill s fell upon us and deepened into IN M B CHOCORUA NOVE ER .

IN u 5th Cambridge , Sat rday, the of Novem ber, began its daylight in a driving snowstorm .

The long , dry, sunny month of October was , as the farmers had prophesied , to be followed by

- a real old fashioned , early and hard New Eng ’ lan d winter . By ten o clock the warm sun and brisk northwest wind had dissipated the snow ,

- and bad weather prophets were silent . Not for

long , however , for at noon the ground was again W B white , and as I crossed est oston Bridge on B ack my way to the train , the Bay was swept by a ﬁerce wind which carried the spray fr om

- l its gray green waves ha f over the bridge piers ,

and into the level gravel walks on Charl esban k . My f riends looked at me pityingly when I said was a that I bound for the White Mount ins , and asked whether I was not going to take my snow‘

shoes .

Oddly enough , on reaching Portsmouth , hav ing traveled to that point through dizzy myriads

of ﬂakes of the stickiest kind of snow, I found n the sun brightly shini g, and no snow visible on

the Kitte ry pastures . Not until we were within

E E 1 96 AT THE NORTH O B A R CA M P WATER .

w showed as yello ish stripe s in the forest . Th e h drifted beech leaves gave them tone . In t e f gloom of the matted alders , uzzy balls of soiled wool seemed to have lodged . They were the

flowers of the white clematis , gone to seed . Somewhat similar but thinner mas ses clung to the stalks of the fireweed . As the wind swept across a cornfield from which all but the stalks with one or two flaxen l h ad e eaves been stripp d , the long leaves streamed and flapped before the breeze like

n r yacht pennants . I the orcha ds piles of red l and of ye low apples shone in the sunlight, and when one still depended from the tr ee it was as

- bright as a gilt ball on a Christmas tr ee .

The oaks still held their leaves stubbornly, but the blood had gone from them and their

color was of tanned leather, deepening in places

to . s a dull maroon The dry stubble ﬁeld ,

closely cropped mowings , and rank meadows all were aglow with evenly spread color . The tu s bble ﬁelds were purplish , the ﬁelds pale

yellow, and the meadows deep straw color . as M ses of goldenrod stalks were well named ,

for they were golden br own . Their leaves were e dull brown . If as the train dashed betwe n gravel banks I caught a ﬂas h of crimson on the had sand, I knew that blueberry bushes caught

root there . H R A I N B E C OC O U NO VEM R . 1 97

The da an ylight faded early , but as the sun s k l it poured more and more color into the hil s . Reﬂected rays danced from the window - panes of farmhouses on the high slopes to the east of the track . Such glimpses of isolated building have a ﬂavor of home and snugness which no city suggests . The absence of leaves and the presence of many shadows cast by the low No v ember sun revealed more clear ly than usual the pleasing contours of glacial hill s and their eroded sides . Most of the gravelly products of a c the gl cier are graceful in outline , omposed of easy curves or gentle undulations . Not only are the sky lines grateful to the eye , but those which curve forward and back along the line of vision have in them the element of beauty . The cutting of banks by streams leaves many a gentle terrace which advances , retreats , now r n s makes a bold f ont, the next moment shri k

- away in a bow shaped bay . Ice and water seem to abhor straight lines , but to love rhythmic mo tion . Upon a small glacial mound shaped like

hi - a bee ve stood a single pine , brave limbed and

- lichen grown . I have noticed it for years , and “ something in its pose always suggests The ” r an Mona ch of the Glen , with head erect d every sense alert . It was much full er of an im s~ tion than the ﬂock of dingy sheep which at ﬁr st

- sight I thought to be moss covered boulders . B E AR CA M P T 1 98 AT THE NORTH OF WA ER.

’ The sun set not long after four o clock , and the sky borrowed from it ﬂeeting rosy light . Then the yellow - white steam fr om the engine billowed past my window , and through it shone

- t the blue white snow , making the s eam seem soiled . As I looked forward at ﬁelds which we

r c were app oa hing, no snow was to be seen , yet as we passed them and I looked back upon the northern side of their inequalities they were wholly white . When the lamps were lighted in the car my eyes rested , fascinated , upon the gilded axe which always hangs abo ve the car door . Sig n iﬁcan t emblem of our civilization , which eyni al ak c ly t es unwarrantable risks with life , limb , a and property , in order that man may incre se his misery by perpetually hurrying ' The gleam of Six M ile Pond told me that the tr ain was in Madison . A moment later I was standing in the crisp night air knocking for supper at the tavern door . “ When we say It is two miles fr om Madison ” r to Tamworth Iron Wo ks , we do not tell the “ e whole truth . It would be bett r to add , over the top of Deer Hill . For years Madison has gone to Tamworth over Deer Hill, or else it has stayed at home and wished that Deer Hill was elsewhere . How long grim devotion to the one occupied farm on Deer Hill will force the

T OT B E AR A M 200 AT THE NOR H C P WATER. e r ached a stone wall , and , springing upon it, I hooted after the manner of owls , barked after an h the m ner of dogs , and t en ﬂed after the manner of men . I neither saw nor smelt any thing more of the skunk . My way took me into the golden beech wood

. n o w on the border of the moor The moon , dim th e free from clouds , shed a soft, light into grove . Scarcely a leaf clung to the trees , but upon the ground they were heaped up ankle had deep . As there be en crackling ice in all l the pools in the road , it was not wonderfu that the water s of the leaf -hidden brook were very co ld . An hour after leaving Madison I stood before

- an open birch wood fire in Chocorua Cottage . Not only did its warmth appeal to my cheeks and fingers , but something in the whirl of its flames and the snap of its sparks made my heart beat more in tune with all the world . The next morning I awokeat six o ’ clock and at once opened my blinds and raised my shades so that I could see the mountains both to the north and to the west . Not a cloud or a sus picion of haze marre d the pe rfect blueness of the li l sky or the dis tinctn ess of the out nes of hil s ,

s . trees, and boulder The moon was still nearly t n three hours from her time of set i g, and her l al as s1m ight, most as much that of the unrisen , H C OCOR UA IN NOVEM BER. 201 contributed to the serene glow which ﬁlled the sky and fell softly upon the sleeping earth . There is nothing in nature any whiter than snow, and as the peak and bare upper ledges of Chocorua were covered by an almost unbroken l envelope of snow , no a pine horn ever gleamed with a fairer light than that which shone fr om ’ u . Chocorua s s mmit Paugus , Passaconaway, and Whiteface are usually dark by contrast to

. e Chocorua, even in midwinter To my surpris they wer e almost as white as the marble lion w itself . Their spruces were coated ith snow, s l eff ec which had frozen in mas es to the need es , tually covering the dark green by a gleaming surface of white .

As the sun neared the horizon , a faint rosy glow came into the western sky . Then it l e touched the snowy peaks , leaving them pa salmon color . Finally it crept down the moun tain slopes , changing the silvery gray of the

-of - leaﬂess forest mass es into ashes rose color, delightful to the eye . n as It was a winter la dscape , yet the sun climbed higher into the cloudless sky , the soft still air was caressing in its warm touch upon the cheek . I looked curiously at the thermo 25° meter, not knowing whether it would say or It stood at a temperature which , m with a Boston east wind and a rainstor , is E 202 A T THE NOR TH OF B A R CA M P WATER . quite capable of freezing the love of life out of ’

al . one s vit s Feeling as buoyant as a cork , I dashed off after breakfast in search of something

r high to climb . An overcoat was unbea able , ’ o and my jersey was dispensed with by ten o cl ck , leaving me comfortable in ordinar y indoor cos

- tume . The air seemed full of life giving qual

. c ity , joy, health , hope So thought the titmi e , a robins , tree sp rrows , juncos , and kinglets , all of which were noisy and full of motion .

Speeding past the lakes , I stopped for a mo ment in my own orchard to lament the death of an osprey which I found at the foot of an apple tree , where some hunters had left him . It is ’ fortunate that all animals have not man s pro

n i ll pe s ty for ki ing merely for the sake of killing . i Here was a bird of beaut ful plumage , wonder ful powers of sight and ﬂight, measuring only ﬁve inches less than six feet from wing tip to ml wing tip , practically har ess , and by no means un common in these mo tains , yet after being shot merely for love of murder , his body was left

n k . where it fell , to feed sku s and foxes Small wonder that creation seems out of joint wherever ’ man s inﬂuence extends .

- My next stopping place was the lonely lake , i ﬂe w now more lonely than ever, for not a b rd

ﬁn among its trees , and not a stirred in its green waters . Upon its mossy bank , marvelous to

0 B E AR AM P 2 4 AT THE NORTH OF C WATER. locusts were also evidently depressed by the cool l an d weather, and they p ayed their tunes rarely without much spirit . Listening to them and to th e sounds which the wind made in a bunch dr k a of y bra es , I f ncied that I saw in what quarter the ﬁrst grasshopper took his music lessons . The rubbing together of the parts of the withered fronds produced sounds almost ’ exactly like the locust s strident playing . th e Taking the Hammond path , I ascended e east rn spur of Chocorua . The side of the mountain was one vast bed of loosely scattered i ll leaves . Next spr ng each leaf wi be pressed so closely upon its neighbor that the veining of n one will be impri ted upon the face of the other . Now they are still free to drift with wind cd dies , and to rustle noisily around the feet of the

- l b . passer y The sme l of oak leaves , newly ll re fa en , is very powerful , and , except as a of u l s minder aut mn wa k , too much like ink to l be pleasant . Among the fa len leaves the c bright green of che kerberry , club mosses , and wi the ntergreen showed now and then , while dark liver - colored leaves of a goldenrod con tr asted with the brown of the beech leaves . I must have climbed f ully eight hundred feet from the level of the pas tures before snow be gan to appear along the path , and it was not until the line of low spruces was gained that 03 00012UA M IN NO VE BER. 205 the all snow was continuous or at deep . No sooner had I struck the snow area than I began to ﬁnd evidence of the passing along and across e the path of the creatur s of the woods . In ﬁve or six places a fox had followed the path for a several rods . R bbits had crossed it over and c over again , and mi e even had recognized it as a thoroughfare and taken laborious journeys in its drifts . A few minutes past noon I reached the top l ll of Ba l Mountain , or, as it is genera y called,

Bald Mountain . Here the snow lay four to eight inches deep upon everything except the

i . bare ledges , wh ch were dry and warm As I gained the crest, a hawk sailed over me and out into that sea of space above the valley . What joy it must be to ﬂy , and especially to soar and

ﬂoat , in high ether, with scarce a muscle mov ing ' Suddenly a plaintive note fell upon my ear , and, turning , I saw a bird about the size of a robin ﬂying northward . It soon vanished in the distance , I meanwhile striving to recall when , where , and from what bird I had heard that sad cry before . Hoping to see more birds , e and seeking an uninterrupted view of the p ak , I climbed to the top of the ledges interm ediate between Bald Mountain and the foot of the ea an d d of p k , there , upon a broa , dry face granite , on the edge of the steep incline which 206 B E AR AM P AT THE NORTH OF C WATER.

reaches far down into the eastern hollow of

Chocorua, I rested and drew strength from the

perfect peace of my surroundings . l The only sounds which I cou d hear, and h nl t ey were o y occasional , were produced by th e ll u i fa of masses of snow from spr ce l mbs , an d the sighing of the breeze in the tree - tops

far below me in the ravine . When the wind

ceased , the hush was wonderful . In so vast a space it seemed as though some voice of nature

must make itself heard ; but above , below ,

r northwa d towards Canada, eastward towards ’ the ocean , southward , where Winnepesaukee s e z wat rs were too da zling to watch , and west of ward , among the snowy ravines clustered

mountains , all was absolute repose and silence .

Not a bird or an insect was to be seen , and the stiff spruces were as motionless as the rock from

n which they spra g . The peak was the most

forceful element in the landscape . It seemed

the embodiment of cold , silent strength . Nine

tenths of its surface were pure white snow, one or tenth black rock, whose steep faces sharp

angles refused to hold the snow . Rising ﬁfteen

hundred feet above the ledges on which I sat, a yet being not more than h lf a mile from me , its massive presence was not only impressive but oppressive . I felt as though it might fall an d crush me to powder .

CHOCOR UA IN NO VEM BER. 207

l e Across the eastern valley, ﬁ led with its whit

r stemmed bi ches and poplars , rose a forbidding cl line of snowy iﬂs . Of all the buttresses which prop the peak, this lofty ridge of nude rock is the most inaccessible and sull en . Now and then a be ar is seen traversing its dan ger Jus faces in but e search of berries , man rarely st ps upon it:

- ever visible but repellent heights . was Looking away from the sun , all the world t k whi e or gray ; loo ing towards it, deep violet

r tones predominated , while f om between the hills many lakes ﬂashed towards me the slant

- ing , dazzling rays of the low hanging sun . So dark was the south that I found it hard to real ize that the hour was but one o ’ clock and the i sky cloudless . In six weeks the sun w ll be even lower , the violet shadows deeper, and midwinter will rule the whole of the frozen land .

-ﬂ When I opened my lunch , a house y came to share it with me . Omnipresent and much enduring insect , for once he was welcome , and

I felt as though a companion sat with me . In the rock upon which I rested there was a little fish rift , filled with water upon which floated a

n - shaped cake of ice . This was my pu ch bowl , and never thirst found sweeter, purer draught for its quenching , than came from that heaven

- ﬁlled and frost cooled cup . I wanted to bless B E AR CA M P 208 AT THE NORTH OF WATER .

it, but found it blessing me , for it was much to me , while I was nothing to it . Rift and rock were there before I took breath , and they will be there centuries after I am a vanished mote in the sky . Just as I left the ledge , homeward bound , a bird call rang out sharply . I listened and a low tre mulous song came from the spruces . Sweeping their serrated border with my glass , I found the birds and recognized t them ere they ﬂew , ut ering the same sad plaint

I had heard an hour before . They were a pair “ ” e of pine grosbeaks , wint r robins as the farmers call them ; one a male , with his rosy breast , the other his ' uaker mate . Flinging

e r thems lves into space , they ﬂew southwestwa d

l n till my glass cou d follow them no lo ger . Passing through the beech woo ds on my way down the mountain , I noticed how much more ﬁrml y the leaves clung to the young trees than

. if to the older ones Many of them , pulled steadily by the tip , tore sooner than give way l at the sta k . On oak and poplar sprouts or on suckers , the leaves remain much longer than old wood ; they keep their rich coloring far into s November, and they are often very conspicuou by reason of their great size . I found more life stirring in these beech woods than anywhere else . Squirrels both red an d gray were hard at work upon the ground,

2 1 0 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WA TER

The perfect clearn ess of the sky lasted until nightfall , then a narrow line of golden orange light separating a pale silvery sky from a deep violet earth was all there was of sunset. - P AK AM ONG THE WIND SWE T L ES.

THE ﬁrst thing which I saw as I opened my eyes M onday morning was the tip of P as sacon ’ ’ away s pyramid , rosy with the sun s earliest be rays , and hanging like a great pink moon tween the soft gray of a hazy sky and the cold gray of the misty forests . It was a soft morn in g with a southerly wind and a cloudy sky, i yet with a chill in the air wh ch hinted of snow . As the damp wind swept across the snow -cov ered peak of Chocorua , its moisture was con den sed r r , and f om the rock , t ailing away north s ea tward like a huge white banner, a cloud streamer waved for an hour in the hurrying wind . Then the peak was overcome by the cloud and hidden for the rest of th e day in a w a slo ly thickening and descending p ll . In all the years which I had spent in wan

ll r dering over these fair hi s , I never had explo ed w Whitton Pond . Looking do n upon it from

- the snow covered mountain yesterday, it had seemed so pleasant to the eye that I determ ined th e to view it from all sides, and to see mighty

form of Chocorua reﬂected in its clear waters. 21 2 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WA TER.

t Towards Whit on Pond , then , I directed my

steps this gray morning . Taking the Conway road from the C hocorua

House , I walked northward upon it rather more than three miles to what is known far and near in this country as the Bell Schoolhouse in Al

bany . Perhaps the bell uses its tongue in dark nights when the wild storm - wind sweeps down

from Chocorua , and the forest groans under its

stripe s . Certainly its tones are not heard in the sunlit hours , as the bats in its belfry and '

the spiders in its schoolroom can bear witness . As I passed up the eastern side of Choco rua

r i Lake , under the g eat pines wh ch guard its

r sho e , a ﬂock of ducks rose from the water and

ﬂew towards the south , then wheeling, returned

and vanished far in the north . There were

seven of them , six ﬂying neck and neck in an

ro w . even , and one lagging behind The six were apparently snowy white wi th dark mark ings on heads and wings ; the laggard was dark

colored . One often hears in February and March that

signs of early spring are growing numerous , r ed that buds are swelling on the maples , cat

r m kins have come upon the alde s , and that any another shrub or tree is pushing out its new

n life . Noticing the alder catkins swinging i the n wind, I measured several and fou d them

2 1 4 A T THE NORTH OF B E A R CA M P WA TER .

? n away together, Why is it Ask the West a d a the gre t cities , which between them have ’ drawn the young blood fr om New England s to rural families , leaving the old and feeble struggle alone with life on the hills . A kind lier region than this could be depopul ated by s uch a process . The most remote an d the highest farm in the

r North Division shone , as we app oached it,

. e like a brass button Carpent rs , painters , and home -makers had been at work upon it until the hills and trees kn ew it for its old self no longer . Nevertheless it was as empty and silent as the decaying farmsteads below . Gaz ing from its terrace upon the far view of Ossi B earcam al pee Lake , the broad p v ley , and the semicircle of hills and mountains from Wake

ﬁeld to Chocorua , I understood why its present owner came from the shores of Lake Michigan to spend his summer in its beautiful quiet . Behind thi s redeemed fragment of the North

Division rises a granite ledge , from which ss matchle views of many mountains , lakes , and sleepy holl ows can be obtained . I found the ledge covered with snow, and the spruce woods on its steep northern slope as full of snow as ’ the thickets on Chocor ua s ridges . At this season a slight elevation and shade make all the m diff erence between sum er and winter . - A M ON G THE WIND S WEPT LAKES . 2 1 5

From the ledge I coul d see the whole of h W itton Pond , lying just below me . It looked like a silver Mal tese cross with its four arms reaching out to the four points of the compass . A small island and one or two single rocks rose s e bluﬂ from its surface . At lea t thr e head

- - lands , pine crowned and rock faced, stood out

boldly into its waters . Just across its eastern

s ide , and due north from the elevation upon w hich I was standing, rose an impressive hill whose precipito us southern side was formed of a series of polished ledges sloping directly

towar ds the deep waters of the lake . In the depths below those ledges large trout are said to live in a state of haughty contempt for all

except favored anglers . I once asked a native , presumably not a favorite of the Whitton Pond

trout, whether he would advise me to go to the

s . u pond ﬁ hing T rning his gray eye upon me , “ ef he said solemnly, Young man , I had the ’ ch ice of ﬁshing all day in Whitto n Pond or in ’ ” d o ad . this sandy road , I take the r every time A logging road led from the back of the ledge

down to the pond . In the dark spruces near the water stood a tiny and dilapidated log hut m but and stable . So s all was the , it seemed as though onl y one lumberman coul d have lived

there . From the hut the road led straight to a the the l keside , and to as lovely a view of 2 1 6 AT THE NORTH OE HE A R OA M P WATER. e astern flank of Chocorua as can be won any. wher e . All that I had imagined yesterday as I stood on those far ramparts was now made al ffl re . Here was the ru ed water, the pine an capped headl ds , the guardian ledges ; there was the stern fortress lifting its rock face and ragged outlines high against the sky . As the mists hurried over the peak , they suggested smoke from cannon fired from this Gibraltar

tu . c of na re Here and there spru es , standing c in the clouds upon the edge of the precipi e , looked like the dim forms of men guardin g the heights .

As the water was very low, a narrow pebbly and rocky strip of beach off ered an easy way round the lake . I followed it through the east ern c oves to the northern shore , where the slip

o e . pery ledges , one ab ve anoth r, hung over me Many boul ders of large size and odd outlines w lay upon the shore , ith the waves raised by the south wind splashing against them . Here the beach failed me , and I had to force my way w estward through the woods and undergrot i th e to the outlet of the pond . Consider ng that lake was about a mile square , the stream which a escaped from it was singularly sm ll . I crossed it with a single str ide . At high water it is r probably much larger , for a dozen or mo e great logs pushed far up on the rocks show that the

M - S K A ONG THE WIND WEP T LA ES. 2 1 7

rivul et of to - day gi ves no suggestion of the for ce t of wa er sometimes at work . From the outlet to the highway was less than ’ l ten minutes wa k , a footpath bringing me to one of the many abandoned farms of un f ortu

e . nat Albany Unfortunate no longer , I hope ,

for with debt paid , taxes reduced , and lumber

ing on the decline, the township ought to revive,

t r par ly through o dinary settlement , but mainly through the inﬂux of city people to one of th e ul most beautif spots in New Hampshire . My walk back to the hotel took me round c Cho orua Lake , while pictures of Whitton Pond were still vivid in my memory . I confess to a sudden feeling of jealousy for the newly ex plored pond when I looked at the simpler out e a lines of my favorit water , and wondered how wooded island and bluff headlands woul d be to o ex ui come it . Whitton Pond is certainly q site a bit of nature to remain long a wilderness ; while to give up its lof ty ledges to quarrymen woul d be little less than a crime .

As I crossed the bridge between the lakes ,

- the coloring was full of sadness . The long de ferred rain was coming across the mountains .

Their tops were concealed, and only the dim s r e mest , most tearful vision of their ﬂank

. an d mained Gray cold , cold and gray, moun

all e . tain , sky , forest , and lake , were the sam 2 1 8 AT THE NORTH OE E E AR OA M P WATER . The cry of a pileated woodpecker and the sput tering complaint of a Hudson Bay titmouse

in a . s rang my e rs Bird of the north , strangers s to these cherished spot , why were they here ? Why were their voices full of weird warning ?

The rain came softly, surely onward, over the i glassy water, and with a sh ver I hurried to

. al l i s wards the fireside After , men , l ke bird and insects , flowers and leaves , feel the chill of autumn and tremble at it . Full as the season ls may be of eternal promise , it is charged a o with a message of present death and decay . al Leaves wither and f l , flowers drop their petals and turn to seeds , the locust dies in the grass , the bird takes wing and saves his life by finding a gentler clime in the far south , and man , if he ’ u t is to linger under Chocor a s lee , must ga her ul his corn into barns , pile his shed f l of wood, in and fortify his mind to endure long nights, e i t nse cold , deep snows , the wailing of w ntry

i ds w n , and the gruesome voice of the lake as the an d ice throttles it . If the heart is brave serene , in there is peace in the long nights , pleasure o the c ld , joy in snowshoe races on the snow , and exhilaration in the wailing of the wind and the i moaning of the lake . As the v king exulted in sailing his ship through the ﬁerce gale of the

ff r win north, so his o sp ing can ﬁnd joy in the try breath of Chocorua .

OE HE A A M P 220 AT THE NORTH R C WATER .

the letter D . Wherever you see D , put down ” your cross . Then a sample ballot was dis

played to Jim , and that worthy child of ' uebec proved the truth of his assertion that he could “ in read D English evvy time , sir . u Just before ten , the three stores gave p their crowds in favor of the growing swarm in

- front of the town house . It was a strange com o mingling of men . The b ne and sinew of rural

r New England we e there , and so were the gristle ,

the fat , and the lean . Men well past ninety tottered feebly to the benches which ﬂanked the l broad open ﬂoor of the hall . Young fel ows , just of age , stepped briskly in and went to the platform to see that their names had been

- duly added to the printed check list of voters .

- - Gaunt , loose jointed , thin faced men , in worn shoddy , the modern successor of honest home

r r spun , d agged themselves th ough the crowd , i a ff answer ng s lutations with grim indi ere nce .

Big , burly men with broad , gray felt hats and scarlet ﬂannel leggings strode in more co n ﬁ

den tl d . y, fresh from the spruce woo s Well

- i dressed , clean shaven men w th city hats and

- i big watch chains shook hands w th everybody, and with a hand on John ’ s shoulder or Edson ’ s ’ elbow whisper ed a word in the young voter s ear . The New England farmer or lumberman does not ride horseback . He probably knows ’ ’ LE T' N A 92 . C O D Y,

how well enough , but his roads have no clay o mud , his wagon runs easily, s he drives instead

of riding . Not one man in ﬁfty owns a saddle . th e Who is it , then , that comes up long street

a a r at a breakneck p ce , with ﬂ pping hat, t ailing ? l whip, and rattling spurs He rides wel , and has a dashing air about him strangely in con

trast to the slouch of the man who always drives ,

with shoulders hunched and back cur ved . He proves to be a city man who has had enough of a ranch and is now extracting occupation fr om

a farm and summer boarders . Now a silk hat and a satin necktie loom up in the throng They grace a sleek son of the “ ” town who has a store down country, but who

comes home to vote . The silk hat looks strangely out of place among the well - worn felts and woolen caps whi ch cover most of the heads in the crowd .

- The bell in the meeting house tower moves , and then its clang strikes harshly on the ear . Half a mile away it would be sweet -toned ; here it is merely discordant . The men straggle into

n - in the tow house large groups , and soon the air room is crowded . Good goes out by the chimney when the smokers come in by the door . an d The supervisors are in their seats , an ex cited discussion is taking place in which th ey an d many in the crowd join . An oldish man T E R E A R A M P 222 AT THE NOR H O O WATER. and a foreigner who served in the late civil war has just produced his natural ization papers and demanded to have his name placed upon the

- oﬁ cer s check list . The object , and point to the book of statutes open before them , where a sec tion states that no name shall be added to the list at this late hour except by way of restoring a name wrongft dropped from an earlier list . The claimant declares that his n ame was o r ought to have been on an earlier list ; a candi date for ofﬁce springs upon a chair and shouts “ ” to the supervisor s that he will make it hot for them if they refuse the veteran his suff rage ;

f . the crowd cheers , and the o ficers yield Then the warrant for the meeting is read , and imme diatel a ofler s h y fter an elder prayer , the ats and caps being doff ed in obe dience to a loud call of “ 08 . hats The prayer is simple and earnest, ’ asking for help in a freeman s highest duty . i A moderator is chosen , and he del vers a brief and clear lecture upon the machinery of the new ballot law . Then a resolution is passed with a shout, allowing the old men to vote first, and the graybeards are pushed gently forward to the inclosed space in which the five little voting booths are built . i f be The voters are kept wait ng hal an hour , cause at first no one can open the patent ballot u box , but at last it gives way to some pers asive

224 OE HE A R OA M P AT THE NORTH WATER.

ro - ck choked bed . I escaped from the bustlin g c rowd in the hot hall , and watched the eager current till my eyes and ears wer e cleared of s e moke and empty laught r, and a taste of some thing sweeter than politics was left on my

t . ongue The river , with its bright water , was following its course towards the B earcamp and

the sea, because for time out of mind it had

ﬂowed that way and knew no other . Most of the men inside the hal l were acting their parts e with much the same int lligence , and marking wherever they saw the letter R , or the letter D , not be cause they knew what those two great lette rs were str uggling for this day in all the

r length and b eadth of the Union , but because for years they had worshiped the one and hated ’ - r r the other with the fetich make s fe vor .

i - e - t - A br ght fac d , blue eyed commit ee man , just old enough to cast his ﬁrst vote for his ’ t r se t par y s he o , came to call me to the dinner for those who had come from a distance to vote . After dinner I took my share of the bone - crush in th e a l a g process inside h l , m rked my long ballot, and started at once for the city . First my friend ’ s wagon rolled along the pleasant

B earcamp valley to the pine plains . Turning a l al ittle aside, we drove past White Pond , a sh

- low, mirror like lake in the heart of the plain , Th e fr amed in snowy sand and gaunt pines . ’ ' T Y 92 . LEC ION DA ,

view of the Sandwich range across this lake 1 8

t - exquisi e at all times , but to day , with the dark blue water dancing towards us in thousands of

- foam capped waves , and the mountains standing out r al u sha ply against the p e bl e sky , it was more than usually charming Hal f a dozen W ood - ducks were ﬂoating in the midst of the

e restless waves , not far from the shore Th y paid no heed to our wagon as it crept thr ough

the sand on the beach . When we reached the West Ossipee stage

a r - b ro d I bade my f iend good y , and strolled to

- wards the station al one . The south bound train was not due till ﬁve , and it was now only half past two . The railway track was not more than al h f a mile distant across the pine plains , so , i leav ng the muddy road , I passed into the pines ,

- following an obscure wood path .

Presently the path became plainer , and as I glanced along its vista, my eye caught a ﬂash of bright yellow gleaming from something at a dis tance . The object was shaped like a chimney , but it seemed to spring from the ground among

- . e the scrub oaks The path b gan to descend , at

ﬁrst gradually, then more abruptly, and I dis covered that there was winding through the ah barrens ead of me a small river, which a ’ moment s consideration told me must be the

a. Be r m . Chocoru River , on its way to the a ca p T OE R E A M 226 AT THE NOR H AR O P WATER.

Beyond th e river was a small clearing and in it stood a red and white house with br illiant yellow ai u chimneys . Then the land rose ag n abr ptly , inclosing the li ttle meadow and its cottage be

s . tween high wall of sand , scrub , and pines Sur prised to ﬁn d an in habited house in the heart of the plains, where I had supposed no thing but mayﬂower s and chewinks lived to e of br ak the monotony scrub and pine , I pushed on to learn more of the place . When the path came to the river it crossed by a rustic bridge formed of a large bow - shape d tree with pieces

to - l of board nailed it , and a strong hand rai braced among its broken branches . The bridge was really artistic, as well as ingenious in con struction . From its farther end I could see the whole of the tiny valley of which the mysterious house was the gay capital . Five or six acres of grass -land and pasture were surrounded by woods and sand hills . Three cows fed along l the river bank . Near the house was a neat y a fenced g rden , and as I came to the fence I found it crossed by a real stile with three steps u . p and two steps down , and a rail to lean upon had at My approach , ere this , attracted the

of tention of the inhabitants the hidden valley, ds and ﬁve hea were visible at windows , house angle , and fence corners . I crossed the stile an d gained the little piazza . The garris on

228 AT THE NO R TH OE R E A R GAM R WATER.

towards the city . The sun sank in orange

n splendor behi d the Ossipees , and then the night ov em h eh ed color and form in its shad ows , and left the mind freer in its musings . What had the day brought forth at the polls ? Had the party of past glories and present decay l won another of its wonderfu series of victories , or had the people risen in their might and spoken for reform ? I hoped for some gleam of news before the journey was over, but Ports n mouth, Newburyport , Salem , and Ly n were all passed without tidings of what the day had

. its o done Even in Boston , with narr w streets

filled with restless rivers of men and women , there seemed to be no word of victory or defeat . At half past ten I reached a small room high in one of the great newspaper offices on Wash in gton Street . Its windows looked out upon t s a s range sight . Far below me was a va t ex panse of human heads upon which shone the bluish white glare of the hooded electric lamps . i o As wh te bubbles , densely spread up n the pale ’ green of the ocean s water in some rock - rimmed u grotto , s rge now out , now in ; to left , to right ; i advancing, retreating ; crowd ng or separating ; so those countless human heads swayed first one way, then another, moved by fickle eddies and forces hard to un ders tan d . Wild cries came n from the crowd , cheers , jeers , and yells of pai or brutal merriment . ’ ’ Y 92 . 229 LECTION DA ,

Inside the room the wearisome clicking of a telegraph operator ’ s machine charmed a circle a of eager men and women . As sheet fter sheet w tt e m was ri en by the operator, they pass d fro hand to hand . Some of those present read l them nervously, others , rea ly intensely con

r l in diﬂer en t . ce ned , seemed a most Now and

ar then he ty applause greeted a dispatch , or ’ deep regret was expressed at some friend s de feat ; but as a rule the fragmentary news was h received silently . Midnight passed , and t en , the a as morning hours wore on , we knew th t the people had achieved one of the most remark able transfers of political power ever accom

lish ed . l ul p in the Union Sti l , the res t in Mas sachusetts in was doubt , and even those who watched until dawn ﬁn ally sought sleep without knowing how the smaller cities had settled the great governorship contest .

Before sleep came to me , a panorama of the day swept in feverish review across my closed w eyelids . I sa the surging mob in Washington c Street , the group around the telegraph ma hine ,

am - the motley crowd in the T worth town hall , th e t O a baby beau y of the ssipee pl ins , and then , k li e a benediction , came a vision of Chocorua,

- l snow capped and immutable in a pa e blue sky, with the rosy light of the clear November morn n ing ﬂoodi g its wondrous peak . A WINTRY WILDERNESS.

i NORTH of the Sandwich Mounta ns , inclosed ak by a circle of sombre pe s , there once lay a t outﬂowin beautiful lake . Cen uries ago its g out stream , now called Swift River, so deeply between the spurs of Chocorua and B ear moun tains that the greater part of the lake drained away into the Saco at Conway , leaving its level

- bed a fair and rich soiled inter val e . By the road upon which the lake went out in man time came in , and founded in the bosom of the spruce - grown mountains a small but comparatively prosperous settlement . Having a seen this hidden v lley in summer , and taken account of its rare beauty and its remoteness from the wearisome machinery of the world , I yearned to know its winter charms , feeling sure that they woul d surpass those of summer as the r fai ness of snow surpasses the fairness of grass . r Acco dingly , in the latter part of December, 1 891 , I went by rail with a friend to C hatauque

Corner , and thence by sleigh up the weird pass between Chocorua on the south and Moat and

Bear mountains on the north , gaining at night

232 AT THE NORTH OE HE AR OA M P WATER. l Even when night fell , as we entered the val ey, the light which gleamed afar thr ough the spruces told of hospitality as truly as the sleigh ’ s f ample furs spoke o comfort , and the keen wind of health . We reached the vall ey on the evening of Sat ur da 1 9 y, December , and enjoyed every mo i ment of our stay, which was prolonged unt l

26th . Saturday, the From my journal , written on the evening of each day, I take the follow ing account of our wanderings . We left Chatauque Corner (Conway) at three ’ o clock , well packed in the fur robes of a com f ortabl e two - seated sleigh and drawn by a

i - sk nny graduate of a race course . It was an e t ideal wint r af ernoon , blessing an ideal North

a in ern l ndscape . There were the broad Saco ter val es ﬂat with snow, the pale blue sky with

f - t a ringe of cloud banks , and be ween intervale

r r and sky , mountains of ma ble and rampa ts of r da k evergreens . Straight up the S aco val ley the immense mass of M ount Washington rose against the sky . It was wholly covered by

. On snow its left , Moat, like a breaking wave

an . of the sea, was close at h d On its right,

- Carter Notch , with walls of dull purplish black

‘ spruce , reached to where stately Mount P e

uawket r r q rea ed its da k cone on high . The ac s S o spla hed in its rocky bed . Every boulder

234 AT THE NORTH OE R E A R OA M P WATER .

At their foot boulders of every shape and size fought the pr ogress of the water . The stream dashed itself against them , hurling spray into

r the air ; the sp ay fell upon the snow and froze ,

r fell upon the boulders and f oze , or drained back into the stream , freezing in icicles of mar

n . r velo s forms The water, colo ed doubtless by the mosses and weeds below its surface , was — a — green , cold , pale green , with something of the cruelty of a winter ocean in its tones . Now and then we met and passed sleds heavily i laden with lumber o r logs . One load of b rch

bin der logs was on ﬁre at the end , and the driver was warming his hands at the blaze . A few poor farms lined the road at points where small patches of tillable land were to be found be

r tween the rocky finge s of Moat . As we passed on e of these far ms a flock of two dozen or more snow- buntings rose from a field full of tall weed

al r st ks and whi led over us singing . Their sweet notes fell on us as holy water falls on a kneeling congregation .

The road grew steeper , and then it crossed the river, passing through a huge covered bridge , and soon we found ourselves inside of the portals of Chocorua and Moat , with the

r high ridge of Bear Mountain , cove ed with

r black spruces , ba ring our westward way . The e wall of sullen forest seemed without a cleft, y t A WIN T R Y WILDERNESS . the raging river which met us told of a way n somewhere , to be found by retracing its cha nel . In the midst of this gloomy hollow in the i ﬁf h lls we found a slab village . A dozen or t een houses stood here , but no smoke curled from their chimneys . Last September every house was occupied ; now the foxes roam through the deserted settlement unmolested . The saw mill which had created the village had bee n burned and the whole popul ation had vanished

almost as swiftly as the smoke of the ruins . Not so the hideous scars left by the lumbe r ’ man s axe . They will remain for many a day . By a series of sharp ascents we gained and passed through the rift in the mountain wall made centuries ago by the imprisoned waters . In thi s rift at the eastern foot of Bear Moun

tain , only a few steps from the roadside ,

are the picturesque falls of Swift River . The treacherous ice and the gathering darkness for d n i o f ba e our goi g to the giddy marg n the fall , an d hi l the we dashed on into the dden val ey,

- dl e i narrow, mountain gir ed int rvale of wh ch we

were in search . As we left the forest fringes of B ear Mountain be hind us and emerged in i the pla n , a gorgeous winter sunset gave us welcome . Over the blue of the upper sky , in al which Jupiter one sparkled faintly , were scat ter ed countless ﬂakes of rosy cloud . Below 236 AT THE NORTH OE B EAR CA M P WATER. them a broad black band of cloud cut the sky be at the level of several mountain peaks , and

bar low this sinister , showing only in the gaps

un e between the mo tains , was a space of gr enish c silver, into which thousands of spru es reared their slender spires .

Taking fresh courage , our horse carried us over the ﬁfteenth mile at racing speed . The n road was level . O the right the ﬂat , white intervale shone in the pale light as in distant ages the face of the great mountain lake shone in silent winter nights . Westward, across the

r Tr i r amid Kan end of the intervale , we e py , cama us O g , and sceola mountains ; northward, ’ ’ ff C arr i ain l Green s Cli s , g , Lowel , Owl s Head , and Tremont Mountain sto od shoul der to shoul der in double rank . Behind us , dark Bear

Mountain concealed Moat , while spurs of Cho corua reached down to the road . On the left r f as was Paugus , c ouching at the foot o P sa conaway, which dominated over the valley with t gloomy majes y . A bright light gleamed

C ar r i ain through the spruces , the g House lay there between black forest and pale snow , May ’ u hew s lantern sw ng to and fro , and his deep voice welcomed us to his cheerful home in the t heart of the win ry wilderness . Those who live in the city have an idea that it 1 8 har d to keep warm in these northern farm

238 A T THE NORTH OE HE AR OAM P WA TER . It was but little after eight o ’ clock when we sought sleep and found it quickly between feather s below an d mighty piles of blankets and

comforters above . Untroubled moonlight ﬂooded Swift River

r interval e all night , and the e was still more of moonlight than of daylight when our host came

into o ur room in the morning to light our ﬁre . The winter working costume of our host de c serves mention . His brown cardigan ja ket

was not remarkable , but his legs were marvel an ously encased . They beg at the body with a f ample woolen trousers , h l way between the hip and knee gave way to tightly -ﬁttin g scarlet

wrappings which reached to low rubbers , cover

ing the feet . Nimble of foot , and of wiry frame , the wearer of these remarkably unpuritanical nether garments was a most enlivening ﬁgure

in the snow . E ncouraged by our ﬁre , we arose with the sun . The mountains in the north were bathed in rosy

light . Dark as were their forests , each of these

r - mountains p esented snow covered ledges , or

avalanche scars white with snow . Upon these white surfaces the sun l ight fell with that soft blush which makes a winte r sunrise so charm

in l f u r g y ll of p omise . We hastened out of

doors as soon as dressed , and were at once e gr eted by joyous voices . A red squirrel in A WIN TR Y WILDERNESS .

’ the dark spruce s was whirlin g his watchman s rattle ; far away in the forest a woodpecker was drumming on a resonant tree - trunk ; but near

o n e - at hand , only across snow covered ﬁeld , a

chorus of bird voices quivered in the still , cold

. Z air . The air was cold , that was true ero w o as the p int the mercury held to , and as we took long breaths of the pure air we spouted forth columns of white steam through our ice o hung beards . Trotting up the road , we s ught

the birds . We found them at the next farm

on - house , perched by dozens plum trees , maple

on of saplings by the road , and the tips a row

of spruces opposite the farmyard . Some were in in the road , others the dooryard on the soiled all snow where oxen had stood . In , over a

r . d hund ed were present As we rew near , they an d i rose ﬂew in wav ng circles over us , every bird singin g until the whole air seemed tingling

with sound . Then t hey came down in undu an u lating lines , curves , gles , and pl nges , which

turned aside into a second ﬂight in the sunlight . t As they se tled in groups in the various trees , s I swept my gla s over one cluster after another .

Crossbills were the most numerous species , with oldﬁn ch es ﬁn g a close second, and pine ches

third . The crossbills were in all stages and

conditions of plumage , from rich red males blaz l d ﬁr to ing like du l coals plucke from the e, 240 AT THE NORTH OF B E A R CAM P WATER.

- l dingy brown . No white winged crossbi ls seemed on to be among them . Three months before , a

cold dewy morning in September , I stood on this spot and saw a ﬂock of thir ty crossbills in

these same trees . Then a number of them were feeding in the edge of the pasture at a place

where cattle had been salted in a shal low trough . I saw the birds tearing off ﬁbres from the wood

of the trough , so eager were they to get the salt

which the wood had absorbed . This morning

r on e the salt t ough was covered with snow , save edge which protruded ; but all around it the a crossbills had trodden the snow into a p th ,

- showing that they were still salt hungry . Act

ing upon this hint , I sprinkled the ground with grain and rock salt ; but although birds were in

all the trees , they paid no hee d to my off erings . After watching the cr ossbills for near ly an

hour we walked westward . The birds had been

more restless than we . Few of them re mained

r still more than two or th ee minutes at a time . l off With sharp cal s the crossbills woul d dash ,

followed by the ﬁnches , and together , or in scat te red m detach ents , they would wheel from one

u n r e q arter of the heavens to a other, perhaps

turning in a moment to the same perch , perhaps

vanishing in distance , not to reappear for many

minutes . All the time that they were on the

wing the air was full of their fragments of music.

242 A T THE N OR TH OE R E AR OAM E WATER.

After strolling through these woods and along the edge of Sabba Day Brook for an hour we

r turned towa ds home , treading in our previous footprints and thus avoiding crashing through the brittle crust of the snow . On reaching the spot where the owl had hooted , I used my metallic bird whistles and drew a crowd of

t . chickadees , kinglets , nutha ches, and blue jays d Then I hoote , the jays scolded noisily, and soon the owl replied . He came nearer by de n grees, I hooti g occasionally , he frequently . but Finally he alighted in a tree just over us , saw us at once and ﬂew away . I continued hooting and he replied again , and came back W within sight . henever he moved, the jays c i pursued him s old ng, and they were still watch ing him when we resumed our march towards home . CLIM BING BEAR M OUNTAI N IN THE

SNOW .

M a De ember 21 . on d y, c The moon ate up

the clouds during the night, and at dawn the only remnants of what the evening before had looked like a storm were the cloud - caps upon

Tri r amid Kan cama us py and g , and a band of ’ mist across Church s Pond at the weste rn end

of the interval e . We were dressing about ’ our seven o clock when host came to our door, “ saying, If you want to see a fox , come

quickly . I ran into the east room and caught a last glimpse of Reynard trotting briskly over

the snow towar ds the rising sun . He seemed to be following a scent which went in a some

what wavy lin e across the ﬁeld . At eight ’ i o clock , just as we were str ding up the road to the l pay a visit to crossbil s , a wild cry rang from the forest and echoed from end to end of

- . im the valley It was the voice of the t ber eater, coming northwar d by his tortuous path fr om ’

t . Upper Bartlet , and calling for his day s food The men at the lumber cars near our house hustled a little , and then started down the track 244 AT THE NORTH OE HE AR OA M P WA TER.

al to see the engine come in . On its arriv one heavily laden car was attached to it , and the

. train , thus made up , at once started back

Meanwhile , we had met two tree sparrows by the roadside and seen our crossbills and gold had a r . ﬁnches on their favo ite trees They , p

ar en tl s rin p y, eaten none of the cracked corn p kled for them upon the snow . As the train was t about to star , we boarded the engine and gained a promise from the engineer to let us out at the M w B . foot of ear ountain Crossing S ift River, the train entered the spruce forest and began its winding journey towards Upper Bartlett .

- With my head out of the left hand window , I absorbed all the novelty and beauty of the scene . Inside , the engineer sat at his window with his earnest eyes looking up the track , his strong hand upon crank or lever, and his face grave and quiet . The ﬁreman poured oil into the sucking cups above the boiler ; then he

a n clanked the ch in of the fur ace door, peeped wi into the raging ﬁre thin , hurled into it a shovelful of coal dust, rammed it home with

r the poker, wo ked the movable lever which dumped ashes , and again poured oil into the sucking, choking cups . u Outside , the spr ce forest hemmed us in , but rising above it headl and after headl and of black s - n rock , snow incrusted ledges , a d lofty spruces

246 AT THE NORTH OE HE A R OA M P WATER.

the in their embrace . They reminded me of

- s the tentacles of an enormous devil ﬁ h . Near focus of all these roads we found a log cabin and stables . The cabin was one of the best I have ever seen . It was about sixty feet long, and contained a room at each end and roofed space in the middle open at front and back .

Near the house we heard bird voices , and I at ff was once used my Spanish whistles . The e ect

- excellent . Four or ﬁve red bellied nuthatches,

- e one white bellied , and a small ﬂock of pin

ﬁnches responded . The siskins were very noisy and quite restless . They were feeding on the s eeds and buds of a tall birch . Leaving the ’ hut at nine o clock , we strolled up the snow covered roads . The voices of birds were ever

. r in our ears Squirrel and rabbit t acks , with l now and then the tracks of a fox , fo lowed or cut the roads . The snow was ﬁve or six inches in depth and covered by a thin and brittle crust . In many places numbers of well - ﬁll ed be echnuts were strewn upon the ground . This is beech nut year, and the squirrels have more than they can pick up . The snow in the road was easy to walk upon , the air was mild , the sun warm , the spruces rich with olive light and brill iantly contrasted with the deep blue sky against which our mountain towered . On each side of th e narrow way top wood an d branches were 4 CLIM BING BEAR M O UNTAIN IN THE SNO W. 2 7

i piled in ramparts . The many roads reach ng up the mountain are in places set so closely to gether that their ramparts of top wood touch

i . each other, form ng almost impassable barriers It was in one of these tangles that I discov ered two small woodpeckers at work tapping upon the trunks of two unheal thy spruces

spared by the axe . I saw at a glance that the

birds were unfamiliar in coloring , and I crawled in among the top wood to examine them more

closely . To whistles , hooting , and squeaks they r paid no attention , but kept on hamme ing the trees until small ﬂakes of loose bark ﬂew at

every blow . My crashing through snow and

branches startled one bird , but the other stood his ground until I got within about ﬁf teen feet

of him . My glass brought out every detail of hi a . s his plum ge Upon head was a yellow cap,

his throat was snowy white , his sides were d ﬁnely, delicately barre with black and white , was e his back largely black , but down his spin

- ran a be lt of black and white cross lining . In stead of having four toe s like the down y and

other common woodpeckers , this stranger from h the north had but t ree toes . He was the lad der -backed woodpecker of the great northern

forests . During the twenty minutes that I u watched him he made no vocal so nd , but d worke incessantly, tearing away bark, and 248 AT THE NORTH OE B E A R CA M P WATER. W drilling into the trunk of the spruce . hen he had inspected the tree to its highest part he

flew several rods to rejoin his mate . At last the roads ended and we entered the remnant of dark forest which crowns the moun tain . There was a chill in the gloomy shades . cov The snow was softe r an d deeper here . It ered innumerable boulders closely wedged to gether be tween the stems of the spruces . On the sides of these rocks we could see delicate mosses imprisoned in the ice and snow . At frequent intervals we encountered masses of fallen timber wrecked by hurricanes . Another obstacle to our ascent was the dense growth of young spruces which in places made walking al most impossible . In the edge of an open space in this forest we called together the birds by means of my whistle . A flock of juncos appeared in a pile of top wood ; red -bellied nut hatches came and clung head downwards on the uan ked nearest trunks and q at us , kinglets bus tled in , peeped at us , and bustled out , a dozen o r more red crossbills alighted close abo ve us and to our satisfaction made the note which had so puzzled us yesterday and whi ch sounds ’ - al . all like the robin s arm note Best of , a flock t of six y pine siskins came into the nearest trees , and one or two of them came down to the level s i of our head and quest oned us plaintively .

B E A R A M P W E 250 AT THE NORTH OE C AT R .

The narrow ridge which for ms the top of ll Bear Mountain is blockaded by fa en timbe r .

Squirming through the tangle , we saw all the views and then sat down in the sun on piles of spruce branches and ate our lunch . Having no water , we quenched our thirst by mingling snow wi th our bread and eating them together . As d we ate and rested , looking across a woo ed

w C arr i ain Fran coni as valley to ard g and the , a ﬂock of white -winged crossbills alighted above o ur heads and talked to us . Several were rosy males in the perfection of plumage . Many more siskins came and went , and so did a ﬂock a of four red nuth tches and several kinglets .

Our descent was rapid and amusing . We plunged downwar d from tr ee to tre e with long strides and slides , sometimes falling, often coasting faster and farther than we wished . s Three more ﬂocks of crossbill , many dozens of siskins , and a scattering of nuthatches glad den ed us as we pushed down the slopes . A

e hawk, too, came quit . near to us , soaring at ’ last so as to clear the mountain s crest . He was rather small , and very quick and jerky in wi his ng motions . He circled from left to right

ll r in sma cu ves . While walking home on the railway we were fortunate enough to call to us a small ﬂock of s ix i pine grosbeaks , ﬁve or only , and hav ng no

S IN THE PAUGUS WOOD .

UST o the J opposite our house , which st od on north side of the road , facing south towards n Paugus , was a black forest of spruces . I to i this we plunged on Tuesday morn ng, not knowing what might lie wi thin . The silence of the gloom was broken by the sound of falling bits of ice and drops of melting snow . Bird notes , too , could be heard , and now and then a red squirrel chattered . The trunks of the s an ds trees stood closely together , and thou of small dead branches radiated from the trunks The and interlaced , opposing our progress . crashing of these twigs as we broke through the them, accompanied by the crunching of

- c d snow crust under our feet , noisily announ e u our coming . At inte rval s we fo nd masses of fallen timber , the wreck of ﬁerce storms , and brooks covered with thi n ice and misleading snow, through which we SIM ped into cold water beneath . Every few paces rabbit tracks dotted o the s ft ﬁl m of snow which lay upon the crust. If the tracks which we crossed during our three or four mile walk could have been measured in IN THE PA UG US WOODS. 253 all k their meanderings , I thin the aggregate of miles traversed by the rabbits of that locality would have been found to rival the railway mileage of New Hampshire? From time to time we stopped to call birds to us by the aid of my whistles . I think I called eight or nine times , and in each instance birds appeared

. l promptly Usua ly pine finches came first , whirling through the upper air like burnt paper driven by the wind . As they passed over us , they would catch the soun d of the whistles more distinctly and begin a ser ies of undulatory cir cles . Then one or two would drop straight down into a leafless tree , or upon the tips of the spruces , and the rest would follow them , sometimes twenty going into one tree . Their sweet queryings filled the air, and drew other t birds to the focus of sound , among o hers a number of purple finches and a white - bellied K nuthatch . inglets came very near to us when we were well hidden ; so near that the brilliant color on their dainty heads could be seen with chi ka perfect distinctness . There were more c dees in these woods than in the other places we had visited , and I examined them all with great care , hoping to find a Hudson Bay titmouse .

Two ﬂocks of the common species came , and c produ ed no northern birds , but at a third rally h r of nut atches , ﬁnches , and kinglets , a st ange 254 AT THE NORTH OE B E AR CAM P WATER.

voice made itself heard . I knew it for some thing different from a chickadee at once , and yet it was titmouse language . Squeaking vig or ousl . y, I called the stranger down to me At ﬁrst I thought it was a chickadee ; then he sput “ ter ed out his dee- dee and showed hi s brownish head and great chestnut patch on his ﬂank , and

I knew he was from Hudson Bay . Three others j oined him and gave me ample chance to inspect their points . I had the feeling that they had less character and spirit than our blackcap tit mouse . Their voices were weaker and more petulant and their general appearance less posi tive and aggressive . Once I caught a glimpse of a big white hare boun ding away from us through a jungle of youn g spruces . He was so nearly the color of the snow that my eyes found it difﬁcult to follow

After going rather more than two miles through the spruce tangle , we entered an old logging road much used by rabbits , foxes , and grouse , and , following it northward , we made our way home .

P . M About . the baying of a hound at our tracted notice , and I walked up the road to see what he was doing . He soon appeared at the edge of the spruce woods , and I followed a ’ him into their d rk shades . After a moment s

256 A T THE NORTH OE B E AR CA M P WATER . and bushes rearranged themselves into weird shapes which seemed to move against the vague background of the snow . The silence of the cold black and white woods became oppressive , and the chill of night increased moment by mo u ment . The baying of the ho nd , lost to the

eastward , had come again from the north , and

ﬁnall y moved over towards the west . It was ’ l after ﬁve o clock , and the dog had fol owed his ll chase since eleven . Standing sti , listening to

the hound , and peering into the trees in search

r of the grouse , I began to grow d owsy, and to long to sink down upon the soft snow and go to

eﬁor sleep . It required a strong t of will to rouse myself and to start my benumbed feet

upon their homeward way . As soon as I moved,

the grouse , which had been budding in a high

maple , ﬂew away deeper into the gloom , and then utter silence settled down upon the deserted

forest . 24 When we awoke , December , the day prom

ised to be ﬁne . Blue sky covered the ar ea above C arr i ain an d g , a cool west wind swept across the ﬁelds from which much of the snow had i d sappeared . We had planned to climb another

o f r the mountains near the railway t ack , but

while we were breakfasting, the engine came in ,

and , ﬁnding no cars loaded , went out again at ’ once . By nine o clock clouds had gathered and THE UG US IN PA WOODS . 257

c aps had settled down upon many of the peaks . ll We heard crossbi s calling as we left the house .

Their short , sharp call is much like the English ’ - sparrow s alarm note . A ﬂock of nine settled on the spruces by the salting - trough as we went

past . One was a red bird , two had a trace of r red , ﬁve were brown , with some st eaking on

the sides of the breast , and one was quite yel of i low . One them was gnaw ng a long shoot of spruce which had al ready been chewed free of

n f needles and left brown and forlorn . U ortu n atel y we took a dog with us , a black mongrel with pleading eyes and no wisdom . He loved

to zigzag over the country in front of us , and

to bark at red squirrels . He was a nuisance ,

- but very sweet tempered , as many fools are .

We took him , hoping that he might hunt rab e bits , but we wished him in Jericho long befor the forenoon was over . Al though cloudy all day, no rain fell until evening ; consequently birds were astir and abun dant . We left the highway at a point where an old logging road led southward through the a spruce swamp, parallel to a stre m bearing the odd name of Oliverian Brook . Continued far “ ” an d h arr ican es enough over ledges through , the road would pass between Paugus and Pas sa~ v al conaway and come out into the Birch Inter e , of Tamworth . Af ter going in for a couple 258 AT THE NORTH OE B E A R CA M P WA TER . mil es the road bends to the left , following the east branch of th e Oliverian Brook up to the spruce forests on Paugus . We made our ﬁrst halt in a dense spruce and hemlock thicket and called for birds . They came from all quarters until dozens of the usual kinds were around us . Af te r a while seven or ﬂitted at eight blue jays past, one by one, tr acted mainly by my hooting . They came within easy gunshot an d peered at us with sus picion and anger in their wicked eyes . They ill are v ains in spite of their attractive dress .

Suddenly they ﬂew with cries of alarm , and I saw a large light - colored hawk sweep past and al alight in a t l dead tree just out of range . The dog at this crisis made hi s appearance and

- rushed back and forth with ill timed energy . The hawk ﬂew a little farther away and was on his guard against stalking . The jays also

an d m r . vanished , soon the s aller bi ds left also Among the latter was one Huds on Bay tit mouse . In the depths of the spruce swamp the snow to had not wasted much , and it was soft enough take the imprint o f passmg feet . We found ’ the tracks of a deer, a mink , and a . coon . a an d Foxes , r bbits , squirrels , mice , grouse had

e . b en that way also Several times , in crossing f fresh fox tracks , I got a whi f of odor which I

260 THE N T OE B E AR CA M P T AT OR H WA ER.

“ chattering was at its height the familiar who lzoo hOO - hOO who - hoo - kOO - hooo o f , , a barred o wl was heard . The birds became silent and most of them disappeared , perhaps to scold the real owl . Many of the trees in this belt of

r forest were nea ly a hundred feet in height . Well up towards the high ridges of Paugus our road crossed the Oliverian Brook . The point chosen twenty years ago by th e lumber man enginee r f or building his bridge was a

l c e ravine of singu arly picturesque chara t r. Thirty feet below its two precipitous banks the o u noisy t rrent str ggled among its boulders .

of Dozens dark spruces overhung it , and rank upon rank of evergreens lined the banks . In the bed of the brook the lumbermen had built “ up in cob -house fashion two log abutments

- about twenty ﬁv e feet high . From each bank immense logs were run out to rest upon the abutments , and similar logs formed the central span . Then scores of shorter logs were laid

r across f om girder to girder, and all were ﬁrmly bound together by heavy side - logs laid on top of and parallel to the girders . We decided to cross this bridge , although it was falling to pieces . Many of the short logs had rotted off and fallen through . We walked upon the gir ders , the whole bridge trembling ominously a was under our tread . Our dog, foolish s he , 0 IN THE PA 6 US WOODS. 261

n te r k ew enough not to cross this bridge , for af i r an inspecting it he wh ned , down the bank ,

r b r plunged th ough the stream , and clam e ed up

the other side . At half past two we had reached rather high l and . The road was fast climbing the ﬂan k of Oli Paugus , following a minor branch of the

r h verian B ook . Just across t is little run rose

th e gloomiest grove of spruces we had seen . It stood upon a bank ﬁfty feet above the road and

. e brook I clambered up to it, and forc d my

way through its dense tangle . To my surprise a rt e I found th t it was only about thi y f et wide , growing on a mere tongue of land between two t mountain gorges . On the far her side the land u fell off abr ptly two or three hundred feet, and down in the shades be low still another branch

of the Oliverian fretted in its bed . Beyond it e was another ridge , over which , a mile and mor n away , grim Passaconaway frow ed across at

- his me . A white cloud banner streamed from

- i spruce crowned head . To the serious detr ment of my clothes I climbed a tall spruce on the e dge of the ravine in order to determ ine our s position . Behind us was Paugus , its summit within comparatively easy reach . From them I could have looked down at my snow - covered

. t home by Chocorua lakes Westward , jus across the forest basin on whose edge we stood, OE B E AR AM P 262 AT THE NORTH C WATER . was Passaconaway . Northward the eye wan der ed downward over gently sloping tree - tops to the broad snowy interval e with its cozy farms r and its one long, straight road, running f om e west to east , from the for sts by Sabba Day

Brook, down Swift River , through its gorges towards Conway . Above and beyond the inter val e were the northern mountains which lock it in from the rest of the world , Bear Moun ’ i d C arri ain ta n on the right , then Owl s Hea , g , ’ Kan c ma ff ll a us . Green s Cli s , Sugar Hi , and g The notch east of C arr igain is one of the grand est rifts in the White Mountain panorama . It is like a black gateway opened for storms and waili ng winds to sweep through . The black grove on its narrow tongue of land hanging between two gor ges was alive with

- an d . birds , I fancied it to be their sleeping place k Chic adees , kinglets , and a brown creeper were in possession an d resented my intr usion . It was just such a place as I have al ways imagined ’ a small bird s dormitory to be .

We returned , descending by another logging road leading due north to the intervale road in about a mile below the C arr iga House . This logging road is one of the most picturesque I have ever seen . It follows closely a brook of considerable size which is one long series of

l s . poo s , falls , and da hing rapids The forest on

IN THE PA UG US WOODS. both sides of the brook bed is of high growth s and generous proportions . Every few moment a vista view of Bear Mountain charmed us as we wound down the steep incline , while behind and above us the ledges of Paugus , gleaming with ice and capped by snow, showed at inter vals through the trees . T THE F P Y A FOOT O ASSACONAWA .

W E DNESDA Y 23 n a , December , dawned u der

. Tr i r amid damp sky py kept on his nightcap , and patches of mist clung to the dar k precipice of Passaconaway . The mountains looked higher and more threatening than on previous days, and they seemed closer to us than when th e sun shone . A whisper of falling drops and fl settling snow ruf ed the morning calm . Nev ertheless , patches of blue sky showed in the or r o west, and once twice a silve y sp t in the ’ clouds sugge sted the sun s burning through . We went first to see our favorite flock of birds

- at the cattle trough in the pasture . They were f u c there in ll for e , nearly if not quite a hundred strong . They allowed me to come within about f twenty feet o them , and to watch them nar owl a r y through my glass . R ther more than

l . ha f were red crossbills Of the remainder, two thirds were pine ﬁnches , and one third gold

- ﬁn h ll . c es . No red po s were to be seen The coloring in the crossbills was amazingly diverse . There were very brilliant males with cinnabar i t nts wherever such color is ever found . From

266 A T THE NOR TH OE B E A R CAM P WATER .

e they had been feeding in the yellow grass s, and vibrated away with merry calls until swal lowed up in fog and rain . The wasting of the snow under the hot sun of Monday and the cloudy sky but mild air of Tuesday had left many plants and dri ed ﬂower

- stalks exposed to view . Plum colored masses o f berry bushes encroached upon the wide ex panse of snow as head lands reach out into a calm sea . Tiny forests of wiry grass reared e their heads above the snow . In color they wer “ ” what is called sandy . Goldenrod and aster stems , holding aloft dry and brittle suggestions of - u long lost flowers ; the heads of br nella , look ing like chess castles , and of the Indian pipe , upright and pineapple - shaped ; and many deli cate hairlike stems from which all trace of leaf and flower had departed , broke the evenness of n the snow fields , and were beautiful in an u as sumin g , unconscious , unintentional way . In of had deed , many them never shone with t beau y before . In summer, submerged in the wilderness of green things which crowd the ul unplowed intervale , they co d not have been found by the eye of any one in chance passing . t But in winter, the time of their nominal beau y i gone , they l ngered in their old age , and looked more beautiful in their bleached simplicity than thos e summer flowers which never gave them a

chance to reveal what was in them . T E P A SSA NA W Y 26 AT THE E OO O C O A . 7

e At the end of the int rvale, instead of plung

i r ing nto the woods whe e our barred owl lived , we turned southward towards the foot of Passa conaway . The rough road led through the for est to a saw -mill under the shoulder of the ﬁrst

B r ridge of the mountains . Downes ook had been partially dammed to form a pond , upon which hundreds of logs lay awaiting their fate .

At the foot of the dam stood the mill . Its

- - u lower story was an engine room . A ste am e n gi e of considerable power worked four saws , a

planer, and an endless chain used to draw in

logs from the ice . At the dam end these logs u were being drawn in upon the ﬂoor, meas red ,

and marked . Then they went to the ﬁrst and

largest saw , which cut off their slabs , reduced a an d l them to boards or pl nks , sent them a ong i to the second saw to have the r ends squared . d From the second saw they went to the thir , d al where their sides were ma e equ , and hence

through the planer, out at the lower end of the

mill , down a chute to a platform where they l w u . ere piled , ready to be ha ed away The fourth saw was used to cut the slabs and edge cuttings into the right lengths for fuel ; for not only the engine demon in the under story fed all on wood , but the people in the intervale

r bu ned slabs . About twelve men were em

ployed in the upper part of the mill , some 268 AT THE NORTH OE B E A R CAM P WA TER.

c e Ameri ans , some French Canadians , and som was Irishmen . One young Frenchman a pic

e - ture of dirty b auty and health . His jet black e hair, reeking with oil , was plast red in a curve over his forehead . His mustache was curling, i and his snapp ng eyes , dark skin , rosy cheeks , and powerf ul but rather gross body made a

r st iking picture for a day laborer . r Leaving the mill with its dist acting noise , we ascended the main logging road towards

r Passaconaway . It follows Downes B ook south ward , now clinging to one hillside , then cross ing the ice -bound torrent by a rude but massive bridge of spruce logs to stay for a while on the h ad opposite bank . On each side the timber been cut and hauled away . The survival of the un ﬁttest is the rule in the forest after the lum be r thief has been through it . He leaves the o r cr oked , the feeble , and the diseased t ees , and packs around their roots the fertilizing branches n and tops of the logs which he hauls away . O our way up we met several teams coming down

the slippery, sloppy road . Two strong Cana

dian horses , low sleds , three great logs chained

together and to the sleds , and an oily , tobacco

chewing French Canadian made up a team .

We stopped and talked to one driver , who said that if the snow went o ff they would keep on the with their hauling, using the runners on

E B E AR A M P T 2 70 A T THE NOR TH O C WA ER .

“ ar e piled high with fried holes , as doughnuts graphically termed . Baked beans are a staple i r d sh , but I noticed a ba rel of pork at the door, and lying on the woodpile a big bundle of cod ﬁsh and a side of beef certiﬁed as good by the

Hon . Jere . Rusk . The sleeping - room of the camp was not at stuﬁ tractive . It was dark , hot , y in odor, and overcrowded . Rude bunks , three tiers deep, lined the side walls . The men turn into these pens with their clothes on , often wet with rain

A . M . o r snow . Teamsters are roused at four ; “ the rest of a crew somewhat later . In win

A . M . ter, four and midnight are equally

r gloomy, and if either is colder it is the mo ning hour . The cook said he could remember but one case of serious illn ess in his logging camps .

The grip, he said, seldom kept a man from work more than one or two days . He expressed great fondness for birds , and spoke of the daily visits of crossbills , and in some years of moose “ birds . They know their friends , as most ” dumb beasts do , he declared , and went on to tell of a terrible sto rm of snow and sleet which came one winter , threatening death to his pets . “ I just opened my camp doors an d called and

r whistled to my bi ds , and in they came , dozens ’ un of em , til every beam and perch in the camp ’ ” was full of em . H OE P A SSA C ONA AT THE OOT WA Y. 2 7 1 We strolled up the road for a mile or more

beyond the camp . At several points deposits h ad of logs been made at the sides of the road .

r al Seve hundred logs lay in each pile . Near

by , hemlock bark was stacked in long rows ,

ﬂanking the road . We crossed the torrent c twi e on spruce bridges , and each time gained

a magniﬁcent view of Passaconaway . It was

framed in black clouds , rushing masses of vapor, an d a ll s d rk hi ides still laden with forests . In

the foreground was the foaming stream , boulder

choked , bounding towards us . From this side Passaconaway shows no peak ; it is simply a s c omewhat worn cube , to whose precipitous fa es

the forests cling and the snows freeze . Its

coloring is dark in any light, but as we saw it thr ough the gathering storm of that late Decem be r day a more forbidding mountain mass coul d

l . hard y be imagined It was so near us , yet so

high above us ; so black , so cold , so lonely, yet ’ so full of nature s voices , the wailing of wind ,

the cruel rush of waters , the weird creaking of

strained trees . The stream , with its greenish waters hurling themselves over the boul ders an d fretting against the ice sheets projecting from

the banks , seemed like a messenger rushing headlong from the mountain to warn us back from impending danger .

Resting for a while under the shelter of a. A T OE B E A R CA M P 2 72 THE NORTH WATER.

l d . giant hem ock , we called the bir s Two or

r th ee chickadees and two kinglets came to us , but they were subdued by the storm and shy a about getting wet . Then we w lked briskly homeward , the rain falling in earnest during the latter part of the way . A snowy fog rose from dl all parts of the valley , spreading most rapi y from the western end . The flat fields of snow vanished first ; then the damp veil crept up the dar k spruces and hid their tops ; and finally mountain peak after mountain peak surrendered r t to the rising tide , and we we e lef alone in the dense fog with only a narrow circle of steam ing snow around us . As the day wore on , rain fell faster and harder, the wind rose , it grew colder, and the blackness of the winter night would have been terrible but for the peace and

n comfort within doors . O such a night the deer in their yards must shi ver with the chilling dampness ; the grouse must find the snow too wet to sleep in ; and foxes and rabbits , all if they leave their dens and forms at , must regret the hunger which drives them out . Where are the crossbills and siskins ? I wis h a ul th t I knew and co d find them out , and take r l rufll ed a f iend y look at their feathers , their

ad s he s tucked under their wings , and perhap doz ens of their plump little bodies snuggled together in a dark , dry spruce .

2 74 AT THE NORTH OE B E A R CAM E WATER . a great deal of exquisite tinting in the shrubs of the ﬁelds and the forests of the mountain spurs . As we strode up the line of yellow mud which made the road , our path was bordered by shallow snow from which sprung an abundant in growth of hardhack and spiraea . Taken masses , their stems made a rich maroon , some what dull near by, but warm and deep when seen across an acre of snow . A foot or two higher than these small shrubs were viburnums and small cherry an d maple tr ees gro wing al ong al the skirts of the forest . Their gener tone was also dull red , though somewhat brighter than the spiraea . Th e next band of color was ashy mottled with dark green , and made probably by

e . young birches , poplars , be ches , and hemlocks Then came a belt of fog mingled with snowy

- smoke from the saw mill , and above that a

-of - broad band of ashes rose color , formed by the upper branches and twigs of the common

. r deciduous trees Above all were the sp uces , always dark except when th e piercing eye of the sun reveals the wonderful golden olive which al they keep for him one . The smoke of the saw -mill showed that the timber -eater ﬁnds no time for remembering the birthday of Jesus . Teams were moving as u l i sua , carry ng the green lumbe r down to the railway . The men employed to demolish our M CHRIST AS AT SABBA DA Y E A LLS. 275

forests are poorly paid . A dollar a day and board is what the French Canadian receives here . Board is called ﬁfty cents a day, and the married workman with a houseful of children lives on that sum . We passed the home of a French Canadian known in the vall ey as Bum blebee . The house is twelve feet long by ten feet deep . The ridgepole is twelve feet from

the ground . The chimney is a piece of stove

pipe . The walls are made of boards , battened ,

and the roof is un shingled . Bumblebee has ’

l d . ﬁve chi ren , the eldest being eight His wife s

f . mind is a fected The standing timber, the

of mill , the lumber railway, and many the dwel

- lings and small farms belong to non residents , a whose only object is to shear the mount ins , o squeeze the lab rers , and keep Congress from u putting l mber on the free list . ’ Not far beyond Bumblebee s one - room house

we entered the primeval forest . We were fol lowing the trail through the snow made by us

on Sunday . When a quarter of a mile in , we were surprised to ﬁnd a bear track crossing our path at right angles The huge brute had n passed that way on Tuesday or Wed esday ,

judging by the condition of the snow . On reaching the spot where we had aroused a barred al owl on Sunday, we hid under some sm l hem a locks , thereby getting thorough sprinkling, 2 7 6 AT THE NOR TH OE B E AR CA M P WA TER.

. t and I hooted Af er my third attempt, I saw a great bird ﬂy thr ough the woods to a point o nly a hundr ed yards distant . In a moment or

two I hooted again , and then made the ﬁne

squeaking noise which a mous e makes . The

owl came nearer , and at once began hooting .

During nearly ten minutes , in which we kept be his up a lively exchange of hoots , varied in notes several ways , sometimes keeping on ,

r boots an without pausing , f om one series of to

a . other . I never heard more talkative owl At last he ﬂew into a tree so near us that I could

ee . s him clearly through my glass As he hooted,

his throat swelled and pulsated . He searched the trees and the ground with his keen dark

e . yes When at last he saw me , I seemed to

r feel the force of his glare . Then he tu ned his ﬂe w head to the left and away with long , soft a be sweeps of his wings . At a dist nce resumed

his hooting, which we could hear for some time h as we strolled on up Sabba Day Brook . W at

we had supposed to be the river, on Sunday,

proved to be Sabba Day Brook itself . The

water was high , most of the ice had gone , and

all the smal l brooks poured in liberal streams .

r In one pool I observed a smal l t out . At last

r we hea d the thunder of the falls , and looked

forward eagerly to see them . The stream s e eemed to issue from the solid rock, for dir ctly

M D 278 AT THE NORTH OE B E A R CA I WA TER. were like a garland of bright flowers on th e for ehead of some sullen warrior . The wate r did not pour into this pool from flume the cliff, but came to it through a narrow or gap in the solid rock which had been con cealed from us as we ascended the stream by the high wooded bank opposite the cliff . On reach ing the edge of the pool , in the chill shadow of flume ee the black rock , we looked up the betw n narrow walls of dark gray granite , and saw, thirty feet or more beyond , another pool , into which was pouring from the left a great sheet of water . This fall , coming from a point fifty or sixty feet above us , and on the extreme left flume o of the , had its side t wards us ; yet, after its green wate rs struck the uppe r pool and strug flume gled there awhile , they came through the as their only outlet . Clambering up the right hand or north bank , we gained a point where we coul d see all the details of this strange cata raet . Sabba Day Brook above the falls flows nearly

r due east . It st ikes a rocky hillside and is de ﬂe cted to the left by a sharp curve , so that it runs due north . In this direction it has worn i a slop ng passage to the edge of the falls . Drop

- ping fifty feet into a great pot hole , it turns abruptly to the east and flows out through the flume r into the g een pool , past the black ledge , CHRISTM AS A T SABBA DA Y FALLS . 279

n i r and then , tur ng slightly towards the no th , hurries on from basin to rapid on its way to the

- c intervale . Standing on a shelf of snow overed al rock overhanging the angle in the f l , we ﬁrst looked up at the water leaving its level above an d hurrying towards its leap, and then down at the boiling pool be low and the dashing wate r if u in the ﬂume . These falls must be beaut l in i summer, with sunlight play ng in the leaves , o blue sky lending color to the water , and rainb w

r tints gleaming in the up ising spray . They

i - t were also beaut ful to day , Chris mas Day, when the loneli ness of winte r was brooding over in the mountains , when ice and snow mingled l the surroundings of the fa ls , and when the gay coloring of the summer forest was replaced by

the sombre tones of leaﬂess trees . In summer some trace of man might have jarred upo n the pe rfect solitude of the spot and made it se em

less pure . As it was , standing in the untrodden

snow, surrounded by the fog, the wild stream ,

- s the ice sheathed rock , I felt as one might if suffered to land for a while upon so me far

planet, strange to man , and consecrated to

etern al cold and solitude . We turned away reluctantly and entered the old forest which stands between Sabba Day

Brook and Swift River, a quarter of a mile to r the north . The rumble of the falls grew fainte B R A M E 280 AT THE NORTH OE E A C P WAT R.

f . ﬂew and ainter, then ceased Blue jays through the tree - tops ; a great hawk ﬂoate d by above the tre es ; kinglets and a brown creeper e lisp d to us ; chickadees , nuthatches , downy

r woodpeckers , and a g eat ﬂock of singing sis kins came in answer to our whistles ; and red

- squirrels scolded us from their tree strongholds .

When we reached Swift River, we found it

broad , still , and without a log or stones to cross

- hi - upon . Having on water tight p boots , I C n waded the stream , bearing my ompa ion upon

my shoulders . Entering a swamp on the far

ther shore , we observed fresh hedgehog tracks . In one place the fat beas t had lain down in the t snow, and some of his sof quills had frozen to his bed and pulled out when he trundl ed his

body along again . At every labored step he

left the print of his body in the snow , making a ’ track as conspicuous as a man s . In a tangle o f yew branches he had paused and nibbled

bark from several stems . After following his

trail a hundred yards or more , we lost it in a

spruce thicket where the snow had melted . At the extreme western end of Swift River intervale stands a hill seven or eight hundred

‘ feet high , having long sloping lines and a

pointed top . It is called Sugarloaf . Its sides are covered wi th as ﬁne a growth ' of ancient ’ tr ee s as it is ofte n one s fortune to ﬁnd in New

2 82 A T THE N OR TH OE B E A R CA M P WA TER .

- s a snow covered hill ide , under the projecting a e i f ce of a great rock, b neath wh ch we sat,

r with a ruddy ﬁre c ackling in front of us . Never Christmas dinner went straighter to the

right spot .

While we were resting and enjoying our ﬁre , a ﬂock of sweet -voiced pine grosbeaks came to

r - - a neighbo ing tree tops , a white bellied nuth tch

u - n h ng head downwards from a beech tru k , and two downy woodpeckers called uneasily to each

r ﬁr e othe . At last we extinguished our and de

scended the hill . Five grouse ﬂew noisily from

the hill side . Through the trees we could see ’ the white ice on Church s Pond, and towards it we made our way . The pond is the last rem nant of the great lake which in distant ages l ﬁl ed the whole of this intervale . Even now an area twenty times as large as the lake adjoins i its water , and is almost level w th it , being

wi m - l covered th sphagnu , laurel , pitcher p ant,

t f r uo and other bog grow h , and o fe ing very n er

. c r tain footing Rea hing the pond , we ci cled s around it on the ice , cautiously keeping clo e to the shore , although a yoke of oxen could prob ably have blundered across without danger . While we were on the lake the sunset hour passed , and a dense fog crept down upon the serrated spruce forest which borders the water . Three pine grosbeaks ﬂew into the advancing M A T DA Y E ALLS 283 CHRIST AS SABBA .

i m sts, talking in gentle music to one another. O n e a r in was left on a de d t ee the bog, and

r uttered a plaintive c y again and again . Leav

r ing the ice, we struck across the f ozen bog,

n o w a and then breaking through the soft pl ces , but generally ﬁnding ice or roo ts to sustain our

weary feet. As we progressed , we gathered an armful of club - mosses and a bunch of checker

berry plants bear ing their gay fruit . The fog

r us . closed in a ound , and the air became chilly

Not a mountain could we see . It was a relief to was strike ﬁrm soil, though it only a few inches higher than the bog . Presently we came to the ul river , and for a second time I sho dered my friend and took him over dryshod . After do ing the same, a few moments later, at Sabba

Day Brook, we gained the end of the intervale ’ road near Bumblebee s but. It was now grow i l be ing dark , yet a mile of yellow mud st l lay fore us . Colors had faded ; the graceful out lines of the forest were dimmed ; nothing but the martial spruces remained with us , drawn up in stiff lines beside the road . a When we reached home , the Christm s greens and checkerbe rries were made by our in exper i en ced ﬁngers into a cross , a wreath , and a long strip for festooning These we presented to

- - al the three year old Lily of the interv e , whose ideas of Christmas had been obscured by the HE OE B E AR A M 284 AT T NORTH C P WATER.

fact that no one had given her any presents .

ff h er These o erings made matters better with , and I fancied that she pommeled her four kit s as tens les mercilessly than usual , she gazed at the Christmas greens , and said many times to d “ her g ran mother, Man dose to ” he did .

286 A T THE N OR TH OE B E A R CA M P WA TE R.

l the track , the voices of birds cou d be heard on ul our left . Pet ant, and even angry cries came lis from the damp shades . We stopped and “ tened , and I said , It sounds to me as though ” an owl were being worried in there . Then I entered the spruces , going very slowly and cau

tiousl . ad y Chick ees , nuthatches , and kinglets

r c i . r were chatte ing and s old ng I p essed in , sometimes working my way on hands and knees over the snow which still remained under the cover of the dense woods . By and by I could see some of the birds . They were evidently greatly excited , and they all seemed to be look n — a n ing at the same thi g , something arou d

. ul which they formed a circle . I crept on F ly twenty small birds were in sight . Three at

ak - least were the we voiced , sputtering Hudson

Bay titmice . Their clamor was continuous .

When they saw me , they moved about and scolded at me somewhat . I closely scrutinized the tree which seemed to be the focus of their wrath . A dark br own object projected fr om the shelter of the trunk . It twitched . I wrig gled on a foot or two more , and as I did so a

r r - strange little face pee ed around the t ee trunk, and wild , yellow eyes glared at me from a white face framed in a chocolate br own hood . I fairly held my breath and hal f closed my eyes while the tiny owl stared at me . Slowly he ’ DO WN THE T ORRENT S PATH WA Y. 287

f ew looked away, and ﬂew a feet to another

spruce branch . He was now facing me , and he

watched me narrowly . Most of his accusers had gone , and soon all departed , the rain falling s more briskly, and a cold ea terly wind shaking

moisture fr om the tre es . The little owl shook himself an d se emed melancholy . He was get did o ting wet , and he not like my lo ks at all . i He ﬂew aga n , and a second time I kept him

within sight . His eyes were encircled by discs a of white mingling with snowy eyebrows , so th t nearly the whole of his monkey - like co unte nance

to was white . The back and p of his head were a in brown , and the s me dark color closed round ’ his neck and throat , as a baby s cap closes ’ round its face . The owl s breast was light , and marked by several broad perpendicular stripes

of reddish brown . His back was dark, and so

hi s i . were wings , save for some wh te spots From the cr own of his downy head to the soles wi of his cked little clawed feet , this tiny Aca dian measured not more than seven or eight

inches . My constant watching made the little fellow

very uneasy . He ﬂew nine times from branch t r to branch or ree to t ee , yet I managed to fol

of r low him closely . From one his pe ches he

coul d not see my face well , and it was amusing to see him stretch himself to his ful l height and 288 AT THE NORTH OE B E A R CA M P WA TER .

peep over the obscuring branch . On ano ther

w in per ch he as perfectly view . As he watched me he tipped his head ﬁrst on one side, then on the other . Then he would poke it forward or swing it round on his supple little neck , and strive to get my measure if not my purpos es . I s a d squeaked like a mou e , and he became agit te ,

l i . ook ng keenly at the snow near me Suddenly, without warning , he ﬂew into a long , narrow opening in the spruces and disappeared in its windings . Our search for him was in vain , and we hurried home to dry ourselves once again r before taking our long d ive to Conway . One o ’ clock saw us beneath a huge cotton

f ur umbrella , packed under a robe, on the back

- seat of a light two horse wagon . The east wind our e beat ﬁercely in faces , and the hors s shook their heads and danced as the rain stung them . cd The cloud masses rolled through the valley, dying be tween the mountains much as the Swift

River whirls ar ound its boulders . Sometimes the mists opened and a dark face of forest or damp rock showed for a moment . With a crack of the whip and a good -by to our hostess we dashed away . Through the window I caught l e a ast glimpse of little Diddy, curl d up on a

- a . n big feather bed , t king her midday nap The s ﬂying mud, rain , horses, and soaking forest al one met the eye , and we hurried eastward .

E C M P 290 AT THE NORTH OE B AR A WATER.

quickly until the train came and we were fairly

homeward bound . The storm hid the moun tains and half obscured Six Mile Pond and its

- r agged pitch pine shores . Rain cold , sting — Bearcam ing , winter rain beat upon the p,

Salmon Falls , the Piscataqua, and the Merri al tu mac . The night inside of S em nnel was no on darker than the night Saugus marshes , and e ven the myriad lights of Boston reﬂected in the Mystic on l y made the win ter gloom more the u visible . As I struggled through Sat rday night crowd on the narrow streets near the sta t ions , and marked the faces of waif and thief, n dru kard , jester, sordid vender of evil wares , m an weary work an or thrice weary workwom , my heart was heavier than it had been in the

wild valley back of Passacon away . Even Bum blebee i wi f r , w th his sick e and ﬁve child en , cr owded into one roo m in that hut by Sabba s Day Brook , had something of life of which thi n foul city humanity kn ows nothing . Certai ly ’ Bumblebee s boys lack the chance to absorb the virus of the slums which the wr etched waifs of

the stree ts have . A s I waited for my C am e car the s re of a an bridg , t am hum nity surged d eddied round me and the foul fog hung over

us . w R i S ift iver, plung ng on resistlessly to wa sea is rds the , seeking rest, far away ; but this s - tream of human ity, what is it seeking ? To MOA T MOUN TA IN A ND THE SWIFT RIVE R

O E AR A M P 292 AT THE NORTH E B C WATER.

t ’ h of life in the nex year . The world s rhyt m l wi l be just as strong , just as even , just as full of joy to those who will acce pt joy as the birds

accept it . What , then , is death if it cannot ’ jdiminish the sum total of creation s forces ? Is it more than a transfer of energy from one point to another ? When the ﬂower dies we can see and measure the transfer ; when a man dies we all e who live cannot see it , but we can measur

o the p or shell which is left to us and feel sure ,

terribly sure at ﬁrst, joyously sure in time , that all which was there in life is not still there ; that something has been transferred where we

can neither se e nor measure it . a w The ye r begins in sno and ends in snow .

When it begins , the pendulum of life is far up

at the left of its arc, all its force is gathered

. B ut in position , none is displayed in motion suddenly the pe ndulum begins to move ; it is fal ling ; it moves faster and faster towards the

right . Then it is that snows melt , buds swell ,

birds come northward singing, dormant crea

tures leave their caves, and all Nature displays

her latent energy in motion . Just when the motion of the pe ndulum is fastest it passes that middle and lowest point in its arc and begins to

turn its momentum into the for ce of position . f a Up it goes , and as it ascends to the r right , it goes more and more slowly until ﬁnally it T ’ DO WN THE TORREN S PATH WA Y. 2 93

i stops . Th s upward swing in Nature begins d when the first flowers fa e , the first nestlings

ﬁ . are hatched , and the rst leaves fall In sum mer we do not al ways notice the lessening speed ’ of Nature s motions ; not until autumn comes ’ u do we realize that the days are shorter, the s n s t rays less warm , the birds fewer, and vege ation f almost without power o growth . In Dece mber the pendulum stops and all that Nature has of l th e u energy is atent, awaiting t rn in the ’ world s rhythm . u The baby, g rgling and cooing in its basket,

l n . is fu l of latent fo ces As life goes on , these i e powers are exerc s d more and more to the ﬂood ,

less and less as the tide ebbs . Yet who is there who dares to say that when old age is reached there is not as much laid by in that soul wrapped in its weary body as there was in the infant f ull of latent power ? We know not ’ where the infant s forces came from , nor where ’ tu the dying man s energy goes to , but if Na re i e teaches us anyth ng , it t aches us that forces such as these are eternal in the same sense that

matter is eternal and space endless .

296

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C A M BR IDGE M A S SA C HUSE TT S

U S A