I 
Oct. 2, 1909 ] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
529 
.lian the days he was at home. I suppose be- 
:ause I had something to look forward to— 
iis home-coming—because we were not all at 
,iome—some one was to come in. Of course 
here were other people in the park; but with 
[he exception of one family, far out of sight 
'ind sound, they were all French Canadian 
droppers, and were no company for the lonely 
; xile from town. 
We used to take long tramps back in the 
voods, one day going to the wild meadow—a 
veird clearing, back, back in the fofest. A 
vilder and more desolate place cotnld not be 
magined; and yet it was open and sunny and 
ull of beauty. Another day we went back to a 
ake hidden away in these wilds of forest; a 
ake all abloom with wild pond lilies. We saw 
1 deer on the shore, but the sun being in his 
yes and the wind in the wrong direction for 
dm, we were able to get quite near before he 
:new we were there. That afternoon before 
he sun had set, we counted eight deer. 
I liked best to stay near the house, for the 
ilace was too vast to become acquainted with, 
nd I longed for things familiar and home-like. 
Ine evening C. had gone in the boat across 
n arm of the lake to see one of his men. I 
ras alone in the house, when I heard some 
lishes rattle in the little kitchen. Going to 
he door which opened into the kitchen, I saw 
he head of a big moose at the tiny window, 
vhile his tongue licked the dishes piled on the 
helf beneath it. I fled to the little balcony on 
he second floor to await C.’s return. When 
saw him coming in the boat I called to warn 
im of the intruder. But C. was not easily 
larmed, and when he was actually met at the 
mding by the moose, walked up to the house 
/ith him, while I watched in fear and trembling. 
As the summer wore on I found it harder 
nd harder to live in the park. The solitude of 
he place affected me very much, causing de- 
ression and at times attacks of crying. I lost 
hy interest in reading and cared nothing for 
sy camera. I pined for life among people and 
1 a town. How I envied the men who came 
rom the city and went back! What joy it would 
>e if I, too, could drive out to the train and 
ever come back! 
The evenings were the best part of the day, 
'or the darkness shut out the forest and we 
/ere snug and cosy in our lamp-lighted cabin, 
’he nights seemed positively black, so hidden 
a the trees was the house and only a faint 
dimmer of light came from the little forest- 
idden lake. We sometimes heard the un- 
anny cry of the hoot-owl which C. mimicked 
ery well, even to the guttural sound at the end 
*f the hoots, repeated eight times, I think, in 
xactly the same way with the same pauses be- 
ween the hoots. C. loved to hear them and 
/ould stand at the open door and smile, while I 
/ould flee to the lamp-lighted room. 
In October I went home for a visit, returning 
fter a month’s absence with renewed determi- 
ation to endure the solitary life I had under- 
aken. But at the end of a week, during which 
lf ne I had eaten little for sheer homesickness 
nd loneliness, we both decided it was of no use 
ar me to keep on trying to live in the woods, 
he next day we went out to the village, and 
efore the second night had come, we had 
ented a room in a little house near the hotel, 
'nd this was my headquarters the rest of the 
time C. kept his position. I would go back for 
a day or two at a time to make things com¬ 
fortable for him, but spent most of the time in 
the village looking forward to C.’s frequent 
trips for mail and supplies. I was criticized by 
some of the people we knew; but one man to 
whom I have always been grateful said he could 
understand how I was affected by the woods, as 
he himself had spent weeks in a lumber camp 
and knew from experience the dreadful isola¬ 
tion and solitude of such places. When the 
lake was frozen over and the snow covered it 
like a meadow we tried snowshoeing. But 
nothing was much fun to me. One day when 
we were out on the lake we saw and heard a 
number of foxes, their short, sharp “yap-yaps” 
breaking the snowy silence. I remember, too, 
one winter day, late in the afternoon, we had 
just started for the village, and C. suddenly re¬ 
membered he had left his purse. We were al¬ 
ready some distance, about half a mile or so 
from the house, but too near to make it worth 
while to turn around in the narrow tote-road 
and go back; so leaving me alone, he ran back 
to the house. * When he had gone I thought of 
the big moose at large in the park and began 
to feel very uneasy. He was apt to turn up 
anywhere and at the most unexpected moments, 
and he might place me in a very unpleasant 
predicament. So I sat breathlessly listening and 
watching in the dreary grayness of the winter 
afternoon, expecting to hear the cracking of 
the brush, announcing his coming. But he did 
not come, and my fears were for nothing. I 
had good reason to be afraid of the moose, 
however, for he could be very fierce and had 
once treed a man in a bit of genuine moose 
rage. How he would act on seeing a girl alone 
in a cutter I did not know, nor did I care to 
dwell upon the thought. It was one of the 
W HEN we tire too utterly of the office and 
the town’s humdrum ways of wresting 
a living from others similarly employed, 
we strike for the nearest wild places; we be¬ 
come outers in fact, for we have long been so 
in fancy. Once there, if season, the game laws 
and enough of God’s wild creatures have been 
permitted to linger around, we proceed with our 
newest outlay in smokeless, soft-nosed and 
other sporting experiments to recreate our¬ 
selves. 
All is strictly up-to-date, mind you. All, ex¬ 
cept possibly our aim and execution. The fall¬ 
ing off there is singular, wonderful; especially 
to us of the office. The punctured air alone 
might account for it, but the atmosphere shows 
no sign. Unless some tree, dog, stray sheep, 
shote or yearling betray the secret, we are safe. 
In West Virginia, the State which on the maps 
looks like Mark Twain’s jumping frog in a scro- 
fulously eruptive condition, these wild places 
are set a good deal on edge; in fact, if they 
were spread out the level area of the scenes of 
our sylvan iniquities would give the frog a 
Canadian choppers who said of him, “I’m not 
’fraid heem, only jes’ dem leet’ black eye,” 
which expressed a good deal. 
At last, after trying the wilderness for a 
home, I gave up, utterly routed, and so urgent 
was I to return to living among people rather 
than among moose and elk, that C. resigned 
his position, and together we fled to a place 
where we were again in touch with the world. 
I must admit that failures like mine may not be 
the general rule. There are undoubtedly men 
and women who could live happily and con¬ 
tentedly in the woods, miles from everything. 
C. himself did not mind the solitude of the 
park, and indeed lived happily there all alone 
for months before I joined him. He would 
come home after dark from the village, row 
on the silent lake to the deserted house, not 
even minding the wretchedly forlorn cry of a 
loon, or a hoot-owl. Sometimes he thought he 
heard bears. In the spring, when the suckers 
were running up the inlets to the ponds, the 
bears used to fish for them, C. said, by putting 
in their paws and throwing the fish out on 
the bank. The fence man going his rounds 
came upon one doing this, and the muddy 
banks of the stream was all packed down where 
bruin had walked up and down the brook, or 
where he had sat and watched. C. used to lie 
awake at night and chuckle to hear the rain 
on the low attic roof, and not a human being 
within two miles of him. But for such as I 
who loved the well-populated street, the hum of 
the trolley cars-^all the comfortable, canny 
sights and sounds of a town; let them not ex¬ 
change these for the solitude and loneliness of 
the woods—except for a brief period of camp¬ 
ing. Let them remember that discretion may 
be the better part of valor. 
smoother complexion and considerably enhance 
his size. 
Wedged somewhere between these timbered 
and warty solitudes is the cabin of Uncle Ham, 
usually our host and camp cook, ostensibly our 
guide, and really one of the most philosophic 
prevaricators it has ever been our privilege to 
look on in the light of humble and inventive 
friend. He cannot help it; and, like the an¬ 
cient Athenians, he is ever running after some 
new thing. He has his hobbies, also his pet 
aversions, which last were, at late accounts, 
bears and bees. Of his contemporaneous hob¬ 
bies, bear traps and honey ruled the roost last 
fall. Then, but not after our last sojourn in 
the wilds, and for sundry reasons, which will 
appear. 
Ham has a one-eyed mule, named Japhet, that 
hauls us, carries us, bites and kicks us when 
we put up at Ham’s. Some genius had branded 
one of the mule’s flanks with “Ham &” and the 
other with “Japhet” in such a discursive way 
that at a little distance one might interpret the 
riddle either as “Ham’s Japhet” or “Japhet’s 
Uncle Ham's Bear Trap 
By WILLIAM PERRY BROWN 
V 
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