and the Maritime Provinces. 259 



" Sure ! I don't mind the walk back, but my shoulders are not fond 

 of a load." 



And so we spent the third night in camp. We again walked in the 

 woods, but there was not much life. I saw a pileated woodpecker, which 

 seemed to be too familiar with such bold hunters as we, and only dodged 

 around a tree as we came near. I wanted to kill it, and brought out the 

 pistol, but John said : " Let it live ; it ain't good to eat and it don't harm 

 us." So the pistol was put away and I received a lesson in sportsmanship 

 which I never forgot. Those words of John Atwood, spoken to a mur- 

 derously-inclined boy, over half a century ago, should be repeated with 

 emphasis by every man who gives his boy a gun, because a boy is a savage 

 and needs to be taught not to take life unless for food or to rid the earth 

 of what we call vermin. 



The stillness of the woods and the absence of life surprised me. I 

 had supposed that I was in a wilderness where deer roamed in bands and 

 other big game was plenty. To-day this seems absurd, for it is doubtful if 

 a deer or a bear had been seen in that peaceful farming community for 

 half a century ; but, as a boy, I thought it a wilderness. A few chickadees 

 and sapsuckers were all the life we saw. There were no more rabbits nor 

 ruffed grouse in the snares because we had destroyed the fences, and we 

 reached camp before sundown. 



It was such fun to cook supper, to fry fish, sausage, make tea and eat 

 on bark plates, which we threw into the fire afterward, that no farmhouse 

 supper could compare to it. We bossed each other in the usual manner of 

 older campers, and criticised each other's cooking. When we retired there 

 was a bed of coals, the heat of which was reflected on us, and if any 

 monsters came near our camp, we did not know it. 



When Christmas nights come, and I fill stockings instead of hanging 

 mine to be filled, the thought of that far-away Christmas comes up, when I 

 spent my first night in the woods, and never thought that the good old 

 Saint could protect me from monsters of the forest as easily as he could 

 reach my stocking down the chimney. 



On these nights, which seem to be coming with increasing frequency, 

 I often see a mangled form, blown out on the ice of the river by a boiler 

 explosion, and wonder if the coroner could be correct in certifying that 

 the mangled mass was all that was left of John Atwood. 



Christmas nears, and I think, with Longfellow: 



" The leaves of memory seem to make 

 A mournful rustle in the dark." 



