Winter Woodsmen Around Boston 



and sounds and odors and feelings that 

 moved his ancestors in primitive and ad 

 venturous days. The man of the fields and 

 the barns and the fireside is now a man 

 of the woods once more, Indian-like in 

 thought and action and habit. His step 

 seems lighter and more stealthy, in the twi 

 light of the trees, and his eye glances about 

 him, more alert, suspicious, and penetrat 

 ing. The ax in his hand is the only type 

 of surviving civilization, and even that he 

 handles as if it were gun or bow, shift 

 ing it from shoulder to hand and from hand 

 to shoulder, as he walks, and often pausing 

 to lean upon it, while at work, and listen 

 like a hunter expecting his game. I have 

 frequently come upon the wood-chopper in 

 my winter walks, and, unobserved, seen 

 him stooping to taste the partridge berry, 

 or drag the trailing ground-pine, like a 

 frost-bound rope, from under the snow. I 

 have seen him stand motionless as a pine 

 trunk, sniffing the air, and seeming to catch 

 from afar some hint of the primitive life 

 from which civilization has not yet com 

 pletely weaned him. Again, I have seen 

 him bending over the prints of the hare's 

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