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The Heart of Monadnock

Phoebus. And he remembers also the endless, crowding ranks of blueberry bushes mantling all the spaces between the rocks up in the sunlight, with their close-set rose-touched clustering blossoms, promises of the pinky-blue succulence to come. Sheep-laurel is lending its magenta to the color scheme. The shad-tree still whitens the upper forests, though on the plains below, its white petals would long since have fallen.

The limpid springs, full to the lip, lie in every rocky hollow, clearer than amber; gay little giggling brooklets are whisking along tiny rocky channels, babbling little mountain secrets as they flirt with their banks. He could hear them. Then growing broader and more opulent and more occupied with their own affairs, they come tumbling down in miniature cataracts, spreading out here and there into broad pools to rest while they collect their forces for another mad excited little plunge. . . . And there is moss everywhere of every shade of melting green, cushioning rock and