[Campton—Wednesday, 20 June 1866]
Wednesday. A perfect day again. Lucy, Jamie & I went to Waterville. We cannot forget the damp coolness of the woods as we went, the bare face of Welch mountain, or Green Top opposite. Mt. Osceola was in shadow and looked as if enfolded in green moss. Before dinner we sat by the river and watched the icy flow and afterward we walked in the woods towards Franconia where trees had lain and decayed unnoticed and until lately almost unseen. The Peabody bird was singing alone in the wildest spots wherever a clearing had been made but the thrush was always fluting in the thickets under shade. There was something peculiar in that woodland walk, a mossiness in the trees, a depth to the soft mouldering earth under the feet, an uncleared look, as if no one had passed, at least since the last severe storms, while the mountain river murmured at our side and the wild birds sang above our heads, it was unlike the places which are usually opened for our feet to walk in, we felt the spell of Nature’s “secret loveliness.”
Four years ago when we came to Waterville we found a small house 50 years old apparently with a wide hearth-stone and logs smouldering upon it,—by the side of the fire sat a somewhat old man who had lost his wife the year before, a woman esteemed for her many virtues and good housekeeping, all the country through. Mrs Greeley had seen sorrow too; one of her sons had been a bad man and had gone off from Plymouth with another woman’s [sic] wife; this and lesser ills had crushed her until at length she died. The old man and his son who remained behind had struggled along for a time in the wilderness, but what could two men do in the heart of the hills without a woman to care for them? A short time before our visit a young woman had accepted the father’s proposition to care and keep house. I saw her and observed how happy she was in her new home. The old man was fond of her and the household was clearly and well ordered. She had a sweet honest face too and I wondered in my heart what the young man Greeley was like (he was away at that time) and how he could help marrying this young girl if she would have him. I went so far as to ask her some indifferent questions about young Mr Greeley and I fancied a blush came with her answer. It was a pleasure therefore to find her there again as the wife, but with a new house on her hands, a summer of boarders before her, and a care-worn expression which made her look more than 4 years older then when we were here last—beside her teeth were decaying, but she was as kind as ever and her manners were as sweet, full of gentleness, propriety and reticence.
As we came away from Waterville the afternoon light was touching every beautiful peak with its fresh adornment. We came slowly for Mr Willey’s new horse “Black-bird” is not altogether so swift by nature as the name might imply and we encouraged no hasty movements in his sedate character but paused and more and then alighted when new flowers or new views dawned upon us. It was the perfection of life! We scarcely met a wagon until we approached the village after many miles of travel. We observed as we passed in the morning a house formerly occupied by a family who had gone away and left the place to solitude and decay. We had become slightly accquainted with these settlers when we last visited Waterville. They had come hither attracted by the beauty of the place hoping to find health in out-of-doors pursuits. It was indeed a spot to attract. Situated on a fertile green slope fronting the south with a lovely hill we named Green Top rising precipitously on one side and on the other, farther removed, Welch mountain with bare and inaccessible summit wearing a frown even in the loveliest hours. There was no house within miles of the “Brooks’s” plantation except a small cottage inhabited by a woman (who performed their domestic labors) with her husband and child. This woman was one of those rare persons of utter self-forgetfulness, who could not endure to be separated from a kind friend whom she had served for years, therefore she insisted upon following the fortunes of the Brooks's. Her husband who appeared many years younger than herself hunted and fished with and for the Brooks family while she performed their indoor labor taking care of her young infant in the meantime. She would shut up her own cottage early in the morning and taking her child with her would go down to prepare breakfast at the house below,—when we saw her first it was about mid-day when, her work done she was returning home drawing the baby in the little carriage by her side. We stopped and walked and talked with her and heard her stories of the savage loneliness of the place. She liked it but Mrs Brooks was still too ill to leave her room. This year they had all vanished. There was no voice to break the solitude. We stopped our wagon and walked about the house and stood looking down one of the loveliest valleys in the world but there was no human sound. They had vanished forever, but the river still rushed, the birds sang, and the sunshine threw a golden smile across the valley as warm and cheerful and young as if the world were born today and had not seen the picture of the mortal changed, the agony of the living, the struggle with suffering but only bore the symbol of immortality forever on its brow. And this is what the smile of Nature means then through all change,—at other times we reach a tender sympathy with our lot but when the pain of bereavement is freshly with us we often wonder at the gay robe which wraps the valley and the hill; has not the truth at length been revealed? It is the immortal sunshine beckoning us to fields of joy.