CHESUNCOOK. 
121 
moonlight night, and I, getting sleepy as it grew late, — 
for I had nothing to do, — found it difficult to realize 
where I was. This stream was much more unfre¬ 
quented than the main one, lumbering operations being 
no longer carried on in this quarter. It was only three 
or four rods wide, but the firs and spruce through which 
it trickled seemed yet taller by contrast. Being in this 
dreamy state, which the moonlight enhanced, I did not 
clearly discern the shore, but seemed, most of the time, 
to be floating through ornamental grounds, — for I as¬ 
sociated the fir-tops with such scenes ; — very high up 
some Broadway, and beneath or between their tops, 
I thought I saw an endless succession of porticos and 
columns, cornices and fagades, verandas and churches, 
I did not merely fancy this, but in my drowsy state 
such was the illusion. I fairly lost myself in sleep 
several times, still dreaming of that architecture and 
the nobility that dwelt behind and might issue from it 5 
but all at once I would be aroused and brought back 
to a sense of my actual position by the sound of Joe’s 
birch horn in the midst of all this silence calling the 
moose, ugh , ugh , 00-00-00-00-00-00 , and I prepared to 
hear a furious moose come rushing and crashing through 
the forest, and see him burst out on to the little strip of 
meadow by our side. 
But, on more accounts than one, I had had enough 
of moose-hunting. I had not come to the woods for 
this purpose, nor had I foreseen it, though I had been 
willing to learn how the Indian manoeuvred; but one 
moose killed was as good, if not as bad, as a dozen. 
The afternoon’s tragedy, and my share in it, as it af¬ 
fected the innocence, destroyed the pleasure of my ad¬ 
venture. It is true, I came as near as is possible to 
6 
