F 44 
 S2A7 
 
 MIDSUMMER IN 
 WHITTIER'S COUNTRY 
 
 ETHEL ARMES 
 
MIDSUMMER IN 
 ^A^HITTIER'S COUNTRY 
 
MIDSUMMER IN 
 WHTTTTRP'5^ rnTTT\rnrT?v 
 
 A LITTLE STUDY OF 
 SANDWICH CENTER 
 
 BY 
 
 ETHEL ARMES 
 
 Author of 
 
 The Story of Coal and Iron 
 
 in (Alabama 
 
 WITH THE AUTHOR S 
 OWN SKETCHES 
 
 PRINTED AT 
 
 THK UNIVERSITY PRESS OF 
 
 SEWANEE TENNESSEE 
 
 M DCC C CX 
 

 Copyright, 1910 
 By Ethel Armes 
 
 ^11 rights reitrvtd 
 
 ©CI.A259564 
 
TO 
 
 MY COMRADES OF THE HILLS 
 
 ALICE WIGGIN 
 
 AND 
 
 H. P. J. 
 
*** * * * ^t**^t-X- * % * *** 
 
 ** * ¥r ^ * * ^e.* 
 
 * * « 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. From the Little Path on the Apple Hill. 
 
 II. In the Red Sunset , Caravans of the Old 
 Days Pass. 
 
 III. The Little People of the ViUage. 
 
 IV. '*/ Lean my Heart Against the Day.^' 
 V. A Diary of the Harvest Month. 
 
 VI. Indian Legends Float in the Breezes. 
 
 1 . Ossipee. 
 
 2. Asquam. 
 
 3 . Chocorua. 
 
 ^ iji ^ ^ :jc 
 
' // is as if the pine trees called me 
 From ceiled room and silent books ^ 
 
 To see the dance of woodland shadows^ 
 And hear the song of April brooks / " 
 
* * » 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 ^HIS little study of Sandwich 
 Center, tells quite simply the 
 brief and almost uneventful 
 annals of the town from its 
 waking in the reign of George 
 III, throughout its term of 
 aftive service in behalf of the 
 Colonies, to its sleeping time to-day. It also 
 gives quick glimpses of a few of the little 
 people and places of delight in and around 
 the village, and relates the Indian legends 
 and traditions told round and about there: 
 the myths of Ossipee, of Lake Asquam and 
 Mount Chocorua. 
 
 Lines of V/hittier's verse run throughout 
 the pages, for they are as much a part of the 
 New Hampshire country as the White Hills 
 themselves, and sweet and full of tenderness. 
 John Greenleaf Whittier saw, indeed, vision 
 
12 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 
 
 of the Spirit of Poetry standing with white 
 and delicate hands at the gateway of the 
 mountains, and heard speech of the ancient 
 Indian world. 
 
 Inasmuch as it was given to him — so kind 
 and gentle of heart — to impart to succeeding 
 generations this voice that he heard, so he 
 has done. If he might not be Keats for the 
 praying, at least he has drunk of fountains of 
 his own country, and it is becoming more 
 and more clear to those intimate with the 
 White Mountain land, that Whittier has 
 spoken true. ** I lean my heart against the 
 day !" he sings, and, in verse all too little 
 read, breath of which is given in these 
 pages, he tells of those things daily about 
 him and much loved by him. Among 
 the Hillsy Telli?ig the Bees, The Fa?iishers, 
 Voyage of the Jettie, Bridal of Pennacook, 
 The Common ^estiony Mountain Pic- 
 tures, Mogg Megoney The Lakesidey The 
 Hill-Top y Funeral Tree of the Sokokis, — 
 all these belong as much, indeed, as does 
 Snowbound, to New England life and letters. 
 
 The tiny sketches given here were done 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 
 
 13 
 
 out under the open sky on the hill-tops, in 
 apple orchards by winding roads and in long 
 grasses of the fields, so that in those places 
 where the student's touch has failed, artist 
 charm may be dreamed into them by whoso- 
 ever knows these sweet mountain meadows 
 that were the Quaker poet's golden fields; 
 and likewise, it is prayed, into the book. 
 
 Ethel Armes. 
 
 Birmingham, Alabama. 
 
*** •)(■** **4t** *** *** 
 
 ** * *** * ** 
 
 * * * 
 
 I. 
 
 FROM THE LITTLE PATH ON 
 THE APPLE HILL 
 
 " / would I were a painter for the 
 sake of a sweet pictured 
 
 OT far up along the road to 
 Ossipee, just a quarter of a 
 mile beyond the village, there 
 is a little hill where rocks and 
 apples grow. A stone wall, 
 put up in the time of George 
 III, shuts out a mischievous 
 tangle of blackberry briars, and helps support 
 the heavily burdened arms of one of the 
 oldest of the trees, some of whose rosy 
 apples hang right over a tiny gate going into 
 the hill. A few other apples have tumbled 
 down among tall grasses, which flirt in the 
 wind with dashing groups of black-eyed 
 
1 6 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 daisies — there, in the very face of the little 
 path — and such a tattle-tale of a path! Off 
 it runs to each one of the ancient apple trees, 
 winks naughtily in the shadows, then hides 
 in the spears of the redtop grass, away from 
 the listening leaves. Pretty soon, shaking 
 itself free from the field flowers and the long 
 reaches of the circling trees, it climbs up the 
 steep side of the hill, shudders by some big 
 savage rocks that stretch out like an ogre's 
 arms to grab it, and then — suddenly — 
 before it is aware, is way up high on the 
 tiptop of the little hill, all by itself, looking 
 out upon the whole wide world alone! 
 ****** 
 
 Through Sandwich Notch the west-wind sang 
 
 Good morrow to the cotterj 
 And once again Chocorua's horn 
 
 Of shadow pierced the water. 
 
 Above his broad lake Ossipee, 
 
 Once more the sunshine wearing, 
 Stooped, tracing on that silver shield 
 
 His grim armorial bearing. 
 
 — From Among the Hilli. 
 
 From this little path on the Apple Hill, the 
 small white houses of the village appear 
 like snow flakes. Some of them reach out 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 1/ 
 
 in long, glistening lines, — they are white 
 apron strings trying to hold back the runa- 
 way roads, for the little village is the mother- 
 place of an hundred highland roads, those 
 truant chieftains of the New Hampshire 
 Hills. Miles and miles through the purple 
 mountains, by the white lake shores, they 
 wind, — under gleaming birch belts, by 
 dusky maple groves, along deep intervales 
 where the elms and willows droop, and 
 where sing the sirens of the pines. Some- 
 times they stop for breath in the lowlands 
 where the sun burns hot, and, out of sight 
 of their mother's eyes, they make golden 
 love to the flowers there. Graceful forms of 
 ferns lean over them; fragrant elder bushes 
 hurry forth their rare white lacework; fading 
 tones of the flowers of milkweed and iron- 
 rust cast their glances as falling eye-lashes; 
 pale celandine trails her bridal veil before 
 them — daisies, buttercups, rich golden-rod — 
 all the maiden flowers of midsummer time, 
 tiptoe close to the enchanters — with no mod- 
 esty whatever! But on go the flying chief- 
 tains, ferns and flowers clinging to their kilts ! 
 They round stone walls and fences made of 
 roots of giant old pines, hurry by deserted 
 
l8 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 farms and abandoned mills, up and down, 
 over streams, by long lanes and bridle paths; 
 on and on, rising and falling, past cornfields 
 and orchards in the sky, until, like the little 
 path on the road to Ossipee, they climb 
 right up into the clouds, and are lost forever- 
 
 more 
 
 The only sound from the village is a 
 tinkle of cow^-bells in the rock pasture near 
 the school house; for even in midsummer, 
 with all the strangers here. Sandwich Center 
 is quiet as a snow^-fall. Tall spires of the 
 little white churches, gray shingled roofs, 
 red brick chimneys and green blinds of the 
 snowy houses, their snug barns and wood 
 shelters, wells, orchards, and herb gardens 
 framed by the stone walls, curve in and out 
 of the trees in a play of fresh, bright color. 
 
 There is the house, with the gate red-barred, 
 
 And the poplars tallj 
 And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, 
 
 And the white horns tossing above the wall. 
 
 There are the beehives ranged in the sun; 
 
 And down by the brink 
 Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed o'errun, 
 
 Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. 
 
 — From Telling the Bees. 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER I 9 
 
 The roads are silent as forest trails. 
 Across from the postoffice is Dorr's hotel 
 with its wide sheltered porches. Down the 
 road a piece is Maybelle's house and the 
 little white home of the twins, Ruth and 
 Dorris, the minister's children. Marston's 
 and Dr. White's are further on, and then 
 beyond four willow trees is the house where 
 Mildred lives. The new school is but a 
 stone's throw off. The old school was 
 yonder down by Little Pond, there where 
 Master Ladd, the lame teacher, taught for 
 forty years. Mildred's father and her uncle 
 used to draw him to school every day in a 
 sled, and sometimes the other pupils helped. 
 Near the store on Main street is Maybelle's 
 favorite haunt, the shop of the harness-maker 
 and clock-mender. At the point of the road 
 near the Spokesfield Pines is the Burleigh 
 House, the old Sandwich Inn, and farther 
 up. Diamond Ledge House and Miss Fos- 
 ter's, going by Perry's studio on the way. 
 
 In the other direftion towards Four Cor- 
 ners, the old blacksmith shop and the saw- 
 mill are passed on the right, then the marsh, 
 and Went worth's Pines and the lonely cabin 
 of the strange old man of Sandwich, on the 
 
20 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 
 
 left, while at the very top of the hill are the 
 Wentworth manor house and Adam's place 
 where a massive stone wall extends for miles 
 like some old Roman fortification. 
 
 All through this region of North country 
 the call of the Indian is mingled with the 
 voice of England's reign. Side by side on 
 the guiding stones, with the musical Indian 
 names, run the quaint letters of Tam- 
 worth Town, North Conway, Meredith, 
 Sandwich, South Chatham and Moultonboro. 
 
 The valley where Sandwich Center sleeps 
 is encircled by the hills as by a vast jeweled 
 coronet of ever-changing colors, purple and 
 rose and red and gold — Israel, Black Moun- 
 tain, Sandwich Dome, Red Hill, Ossipee, 
 White -Face, Paugus, Passaconaway, Wonna- 
 lancet, and, stirring in the distance, the 
 horn of Mount Chocorua. Mightier ranges 
 tower to the north, but none is more strange 
 or beautiful than the mystic Sandwich range, 
 guardian of Asquam and Winnepesaukee — 
 Smile of the Great Spirit — of Bearcamp 
 water and Lake Chocorua. Here was the 
 beloved ground of Whittier — here, where 
 Indian legends float in the breezes. And 
 when the little mists rise over the mountains. 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 21 
 
 all the people say, **Look! the ghosts of the 
 Indians are abroad this morning on Ossipee!" 
 or **See, — they are smoking the pipe of 
 peace on Israel!" 
 
 Sweetest of all childlike dreams 
 
 In the simple Indian lore, 
 Still to me the legend seems 
 
 Of the shapes who flit before. 
 
 Flitting, passing, seen and gone. 
 Never reached nor found at rest, 
 
 Baffling search, but beckoning on 
 To the Sunset of the Blest. 
 
 From the clefts of mountain rocks, 
 Through the dark of lowland firs, 
 
 Flash the eyes and flow the locks 
 Of the mystic Vanishers! 
 
 And the fisher in his skiff, 
 And the hunter on the moss, 
 
 Hear their call from cape and cliflF, 
 See their hands the birch-leaves toss. 
 
 Wistful, longing, through the green 
 Twilight of the clustered pines. 
 
 In their faces rarely seen 
 
 Beauty more than mortal shines. 
 
 Fringed with gold their mantles flow 
 On the slopes of westering knolls; 
 
 In the wind they whisper low 
 Of the Sunset Land of Souls. 
 
 — From The Vanishers. 
 
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 II. 
 
 IN THE RED SUNSET, CARAVANS 
 OF THE OLD DAYS PASS 
 
 HE Center's days of business 
 and bustle have long since 
 gone. It basks in the sun now, 
 and is content to try no more 
 climbing of mountains. Some- 
 times it dreams. In the red 
 sunset, caravans of the old days 
 pass. Down through Sandwich Notch come 
 the endless line of red sleds, drawn by oxen 
 and burdened with lumber for the building of 
 the colonial settlements, or laden with pines 
 for the royal navy. In those years, the 
 New Hampshire white pines were stalwart 
 trees standing high two hundred and fifty feet 
 or more, and there grew not one in all that 
 Sandwich region that was not destined to 
 mast the royal navy, and branded with the 
 
24 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 broad arrow by order of the kiiig. For a 
 settler to cut one down was, under British 
 law, a felony and punishable by a fine of one 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 In that time the only roads through the 
 valley were these old lumber trails and the 
 trails of the Indian, the moose, the bear and 
 deer. Prospeftors surveyed Sandwich valley 
 nearly two centuries ago and built the first 
 cabins of the village on the wooded banks of 
 Little Pond, near Lower Corner. The town 
 was granted by Colonial Governor Went- 
 worth in 1763. Two years later, according 
 to the old Sandwich records, Orlando Weed 
 was granted, by vote of the proprietors at 
 Exeter, seven hundred acres, seventy pounds 
 of lawful money and seven cows, on con- 
 dition that he would settle seven families in 
 Sandwich, and build seven substantial dwel- 
 ling houses, and clear forty acres of land 
 within three years. 
 
 The Wentworths ere6led their stately 
 home with columned portico and solid walls, 
 the old capitol of Sandwich — still standing on 
 Wentworth Hill: 
 
 Still green about its ample porch 
 The English ivy twines, 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 25 
 
 Trained back to show in English oak 
 The herald's carven signs. 
 
 A number of other families, celebrated in 
 early New England history, settled in the 
 growing township; among them, the French, 
 Sherman and White families, the last allied to 
 the house of Oliver Cromwell. Peregrine 
 White, the father of Dr. White who settled in 
 Sandwich in that early period, was the first 
 child born in New England. 
 
 Many of the survivors of the French and 
 Indian war, men of the 4th New Hampshire 
 regiment, migrated to the new township. 
 With Spartan law and Spartan courage the 
 daring little maiden town of the wild hills 
 was builded to a youth of aftivity and 
 strength. During the Revolution she sent 
 forth her sons to battle, gave them their 
 shields — ** return thou with them or upon 
 them" — and they returned with them. In 
 the records of the battle of Bunker Hill a 
 Sandwich regiment is honorably mentioned. 
 Meanwhile a marriage with a Quaker hus- 
 band brought forth new elements of thrift 
 and industry. Iron foundries, brick kilns, 
 sawmills and gristmills were established, and 
 shoes and clothing manufaftured for all the 
 
2 6 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 country round. The Sandwich cattle, 
 Denmark breed, became noted in growing 
 New England, and there were no better 
 farms in all the thirteen states combined. 
 Thus the golden age of the village came, 
 lasted for fifty years — and went. 
 
 With the outbreak of the civil war, again 
 the martial clamor, the giving of the shields, 
 and the Spartan admonition. This time the 
 young men came back upon their shields, and 
 the mother village bowed, never to look up 
 again. Little by Uttle an alien element crept 
 in and took possession of the farms whose 
 younger masters had either been killed or had 
 abandoned them for the West. At the 
 present time not more than five families, de- 
 scendants of the colonial settlers, remain in 
 Sandwich. 
 
 The village is awake to things only during 
 the summer months, and here gather from 
 all the world the dreaming of lovers of the 
 White Hills. 
 
 A shallow stream, from fountains 
 Deep in the Sandwich mountains, 
 
 Ran lakeward Bearcamp River; 
 And between its Hood-torn shores, 
 Sped by sail or urged by oars 
 
 No keel had vexed it ever. 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 2/ 
 
 Alone the dead trees yielding 
 To the dull axe Time is wielding, 
 
 The shy mink and the otter, 
 And golden leaves and red. 
 By countless autumns shed, 
 
 Had floated down its water. 
 
 From the gray rocks of Cape Ann, 
 Came a skilled seafaring man, 
 
 With his dory, to the right place; 
 Over hill and phin he brought her, 
 Where the boatless Bearcamp water 
 
 Comes winding down from White-Face. 
 ****** 
 On, where the stre;'.ni floM's quiet 
 As the meadows' margins by it, 
 
 Or widens out to borrow a 
 New life from that wild water. 
 The mountain giant's daughter, 
 
 The pine-besung Cliocorua. 
 
 Or, mid the tangling cumber 
 And pack of mountain lumber 
 
 That spring floods downward force, 
 Over sunken snag, and bar 
 Where the grating shallows are, 
 
 The good boat held her course, 
 ****** 
 
 So, to where the still lake glasses 
 The misty mountain masses 
 
 Rising dim and distant northward, 
 And, with faint-drawn shadow pictures, 
 Low shores and dead pine speftres, 
 
 Blends the skyward and the earthward. 
 
28 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 On she glided, overladen, 
 With merry man and maiden 
 
 Sending back their song and laughter, — 
 While, perchance, a phantom crew. 
 In a ghostly birch canoe. 
 
 Paddled dumb and swiftly after! 
 
 And the bear on Ossipee 
 Climbed the topmost crag to see 
 
 The strange thing drifting underj 
 And, through the haze of August, 
 Passaconaway and Paugus 
 
 Looked down in sleepy wonder. 
 
 All the pines that o'er her hung 
 In mimic sea-tones sung 
 
 The song familiar to her; 
 And the maples leaned to screen her. 
 And the meadow-grass seemed greener, 
 
 And the breeze more soft to woo her, 
 ****** 
 Of these hills the little vessel 
 Henceforth is part and parcel; 
 
 And on Bearcamp shall her log 
 Be kept, as if by George's 
 Or Grand Menan, the surges 
 
 Tossed her skipper through the fog. 
 
 And I, who, half in sadness 
 Recall the morning gladness 
 
 Of life, at evening time. 
 By chance, onlooking idly, 
 Apart from all so widely. 
 
 Have set her voyage to rhyme. 
 
 — From Voyage of the Jcitie. 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 29 
 
 NoTB. — The picturesquely situated Wayside Inn at 
 West Ossipee, N. H., is now in ashes; and to its former 
 guests these somewhat careless rhymes may be a not 
 unwelcome reminder of pleasant summers and autumns 
 on the banks of the Bearcamp and Chocorua. To the 
 author himself they have a special interest from the 
 fact that they were written, or improvised, under the 
 eye, and for the amusement of a beloved invalid friend 
 whose last earthly sunsets faded from the mountain 
 ranges of Ossipee and Sandwich. — From Poetical ff^orks 
 of John Greenleaf TVhittier. Riverside Press. 1888. 
 
 ^ ^ ^ 
 
* -Jfr * 
 
 III. 
 
 THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE 
 VILLAGE 
 
 "^ music as of household songs 
 Was in her voice of sweettiessP 
 
 ILDPvED loves the little apple 
 hill on the road to Ossipee. 
 She is not afraid to go there 
 alone because there are not 
 any witches there, like those 
 in the old float dam. There 
 are fairies instead, and all the 
 things for the fairies. 
 
 **Look! This is their brown bread all 
 ready for them, — only it got burned in the 
 oven," Mildred will say, taking up a black- 
 eyed daisy, **and oh, — this buttercup, — 
 this is their pretty little butter dish full of 
 butter ! ' ' Then she will gather her apron 
 
32 
 
 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 
 
 full of grasses and field flowers and bring 
 them to one of her summer ladies under the 
 apple trees. Mildred is a little field flower 
 herself, with her blue eyes and her light hair 
 and her slight, frail little body. She is seven 
 years old, — **But I'm going to be eight, — 
 my mother says it!'* she cries. Because 
 her father drives the stage to Center Harbor 
 she is very proud, and catches her breath 
 whenever the lumbering old coach goes by 
 full of the summer folk. When Maybelle is 
 mad with her she turns up her nose and says 
 she need not think she is so much, for a 
 tinner is much better than a stage-driver. 
 Maybelle' s father is the tinner and she 
 is proud of that, but when Charlotte, the 
 twins' big sister, breaks in with, **A minis- 
 ter is better than any," the children have not 
 a word to say, for Charlotte's father is the 
 minister. 
 
 Maybelle often wears boy's blue overalls 
 and drives an old gray mare, hitched to a red 
 hay rake, out into the fields and works like a 
 farmer until sundown. She is as diff*erent 
 from Mildred and Dorris as high noon from 
 dawn. Her face is Hke a rosy apple. She 
 is sturdily built and proud of her muscle and 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 33 
 
 her long golden-brown hair which she wears 
 in two thick braids. Sometimes she takes 
 Mildred out to the fields and lets her ride 
 on the old gray mare. They both talk of 
 the summer ladies then. Oh! the ladies who 
 come in the summer time! Some of them 
 have pink ribbons and white dresses full of 
 beautiful lace, and embroidery on their 
 petticoats. Once, one of them named Miss 
 Florence, had six gold rings — and she gave 
 Mildred one of them! That lady came 
 from Boston. Mildred herself was there 
 once. ** That is a city," she says, ** chil- 
 dren cannot play in the roads there. I have 
 seen make-believe people there; — I saw them 
 in the store windows. It was there I saw 
 Santa Claus. He was going down a chim- 
 ney in Boston. Oh, do you know, there is 
 one woman says Santa Claus isn't so! She 
 is Mrs. Hinson, — she says it!" 
 
 One morning, quite early, Mildred ran out 
 of her house as the summer ladies passed 
 going up to the apple hill: **Oh, — did you 
 see the Gipsies go by this morning? Oh — 
 oh — six waggings of them! But they didn't 
 get me! I ran! Oncet they got Tom 
 Clark an' he bawled fer his mother so they 
 
34 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 
 
 took him out an' strapped him to a tree an' 
 Indianed him an' left him there!" (To 
 Indian anyone in Sandwich is to black his 
 face and hands.) 
 
 Often at evening, sitting out on the school- 
 house rocks Mildred chatters away like a little 
 sparrow: **I get up in the morning at seven 
 o'clock, I pick up the dishes, then I strip the 
 beds an' make them, then I wash the dishes 
 an' water the hens. Then I swing in the 
 swinging chair with baby. In the afternoon 
 I play. I go to Hester's or I play with 
 Maybelle or the twins. We play mothers. 
 I have six dolls an' a lounge bed an' a 
 cradle. Then every night I lock the wood- 
 house door. If my mamma should say to 
 me, 'Mildred, you do not have to do your 
 chores to-day,' — I would do them just the 
 same, — they help Papa. Oh, yesterday I 
 went to Meredith, — I did! That is the place 
 where I was born. It is a little farm. We 
 have, — oh, a lot of hay an' a big large pasture, 
 an' we let other horses come in, — we do." 
 
 Once Miss Florence said to Mildred: **I 
 know such a dear little girl. She lives in a 
 house near me, and I think she is the best 
 of all." 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 35 
 
 '*Oh, — I know!" cried Mildred, "that 
 is me." 
 
 The hills are dearest which our childish feet 
 Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet 
 Are ever those at which our young lips drank 
 Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank. 
 
 Midst the cold dreary sea-watch, Home's heart-light 
 Shines round the helmsman plunging through the 
 
 night; 
 And still, with inward eye, the traveller sees 
 In close, dark, stranger streets his native trees. 
 
 The home-sick dreamer's brow is nightly fanned 
 By breezes whispering of his native land, 
 And on the stranger's dim and dying eye 
 The soft, sweet pictures of his childhood lie. 
 
 — From Bridal of Pennacooi. 
 
 "Ih thy large heart were fair guest cham- 
 bers open to sunrise a7id to birds. ''"' 
 
 Dorris looks at you, — so — her deep eyes 
 clear as the waters of a mountain spring. 
 She puts her tiny little white hand tenderly 
 in yours, if she loves you, and walks beside 
 you in the evening wherever you go, with- 
 out question and without chatter, silently and 
 superbly as a star. She always takes Ruth 
 
36 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 by the hand also and if Marston's dog or 
 George Smith's red cow comes along the 
 road, Dorris will stand in front of Ruth to 
 proteft her. Sometimes the little ones, — 
 and they are only just five years old, — will 
 come hand m hand to a fence that encloses 
 summer boarders and look in by the hour. 
 Once Ruth and Dorris got lost in the old 
 mill pasture. That is a lonely place at all 
 times, — most gray and dismal, — and to be 
 lost there is terrible. They were looking for 
 thoroughwort for Miss Mary Jane, and they 
 got off the road little by little and under a 
 fence and off in the hazel bushes before 
 they knew i;:. Then they were lost. All at 
 once, a big gray building, hollow as a hollow 
 tree, all full of cracks and vines and spider 
 webs, came up out of the ground. It was 
 the haunted old grist mill, left alone even 
 when their own mother was young. Stones 
 were piled up in the old pasture as though it 
 were a grave-yard. One tree lay dead on 
 the ground. Five mullein stalks, tall as 
 Ruth herself, grew on the rock mounds. A 
 gray cloud had fallen over the place long 
 ago and never lifted. But over the broken 
 fence was a bright green bed of brake. 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 
 
 37 
 
 Then a bell broke the stillness and pretty 
 soon it came nearer and nearer and a pair of 
 terrible, long, sharp horns tossed over the 
 brake. It was Smith's red cow! Dorris 
 made Ruth lie down behind the stones and 
 she knelt in front of her. There was no way 
 to ever get out any more. **Cow do not 
 come! Cow do not come!" Dorris prayed, 
 holding her hands over Ruth. The bushes 
 parted by the dry mill run. Dorris closed her 
 eyes but she did not move. And — it was not 
 the cow — it was a lady, one of Dorris' s own 
 summer ladies with paints and a picture. 
 
 **I will not let the cow hurt Ruth, my 
 little Dorris," she said, **she is really a good 
 cow and she does not want to hook anybody. 
 She only wants to find something to eat for 
 herself, — but we will go down this way 
 across the branch. It is not far to your 
 home." Then the lady lifted them over 
 the Red Hill stream, and they were in 
 Adams' wheat field right off and on the side 
 of the road ! And the cow did not get them 
 at all. She just kept on eating. 
 
 ********** 
 
 " Bring us the airs of hills and forests, 
 The sweet aroma of birch and pine; 
 
38 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 Give us a waft of the north-wind laden 
 With sweetbrier odors and breath of kine! 
 
 *' Bring us the purple of mountain sunsets, 
 Shadows of clouds that rake the hills, 
 The green repose of thy Plymouth meadows, 
 The gleam and ripple of Campton rills. 
 
 " Lead us away in shadow and sunshine, 
 Slaves of fancy, through all thy miles, 
 The winding ways of Pemigewasset, 
 And Winnipesaukee's hundred isles. 
 
 *' Shatter in sunshine over thy ledges. 
 
 Laugh in thy plunges from fall to fall} 
 
 Play with thy fringes of elms, and darken 
 
 Under the shade of the mountain wall. 
 
 " The cradle-song of thy hillside fountains 
 Here in thy glory and strength repeat; 
 Give us a taste of thy upland music. 
 Show us the dance of thy silver feet." 
 
 " . . . . The sodden forest floors 
 With golden lights were checkered.'' 
 
 The way to the old float dam begins not 
 far from Mildred's house, just back of Dr. 
 White's cornfield. After leaving the corn- 
 field and jumping a fence, there is a little 
 space of quiet meadow, crescent shaped, half 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 39 
 
 hidden by the trees and full of fair light gras- 
 ses and sunlit daisies. The pines withdraw 
 their dark shadows far back. The gleaming 
 branches of a solitary white birch form an 
 arc of light just over the entrance into the 
 mysterious wood, the beginning of the long 
 trail. A log fallen over the marshy place, 
 just here, makes a bridge to higher ground. 
 Then but a little while, and the heart of the 
 pines beats fast. Their breath falls sweetly, 
 and the ground underfoot is golden-brown 
 and soft with spears of the pines, piled there 
 deep as snow in the long winter. Only a 
 few glances of the sky pierce the deep rich 
 green. Far darkening hollows roll down 
 from the trail oiF into the maze of aisles and 
 tree columns, — blue crypts of the ancient 
 cathedral. In many places, tiny mushrooms 
 gleam like pearls and opals dropped by 
 ghostly queens of long ago. Indian pipes, 
 cold in color as old marble, lift their slender 
 shafts out of the gloom, — mist arises, — the 
 smoke of yesterday's seven thousand years. 
 So, through the way of dreams, passes the 
 trail. Then it stops. A noisome, brackish 
 stream lies across it like a snake crushed by a 
 broken wall of cyclopean rocks, and all be- 
 
40 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 
 
 yond is bog and mire and swamp bound in 
 by the everlasting pines. Out of the poison- 
 ous marsh springs some strange wild flower, 
 red as blood. 
 
 " The valley holds its breath 
 
 'No leaf of all its elms is twirled?'' 
 
 A gray, shaggy bowlder high on the ridge 
 of a hill, — one apple tree leaning near, — 
 that is Sunset Rock, the nearest point to the 
 village where a view of all the mighty ranges 
 may be had in one grand sweep. 
 
 One summer a solitary stranger, some 
 sweet-natured Thoreau, came to Sandwich 
 and pitched his tent in the shadow of this 
 rock. For two weeks he camped there 
 speaking to no man, given over to the silent 
 watch of the great hills. 
 
 Another summer a young girl who sang, 
 often stood upon the rocks. Alone in the 
 twilight there, her blue dress like a bit of the 
 dawn sky, and with arms outstretched to the 
 glowing hills, she would sing the love-songs 
 of the masters — yearning of the ages ... in 
 ssEcula sasculorum. 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 4 1 
 
 Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil 
 Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by! 
 And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail. 
 
 Uplift against the blue walls of the sky 
 Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave 
 Its golden net-work in your belting woods, 
 Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods. 
 And on your kingly brows at morn and eve 
 Set crowns of fire! So shall my soul receive 
 Haply the secret of your calm and strength. 
 Your unforgotten beauty interfuse 
 My common life, your glorious shapes and hues 
 And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come. 
 Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy 
 
 length 
 From the sea-level of my lowland home! 
 
 They rise before me! Last night's thunder-gust 
 Roared not in vain: for where its lightnings thrust 
 Their tongues of fire, the great peaks seem so near. 
 Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and clear, 
 I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear. 
 The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer. 
 The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn walls 
 
 And splintered on the rocks their spears of rain 
 Have set in play a thousand waterfalls. 
 Making the dusk and silence of the woods 
 Glad with the laughter of the chasing floods. 
 And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams, 
 While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streams 
 
 Sing to the freshened meadow-lands again. 
 
 — From Mountain Pictures. 
 
«** * * ^ ***** 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 * * 
 
 ******* 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 * * * 
 
 * 
 
 IV. 
 
 "I LEAN MY HEART AGAINST 
 THE DAY" 
 
 "/ read each misty mountain sign, 
 I know the voice of wave and pine, 
 And I ajn yours and ye are mineT 
 
 JOURNAL of the days runs 
 all to clouds: rich purple twi- 
 light, a mystery of red, the 
 sad, fading red that glows and 
 burns against the mountains, 
 and lasts till all the other sky 
 has grown dark and full of 
 stars. . . . Cloud shadows over the valley, 
 rain on Sandwich Dome — white mist veiling 
 it — low rain clouds breaking over it — the rain 
 slanting down — and — coming — coming . . . 
 A clear, valiant blue sky, billows of snow 
 white clouds rolling over all the hills — 
 but over Ossipee — little purple mists like 
 
44 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 
 
 violets blowing. . . . Vast domes and pal- 
 aces of clouds floating over the mountains 
 at sunset — gold wings arising in the twilight 
 — long streamers of color, — lavender, rose 
 pink, old gold, edging the hills, — then again 
 that rich, warm red, beating like a great full 
 heart — burning into the night far behind the 
 hills. . . . To-day, tenderness and sweet- 
 ness in the far, far light blue — dear with baby 
 clouds. . . . On Burleigh Hill, — a mighty 
 black cloud brooding over the sky, — but to- 
 ward the hills, light and white, the far dis- 
 tance, soft with mists. . . . Savage clouds 
 suddenly gathering, — rolling dark and gray — 
 casting shadows of war — through them tiny 
 little maiden skies trembling — white veils 
 hiding their sweet blue forms — torn in streaks 
 by the fierce thunder-heads leaping hard upon 
 them — ravishing them with a fearful delight. 
 
 ♦'From ceiled rooms, from silent books, 
 From crowded car and town, 
 Dear Mother Earth, upon thy lap 
 We lay our tired heads down." 
 
 * * * * 
 
 * * * 
 
 * ♦ 
 
 * 
 
***** * * 
 ******* 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 * * * 
 * 
 
 ********* 
 
 ********* 
 
 ***** * * 
 
 * * * * 
 
 * 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 * * * * 
 
 * * 
 « 
 
 V. 
 
 A DIARY OF THE HARVEST 
 MONTH 
 
 '■'■I climbed a hill path strange and new 
 
 With slow feet pausing at each turn^ — 
 A sudden waft of west wijid blew 
 The breath of the sweet fern T 
 
 — [August the 1st. 
 
 HITE-FACE to-day! We left 
 in the dim, cool mist just before 
 dawn. There were only four 
 pale stars in the sky, and these 
 we soon lost in the shadow of 
 Israel. Long interminable veils 
 of mist hid the other ranges 
 overed the valley. * 'There's rain on 
 White-Face," said our guide. But far over 
 eastward bloomed a gentle flush of rose 
 color — so we drove on. It was to be one 
 
 and 
 
46 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 of the sun's blue days, however. He tried 
 to be glorious, — but Aurora and her maidens 
 must have been weeping — so he was all up- 
 set. He came out and went back several 
 times, then finally he stayed with the tearful 
 maidens. Thus the mist was in nowise 
 lifted when we reached the wonderful inter- 
 vale at the foot of the slide-scarred mountain. 
 After putting up our teams in the big barn of 
 a comfortable farmhouse, there, we found the 
 trail, pressed through the thick growth of wet 
 hazel bushes, and after shaping alpen stocks, 
 we began the ascent. There were two other 
 girls besides Alice and myself in the party. 
 They were from Concord — disciples of 
 Thoreau, — and they paused with a quiet 
 pleasure before every little faintly sketched 
 flower, and mountain plant along the misty 
 trail. Two superb, active hours, mounting 
 up through the pines, struggling under fallen 
 trees, scaling big bowlders, going higher and 
 higher in the fast-gathering mist, singing old 
 English ballads: **Now gayly thro' the 
 mountain glen, the hunter winds his horn!" 
 — then all at once, shut in by the cloud — 
 hurriedly gathering pine boughs for a tent 
 and stripping the giant birches for ponchos 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 47 
 
 and umbrellas — building a fire — watching the 
 smoke crawl around our shivering fingers — 
 then suddenly all the skies opening and a 
 wild mad flood pouring down — a gallop to 
 earth again — back to the clean farm kitchen, 
 a warm fire and good hot cofFee. 
 
 We had been wandering for many days 
 
 Through the rough northern country. We had seen 
 
 The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud, 
 
 Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake 
 
 Of Winnepiseogee; and had felt 
 
 The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy isles 
 
 Which stoop their summer beauty to the lips 
 
 Of the bright waters. We had checked our steedg, 
 
 Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall 
 
 Is piled to heaven ; and, through the narrow rift 
 
 Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet 
 
 Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar, 
 
 Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind 
 
 Comes burdened with the everlasting moan 
 
 Of forests and of far-off waterfalls. 
 
 We had looked upward where the summer sky, 
 
 Tasselled with clouds light-woven by the sun, 
 
 Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags 
 
 O'er-roofing the vast portal of the land 
 
 Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed 
 
 The high source of the Saco; and bewildered 
 
 In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal Hills 
 
 Had heard above us, like a voice in the cloud 
 
 The horn of Fabyan sounding; and atop 
 
 Of old Agioochook had seen the mountains 
 
48 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER's COUNTRY 
 
 Piled to the northward, shagged with wood, and thick 
 As meadow mole-hills, — the far sea of Casco, 
 A white gleam on the horizon of the east; 
 Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and hills; 
 Moosehillock's mountain range, and Kearsarge 
 Lifting his Titan forehead to the sun ! 
 
 And we had rested underneath the oaks 
 
 Shadowing the bank, whose grassy spires are shaken 
 
 By the perpetual beating of the falls 
 
 Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had tracked 
 
 The winding Pemigewasset, overhung 
 
 By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks, 
 
 Or lazily gliding through its intervals, 
 
 From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam 
 
 Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon 
 
 Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines. 
 
 Like a great Indian camp-fire; and its beams 
 
 At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver 
 
 The Merrimac by Uncanoonuc's falls, 
 
 — From Tht Bridul of Pennactth. 
 
 '■'■ Through each branch-enwoven skylight 
 
 speaks He in the breeze^ 
 As of old beneath the twilight 
 Of lost Eden's trees ! " 
 
 — [August the 6th. 
 
 Last night I ran ofF secretly to the Spokes- 
 field Pines. I tiptoed away from the house 
 while everyone was sound asleep, just as the 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 
 
 49 
 
 late moon was coming up over the hills. I 
 hurried along the white road by the silent 
 houses. Marstan's dog barked furiously at 
 me, but no one woke up and I came safely 
 to the last house of the village. This was 
 beyond the old Burleigh Inn, and a light was 
 in one of the front rooms. Old Susan Wil- 
 ley was still sewing carpet rags ! My heart 
 trembled as I left the light. I felt as though 
 I were about to enter into some terrible but 
 sweet adventure, — some divine rendezvous! 
 After vaulting the fence just beyond the old 
 pump I struck the trail, and in another mo- 
 ment was shrouded in the darkness of the 
 pines. Shadows have such a fearful delight. 
 I lay in them until I was too frightened to 
 get up. There was a strange shape in front 
 of me that seemed to move. After a long 
 while — it seemed hours — I thrust out my 
 hands, — and touched — a blackberry briar 
 swaying in the wind over an old stump. I 
 drew closer and I saw it was the verv stump 
 whose rings we had counted last Wednesday. 
 The tree had but recently fallen. Dr. 
 Wiggin used a magnifying glass to get the 
 records and we found that it was five hundred 
 years old. In certain parts of the Spokesfield 
 
50 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 
 
 woods the pines are grouped in curiously har- 
 monious lines. As things became more dis- 
 tinft I could follow this fine grouping and 
 the fantastic play of the light. 
 
 Hark! — is that the angry howl 
 
 Of the wolf, the hills among? — 
 Or the hooting of the owl, 
 
 On his leafy cradle swung? — 
 Quickly glancing, to and fro, 
 Listening to each sound they go 
 Round the columns of the pine, 
 
 Indistindl, in shadow, seeming 
 Like some old and pillared shrine; 
 With the soft and white moonshine, 
 Round the foliage-tracery shed 
 Of each column's branching head. 
 For its lamps of worship gleaming! 
 And the sounds awakened there, 
 
 In the pine-leaves fine and small, 
 
 Soft and sweetly musical. 
 By the fingers of the air, 
 For the anthem's dying fall 
 Lingering round some temple's wall! 
 Niche and cornice round and round 
 Wailing like the ghost of sound! 
 
 — From Mogg Megone, 
 
 I Stretched myself out full length on the 
 pine needles and breathed in the cool fresh- 
 ness and looked up long through the pine 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 5 I 
 
 boughs. I wished for more stars. I thought 
 of a girl I had met once five years before, 
 from far up in Duluth, one who had slept in 
 the pines along the great lake shore, who had 
 spoken to me of the large stars before dawn, 
 of the song of the pines and the breath 
 of the pines. I saw her walking in the 
 shadows with her pale face upturned, and I 
 knew now, at last, how she had felt in the 
 pines. 
 
 I counted the sounds I heard. A cock 
 crew way off somewhere. A dog barked, 
 an owl hooted and a sleepless squirrel dropped 
 an acorn at my feet. It made such a loud 
 noise I jumped. Then 1 lay quiet again. I 
 marked the swift changes of the moonlight 
 on the black trunks of the pines and in their 
 lofty boughs, the fast traveling and checkered 
 glow on the soft, clean ground and the long 
 mellow sweeps of light. 
 
 Then I wrapped my coat tightly about mc 
 and slept long in the song of the pines. 
 * * * 
 
 "^// through the long bright days of June 
 Its leaves grew green and fair 
 And waved in hot midsummer noon 
 Its soft and yellow hairy 
 
52 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 — [August the loth. 
 
 On Rock Maple Ridge to-day 
 
 "First, a lake, tinted with sunset; next the 
 
 waving lines of far receding hills," 
 
 the might and majesty of Israel, — then all at 
 once a glory of golden wheat on the very 
 crest of the steep hill, waving like hair in the 
 wind, shining like hair in the sun — a wonder 
 
 past the telling One dwarf-Uke old 
 
 man, wrinkled and long bearded, bent double 
 over his scythe, — Hagen stealing the gold 
 from the Rhine maidens. 
 
 ^''Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere 
 Whirled in ?nad dance its misty hair^ 
 But who had raised its veil, or seen 
 The rainbow skirts of that Undine f " 
 
 — [August the 15th, 
 
 To-day we drove to Beedis' Falls, — the 
 wonder road through Sandwich Notch: 
 
 "The river hemmed with leaning trees 
 Wound through its meadows green; 
 A long blue line of mountains showed 
 The open pines between. 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 53 
 
 "One sharp, tall peak above them all 
 Clear into sunlight sprang, 
 I saw the river of my dreams, 
 The mountains that I sang." 
 
 At the place where we stopped first the 
 water flowed quietly over a great wide sweep 
 of solid rock. Wading was slippery but full 
 of delight. I dropped all my petticoats and 
 letting fly my hair I leaped, feeling like a 
 deer, down over to the smaller rocks where 
 the .water began to tumble and I could be 
 drenched in its tossing spray. Flashes of 
 the sunlight warmed my wet legs and arms, 
 and I danced every wild step I knew, — 
 feeling so free and glorious: 
 
 "The leaves through which the glad winds blew 
 Shared the wild dance the waters knew; 
 And where the shadows deepest fell, 
 The wood-thrush rang his silver bell, 
 
 "Fringing the stream at every turn. 
 Swung low the waving fronds of fern: 
 From stony clefts and mossy sod, 
 Pale asters sprang, and golden-rod. 
 
 "The turquoise lakes, the glimpse of pond 
 And river track, and, vast, beyond 
 Broad meadows belted round with pines 
 The grand uplift of mountain lines!" 
 
54 
 
 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 
 
 Against the wooded hills it stands, 
 
 Ghosts of a dead home, staring through 
 
 Its broken lights on wasted lands 
 Where old-time harvests grew. 
 
 Unploughed, unsown, by scythe unshorn, 
 The poor, forsaken farm-fields lie, 
 
 Once rich and rife with golden corn 
 And pale green breadths of rye. 
 
 Of healthful herb and flower bereft. 
 The garden plot no housewife keepsj 
 
 Through weeds and tangle only left, 
 The snake, its tenant, creeps. 
 
 A lilac spray, still blossom-clad, 
 
 Sways slow before the empty roomsj 
 
 Beside the roofless porch a sad 
 Pathetic red rose blooms. 
 
 His track, in mould and dust of drouth, 
 On floor and hearth the squirrel leaves, 
 
 And in the fireless chimney's mouth 
 His web the spider weaves. 
 
 The leaning barn, about to fall, 
 
 Resounds no more on husking eves: 
 
 No cattle low in yard or stall, 
 No thresher beats his sheaves. 
 
 So sad, so drear! It seems almost 
 
 Some haunting Presence makes its signj 
 
 That down yon shadowy lane some ghost 
 Might drive his spectral kine! 
 
 From The Ucmtsttad. 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 55 
 
 — [August the 20th. 
 
 Yesterday Alice and I drove along by 
 Israel by way of the old stage road. We 
 passed a dingy farm house where the old 
 people were left alone. A quaintly fashioned 
 letter box had been put up years before in 
 front of their house, — when their only son 
 went west. Every day when the stage 
 passed they watched for a letter. Finally 
 two robins built a nest in the little box. 
 Every spring they came back; no letter has 
 
 ever disturbed them We came to 
 
 another farm house deserted and forlorn, a 
 haunted place, far in the fields. Israel has 
 many such. It broods over them gloomily, 
 but the highland roads laugh in its grave face 
 and run carelessly by the abandoned homes 
 of its lost children. It was warm yesterday; 
 a drowsy sense even in those gay roads: — 
 O, the charm of their sleep on the breasts of 
 the maiden flowers ! 
 
 "Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold 
 That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, 
 Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod. 
 And the red pennons of the cardinal flowers 
 Hang motionless upon their upright staves. 
 The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, 
 
56 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 Wing-weary with its long flight from the south, 
 Unfelt; yet, closely scanned yon maple leaf 
 With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, 
 Confesses it. The locust by the wall 
 Stabs the noon silence with his sharp alarm. 
 A single hay-cart down the dusty road 
 Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep on the 
 load's top. 
 
 "Against the neigbhoring hill, 
 Huddled along the stone wall's shady side. 
 The sheep snow white, as if a snowdrift. 
 Defied the dog-star. Through the open door 
 A drowsy smell of flowers, — gay heliotrope. 
 And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette — 
 Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends 
 To the pervading symphony of peace." 
 
 So we drove and we drove, Alice and I. 
 We followed the roads as the flowers did, 
 we embraced them, we adored them, — and 
 we did not blame a single little aster! It 
 was dark when we turned homeward, — 
 **How those clouds low down turn to moun- 
 tains," said Alice, **and the pastures stretch 
 ofF smooth into space. Look, — the mist 
 sweeping up from the valley over Israel. . .** 
 Then we watched the stars come out. With 
 half-closed eyes we watched the mystic fair- 
 ness of the hills — those brides of the night- 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER $"/ 
 
 clouds and the stars — adorning themselves for 
 their sweet bridegrooms. 
 
 "How far and strange the mountains seem, 
 Dim-looking through the pale, still light} 
 The vague, vast grouping of a dream, 
 They stretch into the solemn night." 
 
 — [August the 30th. 
 
 To-day, — to-dav, — all day under the 
 apple trees! A big white cloud luminous 
 with light arising over the sloping gray roof — 
 all the sky a clear and serene blue — apples 
 shining on the trees, — mellow, — full of 
 sweet fruit-smell, — the sad leaves closing 
 around them tenderly — holding them fast, — 
 knowing their loss is coming 
 
 So twilight deepened round us. Still and black 
 The great woods climbed the mountain at our back; 
 And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day 
 On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay, 
 
 The brown old farm-house like a bird's-nest hung. 
 With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred: 
 The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard. 
 The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well, 
 The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell; 
 Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed; the gate 
 Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry weight 
 
55 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 
 
 Of sun-brown children, listening, while they swung, 
 
 The welcome sound of supper-call to hear; 
 And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings clear, 
 The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung. 
 Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path we took, 
 Praising the farmer's home. He only spake, 
 Looking into the sunset o'er the lake, 
 
 Like one to whom the far-oif is most near: 
 "Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look; 
 I love it for my good old mother's sake, 
 Who lived and died here in the peace of God!" 
 
 — From Mountain Pictures. 
 
 
 "%^ 
 
********************* 
 
 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *** 
 ** * * * * * * * 
 
 * * * 
 
 VI. 
 
 INDIAN LEGENDS FLOAT IN 
 THE BREEZES 
 
 I. OSSIPEE 
 
 "Let Indian ghosts^ if such there be, 
 Who ply unseen their shadowy lines j 
 Call back the ancient na?ne to thee 
 As with the voice of pines !'''' 
 
 Although Israel is mighty 
 and much beloved, Ossipee 
 sings to the heart with the 
 woman's love-song. Its fair 
 brow, gold-crowned, the rising 
 sunlit dome, like the one burn- 
 ing breast of an Amazon girl, — 
 the grace of its long, firm Imes, — the sweet- 
 ness of the little clouds, — its winged chil- 
 dren — playing over it, — then the transparent 
 blushing wonder of it when the twilight 
 falls 
 
6o MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 Long ago, so the stories say, an ocean of 
 pines swept the vast hill from base to dome; 
 the very name in the Indian tongue meant 
 Mountain of the Pines, and it was the 
 Indian symbol of the ideal. 
 
 The Ossipee Falls are the Falls of the 
 Song of the Pines. Some say that late in 
 November a plaintive note is heard here. 
 That is the last cry of an Indian brave of the 
 Pequaket tribe. He took up arms against 
 John Chamberlain, the slayer of Paugus, 
 the great chief, and he pursued him over the 
 valleys from Winnepesaukee to Ossipee Falls. 
 The pale-face leaped the falls, — the very 
 spot is pointed out to-day, — but the Indian 
 fell in his haste, and perished in the foaming 
 waters, — and his ghost has haunted the place 
 ever since. . . . white sprays of the restless 
 waters, mist of dreams. 
 
 The shadows round the inland sea 
 
 Are deepening into night; 
 Slow up the slopes of Ossipee 
 
 They chase the lessening light. 
 Tired of the long day's blinding heat, 
 
 I rest my languid eye, 
 Lake of the Hills! where, cool and sweet 
 
 Thy sunset waters lie! 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 6 1 
 
 Along the sky, in wavy lines, 
 
 O'er isle and reach and bay, 
 Green-belted with eternal pines, 
 
 The mountains stretch away. 
 Below, the maple masses sleep 
 
 Where shore with water blends, 
 While midway on the tranquil deep 
 
 The evening light descends. 
 
 So seemed it when yon hill's red crown, 
 
 Of old, the Indian trod. 
 And, through the sunset air, looked down 
 
 Upon the Smile of God. . . . 
 
 — From Tht Laktsidt. 
 
 * * ♦ 
 
 II. ASQUAM 
 
 '■^Before ?ne, stretched for glistening miles^ 
 Lay mountain-girdled Squam; 
 Like green-winged birds, the leafy isles 
 Upon its bosom swam^ 
 
 And, glimmering through the sun-haze warm, 
 
 Far as the eye could roam. 
 Dark billows of an earthquake storm 
 
 Beflecked with clouds like foam, 
 Their vales in misty shadow deep. 
 
 Their rugged peaks in shine, 
 I saw the mountain ranges sweep 
 
 The horizon's northern line. 
 
62 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 There towered Chocorua's peak; and west, 
 
 Moosehillock's woods were seen, 
 With many a nameless slide-scarred crest 
 
 And pine-dark gorge between. 
 Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud, 
 
 The great Notch mountains shone, 
 Watched over by the solemn-browed 
 
 And awful face of stone ! 
 
 —From I'he Hill-Top. 
 
 The little lake Asquam, meaning the beau- 
 tifiil-surrounded-by-water-place, is very fair. 
 Like most inland waters it is crystal clear, 
 reflefting minutely every change and tinge of 
 color of the clouds and trees and sky. It is 
 only two miles beyond Sandwich on the 
 road under the red oaks and maples of Red 
 Hill to Centre Harbor. It is not big, like 
 Winnepesaukee, but it is even more charming. 
 The graceful curves of its shore lines, the 
 miniature islands rocking on its waters, and 
 the mists arising at dawn and evening take 
 possession of every sense. 
 
 The Indian myth that lies sleeping on the 
 waters' breast wakes only in a fierce thunder 
 storm at night, when the curse of old 
 Wamego flashes in the lightning; the moaning 
 of Suneta haunts the valley for miles around, 
 and the love song of Anonis yearns far in 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 63 
 
 the lonely hills. Long ago, the legend says, 
 an old Indian chief, the ugly Wamego, 
 whose squaw had died, lived on the shores 
 of 'Squam. Suneta, the daughter of a 
 neighboring chief, was sold to him by her 
 father, although she was pledged to Anonis, 
 a brave of her own tribe. The marriage 
 feast with the ugly chief was celebrated. 
 Before many moons had passed, however, 
 when one night the old Wamego lay sleeping 
 heavily, Suneta heard her lover's voice: 
 
 ** Come! The night is dark and stormy, 
 My canoe is on the Jake. 
 My beloved! I cannot live without you. 
 You are mine! 
 
 Death awaits me tonight if I bear you not 
 away in mine arms! " 
 
 Suneta sprang to him and they fled through 
 the shadows. Wamega awoke, followed 
 them and caught them. With his tomahawk 
 he killed Anonis, and lifting up his voice over 
 the fainting Suneta, cried, **May fire blast 
 her! Let the Manitou make of her an 
 example to coming time!'* A flash of 
 lightning and a savage growl of thunder 
 replied to his words. The body of Suneta 
 was turned to stone, — circle of the sighing 
 
64 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER*S COUNTRY 
 
 wind, miserere, — the ever living Francesca 
 and Paoli! To-day all the people who come 
 to Asquam may look upon the rock so 
 strangely carven in a woman's form, sad, 
 disconsolate on the far side of the lake : 
 **Mat woTick kunna-monee !^^ it is said. 
 And the song of the Indian women in The 
 Bridal of Pennacook is remembered. 
 
 The Dark eye has left us, 
 
 The Spring-bird has flown; 
 On the pathway of spirits 
 She wanders alone. 
 The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore: 
 Mat ivonck kunna-monee! We hear it no more! 
 
 O dark water Spirit! 
 
 We cast on thy wave 
 
 These furs which may never 
 
 Hang over her grave; 
 
 Bear down to the lost one the robes that she wore: 
 
 Mat ivonck kunna-monee! We see her no more! 
 
 Of the strange land she walks in 
 
 No Powah has told: 
 It may burn with the sunshine, 
 Or freeze with the cold. 
 Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore; 
 Mat ivonck kunna-monee! We see her no more! 
 ******** 
 O mighty Sowanna! 
 Thy gateways unfold, 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 65 
 
 From thy wigwam of sunset 
 Lift curtains of gold! 
 Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er: 
 Mat ivonck kunna-monee! We see her no more! 
 
 — From Tht Bridal of Pennactok. 
 
 III. CHOCORUA 
 
 ^'■Part thy blue lips, Northe?'n Lake! 
 Moss-grown I'ocks your silence break! 
 
 Tell the tale thou ancient tree! 
 
 Thou^ too, slide-worn Ossipee! 
 speak and tell us how and when 
 Lived and died this King of men! " 
 
 The mountain of all mountains around 
 Sandwich is Chocorua, the Prophet's Tomb. 
 It is known far and wide beyond any other 
 of the White Hills, save Mount Washington 
 alone, and it is loved far more than any 
 other. Even children may climb Chocorua, 
 and its story is a tale told at the New England 
 firesides in the long winter, even as the story 
 of the Black Douglas stirred the Scottish 
 hearts of long ago. Chocorua was a chief 
 of the Ossipee tribe. He was afraid of 
 nothing. He fought in many battles with 
 the white men to keep the home and the 
 
66 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 hunting ground of his people. But the 
 settlers and the soldiers were too strong for 
 him. The Ossipee tribe was driven, foot by- 
 foot, over the border into Canada. Cho- 
 corua and a handful of braves remained. 
 They established their stronghold on a name- 
 less mountain where roamed the bears and 
 the deer. The colony of Massachusetts 
 offered many pounds of silver for scalps of 
 the Indians. Thus, for blood money, one 
 by one, Chocorua's men were killed. The 
 long winter came and Chocorua was left 
 alone. For many months no white man 
 dared go near the nameless mountain for 
 very dread. But when the spring awoke and 
 the white ramparts of snow fell from Cho- 
 corua' s fort, every pass into the forest there 
 was guarded and a hundred men assembled 
 to hunt down the fierce chieftain. He 
 retreated farther and farther up the mountain, 
 pressed on by his enemies, until at last he 
 reached the peak, that sharp tower rock, like 
 a leaning battlement in the sky. His arrows 
 were gone; death or capture was before him. 
 With folded arms he stood silent on the 
 peak. A bullet whistled by him. Then he 
 lifted up his voice In a prophecy of woe to 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 6/ 
 
 the white man's land, of sickness to the 
 cattle, of death to the young men. He 
 sang the cry of the abandonment of the land, 
 then he plunged into the dark sea of mist 
 and pines three thousand feet below. The 
 mountain was named his brave name. It is 
 graven there forevermore. 
 
 A huge gray bowlder Hes to-day under a 
 giant birch not far from the Half-Way 
 House of Chocorua: 
 
 And there the fallen chief is laid, 
 In tasselled garb of skins arrayed, 
 And girded with his wampum-braid. 
 
 ******* 
 
 'Tis done: the roots are backward sent, 
 The beechen-tree stands up unbent, 
 The Indian's fitting monument! 
 
 When of that sleeper's broken race 
 Their green and pleasant dwelling-place. 
 Which knew them once, retains no trace; 
 
 O, long may sunset's light be shed 
 As now upon that beech's head, 
 A green memorial of the dead! 
 
 There shall his fitting requiem be, 
 
 In northern winds, that, cold and free, 
 
 Howl nightly in that funeral tree. 
 
68 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 
 
 O peeled and hunted and reviled, 
 Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild! 
 Great Nature owns her simple child! 
 
 — From Funeral Tree of the Soioiis. 
 
 **Yes, — dees be ze place where Shocoruay 
 be buried," says old **Dutch" Liberty, 
 keeper of the Half- Way House, **dees be ze 
 place!" Liberty is a French-Canadian by 
 birth but he has been in New Hampshire 
 beyond folks' counting, and by Carroll 
 County logic, since it be not English that he 
 speaks, he must be a Dutchman. He is at 
 any rate an industrious toll gatherer. He 
 knows by natural instinct every foot of the 
 ground Chocorua trod, and even as the 
 guides of Holyrood, he too can point out 
 drops of blood along the trail and can speak 
 the very words of Chocorua' s curse. 
 
 **Zen ze cattle zey die by one, by two, 
 by ze hunder, — all from Shocoruay' s curse." 
 But Mrs. Liberty shakes her head mildly, 
 **That be, so I hear, on account of too 
 much lime in the water. They gave the 
 cattle soapsuds an' they was cured. But 
 when I merried Liberty an' come up here 
 on the mountain ter live, scarce a body would 
 plant foot on Shocoruay. That be thirty 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 69 
 
 years ago come next August, an' here we be 
 still." 
 
 Mrs. Liberty is of Quaker blood and 
 Quaker gentleness. Her eyes are blue, and 
 her hair a soft, waving white. Her face is 
 fine and in spite of her sixty odd years, fresh 
 and rosy in coloring, and her bearing stately 
 and ereft. On sunny afternoons she sits for 
 hours on the steps of the Half- Way House, 
 knitting little presents for her friends, the 
 visitors to Chocorua. She brings them 
 glasses of mountain water and looks to their 
 comfort in many ways. 
 
 The Half-Way House is just a rough 
 three-roomed shack made of pine boards. 
 Red calico curtains are tacked across the 
 windows and scarlet geraniums in old tomato 
 cans bloom on the pine window sills. Moun- 
 tain air and the scent of the balsam fir fill the 
 bare, clean, little rooms. From the front 
 door the hill descends, past the corral for the 
 tourists' teams, far down into the white birch 
 belt. The incline is steep from the rear of 
 Half-Way House. A silver trout stream 
 tumbles down the hill as though it were 
 going to run straight into the back door 
 of the little house, but it takes a sharp 
 
70 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 
 
 turn to the right just where the Liberty trail 
 begins. 
 
 **Be you goin' ter climb Shocoruay to- 
 day?" Mrs. Liberty asks. **It be blowing 
 strong on the peak to-day, but there's fifteen 
 gone before ye. But they ain't done fixin' 
 the teams yet so you kin set awhile with me. 
 Be I lonely? Wa'al yes, there aim never a 
 soul comes near Shocoruay long in the 
 winter, an' me an' Liberty, we jest sets here, 
 an' does our chores, an' sets here. I say 
 to myself *God hev set me down here on 
 Shocoruay, an' here to stay;' an' I prays ter 
 Him an' takes my lot. T'aint so hard 
 when you come to think. We got potatoes 
 yonder an' flour in the shack, an' bacon 
 enough ter last, an' thar be plenty of wood 
 for fire, an' t'aint so cold about here as 'tis 
 in other places. It be cold enough though, 
 an' never a livin' body; but along about 
 Spring, though, all that's changed, an* 
 friends begin ter come, an' keep a comin* 
 till Oftober sets in. I'd rather be here 
 than on the farm. Sometimes me an' Lib- 
 erty we shets up the Half-Way House an' 
 goes to the farm, but it is about the same 
 wherever we goes. Liberty an' me made 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER J I 
 
 the trail up Shocoruay, — yes, there be other 
 trails, but they be full of harricanes. It 
 keeps Liberty an' me workin' ter keep the 
 trail in shape, an' this be the only one folks 
 travel on much. The folks come from all 
 parts — all over the v^^orld ter see Shocoruay. 
 There be one old lady my age gone up there 
 to-day — there be a good many old ladies hev 
 climbed Shocoruay. You'll take notice of 
 the one gone up to-day maybe. She has on 
 spectacles an' wears a cape with a red plaid 
 lining — I reckon you'll see her. Then 
 there's some comes from Boston every sum- 
 mer an' New York. Everybody knows 
 about Shocoruay, though I can't say as I see 
 much ter it — Shocoruay be Shocoruay." 
 
 In all the Sandwich region so stirring with 
 melodies of clouds and birds, children, 
 flowers and pines, and lakes and hills, there 
 is no chord more majestic, more sublime 
 than this, — Chocorua! At first tenderly, as 
 though to music in minor key, in piercing 
 sweet — the young trail leaves the glowing 
 stream beyond the Half-Way House, and 
 steps into the fast vanishing zone of the 
 white birches. Embraced by the pale, 
 slender arms of those fairy trees, shadowed 
 
72 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER's COUNTRY 
 
 in long arches of green leaves, it lingers 
 pleasantly — and sadly — for a mile or more. 
 Then it dips low down into a stony hollow, 
 wet underfoot for a space, then mounts 
 sharply up with sturdy strength into the 
 black belt of the pines. Streams of water, 
 myriads of them, spring from the mysterious 
 rocks, and dance down the steep descent like 
 water sprites. Like slender white threads 
 they curve down under the traveler's feet 
 and wind off into the deep forest — magic 
 ways to Fair Rosamond. Enchanters appear 
 in the shape of wonderful vistas, now far 
 ahead or far back or to right or left, to lure 
 the pilgrim off the trail. But Chocorua's 
 summit is on ahead — the donjon tower — 
 and a view of the mighty keep itself. Mount 
 Washington, and all the walls and battle- 
 ments and towers and turrets of the great 
 castled land. Off to the south the vast 
 moat — waters of Winnepesaukee — will glow; 
 again, in the heart of the valley. Sandwich 
 Village and all her little sister towns will be 
 seen in their quiet sleep, while far off, miles 
 beyond the hundred lakes, far across the 
 country a long pale line will stretch — the 
 coast of Maine dim in the mist of the sea. 
 
A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 73 
 
 Though the promise is fair and rich, the 
 hillside is a wonderful thing — and hard to 
 leave. It is a dreamer, savage and poetical 
 — voice of the dying Moses murmuring lovv^, 
 precious things to the everlasting hills. 
 
 The way grows steep and bare. The 
 pines are dwarfs, the rocks are giants. The 
 earth begins to recede; the promise is about 
 to be fulfilled. The regions of the sky are 
 here. With a very trumpet's blast, the wild 
 wind charges down, armored in black rocks, 
 with boughs of the leaning pines his lance and 
 battle axe, spray of the green pine his bright 
 pennon — over all, white plumage of the 
 clouds — laugh of Die Walkure. 
 
 The joust is on — the tournament of rocks 
 and wind and sky. 
 
 Laissez aller! 
 
 A valiant step upward — a shouting in the 
 very air — behold the peak, Chocorua! 
 
 [the end] 
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