At that time
and in that remote place, a fir-tree was of no value whatever.

Firs are easy trees to fell, for the wood is very soft, but they are bad
to climb or handle on account of the pitch. We cut down about fifty
trees that day, and left them as they fell, after getting the one or
more witches' brooms in the top. Of those, we got eighty-two, all told;
with the green fir boughs that went with them, they pretty nearly filled
the rack. All were sear and dry, for they were just a densely interwoven
mass of little twigs, but they contained a great many yellow flakes of
dried pitch. In two of them we found the nests of flying squirrels; but
in both cases the squirrels "flew" before the tree fell, and sailed away
to other firs, standing near.

Altogether, it was a day of hard work. We were very tired--all the more
so because we had slept hardly ten minutes the preceding night. But
again we were much disturbed by the snarling of lynxes and the
uneasiness of our horses at the ox camp. In fact, it was another dismal
night for us; we hitched up at daybreak, and after a fearfully rough
drive over bare logs and stones, and several breakages of harness, we
reached the old Squire's, thoroughly tired out, at four o'clock in the
afternoon.

The girls, however, were delighted with our lofty load of witches'
brooms. In truth, it was rather picturesque, so many of those great gray
bunches of intermeshed twigs, ensconced amid the green fir boughs that
we had cut with them. A hall or a church would look odd indeed thus
decorated.

Cheered by a good supper, we made ready to start for Portland the next
morning. During the night, however, the weather changed. By daybreak on
the twenty-third considerable snow had fallen, and we were able to
travel this time on snow again. We had the rack piled higher than
before, with the Christmas trees and the boxes of lion's-paw in the
front end, and all those witches' brooms stacked and lashed on at the
rear. The load was actually fourteen feet high, yet far from heavy;
witches' brooms are dry and light. A northwest wind, blowing in heavy
gusts behind us, fairly pushed us along the road. We got on fast, baited
our team at New Gloucester at one o'clock in the afternoon, and by dusk
had reached Welch's Tavern, eleven miles out of Portland.

Here we put up for the night; as our load was too bulky to draw into the
barn, we were obliged to leave it in the yard outside, near the garden
fence--fifty yar