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"It is because I like to live, to breathe the sweet air, to run over the grass, to linger about the woods and hear all the voices. The pines have one tone, the hemlocks and spruces another, and the soft swish of the larches is like the last tender notes of some of the hymns I sing with the sisters occasionally. And the sun is so glorious!
The days passed, and the weeks; the snow ran from the brown fields, and melted at length even in the moist crotches under the hemlocks of the northern slopes; the robin and bluebird came, the hillsides were mottled with exquisite shades of green, and the scent of fruit blossom and balm of Gilead was in the air. June came as a maiden and grew into womanhood.
In addition to the great cedars, there were hemlocks fifteen and eighteen feet in circumference. Only the strong trees survive in these valleys, and by that ruthless selection of nature weak young saplings die early. So we found cedar, hemlock, lodge-pole pine, white and Douglas fir, cottonwood, white pine, spruce, and alder of enormous size.
Looking out into the forest, we could see the beams of the moon, falling here and there through the thick tops of the pines and hemlocks, and showing their tall trunks, like so many pillars in a church or temple.
This is a quick and easy way to get rid of the shade that otherwise would stunt the crops, and it prevents such trees as chestnut, buckeye and basswood from sprouting from the stumps. In the fields stood scores of gigantic hemlocks, deadened, that never would be used even for fuel, save as their bark furnished the women with quick-burning stove-wood in wet weather.
"We are aimin' to bring back that little hoss, en he may not want to come." Landy turned from the path and rode down a coulee that led to Brushy Fork. It was a winding way through brush and stunted hemlocks. Presently they came to the creek. "Thar's Steelheads en Rainbows up in them pools," said the leader. "These streams have been stocked en hit's good fishin', if ye know how."
Then, leaving the woods, they would come to wide vistas of country, with pine-clad hills and slopes and beautiful gleaming lakes. And twice from the top of an ascent they caught the outlines of a bold mountain-range. A delicious air blew down from these mountains, cool, crystal clear, and spiced with the balsamic smell of hemlocks and firs and a hundred lovely wood-odors beside.
When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger, Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy, And from time to time, in sharp articulation, Said, "All right! From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples Till the land was filled with loud reverberations Of "All right!
"The slant" had been built between two great trees and stood on a little mound of earth surrounded by beds of velvety green moss huge green winding sheets, under which lay the bodies of many giant pines and hemlocks. The shelter was made of bark and bedded down with boughs of sweet-balsam. Outside, on a birch sapling, supported by two forked sticks, hung a rusty kettle.
Once more they were on the road, not riding directly homeward, but turning into cross-roads to Jamaica Pond, where the boys were gliding over the gleaming ice on their skates. They had kindled fires which lighted up the surrounding objects, the dark foliage of pines and hemlocks, and the branches of the leafless elms and maples growing on the banks of the pond.
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