Chapter Eight
Mountains usually don’t get worried, but the mountain was really worried about the men across the valley. They were cutting trees to make funny paths down the side of the hill. The mountain knew this would cause snow slides, but the men did not seem to know! The men kept cutting the trees, and then they installed these big towers with lines between them and little seats all along.
The mountain waited for winter, and when it came people rode up on the seats and slid down on long planks attached to their feet! The mountain was starting to think these people were not very smart. But the people kept doing it, and at night machines with bright lights ran up and down the paths the men had cut. Aha! the mountain thought, this is how the men will stop the snow slides. They will smash the snow flat!
The mountain kept an eye on things, and it learned the seats ran nearly every day, even in summer. People would often ride to the top of the other mountain and look beyond it. The mountain was almost jealous (if mountains can get jealous) of whatever was on the other side. What were those people looking at? Why did they usually look that way and not toward it, the mountain wondered?
The mountain was consoled, however, when young people began to climb its sides and camp amongst its glades. They stayed in colorful tents and carried everything on their backs. The mountain believed for a while that some of the early people had returned, but it decided the newcomers were not like those. These people did not hunt animals or stay for long in one place.
And you know, after so many different people over the years, the mountain began to wonder if they knew something. This was a very strange thing for a mountain to think. Mountains are old and seemingly never change, while people change all the time. But the mountain became convinced: the people must know something-what was it? Why did they keep coming back and climbing this way or that? The mountain decided to find out.