Strange people listened to; indigo buntings sent their
high pitched breezy song from the tops of the trees, while the
warbling vireo seemed to be saying, "who were they?" and the
clear, melodious call of a quail rang from the highest part of
the embankment, with just enough querulousness in it to appear
as if he too were trying to recall this lost race. The grassy
slopes were still used by the meadow lark for nesting sites
whose "spring of the year" still resounds among the hills
speaking of the eternal freshness and youth of Nature. It
appeared to be a work of defense where the people may have
congregated for protection in times of danger. A hole in the
side of one of the embankments told that it was still used as
such, for a woodchuck had burrowed in under the roots of a maple
where he was safe not only from his enemies but from winter
itself. Thus we left this memento of a vanished race, thinking
that, beginning our journey over a road so romantic, the day
would hold much in store for us.
ON THE ROAD TO BAINBRIDGE
Whoever wishes to spend a few hours of unalloyed delight amid
the most charming and picturesque scenery of Ohio, should visit
Highland county. Here both Nature and history have done
everything to make this a journey never to be forgotten. The
round browed hills lift themselves in "bold bastions" and
parapets of green that seem to beckon to you to come up higher.
Sometimes you see a wide plain with its far flashing stream and
homes here and there, or clusters of wooded heights with now and
then a single pointed summit rising above and behind the rest.
The roads are made up of innumerable loops and curves, every
twist and turn of which unfolds a picture worthy of an Innes or
a Rembrandt.
The morning of our journey was as fair as a July morning could
be. Near the western horizon a few pearl-colored clouds hung
motionless, as though the wind had been withdrawn to other
skies. There was always that mysterious blue haze over the
higher ridges and that soft light that fills the atmosphere and
creates the sense of lovely "unimaginable spaces." It overhung
the far rolling landscape of wheat fields, pastures and wood,
crowning with a soft radiance the remoter low swelling hilltops
and deepened into dreamy half shadows on their western slopes.
Nearer, it fell on the rich gold of ripening wheat that lay in
the valley or gleamed like golden crowns on the level space at
the very summits of high hills; nearer still it touched with
spring-like brilliancy the level green of meadows that clothed
other uplands, where groups of Jersey cattle grazed beneath the
shade of graceful elms; yet nearer it caught the rich foliage of
blossoming chestnut trees and lit them up like crowns of ermine.
In the immediate foreground it fell on the road that made
continual windings along the edge of a steep ravine.
