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 



