At Length,
Concluding That It Boded No Mischief To Them, They Spread
Themselves Out Quietly Over The Field.
We learned afterward that
we had pitched our tent on the very spot which a few summers
before had been occupied by a party of Penobscots.
We could see
rising before us through the mist a dark conical eminence called
Hooksett Pinnacle, a landmark to boatmen, and also Uncannunuc
Mountain, broad off on the west side of the river.
This was the limit of our voyage, for a few hours more in the
rain would have taken us to the last of the locks, and our boat
was too heavy to be dragged around the long and numerous rapids
which would occur. On foot, however, we continued up along the
bank, feeling our way with a stick through the showery and foggy
day, and climbing over the slippery logs in our path with as much
pleasure and buoyancy as in brightest sunshine; scenting the
fragrance of the pines and the wet clay under our feet, and
cheered by the tones of invisible waterfalls; with visions of
toadstools, and wandering frogs, and festoons of moss hanging
from the spruce-trees, and thrushes flitting silent under the
leaves; our road still holding together through that wettest of
weather, like faith, while we confidently followed its lead. We
managed to keep our thoughts dry, however, and only our clothes
were wet. It was altogether a cloudy and drizzling day, with
occasional brightenings in the mist, when the trill of the
tree-sparrow seemed to be ushering in sunny hours.
"Nothing that naturally happens to man can _hurt_ him,
earthquakes and thunder-storms not excepted," said a man of
genius, who at this time lived a few miles farther on our road.
When compelled by a shower to take shelter under a tree, we may
improve that opportunity for a more minute inspection of some of
Nature's works. I have stood under a tree in the woods half a
day at a time, during a heavy rain in the summer, and yet
employed myself happily and profitably there prying with
microscopic eye into the crevices of the bark or the leaves or
the fungi at my feet. "Riches are the attendants of the miser;
and the heavens rain plenteously upon the mountains." I can fancy
that it would be a luxury to stand up to one's chin in some
retired swamp a whole summer day, scenting the wild honeysuckle
and bilberry blows, and lulled by the minstrelsy of gnats and
mosquitoes! A day passed in the society of those Greek sages,
such as described in the Banquet of Xenophon, would not be
comparable with the dry wit of decayed cranberry vines, and the
fresh Attic salt of the moss-beds. Say twelve hours of genial
and familiar converse with the leopard frog; the sun to rise
behind alder and dogwood, and climb buoyantly to his meridian of
two hands' breadth, and finally sink to rest behind some bold
western hummock.
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