126 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



I leave the wind behind, and take my way 

 into the wood, where there is nothing in par- 

 ticular to delay me except an occasional wind- 

 fall, which must be clambered over or beaten 

 about. Half an hour, more or less, of lazy 

 traveling, and I come out upon the railroad 

 at the big sugar-maple grove. This is one 

 of the sights of the country in the bright- 

 leaf season, say the first week of October ; 

 something, I have never concluded what, 

 giving to its colors a most remarkable depth 

 and richness. Putting times together, I 

 must have spent hours in admiring it, now 

 from different points on the Butter Hill 

 round, now from Bald Mountain. At pre- 

 sent every leaf of it is freshly green, and 

 somewhere within it dwells a wood thrush, 

 for whose golden voice I sit down in the 

 shade to listen. He is in no haste, and no 

 more am I. Let him take his time. Other 

 birds also are a little under the weather, as 

 it appears ; but the silence cannot last. A 

 scarlet tanager's voice is the first to break it. 

 High as the temperature is, he is still hoarse. 

 And so is the black-throated blue warbler 

 that follows him. A pine siskin passes over- 



