A FORES T CA THEDRAL 7 1 



so that even in a fairly heavy shower we had no washed roadways, 

 for the rain trickled between the small stones, leaving roads and 

 gutters practically uninjured. 



Our River. 



The river that bordered the farm and the brook that centred 

 it both had attractions. Damming, controlled by a suitable spill- 

 way, made possible both fishing and canoeing on a small scale, the 

 pond obtained being about six hundred feet long and one hundred 

 and fifty feet wide. From it we filled the ice house, built to include 

 a storage room with sawdust-packed walls for keeping fruits, vege- 

 tables and sides of meat. As I recollect, the cost of stocking it was 

 about $3.00 per ton, convenience being its largest asset. Shrubbery 

 and vines screened it from the sun. 



Where the river dashed through a deep ravine, we hung a gallery 

 from the cliffside, supported by iron pipes sealed with melted sulphur 

 poured into holes which our man-of-all-work drilled in the rock face 

 of the cliff, as shown in the summer and winter photographs. This 

 gallery was floored with two-inch fir planks laid with half-inch 

 spaces to retard too ready decay. 



Suspension Bridge. 



The rapid stream was spanned with a suspension bridge, the 

 supporting side chains of which were inset in the ledges, and for a 

 quarter of a mile along the rugged shore a footpath skirted 

 the foaming rapids. On the east side a high rocky cliff towered 

 almost perpendicularly for one hundred feet, its face broken by pro- 

 jecting crags and huge boulders, while at the foot grew tall evergreens. 



A Forest Cathedral. 



This picturesque path led into an amphitheatre or forest 

 cathedral of lofty hemlocks. A friend built a concrete ford edged 

 with cement stepping stones across this same river which for heavy 

 trucking was preferable, less expensive and more durable than a 

 bridge. 



Not far from our Ausable Jr. was the farm brook which gave an 

 eagerly improved opportunity for a trio of small duck ponds at 

 descending levels, where one of the boys rigged up a miniature water- 

 wheel. In one pond rose a wee bit of an island on which was a duck 

 house. These shallows provided safe recreation for the young folks the 

 year around. The gold fish with which we attempted to stock it 

 were foully murdered in a single night. The criminals? They may 

 have been that 1849 snapping turtle, our water fowl, or piratical 

 members of the finny tribe at all events, gold fish were never again 

 placed in pools fed by unweired running streams or left without care. 



