102 
FOREST AND STREAM 
July 26, 1913 
vestigations through her eye-glasses into what 
everyone was doing around the table. The 
silence was oppressive. Buck wondered what 
topic would interest her, when, as a preparatory 
note to the key in which he was going to pitch 
his conversation, he coughed. This startled her. 
She dropped her glasses, blushed, regarded him 
haughtily as though he had intended something 
rather risque by his cough. To prevent miscon¬ 
struction, Buck quickly dashed in in a low tone 
with, “Are you fond of the country?” She 
blushed deeply, entirely ignored his question and 
quit the table. Of course the boys across the 
table came to the very natural conclusion that 
Buck had, in a low tone, uttered something 
horribly rude which had mortally wounded her 
maidenly modesty, and they said as much. 
“I'll leave it to Livermore there if I said 
a thing to her but asked if she were fond of 
the country,” said Buck, trying to explain the 
situation. Livermore only held up his hand 
deprecatingly and said Buck couldn’t prove any¬ 
thing by him. 
“I see we are to have a dandy time the rest 
of our stay here with a woman who simpers 
and squinnies and is bent on misunderstanding 
everything,” said Buck as he arose and slammed 
his chair under the table. The other boys fol¬ 
lowed suit. Out in the hall they met Seth, and 
they fixed it up that he should serve some of 
Jobes’ famous elderberry wine in the parlor a 
little later in the evening. Probably from a 
knowledge of human nature and to save him¬ 
self trouble, Seth appeared at the appointed time 
with double the quantity ordered. The boys at 
once resolved themselves into a tasting com¬ 
mittee and commenced sipping. Miss Marvin 
sat over in a remote corner of the big room with 
her face buried in a book. When Buck liked 
anything particularly well, he was either “nuts 
on it” or it was “real jam” to him, and Jobes’ 
elderberry wine proved both. 
“It is certainly the sort o’ stuff a fellow 
could walk home on at night,” he said after 
emptying his second tumbler. 
“But suppose you were waylaid by a foot¬ 
pad ?” said Payne, winking at the others. 
This led to the subject of highwaymen, rob¬ 
bers, purse snatchers, and burglars generally. 
Miss Marvin slightly squirmed in her chair. The 
boys noticed it and winked at one another while 
Seth poured out a relay and passed it around to 
everybody, Mollie included. She declined to ac¬ 
cept by a shrug of her shoulders. At this 
moment Walker remarked that there was a fine 
moon and each man raised a window to look 
at it. There was a stiff breeze blowing, and 
after Mollie had shivered and sneezed several 
times, they closed the windows down. Buck 
casually mentioned that a nip of wine is a good 
preventive of cold and offered to ‘ mlake it thlee 
plarts water” if she would accept it. She shook 
her head gravely like a piece of wax-work 
wound up by machinery. The conversation was 
resumed on general topics when somebody 
brought up the subject of ghosts, the queer 
noises he had heard, and the probability there 
was of the hotel being haunted. This proved 
too much for Mollie. She left the room, slam¬ 
ming the door behind her. The boys scarcely 
had time to enjoy their laugh at her expense 
when Jobes entered the room looking somewhat 
distressed. He sat down in an old-fashioned 
chair near the mantelpiece and knocked the 
ashes, from his pipe into the fire-place by tap¬ 
ping the inverted bowl against his thumb nail. 
The boys stopped laughing. 
“Boys,” Jobes commenced slowly, his voice 
trembling,” mebbe you never can know the bit¬ 
terness of the thoughts that come into a man’s 
heart when he knows that he is cut off from 
every human thing and is all alone in the 
world. It is true the still lakes that lay way 
off here all alone, and the streams that steal 
along ’round among the rocks and hills, are like 
old neighbors to me. I know them all an' I 
love them and I often wonder why more .people 
don’t come out here in the woods an’ see what 
God made as he made it; why they don’t get 
into the deep forest among the tall trees, the 
streams, the lakes and hills, to hear how cheer¬ 
fully the birds sing and hear what nature says 
when she talks to herself—but that’s a different 
story from the one I want to talk about. I 
never visited a great city but once, some twelve 
years ago. I hed seen all the wonders of the 
woods, hed tusseled with panthers, taken it 
rough and tumble with bears, hed skinned the 
biggest buck, hed hunted moose on snowshoes 
in winter, and bin ’et up by mosquitoes and black 
flies in summer; so as I was sayin’ ’bout twelve 
years ago I thought I would take a trip to the 
city to get rid of my accumulation of hides an’ 
so forth. I sold them at a profit, and thought 
I would take a look about town ’fore startin’ 
home. I gaped around lookin’ in store windows, 
starin’ at funny signs and the queer dressed-up 
wimmen thet got in and out of carriages. The 
street boys finally got on to me, got around me, 
and ast where I was caught an’ so on. Finally 
one big tough laid his hand on the collar of 
my huntin’ coat. I pushed his hand off and told 
him if he would mind his business I would mind 
mine, an’ thet would make it all straight an’ right 
between us. But he persisted in doin’ it. Well, 
when I got through with him it is my opinion 
he saw stars. His nose swelled up like a great 
sausage, and his eyes had a long way to look 
before they could see outside of the great puff 
around them. When the judge at the police 
station asked what I had to say about it. I told 
him I was sorry I had hit him so hard, but I 
believed he deserved what he got. Then the 
iedge said I looked like an honest man and he 
didn’t doubt my story, but he couldn’t take my 
statement again’ the oath of witnesses. Away 
AND PERHAPS IT WOULD COME TO THIS. 
