WEEDS ABOVE THE SNOW 303 



plain and hides a sight, from this close angle, of the 

 domed summit yet a thousand feet higher. So 

 steep, indeed, are the upper ledges of this shaggy- 

 shoulder that they are, in places, practically pre- 

 cipitous, and the trees, seen from below, are out- 

 lined against a white backing, either of snow-and- 

 ice-covered cliffs or of the upended forest floor 

 itself. 



The bulk of the forest is deciduous, a mixed 

 stand of chestnut and hardwoods; and now the 

 straight, forest-grown trunks are suddenly stabbed 

 in a new distinctness against the white backing, 

 with a myriad down strokes of the etcher's needle. 

 Their sprayed tops, an intricate maze of hairlike 

 lines, are colored in subdued tints of lavender, red, 

 and brown, as if the colored ink had been delicately 

 brushed on with a bit of feather. The scattered 

 evergreens — pines and hemlocks — are, however, 

 firmly etched in outline, each one distinct though 

 half a mile away, and colored a rich dark green with 

 a loaded brush. There is an old saying that you 

 cannot, when too close, see the forest for the trees. 

 Here on the great, white, upstanding paper of the 

 mountain-side, I suddenly behold both the forest and 

 the trees. The mountain looks even higher and 

 steeper than when wearing its customary aspect; the 

 forest is no less impressive in bulk; but the myriad 

 arboreal units which compose it are suddenly re- 

 vealed, each one delineated with infinite patience, 

 in its naked skeleton of trunk and branches, pat- 

 terned in ink strokes on the snow. 



Letting my eyes come back from the mountain 

 ledges to the pasture at my feet, I am aware of the 



