# The Heart of Monadnock/Chapter 5

​ ALONG THE SIDE-FOOT PATH
V
This morning the Mountain-Lover had work to do, for proofs must be read, corrected, and sent off in the noon mail. It was not till after midday dinner, therefore, that he could take his joyous way aloft.
Which way to day of a hundred allurements? He had rather thought of the enticing Parker trail leading from the main road below the house, for he dearly loved those crisp pastures with their roughly jutting rocks and intimate details; but after sitting still all the morning—at real work, he remarked to himself—his muscles clamored for use. He wandered up the Sidefoot, consequently, to take any offshoot of it that called him. The call came from the steep and slippery Hedgehog path where it leaves ​the Sidefoot, up through high woods with its carpet of thick, brown needles, sun-freckled and appealing. The climber rarely took this path on his upland way, for it was much more alluring to strike into it far above when his face was turned homeward and race down it with great six-foot leaps; there is little underbrush hereabouts; maples, with their leaves of golden green as one looks up through them, and the huge spruces of the lower slants, use this as common ground. However—something seemed to beckon him this way and he swung up the steep ascent slowly, for the path was always slippery with its dry and shiny carpet.
He had gone well beyond the Link-path and was bearing to his left, when he heard racing steps above him; looking up the path he saw someone leaping down as he himself loved to do, slipping on the glassy needles, catching young saplings as he came and swinging himself around them with great downward bounds. A most exhilarating method of descent! As the runner drew ​close the climber saw him catch at a young sapling that was quite dead and he called out quickly not to trust it—but not quickly enough. The runner caught it, and as he swung around on it, it snapped under his weight and the rash one came rolling downwards headlong into a needle-cushioned hollow.
The climber sprang to his aid, but the runner rolled over and sat up dazed but unhurt, but ruefully rubbing his head. He stared up and the climber stared down.
"Young man," admonished the climber, seeing the other had hurt nothing but his feelings, "if that had happened ten feet further up, you would have had a nasty fall on that ledge above you and a broken head might have been your lot. It is all right to run down and great fun—but if you do, you will have to look critically at anything you catch hold of; if you swing in that rash fashion on dead saplings or dead branches you'll easily break your neck. Don't you know that?"
​The runner, a vigorous, sunny-faced lad of seventeen or so, grinned engagingly as he still rubbed the back of his head.
"Got a bump like a pumpkin as it is! But I didn't have time to look and see! Please tell a fellow how you manage that when you are coming down lickettysplit?" He sucked his slightly bleeding palm as he discovered that the broken wood had torn it.
"You just see," began the climber, suddenly realizing how entirely it was a matter of long and almost unconscious training of eye to do this; how subconsciously one would take in every aspect around; how he himself would note without awareness, no matter how fast he chanced to be coming down, whether a branch or sapling to which he trusted his weight was sound; how his foot avoided, as if of its own volition, a loose-looking stone. That habit of the swift, appraising glance, no matter how intent his mind was on other things, had long ago become second nature—or as the Duke of Wel​lington said, "That habit which is ten times nature."
The climber laughed down at the sunny-faced lad.
"Not used to the woods, are you?"
"Not much. Seashore, mostly. Like to sail. But I'd like this too. We came last evening. My father used to come here, but I never came before. He took me up on the Pulpit Rock trail and then we tumbled into a path which was all broken rocks right under it—Hedgehog—he called it. Then back there when I saw this bully long stretch through the woods, I sprinted. But," returning to the point, as he sprang up, "how in thunder do you see dead wood when you're running, before you grab it?"
"That's part of wood-lore. Disciplined eyesight, I suppose," returned the Mountain-Lover.
"At any rate, if you climb much, you'll cultivate it. You'll get bad falls if you don't! Or else don't try stunts. Let your eye be quicker than your hand—that's all. Sure you're not hurt? Is that ​your father coming?" He smiled and nodded at the well-knit boy who waved his hand first at the approaching figure, then at himself, and then dashed off down the steepest part of the path with unabated zeal. The climber watched him with interest as he took a flying leap, slipped, and then slid down fifteen feet or so on his back. The observer waited for a moment to speak to the father as he drew near.
"Loose stone," he commented, as they both watched the boy pick himself up again. "Not hurt, though. Oh, well! he'll learn."
The climber took his own leisurely way upwards again as they parted. He left the Hedgehog trail where the little emerald rug of the Green Carpet trail spreads itself under the ice-worn heights of the great ridge above him, and went across its green delights. His thoughts were on the boy and the broken branch.
"What mishaps of life come through lack of this seeing eye!" he mused. "Having eyes they see not and hearing they do not ​understand! Unproven statements camouflage as sense. Unchallenged assertions carry specious conviction with them. Untried advisers are accepted at their own valuation. They look sound—but a close inspection would show the rottenness."
He came slowly up the short, steep bluff that shuts off the Green Carpet dell to the north, turning again to his right to strike into the Pulpit Rock trail toward the Four Spots, meaning to wander on towards Inspiration Rock. As he came out into the open above tree-line, he dropped down for a moment on a rock overlooking the serenity of the Peterboro' Hills. He paused to eat blueberries. The route of everybody is punctuated by blueberries but they never interrupt one's meditations with their gustatory appeal. The thoughts of the climber meandered on disjointedly.
"How often men say in some misadventure, 'I trusted to so and so for I supposed he knew.' Why did they suppose so without testing? One good look might have told ​anyone so! How many important operations have I seen go to smash because a critical detail was entrusted to some one who was really rotten at the core, and no one had looked closely enough to see? That investment of mine last winter. Served me right! Looked sound—good returns, apparently—but I should have investigated myself and then I would have seen the conditions were not as represented; only true on the surface. I should have given that suspicious weak spot in the affair attention enough to know it was really rottenness—when I thought it an unimportant detail! Yes, served me right. One thought of this law of the trail would have saved me. Rotten branches indeed! Why should I do in life among important crises what I should not dream of doing up on the mountain? Loose stones! Decayed wood! Dead branches! And unseeing eyes!"
He had come out beyond the Coffee Pot Camp and the calm stretch of the mountain was before him. He looked up musingly at ​broad reaches of cliff and bluff and precipice above the green, ribbon-like cleft through which the Paradise Valley way takes its shadowy length. The afternoon sun lay full on the soft, mellow, brownish-gray of the lichened rocks, bringing out every rent and cranny. High in the heavens floated banners of fleecy white foam that might be playthings of the angels, set astream by them, drifting long pennons from some point in the southwest. A west wind blew lightly laden with spicy sweetness. A rare mountain goldfinch made its swooping flight near him. On the breath of the breeze came down from the watching heights, etched against the profound northern blue, a voice that whispered half mockingly,
"Listen and learn, oh, deaf mortal!"
The Mountain-Lover had had with him for a few days a friend who was new to the mountain. They had once done some ice ​climbing in the Alps together, where the appeal had been to the physical and the emotional, and both delighted in the contrast here where the mental, the ethical and the æsthetic overrode the purely physical. Monadnock can never be called strenuous. That is why one has time to think. . .
The two had taken with keen pleasure all the loved trails and outlooks. They had followed the Upper trail to the Great Pasture, along the west side the Monte Rosa, down through the woods, coming back by way of the Cart path and the Twisted Birch. They had dropped down under the Matterhorn and had looked up at craggy Point Surprise towering above them. They had gone far out on the Dublin Ridge past the Sarcophagus, following the waving path as it meanders up and down the peaks on that long, stern shoulder, to where the path drops down into the woods, leading to the little village by its green lake. They had gone over the Jaffrey shoulder and taken the old White Spot trail down far below, ​crossing over to the Ark trail and coming up that way. They had visited the Tufted Spruce and explored the many twisting trails on both sides of Mossy Brook, and they had gone down into Dingle Dell and swarmed up Inspiration Rock.
The friend had gone on his way, and the Mountain-Lover was alone again. One reason why he so constantly wandered off by himself was that most people in starting out very naturally wanted to get to some particular point—and the Mountain-Lover never cared whether he arrived or not. He liked best to set off with some destination only vaguely in his mind, and he loved to be free to change it as the fancy took him. Perhaps more often than not he found himself fulfilling the first half-formed intention, but he preferred to be untrammelled by the usual masculine desire to do a thing—of no particular importance, it might be—simply because one has announced that object. He was not without sympathy and understanding of those who liked to pursue a definite ​plan—and he was quite willing they should have that pleasure; only, not with him.
"With previous intentions I have nothing whatever to do," he liked to say largely to himself when he suddenly swerved from his first plan if some unexpected enticement offered itself. This was his playtime.
He betook himself to the Monte Rosa trail this morning, loitering along until he should hear the call of some special path. The way above the spring was this morning edged with the strange lapis-lazuli blue of Clintonia berries with their dull richness of color. He took the trail to the Tooth when he came to the branching of the paths. Every path was so intensely characteristic! If he had been dropped on any of them blindfolded he thought he could tell almost unerringly when he opened his eyes, just where he was. To newcomers or to casual observers, it might be that all paths looked alike; narrow, almost imperceptible tracks, winding among trees, jutting rocks on one side or the other, moss, Clintonia berries or bunch​berries everywhere, little ascents and drops of the path, moss and maples, spruces and blueberries all around. But to say, nevertheless, that they were all alike was to say that the human race is all alike because all men have two eyes, a nose and a mouth. There are people who say that all Chinese look alike to them; or all negroes. Also, all mountain paths.
As usual the deciduous trees swiftly gave way to the hardy spruces which defy the upland winds even though tortured and twisted and stunted by them. Trees only five feet high, up here often have a diameter of seven or eight inches; their lowest boughs may carpet the ground for a distance of ten feet in the direction away from the prevailing knife-blade winds of the winter, making an elastic bed on which one may lie. Always the trees are one sided, throwing out their defiant, blunted green pennons away from the wind. Courageous little warriors! Battered out of shape, thwarted in every design of symmetry, balked in their ambitions, ​plundered of their hopes, frustrated in their growth, valiantly they stand their ground; undismayed they lift their bold little green heads. Always close to them creep the weltering blueberries, decorating themselves with their tiny globes of lusciousness, exquisite bloom on the pinky-blueness.
The Mountain-Lover came out of the last little cleft between these indomitable little green soldiers, and approached the huge, jutting Tooth which slants from its base with deep shadow beneath. A sheer sweep of bed-rock here. Under the Tooth the climber sat himself down to take in at his leisure the wide-rolling and lovely view to the south with Gap mountain in the foreground. Its slippery, grassy double top caught the sunlight; its sides were melting yellows and greens. From the distance, the eyes of the observer turned to the lichen-growths near him, with their spreading map-*like decorations; what colors were hidden in their crumpled folds! stains of yellow, of brown, scarlet, gray and green. Strange, ​subtle harmonies which one must look closely to observe, for at the first glance they look dun-brown. Only those that have eyes may see.
The loiterer rose and glancing around, slowly headed his way towards the Black Precipice and the Amphitheatre trail. . . In one of the little hollows he saw ahead of him what looked like a moving bunch of brownish leaves. It was a porcupine, waddling unconcernedly along with its whitish-brown quills folded down peaceably. The observer had never seen one so far up here before and he followed its ungainly course for a little distance with much interest, till quite undisturbed by his proximity it finished its daily exercise and retired to its rock fastness. Two or three quills lay on the ground near and the observer lifted them with an interest that was always fresh. What marvellous things were these hollow quills with their points of needle fineness!
Up above, in the last stretch of the Red Cross trail, nearly under the peak, a scarlet-sweatered climber made a vivid blotch of color. Below fell the Dingle Dell trail with ​ UNDER THE BLACK PRECIPICE
​its marking-stone of white quartz. He was just turning to the north, when he heard a clamoring voice hailing him from behind, and as he looked down the Dingle Dell trail in the direction from which the hail came, he saw some one—a very puffy and disheveled some one—who called to him in no uncertain terms. This one announced at the top of his lungs, as he toiled upwards, that he was lost. He summoned the wayfarer above him to stop and tell him where he was. He made parenthetical and emphatic comments on so-called paths that did not exist—as far as he was concerned. He implied that they were unworthy of any dictionary interpretation of the name.
The climber waited sympathetically. The toiler mounted, still puffily ejaculating, till he gained the rise where the other stood at attention, and gasped out further explanations.
He had arrived last evening, late. He had never been here before, but he had often seen the mountain from a distance and ​knew it for a small one. He had intended to climb it this morning, and then after dinner to take the Lost Farm trail to the Ark. Come back by automobile and the next day do all the rest of the trails. The listener smiled but said nothing. The newcomer observed he wished to do it all up at once as he could not stay long. He had inquired this morning of several people at the house, and they told him the Paradise Valley trail up to the top was the best; not so steep. He had obtained a map. He had set out, per instructions, on that—what did they call it? Side Foot?—Well, he walked on the sides of his feet all the way up. He was to come out at the top of the Staircase. Oh, yes, it looked all plain on the map. Then he was to take some way over the rocks and come into the Paradise Valley and go up that path and strike the summit quite easily. He had seen a picture of the Main trail called the Last Arrow. It was surely steep and this, they said, was better. So he tried the Sidefoot, and came out at last on the top of some ​rocks. Didn't see any Staircase—unless it was all Staircase. He couldn't see anything but high rocks. Map useless. Didn't look anything like it should. Nothing that looked like a Valley, much less like Paradise. Well, he browsed around a little, and saw those stones that they told him marked a way. Cairns? Thank you. So he followed them, hoping to find a Valley that led up, though he had always supposed that valleys led down. Ever climbed mountains before? No. NEVER. This was the first; likely to be a very emphatic last. He liked good level seashore where one could see where one was going. Asbury Park for him. But—well—he kept going after those little stones. Oh, yes, he could see them all right. He wasn't blind. But the blamed things kept on going down; it was into a valley all right, only he wasn't going where he wanted to get—on top. First he thought it might twist around somehow. At last he concluded to turn around and try some other way—but he didn't realize how far down he had gone. ​Then in turning he had somehow mislaid that emphatically inconspicuous path—which still did not consort with dictionary definitions—and he found he had lost cairns and directions into the bargain. He had therefore been stumbling around down there, until he had at last broken through into the open—and then, thank Heaven! he had seen some one he could ask.
Having thus delivered himself he ran down, panting. His narrative had been shot out, not perhaps in one breath, but in a staccato succession of breaths; he stumbled into a few periods, but they were clearly rhetorical only, and not intended for full stops. The state of his trim brown business suit—for he was dressed as if for Tremont Street—the scratches on his shining tan shoes—for traces of high polish still lingered amid abrasions—his scratched but well-cared-for hands, his hat pushed back from a rubicund, reeking countenance, which, in spite of his difficulties, showed, the observer was interested to note, an in​eradicable good humor—all testified to the truth of his panting Odyssey.
The Mountain-Lover took up the refrain, all sympathy. Yes, it was hard at times to find one's way on the paths, especially when they crossed; no, perhaps they were not very plain to a stranger. The trail he should have taken led up around that little precipice that he had faced when he first came out into the open. He could follow the little cairns back across the rocks in this dip, and he would easily find the Sidefoot again and thence down to the house.
FROM THE CLIFF WALK DISTANT HILLS RIPPLE TO THE SKY-LINE
REPRODUCED BY THE COURTESY OF STURGIS H. THORNDIKE
​guide and then at his own Tremont Street array, that he could plainly see there would be somewhat greater interest in the climb, for him, if he could plump his feet down like that on the rocks. For himself, he wasn't walking; he was stepping.
"But it's some view," he suddenly concluded.
Then he scanned with interest the immediate spot on which they stood and compared the directions which the guide indicated, with his map. Oh, yes, he had seen those little stones up there, but he didn't think there was sense in them. It looked as if he couldn't get around up there, and so he didn't try them. Seemed to him that the way he had taken was more sense. No, he hadn't exactly lost his way here, so much as taken the wrong one. Down there in the Dinky Dell trail he had lost his way if you like, for he had turned around just a few times and suddenly the path had walked off.
The Mountain-Lover smiled. Then something in the confiding aspect of his new ​friend made him to his own surprise suddenly break his own fixed principle of never giving advice—a principle wrung out of many past experiences—and proffer a suggestion for the future, apropos of being lost, in the remote chance that the newcomer might be tempted on a future mountain exploration.
"You might find this suggestion useful," he therefore offered; "as soon as you find you are lost, remember that then the path cannot be far away, for you could not go a dozen feet without knowing you have strayed from it. Just here is the trouble, for most people at this point begin to hunt around frantically and almost immediately they lose all sense of direction. The woods to the casual observer look much alike on all sides and in a moment you are not sure from what direction you came. So here is the point; the moment you realize you are lost, tie your handkerchief to a high bough to give you a center, or a landmark; remember your path is still close at hand some​where. Now circle around your handkerchief, first in small circles, then in larger ones, peering carefully to right and left, for these narrow trails can scarcely be seen except lengthwise. You must look directly into them to find them, generally. You have your landmark handkerchief to keep you from wandering away from the spot, you see. Now there, within a circumference probably of twenty feet and almost certainly within fifty, will be your path. You can usually find it within five minutes, and yet from lack of this simple bit of knowledge, many a man has been hopelessly lost."
The lost-and-found-one listened with absorbed attention, still mopping at intervals his moist and beaming countenance.
"Holy Peter!" he exclaimed, after a moment of ruminating silence. "Sounds simple. Stop in your tracks the moment you know you are lost. Make a landmark. Find your path and get back. Don't get lost any more than you are."
​His guide was lost in admiration at his quick, businesslike way of grasping and phrasing the suggestion.
"Ever been lost yourself? Tried it?" pursued the other.
"Yes. Not here. Adirondacks. Would have been pretty serious but for my remembrance of this bit of woodcraft. I learned it from Stewart White."
"White? Stewart? Boston? I don't know him," returned the lost-and-found-one briefly. He leaned against the rock and seemed to be chewing and digesting the idea which had just been presented to him, finding in it unsuspected papulum. There came a little intent scowl on his rubicund but no longer dripping brow as he explored the unwonted track of metaphor in his practical mind.
"I like that." He took up the cud of the advice and set his teeth in it again. "I like that idea. It has sense because you can get lost in more places than the woods." He spoke with staccato pauses of reflection. ​"You get off the track in life pretty easy. And gettin' back is the very Old Boy. Just kind of do the wrong trick just for once, you think, and by jinks, you may get in the brambles for keeps! Business men know!"
The Mountain-Lover waited with wonder-struck interest. If a fat rabbit from the bushes had hopped out and sat up and given him instructions in mathematics he could hardly have been more astonished than at this unlooked-for application. He glanced up at the Wise Old Titan bending his benignant face over them; who would have dreamed that in this plump and prosperous merchant there would have been a listener?
The speaker went on, striking his short forefinger in the palm of his other hand for emphasis. His quick business imagination—for he surely had that variety, if no other—sifted its own grist from the hopper.
"Tell you what I thought of, quick as you said that," he went on in breathless earnestness.
"In our business—I'm jewellery, near Providence—have a biggish store—there's ​a young feller I been sorter interested in. Good, promisin' chap. We find it pays to sorter keep an eye on the young fellers outside business—find out what they do—where they spend their evenings; all that I'd liked this one. Well, some time ago, I began to suspect something was wrong; he was spending too freely for his salary—see? I suspected he was playin' high perhaps. Found out he was. Boy didn't even know he was off the track, you see! Beginner's luck. I watched him a little because I didn't want him to go wrong—but it's mighty easy to go wrong—just kinder step aside, and there you are. Just like you said. Next thing, he was mighty glum. Losin', I thought He's got a good business head on him, and I didn't want him to go wrong. I kep' my eye on him for weeks—couldn't really find anything wrong but kinder sensed it Then—I began to suspect some monkeyin' with the books and I found out his wife—she's a pretty, young thing—was ill and had to have an operation. Then—​things happened—ain't necessary to go into that—but he was frightened to death, and way off. I kep' my eye opened wider and I was sure he was lost—just as you said. Was just runnin' round and round and gettin' worse off every moment. Just like you said. Couldn't find his way back and it was pretty brambly."
The speaker stopped to disentangle himself. His guide listened in absorbed interest to the jerky narrative.
"Just here I found something to put my hand on. No one else knew. My partner was sick for a long time, so that was easy. Got on to it good and sure. Had him up before me. I been a boy myself and I know how it is—mighty easy! Mighty easy!" The kindly face began to look radiant to the absorbed listener. Utterly unegotistical in this aspect, the talker was merely interested in following out haltingly the application he had oddly enough detected.
"Well, in another week he'd have gotten where I couldn't have saved him. He'd of ​been over the edge for sure! He'd gotten off the path first in that gamblin' business. Was lately married and it was more expensive business than he thought She was a good little thing, but inexperienced. What could you expect? Made money first. Easy money. Then, of course, he began to lose. Old story. Couldn't get out of the tangle, as I said. Handled firm's money—was a good bookkeeper—easy for him to juggle things a bit Yet strange to say, he wasn't prison-fodder—not a bit of it Just nothin' but lost. Frightened to death. Then the little wife. He adored her and she got appendicitis, and it all got worse. Had to have money—and he played again, hopin' to win. You can guess! See?"
The listener nodded, watching him intently.
"Mighty nice lad!" reminiscently. "Well, I had him in my office—and—well—it all came out. Kinder sullen, at first. Kinder bitter." The fat, red face grew more eager till it fairly shone, but he did not dwell on ​the kindliness of an understanding attitude that changed the sullenness and bitterness. Probably he did not think of it. Happened so, he would doubtless have said.
"Well, sir, we thrashed that all out. He saw where he got off wrong. Gamblin'—at first just for fun. And all the rest followed. I talked to him like a Dutch Uncle. We settled it all and got him back on the right path. He is to pay it all back little by little, and of course we saw his wife through. 'Twasn't fair that she should suffer because he got off the path. But he is on again now, and workin' like a horse. He won't lose the track again, not on your life. . . I see it all. He'd orter have made a landmark of his real honesty when he first got off and tied to it and circled around it till he found the path." The speaker again dried a perspiring brow, confused in his efforts to express unaccustomed metaphor. His mind was scaling unwonted heights of expression and his words clambered slowly after it.
​"Say! it let's me in for a whole lot!" he suddenly concluded with the air of a man holding in excited horses. He got up from the rock lumberingly and brushed off his clothes mechanically. There was a new look in his eyes as he glanced slowly from side to side of the fair expanse, and then turned a searching gaze aloft to the peaks.
"Something up here in this air—I guess it is—that makes you think of things."
The listener smiled enigmatically.
"Yes—I notice it. I'm extremely interested in that story. Too common, as you say. Yes, 'To understand is to forgive.'"
He also glanced again at the mountain. Wise Old Titan!
"Come on, now!" said the jewelry-dealer briskly. "Mornin's gettin' on. Up there, you say? Hanged if I see the way around that edge there. Looks as if you'd fall off; plenty of room when you get there? All right! If you say so." He settled his hat firmly on his head, thrust his map in his ​pocket, drew a profound sigh, and started for the little precipice.
The Mountain-Lover found himself moving on before him, with no conscious decision in his mind to do so.
"I'll go up with you. I was not going in any particular direction this morning. No, not at all. I always enjoy it."
The oddly assorted pair went up the first ascent, while the Mountain-Lover smiled again quizzically to himself. Most unexpected listeners the old Titan found! But he was quite willing to do his own share when the opportunity insisted.