Lake Umbagog
1907
August 9
(No 2)
the pride of Clark Littlehole who owned and drove them.
Those were indeed stirring and happy days, when one might
meet at the Lake House all manner of interesting and even
distinguished men most of whom, however, tarried but for
a single night before pressing eagerly on into the more remote
and supposedly attractive wilderness of woods and waters just
to the northward or returning, not without evident and very natural
reluctance, to their professional cares and duties in cities far to
the southward. Especially memorable and, I trust, also not
unprofitable, were the evenings spent in the little office, a room
only about fifteen feet square, at the south east corner of the house.
It had on one side a Franklin Stove with andirons (now in my
possession); on the other a small hand-made writing desk and
a wooden wash-stand equipped with bowl, pitcher, towels and plain
brown soap. These were in frequent and very general use for there were then
no germ theories in circulation to disturb the minds of tired
travelers. The sink, the desk, the door and window casings, and
a chair rail running around the room, with the wide floor boards,
deeply indented by the "corks" of the river drivers, who thronged it
in spring when the logs were passing, were all of clear white pine,
then a cheap and abundant wood. All the woodwork, except
that in the floor - which was painted gray - was "grained" and
of a generally brownish yellow color. The plastered walls of the
room were dingy white and wholly unadorned save for a
brief time in early autumn when they usually bore one or more
posters advertising country fairs about to be held in Bethel or Norway
and illustrated by gaudily-colored pictures of rearing stallions
and impossibly straight backed oxen.
  If the room was often somewhat too thick with tobacco
smoke and perhaps also overheated by the Franklin Stove,
no one minded these trifling discomforts for it was at just
Lake House