Very many years ago, at the foot of a nameless peak between Mount Ritter
and Togobah, after three successive years of deep snow there was a
glacier born. It crept out fanwise from a furrow on the mountain-side,
very high up, above the limit of the white-barked pines, and its upper
end was lost under the drift of loose snow that trailed down the slope.
For three successive winters the gray veil of storms hung month-long
about the crest of the Sierras, while the snow came falling, falling,
and the wind kept heaping, heaping, until the drifts sagged and slipped
of their own weight down the long groove of the mountain; and since it
lay on the sunless northern slope, and as it happened the summers that
came between fell cool and rainy, there, when the spring thaw had
cleared the loose snow, spread out on a little stony flat lay the rim of
the glacier. Yet it was a very little one, a rod or two of clear
shining ice that ran into deep blue and gray sludge under a drift of
coarse, whitish granules, and very high up, fine dry particles of snow
like powdered glass. So it lay at the time of year when the mountain
sheep began to come back to their summer feeding-grounds.
When the thaw had cleared the heather and warmed the lichened rocks,
they loosed their hold of the ice, and the great weight of it began to
crawl down the mountain. At the first slow thrill of motion the little
glacier creaked with delight.
"Ah," it said, "it is evident that I am not a mere snow bank, for in
that case I should remain in one place. Now I know myself truly a
glacier." For up to that time it had been in some doubt.
By the end of the summer it had advanced more than a span in the shadow
of the peak. Then the snows began, deep and heavy, but the glacier did
not complain; it hugged the floor of the rift where it lay, and thought
of the time when it should start on its travels again. So, because of
thinking about it so much, or because the snows were deeper and the
summers not so warm, the glacier increased and went forward until it had
quite crossed the stony flat, and began to believe it might make its
mark in the world. There were any number of reasons for thinking so. To
begin with, all that neighborhood was deeply scarred and scoured by the
trail of old glaciers, and the high peaks glittered with the keen polish
of ice floes. All down the slope shone glassy bosses of clear granite
succeeding to beds of cassiope and blue heather, polished slips of
granite, pentstemon and more heather, smooth granite that the feet could
take no hold upon, then saxifrage and meadowsweet, and so down to the
stream border, where the water quarreled with the stones. And by the
time the little glacier had settled that it would leave such a mark on
the mountain-side, shining and softened by small blossomy things, it had
come quite to the farthest border of the flat, and looked over the edge
of a sharp descent. It was much too far to bend over, for though the
glacier was all of brittle ice, it could bend a little.
"But it is really nothing," said the glacier. "I have only to grind down
the cliff until it is the proper height;" and it took a firmer hold on
the sharp fragments of stones it had gathered on its way down the
ravine. The pressure of the sodden snow above kept on, however, and
before the glacier had fairly begun its grinding the ice rim was pushed
out beyond the bluff, broke off, and lay at the foot in a shining heap.
"So much the better," said the cheerful glacier. "What with grinding
above and filling with broken ice below, the work will be accomplished
in half the time."
But that never really happened, for this was the last season the ice
reached to the far edge of the flat. The next year there was less snow
and more sun. The long slope of bare rocks gathered up the heat and held
it so that the ice began to melt underneath, and a stream ran from it
and fell over the cliff in a fine silvery veil.
"How very fortunate," said the glacier, "to become the head of a river
so early in my career. Besides, this is a much easier way of getting
over the falls."
Then the water began to purr in sheer content where it went among the
stones; it increased and went down the canyon toward the white torrent of
the creek that flowed from Togobah, and the next summer a water ousel
found it. She came whirling up the course of the stream like a thrown
pebble, plump and slaty blue, scattering a spray of sound as clear and
round as the trickle of ice water that went over the falls. The ousel
sat on the edge of the ice rim to finish her song, and it timed with the
running of the stream.
"You should understand," said the glacier, "that I started in life with
the intention of cutting my way down the mountain. But now I am become a
river I am quite as well pleased."
"Everything is the best," said the ousel; "that has been the motto of my
family for a long time, and I am sure I have proved it." And if one
listened close as she flew in and out of the falls and sought in the
white torrent for her food, one understood that it was the burden of her
song. "Everything is the best," she sang, and kept on singing it when
the glacier had grown so small by running that it was quite hollowed out
under the roof of granulated snow, and the light came through it softly
and wonderfully blue. Then the ousel would go far up into this ice cave
until the sound of her singing came out wild and sweet, mixed with the
water and the tinkle of the ice. As for the words of her song, the
glacier never disagreed with her, though by now it had retreated clear
across its stony flat. But the wind brought in the seeds of dwarf willow
that sprouted and took root, and bright little buttercups began to come
up and shiver in the flood of ice water.
"It seems I am to have a meadow of my own," said the glacier, by the
time there was stone-crop and purple pentstemon blowing in the damp
crevices about its border. "I do not believe there is a prettier ice
garden on this side of the mountain. And to think that all I once
wished was to leave a track of bare and shining stones! The ousel is
right, everything is for the best."
The ousel always went downstream at the beginning of the winter, when
the running waters were shut under snow bridges and the pools were
puddles of gray sludge, down and down to the foothill borders, and at
the turn of the year followed up again in the wake of the thaw. So it
was not often that the ousel and the glacier saw each other between
October and June.
"But of course," said the glacier, "the longer you are away, the more we
have to say to each other when you come."
"And anyway it cannot be helped," said the ousel. For though she did not
mind the storms and cold weather, one cannot really exist without
eating.
After one of these winter trips, the ousel noticed that the stream that
came over the fall had quite failed, ran only a slender trickle that
dripped among the shivering fern and was lost in the rock crevices, and
though she was such a cheerful little body, she did not like to be the
first to speak of it. It seemed as if the glacier could not last much
longer at that rate. So she flitted about in the lace-work caverns of
the ice, and sang airily and sweet, and the words of her song were what
they had always been.
"That is quite true," said the glacier. "You see how it is with me; once
I was very proud to run over the fall with a splashing sound, but now I
find it better to keep all the water for my meadow."
In fact, there was quite a border of sod all about where the ice had
been, and a great mat of white-belled cassiope in the middle. It grew
greener and more blossomy every year. The ousel grew so used to finding
it there, and so pleased with the society of the glacier, which was
quite after her own heart, that it was a great grief to her as she came
whirling up the stream in the flood tide of the year to find that they
had both, the meadow and the ice, wholly disappeared.
That had been a winter of long, thunderous storms, and a great splinter
of granite had fallen away from the mountain peaks and slid down in a
heap of rubble over the place where the glacier had been. There was now
no trace of it under sharp, broken stones.
But because they had been friends, the ousel could not keep quite away
from the place, but came again and again and flew chirruping around the
foot of the hill. One of those days when the sun was strong and the
heather white on the wild headlands, she saw a slender rill of water
creeping out at the bottom of the rubbish heap, and knew at once by the
cheerful sound of it that it must be her friend the glacier, or what was
left of it.
"Yes, indeed," bubbled the spring, "it is really surprising what good
luck I have. As a glacier, I suppose I should have quite melted away in
a few summers; but with all this protection of loose stones, I shouldn't
wonder if I became a perennial spring."
And in fact that is exactly what occurred, for with the snow that sifted
down between the broken boulders, and the snow water that collected in
the hollow where the meadow had been, the spring has never gone quite
dry. Every summer, when the heather and pentstemon and saxifrage on the
glacier slip are at their best, the cheerful water comes out of the foot
of the nameless peak and the ousel comes up from the white torrent and
sits upon the stones. Then they sing together, and their voices blend
perfectly; but if you listen carefully, you will observe that the words
of their song are always the same.