I
have been into the lumber-yard, and the carpenter's shop, and the tannery,
and the lampblack-factory, and the turpentine clearing; but when at length
I saw the tops of the pines waving and reflecting the light at a distance
high over all the rest of the forest, I realized that the former were not
the highest use of the pine. It is not their bones or hide or tallow that
I love most. It is the living spirit of the tree, not its spirit of
turpentine, with which I sympathize, and which heals my cuts.
Ere long, the hunters returned, not having seen a moose, but, in
consequence of my suggestions, bringing a quarter of the dead one, which,
with ourselves, made quite a load for the canoe.
After breakfasting on moose-meat, we returned down Pine Stream on our way
to Chesuncook Lake, which was about five miles distant. We could see the
red carcass of the moose lying in Pine Stream when nearly half a mile off.
Just below the mouth of this stream were the most considerable rapids
between the two lakes, called Pine-Stream Falls, where were large flat
rocks washed smooth, and at this time you could easily wade across above
them. Joe ran down alone while we walked over the portage, my companion
collecting spruce gum for his friends at home, and I looking for flowers.
Near the lake, which we were approaching with as much expectation as if it
had been a university,--for it is not often that the stream of our life
opens into such expansions,--were islands, and a low and meadowy shore
with scattered trees, birches, white and yellow, slanted over the water,
and maples,--many of the white birches killed, apparently by inundations.
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