64 
and when I visited him and dressed his stump during the 
next week he said that he hadn't suffered even a twinge. 
"The case interested me. mightily, and if it had not 
been for professional engagements that took me back 
to the city, I would have waited to see and talk with that 
mysterious man of the woods." 
Since J have talked with The Doctor, I have made 
fiOOie inquiries among men who own choppings in 
northern Maine, and especially in the Chesuncook region, 
and they say that their crews report the appearance of a 
stranger on several occasions during the last two years — 
a man answering the description of the charming man 
who visited Matthews' camp. In most lumber camps are 
men suffering from minor ailments such as felons, rheum- 
atism and small cuts. The charming man, apparently 
by hypnotic suggestion, removes the pain and even 
soothes a . jumping tooth. 
Forty years ago, according to Penobscot lumbermen 
of the old days, a charming man made an immense repu- 
fation in the Maine lumber camps. He was not the 
individual who is traveling through the woods of Maine 
al this time, He was broad and squat, and wore a suit 
of greasy leather. A close leather cap, which he never 
removed in the sight of man, covered his head, all but 
eyes, mouth and nose. 
Other charming men have appeared at camps and have 
agreed to cure any or all .for the season. These con- 
tractors asserted that they could cure without being 
present in person. They would secure all the names of 
the crew, leave little sticks of some substance Jhat they 
called "medicine wood," and direct that this was to be 
burned by the patient in case of illness or accident. 
The patient was to say some words privately communi- 
cated by the charming man and which he must not 
repeat to any one else on penalty of annulling the charm. 
When the medicine was burned and the charm muttered, 
the charming man was supposed to hear wherever he 
might be at the time, and the agreement was that he 
should at once commence to treat the patient in his 
mind. The reader may be inclined to construe that lat- 
ter statement as double entendre. Perhaps! 
But there are hundreds of apparently well attested 
cases of healing — mental healing, if you will — that have 
been reported from the Maine woods in the wake of the 
charming men. In the old days of lumbering it was a 
charming man for a doctor or grunt and bear it. 
Some refused both methods. It is related of Col. 
John .Goddard, Maine's most famous lumberman of the' 
old days, that he was tremendously bothered by a corn 
on his little toe on one occasion when he was away up 
at his camps on the West Branch. It pained him o' 
nights so that he couldn't sleep. After he had tossed 
and cursed for two nights he arose in his wrath and his 
underclothes, and taking a chisel and hammer he chopped 
off the rantankerous toe and cauterized the bleeding 
stump, .with the poker.. In this connection the heroic 
to oth-pulling exploits of Uncle Silas Hawkes, of the 
Brassua region, occur to me — but that narration doesn't 
belong in the present preachment. 
• Holman F. Day. 
AUBOK^v.Me. 
A Walk Down South.— XHI. 
Supper at Mrs. Ryman's was delicious; rib beef was 
served. It had been first boiled and then fried or 
"baked"' in a spider till it was brown. A beef that had 
ranged On the hillsides eating ear corn and blue grass — 
to think of it is to get up an appetite. Burrh loaf bread, 
warm and delicious, apple butter, apple sauce, and berry 
preserves. The coffee was home made, rye baked to 
a crisp, 'I think, and there was a gallon pitcher full of 
sweet milk. Moreover, a gray squirrel was served fried 
and brown. , , 
After we had eaten a fire was stirred up in the sitting- 
room fireplace, and all sat in a semi-circle before the fly- 
ing blaze, with our feet resting on the edge of the stone 
hearth. Some covert questions were asked of me — in- 
sinuations that if I would just as soon they would like 
to know something about me and my ''country." I told 
them about the Adirondacks, as much as I could, dwell- 
ing oft the 1 rough side of its life lest I be suspected of 
aristocratic tendencies. It pleased us all to exchange 
general views. Wbile we were talking, one of the two 
youths — 17' or 18 year old boys — began to whittle a bit 
of chip with his jack-knife. He made a paddle about 
three inches long and a quarter of an inch wide at the 
spoon' end. Then, with a side glance to see if I was 
looking, he elevated his eyebrows at a neighbor woman 
who had dropped in and made a scooping motion with 
his paddle. The woman looked at my face and then 
handed a small tin box, round and about the size and 
shape of an eighth-pound baking powder box would be to 
him. While the boy scooped all eyes were turned on 
me, but I merely watched the fire flicker. Two scoops 
full were transferred from the box to the left side of the 
boy's mouth, far back; then the scoop was thrown into 
the fire, and the box returned. 
"I don't expect you alls use tobacco?" Mrs. Rynian 
I said I hadn't used any since I started on the trip, 
which :was' true. 
"Did, you ever see snuff taken up in your country?" 
"Whj'v. certainly," I replied, as surprised as possible. 
If I had told the truth it would have been hard to become 
friendly with them. Soon after eight o'clock I was shown 
to my bed. The tick was full of sweet, dry corn leaves, 
which rustled every time one stirred. It was a clean,' 
comfortable bed. When I stirred out a little before eight 
o'clock in the morning, the effects of the long walk on 
Saturday were gone. Breakfast was similar to supper, 
sausage being served instead of beef. The bread was 
steamed and served blistering hot during the meal at 
interval?. ' ' 
One youth went down the road, the other was quiet 
with a bilious attack. About ten o'clock some neighbors 
came in — all women. One was blind. They sat around 
the organ in the sitting-room and while Mrs. Ryman's 
daughter played all sang hymns. It was too far for them 
to walk to church, they said. In an hour or more the 
visitors departed and dinner was called. The molasses 
on the table they said was made from sugar cane raised 
on the place; the wheat and corn flour, the mashed pota- 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
toes, the beef, and the rye in the coffee pot were home 
raised. When one lives fifty miles from the railroad, 
much must be supplied from the home ground. The mil- 
ler takes a "toll" of one-fifth of all the wheat he grinds. 
In the field beyond the fenced-off yard were many 
turkeys — forty or fifty. Four or five of them had small 
"cow" bells on their necks. These usually keep the 
hunters from killing tame birds when seeking wild ones, 
and also help when lost birds are being sought upon the 
mountains. 
The South Branch Review, published at Franklin, Pen- 
dleton county, W. Va., contained an interesting hunting 
note to the effect that Dick Hussey and James Jarvin 
were hunting on the west side of the Shenandoah Moun- 
tains when they discovered a bear. The beast ran down 
the mountain side between the men, who both fired at it. 
A buckshot from Jarvin's gun hit Hussey in the left 
thigh. The bear was killed. 
That night I went to church, nearly three miles away. 
The service consisted of readings, prayers and songs. 
Upward of eighty persons were present, many of whom 
came on horseback. The striking feature of the service 
was the manner of taking up the collection. The Rever- 
end Sharpe first told a funny story, and then sent two of 
the many pretty girls present around with the boxes. 
Two-thirds of the congregation were young men, and the 
way they went down into their pockets was an example. 
My companion, after we started for home, remarked 
that the service was very quiet. He said that sometimes 
there was trouble there. 
"Did you notice that man who sat just behind you?" 
he asked. "He's been in jail lots of times — twenty-five 
or thirty, I expect — and paid lots of fines. He gets 
drunk and comes tearing 'round and cussin' during 
meetin', and the pahson just has to throw him out doohs 
sometimes." 
"Where do they get their stuff to drink?" I asked. 
"Why, some just gets pep'mint and cinnamon, or gin- 
geh. But many puts theh money in a stump down 
the road and gets it theh. Theh's six men oveh in Smoky 
Hole now what makes it. They make it out of mos' 
anything down theh, out of wheat and rye and corn and 
apples, when they has it, but they use potatoes and cab- 
bages and tomatoes, too. But I don't think cabbage 
whiskey could make a man drunk. It just makes him 
crazy. Two years ago they had a fight oveh theh and 
one man killed anothah with a rock; jist mashed his 
head right in with it. I heahd say as he was drinking 
they're own whiskey thataway, and I s'pose he was jest 
crazy and not drunk." 
After breakfast Monday morning, I went out squirrel 
hunting with Bill Ryman. He carried a muzzleloading, 
bored out Springfield musket. He loaded it with a .38-40 
shell full of powder, rammed newspaper down on it, then 
poured in a shell full of shot. With the cap on and 
priming jarred in, he was ready. At the foot of the hill 
behind (west of) the house was a patch of woods two 
hundred yards along the ridge and a hundred wide from 
the foot of the incline. In this strip we saw six squirrels 
in half an hour, and two more in the next hour and a half. 
One of the 'squirrels jumped up on the side of. a tree 
twenty feet away. I missed it clean. Bill shot another 
that came to the same place a second later. 
It was my first experience hunting gray squirrels where 
they were plenty. The way they disappeared in a tree top 
barren of leaves and smooth bark was a marvel to me. 
I got a shot at only one after we treed it. This one was 
forty feet up and seventy-five or eighty from me. Bill 
walked around the tree and I sat still. I saw a curious 
little nub developing on the side of the tree, and after a 
bit saw that it was the squirrel keeping the tree trunk 
between it and the man. I fired, but missed, and the 
squirrel came out to the end of a hollow limb and crawled 
back into the hole. 
At 11 o'clock we heard the dinner bell — it was swung in 
a cupola, and rang with a rope, that took us to the house. 
After dinner I put my pack into the mail carrier's buck- 
board and started for Franklin, ten miles away. 
The road was a beautiful side hill and side stream one. 
The green river water, the white-capped mountains, with 
the snow line high up on the south side and low down on 
the north side, the gnarled trees and the scattered build- 
ings, still novel in design to me, rendered the walk a 
pleasing one. A mill with the cobblestone dam and race- 
way grown with thirty-inch willow trees showed that the 
mill had stood there a long while. A couple of miles 
from Franklin the road left the river, where it c?me out of 
a rock gorge of wild aspect, and climbed over the ridge. 
Near the top of the ridge the snow line was below the 
road, but that was soon crossed again, and, after seeing 
a rabbit scurry across a cornfield, I came down into 
Franklin. 
Franklin is in a valley. It can grow two ways only — up 
and down stream. The valley sides are too steep for 
buildings; a long, narrow village, it does not suggest, a 
county seat, save in the court house and the big, modern 
store. 
After a bountiful supper I went to the cobbler's and had 
a pair of soles put on my shoes. The ones I had put on at 
Troy, Pa., having worn so thin that I could feel the 
stones and ruts at every step— and grew lame conse- 
quently. The shoemaker at Troy told me that brass tacks 
were the best to put in my shoes. They did not rot the 
leather so much, he said. The cobbler at Franklin agreed 
to this, but he said he had no brass ones; that it was 
not the aim of shoemakers to make their shoes and boots 
last a long while these days. He said my shoes were 
good ones. I remembered that I first thought of starting 
off with a thin pair of old shoes on. Had I done so it 
would have been the worst possible mistake to make. 
Somebody was in the street, shooting a gun that night, 
but he was merely burning powder. 
In the morning I sent my pack on by a livery man who 
was going out ten or twelve miles. It would have been 
better to send it by the regular mail carrier, however, but 
I expected to get an early start. Soon it began to rain, 
and until noon it poured a dense mist. Gathering cour- 
age from a slight hold up, I starter on after dinner. 
Five miles out of town I was overtaken by a boy on 
horseback. While we were talking guns he suddenly ex- 
claimed : "There's a flock of wild turkeys." 
I gazed ahead to a corn patch about forty rods away, 
and there were eight turkeys scudding along dose to the 
muddy ground, making fast time toward the river — the 
first live ones I ever saw. The boy took the rifle and ran 
[Jan. s& igti'J, 
down to the river, but could not see the birds. We could 
hear them calling one another for some time. 
He rode by after a while, and I plodded on, the rain 
coming down fast. Just at this time the mail carrier 
overtook me and I got in with him. A couple of miles 
further on we took on the pack and then I rode twelve 
miles further. He was going to Crab Bottom, two miles 
off my road, so I left him at the Forks of the Waters. 
We crossed the State line between West Virginia and 
Virginia in a rain squall. 
Just before we got into Virginia we overtook a man 
with a bag slung under his left arm. It was full and 
heavy, with wild turkey feathers sticking out of the holes. 
The man could get only seven or eight cents per pound 
for wild turkeys in West Virginia, on account of the 
non-export law. At Monterey, over in Virginia, twelve 
cents per pound was the price, so he was going to Mon- 
terey in spite of the law, for the price. 
I was told that hunters in Pocahontas county, W. Va., 
carry their deer saddles over to Virginia to sell them. 
The meat is put into a wagon at night and started over 
the mountains in the dark. At daybreak the wagons are 
in Virginia, and there is no one to say "nay" to the ex- 
porters. 
At the corner house where I left the mail carrier the 
wife was sick; at the next house, half a mile further on, 
they were "full up with company," but a mile further was 
A. Puffenbarger, who lived across Strait Creek, and would 
surely have room for me. I went down the side road in 
the. gloom and found the plank foot bridge. With my 
pack on and the board springing, the crossing seemed 
hard to make, but I went over. The welcome I received 
was worth going over several torrents to get. 
My host knew much about the region's history. He 
had been to Sibert's Fort, where the Indians, led by a 
white man, had massacred nineteen of thirty white, prison- 
ers who had surrendered to them without a blow. Of 
the game he said it was growing rapidly scarce. Even 
squirrels were not so plenty as they were once. 
For breakfast we had buckwheat pancakes that made 
me think of home. 
During the night the weather changed. The rain 
froze and the road became as hard as pavement. Mon- 
terey was only seven miles away. I walked a couple of 
miles and in the fresh snow I saw a rabbit track across 
the road in a hillside patch of woods. While I was 
hunting for the rabbit a man drove up with a sledge 
loaded with turkeys and chickens. He put my pack in the 
front end of the box and we walked in to Monterey at 
noon. Monterey is on the dividing line between the 
Potomac and James River systems. The water from one 
side of the main street seems to flow north, from the 
other south. I was told that it did. 
It was a bitter cold day. I went no further because my 
feet were in bad shape.' Beside, I had some letters to 
write. On the following morning frost ferns decorated 
the windows. It was only 10 degrees above zero, but it 
was clear and bright, with but little wind. I would have 
started early if it had not been that they were killing 
hogs there that morning. I watched the scalding kettles 
come to a boil, saw the scalding barrel set in place at a 
slant on a saw buck, saw the powder poured into the 
long-barreled Kentucky rifle, and the bullet rammed 
home. Then one of the stickers leveled the weapon at a 
black yearling pig's head, while the animal pressed against 
the pen sides with its nose, grunting for something to eat. 
Three times the weapon missed fire, and then the pig 
was hit by a bullet in the center of the forehead, stuck 
and dragged from the presence of its cowering, squealing 
mate. 
I waited to see no more, but got into my harness and 
started down the road that leads to Jackson's River. 
Raymond S. Spears, 
A Lodging for the Night. 
Mr. Spears' admirable sketch of his varied experiences 
in securing a place to stay all night, brings to mind an 
experience a friend and myself had some twenty years 
ago. After driving some twelve miles over two ranges 
of hills, we had arrived at dusk of a June evening at our 
friend "Barnes' place," where we were wont to be hos- 
pitably received and cared for by the owner. In response 
to our hearty call from the wagon, a closer interview be- 
ing prevented by a big unfriendly dog, we learned that 
sickness was within, and it would be impossible to, put 
us up for the night. Mr. Barnes, although deeply de- 
pressed by the sickness of his loved ones, was cordial and 
solicitous for our comfort, and directed us to the next 
house down the road. Drawing lots, the choice fell on 
me as the one to ask for lodging. Putting on as good a 
front as old clothes and wading shoes would permit, I 
tackled the front door of a not too neat farmhouse, full 
of confidence that my evident gentlemanly self would 
shine through my dirty and old clothes, and secure the 
coveted supper of saleratus. biscuits, green, yellow and 
heavy, also the feather bed of the "spare bedroom." 
In response to my knock the door was opened about 
eight inches and the crack filled by the face of a sharp- 
voiced, sharp-eyed woman. I began, hat in hand, to relate 
who we were, that we wanted to stay all night, and that 
our business was to fish in the trout stream , near, by; 
also to soften the growing harder lines, of the face in the 
crack of the door, I told of our acquaintance with neigh- 
bor Barnes and his sending us here; but, alas! she saw 
only my old clothes and holy shoes, or, .perhaps, it was 
chum in the wagon, for she snapped out with a vicious- 
ness that told of many a hard word around the. kitchen 
stove, "No, you can't stay here," and slammed the door 
to like a steel trap and locked it in the bargain, which 
was the worst of all. . 
We felt depressed to say the least, but hunger will 
press a man to deeds of valor, and the next house was 
soon a target for my blandishments. Again I rapped on. 
the door. This time it was opened by a fresh, cheerful- 
looking woman in a neat, clean dress and blue apron. 
Oh ! visions of a good supper, with nice bread and milk, 
with local gossip and crop talk thrown in, a clean bed in 
the "front room," the patchwork quilt, with now 1 and 
then a hen's feather in the pillow, the chromes of impos- 
sible waterfalls and landscapes, the ill-proportioned cows 
in the foreground, and the photos of dead and living 
members of the family on the wall, and as a great luxury, 
a case of wax flowers or fruit on the stand. All these 
and many more details passed through my mind in the 
