CHAPTER II
CHILDHOOD DAYS
If in describing the conditions of life which bred New Hampshire giants, with its granite in their will and its hemlock in their soul’s fiber, one should neglect to indicate the beauty of summer days, or the clear, cold magnificence of winter months, in that mountainous upland, one would err in stating but half-truths of the environing influences, even though his efforts were but timid strokes.
The allurement which drew settlers into this region in the early days was doubtless the glorified face of Nature. Here was no prairie, easily tilled; here were no gold mines, promising sudden wealth. But there was a constant uplift for the heart, vaguely felt more often than it was understood. There is an enchantment in the New Hampshire panorama, the series of great pictures which unroll in one continuous stretch of glorious scenery, an enchantment so pervading that it is never forgotten. A logger on the mountain-side to-day looks down with indifference upon a transient tourist. The logger’s cup of content is full if he can make a bare living in the forest.
Summer spreads for the son of New Hampshire a shimmering wonder of green and gold with silver rivers winding placidly, fed by those headlong tor-
