Dreaming Back 
The Sorcery of the Cedar Twig 
The First of a Series of Inspirational Nature Articles 
my room—a heavy, sickly odor of 
old-boiled cabbage, mixed with 
other smells of greater or lesser pene- 
tration. 
On the rickety desk upon which I 
lean, upon the lurid red blotter, lies a 
sprig of cedar. 
My room is hot, stuffy. The floor is 
gritty, although the landlady swears 
(literally) that she sweeps it regularly. 
I pick up the cedar sprig and hold it 
to my nostrils, gazing about me at the 
cheaply papered walls. The pattern 
on the paper suggests nothing. 
I take a deep breath, and the cleanly 
fragrance of the cedar goes deep into 
my lungs. God! How good it smells! 
How clean and fragrant compared with 
that heavy smell that crawls across 
the sill of the single window of my 
New York “furnished room.” 
Again I breathe deep of the cedar’s 
perfume... There is witchery in it, 
surely, for slowly the appearance of 
the room changes. The papered walls 
give place to walls of rough lumber: 
the ceiling lowers until I can almost 
reach the cedar shingles between the 
rafters; beneath my feet is a deer-skin 
spread on a rough board floor, appropri- 
ate emblem of the life of the forest. 
Sit ria nf eo 
IT lean forward. 
My arms rest upon 
a roughly made ta- 
bie, gitis top ot 
smoothly planed 
lumber. My eyes 
look forward. Di- 
rectly before me is 
a small window 
with four panes. 
The table is be- 
neath it. Looking 
through the win- 
dow I see an open- 
ing cut in the dense 
forest, and through 
this opening I see 
a wide expanse of 
water, and beyond the water are snow- 
capped mountain. peaks—the coast 
range of the Rockies. 
And there, over to the right, is the 
big cedar with the hollow trunk, in 
which I took refuge when— 
Miracle of miracles! The fragrance 
of that cedar sprig has turned back the 
clock of Time and I am living my youth 
again—my young manhood, when my 
ardent forest love was fully gratified. 
8 
[° comes up the airshaft and enters 

By FRED A. BARROW 
It is my father speaking once again. 
“Son, I have bought several acres of 
forest land by the sea. I am getting on 
in years and I would like a little farm 
amid the woods where I can spend the 
rest of my life in God’s open country. 
Take axe and mattock and spade; take 
rifle and shotgun and go and live the 
life you and I both love. Your mother 
will make you a tent for a shelter un- 
til you cut a trail to the land down 
which we can get some lumber for a 
cabin.” 
Dear old Dad! He knew how eagerly 
I would accept such a proposition. 
That was a red-letter day in my ex- 
istence when, like Yankee Doodle, 
“mounted on a pony,” I set out for the 
forest acres my father had bought. 
Peter, the pony, was a willing beast of 
mature years. His yellow hair was 
long; his brown eyes steady with the 
patience that comes from long philoso- 
phizing on the ways of men and things. 
OY, pride, exhilaration filled my 
veins as I bade the family good-bye 
and set out on my great adventure. 
Miles, in those days were miles. Dis- 
tance then had not been shortened by 
motor-cars and aeroplanes. Twelve 
miles from home, five miles from a good 
road and in the 
forest depths — 
that meant The 
Wilderness. 
Behold me, then, 
mounted on Peter. 
On either side, 
from the pommel 
of the saddle hung 
two sacks, ‘one con- 
taining food, the 
other a few tools 
and cooking uten- 
sils. Strapped be- 
hind me- was the 
small canvas tent 
my Mother had 
made with loving 
care and hard 
stitching; and within its folds were axe 
and hatchet, sledge and wedge and mat- 
tock. Across my knees rested a .44 cali- 
bre Marlin repeating rifle, its magazine 
filled; and around my waist was a full 
cartridge belt. A hunting knife with 
a six-inch blade was in its sheath, and 
in one of the sacks was a revolver of 
.388 calibre, with a box of cartridges. 
I had chosen to take the rifle rather 
than the shotgun because of what had 
recently happened to a mail-carrier on 
that same road. He had picked up a 
small panther cub and placed it in an 
empty mail-pouch. He was found later 
by a farmer, his face and side very 
badly mauled. 
HE mail-bag had been ripped open 
by sharp claws, and the cub was 
gone. This incident had influenced me 
in deciding on the rifle. A well-placed 
bullet from my Marlin would, I felt 
sure, prove discouraging to any tawny 
cat that might get in my way. Truth 
to tell, I was not anxious to meet a 
panther. 
It was mid-afternoon when I turned 
Peter from the dusty road and forced 
him, belly-deep, into a patch of salal 
bushes. (The round, black berries that 
grow on these bushes resemble a blue 
berry in shape and size, and I had been 
told that they were not good to eat. 
I disproved this, for I have eaten many 
a handful without ill effects.) Beyond 
this patch of berry-bushes the forest of 
spruce, fir, cedar and hemlock began. 
The sky had become overcast before 
I entered the woods, and this increased 
the gloom of the forest. As I pushed 
Peter forward a keen sense of loneli- 
ness came over me. The air was still, 
and despite the fact that there was no 
sun the place seemed filled with shadows. 
I had the feeling that Peter and I were 
the only evidences of living civilization 
in the world. Whether others ever ex- 
perience this deep sense of loneliness 
on entering the forest primeval I do 
not know: but that feeling always af- 
fects me for the first few hours. 
We had not gone far into the woods 
before I was obliged to get out of the 
saddle of my own will or be swept off 
by overhanging branches. Following a 
trail I had blazed on a former trip, I 
went ahead, leading my pony among 
fallen logs and around occasional little 
swampy patches from about which large 
numbers of mosquitoes rose to bid me 
welcome. 
ONWARD we ‘went, following the 
downward slope of the land, until a 
hemlock, blazed on four sides, told me 
that we had reached the southwest cor- 
ner of my father’s acres. I passed this 
marker and then sat down on a moss- 
covered log to wipe the sweat and cob- 
webs from my face. As I sat down 
there was a sharp whir-r-r of wings 
and a partridge sped between the tree- 
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