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In the IVilderness. 
 
 CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "my SUMMER IN A GARDEN," "BACKLOG STUDIES, 
 " SAUNTEKINGS." ETC. 
 
 f/ 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
 
 S:ije Miijersitje i|rcss, CambriUge, 
 
 1878. 
 
 2: 
 
2 
 
 .1-^ 
 
 Copyright, 1878, 
 BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. 
 
 Fraiiklin Press: 
 
 Stereotyped and Printed by 
 
 Rand, Avery, <£t= Co., 
 
 Boston. 
 
OOE-TENTS. 
 
 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 I. How I KILLED A BeAK 5 
 
 II. Lost IK the "Woods ..... 21 
 
 III. A Fight with a Teout 41 
 
 IV. A-HuKTiNG of the Deek .... 54 
 Y. A Character Study . . . . ' , .82 
 
 VI. Camping Out , 124 
 
 HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND . . 147 
 '74. How Spuing came est New England. By 
 
 A Reader of " '93 " 149 
 
 3 
 
"i't^ 
 
 \ 
 
IN THE WILDEEITESS. 
 I. 
 
 HOW I KILLED A BEAR. 
 
 O many conflicting accounts have ap- 
 peared about ni}^ casual encounter with 
 an Adirondack bear last summer, that 
 in justice to the public, to m3'self, and to the 
 bear, it is necessar}- to make a plain statement 
 of the facts. Besides, it is so seldom I have 
 occasion to kill a bear, that the celebration of 
 the exploit maj^ be excused. 
 
 The encounter was unpremeditated on both 
 sides. I was not hunting for a Uear, and I 
 have noTeason to suppose that a bear was look- 
 ing for me. The fact is, that we were both out 
 blackberr3ing, and met by chance, — the usual 
 way. There is among the Adirondack visitors 
 
 5 
 
IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 always a great deal of conversation about bears, 
 — a general expression of the wish to see one in 
 the woods, and much speculation as to how a 
 j)ersQn would act if he or she chanced to meet 
 one. But bears are scarce and timid, and ap- 
 pear only to a favored few. 
 
 It was a warm da}^ in August, just the sort 
 of day when an adventure of any kind seemed 
 impossible. But it occurred to the housekeepers 
 at our cottage: — there were four of them — to 
 send me, to the clearing, on the mountain back 
 of the house, to pick blackberries. It was rather 
 a series of small clearings, running up into the 
 forest, much overgrown with bushes and briers, 
 and not unromantic. Cows pastured there, pene- 
 trating through the leafy passages from one open- 
 ing to another, and browsing among the bushes. 
 I was kindly furnished with a six-quart pail, and 
 told not to J3e gone long. 
 
 Not from any predatory instinct, but to save 
 appearances, I took a gun. It adds to the manl}^ 
 aspect of a person with a tin pail if he also 
 carries a gun. It was possible I might start up a 
 
HOW I KILLED A BEAR. 
 
 partridge ; though how I was to hit him, if he 
 started up instead of standing still, puzzled me. 
 Manj' people use a. shot-gun for partridges. I 
 prefer the rifle : it makes a clean job of death, 
 and does not prematurely stuff the bird with 
 globules of lead. The rifle was a Sharp's, carrj'- 
 ing a ball-cartridge (ten to the pound) , — an ex- 
 cellent weapon belonging to a friend of mine, 
 who had intended, for a good many years back, 
 to kill a deer with it. He could hit a tree with it 
 
 — if the wind did not blow, and the atmosphere 
 was just right, and the tree was not too far off 
 
 — nearly ever}- time. Of course, the tree must 
 have some size. Needless to say that I was at 
 that time no sportsman. Years ago I killed a 
 robin under the most humiliatii:ig circumstances. 
 The bird was _ in a low cheriy-tree. I loaded a 
 big shot-gun pretty full, crept up under the tree, 
 rested the gun on the fence, with the muzzle 
 more than ten feet from the bird, shut both eyes, 
 and pulled the trigger. When I got up to see 
 what had happened, the robin was scattered about 
 under the tree in more than a thousand pieces, 
 
8 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 no one of which was big enough to enable a 
 naturalist to decide from it to what species it 
 belonged. This disgusted me with the life of a 
 sportsman. I mention the incident to show, that, 
 although I went blackberr^ing armed, there was 
 not much inequahty between me and the bear. 
 
 In this blackbeny-patch bears had been seen. 
 The summer before, our colored cook, accom- 
 panied b}^ a little girl of the vicinage, was pick- 
 ing berries there one da}- , when a bear came out 
 of the woods, and walked towards them. The 
 girl took to her heels, and escaped. Aunt Chloe 
 was paralyzed with terror. Instead of attempt- 
 ing to run, she sat down on the ground where 
 she was standing, and began to weep and scream, 
 giving herself up for lost. The bear was bewil- 
 dered by tliis conduct. He approached and 
 looked at her ;* he wallved around and survej^ed 
 her. Probably he had never seen a colored per- 
 son before, and did not know whether she would 
 agree with him : at any rate, after watching her a 
 few moments, he turned about, and went into the 
 forest. This is an authentic instance of the deli- 
 
now I KILLED A BEAR. 9 
 
 cate consideration of a bear, and is much more 
 remarkable than the forbearance towards the 
 African slave of the well-known lion, because the 
 bear had no thorn in his foot. 
 
 When I had climbed the hill, I set up m.y rifle 
 against a tree, and began picking berries, lured 
 on from bush to bush by the black gleam of fruit 
 (that always promises more in the distance than 
 it realizes when you reach it) ; penetrating farther 
 and farther, through leaf-shaded cow-paths flecked 
 with sunlight, into clearing after clearing. I 
 could hear on all sides the tinkle of bells, the 
 cracking of sticks, and the stamping of cattle 
 that were taking refuge in the thicket from the 
 flies. Occasionally, as I broke through a covert, 
 I encountered a meek cow, who stared at me 
 stupidly for a second, and then shambled off into 
 the brush. I became accustomed to this dumb 
 society, and picked on in silence, attributing all 
 the wood-noises to the cattle, thinldng nothing 
 of mij real bear. In point of fact, however, I 
 was thinking all the time of a nice romantic bear, 
 and, as I picked, was composing a story about a 
 
10 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 generous she-bear who had lost her cub, and who 
 seized a small girl in this very wood, carried her 
 tenderly off to a cave, and brought her up on 
 bear's milk and honey. When the girl got big 
 enough to run away, moved b}^ her inherited in- 
 stincts, she escaped, and came into the valley to 
 her father's house (this part of the story was to 
 be worked out, so that the child would know her 
 father by some family resemblance, and have 
 some language in which to address him), and 
 told him where the bear lived. The father took 
 his gun, and, guided by the unfeehng daughter, 
 went into the woods and shot the bear, who 
 never made any resistance, and onl}^, when dying, 
 turned reproachful eyes upon her murderer. The 
 moral of the tale was to be kindness to animals. 
 
 I was in the midst of this tale, when I hap- 
 pened to look some rods away to the other edge 
 of the clearing, and there was a bear ! He was 
 standing on his -hind-legs, and doing just what I 
 was doing, — picking blackberries. With one 
 paw he bent down the bush, while with the other 
 he clawed the berries into his mouth, — green 
 
HOW I KILLED A BEAR. 11 
 
 ones and all. To say that I was astonished is 
 inside the maik. I suddenly discovered that I 
 didn't want to see a bear, after all. At about 
 the same moment the bear saw me, stopped eat- 
 ing berries, and regarded me with a glad sur- 
 prise. It is all very well to imagine what you 
 would do under such circumstances. Probably 
 3^ou wouldn't do it : I didn't. The bear dropped 
 down on his fore-feet, and came slowly towards 
 me. Climbing a tree was of no use, with so 
 good a climber in the rear. If I started to run, 
 I had no doubt the bear would give chase ; and 
 although a bear cannot run down hill as fast as 
 he can run up hill, jQt I felt that he could get 
 over this rough, brush-tangled ground faster than 
 I could. 
 
 The bear was approaching. It suddenly oc- 
 curred to me how I could divert his mind until I 
 could fall back upon my military base. My pail 
 was nearly full of excellent berries, — much better 
 than the bear could pick himself. I put the pail 
 'on the ground, and slowly backed awa}^ from it, 
 keeping my eye, as beast-tamers do, on the bear. 
 The ruse succeeded. 
 
12 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 The bear came up to the berries, and stopped. 
 Not accustomed to eat out of a pail, he tipped it 
 over, and nosed about in the fruit, " gorming " 
 (if there is such a word) it down, mixed with 
 leaves and dirt, like a pig. The bear is a worse 
 feeder than the pig. Whenever he disturbs a 
 maple-sugar camp in the spring, he alwaj's upsets 
 the buckets of sirup, and tramples round in the 
 sticky sweets, wasting more than he eats. The 
 bear's manners are thoroughly disagreeable. 
 
 As soon as my enemy's head was- down, I 
 started and ran. Somewhat out of breath, and 
 shaky, I reached my faithful rifle. It was not a 
 moment too soon. I heard the bear crashing 
 through the brush after me. Enraged at m}^ 
 duplicity, he was now coming on with blood in his 
 eye. I felt that the time of one of us was 
 probably short. The rapidity of thought at such 
 moments of peril is well known. I thought an 
 octavo volume, had it illustrated and published, 
 sold fifty thousand copies, and went to Europe 
 on the proceeds, while that bear was loping across 
 the clearing. As I was cocking the gun, I made 
 
HOW I KILLED A BEAR. 13 
 
 a hasty and unsatisfactory review of my whole 
 hfe. I noted, that, even in such a compulsory 
 review, it is almost impossible to think of any 
 good thing you have done. The sins come out 
 uncommonly strong. I recollected a newspaper 
 subscription I had delayed paying jeavs and 
 3'ears ago, until both editor and newspaper were 
 dead, and which now never could be paid to all 
 eternity. 
 
 The bear was coming on. 
 
 I tried to remember what I had read about 
 encounters with bears. I couldn't recall an in- 
 stance in which a man had run away from a bear 
 in the woods and escaped, although I recalled 
 plenty where the bear had run from the man and 
 got off. I tried to think what is the best way to 
 kill a bear with a gun, when you are not near 
 enough to club him with the stock. My first 
 thought was to fire at his head ; to plant the ball 
 between his eyes : but this is a dangerous experi- 
 ment. The bear's brain is very small : and, un- 
 less 3^ou hit that, the bear does not mind a bullet 
 in his head ; that is, not at the time. I remem- 
 
14 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 berecl that the instant death of the bear would 
 follow a bullet planted just back of his fore-leg, 
 and sent into his heart. This spot is also diffi- 
 cult to reach, unless the bear stands oflf, side 
 towards you, like a target. I finally determined 
 to fire at him generally. 
 
 The bear was coming on. 
 
 The contest seemed to me ver}^ different from 
 an}^ thing at Creedmoor. I had carefulh' read the 
 reports of the shooting there ; but it was not easy 
 to apply the experience I had thus acquired. I 
 hesitated whether I had better fire lying on my 
 stomach ; or lying on tcvj back, and resting the gun 
 on my toes. But in neither position, I reflected, 
 could I see the bear until he was upon me. The 
 range was too short ; and the bear wouldn't wait 
 for me to examine the thermometer, and note the 
 direction of the wind. Trial of the Creedmoor 
 method, therefore, had to be abandoned ; and I 
 bitterly regretted that I had not read more ac- 
 counts of offhand shooting. 
 
 For the bear was coming on. 
 
 I tried to fix m}^ last thoughts upon my family. 
 
HOW I KILLED A BEAR. 15 
 
 As my family is small, this was not difficult. 
 Dread of displeasing my wife, or hurting her 
 feelings, was uppermost in my mind. What 
 would be her anxiety as hour after hour passed 
 on, and I did not return ! What would the rest of 
 the household think as the afternoon passed, and 
 no blackberries came ! What would be m}' wife's 
 mortification when the news was brought that her 
 husband had been eaten by a bear ! I cannot 
 imagine any thing more ignominious than to have 
 a husband eaten b}^ a bear. And this was not 
 my only anxiety. The mind at such times is not 
 under control. With the gravest fears the most 
 whimsical ideas will occur. I looked beyond the 
 mourning friends, and thought what kind of an 
 epitaph they would be compelled to put upon the 
 stone. Something like this : — 
 
 HERE LIE THE REMAINS 
 OF 
 
 EATEN BY A BEAR 
 
 AuQ-, 20, 1877. 
 
 It is a very unheroic and even disagreeable 
 
16 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 epitaph. That " eaten hy a bear " is intolerable. 
 It is grotesque. And then I thought what an 
 inadequate language the English is for compact 
 expression. It would not answer to put upon the 
 stone simpl}^ " eaten ; " for that is indefinite, and 
 requires explanation : it might mean eaten by a 
 cannibal. This difficulty could not occur in the 
 German, where essen signifies the act of feeding 
 by a man, and fr essen by a beast. How simple 
 the thing would be in German ! — 
 
 HIER LIEGT 
 HOCHWOHLGEBOREN 
 
 GEFRESSEN 
 
 Aug. 20, 1877. 
 
 That explains itself. The well-born one was 
 eaten by a beast, and presumably by a bear, — 
 an animal that has a bad reputation since the 
 daj'S of Ehsha. 
 
 The bear was coming on ; he had, in fact, come 
 on. I judged that he could see the whites of my 
 eyes. All my subsequent reflections were con- 
 fused. I raised the gun, covered the bear's 
 
HOW I KILLED A BEAR. 17 
 
 breast with the sight, and let drive. Then I 
 turned, and ran hke a deer. I did not hear the 
 bear pursuing. I looked back. The bear had 
 stopped. He was tying down. I then remem- 
 bered that the best thing to do after having fired 
 your gun is to reload it. I shpped in a charge, 
 keeping my eyes on the bear. He never stirred. 
 I wallied back suspiciously. There was a quiver 
 in the hind-legs, but no other motion. Still he 
 might be shamming : bears often sham. To 
 make sure, I approached, and put a ball into his 
 head. He didn't mind it now : he minded noth- 
 ing. Death had come to him with a merciful 
 suddenness. He was calm in death. In order 
 that he might remain so, I blew his brains out, 
 and then started for home. I had killed a bear ! 
 
 Notwithstanding my excitement, I managed to 
 saunter into the house with an unconcerned air. 
 There was a chorus of voices : — 
 
 " Where are 3'our blackberries? " 
 
 " Why were you gone so long? " 
 
 " Where's your pail? " 
 
 "I left the pail." 
 
18 m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 <- ' Left the pail ? What for ? ' * 
 
 ' ' A bear wanted it. " 
 
 '' Oh, nonsense ! " 
 
 "Well, the last I saw of it, a bear had it." 
 
 " Oh, come ! You didn't reallj^ see a bear? *' 
 
 " Yes, but I did really see a real bear." 
 
 '*' Did he run? " 
 
 " Yes : he ran after me." 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it. What did yo\x 
 do?" 
 
 "Oh! nothing particular — except kill the 
 bear." 
 
 Cries of "Gammon!" "Don't believe it!" 
 " Where's the bear? " 
 
 "If 3"ou want to see the bear, you must go 
 up into the woods. I couldn't bring him down 
 alone." 
 
 Having satisfied the household that something 
 extraordinar}^ had occurred, and excited the post- 
 humous fear of some of them for my own safety, 
 I went down into the valley to get help. The 
 great bear-hunter, who keeps one of the summer 
 boarding-houses, received my story with a smile 
 
HOW I KILLED A BEAR. 19 
 
 of incredulity ; and the incredulity spread to the 
 other inhabitants and to the boarders as soon as 
 the story was known. However, as I insisted in 
 all soberness, and offered to lead them to the 
 bear, a party of fort}^ or fifty people at last 
 started off with me to bring the bear in. No- 
 body believed there was any bear in the case ; but 
 everybody who could get a gun carried one ; and 
 we went into the woods armed with guns, pistols, 
 pitchforks, and sticks, against all contingencies 
 or- surprises, — a crowd made up mostty of scoff- 
 ers and jeerers. 
 
 But when I led the way to the fatal spot, and 
 pointed out the bear, lying peacefully wrapped 
 in his own skin, something like terror seized the 
 boarders, and genuine excitement the natives. 
 It was a no-mistake bear, by George! and the 
 hero of the fight — well, I will not insist upon 
 that. But what a i^rocession that was, canying 
 the bear home ! and what a congregation was 
 speedily gathered in the valley to see the bear ! 
 Our best preacher up there never drew any thing 
 lilve it on Sunday. 
 
20 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 And I must say that in}" particular friends, who 
 were sportsmen, behaved very well, on the whole. 
 They didn't deny that it was a bear, although 
 they said it was small for a bear. Mr. Deane, 
 who is equall}^ good with a rifle and a rod, admit- 
 ted that it was a very fair shot. He is probably 
 the best salmon-fisher in the United States, and 
 he is an equally good hunter. I suppose there is 
 no person in America who is more desirous to 
 kill a moose than he. But he needlessly re- 
 marked, after he had examined the wound in the 
 bear, that he had seen that kind of a shot made 
 by a cow's horn. 
 
 This sort of talk affected me not. When I 
 went to sleep that night, my last delicious thought 
 was, " I've killed a bear ! " 
 
II. 
 
 LOST IN THE WOODS. 
 
 T ought to be said, by wa}^ of explana- 
 tion, that my being lost in the woods 
 was not premeditated. Nothing could 
 have been more informal. This apolog}' can be 
 necessary- only to those who are familiar with the 
 Adirondack literature. Any person not familiar 
 with it would see the absurditj^ of one going to 
 the Northern Wilderness with the deliberate ynir- 
 pose of writing about himself as a lost man. It 
 may be true, that a book about this wild tract 
 would not be recognized as complete without a 
 lost-man stor}^ in it ; since it is almost as easy 
 for a stranger to get lost in the Adirondacks as 
 in Boston. I merely desire to say that my 
 unimportant adventure is not narrated in answer 
 
 21 
 
22 fcV THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 li . 
 
 to the popular, demand, and I do not wish to be 
 held responsitle for its variation from the t3'pical 
 character of sich experiences. 
 
 We had b^n in camp a week, on the Upper 
 Ausable Lakejfflj This is a gem — emerald or tur- 
 quoise as tMPght changes it — set in the virgin 
 forest. It is not a large body of water, is ir^ 
 regular in form, and about a mile and a half in 
 length ; but in the sweep of its wooded shores, 
 and the lovely contour of the lofty mountains 
 that guard it, the lake is probably the most 
 charming in America. Why the young ladies 
 and gentlemen who camp there occasionally vex 
 the days and nights with hooting, and singing 
 sentimental songs, is a mj-stery even to the 
 laughing loon. 
 
 I left m}^ companions there one Saturday 
 morning, to return to Keene Valley, intending to 
 fish down the Ausable River. The Upper Lake 
 discharges itself into the Lower by a brook 
 which winds through a mile and a half of swamp 
 and woods. Out of the north end of the Lower 
 Lake, which is a huge sink in the mountains, and 
 
LOST IN THE WOODS. 23 
 
 mirrors the savage precipices, the Ausable breaks 
 its rocky barriers, and flows through a wild 
 gorge, several miles, to the valley below. Be- 
 tween the Lower Lake and the settlements is 
 an extensive forest, traversed by a cart-path, 
 admirably constrocted of loose stones, roots of 
 trees, decaj^ed logs, slippery rocks, and mud. 
 The gorge of the river forms its western bounda- 
 ry. I followed this caricature of a road a mile 
 or more ; then gave my luggage to the guide to 
 carr}^ home, and struck off through the forest, bj'' 
 compass, to the river. I promised myself an 
 exciting scramble down this httle-frequented 
 caiion, and a creel full of trout. There was no 
 difficult}^ in finding the river, or in descending 
 the steep precipice to its bed : getting into a 
 scrape is usuall}^ the easiest part of it. The 
 river is strewn with bowlders, big and little, 
 through which the amber water rushes with an 
 unceasing thunderous roar, now j)lunging down 
 in white falls, then swirling round in dark pools. 
 The daj', alread}- past meridian, was delightful ; 
 at least, the blue strip of it I could see overhead. 
 
24 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 Better pools and rapids for trout never were, I 
 thonght, as I concealed myself behind a bowlder, 
 and, made the first cast. There is nothing lil^e 
 the thrill of expectation over the first throw in 
 unfamiliar waters. Fishing is like gambUng, in 
 that failure only excites hope of a fortunate 
 throw next time. There was no rise to the 
 "leader" on the first cast, nor on the twenty- 
 first ; and I cautiously worked my way down 
 stream, throwing right and left. When I had 
 gone half a mile, my opinion of the character of 
 the pools was unchanged : never were there such 
 places for trout ; but the trout were out of their 
 places. Perhaps they didn't care for the fly : 
 some trout seem to be so unsophisticated as to 
 prefer the worm. I replaced the fly with a baited 
 hook : the worm squirmed ; the waters rushed 
 and roared ; a cloud sailed across the blue : no 
 trout rose to the lonesome opportunit}^ There 
 -is a certain companionship in the presence of 
 trout, especially when 3^ou can feel them flopping 
 in your fish-basket ; but it became evident that 
 there were no trout in this wiklerness, and a 
 
LOST IN THE WOODS. 25 
 
 sense of isolation for the first time came over me. 
 There was no living thing near. The liver had 
 by this time entered a deeper gorge ; walls of 
 rocks rose perpendicularly on either side, — pic- 
 turesque rocks, painted many colors by the oxide 
 of iron. It was not possible to climb out of the 
 gorge ; it was impossible to find a way by the 
 side of the river ; and getting down the bed, 
 over the falls, and through the flumes, was not 
 easy, and consumed time. 
 
 Was that thunder ? Very likely. But thunder- 
 showers are alwaj^s brewing in these mountain- 
 fortresses, and it did not occur to me that there 
 was any thing personal in it. Very soon, how- 
 ever, the hole in the sky closed in, and the rain 
 dashed down. It seemed a providential time to 
 eat my luncheon ; and I took shelter under a 
 scraggy pine that had rooted itself in the edge of 
 the rocky slope. The shower soon passed, and I 
 continued m}^ journey, creeping over the slippery 
 rocks, and continuing to show my confidence in 
 the unresponsive trout. The way grew wilder 
 and more grewsome. The thunder began again, 
 
26 I]^ THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 rolling along over the tops of the mountains, and 
 reverberating in sharp concussions in the gorge : 
 the lightning also darted down into the darkening 
 passage, and then the rain. Every enlightened 
 being, even if he is in a fisherman's dress of shirt 
 and pantaloons, hates to get wet ; and I ignomin- 
 iously crept under the edge of a sloping bowlder. 
 It was all very well at first, until streams of water 
 began to crawl along the face of the rock, and 
 trickle down the back of my neck. This was re- 
 fined misery, unheroic and humiliating, as suffer- 
 ing alwaj's is when unaccompanied by resignation. 
 A longer time than I knew was consumed in 
 this and repeated eff'orts to wait for the slacken- 
 ing and renewing storm to pass away. In the 
 intervals of calm I still fished, and even de- 
 scended to what a sportsman considers incredible 
 baseness: I put a "sinker" on my line. It is 
 the practice of the country-folk, whose only 
 object is to get fish, to use a good deal of bait, 
 sink the hook to the bottom of the pools, and 
 wait the slow appetite of the summer trout. I 
 tried this also. I might as well have fished in a 
 
LOST IN THE WOODS. 27 
 
 pork-barrel. It is true, that, in one deep, black, 
 round pool, I lured a small trout from the bottom, 
 and deposited him in the creel ; but it was an 
 accident. Though I sat there in the awful silence 
 (the roar of water and thunder only emphasized 
 the stillness) full half an hour, I was not en- 
 couraged bj^ another nibble. Hope, however, did 
 not die : I always expected to find the trout in 
 the next flume ; and so I toiled slowly on, uncon- 
 scious of the passing time. At each turn of the 
 stream I expected to see the end, and at each 
 turn I saw a long, narrow stretch of rocks and 
 foaming water. Climbing out of the ravine was, 
 in most places, simply impossible ; and I began to 
 look with interest for a slide, where bushes rooted 
 in the scant earth would enable me to scale the 
 precipice. 1 did not doubt that I was nearly 
 through the gorge. I could at length see the 
 huge form of the Giant of the Valley, scarred 
 with avalanches, at the end of the vista ; and it 
 seemed not far off. But it kept its distance, as 
 only a mountain can, while I stumbled and slid 
 down the rocky way. The rain had now set in 
 
28 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 with persistence, and snddenly I became aware 
 that it was growing dark ; and I said to myself, 
 '' If you don't wish to spend the night in this hor- 
 rible chasm, you'd better escape speedily." For- 
 tunately I reached a place where the face of the 
 precipice was bush-grown, and with considerable 
 labor scrambled up it. 
 
 Having no doubt that I was within half a mile, 
 perhaps within a few rods, of the house above 
 the entrance of the gorge, and that, in any event, 
 I should fall into the cart-path in a few minutes, 
 I struck boldly into the forest, congratulating 
 myself on having escaped out of the river. vSo 
 sure was I of my whereabouts, that I did not 
 note the bend of the river, nor look at my com- 
 pass. The one trout in my basket was no burden, 
 and I stepped hghtly out. 
 
 The forest was of hard- wood, and open, except 
 for a thick undergrowth of moose-bush. It was 
 raining, — in fact, it had been raining, more or 
 less, for a month, — and the woods were soaked. 
 This moose-bush is most annoying stuff to travel 
 through in a rain ; for the broad leaves slap one 
 
LOST IN THE WOODS. 29 
 
 ill the face, and sop him with wet. The way 
 grew every moment more clingy. The heavy 
 clouds above the thick fohage brought night on 
 prematurely. It was decidedly premature to a 
 near-sighted man, whose glasses the rain rendered 
 useless : such a person ought to be at home 
 eaii}^ On leaving the river-bank I had borne 
 to the left, so as to be sure to strike either the 
 clearing or the road, and not wander off into the 
 measureless forest. I confidently pursued this 
 course, and went gsijly on b}^ the left flank. 
 That I did not come to any opening or path, only 
 showed that I had slightly mistaken the distance : 
 I was going in the right direction. 
 
 I was so certain of this, that I quickened my 
 pace, and got up with alacrity eveiy time I tum- 
 bled down amid the shppery leaves and catch- 
 ing roots, and hurried on. And I kept to the 
 left. It even occurred to me that I was turning 
 to the left so much, that I might come back to 
 the river again. It grew more dusk}- , and rained 
 more violently ; but there was nothing alarming 
 in the situation, since I knew exactly where I 
 
30 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 was. It was a little mortifying that I had mis- 
 calculated the distance : yet, so far was I from 
 feeling any uneasiness about this, that I quick- 
 ened my pace again, and, before I knew it, was 
 in a full run ; that is, as full a run as a person 
 can indulge in in the dusk, with so many trees in 
 the wa}^ No nervousness, but simply a reason- 
 able desire to get there. I desired to look upon 
 mj^self as the person "not lost, but gone before." 
 As time passed, and darkness fell, and no clear- 
 ing or road appeared, I ran a little faster. It 
 didn't seem possible that the peo^Dle had moved, 
 or the road been changed ; and yet I was sure of 
 my direction. I went on with an energ}^ in- 
 creased by the ridiculousness of the situation, the 
 danger that an experienced woodsman was in 
 of getting home late for supper ; the lateness of 
 the meal being nothing to the gibes of the un- 
 lost. How long I kept this course, and how far 
 I went on, I do not know; but suddenly I 
 stumbled against an ill-placed tree, and sat down 
 on the soaked ground, a trifle out of breath. It 
 then occurred to me tliat I had better verify my 
 
LOST IN THE WOODS. 31 
 
 course by the compass. There was scarcely hght 
 enough to distinguish the black end of the needle. 
 To my amazement, the compass, which was made 
 near Greenwich, was wrong. Allowing for the 
 natural variation of the needle, it was absurdly 
 wrong. It made out that I was going south 
 when I was going north. It intimated, that, in- 
 stead of turning to the left, I had been making 
 a cii'cuit to the right. According to the compass, 
 the Lord only knew where I was. 
 
 The inclination of jpersons in the woods to 
 travel in a ckcle is unexplained. I suppose it 
 arises from the sym^oathy of the legs with the 
 brain. Most people reason in a circle: their 
 minds go round and round, alwaj's in the same 
 track. For the last half-hour I had been saying 
 over a sentence that started itself: " I wonder 
 where that road is ! " I had said it over till it 
 had lost all meaning. I kejDt going round on it ; 
 and 3^et I could not believe that my body had 
 been travelling in a circle. Not being able to 
 recognize any tracks, I have no evidence that I 
 had so travelled, except the general testimony of 
 lost men. 
 
32 IN TEE WILDERNESS. 
 
 The compass annoj^ed me. I've known ex- 
 perienced guides utterty discredit it. It couldn't 
 be that I was to turn about, and go the way I 
 had come. Nevertheless, I said to mj'sclf, 
 " You'd better keep a cool head, my boy, or you 
 are in for a night of it. Better listen to science 
 than to spunli." And I resolved to heed the 
 impartial needle. I was a little weary of the 
 rough tramping : but it was necessarj^ to be mov- 
 ing ; for, with wet clothes and the night air, I 
 was decidedly chill}^ I turned towards the north, 
 and slipped and stumbled along. A more un- 
 inviting forest to pass the night in I never saw. 
 Every thing was soaked. If I became exhausted, 
 it would be necessar}' to build a fire ; and, as I 
 waUied on, I couldn't find a dry bit of wood. 
 Even if a little punk were discovered in a rotten 
 log, I had no hatchet to cut fuel. I thought it 
 all over calml}'. I had the usual three matches 
 in my pocket. I knew exactl}^ what would hap- 
 pen if I tried to build a fire. The first match 
 would prove to be wet. The second match, when 
 struck, would shine and smell, and lizz a little, 
 
LOST IN THE WOODS. 33 
 
 and then go out. There would be only one 
 match left. Death would ensue if it failed. I 
 should get close to the log, crawl under my hat, 
 strike the match, see it catch, flicker, almost go 
 out (the reader painfully excited by this time) , 
 blaze up, nearly expire, and finally fire the punk, 
 — thank God! And I said to myself, "The 
 I)ublic don't want any more of this thing : it is 
 played out. Either have a box of matches, or 
 let the first one catch fire." 
 
 In this gloomy mood I plunged along. The 
 prospect was cheerless ; for, apart from the com- 
 fort that a fire would give, it is necessary, at 
 night, to keep off the wild beasts. I fancied I 
 could hear the tread of the stealthy brutes fol- 
 lowing their prey. But there was one source of 
 profound satisfaction, — the catamount had been 
 killed. Mr. Colvin, the triangulating surve^^or 
 of the Adirondacks, killed him in his last official 
 report to the State. Whether he despatched him 
 with a theodolite or a barometer does not mat- 
 ter : he is officially dead, and none of the travel- 
 lers can kill him any more. Yet he has served 
 them a good turn. 
 
34 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 I knew that catamount well. One night when 
 we lay in the bogs of the South Beaver Meadow, 
 under a canopy of mosquitoes, the serene mid- 
 night was parted by a wild and human-like cry 
 from a neighboring mountain. "That's a cat," 
 said the guide. I felt in a moment that it was 
 the A^oice of " modern cultchah." "Modern cul- 
 ture," says Mr. Joseph Cook in a most impres- 
 sive period, — " modern culture is a child crying 
 in the wilderness, and with no voice but a cry." 
 That describes the catamount exactly. The 
 next da}^, when we ascended the mountain, we 
 came upon the traces of this brute, — a spot 
 where he had stood and cried in the night ; and I 
 confess that my hair rose with the consciousness 
 of his recent presence, as it is said to do when a 
 spiiit iDasses 'hj. 
 
 Whatever consolation the absence of cata- 
 mount in a dark, drenched, and howling wilder- 
 ness can impart, that I experienced ; but I 
 thought what a satire upon my present condition 
 was modern culture, with its plain thinking and 
 liigh living ! It was impossible to get much sat- 
 
LOST IN THE WOODS. 35 
 
 isfaction out of the real and the ideal, — the me 
 and the not-me. At this time what impressed 
 me most was the absurdity of my position 
 looked at in the light of modern civilization and 
 all m}' advantages and acquirements. It seemed 
 pitiful that societ}^ could do absolutely nothing 
 for me. It was, in fact, humiliating to reflect that 
 it would now be profitable to exchange all m}^ 
 possessions for the woods instinct of the most 
 unlettered guide. I began to doubt the value of 
 the " culture " that blunts the natural instincts. 
 
 It began to be a question whether I could hold 
 out to waUi all night ; for I must travel, or perish. 
 And now I imagined that a spectre was wah^ing 
 b}^ my side. This was Famine. To be sure, I 
 had only recently eaten a heart}^ luncheon : but 
 the pangs of hunger got hold on me when I 
 thought that I should have no supper, no break- 
 fast ; and, as the i^rocession of unattainable meals 
 stretched before me, I grew hungrier and hun- 
 grier. I could feel that I was becoming gaunt, 
 and wasting away : already I seemed to be ema- 
 ciated. It is astonishing how speedily a jocund, 
 
36 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 well-conditioned human being can be trans- 
 formed into a spectacle of povert}' and want. 
 Lose a man in the woods, drench him, tear his 
 pantaloons, get his imagination running on his 
 lost supper and the cheerful fireside that is ex- 
 pecting him, and he will become haggard in an 
 hour. I am not dwelling upon these things to 
 excite the reader's sympathy, but only to advise 
 him, if he contemplates an adventure of this 
 kind, to provide himself with matches, kindling- 
 wood, something more to eat than one raw trout, 
 and not to select a rainy night for it. 
 
 Nature is so pitiless, so unresponsive, to a per- 
 son in trouble ! I had read of the soothing com- 
 panionship of the forest, the pleasure of the 
 pathless woods. But I thought, as I stumbled 
 along in the dismal actualit}', that, if I ever got 
 out of it, I would write a letter to the news- 
 papers, exposing the whole thing. There is an 
 impassive, stolid brutalit}^ about the woods, that 
 has never been enough insisted on. I tried to 
 keep my mind fixed upon the fact of man's su- 
 periority to Nature ; his ability to dominate and 
 
LOST IN THE WOODS. 37 
 
 outwit her. ^Ij situation was an amusing satire 
 on this theor}'. I fancied that I could feel a sneer 
 in the woods at my detected conceit. There was 
 something personal in it. The downpour of the 
 rain and the slipperiness of the ground were ele- 
 ments of discomfort ; but there was, besides 
 these, a kind of terror in the ver}- character of 
 the forest itself. I think this arose not more 
 from its immensit}' than from the kind of stolidity 
 to which I have alluded. It seemed to me that 
 it would be a sort of relief to kick the trees. I 
 don't wonder that the bears fall to, occasional!}^, 
 and scratch the bark off the great pines and 
 maples, tearing it angrily away. One must have 
 some vent to his feelings. It is a coimnon expe- 
 rience of people lost in the woods to lose their 
 heads ; and even the woodsmen themselves are 
 not free from this panic when some accident has 
 thrown them out of their reckoning. Fright un- 
 settles the judgment : the oppressive silence of 
 the woods is a vacuum in which the mind goes 
 astra}^ It's a hollow sham, this pantheism, I 
 said ; bcina: ' ' one with Nature ' ' is all humbuo; : 
 
38 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 I should like to see soniebod3% Man, to be sure, 
 is of very little account, and soon gets bej'ond his 
 depth ; but the society of the least human being 
 is better than this gigantic indifference. The 
 "rapture on the lonety shore " is agTeeable only 
 when 3^ou know 3^ou can at any moment go home. 
 I had now given up all expectation of finding 
 the road, and Y\^as steering my way as well as I 
 could northward towards the valley. In my haste 
 I made slow progress. Probably the distance I 
 travelled was short, and the time consumed not 
 long ; but I seemed to be adding mile to mile, and 
 hour to hour. I had time to review the incidents 
 of the Russo-Turkish war, and to forecast the 
 entire Eastern question ; I outlined the characters 
 of all m}' companions left in camp, and sketched 
 in a sort of comedy the sympathetic and dispar- 
 aging observations the}^ would make on my ad- 
 venture ; I repeated something like a thousand 
 times, without contradiction, "What a fool j^ou 
 were to leave the river ! " I stopped twenty times, 
 thinking I heard its loud roar, alwa3's deceived 
 by the wind in the tree-tops ; I began to enter- 
 
LOST IN THE WOODS. 39 
 
 tain serious doubts about the compass, — when 
 suddenl}^ I became aware that I was no longer on 
 level ground : I was descending a slope ; I was 
 actual!}^ in a ravine. In a moment more I was 
 in a brook newl}^ formed by the rain. " Thank 
 Heaven 1 " I cried : " this I shall follow, whatever 
 conscience or the compass sa3^s." In this region, 
 all streams go, sooner or later, into the valley. 
 This ravine, this stream, no doubt, led to the 
 river. I splashed and tumbled along down it in 
 mud and water. Down hill we went together, the 
 fall showing that I must have wandered to high 
 ground. AVlien I guessed that I must be close to 
 the river, I suddenly stepped into mud up to my 
 ankles. It was the road, — running, of course, 
 the wrong wa}^, but still the blessed road. It 
 was a mere- canal of hquid mud. ; but man had 
 made it, and it would take me home. I was at 
 least three miles from the point I supposed I was 
 near at sunset, and I had before me a toilsome 
 walk of six or seven miles, most of the way in a 
 ditch ; but it is truth to say that I enjoyed every 
 step of it. I was safe ; I knew where I was ; and 
 
40 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 I could liaA^e walked till morning. The mind had 
 again got the upper hand of the bod}^, and began 
 to plume itself on its superiority : it was even 
 disposed to doubt whether it had been "lost'* 
 at all. 
 
III. 
 
 A FIGHT WITH A TROUT. 
 
 ROUT-FISHING in the Adirondacks 
 would be a more attractive pastime than 
 it is, but for the popular notion of its 
 danger. The trout is a retiring and harmless 
 animal, except when he is aroused, and forced 
 into a combat ; and then his agility, fierceness, 
 and vindictiveness become apparent. No one 
 who has studied the excellent pictures represent- 
 ing men in an open boat, exposed to the assaults 
 of long, enraged trout flying at them through the 
 open ail' with open mouth, ever ventures with his 
 rod upon the lonel}^ lakes of the forest without a 
 certain terror, or ever reads of the exploits of 
 daring fishermen without a feeling of admiration 
 for their heroism. Most of their adventures are 
 
42 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 thrilling, and all of them are, in narration, more 
 or less unjust to the trout : in fact, the object of 
 them seems to be to exhibit, at the expense of 
 the trout, the shrewdness, the skill, and the mus- 
 cular power of the sportsman. My own simple 
 story has few of these recommendations. 
 
 We had built our bark camp one summer, and 
 were staying on one of the popular lakes of the 
 Saranac region. It would be a very pretty re- 
 gion if it were not so flat, if the margins of 
 the lakes had not been flooded bj^ dams at the 
 outlets, — which have killed the trees, and left a 
 rim of ghastly dead-wood like the swamps of 
 the under- world pictured by Dore's bizarre pen- 
 cil, — and if the pianos at the hotels were in tune. 
 It would be an excellent sporting-region also (for 
 there is water enough) if the flsh commissioners 
 would stock the waters, and if previous hunters 
 had not pulled all the hair and skin ofl" from the 
 deer's tails. Formerly sportsmen had a habit of 
 catching the deer by the tails, and of being 
 dra2:2:ed in mere w^antonness round and roinid 
 the shores. It is well known, that, if you seize 
 
A FIGHT WITH A TROUT. 43 
 
 a deer b}" this "holt," the skin will slip off like 
 the peel from a banana. This reprehensible prac- 
 tice was carried so far, that the traveller is now 
 hourl}^ pained by the sight of peeled-tail deer 
 mournful^ sneaking about the wood. 
 
 We had been hearing, for weeks, of a small 
 lake in the heart of the virgin forest, some ten 
 miles from onr camp, which was alive with trout, 
 unsophisticated, hungry trout : the inlet to it was 
 described as stiff with them. In my imagination 
 I saw them lying there in ranks and rows, each 
 a foot long, three tiers deep, a solid mass. The 
 lake had never been visited, except by stray 
 sable-hunters in the winter, and was known as 
 the Unknown Pond. I determined to explore 
 it ; fulh' expecting, however, that it would prove 
 to be a delusion, as such mj^sterious haunts of 
 the trout usuall}^ are. Confiding my purpose to 
 Luke, we secretl}^ made our preparations, and 
 stole awa}^ from the shant}^ one morning at day- 
 break. Each of us carried a boat, a pair of 
 blankets, a sack of bread, pork, and maple- 
 sugar ; while I had m}^ case of rods, creel, and 
 
44 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 book of flies, and Luke had an axe and the 
 kitchen utensils. We think nothing of loads of 
 this sort in the woods. 
 
 Five miles through a tamarack- swamp brought 
 us to the inlet of U;iknown Pond, upon which 
 we embarked our fleet, and paddled down its 
 vagrant waters. They were at first sluggish, 
 winding among triste fir-trees, but graduall}^ 
 developed a strong current. At the end of 
 three miles a loud roar ahead warned us that 
 we were approaching rapids, falls, and cascades. 
 We paused. The danger was unknown. We 
 had our choice of shouldering our loads and 
 making a detour through the woods, or of 
 "shooting the rapids." Naturally we chose the 
 more dangerous course. Shooting the rapids 
 has often been described, and I will not repeat 
 the description here. It is needless to say that 
 I drove my frail bark through the boiling rapids, 
 over the successive water- falls, amid rocks and 
 vicious eddies, and landed, half a mile below, 
 with whitened hair and a boat half full of water ; 
 and that the guide was upset, and boat, contents, 
 and man were strewn along the shore. 
 
1^_ 
 A FIGHT WITH A TROUT. 45 
 
 After this common experience we went quickly 
 on our journey, and, a couple of hours before 
 sundown, reached the lake. If I live to my 
 djing-day, I never shall forget its appearance. 
 The lake is almost an exact circle, about a quar- 
 ter of a mile in diameter. The forest about it 
 was untouched by axe, and unkilled by artificial 
 flooding. The azure water had a perfect setting 
 of evergreens, in which all the shades of the 
 fir, the balsam, the pine, and the spruce, were 
 perfect^ blended ; and at intervals on the shore 
 in the emerald rim blazed the ruby of the car- 
 dinal-flower. It was at once evident that the 
 unruffled waters had never been vexed b}^ the 
 keel of a boat. But what chiefly attracted my 
 attention, and amused me, was the boiling of 
 the water, the bubbling and breaking, as if the 
 lake were a vast kettle, with a fire underneath. 
 A t^TO would have been astonished at this com- 
 mon phenomenon ; but sportsmen will at once 
 understand me when I say that the water boiled 
 with the breaking trout. I studied the surface 
 for some time to see upon what sort of flies 
 
46 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 they were feeding, in order to suit my cast to 
 their appetites ; but they seemed to be at play 
 rather than feeding, leaping high in the air in 
 graceful curves, and tumbling about each other 
 as we see them in the Adirondack pictures. 
 
 It is well known that no person who regards 
 his reputation will ever kill a trout with any 
 thing but a fly. It requires some training on 
 the part of the trout to take to this method. 
 The uncultivated, unsophisticated trout in unfre- 
 quented waters prefers the bait ; and the rural 
 people, whose sole object in going a-fishing ap- 
 pears to be to catch fish, indulge them in their 
 primitive taste for the worm. No sportsman, 
 however, will use any thing but a fly, except 
 he happens to be alone. 
 
 While Luke launched my boat, and arranged 
 his seat in the stern, I prepared my rod and 
 line. The rod is a bamboo, weighing seven 
 ounces, which has to be spliced with a winding 
 of sillv thread every time it is used. This is a 
 tedious process ; but, by fastening the joints in 
 this way, a uniform spring is secm-ed in the rod. 
 
A FIGHT WITH A TROUT. 47 
 
 No one devoted to high art would think of using 
 a socket joint. My Hne was forty 3'ards of un- 
 twisted silk upon a multiplying reel. The ' ' lead- 
 er" (I am very particular about my leaders) 
 had been made to order from a domestic animal 
 with which I had been acquainted. The fisher- 
 man requires as good a catgut as the violinist. 
 The interior of the house-cat, it is well known, 
 is exceedingly sensitive ; but it may not be so 
 well known that the reason why some cats leave 
 the room in distress when a piano-forte is played 
 is because the two instruments are not in the 
 same ke}^, and the \dbrations of the chords of the 
 one are in discord with the catgut of the other. 
 On six feet of this superior article I fixed three 
 artificial flies, — a simx)le brown hackle, a gray 
 bod}^ with scarlet wings, and one of my own 
 invention, which I thought would be new to the 
 most experienced fly-catcher. The trout-fl}^ does 
 not resemble any known species of insect. It 
 is a "conventionalized" creation, as we say of 
 ornamentation. The theory is, that, fl3^-fishing 
 being a high art, the fly must not be a tame 
 
48 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 imitation of nature, but an artistic suggestion of 
 it. It requires an artist to construct one ; and 
 not every bungler can take a bit of red flannel, 
 a peacock's feather, a flash of tinsel thread, a 
 cock's plume, a section of a hen's wing, and 
 fabricate a tin}^ object that will not look like 
 any flj^, but still will suggest the universal con- 
 ventional fly. 
 
 I took my stand in the centre of the tipsy 
 boat ; and Luke shoved off, and slowly paddled 
 towards some lilj^-pads, while I began casting, 
 unlimbering my tools, as it were. The fish had 
 all disappeared. I got out, perhaps, fifty feet 
 of line, with no response, and gradually in- 
 creased it to one hundred. It is not difficult to 
 learn to cast ; but it is difficult to learn not to 
 snap ofi" the flies at eyerj throw. Of this, how- 
 ever, we will not speak. I continued casting for 
 some moments, until I became satisfied that 
 there had been a miscalculation. Either the 
 trout were too green to know what I was at, or 
 the}^ were dissatisfied with my offers. I reeled 
 in, and changed the flies (that is, the fly that was 
 
A FIGHT WITH A TROUT. 49 
 
 not snapped off). After studj'ing the color of 
 the sky, of the water, and of the fohage, and the 
 moderated light of the afternoon, I put on a 
 series of beguilers, all of a subdued brillianc}^, 
 in harmony with the approach of evening. At 
 the second cast, which was a short one, I saw a 
 splash where the leader fell, and gave an excited 
 jerk. The next instant I perceived the game, 
 and did not need the unfeigned " dam " of Luke 
 to convince me that I had snatched his felt hat 
 from his head, and deposited it among the lilies. 
 Discouraged by this, we whirled about, and pad- 
 dled over to the inlet, where a little ripple was 
 visible in the tinted light. At the very first cast 
 I saw that the hour had come. Three trout 
 leaped into the air. The danger of this ma- 
 noeuvre all fishermen understand. It is one of 
 the commonest in the woods : three heav}^ trout 
 taking hold at once, rushing in different direc- 
 tions, smash the tackle into flinders. I evaded 
 this catch, and threw again. I recall the mo- 
 ment. A hermit thrush, on the tip of a balsam, 
 uttered his long, liquid, evening note. Happen- 
 
50 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 ing to look over my shoulder, I saw the peak of 
 Marcy gleam ros}^ in the sky (I can't help it that 
 Marcy is iSfty miles off, and cannot be seen from 
 this region : these incidental touches are always 
 used) . The hundred feet of silk swished through 
 the air, and the tail-fly fell as lightly on the water 
 as a three-cent-piece (which no slamming wiU 
 give the weight of a ten) drops upon the contri- 
 bution-plate. Instantly there was a rush, a 
 swirl. I struck, and " Got him, by — ! " Never 
 mind what Luke said I got him by. " Out on a 
 fly ! " continued that irreverent guide ; but I told 
 him to back water, and make for the centre of 
 the lake. The trout, as soon as he felt the prick 
 of the hook, was off like a shot, and took out 
 the whole of the hue with a rapidity that made 
 it smoke. "Give him the butt ! " shouted Luke. 
 It is the usual remark in such an emergency. I 
 gave him the butt ; and, recognizing the fact and 
 
 . my spirit, the trout at once sank to the bottom, 
 and sulked. It is the most dangerous mood of a 
 
 ^. trout ; for you cannot tell what he will do next. 
 We reeled up a little, and waited five minutes for 
 
A FIGHT WITH A TROUT. 51 
 
 him to reflect. A tightening of the hne enraged 
 him, and he soon developed his tactics. Coming 
 to the surface, he made straight for the boat 
 faster than I could reel in, and evident^ with 
 hostile intentions. "Look out for him ! " cried 
 Luke as he came flj^ing in the air. I evaded 
 him b}^ dropping flat in the bottom of the boat ; 
 and, when I picked m}^ traps up, he was spinning 
 across the lake as if he had a new idea : but the 
 line was still fast. He did not run far. I gave 
 him the butt again ; a thing he seemed to hate, 
 even as a gift. In a moment the evil-minded 
 fish, lashing the water in his rage, was coming 
 back again, making straight for the boat as 
 before. Luke, who was used to these en- 
 counters, having read of them in the writings of 
 travellers he had accompanied, raised his paddle 
 in self-defence. The trout left the water about 
 ten feet from the boat, and came direct^ at me 
 with fiery e5^es, his speckled sides flashing like a 
 meteor. I dodged as he whisked b}^ with a 
 vicious sla]3 of his bifurcated tail, and nearly^^ 
 upset the boat. The line was of course slack; 
 
52 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 and the danger was that he would entangle it 
 about me, and carry away a leg. This was evi- 
 dently his game ; but I untangled it, and Duly 
 lost a breast-button or two by the swiftly-moving 
 string. The trout i)lunged into the water with a 
 hissing sound, and went away again with all the 
 line on the reel. More butt ; more indignation 
 on the part of the captive. The contest had now 
 been going on for half an hour, and I was get- 
 ting exhausted. We had been back and forth 
 across the lake, and round and round the lake. 
 What I feared was, that the trout would start up 
 the inlet, and wreck us in the bushes. But he 
 had a new fancy, and began the execution of a 
 mancBuvre which I had never read of. Instead 
 of coming straight towards me, he took a large 
 circle, swimming rapidly, and gradually contract- 
 ing his orbit. I reeled in, and kept my e3^e on 
 him. Round and round he went, narrowing his 
 circle. I began to suspect the game ; which was, 
 to twist my head off. When he had reduced the 
 radius of his circle to about twenty-five feet, he 
 struck a tremendous pace through the water. It 
 
A FIGHT WITH A TROUT. 53 
 
 would be false modestj^ in a sportsman to say- 
 that I was not equal to the occasion. Instead of 
 tui-ning round with him, as he expected, I stepped 
 to the bow, braced mj'self, and let the boat 
 swing. Round went the fish, and round we went 
 like a top. I saw a line of Mount Marc3^s all 
 round the horizon ; the rosy tint in the west 
 made a broad band of -pink along the sky above 
 the tree-tops ; the evening star was a perfect 
 circle of light, a hoop of gold in the heavens. 
 We whirled and reeled, and reeled and whirled. 
 I was willing to give the mahcious beast butt and 
 line, and all, if he would only go the other way 
 for a change. 
 
 When I came to myself, Luke was gaffing the 
 trout at the boat-side. After we had got him in, 
 and dressed him, he weighed three-quarters of a 
 pound. Fish alwaj^s lose b}^ being " got in and 
 dressed." It is best to weigh them while they 
 are in the water. The onty really large one I 
 ev ir caught got away witli my leader when I first 
 struck him. He weighed ten pounds. 
 
IV. 
 
 A-HUNTING OF THE DEEK. 
 
 F civilization owes a debt of gratitude to 
 the self-sacrificing sportsmen who have 
 cleared the Adirondack regions of cata- 
 mounts and savage trout, what shall be said of 
 the army which has so nobly reheved them of the 
 terror of the deer ? The deer-slayers have some- 
 what celebrated their exploits in print ; but I 
 think that justice has never been done them. 
 
 The American deer in the wilderness, left to 
 himself, leads a comparatiA^ely harmless but 
 rather stupid hfe, with only such excitement as 
 his own timid fancy raises. It was very seldom 
 that one of his tribe was e..ten by the North- 
 American tiger. For a wild animal he is very 
 domestic, simple in his tastes, regular in his 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE DEER. 55 
 
 habits, affectionate in his family. Unfortunately 
 for his repose, his haunch is as tender as his 
 heart. Of all wild creatures he is one of the most 
 graceful in action, and he poses with the skill 
 of an experienced model. I have seen the goats 
 on Mount Pentelicus scatter at the approach of 
 a stranger, climb to the sharp points of pro- 
 jecting rocks, and attitudinize in the most self- 
 conscious manner, striking at once those pictur- 
 esque postures against the sky with which Oriental 
 pictures have made us and them familiar. But 
 the whole proceeding was theatrical. Greece is 
 the home of art, and it is rare to find any thing 
 there natural and unstudied. I presume that 
 these goats have no nonsense about them when 
 the}^ are alone with the goat-herds, any more than 
 the goat-herds have, except when they come to 
 pose in the studio ; but the long ages of culture, 
 the presence alwa3's to the qjq of the best models 
 and the forms of immortal beaut}^, the heroic 
 friezes of the Temple of Theseus, the marble pro- 
 cessions of sacrificial animals, have had a steady 
 moulding, educating influence equal to a society 
 
56 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 of decorative art upon the peoj)le and the animals 
 who have dwelt in this artistic atmosphere. The 
 Attic goat has become an artificially artistic 
 being ; though of course he is not now what he 
 was, as a poser, in the days of Polycletus. There 
 is opportunity for a Yerj instructive essay by Mr. 
 E. A. Freeman on the decadence of the Attic 
 goat under the influence of the Ottoman Turk. 
 
 The American deer, in the free atmosphere of 
 our countr}^, and as yet untouched by our deco- 
 rative art, is without self-consciousness, and all 
 his attitudes are free and unstudied. The favor- 
 ite position of the deer — his fore-feet in the 
 shallow margin of the lake, among the lily-pads, 
 his antlers thrown back and his nose in the air at 
 the moment he hears the stealth}^ breaking of a 
 twig in the forest — is still spirited and graceful, 
 and wholly unaffected ])y the pictures of him 
 which the artists have put upon canvas. 
 * Wherever you go in the Northern forest, you 
 will find deer-paths. So plainly marked and 
 well-trodden are the3^, that it is easy to mistake 
 them for trails made by hunters ; but he who 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE DEER. 57 
 
 follows one of them is soon in difficulties. He 
 may find himself climbing through cedar- thickets 
 an almost inaccessible cliff, or immersed in the 
 intricacies of a marsh. The "run," in one di- 
 rection, will lead to water ; but, in the other, it 
 climbs the highest hills, to which the deer retires, 
 for safety and repose, in impenetrable thickets. 
 The hunters, in winter, find them congregated in 
 " 3'ards," where they can be surrounded and shot 
 as easily as our troops shoot Comanche women 
 and children in their winter villages. These 
 little paths are full of pit-falls among the roots 
 and stones ; and, nimble as the deer is, he some- 
 times breaks one of his slender legs in them. 
 Yet he knows how to treat himself without a 
 surgeon. I knew of a tame deer in a settlement 
 in the edge of the forest who had the misfortune 
 to break her leg. She immediately disappeared 
 with a delicacy rare in an invalid, and was not 
 seen for two weeks. Her friends had given her 
 up, supx^osing that she had dragged herself away 
 into the depths of the woods, and died of starva- 
 tion ; when one day she returned, cured of 
 
58 IN TEE WILDERNESS. 
 
 lameness, but thin as a virgin shadow. She had 
 the sense to shun the doctor ; to he down in some 
 safe place, and patiently wait for her leg to heal. 
 I have observed in many of the more refined 
 animals this sort of shyness, and reluctance to 
 give trouble, which excite our admiration when 
 noticed in mankind. 
 
 The deer is called a timid animal, and taunted 
 with possessing courage only when he is " at 
 bay ; ' ' the stag will fight when he can no longer 
 flee ; and the doe will' defend her young in the 
 face of murderous enemies. The deer gets httle 
 credit for this eleventh-hour bravery. But I 
 think, that, in any truly Christian condition of 
 societ}", the deer would not be conspicuous for 
 cowardice. I suppose that if the American girl, 
 even as she is described in foreign romances, 
 were pursued by bull-dogs, and fired at from 
 behind fences every time she ventured out- 
 doors, she would become timid, and reluctant to 
 go abroad. When that golden era comes which 
 the poets thinli is behind us, and the prophets de- 
 clai'e is about to be ushered in by the opening of 
 
A-IIUNTmO OF THE DEER. 59 
 
 the ' ' vials, ' ' and the killing of eveiybody who does 
 not believe as those nations believe which have 
 the most cannon ; when we all live in real con- 
 cord, — perhaps the gentle-hearted deer will be 
 respected, and will find that men are not more 
 savage to the weak than are the cougars and 
 panthers. If the little spotted fawn can think, 
 it must seem to her a queer world in which the 
 advent of innocence is hailed by the baling of 
 fierce hounds and the " ping " of the rifle. 
 
 Hunting the deer in the Adiroudacks is con- 
 ducted in the most manly fashion. ^ There are 
 several methods, and in none of them is a fair 
 chance to the deer considered. A favorite meth- 
 od with the natives is j)ractised in winter, and 
 is called by them " still hunting." My idea of 
 still hunting is for one man to go alone into the 
 forest, look about for a deer, put his wits fairly 
 against the wits of the keen-scented animal, and 
 kill his deer, or get lost in the attempt. There 
 seems to be a sort of fairness about this. It is 
 private assassination, tempered with a little un- 
 certainty about finding j^our man. The still hunt- 
 
60 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 ing of the natives has all the romance and clanger 
 attending the slaughter of sheep in an abattoir. 
 As the snow gets deep, many deer congregate 
 in the depths of the forest, and keep a place 
 trodden down, which grows larger as they 
 tramp down the snow in search of food. In 
 time this refuge becomes a sort of "yard," 
 surrounded by unbroken snow-banks. The hunt- 
 ers then make their way to this retreat on snow- 
 shoes, and from the top of the banks pick off 
 the deer at leisure with their rifles, and haul 
 them away to market, until the enclosure is pretty 
 much emptied. This is one of the surest methods 
 of exterminating the deer ; it is also one of the 
 most merciful ; and, being the plan adopted by 
 our government for civilizing the Indian, it ought 
 to be popular. The only people who object to it 
 are the summer sportsmen. They naturall}^ want 
 some pleasure out of the death of the deer. 
 
 Some of our best sportsmen, who desire to 
 protract the pleasure of slaying deer through as 
 many seasons as possible, object to the practice 
 of the hunters, who make it their chief business 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE DEER, 61 
 
 to slaughter as many deer in a camping-season as 
 they can. Their own rule, they say, is to kill a 
 deer only when they need venison to eat. Their 
 excuse is specious. What right have these soph- 
 ists to put themselves into a desert place, out 
 of the reach of provisions, and then ground a 
 right to slay deer on their own improvidence? 
 If it is necessary for these people to have any 
 thing to eat, which I doubt, it is not necessary 
 that they should have the luxur}^ of venison. 
 
 One of the most picturesque methods of hunt- 
 ing the poor deer is called "floating." The 
 person, with murder in his heart, chooses a 
 cloudy night, seats himself, rifle in hand, in a 
 canoe, which is noiselessly paddled by the guide, 
 and explores the shore of the lake or the dark 
 inlet. In the bow of the boat is a light in a 
 "jack," the rays of which are shielded from the 
 boat and its occupants. A deer comes down to 
 feed upon the hlj^-pads. The boat approaches 
 him. He looks up, and stands a moment, terri- 
 fied or fascinated by the bright flames. In that 
 moment the sportsman is supposed to shoot the 
 
62 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 deer. As an Mstorical fact, Ms hand usually 
 shakes, so that he misses the animal, or only 
 wounds him ; and the stag limps away to die 
 after days of suffering. Usually, however, the 
 hunters remain out all night, get stiff from cold 
 and the cramped position in the boat, and, when 
 they return in the morning to camp, cloud their 
 future existence by the assertion that they " heard 
 a big buck" moving along the shore, but the 
 people in camp made so much noise that he was 
 frightened off. 
 
 By all odds, the favorite and prevalent mode 
 is hunting with dogs. The dogs do the hunting, 
 the men the killing. The hounds are sent into 
 the forest to rouse the deer, and drive him from 
 his cover. They climb the mountains, strike the 
 trails, and go baying and yelping on the track 
 of the poor beast. The deer have their estab- 
 lished run- ways, as I said; and, when they are 
 (disturbed in their retreat, they are certain to 
 attempt to escape by following one which in- 
 variably leads to some lake or stream. All that 
 the hunter has to do is to seat himself by one of 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE DEER. 63 
 
 these run-ways, or sit in a boat on the lake, and 
 wait the coming of the pursued deer. The 
 frightened beast, fleeing from the unreasoning 
 brutahty of the hounds, will often seek the open 
 country, with a mistaken confidence in the hu- 
 manity of man. To kill a deer when he suddenly 
 passes one on a run-waj^ demands presence of 
 mind, and quickness of aim : to shoot him from 
 the boat, after he has plunged panting into the 
 lake, requires the rare ability to hit a moving 
 object the size of a deer's head a few rods dis- 
 tant. Either exploit is sufficient to make a hero 
 of a common man. To paddle up to the swim- 
 ming deer, and cut his throat, is a sure means 
 of getting A^enison, and has its charms for some. 
 Even women, and doctors of divinity, have en- 
 joj^ed this exquisite pleasure. It cannot be denied 
 that we are so constituted by a wise Creator as to 
 feel a dehght in killing a wild animal which we 
 do not experience in killing a tame one. 
 
 The pleasurable excitement of a deer-hunt has 
 never, I believe, been regarded from the deer's 
 point of view. I happen to be in a position. 
 
64 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 by reason of a lucky Adirondack experience, to 
 present it in that light. I am sorry if this intro- 
 duction to my little story has seemed long to the 
 reader : it is too late now to skip it ; but he can 
 recoup himself by omitting the story. 
 
 Early on the morning of the 23d of August, 
 1877, a doe was feeding on Basin Mountain. 
 The night had been warm and shower}^, and the 
 morning opened in an undecided way. The 
 wind was southerly : it is what the deer call a 
 dog- wind, having come to know quite well the 
 meaning of "a southerly wind and a cloud}^ 
 sky." The sole companion of the doe was her 
 only child, a charming little fawn, whose brown 
 coat was just beginning to be mottled with the 
 beautiful spots which make this j^oung creature 
 as lovely as the gazelle. The buck, its father, 
 had been that night on a long tramp across the 
 mountain to Clear Pond, and had not j^t re- 
 turned : he went ostensibly to feed on the suc- 
 culent lily-pads there. " He feedeth among the 
 lilies until the day break and the shadows flee 
 away, and he should be here by this hour ; but 
 
A-IIUNTING OF THE DEER. 65 
 
 he Cometh not," she said, "leaping upon the 
 mountains , skipping upon the hills . ' ' Clear Pond 
 was too far off for the 3^oung mother to go with 
 her fawn for a night's pleasure. It was a fashion- 
 able watering-place at this season among the 
 deer ; and the doe maj have remembered, not 
 without uneasiness, the moonlight meetings of a 
 frivolous society there. But the buck did not 
 come : he was very likely sleeping under one of 
 the ledges on Tight Mppin. Was he alone? " I 
 chai-ge you, b}' the roes and by the hinds of the 
 field, that ye stir not nor awake my love till he 
 please." 
 
 The doe was feeding, daintily cropping the 
 tender leaves of the young shoots, and turning 
 from time to time to regard her offspring. The 
 fawn had taken his morning meal, and now lay 
 curled up on a bed of moss, watching contented- 
 ly, with his large, soft brown eyes, every move- 
 ment of his mother. The great eyes followed 
 her with an alert entreaty ; and, if the mother 
 stepped a pace or two farther away in feeding, 
 the fawn made a half-movement 3 as if to rise and 
 
66 IN THE WILDEBNESS. 
 
 follow her. You see, she was his sole depend- 
 ence in all the world. But he was quickl}^ re-as- 
 sured when she turned her gaze on him ; and if, 
 in alarm, he uttered a plaintive cry, she bounded 
 to him at once, and, with every demonstration of 
 affection, Hcked his mottled skin till it shone 
 again. 
 
 It was a pretty picture, — maternal love on the 
 one part, and happj' trust on the other. The 
 doe was a beauty, and would have been so con- 
 sidered anywhere, as graceful and winning a 
 creature as the sun that day shone on, — slender 
 Hmbs, not too heavy flanlvs, round bod}^, and 
 aristocratic head, with small ears, and luminous, 
 intelligent, affectionate ej'es. How alert, supple, 
 free, she was ! What untaught grace in every 
 movement ! What a charming pose when she 
 lifted her head, and turned it to regard her child ! 
 You would have had a companion-picture, if you 
 had seen, as I saw that morning, a baby kicking 
 about among the dry pine-needles on a ledge 
 above the Ausable, in the valley below, while its 
 young mother sat near, with an easel before her, 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE DEER. 67 
 
 touching in the color of a reluctant landscape, 
 giving a quick look at the sky and the outline of 
 the Twin Mountains, and bestowing every third 
 glance upon the laughing boj^, — art in its in- 
 fancy. 
 
 The doe lifted her head a httle with a quick 
 motion, and turned her ear to the south. Had 
 she heard something ? Probabty it was only the 
 south wind in the balsams. There was silence 
 all about in the forest. If the doe had heard 
 any thing, it was one of the distant noises of the 
 world. There are in the woods occasional moan- 
 ings, premonitions of change, which are inaudi- 
 ble to the dull ears of men, but which, I have no 
 doubt, the forest-folk hear and understand. If 
 the doe's suspicions were excited for an instant, 
 they were gone as soon. With an affectionate 
 glance at her fawn, she continued picking up her 
 breakfast. 
 
 But suddenly she started, head erect, eyes 
 dilated, a tremor in her limbs. She took a step ; 
 she turned her head to the south ; she listened 
 intently. There was a sound, — a distant, pro- 
 
IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 longed note, bell-toned, pervading the woods, shak- 
 ing the air in smooth vibrations. It was repeated . 
 The doe had no doubt now. She shook like the 
 sensitive mimosa when a footstep approaches. 
 It was the baying of a hound ! It was far off, — 
 at the foot of the mountain. Time enougli to 
 fl}^ ; time enough to put miles between her and 
 the hound, before he should come upon her fresh 
 trail ; time enough to escape awa}^ through the 
 dense forest, and hide in the recesses of Panther 
 Gorge ; 3'es, time enough. But there was the 
 fawn. The cry of the hound was repeated, more 
 distinct this time. The mother instinctivel}^ 
 bounded away a few paces. The fawn started 
 up with an anxious bleat : the doe turned ; she 
 came back ; she couldn't leave it. She bent over 
 it, and licked it, and seemed to sa}-, " Come, 
 my child : we are pursued: we must go." She 
 walked awa}' towards the west, and the little 
 thing skipped after her. It was slow going for 
 the slender legs, over the fallen logs, and through 
 the rasping bushes. The doe bounded in ad- 
 vance, and waited : the fawn scrambled after her, 
 
A-IIUNTING OF THE DEER. 69 
 
 slipping and tumbling along, veiy groggy 3'et on 
 its legs, and whining a good deal because its 
 mother kept always moving awa}^ from it. The 
 fawn evidently did not hear the hound : the little 
 innocent would even have looked sweetly at 
 the dog, and tried to make friends with it, if the 
 brute had been rushing upon him. By all the 
 means at her command the doe urged her 3^oung 
 one on ; but it was slow work. She might haA^e 
 been a mile away v/hile they were making a few 
 rods. Whenever the fawn caught up, he was 
 quite content to frisk about. He wanted more 
 breakfast, for one thing ; and his mother wouldn't 
 standstill. She moved on continually; and his 
 wxak legs were tangled in the roots of the narrow 
 deer-path. 
 
 Shortly came a sound that threw the doe into 
 a panic of terror, — a short, sharp 3'elp, followed 
 b}' a prolonged howl, caught up and re-echoed by 
 other hayings along the mountain- side. The doe 
 knew what that meant. One hound had caught 
 her trail, and the whole pack responded to the 
 " view- halloo." The danger was certain now: 
 
70 IN TEE WILDERNESS. 
 
 it was near. She could not crawl on in this 
 way : the dogs would soon be upon them. She 
 turned again for flight : the fawn, scrambling 
 after her, tumbled over, and bleated piteously. 
 The baying, emphasized now by the j^elp of cer- 
 tainty, came nearer. Flight with the fawn was 
 impossible. The doe returned and stood by it, 
 head erect, and nostrils distended. She stood 
 IDcrfectly still, but trembling. Perhaps she was 
 thinking. The fawn took advantage of the situa- 
 tion, and began to draw his luncheon ration. 
 The doe seemed to have made up her mind. She 
 let him finish. The fawn, having taken all he 
 wanted, la^^ down contentedly, and the doe licked 
 Mm for a moment. Then, with the swiftness of 
 a bird, she dashed awa}^, and in a moment was 
 lost in the forest. She went in the direction of 
 the hounds. 
 
 According to all human calculations, she was 
 going into the jaws of death. So she was : all 
 human calculations are selfish. She kept straight 
 on, hearing the bapng everj^ moment more dis- 
 tinctly. She descended the slope of the moun- 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE BEER. 71 
 
 tain until she reached the more open forest of 
 hard-wood. It was freer going here, and the 
 cry of the pack echoed more resoundingly in the 
 great spaces. She was going due east, when 
 (judging by the sound, the hounds were not far 
 off, though they were still hidden b}' a ridge) she 
 turned short away to the north, and kept on at a 
 good pace. In five minutes more she heard the 
 sharp, exultant yelp of disco ver}', and then the 
 deep-mouthed howl of pursuit. The hounds had 
 struck her trail where she turned, and the fawn 
 was safe. 
 
 The doe was in good running condition, the 
 ground was not bad, and she felt the exhilaration 
 of the chase. For the moment, fear left her, and 
 she bounded on with the exaltation of triumph. 
 For a quarter of an hour she went on at a slap- 
 ping pace, clearing the moose-bushes with bound 
 after bound, fl3'ing over the fallen logs, pausing 
 neither for brook nor ra\4ne. The baying of the 
 hounds grew fainter behind her. But she struck 
 a bad piece of going, a dead-wood slash. It was 
 marvellous to see her skim over it, leaping among 
 
72 m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 its intricacies, and not breaking her slender logs. 
 No other living animal could do it. But it was 
 kilhng work. She began to pant fearfuU}^ ; she 
 lost ground. The baling of the hounds was near- 
 er. She climbed the hard-wood hill at a slower 
 gait ; but, once on more level, free ground, her 
 breath came back to her, and she stretched awaj^ 
 with new courage, and maj^be a sort of contempt 
 of her heavy pursuers. 
 
 After running at high speed perhaps half a mile 
 farther, it occurred to her that it would be safe 
 now to turn to the west, and, by a vv^ide circuit, 
 seek her fawn. But, at the moment, she heaixl a 
 sound that chilled her heart. It was the cry of 
 a hound to the west of her. The crafty brute 
 had made the circuit of the slash, and cut off her 
 retreat. There was nothing to do but to keep 
 on ; and on she went, still to the north, with the 
 noise of the i^ack behind her. In five minutes 
 more she had passed into a hillside clearing. 
 Cows and young steers were grazing there. She 
 heard a tinkle of bells. Below her, down tlie 
 mountain-slope, were other clearings, broken by 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE DEER. 73 
 
 patches of woods. Fences intervened ; and a mile 
 or two down lay the valle^^, the shining Ausable, 
 and the peaceful farm-houses. That way also her 
 hereditary enemies were. Not a merciful heart 
 in all that lovely valle}^ She hesitated : it was 
 only for an instant. She must cross the Shde- 
 brook Yalley if possible, and gain the mountain 
 opposite. She bounded on ; she stopped. What 
 was that? From the valle}' ahead came the cry 
 of a searching hound. All the devils were loose 
 this morning. Ever}' wa}' was closed but one, 
 and that led straight down the mountain to the 
 cluster of houses. Conspicuous among them was 
 a slender white wooden spire. The doe did not 
 know that it was the spire of a Christian chapel. 
 But perhaps she thought that human pity dwelt 
 there, and would be more merciful than the teeth 
 of the hounds. 
 
 " The hounds are baying on my track: 
 O white man ! will you send me back ? " 
 
 In a panic, frightened animals will always flee 
 to himian-kind from the danger of more savage 
 
74 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 foes. They alwa^'s make a mistake in doing so. 
 Perhaps the trait is the survival of an era of 
 peace on earth ; perhaps it is a prophecy of the 
 golden age of the future. The business of this 
 age is murder, — the slaughter of animals, the 
 slaughter of fellow-men, by the wholesale. Hila- 
 rious poets who have never fired a gun write 
 hunting-songs, — Ti-ra-la : and good bishops 
 write war-songs, — Ave the Czar! 
 
 The hunted doe went down the " open," clear- 
 ing the fences splendidl}- , flying along the stony 
 path. It was a beautiful sight. But consider 
 what a shot it was ! If the deer, now, could only 
 have been caught ! No doubt there were tender- 
 hearted people in the valley who would have 
 spared her life, shut her up in a stable, and 
 petted her. Was there one who would have let 
 her go back to her waiting fawn ? It is the busi- 
 ness of civilization to tame or kill. 
 
 The doe went on. She left the saw-mill on 
 John's Brook to her right ; she turned into a 
 wood-path. As she approached Slide Brook, she 
 saw a boy standing by a tree with a raised rifle. 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE DEER. 75 
 
 The dogs were not in sight ; but she could hear 
 them coming down the hill. There was no time 
 for hesitation. With a tremendous burst of speed 
 she cleared the stream, and, as she touched the 
 bank, heard the " ping'' of a rifle-bullet in the 
 air above her. The cruel sound gave wings to 
 the poor thing. In a moment more she was in 
 the opening : she leaped into the travelled road. 
 Which way ? Below her in the wood was a load 
 of hay : a man and a boy, with pitchforks in their 
 hands, were running towards her. She turned 
 south, and flew along the street. The town was 
 up. Women and children ran to the doors and 
 windows ; men snatched their rifles ; shots were 
 fired ; at the big boarding-houses, the summer 
 boarders, who never have any thing to do, came 
 out and cheered ; a camp-stool was thrown from 
 a veranda. Some 3'oung fellows shooting at a 
 mark in the meadow saw the flying deer, and 
 popped away at her ; but they were accustomed 
 to a mark that stood still. It was, all so sudden ! 
 There were twenty people wlio were just going 
 to shoot her ; when the doe leaped the road 
 
76 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 fence, and went away across a marsh toward the 
 foot-hills. It was a fearful gantlet to run. But 
 nobody 0?s:cept the deer considered it in that light. 
 Everj'body told what he was just going to do ; 
 everybod}^ w^ho had seen the performance was a 
 kind of hero, — everybody except the deer. For 
 days and daj's it was the subject of conversa- 
 tion ; and the summer boarders kept their gans 
 at hand, expecting another deer would come to 
 be shot at. 
 
 . The doe went away to the foot-hills, going now 
 slower, and evidently fatigued, if not frightened 
 half to death. Nothing is so appalling to a re- 
 cluse as half a mile of summer boarders. As 
 the deer entered the thin woods, she saw a rabble 
 of people start across the meadow in pursuit. By 
 this time, the dogs, panting, and lolling out their 
 tongues, came swinging along, keeping the trail, 
 like stupids, and consequentl}^ losing ground when 
 the deer doubled. But, when the doe had got into 
 the timber, she heard the savage brutes howling 
 across the meadow. (It is well enough, perhaps, 
 to sa}^ that nobody offered to shoot tJie dogs.) 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE DEER. 11 
 
 The courage of the panting fugitive was not 
 gone : she was game to the tip of her high-bred 
 ears. But the fearful pace at which she had just 
 been going told on her. Her legs trembled, and 
 her heart beat like a trip-hammer. She slowed 
 her speed perforce, but still fled industriously^ up 
 the right bank of the stream. When sh« had 
 gone a couple of miles, and the dogs were evi- 
 dentl}' gaining again, she crossed the broad, deep 
 brook, climbed the steep left bank, and fled on in 
 the direction of the Mount-Marcy trail. The 
 fording of the river threw the hounds off for a 
 time. She knew, by their uncertain yelping up 
 and down the opposite bank, that she had a Uttle 
 respite ; she used it, however, to push on until 
 the baying was faint in her ears ; and then she 
 dropped, exhausted, upon the ground. 
 
 This rest, brief as it was, saved her life. 
 Roused again b}" the baying pack, she leaped for- 
 ward with better speed, though without that keen 
 feeling of exhilarating flight that she had in the 
 morning. It was still a race for life ; but the odds 
 were in her favor, she thought. She did not ap- 
 
IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 predate the dogged persistence of the hounds, nor 
 had an}^ inspiration told her that the race is not to 
 the swift. She was a httle confused in her mind 
 where to go ; but an instinct kept her course 
 to the left, and consequently farther away from 
 her fawn. Going now slower, and now faster, as 
 the pursuit seemed more distant or nearer, she 
 kept to the south-west, crossed the stream again, 
 left Panther Gorge on her right, and ran on by 
 Haj'Stack and Sk3'light in the direction of the 
 Upper Ausable Pond. I do not know her exact 
 course through this maze of mountains, swamps, 
 ravines, and frightful wildernesses. I only know 
 that the poor thing worked her way along pain- 
 full}^, with sinking heart and unsteady limbs, 
 lying down " dead beat" at intervals, and then 
 spurred on by the cry of the remorseless dogs, 
 until, late in the afternoon, she staggered down 
 the shoulder of Bartlett, and stood upon the shore 
 of the lake. If she could put that piece of water 
 between her and her pursuers, she would be safe. 
 Had she strength to swim it ? 
 
 At her first step into the water she saw a sight 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE LEER. 79 
 
 that sent her back with a bound. There was a 
 boat mid-lake : two men were in it. One was 
 rowing : the other had a gun in his hand. They 
 were looking towards her : they had seen her. 
 (She did not know that they had heard the ba}^- 
 ing of hounds on the mountains, and had been 
 lying in wait for her an hour.) What should she 
 do ? The hounds were drawing near. No escape 
 that way, even if she could still run. With oiAy 
 a moment's hesitation she plunged into the lake, 
 and struck obliquely across. Her tired legs could 
 not propel the tired body rapidly. She saw the 
 boat headed for her. She turned toward the cen- 
 tre of the lake. The boat turned. She could 
 hear the rattle of the oar-locks. It was gaining 
 on her. Then there was a silence. Then there 
 was a splash of the water just ahead of her, fol- 
 lowed by a roar round the lake, the words " Con- 
 found it all!" and a rattle of the oars again. 
 The doe saw the boat nearing her. She turned 
 irresolutely to the shore whence she came : the 
 dogs were lapping the water, and howling there. 
 She turned again to the centre of the lake. 
 
80 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 The brave, prett}' creature was quite exhausted 
 now. In a moment more, with a rush of water, 
 the boat was on her, and the man at the oars had 
 leaned over and caught her b}^ the tail. 
 
 " Knock her on the head with that paddle ! " 
 he shouted to the gentleman in the stern. 
 
 The gentleman was a gentleman, with a kind, 
 smooth-shaven face, and might have been a min- 
 ister of some sort of everlasting gospel. He 
 took the paddle in his hand. Just then the doe 
 turned her head, and looked at him with her 
 great, appealing ej^es. 
 
 " I can't do it ! my soul, I can't do it ! " and 
 he dropped the paddle. "Oh, let her go ! " 
 
 "Let H. go ! " was the only response of the 
 guide as he slung the deer round, whipped out 
 his hunting-knife, and made a pass that severed 
 her jugular. 
 
 And the gentleman ate that night of the veni- 
 
 The buck returned about the middle of the 
 afternoon. The fawn was bleating piteously, 
 
A-HUNTING OF THE DEER. 81 
 
 luingiy and lonesome. The buck was siu'prised. 
 He looked about in the forest. He took a circuit, 
 and came back. His doe was nowhere to be 
 seen. He looked down at the fawn in a helpless 
 sort of waj'. The fawn appealed for his supper. 
 The buck had nothing whatever to give his child, 
 — nothing but his S3^mpath3\ If he said any 
 thing, this is what he said : " I'm the head of this 
 family ; but, really, this is a novel case. I've noth- 
 ing whatever for 3'ou. I don't know what to do. 
 I've the feelings of a father ; but 3'ou can't live 
 on them. Let us travel." 
 
 The buck walked away : the little one toddled 
 after him. They disappeared in the forest. 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 
 
 HERE has been a lively inquiry after 
 the primeval man. Wanted, a man 
 who would satisfy the conditions of the 
 miocene environment, and jxt would be good 
 enough for an ancestor. We are not particular 
 about our ancestors, if they are sufficientfy re- 
 mote ; but we must have something. Faihng to 
 apprehend the primeval man, science has sought 
 the primitive man where he exists as a survival 
 in present savage races. He is, at best, only a 
 mushroom growth of the recent period (came in, 
 probabfy, with the general raft of mammalian 
 fauna) ; but he possesses yet some rudimentary 
 traits that may be studied. 
 
 It is a good mental exercise to try to fix the 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 83 
 
 mind on the primitive man divested of all the 
 attributes he has acquired in his struggles with 
 the other mammalian fauna. Fix the mind on 
 an orange, the ordinar}^ occupation of the meta- 
 ph3^sician : take from it (without eating it) odor, 
 color, weight, form, substance, and peel; then 
 let the mind still dwell on it as an orange. The 
 experiment is perfectl}^ successful ; onl}^, at the 
 end of it, jou haven't any mind. Better still, 
 consider the telephone : take away from it the 
 metallic disk, and the magnetized iron, and the. 
 connecting wire, and then let the mind run 
 abroad on the telephone. The mind won't come 
 back. I have tried bj^ this sort of process to get 
 a conception of the primitive man. I let the 
 mind roarii away back over the vast geologic 
 spaces, and sometimes fancy I see a dim image 
 of him stalking across the terrace epoch of the 
 quaternary period. 
 
 But this is an unsatisf3ing, pleasure. The best 
 results are obtained by studying the primitive 
 man as he is left here and there in our era, a 
 witness of what has been ; and I find him most 
 
84 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 to my mind in the Adirondack system, of what 
 geologists call the Champlain epoch. I suppose 
 the primitive man is one who owes more to 
 nature than to the forces of civilization. What 
 we seek in him are the primal and original traits, 
 unmixed with the sophistications of societ}- , and 
 unimpaired by the refinements of an artificial 
 culture. He would retain the primitive instincts, 
 which are cultivated out of the ordinar}^, com- 
 monplace man. I should expect to find him, by 
 reason of an unrelinquished kinship, enjojdng a 
 special communion with nature, — admitted to 
 its mj'steries, understanding its moods, and able 
 to predict its vagaries. He would be a kind of 
 test to us of what we have lost by our gregarious 
 acquisitions. On the one hand, there would be 
 the sharpness of the senses, the keen instiiicts 
 Cwhich the fox and the beaver still possess) , the 
 ability to find one's wa}^ in the pathless forest, to 
 follow a trail, to circumvent the wild denizens of 
 the woods ; and, on the other hand, there would 
 be the philosophy of life which the primitive 
 man, with little external aid, would evolve from 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 85 
 
 original observation and cogitation. It is onr 
 good fortune to know such a man ; but it is diffi- 
 cult to present him to a scientific and cavilhng 
 generation. He emigrated from somewhat limited 
 conditions in Vermont, at an early age, nearly 
 half a century ago, and sought freedom for his 
 natural development backward in the wilds of the 
 Adirondacks. Sometimes it is a love of adven- 
 ture and freedom that sends men out of the more 
 civihzed conditions into the less ; sometimes it is 
 a constitutional phj'sical lassitude which leads 
 them to prefer the rod to the hoe, the trap to the 
 sickle, and the society of bears to town-meetings 
 and taxes. I thiiilv that Old Mountain Phelps 
 had merely the instincts of the primitive man, 
 and never any hostile civilizing intent as to the 
 wilderness into which he plunged. Yv'hy should 
 he want to slash away the forest, and iilough up 
 the ancient mould, when it is infinitely pleasanter 
 to roam about in the leafj^ solitudes, or sit upon a 
 mossy log and listen to the chatter of birds and 
 the stir of beasts? Are there not trout in the 
 streams, gum exuding from the spruce, sugar in 
 
SQ IN THE WILDE RNES8. 
 
 the maples, honey in the hollow trees, fur on the 
 sables, warmth in hickory-logs? Will not a few 
 days' planting and scratching in the "open" 
 yield potatoes and rye ? And, if there is steadier 
 diet needed than venison and bear, is the pig an 
 expensive animal ? If Old Phelps bowed to the 
 prejudice or fashion of his age (since we have 
 come out of the tertiary state of things), and 
 reared a family, built a frame-house in a secluded 
 nook by a cold spring, j)lanted about it some 
 apple-trees and a rudimentary garden, and in- 
 stalled a group of flaming sunflowers by the door, 
 I am comdnced that it was a concession that did 
 not touch his radical character ; that is to say, it 
 did not impair his reluctance to split oven-wood. 
 He was a true citizen of the wilderness. 
 Thoreau would have liked him, as he liked In- 
 dians and woodchucks, and the smell of pine- 
 forests ; and, if Old Phelps had seen Thoreau, 
 he would probably have said to him, " Wh}^ on 
 airth, Mr. Thoreau, don't you live accordin' to 
 your preachin' ? ' ' You might be misled by the 
 shaggy suggestion of Old Phelps's given name — 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 87 
 
 Orson — into the notion that he was a mighty 
 hunter, with the fierce spirit of the Berserkers in 
 his veins. Nothing could be farther from the 
 truth. The hirsute and grisly sound of Orson 
 expresses onl}^ his entire affinity with the untamed 
 and the natural, an uncouth but gentle passion 
 for the freedom and wildness of the forest. Or- 
 son Phelps has only those unconventional and 
 humorous quahties of the bear which make the 
 animal so beloved in literature ; and one does not 
 think of Old Phelps so much as a lover of natm-e, 
 — to use the sentimental slang of the period, — 
 as a part of nature itself. 
 
 His appearance at the time when as a "guide" 
 he began to come into i3ublic notice fostered 
 this impression, — a sturdy figure, with long 
 bod}^ and short legs, clad in a woollen shirt and 
 butternut- colored trousers repaked to the point 
 of ]picturesqueness, his head surmounted by a 
 limp, light-brown felt hat, frayed away at the 
 top, so that his yellowish hair grew out of it like 
 some nameless fern out of a pot. His tawny 
 hair was long and tangled, matted now many 
 
m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 years past the possibility of being entered by a 
 comb. His features were small and delicate, and 
 set in the frame of a reddish beard, the razor 
 having mowed away a clearing about the sensi- 
 tive mouth, which was not seldom wreathed with 
 a child-like and charming smile. Out of this 
 hirsute environment looked the small gray ej'es, 
 set near together ; e3'es keen to observe, and 
 quick to express change of thought ; eyes that 
 made you believe instinct can grow into philo- 
 sophic judgment. His feet and hands were of 
 aristocratic smallness, although the latter were 
 not worn awa}^ by ablutions ; in fact, they assisted 
 his toilet to give 3^ou the impression that here 
 was a man who had just come out of the ground, 
 — a real son of the soil, whose appearance was 
 partial^ explained by his humorous relation to 
 soap. "Soap is a thing," he said, "that I 
 hain't no kinder use for." His clothes seemed 
 to, have been put on him once for all, lilve the 
 Dark of a tree, a long time ago. The observant 
 stranger was sure to be puzzled by the contrast 
 of this realistic and uncouth exterior with the 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 89 
 
 internal fineness, amounting to refinement and 
 culture, that shone through it all. What com- 
 munion had supplied the place of our artificial 
 breeding to this man ? 
 
 Perhaps his most characteristic attitude was 
 sitting on a log, with a short pipe in his mouth. 
 If ever man was formed to sit on a log, it was 
 Old Phelps. He was essentially a contemplative 
 person. Walking on a country road, or any- 
 where in the " open," was irksome to him. Pie 
 had a shambling, loose-jointed gait, not unhke 
 that of the bear : his short legs bowed out, as if 
 the}" had been more in the habit of chmbing trees 
 than of walking. On land, if we may use that 
 expression, he was something like a sailor ; but, 
 once in the rugged trail or the unmarked route 
 of his native forest, he was a different person, 
 and few pedestrians could compete with him. 
 The vulgar estimate of his contemporaries, that 
 reckoned Old Phelps "lazj^," was simply a fail- 
 ure to comprehend the conditions of his being. 
 It is the unjustness of civilization that it sets up 
 uniform and artificial standards for all j)ersons. 
 
90 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 The primitive man suffers by them much as the 
 contemplative philosopher does, when one hap- 
 pens to arrive in this bus}^, fussy world. 
 
 If the appearance of Old Phelps attracts at- 
 tention, his voice, when first heard, invariably 
 startles the listener. A small, high-pitched, half- 
 querulous voice, it easil}' rises into the shrillest 
 falsetto ; and it has a quality in it that makes it 
 audible in all the tempests of the forest, or the 
 roar of rapids, like the piping of a boatswain's 
 whistle at sea in a gale. He has a way of letting 
 it rise as his sentence goes on, or when he is 
 opposed in argument, or wishes to mount above 
 other voices in the conversation, until it dominates 
 everything. Heard in the depths of the woods, 
 quavering aloft, it is felt to be as much a part of 
 nature, an original force, as the north-west wind 
 or the scream of the hen-hawk. When he is pot- 
 tering about the camp-fire, trpng to light his pipe 
 with a twig held in the flame, he is apt to begin 
 some philosophical observation in a small, slow, 
 stumbling voice, which seems about to end in 
 defeat ; when he puts on some unsuspected force, 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 91 
 
 and the sentence ends in an insistent shriek. 
 Plorace Greeley had such a voice, and could regu- 
 late it in the same manner. But Phelps's voice is 
 not seldom plaintive, as if touched by the dreamy 
 sadness of the woods themselves. 
 
 When Old Mountain Phelps was discovered, he 
 was, as the reader has already guessed, not un- 
 derstood by his contemporaries. His neighbors, 
 farmers in the secluded valle^^, had many of them 
 grown thrifty and prosperous, cultivating the fer- 
 tile meadows, and vigorousl}^ attacking the tim- 
 bered mountains ; while Phelps, with not much 
 more faculty of acquiriDg property than the roam- 
 ing deer, had pursued the even tenor of the hfe 
 in the forest on which he set out. They would 
 have been surprised to be told that Old Phelps 
 owned more of what makes the value of the 
 Adirondacks than all of them put together; 
 but it was true. This woodsman, this trapper, 
 this hunter, this fisherman, this sitter on a log, 
 and i^hilosopher, was the real proprietor of the 
 region over which he was ready to guide the 
 stranger. It is true that he had not a monopoly 
 
92 m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 of its geography or its topography (though his 
 knowledge was superior in these respects) ; there 
 were other trappers, and more deadlj^ hunters, 
 and as intrepid guides : but Old Phelps was the 
 discoverer of the beauties and sublimities of the 
 mountains ; and, when cit}^ strangers broke into 
 the region, he monopolized the appreciation of 
 these delights and wonders of nature. I suppose, 
 that, in all that country, he alone had noticed the 
 sunsets, and observed the delightful processes of 
 the seasons, taken pleasure in the woods for 
 themselves, and climbed mountains solety for the 
 sake of the prospect. He alone understood what 
 was meant b^^ " scener3\" In the ejxs of his 
 neighbors, who did not knov/ that he was a poet 
 and a philosopher, I dare say he appeared to be 
 a slack provider, a rather shiftless trapper and 
 fisherman ; and his passionate love of the forest 
 and the mountains, if it was noticed, was ac- 
 counted to him for idleness. When the appreci- 
 ative tourist arrived, Phelps was ready, as guide, 
 to open to him all the wonders of his jDOssessions : 
 he, for the first tune, found an outlet for his en- 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 93 
 
 thusiasm, and a response to his own passion. 
 It then became known what manner of man this 
 was who had grown up here in the companionship 
 of forests, mountains, and wild animals ; that 
 these scenes had highly developed in him the love 
 of beauty, the aesthetic sense, delicacy of appre- 
 ciation, refinement of feeling ; and that, in his 
 solitary wanderings and musings, the primitive 
 man, self-taught, had evolved for himself a phi- 
 losophy and a sj'stem of things. And it was a 
 sufficient S3'stem, so long as it was not disturbed 
 by external scepticism. When the outer world 
 came to him, perhaps he had about as much to 
 give to it as to receive from it ; probably more, in 
 his own estimation ; for there is no conceit like 
 that of isolation. 
 
 Phelps loved his mountains. He was the dis- 
 coverer of Marcy, and caused the first trail to be 
 cut to its summit, so that others could enjoj^ the 
 noble views from its round and rocky top. To 
 him it was, in noble s^Tumetry and beauty, the 
 chief mountain of the globe. To stand on it 
 gave him, as he said, " a feeling of heaven up- 
 
94 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 h'isted-ness." He heard with impatience that 
 Mount Washington was a thousand feet higher, 
 and he had a child-hke increduht}^ about the sur- 
 passing subhmity of the Alps. Praise of any 
 other elevation he seemed to consider a slight to 
 Mount Marcy, and did not willingly hear it, any 
 more than a lover hears the laudation of the 
 beauty of another woman than the one he loves. 
 When he showed us scenery he loved, it made 
 him melancholy to have us speak of scenery else- 
 where that was finer. And jQt there was this 
 delicacy about him, that he never over-praised 
 what he brought us to see, any more than one 
 would over-praise a friend of whom he was fond. 
 I remember, that when for the first time, after a 
 toilsome journey through the forest, the splendors 
 of the Lower Ausable Pond broke upon our 
 vision, — that low-l3'ing silver lake, imprisoned 
 by the precipices which it reflected in its bosom, 
 — he made no outAvard response to our burst of 
 admiration : only a quiet gleam of the qjq showed 
 the pleasure our appreciation gave him. As some 
 one said, it was as if his friend had been admired, 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 95 
 
 — a friend about whom he was unwilling to say 
 much himself, but well pleased to have others 
 praise. 
 
 Thus far, we have considered Old Phelps as 
 simpty the product of the Adirondacks ; not so 
 much a self-made man (as the doubtful phrase 
 has it) as a natural growth amid primal forces. 
 But our study is interrupted b}^ another influence, 
 which complicates the problem, but increases its 
 interest. No scientific observer, so far as we 
 know, has ever been able to watch the develop- 
 ment of the primitive man, plaj^ed upon and 
 fashioned by the hebdomadal iteration of ' ' Gree- 
 lej^'s Weekl}^ Tri-bune." Old Phelps educated 
 by the woods is a fascinating study ; educated 
 by the woods and the Tri-bune, he is a phenome- 
 non. No one at this day can reasonably con- 
 ceive exactly what this newspaper was to such 
 a mountain valley as Keene. If it was not a 
 Providence, it was a Bible. It was no doubt 
 owing to it that Democrats became as scarce as 
 moose in the Adirondacks. But it is not of its 
 political aspect that I speak. I suppose that the 
 
96 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 most cultivated and best informed portion of the 
 earth's surface — the Western Reserve of Ohio, 
 as free from conceit as it is from a suspicion 
 that it lacks any thing — owes its pre-eminence 
 solely to this comprehensive journal. It received 
 from it ever}^ thing except a collegiate and a classi- 
 cal education, — things not to be desired, since 
 the}^ interfere with the self-manufacture of man. 
 If Greek had been in this curriculum, its best 
 known dictum would have been translated, 
 "Make thj-self." This journal carried to the 
 community that fed on it not only a complete 
 education in all departments of human practice 
 and theorizing, but the more valuable and satis- 
 fying assurance that there was nothing more to 
 be gleaned in the universe worth the attention of 
 man. This panoplied its readers in completeness. 
 Politics, literature, arts, sciences, universal broth- 
 erhood and sisterhood, — nothing was omitted ; 
 neither the poetry of Tenn^^son, nor the philos- 
 ophy of Margaret Fuller ; neither the virtues of 
 association, nor of unbolted wheat. The laws 
 of political economy and trade were laid down as 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 97 
 
 positively and clearty as the best way to bake 
 beans, and the sa\ing truth that the millenninni 
 would come, and come onl}^ when every foot of 
 the earth was subsoiled. 
 
 I do not say that Orson Phelps was the product 
 of nature and the Tri-bune ; but he cannot be 
 explained without considering these two factors. 
 To him Greeley was the Tri-bune, and the Tri- 
 bune was Greelej^ ; and 3^et I think he conceived 
 of Horace Greeley as something greater than his 
 newspaper, and perhaps capable of producing 
 another journal equal to it in another i)art of the 
 universe. At any rate, so complete^ did Phelps 
 absorb this paper and this personality, that he 
 was popular^ known as ' ' Greeley ' ' in the region 
 where he lived. Perhaps a fancied resemblance 
 of the two men in the popular mind had some- 
 thing to do with this transfer of name. There is 
 no doubt that Horace Greeley owed his vast in- 
 fluence in the country to his genius, nor much 
 doubt that he owed his popularity in the rural 
 districts to James Gordon Bennett ; that is, to 
 the personalit}^ of the man which the ingenious 
 
98 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 Bennett impressed upon the country. That he 
 despised the conventionalities of society, and was 
 a sloven in his toilet, was firmly believed ; and 
 the belief endeared him to the hearts of the 
 people. To them "the old white coat" — an 
 antique garment of unrenewed immortality — was 
 as much a subject of idolatry as the redingote 
 grise to the soldiers of the first Napoleon, who 
 had seen it by the camp-fires on the Po and on 
 the Bor3^sthenes, and believed that he would come 
 again in it to lead them against the enemies of 
 France. The Greeley of the popular heart was 
 clad as Bennett said he was clad. It was in vain, 
 even pathetically in vain, that he published in his 
 newspaper the full bill of his fashionable tailor 
 (the fact that it was receipted may have excited 
 the animosity of some of his contemporaries) to 
 show that he wore the best broadcloth, and that 
 the folds of his trousers followed the city fashion 
 of falling outside his boots. If this revelation 
 was believed, it made no sort of impression in 
 the country. The rural readers were not to be 
 wheedled out of their cherished conception of 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 99 
 
 the personal appearance of the philosopher of 
 the Tri-bune. 
 
 That the Tri-bune taught Old Phelps to be 
 more Phelps than he would have been without it 
 was part of the independence-teaching mission 
 of Greeley's paper. The subscribers were, an 
 arm}^, in which every man was a general. And 
 I am not surprised to find Old Phelps lately rising 
 to the audacity of criticising his exemplar. In 
 some recentlj^-published observations by Phelps 
 upon the philosophy of reading is laid down this 
 definition : " If I understand the necessit}^ or 
 use of reading, it is to reproduce again what has 
 been said or proclaimed before. Ilence letters, 
 characters, &c., are arranged in all the perfection 
 they possibl}^ can be, to show how certain lan- 
 guage has been spoken by the original author. 
 Now, to reproduce by reading, the reading should 
 be so perfectly lilie the original, that no one 
 standing out of sight could tell the reading from 
 the first time the language was spoken." 
 
 This is illustrated l)y the highest authority at 
 hand : " I have heard as good readers read, and 
 
100 m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 as poor readers, as almost any one in this region. 
 If I have not heard as manj^, I have had a 
 chance to hear nearly the extreme in A^ariet3\ 
 Horace Greeley ought to have been a good read- 
 er. Certainly but few, if anj^, ever knew every 
 word of the Enghsh language at a glance more 
 readily than he did, or knew the meaning of 
 every mark of punctuation more clearl}" ; but he 
 could not read proper. ' But how do jou know ? ' 
 sa3's one. From the fact, I heard him in the 
 same lecture deliver or produce remarks in his 
 own particular waj^, that, if they had been pub- 
 lished properl}^ in print, a proper reader would 
 have reproduced them again the same way. In 
 the midst of those remarks Mr. Greelc}^ took up 
 a paper, to reproduce b}^ reading part of a speech 
 that some one else had made ; and his reading 
 did not sound much more like the man that first 
 read or made the speech than the clatter of a 
 nail-factor}^ sounds like a well-dehvered speech. 
 Now, the fault was not because Mr. Greeley did 
 not know how to read as well as almost any man 
 that ever lived, if not quite : but in his youth he 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 101 
 
 learned to read wrong ; and, as it is ten times 
 harder to unlearn any thing than it is to learn it, 
 he, like thousands of others, could never stop to 
 unlearn it, but carried it on through his whole 
 life." 
 
 Whether a reader would be thanked for repro- 
 ducing one of Horace Greelej^'s lectures as he 
 delivered it is a question that cannot detain us 
 here ; but the teaching that he ought to do so, I 
 think, would please Mr. Greeley. 
 
 The first driblets of professional tourists and 
 summer boarders who arrived among the Adiron- 
 dack Mountains a few years ago found Old 
 Phelps the chief and best guide of the region. 
 Those who were eager to throw off the usages of 
 civilization, and tramp and camp in the wilder- 
 ness, could not but be well satisfied with the 
 aboriginal appearance of this guide ; and when 
 he led off into the woods, axe in hand, and a 
 huge canvas sack upon his shoulders, they seemed 
 to be following the Wandering Jew. The con- 
 tents of this sack would have furnished a modern 
 industrial exhibition, — provisions cooked and 
 
102 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 raw, blankets, maple-sugar, tin-ware, clothing, 
 pork, Indian-meal, floar, coffee, tea, &c. Phelps 
 was the ideal guide : he knew ever}' foot of the 
 pathless forest ; he knew all wood-craft, all the 
 signs of the weather, or, what is the same thing, 
 how to make a Delphic prediction about it. 
 He was fisherman and hunter, and had been the 
 comrade of sportsmen and explorers ; and his 
 enthusiasm for the beauty and sublimity of the 
 region, and for its untamable wildness, amounted 
 to a passion. He loved his profession ; and j'et 
 it very soon appeared that he exercised it with 
 reluctance for those who had neither idealit}^, nor 
 love for the woods. Their presence was a profa- 
 nation amid the scenery he loved. To guide 
 into his private and secret haunts a party that 
 had no appreciation of their loveliness disgusted 
 him. It was a waste of his time to conduct flip- 
 pant young men and giddy ghls who made a 
 noisy and irreverent lark of the expedition. And, 
 for their part, the}^ did not appreciate the benefit 
 of being accompanied by a poet and a philoso- 
 pher. They neither understood nor valued his 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 103 
 
 special knowledge and his shrewd observations : 
 the}' didn't even hke his shriU voice ; his quaint 
 talk bored them. It was true, that, at this 
 period, Phelps had lost something of the activity 
 of his 3'outh ; and the habit of contemplative sit- 
 ting on a log and talking increased with the 
 infirmities induced by the hard life of the woods- 
 man. Perhaps he would rather talk, either about 
 the woods-hfe or the various problems of exist- 
 ence, than cut wood, or bus}" himself in the 
 drudgerj" of the camp. His critics went so far 
 as to sa}', " Old Phelps is a fraud." They would 
 have said the same of Socrates. Xantippe, who 
 never appreciated the world in which Socrates 
 lived, thought he was lazy. Probably Socrates 
 could cook no better than Old Phelps, and no 
 doubt went " gumming " about Athens with very 
 little care of what was in the pot for dinner. 
 
 If the summer visitors measured Old Phelps, 
 he also measured them by his own standards. 
 He used to write out what he called " short-faced 
 descriptions " of his comrades in the woods, 
 which were never so flatterino: as true. It was 
 
104 Z/Y THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 curious to see how the various qualities which are 
 esteemed in society appeared in his ej'es, looked 
 at merely in their relation to the limited world he 
 knew, and judged by their adaptation to the 
 primitive life. It was a much subtler comparison 
 than that of the ordinary guide, who rates his 
 traveller by his abihty to endure on a march, to 
 carry a pack, use an oar, hit a mark, or sing a 
 song. Phelps brought his people to a test of 
 their naturalness and sincerity, tried by contact 
 with the verities of the woods. If a person 
 failed to appreciate the woods, Phelps had no 
 opinion of him or his culture ; and j^et, although 
 he was perfectly satisfied with his own philosophy 
 of life, worked out b}' close observation of nature 
 and study of the Tri-bune, he was always eager 
 for converse with superior minds, — with those 
 who had the advantage of travel and much read- 
 ing, and, above all, with those who had any origi- 
 'nal " speckerlation." Of all the society he was 
 ever permitted to enjoy, I think he prized most 
 that of Dr. Bushnell. The doctor enjoyed the 
 quaint and first-hand observations of the old 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 105 
 
 woodsman, and Phelps found new worlds open 
 to him in the wide ranges of the doctor's mind. 
 They tallied by the hour upon all sorts of themes, 
 — the growth of the tree, the habits of wild 
 animals, the migration of seeds, the succession 
 of oak and pine, not to mention theology, and 
 the mysteries of the supernatural. 
 
 I recall the bearing of Old Phelps, when, several 
 3'ears ago, he conducted a party to the summit of 
 Mount Marcy by the way he had " bushed out." 
 This was his mountain, and he had a peculiar 
 sense of ownership in it. In a way, it was holy 
 ground ; and he would rather no one should go on 
 it who did not feel its sanctity. Perhaps it was a 
 sense of some divine relation in it that made him 
 alwaj's speak of it as "Mere}'." To him this 
 ridiculously dubbed Mount Marc}^ was alwa^^s 
 '' Mount Mercy." By a like effort to soften the 
 personal offensiveness of the nomenclature of 
 this region, he invariably spoke of Dix's Peak, 
 one of the southern peaks of the range, as 
 "Dixie." It was some time since Phelps him- 
 self had visited his mountain ; and, as he pushed 
 
106 m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 on through the miles of forest, we noticed a kind 
 of eagerness in the old man, as of a lover going 
 to a rendezvous. Along the foot of the moun- 
 tain flows a clear trout-stream, secluded and un- 
 disturbed in those awful solitudes, which is the 
 " Merc}^ Brook" of the old woodsman. That 
 day when he crossed it, in advance of his com- 
 pan}', he was heard to saj'- in a low voice, as if 
 greeting some object of which he was shjij* fond, 
 "So, little brook, do 1 meet 3'ou once more?" 
 and when we were well up the mountain, and 
 emerged from the last stunted fringe of vegeta- 
 tion upon the rock-bound slope, I saw Old Phelps, 
 who was still foremost, cast himself upon the 
 ground, and heard him cry, with an enthusiasm 
 that was intended for no mortal ear, " I'm with 
 you once again ! " His great passion very rarely 
 found expression in an}^ such theatrical burst. 
 The bare summit that day w^as swept b}^ a fierce, 
 cold wind, and lost in an occasional chilling 
 cloud. Some of the part^^ exhausted by the 
 climb, and shivering in the rude wind, wanted a 
 fire kindled and a cup of tea made, and thought 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 107 
 
 this the guide's business. Fire and tea were far 
 enough from his thought. He had withdrawn 
 himself quite apart, and wrapped in a ragged 
 blanket, still and silent as the rock he stood on, 
 was gazing out upon the wilderness of peaks. 
 The view from Marcy is 2)ecuhar. It is without 
 softness or relief. The narrow vallej's are only 
 dark shadows ; the lakes are bits of broken mir- 
 ror. From horizon to horizon there is a tumultu- 
 ous sea of billows turned to stone. You stand 
 upon the highest billow ; 3'ou command the situa- 
 tion ; you have surprised Nature in a high creative 
 act ; the mighty primal energy has only just be- 
 come repose. This was a supreme hour to Old 
 Phelps. Tea! I believe the boys succeeded in 
 kindhng a fire ; but the enthusiastic stoic had no 
 reason to complain of want of appreciation in the 
 rest of the i)avtj. When we were descending, he 
 told us, with mingled humor and scorn, of a party 
 of ladies he once led to the top of the mountain 
 on a still da}^, who began immediate^ to talli 
 about the fashions ! As he related the scene, 
 stopping and facing us in the trail, his mild, far- 
 
r08 TiY THE WILBERNE8S. 
 
 in eyes came to the front, and his voice rose with 
 his language to a kind of scream. 
 
 " Why, there tliey were, right before the great- 
 est view they ever sazo, talliin' about the 
 fasJiions / " 
 
 Impossible to convey the accent of contempt 
 in which he pronounced the word "fashions," 
 and then added, with a sort of regretful bitter- 
 ness, — 
 
 " I was a great mind to come down, and leave 
 'em there." 
 
 In common with the Greeks, Old Phelps per- 
 sonified the woods, mountains, and streams. 
 They had not only personality, but distinctions of 
 sex. It was something beyond the characteriza- 
 tion of the hunter, which appeared, for instance, 
 when he related a fight with a jDanther, in such 
 expressions as, "Then Mr. Panther thought he 
 would see what he could do," &c. He was in 
 "imaginative sj^npathy " with all wild things. 
 The afternoon we descended Marcy, we went 
 away to the west, through the primeval forests, 
 toward Avalanche and Golden, and followed the 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 109 
 
 course of the charming Opalescent. When we 
 reached the leaping stream, Phelps exclaimed, — 
 
 "Here's little Miss Opalescent ! " 
 
 " Wh}^ don't 3^ou saj^ Mr. Opalescent?" some 
 one asked. 
 
 "Oh, she's too pretty!" And too pretty she 
 was, with her foam- white and rainbow dress, and 
 her downfalls, and fountain-hke uprising. A be- 
 witching young person we found her all that sum- 
 mer afternoon. 
 
 This sj'lph-lilie person had little in common 
 with a monstrous lad}^ whose adventures in the 
 wilderness Phelps was fond of relating. She 
 was built something on the plan of the mountains, 
 and her ambition to explore was equal to her 
 size. Phelps and the other guides once suc- 
 ceeded in raising her to the top of Marc}^ ; but 
 the feat of getting a hogshead of molasses up 
 there would have been easier. In attempting to 
 give us an idea of her magnitude that night, as 
 we sat in the forest camp, Phelps hesitated a 
 moment, while he cast his qjq around the woods : 
 " Waal, there ain't no tree ! " 
 
110 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 It is only by recalling fragmentary remarks 
 and incidents that I can put the reader in pos- 
 session of the peculiarities of my subject ; and 
 this involves the wrenching of things out of their 
 natural order and continuity, and introducing 
 them abruptly, — an abruptness illustrated by the 
 remark of ' ' Old Man Hoskins ' ' (which Phelps 
 liked to quote) , when one da}^ he suddenly' slipped 
 down a bank into a thicket, and seated himself 
 in a wasps' nest: "I hain't no business here; 
 but here I be ! " 
 
 The first time we went into camp on the Upper 
 Ausable Pond, which has been justly celebrated 
 as the most prettil}" set sheet of water in the re- 
 gion, we were disposed to build our shant}^ on 
 the south side, so that we could have in full view 
 the Gothics and that loveliest of mountain con- 
 tours. To our surprise. Old Phelps, whose senti- 
 mental weakness for these mountains we knew, 
 opposed this. His favorite camping-ground was 
 on the north side, — a pretty site in itself, but 
 with no special view. In order to enjoy the lovely 
 mountains, we should be obliged to row out into 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. Ill 
 
 the lake : we wanted them always before our 
 ej^es, — at sunrise and sunset, and in the blaze 
 of noon. With dehberate speech, as if weighing 
 our arguments and disposing of them, he replied, 
 "Waal, now, them Gothics ain't the kinder 
 scenerj^ 3^ou want ter hog doivn ! ' ' 
 
 It was on quiet Sundaj's in the woods, or in 
 talks by the camp-fire, that Phelps came out as 
 the philosopher, and commonly contributed the 
 light of his observations. Unfortunate marriages, 
 and marriages in general, were, on one occasion, 
 the subject of discussion ; and a good deal of 
 darkness had been cast on it by various speakers ; 
 when Phelps suddenly piped up, from a log where 
 he had sat silent, almost invisible, in the shadow 
 and smoke, — 
 
 " Waal, now, when 3'ou've said all there is to 
 be said, marriage is mostly for disciphne." 
 
 Discipline, certainl3^, the old man had, in one 
 way or another ; and 3^ears of solitary com- 
 muning in the forest had given him, perhaps, a 
 childlike insight into spiritual concerns. Wheth- 
 er he had formulated any creed, or what faith he 
 
112 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 had, I never knew. Keene Valley had a reputa- 
 tion of not ripening Christians any more success- 
 fully than maize, the season there being short ; 
 and on our first visit it was said to contain but 
 one Bible Christian, though I think an accurate 
 census disclosed three. Old Phelps, who some- 
 times made abrupt remarks in tr3'ing situations, 
 was not included in this census ; but he was the 
 disciple of supernaturalism in a most charming 
 form. I have heard of his opening his inmost 
 thoughts to a lad}", one Sunday", after a noble 
 sermon of Robertson's had been read in the 
 cathedral stillness of the forest. His experience 
 was entirely first-hand, and related with uncon- 
 sciousness that it was not common to all. There 
 was nothing of the mystic or the sentimentalist, 
 onl}" a vivid realism, in that nearness of God of 
 which he spoke, — "as neai' sometimes as those 
 trees," — and of the holy voice, that, in a time 
 of inward struggle, had seemed to him to come 
 from the depths of the forest, saving, " Poor 
 soul, I am the way." 
 
 In later 3'ears there was a " revival " in Keene 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 113 
 
 Valley, the result of which was a number of 
 young " converts," whom Phelps seemed to re- 
 gard as a veteran might raw recruits, and to have 
 his doubts what sort of soldiers they would make. 
 
 " Waal, Jimmj^," he said to one of them, 
 "you've kindled a prett}^ good fire with light 
 wood. That's what we do of a dark night in the 
 woods, 3^ou know ; but we do it just so as we can 
 look around and find the sohd wood : so now 
 put on your solid wood." 
 
 In the Sunday Bible-classes of the period Phelps 
 was a perpetual anxietj^to the others, who followed 
 closely the printed lessons, and beheld with alarm 
 his discursive efibrts to get into freer air and light. 
 His remarks were the most refreshing part of the 
 exercises, but were outside of the safe path into 
 which the others thought it necessary to win him 
 from his " speckerlations." The class were one 
 day on the verses concerning "God's word" 
 being " written on the heart," and were keeping 
 close to the shore, under the guidance of 
 "Barnes's Notes," when Old Phelps made a dive 
 to the bottom, and remarked that he had "thought 
 
114 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 a good deal about the expression, ' God's word 
 written on the heart,' and had been asking him- 
 self how that was to be done ; and suddenly it 
 occurred to him (having been much interested 
 lately in watching the work of a photographer) , 
 that, when a photograph is going to be taken, all 
 that has to be done is to put the object in posi- 
 tion, and the sun makes the picture ; and so he 
 rather thought that all we had got to do was to 
 put our hearts in place, and God would do the 
 writin'." 
 
 Phelps's theology, like his science, is first-hand. 
 In the woods, one day, talli ran on the Trinit}^ as 
 being nowhere asserted as a doctrine in the Bible ; 
 and some one suggested that the attempt to pack 
 these great and fluent m3^steries into one word 
 must always be more or less unsatisfactory. 
 " Te-es," droned Phelps: "I never could see 
 much speckerlation in that expression the Trinity. 
 Why, they'd a good deal better say Legion." 
 
 The sentiment of the man about nature, or his 
 poetic sensibihty, was frequentl3^ not to be dis- 
 tinguished from a natural religion, and was always 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 115 
 
 tinged with the devoutness of Wordsworth's 
 verse. Climbing slowly one day up the Bal- 
 een}^, — he was more than usually calm and slow, 
 — he espied an exquisite fragile flower in thie 
 crevice of a rock, in a very lonely spot. 
 
 "It seems as if," he said, or rather dreamed 
 out, — "it seems as if the Creator had kept some- 
 thing just to look at himself." 
 
 To a lady whom he had taken to Chapel Pond 
 (a retired but rather uninteresting spot) , and who 
 expressed a little disappointment at its tameness, 
 saying, 
 
 " Wh}^, Mr. Phelps, the principal charm of 
 this place seems to be its loneliness," — 
 
 "Yes," he replied in gentle and lingering 
 tones, " and its nativeness. It lies here just 
 where it was born." 
 
 Rest and quiet had infinite attractions for him. 
 A secluded opening in the woods was a ' ' calm 
 spot." He told of seeing once, or rather being 
 in, a circular rainbow. He stood on Indian Head, 
 overlooking the Lower Lake, so that he saw the 
 whole bow in the sky and the lake, and seemed to 
 
116 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 be in the midst of it ; " onl}^ at one place there 
 was an indentation in it, where it rested on the 
 lake, just enough to keep it from rolling off." 
 This ' ' resting ' ' of the sphere seemed to give 
 him great comfort. 
 
 One Indian-summer morning in October, some 
 ladies found the old man sitting on his doorstep, 
 smoking a short pipe. He gave no sign of rec- 
 ognition of their approach, except a twinkle of 
 the e3^e, being evidentl}^ quite in harmony with 
 the peaceful da}'. The}' stood there a full minute 
 before he opened his mouth : then he did not rise, 
 but slowl}' took his pipe from his mouth, and said 
 in a dreamy wa}', pointing towards the brook, — 
 
 "Do you see that tree?" indicating a maple 
 almost denuded of leaves, which \^j like a yellow 
 garment cast at its feet. " I've been watching 
 that tree all the morning. There hain't been a 
 breath of wind : but for hours the leaves have 
 .been falling, Mling, just as you see them now ; 
 and at last it's pretty much bare." And after a 
 pause, pensively : " Waal, I suppose its hour had 
 come." 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 117 
 
 This contemplative habit of Old Phelps is 
 whoU}^ unappreciated by his neighbors ; bat it 
 has been indulged in no inconsiderable j^art of 
 his life. Eising after a time, he said, " Now I 
 want you to go with me and see my golden city 
 I've talked so much about." He led the way to 
 a hill-outlook, when suddenly, emerging from the 
 forest, the spectators saw revealed the winding 
 valley and its stream. He said quietly, "There 
 is my golden city." Far below, at their feet, 
 they saw that vast assemblage of birches and 
 " popples," 3^ellow as gold in the brooding noon- 
 day, and slender spires rising out of the glowing 
 mass. Without another word, PheljDS sat a long 
 time in silent content : it was to him, as Bunyan 
 says, " a place desirous to be in." 
 
 Is this i^hilosopher contented with what life has 
 brought him ? Si^eaking of mone^^ one day, when 
 we had asked him if he should do differently if 
 he had his life to live over again, he said, " Yes, 
 but not about money. To have had hours such 
 as I have had in these mountains, and with such 
 men as Dr. Bushnell and Dr. Shaw and Mr. 
 
118 Iir THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 Twichell, and others I could name, is worth all 
 the money the world could give." He read char- 
 acter very well, and took in accuratelj^ the bo}" 
 nature. "Tom" (an irrepressible, rather over- 
 done specimen) , — " Tom's a nice kind of a bo}' ; 
 but he's got to come up against a snubbin'-post 
 one of these days." — " Bo}- s I " he once said: 
 " you can't git boys to take any kinder notice of 
 scenery. I never yet saw a boy that would look 
 a second time at a sunset. Now, a girl yfiW. some- 
 times; but even then it's instantaneous, — comes 
 and goes like the sunset. As for me," still speak- 
 ing of scenery, "these mountains about here, 
 that I see every day, are no more to me, in one 
 sense, than a man's farm is to him. What mostly 
 interests me now is when I see some new freak 
 or shape in the face of Nature." 
 
 In literature it may be said that Old Phelps 
 prefers the best in the very limited range that 
 has been open to him. Tennj^son is his favorite 
 among poets ; an affinity explained by the fact 
 that they are both lotos-eaters. Speaking of a 
 lecture-room tallv of Mr. Beecher's which he had 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 119 
 
 read, he said, " It filled my cup about as full as 
 I calleiiate to have it : there was a good deal of 
 truth in it, and some poetry ; waal, and a little 
 spice too. We've got to have the spice, you 
 know." He admired, for different reasons, a 
 lecture by Greeley that he once heard, into which 
 so much knowledge of various kinds was crowded, 
 that he said he " made a reg'lar gobble of it." 
 He was not without discrimination, which he ex- 
 ercised upon the local preaching when nothing 
 better offered. Of one sermon he said, "The 
 man began way back at the creation, and just 
 preached right along down ; and he didn't say 
 nothing, after all. It just seemed to me as if he 
 was tryin' to git up a kind of a fix-up." 
 
 Old Phelps used words sometimes lilie alge- 
 braic signs, and had a habit of making one do 
 duty for a season together for all occasions. 
 " Speckerlation " and " callerlation " and "fix- 
 up" are specimens of words that were prolific 
 in expression. An unusual expression, or an 
 unusual article, would be characterized as a " kind 
 of a scientific Hterary git-up." 
 
120 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 "What is the ]programnie for to-morrow?" I 
 once asked him. " Waal, I callerlate, if they 
 rig up the callerlation they callerlate on, we'll go 
 to the Boreas." Starting out for a day's tramp 
 in the woods, he would ask whether we wanted 
 to take a " reg'lar walk, or a random scoot," — 
 the latter being a plunge into the pathless forest. 
 When he was on such an expedition, and became 
 entangled in dense brush, and maybe a network 
 of " slash " and swamp, he was like an old wiz- 
 ard, as he looked here and there, seeking a way, 
 peering into the tangle, or withdrawing from a 
 thicket, and muttering to himself, " There ain't no 
 speckerlation there." And when the waj^ became 
 altogether inscrutable, — "Waal, this is a reg'lar 
 random scoot of a rigmarole." As some one re- 
 marked, "The dictionary in his hands is like clay 
 in the hands of the potter." A petrifaction was 
 a " kind of a hard-wood chemical git-up." 
 
 There is no conceit, we are apt to say, hke that 
 born of isolation from the world, and there are 
 no such conceited people as those who have lived 
 all their lives in the woods. Phelps was, however, 
 
A CHARACTEB STUDY. 121 
 
 unsophisticated in his until the advent of stran- 
 gers into his life, who brought in literature and 
 various other disturbing influences. I am sorry 
 to say that the effect has been to take oflf some- 
 thing of the bloom of his simplicity, and to ele- 
 vate him into an oracle. I suppose this is inevi- 
 table as soon as one goes into print ; and Phelps 
 has gone into print in the local papers. He has 
 been bitten with the literary "git-up." Justly 
 regarding most of the Adirondack literature as a 
 *' perfect fizzle," he has himself projected a work, 
 and written much on the natural history of his 
 region. Long ago he made a large map of the 
 mountain country ; and, until recent surveys, it 
 was the only one that could lay any claim to ac- 
 curacy. His history is no doubt original in form, 
 and unconventional in expression. Like most of 
 the writers of the seventeenth century, and the 
 court ladies and gentlemen of the eighteenth cen- 
 tur}^, he is an independent speller. Writing of 
 his work on the Adirondacks, he says, " If I 
 should ever live to get this wonderful thing writ- 
 ten, I expect it will show one thing, if no more ; 
 
122 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 and that is, that every thing has an opposite. I 
 expect to show in this that literature has an oppo- 
 site, if I do not show an}^ thing els. We could 
 not enjoy the blessings and happiness of riteous- 
 ness if we did not know innicuty was in the 
 world : in fact, there would be no riteousness with- 
 out innicuty." Writing also of his great enjo}'- 
 ment of being in the woods, especially since he 
 has had the societ}^ there of some people he 
 names, he adds, "And since I have Literature, 
 Siance, and Art all spread about on the green 
 moss of the mountain woods or the gravell banks 
 of a cristle stream, it seems like finding roses, hon- 
 e^^suckels, and violets on a crisp brown cliflT in 
 December. You know I don't believe much in 
 the religion of seramony ; but an}^ riteous thing 
 that has life and spirit in it is food for me." I 
 must not neglect to mention an essay, continued 
 in several numbers of his local paper, on "The 
 Growth of the Tree," in which he demolishes the 
 theor^^ of Mr. Greeley, whom he calls "one of 
 the best vegetable philosophers," about "growth 
 without seed." He treats of the office of sap: 
 
A CHARACTER STUDY. 123 
 
 ' ' All trees have some kind of sap and some kind 
 of operation of sap flowing in their season," — 
 the dissemination of seeds, the processes of 
 gi'owth, the power of heahng wounds, the pro- 
 portion of roots to branches, &c. Speaking of 
 the latter, he ssljs, " I have thought it would be 
 one of the greatest curiosities on earth to see a 
 thrifty growing maple or elm, that had grown on a 
 deep soil interval to be two feet in diameter, to be 
 raised clear into the air with every root and fibre 
 down to the minutest thread, all entu-ety cleared 
 of soil, so that every particle could be seen in its 
 natural position. I think it would astonish even 
 the wise ones." From his instinctive s^^mpathy 
 with nature, he often credits vegetable organism 
 with "instinctive judgment." "Observation 
 teaches us that a tree is given j)owerful instincts, 
 which would almost appear to amount to judg- 
 ment in some cases, to provide for its own wants 
 and necessities." 
 
 Here our study must cease. When the primi- 
 tive man comes into literature, he is no longer 
 primitive. 
 
VI. 
 
 CAMPING OUT. 
 
 T seems to be agreed that civilization is 
 kept up only by a constant effort : Nature 
 claims its own speedily when the effort is 
 relaxed. If you clear a patch of fertile ground 
 in the forest, uproot the stumps, ancT plant it, 
 year after year, in potatoes and maize, you say 
 you have subdued it. But, if you leave it for a 
 season or two, a kind of barbarism seems to steal 
 out upon it from the circling woods ; coarse grass 
 and brambles cover it ; bushes spring up in a 
 wild tangle ; the raspbeny and the blackberry 
 flower and fruit, and the humorous bear feeds 
 upon them. The last state of that ground is 
 worse than the first. 
 
 Perhaps the cleared spot is called Ephesus. 
 
 124 
 
CAMPING OUT. 125 
 
 There is a splendid citj^ on the plain ; there are 
 temples and theatres on the hills ; the commerce 
 of the world seeks its port ; the luxury of the 
 Orient flows through its marble streets. You are 
 there one day when the sea has receded : the 
 plain is a pestilent marsh ; the temples, the 
 theatres, the loftj^ gates, have sunken and crum- 
 bled, and the wild-brier runs over them ; and, as 
 you grow pensive in the most desolate place in 
 the world, a bandit lounges out of a tomb, and 
 offers to relieve jow of all that which creates 
 artificial distinctions in society. The higher the 
 civilization has risen, the more abject is the des- 
 olation of barbarism that ensues. The most 
 melancholy spot in the Adirondacks is not a 
 tamarack- swamp, where the traveller wades in 
 moss and mire, and the atmosphere is composed 
 of equal active parts of black-flies, mosquitoes, 
 and midges. It is the village of the Adirondack 
 Iron -Works, where the streets of gainit houses are 
 falhng to pieces, tenantless ; the factor}^- wheels 
 h'ave stopped ; the furnaces are in ruins ; the iron 
 and wooden machiner}' is strewn about in helpless 
 
126 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 detachment ; and heaps of charcoal, ore, and 
 slag, proclaim an arrested industry. Beside this 
 deserted village, even Calamity Pond, shallow, 
 sedgy, with its ragged shores of stunted firs, 
 and its melancholy shaft that marks the spot 
 where the proprietor of the iron-works accident- 
 ally shot himself, is cheerful. 
 
 The instinct of barbarism that leads people 
 periodically to throw aside the habits of civiliza- 
 tion, and seek the freedom and discomfort of the 
 woods, is explicable enough ; but it is not so 
 easy to understand why this passion should be 
 strongest in those who are most refined, and most 
 trained in intellectual and social fastidiousness. 
 Philistinism and shoddy do not like the woods, 
 unless it becomes fashionable to do so ; and then, 
 as speedily as possible, they introduce their arti- 
 ficial luxuries, and reduce the life in the wilder- 
 ness to the vulgarity of a well-fed picnic. It is 
 they who have strewn the Adirondacks with 
 paper collars and tin cans. The real enjoyment 
 of camping and tramping in the woods lies in a 
 return to primitive conditions of lodging, dress, 
 
CAMPING OUT.' 127 
 
 and food, in as total an escape as may be from 
 the requirements of civilization. And it remains 
 to be explained wh}- this is enjoj'Cd most by those 
 who are most highly civilized. It is wonderful 
 to see how easily the restraints of society fall 
 off. Of course it is not true that courtesy 
 depends upon clothes with the best people ; but, 
 with others, behavior hangs almost entirely upon 
 dress. Many good habits are easily got rid of 
 in the woods. Doubt sometimes seems to be felt 
 whether Sunda}^ is a legal hohdaj^ there. It be- 
 comes a question of casuistry with a clergj^man 
 whether he may shoot at a mark on Sunday, if 
 none of his congregation are present. He in- 
 tends no harm : he only gratifies a curiosity to 
 see if he can hit the mark. Where shall he draw 
 the line? Doubtless he might throw a stone at a 
 chipmunk, or shout at a loon. Might he fire at a 
 mark with an air-gun that makes no noise ? He 
 will not fish or hunt on Sunda}^ (although he is 
 no more likely to catch an}^ thing that day than 
 on anj^ other) ; but may he eat trout that the 
 guide has caught on Sunday, if the guide swears 
 
128 m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 he caught them Saturday night ? Is there such a 
 thing as a vacation in religion ? How much of 
 our virtue do we owe to inherited habits ? 
 
 I am not at all sure whether this desire to 
 camp outside of civilization is creditable to hu- 
 man nature, or otherwise. We hear sometimes 
 that the Turk has been mercl}^ camping for four 
 centuries in Europe. I suspect that manj' of us 
 are, after all, really camping temporaril}' in civil- 
 ized conditions ; and that going into the wilder- 
 ness is an escape, longed for, into our natural 
 and preferred state. Consider what this "camp- 
 ing out "is, that is confessedly so agreeable to 
 people most dehcately reared. I have no desire 
 to exaggerate its delights. 
 
 The Adirondack wilderness is essentially un- 
 broken. A few bad roads that penetrate it, a few 
 jolting wagons that traverse them, a few barn- 
 like boarding-houses on the edge of the forest, 
 where the boarders are soothed b}' patent coffee, 
 and stimulated to unnatural gayety hy Japan tea, 
 and experimented on by unique cooker}^, do little 
 to destroy the savage fascination of the region. 
 
CAMPING OUT. 129 
 
 In half an hour, at any point, one can put him- 
 self into solitude and every desirable discomfort. 
 The part}^ that covets the experience of the camp 
 comes down to primitive conditions of dress and 
 equipment. There are guides and porters to 
 carr}'' the blankets for beds, the raw provisions, 
 and the camp equipage ; and the motle}^ party of 
 the temporarily decivilized files into the woods, 
 and begins, perhaps by a road, perhaps on a 
 trail, its exhilarating and weary march. The 
 exhilaration arises partly from the casting aside 
 of restraint, partly from the adventure of explo- 
 ration ; and the weariness, from the interminable 
 toil of bad walking, a heav}^ pack, and the grim 
 monotony of trees and bushes, that shut out all 
 iprospect, except an occasional glimpse of the sk}^ 
 Mountains are painfull}^ climbed, streams forded, 
 lonesome lakes paddled over, long and muddy 
 "carries" traversed. Fancy this part}^ the vic- 
 tim of political exile, banished by the law, and a 
 more sorrowful march could not be imagined ; 
 but the voluntar}^ hardship becomes pleasure, 
 and it is undeniable that the spirits of the party 
 rise as the difficulties increase. 
 
130 m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 For this straggling and stumbling band the 
 world is young again : it has come to the begin- 
 ning of things ; it has cut loose from tradition, 
 and is free to make a home anywhere : the move- 
 ment has all the promise of a revolution. All 
 this virginal freshness invites the primitive in- 
 stincts of play and disorder. The free range 
 of the forests suggests endless possibilities of 
 exploration and possession. Perhaps we are 
 treading where man since the creation never 
 trod before ; perhaps the waters of this bubbling 
 spring, which we deepen by scraping out the 
 decayed leaves and the black earth, have never 
 been tasted before, except by the wild denizens 
 of these woods. We cross the trails of lurking 
 animals, — paths that heighten our sense of 
 seclusion from the world. The hammering of 
 the infrequent woodpecker, the call of the lonely 
 bird, the drumming of the sohtar}^ partridge, — ■ 
 all these sounds do but emphasize the lonesome- 
 ness of nature. The roar of the mountain brook, 
 dashing over its bed of pebbles, rising out of the 
 ravine, and spreading, as it were, a mist of sound 
 
CAMPING OUT. 131 
 
 through all the forest (continuous beating waves, 
 that have the rh3^thni of eternity in them), and 
 the fitful movement of the air-tides through the 
 balsams and firs and the giant pines, — how these 
 grand sj^mphonies shut out the little exaspera- 
 tions of our vexed hfe ! It seems easy to begin 
 hfe over again on the simplest terms. Probably 
 it is not so much the desire of the congregation 
 to escape from the preacher, or of the preacher 
 to escape from himself, that drives sophisticated 
 people into the wilderness, as it is the uncon- 
 quered craving for primitive simplicity, the revolt 
 against the everlasting dress-parade of our civili- 
 zation. From this monstrous pomposity even 
 the artificial rusticity of a Petit Trianon is a 
 rehef. It was only human nature that the jaded 
 Frenchman of the regency should run away to 
 the New World, and live in a forest-hut with an 
 Indian squaw ; although he found little satisfac- 
 tion in his act of heroism, unless it was tallied 
 about at Versailles. 
 
 When our trampers come, late in the after- 
 noon, to the bank of a lovely lake where they 
 
132 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 ]3urpose to enter the primitive life, every thing is 
 waiting for them in virgin expectation. There is 
 a little promontory jutting into the lake, and 
 sloping down to a sandy beach, on which the 
 waters idly lapse, and shoals of red-fins and 
 shiners come to greet the stranger ; the forest 
 is untouched by the axe ; the tender green 
 sweeps the water's edge ; ranlis of slender firs 
 are marshalled b}^ the shore ; clumps of white- 
 birch stems shine in satin purity among the ever- 
 greens ; the boles of giant spruces, maples, and 
 oaks, lifting high their crowns of foliage, stretch 
 away in endless galleries and arcades ; through 
 the shifting leaves the sunshine falls upon the 
 brown earth ; overhead are fragments of blue 
 sky ; under the boughs and in chance openings 
 appear the bluer lake and the outline of the 
 gracious mountains. The discoverers of this 
 paradise, which they have entered to destroy, 
 note the babbling of the brook that flows close at 
 hand ; they hear the splash of the leaping fish ; 
 they hsten to the sweet, metalUc song of the 
 evening thrush, and the chatter of the red 
 
CAMPING OUT. 133 
 
 squirrel, who angrily challenges their right to be 
 there. But the moment of sentiment passes. 
 This party has come here to eat and to sleep, 
 and not to encourage Nature in her poetic atti- 
 tudinizing. 
 
 The spot for a shanty is selected. This side 
 shall be its opening, towards the lake ; and in 
 front of it the fire, so that the smoke shall drift 
 into the hut, and discourage the mosquitoes ; 
 3'onder shall be the cook's fire and the path to 
 the spring. The whole colonj^ bestir themselves 
 in the foundation of a new home, — an enterprise 
 that has all the fascination, and none of the 
 danger, of a veritable new settlement in the wil- 
 derness. The axes of the guides resound in the 
 echoing spaces ; great trunks fall with a crash ; 
 vistas are o^Dened towards the lake and the moun- 
 tains. The spot for the shanty is cleared of 
 underbrush ; forked stakes are driven into the 
 ground, cross-pieces are laid on them, and poles 
 sloping back to the ground. In an incredible 
 space of time there is the skeleton of a house, 
 which is entirely open in front. The roof and 
 
134 m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 sides must be covered. For this purpose the 
 trunks of great spruces are skinned. The wood- 
 man rims the bark near the foot of the tree, and 
 again six feet above, and slashes it perpendicu- 
 larly ; then, with a blunt stick, he crowds off this 
 thick hide exactly as an ox is skinned. It needs 
 but a few of these skins to cover the roof; and 
 the}^ make a perfectly water-tight roof, except 
 when it rains. Meantime, busy hands have 
 gathered boughs of the spruce and the feathery 
 balsam, and shingled the ground underneath the 
 shanty for a bed. It is an aromatic bed : in 
 theory it is elastic and consoling. Upon it are 
 spread the blankets. The sleepers, of all sexes 
 and ages, are to he there in a row, their feet to 
 the fire, and their heads under the edge of the 
 sloping roof. Nothing could be better contrived. 
 The fire is in front : it is not a fire, but a confla- 
 gration — a vast heap of green logs set on fire — 
 of pitch, and split dead-wood, and crackling bal- 
 sams, raging and roaring. B}^ the time twihght 
 falls, the cook has prepared supper. Every thing 
 has been cooked in a tin pail and a skillet, — • 
 
CAMPING OUT. 135 
 
 potatoes, tea, pork, mutton, slapjacks. You 
 wonder how every thing could have been prepared 
 in so few utensils. When 3^ou eat, the wonder 
 ceases : every thing might have been cooked in 
 one pail. It is a noble meal ; and nobly is it 
 disposed of b}' these amateur savages, sitting 
 about upon logs and roots of trees. Never were 
 there such potatoes, never beans that seemed to 
 have more of the bean in them, never such curly 
 pork, never trout with more Indian-meal on 
 them, never mutton more distinctly sheepy ; and 
 the tea, drunk out of a tin cup, with a lump of 
 maple-sugar dissolved in it, — it is the sort of 
 tea that takes hold, lifts the hair, and disposes 
 the drinker to anecdote and hilariousness. There 
 is no deception about it : it tastes of tannin and 
 spruce and creosote. Every thing, in short, has 
 the flavor of the wilderness and a free life. It is 
 idyllic. And yet, with all our sentimentalitj^, 
 there is nothing feeble about the cooking. The 
 slapjacks are a solid job of work, made to last, 
 and not go to pieces in a person's stomach like 
 a trivial bun ; we might record on them, in cunei- 
 
136 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 form characters, our incipient civilization ; and 
 future generations would doubtless turn them up 
 as Acadian bricks. Good, robust victuals are 
 what the primitive man wants. 
 
 Darkness falls suddenly. Outside the ring of 
 light from our conflagration the woods are black. 
 There is a tremendous impression of isolation 
 and lonesomeness in our situation. We are the 
 prisoners of the night. The woods never seemed 
 so vast and mj^sterious. The trees are gigantic. 
 There are noises that we do not understand, — 
 mj^sterious winds passing overhead, and rambhng 
 in the great galleries, tree-trunks grinding against 
 each other, undefinable stirs and uneasinesses. 
 The shapes of those who pass into the dimness 
 are outlined in monstrous proportions. The 
 spectres, seated about in the glare of the fire, 
 talk about appearances and presentiments and 
 religion. The guides cheer the night with bear- 
 'fights, and catamount encounters, and frozen- to- 
 death experiences, and simple tales of great 
 prohxity and no point, and jokes of primitive 
 lucidity. We hear catamounts, and the stealthy 
 
CAMPING OUT. 137 
 
 tread of things in the leaves, and the hooting of 
 owls, and, when the moon rises, the laughter of 
 the loon. Every thing is strange, spectral, fasci- 
 nating. 
 
 By and by we get our positions in the shanty 
 for the night, and arrange the row of sleepers. 
 The shanty has become a smoke-house by this 
 time : waves of smoke roll into it from the fire. 
 It is only by lying down, and getting the head 
 well under the eaves, that one can breathe. No 
 one can find her " things ; " nobody has a pillow. 
 At length the row is laid out, with the solemn 
 protestation of intention to sleep. The wind, 
 shifting, drives away the smoke. Good- night is 
 said a hundred times ; positions are re-adjusted, 
 more last words, new shifting about, final re- 
 marks ; it is all so comfortable and romantic ; 
 and then silence. Silence continues for a minute. 
 The fire flashes up ; all the row of heads is lifted 
 up simultaneously to watch it ; showers of sparks 
 sail aloft into the blue night ; the vast vault of 
 greenery is a faiiy spectacle. How the sparks 
 mount and twinkle and disappear like tropical 
 
138 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 fire-flies, and all the leaves murmur, and clap 
 their hands ! Some of the sparks do not go out : 
 we see them flaming in the sky when the flame 
 of the fire has died down. Well, good-night, 
 good-night. More folding of the arms to sleep ; 
 more grumbling about the hardness of a hand- 
 bag,, or the insufficiency of a pocket-handlierchief, 
 for a pillow. Good-night. Was that a remark ? 
 — something about a root, a stub in the ground 
 sticking into the back. " You couldn't he along 
 a hair?" — "Well, no: here's another stub." 
 It needs but a moment for the conversation to 
 become general, — about roots under the shoulder, 
 stubs in the back, a ridge on which it is impos- 
 sible for the sleeper to balance, the non-elasticity 
 of boughs, the hardness of the ground, the heat, 
 the smoke, the chilly air. Subjects of remarks 
 multiply. The whole camp is awake, and chat- 
 tering like an aviary. The owl is also awake ; 
 but the guides who are asleep outside make more 
 noise than the owls. Water is wanted, and is 
 handed about in a dipper. Everybody is yawn- 
 ing ; everybody is now determined to go to sleep 
 
CAMPING OUT. 139 
 
 in good earnest. A last good-night. There is 
 an appalling silence. It is interrupted in the 
 most natural way in the world. Somebody has 
 got the start, and gone to sleep. He proclaims 
 the fact. He seems to have been brought up on 
 the seashore, and to know how to make all the 
 deep-toned noises of the restless ocean. He is 
 also like a war-horse ; or, it is suggested, like a 
 saw-horse. How malignantly^ he snorts, and 
 breaks off short, and at once begins again in 
 another key ! One head is raised after another. 
 
 ''Who is that?" 
 
 " Somebody punch him.'* 
 
 " Turn him over." 
 
 " Eeason with him." 
 
 The sleeper is turned over. The turn was a 
 mistake. He was before, it appears, on his most 
 agreeable side. The camp rises in indignation. 
 The sleeper sits up in bewilderment. Before he 
 can go off again, two or three others have pre- 
 ceded him. They are all alil^e. You never can 
 judge what a person is when he is awake. There 
 are here half a dozen distm-bers of the peace who 
 
140 m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 should be put in solitaiy confinement. At mid- 
 night, when a philosopher crawls out to sit on a 
 log by the fire, and smoke a pipe, a duet in tenor 
 and mezzo-soprano is going on in the shanty, 
 with a chorus alwaj^s coming in at the wrong time. 
 Those who are not asleep want to know why the 
 smoker doesn't go to bed. He is requested to 
 get some water, to throw on another log, to see 
 what time it is, to note whether it looks like rain. 
 A buzz of conversation arises. She is sure she 
 heard something behind the shanty. He sa3^s it 
 is all nonsense. " Perhaps, however, it might be 
 a mouse." 
 
 " Mercy ! Are there mice? " 
 
 "Plenty." 
 
 "Then that's what I heard nibbling by my 
 head. I sha'n't sleep a winli ! Do they bite? " 
 
 "No, they nibble; scarcely ever take a full 
 bite out." 
 
 " It's horrid ! " 
 
 Towards morning it grows chilly; the guides 
 have let the fire go out; the blankets will sUp 
 down. Anxiety begins to be expressed about the 
 dawn. 
 
CAMPING OUT, 141 
 
 " What time does the sun rise? " 
 
 " Awful eaiij^ Did 3'ou sleep? " 
 
 " Not a wink. And 3^ou? " 
 
 "In spots. I'm going to dig up this root as 
 soon as it is light enough." 
 
 " See that mist on the lake, and the light just 
 coming on the Gothics ! I'd no idea it was so 
 cold : all the first part of the night I was roasted." 
 
 " What were they taUiing about all night? " 
 
 When the party crawls out to the early break- 
 fast, after it has washed its faces in the lake, it 
 is disorganized, but cheerful. Nobody admits 
 much sleep ; but everj^body is refreshed, and de- 
 clares it delightful. It is the fresh air all night 
 that invigorates ; or maybe it is the tea, or the 
 slapjacks. The guides have erected a table of 
 spruce bark, with benches at the sides ; so that 
 breakfast is taken in form. It is served on tin 
 plates and oak chips. After breakfast begins the 
 day's work. It may be a mountain-climbing ex- 
 pedition, or rowing and angling in the lake, or 
 fishing for trout in some stream two or three miles 
 distant. Nobodj^ can stir far from camp without 
 
142 m THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 a guide. Hammocks are swung, bowers are 
 built, novel-reading begins, worsted work ap- 
 pears, cards are shuffled and dealt. The day 
 passes in absolute freedom from responsibility to 
 one's self. At night, when the expeditions re- 
 turn, the camp resumes its animation. Adven- 
 tures are recounted, every statement of the 
 narrator being disputed and argued. Everybody 
 has become an adept in wood-craft ; but nobody 
 credits his neighbor with like instinct. Society 
 getting resolved into its elements, confidence is 
 gone. 
 
 Whilst the hilarious party are at supper, a drop 
 or two of rain falls. The head guide is appealed 
 to. Is it going to rain? He saj^s it does rain. 
 But will it be a rainy night? The guide goes 
 down to the lake, looks at the sky, and concludes, 
 that, if the wind shifts a p'int more, there is no 
 telling what sort of weather we shall have. Mean- 
 "time the drops patter thicker on the leaves over- 
 head, and the leaves, in turn, pass the water down 
 to the table ; the sky darkens ; the wind rises ; 
 there is a kind of shiver in the woods ; and we 
 
CAMPING OUT, 143 
 
 scud away into the shanty, taking the remains of 
 our supper, and eating it as best we can. The 
 rain increases. The fire sputters and fumes. All 
 the trees are dripping, dripping, and the ground 
 is wet. We cannot step out-doors without get- 
 ting a drenching. Like sheep, we are penned in 
 the little hut, where no one can stand erect. 
 The rain swirls into the open front, and wets 
 the bottom of the blankets. The smoke drives 
 in. We curl up, and enjoy ourselves. The 
 guides at length conclude that it is going to be 
 damp. The dismal situation sets us all into good 
 spirits ; and it is later than the night before when 
 we crawl under our blankets, sure this time of a 
 sound sleep, lulled b}^ the storm and the rain re- 
 sounding on the bark roof. How much better off 
 we are than many a shelterless wretch ! We are 
 as snug as dry herrings. At the moment, how- 
 ever, of dropping off to sleep, somebod}^ unfortu- 
 nately notes a drop of water on his face ; this is 
 followed by another drop ; in an instant a stream 
 is established. He moves his head to a dr}' place. 
 Scarcely has he done so, when he feels a damp- 
 
144 ZAT THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 ness in his back. Eeactiing his hand outside, 
 he finds a puddle of water soaking tlirough his 
 blanket. By this time, somebod}^ inquires if 
 it is possible that the roof leaks. One man has 
 a stream of water under him ; another saj^s it is 
 coming into his ear. The roof appears to be a 
 discriminating sieve. Those who are dry see no 
 need of such a fuss. The man in the corner 
 spreads his umbrella, and the protective measure 
 is resented by his neighbor. In the darkness 
 there is recrimination. One of the guides, who 
 is summoned, suggests that the rubber blankets 
 be passed out, and spread over the roof. The in- 
 mates dislike the proposal, saying that a shower- 
 bath is no worse than a tub-bath. The rain con- 
 tinues to soak down. The fire is only half alive. 
 The bedding is damp. Some sit up, if they can 
 find a dry spot to sit on, and smoke. Heartless 
 observations are made. A few sleep. And the 
 night wears on. The morning opens cheerless. 
 The sky is still leaking, and so is the shanty. 
 The guides bring in a half-cooked breakfast. The 
 roof is patched up. There are reviving signs of 
 
CAMPING OUT. 145 
 
 breaking awa}^, delusive signs that create mo- 
 mentaiy exhilaration. Even if the storm clears, 
 the woods are soaked. There is no chance of 
 stirring. The world is oiil}' ten feet square. 
 
 This life, without responsibility or clean clothes, 
 may continue as long as the reader desires. 
 There are those who would like to live in this free 
 fashion forever, taking rain and sun as heaven 
 pleases ; and there are some souls so constituted 
 that they cannot exist more than three daj^s with- 
 out their worldly baggage. Taking the party 
 altogether, from one cause or another it is likely 
 to strike camp sooner than was intended. And 
 the stricken camp is a melancholy sight. The 
 woods have been despoiled ; the stumps are ugly ; 
 the bushes are scorched ; the pine-leaf-strewn 
 earth is trodden into mire ; the landing looks like 
 a cattle-ford ; the ground is littered with all the 
 unsightl}^ debris of a hand-to-hand life ; the dis- 
 mantled shant}^ is a shabby object; the charred 
 and blackened logs, where the fire blazed, sug- 
 gest the extinction of family life. Man has 
 wrought his usual wrong upon Natm^e, and he can 
 
146 IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 save his self-respect onl}^ by moving to virgin 
 forests. 
 
 And move to them he will, the next season, if 
 not this. For he who has once experienced the 
 fascination of the woods-life never escapes its en- 
 ticement : in the memory nothing remains but its 
 charm. 
 
HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
74. 
 
 HOW SPEINa CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 BY A READER OF 
 
 '93.' 
 
 EW ENGLAND is the battle-ground of 
 the seasons. It is La Vendee. To 
 '^ conquer it is only to begin the fight. 
 When it is completely subdued, what kind of 
 weather have jon ? None whatever. 
 
 What is this New England ? A countr^^ ? No : 
 a camp. It is alternateh' invaded by the h3^per- 
 borean legions and by the wilting sirens of the 
 tropics. Icicles hang always on its northern 
 heights ; its seacoasts are fringed with mosquitoes. 
 There is for a third of the year a contest between 
 the icy air of the pole and the warm wind of the 
 gulf. The result of this is a compromise : the 
 
 149 
 
150 HOW SPRING CAME IK NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 compromise is called Thaw. It is the normal 
 condition in New England. The New-Englander 
 is a person who is always just about to be warm 
 and comfortable. This is the stuff of which 
 heroes and martjTs are made. A person thor- 
 oughly heated or frozen is good for nothing. 
 Look at the Bongos. Examine (on the map) the 
 Dog-Eib nation. The New-Englander, by in- 
 cessant activity, hopes to get warm. Edwards 
 made his theology. Thank God, New England 
 is not in Paris ! 
 
 Hudson's Bay, Labrador, Grinnell's Land, a 
 whole zone of ice and walruses, make it un- 
 pleasant for New England. This icy cover, like 
 the lid of a pot, is alwa3^s suspended over it : 
 when it shuts down, that is winter. This would 
 be intolerable, were it not for the Gulf Stream. 
 The Gulf Stream is a benign, liquid force, flow- 
 ing from under the ribs of the equator, — a white 
 knight of the South going up to battle the giant 
 of the North. The two meet in New England, 
 and have it out there. 
 
 This is the theory ; but, in fact, the Gulf 
 
now SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 151 
 
 Stream is mostl}^ a delusion as to New England. 
 For Ireland it is quite another thing. Potatoes 
 ripen in Ireland before they are planted in New 
 England. That is the reason the Irish emigrate : 
 they desire two crops the same j^ear. The Gulf 
 Stream gets shunted off from New England by 
 the formation of the coast below : besides, it is 
 too shallow to be of any service. Icebergs float 
 down agtrlnst its surface-current, and fill all the 
 New-England air with the chill of death till 
 June : after that the fogs drift down from New- 
 foundland. There never was such a mockery as 
 this Gulf Stream. It is hke the English influ- 
 ence on France, on Europe. Pitt was an ice- 
 berg. 
 
 Still New England survives. To what pur- 
 pose? I sa}^, as an example: the politician 
 says, to produce " Poor Boys." Bah ! The poor 
 boy is an anachronism in civilization. He is no 
 longer poor, and he is not a 'boy. In Tartary 
 they would hang him for sucking all the asses' 
 milk that belongs to the children : in New Eng- 
 land he has all the qream from the Pubhc Cow. 
 
152 HOW SPRING CAME IZV liEW ENGLAND. 
 
 What can 3'ou expect in a country where one 
 knows not to-day what the weather will be to- 
 morrow? Climate makes the man. Suppose he, 
 too, dwells on the Channel Islands, where he has 
 all chmates, and is superior to all. Perhaps he 
 will become the prophet, the seer, of his age, as 
 he is its Poet. The New-Englander is the man 
 without a climate. Why is his country recog- 
 nized? You won't find it on any map of Paris. 
 
 And yet Paris is the universe. Strange anom- 
 oly ! The greater must include the less ; but 
 how if the less leaks out ? This sometimes hap- 
 pens. 
 
 And yet there are phenomena in that country 
 worth observing. One of them is the conduct of 
 Nature from the 1st of March to the 1st of June, 
 or, as some say, from the vernal equinox to the 
 summer solstice. As Tourmalain remarked, 
 " You'd better observe the unpleasant than to 
 be blind." This was in 802. Tourmalain is 
 dead ; so is Gross Alain ; so is little Pee -Wee : 
 we shall all be dead before things get any 
 better. 
 
now SPRING CAME W NEW ENGLAND. 153 
 
 That is the law. Without revolution there is 
 nothing. What is revolution? It is turning 
 society over, and putting the best underground 
 for a fertilizer. Thus only will things grow. 
 AYhat has this to do with New England ? In the 
 language of that flash of social lightning, Beran- 
 ger, ' ' Ma}' the Devil fly away with me if I can 
 see!" 
 
 Let us speak of the period in the year in New 
 England when winter appears to hesitate. Ex- 
 cept in the calendar, the action is ironical ; but it 
 is still deceptive. The sun mounts high : it is 
 above the horizon twelve hours at a time. The 
 snow gradually sneaks away in hquid repentance. 
 One morning it is gone, except in shaded spots 
 and close by the fences. From about the trunks 
 of the trees it has long departed : the tree is a 
 hving thing, and its growth repels it. The fence 
 is dead, driven into the earth in a rigid line by 
 man: the fence, in short, is dogma: icy preju- 
 dice lingers near it. 
 
 The snow has disappeared ; but the landscape 
 is a ghastly sight, — bleached, dead. The trees 
 
154 now SPRmG CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 are stakes ; the grass is of no color ; and the 
 bare soil is not brown with a healthful brown ; 
 life has gone out of it. Take up a XDiece of turf: 
 it is a clod, without warmth, inanimate. Pull it 
 in pieces : there is no hope in it : it is a part of 
 the past ; it is the refuse of last year. This is 
 the condition to which winter has reduced the 
 landscape. When the snow, which was a pall, 
 is removed, you see how ghastly it is. The face 
 of the country is sodden. It needs now onl}^ the 
 south wind to sweep over it, full of the damp 
 breath of death ; and that begins to blow. No 
 prospect would be more dreary. 
 
 And j'Ct the south wind fills credulous man 
 with joy. He opens the window. He goes out, 
 and catches cold. He is stirred by the mysteri- 
 ous coming of something. If there is sign of 
 change nowhere else, we detect it in the news- 
 paper. In sheltered corners of that truculent 
 instrument for the diffusion of the prejudices of 
 the few among the many begin to grow the 
 violets of tender sentiment, the early greens of 
 yearning. The poet feels the sap of the new^ 
 
HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 155 
 
 year before the marsh- willow. He blossoms in 
 advance of the catkins. Man is greater than 
 Nature. The poet is greater than man: he is 
 nature on two legs, — ambulatory. 
 
 At first there is no appearance of conflict. 
 The winter gan-ison seems to have withdrawn. 
 The invading hosts of the South are entering 
 without opposition. The hard ground softens ; 
 the sun lies warm upon the southern bank, and 
 water oozes from its base. If jovl examine the 
 buds of the lilac and the flowering shrubs, you 
 cannot say that they are swelling ; but the var- 
 nish with whicn they were coated in the fall to 
 keep out the frost seems to be cracking. If 
 the sugar-maple is hacked, it will bleed, — the 
 pure white blood of Nature. 
 
 At the close of a sunny day the western sk}^ 
 has a softened aspect : its color, we say, has 
 warmth in it. On such a day you may meet a 
 caterpillar on the footpath, and turn out for him. 
 The house-fly thaws out ; a company of cheerful 
 wasps take possession of a chamber- window. It 
 is oppressive indoors at night, and the window 
 
156 HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 is raised. A flock of millers, born out of time, 
 flutter in. It is most unusual weather for the 
 season : it is so every year. The delusion is 
 complete, when, on a mild evening, the tree- 
 toads open their brittle-brattle chorus on the edge 
 of the pond. The citizen asks his neighbor, 
 "Did you hear the frogs last night?" That 
 seems to open the new world. One thinks of his 
 childhood and its innocence, and of his first loves. 
 It fills one with sentiment and a tender longing, 
 this voice of the tree-toad. Man is a strange 
 being. Deaf to the prayers of friends, to the 
 sermons and warnings of the church, to the calls 
 of duty, to the pleadings of his better nature, he 
 is touched by the tree-toad. The signs of the 
 spring multiply. The passer in the street in 
 the evening sees the maid-servant leaning on the 
 area-gate in sweet converse with some one lean- 
 ing on the other side ; or in the park, which is 
 still too damp for any thing but true afi'ection, he 
 sees her seated by the side of one who is able to 
 protect her from the policeman, and hears her 
 sigh, " How sweet it is to be with those we love 
 to be with! " 
 
HOW SPEING CAME Ilf NEW ENGLAND. 157 
 
 All this is very well ; but next morning the 
 newspaper nips these early buds of sentiment. 
 The telegraph announces, " Twenty feet of snow 
 at Ogclen , on the Pacific Road ; winds blowing a 
 gale at Omaha, and snow still falhng ; mercury 
 frozen at Duluth ; storm-signals at Port Huron.". 
 
 Where now are 3^our tree-toads, 3^our young 
 love, your earl}^ season? Before noon it rains; 
 by three o'clock it hails ; before night the bleak 
 storm-cloud of the north-west envelops the sky ; 
 a gale is raging, whirling about a tempest of 
 snow. By morning the snow is drifted in banlvs, 
 and two feet deep on a level. Early in the seven- 
 teenth century, Drebbel of Holland invented the 
 weather-glass. Before that, men had suffered 
 without knowing the degree of their suffering. 
 A century later, Rbmer hit upon the idea of 
 using mercury in a thermometer ; and Fahrenheit 
 constructed the instrument which adds a new 
 because distinct terror to the weather. Science 
 names and registers the ills pf life ; and j^et it is 
 a gain to know the names and habits of our ene- 
 mies. It is with some satisfaction in our knowl- 
 edge that we say the thermometer marks zero. 
 
158 HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 In fact, the wild beast called Winter, untamed, 
 has returned, and taken possession of New Eng 
 land. Nature, giving up her melting mood, has 
 retired into dumbness and white stagnation. But 
 we are wise. We saj- it is better to have it now 
 than later. We have a conceit of understanding 
 things. 
 
 Extraordinary blindness ! 
 
 The sun is in alliance with the earth. Between 
 the two the snow is uncomfortable. Compelled 
 to go, it decides to go suddenh^ The first day 
 there is slush with rain ; the second da}', mud 
 with hail ; the third day, a flood with sunshine. 
 The thermometer declares that the temperature is 
 delightful. Man shivers and sneezes. His neigh- 
 bor dies of some disease newly named by science ; 
 but he dies all the same as if it hadn't been newly 
 named. Science has not discovered any name 
 that is not fatal. 
 
 This is called the breaking-up of winter. 
 
 Nature seems for ,some days to be in doubt, 
 not exactly able to stand still, not daring to put 
 forth any thing tender. Man saj^s that the worst 
 
HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 159 
 
 is over. If he should live a thousand years, he 
 would be deceived every year. And this is called 
 an age of scei3ticism. Man never believed in so 
 many things as now : he never believed so much 
 in himself. As to Nature, he knows her secrets : 
 he can predict what she will do. Pie communi- 
 cates with the next world by means of an alpha- 
 bet which he has invented. He talks with souls 
 at the other end of the spirit-wire. To be sure, 
 neither of them says any thing ; but they talk. 
 Is not that something? He suspends the law of 
 gravitation as to his own body — he has learned 
 how to evade it — as tjTants suspend the legal 
 writs of habeas corpus. When Gravitation asks 
 for his bod}^, she cannot have it. He saj^s of 
 himself, "lam infallible; I am sublime." He 
 believes aU these things. He is master of the 
 elements. Shakspeare sends him a poem just 
 made, and as good a j)oem as the man could 
 write himself. And yet this man — he goes out 
 of doors without his overcoat, catches cold, and 
 is buried in three da^'s. " On the 21st of Janu- 
 ary," exclaimed Mercier, " aU kings felt for the 
 
IGO HOW SPEIIIG CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 backs of their necks." This might be said of 
 all men in New England in the spring. This is 
 the season that all the poets celebrate. Let ns 
 snppose that once, in Thessal}^, there was a genial 
 spring, and there was a poet who sang of it. All 
 later poets have sung the same song. " Voila 
 tout! " That is the root of poetr}^ 
 
 Another delusion. We hear toward evening, 
 high in air, the "conk" of the wild-geese. 
 Looking up, you see the black specks of that 
 adventurous triangle, winging along in rapid 
 flight northward. Perhaps it takes a wide re- 
 turning sweep, in doubt ; but it disappears in the 
 north. There is no mistaking that sign. This 
 unmusical "conk" is sweeter than the "ker- 
 chunk" of the bull-frog. Probably these birds 
 are not idiots, and probably they turned back 
 south again after spying out the nakedness of 
 the land ; but they have made their sign. Next 
 day there is a rumor that somebody has seen a 
 blue-bird. This rumor, unhappily for the bird 
 (which will freeze to death) , is confirmed. In 
 less than three days everj'body has seen a blue- 
 
HOW SPEIjVG came IN NEW ENGLAND. 161 
 
 bird 5 and favored people have heard a robin, or 
 rather the yellow-breasted thrush, misnamed a 
 robin in America. This is no doubt true : for 
 angle-worms have b^en seen on the surface of the 
 ground ; and, wherever there is any thing to eat, 
 the robin is promptly on hand. About this time 
 you notice, in protected, sunny spots, that the 
 grass has a little color. But 3^ou sa}^ that it is 
 the grass of last fall. It is very difficult to tell 
 when the grass of last fall became the grass of 
 this spring. It looks " warmed over." The 
 green is rusty. The lilac-buds have certainlj^ 
 swollen a little, and so have those of the soft 
 maple. In the rain the grass does not brighten 
 as you think it ought to, and it is only when the 
 rain turns to snow that you see anj^ decided green 
 color by contrast with the white. The snow 
 gradually covers every thing very quietl}^, how- 
 ever. Winter comes back without the least noise 
 or bustle, tireless, malicious, implacable. Neither 
 party in the fight now makes much fuss over it ; 
 and you might think that Nature had surrendered 
 altogether, if 3'ou did not find about this time, 
 
162 HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND, 
 
 in the woods, on the edge of a snow-bank, the 
 modest blossoms of the trailing arbutus, shedding 
 their delicious perfume. The bravest are alwa^^s 
 the tenderest, sa3^s the poet^ The season, in its 
 blind wa}^, is trying to express itself. 
 
 And it is assisted. There is a cheerful chatter 
 in the trees. The blackbirds have come, and in 
 numbers, households of them, villages of them, 
 — communes, rather. The}^ do not believe in 
 God, these blackbirds. They think they can 
 take care of themselves. We shall see. Bat 
 they are well informed. They arrived just as the 
 last snow-bank melted. One cannot say now 
 that there is not greenness in the grass ; not in 
 the wide fields, to be sure, but on lawns and 
 banks sloping south. The dark-spotted leaves 
 of the dog-tooth violet begin to show. Even 
 Fahrenheit's contrivance joins in the upward 
 movement : the mercury has suddenly gone up 
 from thirty degrees to sixty-five degrees. It is 
 time for the ice-man. Ice has no sooner disap- 
 peared than we desire it. 
 
 There is a smile, if one may say so, in the 
 
HOW SPBING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 163 
 
 blue sky, and there is softness in the south wind. 
 The song-sparrow is singing in the apple-tree. 
 Another bird-note is heard, — two long, musical 
 whistles, liquid but metallic. A brown bird this 
 one, darker than the song-sparrow, and without 
 the latter' s light stripes, and smaller, yet bigger 
 than the queer little chipping-bird . He wants a 
 familiar name, this sweet singer, who appears to 
 be a sort of sparrow. He is such a contrast to 
 the blue-ja^^s, who have arrived in a passion, 
 as usual, screaming and scolding, the elegant, 
 spoiled beauties ! They wrangle from morning 
 till night, these beautiful, high- tempered aristo- 
 crats. 
 
 Encouraged by the birds, by the bursting of 
 the lilac-buds, by the peeping-up of the. crocuses, 
 by tradition, b}' the sweet flutterings of a double 
 hope, another sign appears. This is the Easter 
 bonnets, most delightful flowers of the 3'ear, 
 emblems of innocence, hope, devotion. Alas 
 that the}^ have to be worn under umbrellas, so 
 much thought, freshness, feeling, tenderness, 
 have o-one into them ! And a north-east storm 
 
164 HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 of rain, accompanied with hail, comes to crown 
 all these virtues with that of self-sacrifice. The 
 frail hat is offered up to the implacable season. 
 In fact, Nature is not to be forestalled nor hur- 
 ried in this way. Things cannot be pushed. 
 Nature hesitates. The woman who does not 
 hesitate in April is lost. The appearance of the 
 bonnets is premature. The blackbirds see it. 
 They assemble. For two daj^s they hold a noisy 
 convention, with high debate, in the tree-tops. 
 Something is going to happen. 
 
 Say, rather, the usual thing is about to occur. 
 There is a wind called Auster, another called 
 Eurus, another called Septentrio, another Me- 
 ridies, besides Aquilo, Vulturnus, Africus. 
 There are the eight great winds of the classical 
 dictionarj^, — arsenal of mj'stery and terror and 
 of the unknown, — besides the wind Euroaquilo 
 of St. Luke. This is the wind that drives an 
 apostle wishing to gain Crete upon the African 
 Syrtis. If St. Luke had been tacking to get to 
 Hyannis, this wind would have forced him into 
 Holmes's Hole. The Euroaquilo is no respecter 
 of persons. 
 
HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 165 
 
 These winds, and others unnamed and more 
 terrible, circle about New England. The}^ form 
 a ring about it : they lie in wait on its borders, 
 but only to spring upon it and harry it. They 
 follow each other in contracting circles, in whirl- 
 winds, in maelstroms of the atmosphere : they 
 meet and cross each other, all at a moment. 
 This New England is set apart : it is the exer- 
 cise-ground of the weather. Storms bred else- 
 where come here fuU-gTown: they come in 
 couples, in quartets, in choruses. If New Eng- 
 land were not mostly rock, these winds would 
 carry it off; but they would bring it aU back 
 again, as happens with the sandy portions. What 
 sharp Eurus carries to Jersey, Africus brings 
 back. When the air is not full of snow, it is fall 
 of dust. This is called one of the compensations 
 of Nature. 
 
 This is what happened after the convention of 
 the blackbirds : A moaning south wind brought 
 rain ; a south-west wind turned the rain to snow ; 
 what is called a zeph3T, out of the west, drifted 
 the snow ; a north wind sent the mercury far 
 
166 HOW SPRING GAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 below freezing. Salt added to snow increases 
 the evaporation and the cold. This was the 
 office of the north-east wind : it made the snow 
 damp, and increased its bullv ; but then it rained 
 a little, and froze, thawing at the same time. 
 The air was full of fog and snow and rain. 
 And then the wind changed, went back round 
 the circle, reversing every thing, like dragging a 
 cat by its tail. The mercury approached zero. 
 This was nothing uncommon. We know all these 
 winds. We are familiar with the different "forms 
 of water." 
 
 All this was only the prologue, the overture. 
 If one might be permitted to speak scientifically, 
 it was only the tuning of the instruments. The 
 opera was to come, — the Flying Dutchman of 
 the air. 
 
 There is a wind called Euroclydon : it would 
 be one of the Eumenides ; only they are women. 
 It is half-brother to the gigantic storm- wind of 
 the equinox. The Euroclydon is not a wind : it 
 is a monster. Its breath is frost. It has snow 
 in its hair. It is something terrible. It peddles 
 rheumatism, and plants consumption. 
 
HOW SPUING CAME IW NEW ENGLAND. 1G7 
 
 The Eurocl3Tloii knew just the moment to strike 
 into the discord of the weather in New England. 
 From its lair about Point Desolation, from the 
 glaciers of the Greenland continent, sweeping 
 round the coast, lea\'ing wrecks in its track, it 
 marched right athwart the other conflicting 
 winds, churning them into a fur}^, and inaugurat- 
 ing chaos. It was the Marat of the elements. 
 It was the revolution marching into the ' ' dreaded 
 wood of La Sandraie." 
 
 Let us sum it all up in one word : it was some- 
 thing for which there is no name. 
 
 Its track was destruction. On the sea it leaves 
 wrecks. What does it leave on land? Funerals. 
 When it subsides, New England is prostrate. It 
 has left its legacy" : this legacy is coughs and 
 patent medicines. This is an epic ; this is des- 
 tin}^ You think Providence is expelled out of 
 New England ? Listen ! 
 
 Two daj^s after Euroclydon, I found in the 
 woods the hepatica — earliest of wildwood flowers, 
 evidently not intimidated by the wild work of the 
 armies trampling over New England — daring to 
 
168 HOW SPRIJSrG CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 hold up its tender blossom. One could not but 
 admire the quiet pertinacity of Nature. She had 
 been painting the grass under the snow. In 
 spots it was vivid green. There was a mild rain, 
 — mild, but chilly. The clouds gathered, and 
 broke away in light, fleecy masses. There was 
 a softness on the hills. The birds suddenly 
 were on every tree, glancing through the air, 
 filling it with song, sometimes shaking rain-drops 
 from their wings. The cat brings in one in his 
 mouth. He thinks the season has begun, and 
 the game-laws are off. He is fond of Nature, 
 this cat, as we all are : he wants to possess it. 
 At four o'clock in the morning there is a grand 
 dress-rehearsal of the birds. Not all the pieces 
 of the orchestra have arrived ; but there are 
 enough. The grass-sparrow has come. This is 
 certainly charming. The gardener comes to talk 
 about seeds : he uncovers the strawberries and 
 the grape-vines, salts the asparagus-bed, and 
 plants the peas. You ask if he planted them 
 with a shot-gun. In the shade there is still frost 
 in the ground. Nature, in fact, still hesitates, 
 
now SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 1G9 
 
 puts forth one hepatica at a time, and waits to 
 see the result ; pushes up the grass slowl}^, per- 
 haps draws it in at night. 
 
 This indecision we call Spring. 
 
 It becomes painful. It is lilve being on the 
 rack for ninety days, expecting every day a re- 
 prieve. Men grow hardened to it, however. 
 
 This is the order with man, — hope, surprise, 
 bewilderment, disgust, facetiousness. The peo- 
 ple in New England finally become facetious 
 about spring. This is the last stage : it is the 
 most dangerous. When a man has come to make 
 a jest of misfortune, he is lost. "It bores me 
 to die," said the journalist Carra to the heads- 
 man at the foot of the guillotine : " I would like 
 to have seen the continuation." One is also 
 interested to see how spring is going to turn out. 
 
 A day of sun, of delusive bird-singing, sight 
 of the mellow earth, — all these begin to beget 
 confidence. The night, even, has been warm. 
 But what is this in the morning journal at break- 
 fast? — " An area of low pressure is moving from 
 the Tortuaas north." You shudder. 
 
170 HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 What is this Low Pressure itself, — it ? It is 
 something frightful, low, crouching, creeping, 
 advancing ; it is a foreboding ; it is misfortune 
 by telegraph ; it is the " '93 " of the atmosphere. 
 
 This low pressure is a creation of Old Prob. 
 What is that? Old Prob. is the new deity of the 
 Americans, greater than JEolus, more despotic 
 than Sans-Culotte. The wind is his servitor, the 
 lightning his messenger. He is a mystery made 
 of six parts electricity, and one part "guess." 
 This deity is worshipped by the Americans ; his 
 name is on every man's lips first in the morning ; 
 he is the Frankenstein of modern science. 
 Housed at Washington, his business is to direct 
 tlie storms of the whole country upon New Eng- 
 land, and to give notice in advance. This he 
 does. Sometimes he sends the storm, and then 
 gives notice. This is mere plaj^fulness on his 
 part : it is all one to him. His great power is in 
 the low pressure. 
 
 On the Bexar plains of Texas, among the hills 
 of the Presidio, along the Rio Grande, low press- 
 ure is bred ; it is nursed also in the Atchafala3'a 
 
now SPRING CAME AY NEW ENGLAND. 171 
 
 swamps of Louisiana ; it moves hy the way of 
 Thibodeaux and Bonnet Carre. The south-west 
 is a magazine of atmospheric disasters. Low 
 pressure ma^^ be no worse than the others : it is 
 better known, and is most used to inspire terror. 
 It can be summoned an}^ time also fj'om tlie 
 everglades of Florida, from the morasses of the 
 Okeechobee. 
 
 When the New-Englander sees this in his 
 newspaper, he knows what it means. He has 
 twenty-four hours' warning ; but what can he 
 do ? Nothing but watch its certain advance by 
 telegraph. He suffers in anticipation. That is 
 what Old Prob. has brought about, — suffering 
 by anticipation. This low pressure advances 
 against the wind. The wind is from the north- 
 east. Nothing oould be more unpleasant than a 
 north-east wind ? Wait till low pressure joins it. 
 Together they make spring in New England. 
 A north-east storm from the south-west ! — there 
 is no bitterer satire than this. It lasts three 
 days. After that the weather changes into some- 
 thino- winter-like. 
 
172 HOW SPRING CA3fE IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 A solitary song-sparrow, without a note of joy, 
 hops along the snow to the dining-room window, 
 and, turning his httle head aside, looks up. He 
 is hungry and cold. Little Minnette, clasping 
 her hands behind her back, stands and looks at 
 him, and says, "Po' birdie!" They appear to 
 understand each other. The sparrow gets his 
 crumbs ; but he knows too much to let Minnette 
 get hold of him. Neither of these little things 
 could take care of itself in a New-England spring 
 — not in the depths of it. This is what the 
 father of Minnette, looking out of the window 
 upon the wide waste of snow, and the evergreens 
 bent to the ground with the weight of it, saj^s, 
 "It looks like the depths of spring." To this 
 has man come : to his facetiousness has succeeded 
 sarcasm. It is the first of May. 
 
 Then follows a day of bright sun and blue sk}^ 
 The birds open the morning with a lively chorus. 
 In spite of Auster, Euroclydon, low pressure, 
 and the government bureau, things have gone 
 forward. By the roadside, where the snow has 
 just melted, the grass is of the color of emerald. 
 
HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 173 
 
 The heart leaps to see it. On the lawn there are 
 twent3^ robins, lively, noisy, worm-seeking. Their 
 yellow breasts contrast with the tender green of 
 the newl}^- springing clover and herd's-grass. If 
 they would only stand still, we might think the 
 dandelions had blossomed. On an evergreen- 
 bough, looking at them, sits a graceful bird, 
 whose back is bluer than the sk3^ There is a red 
 tint on the tips of the boughs of the hard maple. 
 With Nature, color is life. See, already, green, 
 3'ellow, blue, red ! In a few days — is it not so ? 
 — through the green masses of the trees will 
 flash the orange of the oriole, the scarlet of the 
 tanager ; perhaps to-morrow. 
 
 But, in fact, the next daj^ opens a little sourly. 
 It is almost clear overhead : but the clouds 
 thicken on the horizon ; they look leaden ; they 
 threaten rain. It certainty will rain : the air 
 feels like rain, or snow. By noon it begins to 
 snow, and you hear the desolate cry of the 
 phoebe-bird. It is a fine snow, gentle at first ; 
 but it soon drives in swerving lines, for the wind 
 is from the south-west, from the west, from the 
 
174 HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 north-east, from the zenith (one of the ordinary 
 winds of New England), from all points of the 
 compass. The fine snow becomes rain ; it be- 
 comes large snow ; it melts as it falls ; it freezes 
 as it falls. At last a storm sets in, ajid night 
 shuts down upon the bleak scene. 
 
 During the night there is a change. It thun- 
 ders and lightens. Toward morning there is a 
 brilhant display of aurora borealis. This is a 
 sign of colder weather. 
 
 The gardener is in despair ; so is the sports- 
 man. The trout take no pleasure in biting in 
 such weather. Paragraphs appear in the news- 
 papers, copied from the paper of last year, sa^^- 
 ing that this is the most severe spring in thirty 
 years. Every one, in fact, believes that it is, 
 and also that next year the spring will be early. 
 Man is the most gullible of creatures. 
 
 And with reason : he trusts his e3^es, and not 
 his instinct. During this most sour weather of 
 the year, the anemone blossoms ; and, almost 
 immediately after, the fairy pencil, the spring 
 beauty, the dog-tooth violet, and the true violet. 
 
HOW SPEING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 175 
 
 In clouds and fog, and rain and snow, and all 
 discouragement. Nature pushes on her forces 
 with progressive haste and rapidit3^ Before one 
 is aware, all the lawns and meadows are deeply 
 green, the trees are opening their tender leaves. 
 In a burst of sunshine the cherr3'-trees are white, 
 the Judas-tree is pink, the hawthorns give a 
 sweet smell. The air is full of sweetness ; the 
 world, of color. 
 
 In the midst of a chilling north-east storm the 
 ground is strewed with the white-and-pink blos- 
 soms from the apple-trees. The next da}^ the 
 mercury stands at eighty degrees. Summer has 
 come. 
 
 There was no Spring. 
 
 The winter is over. You tliiiik so? Robes- 
 pierre thought the Revolution was over in the 
 beginning of his last Thermidor. He lost his 
 head after that. 
 
 When the first buds are set, and the corn is 
 up, and the cucumbers have four leaves, a mali- 
 cious frost steals down from the north and kills 
 them in a nioht. 
 
176 HOW SPRING CAME IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 That is the last effort of spring. The mercury 
 then mounts to ninety degrees. The season has 
 been long, but, on the whole, successful. Many 
 people survive it. 
 
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