86 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



side it, on our way up and down ! The 

 " Torrey willow " lie always called it, strok- 

 ing my vanity ; and I liked the word. 



Now a chipmunk speaks to me, as I pass ; 

 it is not his fault, nor mine either, perhaps, 

 that I do not understand him ; and now, 

 hearing a twig snap, I glance up in time to 

 see a woodchuck scuttling out of sight un- 

 der the high, overhanging bank. So he is a 

 dweller in these upper mountain woods ! ^ I 

 should have thought him too nice an epicure 

 to feel himself at home in such diggings. 

 But who knows ? Perhaps he finds some- 

 thing hereabout — wood-sorrel or what not 

 — that is more savory even than young 

 clover leaves and early garden sauce. From 

 somewhere on my right comes the sweet — 

 honey-sweet — warble of a rose-breasted gros- 

 beak ; and almost over my head, at the top- 

 most point of a tall spruce, sits a Blackburn- 

 ian warbler, doing his little utmost to express 

 himself. His pitch is as high as his perch, 

 and his tone, pure s, is like the finest of 

 wire. Another water bar surmounted, and 



^ Yes, he has even been seen (and "taken"), so I am 

 told, at the summit of Mount Washmgton. 



