One
moose had been killed and another shot at within sight of the house within
two years. I do not know whether Smith has yet got a poet to look after
the cattle, which, on account of the early breaking up of the ice, are
compelled to summer in the woods, but I would suggest this office to such
of my acquaintances as love to write verses and go a-gunning.
After a dinner, at which apple-sauce was the greatest luxury to me, but
our moose-meat was oftenest called for by the lumberers, I walked across
the clearing into the forest, southward, returning along the shore. For my
dessert, I helped myself to a large slice of the Chesuncook woods, and
took a hearty draught of its waters with all my senses. The woods were as
fresh and full of vegetable life as a lichen in wet weather, and contained
many interesting plants; but unless they are of white pine, they are
treated with as little respect here as a mildew, and in the other case
they are only the more quickly cut down. The shore was of coarse, flat,
slate rocks, often in slabs, with the surf beating on it. The rocks and
bleached drift-logs, extending some way into the shaggy woods, showed a
rise and fall of six or eight feet, caused partly by the dam at the
outlet. They said that in winter the snow was three feet deep on a level
here, and sometimes four or five,--that the ice on the lake was two feet
thick, clear, and four feet, including the snow-ice.
Pages:
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291