There is a fellow hereabout who refuses to pay six dollars for the coffin in which his wife was buried. She died about six months since, and I believe he is already engaged to another. He is young and rather comely, but has not a straightforward look.
One man plods along, looking always on the ground, without ever lifting his eyes to the mountain scenery, and forest, and clouds, above and around him. Another walks the street with a quick, prying eye, and sharp face, — the most, expressive possible of one on the lookout for gain, — of the most disagreeable class of Yankees. There is also a sour-looking, unwholesome boy, the son of this man, whose voice is querulous and ill-natured, precisely suited to his aspect. So is his character.
We have another with Indian blood in him, and the straight, black hair, — something of the tawny skin and the quick, shining eye of the Indian. He seems reserved, but is not ill-natured when spoken to. There is so much of the white in him, that he gives the impression of belonging to a civilized race, which causes the more strange sensation on discovering that he has a wild lineage.
August 22d. — I walked out into what is called the Notch this forenoon, between Saddle Mountain and another. There are good farms in this Notch, although the ground is considerably elevated, — this morning, indeed, above the clouds; for I penetrated through one in reaching the higher region, although I found sunshine there. Graylock was hidden in clouds, and the rest of Saddle Mountain had one partially wreathed about it; but it was withdrawn before long. It was very beautiful cloud-scenery. The clouds lay on the breast of the mountain, dense, white, well-defined, and some of them were in such close vicinity that it seemed as if I could infold myself in them; while others, belonging to the same fleet, were floating through the blue sky above. I had a view of Williamstown at the distance of a few miles, — two or three, perhaps, — a white village and steeple in a gradual hollow, with high mountainous swells heaving themselves up, like immense, subsiding waves, far and wide around it. On these high mountain-waves rested the white summer clouds, or they rested as still in the air above; and they were formed in such fantastic shapes that they gave the strongest possible impression of being confounded or intermixed with the sky. It was like a daydream to look at it; and the students ought to be day-dreamers, all of them, — when cloudland is one and the same thing with the substantial earth. By degrees all these clouds flitted away, and the sultry summer sun burned on hill and valley. As I was walking home, an old man came down the mountain-path behind me in a wagon, and gave me a drive to the village. Visitors being few in the Notch, the women and girls looked from the windows after me; the men nodded and greeted me with a look of curiosity; and two little girls whom I met, bearing tin pails, whispered one another and smiled.
North Adams, August 23d. — The county commissioners held a court; in the bar-room yesterday afternoon, for the purpose of letting out the making of the new road over the mountain. The commissioners sat together in attitudes of some dignity, with one leg laid across another; and the people, to the number of twenty or thirty, sat round about with their hats on, in their shirtsleeves, with but little, yet with some formality. Several had come from a distance to bid for the job. They sat with whips in their hands. The first bid was three dollars, — then there was a long silence, — then a bid of two dollars eighty-five cents, and finally it was knocked down at two eighteen, per rod. A disposition to bid was evidenced in one man by his joking on the bid of another.
After supper, as the sun was setting, a man passed by the door with a hand-organ, connected with which was a row of figures, such as dancers, pirouetting and turning, a lady playing on a piano, soldiers, a negro wench dancing, and opening and shutting a huge red mouth, — all these keeping time to the lively or slow tunes of the organ. The man had a pleasant, but sly, dark face; he carried his whole establishment on his shoulder, it being fastened to a staff which he rested on the ground when he performed. A little crowd of people gathered about him on the stoop, peeping over each other’s heads with huge admiration, — fat Otis Hodge, and the tall stage-driver, and the little boys, all declaring that it was the masterpiece of sights. Some few coppers did the man obtain, as well as much praise. He had come over the high, solitary mountain, where for miles there could hardly be a soul to hear his music.
In the evening, a portly old commissioner, a cheerful man enough, was sitting reading the newspaper in the parlor, holding the candle between the newspaper and his eyes, — its rays glittering on his silver-bowed spectacles and silvery hair. A pensive mood of age had come upon him, and sometimes he heaved a long sigh, while he turned and returned the paper, and folded it for convenient reading. By and by a gentleman came to see him, and he talked with him cheerfully.
The fat old squire, whom I have mentioned more than once, is an odd figure, with his bluff, red face, — coarsely red, — set in silver hair, — his clumsy legs, which he moves in a strange straddle, using, I believe, a broomstick for a staff. The breadth of back of these fat men is truly a wonder.
A decent man, at table the other day, took the only remaining potato out of the dish, on the end of his knife, and offered his friend half of it!
The mountains look much larger and more majestic sometimes than at others, — partly because the mind may be variously disposed, so as to comprehend them more or less, and partly that an imperceptible (or almost so) haze adds a great deal to the effect. Saddleback often looks a huge, black mass, — black-green, or black-blue.
The cave makes a fresh impression upon me every time I visit it, — so deep, so irregular, so gloomy, so stern, — part of its walls the pure white of the marble, — others covered with a gray decomposition and with spots of moss, and with brake growing where there is a handful of earth. I stand and look into its depths at various points, and hear the roar of the stream reechoing up. It is like a heart that has been rent asunder by a torrent of passion, which has raged and foamed, and left its ineffaceable traces; though now there is but a little rill of feeling at the bottom.
In parts, trees have fallen across the fissure, — trees with large trunks.
I bathed in the stream in this old, secluded spot, which I frequent for that purpose. To reach it, I cross one branch of the stream on stones, and then pass to the other side of a little island, overgrown with trees and underbrush. Where I bathe, the stream has partially dammed itself up by sweeping together tree-trunks and slabs and branches, and a thousand things that have come down its current for years perhaps; so that there is a deep pool, full of eddies and little whirlpools which would carry me away, did I not take hold of the stem of a small tree that lies opportunely transversely across the water. The bottom is uneven, with rocks of various size, against which it is difficult to keep from stumbling, so rapid is the stream. Sometimes it bears along branches and strips of bark, — sometimes a green leaf, or perchance a dry one, — occasionally overwhelmed by the eddies and borne deep under water, then rushing atop the waves.
The forest, bordering the stream, produces its effect by a complexity of causes, — the old and stern trees, with stately trunks and dark foliage, — as the almost black pines, — the young trees, with lightsome green foliage, — as sapling oaks, maples and poplars, — then the old, decayed trunks, that are seen lying here and there, all mouldered, so that the foot would sink into them. The sunshine, falling capriciously on a casual branch considerably within the forest verge, while it leaves nearer trees in shadow, leads the imagination into the depths. But it soon becomes bewildered there. Rocks strewn about, half hidden in the fallen leaves, must not be overlooked.
August 26th. — A funeral last evening, nearly at sunset, — a coffin of a boy about ten years old laid on a one-horse wagon among some straw, — two or three barouches and wagons following. As the funeral passed through the village street, a few men formed a short procession in front of the coffin, among whom were Orrin S — — - and I. The burial-ground (there are two in the town) is on the sides and summit of a round hill, which is planted with cypress and other trees, among which the white marble gravestones show pleasantly. The grave was dug on the steep slope of a hill; and the gravedigger was waiting there,
