f those
times were nerved by the hope of the future, and the spirit that
sustained them was that of faith in the fact that the promise of
reward for their labor was sure.

"Do the men of the present day ever think what a gigantic labor that
was of clearing away those old forests? Contemplate a wilderness,
reaching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, from the great lakes
and the majestic St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, every acre of
which was covered with tall trees which had to be cut away one by one,
not with some great machine which mowed them down in broad swaths like
the grass of a meadow, but by a single arm and a single axe. Talk
about the Pyramids, the Chinese Wall, the great canals of the earth!
They sink into utter insignificance when compared with the prodigious
labor of clearing away the American forests, and spreading out green
fields where our fathers found only a limitless wilderness of woods.
The sons of these men who performed that labor, in my judgment, have a
better patent to preferment and honors than those who come from other
lands to claim their inheritance after it has been thus perfected by
such toil and hardships, and dangers as the history of the world
cannot parallel."

"I think, if I remember rightly," said the Dr., "you set out to tell a
bear story. You are now indulging in a sermon on progress. Allow me to
call your attention to the bear."

"I appeal to the court," said Spalding, addressing Smith and myself,
"against this interruption."

"The counsel will proceed," said Smith, with all the gravity of a
judge; "we hope the interruption will not be repeated."

"Well," said Spalding, resuming his narrative, "some fifty years ago,
two enterprising men (brothers) marched into the woods in the town of
Mexico, now in Oswego county, with their axes on their shoulders, and
stout hearts beating in their bosoms. They located a mile or more
apart, and began a warfare, such as civilization wages, against the
old forest trees. Men talk about courage on the battle-field, the
facing of danger amid the conflict of armed hosts, and the crash of
battle. All that is well, but what is such courage, stimulated by
excitement and braced by the ignominy which follows the laggard in
such a strife, to that calm, enduring, moral courage of him who
encounters the toil and hardships incident to the settlement of a new
country, and battles with the dangers, the long years of privation,
which lie before the pi