198 AT THE NORTH OF BEARCAMP WATER. 
The sun set not long after four o’clock, and 
the sky borrowed from it fleeting rosy light. 
Then the yellow-white steam from the engine 
billowed past my window, and through it shone 
the blue-white snow, making the steam seem 
soiled. As I looked forward at fields which we 
were approaching, no snow was to be seen, yet 
as we passed them and I looked back upon the 
northern side of their inequalities they were 
wholly white. 
When the lamps were lighted in the car my 
eyes rested, fascinated, upon the gilded axe 
which always hangs above the car door. Sig¬ 
nificant emblem of our civilization, which cyni¬ 
cally takes unwarrantable risks with life, limb, 
and property, in order that man may increase 
his misery by perpetually hurrying! 
The gleam of Six Mile Pond told me that the 
train was in Madison. A moment later I was 
standing in the crisp night air knocking for 
supper at the tavern door. 
When we say “ It is two miles from Madison 
to Tamworth Iron Works,” we do not tell the 
whole truth. It would be better to add, “over 
the top of Deer Hill.” For years Madison has 
gone to Tamworth over Deer Hill, or else it 
has stayed at home and wished that Deer Hill 
was elsewhere. How long grim devotion to the 
one occupied farm on Deer Hill will force the 
