52 A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 
in my life. And my eyes were wide open,” he re- 
peated ; “I felt of them twice ; but whether that was 
the speret of that man’s murdered wife or not | can- 
not tell. They said she was an uncommon heavy 
woman.” Uncle Nathan was a man of unusually 
quick and acute senses, and he did not doubt their 
evidence on this occasion any more than he did when 
they prompted him to level his rifle at a bear or a 
moose. | 
Moxie Lake lies much lower than Pleasant Pond, 
and its waters compared with those of the latter are 
as copper compared with silver. It is very irregular 
in shape; now narrowing to the dimensions of a slow 
moving grassy creek, then expanding into a broad 
deep basin with rocky shores, and commanding the 
noblest mountain scenery.’ It is rarely that the pond- 
lily and the speckled trout are found together, — the 
fish the soul of the purest spring water, the flower the 
transfigured spirit of the dark mud and slime of slug- 
gish summer streams and ponds; yet in Moxie they 
were both found in perfection. Our camp was amid 
the birches, poplars, and white cedars near the head of 
the lake, where the best fishing at this season. was to 
be had. Moxie has a small oval head, rather shallow, 
but bumpy with rocks; a long, deep neck, full of 
springs, where the trout lie; and a very broad chest, 
with two islands tufted with pine-trees for breasts. 
We swam in the head, we fished in the neck, or in a 
small section of it, a space about the size of the 
Adam’s apple, and we paddled across and around the 
broad expanse below. Our birch bark was not fin- 
ished and christened till we reached Moxie. The ce- 
dar lining was completed at Pleasant Pond, where we 
had the use of a bateau, but the rosin was not applied 
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