AT WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE 25 



minds one of the Quaker youth at the academy, 

 surrounded by those rosy maidens of the world's 

 people, one of whom we suspect he loved, yet could 

 no more tell it than can the steeplebush acknowl- 

 edge how sweet is the companionship of the wild 

 rose and how he hopes it may go on forever. 

 Stray red cedars stroll about the lower slopes and 

 climb gravely, while juniper, in close-set prickly 

 clumps, seems to follow their leadership. The 

 canny, chancy thistle holds its rosy pompons up 

 to the bumble-bees, that fairly burrow in them for 

 their Scotch honey, and the mullein would be even 

 more erect and more Quakerly drab than the 

 steeplebush if it could. It is erect and gray, but 

 just as it means to look its grimmest dancing 

 whorls of yellow sunshine blossom up its stalk in 

 spirals, the last one fairly taking flight from the 

 tip. Among all these strays the yarrow, whose 

 aroma is as much a New England odor as that of 

 sweet-fern or bayberry. The aromatic incense of 

 this herb follows you up the hill and seems to 

 bring the pungent presence of the poet himself. 



Job's steepest hillside drops you in one long 

 swoop to the road which leads through woodland 



