66 THE ADIRONDACK. 



began to ask another, why he was out there in the 

 dark, the answers were so honest and yet so droll, 

 that I went into convulsions. If you had heard 

 them comparing notes as I did, back of the shanty, 

 your sides would have ached for a fortnight. And 

 then the sheepish way they crawled back one after 

 another, looking in stupid amazement at me rolling 

 and screaming on the balsam boughs, would have 

 quite finished a soberer man than you. 



The tramp of twelve miles, next morning, was the 

 hardest, for the distance, I ever took. Stiff and lame, 

 with nothing to excite my imagination, I dragged 

 myself sullenly along, and at noon reached the Iron 

 Works. 



" Oh, but a weary wight was he, 

 When he reached the foot of the dogwood tree." 



