The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862

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It is well to go to the Adirondacks. They are shaggy, and shagginess
is a valuable trait. The lakes are very well,--very well indeed. The
objection to the region is not the mountains, which are reasonably
shaggy,--not the lakes and rivers, which are water, a capital element.
The real difficulty is the society: not the autochthonous
society,--they are worthy people, and it is hardly to be mentioned as
a fault that they are not a discriminating race, and will asseverate
that all fish are trout, and the most arrant mutton is venison,--but
the immigrant, colonizing society. Cockneys are to be found at every
turn, flaunting their banners of the awkward squad, proclaiming to the
world with protuberant pride that they are the veritable
backwoodsmen,--rather doing it, rather astonishing the natives, they
think. And so they are. One squad of such neophytes might be
entertaining; but when every square mile echoes with their hails,
lost, poor babes, within a furlong of their camps, and when the woods
become dim and the air civic with their cooking-smokes, and the subtle
odor of fried pork overpowers methylic fragrance among the trees, then
he who loves forests for their solitude leaves these brethren to their
clumsy joys, and wanders elsewhere deeper into sylvan scenes.

Our visit to the Adirondacks was episodic; and as I have forsworn
episodes, I turn away from them with this mild slander, and strike
again our Maine track. With lips impurpled by the earliest
huckleberries, we came out again upon Champlain. We crossed that
water-logged valley in a steamboat, and hastened on, through a
pleasant interlude of our rough journey, across Vermont and New
Hampshire, two States not without interest to their residents, but of
none to this narrative.

By coach and wagon, by highway and by-way, by horse-power and
steam-power, we proceeded, until it chanced, one August afternoon,
that we left railways and their regions at a way-side station, and let
our lingering feet march us along the Valley of the Upper
Connecticut. This lovely river, baptizer of Iglesias's childhood, was
here shallow and musical, half river, half brook; it had passed the
tinkling period, and plashed and rumbled voicefully over rock and
shallow.

It was a fair and verdant valley where we walked, overlooked by hills
of pleasant pastoral slope. All the land was gay and ripe with yellow
harvest. Strolling along, as if the business of travel were forgotten,
we placidly identified ourselves with the placid scenery. We became
Arcadians both. Such is Arcadia, if I have read aright: a realm where
sunshine never scorches, and yet shade is sweet; where simple
pleasures please; where the blue sky and the bright water and the
green fields satisfy forever.

We were in lightest marching-trim. Iglesias bore an umbrella, our
armor against what heaven could do with assault of sun or shower. I
was weaponed with a staff, should brute or biped uncourteous dispute
our way. We had no impediments of "great trunk, little trunk, bandbox,
and bundle." A thoughtful man hardly feels honest in his life except
as a pedestrian traveller. _"La propriete c'est le vol"_--which
the West more briefly expresses by calling baggage "plunder." What
little plunder our indifferent honesty had packed for this journey we
had left with a certain stage-coachman, perhaps to follow us, perhaps
to become his plunder. We were thus disconnected from any depressing
influence; we had no character to sustain; we were heroes in disguise,
and could make our observations on life and manners, without being
invited to a public hand-shaking, or to exhibit feats in jugglery, for
either of which a traveller with plenteous portmanteaus, hair or
leather, must be prepared in villages thereabouts. Totally
unembarrassed, we lounged along or leaped along, light-hearted. When
the river neared us, or winsome brooklet from the hill-side thwarted
our path, we stooped and lapped from their pools of coolness, or
tasted that most ethereal tipple, the mingled air and water of
electric bubbles, as they slid brightly toward our lips.

The angle of the sun's rays grew less and less, the wheat-fields were
tinged more golden by the clinging beams, our shadows lengthened, as
if exercise of an afternoon were stimulating to such unreal
essences. Finally the blue dells and gorges of a wooded mountain, for
two hours our landmark, rose between us and the sun. But the sun's
Parthian arrows gave him a splendid triumph, more signal for its
evanescence. A storm was inevitable, and sunset prepared a reconciling
pageant.

Now, as may be supposed, Iglesias has an eye for a sunset. That
summer's crop had been very short, and he had been some time on
starvation-allowance of cloudy magnificence. We therefore halted by
the road-side, and while I committed the glory to memory, Iglesias
entrusted his distincter memorial to a sketch-book.

We were both busy, he repeating forms, noting shades and tints, and I
studying without pictorial intent, when we heard a hail in the road
below our bank. It was New Hampshire, near the Maine line, and near
the spot where nasal organs are fabricated that twang the roughest.

"Say!" shrieked up to us a freckled native, holding fast to the tail
of a calf, the last of a gambolling family he was driving,--"Say!
whodger doon up thurr? Layn aoot taoonshup lains naoou, aancher?
Cauds ur suvvares raoond. Spekkleayshn goan on, ur guess."

We allowed this unmelodious vocalist to respect us by permitting him
to believe us surveyors in another sense than as we were. One would
not be despised as an unpractical citizen, a mere looker at Nature
with no immediate view to profit, even by a freckled calf-driver of
the Upper Connecticut. While we parleyed, the sketch was done, and the
pageant had faded quick before the storm.

Splendor had departed; the world in our neighborhood had fallen into
the unillumined dumps. An ominous mournfulness, far sadder than the
pensiveness of twilight, drew over the sky. Clouds, that donned
brilliancy for the fond parting of mountain-tops and the sun, now grew
cheerless and gray; their gay robes were taken from them, and with
bended heads they fled away from the sorrowful wind. In western glooms
beyond the world a dreary gale had been born, and now came wailing
like one that for all his weariness may not rest, but must go on
harmful journeys and bear evil tidings. With the vanguard gusts came
volleys of rain, malicious assaults, giving themselves the trouble to
tell us in an offensive way what we could discover for ourselves, that
a wetting impended and umbrellas would soon be nought.

While the storm was thus nibbling before it bit, we lengthened our
strides to escape. Water, concentrated in flow of stream or pause of
lake, is charming; not so to the shelterless is water diffused in dash
of deluge. Water, when we choose our method of contact, is a friend;
when it masters us, it is a foe; when it drowns us or ducks us, a very
exasperating foe. Proud pedestrians become very humble personages,
when thoroughly vanquished by a ducking deluge. A wetting takes out
the starch not only from garments, but the wearers of them. Iglesias
and I did not wish to stand all the evening steaming before a
kitchen-fire, inspecting meanwhile culinary details: Phillis in the
kitchen is not always as fresh as Phillis in the field. We therefore
shook ourselves into full speed and bolted into our inn at Colebrook;
and the rain, like a portcullis, dropped solid behind us.

In town, the landlord is utterly merged in his hotel. He is a
sovereign rarely apparent. In the country, the landlord is a
personality. He is greater than the house he keeps. Men arriving
inspect the master of the inn narrowly. If his first glance is at the
pocket, cheer will be bad; if at the eyes or the lips, you need not
take a cigar before supper to keep down your appetite.

Our landlord was of the latter type. He surged out of the little box
where he was dispensing not too fragrant rummers to a circle of
village-politicians, and congratulated us on our arrival before the
storm. He was a discriminating person. He detected us at once, saw we
were not tramps or footpads, and led us to the parlor, a room
attractively furnished with a map of the United States and an oblong
music-book open at "Old Hundred." Our host further felicitated us
that we had not stopped at a certain tavern below, where, as he
said,--

"They cut a chunk er beef and drop 't into a pot to bile, and bile her
three days, and then don't have noth'n' else for three weeks."

He put his head out of the door and called,--

"George, go aoot and split up that 'ere wood as fine as chaowder:
these men 'll want their supper right off."

Drawing in his head, he continued to us confidentially,--

"That 'ere George is jes' like a bird: he goes off at one snappin'."

Our host then rolled out toward the bar-room, to discuss with his
cronies who we might be. From the window we perceived the birdlike
George fly and alight near the specified wood, which he proceeded to
bechowder. He brought in the result of his handiwork, as smiling as a
basket of chips. Neat-handed Phillis at the door received the chowder,
and by its aid excited a sound and a smell, both prophetic of
supper. And we, willing to repose after a sixteen-mile afternoon-walk,
lounged upon sofa or tilted in rocking-chair, taking the available
mental food, namely, "Godey's Lady's Book" and the Almanac.

CHAPTER II.

GORMING AND GETTING ON.

Next morning it poured. The cinders before the blacksmith's shop
opposite had yielded their black dye to the dismal puddles. The
village cocks were sadly draggled and discouraged, and cowered under
any shelter, shivering within their drowned plumage. Who on such a
morn would stir? Who but the Patriot? Hardly had we breakfasted, when
he, the Patriot, waited upon us. It was a Presidential campaign. They
were starving in his village for stump-speeches. Would the talking man
of our _duo_ go over and feed their ears with a fiery harangue?
Patriot was determined to be first with us; others were coming with
similar invitations; he was the early bird. Ah, those portmanteaus!
they had arrived, and betrayed us.

We would not be snapped up. We would wriggle away. We were very sorry,
but we must start at once to pursue our journey.

"But it pours," said Patriot.

"Patriot," replied our talking member, "man is flesh; and flesh,
however sweet or savory it may be, does not melt in water."

Thus fairly committed to start, we immediately opened negotiations for
a carriage. "No go," was the first response of the coachman. Our
willy was met by his nilly. But we pointed out to him that we could
not stay there all a dismal day,--that we must, would, could, should
go. At last we got within coachee's outworks. His nilly broke down
into shilly-shally. He began to state his objections; then we knew he
was ready to yield. We combated him, clinking the supposed gold of
coppers in our pockets, or carelessly chucking a tempting half-dollar
at some fly on the ceiling. So presently we prevailed, and he retired
to make ready.

By-and-by a degraded family-carriage came to the door. It came by some
feeble inertia left latent in it by some former motive-power, rather
than was dragged up by its more degraded nags. A very unwholesome
coach. No doubt a successful quack-doctor had used it in his
prosperous days for his wife and progeny; no doubt it had subsequently
become the property of a second-class undertaker, and had conveyed
many a quartette of cheap clergymen to the funerals of poor relations
whose leaking sands of life left no gold-dust behind. Such was our
carriage for a rainy day.

The nags were of the huckleberry or flea-bitten variety,--a freckled
white. Perhaps the quack had fed them with his refuse pills. These
knobby-legged unfortunates we of course named Xanthus and Balius, not
of podargous or swift-footed, but podagrous or gouty race. Xanthus,
like his Achillean namesake, (_vide_ Pope's Homer,)

"Seemed sensible of woe and dropped his head,--
Trembling he stood before the (seedy) wain."

Balius was in equally deplorable mood. Both seemed more sensible to
"Whoa" than to "Hadaap." Podagrous beasts, yet not stiffened to
immobility. Gayer steeds would have sundered the shackling drag.
These would never, by any gamesome caracoling, endanger the
coherency of pole with body, of axle with wheel. From end to end the
equipage was congruous. Every part of the machine was its weakest
part, and that fact gave promise of strength: an invalid never dies.
Moreover, the coach suited the day: the rusty was in harmony with
the dismal. It suited the damp unpainted houses and the tumble-down
blacksmith's-shop. We contented ourselves with this artistic
propriety. We entered, treading cautiously. The machine, with gentle
spasms, got itself in motion, and steered due east for Lake Umbagog.
The smiling landlord, the disappointed Patriot, and the birdlike
George waved us farewell.

Coachee was in the sulks. The rain, beat upon him, and we by
purse-power had compelled him to encounter discomfort. His
self-respect must be restored by superiority over somebody. He had
been beaten and must beat. He did so. His horses took the lash until
he felt at peace with himself. Then half-turning toward us, he made
his first remark.

"Them two hosses is gorming."

"Yes," we replied, "they do seem rather so."

This was of course profound hypocrisy; but "gorming" meant some bad
quality, and any might be safely predicated of our huckleberry
pair. Who will admit that he does not know all that is to be known in
horse-matters? We therefore asked no questions, but waited patiently
for information.

Delay pays demurrage to the wisely patient. Coachee relapsed into the
sulks. The driving rain resolved itself into a dim chaos of
mist. Xanthus and Balius plodded on, but often paused and gasped, or,
turning their heads as if they missed something, strayed from the
track and drew us against the dripping bushes. After one such
excursion, which had nearly been the ruin of us, and which by calling
out coachee's scourging powers had put him thoroughly in good-humor,
he turned to us and said, superlatively,--

"Them's the gormingest hosses I ever see. When I drew 'em in the
four-hoss coach for wheelers, they could keep a straight tail. Now
they act like they was drunk. They's gorming,--_they won't do
nothin' without a leader_."

To gorm, then, is to err when there is no leader. Alas, how mankind
gorms!

By sunless noon we were well among the mountains. We came to the last
New-Hampshire house, miles from its neighbors. But it was a
self-sufficing house, an epitome of humanity. Grandmamma, bald under
her cap, was seated by the stove dandling grandchild, bald under its
cap. Each was highly entertained with the other. Grandpapa was sandy
with grandboy's gingerbread-crumbs. The intervening ages were well
represented by wiry men and shrill women. The house, also, without
being tavern or shop, was an amateur bazaar of _vivers_ and
goods. Anything one was likely to want could be had there,--even a
melodeon and those inevitable Patent-Office Reports. Here we
descended, lunched, and providently bought a general assortment,
namely, a large plain cake, five pounds of cheese, a ball of twine,
and two pairs of brown ribbed woollen socks, native manufacture. My
pair of these indestructibles will outlast my last legs and go as an
heirloom after me.

The weather now, as we drove on, seemed to think that Iglesias
deserved better of it. Rain-globes strung upon branches, each globe
the possible home of a sparkle, had waited long enough unillumined.
Sunlight suddenly discovered this desponding patience and rewarded
it. Every drop selected its own ray from the liberal bundle, and,
crowding itself full of radiance, became a mirror of sky and cloud and
forest. Also, by the searching sunbeams' store of regal purple, ripe
raspberries were betrayed. On these, magnified by their convex lenses
of water, we pounced. Showers shook playfully upon us from the vines,
while we revelled in fruitiness. We ran before our gormers, they
gormed by us while we plucked, we ran by, plucked again, and again
were gormingly overtaken and overtook. Thus we ate our way luxuriously
through the Dixville Notch, a capital cleft in a northern spur of the
White Mountains.

Picturesque is a curiously convenient, undiscriminating epithet. I use
it here. The Dixville Notch is, briefly, picturesque,--a fine gorge
between a crumbling conical crag and a scarped precipice,--a pass
easily defensible, except at the season when raspberries would
distract sentinels.

Now we came upon our proper field of action. We entered the State of
Maine at Township Letter B. A sharper harshness of articulation in
stray passengers told us that we were approaching the vocal influence
of the name Androscoggin. People talked as if, instead of ivory ring
or coral rattle to develop their infantile teeth, they had bitten upon
pine knots. Voices were resinous and astringent. An opera, with a
chorus drummed up in those regions, could dispense with violins.

Toward evening we struck the river, and found it rasping and crackling
over rocks as an Androscoggin should. We passed the last hamlet, then
the last house but one, and finally drew up at the last and
northernmost house, near the lumbermen's dam below Lake Umbagog. The
damster, a stalwart brown chieftain of the backwoodsman race, received
us with hearty hospitality. Xanthus and Balius stumbled away on their
homeward journey. And after them the crazy coach went moaning: it was
not strong enough to creak or rattle.

Next day was rainy. It had, however, misty intervals. In these we
threw a fly for trout and caught a chub in Androscoggin. Or, crouched
on the bank of a frog-pond, we tickled frogs with straws. Yes, and
fun of the freshest we found it. Certain animals, and especially
frogs, were created, shaped, and educated to do the grotesque, that
men might study them, laugh, and grow fat. It was a droll moment with
Nature, when she entertained herself and prepared entertainment for us
by devising the frog, that burlesque of bird, beast, and man, and
taught him how to move and how to speak and sing. Iglesias and I did
not disdain batrachian studies, and set no limit to our merriment at
their quaint, solemn, half-human pranks. One question still is
unresolved,--Why do frogs stay and be tickled? They snap snappishly
at the titillating straw; they snatch at it with their weird little
hands; they parry it skilfully. They hardly can enjoy being tickled,
and yet they endure, paying a dear price for the society of their
betters. Frogs the frisky, frogs the spotted, were our comedy that
day. Whenever the rain ceased, we rushed forth and tickled them, and
thus vicariously tickled ourselves into more than patience, into
jollity. So the day passed quickly.

CHAPTER III.

THE PINE-TREE.

While we were not tickling frogs, we were talking lumber with the
Umbagog damster. I had already coasted Maine, piloted by Iglesias, and
knew the fisherman-life; now, under the same experienced guidance, I
was to study inland scenes, and take lumbermen for my heroes.

Maine has two classes of warriors among its sons,--fighters of forest
and fighters of sea. Braves must join one or the other army. The two
are close allies. Only by the aid of the woodmen can the watermen
build their engines of victory. The seamen in return purvey the
needful luxuries for lumber-camps. Foresters float down timber that
seamen may build snips and go to the saccharine islands of the South
for molasses: for without molasses no lumberman could be happy in the
unsweetened wilderness. Pork lubricates his joints; molasses gives
tenacity to his muscles.

Lumbering develops such men as Pindar saw when he pictured Jason, his
forest hero. Life is a hearty and vigorous movement to them, not a
drooping slouch. Summer is their season of preparation; winter, of
the campaign; spring, of victory. All over the north of the State,
whatever is not lake or river is forest. In summer, the Viewer, like
a military engineer, marks out the region, and the spots of future
attack. He views the woods; and wherever a monarch tree crowns the
leafy level, he finds his way, and blazes a path. Not all trees are
worthy of the axe. Miles of lesser timber remain untouched. A Maine
forest after a lumber-campaign is like France after a _coup
d'etat:_ the _bourgeoisie_ are prosperous as ever, but the
great men are all gone.

While the viewer views, his followers are on commissariat and
quartermaster's service. They are bringing up their provisions and
fortifying their camp. They build their log-station, pile up barrels
of pork, beans, and molasses, like mortars and Paixhans in an arsenal,
and are ready for a winter of stout toil and solid jollity.

Stout is the toil, and the life seemingly dreary, to those who cower
by ingle-nooks or stand over registers. But there is stirring
excitement in this bloodless war, and around plenteous camp-fires
vigor of merriment and hearty comradry. Men who wield axes and breathe
hard have lungs. Blood aerated by the air that sings through the
pine-woods tingles in every fibre. Tingling blood makes life
joyous. Joy can hardly look without a smile or speak without a
laugh. And merry is the evergreen-wood in electric winter.

Snows fall level in the sheltered, still forest. Road-making is
practicable. The region is already channelled with watery ways. An
imperial pine, with its myriads of feet of future lumber, is worth
another path cut through the bush to the frozen riverside. Down goes
his Majesty Pinus I., three half-centuries old, having reigned fifty
years high above all his race. A little fellow with a little weapon
has dethroned the quiet old king. Pinus I was very strong at bottom,
but the little revolutionist was stronger at top. Brains without much
trouble had their will of stolid matter. The tree fallen, its branches
are lopped, its purple trunk is shortened into lengths. The teamster
arrives with oxen in full steam, and rimy with frozen breath about
their indignant nostrils. As he comes and goes, he talks to his team
for company; his conversation is monotonous as the talk of lovers, but
it has a cheerful ring through the solitude. The logs are chained and
dragged creaking along over the snow to the river-side. There the
subdivisions of Pinus the Great become a basis for a mighty
snow-mound. But the mild March winds blow from seaward. Spring
bourgeons. One day the ice has gone. The river flows visible; and now
that its days of higher beauty and grace have come, it climbs high up
its banks to show that it is ready for new usefulness. It would be
dreary for the great logs to see new verdure springing all around
them, while they lay idly rotting or sprouting with uncouth funguses,
not unsuspect of poison. But they will not be wasted. Lumbermen, foes
to idleness and inutility, swarm again about their winter's
trophies. They imprint certain cabalistic tokens of ownership on the
logs,--crosses, xs, stars, crescents, alphabetical letters,--marks
respected all along the rivers and lakes down to the boom where the
sticks are garnered for market. The marked logs are tumbled into the
brimming stream, and so ends their forest-life.

Now comes "the great spring drive." Maine waters in spring flow under
an illimitable raft. Every camp contributes its myriads of brown
cylinders to the millions that go bobbing down rivers with
jaw-breaking names. And when the river broadens to a lake, where these
impetuous voyagers might be stranded or miss their way and linger,
they are herded into vast rafts, and towed down by boats, or by
steam-tugs, if the lake is large as Moosehead. At the lake-foot the
rafts break up and the logs travel again dispersedly down stream, or
through the "thoro'fare" connecting the members of a chain of
lakes. The hero of this epoch is the Head-Driver. The head-driver of a
timber-drive leads a disorderly army, that will not obey the word of
command. Every log acts as an individual, according to certain
imperious laws of matter, and every log is therefore at loggerheads
with every other log. The marshal must be in the thick of the fight,
keeping his forces well in hand, hurrying stragglers, thrusting off
the stranded, leading his phalanxes wisely round curves and angles,
lest they be jammed and fill the river with a solid mass. As the great
sticks come dashing along, turning porpoise-like somersets or leaping
up twice their length in the air, he must be everywhere, livelier than
a monkey in a mimosa, a wonder of acrobatic agility in biggest
boots. _He_ made the proverb, "As easy as falling off a log."

Hardly less important is the Damster. To him it falls to conserve the
waters at a proper level. At his dam, generally below a lake, the logs
collect and lie crowded. The river, with its obstacles of rock and
rapid, would anticipate wreck for these timbers of future
ships. Therefore, when the spring drive is ready, and the head-driver
is armed with his jackboots and his iron-pointed sceptre, the damster
opens his sluices and lets another river flow through atop of the
rock-shattered river below. The logs of each proprietor, detected by
their marks, pay toll as they pass the gates and rush bumptiously down
the flood.

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