Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/163

 scarred ridges of Lafayette, Lincoln, Haystack and Liberty, along which they had plodded the day before. In the green Notch between they could see the white road and the little Pemigewassett River flashing through the trees, on their way to the Flume House, and far off, where the Notch opened out into the sunny distances, the town of North Woodstock. Beyond the opening, the boys could see the far blue mountains to the south.

"That's what the Old Man of the Mountain is forever looking at, boys," said Mr. Rogers. "Not a bad view, eh?"

"It's wonderful!" said Lou.

The Scouts now lay down on the rocks, and Mr. Rogers opened the book to the story of "The Great Stone Face."

"This story," he began, "was written in Berkshire County, pretty close to our home—in Lenox, in a little red house at the head of Stockbridge Bowl, in the summer of 1851, when Hawthorne was living there. It isn't exactly about this particular Old Man of the Mountain, as you will see from the description. It's really about a sort of ideal great stone face. But of course it was suggested to Hawthorne by this one."

Then he read the story aloud. I wish all my readers, before they go any further in this book, would get Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales," and