of growing Indian corn, the
green spread of it deep and heaving, and noted the traces of the
forest's tax-collectors left about its margins: the squirrel's dainty
work and the broken stalks and stripped ears upon the ground, leavings
of the old raccoon, the small bear of the forest, knowing enough to
become a friend of man when caught and tamed, and almost human in his
ways, as curious as a scandal-monger and selfish as a money-lender?

Have you gone into the hard maple wood, the sugar bush, in early
spring, the time of frosty nights and sunny days, and driven home the
gouge and spile, and gathered the flowing sap and boiled it in such
pots and kettles as later pioneers have owned, and gained such
wildwood-scented product as no confectioner of the town may ever hope
to equal? Have you lain beside some pond, a broadening of the creek
above an ancient beaver-dam, at night, in mellowest midsummer, and
watched the muskrats at their frays and feeding? Have you hunted the
common wildcat, short-bodied demon, whose tracks upon the snow are
discernible each winter morning, but who is so crafty, so gifted with
some great art of slyness, that you may grow to manhood with him all
about you, yet never see him in the sinewy flesh unless with dog and
gun, and food and determination, you seek his trail, and follow it
unreasoningly until you terminate the stolid quest with a discovery of
the quarry lying close along the body of some eloping, stunted tree,
and with a lively episode in immediate prospect? Did you ever chase a
wolverine, last of his kind in a clearing-overflowed region, strange
combination in character and form of bear and lynx, gluttonous and
voracious, and strong and fearless, a beast descended almost unchanged
from the time of the earliest cave-men, the horror of the bravest dog,
and end his too uncivilized career with a rifle-shot at thoughtful
distance?

Have you seen the wild pigeons, before pot-hunters invaded their
southern roosts and breeding-grounds and slaughtered them by millions,
exterminating one of the most wonderful of American game birds, sweep
over in such dense clouds that the sun would be obscured, and at times
so close to earth that a long pole thrust aloft from tree or hillock
would stun such numbers as would make a gallant pot-pie? Have you
followed the deer in the dense forest, clinging doggedly to his track
upon the fresh snow from the dusk of early morning, startling him again
and again from