Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1882-08-18
AN ADIRONDACK HOME.

Far off, crossing the vast, dim valley
below us, the St. Lawrence River is seen,
a thread of silver creeping through the
verdure to the sea.
We are at an Adirondack homestead,
where spend part of every summer.
1t is a remote place among the noun
tains, and Just in the edge of the great
woods. My brother Edward now resides
here.
In the bottom of deep, wooded val
ley, through which flows our little river,
u quarter of mile back of the house, is
the saw-mill. We three brothers) built
it when we were boys. We still treas
ure large fiat bottle filled with saw
dust,-the first cut by the saw when the
mill was started, more than twenty years
ago. In order to comprehend the senti-
ment involved in this saw-dust, it is i'm
portant to know that we picked out this
place in the forest, and paid for it by our
industry, and built the mill, from ground
stills to ridge-pole, including the machin-
cry and everything about it, with our own
youthful hands. We were mill-wrights,
carpenters, and builders, learning the
trades as we went along.
The rest of the farm is now cleared,
but we still keep the deep valley in woods,
as it was in the good old times. 1t is q
very cool, leafy retreat in Summer, and
many old associations are connected with
it.
Last year, in coming here, brought
with me from the city my oflice-boy,
Satisfy Kamfer, aged fourteen, q slim and
handsome lad, with sweet face, brown
eyes, and dark hair.
] learned early in our journey that
the care Of this city boy in the country
was likely to be enlivening. Although a
locile Sabbath school scholar at home,
and full of good impulses, his city-bred
soul revolted against the country. AS
we left metropolitan surroundings and
the railroad dwindled to single track
and the telegraph to a single wire and
the stations to mere sheds of rough
boards, Satisfy could not forbear express
sions of contempt He also told me very
frankly that the people were the most
dlsagreeable he had ever seen. He said
they were afraid to talk. When l ex-
planned to him that quiet living in soil
tary places induced habits of taciturnity
and reserve, he insisted that it was not
reserve, but sulkiness.
The morning after our arrival, when ]
endeavored to impress Satisfy with a
sense of the grandeur of the landscape
that stretches away to dim horizon in
Canada, he conceded all l claimed for
it, but was evidently much more inter-
ested in a couple of guinea-fowls that
were rambling about the door-yard with
formed that these "guineas" kept the
hawks of. The harsh clangor Of thei,
voices was supposed to have this effect.
I'M Sala oh tpfo ka1 tv,k he
fact that the guineas were great fighters.
He remarked that their heads were more
like snakes heads than like the heads
of other fowls. When, two days after
our arrival, it was discovered that the
male guinea had leg broken and the big
Plymouth rooster had lost An eye
in a mutual unpleasantness, Satisfy be-
gan to manifest for the first time gen
uine respect for the country The female
guinea has an ugly trick which interests
the boy. When quietly feeding near the
chickens, she suddenly brings her reptil.
ian head to a level, pointing toward o
chicken, and then, making rush, strikes
the unsuspecting victim. The feathers
fly, also the chicken. After suffering O
few attacks of this kind, the prosecuted
innocent begins to limp. and eventually
grows weak in the back and dies.
Satisfy, in a dim, unconscious way,
sympathizes with the glinea-fowls. He
admires their neat appearance and their
exhibitions of power. They resemble
the city demagogue who stands for the
boys idea of hero.
II Satisfy is in fault in his admiration,
perhaps l am equally 30 in mine. My
favorite is the tall. gaunt, bluish-gray
fox -hound who guards the house and
premises. This dog, Plato by name, has
an enemy the strangest and most absurd
that ever afflicted quadruped. He has