volume; its twin contained the revelations of
African discoveries boiled down and embellished with numberless cuts; a
Family Physician, one volume of legislative documents, and three stray
magazines, with a Greek almanac, completed the library. So, even in the
primeval state, we were not without food for our minds as well as
exercise for our muscles. After a time, even the dance ceased to attract
us. The Artist had lined the walls of his chamber with brilliant
sketches; the kid clamored for home.

I suppose we might have tarried a whole summer and still found some turn
in the brook, some vista in the wood, some cluster of isolated trees, to
hold us entranced; for the peculiar glory of the hour transfigured
them, and the same effect was never twice repeated. Moreover, we at last
grew intolerant of one great annoyance. You all have known it as we knew
it, and doubtless endured it with as little grace. Is there anything
more galling than the surpassing impudence of country flies? We resolved
to return to town, and returned close upon the heels of our resolution.
Again we threaded the dark windings of the wood, and bade farewell to
every object that had become endeared to us. We wondered how soon change
would lay its hand upon this primeval beauty. We approached the
logging-camp. Presto! in the brief interval since our first glimpse of
the forests above it, the hills had been shorn of their antique harvest,
and the valley was a place of desolation and of death.

It seemed incredible that the dense growth of gigantic trees could be so
soon dragged to market. There was a famous tree--we saw the stump still
bleeding and oozing up--which, three feet from the ground, measured
eleven and a half feet one way by fourteen feet the other. When its doom
was sealed, a path was cut for it and a soft bed made for it to lie on.
The land was graded, and covered with a cushion of soft boughs. Had the
tree fallen on uneven ground, it would have been shattered; if it had
swerved to right or left, nothing but fire could have cleared the
wrecks.

The making of the death-bed of this monster cost Mrs. Duncan forty
dollars. Then the work began. An ax in the hands of a skillful
wood-cutter threw the tree headlong to the earth. Then it was sawed
across, yielding eighteen logs, each sixteen feet in length, with a
diameter of four feet at the smallest end. The logs were put upon
wheels, and run over a light trestle-work to the mill, drawn thither by