The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-17

Englanders here, and how they blossom
and develop in the far West on the newer
railway lines, when matters come very
nearly to civil war between rival compa-
mics racing for the same canyon. How
there is a country not very far away called
Caledonia, populated by the Scotch. who
can give points to a New Englander in
bargain, and how these same Scotch,
Americans by birth, name their townships
still after the cities of their thrifty race
1t was all as new and delightful as the
steady "scrunch' of the snowshoes and
the dazzling silence of the hills.
Beyond the very furthest range were
the pines turned to a faint blue haze
against the white, one solitary peak-a
real mountain and not a hill-showed
like gigantic thumb-nail pointing heaven
ward.
"And that's Monadnocl," said the man
from the West "All the hills have Indian
names. You left Wantastigat on your
right coming out of town."
You know how 1t sometimes happens
that word shuttles in and out OF many
years, waking all sorts of homogeneous
associations. | had met Monadnock on
paper in a shameless parody of Emerson's
style before ever style or verse had inter-
est for me. But the word stuck because Of
a rhyme i'll which some one was:
crowned coeval
With Monadnock's crest,
And my wings extended
Touch the East and West.
Later the same word, pursued on the
same principle as that blessed one Mesopo-
tamia. led me TO and through Emerson up
to his poem on the peak itself-the wise
old giant, busy with his sky affairs" who
makes us sane and sober, and free from
little things, if we trust him. So Monad-
mock came to mean everything that was
helpful, healing and full of quiet, and
when saw half across New Hampshire he
did not fail. In that utter stiffness hem
lock Dough, overweighted with snow, came
down a foot or two with a tired little sigh;
the snow slid off and the little branch flew
nodding back to its fellows.
For the honor of Monadnock there was
made that afternoon an image In snow OF
Gautama Buddha, something too squat
and not altogether equal on both sides,
but with an imperial and repOseful waist.
He faced toward the mountain, and pres
emily some men in a wood sledge came up
the road and faced him. Now, the amazed
comments of two Vermont farmers on the
nature and properties OF swag-beliled
God are worth hearing. They were not
troubled about his race. for he was agrees
sively white, but rounded waists seem to
be out of fashion in Vermont. At least
they say so with rare and curious oaths.
Next day all the idleness and trifiing
were drowned in a snowstorm that filled
the hollows of the hills with whirling blue
mist, bowed the branches in the woods TIL
YOU ducked, but were powdered all the
same when you drove through, and wiped
out the sleighing tracks. Mother Nature
is beautifully tidy If you leave her alone.
She rounded off every angle, broke down
every scarp, and tucked the white bed
clothes till not a wrinkle remained up to
the chins of the spruces and the hemlocks
that would not go sleep.
.'Now," said the man of the West, as We
were driving to the station, and. alasl to
New York, all my suowshoe tracks are
gone; but when the snow melts week
hence, or a month hence, they'll come up
again and show you where I've BEEN"
A curious idea, is it not? Imagine
murder committed in the lonely woods,
snowstorm that covers the tracks OF the
living man before the avenger of blood has
buried the body. and then Il week later the
withdrawal OF the traitorous snow, reveal
ing. step by step, the path Cain took-the
six-inch deep trail of his snowshoes-each
step a dark disk on the white till the very
end
There is so much, so very much to
write If il were worth while. about that
queer little town by the railway station,
with its life running, to all outward SEEM
ing. rs smoothly as the hack coupes on
their sleigh mounting, and within dis
turbed by the hGtreds and troubles and
ieaIousies that yex the mind of all but the
gods. For instance-no, 1t is better to re-
member the lesson OF Monadnock, and
Emerson has said, "Zeus hates busybodies
and people who do too much"
That there are such folk a long nasal
drawl across Main street attests. A farmer
is unhitching his horse from post oppo-
site store. He stands with the tie rope
in his hand and gives his opinion TO his
neighbor and the world generally:
But them there Andersons they ain I
got no notions of etikwette!'
RUpYARD kIPLINS.