tic jollity. Civilization and its
_dilettante_ diners-out sneer when Clodpole at Dives's table doubles his
soup, knifes his fish, tilts his plate into his lap, puts muscle into
the crushing of his _meringue_, and tosses off the warm beaker in his
finger-bowl. Camps by Tacoma sneer not at all, but candidly roar, at
parallel accidents. Gawky makes a cushion of his flapjack. Butterfingers
drops his red-hot rasher into his bosom, or lets slip his mug of coffee
into his boot drying at the fire,--a boot henceforth saccharine. A mule,
slipping his halter, steps forward unnoticed, puts his nose into the
circle, and brays resonant. These are the jocular boons of life, and at
these the woodsmen guffaw with lusty good-nature. Coarse and rude the
jokes may be, but not nasty, like the innuendoes of pseudo-refined
cockneys. If the woodsmen are guilty of uncleanly wit, it differs from
the uncleanly wit of cities as the mud of a road differs from the sticky
slime of slums.

"It is a stout sensation to meet masculine, muscular men at the brave
point of a penetrating Boston hooihut,--men who are mates,--men to whom
technical culture means nought,--men to whom myself am nought, unless I
can saddle, lasso, cook, sing, and chop,--unless I am a man of nerve and
pluck, and a brother in generosity and heartiness. It is restoration to
play at cudgels of jocoseness with a circle of friendly roughs, not one
of whom ever heard the word bore,--with pioneers, who must think and
act, and wrench their living from the closed hand of Nature."

And here is a dinner "in the open."

"Upon the _carte du jour_ at Restaurant Sowee was written Grouse. 'How
shall we have them?' said I, cook and convive, to Loolowcan, marmiton
and convive. 'One of these cocks of the mountain shall be fried, since
gridiron is not,' responded I to myself, after meditation; 'two shall be
spitted and roasted; and, as Azrael may not want us before breakfast
to-morrow, the fourth shall go upon the _carte de dejeuner'_.

"'O Pork! what a creature thou art!' continued I, in monologue, cutting
neat slices of that viand with my bowie-knife, and laying them
fraternally, three in a bed, in the frying-pan. 'Blessed be Moses, who
forbade thee to the Jews, whereby we, of freer dispensations, heirs of
all the ages, inherit also pigs more numerous and bacon cheaper! O Pork!
what could campaigners do without thy fatness, thy leanness, thy
saltness, thy portableness?'

"Here Loolowcan present