50 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



By night star-veiling, and by day 

 Darkening the light and blotting out the sun ; 

 Go thou my incense upward from this hearth, 

 And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame." 



Elsewhere, in his journals, he writes more lengthily 

 of the ideal suggestiveness of smoke, as it is seen at a 

 distance about a cottage or farmhouse. Cooper, too, 

 I remember, in his novels, frequently speaks of the 

 human significance and associations of smoke when it 

 is observed through the forest. Why? Because it 

 rises from the camp-fire or the hearthstone. 



And then what does n't the wood fire suggest of 

 the days spent in cutting the wood beneath the autumn 

 leaves, with cant hook, and saw and ax, and maul and 

 wedges ! Occasionally we get a reminder of those days 

 by a few ants seen crawling out from beneath the bark 

 of a backlog to perish, poor things, in the fire; and 

 we recollect the times when we have discovered bees 

 and wasps in the trees that we brought low. We re- 

 member the crash of the tree as it fell; and how, when 

 split open, it disclosed an army of grubs and borers: 

 finally to repose, piled in tiers, in the woodshed, sea- 

 soned and ripe for the dogs. Ah, I am cutting it again 

 among the trees, and hauling it in to the woodshed 

 in sled and wagon loads in winter. Often, in loading 

 a lot of firewood which had been ranked up against a 

 stump or a sapling, I have found a rabbit concealed in 

 under the wood; and lizards have darted away, when 

 those sticks closest to the ground were removed; and 

 little wood mice would scatter in all directions at the 

 stack's dismemberment. But men are of more value, 

 after all, than many mice, and these "small deer" can 



