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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