第44章

For instance, I wonder how many frequenters of the Alpine house ever saw or know that there is a dairy in its Plutonian regions.

A rainy day discovered it to us, and, with many an injunction touching possible dust, we were bidden into those mysterious precincts. A carpet, laid loose over the steps, forestalled every atom of defilement, and, descending cautiously and fearfully through portals and outer courts, we trod presently the adytum. It was a dark, cool, silent place. The floors were white, spotless, and actually fragrant with cleanliness. The sides of the room were lined with shelves, the shelves begemmed with bright pans, and the bright pans filled with milk,--I don't know how many pans there were, but I should think about a million,--and there was a mound of pails piled up to be washed, and cosy little colonies of butter, pleasant to eyes, nose, and mouth, and a curious machine to work butter over, consisting of something like a table in the shape of the letter V, the flat part a trough, with a wooden handle to push back and forth, and the buttermilk running out at the apex of the V. If the principle on which it is constructed is a secret, I don't believe I have divulged it; but I do not aim to let you know precisely what it is, only that there is such a thing. I hope now that every one will not flock down cellar the moment he alights from the Gorham train. I should be very sorry to divert the stream of travel into Mr. Hitchcock's dairy, for I am sure any great influx of visitors would sorely disconcert the good genius who presides there, and would be an ill requital for her kindness to us; but it was so novel and pleasant a sight that I am sure she will pardon me for speaking of it just this once.

Another mild entertainment during an intermittent rain is a run of about a mile up to the "hennery," which buds and blossoms with the dearest little ducks of ducks, broad-billed, downy, toddling, tumbling in and out of a trough of water, and getting continually lost on the bluff outside; little chickens and turkeys, and great turkeys, not pleasant to the eye, but good for food, and turkey-gobblers, stiffest-mannered of all the feathered creation; and geese, sailing in the creek majestic, or waddling on the grass dumpy; and two or three wild geese, tolled down from the sky, and clipped away from it forever;and guinea-hens, speckled and spheral; and, most magnificent of all, a pea cock, who stands in a corner and unfolds the magnificence of his tail. Watching his movements, I could not but reflect upon the superior advantages which a peacock has over a woman. The gorgeousness of his apparel is such that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed in the like; yet so admirable is the contrivance for its management that no suspicion of mud or moisture stains its brilliancy. A woman must have recourse to clumsy contrivances of india-rubber and gutta-percha if her silken skirts shall not trail ignobly in the dust. The peacock at will rears his train in a graceful curve, and defies defilement.

Besides abundance of food and parade-ground, these happy fowls have a very agreeable prospect. Their abrupt knoll commands a respectable section of the Androscoggin Valley,--rich meadow-lands, the humanities of church-spire and cottage, the low green sweep of the intervale through which the river croons its quiet way under shadows of rock and tree, answering softly to the hum of bee and song of bird,--answering just as softly to the snort and shriek of its hot-breathed rival, the railroad. Doubtless the railroad, swift, energetic, prompt, gives itself many an air over the slow-going, calm-souled water-way, but let Monsieur Chemin de Fer look to his laurels,--a thing of yesterday and tomorrow,--a thing of iron and oil and accidents. I, the River, descend from the everlasting mountains. I was born of the perpetual hills. I fear no more the heat o' the sun, nor the furious winter's rages; no obstacle daunts me. Time cannot terrify. My power shall never faint, my foundations never shrink, my fountains never fail.

"Men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever."And the railroad, pertinacious, intrusive, aggressive, is, after all, the dependent follower, the abject copyist of the river. Toss and scorn as it may, the river is its leader and engineer. Fortunes and ages almost would have been necessary to tunnel those mountains, if indeed tunnelling had been possible, but the river winds at its own sweet will. Without sound of hammer or axe, by force of its own heaven-born instincts, it has levelled its lovely way unerring, and wherever it goes, thither goes the railroad, to its own infinite gain. Railroads are not generally considered picturesque, but from the standpoint of that hennery, and from several other standpoints, I had no fault to find. Unable to go straight on, as the manner of railroads is, it bends to all the wayward little fancies of the river, piercing the wild wood, curling around the base of the granite hills, now let loose a space to shoot across the glade, joyful of the permission to indulge its railroad instinct of straightness;and, amid so much irregularity and headlong wilfulness, a straight line is really refreshing. Up the sides of its embankment wild vines have twisted and climbed, and wild-flowers have budded into bloom.