UP THE MOUNTAIN.
OSCAR, from the day of his arrival in Highburg, had expressed a desire
to ascend some one of the lofty mountain peaks in the neighborhood; and
Marcus had made a sort of half promise to get up a party, some fine
autumn day, to visit the Camel’s Hump, the highest eminence in that part
of the State. On reflection, however, it was thought best to abandon
this undertaking, on account of the distance of the mountain from
Highburg, the difficulty of making the ascent, and the time that would
be required for the expedition. But to compensate Oscar and the other
young folks for the disappointment, it was determined, one Saturday
afternoon, to make an excursion to a notable eminence called “Prescott’s
Peak,” situated about two miles from Mrs. Page’s.
The party consisted of Marcus, Oscar, Kate, Ronald, Otis, and Rover, the
dog. They struck an air-line towards the mountain, through fields,
meadows and woods, Rover strolling on ahead of the party, with an air of
entire satisfaction.
“I’ll bet Rover knows where we are going—don’t you believe he does,
Marcus?” inquired Oscar.
“I don’t know, I almost think sometimes that he knows what we say,”
replied Marcus.
“He knows a good deal that we say, any way,” remarked Otis. “You give
him a bucket, and tell him to carry it out to the barn, and he’ll do it
just as well as anybody; and he’ll lie down, or give you his paw, or
speak, if you tell him to.”
“One day, about a year ago,” said Marcus, “when Aunt Fanny was packing
her trunk, to go to Grandmother’s, she told Rover she had got to leave
him, and asked him if he didn’t want to go, too; and upon that he jumped
right into her trunk,—as much as to say, ‘Yes, I want to go,—pack me
in!’ When Aunt Fanny came back from her journey, it seemed as if he
would eat her up, he was so glad to see her. He never forgets anybody
that he has once known. Last summer, I took him over to Montpelier with
me, where he used to live; and although he hadn’t been there for over
two years, he remembered all his old friends, and went around and
scratched at all the doors of the houses he used to visit when he lived
there.”
“And he’s the neatest dog that I ever heard of,—he wont come into the
house with dirty paws,” added Kate.
“No,” continued Marcus, “and once when we had our floors newly painted,
and boards were laid to step upon, Rover understood the arrangement as
well as we did, and was careful to walk upon the boards until the paint
was dry.”
“We had a strange dog come to our house last winter, that knew
something,” said Otis. “He _knocked_ at the door, just as well as a man
could have done it. Mother went to see who had come, and she found
nothing but a dog. As soon as he saw her, he began to cry like a baby,
he was so cold and hungry. So she gave him some dinner, and let him warm
himself, and then he went off, and we never saw him again. But he
knocked at the door,—tap, tap, tap,—so you couldn’t have told him from a
man.”
“I could tell a story that would beat that,” said Oscar. “I knew a dog
in Boston that would open any door that was fastened by a latch, without
stopping to knock; and he’d shut it, too, if you told him to.”
“I could tell a story that would beat all of yours,” said Ronald. “It’s
about a dog that _unlocks_ doors; and if he can’t find the key, he will
hunt up a piece of wire, and _pick the lock_!”
“Why, Ronald Page! how dare you tell such a lie?” exclaimed Kate, after
the laugh that followed this sally had subsided.
“It wasn’t a lie,” replied Ronald. “I didn’t say a dog ever did that—I
said I could tell a _story_ about a dog that did it, and so I can.”
“It’s a lie, for all that; I’ll leave it to Marcus if it isn’t,”
rejoined Kate.
“Not exactly a lie, although it looks something like it,” observed
Marcus. “Ronald could not have intended to deceive anybody, when he told
such a tough story as that, and therefore it was not a falsehood. But”—
“A snake! a snake!” suddenly broke in Ronald, who was a little in
advance of the others.
“O, kill it! do kill it!” cried Kate, running back a few steps from the
scene of danger.
“No, I shan’t—you said I lied, and now you want me to commit murder, do
you?” retorted Ronald.
“Pooh! it’s nothing but the cast-off skin of a snake,” said Otis,
lifting it upon a stick, and tossing it toward Kate, who dexterously
dodged the missile.
“That was the skin of a black snake, wasn’t it?” inquired Oscar.
“Yes,” replied Ronald, “and a pretty large one, too.”
[Illustration]
“I saw a black snake all of six feet long, that summer I was down to
Brookdale,” said Oscar. “Jerry and I were on a high rock, and saw the
snake in the field below us. He was coiled up, and was watching a
squirrel that was a little way off. We got some stones, and pelted him,
but I believe we didn’t hit him, for we couldn’t find anything of him.”
“I killed a large black snake, all alone, down in our meadow, not more
than a month ago,” said Ronald.
“Is that one of your yarns, or do you expect us to believe it?” inquired
Oscar.
“It’s the truth, sir, I’ll leave it to Marcus, if it isn’t,” replied
Ronald.
“Hold on a minute,” said Marcus, stopping by the side of a small,
shallow pond they were passing; and, taking a stick, he began to stir up
its muddy bottom.
“What in the world is he dabbling in that dirty water for?” inquired
Kate.
“I guess he is hunting for frogs’ eggs,” said Ronald; “or, perhaps he’s
going to make some pollywog soup.”
“Do you see, he is going to set the pond afire!” cried Kate, as Marcus
drew some friction matches from his pocket.
Marcus continued his operations, without noticing the comments of his
companions, and in a little while, he actually produced a faint yellow
flame upon the surface of the water, to the astonishment of the company.
He then explained to them that this was an experiment which he had
learned while studying chemistry at the academy. When vegetable matter
decays under water, a gas called light carburetted hydrogen is formed,
which may be burned. On stirring up the bottom, the gas escapes, and
rises to the top in bubbles, and may be collected in jars, or set on
fire upon the surface of the water. This gas, he said, was the terrible
“firedamp,” which caused such tremendous explosions in coal mines,
before Sir Humphrey Davy invented his safety lamp, to protect the miners
from these disasters. He told them, also, that he had seen it stated in
a newspaper that on one of our Western rivers, when the water was very
low, the steamboats had to shut down their furnace doors for several
miles, and allow no torches to be lighted at night, for fear of “setting
the river on fire!” Frequently boats that did not use these precautions
at this particular place, have found themselves engulfed in flames,
greatly to the alarm of the passengers, and sometimes setting the
steamers on fire. In some instances, the passengers have come very near
leaping overboard, before the officers could convince them that there
was no danger; an act that would be almost literally “jumping from the
frying-pan into the fire.”
The party now resumed their course, and after skirting a swamp, and
threading their way thro’ a tangled growth of young birches and pines,
and breaking a path through the sharp, bristling stubble of a rye field,
they reached the foot of the mountain. The eminence was clothed with
that dress of unfading green from which this range takes its name,[3]
being covered with spruce, fir, hemlock, and other evergreens, to the
summit. They began the ascent by a narrow, steep and winding path,
which, however, had the appearance of being much used.
Footnote 3:
The range was named _Verd Mont_ by the early French settlers, which
means in English, Green Mountain. When the people declared themselves
a free and independent State, in 1777, they adopted the French name as
that of their Commonwealth, contracting it by the omission of the _d_.
“I should think a good many people came up here, by the looks,” remarked
Oscar.
“Not many, except Gooden’s folks,” replied Marcus.
“Who is Gooden?” inquired Oscar.
“He is a strange fellow who lives up on the mountain,” replied Marcus.
“We shall come to his cabin pretty soon, and perhaps you will have a
chance to see him.”
“But what does he live up here for, away from everybody?—is he cracked?”
inquired Oscar.
“He lives here because he prefers to keep out of the way of people, I
suppose,” replied Marcus.
“They say he used to steal, and got caught in a trap, once,” said Kate.
“A regular _steal_ trap, wasn’t it?” inquired Ronald.
“That is the common report,” added Marcus, not noticing Ronald’s pun,
“and I suppose it is true. The story is, that where he used to live, his
neighbors found their grain going off faster than they thought it ought
to, and one of them set a large bear trap, with steel springs and sharp
teeth, to catch the thief. One morning soon after, he went out to the
barn, and found Gooden fast in the trap. It caught him around the ankle,
and they say he was laid up for several months with a sore leg. He is a
little lame, now, from the effects of it. As soon as he could get away,
he came and settled in this out-of-the-way place, and lives as much like
a hermit as he can, with his family.”
“O, has he got a family?” inquired Oscar.
“Yes, a wife and four children,” replied Marcus.
“How does he support himself, now,—by stealing?” inquired Oscar.
“No,” replied Marcus, “nobody suspects him of dishonesty, now—he is
probably cured of that. He owns a cow, and raises corn and potatoes
enough to support his family. He kills some game, which supplies him
with meat. They get a little money by making maple sugar, and collecting
spruce gum. But after all they are quite poor, and people often give
them clothing, and other necessary articles. The children are growing up
in ignorance, too,—they never go to school or church. They will stand a
rather poor chance in the world, brought up in that way.”
[Illustration]
After toiling up the zigzag path awhile longer, the party came to an
open, level space, and found themselves within a few rods of Gooden’s
cabin, a small, rude structure, built of rough logs, with a large
chimney at one end, on the outside. Several children were playing around
the house, and the father himself was just coming in from a hunting
excursion up the mountain, with his gun on his shoulder, and his dog by
his side. Seeing the party approaching, Mr. Gooden went into the house
and shut the door. Marcus had often visited the family, on errands of
kindness, but knowing the morose and suspicious disposition of the
father, and his antipathy to company, he concluded not to stop at the
cabin. Exchanging a few words with Jake and Sally, the two oldest
children, who stood staring at the strangers, Marcus passed on, with his
party, through a path still more intricate and difficult.
“You said something about spruce gum—what do they do with it?” inquired
Oscar.
“They sell it,” replied Marcus. “A man comes round here every summer,
who makes it his business to collect spruce gum. He buys all the gum
that is offered him, and he hires boys to gather it for him, paying them
so much a pound. This gum is cleaned, and sent to the cities, where it
brings a good price.”
“Well, if everybody was like me, the spruce gum trade wouldn’t be worth
much,” said Kate. “I don’t see why anybody wants to chew the nasty
stuff, especially a young lady. How it looks, to see your jaws going the
whole time! There are some girls in the academy that always have their
mouths full of gum. I think it’s real disgusting.”
“Chewing gum isn’t quite so bad as chewing tobacco, but it is a foolish
and disgusting habit, as you say,” observed Marcus.
The party continued their ascent up the steep and slippery side of the
mountain, occasionally halting a few minutes to take breath. Some of
them began to question whether there was any top to it, as each turn of
the zigzag path, which promised to land them at the summit, only
revealed as they advanced a still higher point beyond. But at length the
top, the very “tip-top,” as the boys called it, was reached. Instead of
a sharp, sky-scraping ridge, they found the summit to be a broad and
nearly level plain, composed mostly of solid rock, and almost bare of
vegetation. But what a view did it present! A dozen villages scattered
among the valleys, with their nestling houses and white spires; the rich
meadows of the Winooski and its tributaries, with their thrifty farms;
the cattle and sheep “upon a thousand hills;” the dark and extensive
patches of forest, in which the woodman’s axe has never yet resounded;
the chain of mountain sentinels, drawn up in lines, conspicuous among
which were the Camel’s Hump, and the distant Mansfield Mountain, with
its “Nose,” “Lips” and “Chin;” the broad and peaceful expanse of Lake
Champlain, with a faint outline of the Adirondack Mountains looming up
beyond;—such is a very imperfect sketch of the scene that for a long
time engrossed the attention of the whole party.
After the party had rested themselves, and gazed at the extensive
prospect as long as they wished, Oscar proposed to erect a monument on
the summit that would be visible from their house, and would commemorate
their ascent of the mountain. The proposal was readily agreed to by all,
and they immediately set about gathering the necessary materials. All
the movable stones on the summit were soon collected in a heap, but
Marcus expressed a doubt whether there were enough to form a pile that
would be visible below.
“If we only had an axe,” said Oscar, “we could cut down a tree, and
strip off all the branches but a few at the top; and then we could set
the tree on the summit, and pile the stones about it to keep it in
place.”
“Has anybody got any string about him?” inquired Otis.
There was a general fumbling of pockets, and among a score of
miscellaneous articles produced was a piece of old fishing-line
belonging to Ronald.
“That’s just the thing,” said Otis. “Now we will find a tree that has
blown down, and tie a lot of new branches to the top of it, and stick it
up, as Oscar said.”
This proposal was adopted. A tall, straight sapling was soon found, that
had fallen before the furious winter blasts that play among the Peak.
Its branches, now partially decayed, were broken off, and the trunk made
as clean as possible, with the exception of the top. A quantity of
evergreen boughs were then procured, and lashed to the top of the
sapling by the fishing-line. The signal pole, with its heavy tuft, was
now raised to its place by the united strength of the party, and the
stones piled compactly around its bottom, until it seemed as firm as
though rooted in the earth. Three cheers were given for the monument,
and then, after a short resting-spell, the party began to descend.
With merry shouts and laughter they were bounding, sliding and tumbling
down the steep side of the mountain, the boys sometimes far outstripping
Kate and Marcus, and then pausing awhile, to see how their more moderate
companions got along. In this way they had proceeded nearly a quarter of
a mile from the summit, when Kate suddenly brought them to a stand by
exclaiming—
“I declare! if I haven’t left my veil on the top of the mountain! I took
it off when we were looking at the scenery, because it was in my way,
and I forgot to put it on again.”
“That’s just like you,” said her brother; “you are always forgetting
something.”
“Never mind, I’ll run back and get it—it wont take but a few minutes,”
said Oscar.
“No, let me go—I’m more used to it than Oscar is,” exclaimed Ronald.
“I’d let her go herself—it would make her more careful next time,” said
Otis, in a low tone, which he did not intend Marcus should hear.
“Ronald is the nimblest, and he has been up the mountain before; so I
think he had better go and get the veil, and we will wait for him till
he gets back,” said Marcus.
Ronald accordingly scrambled up the hill again, while the others seated
themselves on the dry leaves beneath a noble pine.
“I don’t see what girls want to wear veils for,” said Otis, somewhat
petulantly, after they were seated.
“It isn’t necessary for you to know why they wear them, Master Otis,”
replied Kate, quite coolly.
“I have no objection to girls’ wearing veils, if they choose to, but I
don’t like to see boys wear such things,” said Marcus.
“Why, did you ever see boys wear veils?” inquired Otis, with surprise.
“I have seen boys that I thought acted as if they wore veils over their
eyes,” replied Marcus.
“How did they act?” inquired Otis, after a moment’s pause.
“They acted as if they could not see things that were as plain as a
pike-staff to other people,” replied Marcus.
Otis seemed to be trying to interpret to himself this enigmatical
language, but did not appear inclined to ask any more questions.
“For instance,” added Marcus, after a brief pause, “when you see a boy
rude or unkind towards his sister, when there is no provocation, you may
conclude that he has a veil or something else over his eyes; for if he
could see plainly how such conduct looks to other people’s eyes, he
would not indulge in it.”
Otis apparently understood the point of the remark, and felt it, too;
but he made no reply. In a few minutes a merry shout announced the
approach of Ronald, and he soon appeared, with the lost veil fastened to
his straw hat. He claimed the privilege of wearing it home, which Kate
readily granted; but before the party came in sight of the log cabin, he
concluded to surrender it to its owner.
Going down the mountain proved almost as difficult and exciting as
climbing up, and many a slip and tumble happened to one and another, on
the way. Sometimes a low branch across the path, bent from its place and
then let loose by one, would bring up the boy behind with a whack that
made him see stars. By one of these flying limbs Otis had his cap
suddenly removed from his head, and whirled over a precipice, lodging in
the top of a tall tree below. The disaster was followed by a prolonged
and hearty shout from those who witnessed it, and the others hastened to
the spot, to see what the matter was.
“I’ll get it for you, Oty—I can climb that tree easy enough,” exclaimed
Ronald, as soon as he comprehended the extent of the mishap.
“No,” said Marcus, with assumed gravity, “let him get his cap himself—it
will make him more careful next time.”
“I don’t see what boys wear caps for; they are always losing them,”
remarked Kate, the fun in her eyes but half concealed.
“It wasn’t my fault—I couldn’t help it,” replied Otis, with the utmost
seriousness. “Ronald let the branch fly right into my face, and it took
my cap off before I knew it was coming.”
“Well, if Ronald is to blame, I think we shall have to send him after
the cap,” said Marcus.
They made their way, with some difficulty, to the spot where the tree
stood. Ronald, being a more expert climber than any of the others, was
entrusted with the job, and ascended the tree almost with the agility of
a squirrel. He took with him a pole, and with its aid the cap was soon
dislodged, and sent to the ground below.
No further incidents of importance befell the party, on their descent of
the mountain. Mr. Gooden did not manifest himself to them, as they
passed his cabin; and none of his family were visible. They reached
their home, tired and hungry, in season to get a view of the signal they
had raised, after the sun had sunk behind Prescott’s Peak; and there the
tall sapling stood, for a long time afterwards, reminding them of their
pleasant tramp “up the mountain.”
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