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The Isaac Newton's steam-whistle had sent up the curtain; the overture had followed with strains Der-Frei-schutzy in the Adirondacks, pastoral in the valleys of Vermont and New Hampshire, funebral and andante in the fogs of Mollychunkamug; now it was to end in an allegretto gallopade, and the drama would open. At last the sun shone bright upon the silky ripples of the lake. Mr.
Mollychunkamug and her fellows are the bulges of the Androscoggin; Moosehead, of the Kennebec. Sluggish streams do not need such pauses. Peace is thrown away upon stolidity.
Our dessert of raspberries grew all along the path, and lured us on to a log-station by the water, where we found another bateau ready to transport us over Lakes Weelocksebacook, Allegundabagog, and Mollychunkamug. Doubters may smile and smile at these names, but they are geography. We do not commit ourselves to further judgment upon the first than that it is doubtless worthy of its name.
Above Mollychunkamug is Moosetocmaguntic Lake. Another innavigable thoro'fare unites them. A dam of Titanic crib-work, fifteen hundred feet long, confines the upper waters. Near this we disembarked. We balanced ourselves along the timbers of the dam, and reached a huge log-cabin at its farther end. Mr.
To him who truly loves, all Nature is filled with Amaryllidian echoes. Every sight and every sound recalls her who need not be recalled, to a heart that has never dislodged her. We lingered over our interview with Mollychunkamug. She may not be numbered among the great beauties of the world; nevertheless, she is an attractive squaw, a very honest bit of flat-faced prettiness in the wilderness.
We therefore doffed the fisherman and donned the artist and poet, and chased our own fancies down the dark whirlpooling river, along its dell of evergreens, now lurid with the last glows of twilight. Iglesias and I continued dreamily gazing down the thoro'fare toward Mollychunkamug only a certain length of time.
"Iglesias," said I, "we divined how Mollychunkamug had its name; now, as to Moosetocmaguntic, hence that elongated appellative?" "It was named," replied Iglesias, "from the adventure of a certain hunter in these regions. He was moose-hunting here in days gone by. His tale runs thus: 'I had been four days without game, and naturally without anything to eat except pine-cones and green chestnuts.
When it cleared, when it purveyed us a broadening zone of blue sky and a heavenful of brilliant cloud-creatures, we were sailing over Lake Mollychunkamug. Fair Mollychunkamug had not smiled for us until now; now a sunny grin spread over her smooth cheeks. She was all smiling, and presently, as the breeze dimpled her, all a "snicker" up into the roots of her hair, up among her forest-tresses.
We had now traversed Lakes Umbagog, Weelocksebacook, Allegundabagog, Mollychunkamug, Moosetocmaguntic, and Oquossok. We had been compelled to pronounce these names constantly. Of course our vocal organs were distorted. Of course our vocal nervous systems were shattered, and we had a chronic lameness of the jaws. We therefore recognized a peculiar appropriateness in the name of our host.
Mollychunkamug! Who could be aught but gay, gay even to the farcical, when on such a name? Is it Indian? Bewildered Indian we deem it, transmogrified somewhat from aboriginal sound by the fond imagination of some lumberman, finding in it a sweet memorial of his Mary far away in the kitchens of the Kennebec, his Mary so rotund of blooming cheek, his Molly of the chunky mug.
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