Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-07-30
NO. 173.
Misfellameoms.
BABY SYLVESTER.

upon me in all his grotesque sweetness.
| had arrived early in the morning. but
not in time to intercept the friend who was
the object OF my visit. He had gone
prospecting, so they told me ON the
rlyer,-and would not probably return
until late in the afternoon. They could
not say what direction he had taken they
could not suggest that would be likely
to find him if | followed. But it was the
general opinion that had better wait.
1 looked around me. l was standing
upon the bank of the river; and, appar-
emily, the only other human beings in the
world were my interlocutors, who were
even then just disappearing from my hor-
lzon down the steep bank towards the
rivers dry bed. | approached the edge
of the bank.
Where could | wait ?
o, anywhere; down with them on the
river bar, where they were working, if
liked! Or could make myself at home
in any of those cabins that found lying
loose. Or, perhaps it would be cooler and
pleasanter for me in my friends cabin on
the hill. Did see those three large sugar
pines? And, little to the right, a canvas
roof and chimney over the bushes Well
that was my friend's,-that was Dick Syl-
vester's cabin. l could stake my horse in
that little hollow, and just hang round
there till he came. | would find some
books in the shanty; | could amuse N.Y.
self with them. Or could play with the
baby
Do what?
But they had already gone. l leaned
over the bank and called after their van
shing figures:
"What did you say could do ?''
The answer tloated slowly up the hot,
sluggish air.
"Pla-a-y with the baby"
The lazy echoes took it up and tossed it
languidly from hill to hill, until Bald
Mountain opposite made some incoherent
remark about the baby, and then all was
still
| must have been mistaken. My friend
was not man of family; there was not
woman within forty miles of the river
camp; he never was was so passionately
devoted to children as to import q luxury
so expensive. must have been mistaken.
turned my horses head toward the hill.
AS we slowly climbed the narrow trail, the
little settlement might have been some ex-
humed Pompeiian suburb, SO deserted and
silent were its habitation. The open doors
plainly disclosed each rudely- furnished in
terior-the rough pine table, with the
scant equipage of the morning meal still
standing; the wooden bunk, with its tum-
bled and disheveled blankets. A golden
lizard-the very genius of desolate still
ness-had stopped breathless upon the
threshold of one cabin; a squirrel peeped
mprudently into the window of another;
a woodpecker, with the general flavor of
undertaking which distinguishes that bird,
withheld his sepulchral hammer from the
cotfin-lid of the roof on which he was pro-
fessionally engaged as we passed. For a
moment, hali-regretted that | had not
accepted the invitation to the river-bed
but the next moment breeze swept up
the long, dalk canon, and the waiting files
of the pines beyond bent toward me in
salutation think my horse understand
as we'll as myself that it was the cabins
that made human, and therefore, for he
quickened his pace, and with gentle trot
brought me to the wood and the three
pines that stood like videttes before the
sylvester outpost.
Unsaddling my horse in the little hol-
low, | unslung the long RATA" from the
saddle-bow, and, tethering him to young
sapling, turned toward the cabin. But l
had gone only q few steps when l heard
quick trot behind me, and poor Pomposo,
with every fibre tingling with fear, was
at my heels. | looked hurredly around
The breeze had died away, and only
an occasional breath from the deep
chested woods, more like long sigh than
any articulate sound, or the dry singing
of cicala in the heated cannon, was to
be heard. examined the ground care
fully for rattesnakes, but in vain. Yet
here was Pomposo shivering from his
arched neck to his sensitive launches, his
very tlanks pulsating with terror
soothed him as well | could, and then
walked to the edge Of the wood and peer
ed into its dark recesSes. The bright
flash of a birds wing, or the quick dart of
IA squirrel, was all l saw. l confess it
was with something of superstitious ex-
pcctaton that | again turned toward the
cabin. A fairy child, attended by Titania
and her train, lying in an expensive era
die, would not have surprised me; a
Sleeping Beauty, whose awakening would
have re-peopled those soltudes with life
and energy, am afraid began to conf.
denty look for, and would have kissed
without hesitation.
But found none of these. Here was
the evidence of my friends taste and re-
tnement in the hearth swept scrupulously
clean, in the picturesque arrangement oil
the fur skins that covered the floor and
furniture, and the sriped serape lying on
the wooden couch. Here were the walls
fancitully papered with illustrations from
the London News; here was the wood
cut portrait OF Mr.. Emerson oyer the ehim-
ney, quietly framed with blue jays wings;
here were his few favorite books on the
swinging shelf; and here, lying upon the
couch, the latest copy of Punch. Dear
Dick The tlour-sack was sometimes
empty, but the gentle satirist seldom
missed his weekly visit.
threw myself on the couch and tried
to read. But l soon exhausted my inter-
est in my friends library, and lay there
staring through the open door on the
green hillside beyond. The breeze again
sprang up, and delicious GOODNESS, mix
ed with the rare incense of the woods,
stole through the cabin. The slumbrous
droning of humble-bees ontside the can