138 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



Although in its prime object this little expedition was a fail- 

 ure, for I did not enjoy what most would have called excel- 

 lent sport, the touch of hardship of a character I had never 

 found in the Kentucky woods was grateful to me, and the 

 beauty of the New England wilds was entrancing. I also en- 

 joyed the contacts it gave me with a new kind of man, the Maine 

 lumberman. In that day, these men of the axe were all bred on 

 the soil, and a more vigorous set of fellows could not have been 

 found on the planet. The camp where we lodged, near the dam, 

 was occupied by about threescore of them. Not all of them were 

 in it every night, but all gathered there on a Sunday, when the 

 most of them had a spree, not much else but animal spirits in it, 

 but plenty of those, which their hard work seemed in no wise 

 to lessen. The camp consisted of a single great square structure 

 built of logs, perhaps sixty feet on a side ; around the margin 

 was a sleeping-bench some eight feet wide; within that tables 

 and in the centre a great altar-like fireplace, with a dependent 

 sheet-iron chimney with a great hood to catch the smoke. Here 

 the cook did his simple business of preparing meats in early 

 morning and at night. There were cabins for stores and great 

 stables for the oxen, which were to haul the logs to the lakes and 

 streams as soon as the snow came in plenty. Altogether it was 

 a rude life, but it strongly appealed to me, though then, as ever 

 since, it was painful to me to see the noble woods slain and fields 

 where they had grown made a bitter desolation by fire. 





