THE WHITE-BARKED PINE
The white-barked pine grew on the slope of Kearsarge highest up of allthe pines, so high that nothing grew above it but brown tufts of grassand the rosy Sierra primroses that shelter under the edges of brokenboulders. The white-barked pines are squat and short, trunks creepingalong the rocks, and foliage all matted in a close green thatch by thewinter's weight. Snow lies on the slope of Kearsarge eight months in theyear, deep and smooth over the pines and the jagged rocks; other monthsthere are great storms of rain, and always a strong wind roaring throughthe Pass, so that, try as it might, no tree could stand erect on thoseheights. The white-barked pine stretched its body along the ground, andthough it was four hundred years old, it was no thicker than a man'sleg, and its young branches of seventy-five or a hundred years werestill so supple that one could tie knots in them. It grew near thetrail, which here crossed through a gap in the crest of the range andstraggled on down the other side of the mountain.
Along this trail went many strange things in their season. Early in theyear, before the snow had melted at all on the high places, went a greatlumbering bear that had a lair above Big Meadows, going down to thecalf-pens and pig-sties of the town at the foot of Kearsarge. He rangedback and forth on these little excursions of fifteen or twenty miles inthe hungry season of the year, and sometimes there were hunters on histrail with dogs and guns, but nothing ever came of it. When the trailbegan to run a rivulet from the drip of melting snow banks, the forestranger went up the Pass, singing as he went and beating his arms to keephimself warm. Afterwards when the snow water was all drained off, hecame back and mended the trail. All through the summer there would beparties of miners and hunters with long strings of pack mules, goingover Kearsarge to camp in Big Meadows or on the fork of King's River.Sometimes there were parties of Indians with women and children, makingvery merry with berries, fish, and deer meat. Nearly always, whateverwent over the mountain came back again, and the white pine noticed thatthe same people came again another season. In four hundred years one hasspace for observation and reflection. Gradually the pine tree grew intothe conviction that the other side of the mountain must be much finerthan this.
"Else why," said he, "should so many people go there every year?"
It was very fine, you may be sure, on the white pine's side, but thetree had known it all for so many years, it no longer pleased him. Fromwhere he grew he looked down between the ridges on a great winding canyonfull of singing trees, with blue lakes like eyes winking between them.He could watch in the open places the white feet of the water on its wayto the valley, and from the falls long rainbows of spray blown out as ifthey were blowing kisses to the white-barked pine. Below all this laythe valley, hollow like a cup, full of fawn-colored and violet mist,and the farms and orchards lay like dregs at the bottom of the cup.Beyond the valley rose other noble ranges with cloud shadows playing allalong their slopes.
"It is very tiresome to look at the same things for four hundred years,"said the white-barked pine. "If I could only get to the top, now. Dotell me, what is it like on the other side?" he said to the wind.
"Oh!" said the wind, "it rains and snows. There are trees and bushes andblue lakes. It is not at all different from this side."
A deer said the same thing when it slept one night under the thatch ofthe highest pine. "It is all meadows and hills, only sometimes the grassis not so good there, and again sometimes it is better. It is very muchlike this."
"I do not believe them," said the pine to himself. "They are simplytrying to console me for not realizing my ambition. But I am not asapling any longer, let me tell you that."
"At least," said a young tree that grew a little farther down, "you arehigher up than any of us."
"Of what use is that if I do not get to the top?" said the unhappy pine."There is a bunch of blue flowers there, I can see it quite plainly justwhere the trail dips over the ridge. Surely I am as capable of climbingas any blue weed."
"But," said the young pine, "weeds do not have to grow cones."
"Oh, as for cones," cried the tree quite crossly, "the seasons are soshort I hardly ever ripen any, and if I do the squirrels get them. I dobelieve I have not started a seedling these two hundred years. It is nouse to talk to me, I shall be happy only when I have seen the other sideof the mountain."
It seems what one desires with all one's heart for a long time finallycomes to pass in some fashion or other. That very season thewhite-barked pine went up over Kearsarge to the other side. Early in thesummer, when the rosy primroses had just begun to blow beside the driftsthat hugged the shade of the boulders, a party of miners went up thetrail with a long string of pack mules burdened with picks and shovels,flour and potatoes, and other things that miners use. The last pull upthe Kearsarge trail is the hardest, over a steep waste of loose stonesthat want very little encouragement to go roaring down as an avalancheinto the ravine below. The miners shouted, the mules scrambled andpanted on the steep, but just as they came by the last of thewhite-barked pines, one slipped and went rolling over and over on thejagged stones. As happens very frequently when a pack animal falls, themule was not very much hurt, but the pack saddle was quite ruined.
"We must do the best we can," said one of the men, and he cut down thewhite-barked pine. He chopped off the boughs, and split the trunk infour pieces to mend the pack. It was a very small tree though it was soold.
"Ah! Ah!" said the tree, "it hurts, but one does not mind that when oneis realizing an ambition. Now I shall go to the top." So he went overKearsarge on mule-back quite like an old traveler.
"Well, we are rid of his complaining," said the pine who stood next tohim, "and now _I_ am the highest up of all the pines. I wonder if it isreally so much finer on the other side."
His old companion, in four pieces, was swinging down the other side ofthe mountain, and as he went, he saw high peaks and soddy meadows, longwinding canons with white glancing waters; and heard the chorus of thefalls. When it was night the miners lit a fire and loosened up thepacks, and after dark, when the wind began to move among the trees andthe fire burned low, one of the men threw a piece of the white-barkedpine on it.
"Oh! Oh!" cried the pine as the flames caught hold of it, "and is thisreally the end of all my travels?"
"How that green wood sputters!" said the man; "it is not fit even forfirewood."
The next day the wind took up the ash and carried it back over the pass,and dropped it where the chopped boughs lay fainting on the ground.
"Ah, is that you?" they said; "now you can tell us what it is like onthe other side."
"How ignorant you are," said the ash of the white-barked pine, "onewould know you have never traveled. It is exactly like this side." Buthe could not hear what they had to say to that, for the wind whirled himaway.