The Foot-path Way

Produced by Robin Monks, Carolyn Bottomley, Joseph Cooper
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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[Transcriber's Note: Author's irregular hyphenation has been kept.]




[Illustration: Front cover]

[Illustration: Author]


Books by Mr. Torrey.

BIRDS IN THE BUSH. 16mo, $1.25.

A RAMBLER'S LEASE. 16mo, $1.25.

  HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
    BOSTON AND NEW YORK.


[Illustration: Title page]


THE FOOT-PATH WAY

BY

BRADFORD TORREY


    Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
      And merrily hent the stile-a:
    A merry heart goes all the day,
      Your sad tires in a mile-a.

                     THE WINTER'S TALE


  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
    The Riverside Press, Cambridge
    1893

  Copyright, 1892,
    BY BRADFORD TORREY.

_All rights reserved._

SECOND EDITION.

  _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A._
    Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.




CONTENTS.
                                  PAGE

JUNE IN FRANCONIA.                   1

DECEMBER OUT-OF-DOORS.              36

DYER'S HOLLOW.                      67

FIVE DAYS ON MOUNT MANSFIELD.       90

A WIDOW AND TWINS.                 111

THE MALE RUBY-THROAT.              135

ROBIN ROOSTS.                      153

THE PASSING OF THE BIRDS.          176

A GREAT BLUE HERON.                197

FLOWERS AND FOLKS.                 205

IN PRAISE OF THE WEYMOUTH PINE.    232




THE FOOT-PATH WAY.




JUNE IN FRANCONIA.

       "Herbs, fruits, and flowers,
    Walks, and the melody of birds."
                            MILTON.


There were six of us, and we had the entire hotel, I may almost say the
entire valley, to ourselves. If the verdict of the villagers could have
been taken, we should, perhaps, have been voted a queer set, familiar as
dwellers in Franconia are with the sight of idle tourists,--

    "Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,
     And they were butterflies to wheel about
     Long as the summer lasted."

We were neither "rapid" nor "gay," and it was still only the first week
of June; if we were summer boarders, therefore, we must be of some
unusual early-blooming variety.

First came a lady, in excellent repute among the savants of Europe and
America as an entomologist, but better known to the general public as a
writer of stories. With her, as companion and assistant, was a doctor of
laws, who is also a newspaper proprietor, a voluminous author, an art
connoisseur, and many things beside. They had turned their backs thus
unseasonably upon the metropolis, and in this pleasant out-of-the-way
corner were devoting themselves to one absorbing pursuit,--the pursuit
of moths. On their daily drives, two or three insect nets dangled
conspicuously from the carriage,--the footman, thrifty soul, was never
backward to take a hand,--and evening after evening the hotel piazza was
illuminated till midnight with lamps and lanterns, while these
enthusiasts waved the same white nets about, gathering in geometries,
noctuids, sphinges, and Heaven knows what else, all of them to perish
painlessly in numerous "cyanide bottles," which bestrewed the piazza by
night, and (happy thought!) the closed piano by day. In this noble
occupation I sometimes played at helping; but with only meagre success,
my most brilliant catch being nothing more important than a "beautiful
Io." The kind-hearted lepidopterist lingered with gracious emphasis upon
the adjective, and assured me that the specimen would be all the more
valuable because of a finger-mark which my awkwardness had left upon one
of its wings. So--to the credit of human nature be it spoken--so does
amiability sometimes get the better of the feminine scientific spirit.
To the credit of human nature, I say; for, though her practice of the
romancer's art may doubtless have given to this good lady some peculiar
flexibility of mind, some special, individual facility in subordinating
a lower truth to a higher, it surely may be affirmed, also, of humanity
in general, that few things become it better than its inconsistencies.

Of the four remaining members of the company, two were botanists, and
two--for the time--ornithologists. But the botanists were lovers of
birds, also, and went nowhere without opera-glasses; while the
ornithologists, in turn, did not hold themselves above some elementary
knowledge of plants, and amused themselves with now and then pointing
out some rarity--sedges and willows were the special desiderata--which
the professional collectors seemed in danger of passing without notice.
All in all, we _were_ a queer set. How the Latin and Greek polysyllables
flew about the dining-room, as we recounted our forenoon's or
afternoon's discoveries! Somebody remarked once that the waiters' heads
appeared to be more or less in danger; but if the waiters trembled at
all, it was probably not for their own heads, but for ours.[1]

[1] Just how far the cause of science was advanced by all this activity
I am not prepared to say.