"Human nater couldn't stand all that, so startin' up I found that while I'd been layin' in the bottom of the boat the wind had ris, and was blowin' a stiff gale. The boat had drifted across the lake and had struck broadside agin the shore, and the waves were makin' a clean breach into her at every surge. I soon got her, head on to the waves, and feelin' something mighty lively at the other eend of the line, hauled in a twelve-pounder."
"Pshaw!" exclaimed one of the audience; "you've only been telling a dream, in this long yarn, we've been listening to."
"Wal," replied the narrator; "some people that I've told it to, have suspicioned that it might be so; but every thing about it seemed so nateral, that I'm almost ready to make my affidavy that it was sober fact. One thing, however, I always had my doubts about: I never fully believed, thatI was actually pitched over that island. I've hearn it said that when a man has eaten a hearty dinner, and goes to sleep with the hot sun pourin' right down on him, he's apt to see and hear a good many strange things before he wakes up. May be it was so with me."
We spent the next day in rowing about the Upper Saranac, exploring its beautiful bays and islands. We took as many trout in trolling occasionally, as we needed for dinner and supper. It became an established law among us, that we should kill no more game or fish than we needed for supplies, whatever their abundance or our temptation might be. It required some self-denial to observe this law, but we kept it with tolerable strictness. There were times when we had a large supply of both venison and fish, but there were seven men of us in all, and we could despose of a good deal of flesh and fish in the twenty-four hours. We had sent our boat with the luggage across the Indian carrying place, a path of a mile through the forest, to the Spectacle Ponds, three little lakes, from which a stream, known as Stony Brook, rises. This stream is navigable for small boats like ours, five miles to the Rackett River. These lakes contain from a hundred to a hundred and fifty acres each. At the head of the Upper Pond is a beautiful cold spring, near which, upon crossing the carrying place, at evening, we found our tents pitched. We arrived here about sundown, somewhat wearied with our day's excursion, and with appetites fully equal to a plentiful supper which was soon in readiness for us.
"You are getting me into a bad habit, spoiling my morals in a physical sense," said Smith, addressing us as we sat after supper around our camp-fire; "I find myself taking to the pipe out here, in these old woods, with a relish I never have at home. It seems to agree with me here, and I expect by the time I get back to civilization, I shall be as great a smoker as the Doctor or Spalding. If I do, I shall have to pay for it by indigestion and hypochondria, things that you of the fat kine, know nothing about."
"Well," replied the Doctor, "You will only have to call on me as you did last month, and then send for Spalding to draw your will, as you did the next day, when you were as well as I am, excepting that kink in your head about your going to die."
"Why, the truth is," retorted Smith, "I had made up my mind, after twelve hours consideration, to take the medicine you left, and I appeal to H——here, if it was after that, anything more than a reasonable precaution to be prepared for any contingency that might happen. Your medicines, Doctor, and the testamentary disposition of a man's worldly effects, are very natural associations."
"Very well," said the Doctor; "you'll send for me again in a month after our return, and in that case, it may be, that the money you paid Spalding for drawing your will, will not have been thrown away. But in regard to the use of the pipe; I propose that we call upon Spalding, for a legal opinion, or an argument in its favor. It's his business to defend criminals, and I file an accusation against smoking generally, excepting, however, from the indictments the use of the pipe, as in some sort a necessity, on all such excursions as ours."
"I shall not undertake," said Spalding, "to enter into a labored defence of the use of tobacco in any form. I only move for a mitigation of punishment, and will state the circumstances upon which I base my appeal to the clemency of the court. The exception in the indictment, enables me to avoid the plea of necessity, which I should have interposed, founded upon a huge forest meal, and the abundance as well as impertinence of the musquitoes of these woods."
"I called the other day upon a venerable friend and client, who is travelling the down hill of life quietly, and though with the present summer he will have accomplished his three score years and ten, his voice is as cheerful, and his heart as young, as they were decades ago, when his manhood was in the glory and strength of its prime. I found him sitting in his great arm-chair, smoking his accustomed pipe, reading the evening papers. He seemed to be so calm, and happy, as the smoke went wreathing up from his lips, that I could not for the moment refrain from envying the calmness and repose which were visible all around him. He has smoked his morning and evening pipe, in his quiet way, for nearly half a century. When engaged in the active business of life, struggling with its cares, and fighting its battles, he always took half an hour in the morning, and as long at evening, to smoke his pipe and read the news of the day. He scarcely ever, when at home, under any pressure of circumstances omitted these two half hours of repose, or as his excellent wife used to say, of 'fumigation.' She passed to her rest years ago, leaving behind her the pleasant odor of a good name, a memory cherished by all who knew her.
"Men denounce the use of tobacco, and I do not quarrel with them for doing so. Say that it is a vile and a filthy habit; be it so, I will not now stop to deny it. Say that it is bad for the constitution, ruinous to the health; be it so. I will not gainsay it. Still I never see an old man, seated in his great arm chair, with his grandchildren playing around him, smoking his pipe and enjoying its, to him, pleasant perfume, its soothing influences, without regarding that same pipe as an institution which I would hardly be willing to banish entirely from the world.
"There is a good deal of philosophy, too, in a pipe, if one will but take the trouble to study it; great subjects for moralizing, much food for reflection; and all this outside of the physical enjoyment, the soothing influences of a quiet pipe, when the day is drawing to a close, and its cares require some gentle force to banish them away. It does not weaken the power of thought, nor stultify the brain. It quiets the nerves, makes a man look in charity upon the world, and to judge with a chastened lenity the shortcomings of his neighbors. It reconciles him to his lot, and sends him to his pillow, or about his labors, with a calm deliberate cheerfulness, very desirable to those who come under the law that requires people to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow.
"I said there is a good deal of philosophy in a pipe, and I repeat it. Who can see the smoke go wreathing and curling upward from his lips in all sorts of fantastic shapes, spreading out thinner and thinner, till it fades away and is lost among the invisible things of the air, without saying to himself, 'Such are the visions of youth; such the hopes, the grand schemes of life, looming up in beautiful distinctness before the mind's eye, growing fainter and fainter as life wears away, and then disappearing forever. Such are the things of this life, beautiful as they appear, unsubstantial shadows all.' And then, as the fire consumes the weed, exhausting itself upon the substance which feeds it, burning lower and lower, till it goes out for lack of aliment, who will not be reminded of life itself? the animated form, the body instinct with vitality, changing and changing as time sweeps along, till the spirit that gave it vigor and comeliness, and power and beauty, is called away, and it becomes at last mere dust and ashes. And then again, when the pipe itself falls from the teeth, or the table, or the mantel, or the shelf—as fall it surely will, sooner or later—and is broken, and the fragments are thrown out of the window, or swept out at the door, who can fail to see in this, the type of life's closing scene? the body broken by disease and death, carried away and hidden in the earth, to remain among the useless rubbish of the past, to be seen no more forever? Yes, yes! there is a great deal of philosophy in a pipe, if people will take pains to study it.
"I have a pleasant time of it once or twice a year with an old gentleman, living away in the country; one whom memory calls up from the dim and shadowy twilight of my earliest recollections, as a tall stalwart man, already the head of a family with little children around him. Those who were then little children have grown up to be men and women, and have drifted away upon the currents of life, themselves fathers and mothers, with grey hairs gathering upon their heads. I visit this venerable philosopher in his hearty and green old age, every summer. I see him now, in my mind's eye, sitting under the spreading branches of the trees planted by himself half a century ago, which cast their shadows upon the pleasant lawn in front of his dwelling—discussing politics, morals, history, religion, philosophy—recounting anecdotes of the early settlement of the county of which he was a pioneer; and I see how calmly and deliberately he smokes, while he calls up old memories from the shadowy past, discoursing wisely of the present, or speaking prophetically of the future. I saw him last in July of the past year, and he seemed to have changed in nothing. He had not grown older in outward seeming. His heart was as warm and genial as it was long, long ago; and cheerfulness, calm and chastened, marked as it had for years the conversation of a man who felt that his mission in life was accomplished. 'Why,' said he, addressing me, as a new thought seemed to strike him, 'why,yourhead is growing grey! I never noticed it before. It is almost as white as mine. Well, well!' he continued, as he tapped the thumb nail of his left hand with the inverted bowl of his pipe, knocking the ashes from it as he spoke, 'well, well! it won't be long until we will have smoked our last pipe. Mine, at least, will soon be broken. But what of that? Seventy-eight years is a long time to live in this world. I have had my share of life and of the good pertaining to it, and shall have no right to complain when my pipe is broken and its ashes scattered.' Such was the philosophy of an almost Octogenarian smoker."
"I move for a suspension of sentence," said Smith, "Spalding's defence of the weed, induces me to withdraw the indictment against it, leaving punishment only for the excessive use of it."
The motion was carried unanimously, and by way of confirming the decision, we all refilled our pipes and smoked till the stars looked down in their brightness from the fathomless depths of the sky.
"The hallucinations of Smith," said Spalding, after we had settled the matter of the pipes, and were enjoying a fresh pull at the weed, "as described by the Doctor, remind me of a slight attack of fever which I had some months ago, and from which I recovered partly through the aid of the Doctor's medicine, and partly through the kindness of a young friend of mine; and of the strange 'kinks,' as you call them, which got into my head between the fever and the Doctor's opiates. Things were strangely mixed up, the real and the unreal grouped and mingled in a manner that gave to all the just proportions and appearance of sober actualities. I remember them as distinctly, and they made as deep and abiding impression upon my mind as if I had seen them all. They are impressed as palpably and indelibly upon my memory now as any actual events of my life."
"Well," said the Doctor, "suppose you give us one of these 'kinks,' while our pipes are being smoked out, as an 'opiate' to send us all to sleep."
"Be it understood, then," Spalding began, "that I like dogs in a general way. They are plain dealing, honest, trusty folk in the aggregate, albeit, there are what Tom Benton calls, 'dirty dogs.' These, however, are mostly human canines, dogs that walk on two legs, and wear clothes. Such curs Idon'tlike. But there are such, and they may be seen and heard, barking, and snarling, and snapping in their envy, at honest peoples' heels every day. Let them bark. Mr. Benton was right. They are 'dirty dogs.' But a dog that looks you honestly and frankly in the face, that stands by his master and friend, in all times of trial, in sorrow as in joy, in adversity as in prosperity, in dark days as in bright days, always cheerful, always sincere, earnest, and truthful, and so that his kindness be met, always happy, I like. He is your true nobility of nature below the human. But thereare'curs of low degree;' dogs of neither genial instinct nor breeding; senseless animals, that belie the noble nature of their species, are living libels upon their kind. There was one of these over against my rooms, at the time of the sickness I speak of. I saywasfor thanks to the fates, he is among the things that have been; he belongs to history, has been wiped out.
"He was a barking dog. When the moon was in the sky, he barked at the moon. When only the stars shone out, he barked at the stars; when clouds shut in both moon and stars, he barked at the clouds; and when the darkness was so deep and black as to obscure even the clouds, he barked at the darkness. Through all the long night he barked, barked, barked! It was not a bark of defiance, nor of alarm, nor of astonishment, nor of warning. It was not a note of danger, breaking the hush of midnight, saying that thieves were abroad, that murder was on its stealthy mission, or that the wolf was on the walk. It was a senseless, monotonous, idiotic bow, wow! Nothing more, nothing less.
"All Monday night, as I lay tossing upon a bed of pain, when fever was coursing through my veins, and every pulse went plunging like a steam engine from the gorged heart to every extremity, and my brain was like molten lead, I heard that terrible bark! It was my evil genius, my destiny. It mingled in every feverish dream, became the embodiment of every vision. I measured the periods of its recurrence by the clock that stands in the corner of our room. I counted the tickings of its silence, and I counted the tickings of its continuance. Every swing of the pendulum became a distinct period of existence. Minutes, hours, were nothing. Forty-four tickings, I said, and that bow, wow! will be heard again! Fifteen tickings, I said, and it will cease; and so I went on until the hours seemed to spread out into a boundless ocean of time. That dog somehow became mixed up with that old family clock that stood in the corner. I heard him scratching and climbing up among the weights, writhing and twisting his way among the machinery, till there, looking out through the face of that old family clock, distinct and palpable as the sun at noonday, or the moon in a cloudless night, I saw the ogre head of that dog; his great glassy, fishy eyes, his half drooping, half erect ears, his slavering jaws, and as he gazed in a stupid meaningless stare upon me, uttered his everlasting bow, wow! Tell me that the room was dark; that not a ray of light penetrated the closed doors or the curtained windows. What of that? That dog's head, I repeat, was there; I saw it, if I ever saw the sun, the moon or the bright stars. I saw it staring at me through all the gloom, all the thick darkness, and I heard its terrible bow, wow! 'Get out!' I shouted in horror.
"'What's the matter?' cried my wife, springing up in an ecstasy of terror.
"'Drive out that dog,' I replied.
"'What dog?' she inquired.
"'There,' I replied, 'that dog there, in the clock with his great staring, glassy eyes; drive him out!'
"She lighted the gas, and as it flashed up, there stood the old clock, the pendulum swung back and forth, the ticking went on, and its white old-fashioned face, looked out in calm serenity; but the dog was gone. It was all natural as life. The lighting of the gas had frightened the cur back to his yard, and as the forty-fourth tick ceased, his bow wow! was heard again, and it lasted while the pendulum swung back and forth just fifteen times. I took a cooling draft, and counted in feverish agony forty-four, and fifteen, till the daylight came creeping in at the windows, filling with sepulchral greyness the room. The barking ceased, and I slept only to dream of snarling curs and 'dirty dogs' for an hour.
"Through all Tuesday I lay tossing with pain. Fever was in every pulse; my brain was seething, burning lava. I thought and dreamed of nothing but mangy curs and 'dirty dogs.' The night gathered again, and the rumbling of the carriages and the thousand voices that break the stillness of a thronged city, died away into silence. The lights were extinguished, but again that horrible bark! bark! broke the hush of midnight, and worse than all, the quickened senses of fever heard it answered from away over on Arbor Hill; and again away up in State street; and yet again over in Lydius, and still again away down by the river. The East, the North, the West and the South had a voice, and it was all concentrated in a ceaseless, senseless, idiotic bark. I counted again the tickings of the clock, and each swing of the pendulum ended in a bark! As I lay there in the silence and desolation, the restless, tossing anguish of fever, those dogs gathered together in State at the crossing of Eagle, just above my boarding-house, and barked! They came under my windows, and barked! They looked in between the curtains, and barked! They came into my room, and there on the sofa, on the rocking-chair, on the table, on the mantelpiece, on the ottoman, on the stove, and on the top of the old clock, was a dog; and each barked! and barked! I saw them all through the darkness, plain as if it were noonday. They were 'dirty dogs,' filthy brutes, ill-favored mangy curs all, and there they sat and barked at the clock, barked at the mirror, at the stove, barked at one another and at me, with the same monotonous, meaningless, idiotic bow, wow! as of old.
"I had two rifles and a double-barrelled fowling-piece, sitting in the corner of the parlor adjoining our sleeping-room, the gifts of valued friends. My wife, wearied with the day's watching, had sunk into slumber on the bed beside me. I woke her gently.
"'Make no noise,' I said, 'but bring me the guns; do it carefully.'
"'What on earth do you want of the guns?' she inquired in alarm.
"'Don't you see those infernal dogs?' I answered, 'bring me the guns, and I'll make short work with the howling curs.'
"'Why, husband,' said she, 'there are no dogs here,' and as she lighted the gas the curs vanished away. But I saw them in the darkness. It was only when the light flashed through the room, that they fled from it, and I heard them barking in response to each other through all the long night, till the dawn crept over the world again.
"Years ago, I saved a boy from the meshes of the law, in which his evil ways had involved him. I admonished him of the end towards which he was hastening. I showed him that the path he was treading led to destruction, and he left it, as he said, forever. He apprenticed himself to a useful trade, and is now an intelligent mechanic. Out of his time, an industrious, sober youth of two and twenty, supporting by his industry, his mother and sister in comfort and respectability. He heard of my sickness, and on Wednesday morning called to see me, proffering his services as a nurse and watchman, prompted by gratitude for the past. I declined his kindness for the present, as I told him casually of the dog whose midnight barking was killing me. He called again on Thursday morning. The barking had ceased. He inquired if I had been troubled with the yelping of that senseless cur, and I answered truly that I had not, that I had slept soundly, and woke with a softened pulse and a cooled brain.
"'Well,' said he, 'I thought you would rest easier. I looked into the yard as I came along, and saw a dead dog lying there. I thought may be he had barked himself to death.'
"I did not at the time take in the full meaning, the hidden import of his words. I dropped away into slumber, and dreamed of the dog that barked himself to death. I saw him vanish by piecemeal at each successive bark, until nothing but his jaws were left, and as his last bark was uttered, these, too, vanished away, and then all was still.
"I awoke, and thought that a dose of 'dog-buttons,' or a taste of strychnine, administered with a tempting bit of cold steak, or a piece of fresh lamb, or a bone of mutton carefully dropped in his way, might have aided the operation. Be that as it may, whatever of debt may have existed between my young friend and myself for past kind it is all wiped out by the news he brought me, that a 'dead dog lay in the yard over the way.'"
The next morning we started down Stony Brook, towards the Rackett River, intending to pitch our tents at night on the banks of Tupper's Lake, twenty-three miles distant. Before leaving the Spectacle Ponds, we visited a little island at the north end of the middle pond, containing perhaps half an acre. This island has a few Norway pines upon it, is of a loose sandy soil, and at the highest portion is some twenty feet above the level of the water. It is a great resort for turtle in the season of depositing their eggs. We found thousands of their eggs, some on the surface and some buried in the sand, and if one in a dozen of them brings forth a turtle, there will be no lack of the animal in the neighborhood. Stony Brook is a sluggish, tortuous stream, large enough to float our little boats, and goes meandering most of the way for five miles among natural meadows, overflowed at high water, or thinly timbered prairie, when it enters the Rackett. I discovered on a former visit to this wilderness, when the water was very low, a spring that came boiling up near the centre of the stream, with a volume large enough almost to carry a mill. It was at a point where a high sandy bluff, along which the stream swept, terminated. As we approached this spot, I suggested to Spalding, who was in the bow of the boat, to prepare his rod and fly. We approached carefully along the willows on the opposite shore, until in a position from which he could throw in the direction I indicated. In the then stage of the water, there was no appearance of a spring, or any indication marking it as a spot where the trout would be at all likely to congregate, and Spalding was half inclined to believe that I was practising upon his want of knowledge of the habits of the fish of this region. I had said nothing about the spring, or the habit of the trout in gathering wherever a cold stream enters a river, or a spring comes gushing up in its bed.
"I don't believe there's a trout within half a mile of us," he said, as he adjusted his rod and fly.
"Never mind," I replied, "throw your fly across towards that boulder on the bank, and trail it home, and you'll see."
"Well," said he, "here goes;" and he threw in the direction indicated.
The fly had scarcely touched the water when a trout, weighing a pound or over, struck it with a rush that carried him clear out of the water. After a little play he was landed safely in the boat, and another, and another, followed at almost every throw. Not once did the fly touch the water that it was not risen to by a fish.
"By Jove!" said Spalding, as he handed me the landing-net to take in his third or fourth trout, "this is sport. You use the net, and I'll trail them to you. Let us make hay while the sun shines. The other boat will soon be along, and Smith will be for dipping his spoon into my dish. I want to astonish him when he comes."
We had secured eight beautiful fish when the Doctor and Smith rounded the point above us. We motioned them back, and their boat lay upon its oars. Spalding kept on throwing his fly and trailing the trout to me to secure with the landing-net."
"Hallo!" shouted Smith, "hold on there; fair play, my friends, give me a hand in," and he fell to adjusting his rod and flies.
"Keep back, you lubber," replied Spalding; "what doyouknow about trout-fishing? You'll frighten them all away by your awkwardness."
"No you don't!" shouted Smith, his rod now adjusted. "Drop down, boatman, and we'll see who is the lubber. Wait, Spalding! Don't throw, if you are a true man, until we can take a fair start, and then the one that comes out second best pays the piper."
The boat dropped down to the proper position, and the Doctor, who was seated in the stern, held it in place by pressing his paddle into the sand at the bottom, while the boatman handled the landing net.
"Now!" exclaimed Smith, as the flies dropped upon the water together above the cold spring. There was no lack of trout, for one rose to the fly at every cast.
"I say," said the Doctor, "how many have you in your boat?"
"Sixteen," I replied, after counting them.
"We've got eight, and I bar any more fishing. The law has reached its limit. No wanton waste of the good things of God, you know."
The rods were unjointed and laid away, and such a string of trout as we had, is rarely seen outside of the Saranac woods. We procured fresh grass in which to lay our fish, and green boughs to cover them, and floated on down the stream, entering the Rackett at nine o'clock. The Rackett is a most beautiful river. To me at least it is so, for it flows on its tortuous and winding way for a hundred or more miles through an unbroken forest, with all the old things standing in their primeval grandeur along its banks. The woodman's axe has not marred the loveliness of its surroundings, and no human hand has for all that distance been laid upon its mane, or harnessed it to the great wheel, making it a slave, compelling it to be utilitarian, to grind corn or throw the shuttle and spin. It moves on towards the mighty St. Lawrence as wild, and halterless, and free, as when the Great Spirit sent it forward on its everlasting flow. The same scenery, and the same voices are seen and heard along its banks now as then; and, while man, in his restlessness, has changed almost everything else, the Rackett and the things that pertained to it when the earth was young, remain unchanged. But this will not be so long. Civilization is pushing its way even towards this wild and, for all agricultural purposes, sterile region, and before many years even the Rackett will be within its ever-extending circle. When that time shall have arrived, where shall we go to find the woods, the wild things, the old forests, and hear the sounds which belong to nature in its primeval state? Whither shall we flee from civilization, to take off the harness and be free, for a season, from the restraints, the conventionalities of society, and rest from the hard struggles, the cares and toils, the strifes and competitions of life? Had I my way, I would mark out a circle of a hundred miles in diameter, and throw around it the protecting aegis of the constitution. I would make it a forest forever. It should be a misdemeanor to chop down a tree, and a felony to clear an acre within its boundaries. The old woods should stand here always as God made them, growing on until the earthworm ate away their roots, and the strong winds hurled them to the ground, and new woods should be permitted to supply the place of the old so long as the earth remained. There is room enough for civilization in regions better fitted for it. It has no business among these mountains, these rivers and lakes, these gigantic boulders, these tangled valleys and dark mountain gorges. Let it go where labor will garner a richer harvest, and industry reap a better reward for its toil. It will be of stinted growth at best here.
"I like these old woods," said a gentleman, whom I met on the Rackett last year; "I like them, because one can do here just what he pleases. He can wear a shirt a week, have holes in his pantaloons, and be out at elbows, go with his boots unblacked, drink whisky in the raw, chew plug tobacco, and smoke a black pipe, and not lose his position in society. Now," continued he, "tho' I don't choose to do any of these things, yet I love the freedom, now and then, of doing just all of them if I choose, without human accountability. The truth is, that it is natural as well as necessary for every man to be a vagabond occasionally, to throw off the restraints imposed upon him by the necessities and conventionalities of civilization, and turn savage for a season,—and what place is left for such transformation, save these northern forests?"
The idea was somewhat quaint, but to me it smacked of philosophy, and I yielded it a hearty assent. I would consecrate these old forests, these rivers and lakes, these mountains and valleys to the Vagabond Spirit, and make them a place wherein a man could turn savage and rest, for a fortnight or a month, from the toils and cares of life.
We entered TUPPER'S LAKE towards six o'clock, and saw our white tents pitched upon the left bank, some half a mile above the outlet, where a little stream, cold almost as icewater, comes down from a spring a short way back in the forest. This lake, some ten miles long, and from one to three in width, is one of the most beautiful sheets of water that the eye of man ever looked upon. The scenery about it is less bold than that of some of the other lakes of this region. The hills rise with a gentle acclivity from the shore; behind them and far off rise rugged mountain ranges; and further still, the lofty peaks of the Adirondacks loom up in dim and shadowy outline against the sky. From every point and in every direction, are views of placid and quiet beauty rarely equalled; valleys stretching away among the highlands; gaps in the hills, through which the sunlight pours long after the shadows of the forest have elsewhere thrown themselves across the lake; islands, some bold and rocky, rising in barren desolation, right up from the deep water; some covered with a dense and thrifty growth of evergreen trees, with a soil matchless in fertility; and some partaking of both the sterile and productive; beautiful bays stealing around bold promontories, and hiding away among the old woods. These are the features of this beautiful sheet of water, which none see but to admire, none visit but to praise; and it lies here all alone, surrounded by the old hills and forests, bold bluffs, and rocky shores, all as God made them, with no mark of the hand of man about it, save in a single spot on a secluded bay, where lives a solitary family in a log house, surrounded by an acre or two, from which the forest has been cleared away.
"Will somebody tell me," said Smith, as we sat on the logs in front of our tent after supper, smudging away the musquitoes with our pipes, "will somebody tell me what we came into this wilderness among these musquitoes, and frogs, and owls for? Mind you, I am not discontented; I enjoy it hugely; but what I want to know iswhyI do so? I desire to understand the philosophy of the thing."
"As the question involves, in some sense, a physiological fact," replied the Doctor, "it comes within the range of my professional duties to understand and be able to answer it, for you must know that the enjoyments of this region are primarily physical. Now I've a theory which is this—that every man has a certain amount of vagabondism in his composition that will be pretty certain to break out in spots occasionally. At all events it is so with me, and from my observation of men, I am strong in the faith that it is so with every one who is neither more nor less than human. It is all a mistake to suppose that I come off here, enduring a heap of hardship and toil, simply for the love of fishing and hunting, though I confess to a weakness to a certain extent that way. The charm of this region consists in the fact, that it is the best place to play the vagabond, and in which to do the savage for a season, that I know of. You can go bareheaded or barefooted, without a coat or neckerchief, get as ragged and untidy as you please, without subjecting yourself to remark, or offending the nice sense of propriety pertaining to conventional life. You are not responsible for what you say or do, provided always that you do not offend against the abstract rules of decency, or the requirements of natural decorum. You can lay around loose; the lazier you are the better the boatman in your employ likes it. If you choose to drift leisurely and quietly under the shadow of the hills along the shore, examining the rocks that lie there like a ruined wall, or explore the beautiful and secluded bays that hide around behind the bluffs, or lay off under the shade of the fir trees on the islands, or smoke your cigar or pipe by the beautiful spring that comes bubbling up by the side of some moss-covered boulder, or from beneath the tangled roots of some gnarled birch or maple, you can do any or all of these, and have a man to help you for twelve shillings a day and board, or you can do it just about as well alone.
"You remember LONESOME ROCK, in the Lower Saranac, a great boulder that lifts its head some ten or fifteen feet above the surface, away out near the middle of the lake, around which the water is of unknown depth. This rock, which is always dark and bare, is, as you will remember, of conical shape, sharp pointed at the top, and stands up about the size of a small hay-stack, in the midst of the waters. Do you remember the account that somebody gives in a ragged but terse kind of verse, of the 'gentleman in black,' who, as he walked about,
'Backward and forward he switched his long rail,As a gentleman switches his cane?'
And of whose dress it was facetiously said:
'His coat was red and his breeches were blue,With a hole behind for his tail to stick through.'
another author said of him on one of his fishing excursions, that
'His rod, it was a sturdy mountain oak,His line, a cable which no storm e'er broke,His hook he baited with a dragon's tail,And sat upon a rock and bob'd for whale!'
Well, like the ebony gentleman, you can, if you choose, sit upon Lonesome Rock enjoying your meditations, and bobbing, not for whale, for whatever other fish may be found in the Lower Saranac, I believe there are no whale; but you can bob for trout; whether you will catch any or not will depend very much on circumstances. It is a capital place to cast the fly from, or to sink your hook with a bait, and if the trout do not choose to bite, whose fault is that, I should like to know?
"And this reminds me of an anecdote told me by a gentleman I met in June of last year, on the Rackett River among the black flies, of an adventure he met with on Lonesome Rock last season. He had been trolling around the lake in a boat alone, without much success, and concluded he would try deep fishing from this rock, as he had heard that the trout were in the habit of congregating around its base. So he rowed to the rock, and, as he supposed, secured his boat, and climbing up its side seated himself on his boat cushion, on the top. He caught one fine fish at the first throw, and took it for granted that he was going to have a good time of it among the trout. When he mounted the rock, about eleven o'clock, the sky was overcast, and he caught three or four trout of good size in the course of half an hour; but the sun coming out bright and clear, the fish altered their minds, and refused to have anything more to do with his hook. He finally concluded to give up the business, and seek the cooling shadows of the forest trees along the shore. But his boat was gone; and upon looking around he saw it drifting before a light breeze a quarter of a mile distant. Now when you remember that all around the lake was a wilderness, save a single spot at the head of the bay, where Martin's house stands, three or four miles distant, and when you remember also that no boat might be passing during the next twenty-four hours, you will comprehend that his position was none of the pleasantest. There he sat upon the top of his rock, with scarcely room to turn around, with a wide sweep of deep water between him and the nearest land, the fish utterly refusing to bite, and the sun blazing down upon him with heat like a furnace, as it crept with its snail's pace across the sky. At first he was inclined to smile at his ridiculous situation, all alone there on the rock; but as the wind died away, and the sun poured his burning rays right down upon him, and he panted and sweat under its sweltering influences, he began to feel a little more serious. Hours glided away, and the sun crept slowly along down the heavens, but still no boat made its appearance.
"The sun hid itself behind the hills on the West, and still he was alone. The shadows crept up the mountain peaks that stand up like grim giants away off in the East, and twilight began to throw its grey mantle over the lake; still he was alone. The darkness began to gather around him; the forests along the shore to lose their distinctness and to stand in sombre and shadowy outline above the water; still no prospect of relief presented itself. The twilight faded from the West, the stars stole out in the heavens, the milky way stretched its belt of light across the sky, and there he sat alone still on his rock, the night dews falling around him, and the night voices of the forest coming solemnly out over the water. Things had now assumed a serious aspect. He could not stretch his limbs save by standing erect, and it seemed inevitable that he must watch the stars during the night, as he had watched the sun during the day. To sleep there was out of the question. There was no room for a sleeping posture, and the danger of rolling down the rock into the water kept him wide awake. At length the pleasant sound of oars, and voices in jolly converse, fell upon his ear, and he shouted. Two sportsmen were returning from the Upper Lakes, and right welcome was the answer they returned to his call. He was glad enough to be released from his rock, upon which, as he said, 'he had made up his mind that he should be compelled to roost, like a turkey on the ridge of a barn, for the night.'
"To go back from this digression," continued the Doctor, "I repeat that every man has a vein of the vagabond, a streak of the savage in him, which can never be clean wiped out. Educate him, polish him as you may, it will be in him still, and he will love to go off into the old woods at times, to lay around loose for a season, vagabondising among the wild and savage things of the wilderness. It is but indulging the original instincts of our nature. True, he will not relish his savage ways a great while. His old habits will lead him back to civilization, to the luxury of a well-furnished room, the quiet of an easy chair, and the repose of a soft bed. In a word to 'clean up' and shave and dress, so that when he looks into a glass he will see the shadow of a gentleman."
Spalding and Martin went out upon the lake after dark, with one of the boats, to hunt by torch light. This is done by placing a lighted torch, or a lamp upon a standard, placed upright in the bow of the boat, and so high that a man seated or lying upon the bottom of the craft, will have his head below it. He must himself be in someway shaded from the light, which must be cast forward so that both the hunter and the boatman will be in the shadow. A very common method is to make a box, a foot or less square, open, or with a pane of glass on one side; a stick three or four feet long is run through an auger hole in the top and bottom, and wedged fast, which forms a standard; the other end of the stick is run through a hole on the little deck on the forward part of the boat, and placed in a socket formed for the purpose in the bottom, and is wedged at the deck, so as to make it steady. The open or glass front of the box is turned forward, and a common japan lamp placed in a socket prepared for it in the box. This of course throws the light forward, while the occupants of the boat are in the shadow. The hunter sits, or more commonly lies at length on a bed of boughs in the bottom of the boat, with his rifle so far in front that the light will fall upon the forward sight. An experienced boatman will paddle silently up to within twenty feet of a deer that may be feeding along the shore. The stupid animal will stand, gazing in astonishment at the light, until the boat almost touches him.
"That Hank Martin," said Cullen, one of the boatmen, as the hunters disappeared into the darkness, "is a queer boy in his way. You will notice that when he straightens up, and takes the kinks out of him, he stands six feet and over in his stockings, and his arms hang down to his knees. He's the strongest man in these woods, and tolerably active when there's occasion for it. He is a droll, good-natured, easy tempered chap, and don't get angry at trifles. He is fond of a joke himself, and will stand having a good many sticks poked at him without getting riled; but when he does get his back up, it's well enough to stand out of his way, and not step on his shadow. He never struck a man but once in real earnest, and that was over in Keeseville, and on that occasion the people said the town clock had struckone. The fellow he struck went eend over eend, and then went down, and when he went down he laid still—he didn't come to tine.
"But what I was going to tell you is, that Hank and I were down at Plattsburgh last fall, and a big fellow who had taken quite as much red eye as was for his good, undertook to pick a quarrel with Hank and give him a beating. Hank, as I said, being a peaceable man, and much more given to fun than to fighting, kept good-natured, and avoided a scrimmage as long as he could. But his patience and his temper at last caved in, and seizing his opponent by the neck with his left hand, and thrusting him down upon the ground, he began very deliberately to cuff him with his right, in a way that seemed anything but pleasant to the individual upon whom his cuffs were bestowed. 'Enough! enough!' cried his assailant. 'Let up! enough! enough!' 'Hold your tongue, you scoundrel!' replied Hank, as he kept on pommeling his enemy, 'hold your tongue, I tell you! You ain't a judge of these things! I'll let you know when you've got enough.' When he'd given him what he thought was about right, he lifted him on to his feet, and, holding him up face to face with himself a moment, 'There,' said he, 'look at me well, so that you'll know me when I come this way again; and when you see my trail, you'd better travel some other road.'"
"Speaking of Plattsburgh," said the Doctor, "reminds me of an incident which occurred to a friend and myself, over in the Chataugay woods, between the Chazy and the Upper Chataugay lakes. I was spending a few days at Plattsburgh, and hearing a good deal of the trout and deer in and about those lakes, my friend and myself concluded to pay them a flying visit. On the banks of the Chazy and near the outlet, a half-breed, that is, half French and half Indian, had built him a log cabin, and cleared about an acre of land around it. His live stock consisted of two homely, lean, and half-starved dogs, and as ragged and ill-looking a donkey as could be found in a week's travel. The half-breed was a sort of half fisherman and half hunter, excelling in nothing, unless it be that he was the laziest man this side of the Rocky Mountains. He succeeded, occasionally, in killing a deer in the forest, and when he did so, he would lead his donkey to the place of slaughter, and bring in the carcase on the long-eared animal's back.
"We were passing from the Chazy to Bradley's Lake, and had sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree to take a short breathing spell. It was a warm afternoon, and the air was calm; not a breath stirred the leaves on the old trees around us; the forest sounds were hushed, save the tap of the woodpecker on his hollow tree, or an occasional drumming of a partridge on his log. It was drawing towards one of those calm, still, autumnal evenings of which poets sing, but which are to be met with in all their glory only among the beautiful lakes that lay sleeping in the wild woods, and surrounded by old primeval things. The path wound round a densely wooded and sombre hollow, the depths of which the eye could not penetrate, but from out of which came the song of a stream that went cascading down the rocks, and rippling among the loose boulders that lay in its course. Beyond us, through an opening in the trees, we could see the lake, sparkling and shining in the evening sunbeams, and we were talking about the beauty of the view, and the calmness and repose that seemed resting upon all things, when, of a sudden, there came up from that shadowy dell a sound, the most unearthly that ever broke upon the astonished ear of mortal man. I have heard the roar of the lion of the desert, the yell of the hyena, the trumpeting of the elephant, the scream of the panther, the howl of the wolf. It was like none of these; but if you could imagine them all combined, and concentrated into a single sound, and ushered together upon the air from a single throat, shaped like the long neck of some gigantic ichthiosaurus of the times of old, you would have some faint idea of the strange sounds that came roaring up from that hollow way. My friend was a man of courage, and, like myself, had been around the world some; had spent a good deal of time, first and last, in the woods, was familiar with most of the legitimate forest sounds, and had heard all the ten thousand voices that belong in the wilderness, but we had never before listened to a noise like that.
"We looked to our rifles and at one another, and it may well be that our hats sat somewhat loosely upon our heads, from an involuntary rising of the hair. 'What, in the name of all that is mysterious,' cried my friend, in amazement, 'is that?' 'It is more than I know,' I replied, as I placed a fresh cap on my rifle. After a few minutes, the sounds were repeated, and the hills seemed to groan with affright as they sent them back in wavy and quavering echoes from their rugged sides.
"'We must understand this,' said my friend, as he led the way with a cautious and stealthy movement towards the depths of the hollow, whence the sounds came, and there, by the stream, on a little sand-bar, stood old Sangamo's donkey, by the side of a deer. Old Sangamo himself was stretched at full length on the bank, fast asleep. How he could have slept on, with such an infernal roaring as that donkey made in those old woods, six or eight miles outside of a fence, is more than I can comprehend. But he did sleep through it all, and was wakened only by a punch in the ribs with the butt of my rifle, instigated by pity for the poor donkey that was being eaten up by the flies. We helped him to load the carcass of the deer on the back of his donkey, and saw him move off lazily towards home. I have heard a good many strange noises in my day, but never, on any other occasion, have I listened to anything to be at all compared with the noise made by the braying of old Sangamo's donkey in the Chataugay woods."
As the Doctor concluded his story, the sharp crack of Spalding's rifle broke the stillness of the night, and went reverberating among the hills, and dying away over the lake. It was but a short distance from our camp, in a little bay hidden away around a wooded promontory below us. In a few minutes, the light was seen, rounding the point that hid the bay from our view, and, as the boat landed in front of our tents, Spalding and Martin lifted from it a fine two year old deer, shot directly between the eyes.
[Illustration: How he could have slept on, with such an infernal roaring as that donkey made in those old woods, six or eight miles outside of a fence, is more than I can comprehend.—]
"There," said Spalding, "is the biggest, or whatwasthe biggest fool of a deer in these woods. Do you believe that he stood perfectly still, gazing in stupid astonishment at our light, until we were within a dozen feet of him, when I dropped him with that ball between the eyes?"
"No," replied Smith, "I really don't believe any such thing."
"It is true, notwithstanding your lack of faith," said Spalding.
"Do you say that as counsel, or as a gentleman?" inquired Smith.
"Look you, Mr. Smith," said Spalding, "you are drawing a distinction not warranted by the authority of the books—as if a lawyer could not tell the truth like a gentleman. I say it as both."
"Very well," remarked Smith, "then I must believe it, of course. But understand, Hank Martin, it will be my turn to-morrow night." And so the matter was settled that the next night hunting was to be done by Smith.
"H——," said the Doctor, as I was stealing quietly out of the tent, in the twilight of the next morning, so as not to awaken my companions, "where now?"
"I'm going to take some trout for breakfast, with our venison," I replied.
"And where do you propose to take them?" he inquired. "Come with me, and I'll show you. I looked the place out last evening, and if you've done sleeping, we'll have some sport."
"Agreed," said he, and we paddled around the point into a little bay, at the head of which a small, but cold stream entered the lake. The Doctor sat in the bow, and, having adjusted his rod, I steered the boat carefully, close along the shore, to within reach of the mouth of the brook, and directed him to cast across it. The moment his fly touched the water, half a dozen fish rose to it together. It was eagerly seized by one weighing less than a quarter of a pound, which was lifted bodily into the boat. He caught as fast as he could cast his fly. They were the genuine brook trout, none of them exceeding a quarter Of a pound in weight. In half an hour, we had secured as many as we needed for breakfast, and paddled back to take a morning nap while the meal was being prepared.
The sweetest fish that swims is the brook trout, weighing from a quarter of a pound down. Rolled in flour, or meal, and fried brown, they have no equal. The lake and river trout, weighing from two to ten pounds, beautiful as they are, have not that delicacy of flavor which belongs to the genuine brook trout. Boiled, when freshly caught, they are by no means to be spoken lightly of. They have few equals, cooked in that way, but as a pan fish, they are not to be compared with the genuine brook trout.
We crossed over towards a deep bay on the west shore, to where a stream comes cascading down the rocks, and leaping into the lake, as if rejoicing at finding a resting-place in its quiet bosom. The spot where this stream enters, is in the deep shadow of the old forest trees that reach their leafy arms far out from the ledges on which they grow, forming an arch above, and shutting out the sunlight. Here the trout congregate, to enjoy the cool water that comes down from the hills above. We approached it carefully, and Smith, by way of experiment, cast his fly across the current where the stream enters the lake. It was seized by a beautiful fish weighing, perhaps, two pounds. We did not need him, for the place where we proposed to pitch our tents for the night would afford us all the fish required, and after lifting him into the boat with the landing-net and releasing the hook from his jaw, we returned him to the lake again.
Two miles from the head of the lake, on the east side, is a deep bay at the head of which enters a little brook that comes creeping along for a mile among the tangled roots of ancient hemlocks and spruce, singing gaily among the loose stones, sometimes disappearing entirely beneath bridges of moss, and sometimes sparkling in the sunlight, on its way to the lake. This little stream we found swarming with speckled trout of the size of minnows, and at its mouth the large trout congregated. As we rounded one of the points that shut out the view of this bay from the lake, we saw two deer feeding quietly upon the lily pads along the shore, some quarter of a mile from us. We dropped quietly back behind the point, where Smith and one of the boatmen prepared to take a shot at them. Martin took his seat in the stern with his paddle, and Smith lay stretched at length along the bottom of the boat upon boughs prepared for the occasion, with his rifle resting upon the forward end of the boat. It was broad daylight, and to paddle up within shooting distance of a deer under such circumstances, in plain view of an animal the most wary, is a delicate job, but it may be done. I have more than once been thus paddled within thirty yards of a deer while feeding in the water. The wind must be blowing from the deer to the hunter, or the scent will alarm the animal, and he will go snorting and bounding away.
Smith and Martin passed silently out into the bay, and moved slowly towards where the deer were feeding. The boat in which we sat was permitted to float out to a position from which we could see the sportsmen as they approached the game. Slowly but steadily they moved, the paddle remaining in the water, sculling the little craft along as if it were a log drifting in the water. The deer occasionally raised their heads, looking all around, evidently regarding the boat as a harmless thing floating in from the lake. After gazing thus about them they stooped their heads again, and went on feeding, as if no danger were near them. The hunters drifted within seventy or eighty yards of the game, when a column of white smoke shot suddenly up from the bow of the boat, and the report of Smith's rifle rang out sharp and clear over the lake. We saw where the ball struck the water just beyond the deer, passing directly under its belly, possibly high enough to graze its body. At the flash and report of the rifle, the animal leaped high into the air, bounded in affright this way and that for a moment, and then straightened itself for the woods. We heard his snort as he went crashing up the hillside.
Reader, should you ever drift out to this beautiful lake, you will find on the ridge just above where Bog River comes tumbling, and roaring, and foaming over the rocks into the lake, the charred remains of a campfire, built against a great log that was once the trunk of a tall forest tree. If you should visit it within a year or two, you will perhaps notice some forked stakes standing a few feet from the place of the fire, and a bed of withered and dry boughs (now fresh and green). Well, our tents were stretched over those stakes, those boughs were our bed, and those charred chunks are the remains of our campfire, that sent a sepulchral light among the forest trees around.
The sounds that come upon the ear during the night in a far off place like this, are peculiar. The old owl hoots mournfully, the frogs bellow hoarsely along the reedy shore, while the tree toads are quavering from among the branches of the scrubby trees that grow along the rocky banks; the whippoorwill pipes shrilly in the forest depths; the breeze murmurs among the foliage of the tall old pines, while the everlasting roar of the waters, as they go tumbling down the rocks, is always heard. However diversified these sounds may be, they all invite to repose. They fall soothingly upon the ear, and though all are distinctly heard, yet strange as it may seem, there is a strong impression upon the mind of the deep silence pervading the forest. This impression is doubtless occasioned by the utter dissimilarity between the voices one hears in the day, from those which fall upon the ear in the night time. The former are all joyous and happy, full of gladness and merriment, full of life and animation; the latter solemn, deep, profound, lulling to the senses; not sorrowful nor sad, yet still such as form a calm and quiet lullaby, under the influence of which one glides away into slumber, and sleeps quietly until dawn. Then the voice of gladness breaks so tumultuously on the ear, that he must be a sluggard indeed who can resist their wakening influences. How beautifully the sun went down behind the hills, lighting up the western sky, and the fleecy clouds floating in the heavens with a blaze of glory, throwing a mantle of silver over the tall ranges and mountain peaks that loomed up in solemn grandeur away in the east; and how stilly, silently the stars came out from the depths above, and how brightly and truthfully they were given back from away down in depths beneath the placid waters. We had taken half a dozen beautiful trout from the foot of the falls where the current shoots out into the lake. We had eaten them too, and were sitting in front of our tents smoking our evening pipes.
"Spalding," said the Doctor, "How I wish our little boys were out here with us. How they would enjoy themselves among these lakes and rivers. It is a hard lot that the children of our cities have in life. They struggle up to man and womanhood against fearful odds, and the wonder is, that they do not perish in their infancy; that they are not blasted, as the blossoms are, when the cold east wind sweeps over the earth."
"You are right, my friend," replied Spalding. "I should like to have our little boys, and girls too, for that matter, with us for a few days out here on these lakes. It would be a lifetime to them, measuring time by the enjoyment it would afford them. Still their city habits might make them tire of this freedom in a week. You and I enjoy it longer, because it brings back old memories and relieves us from the toils of business and the restraints of conventional life. You are right too in saying that the lot of our city children is a hard one. To live imprisoned between long rows of brick walls, breathing an atmosphere charged with the exhalations of ten thousand cooking stoves, the dust of forges and the smoke of furnaces, machine shops, gas works, filthy streets, and the thousand other manufactories of villainous smells; where the summer air has no freshness, no forest odors, or sweetness gathered from fields of grain, the meadows, or the pastures. To tramp only on stone sidewalks. To know nothing of the pleasant paths beneath the spreading branches of old primeval trees; no soft grass for their little feet to press; never to wander along the streams or the little brooks; to be strangers always to the beautiful things spread out everywhere in the country in the summer time. I always feel sad when I see the pale faces of the little children of the great cities, and marvel how so many of them grow up to be men and women. It is a hard lot to be cooped up in the city, vegitating, as it were, in the shade, where there is no grass for their little feet to press, no fences to climb, or fields to ramble over, or brooks to wade, or running water on which to float chips, and wherein to watch the little chubs and shiners dancing and playing about, or fresh pure air to breathe, or birds to listen to. It is a thousand pities that the cities could not be emptied every summer of their little people into the free and open country, where they could run about, and sport and play, and have free range and plenty of elbow-room. It would make them so much healthier and happier, so much more cheerful; their voices of gladness would ring out so much more joyously in the morning, and their songs be so much more sweet at night."
I remember an anecdote told me of a little child, born in the great metropolis, who had never, until her fifth summer, been outside of the paved streets of New York. Her mother had friends residing in one of the up-river towns, owning a beautiful farm overlooking the Hudson, and in early May she paid them a visit, taking her little daughter with her. Mary, of course, was delighted. Like a bird freed from its cage, she flew about here, there, everywhere, in-doors and out, among the chickens and the pigs, the turkeys and the lambs, enjoying to the full the thousand new things that her eyes rested upon all around her, and her young spirits in wild commotion under the bracing influences of the country air. "Mother! mother!" she exclaimed, as she came dashing into the parlor, her beautiful curls floating wildly over her shoulders, and her bright eyes wide open with wonder; "Mother I mother! come out here, quick! and see this funny tree, all covered over with snow-flakes, and how sweet it smells all around it." It was a plum tree in full blossom. That little child had never seen the beautiful spring blossoms on the fruit trees.
"I have no children of my own," remarked Smith, "and, therefore, may not be regarded as the best authority in regard to the manner of treating, or rearing children; but I have often wondered at the very great mistakes people sometimes make in regard to them. There are parents who mean no wrong, and yet who make no scruple of deceiving them in reply to their simple questionings, forgetting, or regardless of the fact, that a false answer to their innocent inquiries put in good faith, and in the earnest pursuit of truth, may plant an error in their minds, which may take years of experience, and often a painful amount of ridicule to eradicate. I knew a little boy years ago, a thoughtful, philosophic child, who speculated in his simplicity upon what he saw, as great philosophers do, in their wisdom, upon the various phenomena of Nature. His father, had a great barn, above which, as was the fashion long ago, perched upon a staff, a few feet above the ridgepole, was a weather-cock, fashioned out of a piece of board in the shape of a rooster. 'Father,' said the little boy, one day, 'what makes that rooster always point his head one way when the cold wind blows, and the other way when it is warm and pleasant?' 'He always looks towards the place where the wind comes from,' replied the father; 'when he gets too warm, and the sun is too hot for him, he turns his tail to the south, and the north wind is sure to come down, cold and chill, to cool him off.' 'Does he call the cold wind, father, and will it come when he looks, that way?' was the next inquiry. 'Certainly,' replied his father, carelessly. That was a wrong and a foolish answer.
"That little boy, relying in his simple faith upon the wisdom and truthfulness of his father, believed for a long time, that the weathercock on the top of the barn, could bring the cold north, or the warm south wind, by turning upon its perch. He was cured of his error only by being laughed at for his simplicity. Parents should never deceive their children by a careless or a wrong answer to the simple questions put to them by these little searchers after knowledge."
"I remember," said the doctor, "and it is one of the earliest incidents which my recollection has treasured, that I was out one evening in autumn, with a boy older than myself, gathering hazel nuts. The sun had sunk behind the hills, and the shadows of twilight were gathering in the valley. It was a beautiful and calm evening, the solemn stillness of which, was only broken by the 'tza! tza!' of thousands of katydids among the bushes. I asked my companion what it was that made the noise I heard, and he, supposing that I referred to sounds that came up occasionally from the lake, after listening for a moment, answered that it was made by the wild geese. In my simplicity I believed it, and it was not until I caught, the next season, a katydid while it was in the act of singing, that I discovered that the music among the hazel bushes was not made by the wild geese."
"I never respect a man or woman," said Spalding, "whose heart does not warm towards little children, who takes no pleasure nor interest in their society, who has no patience to listen to their simple thoughts expressed in their simple way. 'Mother,' said a little child of four or five years of age, one evening when the summer air was warm, and the skies were bright above, as she sat beside her mother, on a bench beneath the spreading branches of the tall old elms in front of the house; 'mother, what makes the stars come out, only after the dark has come down, and why don't the moon go up into the sky like the sun in the day time?' I listened anxiously for the reply. I knew the kind heart of that mother, how truthful it was, and how earnest and pure in its affection for its gentle and only darling. 'Sit here upon my lap, Mary,' said the mother, 'and I will try and explain it all so that you will understand it.' And she told the little child how God made the sun to rule the day, and the moon and the stars to rule the night; how that the stars were always in the sky, but how the superior brightness of the sun put them out in the day time; how the stars, that twinkled like little rush-lights in the heavens, were great worlds, a thousand times larger than this earth, made and placed away up in the sky, by the same great and good God who made the world we live in. Little Mary was silent and attentive to the simple lecture, until it was finished, and then asked, so simply and confidingly, that I could not help smiling to think that the mind of childhood should be running upon a subject, and seeking a solution of the same question which has puzzled the profoundest philosophers through all time: 'Mother,' said the little one, 'are there people in the moon and in the stars, them great worlds that look to us so like candles in the sky?' 'That question, my child,' said the mother, 'I cannot answer.' 'I believe,' said the child, that therearepeople in the moon, and in all the stars.' 'Why?' asked her mother. 'Because I don't believe God would make such big and beautiful worlds without making people to live in them.' What more has the profoundest philosopher who ever lived said, to prove that those mighty worlds which are seen in the heavens at night, that are scattered all through the universe of God, rolling forever on their everlasting rounds, are peopled by living, moving, sentient beings?"