ds. We were none of us of that unhappy
class who cannot enjoy doing the same thing twice.

I wished, also, to say something of sundry minor enjoyments: of the
cinnamon roses, for example, with the fragrance of which we were
continually greeted, and which have left such a sweetness in the memory
that I would have called this essay "June in the Valley of Cinnamon
Roses," had I not despaired of holding myself up to so poetic a title.
And with the roses the wild strawberries present themselves. Roses and
strawberries! It is the very poetry of science that these should be
classified together. The berries, like the flowers, are of a generous
turn (it is a family trait, I think), loving no place better than the
roadside, as if they would fain be of refreshment to beings less happy
than themselves, who cannot be still and blossom and bear fruit, but are
driven by the Fates to go trudging up and down in dusty highways. For
myself, if I were a dweller in this vale, I am sure my finger-tips would
never be of their natural color so long as the season of strawberries
lasted. On one of my solitary rambles I found a retired sunny field,
full of them. To judge from appearances, not a soul had been near it.
But I noticed that, while the almost ripe fruit was abundant, there was
scarce any that had taken on the final tinge and flavor. Then I began to
be aware of faint, sibilant noises about me, and, glancing up, I saw
that the ground was already "pre-empted" by a company of cedar-birds,
who, naturally enough, were not a little indignant at my poaching thus
on their preserves. They showed so much concern (and had gathered the
ripest of the berries so thoroughly) that I actually came away the
sooner on their account. I began to feel ashamed of myself, and for once
in my life was literally hissed off the stage.

Even on my last page I must be permitted a word in praise of Mount
Cannon, of which I made three ascents. It has nothing like the celebrity
of Mount Willard, with which, from its position, it is natural to
compare it; but to my thinking it is little, if at all, less worthy. Its
outlook upon Mount Lafayette is certainly grander than anything Mount
Willard can offer, while the prospect of the Pemigewasset Valley, fading
away to the horizon, if less striking than that of the White Mountain
Notch, has some elements of beauty which must of necessity be lacking
in any more narrowly circumscribed scene, no matter how romantic.

In ventur