Early on the morning of July 10, I set out across the pastures for the foot of the mountain. The sun was hot, the air hazy, and not a breath of a breeze made the aspens quiver. In the shaded hollows something of the night’s chill still lingered, and from them floated the psalm of the hermit and the gypsy music of the veery. Now and then the clear, cool phœbe-note of the chickadee reached the ear, in contrast to the trill of the field sparrows which came from the warmest parts of the grass-land. On the hill to the westward young crows with high-pitched voices clamored for food, and quarreled with each other on their shady perch in the beeches.
The flowers which bloomed by the path were children of heat, types of midsummer. Buds were large on the goldenrod, the St. John’s-wort was in full bloom, and so, too, were the diurnal evening-primrose, the fleabane and dogbane, both worthy of sweeter names; the yarrow, as disagreeable among flowers as a cynic is among men; the tall potentilla, yellow clover, and, representing the purple flowers, the brunella. In many places thick beds of checkerberry, decked with brilliant berries, were made gayer by many heads of the brunella growing through them. The brunella is shaped somewhat like the conventional chess castle, but the castle is never quite complete while blossoming, owing to the lack of harmony among the many little flowers which unite to form its head. Low, running blackberry dotted the banks with uninteresting white blossoms, and the stiff spikes of the spiræa were abundant. The daisy, stigmatized as whiteweed by the indignant farmers, still displayed a few battered blossoms, which kept company with heads of red and of white clover. After passing these flowers of summer, it seemed strange, on descending into a deep cup-shaped basin where a small pond fed by springs is shaded by lofty oaks and birches, to find the houstonia still in full glory, and the dwarf cornel blooming in dark and mossy nooks. Animate nature takes solid comfort in a hot day. As I stole softly downward to the shore of the little pond, scores of tadpoles shot away from the edge of the water into its green depths. Painted tortoises, which had been baking on logs and stones in the full glare of the sun, dropped off unwillingly into the water. Countless dragonflies skimmed the surface of the pond, devouring smaller insects, and from a dead limb overlooking the shore, a crow, whose plumage gleamed with iridescent lights, flapped sluggishly out of sight among the trees. Snakes love to lie coiled in the hottest sunlight; squirrels stretch themselves contentedly on horizontal limbs and bask by the hour; the fox, woodchuck, and weasel, and even toads and newts, and those so-called birds of darkness the barred owls, seek the broadest glare of the midsummer sun and absorb comfort from its scorching rays.
Taking tribute from the pond-basin by a deep drink of ice-cold water at a spring in its bank, I crossed another strip of open pasture—where the tinkle-tankle of the cow-bells sounded with each bite the cows took of the grass—and gained the edge of the forest and the foot of the mountain. There was something akin to coolness in the shade of the birches, poplars, and beeches. New flowers bloomed here and new birds called. The dependent bells of the white pyrola, of the small green pyrola, and of the quaint pipsissewa were found beneath the brakes. Here, too, was the Indian pipe, looking as though formed from sheets of colorless wax, and its tawny sister the pine sap (Monotropa hypopitys). The wintergreens are strong, positive herbs with rich pungent flavor, but the pale parasitic plants are mere negations. They are the “poor relations” among flowers, content to draw their sustenance from others, while showing no color, giving out no perfume, attracting no butterflies, and not even daring to face the blue sky until they are dead.
The oven-bird stepped primly about upon her neat carpet of dry leaves, the red-eyed vireo preached his perpetual homily from the treetops, a young Cooper’s hawk screamed shrilly in the distance, and two inquisitive red-capped sapsuckers hitched up and down tree-trunks near me, while I hooted at them after the manner of my barred owls. A grouse had been wallowing among the leaves, and had left a round hollow in the dust with five discarded feathers and the prints of her feet to show that she had been there. Rana sylvatica, the wood-frog, betrayed himself by leaping over the dry beech leaves. I followed him quickly as he sought to elude me. Not only were his leaps long, but his skill in doubling was something marvelous. His second jump was generally at right angles with the first, and thrice he no sooner struck the ground than he turned and rebounded upon his tracks, so that he passed over or between my feet. When he was weary I caught him and, laying him on my knee, stroked the nape of his neck, his back and sides. He soon ceased to struggle and sat motionless. I laid him gently on his back and stroked him beneath. His throat throbbed and his eyes blinked, but he made no effort to escape. Then I restored him to his proper position, and extended one leg after another. He was as pliable and nerveless as a rubber frog. Finally I let him alone, wondering how soon he would hop away; but he showed a willingness to spend the day on my knee, and not until I placed him on the leaves did he seem to awaken to life and the advantages of freedom.
A few rods beyond, a toad hopped from me and I followed him to see what method of escape he would adopt. As soon as he saw that he was pursued he increased his speed and by a series of rapid hops reached a cavern under the arched root of a stump and plunged out of sight in its depths. Our toads, although of but a single species, vary in color from black to the paleness of a dry beech leaf. This one, living in the midst of pale browns and yellows, was nearly as light in tone as the light-footed Rana sylvatica.
The color of the dry beech leaves as they lie upon the ground is sometimes curiously bewitched by the spots of sunlight which dapple the woodland carpet. Walking with the sun behind me, the sunlight, especially where it fell in small round spots on the beech leaves before me, was of an unmistakably amethystine hue. Several years ago when I first noticed this, I supposed it to be due to temporary causes, but I am now convinced that the color will always be distinguishable when the conditions named are favorable.
The loveliest July flower in the woods fringing Chocorua is the mitchella, named by Linnæus for Dr. John Mitchell of Virginia. In their small round leaves of dark glossy green, their creeping stems, their modest, delicate-tinted and highly-perfumed blossoms, the flower of Linnæus and the flower of Mitchell are much alike. The partridge-berry, as the mitchella is commonly called, begins to bloom just as the linnæa bells cease to swing. It is an evergreen, and all through the winter its bright green leaves and red berries are one of the pledges of returning life after snow and ice have vanished. The flower is small and faces the sky. It is white with a delicate rosy blush tinging its corolla, chiefly on its outer side. The four pointed petals open wide and curve back, exposing the whole interior of the flower to view. Each petal is covered on its inner surface with a thick velvety nap which is the distinguishing characteristic of the blossom. The perfume of this flower is both powerful and pleasant. When freshly picked it suggests the scent of the water-lily, coupled with something as spicy and enduring as the heavier perfume of heliotrope.
WATER-LILIES IN CHOCORUA LAKE
Fifteen or twenty minutes’ walking over the beech leaves brought me within hearing of the torrent which flows from the heart of the mountain. Presently I came to the edge of its cutting and saw far below me, through the trees which filled the gorge, the flash of its waters and the vivid green of mosses. Walking upstream along the face of the bank, yet neither climbing nor descending, I struck the level of the water at a point not many rods distant. I had not gone down to the brook; it had come up to me. The whole ravine was filled with its music, and following down with its eager flow was a current of cold air. Above, in the woods, quiet and heat had prevailed. Here noise and coolness ruled with absolute sway. The sound came in waves as did the water and the breeze, but no human senses could measure the intervals between the beats. The sound seemed threefold,—a splash, a murmur, and a deeper roar. The roar reached me even if I pressed my hands tightly over my ears; while, if I made ear-trumpets of my hands, the splashing thus intensified drowned the heavier sounds. The rhythm of the water was most prettily shown on a boulder faced with thick moss. When the high water came it poured over the top of the rock, and the moss was filled with white shining drops coursing downward through it; but, on the reaction, it instantly became vivid green. The same pulsation showed in each cascade, which was greater then less, greater then less, in each second of time. As I bent over a pool, taking now and then a sip of the icy water, a small trout suddenly jumped near the foot of the fall below. He was intensely busy working about in the edge of the falling water, where rising bubbles and whirling foam half concealed him. In color he looked not unlike a beech leaf, and he moved so constantly that only an attentive eye could distinguish him from the waste of the stream whirled about in the eddies. I cast him some moss and mould, and he darted hither and thither in the water clouded by it, snapping up bits of food or specks which he mistook for food. His eagerness and restlessness seemed born of the restlessness of the stream and the keen temperature of the water in which he lived.