THE MAINE WOODS. 
hat-trees, together with deers’ horns, in front entries ; 
but, after the experience which I shall relate, I trust 
that I shall have a better excuse for killing a moose 
than that I may hang my hat on his horns. We reached 
Monson, fifty miles from Bangor, and thirteen from the 
lake, after dark. 
At four o’clock the next morning, in the dark, and 
still in the rain, we pursued our journey. Close to the 
academy in this town they have erected a sort of gal¬ 
lows for the pupils to practice on. I thought that they 
might as well hang at once all who need to go through 
such exercises in so new a country, where there is noth¬ 
ing to hinder their living an out-door life. Better omit 
Blair, and take the air. The country about the south 
end of the lake is quite mountainous, and the road began 
to feel the effects of it. There is one^ hill which, it is 
calculated, it takes twenty-five minutes to ascend. In 
many places the road was in that condition called re¬ 
paired, having just been whittled into the required semi- 
cylindrical form with the shovel and scraper, with all 
the softest inequalities in the middle, like a hog’s back 
with the bristles up, and Jehu was expected to keep 
astride of the spine. As you looked off each side of the 
bare sphere into the horizon, the ditches were awful to 
behold, — a vast hollowness, like that between Saturn 
and his ring. At a tavern hereabouts the hostler 
greeted our horse as an old acquaintance, though he did 
not remember the driver. He said that he had taken 
care of that little mare for a short time, a year or two 
before, at the Mount Kineo House, and thought she was 
not in as good condition as then. Every man to his 
trade. I am not acquainted with a single horse in the 
world, not even the one that kicked me. 
