And the Wilderness Blossomed 



CHAPTER I 



IN THE BEGINNING 

 " This is the house that Jack built." 



" TT DON'T see why you talk so much about 

 I building a camp at Winnebago," said 

 Hortense, looking up seriously from her 

 needlework, in reply to some observation of 

 mine on the joys of a lodge in the wilderness. 

 " You know I could not take the children in 

 there ; the flies and the mosquitoes would simply 

 eat them up alive. Now, if you would buy that 

 island we see on passing Insley Lake and build a 

 comfortable house on it, I 'd take the children 

 there and stay all summer." 



" You would ! " I exclaimed, and rising from 

 my chair went at once to my desk, and sitting 

 down wrote to my friend Leaf, who had been 

 going fishing in the Insley region for no end of 

 years and knew everybody and everything there. 

 I asked him if he knew anything about this 



