STARES AT BEAUTY
After an hour and a half of walking, I had risen above the matted rhododendron vines, risen away from the bounding little rock-bedded mountain stream, risen to heights where the trail came out from among the trees and one could stand and look forever.
And it was then I realized for the first time in my life, that there can be as much majesty and stirring beauty in Eastern mountains as in the Rockies.
Many times on the trail I just stopped and stared and stared. I don’t know that I have ever seen a lovelier sight than the onward-stretching undulations of the haze-softened and color-splashed immensities of the Great Smoky Mountains.
WATCHED SQUIRRELS
Once, deep in the woods, I sat down on a rock to rest. It was quiet as the grave, and I had the feeling that I might almost have been the first man here.
Suddenly I heard a rattling in the trees. It startled me at first, and then I saw a flash of movement, and realized it was a squirrel running down a tree trunk.
I sat there real still. Soon there was another squirrel. And then another. They were odd little fellows—only half as big as the ordinary squirrel. Later I learned the mountain people call them “boomers.”
One of them walked a fallen log right up to within six feet of me, and sat there on his haunches, eating and staring.
I gave a little whistle. He stared harder. Then I whistled again. And several more times. And maybe you think I didn’t feel silly, and a little thrilled, too, when a bird started answering me. Yessir. I’d whistle, and the bird would whistle right back. It made me feel like Audubon or Thoreau or somebody.