Along the wayside are many gray birches (of the kind called white birches in Massachusetts, the kind from which Yankee schoolboys snatch a fearful joy by “swinging off” their tops), the only ones I remember about Franconia; for which reason I sometimes call the road Gray Birch Road; and just beyond them I stop again. Here is a bit for a painter: a lovely vista, such as makes a man wish for a brush and the skill to use it. The road dips into a little hollow, turns gently, and passes out of sight within the shadow of a wood. And above the over-arching trees rises the pyramidal mass of Mount Cannon, its middle part set with dark evergreens, which are flanked on either side with broad patches of light yellow,--poplars or birches. The sun is getting down, and its level rays flood the whole mountain forest with light. Into the shadow I go, following the road, and after a turn or two come out at a small clearing and a house. “Rocky Farm,” we might name it; for the land is sprinkled over with huge boulders, as if giants had been at play here. Whoever settled the place first must have chosen the site for its outlook rather than for any hope of its fertility. I sit down on one of the stones and take my fill of the mountain glory: Garfield, Lafayette, Cannon, Kinsman, Moosilauke,--a grand horizonful. Cannon is almost within reach of the hand, as it looks; but the arm might need to be two miles long. Just here the road makes a sudden bend, passes again into light woods, and presently emerges upon a little knoll overlooking the upper Franconia meadows. This is the noblest prospect of the afternoon, and late as the hour is growing I must lean against the fence rail--for there is a house at this point also--and gaze upon it. The green meadow is spread at my feet, flaming maple woods range themselves beyond it, and behind them, close at hand, loom the sombre mountains. I had forgotten that this part of the road was so “viewly,” to borrow a local word, and am thankful to have reached it at so favorable a moment. Now the shadow of the low hills at my back overspreads the valley, while the upper world beyond is aglow with light and color.