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twg_000000037800 | was delighted. Like a bird freed from its cage, she flew about here, there, everywhere, in-doors and out, among the chickens and the pigs, the turkeys and the lambs, enjoying to the full the thousand new things that her eyes rested upon all around her, and her young spirits in wild commotion under the bracing influences of the country air. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037801 | "Mother! mother!" she exclaimed, as she came dashing into the parlor, her beautiful curls floating wildly over her shoulders, and her bright eyes wide open with wonder; "Mother I mother! come out here, quick! and see this funny tree, all covered over with snow-flakes, and how sweet it smells all around it." It was a plum tree in full blossom. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037802 | That little child had never seen the beautiful spring blossoms on the fruit trees. "I have no children of my own," remarked Smith, "and, therefore, may not be regarded as the best authority in regard to the manner of treating, or rearing children; but I have often wondered at the very great mistakes people sometimes make in regard to them. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037803 | There are parents who mean no wrong, and yet who make no scruple of deceiving them in reply to their simple questionings, forgetting, or regardless of the fact, that a false answer to their innocent inquiries put in good faith, and in the earnest pursuit of truth, may plant an error in their minds, which may take years of experience, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037804 | and often a painful amount of ridicule to eradicate. I knew a little boy years ago, a thoughtful, philosophic child, who speculated in his simplicity upon what he saw, as great philosophers do, in their wisdom, upon the various phenomena of Nature. His father, had a great barn, above which, as was the fashion long ago, perched upon a staff, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037805 | a few feet above the ridgepole, was a weather-cock, fashioned out of a piece of board in the shape of a rooster. 'Father,' said the little boy, one day, 'what makes that rooster always point his head one way when the cold wind blows, and the other way when it is warm and pleasant?' 'He always looks towards the place | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037806 | where the wind comes from,' replied the father; 'when he gets too warm, and the sun is too hot for him, he turns his tail to the south, and the north wind is sure to come down, cold and chill, to cool him off.' 'Does he call the cold wind, father, and will it come when he looks, that way?' | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037807 | was the next inquiry. 'Certainly,' replied his father, carelessly. That was a wrong and a foolish answer. "That little boy, relying in his simple faith upon the wisdom and truthfulness of his father, believed for a long time, that the weathercock on the top of the barn, could bring the cold north, or the warm south wind, by turning upon | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037808 | its perch. He was cured of his error only by being laughed at for his simplicity. Parents should never deceive their children by a careless or a wrong answer to the simple questions put to them by these little searchers after knowledge." "I remember," said the doctor, "and it is one of the earliest incidents which my recollection has treasured, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037809 | that I was out one evening in autumn, with a boy older than myself, gathering hazel nuts. The sun had sunk behind the hills, and the shadows of twilight were gathering in the valley. It was a beautiful and calm evening, the solemn stillness of which, was only broken by the 'tza! tza!' of thousands of katydids among the bushes. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037810 | I asked my companion what it was that made the noise I heard, and he, supposing that I referred to sounds that came up occasionally from the lake, after listening for a moment, answered that it was made by the wild geese. In my simplicity I believed it, and it was not until I caught, the next season, a katydid | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037811 | while it was in the act of singing, that I discovered that the music among the hazel bushes was not made by the wild geese." "I never respect a man or woman," said Spalding, "whose heart does not warm towards little children, who takes no pleasure nor interest in their society, who has no patience to listen to their simple | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037812 | thoughts expressed in their simple way. 'Mother,' said a little child of four or five years of age, one evening when the summer air was warm, and the skies were bright above, as she sat beside her mother, on a bench beneath the spreading branches of the tall old elms in front of the house; 'mother, what makes the stars | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037813 | come out, only after the dark has come down, and why don't the moon go up into the sky like the sun in the day time?' I listened anxiously for the reply. I knew the kind heart of that mother, how truthful it was, and how earnest and pure in its affection for its gentle and only darling. 'Sit here | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037814 | upon my lap, Mary,' said the mother, 'and I will try and explain it all so that you will understand it.' And she told the little child how God made the sun to rule the day, and the moon and the stars to rule the night; how that the stars were always in the sky, but how the superior brightness | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037815 | of the sun put them out in the day time; how the stars, that twinkled like little rush-lights in the heavens, were great worlds, a thousand times larger than this earth, made and placed away up in the sky, by the same great and good God who made the world we live in. Little Mary was silent and attentive to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037816 | the simple lecture, until it was finished, and then asked, so simply and confidingly, that I could not help smiling to think that the mind of childhood should be running upon a subject, and seeking a solution of the same question which has puzzled the profoundest philosophers through all time: 'Mother,' said the little one, 'are there people in the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037817 | moon and in the stars, them great worlds that look to us so like candles in the sky?' 'That question, my child,' said the mother, 'I cannot answer.' 'I believe,' said the child, that there _are_ people in the moon, and in all the stars.' 'Why?' asked her mother. 'Because I don't believe God would make such big and beautiful | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037818 | worlds without making people to live in them.' What more has the profoundest philosopher who ever lived said, to prove that those mighty worlds which are seen in the heavens at night, that are scattered all through the universe of God, rolling forever on their everlasting rounds, are peopled by living, moving, sentient beings?" . A CONVENTION BROKEN UP IN | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037819 | A BOW--THE CHAIRMAN EJECTED. We sent forward our boatman with the luggage early in the morning, up Bog River towards Mud Lake, the source of the right branch of that river, lying some thirty miles deeper in the wilderness, counting the sinuosities of the stream, and said to be the highest body of water in all this wild region. We | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037820 | were to spend the day on Tupper's Lake, and follow him the next morning. Our boatman built for our accommodation, a brush shanty in the place of our tents. We rowed about this beautiful sheet of water, exploring its secluded bays and romantic islands, trying experiments with the trout wherever a stream came down from the hills, and trolling for | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037821 | lake trout while crossing the lake. Near the shore, on the west bank, perhaps half a mile from the falls, is one of the coldest, purest and most beautiful springs that I ever met with. It comes up into a little basin some six or eight feet in diameter, by two or three in depth. The bottom is of loose | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037822 | white sand which is all in commotion, by the constant boiling up of the clear cold water. From this basin a little stream goes rippling and laughing to the lake. Towards evening we returned to our shanty with abundance of fish for supper and breakfast, taken, as I said, in simply trying experiments as to where they were to be | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037823 | found in the greatest abundance. If any sportsman who may drift out this way, is fond of taking the speckled trout--little fellows, weighing from a quarter of a pound down, the same he meets with in the streams of Vermont, in Massachusetts, in Northern Pennsylvania, and. Western New York, let him provide himself with angle-worms, and row to the head | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037824 | of the lake. A short distance east of where Bog River enters, say from a quarter to half a mile, he will find a cold mountain stream. Let him rig for brook-fishing and take to that stream. If he does not fill his basket in a little while, he may set it down to the score of bad luck, or | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037825 | some lack of skill on his part in taking them, for the brook trout are there in abundance. Across the lake from Long Island, to the right as you go up the lake, is a bay that goes away in around a woody point. At the head of this bay, "Grindstone Brook" enters. It is a smallish stream, and comes | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037826 | dashing down over shelving rocks some thirty feet, and shoots out into the bay among broken rocks, and loose boulders. The waters of this stream are much colder than those of the lake. Let the sportsman row carefully up towards the mouth of this stream, along towards evening of a hot day, when the shadow of the hill reaches far | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037827 | out over the lake, and cast his fly across the little current, and if he does not take as beautiful a string of river trout as can be found in these parts, let him set it down to the score of accident, for the trout are there in the warm days of August. If he has a curiosity to know | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037828 | what there is above these Little Falls, let him try his angle-worms in the brook just over the ridge, and he will find out. I claim to have discovered these choice fishing places some seasons since, and have kept them for my own private use and amusement. Nobody seemed to know of them. When the trout refused to be taken | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037829 | elsewhere, I have always found them here, abundant, greedy, and ready to be taken by any decently skillful effort. I regard these places as in some sort my private property, and I mention them privately and in confidence to the reader, trusting that my right will be respected. We finished our evening meal while the sun was yet above the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037830 | western hills, and sat with our pipes around a smudge, made upon the broad flat rock, which recedes with a gentle acclivity from the shore, where the Bog River enters the lake, looking out over the stirless waters. It was a beautiful view, so calm, so still and placid, and yet so wild. The islands seemed to stand out clear | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037831 | from the water, to be lifted up, as it were, from the lake, so perfectly moveless and polished was its surface. On a grassy point to the right, and a hundred rods distant, two deer were quietly feeding, while in a little bay on the left, a brood of young ducks were sporting and skimming along the water in playful | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037832 | gyrations around their staid and watchful mother. On the outstretched arm of a dead tree on the island before us, sat a bald eagle, pluming himself; and high above the lake the osprey soared, turning his piercing eye downward, watching for his prey. "I've been thinking," said Smith, as he refilled his pipe, "of what the Doctor was saying the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037833 | other evening about every body having a streak of the vagabond in him, which makes him relish an occasional tramp in the old woods among the natural things; things that have not been marred by the barbarisms, so to speak, of civilization. I'm inclined to believe his theory to be true, but I see a difficulty in its practical working. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037834 | Now, suppose, Doctor, that you and I being out here together vagabondizing, as you term it, and your streak of the vagabond being twice as large as mine, you would of course desire to play the savage twice as long as I should. There would, in that case, be a marring of the harmonies. I should be anxious to get | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037835 | back to civilization, while you, being rather in your normal element, would insist upon 'laying around loose,' as you say, for Mercy knows how long." "Gentlemen," said the Doctor in reply, "only hear this fellow! He's getting homesick already. He has no wife, not a child in the world, no business, nothing to call him home save a superannuated pointer, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037836 | and an old Tom cat, and yet he would leave these glorious old woods, these beautiful lakes, these rivers, these trout and deer, and all the glad music of the wild things, to-morrow, and go back to the dust, the poisoned atmosphere, the eternal jostling and monotonous noises of the city! Truly a vagabond and a savage is Smith. He's | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037837 | afraid that his family, his mangy old pointer and dropsical cat, will suffer in his absence." "I scorn to answer such an accusation," retorted Smith, "I shall treat it with dignified contempt, as I do the Doc medicines, which I never take but always pay for, just to keep him from starving, and to make him imagine he cures me. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037838 | But speaking of cats reminds me of a certain matter which occurred not many years ago. The Doctor here, if his testimony could be relied upon, knows that I used to be troubled with indigestion, and was sometimes a little nervous"---- "A _little_ nervous!" interrupted the Doctor, "why he would be as crazy with the hypo as a March hare. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037839 | He would insist that he was going to die, or to the almshouse. He has made two or three dozen wills, to my certain knowledge, under the firm conviction that he would be in the ground in a week. A _little_ nervous, indeed!" "Well," said Smith, "we won't quarrel about the degree of my nervousness. But in regard to what | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037840 | I was going to say about cats. Some years ago I occupied a suite of rooms in the second story of a house rented by a widow lady, to whom I had been under some obligations in my boyhood, and whom my mother always regarded as her best friend." (Smith supported the excellent old lady in comfort for a decade, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037841 | under pretence of boarding with her, ministering to the last years of her life with the care and affection of a son.) "The landlord of the premises was the owner of a block of twelve houses--six on Pearl street, and six on Broadway, the lots meeting midway between the two streets. On the rear of these lots are the out-houses, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037842 | all under a continuous flat roof, some twelve feet high, twenty wide, and say a hundred and fifty feet long. In the rear of the Broadway dwelling-houses, are one story tea-rooms, or third parlors, the roofs of which form a continuous platform, upon which you can step from the second story of the houses." "Well," said the Doctor, "what of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037843 | all that?" "There's a great deal of it," Smith replied. "I don't pretend to know how many cats there were in the city of Albany. Indeed, I never heard that they were included in the census. I do not undertake to say that they _all_ congregated nightly on the roofs of those out-houses. But if there was a cat in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037844 | the sixth ward, that didn't have something to say on that roof every night, I should like to make its acquaintance. I am against cats. I regard them as treacherous, ungrateful animals, and as having very small moral developments generally. I am against _cat-_terwauling, especially in the night season, when honest people have a right to their natural sleep. I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037845 | don't like to be woke up, when rounding a pleasant dream, by their growling and screaming, spitting and whining, groaning and crying, and the hundred other nameless noises by which they frighten sleep from our pillows. "Well, one night, it may have been one o'clock, or two, or three, I was awakened by the awfullest screaming and sputtering, growling and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037846 | swearing, that ever startled a weary man from his slumbers. I leaped out of bed under the impression that at least twenty little children had fallen into as many tubs of boiling water. I threw open the window and stepped out upon the roof of the tea-room. I don't intend to exaggerate, but I honestly believe that there were less | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037847 | than three hundred cats over against me, on the roofs of the out-houses; each one of which had a tail bigger than a Bologna sausage, his back crooked up like an oxbow, and his great round eyes gleaming fiercely in the moonlight, putting in his very best in the way of catterwauling. Two of the largest, one black as night | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037848 | and the other a dark grey or brindle, appeared to be particularly in earnest, and the way they scolded, and screamed, and swore at each other was a sin to hear. I won't undertake to report all they said; a decent regard for the proprieties of language, compels me to give only a sketch of the debate. "'You infernal, big-tailed, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037849 | hump-backed, ugly-mugged thief,' screamed the grey, 'I'd like to know what _you_ are out here for this time of night, skulking, and creeping, and nosing about in the dark, poaching upon other people's preserves?' "'Very well I mighty well!' was the reply, 'for _you_, to talk, you black-skinned, ogre-eyed, growling and sputtering robber, to come upon this roof, sticking up | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037850 | _your_ back and taking airs on yourself. I'd like to know what business _you've_ got to be prowling about and crowding yourself into honest people's company?' "'I'm a regular Tom Cat, I'd have you know, and go where I please, and I'll stand none of your big talk and insolent looks.' "'Insolent! Hear the cowardly thief! Insolent! Very well, Mr. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037851 | Tom Cat! very good, indeed! Now, just take your black skin off of this roof, or you'll get what will make you look cross-eyed foe a month.' "'Get off this roof, I think you said. Look at this set of ivory, and these claws, old greyback! If you want I should leave this roof, just come and put me off. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037852 | Try it on, old Beeswax. Yes, yes! try it on once, and we'll see whose eyes will look straightest in the morning! Come on, old Humpback! Try it on, old Sausage Tail!' "And then they pitched in, and such scratching and growling, scolding and swearing, and biting, and rolling over and over, I never happened to see or hear before. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037853 | About that time I dropped a boulder of coal, taken from the scuttle, weighing about half a pound, right among them (accidently of course). Whether it hit any one I can't positively affirm, but I heard a dull heavy sound, a kind of _chug_, as if it had struck against something soft, and the scream of one of the belligerents | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037854 | was brought to a sudden stop, by a sort of hysterical jerk, as though there had been a sudden lack of wind to carry it on. It put an end to the disturbance, and all the rioters, save one, scampered away. That one remained, all doubled up in a heap like, as if it had the sick headache, or been | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037855 | attacked with a sudden inflammation of the bowels. If any body's cat was found the next morning with a swelled head, or a great bunch on its side, and seemed dumpish, it's my private opinion that that's the one that lump of coal fell upon. Still it did'nt do much good in the way of relieving me from the annoyance | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037856 | of these cat conventions. They continued to congregate nightly on that long shed in the rear of my rooms. I wasted more wood upon them than I could well afford to spare. I used up all the brickbats I could lay my hands on. I threw away something less than a ton of coal; and on two occasions came near | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037857 | being taken to the watch-house for smashing a window in the opposite block. All this proved of no avail. Indeed, my tormentors began at last to get used to it, to regard it as part of the performance. "The matter was getting serious. It became evident that either those cats or myself must leave the premises. I had paid my | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037858 | rent in advance, and was therefore entitled to quiet use and enjoyment, according to the terms of my lease. I made up my mind to try one more experiment. So I bought me a double-barrelled gun, and a quantity of powder and shot, and gave fair warning that I intended to use them. "Well, the moon came up one night, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037859 | with her great round face, and went walking up the sky with a queenly tread, throwing her light, like a mantle of brightness, over all the earth. I love the calm of a moonlight night, in the pleasant spring time, and the cats of our part of the town seemed to love it too, for they came from every quarter; | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037860 | from the sheds around the National Garden, from the stables, the streets, the basements, and the kitchens, creeping stealthily along the tops of the fences, and along the sheds, and clambering up the boards that leaned up against the outbuildings, and set themselves down, scores or less of them, in their old trysting place, right opposite my chamber windows. To | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037861 | all this I had in the abstract no objection. If a cat chooses to take a quiet walk by moonlight, if he chooses to go out for his pleasure or his profit, it is no particular business of mine, and I haven't a word to say. Cats have rights, and I have no disposition to interfere with them. If they | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037862 | choose to hold a convention to discuss the affairs of rat-and-mousedom, they can do it for all me. But they must go about it decently and in order. They must talk matters over calmly; there must be no rioting, no fighting. They must refrain from the use of profane language--they must not swear. There's law against all this, and I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037863 | had warned them long before that I would stand no such nonsense. I told them frankly that I'd let drive among them some night with a double-barrelled gun, loaded with powder and duck-shot--and I meant it. But those cats did'nt believe a word I said. They did'nt believe I had any powder and shot. They did'nt believe I had any | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037864 | gun, or knew how to use it, if I had; and one great Maltese, with eyes like tea-plates, and a tail like a Bologna sausage, grinned and sputtered, and spit, in derision and defiance of my threats. 'Very well!' said I. 'Very well, Mr. TOM CAT! very well, indeed! On your head be it, Mr. TOM CAT! Try it on, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037865 | Mr. TOM CAT, and we'll see who'll get the worst of it.' "Well, as I said, the moon came up one night, with her great round face, and all the little stars hid themselves, as if ashamed of their twinkle in the splendor of her superior brightness. I retired when the rumble of the carriages in the streets, and the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037866 | tramp on the stone sidewalks had ceased, and the scream of the eleven o'clock train had died away into silence, with a quiet conscience, and in the confidence that I should find that repose to which one who has wronged no man during the day, is justly entitled. "It may have been midnight, or one o'clock, or two, when I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037867 | was awakened from a pleasant slumber, by a babel of unearthly sounds in the rear of my chamber. I knew what those sounds meant, for they had cost me fuel enough to have lasted a month. I raised the window, and there, as of old, right opposite me, on the north end of that long shed, was an assemblage of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037868 | all the cats in that part of the town. I won't be precise as to numbers, but it is my honest belief that there was less than three hundred of them; and if one among them all was silent, I did not succeed in discovering which it was. There was that same old Maltese, with his saucer eyes and sausage | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037869 | tail; and over against him sat a monstrous brindle; and off at the right was an old spotted ratter; and on his left was one black as a wolf's mouth, all but his eyes, which glared with a sulphurous and lurid brightness; and dotted all around, over a space some thirty feet square, were dozens more, of all sizes and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037870 | colors, and _such_ growling and spitting, and shrieking, and swearing, never before broke, with hideous discord, the silence of midnight. "I loaded my double-barrelled gun by candle-light I put plenty of powder and a handful of shot into each barrel. I adjusted the caps carefully, and stepped out of the window, upon the narrow roof upon which it opens. I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037871 | was then just eighty feet from that cat convention. I addressed myself to the chairman (the old Maltese) in a distinct and audible voice and said, 'SCAT!' He did'nt recognise my right to the floor, but went right on with the business of the meeting. 'SCAT!' cried I, more emphatically than before, but was answered only by an extra shriek | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037872 | from the chairman, and a fiercer scream from the whole assembly. 'SCAT! once,' cried I again, as I brought my gun to a present. 'SCAT! twice,' and I aimed straight at the chairman, covering half a dozen others in the range. 'SCAT! three times,' and I let drive. Bang! went the right-hand barrel; and bang! went the left-hand barrel. Such | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037873 | scampering, such leaping off the shed, such running away over the eaves of the outbuildings, over the tops of the wood-sheds, were never seen before. The echoes of the firing had scarcely died away, when that whole assemblage was broken up and dispersed. "'Thomas,' said I, the next morning to the boy who did chores for us, 'there seems to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037874 | be a cat asleep out on that woodshed, go up and scare it away.' "Thomas clambered upon the shed and went up to where that cat lay, and lifting it up by the tail, hallood back to me, 'This cat can't be waked up; it can't be scared away--its dead!' After examining it for a moment--'Somebody's been a shootin' on | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037875 | it, by thunder,' as he tossed it down into the yard. "You don't say so!" said I. "That cat was the old Maltese--the chairman of that convention. I don't know where he boarded, or who claimed title to him. What I do know is, that it cost me a quarter to have him buried, or thrown into the river; and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037876 | that I was suffered to sleep in peace from the time I made the discovery that _powder and lead are great quellers of midnight rioting_. They gave _me_ quiet at least, and saved me from the wickedness of the nightly use of certain expletives, under the excitement of the occasion, which are not to be found in any of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037877 | religious works of the day." . THE FIRST CHAIN OP PONDS--SHOOTING BY TURNS--SHEEP WASHING--A PLUNGE AND A DIVE--A ROLAND FOR AN OLIVER. We started early the next morning up Bog River, intending to reach the "first chain of ponds," some twenty miles deeper in the wilderness, as the stream runs, on the banks of which our pioneer had been instructed | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037878 | to pitch our tents. This day's journey, it was understood, would be a hard one, as there were eight carrying places, varying from ten rods to half a mile in length. The Bog River is a deep, sluggish stream for five or six miles above the falls, just at the lake. It goes creeping along, among, and around immense boulders, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037879 | thrown loose, as it were, in mid channel. At this distance, the stream divides, the right hand channel leading to the two chains of ponds and Mud Lake, where it takes its rise; and the left to Round Pond, and little Tupper's Lake, and a dozen other nameless sheets of water, laying higher up among the mountains. Our course lay | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037880 | up the right hand channel, which, for half a mile above the forks, comes roaring and tumbling through a mountain gorge, plunging over falls, and whirling and surging among the boulders, in a descent of three of four hundred feet in all. Around these, and seven other rapids of greater or less extent, our boats had to be carried. We | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037881 | reached the lower chain of ponds within an hour of sunset, and found our tents pitched at a pleasant spot which looked out over the easternmost one of these beautiful little lakelets. There are three of them, connected together by narrow passages or straits, the banks of which, as the boat glides along, the oars will touch. They are surrounded | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037882 | by low but pleasant hills, so arranged as to form a varied but delightful scenery. From the western one, the hills rise from the water with a steep acclivity, covered with a gigantic growth of timber, save on the northern side, where a pleasant natural meadow, covered with rank grass and a few spruce and fir trees, stretches away. It | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037883 | contains about two hundred acres, and its waters are deep and pure. The middle one, though smaller, is equally beautiful, skirted on three sides with wood-covered hills, and on the other by a continuation of the same natural meadow. The eastern one, on the western banks of which our tents were located on a beautiful little bay, is the prettiest | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037884 | of them all. It contains perhaps six hundred acres, and the scenery around it is exceedingly cheerful and pleasant. The northern shore is bound by a natural meadow of luxuriant wild grass, between which and the water is a hard sandy beach, at low water some thirty feet wide, and extending between a quarter and half a mile in length. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037885 | As we approached these ponds, the river became broad and shallow. Natural meadows, covered with tall grass and weeds, stretching away on either hand. When we came to this portion of the river, the oars were shipped, and our boat-men took their seats in the stern with their paddles. Smith was in the bow of one boat, and Spalding in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037886 | that of the other, each with rifle in hand, preparatory to the slaughter of a deer, to provide us with venison. It was arranged that the marksman who fired and failed to secure his game, should change places with the one behind him, and that thus the rotation should go on, till we should bring down a deer. We knew | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037887 | that we should see numbers of them feeding along the margin of the stream, and upon the natural meadows that skirted the shore. The stream was winding and tortuous, and at no time could we see more than five-and-twenty rods in advance of us, so crooked is its course. We were moving up the stream cautiously and silently; the boatman | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037888 | who had charge of the craft in which were Smith and myself, seated in the stern, paddling, and Smith himself seated in the bow, with rifle in hand, ready for anything that might turn up. As the boat rounded a point, a deer started out from among the reeds on the right, and went dashing and snorting across the river | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037889 | directly in front of the boat, and five or six rods ahead, the water being only about two feet in depth. Smith blazed away at him; where the ball went, Mercy knows; but the deer dashed forward with accelerated speed, and a louder whistle, and went crashing up the hill-side. Smith acknowledged to a severe attack of the Buck fever. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037890 | It was now my turn to take the next shot; and changing places with Smith, we went ahead. In ten minutes a chance to try my skill occurred. But it was a long shot, the game was "on the wing," and I had no better success than did my friend. The deer only increased the length of his bounds, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037891 | he too went plunging through the old woods, snorting in astonishment, and huge affright at what he had seen and heard. Our boat now fell back, and Spalding and the Doctor took the lead. In a short time, a deer was discovered feeding just ahead of us on the lily pads along the shore. The boatman paddled silently up to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037892 | within eight or ten rods of him. Spalding sighted him long and, as he averred, carefully with his rifle. The deer fed and fed on, and we waited anxiously to hear the crack of the rifle, and see the deer go down; but still the boat glided on unnoticed by the animal that was feeding in unsuspecting security. At length | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037893 | he raised his head, threw forward his long ears, gazed for a second intently at his enemies, and then appreciating his danger, snorted like a warhorse and plunged in a seeming desperation of terror towards the shore. He had ran a few rods when Spalding let drive at him, as he confessed, at random. The ball went wide of the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037894 | mark, and the game dashed, with more desperate energy, and whistling and snorting like a locomotive, into the brush that lined the banks. It was Spalding's third shot in all his life at a deer, and he insisted, gravely enough, that he did not fire while the game was standing broadside to him, on account of his desire to give | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037895 | the animal a chance for his life. The truth is, that Spalding had a bad, a very bad attack of the aforesaid Buck fever. The Doctor, by rotation, now became the leading marksman. He was cool and calm, as if going to perform some delicate surgical operation. We soon came in sight of a buck feeding in a shallow pasture, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037896 | and the boat glided quietly within fifteen rods of it. The Doctor's hand was firm, and his aim steady. There was about him none of that nervous agitation which is so apt to disturb the first efforts at deer slaying. The boat came to a pause a moment, when his rule rang out quick and sharp, waking the echoes of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037897 | the mountains around and reverberating along the shore. At the crack of the rifle, the buck leaped high into the air, and plunged madly towards the bank, up which he dashed with a prodigious bound, made a single jump among the tall grass, and disappeared from the sight. The Doctor was greatly mortified, supposing he had missed. He declared solemnly | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037898 | that he had taken steady and sure aim just back of the fore-shoulders of the deer, had a perfect sight upon it, and that it did not fall in its tracks, could only be owing to its bearing a charmed life. The boatman, however, knew that the animal, from its actions, was mortally wounded. He said nothing, but paddled quietly | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037899 | to the shore, and there, just over the bank, in the tall grass and weeds, lay the noble buck, stone dead. He had gone down and died without a struggle. A proud man was the Doctor, as he passed his hunting-knife across the throat of the deer, and gazed upon its broad antlers, now in the velvet, pointing to the | 60 | gutenberg |
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