32 FARMING IT 



ally drying up in my profession, and being, as far 

 as real usefulness is concerned, " Like thin ghosts 

 or disembodied creatures." 



The one thing I needed to develop a real home- 

 like, woodsy, farmer-like feeling was to get into 

 the woods, and load wood, and smell the delicious 

 fragrance of the pines and the balsam of the 

 freshly cut trunks. 



That afternoon I borrowed a single-horse sled of 

 Daniel, equipped with a work-harness and chain- 

 traces, arranged with him for a load or two of 

 cord - wood piled in a distant wood - lot, and 

 started with a Hibernian friend for the lot, to 

 pluck and garner it for myself. Arrived at the lot, 

 I let down the bars and drove along a rough 

 lumber -road, through another pair of bars, down 

 a hemlock-shaded path, where the heavily laden 

 branches dipped and showered us with feathery 

 masses. Then across a small bridge spanning a 

 frozen, snow-covered brook, until I came to a 

 cleared lot dotted with piles of neatly corded 

 wood. 



In the distance we could see the smoke of a 

 shanty fire, and hear the songs of Canadian 

 wood-choppers, "Habitants of story," and the 

 ring and thud of their axes. "Jolly, happy fel- 

 lows," I thought, "true, care-free sons of the 

 woods, without sordid thoughts, without disturb- 

 ing and unhappy ambitions destined never to be 



