BIRDS, FLOWERS, AND PEOPLE 105 



He was going to Highlands, also. He had 

 been " putting in a week " trying to buy a 

 cow to replace one that had mired herself 

 and broken her neck. " I would rather 

 have paid down twenty-five dollars in gold," 

 he declared. (The air was full of political 

 silver talk ; but gold is the standard, after 

 all, when men come to business.) He knew 

 the invalid, it appeared, for presently he 

 turned into a trail, a short cut through the 

 woods, which till now had escaped my notice, 

 and remarked, " Well, John, I guess I '11 

 take the narrow way ; " and off he went up 

 the slope, while the other man and I con- 

 tinued our dialogue, I still playing the 

 part of Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and Chris- 

 tian still unconvinced, but not indisposed to 

 parley. 



He wished to know where I had come 

 from ; and when I told him, he said, " Mas- 

 sachusetts ! Well, I reckon it 's right hot 

 down there now." He held the common 

 belief of the mountain people that the rest 

 of the earth's surface is mostly uninhabitable 

 in summer-time. One morning, I remember, 

 I said something to an idler on the village 

 sidewalk about the cool night we had just 



