184 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



both, and there seems little chance of its becoming either 

 save by state reforestation. Our hill people cannot be 

 trusted to reforest for themselves; they lack the in- 

 telligence now, even if they possessed the capital or the 

 ambition. So I climb the thank-you-marm rapids 

 past a tumbling brook, through scrub timber where the 

 half-hidden hemlocks are bravely striving up amid 

 the stump shoots, past fields where the vivid painter's 

 brush and the white Queen Anne's lace are disputing 

 possession with the invading forest, on my way toward 

 some gently dying hamlet on the windy hills above 

 a hamlet without a doctor now and perhaps without 

 a parson and I dream of a day when the splendid, up- 

 standing forest trees will rise again as they rose of old, 

 to be harvested aright this second time for the good of 

 all future generations; when through their cathedral 

 aisles will wind such trails as sturdy trampers love, 

 leading from camp to camp beside a waterfall or over- 

 looking some splendid gorge or placid pond; and, still 

 fulfilling its social function and keeping its pioneer 

 character, each ancient village on its hilltop shall be 

 the heart and watch tower of the people's preserve. 

 It is a splendid dream, I think, and some day I expect 

 myself to see its realization begun, even in Massachu- 

 setts, which has a quaint faculty of every now and 

 then kicking clean over the traces of tradition in which 

 it usually plods, and doing something radical and emi- 

 nently sane. 



