CHAPTER VII 



AN OLD LOG THAT WAS BEWITCHED 



It is said of the bumblebee that he hums but 

 never sings, and it may be said of the Ruffed 

 Grouse, with equal truth, that he drums but never 

 plays a tune; but his drumming, such as it is, in 

 connection with the booming of the Prairie 

 Chicken, constitutes an essential part of the great 

 spring orchestra. In the forest of my early years, 

 the wandering minstrel with a drum was every- 

 where and nowhere, silence quickly swallowing 

 sound and vacancy places that seemed alive. Not 

 only Wordsworth's Cuckoo is to be called u a wan- 

 dering voice," but the name applies equally well 

 to a vast number that we occasionally hear but 

 seldom or never see. In the north woods on my 

 father's farm, by a fence in a dense thicket was 

 an old log, a prostrate giant, whose bark had 

 crumbled into nothingness and whose heart was 

 a cavernous chamber of black emptiness. 



Though it may seem a far cry to suggest a 

 comparison between this venerable log and the 



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