What fine traveling companions these lovely New England brooks
make! What grace and freedom is theirs ! What songs of joy they
sing, telling of the grandeur of the hills through which they
flow! Gladly we followed their winding way, "asking for no
better friend or finer music." No wonder they are so cool and
refreshing, for in what crystal pure springs do they find their
source? Like well born children with a beautiful environment,
they bathe all the wood land flowers and trees with their
beneficent water until they leave a trail of richest verdure
from the mountain to the sea, where they mingle in the great
expanse of waters not to perish, but to be resurrected, into
glorious summer clouds, to carry life and health to the thirsty
plants of earth.
The very sight of their rushing crystal waters beside the
widening road on a hot day gives one a new lease on life. Truly
did Wordsworth say, "earth has not anything to show more fair."
All afternoon we wandered "by shallow rivers to whose falls
melodious birds sang madrigals." We, like the river, were
journeying "at our own sweet will."
Grand balsam fir sprang from the crevices of the rock, family
groups of white birch rose and spread their graceful masses of
foliage on either side of us; mounds of virgin bowers, wild
grape vines, and bittersweet crowned the rocky sides of the
cliffs, spreading from tree to tree or hung from them like
folded curtains; and the sunlight and shadow among pine and
hemlock where grew mosses, ferns and flowers, made vast sheets
of rich mosaic.
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