NOTES OF THE HUNT. 



63 



♦♦ If our wives could look in on us now," said Tinker, 

 as we were making up our beds one night. '• They'd 

 probably say that Wilbur, who is boss bed-maker, 

 ought to be made a woman by Act of Congress." Such 

 was Willie's prediction. 



" Is that all true, Papa, that you have been reading?" 

 queried one of the Historian's little people, after hear- 

 ing the narrative of the ladies' visit to our camp, read 

 to the household. •' Odd's life ! " must one swear to the 

 truth of a song? thought Hedley, recalling Matt Prior. 



Now conies the time when this happy party must 

 be homeward bent. The holiday is about over, but it 

 has been one whose pleasure was not hollow and the 

 benefit of which was not transient. Each goes back to 

 his work, sunburned, toned-up, rejuvenated. By and 

 bye, when the winter begins to seem long and the 

 counting-house irksome ; while the stress of continued 

 work with no play tells upon dizzy brain or wearied 

 eyes, thoughts will begin to revert to the woods from 

 desk or factory or sanctum, and each will apply the 

 the lines in which Whittier describes himself: 



" And while he wrought with strenuous will, 



The work his hands had found to do, 

 He heard the fitful music still, 



Of winds that out of dreamland blew ; 

 The din about him could not drown, * , 



What the strange voices whispered down. 



Shortly after one oclock, every one left Camp 

 Chandler, and reached Mrs. Gouldie's about three. 

 Townsend having attended to everything of a business 

 nature, the party went on board the Excelsior at four, 

 having with them two of the guides, Tom Salmon and 

 Alvin Phillips. On the way down, via Haystack Bay, 

 to call on Mrs. Salmon, the giddy young people of the 



