7 
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 97 
bay (Rhododendron Lapponicum), — and to get 
also a single forward specimen of Potentilla 
frigida. Here and there was a humblebee, 
gathering honey from the small purple catkins 
of the prostrate willows, now in full bloom. 
(Rather high-minded humblebees, they seemed, 
more than five thousand feet above the sea!) 
Professional entomologists (the chimney-swift, 
perhaps, included) may smile at my simplicity, 
but I was surprised to find this “ animated tor- 
rid zone,” this ‘* insect lover of the sun,” in such 
a Greenland climate. Did he not know that his 
own poet had described him as “ hot midsum- 
mer’s petted crone”? But possibly he was 
equally surprised at my appearance. He might 
even have taken his turn at quoting Emer- 
son : — 
‘Pants up hither the spruce clerk 
From South Cove and City Wharf’’ ?4 
Of the two, he was unquestionably the more at 
home, for he was living where in forty-eight 
hours I should have found my death. So much 
is Bombus better than a man. 
In a little pool of water, which seemed to be 
1 But by this time the clerk’s appearance was, to say the least, 
not reprehensibly ‘‘ spruce.’’ For one thing, what with the moist- 
ure and the sharp stones, he was already becoming jealous of his 
fe. shoes, lest they should not hold together till he could get back to 
5 the Crawford House. 
7 
