1908 



CHRISTMAS IN SIERRA NORTH 



169 



denly one of our Sierra rainstorms 

 swept down on us, which seemed the 

 best joke of all. In the midst of it the 

 horses were brought out of the sheds, 

 the rangers gathered up the babies, 

 tucked them under their "slickers," 

 and mounted in hot haste; the wives 

 and elder children spring to saddle. 

 Everyone laughed and shouted to- 

 gether while the rain poured, and off 

 they went, up the ridges, down the 

 trails, across the creeks in the pitchy 

 darkness ! Some had to go a mile and 

 some four or five miles in wind and 

 rain, but it was the most amusing event 

 of the season. 



As I think it over and consider the 

 possibilities of the rangers' holiday 

 season I am afraid that to write it all 

 down will sound foolish. But let it at 

 least be said that in the course of time 

 we ought to be able to develop many 

 customs and usages all our own, and 

 to keep alive many of the better sort of 

 the old American traditions of moun- 

 tain hospitality. Besides and beyond 

 this I think it likely that the fellowship 

 will widen, taking in, to some extent, 

 the other forests and offices and de- 

 partments ; that by and by the Gov- 

 ernment scaler on Sale 12-1-08 in 



Pike's Peak will be sending home- 

 made Christmas cards to other scalers 

 away up in the Siskiyous or the 

 Olympics ; that all the inspectors will 

 be writing Christmas letters to the 

 rangers they have camped with ; that 

 supervisors from Tongass to Taos will 

 be gathering red apples in October and 

 cutting great Yule logs of oak in No- 

 vember, and picking autumn berries 

 and bringing in Christmas trees, and 

 killing well-fatted holiday birds, and 

 sitting at the heads of long and most 

 festive tables where at least half the 

 toasts will have to do with the Forest 

 Service and its leaders. 



Does any man or woman desire to 

 know the price of the forest fellow- 

 ship? Coming into it, one must learn 

 to give and to take — "From each to 

 all, from all to each." When mind and 

 body are merged in the service, one is 

 again as a child to whom all things 

 seem new and wonderful and each day 

 a gift from the high gods themselves. 

 Then such homely little celebrations as 

 ours, where we give a little wooden 

 horse and a poem, half tease, half sor- 

 row, to the ranger who has lately lost 

 his saddle horse, become things greatlv 

 to enjoy and lastingly to remember. 



