CHESUNCOOK. 
125 
poet, who loves them as his own shadow in the air, and 
lets them stand. I have been into the lumber-yard, and 
the carpenter’s shop, and the tannery, and the lampblack- 
factory, and the turpentine clearing; but when at length 
I saw the tops of the pines waving and reflecting the 
light at a distance high over all the rest of the forest, I 
realized that the former were not the highest use of the 
pine. It is not their bones or hide or tallow that I love 
most. It is the living spirit of the tree, not its spirit of 
turpentine, with which I sympathize, and which heals 
my cuts. It is as immortal as I am, and perchance will 
go to as high a heaven, there to tower above me still. 
Erelong, the hunters returned, not having seen a 
moose, but, in consequence of my suggestions, bringing 
a quarter of the dead one, which, with ourselves, made 
quite a load for the canoe. 
After breakfasting on moose-meat, we returned down 
Pine Stream on our way to Chesuncook Lake, which 
was about five miles distant. We could see the red car¬ 
cass of the moose lying in Pine Stream when nearly 
half a mile off. Just below the mouth of this stream 
were the most considerable rapids between the two 
lakes, called Pine-Stream Falls, where were large flat 
rocks washed smooth, and at this time you could easily 
wade across above them. Joe ran down alone while we 
walked over the portage, my companion collecting spruce 
gum for his friends at home, and I looking for flowers. 
Near the lake, which we were approaching with as much 
expectation as if it had been a university, — for it is not 
often that the stream of our life opens into such expan¬ 
sions,— were islands, and a low and meadowy shore 
with scattered trees, birches, white and yellow, slanted 
over the water, and maples, many of the white birches 
