ella was a fortunate little girl in having so many cousins. some were tall, some were short; some had blue eyes, and some had black; some had curly hair and some had straight hair; some lived near the grandfather’s, some lived a long drive away, and some lived many hundreds of miles away. most of them were younger; two or three were older. when one is nine, three or four years make a great difference, and ella looked upon these older ones as being quite mature persons. she loved them all, but her special playmate was boy cousin, a boy of her own age who lived nearest.
when morning came, there were so many interesting things to do that ella hardly knew how to choose among them. first of all, she must of course have a good long look at the mountains, every one of them. little girl as she was, she could remember when some of them were a little different in their appearance. the nearest one was ossipee, a kindly, friendly, sunny mountain, with a great pasture running far up the side to a gray rock that looked quite like a cabin. this had not come into view until the trees about it had been cut down. the children realized that the “cabin” was much larger than it appeared, and they[pg 62] had made up a story to the effect that a good-natured giant from the other side of the mountain had come over to this side, bringing his house with him.
beyond this rock were ledges, and after a rain the water ran down over them in a silver sheet. the children called them the shining rocks, the home of the sunbeam fairies. they had once climbed to the top of the mountain, and when they came to the rocks, they more than half expected to catch a glimpse of a little man in grass-green hat or a dainty fairy queen in a gown of sunbeams. no fairies appeared, and they decided that it was foolish to expect them, for every one ought to know that they will not appear when grown-ups are about.
to the west lay israel, massive and dignified. that had not changed; but ella felt sure that whiteface was not quite the same. it was called whiteface because a slide many years before had torn off the face of the mountain, and left only the bare white granite. every summer the trees and bushes made their way a little farther in upon the rocks; and a keen observer could really see that the slide was a little less white and a little more green.
away to the north was chocorua, the mountain that in sun and shade and mist and tempest and calm was always an exquisite picture. it lay with quiet majesty on the horizon, stately and beautiful. the forest had crept up the sides, but the summit was a great mass of granite, sharply pointed and reaching[pg 63] far up into the blue sky. ella thought it looked like a picture that she had seen of the alps. she did so hope that some day she might climb it. it would be like taking a trip to europe, she thought. of all the mountains in view, chocorua was the one that she loved best. “i wish you could understand. i wish i could put my arm around you and tell you how i love you,” she used to whisper to it sometimes. the mountain looked more and more beautiful, but it made no reply. one day, however, a wisp of white cloud floated quickly over the peak while she was speaking. “you do understand, and you are waving to me,” she said to the mountain, and after this she loved it more than ever.
ella had been walking slowly down the narrow road that wound between the tall alder bushes down to the river. at one place she stopped to put aside the ferns growing in front of a rock of pale gray granite. the side of the rock nearest the road was of a darker gray and was shaped like a door. this was the entrance to fairyland, the children had decided, and ella stood waiting a moment to see if the queen of the fairies would appear. if the queen should wear a bright pink dress with deep red lines, then ella would know for sure that she had seen her majesty in the little woods by the lake near the seminary.
but boy cousin was coming up the road, and ella hastily brought the ferns together, for she had begun to suspect that he did not believe in fairies quite so[pg 64] firmly as she, so she did not speak of them when they met on the bridge.
this bridge was made of split logs laid upon great rough beams of wood. on each side there was a rail cut with many initials. among them was a big “e,” which ella had cut the summer before. under the bridge, as far up and down stream as they could see, there were rocks of all sizes and shapes. it was so dry a season that in many places the water had slipped out of sight among them, making a fresh, merry, rippling sound.
“it’s playing hide and seek,” declared boy cousin, “and it is saying, ‘here i am! find me if you can!’”
over the river hung wild grapes, as yet green and sour; sprays of goldenrod; graceful and dainty white birches; and here and there was a bright leaf or two of the early autumn, or a reddening spray of bittersweet or the scarlet berries of the black alder.
the children slipped down beside the bridge to one of their favorite places, a big flat rock overhung by a white birch and a maple. they were looking up through the branches when ella exclaimed:
“just see there, boy cousin! see the blue sky with the white birch bough running across it and the little spray of red maple leaves! it’s our flag, our own red, white, and blue. but let’s go and see the stone house. we can come back here this afternoon.”
so down the road they went. on the left was a little hill where lay some great-great-grandfathers, men[pg 65] who had forced their way into the new country and cut out for themselves homes in the wilderness. their graves were marked by field stones, just as they had been left in the early times. at one or two of them an initial was rudely cut into the stone. ella wondered a little whether she would have liked these great-great-grandfathers or her french ones better. “i had some french great-great-grandfathers, too,” said boy cousin. “what a pity that we couldn’t all have lived at the same time!”
on the right of the road was a row of tamarack trees, and over the wall a field through which the river ran in graceful curves, and a mass of great rocks that looked as if hurled together by an earthquake, but made the nicest places possible for little “cubby houses” and ovens for baking mud cakes.
through the bars the children went, over a little bridge, across the wide-spreading meadow, and up a hill to a rocky pasture where the gray horse was roaming about.
“the horse and the rocks are the very same color,” said ella. “i don’t see how you know which of them to put the bridle on when you go to catch him.”
“that’s easy,” replied boy cousin. “i just look the rocks over, and put the bridle on the one that shakes its tail.”
there was one rock, larger than the others, and of all the rocks that the children had seen, this was the only one that split into layers. wide slabs of this rock[pg 66] lay all around, and of these slabs they had made, the summer before, a little cottage. it stood up against the great rock, with a slab of granite for each wall and one for the roof. by patient hammering they had contrived to break out a place for a doorway and a window. it was so well built that it had stood bravely through all the frosts and storms of a mountain winter.
“it looks just exactly as it did,” ella said delightedly. “i was afraid it would fall down. i wonder that the ram did not knock it down.”
boy cousin was silent. he was never inclined to brag of his own exploits. ella went on: “grandpa told me last night. he said that the ram kept trying to butt you, and that you hadn’t anything to fight it with except a little stick; but that you climbed up on this rock and managed somehow to keep it off till your father came from the next field. he said you were a plucky boy, or you would have been killed.”
“who wouldn’t be plucky rather than killed?” demanded the hero of the story. “there’s no end of checkerberries over there. let’s make a birch-bark basket and pick some.”
they pulled some birch bark from a tree, took a piece seven or eight inches long and five wide, cut two slits an inch long in each end, bent the outer pieces on either end together, and fastened them with a little wooden pin; and there they had a strong basket that would hold a double handful of checkerberries.
[pg 67]
after the berries were picked, boy cousin looked wisely at the sun and declared that it was time to go home to dinner.
“let’s go fishing after dinner,” ella proposed.
“no good; too early. let’s play croquet first.”
“you haven’t any croquet set.”
“haven’t i, though? you just come and see.”
“you didn’t have last summer.”
“this is another summer.”
“have you really a set?”
“you said i hadn’t.”
“well, i’ll say you have if you have. where is it?”
“it’s where little girls can’t find it; but if you’ll come down this afternoon, we’ll play and i’ll beat you with it whether it’s real or not.”
“i don’t more than half believe it’s real, but i’ll come. good-bye.”
when ella came to see the croquet set, she thought it was quite wonderful.
“it isn’t the least bit like those in the stores,” she explained to her mother. “it is ever and ever so much nicer because it is so different. he just sawed off pieces of white birch for the mallet heads, bored a hole in each one, and drove the handle in. the bark is left on, and it’s so much prettier than paint and varnish. the ends are not much smoothed off, and so the balls do not slip half so badly.”
“and how did he make the balls?” asked the mother.
[pg 68]
“why, he didn’t have to make them at all. there was an old bedstead, and these balls were at the top of the posts. he just sawed them off. they’re not like common balls; they are shaped like those that boys play football with, and when you hit one, you never know which way it will go. it’s ever so much more fun than just plain croquet.”
there was always plenty of amusement for the two children, and no one ever heard them saying, “please tell me something to do.” no one ever heard them wishing for more children to play with. indeed, the river was as good as a dozen. they cut poles in the woods and fished in it. ella kept a little diary, as was the fashion in those times, and it was a great convenience to be able to fill a whole day’s space with such entries as, “i caught 2 flatfish and 1 perch”; or, when apparently the fish had refused to bite on the previous day, “we did not go fishing to-day at all. i suppose i should not have caught anything if we had gone.”
the river had a charming way of suggesting things to do. in one place, clay stones had formed, and the children had fine times wading in and picking them up. in another it had overflowed and made a little bay that could easily be shut off by itself. they named it beauty bay, and whenever they caught a fish without harming it, they slipped it gently into this bay to live in peace and plenty all the rest of its life.
[pg 69]
a big flat rock in the middle of the stream was their picnic ground. here they often built a fire and roasted eggs rolled in wet paper or ears of fresh green corn. on the bank just beyond the rock were blackberry bushes, and no one who has not tried it has any idea how good the berries taste when one takes first a berry and then a bite of maple sugar.
it must have been the river that suggested to them to write a library of little story-books, the “bearcamp books,” as they called them, one for each rock; and as the bed of the bearcamp is all rocks, this was without doubt the most tremendous literary undertaking of the century. the stories were carefully modeled upon the tales of the day, and were written, like those in concord, in tiny booklets.
this is the way ella described their publishing house to her uncle in the west:
how do you like being editor? boy cousin and i are publishing books (on a rather smaller scale than you, though). we make a little blankbook out of writing paper and then make up a story and write in it. i have written 8 or 9 books, little and big, besides a lot of other stories not in the book form. i love to write. i wish that when you write to me you would tell me all about your paper, and about the printing of it especially, as i never saw any one print. boy cousin can write poetry, but i can’t.
the first story that ella contributed to the “bearcamp library” was called “our ragbag,” for this was in the days when people saved their rags and bought glass dishes with them, and it read as follows:
[pg 70]
as the contents of our ragbag were to be sold, the rags were laid on a table in an unused room. well, this is pleasant, to be in the light once more after being in this dark bag so many long weeks. “what shall we do” said a piece of cloth. “let us each tell our story” said a piece of brocade, “i will begin—in a beautiful garden in the far off east, a no less beautiful girl used to walk—sometimes alone—but more frequently accompanied by her—enough of this stuff” said a white cotton rag “let me tell a story, once there grew in the south, a beautiful flower known as the cotton plant. i was that beautiful flower. nonsense, just as though we would believe that story, said a little piece of blue & white muslin “let me tell mine once there was a very rich lady came in her carriage to the shop where i was placed to be sold & without alighting from her carriage asked to see some rich silk & velvet goods, they were immediately carried to her & by mistake i was put in with them & the clerk did not perceive that i was there until he got to the carriage. he was just going to throw me into the store when the lady said “that is very pretty, i will take it” & so she carried me home with her then i was made into a splendid dress for one of—“well, i say for one said a faded piece of calico, that we have heard enough about dress.” “the people are coming to pick us over, isn’t it too bad that we did not find out in the bag what a good time we might have had, each could then have told his story.”
