During one of these sojourns, we roomed in an old frame house in the valley, distant about three hundred yards from the hill-side place just described. In the early October mornings, our way when going to breakfast, was along a beaten path through the chestnut grove, where the ground would be covered with nuts larger than any which ever find their way to the market. Those short walks in the bright, clear mornings are indelibly stamped in memory. Again the creaking, wood-latched gate of the unpainted mansion closes with a rattle; the great piles of waste mica around the shops gleam in the sunshine; the birds twitter in the green vines so heavily clustered in the buckeyes that the limbs of contiguous trees meeting, form overhead rich arbors for the passers beneath; the rough planks of the bridge across one smooth branch of the stream shake under our footsteps; the chestnut woods, turning yellow, drop their dry burrs in our path; the two long, hewn-top logs, with their crooked hand-rail, bridging one of the maddest and most musical of mountain streams, tremble as we run across them; the bordering alders sparkle with dew-drops; the frame farm-yard gate stands shut before us. Over this we leap and go chasing up the hill. If the family is still slumbering, a gun is taken from its stand beside the chimney; a whistle given for a dog, whose quick appearance, bright eyes, and wagging tail show his pleasure; and at the foot of the hill the black-berry thickets are beaten, until before the yelping dog a shivering rabbit bounds out in sight, whose race is perhaps ended rather abruptly. For mountain parties both Lickstone and Old Bald offer exceptional attractions. The ascent of the latter peak and the character of the views from its summit are described in the sketch on bear hunting. Lickstone can be easily ascended on foot or on horse-back, and is admirably situated for the observer to bring within his ken the most prominent peaks of eight surrounding counties, and see unrolled below him a mountain-bounded landscape of beauty and grandeur beyond the power of delineation by poet or painter. Lickstone takes its curious name from a huge flat rock near the summit of the mountain, whereon the cattle-herders used formerly to place the salt brought by them to the stock which range the summit meadows. On the east slope are located valuable mica mines.