BERRY-TIME FELICITIES 167 



days afterward, wlien the weather has changed 

 its mind again, and the mercury is once more 

 reaching for the century mark. 



In the course of my five days I walked 

 twice over the road newly cut through the 

 mountain forest from the foot of Echo Lake 

 to the golf grounds : first upward, in an af- 

 ternoon, returning to Franconia by the old 

 highway; then downward, in a forenoon, 

 after reaching the lake by way of the Butter 

 Hill road and the sleepers, that is to say, the 

 railroad. Forenoon and afternoon the im- 

 pression was the same, — silence, as if the 

 birds' year were over, though everything was 

 still green and the season not so late but that 

 tardy wood-sorrel blossoms stiU showed, here 

 and there one, among the clover-like leaves ; 

 old favorites, that I had not seen for perhaps 

 a dozen years. 



On the railroad — a place which I have 

 always found literally alive with song and 

 wings, not only in May and June, but in 

 September and October — I walked for for- 

 ty-five minutes, by the watch, without hear- 

 ing so much as a bird's note. Almost the 



