If the summer visitors measured Old Phelps, he also measured them by his own standards.He used to write out what he called "short-faced descriptions" of his comrades in the woods, which were never so flattering as true.It was curious to see how the various qualities which are esteemed in society appeared in his eyes, looked at merely in their relation to the limited world he knew, and judged by their adaptation to the primitive life.It was a much subtler comparison than that of the ordinary guide, who rates his traveler by his ability to endure on a march, to carry a pack, use an oar, hit a mark, or sing a song.Phelps brought his people to a test of their naturalness and sincerity, tried by contact with the verities of the woods.If a person failed to appreciate the woods, Phelps had no opinion of him or his culture; and yet, although he was perfectly satisfied with his own philosophy of life, worked out by close observation of nature and study of the Tri-bune, he was always eager for converse with superior minds, with those who had the advantage of travel and much reading, and, above all, with those who had any original "speckerlation." Of all the society he was ever permitted to enjoy, I think he prized most that of Dr.Bushnell.The doctor enjoyed the quaint and first-hand observations of the old woodsman, and Phelps found new worlds open to him in the wide ranges of the doctor's mind.They talked by the hour upon all sorts of themes, the growth of the tree, the habits of wild animals, the migration of seeds, the succession of oak and pine, not to mention theology, and the mysteries of the supernatural.
I recall the bearing of Old Phelps, when, several years ago, he conducted a party to the summit of Mount Marcy by the way he had "bushed out." This was his mountain, and he had a peculiar sense of ownership in it.In a way, it was holy ground; and he would rather no one should go on it who did not feel its sanctity.Perhaps it was a sense of some divine relation in it that made him always speak of it as "Mercy." To him this ridiculously dubbed Mount Marcy was always "Mount Mercy." By a like effort to soften the personal offensiveness of the nomenclature of this region, he invariably spoke of Dix's Peak, one of the southern peaks of the range, as "Dixie."It was some time since Phelps himself had visited his mountain; and, as he pushed on through the miles of forest, we noticed a kind of eagerness in the old man, as of a lover going to a rendezvous.Along the foot of the mountain flows a clear trout stream, secluded and undisturbed in those awful solitudes, which is the "Mercy Brook" of the old woodsman.That day when he crossed it, in advance of his company, he was heard to say in a low voice, as if greeting some object of which he was shyly fond, "So, little brook, do I meet you once more?" and when we were well up the mountain, and emerged from the last stunted fringe of vegetation upon the rock-bound slope, Isaw Old Phelps, who was still foremost, cast himself upon the ground, and heard him cry, with an enthusiasm that was intended for no mortal ear, "I'm with you once again!" His great passion very rarely found expression in any such theatrical burst.The bare summit that day was swept by a fierce, cold wind, and lost in an occasional chilling cloud.Some of the party, exhausted by the climb, and shivering in the rude wind, wanted a fire kindled and a cup of tea made, and thought this the guide's business.Fire and tea were far enough from his thought.He had withdrawn himself quite apart, and wrapped in a ragged blanket, still and silent as the rock he stood on, was gazing out upon the wilderness of peaks.The view from Marcy is peculiar.
It is without softness or relief.The narrow valleys are only dark shadows; the lakes are bits of broken mirror.From horizon to horizon there is a tumultuous sea of billows turned to stone.You stand upon the highest billow; you command the situation; you have surprised Nature in a high creative act; the mighty primal energy has only just become repose.This was a supreme hour to Old Phelps.
Tea! I believe the boys succeeded in kindling a fire; but the enthusiastic stoic had no reason to complain of want of appreciation in the rest of the party.When we were descending, he told us, with mingled humor and scorn, of a party of ladies he once led to the top of the mountain on a still day, who began immediately to talk about the fashions! As he related the scene, stopping and facing us in the trail, his mild, far-in eyes came to the front, and his voice rose with his language to a kind of scream.
"Why, there they were, right before the greatest view they ever saw, talkin' about the fashions!"Impossible to convey the accent of contempt in which he pronounced the word " fashions," and then added, with a sort of regretful bitterness, "I was a great mind to come down, and leave 'em there."In common with the Greeks, Old Phelps personified the woods, mountains, and streams.They had not only personality, but distinctions of sex.It was something beyond the characterization of the hunter, which appeared, for instance, when he related a fight with a panther, in such expressions as, "Then Mr.Panther thought he would see what he could do," etc.He was in "imaginative sympathy"with all wild things.The afternoon we descended Marcy, we went away to the west, through the primeval forests, toward Avalanche and Colden, and followed the course of the charming Opalescent.When we reached the leaping stream, Phelps exclaimed,"Here's little Miss Opalescent!""Why don't you say Mr.Opalescent?" some one asked.
"Oh, she's too pretty!" And too pretty she was, with her foam-white and rainbow dress, and her downfalls, and fountainlike uprising.Abewitching young person we found her all that summer afternoon.
