The Trail 



has torn down. Glaring ax-wounds have all dis- 

 appeared under bandages of living moss; every 

 fallen log has hidden its loss under a mantle of 

 lichen, soft and gray, which speaks not of death 

 but of life renewed. 



Where the sun touches these prostrate giants a 

 blush of delicate color spreads over them. See, it 

 deepens as you look upon it curiously, and you 

 examine it to find a multitude of "fairy-cups" 

 on slender stems, each lifting its scarlet chalice to 

 the light. Very soft and inviting seats they offer, 

 yielding to your weight, sending up an odor as of 

 crushed herbs; but do not accept the invitation. 

 If you must halt to rest or to enjoy the stillness, 

 sit not down on one of these mossy logs, but before 

 it at a little distance, and let its blended colors be 

 to your eye what the wind in the pine is to your 

 ear, or the smell of hemlock to your nostrils. 

 Then will all your senses delight in harmony, their 

 natural birthright, while you rest by the way. 



Where the old road winds about the end of a 

 ridge, avoiding every steep pitch, young balsams 

 are crowding thickly into it ; where it turns down- 

 ward to the lowlands, quick-growing alders claim 

 it as their own; and as you leave the lake far 

 behind it begins to divide interminably, each 

 branch breaking into smaller branches, like the 

 twigs of a tree as you trace them outward. The 



[239] 



