Last week we made an expedition across country to where the beautiful little chain of the Assimasqua ponds and streams lies between the ranges of Maple Hill on the west, and Wrenn’s Mountain on the east; and there, on Upper Assimasqua, was the same phenomenon of frost-crystals which we saw on Dunnack Hill, only here it was on the ice. We thought at first the pond was covered with snow, but as we walked out on it, we saw it was frost, in such ice-flowers as I have never seen before. They were like clusters of crystal fern-fronds, each frond an inch and a half to two inches long. At first these flowers were scattered in clusters about six inches apart over the black ice, but farther on they ran together into a solid field of silver, a miniature forest of flashing fern or palm fronds, so delicate and light it seemed as if they must bend with the breeze. They outlined each crack in the ice with close garlands. We could hardly bear to crush them as we walked through them.
The four Assimasqua Ponds lie low between hills that are heavily wooded, mostly with beech and hemlock. The shores are high and irregular and jut out in narrow points, and these and the islands have small cliffs, of gnarled and twisted strata, which the hemlocks overhang, in masses of feathery green.
There was something appealing and endearing in the beauty of this little forest chain of lakes and streams, lying still and white between its wooded shores. We crossed its wide surface on foot, and followed up the course of the stream which whirled and tumbled so, only a month ago. Every tiny reach and channel was ours to explore. It was as quiet as a child lying asleep.
We built a fire on the south shore of a headland, where a curve of the gnarled cliffs enclosed a tiny beach, cooked bacon, and heated coffee. Twenty yards from the shore there was a round hole, some eight inches across, of black dimpling water. It had not been cut, but was natural, being, I suppose, over a warm spring. The ice was so strong around it that we could drink from it.
It was so warm in the sun that we sat about bareheaded and barehanded, yet not a frost-needle melted. The sunlight glinted on the hemlock needles, all the way up the hillsides, and a balsamy sweetness seemed to be all about us, mixed with the pungent smoke of our wood fire.
The chickadees were busy all round us, making little bright chirrupy sounds. We could hear blue-jays calling, deeper in the woods, and the occasional “crake, crake, crake,” of a blue nuthatch. The dry winter woods cracked and the pond rang and gurgled with pretty hollow noises. The hemlocks had fruited heavily, and were hung all over with little bright brown cones, like Christmas trees. They seem to give out fragrant sunny health all winter, a dry thrifty vigor.
We did not see a soul on all the Upper Ponds, and only fox tracks ran in and out of the marsh-grasses of the stream, but on Lower Assimasqua there were men cutting wood. They were cutting out beech and white and yellow birch for firewood, and leaving the hemlock, which grew very thick here. The cut wood stood about the slope in neatly piled bright-colored stacks, with colored chips among the fallen branches, and the axe blows rang sharp and musical in the winter silence. The men, who were good-looking fellows, wore woolen or corduroy, with high moccasins, and their sheepskin and mackinaw coats were thrown aside on the snow. There were five or six of them, mostly young men, and one handsome older man, with hawk features and a bright color, silver hair and beard, and bright warm brown eyes. They had bread, doughnuts, and pie for their dinner, and a jug of cider.
The Lower is the largest of the four ponds. It is, perhaps, three miles long by a mile wide, but it seemed almost limitless, under the snow, and we felt like pygmy creatures, walking in the midst, with the unbroken level stretching away around us.
The sky was deepening into indescribable colors, peacock blue, peacock gray, and in the middle of the expanse, over the woods, we saw the great full moon, just rising clear out of the violet and opal tenebrae, the fringes of the sky. She was as pale as a bubble, or as the palest pink summer cloud, but gathered color fast, then poured her floods of silver. The whiteness of the pond glimmered more and more strangely as dusk increased.
We came home, stiff and happy, to a great wood fire, piled in a wide and deep fireplace, and to a room of firelight and evergreen-scented shadows.