166 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
watch the immigrant sparrow to see whether he 
is not learning that migration southward in the 
season of snow is wise and comfortable. He 
does wander somewhat, already, when food fails, 
and it will not be strange if, as years pass, he 
should acquire by sympathetic vibration some¬ 
thing of the swing of the migratory pendulum. 
When I walk slowly home from my office 
past Christ Church and the silent field of 
quaintly lettered stones, past the old elm within 
whose shade Washington took command of the 
Colonial army, and past Cotton Mather’s gold 
chanticleer holding high his ancient head against 
the rosy afterglow, I seem to see beyond all 
these things the crouching lion of Chocorua. 
Waking or dreaming, the outline of that peak is 
always stamped upon my northern horizon, and 
the north is the point to which my face turns as 
surely as does the needle, whenever my face, 
like the needle, is left to settle its direction in 
accordance with its controlling affinities. In 
these October days the picture of Chocorua 
which haunts me is not a summer picture. Far 
from it. In it the leaves are falling, drifting 
down like snow, birds are silent, nervous, al¬ 
ways on the alert for danger; new ledges show 
upon the mountain-sides, new vistas have opened 
through the forests, and spots which, when be¬ 
hind their August leaf mantles seemed dark and 
