Sweet, wavering whistle rang from the spruce crested
slopes; from the telephone poles down by the railroad station
the king birds were loudly disputing with the indigo buntings
for full possession of the wires; flickers and downy woodpeckers
called loudly or gave vent to their morning enthusiasm by
beating a lively tattoo upon the dead pine stubs; while the
ringing reveille of the cardinal must have awakened the
sleepiest denizen of the forest.
But another song rises pure and serene above the general chorus
of vireos and warblers. You saunter along a murmuring stream,
scarce noting the fresh green of bush and tree, or the ferns,
flowers and moss that are massed in marvelous beauty. Nature has
arranged her stage in the amphitheater of the hills for some
great pageant. All the while you are listening to the rich
melody coming from the shadowy depths of hemlock in the
direction of Mount Willard. "It seemed as if some unseen Orpheus
had strayed to earth and from some remote height was thrumming a
divine accompaniment." Here among the majesty and stillness of
the White Mountains was a song most fitting and infinitely
beautiful to express their loveliness. It seemed to have in it
the purity and depth of crystal clear lakes; the solemn and
shadowy grandeur of hemlock forests, the faint, far-away spirit
music of mountain echoes, the calm serenity of evening skies,
the prayers and hopes and longings of all creation. With such a
prelude as this did we behold the coming of the dawn. Nature had
erected an emerald portal for the triumphal entry of the king of
day. The curtains of misty green were drawn back at the signal
of some nymph. Between the broken ridges of Mount Clinton and
Jackson the sun appeared long after his first beams were old on
the opposite side of the mountains.
While the swallows that built their nests beneath the eaves of
the Crawford House were busy many hours with their family cares,
the card-crazed players and the dancers of the night before were
sleeping the troubled sleep of the idlers.
CHAPTER VIII
WHITE MOUNTAINS
The traveler who comes to the White Mountains should not fail to
see Chocorua. "Chocorua," how rich and sonorous is that word. It
has in it something expressing the wildness and loneliness of
these lovely hills. Its rhythm suggests the sigh of the wind
among mountain pines or the continuous and far-heard melody of
distant waterfalls. This famous peak is everything that a New
Hampshire mountain should be. It bears the name of an Indian
chief. It is invested with traditional and poetic interest. In
form it is massive and symmetrical. The forests of its lower
slopes are crowned with rock that is sculptured into a peak with
lines full of haughty energy in whose gorges huge shadows are
entrapped and whose cliffs blaze with morning gold, and it has
the fortune to be set in connection with lovely water scenery,
with squam and Winnepesaukee, and the little lake directly at
its base.
