Frank Bolles

“ If besides being unfrequented it is singularly beautiful in itself, it becomes a shrine, a place 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.
Early on the morning of July 10, I set out across the pastures for the 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 still lingered, and from them floated the psalm of the hermit and the gypsy music of the veery. ”

“ The guided flock of easy-going warblers and vireos, nuthatches and kinglets, drift on, feeding and frolicking, heedless of what it passes.
If the observer “squeaks,” or if an owl draws the attention of the passing birds, the chickadee comes to the front at once, with his sharp reproving iterations, and his beady eyes snapping indignantly. Along with him come red-eyed and solitary vireos, nuthatches, golden-crested kinglets, black-throated blue warblers, Wilson’s blackcaps, young chestnut-sided warblers, looking puzzlingly unlike their parents. ”

“ These falls must be beautiful in summer, with sunlight playing in the leaves, blue sky lending color to the water, and rainbow tints gleaming in the uprising spray. They were also beautiful to-day,—Christmas Day,—when the loneliness of winter was brooding over the mountains, when ice and snow mingled in the surroundings of the falls, 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 upon the perfect solitude of the spot and made it seem less pure. ”

“ Small wonder that creation seems out of joint wherever man’s influence extends.
My next stopping-place was the lonely lake, now more lonely than ever, for not a bird flew among its trees, and not a fin stirred in its green waters. Upon its mossy bank, marvelous to 203 relate, I found three fresh blossoms of the houstonia. Like the sweet peas at my cottage, the witch-hazel by the brook, and the tiny sprig of goldenrod picked in the pasture, these frail flowers had endured frosts by the dozen and a recent fall of snow which must have buried them several inches deep. ”

“ Often in an August afternoon the lake will be apparently without birds, when 124 in a twinkling the air will be full of graceful forms, and a flock of white-breasted swallows, barn swallows, or night-hawks will sweep over the blue water, rise, vanish over the meadow, reappear, fly towards the peak, wheel, return, and then perhaps speed away, not to greet the fair lake again until ice and snow have come and gone, and the number of their own light forms has been sadly diminished in the south. ”

“ In the heart of the pines stands a house. I well remember the gray autumn morning when three of us, on a Thanksgiving holiday, staked out its foundation lines in the thin snow and drifted leaves. We tramped back and forth among the trees, now higher, now lower, then a little to the left, then more to the right. The peak of Chocorua must clear those monster pines; that bunch of low pines must be left low enough to give a free view of the large lake, and finally the young trees rising on the left must not on any account cover the charming glimpse of the third lake with its grove. ”

“ There are few things in New England as truly picturesque as this horn of Chocorua. Three thousand feet above its lake and the level of the Saco, the great rock lifts itself with bold and naked outline into the midst of the sky. No foot seems able to creep up its precipitous slopes to its dizzy tip, and even the sturdy spruce can cling only 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. ”

“ The cutting of banks by streams leaves many a gentle terrace which advances, retreats, now makes a bold front, the next moment shrinks away in a bow-shaped bay. Ice and water seem to abhor straight lines, but to love rhythmic motion. Upon a small glacial mound shaped like a beehive stood a single pine, brave-limbed and lichen-grown. I have noticed it for years, and something in its pose always suggests “The Monarch of the Glen,” with head erect and every sense alert. It was much fuller of animation than the flock of dingy sheep which at first sight I thought to be moss-covered boulders. ”

“ 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 homage to the day-star. This lake is a rendezvous for all that is wildest and freest in the animal life of the region. It is sufficient unto itself, and yields no tribute save to its lord the sun. Around it, high glacial walls stand, crowned with ancient oaks and graceful birches. No stream flows from it, or into it, unless threads of ice-cold water coming from springs in its banks are called streams. ”

“ In it the leaves are falling, drifting down like snow, birds are silent, nervous, always on the alert for danger; new ledges show upon the mountain-sides, new vistas have opened through the forests, and spots which, when behind their August leaf mantles seemed dark and 167 secret, are now as open as the day. The brooks are more noisy, and easily seen, the grouse fly afar off; if one wishes a flower he must pluck the witch-hazel or let the bitter yarrow or the last clusters of goldenrod and asters satisfy him. ”

“ As I bent over a pool, taking now and then a sip of the icy water, a small trout suddenly jumped near the foot of the fall below. He was intensely busy working about in the edge of the falling water, where rising bubbles and whirling foam half concealed him. In color he looked not unlike a beech leaf, and he moved so constantly that only an attentive eye could distinguish him from 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. ”

“ As we walked westward into the hollow in the side of Paugus, the ground rose rapidly and the level land on the edges of the stream soon gave way to steeply sloping banks. For beech, birch, and maple were substituted spruce, balsam fir, and hemlock; the rapids of the brook changed to falls; glimpses of sky were replaced by occasional peeps at spruce-capped gray cliffs hanging high above us, and we felt as though if we kept on we should soon enter the black interior of a vast cavern, unless some unseen avenue to light and air appeared. ”

“ A New Hampshire swamp is full of attractions at all seasons. In winter the great northern hares make innumerable paths across its soft snow, 2 and tempt the gunner into the chilly gloom in search of a shot at their phantom forms. In spring a host of migrating warblers makes merry in its tree-tops, and the song of the winter wren is sent from heaven to give joy to its shadows. Summer brings to it many a shy orchid blooming among the ferns, and the fisherman finds the trout in its brook’s placid pools long after they have ceased to bite well in the upper reaches of the stream. ”

“ The first songster was a white-throat, and the bulk of the chorus was made up of juncos and white-throats, the stronger song of Swainson’s and hermit thrushes coming in clearly now and then from points more 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 day brings. They labor singing, and they sing their vespers, as they sing their matins, with hearts overflowing with joy and thanksgiving. ”

“ There were the broad Saco intervales flat with snow, the pale blue sky with a fringe of cloud-banks, and between intervale and sky, mountains of marble and ramparts of dark evergreens. Straight up the Saco valley the immense mass of Mount Washington rose against the sky. It was wholly covered by snow. On its left, Moat, like a breaking wave of the sea, was close at hand. On its right, Carter Notch, with walls of dull purplish-black spruce, reached to where stately Mount Pequawket reared its dark cone on high. ”

“ Years are as days to them in their high places far above the human stream, but years are very real to us who can count so few of them before we reach that wide Ocean towards which our stream flows. The flower has a day for its year, the gnat an hour. What a mighty harvest Death has reaped since this year began; yet no one expects any shrinkage in the current 292 of life in the next year. The world’s rhythm will be just as strong, just as even, just as full of joy to those who will accept joy as the birds accept it. What, then, is death if it cannot diminish the sum total of creation’s forces? ”

“ Above and beyond the intervale were the northern mountains which lock it in from the rest of the world,—Bear Mountain on the right, then Owl’s Head, Carrigain, Green’s Cliffs, Sugar Hill, and Kancamagus. The notch east of Carrigain is one of the grandest rifts in the White Mountain panorama. It is like a black gateway opened for storms and wailing winds to sweep through.
The black grove on its narrow tongue of land hanging between two gorges was alive with birds, and I fancied it to be their sleeping-place. Chickadees, kinglets, and a brown creeper were in possession and resented my intrusion. ”

“ The moon was still nearly three hours from her time of setting, and her light, almost as much as that of the unrisen sun, 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 envelope of snow, no alpine horn ever gleamed with a fairer light than that which shone from Chocorua’s summit. Paugus, Passaconaway, and Whiteface are usually dark by contrast to Chocorua, even in midwinter. ”

“ A bit of woodbine climbing up the maple trunk gleamed like flames, mountain-ash berries were full of the same fire, and the clustered fruit of the hobble-bush glowed in the midst of its maroon and crimson foliage.
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What means this decking of the earth in autumn with scarlet and purple, crimson and gold, russet and orange? The flowers of the springtime are full of joyous color, in order that the wandering bee and butterfly may aid in their fertilization. The bird gleams with color as the glow-worm gleams with fire, that his mate may not forget him in the mazes of the life-dance. ”

“ 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 by yew bushes, on which, brilliant as jewels, gleamed their pendent and slightly attached red berries. The mosses and lichens were the glory of the wood. Never parched by thirst in these perpetual shades, they grew luxuriantly on boulders, fallen 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. ”

“ Blue jays flew through the tree-tops; a great hawk floated by above the trees; kinglets and a brown creeper lisped to us; chickadees, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and a great flock of singing siskins 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 upon. Having on water-tight hip-boots, I waded the stream, bearing my companion upon my shoulders. Entering a swamp on the farther shore, we observed fresh hedgehog tracks. ”

“ The ditch is more than replaced by countless brooks, always clear and pure, and the wall 125 gives shade, shelter, food, and many a comfortable perch. While driving along the narrow roads, bordered by many a mile of rough stone wall, the rattle of my wagon wheels startles the sparrows and finches from their cover. The bay-wing runs along the rut in front of the horse; the goldfinch undulates over the field, turns, and ripples back; the song sparrow mounts a bush-top and scolds; the white-throat appears for a moment in a gap between the bushes and then goes on with his scratching in the leaves. ”

“ Now and then the scream of a blue jay falls upon the ear, or a faint note of a tree sparrow comes from the weeds by the roadside; but as a rule nature is dumb, and the leaves fall like tears. All the beauty of sky and autumn foliage cannot bring the birds back to the silent forest. Warm though the sun may be, and soft the haze on the cheek of Passaconaway, these charms cannot woo back the birds from their migration. ”

“ Taking the Hammond path, I ascended the eastern spur of Chocorua. The side of the mountain was one vast bed of loosely scattered leaves. Next spring each leaf will be pressed so closely upon its neighbor that the veining of one will be imprinted upon the face of the other. Now they are still free to drift with wind eddies, and to rustle noisily around the feet of the passer-by. The smell of oak leaves, newly fallen, is very powerful, and, except as a reminder of autumn walks, too much like ink to be pleasant. ”

“ Leaves wither and fall, 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 is to linger under Chocorua’s lee, must gather his corn into barns, pile his shed full of wood, and fortify his mind to endure long nights, intense cold, deep snows, the wailing of wintry winds, and the gruesome voice of the lake as the ice throttles it. ”