the white-barked pine grew on the slope of kearsarge highest up of all the pines, so high that nothing grew above it but brown tufts of grass and the rosy sierra primroses that shelter under the edges of broken boulders. the white-barked pines are squat and short, trunks creeping along the rocks, and foliage all matted in a close green thatch by the winter's weight. snow lies on the slope of kearsarge eight months in the year, deep and smooth over the pines and the jagged rocks; other months there are great storms of rain, and always a strong wind roaring through the pass, so that, try as it might, no tree could stand erect on those heights. the white-barked pine stretched its body along the ground, and though it was four hundred years old, it was no thicker than a man's leg, and its young branches of seventy-five or a hundred years were still so supple that one could tie knots in them. it grew near the trail, which here crossed through a gap in the crest of the range and straggled on down the other side of the mountain.
along this trail went many strange things in their season. early in the year, before the snow had melted at all on the high places, went a great lumbering bear that had a lair above big meadows, going down to the calf-pens and pig-sties of the town at the foot of kearsarge. he ranged back and forth on these little excursions of fifteen or twenty miles in the hungry season of the year, and sometimes there were hunters on his trail with dogs and guns, but nothing ever came of it. when the trail began to run a rivulet from the drip of melting snow banks, the forest ranger went up the pass, singing as he went and beating his arms to keep himself warm. afterwards when the snow water was all drained off, he came back and mended the trail. all through the summer there would be parties of miners and hunters with long strings of pack mules, going over kearsarge to camp in big meadows or on the fork of king's river. sometimes there were parties of indians with women and children, making very merry with berries, fish, and deer meat. nearly always, whatever went over the mountain came back again, and the white pine noticed that the same people came again another season. in four hundred years one has space for observation and reflection. gradually the pine tree grew into the conviction that the other side of the mountain must be much finer than 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 the tree had known it all for so many years, it no longer pleased him. from where he grew he looked down between the ridges on a great winding cañon full 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 way to the valley, and from the falls long rainbows of spray blown out as if they were blowing kisses to the white-barked pine. below all this lay the 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 all along 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. do tell 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 and blue lakes. it is not at all different from this side."
a deer said the same thing when it slept one night under the thatch of the highest pine. "it is all meadows and hills, only sometimes the grass is not so good there, and again sometimes it is better. it is very much like this."
"i do not believe them," said the pine to himself. "they are simply trying to console me for not realizing my ambition. but i am not a sapling any longer, let me tell you that."
"at least," said a young tree that grew a little farther down, "you are higher 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 just where the trail dips over the ridge. surely i am as capable of climbing as 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 so short i hardly ever ripen any, and if i do the squirrels get them. i do believe i have not started a seedling these two hundred years. it is no use to talk to me, i shall be happy only when i have seen the other side of the mountain."
it seems what one desires with all one's heart for a long time finally comes to pass in some fashion or other. that very season the white-barked pine went up over kearsarge to the other side. early in the summer, when the rosy primroses had just begun to blow beside the drifts that hugged the shade of the boulders, a party of miners went up the trail with a long string of pack mules burdened with picks and shovels, flour and potatoes, and other things that miners use. the last pull up the kearsarge trail is the hardest, over a steep waste of loose stones that want very little encouragement to go roaring down as an avalanche into the ravine below. the miners shouted, the mules scrambled and panted on the steep, but just as they came by the last of the white-barked pines, one slipped and went rolling over and over on the jagged stones. as happens very frequently when a pack animal falls, the mule 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 the white-barked pine. he chopped off the boughs, and split the trunk in four pieces to mend the pack. it was a very small tree though it was so old.
"ah! ah!" said the tree, "it hurts, but one does not mind that when one is realizing an ambition. now i shall go to the top." so he went over kearsarge on mule-back quite like an old traveler.
"well, we are rid of his complaining," said the pine who stood next to him, "and now i am the highest up of all the pines. i wonder if it is really so much finer on the other side."
his old companion, in four pieces, was swinging down the other side of the mountain, and as he went, he saw high peaks and soddy meadows, long winding cañons with white glancing waters; and heard the chorus of the falls. when it was night the miners lit a fire and loosened up the packs, and after dark, when the wind began to move among the trees and the fire burned low, one of the men threw a piece of the white-barked pine on it.
"oh! oh!" cried the pine as the flames caught hold of it, "and is this really the end of all my travels?"
"how that green wood sputters!" said the man; "it is not fit even for firewood."
the next day the wind took up the ash and carried it back over the pass, and dropped it[pg 170] where the chopped boughs lay fainting on the ground.
"ah, is that you?" they said; "now you can tell us what it is like on the other side."
"how ignorant you are," said the ash of the white-barked pine, "one would know you have never traveled. it is exactly like this side." but he could not hear what they had to say to that, for the wind whirled him away.
