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twg_000000037900 | course of the ball right through its vitals, in on one side and out on the other. We had venison for the next four-and-twenty hours, and we disturbed the deer no more that afternoon. The deep baying of the stag-hounds, as we entered the little lake, apprised us of the location of our tents, and we were glad to reach | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037901 | them, and stretch our limbs upon the bed of boughs beneath them, for the day had been warm, and our journey a weary one. Our pioneer had made the entire journey the day before, though he had to pass over all the carrying-places three times. We found that he had killed two deer, and had the meat from them, cut | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037902 | into thin slips, undergoing the process of "jerking," in a bark smokehouse erected near the tents. He had also a beautiful string of trout ready for our supper, taken in a way peculiarly his own. He had used neither bait nor fly. After supper, as we sat looking out over the lake in front of our tents, the Doctor inquired | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037903 | of our pioneer how he had taken his fish, as he had with him neither rod nor flies, and there was no bait to be found in the woods proper for trout. "Why," said he, "I got lonesome yesterday, all alone up here in the woods, waiting for you, and I thought I'd take a look around the shore of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037904 | the lake, thinking I might find a gold mine, or a pocketful of diamonds, or something of that sort; so I took my rifle and the two dogs, and started on an explorin' voyage. I didn't find any gold, but I found, just across there by those willows and alders, a cold stream entered the lake, and right in the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037905 | mouth of it the trout were lyin' as thick as your fingers. They were fine little fellows as I ever happened to see, weighing about a quarter of a pound each. I had a hook or two, and a piece of twine in my pocket, but they were of no sort of use in common fishin', for I had no | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037906 | kind of bait, and couldn't get any. After thinking the matter over, I concluded I'd see if I couldn't bag some of them in a quiet way. So I cut me a long pole, tied the hook and line to the end of it, and reaching out over the water, dropped quietly down among them. I let the line drift | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037907 | gently up against the one I wanted. He didn't seem to mind it, but was rather pleased as the line tickled his sides. After letting it lay there a moment, I jerked suddenly, and up came the trout clean over my head on to the flat rock behind me. However this might have astonished him, it didn't seem to disturb | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037908 | the rest. In that way I caught all I wanted, and could have caught a bushel. It isn't a very science way of fishin', but it answers when a man is hungry, and hasn't got any bait or fly." "I scarcely know why," said the Doctor, "but Cullen's account of catching his trout, reminds me of a circumstance which occurred | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037909 | when I was a boy, and which for the moment made a deal of sport. I have not probably thought of it in twenty years, but it comes to me now as fresh as though it were the occurrence of yesterday. It must be, as Hank Wood said the other day, that a thing which gets fairly anchored in a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037910 | man's mind, remains there always, and covered up as it may be by other and later things, it can never be forgotten. It will come drifting back on the current of memory, fresh and palpable as ever. "Everybody understands, or ought to understand, how sheep are washed. A small yard is built on the bank of a stream adjacent to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037911 | a deep place. One side of which is open to the water, and into which the flock is crowded. The washers take their places in the water, where it is three or four feet deep, and the sheep are caught by others, and tossed to them, where they undergo ablution (an operation by the way, that they do not seem | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037912 | altogether to enjoy), to wash the dirt and gum from their fleeces. On such occasions, it is regarded as a lawful thing, a standing and ancient practical joke, to pitch any outsider, who may happen to indulge his curiosity by stopping to look on, into the stream. If he is verdant, he will be very likely to be inveigled into | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037913 | the yard, and in an unguarded moment, be made to take an involuntary dive, head foremost into the water. "A few rods above the place in which my father washed his sheep, was an old dam, the apron of which remained, and beneath which was a basin some five or six feet in depth, and thirty or forty feet in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037914 | diameter, filled of course with water. On one occasion, a man who was employed to catch the sheep, was one of those shiftless, good-natured, lazy fellows, to be found in almost every neighborhood, who prefer smoking and telling stories in bar-rooms to regular work, and who greatly prefer odd jobs to consecutive labor. Tom G----was one of this genus, full | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037915 | of fun and mischief, but without a particle of real malice in his composition. As he was busy throwing sheep to the washers, a young fellow from the neighboring village happened that way, and becoming somewhat interested in the process, was seduced by Tom G----, inside of the yard, to try his hand at catching and tossing in sheep. About | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037916 | the second or third one he operated upon, his treacherous friend stumbled against him, giving him a tremendous push, and with a sheep in his arms he drove head foremost among the washers. The water was cold, and there was a good deal of puffing and blowing about the time his head came above the surface. He was a sensible | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037917 | chap, and took the joke as a wise man should, especially when the odds are all against him, albeit, it was somewhat rude. "He came out on the other side of the stream, and after joining in the laugh against himself, and taking off and wringing his garments, he wandered up to the apron of the old dam, and stretching | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037918 | himself along the planks, went to looking anxiously down into the deep water. After a while, he seemed to have discovered something, and called out to his friend below, 'I say Tom, have you got a fishhook in your pocket? Here is a trout that will weigh two pounds, and I want to hook him up.' Now Tom was a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037919 | fisherman, and a big trout was his weakness; moreover, he was never without half a dozen hooks and lines in his pockets. He left his business at once, and went up to the apron to assist in taking the two-pound trout. A pole was cut, and a couple of feet of line, with a hook attached, was fastened a little | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037920 | way from the top, and the haft of the hook stuck into the end so that by a little force it might be removed, and Tom and his friend got upon the apron, and stooped over to see where the great trout lay. "'Here he is, Tom, just under the edge of this rock.' Tom stretched himself over to get | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037921 | a view of the fish, when a vigorous shove from the rear sent him like a great frog plump towards the bottom of the pool. This was a consummation that Tom had not bargained for, but there was no alternative but to swim for the shore, dripping like a rat from a flooded sewer. That joke had two points to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037922 | it, and Tom G----had the worst of them." "Your anecdote," said Smith, "reminds me of one in which I was an actor, and which was impressed upon my mind by a process which few boys are fond of, but which is very apt to make the impression durable. _I_ fished for trout once without line or hook. I got a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037923 | fine string of them, and myself into a pretty kettle of fish in the bargain. On my father's farm, as it was when I was a boy, was a stream that came down through a gorge in the mountains that bounded the pleasant valley in which that farm lay. In the spring freshets and the summer rains, that stream was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037924 | a mighty and resistless torrent, that came roaring and plunging down from the plain above, cascading and leaping down ledges and rushing though a gorge, on either side of which precipices of solid rock stood straight up two hundred feet in height. It was a goodly sight to see that stream when its back was up, come rushing and foaming, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037925 | a mighty flood from the deep and shadowy gulf, rolling in its resistless course great boulders of tons upon tons in weight, and eddying, and twisting, and roaring onward in its furious course towards the lake. In the summer time the drouth lapped up its waters, and it dried away to a little brook, trickling over the falls, and went | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037926 | winding, a small streamlet, around the base of the hill; sometimes it disappeared in the gravel, or among the loose stones, save here and there a pool of narrow limits and shallow depth. It was a fine trout stream at times. Its waters were cold and pure, and the brook trout loved to hide away under the great smooth stones | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037927 | or shelving rocks, and be comfortable in the shade, when the summer sun was hot and fiery in the sky. When the creek was low, they would congregate in the pools and still places, and in times of extreme drouth, might be seen huddled together in such places in great numbers. "My father, though not a member of any church, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037928 | was strict in his family discipline in regard to the observance of the Sabbath, the breach of which, on the part of his children, was very apt to be followed by consequences not the most pleasant in the world, for he held that a good switch was an essential article of household furniture, and its occasional use a cardinal principle | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037929 | in the philosophy of family rule. One Sunday, when I was some ten or eleven years old, when the old people were gone to meeting (and they had to go eight miles to find a meeting house), I, with an older brother, tired of lying around the house, concluded to take a stroll along up the brook. It was a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037930 | time of severe drouth, and the stream was dried up, save here and there a small pool, clear and cold, the bottom of which consisted of smooth and clean-washed stones and pebbles. In one of these was a number of beautiful speckled trout, averaging maybe a quarter of a pound each in weight. Here was a temptation too strong to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037931 | be resisted. We had no hooks or lines with us, and would not have ventured to use them _on Sunday_, if we had. That would have been fishing. But the taking of those trout with our hands was quite another matter. So, rolling our pants up above our knees (there was no use of talking about shoes and stockings; such | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037932 | luxuries were not within the range of indulgence to boys of our age in those days, save in the frosts and snows of winter, and stubbed toes, stone bruises, and thorns in the feet, come floating along down from the long past, like shadows of darkness on the current of memory. By the way, will some rich man, who was | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037933 | reared in the country in the good old times when boys went barefooted in the summer months, when chapped feet, stone bruises, stubbed toes, and thorns that pierced and festered in their _soles_ were the great ills that 'darkened deepest around human destiny,' solve for me a problem of the human mind? Will he tell me whether, in his after | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037934 | life, when he was the owner of broad acres, fine houses, piles of stocks in paying corporations, and huge deposits in solvent banks, he ever felt richer or prouder when counting his gains, and contemplating the aggregate of his wealth, than he did when he pulled on his first pair of boots?) So, as I said, we rolled up our | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037935 | pants, and waded in for the trout. We caught a beautiful string of twenty or more, took them home, dressed them nicely, and sat them carefully away in the cool cellar. We had a notion that the greatness of the prize would wipe away the offence by which it was secured, and that the delicious breakfast they would afford, would | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037936 | be received as a sufficient atonement for the sin of having taken them on a Sunday. But we were never more mistaken in our lives. My father went into the cellar for some purpose in the evening, after his return from meeting, and discovered the trout. An inquiry was instituted, our dereliction was exposed, and we were promised a flogging. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037937 | Now that was a promise, which, while it was rarely made, was never broken. When my father in his calm, quiet way, made up his mind and so expressed it, that he owed one of his boys a flogging, it became, as it were, a debt of honor, what, in modern parlance, would be termed a confidential debt, and he | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037938 | to whom it was acknowledged to be due, became a prefered creditor, and was sure to be paid. "Well, the trout were eaten for breakfast, and after the meal was over, my brother and myself were duly paid off, at a hundred cents on the dollar, with full interest. That flogging cured me of 'tickling' trout, especially on Sunday. I | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037939 | am never tempted to take trout with my hands, without feeling a tickling sensation about the back; and though old recollections of the long past, of that pleasant stream and the gorge through which it flowed, with the side hill covered with old forests above it, and the green fields spread out on the other side, of the home of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037940 | my boyhood, the old log-house, the cattle, the sheep, the old watch-dog, and the thousand other things around which memory loves to linger, come clustering around my heart, yet conspicuous among them all, is the flogging I got for 'tickling' trout on a Sunday." . A JOLLY TIME FOR THE DEER--HUNTING ON THE WATER BY DAYLIGHT--MUD LAKE FUNEREAL SCENERY--A NEW | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037941 | WAY OF TAKING RABBITS--THE NEGRO AND THE MARINO BUCK--A COLLISION. As we came down to the lake in the morning to perform our ablations, we saw a fine deer on the opposite shore, feeding upon the pond lilies that grew along in the shallow water. It was nearly half a mile from us, and while we were looking at it, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037942 | four others came walking carelessly out of the tall grass upon the beach, and commenced playing, as we have seen lambs do, on the sandy shore. They would run here and there, back and forth, at full speed along the sands, leap high into the air, kicking up their heels, and performing all the various antics of which animals so | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037943 | supple and active may be supposed capable. We saw one fellow leap, with a clear bound, over two that were standing looking out over the water, and run some fifty rods up the beach, as if all the hounds in Christendom were at his tail, and then wheel gracefully, and return with equal speed to his companions, when they all | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037944 | commenced jumping and bounding, and running up and down along the shore, as if they were out on a regular spree, and were determined to be jolly. After half an hour of exceedingly active play, they hoisted their white flags, and went bounding over the meadow into the woods. The deer that was feeding paid no further attention to them | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037945 | than to raise his head and look quietly, and perhaps contemptuously at them occasionally, while he chewed his breakfast, that he was picking up in the shape of lily pads upon the surface of the water. Spalding and a boatman paddled across the lake to make Mm a morning call. It is a curious fact that one skilled in the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037946 | art will paddle or scull one of these light boats to within a few rods of a deer while feeding, in plain open sight, provided always that the wind blows _from_ the direction of the animal, and no noise is made by the boatman. The deer will feed on, and the time for paddling is while his head is down. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037947 | When he raises it to look about him, in whatever position the boatman is, he must remain immovable. If his paddle is up, it must remain so; not a motion must be made, or the game will be off, with a snort and a rush, for the shore and the woods. The deer may, and probably will look, with a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037948 | vacant stare, directly at the approaching boat without its curiosity being in the least excited, and then go to feeding again. The marksman must take his aim while the game is feeding; when it raises its head high in the air, throws forward its ears and gazes at him for a moment with a wild and startled look, then is | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037949 | his time to fire. Five seconds at the longest is all that is allowed him when he sees these motions, for within that time, with its fears thoroughly aroused, the game will be plunging for the shelter of the woods. The boatman paddled Spalding quietly and silently to within twelve or fifteen rods of the deer that was feeding, when | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037950 | a column of white smoke shot suddenly up from the bow of the boat; the sharp crack of the rifle rung out over the water, and the deer went down. Spalding was a proud man as he returned to us with a fine fat spike buck in his boat. These little lakes are probably sixty-five miles from the settlements, allowing | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037951 | for the winding course of the rivers. Just above, where the river enters, is a dam, built of logs some fifteen feet high, erected by the lumbermen the last winter to hold back the water, so as to float their logs down from this to Tupper's Lake, and so on down the Rackett to the mills away below. Around this | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037952 | dam is the last carrying place between this and Mud Lake, over which our boatmen trudged with their boats, like great turtles with their shells upon their backs. This is still called Bog River, and though above the dam to Mud Lake, where it takes its rise, it is deep and sluggish, yet it is doing it honor overmuch to | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037953 | dignify it by the name of a river. It was large enough, however, to float our little craft. We left our baggage-master here with most of our luggage, to perfect his operations in the way of jerking venison, intending to return the next day. We might have left everything without a guard, so far as human depredations were concerned. No | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037954 | bolts or bars would be necessary for its protection. In the first place, nobody would visit the spot, and if they did, our property would be perfectly protected by the law of the woods. It would be doubtless carefully inspected by any curious banter passing that way, but theft or robbery are unknown here. True, a bottle of good liquor, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037955 | if handled by a visitor, might lose somewhat of its contents, but it would be drank to the health of the owner, and in a spirit of good fellowship, and not of theft, all which would be regarded by woodsmen as strictly within rule, there being, as Hank Wood said, "no law agin it." We left the first chain of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037956 | ponds, and rowed some ten miles up the deep and sluggish but narrow channel of the river, startling every little way a deer from its propriety by our presence as it was feeding along the shore. Few sportsmen ever visit this remote region, and it is above the range of the lumbermen. We came to some rapids near the outlet | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037957 | of the second chain of ponds, around which we walked, and up which the boatmen pushed their little craft. These rapids are a quarter of a mile in length, with no great amount of fall, but still enough to prevent the passage up them of a loaded boat. Directly at the head of these rapids is the "second chain of | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037958 | ponds," three pleasant little lakelets, of from two to four hundred acres each, surrounded by dense forests, and shores in the main walled in by huge boulders and broken rocks. We passed through these, in which were several loons, or great northern divers, quietly floating, and as they watched us, sending forth their clear and clarion voices over the water. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037959 | We took each a passing shot at them, but with no other effect than to make them dive quicker and deeper, and stay under longer than usual; at the flash of our rifles they would go down, and in a few minutes would be again on the surface sixty rods from us, laughing aloud, as it were, with their clear | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037960 | and quavering voices, at our impotent attempts to shoot them. We left the "second chain of ponds" by the narrow and sluggish inlets, still the Bog River, here so small that the boatman's oars spanned the narrow channel, and as crooked a stream as it is possible for one to be. It flows for miles through a low and marshy | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037961 | region, with dense alderbushes clustering along the shore, and scattering fir-trees, dead at the top, standing between these and the forests in the background. The bottom, much of the way, is of clean yellow sand, in which are imbedded millions of clams, resembling, in every respect, those of the ocean beach. Some of these we opened, and found the living | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037962 | bivalves in appearance precisely like their kindred of the salt water. I have seen occasionally muscle shells in other streams, and along the shores of the lakes, but I never before saw any such as these save near the ocean, where the salt water ebbs and flows, and not even there in such quantities. One might gather barrels and barrels | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037963 | of them, large and apparently fat, and yet there would be hundreds or thousands of barrels left. The mink, the muskrat, and other animals that hunt along the water, and have a taste for fish, have a good time of it among them, for we saw bushels of shells in places where the fish had been extracted and devoured. We | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037964 | arrived at Mud Lake towards evening, and pitched our tent on a little rise of ground on the north side, a few rods back from the lake, among a cluster of spruce and balsam, and surrounded by a dense growth of laurel and high whortleberry bushes. We saw a deer occasionally on our route, and the banks of the stream | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037965 | in many places were trodden up by them like the entrance to a sheep-fold. Why this sheet of water should be called Mud Lake is a mystery, for though gloomy enough in every other respect, its bed is of sand, and it is surrounded by a sandy beach from fifteen to forty feet wide. It is perhaps four miles in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037966 | circumference, its waters generally shallow, and so covered with pond lilies, and skirted with wild grass, as to form the most luxuriant pasture for the deer and moose to be found in all this region. Of all the lakes I have visited in these northern wilds, this is the most gloomy. Indeed it is the only one that does not | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037967 | wear a cheerful and pleasant aspect. It seems to be the highest water in this portion of the wilderness, lying, as one of our boatmen expressed it, "up on the top of the house." In only one direction could any higher land be seen, and that was a low hill on the western shore, not exceeding fifty feet in height. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037968 | There are no tall mountain peaks reaching their heads towards the clouds, overlooking the waters; no ranges stretching away into the distance; no gorges or spreading valleys; no sloping hillsides, giving back the sunlight, or along which gigantic shadows of the drifting clouds float. All around it are fir, and tamarac, and spruce of a stinted and slender growth, dead | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037969 | at the top, and with lichens and moss hanging down in sad and draggled festoons from their desolate branches. It is, in truth, a gloomy place, typical of desolation, which it is well to see once, but which no one will desire to visit a second time. We noticed on the sandy beach tracks of the wolf, the panther, the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037970 | moose, and in one place the huge track of a bear. He must have been of monstrous growth, judging by the impression of his great feet and claws in the sand. But we saw none of these animals, and so gloomy is the place, so sepulchral, such an air of desolation all around, that it brings over the mind a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037971 | strong feeling of sadness and gloom, and we resolved not to tarry beyond the nest morning, even for the chance of taking a moose, a panther, or a bear. We pitched our tent, as I said, a little way back from the lake, near a cold spring, that came boiling up through the white sand in a little basin, eight | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037972 | feet wide, the bottom of which, like that on the bank of Tupper's Lake, was all in commotion, boiling and bubbling, as the water forced its way up through it. I was in the forward boat as we approached the lake, and was surprised to see the number of deer feeding upon the lily pads in the shallow water, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037973 | the wild grass that grew along the shore. Some stood midside in the water, some with only the line of their backs and heads above it. Some were close along the shore, feeding upon the grass that grew there. Others still were nibbling at the leaves of the moosewood upon the bank, and one large buck stood by the side | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037974 | of a fir tree, rubbing his neck up and down against it, as if scratching himself against its rough bark. We had not been discovered, and waited for the other boats to arrive. Great was the astonishment of my companions, when they saw the number of deer that were feeding in this little lake. Neither of them had ever seen | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037975 | the like, nor had I, save on one occasion, and that was in a small lake, the name of which I have forgotten, lying a few miles beyond the head of the Upper Saranac. "You see that clump of low balsam trees on that point yonder," said my boatman, as we lay upon our oars, pointing in the direction indicated. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037976 | "Well, from that spot, three years ago, I shot a moose out upon the bar there, as it was feeding upon the lily pads and flag grass. "I had heard from an old Indian hunter, about this lake, and the abundance of game to be found here, and I made up my mind to see it. So another hunter and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037977 | myself agreed to come up here in July, and take a look at matters, and find out whether the old copperhead told the truth or not. We started about the middle of July, with our rifles and provisions for a fortnight, and came up. We saw any quantity of deer on the way. On the second chain of ponds, we | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037978 | saw, as we were rowing along, a large panther walk out on to the top of a great boulder, and look around, lashing his sides with his long tail, and then sit down on his haunches with his tail curled around his feet, just as you've seen a cat do. He was too far off for us to shoot him, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037979 | and he saw us before we got within proper distance, and stole away into the woods, and we passed on. As we rounded the point just below the lake there, and looked out upon the broad water, I saw the moose I spoke of, feeding. We sat perfectly still, and permitted the boat to drift back down the stream until | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037980 | we were out of sight. We then landed, and I crept carefully and silently to that clump of fir trees. I had my own and my companion's rifle both properly loaded. Having got a right position, I sighted for a vital part, and fired. The animal rushed furiously forward two or three rods, with its head lowered as if making | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037981 | a lunge at an enemy, then stopped, and looked all around, standing with its back humped up, and its short stump of a tail working and writhing at a furious rate. I sighted it again with the other rifle, and pulled. The animal plunged furiously for again for a few rods, stopped a moment, and then settled slowly down, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037982 | fell over on its side, dead. It was a cow-moose and would weigh as killed five or six hundred pounds. I was a pretty proud man then, as that was my first moose, and about as big feeling a chap as was Squire Smith the other day, when he brought down that buck. I have shot two others here since, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037983 | one at each visit I have made." The season for moose hunting along the water pastures, was nearly over. They go back upon the hills in August, the food there being by that time abundant. The tracks we saw were old ones, the animals having passed there several days previously. I would not have it supposed that the moose are | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037984 | abundant in any portion of this wilderness. They have come to be few and far between, and exceedingly wary at that. I could hear of none having been killed the present season; but that there are some left, as well as bears, and wolves, and panthers, the tracks we saw gave unmistakable evidence. We saw no appearance of trout in | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037985 | this lake, or in the outlet of it above the upper chain of ponds. The stream swarmed with chub and dace, a rare circumstance with the streams of this region. Towards evening, we saw numbers of little grey wood rabbits, hopping around among the dense undergrowth on the ridge where our tents were situated, squatting themselves down and cocking up | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037986 | their long ears, as they paused occasionally to examine the strange visitors who had come among them. They were very tame, not seeming to regard our presence as a thing of much danger to them. "Seeing those rabbits," remarked Smith, "reminds me of an anecdote of my boyhood, which at the time occasioned me an amount of mortification equalled only | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037987 | by the amusement it affords me, when I think of it in after years. On my father's farm was a bush field, a place that had been chopped and burned over, and then left to grow up with bushes, making an excellent cover for wild wood rabbits. I had seen them hopping about, when I went to turn away the | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037988 | cows in the morning, or after them at night. I had a longing to 'make game' of them. I had a brother a good deal older than myself, who was as fond of a joke as I was of the rabbits, and who was quite as ready to make game of me, as I was of them; so he told | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037989 | me, one day to put an apple on a stick over their paths, high enough to be just above their reach, and a handful of Scotch snuff on a dry leaf on the ground under it, and the rabbits, while smelling for the apple, would inhale the snuff, and sneeze themselves to death in no tune. Well, I was a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037990 | child then and simple enough to be gammoned by this rigmarole. I set the apple and the snuff, but I got no rabbit, while I did get laughed at hugely for my credulity. This satisfied me that people should never impose upon the simplicity of childhood. I remember my mortification on the occasion. It was so long ago that it | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037991 | stands out by itself, a mere fragment of memory, with _all_ beyond it a blank, and a wide gap out this side. It is an isolated fact, fixed in my recollection by the pain it occasioned me." "Your anecdote of the rabbits," said the Doctor, "reminds me of a story told of a Dutchman, who discovered an owl on a | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037992 | limb above him, and noticed that its face, and great round eyes, followed him always as he walked around the tree, without its body moving at all. Seeing this he concluded in his wisdom, that he would travel round the tree, till the owl twisted its head off in watching him. So round and round he went for an hour, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037993 | and stopped only by having the conviction forced upon his mind that the owl had a swivel in its neck." "Strange," remarked Spalding, "how the hearing of one story reminds us of another. I always admired the 'Arabian Nights,' because the stories contained in that work hang together so like a string of onions, or a braid of seed corn. | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037994 | The first is a sort of introduction to the second, and the second an usher to the third, and so on through the whole. But why the story of the Dutchman and the owl should remind me of another, in which an old negro and a bellicose ram were the actors, is a matter I do not pretend to understand, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037995 | unless it be the extreme absurdity of both. A gentleman of my acquaintance long ago (he was a middle-aged man when I was a small boy. He was an upright and a good man. He has gone to his rest, and sleeps in an honored grave, having upon the simple stone above him no lying epitaph), had an old negro | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037996 | who rejoiced in the name of Pompey, and a Merino buck, the latter a valiant animal, that was ready to fight with anybody, or anything, that crossed his path. Between him and the 'colored person,' was an 'eternal distinction,' an active and irreconcilable antagonism, that developed itself on every possible occasion. The old Guinea man was winnowing wheat one day, | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037997 | with an old-fashioned fan (did any of you ever see one of these primitive machines for separating wheat from the chaff, used by our fathers before the fanning mill was invented? It was an ingenious contrivance, by which a man with a strong back and of a strong constitution, could clean some twenty bushels in a single day). While stooping | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037998 | over to fill his fan with unwinnowed grain, the buck, taking advantage of his position, came like a catapult against him, and sent him like a ball from a Paixhan gun, head foremost into the chaff. Great was the astonishment, but greater the wrath of Pompey, and dire the vengeance that he denounced against his assailant. Gathering himself up, and | 60 | gutenberg |
twg_000000037999 | rubbing the part battered by the attack of his enemy, he retreated around the corner of the barn, and procuring a rock weighing some twenty pounds, returned to the presence of his foe, who was quietly eating the wheat that the negro had been cleaning, evidently regarding it as the legitimate spoils of victory. Getting down on all fours, and | 60 | gutenberg |
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