This morning I was awakened by the orchestra of the birds. I had heard stray notes before about daybreak. Snatches of song, broken trills, single cries, and challenging calls. But this morning it was different. I don't know how to account for it. Whether the rain had something to do with it; whether they met by accident or appointment. The solution of that question is a minor thing, however. I received the full benefit of the gathering. I have never heard an exhibition which equaled that forest symphony. There must have been nearly a dozen varieties of birds. And each little fellow was singing with all the heart of him. I tell you they made music. Each had a different tune, and among humans this would have represented bedlam. But among the feathered kind—take my word for it if you have never heard it—the effect was wonderful. It was one great alleluia chorus, and the air throbbed with the sweetest music I ever heard. I recognized many of the vocalists by their songs. I knew that about my plateau were gathered the cardinal, the thrush, the oriole, the catbird, the jay and the mockingbird. And when I mention the jay, let no one rise up and point the finger of scorn, exclaiming on that blue-coated fellow's harsh and grating scream. Mr. Caviler, your voice is harsh and grating too when you get very angry, isn't it? But have you never heard the love-note of the jay? Have you never, in the dappled shade, when their half-fledged nestlings are flapping and hopping about and stretching cavernous yellow jaws for worms and moths—have you never heard the parent birds, watchful in the overhead branches, make love? There was never a sweeter, mellower, richer tone drawn from flute or harp than the love-note of the jay.
Many others were there that were strange to me, but the effect of the whole was so sweet that I had to drag myself from bed, so charmed was I by that chorus in the early dawn.
The sky was clear when I came out; a deep, rich, fathomless blue. Night had taken the rain-clouds with it when it left. A woodsy, wet, earthy odor, than which there was no perfume rarer, delighted my nostrils. Everything was washed clean. The leaves, the trunks of the trees, the very stones. It was then, as I stood and felt the might of the everlasting hills entering into me, that I decided on my task for the day. As yet it was too early. The ground was soft. It would be wet and slippery on the slope above, and perhaps muddy. I determined to wait an hour or two, so went down to my favorite seat under the pine tree, taking with me Spencer's "First Principles," which is a book calculated to make one use his mind, at least.
It was eleven o'clock before I looked at my watch—too late for mountain climbing that morning. Upon reflection, I saw that this was just as well. In fact, the afternoon would be a much better time to make the ascent. The sun had been shining generously for several hours, drying both the vegetation and the surface of the ground. So Mr. Spencer had really done me a good turn in carrying me through the forenoon. I left the book on the bench and went back to the Lodge, thinking to resume my reading after I returned from the peak. I did not expect to be gone over an hour and a half, allowing for plenty of time to rest.
After a leisurely dinner, I took my alpenstock, and imagining myself at the base of the Matterhorn to lend zest, bravely fronted the upward climb.
It was rather stiff work from the beginning. I flanked the Lodge for a score of yards, and started up where the ascent was comparatively gradual. This did not last long. Before I reached the encircling band of evergreens I had to force my way through bushes which insisted on rapping my nose, and vines which were equally determined to tie themselves into knots over my toes, and trip me. At length I came to the dark line of pines and cedars, where I stopped to investigate my condition. My breath was coming pretty heavy, but I was not really tired. So after a few moments' rest I went on. My going was tolerably easy now while the trees lasted. Beneath their shade the earth was barren. Some half dead moss and a plentiful sprinkling of pine cones was all. As I walked over the latter they yielded softly to my feet, and sent up a pungent odor. I heard no bird notes here, but once a brown-winged shape flitted soundlessly by in front of me, low to the ground. Everything was very still. There was no wind astir. The belt proved to be a somber spot, and I was not sorry when I had passed it. The dense shade had a depressing effect.
Then I came to open ground; open and bare. Two hundred and fifty feet above me rose old Baldy's head. For perhaps half the distance a scrub growth strove for existence in the rocky soil; beyond that the surface was absolutely denuded. The incline had grown much sharper, but the earth was knotty and uneven, in many places indented with excoriations, and I found I could go forward with much greater ease than I had anticipated. A quarter of an hour later found me facing the last ascent, which was all but perilous in its sheer rise. My staff was of no avail here; hands and feet must win. So I laid my alpenstock down, drew a deep breath and started up. Just how I got to the top I cannot say. But there is a big element of tenacity in my nature, and I fought on with squared jaws and set teeth, slipping, scrambling, sprawling, until I had won. I crawled over the crest on my hands and knees, and for quite ten minutes I lay prostrate, recovering my wind and my spent strength. Then I got onto my feet and looked about me.
It was a glorious prospect; even solemn and majestic. A prodigious sweep of country was laid bare before me. I hesitate to say how many miles I could see, for distance is most deceptive at great altitudes. But it was the topography, more than the far reaching view, which impressed me. I was standing in the midst of a world newly created, the only living creature. Leagues upon leagues of virgin forest flowed back from my point of vantage till the perspective ended in a misty blur. East and west stretched the mighty ranges, with constantly diverging spurs, each clothed with its own garment of green and glistening glory. Anon the ancient hills valleyed into troughs whose length had no visible limit, and it did not require the imagination of a poet to behold beneath me the effect of an immense sea which had suddenly been frozen into permanent form. How illimitable! How overpowering! Slowly I turned to the different points of the compass. Far to the north a smudge of smoke fouled the tender bosom of the sky, and I quickly looked another way. Cedarton lay in that direction.
For a half-hour I stood and gazed, and wondered, and thought. Here was incentive for rumination, and when I at length withdrew my eyes from the bewildering panorama I felt infinitesimally puny, and weak, and small. What was I? A mote in a sunbeam; an atom of matter; no more.
The point upon which I stood was an irregular circle, approximating thirty feet in diameter. An imperfect stone formation marked its outer boundaries; the effect of some Titanic convulsion in forgotten time. In one place—toward the southwest—the rim of rock broke, and here the earth had sloughed away before the ages-long war of the elements, the result being a broad, flume-like chute leading downward. Instinctively I drew back from this place, for it suggested unknown terrors. A sort of sandy, granular deposit covered the top of the knob; the grinding caused by years upon years of wind and rain.