26 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



the summit. At the sight my fellow traveler 

 broke out, 



" My heart leaps up when I behold 

 An eagle in the sky." 



On that point, as concerning the fine quali- 

 ties of the cespitose blueberry, we were fully 

 agreed. 



Even in Franconia, however, most of our 

 days are spent, not in mountain paths, but 

 in the valley and lower hill roads. We keep 

 out of the mountains partly because we love 

 to look at them (" I pitch my walk low, but 

 my prospects high," says an old poet), and 

 partly, perhaps, because the paths to their 

 summits have seemed to fall out of repair, 

 and even to become steeper, with the lapse 

 of years. One of my good trips, this au- 

 tumn, was over the road toward Littleton, 

 and then back in the direction of Bethlehem 

 as far as the end of the Indian Brook road. 

 That, as I planned it, would be no more than 

 six or seven miles, at the most, and there I 

 was to be met by the driving members of the 

 club, who would bring me home for the mid- 

 day meal, an altogether comfortable ar- 

 rangement. It is good to have time to spare, 



