Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/25

 their presence. "Ages are thy days, thou type of permanence!" It is all a reality—and not a dream.

Half intoxicated with pleasure, he flings himself on the needle-strewn ground burying his face in its crisp brown fragrance. He stoops to lay a caressing hand on the broad, four-leaved white flowers of the bunchberries which carpet sunny open glades. Almost in a single thought he takes in all the coming delights. He knows that far up above, his foot will soon fall with light and loving pressure on the tiny, shiny leaves of the sturdy little mountain cranberry, lining smooth little hollows and creeping up to the foot of towering rocks, their brave little rosy-white blossoms telling cheerfully of the snow drifts beneath which they have lain warm and snug all the long stern winter that has just past. And he knows that high up in the little caves opening to the northeast there still lurk lingeringly some drifts of icy snow sullenly yielding to the high-wheeling chariot of