58o 



A MOLNTAIN TRAMP. 



etc., ad infinititm. I want to know everything about 

 them that there is to know." 



I had come to the right market to buy my wares. 

 The Colonel had been among the mountains for 

 years — before the railroad, before the land com- 

 panies and speculators, before the mining pros- 

 pector, before the novelist and summer tourist. He 

 was an encyclopedia of valuable information, but 

 he had no intention of allowing me to acquire my 

 knowledge at second hand ; I must get it by obser- 

 vation and experience. 



"You are just in time. I have business to-mor- 

 row that will take me up the mountain, and to a 

 typical mountain town. I will have horses ready at 

 day-break." 



It was mid-December ; we were on the Cumber- 

 land plateau. The morning dawned bright and warm 

 and the mercury stood at 65° as we started out. 

 The ground was dry and firm, and the dead leaves 

 rattled crisply under our horses' feet while we went 

 at a brisk pace along the bridle-path that led into 

 the heart of the forest. 



We were already on the "mountain" — that local 

 apellation embracing all that gigantic upheaval of 

 the plain which constitutes the plateau — at an ele- 

 vation of some fifteen hundred feet. Our way lay 

 along the undulations of this table-land, now up, 

 now down, but gradually ascending for five hundred 

 feet more. About us, as far as the eye could reach, 

 was the forest ; sometimes a vast expanse of spread- 

 ing oaks, their sere foliage giving ruby glints in the 

 sunlight ; again a sombre wall of towering pines, 

 standing tall and straight, and waving gracefully in 

 the wind. 



Upon the levels the vision could penetrate but a 

 little way, because the trees clustered so thickly ; 

 but, from points of vantage upon some slight ele- 

 vation, we could look far off over ridge and hollow, 

 and over succeeding ridges beyond, until the definite 

 sense of vision was lost in that last indefinable line 

 of blue that blended the mountain and the sky in 

 one. Back to earth again, and in the pine woods 

 where the trees grow so close together, many hun- 

 dred upon each acre, we see that the trunks are free 

 from branches except at the very top. The dense 

 shade that they make for themselves as they grow 

 is unfavorable to the development of branches, the 

 whole energy of the tree being expended in the 

 effort to reach above its fellows to the light. This 

 tendency to struggle toward the light is as apparent 

 in the tree as it is in the plant which always turns 

 toward the glass in the window-garden at home. 

 So to this, the "excelsior" desire in nature, is due 

 the smooth, tender boles of these pines, just tipped 



with spreading green branches, and rivalling palms 

 in their gracefulness. 



In these pine forests it is always twilight, except 

 when it is blackest night. The direct rays of the 

 sun rarely penetrate the green canopy. Some slant- 

 ing ray of light finds here and there an opening, 

 and wanders in below and flits like a will-o'-the- 

 wisp among the tree trunks, growing ever more dim 

 and mellow until it loses itself amid the pervading 

 gloom. 



Now and then we dip down into a ravine where a 

 stream of fresh water runs, and upon whose banks 

 the rhododendron and the mountain laurel grow. 

 We stop to gather some leaves of the rhododendron, 

 long, narrow, dark and glossy, hke the leaves of the 

 rubber plant. A big, yellow bud is at the axil of 

 each cluster, looking as if it was ready to burst 

 into sudden bloom, although it is mid-winter, and 

 not mid-summer, by the calendar. The promise that 

 it gives almost makes us wish that it had been our 

 fortune to come later, when the bloom and not the 

 bud alone could greet us. Yet our horses even now 

 are sweating under their sharp work, and the sun is 

 getting up straighter above the tree tops and send- 

 ing down warmer rays upon us. While the horses 

 refresh themselves with great draughts of cool 

 water, we take a closer look at the characteristic 

 vegetation about us. 



A group of water-birches stands a little way up 

 the ravine, and I have a fancy to strip some of 

 their bark to make a mountain note-book. Strip- 

 ping off the outer layers, which are somewhat rough 

 and ragged, I find the inner surfaces smooth, firm 

 and lighter in color, and taking the ink from my 

 fountain pen very well. It is a fit medium to carry 

 the notes of the mountain. 



Besides the birches we find a sourwood (oxyden- 

 drum), which bears such a pretty cluster of bell- 

 like blossoms that our English cousins have adopted 

 it for ornamental planting, re-christening it "The 

 American Lily of the Valley. " Even under so sweet 

 a name, no doubt, its foliage remains as acid to the 

 tongue as here in its native habitat, where it amply 

 justifies its name. A plant, as well as a prophet, 

 may gain honor by journeying to a far land ; our 

 common mullein grows in many an English door- 

 yard, where it is yclept "The American Flannel 

 plant !" And they who do these things are right ; 

 for many a plant that we term a weed is full of 

 grace and beauty ; at the most, a weed is only a 

 plant out of place ; the milk-weed and the thistle 

 are beautiful in bud and blossom, and more beauti- 

 ful yet in the last scene of all, when, on wings of 

 feathery cown they scatter their seeds abroad in 



