Our pioneer had provided a luxurious bed of boughs
within, and had fashioned rude seats in front of our tents. He had
rolled the butt of a huge tree, which he had felled, to the proper
place, against which to kindle our camp-fire, and we had a pleasant
place to sit, with our pipes, in the evening, looking out over the
water, listening to the pile-drivers, half a dozen of which were
driving their stakes along the reedy shore, with commendable
diligence. The sunlight lay so beautifully on the hillsides, and
contrasted so admirably with the deep shadows of the valley beneath,
the lake was so calm and still, the old woods stood around so moveless
and solemn, that one could scarcely persuade himself that he was not
looking upon some gigantic picture, the fanciful grouping and
transcendent coloring of some ingenious and winning artist.

"The hillsides about these lakes," remarked the Doctor, "must be
superlatively beautiful in the fall, when the forest puts on its
autumnal foliage. They present such a variety of trees, of so many
different kinds, and the hills and mountains are so admirably
arranged, that they must be gorgeous beyond description. However we
may prefer the green and _living_ beauty of spring, when everything is
so full of vitality, so buoyant and free, yet the autumn scenery is
the most magnificent of any in the year."

"Every season has its charms," said Spalding, "Even the winter, with
its cold, its dead and cheerless desolation, has its robe of chaste
and peerless white, which, as well as that of the spring-time, the
summer, and the autumn, has been the theme of song. I agree with you,
that in gorgeousness of beauty, there is no season so rich as the
autumn. Spring-time has its pleasant scenery, its genial days, its
deep green, its flowers, and its singing birds; and these are all the
more lovely because they follow so closely upon the cold storms, and
bleak winds, the chilling and blank desolation of winter. We love the
spring because of its freshness, its pervading vitality, its
recuperating influences. Everybody loves the spring-time; everybody
talks about the spring-time; poets sing of it; orators praise it;
'fair women and brave men' laud it; so that were spring-time human,
and possessing human instincts, and subject to human frailties, it
would have plenty of excuse, for becoming a very vain personage.

"Somebody has called the autumnal days the 'saddest of the year.' I
have forgotten who he was, i