FROM A BERKSHIRE CABIN 

 An Essay in War-time 



I AM in possession of a log cabin on a steep 

 Berkshire mountain-side, in the midst of tim- 

 ber which stretches west from the base of the 

 limestone cliffs below, up past my door, across a 

 small plateau, and then on up the precipitous 1,500- 

 foot shoulder above me, over that to the summit 

 dome four miles beyond, and down the other slope. 

 North and south it sweeps for fifteen miles along 

 the range. It is perhaps one of the most exten- 

 sive unbroken forest belts in the state, and cer- 

 tainly one of the wildest. Deer, foxes, 'coons, 

 rattlesnakes, wildcat, great horned owls, hermit- 

 thrushes, even now and then a moose, are my 

 neighbors; and the wild, unearthly scream of a fox 

 at night, or the deep, foghorn hoot of a distant owl, 

 answered from some ravine a half-mile away, are 

 sounds that mingle strangely with the snapping 

 purr of a motor rushing by on the state road beneath, 

 which marks the eastern boundary of the wilderness 

 tract. 



But nothing could be more peaceful, more quietly 

 lonely and lovely, than the spot where my cabin 

 stands, on this bright Sabbath morning in August. 

 The heat has passed with a shower yesterday. A 

 fresh world lifts crisply up toward a sky of infinite 



