HffT\ i it i 
delightful to get hold of the accumulation of 
days of mail! And news from home! After 
dinner we would walk through the one street 
of the town and visit the shops to buy groceries 
and candy, and all was as delightful as it would 
be to a child. I suppose that village is now 
lighted by electricity, but in those days people 
carried lanterns through the streets. 
On our arrival at the park, we did not go all 
the way to the gates, but left the horses and 
driver at an old corduroy road, a relic of 
early lumbering, over which we walked until 
we came out at a clearing where there was a 
beautiful little lake and a big dilapidated house 
or shanty that had been used years before by 
the men on the lumber jobs. At the lake we 
took a rowboat, one of the sort used in the 
Adirondacks, with the oars fastened to the 
boat, and arranged so the hands crossed in 
rowing. It was nearly sunset when I first saw 
my new home, a little cottage on the bank of 
the lake, the lower part built of logs and with a 
narrow piazza running around the second story. 
A snug little place and well built as to the lower 
floor for the bitter cold of the Northern winters. 
In front of the house was pink mountain laurel 
in bloom, and behind it the forest stretched 
away for miles. There were elk that often 
came about the house, sometimes even appear- 
• • '' 
ing at the open window and gazing into our 
little living room with curious, soft-brown eyes. 
It was very interesting, after our boxes and 
barrels arrived, to arrange our things in our 
little house. We had brought everything^rugs, 
pictures and fine china; for I had a romantic 
intention to make our home in the woods as 
pretty and attractive as though we were in 
town. But before long I found there was some¬ 
thing lacking, and the -solitude of the forest 
began to have its effect upon me. We fre¬ 
quently drove to the village. There was always 
the mail to get, and errands; and C. had to 
make trips to the freight station to see to 
transporting to the park young moose which 
were being set free in it. 
These young animals, about the size of large 
calves, were shipped from the West in crates, 
and in that manner carried into the park, where 
they were set free. There was one that came 
about the house, and one day we got him inside, 
but when we tried to make him go upstairs, we 
gave up as not being worth the effort. That 
summer was the first tirtie I had ever heard the 
peverly bird, and his “Sow wheat, peverly— 
peverly—peverly” will always have for me a 
peculiar association with those weeks in the 
wilderness. How tired I grew of his per¬ 
petual and persistent song! How I detested it 
finally, as it rung all summer in my homesick 
and desolate ears! 
The days when I was entirely alone, with C. 
off on some all-day errand, were easier to bear 
A Woman on a. Game Preserve 
A Superintendent's Wife Who Tried but Failed to Become 
Reconciled to a Life in the Forest 
W HEN it was first proposed that we 
should make our home in the wilder¬ 
ness, I was most confident it could be 
done; but it was the confidence of ignorance. 
I little knew what was before me. A person 
of a different temperament might have suc¬ 
ceeded where I failed; but there are many who, 
like myself, could not bear the isolation and 
solitude of the woods day after day, week after 
week. I have since had reason to admire the 
sense of one woman, the wife of a man em¬ 
ployed in the same park where we were to go, 
for she. upon arriving at the park gates, after 
driving a long way back into the woods from 
the nearest village, refused even to enter the 
inclosure, the drive alone taking her so far 
from human habitation was enough to convince 
her that the park was no place for her to live in. 
But I had not her wisdom. Indeed the rest 
and peace of such a quiet and retired existence 
seemed to me very inviting after my busy life 
in the city, seeing constantly so many people. 
I really looked forward with pleasure to fleeing 
from the noise and distractions and weariness 
of my surroundings. When doubts were raised 
by my friends as to my being able to live so 
far away from everything and in such a lonely 
place, I reassured them and talked of my re¬ 
sources for pleasure; my books, sewing, camera; 
nor did I doubt that I would find in them the 
pleasure and diversion they gave me at home, 
surrounded by my friends, neighbors and the 
familiar sights and sounds about our house. 
My husband’s position as superintendent of 
the park, one- of the great domains of the 
Adirondacks, would give us a comfortable and 
independent living. Indeed so small was our 
outlay living in the woods that on a modest 
salary we would be able to save more money 
than people with twice the income in town; 
our house, fuel, and lights, and the use of a 
horse were given us free besides the salary. 
We left the train at noon the day we arrived 
at our destination and drove to the village. 
There we had dinner at the hotel, a cheaply- 
built three-story house, patronized chiefly by 
drummers and sometimes the temporary dwel¬ 
ling-place of “lungers,” as the tuberculosis vic¬ 
tims were called, who went to this village for 
an inexpensive sanitarium. But what a com¬ 
fort that hotel was to me during the months 
ONE OF THE ELK ON THE PRESERVE. 
that followed! How it stood for light, and 
warmth, and comfort to both soul and body 
those dark winter days, when I fled from the 
park for an over Sunday refuge in the village. 
It was a place where I felt once more in touch 
with the world, with my kind! How delicious 
was the fried beefsteak, the baked potatoes, the 
rank coffee on which we feasted after our bleak, 
cold drive. And then there was the mail. How 
