Part 5

The next morning I was no sooner abroad than this happy impression was renewed and deepened. It was a comfort to the feet to be going neither uphill nor downhill, and it rested the eyes to be looking not at remote peaks and dimly discovered sheets of water, but into green branches so near that the leaves could be seen, and the blue sky through them. How sweetly the ripple of the brook came to my ears as it ran over its stony bed just beyond the velvety, smooth meadow! And the cawing of a dozen or two of crows, who were talking politics among the pines on the hillside, affected me most agreeably. There was something of real neighborliness about it. I would gladly have taken a hand in the discussion, if they would have let me. When a song sparrow started out of the hedge at my elbow it gave me a start of surprise. I had become so unused to such movements! A robin’s sudden cackle I thought almost the sweetest of music; the careless warble of a bluebird was nothing less than a voice from heaven; and a squirrel sputtering defiance from the stone wall set me laughing with pleasure. None of these sounds, nor anything akin to them, was to be heard on the desolate, boulder-covered top of Mount Washington.

Now the trees interlaced their branches over my head. Nothing could be prettier; and the effect was so novel! I stopped short to admire it. And anon, as the road made a little ascent, scarcely noticeable to one fresh from the steepness of a mountain cone, I found myself gazing down upon one of the most engaging scenes in the world; a sequestered valley farm, thrifty-looking, snugly kept, nestled among low hills, with a mountain river winding along the farther side of it, between the meadow and the woodland, now lost to sight, now shining in the sun. I had known the place for years, as I had known the worthy man who owns it; and I had looked at it many times from this very point; but I had never seen it till this morning. A pleasant thing it is when an old picture or an old poem, or both in one, is thus made new. If our eyes could but oftener be anointed!

The softness of the meadow, freshly sprung after the summer mowing, the glistening of the corn leaves, the narrow road,--a brown ribbon laid upon the green carpet,--that runs to the door and stops (for nothing goes by--nothing but the river, the clouds, and the birds), the shade trees clustered lovingly about the house, the whole pastoral scene, I saw it all with the vision of one who had been looking at a vaguely defined, far-away world, over which the eye wandered as the dove wandered over the face of the waters, and now had come suddenly in sight of home.

Yes, distance is a good painter, but nearness is a better one. So I felt for the time being, at all events, falling in with the mood of the hour; for it is well that moods alter, as it is well that the earth goes round the sun and season gives place to season. Man was not made to see one kind of beauty, or to believe in one kind of goodness. The whole world is hid in his heart. All things are his. The small and the great, the near and the far, light and darkness, good and evil, the intimacies of home and the isolations of infinite space, all are parts of the Creator’s work, and equally parts of the creature’s inheritance.

For to-day, then, I praise the valley. I am for having the hills close about me, rather than afar off and far below. I like to see the trees, and the leaves on them, rather than leagues on leagues of barely discernible forest; and a lonely pool of still water at my feet, with alders reflected in it, is more in my eyes than Lake Umbagog itself, hardly better than a blur upon the landscape, fifty miles away. To-morrow I may feel differently, but for to-day let me listen to the breeze in the pine branches and the brook pattering over stones, rather than to the eternal silences of the bare mountain-top and the brooding sky.

IN THE MOUNT LAFAYETTE FOREST

It is one of the cool mornings that descend rather suddenly upon our White Mountain country with the coming of autumn; cool mornings that are liable to be followed by warm days. I was in doubt how to dress as I set out, and for the first mile or two almost regretted that I had not taken an extra garment. Then all at once the sun broke through the clouds, and even the one coat became superfluous and was thrown over my arm. This state of things lasted till I had crossed the golf links and entered the woods. At that point the sun withdrew his shining, and now, between the clouds and the shadow and dampness of the forest, I have put on my coat again and buttoned it up; and what counts for more, I am driven to walk less slowly than one would always prefer to do in such a place.

A fresh breeze stirs the tree-tops, so that I am not without music, let the birds be as silent as they will. Nearly or quite the only voice I have so far heard was that of an unseen Maryland yellow-throat, some distance back, who sprang into the air and delivered himself of a song with variations, all in his most rapturous June manner. Why the fellow should have been in anything like an ecstasy at that precise moment is quite beyond my guessing. Possibly it would be equally beyond his, if he were to stop to think about it. Some sudden stirring of memory, perhaps. Natural beings seldom know just why they are happy. I recall the fact, unthought of till now, that I have not heard a yellow-throat sing before for several weeks, though I have seen the birds often. They are among the late stayers, and at this season have a more or less lonesome look, being commonly found not as members of a flock or family, after the manner of autumnal warblers in general, but here and there one, dodging about in a roadside thicket, or peeping out curiously at a casual passer-by.

Just as I am remarking upon the unusual silence my ear catches in the far distance the song of a white-throated sparrow. So very far off it is that the sound barely reaches me. Indeed, I do not so much hear it as become vaguely conscious that I should hear it if the bird were ever so little nearer. Yet I am sure he sang--as sure as if I had seen him. Probably experienced readers will divine what I mean, although I seem unable to express it.

The road is bordered with the dead tops of trees, thrown there in heaps by the road-makers. They form an unsightly hedge, which birds of various kinds resort to for cover. At this minute two winter wrens, pert-looking, bob-tailed things, scold at me out of it. My passing is a trespass, they consider, and they tell me so with emphasis. For the sake of stirring them up to protest even more vigorously (such an eloquent gesticulatory manner as they have), I stand still and squeak to them. Few birds can be quiet under such insults; and the winter wren is not one of them. There is nothing phlegmatic about his disposition. He is like some beings of a higher class: it takes very little to set him in a flutter. So I squeak and squeak, and the pair vociferate tut, tut, till I have had enough and go on my way laughing. Touchy people were made for teasing.

I have hardly started before a hairy woodpecker’s sharp signal is heard, and within a minute a sapsucker on the opposite side of the way utters a snarling note, which by a slight effort of the imagination might be taken for the voice of an angry cat. To my ear it is not in the smallest degree woodpeckerish. I see the bird a moment later as he flies across the road.

In a mountain-side forest like this, near the mountain’s foot, the traveler, if he is not climbing the slope but crossing it transversely, is certain to come now and then upon a brook. I am on the edge of one now, and as the sun at this moment shines out between two clouds I stand still to enjoy the warmth while it lasts, and at the same time to hear the singing of the water. Good music, I call it, and fear no contradiction. It has the quality of some of the best verse--liquidity. It is broken unevenly into syllables, yet it is true to the beat, and it flows. In short, it is smooth, yet not too smooth--with the smoothness of water, not of oil. It speaks to every boulder as it passes. I wish my ear were more at home in the language.

There is seldom a minute when, if I pause to listen, I cannot hear from one direction or another the quaint, homely, twangy, countryfied, yet to me always agreeable voice of Canadian nuthatches. At frequent intervals one or two come near enough so that I see them creeping about over the trees, bodies bent, heads down, always in search of a mouthful, yet keeping up, every one, his share of the universal chorus. As well as I can judge, all the evergreen forests of this Northern country are now alive with these pretty creatures; for they really are pretty. In fact, there are few forest birds for whom I cherish a kindlier feeling. It is too bad they do not summer in our Massachusetts woods, though possibly I should care less for them if they made themselves neighborly the whole year long, like their relatives, the white-breasts.

A goldfinch is passing far above, dropping music as he goes. He is one of the high-fliers. Wherever you may happen to be, at the summit of Mount Washington or where not, you will pretty often hear his sweet voice as he wanders under the sky, dipping and rising, dipping and rising, voice and wing keeping step together.

Here and there one or two clouded-sulphur butterflies (Philodice) take wing as I disturb them. They have been most extraordinarily abundant of late. A fortnight ago we drove for almost a whole forenoon through clouds of them, bunches of twenty or more constantly rising from damp spots of earth by the wayside; and in a meadow all bespangled with purple asters they were so thick as almost to conceal the flowers. Twinkling in the sunlight, they looked a thousand times more like stars than the asters themselves. Even the entomologists of the valley, in whose company I was driving, had never seen the like. Here in this shaded road such lovers of the sun are naturally less numerous. In truth, the wonder is that they should be here at all. And yet the wonder is not so very great; they wander at their own will, and the will of the wind. Only last week, I am told, in the midst of a driving snowstorm, one took shelter in the Summit House on Mount Washington. After all, a butterfly is not exactly a fool; it knows enough to go into the house when it snows.

Now I come upon a few snowbirds, hopping in silence about the twigs of a brush-heap, snapping their tails nervously, as if proud to show the white feather; and shortly beyond are two or three white-throated sparrows. They also are silent. Perhaps they perceive that a red squirrel close by is talking enough for them and himself too. He says a good many things, some of which I feel sure would be highly interesting to a competent listener. Among forest folk, as among church folk, the rule is, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” As for me, I can only lament my deficiency. A solitary vireo is chattering sweetly (with him music is its own reward), and all the while, whoever else speaks or keeps silence, the nuthatch chorus goes on. Taking New England together, we may safely say that just at present hundreds of thousands, yea, millions of ank-anks go up to heaven every minute of every day, from sunrise to sunset.

I walk but a few rods farther before I am delighted by the sight of four winter wrens in an overturned tree-top. In my experience it is something extremely out of the common course to see so many together, and--as I did with the two a quarter of a mile back--I work upon this quartet’s sensibilities till they fairly dance with curiosity and indignation. I wonder if they are a family group.

I bethink myself that I am saying nothing about the forest itself. Its presence is felt rather than seen, a grateful solemnity; but the temperature will not suffer me to sit down and enjoy it as a Christian should. And just here I emerge into territory over which a fire has swept within a few years. Under these dead trees I get the sun again, and can go slowly. Nothing in the way of physical comfort is more grateful than warmth after coolness, unless it be coolness after warmth. A pine siskin calls, the first for some weeks, and another hairy woodpecker shows himself. Not a warbler has been seen since I entered the woods. Of the flycatchers, too,--olive-sides and wood pewees,--which were always conspicuous in this burning in August and early September, there is neither sight nor sound. Their season is done. Crossbill notes lead me to look upward, and I see four birds flying past. Restless, nomadic souls! Like the saints, they have “no continuing city.”

Another half-mile in the leafy forest, and I reach the foot of Echo Lake, where as I pass a cluster of balsam firs I am saluted by the busy, hurried calls of golden-crowned kinglets. A wren is here also, irritable as ever, and hearing a chickadee’s voice, I whistle and chirp to him. If I can set him to scolding, all the birds in the neighborhood will flock this way to ascertain what the trouble is. The device works to a charm; in half a minute the excitement is intense. Nuthatches, white-throats, chickadees, kinglets, and wren, all take a hand in vituperating the intruder, and a youthful redstart comes from the opposite side of the way to satisfy his more gentle curiosity. One creature, strangely enough, remains neutral: a red squirrel, who sits on end at the top of a stump and gazes at me in silence. He holds one hand upon his heart, like an opera singer, and looks and looks. “You sentimental goose!” I say; “who taught you that trick?” and I laugh at him and pass on. This is near the corner of the old Notch road, and as I round it and face the cold northerly wind I button my coat about me and start homeward at a quicker pace.

ON BALD MOUNTAIN

“Four inches of snow at the Profile House:” such was the word brought to us at the breakfast table, the driver of the “stage” having communicated the intelligence as he passed the hotel an hour or two earlier. We were not surprised. It rained in Franconia night before last, and yesterday, when the clouds now and then lifted a little, the sides of the mountains were seen to be white. This morning (October 7), although even the lower slopes were veiled, the day promised well, and at the first minute I set out for the Notch.

It was evident almost immediately that at some time within the last forty-eight hours there had been a great influx of migrating birds. Song sparrows, white-throated sparrows, snowbirds, bluebirds, and myrtle warblers were in extraordinary force. Soon I began to hear the wrennish calls of ruby-crowned kinglets,--which have been very scarce hitherto,--and presently more than one was heard rehearsing its pretty song. What with bluebird voices, song sparrows’ warblings (no set tune, but “continuous melody”), the cackle of robins, and the croaking of rusty blackbirds, the air was loud. To these travelers, as to me, the weather seemed to be changing for the better, though the sun did not yet show itself, and finding themselves in so delectable a valley, they were in exuberant spirits.

Just above the Profile House farm the road took me into a flock of birds that proved to be the better part of half a mile in length. The wayside hedges were literally in a flutter, snowbirds being the most abundant, I think, with white-throats and myrtle warblers not far behind. Hermit thrushes, winter wrens, chipping sparrows, song sparrows, and ruby-crowns were continually in sight, and an unseen purple finch was practicing niggardly, disconnected, vireo-like phrases, as the manner of his kind is in the autumnal season.

Then, when the older forest was reached, there came an interval of silence, broken at last by the distant, or distant-seeming, voice of a red-breasted nuthatch and the cheerful notes of chickadees. Soon two hermits showed themselves, facing me on a low perch, and lifting their tails solemnly in response to my chirping; and not far away were a winter wren or two, and a flock of white-throats and snowbirds. I had never seen the dear old road birdier, even in May, though of course I had often seen the number of species very much larger.

At the height of land I came upon the first snow, a ragged fringe left on the shady side of the way. I made a snowball, for the sake of doing it (or, as I said to myself, suiting the boyish act with a boyish word, “for greens”), and decided all at once not to go down into the Notch, but up to the top of Bald Mountain. From that point, if the sky cleared, as I felt hopeful it would, there would be sights worth remembering.

The mountain is only a little one, but it is steep enough--the upper half, at all events--to give the eager pedestrian a puff for his money. For myself, I had time to spare, and, fortunately or unfortunately, had been over the path too often to be subject to the state of mind (I know it well) which we may characterize as climbers’ impatience. Unless something unforeseen should happen, the summit would wait for me. Halfway up, also, a flock of blue jays, five or six at least, who were holding a long and mysterious confabulation close by the path, afforded me a comfortable breathing spell. For a moment I suspected the presence of an owl, against whom the rascals were plotting mischief; but their voices were much of the time too soft, too intimate-sounding, too lacking in belligerency. Some of the birds might even have been communing with themselves. Their whole behavior had an air of preternatural gravity and cunning, and their remarks, whatever the purport of them, were in the highest degree varied. One fellow was a masterly performer upon the bones (jay scholars will understand what I mean, and I should despair of explaining myself in a few words to any one else), while another furnished me with a genuine surprise by whistling again and again in the manner of a red-tailed hawk.

Well, the conspirators dispersed, the solitary climber pocketed his curiosity, and in a few minutes longer his feet were at the top. The rocky cone of Lafayette was still densely capped, but under the fringed edges of the cloud there was plenty of snow in sight. All the upper slopes of Kinsman, Cannon, and Lafayette were covered with it, except that the deciduous trees (broad patches of yellow) stood bare. Apparently the snow had stuck only upon the evergreens, and the effect at this distance was very striking, the white over the green producing a beautiful gray. I could never have imagined it. The hotel and its cottages, nestled between the mountains, all had white roofs, but the landscape as a whole was anything but wintry. Everywhere below me the great forest still showed an abundance of bright hues,--red, yellow, and russet,--a piece of glorious pageantry, though many shades less brilliant than I had seen it two days before.

So I am saying to myself when suddenly I look upward, and behold, the cap is lifted from Lafayette, and the mountain-top is clear white, shining in the sunlight against the blue sky; a vision, it seems; something not of this world; splendor immaculate, unearthly, unspeakable. I feel like shouting, or tell myself that I do; but for some reason I keep silence. Clouds still hang about the mountains, their shapes altering from glory to glory with every minute. Now a band lies clean across Lafayette, immediately below the cone, detaching the white mass from everything underneath, and leaving it, as it were, floating in the air.