86 Bog-Trotting for OrcKids 



Then, instead of following down the rocky channel to 

 Ball Brook Forks, I struck out directly at the head of 

 the Meyers Road, over the fields, north from the maple- 

 sugar house, and landed on the high hills south of the 

 great meadows of Etchowog. Sleeping at my feet lay 

 those sphagnous bogs which had already yielded me 

 so many rare flowers, and so much pleasure. North- 

 ward stretched out a vast sweep of hills and valleys, 

 reaching nearly the w^hole length of Bennington 

 County. To the right towered the massive abutments 

 of the Dome, and to the left rose the isolated form of 

 Mount Anthony, — these two mountains framing, as it 

 were, the gap northward, through whose wide vista I 

 could define the dim blue heights of Mount Equinox, 

 at Manchester. Nearer, I could trace fertile vales and 

 sloping hillsides, dotted here and there with wood- 

 lands, scattered trees and farm buildings. 



Standing still nearer in the shadow of Mount An- 

 thony was Bennington Hill, with the Battle Monu- 

 ment clearly outlined even at this distance, some ten 

 miles away. In the nearer landscape were discernible 

 the serpentine windings of Ball Brook, with its long 

 chain of tamarack and balsam-fir swamps, spreading 

 out here and there toward Bennington, — where, I dare 

 say, are many rich and undiscovered colonies of I^ady's 

 Slippers. 



Nearer yet, the knob-like glacial hills around Pow- 

 nal Pond shield the Cranberry Swamp to the north, 

 and the open Bogs of Etchowog east of the pond. 

 Nestling among the trees by the mill, I picked out the 



