16 NEW HAMPSHIRE 



really of no inconsiderable service ; a convenience 

 to the hotel proprietors, and a means of health 

 to idle boarders, who needed an incentive to ex- 

 ercise. " Come, let 's walk down as far as the bent 

 tree," one would say to another. The average 

 American cannot stroll ; he has never learned ; 

 if he puts his legs in motion, he must go to 

 some fixed point, though it be only a milestone 

 or a huckleberry bush. The infirmity is most 

 likely congenital, a taint in the blood. The 

 fathers worked, all honor to them, having 

 to earn their bread under hard conditions ; and 

 the children, though they may dress like the 

 descendants of princes, cannot help turning even 

 their amusements into a stint. 



And the sapient critic? Well, instead of 

 carrying a fishing rod or walking to a bent tree, 

 he had come out with an opera-glass, and had 

 made of his morning jaunt a bird-cataloguing 

 expedition. Considered in that light, the trip 

 had not been a brilliant success. In my whole 

 forenoon I had seen and heard but twenty-eight 

 species. If I had stayed in my low-country vil- 

 lage, and walked half as far, I should have 

 counted twice as many. But I should not have 

 enjoyed myself one quarter as well. 



The next day and the next were rainy, with 

 Moosilauke still invisible. Then came a morn- 



