Spring notes from Tennessee

was Walden's Ridge, I was told; the top of it was eighty miles long and ten or twelve miles wide; if I wanted a bit of wild country, that was the place for me. Was it acces

ee, and have ever since thanked my stars-as New England Christians used

ut to my trumps, as it were; my walk was sometimes grievously abbreviated, and my pace uncomfortably hurried, but by one happy accident and another I always escaped a drenching. Worse than the water that fell-worse, and not to be escaped, even by accident--was that which saturated the atmosphere, making every day a dog-day, and the week a seven-day sweat. And then, as if to

rry? And the next morning, when an enterprising, bright-faced white boy ran up to me with a "'Times,' sir? Have a 'Times'?" I fear he quite misapprehended the more or less quizzical expression which I am sure came into my face. I was looking at his black

imes more selfish than usual-as is the rule-because he was on his annual vacation, it does not follow that it was essentially bad. The rains were needed, the heat was to have been expected, and the cold, unseasonable and exceptional, was not peculiar to Tennessee. As for the snow, it was no more than I have seen before now, even in Massachusetts,-a week or two earlier in the month; and it lent such a glory to the higher Alleghanies, as we passed them on our way homeward, that I might cheerfully have lain

faster than a walk, under a penalty of five dollars for each offense, he whipped up his horse and his mule (the mule the better horse of the two), and they struck into a trot. Halfway across we met another wagon, and its driver too had let his horses out. Illiteracy must be pretty common in these parts, I said to myself. But whatever my driver's educational deficiencies, it did not take long to discover that in his own line he was a master. He could hit the ear of his mule with the end of his whip with a precision that was almost startling. In fact, it was startlin

d 'sour-gum'?" "No, suh." He knew but one kind of tupelo, as he knew but one kind of "ellum." There were many kinds of oaks, some of which he named as we passed them. This botanical catechism presently waked up the only other passenger in the wagon, a modest girl of ten or twelve years. She too, it appeared, had some acquaintance with trees. I had asked the driver if there were no long-leaved pines hereabout. "No, suh," he said. "But I think I saw some at Chickamauga the other day," I ventured.

. Did he know another redbird, with black wings and tail? Yes, he had seen it; that was the male, and this all-red one was the female. Oh no, I explained; the birds were of different species, and the females in both cases were yellow. He did not insist,-it was a case of a driver and his fare; but he had always been told so, he said, and I do not flatter myself that I convinced him to the contrary. It is hard to believe that on

mountain, and give it from below a fortified look,-and at last, after an hour's further drive through the dripp

now, naturally, there was no stopping so near home, though a Kentucky warbler, with his cool, liquid song, did his best to beguile me; and I kept on my way, past a few houses, a tiny box of a post-office, a rude church, and a few more houses, till just beyond the last one the road dropped into the forest again, as if for good. And there, all at once I

otes of a warbler. They came from the treetops in the valley, and-so I prided myself upon guessing-belonged to a cerulean warbler, a bird of which I had seen my first and only specimen a week before, on Lookout Mountain. Down the steep hillside I scrambled,-New Hampshire clean forgotten,-and was just bringing my glass into play when the fellow took wing, and began singing at the very point I had just left. I hastened back; he flew again, farthe

ew hunting-grounds a man is bound to look for new game; else what would be the use of traveling? It was a foolish half-hour, I say; but I wish some moralist would explain, in a manner not inconsistent wit

place, besides, was alive with singing birds: hooded warblers, Kentucky warblers, a Canadian warbler, a black-throated blue, a black-throated green, a blue yellow-back, scarlet tanagers, wood pewees, wood thrushes, a field sparrow (on the hillside beyond) a cardinal, a chat, a bunch of white-throated sparrows, and who could tell what else? It was an exciting moment. Luckily, a man can look and listen both at once. Here was a fringe-tree, a noble specimen, hung with creamy-white plumes; here was a magnolia, with big leaves and big flowers; and here was a flower

nner time. But I returned to the spot that very afternoon, and half a dozen times afterward. So poor a traveler am I, so ill fitted to explore a new country. Whenever nothing in particular offered itself, why, it was always

at a cross-vine covering a dead hemlock. The branches of the tree, shortening regularly to the top, were draped heavily with gray lichens, while the vine, keeping mostly near the trunk and climbing clean to the tip,-fifty feet or more, as I thought,-was hung throughout with large, orange-red, gold-lined bells. Their numbers were past guessing. Here and there a spray of them swung

ed me politely, and invited me to be seated under the hemlock, where two chairs were already placed. After tying the mule he took the other chair, and we fell into talk about the weather, the crops, and things in general. When the wife finally appeared, I rose, of course; but she went on in silence and entered the house, while the husband said, "Oh, keep your seat." We continued our conversation till the rain began to fall. Then we picked up our chairs and followed the woman inside. She sat in the middle of the room (young, pretty, newly married, and Sunday-dressed), but never once opened her lips. Her behavior was in strict accordance with local etiquette, I was af

unting. Formerly there were a good many deer, but they had been pretty well killed off. Turkeys still held out. They were gobbling now. His father had been trying for two or three weeks, off and on, to shoot a certain old fellow who had several

bors say, "Oh, he is building a glass house, isn't he?" It must be an effeminate woman, they think, who cannot do her cooking and sewing by the light of the door. None the less, in a climate where snow is possible in the middle of May, such a Spartan arrangement must sometimes be found a bit uncomfortable by persons not to the manner born. A preacher confided to me that in his pastoral calls he had once or twice made bold to push to a door dire

another place, I saw white-throated sparrows. Their presence at this late hour was a great surprise, and suggested the possibility of their breeding somewhere in the Carolina mountains, though I am not aware that such an occurrence has ever been re

uent auditory pauses, thinking how full the world is of unseen creatures which find their day only after the sun goes down, when in a woody spot I heard behind me a sound of footste

hippoorwills h

" she answered,

them right al

sir; o

er before we exclaimed in the

hing like the whippoorwill, meaning the chuck-wi

he whippoorwill g

arly," sh

of April, sh

ow the timber is just beginning to

ed not feel bound to increase in wisdom every time a neighbor speaks to him; and anyhow, that expression about the "putting out of the timber" had given me pleasure. Hearing it thus was better than finding it upon a page of Stevenson, or some

o remind him of his elevation above the world. I heard a resident speak of going to the "top of the mountain," however, and on inquiry learned that a certain rocky eminence, two miles, more or less, from Fairmount (the little "settlement" where I was staying), went by

an abandoned cabin,-no other house in sight,-and by and by a second one, near which, in the garden (better worth preserving than the house, it appeared), a woman and two children were at work. Yes, the woman said, I was on the right path. I had only to keep a straight course, and I should bring up at the "top of the mountain." A little farther, and my spirits rose at the sig

trees, and beehives. This should be the German shoemaker's, I thought, looking at my map. If so, I was pretty near the top, though otherwise there was no sign of it; and if I had made any considerable ascent, it had been as children increase

live here?

a stranger on the Ridge

Washin

rom Bo

ton!-Massachu

ospitality to a man from Massachusetts; or possibly she thought I must be more in danger of getting bewildered,

in the house,"

a creek down in t

anked her. Yes, I had a cup. "My husband will be at home by the tim

d the dark foliage of a hemlock. A magnolia-tree stood near; but though it was much taller than the laurel or the rhododendron, and had much larger flowers, it made little show beside them. Birds were singing on all hands, and numbers of gay-colored butterflies flitted about, sipping here and there at a blossom. I remember especially a fine tiger swallow-tail; the only one I saw in Tennessee, I believe. I remember,

further side, and looking almost like an artificial rampart. Beyond me, to my surprise, I heard the hum of cicadas,-seventeen-year loc

was an unbroken forest. For some time I could not distinguish the Ridge itself from the outlying world. Mountains and hills crowded the hazy horizon, range beyond range. Moving along the rocks, I found a vista through which Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain were visible. Another change, and a stretch of the

,-when I was there, I mean; from what I heard, the ticks and jiggers must be bad enough later in the season. As men do at such times,-for human nature is of noble origin, and feels no surprise at being well tr

an, not German in appearance, but looking, I thought, like Thoreau, only grown a little older. He had been on Walden's Ridge for fifteen years. Before that he was in South Carolina, but the yellow fev

iving here?" I

ut then," she added, "we can't help it. If y

or being half a mile distant through the woods; and there was no clover, so that his bees did not do very well; and the frost had

you might see a snake," his wife called after him, as we left the house. He smiled, but did not follow her advice, though I fancied he would have done so had she gone along with us. A half-mile or so through the pathless woods brought us to the cave, which might hold a hundred persons, I thought. The dribbling "creek" fell over it in front. Then the man took me to my path, pointed my way homeward, and, with a handshake (the silver lining of which was not refused, though I had been