FOREST LIFE. 117 



velocity of lightning half their length. Running from a falling 

 tree in the way above alluded to, I knew a man killed in an in- 

 stant. Another reason which should induce choppers or specta- 

 tors to avoid this manner of retreat is, that the broken limbs fre- 

 quently rebound, and are thrown back in a direction opposite that 

 in which the tree falls. It reminds one of a routed enemy hurl- 

 ing their missiles, as they retreat, back upon the pursuing foe. I 

 have sometimes seen the air in the region of the tree-tops liter- 

 ally darkened with the flying fragments, small and great, torn 

 from trees in the thundering passage of one of those massive col- 

 umns to the ground. Sometimes they come down like a shower 

 of arrows, as if from the departed spirits of aerial warriors. To 

 retreat safely, one should run in a direction so as to make nearly 

 a right angle with the falling tree. A man by the name of Hale, 

 a master chopper, cut a Pine which, in its passage down, struck 

 in the crutch of another tree and broke the trunk of the falling 

 one, the top of which pitched back and instantly killed him. 



If lumbermen do not love the return of the seventh day for its 

 moral purposes, they welcome it for the rest it brings, and the op- 

 portunity it aflbrds for various little matters of personal comfort 

 which demand attention. On visiting our winter-quarters, one 

 of the first things which might arrest attention, indicating a Sab- 

 bath in the logging-swamp, would be a long morning nap. Dis- 

 missing care, they court the gentle spell, until, wearied with the 

 lengthened night, they rise, not, as on other mornings, when their 

 hurrying feet brush the early frosts as they pass to their work, 

 while the lingering night casts back its wasting shadows upon 

 their path. On the Sabbath morning they recline upon their 

 boughy couches until the sun has traveled a long way upon his 

 daily circuit. 



Every one feels free to sleep, to lounge, or to do whatever he 

 may choose, with a moderate abatement in behalf of the team- 

 ster and cook, whose duties require some seasonable attention 



