As the wind swept across a cornfield from which all but the stalks with one or two flaxen leaves had been stripped, the long leaves streamed and flapped before the breeze like yacht pennants. In the orchards piles of red and of yellow apples shone in the sunlight, and when one still depended from the tree it was as bright as a gilt ball on a Christmas-tree.
The oaks still held their leaves stubbornly, but the blood had gone from them and their color was of tanned leather, deepening in places to a dull maroon. The dry stubble fields, closely cropped mowings, and rank meadows were all aglow with evenly spread color. The stubble fields were purplish, the fields pale yellow, and the meadows deep straw color. Masses of goldenrod stalks were well named, for they were golden brown. Their leaves were dull brown. If as the train dashed between gravel banks I caught a flash of crimson on the sand, I knew that blueberry bushes had caught root there.
The daylight faded early, but as the sun sank it poured more and more color into the hills. Reflected rays danced from the window-panes of farmhouses on the high slopes to the east of the track. Such glimpses of isolated buildings have a flavor of home and snugness which no city suggests. The absence of leaves and the presence of many shadows cast by the low November sun revealed more clearly than usual the pleasing contours of glacial hills and their eroded sides. Most of the gravelly products of the glacier are graceful in outline, composed of easy curves or gentle undulations. Not only are the sky lines grateful to the eye, but those which curve forward and back along the line of vision have in them the element of beauty. 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.
The sun set not long after four o’clock, and the sky borrowed from it fleeting rosy light. Then the yellow-white steam from the engine billowed past my window, and through it shone the blue-white snow, making the steam seem soiled. As I looked forward at fields which we were approaching, no snow was to be seen, yet as we passed them and I looked back upon the northern side of their inequalities they were wholly white.
When the lamps were lighted in the car my eyes rested, fascinated, upon the gilded axe which always hangs above the car door. Significant emblem of our civilization, which cynically takes unwarrantable risks with life, limb, and property, in order that man may increase his misery by perpetually hurrying!
The gleam of Six Mile Pond told me that the train was in Madison. A moment later I was standing in the crisp night air knocking for supper at the tavern door.
When we say “It is two miles from Madison to Tamworth Iron Works,” we do not tell the whole truth. It would be better to add, “over the top of Deer Hill.” For years Madison has gone to Tamworth over Deer Hill, or else it has stayed at home and wished that Deer Hill was elsewhere. How long grim devotion to the one occupied farm on Deer Hill will force the inhabitants of two townships to ignore the fact that a level road could readily unite them remains to be seen. Deer Hill given back to Charles’s Wain as the only team enduring enough to travel steadily over it would be Deer Hill justly dealt with at last.
At seven o’clock I stood on the crest of this stumbling-block to progress and gazed at its view of sky and forest. The moon struggled with eastern cloud-banks. In the north, white clouds drifted over whiter mountain ridges. Once the peak of Chocorua peeped through its veil and caught upon its marble sides the radiance of the coy moon. After following the road to within a quarter of a mile of the Iron Works, I left it and struck northwestward across the moor towards the Chocorua House. Suddenly I saw an object upon the level stubble which suggested danger. For many years I have lived in dread of meeting and being pursued by a skunk at night. Had the moment arrived? Edging away from the object, I watched it keenly. Did it move? No. Yes! It was turning its head towards me and lifting that dreaded tail straight above its back. Still at least fifteen feet from the beast, I kept steadily on my way in a semicircle round it. The skunk revolved, keeping his head towards me, and then I saw his tail snapped forward irritably. I had reached a stone wall, and, springing upon it, I hooted after the manner of owls, barked after the manner of dogs, and then fled after the manner of men. I neither saw nor smelt anything more of the skunk.
My way took me into the golden beech wood on the border of the moor. The moon, now free from clouds, shed a soft, dim light into the grove. Scarcely a leaf clung to the trees, but upon the ground they were heaped up ankle deep. As there had been crackling ice in all the pools in the road, it was not wonderful that the waters of the leaf-hidden brook were very cold.
An hour after leaving Madison I stood before an open birch-wood fire in Chocorua Cottage. Not only did its warmth appeal to my cheeks and fingers, but something in the whirl of its flames and the snap of its sparks made my heart beat more in tune with all the world.