A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 4% 
He had been a hunter and trapper for over forty 
years; he had grown gray in the woods, had ripened 
and matured there, and everything about him was as if 
the spirit of the woods had had the ordering of it; his 
whole make-up was in a minor and subdued key, like 
the moss and the lichens, or like the protective color- 
ing of the game,—everything but his quick sense 
and penetrative glance. He was as gentle and modest 
as a girl; his sensibilities were like plants that grow 
in the shade. The woods and the solitudes had 
touched him with their own softening and refining 
influence; had indeed shed upon his soil of life a 
rich deep leaf mould that was delightful, and that 
nursed, half concealed, the tenderest and wildest 
growths. There was grit enough back of and beneath 
it all, but he presented none of the rough and repel. 
ling traits of character of the conventional backwoods- 
man. In the spring he was a driver of logs on the 
Kennebee, usually having charge of a large gang of 
men; in the winter he was a solitary trapper and 
hunter in the forests. 
Our first glimpse of Maine waters was Pleasant 
Pond, which we found by following a white, rapid, 
musical stream from the Kennebec three miles back 
into the mountains. Maine waters are for the most 
part dark-complexioned, Indian-colored streams, but 
Pleasant Pond is a pale-face among them both in 
name and‘nature. It is the only strictly silver lake I 
ever saw. Its waters seem almost artificially white 
and brilliant, though of remarkable transparency. I 
think I detected minute shining motes held in suspen- 
sion in it. As for the trout they are veritable bars 
of silver until you have cut their flesh, when they are 
the reddest of gold. They have no crimson or other 
