FORGOTTEN ROADS 161 



we set out directly for the mountain, over a steep 

 pasture and through an orchard full of Porter apple- 

 trees. For a time it seemed doubtful if I should 

 ever get any farther, for a ripe Porter, sun-kissed 

 and exuding its incomparable odor, is like nothing 

 else on earth. Also, it makes by far the best apple 

 jelly, as all old-time housewives knew. Yet, to-day, 

 I cannot find it stocked by any nursery, presumably 

 because the fruit does not pack and ship well as if 

 we were to grow no apples for our own home use! 



But I digress. Even to-day the mere thought of 

 a Porter apple delays me, as the apples themselves 

 did that morning. Ultimately, however, we got 

 started again, and entered the woods on the moun- 

 tain-side, by what seemed at that time a very old 

 and well-made logging-road. It headed straight 

 up for the ridge, missing the peak of the mountain 

 by only two or three hundred feet, and dropping 

 down on the other side into a beautiful and then 

 heavily timbered erosion "cove" (as it would be 

 called in the Cumberlands) , a kind of amphitheater 

 cut into the mountain, with a green meadow at the 

 bottom, and out through the open end a view of far 

 blue hills. This was not a logging-road; it was the 

 ancient road for man and beast from Charlemont to 

 Rowe. Up it came mahogany furniture, tea, mo- 

 lasses, silks, and Bibles; down it went wool and 

 syrup and grain. Why make a six-mile detour to 

 follow the grade of Pelham Brook, when the straight 

 line lay right here, with nothing but Mount Adams 

 in the way? The ancient road-bed was carpeted 

 deep with moss and purpled with magnificent fringed 

 gentians. It finally descended to farms and became 



