en
wood-cutters, who had slain a bear in the forest and smitten off his
paw.

I had joined the party, and had a moment's leisure to examine them
before the echo of Ethan's blast returned from the hill. Not one, but
many echoes had caught up the harsh and tuneless sound, untwisted its
complicated threads, and found a thousand aerial harmonies in one stern
trumpet tone. It was a distinct yet distant and dreamlike symphony
of melodious instruments, as if an airy band had been hidden on the
hillside and made faint music at the summons. No subsequent trial
produced so clear, delicate, and spiritual a concert as the first. A
field-piece was then discharged from the top of a neighboring hill,
and gave birth to one long reverberation, which ran round the circle
of mountains in an unbroken chain of sound and rolled away without a
separate echo. After these experiments, the cold atmosphere drove us all
into the house, with the keenest appetites for supper.

It did one's heart good to see the great fires that were kindled in
the parlor and bar-room, especially the latter, where the fireplace was
built of rough stone, and might have contained the trunk of an old tree
for a backlog. A man keeps a comfortable hearth when his own forest is
at his very door. In the parlor, when the evening was fairly set in, we
held our hands before our eyes to shield them from the ruddy glow,
and began a pleasant variety of conversation. The mineralogist and the
physician talked about the invigorating qualities of the mountain air,
and its excellent effect on Ethan Crawford's father, an old man of
seventy-five, with the unbroken frame of middle life. The two brides and
the doctor's wife held a whispered discussion, which, by their frequent
titterings and a blush or two, seemed to have reference to the trials or
enjoyments of the matrimonial state. The bridegrooms sat together in a
corner, rigidly silent, like Quakers whom the spirit moveth not, being
still in the odd predicament of bashfulness towards their own young
wives. The Green Mountain squire chose me for his companion, and
described the difficulties he had met with half a century ago in
travelling from the Connecticut River through the Notch to Conway, now
a single day's journey, though it had cost him eighteen. The Georgians
held the album between them, and favored us with the few specimens
of its contents which they considered ridiculous enough to be worth
hearing. One extract met with des