52 A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 



in my life. And my eyes were wide open," he re* 

 peated ; " I felt of them twice ; but whether that was 

 the speret of that man's murdered wife or not I can- 

 not tell. They said she was an uncommon heavy 

 woman." Uncle Nathan was a man of unusually 

 quick aud acute senses, and he did not doubt their 

 evidence on this occasion any more than he did when 

 they prompted him to level his rifle at a bear or a 

 moose. 



i Moxie Lake lies much lower than Pleasant Pond^ 

 and its waters compared with those of the latter are 

 as copper compared with silver. It is very irregular 

 in shape ; now narrowing to the dimensions of a slow 

 moving grassy creek, then expanding into a broad 

 deep basin with rocky shores, and commanding the 

 noblest mountain scenery. It is rarely that the pond- 

 lily and the speckled trout are found together, — the 

 fish the soul of the purest spring water, the flower the 

 transfigured spirit of the dark mud and slime of slug- 

 gish summer streams and ponds ; yet in Moxie they 

 were both found in perfection. Our camp was amid 

 the birches, poplars, and white cedars near the head of 

 the lake, where the best fishing at this season was to 



1 be had, Moxie has a small oval head, rather shallow 5 

 but bumpy with rocks ; a long, deep neck, full of 

 springs, where the trout lie ; and a very broad chest, 

 with two islands tufted with pine-trees for breasts* 

 We swam in the head, we fished in the neck, or in t 

 small section of it, a space about the size of the 

 Adam's apple, and we paddled across and around the 

 broad expanse below. Our birch bark was not fin- 

 ished and christened till we reached Moxie. The ce- 

 dar lining was completed at Pleasant Pond, where we 

 had the use of a bateau, but the rosin was not applied 



