The only sounds which I could hear, and they were only occasional, were produced by the fall of masses of snow from spruce limbs, and the sighing of the breeze in the tree-tops far below me in the ravine. When the wind ceased, the hush was wonderful. In so vast a space it seemed as though some voice of nature must make itself heard; but above, below, northward towards Canada, eastward towards the ocean, southward, where Winnepesaukee’s waters were too dazzling to watch, and westward, among the snowy ravines of clustered mountains, all was absolute repose and silence. Not a bird or an insect was to be seen, and the stiff spruces were as motionless as the rock from which they sprang. The peak was the most forceful element in the landscape. It seemed the embodiment of cold, silent strength. Nine tenths of its surface were pure white snow, one tenth black rock, whose steep faces or sharp angles refused to hold the snow. Rising fifteen hundred feet above the ledges on which I sat, yet being not more than half a mile from me, its massive presence was not only impressive but oppressive. I felt as though it might fall and crush me to powder.
THE PEAK OF CHOCORUA FROM BALD MOUNTAIN
Across the eastern valley, filled with its white-stemmed birches and poplars, rose a forbidding line of snowy cliffs. Of all the buttresses which prop the peak, this lofty ridge of nude rock is the most inaccessible and sullen. Now and then a bear is seen traversing its dangerous faces in search of berries, but man rarely steps upon its ever-visible but repellent heights.
Looking away from the sun, all the world was white or gray; looking towards it, deep violet tones predominated, while from between the hills many lakes flashed towards me the slanting, dazzling rays of the low-hanging sun. So dark was the south that I found it hard to realize that the hour was but one o’clock and the sky cloudless. In six weeks the sun will be even lower, the violet shadows deeper, and midwinter will rule the whole of the frozen land.
When I opened my lunch, a house-fly came to share it with me. Omnipresent and much enduring insect, for once he was welcome, and I felt as though a companion sat with me. In the rock upon which I rested there was a little rift, filled with water upon which floated a fish-shaped cake of ice. This was my punch-bowl, and never thirst found sweeter, purer draught for its quenching, than came from that heaven-filled and frost-cooled cup. I wanted to bless it, but found it blessing me, for it was much to me, while I was nothing to it. Rift and rock were there before I took breath, and they will be there centuries after I am a vanished mote in the sky. Just as I left the ledge, homeward bound, a bird call rang out sharply. I listened and a low tremulous song came from the spruces. Sweeping their serrated border with my glass, I found the birds and recognized them ere they flew, uttering the same sad plaint I had heard an hour before. They were a pair of pine grosbeaks, “winter robins” as the farmers call them; one a male, with his rosy breast, the other his Quaker mate. Flinging themselves into space, they flew southwestward till my glass could follow them no longer.
Passing through the beech woods on my way down the mountain, I noticed how much more firmly the leaves clung to the young trees than to the older ones. Many of them, if pulled steadily by the tip, tore sooner than give way at the stalk. On oak and poplar sprouts or suckers, the leaves remain much longer than on old wood; they keep their rich coloring far into November, and they are often very conspicuous by reason of their great size.
I found more life stirring in these beech woods than anywhere else. Squirrels both red and gray were hard at work upon the ground, gathering winter stores. A fine gray, on seeing me, scrambled to the high leafless limbs of an oak, becoming there much more conspicuous than he had been among the fallen leaves.
This autumn a farmer shot a gray squirrel and hung it in his shed. The cat stole the squirrel and shared it with her family. Next day, puss went gray-squirrel hunting, and to the farmer’s astonishment captured her game and brought it home. The squirrel was so large that the cat, to avoid tripping over it, walked backwards much of the way, pulling it after her. Thus far for her thriving family puss is said to have secured six gray squirrels.
A friend of mine, while hunting this fall in a grove of oaks, noticed a large gray squirrel coming directly towards him through the woods, pursued by a red squirrel. Chickaree soon saw his danger and stopped, but the gray came slowly on, as though searching for something. The hunter stood motionless, wondering. Nearer and nearer came the inquisitive squirrel, until it reached the man’s feet and sniffed at his gun-stock. Its eyes seemed to have been injured or to be partially covered by a morbid growth. The moment the man moved in an effort to catch the creature alive, it bounded from him and disappeared.