4 NEW HAMPSHIRE 



overcoat and everything that goes with it (the 

 date was May 17), I reached my destination, five 

 mQes away, at the foot of Moosilauke. 



All this would hardly deserve narration, per- 

 haps (the story of travelers' discomforts being 

 mostly matter for skipping), only that it marked 

 the setting in of a cold, rainy « spell " that htmg 

 upon us for four days. Four sunless days out of 

 seven was a proportion fairly to be complained 

 of. The more I consider it, the truer seems the 

 equation just now stated, that mountain weather 

 is three fifths of life. For those four days I did 

 not even see Moosilauke, though we were living, 

 so to speak, upon its shoulder, and I knew by 

 hearsay that the summit house was visible from 

 the back doorstep. 



My first brief walk before supper should rea- 

 sonably have been in the clearer valley country ; 

 but if reason spoke inclination did not hear it, 

 and my feet — which seem to feel that they are 

 old enough by this time to know their master's 

 business for him — took of their own motion an 

 opposite course. The mountain woods, as I en- 

 tered them, had the appearance of early March : 

 only the merest sprinkling of new life, — clin- 

 tonia leaves especially, with here and there a 

 round-leaved violet, both leaves and flowers, —^ 

 upon a groimd still all defaced by the hand of 



