508 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
[Dec. 26, 1896. 
mer is too short and the scene must lap over. Tell me 
not of orange groves and flovurera, and vines with cling- 
ing clusters, Uut of the winter forest in its kaleidoscopic 
beauty, and of the lakes in their broad mantles of ice 
and snow. The singing of the wind around the tree tops 
or about the gables and the whirling flakes have more 
charm for my accustomed eight and ear than the cooing 
of the dove in midsummer bower. 
There is a wholesomeness and vitality about the Maine 
forests in winter which is not found elsewhere. The 
cold, the ice, the snow, the changing rough weather, 
invite to the robust recreations of skating, ice-boating, 
tobogganing and snowehoeing. They heighten the com- 
forts t f indoors. Restful sleep, appetite and digestion, 
and blazing birch wood fires solve the question "Is life 
worth living?" 
There are scarcely any Maine forests, however tangled 
they may appear, which do not possess pleasant and ac- 
cessible reaches of park-like valleys and hillsides, or 
rounded ridges of hardwood growth or pine, allowing 
comfortable traveling for the stalker. Possessed with the 
unerring compass and a tolerable familiarity with the re- 
gion marks, he advances upon the proposed line, which 
may include some miles of circuit. There must be an ob- 
ject in all efforts to give zest, whether we walk, drive, 
sail, bike or shoot; somewhere to go, something to realize. 
So with the deer stalker his primary object is to get deer, 
and it matters little in one sense if he succeeds or not, 
and the latter is generally the case. But if he is of an 
appreciative cast, the surroundings are inhabited with 
charming life and enjoyment. 
Most stalkers will concede that at no time of the year 
are their rambles more agreeable than when the ground 
is half carpeted with the yellow, brown and crimson 
leaves which advent the opening of the hunting season, 
The deer are now found more in the open growth, and 
with the cooler weather ravage about extensively. It is 
the approach of the mating season, and frequent are the 
saplings with scarred bark, caused by the whetting of 
antlers preparatory to rival encounters. Here and there 
are bare spots and scattered deadwood which have bfeen 
pawed in the impatient spirit of combat. 
The deer, timid as supposed, is possessed of an indomi- 
table and persistent courage in conflict with its own kind, 
and will fight to the extremity of weakness and even 
death before yielding. I have witnessed a number of 
scenes this season, when the trampled ground and broken 
shrubs indicated desperate encounters. One spot a few 
miles from the lake, and as lately observed as Dec. 11, in- 
dicated a meeting of particular ferocity. I had tracked a 
large buck through Sin. of snow. The buck had evidently 
foimd several others in conflict, and being a free lance, 
and at a free fight, had immediately engaged. The snow 
was completely crushed and tumbled over an area some- 
what larger than an ordinary circus ring, and it was de- 
cidedly apparent that a stag circus of unusual magnitude 
had occurred without the supervision of a ring master, or 
the encouraging plaudits of spectators. I counted five de- 
parting trails, and the performance had probably termi- 
nated several hours in advance of my arrival. Probably 
one by one the vanquished had departed, until the 
acknowledged champion held the field. Such seems to 
have been the case, as the trails were diverging. One 
champion exhibited the hasty and ludicrous method of his 
exit by leaping over a broken tree 6:t, in height, when 
a projecting fracture had creased his body the whole 
length in passing, leaving a bountiful handful of hair and 
fragmentary cuticle in evidence. This might be ac- 
counted a feeling instance of the P. P. C. order of etiquette 
with the cervus family. The trampled area was flecked 
with enough hirsute scrapings to fiil a good-sizBd pillow, 
with occasional spatterings of scarlet coloring. 
It is very rare that a buck, however large and savage, 
will charge a stalker without provocation, but occasionally 
in the mating season when wounded they will charge, I 
had an encounter of this kind in 1859 on my second visit 
to this region, from which I escaped with scarcely a 
scratch, killing a buck which dressed up SSOlbs. with a 
single heart thrust of my hunting knife. It was in 18in. 
of snow. In a thicket I came suddenly upon a large buck 
I had been tracking, which I slightly wounded with a 
hasty shot. In a flash he turned upon me. It was before 
the day of repeating rifles. I had barely time to drop my 
rifle and step aside and draw my hunting knife when I 
was borne down into the snow by the weight' of the de- 
scending buck, which I caught about the neck, and as he 
rose drove my knife to the hilt in his chest at the junction 
of the throat, severing bis windpipe and splitting his 
heart. Death was instantaneous. I had a difliculty in 
withdrawing myself quickly enough to escape the red 
torre-nt of lifeblood which gushed forth. 
With the fall of snow the deer stalker finds new delight. 
With the luxury of well stockinged and moccasined feet 
he goes forth to new realms of enchantment. The atmos- 
phere is of buoyant and stimulating energy. The arboreal 
and shrub life are invested with crystallizations of daz- 
zling purity, each one being a marvel bfyond the art of 
man. The consciousness of being alone in a wide expanse 
of forest, beyond habitations and the sound of human 
voice, is in itself for the nonce a sensation of relief. 
The reaches of pine groves, and of beech, and of maple 
all interspersed with birch, the loveliest tree of northern 
climes, are inspiring. They say: "Gome and explore me. 
We have waited long and you came not. Now you shall 
bear witness to our grandeur and solitude, and have con- 
templation. See in us the prototypes of your own race, 
how we rise and fall. We flourish in prosperity and topple 
in misfortune. We stand apart some, rugged and gnarled 
as some of your own kind, defying the wintry blast, but 
others are nurtured in protection. Same are comely and 
others scarred. See in us your own history to start forth 
and bear and die. Your sun of light is ours, and the sky to 
all, and the air you breathe is our life. Yonder broad 
stump is the monument of a patriarch of old. There were 
giants in those days, but none now, for they have been 
taken to rib your homes and d(ck your ocean messengers." 
At the hour of noon the stalker rests before a dead and 
broken pine which with match and birch paelings is soon 
in blaze. His simple luncheon becomes a precious bles- 
sing, and may be followed by the incense of fragrant pipe. 
What more shall be required to fill the day's cup of hap- 
piness than the comfort of the home fire at night and the 
panacea of nature's most enjoyable f atfgue? 
J. Parkek Whitney. 
The Forest and Stebam is put to press each week on Tuesdav. 
OorrMpondenoe intended for xmbliccition should reach ua at the 
latest $y Monday, and as tnuoA earlier as xyractioable. 
NAMING THE BOY. 
"Naow, Bub, he come here, an' le' me comb his hair," 
said Huldah Lovel, spating herself in a rocking chair and 
settling restfuDy against the high back, holding a comb in 
one hand and a brush in the other, wherewith she tapped 
lightly on the polished arms to further attract the atten- 
tion of her three-year-old son. He was so busily engaged 
in the construction of a corn-cob house that he only heard 
as in a dream his mother's call, till it was more imper- 
atively repeated, and his father, sitting astride a pod- 
auger on a wooden-bottomed chair, shelling seed corn 
into a washtub, tossed a cob lightly against the child's 
back and said with cheerful brevity: 
"Come, hyper, Bub." 
Then the little boy began to rise reluctantly, slowly get- 
ting his chubby legs under him, and while yet on all fours 
protesting: 
"Bub don't want him hair comb. Pull, it do," 
"Why, yes he does, Bub, tew, wanter hev his hair all 
slick," said Aunt Jerusha Peggs, removing her eyes from 
the stocking she was narrowing, and regarding him with 
smiling benignity over the rims of her spectacles, "It 
looks ju' like a maouse nes' made aouten corn silks, naow. 
He do' wanter hev the mice think it's their'n, I know he 
don't." 
"Course he don't, an' mother won't pull," Huldah as- 
sured him, adding "not no mor'n she c'n heipl My sakes! 
Bub," she exclaimed, as she drew him toward her and 
cast a despau'ing glance on his tangled flaxen poll. "It's 
jest a mess o' witch knots." The boy shut his eyes and set 
nis milk teeth with heroic resolution. 
"Bub, Bub, Bubl" Sam repeated with disgusted empha- 
sis as he detached another of the ears from the braid of 
their own husks and began crunching off the kernels on 
the auger. "By the gre't horn spoon! that boy'il grow 
up nothin' but Bub fust we know. He's got tu be named, 
that's sartin." 
"I know it," Huldah sighed, pulling at a snarled lock 
of finest fiax. "We've got tu, I know, but haow be we 
a-goin' tu? ' 
The pain of the present infliction, painful in spite of 
the careful, motherly hand, and the mysterious terrors 
of that which impended were too much for the child's 
fortitude to withstand, and he lifted up his voice in a 
protest that ascended to a piteous wail. 
"Me don't want be name. It hurt I." 
His mother laughed at his absurd fear, and his father, 
rasping a red seed ear savagely on the auger, wondered 
"Why in tunket he wa'n't named afore he knew it." 
Bat Aunt Jerusha cried out in her tenderest voice: 
"There! there! he sha'n't be named nothin' 'at '11 hurt 
him, dear heart. Why, don't he know 'at ev'rybody an' 
ev'rything hes tuhev a name? Why, there's the ol' haoun' 
dawg, his name's Drive; and the ol' rhuster, he's ol' Red; 
and' there's the hens, ol' Cropple-craown an' ol' High 
Head, an' Double-cackle, an' Rose-comb an' Goose Face; 
and there's the caows, 01' Calerco an' Young Oalerco, an' 
Spot ard Line Back, an' I d' know what all; and the 
oxen, Broad an' Bright. My land! he wants to hev a 
name as much as a dumb critter." 
The little boy stopped crying to listen, and in the in- 
terval of silence the familiar, imperative thump of Gran' 
ther Hill's staff resounded on the threshold, and as his 
thin "shadow partially darkened the open doorway his 
dry, cracked voice entered before him. 
"Lord a'mighty, Huldy Pur'nt'c ! be you a-skelpin' that 
'ere young un? If ye be, you'd better take the boocher 
knife an' du it decent, Injun fashion, 'stido' rakin' on't 
off wi' a ketchel." 
"No, not ezackly, Cap'n Hill. Come right in an' 
sed.daown," said Huldah cordially, as she hastily beat up 
the cushion of an easy chair for the visitor, 
"Yes, you be tew. You needn't tell me," turning his 
attention to Huldah and the boy after bestowing a "Hope 
I see ye well" on Aunt Jerusha and a nod on Sam. "I 
hearn the poppoose holler, an' I seen you at it, a-sawin' 
an' a-clawin', reg'lar squaw fashi'n. Come here. Bub, an' . 
le' me show yer marm haow." The child trudged over to 
the grim veteran, as if assured that no worse could befall 
him at his hands than he was now suffering. "Ju' look 
at that, will ye?" Gran'ther Hill chuckled. "Thet 'ere 
boy's got disarnment. Any o' aour folks would ha' told 
ye 'at they'd ruther be handled by In j ins than squaws. 
Take a holt o' a han'f '1 o' hair juUuck that, an' — quk — " 
he gathered the hair of the child's crown and using his 
forefinger as a knife he made the motion of scalping, ac- 
companying it with a sound made in his cheek. "Ohl I 
seen the divils du it, an' I seen jes' sech hair as this 'ere 
a-hangin' on poles over the' wigwams. Blast 'em!" 
"Oh," Huldah shuddered, "ain't it awful? No, Cap'n 
Hill, we was talkin' 'baout namin' of him, an' it scairt 
him" 
"Wal, it hain't no wonder, if you're a-goin' tu give him 
sech infamal names some folks hes, an' as many on 'em. 
By the Lord Harry 1 I'd as I'ives be shot an' skelped tew as tu 
hev some on 'em'fired at me, an' piled a-top on me. You 
le'me take him daown tu the brook, an' I'll babtize him 
wi' one good solid name 'at he needn't be 'shamed on — 
Seth er Remember er Peleg er Ethan mebby, arter 
Warner er Baker er Sunderlan' er Allen. I'd name him 
arter myself if it wa'n't for me an' Jozeff's boy bein' 
raound an' gittin' mixed up wi' him. Josier Lovel 'd 
saound almighty well." 
"So it would, Cap'n Hill," said Sam, "an' he might be 
praoud on 't. But I never hed no gre't idee o' givin' gre't 
folkses names tu cbild'n that like 's not '11 turn aout 
mighty small pertaters. I guess we'd better name him 
arter some o' aour own folks." 
"You needn't be afeard o' him. He's a mighty good 
un, consid'rin'. Don't ye name him Prosper, though, for 
the shif'lessest man I ever see was named Prosper; ner 
Nobie, nemo sech. But you'll make a mess on't any- 
way. Me an' Huldy '11 'tend tu namin' on him." 
Aunt Jerusha laid her Jrnitting in her lap and assisted 
meditation with slow sniffs at a pinch of snuff before she 
said, " Wal, I aliuss thought it was apooty good way tu 
git a name lu jest open the Bible an' pick the fust one 
you come! tu." : ■ ' , • 
"Good Lord!" cried Gran'ther Hill, "some on 'em 'ould 
kill a young 'uu o' his age. They must ha' b' en tough 
ol' critters tu ha' kerried sech names as some on em " 
"They was good folks," said Aunt Jerusha, resuming 
her kaittiug. 
"They was, hey? Haow du you know they was? Was 
you 'quainted wi' 'em? Wha'd you know 'baout 'em? 
You can't tell nothin' 'baout f jlks by what you hearn tell 
on 'em. You got tu live wi' 'em. They won't stan' it. 
Come, Huldy, what be. we a-goin' tu name the young 
'un? You do' want 'im strung on tu a name longer ;'n he 
is, du ye?" 
"I aJIera thought I Bh'd like tu give him the name o' 
some o' aour folks; but Sam's is the only one 'at I like, an' 
Sam he won't hev it that," Huldah answered, drawing the 
boy to her knee again and caressing his elf locks in ab- 
straction. 
"No, sir," said her husband; "one Sam in the fam'ly 's 
enough. Your Sams don't never 'maouht tu much any- 
way." 
"You don't never want tu say that afore anybody 'at fit 
tu Plattsburgh," cried Uncle Lisha, appearing at the inner 
door of the shop, wherein till now he had been an unseen 
listener; "aour ol' bear fightin' Vmont gin'al'a name was 
Samwei," 
"An' so was yev gran'sir'8,,Sam," Gran'ther Hill supple- 
mented, "an' he was consid'able of a man, I tell ye. He 
killed a painter oncte— plugged him right twixt the eyes 
as slick as ever ye see," 
"I should like to name him Timothy," said Sam; "it 
'ould please father wonderful," , . 
"Please yer Aunt Isaac!" said the veteran contemptu- 
ously, "Why don't ye name him H'ardsgrsss? It allers 
makes me think on 't. He hain't green. R^d Top 'ould 
come as nigh, for he's light complected." 
"His hair hain't one particle o' red in 't, Cap'n Hill," 
Huldah protested with earnestness as she fondly stroked 
the child's hair, and said in a softar tone, "I'd ruther hev 
him named Samwei 'an anything else," 
"It'll du better 'n Timerthy," Gran'ther Hill con- 
ceded. 
"It's a good name an' good men has bore it," Uncle 
Lisha cordially assented, and added, with an affectionate 
glance at Sam, "an' one does yet." 
"An' he'll be little Sam till he's taller 'n.I be, er it'll be 
young Sam an' ol' Sam," said Sam, impatiently tossing 
away a naked cob and breaking another ear from the 
braid. "La's call him Timothy an' be done with it." 
"Me do' want er be gran'pa," the child whimpered ; 
shrilly, 
"Shefc yer head," Gran'ther Hill . whistled hoarsely^ 
glowering upon the boy. "You hain't no more to say 
'baout it 'an if you was gittin' a spankin'. If you're a 
good boy an' keep yer head shet you won't be nob'dy's 
gran'pa for forty year," And having comforted the 
scared child with this assurance, he addressed the parents: 
"You might call him Tom, arter aour ol' Gov'ner Chit- 
tenden. He was a clear quill an' could see f urder wi'' his 
one eye 'an most could wi' tew. An' it's a chunky 
name." 
"If we was goin' aout o' the fam'ly I sh'd like Li.shpr 
best of any," and Huldah looked toward Aunt Jeiusha 
for support. 
The old woman gave a little gasp of surprise and pleas- 
ure and smiled serenely upon both mother and child, but 
before she c<mld speak her approval Uncle Lisha shouted, 
"Good airth an' seas! don'c ye du it. It's hopesin he'll 
make a better man 'an his ol' Uncle Lisher." 
"If he makes half as good a one, I shall be glad," said 
Sara heartily. 
"Lishei's good 'nough," said Gran'ther Hill. "Good 
Lord, any thing's better'n these new-fangled DonCairloses 
an' Pederos an' Ju Anns an' the divil knows what all. I 
callate they name the cbildern arter their Merryner 
rams. When I was raised they—" he stopped short and 
turned with nervous haste from the window through 
which he was gazing rsfleclively over the greening May 
landscape. "Good land! le's name him quick an' not 
tortur' him no longer! H'^re's a silver dollar o' my last 
pension money, an' we'll toss it up for a name. What 'il 
ye say? Quick. Thunder an' guns, why don't ye speak?" 
"I do' know but it's as good 's any way," Sam said after 
a minute's hesitation; "go ahead, if Huldy 's willin'," 
"Why, yes, if it'll only be Samwei," said she, laughing 
nervously. 
"All right," cried the old man, "heads, it's Tun; tails, 
it's Sam. Here, Lisher, you tos't, and tos't fair." 
"It's tew bad a-chancin' of the precious creatur's name 
that way," Aunt Jerusha protested. 
' 'Go 'long wi' your nonsense, J erushy Peggs. 'Tain't no 
more chance 'an your way." 
"But the hand o' the Lord 'ould be in that," she declared. 
"Let her fly," the veteran commanded, and Unce Lisha, 
poising the coin ,on his thumb, flipped it to the ceiling. 
As it fell all gathered eagerly around it. 
"It's heads," Sam shouted triumphantly. 
"Stan' back," Gran'ther Hill commanded, "nob'dy picks 
it up only you, Lisher." 
Uncle Lisha adjusted hia spectacles, and got down on 
all fours to inspect the piece. "Wal, it is heads," he de; 
"An"' his name is Timerthy," continued Gran'ther Hill. 
"Ary one was good 'nough, an' I don't care, so long's he's 
got one on 'em sure." 
"Oh dear, it's too bad," Huldah groaned, "I did j want 
to hev his name Samwei so." 
"Wal, if you feel so bad 'baout it, you c'n call him Sam 
an' I c'n call him Tim, Timothy Samwei. Haow'll that 
du?" Sam cried, , . , „ . ^ ^ , 
"Yes, yes, all right, on'y settle on 't quick," cried Gran'- 
ther Hill excitedly. ' 'Will ye hev it that way, say, quick?" 
"We c'n both call him Bub just the same, only that 
won't be his name," Sam urged, and Huldah consented. 
"There, by the Lord Harry he's named," the old ranger 
shouted exultantly, and shook his staff at the window, 
"an' the' can't nob'dy help it naow! His gran'marm 's 
a-comin, an' if she 'd got here time 'nough, jest as like 
not she'd ha' named him Eunice in spite on us." 
Mrs. Purington's heavy step and labored breathmg 
were now heard at the back door, where she presently 
entered and stood a moment curiously surveying the now 
silent group. 
"Wal," she asked with cheerful seventy, "be you a-hev- 
in' a Quaker meetin'? If I'd ha' knowed I was eomin' tu 
one, I'd ha' fetched Joel Bartlatt an' Jemimy along." 
"Why, no, mother, not ezackly," Huldah answered, 
rising and offering her chair to the visitor^ while the; 
brush and comb spilled from her lap with a loud clatter. 
Then when no one else would speak, she continued witfe, 
some hesitatfon: "We be'n a-namin' Bub." . 
Mrs. Purington strove to arrest her descent into the 
chair, but knees and elbows slowly _ gave way and she 
sank into it with a gasping sigh. Then, drawing in ma- 
terial for another sigh, she regarded her (J^ughter with 
open-eyed, gaping incredulity. 
