North of Boston | Page 6

would interest you about the brook,
It's always cold in
summer, warm in winter.
One of the great sights going is to see
It
steam in winter like an ox's breath,
Until the bushes all along its
banks
Are inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles--
You know
the kind. Then let the sun shine on it!"
"There ought to be a view
around the world
From such a mountain--if it isn't wooded
Clear to
the top." I saw through leafy screens
Great granite terraces in sun and
shadow,
Shelves one could rest a knee on getting up--
With depths
behind him sheer a hundred feet;
Or turn and sit on and look out and
down,
With little ferns in crevices at his elbow.
"As to that I can't
say. But there's the spring,
Right on the summit, almost like a
fountain.
That ought to be worth seeing."
"If it's there.
You never
saw it?"
"I guess there's no doubt
About its being there. I never saw
it.
It may not be right on the very top:
It wouldn't have to be a long
way down
To have some head of water from above,
And a good
distance down might not be noticed
By anyone who'd come a long
way up.
One time I asked a fellow climbing it
To look and tell me
later how it was."
"What did he say?"
"He said there was a lake

Somewhere in Ireland on a mountain top."
"But a lake's different.
What about the spring?"
"He never got up high enough to see.

That's why I don't advise your trying this side.
He tried this side. I've
always meant to go
And look myself, but you know how it is:
It
doesn't seem so much to climb a mountain
You've worked around the
foot of all your life.
What would I do? Go in my overalls,

With a
big stick, the same as when the cows
Haven't come down to the bars
at milking time?
Or with a shotgun for a stray black bear?

'Twouldn't seem real to climb for climbing it."
"I shouldn't climb it if
I didn't want to--
Not for the sake of climbing. What's its name?"

"We call it Hor: I don't know if that's right."
"Can one walk around it?
Would it be too far?"
"You can drive round and keep in Lunenburg,

But it's as much as ever you can do,
The boundary lines keep in so
close to it.
Hor is the township, and the township's Hor--
And a few
houses sprinkled round the foot,
Like boulders broken off the upper

cliff,
Rolled out a little farther than the rest."
"Warm in December,
cold in June, you say?"
"I don't suppose the water's changed at all.

You and I know enough to know it's warm
Compared with cold, and
cold compared with warm.
But all the fun's in how you say a thing."

"You've lived here all your life?"
"Ever since Hor
Was no bigger
than a----" What, I did not hear.
He drew the oxen toward him with
light touches
Of his slim goad on nose and offside flank,
Gave them
their marching orders and was moving.
A Hundred Collars
LANCASTER bore him--such a little town,
Such a great man. It
doesn't see him often
Of late years, though he keeps the old
homestead
And sends the children down there with their mother
To
run wild in the summer--a little wild.
Sometimes he joins them for a
day or two
And sees old friends he somehow can't get near.
They
meet him in the general store at night,
Pre-occupied with formidable
mail,
Rifling a printed letter as he talks.
They seem afraid. He
wouldn't have it so:
Though a great scholar, he's a democrat,
If not
at heart, at least on principle.
Lately when coming up to Lancaster

His train being late he missed another train
And had four hours to
wait at Woodsville Junction
After eleven o'clock at night. Too tired

To think of sitting such an ordeal out,
He turned to the hotel to find a
bed.
"No room," the night clerk said. "Unless----"
Woodsville's a
place of shrieks and wandering lamps
And cars that shook and
rattle--and one hotel.
"You say 'unless.'"
"Unless you wouldn't mind

Sharing a room with someone else."
"Who is it?"
"A man."
"So
I should hope. What kind of man?"
"I know him: he's all right. A
man's a man.
Separate beds of course you understand."
The night
clerk blinked his eyes and dared him on.
"Who's that man sleeping in
the office chair?
Has he had the refusal of my chance?"
"He was
afraid of being robbed or murdered.
What do you say?"
"I'll have to
have a bed."
The night clerk led him up three flights of stairs
And

down a narrow passage full of doors,
At the last one of which he
knocked and entered.
"Lafe, here's a fellow wants to share your
room."
"Show him this way. I'm not afraid of him.
I'm not so drunk
I can't take care of myself."
The night clerk clapped a bedstead on the
foot.
"This will be yours. Good-night," he said, and went.
"Lafe was
the name, I think?"
"Yes, Layfayette.
You got it the first time. And
yours?"
"Magoon.
Doctor Magoon."
"A Doctor?"
"Well, a
teacher."
"Professor Square-the-circle-till-you're-tired?
Hold on,
there's something I don't think of now
That I had on my mind to ask
the first
Man that knew anything I happened in with.
I'll