The Foot-path Way

by Bradford Torrey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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